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

[Texicles]

Most games take place in a fantasy medieval western Europe setting. The end result are most NPCs look European. It's not realistic to have lots of "different" looking people, unless the setting makes that possible...

I tend to agree with this. It's part of the reason I mentioned in a past thread about campaign settings that I would like for there to be room for quasi-historical adventures in DDN's setting. If some nebulous southern area of the world is very hot and sunny, while another area to the north is cold and dark and trade exists between those two such vague tropes, it becomes easy to fill in the fiction for interactions between swarthy and fair-skinned peoples. Tolkien, Goodkind, Martin et. al. have handled physiological and cultural differences this way, and it's reflective of certain historical periods here on earth. It's not really that difficult to have a broad, inclusive campaign setting.

I'm all for inclusive art. That said, I agree with the sentiment expressed by others that sexuality is best left out of the art in all flavors. Some games are bound to include those topics, but many games will wish to avoid them altogether for a myriad of reasons. I don't think there's anything that could or should be codified here.

The art should, IMHO, reflect heroic male and female genders of varied ethnicities (for humans), races and classes, doing heroic things in attire that is somewhere along the spectrum from gritty/practical to epic/fantastical (and by that, I mean spikes and glowing bits, not chainmaille bikinis). Barring that, WotC could just make all of the art the cover from Chronomancer and I would just giggle until 6th Edition.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Inclusiveness is good. Fantasy worlds are broad, so it's a good idea to be broad in your depiction of them. So long as I don't feel like the books are preaching at me, I'm happy.

As for the sexuality aspect, personally I want a little sexual content sprinkled in. But even that should be inclusive, and only done where it make sense. Adventurers aren't scantily clad when in a dungeon. But attire may be a bit immodest at a social event. And don't forget to appeal to the ladies as well.

But as I said, sprinkled in. Not the dominate trend.

 

[Alzrius]

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.

The issue of "neutrality" of one's stance on the issues is a measurement of the intent of the creators, not the results. This makes any such measurement of their stance problematic at best, since there's no way to objectively determine precisely what the creators' intent was to begin with.

On a personal note, I become very nervous when people say that there is no neutrality on an issue. It tends to promote "us or them, good or bad, part of the solution or part of the problem" viewpoints that tend to result in polarization and defensiveness. Few things come, in my opinion, from having such rigid parameters.

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.

This presumes that one is even thinking of such issues at all when creating their fiction. Moreover, the tenor of your last sentence suggests (I know that reading into someone else's statement is tricky, but this is what I'm understanding you to say) that you're approaching this from a binary standpoint: that of the "accepting and inclusive" nature you mention, and the unspoken-but-implied "unaccepting and exclusive" stance. Is there no third option, not even one of "it never crossed my mind either way"?

 

[Obryn]

Is there no third option, not even one of "it never crossed my mind either way"?

For an rpg release on the scale of D&D Next? No.

-O

 

[Kinak]

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.

Absolutely agreed. This is something Paizo nails.

It's sort of sad, but I didn't realize how much I was screwing up the gender balance in my own games until I started reading Adventure Paths. It's really interesting to read an adventure that has as few men as many have women.

That's not even getting into sexuality, which they also handle very well. I'm not sure that WotC will be able to present characters with any sexual thoughts at all, but it'd be a shame to miss out on such an important motivation.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Alzrius]

For an rpg release on the scale of D&D Next? No.

I disagree; I see that as a false dichotomy.

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.

The implications of something are the conclusions that can be drawn from something, or the likely consequences. Leaving aside the diffuse nature of what the consequences are of people looking at artwork and reading text - to say nothing of the aforementioned problems of trying to draw conclusions of the creators' intent based on their work - even for sociologists, that's often guesswork at best.

That, however, is straying somewhat from the point I was originally trying to make.

What I'm attempting to convey is that people who are not concerned with promoting or reflecting what we consider to be positive ethics/morals in their works of fiction should not (to me) be villainized for that alone. It's worth noting that if they do decide to promote or reflect those values, that is a good thing; just that the mere absence of them is not, in and of itself, bad.

I'm trying to convey, in this instance, a popular method of morality (though I can't quite recall the name of it or who invented it; I do know it goes back to the Greeks at least) that uses a three-fold hierarchy to measure how moral something is.

The highest level consists of the negative acts. These are the things that must NOT be done; that is, it is bad if you do this. A good example is murdering someone; it's an immortal act. (This is usually where people start chiming in with exceptions to the rule, such as killing in defense of yourself or others, which isn't murder - these are guidelines, rather than hard-and-fast rules.)

The second level consists of the positive acts or duties. These are the things that MUST be done; that is, it is good if you do them, and bad if you fail to do them. A good example is helping someone in your immediate area who is in imminent danger.

The third level consists of the supererogatory acts, or the things that are above and beyond the call of duty. These are the things that are good if you do them, but NOT bad if you do not do them. A good example is donating your money/free time to a charity.

What I'm attempting to communicate is that I see being socially conscious in creating artwork as belonging in the realm of supererogatory acts. It's a good thing to do, but choosing not to do so is not a bad thing. As an extension to that, I'm protesting what I see as a lot of people arguing that this should be moved up a level, to being a duty (which makes it a moral failing to not do so).

