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

[TanithT]

This clearly proves that a pro-diversity strategy increases sales.

No. But it is pretty good evidence that it doesn't hurt sales.

 

[Gorgoroth]

Using she instead he is jarring because it is just poor English. If people did that during their English classes, whether high school or college, they would have tons of red marks on their papers.

+1 : Even though "he" by default is obviously unfair, it's the way our language is constructed. My problem is only when uber PC-dom comes in and forces us all to live in an Orwellian double-think world, denying reality (or fantasy), in which the norm for soldiers and knights and so on is male, by simple virtue of strength and also, tradition.

Animals even have biases amongst the sexes, some in which the females are larger and stronger. This is great for fantasy, allowing tropes such as Amazon warrior troops to be just as common or uncommon as you'd like. I'm all for that.

But D&D does have an implied setting, and despite us all agreeing we need to be inclusive, that doesn't mean we need to pander by uttering absurd falsehoods. Yeah, the 3.x books went way overboard. Mialee was a great example, it's perfect way to elaborate on the rules with clear examples and use cases, and referring to her with "her" is simply good english. But "she" is NOT gender-neutral, and D&D does NOT get to re-write the entire english language and expect it to stick.

Imagine you read a newspaper and it was talking about wounded soldiers, or football players, or any number of other highly gender biased professions (in the other way too), and without ever explaining the subject is an exception, it would be silly to pretty much anyone to refer to them as "she". It's intellectually dishonest, and worse, it's insulting and sexist to both sexes. One doesn't need to pretend like an offhand "he" is poor shorthand for any soldier or fireman by default in referring to them, or conversely for other professions "flight attendant" and stewardess, or nurses are not typically thought of as being female. There are exceptions here, but it's IMO not D&D's responsibility to correct the world's biases, and it couldn't even if it was.

The best adventures have tons of variety, gruesome and typical and a-typical things in them. Once we had a gay gnome wizard, our DM roleplayed him so well, we were all cracking up. He was very well respected too, like Tyrion. Other times our rogue was caught finger banging a halfling's corpse, to the disgust of my paladin when he fought out. He made him give up all his skin masks of our fallen enemies in punishment. Things in medieval times were unequal, brutish, and unjust in the extreme. D&D is medieval fantasy, by default.

Imagination land is a big umbrella that can fit all sorts of magical "metrosexuelves" (lol) too. But that doesn't mean I want a lecture or my rulesbooks I paid good money for to try and right all the wrongs of history, or even literature. That's not what I'm paying for. I'm paying for a good set of rules, not a bloody lecture on how to be politically correct. And until we do see, I agree with this thread, the actual sales figures over the years, I am going to say that unfortunately, variant, girl gamers are those cool, rare, counter-culture subset that aren't swayed by the extreme geekness of D&D and find something they like in it, but that they are, at least for the time being, a rarity.

I wonder if Morrus has any stats on the sex of the members here, or Wotc on their members list. I'd be willing to bet 95% male, if not more. Same proportion that I see at the local D&D encounters here in Toronto (Actually, there wasn't a single woman, in the ENTIRE STORE last time I went), which is hardly a mecca of intolerance or lacking diversity.

So I call BS on those who think there is any reason for this lopsided skew in the demographics of this hobby other than personal choice. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's a long-held geek wish to have more girls at the table (actually, it would go a long way to making things more civilized, IMO. I get annoyed by the immaturity I see quite often). But there is only so much pandering Wotc can do, be inclusive : sure! Pandering, no.

Using "she" pronoun everywhere to describe a typical soldier is simply sexist : to men. And a load of double think that we all know to be a patent falsehood. Fantasy allows us to make whatever scenarios we like, in game, but requiring us to submit to a disfiguring contortion / baudlerization of the english language is not what people buy RPG rulesbooks for.

If we want to learn to be sensitive to the subtleties of sexism in society, there are ENTIRE RACKS of books on the topic at virtually any book store. I don't buy D&D books for that.

I will venture this in favor of our drooling comrades : D&D geeks are not the ones beating up on gays or minorities, we are already, as a counter-culture, far in advance of many other areas of society. (and far behind in others...)

 

[Morrus]

If you want to argue the sales figures with the industry's trade publication, please feel free. What I'm saying is that a gaming company that actively promotes and includes all forms of diversity in their core material is clearly not seeing their sales suffer for it. And this despite D&D being the long established, well entrenched market dinosaur with the household word brand name. The industry is increasingly recognizing that Paizo is outperforming WotC in many ways.

Believe that or not as you see fit, but I think it's pretty clear that Paizo's actively inclusive policy is not hurting their sales any. They're doing *amazingly* well in sales for a company that doesn't have the decades of brand recognition that D&D does, and they're doing it with LGBT, racially diverse, and not conventionally attractive female iconics in their lineup.

Paizo's releasing product; WotC isn't. If Paizo were failing to outperform WotC at the moment, it would be embarrassing.

 

[Sunseeker]

+1 : Even though "he" by default is obviously unfair, it's the way our language is constructed. My problem is only when uber PC-dom comes in and forces us all to live in an Orwellian double-think world, denying reality (or fantasy), in which the norm for soldiers and knights and so on is male, by simple virtue of strength and also, tradition.

