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

[Lanliss]

1) Unless you're playing with a 5 year old, the "why" situation is unlikely.
2) Why is it awkward? Why is discussing the idea of two people who love each other being in a relationship awkward?
3) Just the fact you're saying "men love over men instead of women" implies that women are the standard, the baseline that is being varied.

It's easy to ignore this stuff. But if everyone does, then no one learns anything, then we need to continually start again with every generation.

I've had the awkward conversation. At a little over 4yo my son saw an advertisement on TV for the show TransParent and wanted to know why a man was dressed like a woman. It was a little awkward, but no more than trying to discuss any sexual situation without imparting any... unneeded details.
My wife and I did our best to explain that not everyone who looks like a man on the outside feels like a man on the inside. Which was really all it took. Because it's a simple question and really only needs a simple answer. Because kids don't come with the drama we associate with the issue, and will just accept what you tell them. "Some men love other men, some men love women, and some men just want to be left alone. Now get out of daddy's office and let him get back to DragonAge."

If a child has a mother and father, and everyone he knows has a mother and a father, wouldn't he find it strange when someone in a game has two fathers? The reason it is awkward is because it would not just be a discussion of the fact that some men love men over women. Just about any child I can think of would want to know everything about a new subject, and would not be satisfied with a simple answer. Once again, I was only responding to that single part of the post, and not talking for or against any of the arguments happening. I am only saying that if you are playing a game with your child I would not imagine it the best time to introduce him/her to new horizons. Should you at some point? Yes. During game night, where the only goal is some simple orc bashing? Not so much. I know this looks similar to many of the arguments already up, but I am speaking EXCLUSIVELY when children are involved, and you don't feel like discussing sex with your eight year old. Games with adults are a different story, but I am not wading into that argument.

 

[Charles Wright]

Of course the child would find it strange if he was never exposed to it. So what? Expose him to it and he won't find it to be strange anymore.

And the game is the perfect time to introduce them to new horizons. That's where I was introduced to many of mine... as well as comics and novels. Any time is, quite frankly, because it's a healthy thing.

You're introducing them to indiscriminate murder, why not also introduce them to the fact that some men like to dress like women? That's not "sex", that's "gender identity". You're confusing two issues.

 

[CaptainGemini]

To answer the OP: In my experience, no. What it does is attract different players already within the gaming world from what I've seen, but not new players.

The reason I've gotten from prospective new players? The art. Which is the same exact reason I got for 3E.

The reason from what I've seen, and something that WotC hasn't figured out that Paizo partially did, is the issue of balance. Specifically, some people actually do want the cheesecake and beefcake only, some want no cheesecake or beefcake, and most people tend to come out in the middle. If you have an even balance, you tend to get all three groups, even though you'll hear grumbling from the extreme ends of the spectrum. Paizo at least got this on women, though it needs to do more work on the male side (and, given the recent shift in art direction, I'm getting the hint they're unwilling to).

So, kinda, WotC blew it by going too far in one direction. Which is normal for DnD.

Please keep in mind this is all from personal observation and experience.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That's a tautology. You're defining power as those who change things, and therefore if people change things then they must have been the ones with power.

Definitions are often tautological - that's how definitions work. But that semantic quibble effectively misses the thrust of my point: your proposal is well and good when power dynamics are equal, but power dynamics in the real world are unequal, making your proposal fairly useless in addressing real-world contexts.

As I said, Brendan O'Neill does a great job of examining this topic, and he lists numerous points in history where offensive speech led to change, and it was not always those in power who were offended. Indeed, practically every popular rebellion against the state authority is a result of those not in power being offended by those in power.

And if we were to take your definition, then we'd just say (after the fact) that it must have been the seemingly weak populous who really had the power - unless the rebellion was put down in which case you'd say the government had the power - a meaningless way to assess the issue.

That is, in fact, the case, and is far from meaningless. It implies that even in situations where there is great institutional power, that those institutions often don't have the true power they imagine themselves having. It speaks to the power of misconceptions of power, which is also close to the heart of this particular issue. How power manifests, how it is felt, how it is mythologized - all of this is relevant.

It also leads to weird types of analysis where power is defined by popular perceptions about who is a minority or oppressed, as opposed to which groups seem to be the most successful at enacting policy changes to their benefit.

Popular perception is indeed a place of power - those who control and manipulate popular perception have the ability to exercise significant power.

Heard? Yes. That's part of my point in fact, that all dissent, from all sources, should be heard. But respected? No. Nobody needs to respect the speech of others. Respect is not something given merely by ones existence. If their speech is offensive to you, you don't need to respect it. But you should listen to it if you're wise.

I agree with you that offensive speech is valuable, and this is part of WHY safe spaces need to be created - to give a place for offensive speech that would otherwise be silenced a place to be voiced.