It's worth noting that these are tiered because, in the event of a conflict between the two, the moral action is to follow the higher tier over the lower one. For example, if two people are dying, and you can murder and innocent bystander and harvest their organs to save the two people, you should not do so. Despite the fact that only one person will die that way, murder is a more morally reprehensible act than failing to help people who require immediate aid.

Making ethics a concern when creating fiction is, to me, a purely supererogatory act. (I'm anticipating that someone will say that there's a conflict between your duty to be a good person, and the supererogation of minding social mores when creating fiction. I disagree with that sentiment, as the end result of it is to fold all supererogatory acts into the duties...that's how you end up with that annoyingly smug person who implies that if you don't do all sorts of good things all the time, you're a bad person.)

I think that social consciousness is good. I think that inclusiveness is good. I think that having these things reflected in our popular media and artwork is good.

I just don't think that artwork (which includes, to me, all fiction) needs to do this as a duty. When your primary goal is to entertain, doing something more than that is an extra, not a requirement.

 

[Obryn]

I disagree; I see that as a false dichotomy.

I don't really see anything false about it here. We're in a 2-year public playtest, with a large team of people who are looking into marketing, art direction, etc. Any choices made going into it are conscious ones.

I just don't think that artwork (which includes, to me, all fiction) needs to do this as a duty. When your primary goal is to entertain, doing something more than that is an extra, not a requirement.

They're not writing fiction, they're writing an instruction manual on how to play a game so that players can create their own fiction. Insofar as there's a setting involved, it's a barebones, broad, implied one.

They're making an RPG, with a lot of full-color artwork and examples of play. The content of that art, examples, and iconic characters (if any) are what the conversation's about. Let's not dilute it.

-O

 

[variant]

The fantasy genre throughout all forms of media is primarily based on western European and D&D is a reflection of that. There is even objections to include classes like the Monk or Samurai in it because of that. Settings that are different such as Dark Sun are largely settings that aren't as high profile. If they try to stray from that in the core books, it could negatively hurt sales as the people they are targeting are primarily those that want the western European fantasy.

 

[CroBob]

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.

... Like "elf"? I mean, I could see it being kind of cool to have races of humans that you couldn't find on the real Earth, but what's the point when you have so many of those in essence already?

Also, I understand wanting to sort of map out where certain ethnicities might be from, as it's good world-building, but I also don't think it's ultimately important to. If you have a campaign set in a Nordic area and basically everyone around is a white blond person, what's wrong with saying "Yeah, I'm totally a nord... with dark skin!"? Nothing. Who cares?

Historically speaking, I tend to build worlds with an idea for where each ethnicity comes from, but I've run into problems with that when I've built very young worlds. Humans were created a few hundred years ago, so they all mostly look like a single race (which one they look like is irrelevant). There's nothing wrong with that. If you really want a Spanish dude in a new, Asia-style world, so friggin what? Okay, you have a Spaniard. No biggy. Or what about when you model the world after some real ethnicity, but you make the societies split into the fantasy races? Do you need human diversity when you have demi-human diversity? These are all questions you may answer when you're building a world, but the books don't have to support or answer any of them. There are legitimate reasons to make all humans only one or a few ethnicity, and legitimate reasons not to, depending entirely on the feel of the world you're building. Really, if humans came from Africa originally, but got turned around by the dwarves in the Caucan Mountains and the elves in the forests the other way, why would humans ever have evolved from dark skinned to the other races (if that's still the predominant theory)? What if humans were created by a god, three generations ago? How would their diversity work then?

Anyway, I've made my point that the campaign world could legitimately limit human diversification, even though I understand that may not appeal to people of races which aren't included. Personally, I'd be fine with a campaign world that had zero white people, but maybe someone else wouldn't. I sincerely think that these racial matters will only stop once we stop caring so much about racial matters.

 

[I'm A Banana]

What I'm attempting to convey is that people who are not concerned with promoting or reflecting what we consider to be positive ethics/morals in their works of fiction should not (to me) be villainized for that alone. It's worth noting that if they do decide to promote or reflect those values, that is a good thing; just that the mere absence of them is not, in and of itself, bad.

The reason there's no real "neutral" here is because no work is independent of the people and society in which it is generated. The artwork is chosen within a context that includes the race, class, age, gender, sexual orientation, education level, etc., of the person who selects it. There is never any possibility to isolate oneself from that context. We cannot help but be products of our genetics and environment.

So, regardless of the choice they make, it is driven, in part, by who they are.

To pretend that this can be decontextualized is to imagine a world that has never existed. There is no cultural neutral zone. We are all part of the world in which we live. And those who are creating cultural products in that world are going to reflect who they are in that world, regardless of if they want it to or not.

The choice to dress an elf in, I dunno, something inspired by ancient Mesopotamian clothing, and whether or not that elf "looks Mesopotamian" is going to speak about those who make the game, regardless of what the decisions are or why, from a creative perspective, they may have been made.