D&D 5E Should the next edition of D&D promote more equality?

[Obryn]

I think D&D is doing a (fairly) good job at promoting equality of men and women. There are no discrimination of sorts in the rules, and men and women characters are "roughly" equally featured both in the text and the artwork (with the exception of the chainmail bikini sacred cow, of course).

I just want to pop in and say this is one "sacred cow" I hope gets slaughtered. If you want to up your inclusiveness in D&D, that's the most important step right there. No damsels in distress, no nearly-naked sorceresses, no crazy poses worthy of Hawkeye, etc.

But how about characters of different ethnicity? I don't know in 4e books, but in 3e books there were occasionally some asian-looking characters, but there were almost no black human characters. Notice that I'm not talking about necessarily having black dwarves, elves and halflings, but why not humans?

How about gender-bending characters? Can we have some occasional man NPC with man consort, or woman NPC with woman consort in the game (just presented as such, with no attached comment)? Or is the topic still too sensitive?

What's your take?

I think it's vital to be inclusive, so you want to have male, female, dark, light, and in-between skinned protagonists in the artwork and text.

I don't think it needs to tackle sexual relationships at all in the text, but if it somehow needs to, then I'm all in favor of inclusiveness there, too.

-O

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Seeing as how the mere fact of females in a quasi-medieval, quasi-European setting dressed in anything resembling actual adventurer's garb, carrying weapons, or nearly anything we associate with being a FRPG PC would be a non-traditional role, there is already a bit of gender-bending going on. They would already be in "manly" garb.

I'm not so sure there would be much an artist could do analogously for a male PC that would not look "anachronistic". At best, they could show a more "foppish" style.

On the ethnicity front, considering that even in RW Europe, there were traders & mercenaries present from all over the world, a bit of visual diversity is justified on those grounds alone.

And speaking personally as a non-Caucasian gamer, its nice to have some ethnic variety in the presentation of archetypes and other art. It stimulates the mind; it gives warm fuzzies.

(One of my favorite things about some of the CCGs was the ethnic variety depicted in the art- think of the original Southern Paladin from M:tG, for instance.)

 

[Alzrius]

The problem with asking questions like this is that no one wants to respond in the negative regarding values that are widely held as being virtuous. We embrace the idea that life imitates art because art creates and reinforces social values, so those who object to seeing those values promoted in artwork are held as not wanting to see them promulgated in society at large.

I personally don't care for that mode of thinking, as I believe that the relationship regarding the influence of passive media on social mores and attitudes is overstated. Moreover, believing that art has such a powerful influence on attitudes and perceptions encourages people to hold fiction to the same standards as reality, which I think leads to bad places (e.g. the demonization, if not criminalization, of certain attitudes, even when held to be in a fictitious context).

As such, my answer to the OP's question is as follows: I don't think that fiction in general or games in particular should concern themselves with being instruments of social change. Rather, I think that they should be designed around whatever goals will best serve their primary purpose (e.g. to have fun).

I know that the popular counterargument to this is that "fun" is best served by not running against popular tastes in what's perceived as being socially conscious, but I believe that real-world ethics and morals shouldn't apply to fictitious scenarios - that is, that the people reading/watching/playing them are best served by keeping their ethics and morals in check for the duration of their participation.

If fantasy means being free from the constraints of reality, that should also mean being free from the social constraints that reality imposes on us as well. (And no, this is not an excuse for doing something that upsets the other players at the table; that's back to interacting with reality, not fiction, and so the usual set of ethics and morals should and do apply.)

 

[Shemeska]

It's not that the game should be there to promote equality, so much so I think that it contain material that connects with the broader RPG audience. You can have representation without activism, and you can present identifiable role-models for various ethnic and other groups to connect with players that are within or identify within said groups without doing it for any other agenda than to present an RPG experience that people can relate to better.

I think one of the best examples of this has been Pathfinder with a very inclusive handling of genders and ethnic groups without it feeling forced whatsoever. The iconic paladin is a black female for instance, and that's pretty awesome IMO. Beyond that, if you look for it, they've been inclusive with characters that fall outside of the standard heterosexual, cis-gendered norms, and at least to me it has never felt forced, and it's never a character's sole defining characteristic, it's one facet of them: a character can be heterosexual just as how another character is homosexual, neither instance being of more particular note than the other. It's just how they are, and it's not made light of unless it's important in the broader context of the NPC's reactions with their surroundings.

I've said more about the topic in various threads over on the Paizo boards, and without rehashing my commentary over there, I think Paizo's handling of the topic is commendable. It's never activism or political correctness, it's being representative to their audience with characters they can relate towards.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's not that the game should be there to promote equality, so much so I think that it contain material that connects with the broader RPG audience. You can have representation without activism, and you can present identifiable role-models for various ethnic and other groups to connect with players that are within or identify within said groups without doing it for any other agenda than to present an RPG experience that people can relate to better.

Bingo!