If you mean people should not be shouted down and drowned out then I agree. But if you're saying dissent from speech shouldn't be voiced if it's coming from those in power, I disagree. The minority's voice is not diminished by the majority/powerful voice also speaking. If the minority's viewpoint is so weak that merely adding the voice of an opposing view harms it - then it's likely not a strong position.

The part I bolded is the part in this post where you're being ignorant of power dynamics. The speech of the powerful does diminish the speech of the less powerful. This is fairly trivial to see in daily life - every time a parent shuts down an argument with their kid, the speech of the powerful is shutting down the speech of the less powerful. Every time you obey a traffic light, the speech of the powerful ("you need to stop here") is shutting down the speech of the less powerful ("maybe I am in a hurry!"). It's also true in social settings - the straight guy making gay jokes can shut down the ability of the gay guy to be a full, enthusiastic participant, because the straight guy telling gay jokes is displaying his power (he can tell jokes about others' sexuality without much social risk). If you WANT the gay guy to participate enthusiastically and openly, you might want to make a place where jokes like that aren't tolerated, so that the socially less powerful are as free as possible of the reminders of their powerlessness.

And, if you genuinely believe your position in that way, then why would you as a moderator be voicing your opposition to my dissent right now? I'm the powerless in this forum for voicing opinions, right?

Yeah, as a mod, I've got the stronger place of power in this particular conversation. By not banning you simply for disagreeing with me (and more broadly by ENWorld being a place where that doesn't happen), the hope is that a safe space for disagreement is created - I choose not to exercise certain powers so that you can feel as safe as possible to dialogue with me here. That's exactly the idea - the powerful refrain from exercising that power in certain ways so that the less powerful can be heard.

If the only voice heard is from "the powerless" then how are they the powerless?

Broader social and historical context matters. It's not authoritarianism if sometimes straight people need to not make gay jokes, because straight people have social power in American society specifically and in the world in general that gay people don't have.

I don't think it's a good analogy to begin with because the built in incentives for media to focus on minority voices due to controversy bringing ratings/sales makes the forces at work on society in general vastly different than those at play in the workplace with your analogy.

That injects a new hypothesis into the discussion: that minority voices are more appealing for "media" to focus on. It's cool if you want to discuss that, but lets first agree that the power dynamic should not be ignored in a dialogue if one hopes to hear from all parties candidly.

But even if it were an apt analogy, it sounds like you're denying them honest feedback on them so that you can gain the benefit of honest feedback about yourself, because honest feedback about yourself helps you maintain the power you have. This does not seem like a persuasive position to me.

That, again, ignores the power dynamic. I can give them honest feedback about any bit of their work that I want to whenever I want to (indeed, I HAVE to!) and it is literally their job to listen to that feedback and perform according to it. They don't have the same ability to give me feedback. If I want that feedback from them, I have to make a space where they're allowed to give it, freely and without fear of reprisal or judgement, because otherwise they often simply won't volunteer it. Our power dynamic is such that it makes it harder for them to give me feedback than for me to give them feedback.

Similarly, straight people being generally socially powerful can make it harder for gay people in general to be open, honest, and at ease. The straight person doesn't have much to lose from the jokes about how much they just love people of the opposite gender - they live in a world where that's the accepted norm. The gay person, though, could have plenty of discomfort from a joke about how much they just love people of the same gender, because they live in a world where that isn't the accepted norm, and, indeed, is often treated as shameful or dangerous or something that should be persecuted (regardless of if any of the straight people present feel that way or not). If we lived in a world where gay or straight truly didn't matter, then the safe place would be unnecessary, but that's not the world that we live in now.

If you want a gay person to feel comfortable and enthusiastic at your D&D table, it might be a good idea to voluntarily forswear some disrespectful and offensive material, acknowledging that power dynamic and doing a little something to remedy it in the interests of having comfortable, enthusiastic players.

I fail to see why you raised that point then, given it was not really germane to anything I had said unless it was about me as the speaker. You said I overlooked the power dynamic, and said that overlooking the power dynamic is typically done by [people of a particular personal background], but didn't say something like "but I am not saying you're typical in this" or something like that. I hadn't raised the topic of the motives or experiences of the powerful. I hadn't raised the topic of what those in power typically say. The only context available was my viewpoint. What scintilla of a hint did you provide that you could be talking about someone other than me? Can't you see why that looks like you're focusing on me in that context? To me it looks passive-aggressive to next read in essence, "I am responding to you directly with a quote, saying people who say the thing you just said typically are X, but I wasn't "necessarily" saying YOU are X even though it's just you and I talking about this and you're the one who just said the thing I am sterotyping in my response to you."

