D&D 5E 5e's new gender policy - is it attracting new players?

You sure care an awful lot for someone who doesn't give a crap.

It is unfair for WoTC, or any other group, to impose their will on my players, they are already suffering from my own imposition.

As far as the question goes, I don't think so. Vin Diesel, an actor, plays D&D and has a good time doing so. I am a fan of his, but his gaming does not make we want to be a gamer, it makes me want to be an actor. I defer for more reliable metrics.

My advice is be nice, know your audience, be flexible.

I think there's more to sexuality than what happens in the bedroom. Several of the background flaws have a "sucker for a pretty face" thing going. What exactly constitutes a 'pretty face' does somewhat depend on one's sexuality.

You can also have playful flirting or winking at the barmaid/barlad in a PG/G game or other innocent romantic moments.

One of my players is running a male dwarf fighter who is married, in this case to a female, but I wouldn't have objected if he said he was married to a male. These details make a character come to life. They help a player connect with the game and shape their characters.

I don't think we should deny people the opportunity to express themselves in a safe non-threatening atmosphere. There's enough judgements and hatred away from the gaming table, do we really need to include it in our fun as well?

Sexuality is part of our games. From the archetypal "Ale & Whores!" to simple married peasants to kings and queens and plots about lineages and inheritance to carousing tables to nymphs and succubi...it's part of human life, so of course it becomes part of our games. If you're not including a diverse range of sexuality and gender identity in your games, and having that be just as important as "you're a half-elf, what's your parents' story," then it's just....kind of a shame? A really narrow campaign world? Leaving awesome plot-hooks on the table? ("I'm a half-elf who was raised by two dwarven men; they never mentioned who my mother was, but when I was setting out for a life of adventure they gave me a battlaxe and a letter written in elvish...")

ExploderWizard said:

It much simpler to default to the everyone is accepted policy then point to specific groups and say " OK you, you, you, you,you, and you are accepted". That means anyone NOT getting a specific shout out is thus NOT accepted. Its stupid.

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Like the lady said, representation matters. It's not like the groups of people we need to include is ever complete or that any game ever represents everyone, it's just an awareness that you can always do more, that there are plenty of stories about how people love and live and what people understand themselves to be that make for really compelling material for characters and stories in our D&D.

Forex, your comment about the disabled got me thinking about Eberron and The Last War, and how the technology exists to make the perfect soldier but maybe doesn't exist to repair one infantry grunt's lost legs and how interesting it would be to play a character who, two short years ago, could bounce his child on his knee and now must learn how to deal with a body he feels alienated from. Maybe he'd be a NPC patron, who wants the PC's to do a quest to support House Carnath because he wants them to make him some warforged legs someday. Maybe he's a PC who is in debt to that House because of his warforged legs! Maybe he's got a bit of PTSD, too, so he drugs himself with hard liquor during his short rests, seeing the faces of his war buddies on the faces of some of those kobolds he killed. That sounds much more interesting, much more particular to the setting, than ignoring it would be!

The idea isn't tokenism - there's not just gonna be some kid in a wheelchair in my next adventure because I have a marketing team's understanding of diversity. It's also not perfect representation - there's not an end point to inclusivity, a point at which you are finally perfectly inclusive and there's nothing left to do. The idea is that looking beyond the blandness of your typical majority experiences can add depth, believability, and interesting nuance to your game world. There's ALWAYS going to be some group of actual human beings you overlook, and actively seeking to include more groups of actual human beings can help bring more interesting details and stories into your games.

The only value it would offer in my opinion is not offending the percentage of players that take offense when considering a gender gap. And how often does that come up in a make believe game? I believe the percentages would be fairly small unless you bring up that point at the table and make a sidetrack back to reallity.

Why is it being a make-believe game an excuse for a disparity rather than a reason not to?

Some actual data whether WOTC's inclusiveness policies have resulted in net new sales would be really interesting. Though I'm sure, even if it was positively shown that their policies resulted in less money for them and Hasbro, they would stand by them, as they feel it is the right thing for them to do.

I know anecdotally their art policy has lost them a negligible amount of cash, as I resolved not to buy anything more from them under their current art direction. But I've seen a lot more claims that people love their art than I've seen people complain about, so mileage may vary.

There seems to be an argument going on here, but danged if I can wrap my brain around the precise point of argument -- it seems that people are disagreeing on the degree to which the issue can be addressed at the game table rather than whether or not it's a good thing.

When I go into my FLGS on Wednesday for Encounters, I see a larger group of players than I've seen for any previous OP program, and that group includes openly transgender players, who seem to be having just as much fun as everybody else. I have no idea if the blurb in the 5E Player's Handbook enticed them into trying out the game, but they're here, and they're contributing to the health and enjoyment of the game, so I'm a fan.

I'd like to think that it's a surprisingly short step from "characters can be of any gender, or no gender, and can choose their own sexuality and that's fine" to "players can be of any gender, or no gender, and can choose their own sexuality and that's fine".

My players are all male so there are no problems. =3

This kind of thing is not an issue at my table. I play with a bunch of guys I’ve been gaming with for a long time and though I've got some real SJW types in there nobody is much interested in trying to examine the human condition though the eyes of a band of murderhobos. For me honestly as long as I don't feel the rulebooks are preaching at me or overdoing it I don't really care all that much.