 

[I'm A Banana]

As such, my answer to the OP's question is as follows: I don't think that fiction in general or games in particular should concern themselves with being instruments of social change. Rather, I think that they should be designed around whatever goals will best serve their primary purpose (e.g. to have fun).

I think it's important to note that it's kind of impossible to take a "blind" stance. You can't escape the implications of your actions. If WotC for some reason thought "fun" was best served by grim-looking Caucasian males, they'd be expressing a cultural view, just as if they decided that "fun" was best served by excluding those characters, or in including a diversity.

So, no matter what they do, it's going to serve as an example of a judgement call made by someone (someone who, it must be said, is probably a Caucasian male).

I think the real question as far as WotC goes is the same question that faces a lot of video-game developers. There's a tension here in marketing: appealing demographics (ie, those most likely to blow possibly-reckless loads of cash on your product, ie: caucasian males ages 18-24-ish or so) are mostly likely to respond to someone "like themselves." If you slap some grim-looking dude with a sword on the cover of your game, hey, you've just bumped your sales by $x.

But that doesn't accurately illustrate what the game's about or what you're going to play like for the millions of people who AREN'T that narrow target demographic. Plus, like I said: you can't avoid the implications of your art choices. And if they're unfortunate implications, you may have a bigger mess on your hands than before. Nothin' like having your name synonymous with racism and sexism to really drive your brand in a good direction! (sarcasm!)

So I think the actual tension here is between business decisions: do we risk long-term brand damage to cater to a lucrative demographic, or do we risk alienating some of that demographic in exchange for a healthier long-term brand?

For me, this choice is pretty obvious. But to those who are less guided by a moral teaching here, or to those who have lots of other pot-stirrers putting forth their two bits, the decision might be different. But at the very least, I don't think anyone at WotC can claim ignorance of the consequences of their choices.

Maybe one solution to this issue would be to include more art that doesn't automatically look like it's based from the Forgotten Realms (or equivalent).

...y'know, any societal issues aside, the thought of a PHB/DMG/Whatever that is something like a pile of all D&D settings throughout history has me kind of crazy excited.

Y'know, the chapter on the Planes is accompanied by DiTerlizzi-esque artwork of a planewalker,all watercolor and spikey. The chapter on environmental survival has a BROM-esque muscleman in leather. The bit on managing your empire includes something that harkens back to Birthright. The bit on alignment might be accompanied by a Dragonlance-esque Big '80's Hair style. The bit on dungeon-crawling might include something Otus-esque.....

This is probably the fever dream of a madman, but it is making cool vibes in my brain.

 

[Obryn]

I've said more about the topic in various threads over on the Paizo boards, and without rehashing my commentary over there, I think Paizo's handling of the topic is commendable. It's never activism or political correctness, it's being representative to their audience with characters they can relate towards.

I respect and appreciate how they're careful to include all sorts of perspectives. Now if they could only kick the cheesecake art...

As such, my answer to the OP's question is as follows: I don't think that fiction in general or games in particular should concern themselves with being instruments of social change. Rather, I think that they should be designed around whatever goals will best serve their primary purpose (e.g. to have fun).

As KM says, there's no real "neutral" stance here. You pick what art goes into your book as far as various skin tones, or you have an art-free book. You decide if you want cheesecake bad-comic-pose women or pragmatically-dressed adventurers. You decide if you want to have rescue-the-fair-maiden quests.

It's not about being a vehicle for social change; D&D isn't going to change the world's prejudices. It's about being accepting and inclusive to a wider possible audience, who might be female, non-caucasian, or gay.

-O

 

[Sunseeker]

I think that class imagery should fit their literary tropes. So, a bard or swashbuckler may come in more latin flavors, knights and soldiers may be more caucasian, monks more asian and so on and so forth. Not universal mind you, but you're likely going to see more diversity within certain classes than others. Classes that typically represent secluded orders(Monks, Paladins) and classes that represent more general population groups(rogues, bards, etc...) will have more diversity within in them. It doesn't need to be much, considering we'll also be accounting for a variety of near-humans in the art as well.

If DDN is going to run with a more ingrained story/universe, then I certainly hope they diversify their humans.

 

[jrowland]

I have to share this anecdote, as embarassing as it is:

Circa early 1990's ( I was in my early 20's) Los Angeles:

A friend and I were discussing the Rodney King riots from a year or two prior (so I guess this makes it 93-94). The nature of the discussion included "Blacks" and "Whites", as you could imagine. We had just finished playing a game of D&D on campus and were walking to our cars. I don't remember the details except this one comment I made:

"That's true, unlike humans, you black people..." that's when I noticed his head whip around. We still laugh about it. Basically I was still in D&D mode: Elves, Dwarves, Humans. My mind was thinking of races in the D&D way. I made a promise to him that I have always kept (much to his chagrin): whenever I play a human, he has to be black.

So, word of warning, as a D&D player you might mix "metaphors" and come off as a racist.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

More ethnicity would be cool. I'd like to see it tied to a game world though. People from this region look like that. It'd be even cooler to have well thought out ethnicities that don't appear in the real world.

As for the other, just no. I wouldn't buy the books.