Come on KM. If you didn't mean it that way, didn't you see it once I raised the issue in response? Didn't you think for a moment in the very least, "Gee I can see why he would take that as personal I should at least apologize?"

It wasn't intended as personal, and I'm sorry if it felt personal, but it was, indeed, a point made about how the error present in your post often happens, not a point about how you, specifically, were suffering from that particular chain of events (as you correctly point out, I don't know you from any other internet rando, I should not be making presumptions about you). It was made for the benefit of those reading the debate, who found your list reasonable, so that they may understand why it might feel reasonable to them, but can still be devoid of actual practical value. It's entirely reasonable when the power dynamics are equal, and it's easy to assume that power dynamics are equal when you are the one in power, but the power dynamics are unequal, and realizing that is an important part of understanding why voluntarily choosing to give up some freedom in speech is actually required for a greater freedom of speech, despite how counter-intuitive that feels.

 

[ddaley]

Of course the child would find it strange if he was never exposed to it. So what? Expose him to it and he won't find it to be strange anymore.

And the game is the perfect time to introduce them to new horizons. That's where I was introduced to many of mine... as well as comics and novels. Any time is, quite frankly, because it's a healthy thing.

You're introducing them to indiscriminate murder, why not also introduce them to the fact that some men like to dress like women? That's not "sex", that's "gender identity". You're confusing two issues.

Go right ahead and do that with your gaming sessions then. Don't tell me what I need to include in my gaming sessions.

 

[Mirtek]

It is not the standard. That implies that anything else is sub-standard. Heterosexuality is the majority.

That is only a problem if you define different from standard as bad or inferior. A vast majority is a standard and that in no way judges that which is not standard.

I phones/pads are not standard as android devices dominate each market. Yet they are seen as high quality ahove standard

 

[Wik]

Okay. In regards to "standard". Only say "Standard" if that is immediately followed or preceded by "in terms of sexuality, and nothing more".

Because really, there's no such thing as a "standard" human being.

 

[CaptainGemini]

Okay. In regards to "standard". Only say "Standard" if that is immediately followed or preceded by "in terms of sexuality, and nothing more".

Because really, there's no such thing as a "standard" human being.

Give genetic engineers twenty years...

 

[pemerton]

I'm actually very skeptical of genetic determinism in general. So I have no problem accepting that heterosexuality may not always be the standard; I don't really give a crap. Though I'd be careful in this area: some of your ideological allies have noted already that rejecting genetic determinism would also indirectly threaten a common LGBT defense mechanism (I can't control it, so stop trying to force me to be different.)

This makes no sense.

The only language in which I am fluent is English. It is not a choice - I was born into an English-speaking family in a predominantly English-speaking community. I could not unlearn English even if I wanted to.

But the notion that my fluency in English is genetically determined is obviously absurd.

The notion that not genetically determined entails chosen or subject to control is just wrong.

If a child has a mother and father, and everyone he knows has a mother and a father, wouldn't he find it strange when someone in a game has two fathers? The reason it is awkward is because it would not just be a discussion of the fact that some men love men over women. Just about any child I can think of would want to know everything about a new subject, and would not be satisfied with a simple answer.

I don't know why your are, or wear you live, or where your kids go to daycare/kinder/school.

But from my own experience, explaining various sorts of family and relationship structures is something that comes up when my kids have friends who have only a single parent, or two mums, or whatever; from the fact that their parents have friends who are same-sex couples (and even a pre-school age child can notice that there are two men living in the house and a single double bed, just like their parents').

If you live in a community where everyday life doesn't lead to your kids encountering this sort of diversity, then I would have thought that - by default - your gaming table isn't going to make it come up either.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Okay. In regards to "standard". Only say "Standard" if that is immediately followed or preceded by "in terms of sexuality, and nothing more".

Because really, there's no such thing as a "standard" human being.

Uh, well, actually, the standard human being comes with twenty-six chromosomes, two arms, two legs, relatively poor night vision and spatial reasoning, an immune system similar to the pig's, and a nervous system which is a fairly powerful learning machine, to the point where the standard human being has no difficulty learning (over the space of many years) to translate atmospheric vibrations (or alphabetic writing) to/from abstract thoughts.

It doesn't make much sense to claim, as you seem to, that variation is so great that no meaningful standard exists. And singling out "sexuality" as something special here wouldn't make sense.

This makes no sense.


The only language in which I am fluent is English. It is not a choice - I was born into an English-speaking family in a predominantly English-speaking community. I could not unlearn English even if I wanted to.

At the risk of pedantry: you don't have to unlearn English in order to develop fluency in other languages. If you've remained non-fluent in other languages, that may not be a simple choice in the same sense that turning off your PC and going outside would be a choice--but it's a choice nonetheless. It's something that you could have changed if you wanted to.

So, English may not be the best example for the point you're trying to make.