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

[akr71]

... Is anyone really going to get weirded out when, say, 1 in 10 (to pick a random amount) of pairings is homosexual? Maybe 1 in 20? Would that honestly bother anyone? ...

Would anyone actually be bothered by this? I just took a peek at Return to the temple of elemental Evil. Out of the 29 locations named in Hommlet, there are 6 locations with married folk. All are in straight relationships. Would it really kill anyone if 1 of those 6 locations had two moms or two dad's? Really?

No, it certainly wouldn't bother me and in fact I would encourage it.

My groups have not played a lot of store-bought/published adventurers. I have enough on my plate to create an adventure that is interesting to the players while trying to preserve their agency and freedom to choose directions. NPCs have always been stand-alone creations - I have never detailed families, spouses or sexual orientation for any of them because I don't care to and don't have the time to. If one player perceives the NPC to be straight and another to be gay, that's fine, cuz I didn't design them with either in mind. I designed them as another obstacle or another source of information.

 

[Hussar]

A lot of people would be offended because that pairing would be evil, and potentially sending the message that lesbianism is evil. Which, to be fair, has actually been used a lot in the past when it was the only depiction of lesbians in the entire work.

Then it's the good priestess and her paladin partner. Whatever. You're missing the point. No one would blink if the evil pair were hetero. Would anyone think it's sending the message that hetero pairing is evil if an evil couple shows up in a module? Not in the slightest. Why? Because there are numerous depictions of hetero pairs, both good and evil, and everyone understands. So, maybe, if we had several examples of same-sex couples, it would be equally a non-issue.

I'm seeing this kind of thing over and over again. There is a difference between including gender role in society or sexual orientation as themes in your campaign setting and treating those issues as non-issues. This is something we're seeing increasingly in other media and I think it would be a shame if it became an accepted norm in roleplaying games.

The reality of the matter is that gender role in society and sexual orientation are both subjects which are too complicated for any exploration on a forum like this to engage with meaningfully. However what you can do is bring these issues into your campaign, if you choose to, and explore them as you might the question of innate good and evil, or of familial responsibility, or 'honour'. If you and your players want a game world where sexual orientation and gender roles are complete non-issues, as they have become in a lot of mainstream popular media, that's fine, of course. But you're missing out on the unique opportunity which tabletop RPGs afford you to engage with those issues in a fantastical 'what if' scenario.

In short, Ba'hb and D'have's union would still have significant legal and social implications in almost place in the real world today, since the reality is that sexual orientation, gender roles and societies' attitudes to those things are complex and very important, so yes, since I try to create worlds for my players which force them to think about things that they see and hear in our world from a different perspective, it would radically altar my setting for Ba'hb and D'have to be married, more so in fact than it's radically altered Western civilization to legalize same sex marriage, because my campaign setting hasn't had an Enlightenment or a civil liberties movement.

I suppose what I object to about the trend towards 'treat it as though it's not even a thing' in modern popular culture is that it belies the hard and complex reality and the history behind these important social issues. RPGs have the potential to be better than that.

I dunno. I come from a country that's had gay marriage for about fifteen years now and it's really to the point now that no one actually cares anymore. It's completely a non-issue. It came, it passed, and we pretty much accept it now. So, why does it have to be a big deal in game? Do you make it a big deal that every half orc is the result of rape? Do you make it a big deal that tieflings are also the result of rape (at least old style tieflings were).

LOL. You actually believe that it's radically altered Western civilisation to legalise same sex marriage? Honestly? Like I said, we've had same-sex marriage for over a decade and it's a non-issue AFAIC. Treating it the same as any hetero pairing is, IMO, the best solution all the way around.

 

[seebs]

Honestly, it's one of the smaller societal changes. Compare with the loss of coverture. And dragging this back on topic: anyone ever use coverture in their D&D games? I mean, it's period.

For those unfamiliar: Coverture is the legal doctrine that a married woman has no legal identity of her own; for instance, you can't charge her with murder if she was obeying her husband's orders, because obviously it's his fault. This was actually a legal principle within living memory; I think the last attempt at using it as a defense in a murder trial was ~1972?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A lot of people would be offended because that pairing would be evil, and potentially sending the message that lesbianism is evil. Which, to be fair, has actually been used a lot in the past when it was the only depiction of lesbians in the entire work.

Great argument for more representation of diverse orientations and identities.
If there are lesbian guard captIns and bakers and tavern owning couples, lesbian villains don't look like tokens being used as demonetizing caricatures, and no one is thus being represented in the media in that insulting manner. No controversy. Well, except from bigots, but they don't get a say.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

So, maybe, if we had several examples of same-sex couples, it would be equally a non-issue.

This is not so much an issue for long-running D&D campaigns and other extended works of fiction, but for shorter works, including one-shot D&D adventures, you run into a problem of numbers. In short: you probably don't have enough developed characters to present several examples of same-sex couples.

 

[CaptainGemini]

Then it's the good priestess and her paladin partner. Whatever. You're missing the point. No one would blink if the evil pair were hetero. Would anyone think it's sending the message that hetero pairing is evil if an evil couple shows up in a module? Not in the slightest. Why? Because there are numerous depictions of hetero pairs, both good and evil, and everyone understands. So, maybe, if we had several examples of same-sex couples, it would be equally a non-issue.