I would counter with that neither "he" nor "she" should be used solely, and "they" where appropriate.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Irrelevant to the sales statistics,

Yes and no.

Irrelevant in that yes, Pathfinder is selling better than D&D.

Relevant in that Pathfinder is not the iconic brand that most people think of when they thnk of RPGs at all, to the point that "D&D" is often used as a synonym for the hobby as a whole. What may be OK for some members of a market may not be true of the market leaders.

Example: Its perfectly fine for some animation companies to make well-written movies about mature themes like young teenage homosexuals coming of age, but Disney and Pixar probably couldn't slap their names on them. Not yet, at least- not without backlash from their core market. And make no mistake, D&D is the market leader.*

Hasbro/WotC can only go so far with inclusiveness & diversity before they would reach that point with D&D. I'm not saying they have reached that point- far from it- but it is something they DO have to take into account.










* sales of current RPG product are only one part of the equation. There are also the other products, like books, comics, movies, games and other accessories that are under the same brand label. Only a handful of RPGs have actually inspired branded TV shows or movies, and D&D has more than all the rest combined. There is also the name brand recognition, as mentioned. Right now, no other game can really touch that.

 

[bogmad]

+1 : Even though "he" by default is obviously unfair, it's the way our language is constructed. My problem is only when uber PC-dom comes in and forces us all to live in an Orwellian double-think world, denying reality (or fantasy), in which the norm for soldiers and knights and so on is male, by simple virtue of strength and also, tradition.

Except PCs in an rpg are more or less outside the norm of most soldiers or knights.
I also don't think the core rules have to skew as close to the gritty "real world medieval" standards you do. D&D is, to be unkind, a kind of "escapist power fantasy wish fulfillment simulator" not primarily for recreating the grittiness of real medieval life in a fantasy setting. Reserve that for a campaign setting. I'd play it happily. But let other people play how they want.
If a picture of an example PC fighter happens to be a woman, and then the text uses "she" I'd say you need a thicker skin before declaring it sexist pandering, and insulting to hundreds of years of human history.

Aside:
When I was first getting back into gaming I expected the gender divide to be a lot closer to what you state is the way things are in Toronto. Sure, there are more guys, but I was surprised that the ratio skewed closer to say 65 percent male than the 95% you claim. I regularly play with girls that fall outside of the typical "gamer girl" stereotype I had in my head before I started playing again(fill in that stereotype with whatever you think, but mine wasn't flattering). I'm not saying my experience is definitely more indicative of the whole than yours, but... I think it might be?

All that said, I'm glad someone is making your argument, because I don't think you're by any means anomalous. Nor do I completely disagree with everything. I'd like to know how many people viewing this thread agree with it and wish people like me would shut the hell up.

 

[Obryn]

+1 : Even though "he" by default is obviously unfair, it's the way our language is constructed.

You're about two decades out of date.

No modern style manual will encourage you to use "he" as gender neutral. (Or for that matter, "she.") In formal writing, it can (and should) be avoided. In informal writing, a singular "they" is now considered preferable. It's no longer the 1920's; language evolves.

The rest of your post basically amounts to you feeling like you're being preached at when an RPG book presents strong, powerful women rather than sexualizing them. (Or a fairly equal number of men and women.) Which speaks a lot more about you than about the book, IMO.

-O

 

[bogmad]

You're about two decades out of date.

No modern style manual will encourage you to use "he" as gender neutral. (Or for that matter, "she.") In formal writing, it can (and should) be avoided. In informal writing, a singular "they" is now considered preferable. It's no longer the 1920's; language evolves.

The rest of your post basically amounts to you feeling like you're being preached at when an RPG book presents strong, powerful women rather than sexualizing them. (Or a fairly equal number of men and women.) Which speaks a lot more about you than about the book, IMO.

-O

Using "they" still feels weird to me because of the singular/plural disagreement, but I still do it from time to time. What should one do for a formal bit of writing (say an rpg rulebook) when a personal pronoun can't be avoided? Is using "he" instantly unsuitable for a general case?
Personally I'd argue it's not, but I'm also fine if "she" was used as well.

 

[Shemeska]

Using "they" still feels weird to me because of the singular/plural disagreement, but I still do it from time to time. What should one do for a formal bit of writing (say an rpg rulebook) when a personal pronoun can't be avoided? Is using "he" instantly unsuitable for a general case?
Personally I'd argue it's not, but I'm also fine if "she" was used as well.

If it were up to me, I would use they as a non-gendered pronoun, though for instance Pathfinder goes with a situational he or she in the sections of the various classes, going with the gender pronoun that matches the gender of the iconic character for that class. So he for fighter, she for paladin, she for cleric, he for alchemist, etc.

Usually it's you use whatever a given publisher/editor wants you to use (if they specify in a style guide).

 

[billd91]

Paizo's releasing product; WotC isn't. If Paizo were failing to outperform WotC at the moment, it would be embarrassing.

Pathfinder was outperforming D&D in hobby store sales even before WotC stopped producing D&D products. So challenging the king for his throne is still a major accomplishment and worth considering. Inclusiveness wasn't hurting their sales head to head against D&D. But then, I wouldn't expect it to since WotC was actively pursuing inclusiveness as well.