You missed my point: Your example was the same kind of discrimination you're arguing against. Only in a different form.

Sometimes, the representation itself can be discriminator in how the representation is handled. Let's say I have every African American in a story be a gangster who likes to rob things. Do you honestly think that is a better option than not having them in the story at all? Or are both equally bad?

I didn't miss your point. You undermined it.

Great argument for more representation of diverse orientations and identities.
If there are lesbian guard captIns and bakers and tavern owning couples, lesbian villains don't look like tokens being used as demonetizing caricatures, and no one is thus being represented in the media in that insulting manner. No controversy. Well, except from bigots, but they don't get a say.

Exactly!

 

[Hussar]

This is not so much an issue for long-running D&D campaigns and other extended works of fiction, but for shorter works, including one-shot D&D adventures, you run into a problem of numbers. In short: you probably don't have enough developed characters to present several examples of same-sex couples.

Possibly not in that specific product, but, certainly over the range of products it would be no problem. And besides, WOTC doesn't make one shot adventures. How many married or in relationship NPC's are there in Out of the Abyss? I have no idea, I don't have the module. And the Adventurers League version does cover several modules. Heck, let's take a peek at Harried in Hillsfar. Five one shot modules.

Very first adventure you have a married couple that adopts children. Now, they also have children of their own (born after the adoptions), so, it does make sense that this is a hetero couple. But, since the couple don't actually NEED sextuplet children for this adventure to work, this could easily be a same sex couple. The monstrous births that come later (sextuplet demonic goats) and the confirmation from another NPC about the bizarre births in the area, means that the couple don't actually need to have children for this adventure to work.

Adventure two features a half elf girl whose parents are not present. Funnily enough, when you do meet the parents, they are both half-elves. Avoids the problem nicely. But, again, you could make the parents same sex and the girl adopted without any problem whatsoever. Granted, the parents in the adventure are ... well, I don't want to spoil it, but, it is possible that they could have adopted the girl.

The third adventure features two couples, the first of which features a pregnant wife who is traveling to a holy site for blessing for the child. Ok, fair enough, that might be a bit tricky to change there. But the second couple are priests of Mieliki that the party meets after the priest's companions had been killed. Easily possible to change the gender of one of the priests. Although, this one would run into some of the complaints from above. But, not a huge deal.

The fourth adventure features no couples at all.

There are no couples in the fifth adventure.

So, in the first three adventures, a minor change to any one of them would add a same-sex couple to the series. No one is asking for all of them to be changed, that would be ludicrous. But, again, would anyone have a major issue if one of them were? Certainly that first adventure would work easily just as well with a same-sex couple as a hetero one. It wouldn't make the slightest difference to the adventure and it would go a long way towards paying more than lip service to inclusiveness.

 

[ExploderWizard]

This has been repeated many times in this thread, but, I wonder how often it actually is brought up, at least obliquely, in the game. Take a published module, for example, that has a town detailed in it. Something like Hommlet, or Orlane, or whatever. Most of these mini-settings have dozens, if not over a hundred named NPC's listed in them. You get the family that owns the bakery, the weaver, the wood cutter, barkeep, etc. Many of these NPC's, assuming they're a certain age, will be in a marriage. They will have a wife/husband pairing listed. It's been this way in modules and setting books for a very long time.

Is anyone really going to get weirded out when, say, 1 in 10 (to pick a random amount) of pairings is homosexual? Maybe 1 in 20? Would that honestly bother anyone?

Because, AFAIK, that's what's being asked for here. Not that it has to be front and centre or even important to the plot of the adventure. Just that we add, maybe about 5% of the NPC's are in a homosexual relationship. Or, even if just 5% of the NPC's are LGBT. They don't even have to be in a relationship, but, if they aren't in a relationship, usually sexuality isn't mentioned at all, so, likely it would have to be limited to those NPC's who have a partner of some sort.

Would anyone actually be bothered by this? I just took a peek at Return to the temple of elemental Evil. Out of the 29 locations named in Hommlet, there are 6 locations with married folk. All are in straight relationships. Would it really kill anyone if 1 of those 6 locations had two moms or two dad's? Really?

Unless the relationship of certain NPCs plays a role in the actual adventure then it isn't worth detailing regardless of its nature. If evil is coming to destroy a peaceful little village then who is sleeping with whom isn't really a factor. In an investigation scenario that heavily depends on figuring out details of the relationships of the villagers in order to solve it then yes, those important details need to be defined.

The evil high priest of Orcus prefers his eggs over-easy. Who cares? The adventure he appears in isn't likely going to make this fact matter at all.

Reams of pages can be filled with irrelevant trivia. Details on the sex lives of NPCs can be filled in by the DM unless they matter in the resolution of the adventure.

 

[seebs]

Reams of pages can be filled with irrelevant trivia. Details on the sex lives of NPCs can be filled in by the DM unless they matter in the resolution of the adventure.

It turns out that "who is married" often matters in the resolution of adventures. Often enough that some relationships are depicted, anyway.

 

[ExploderWizard]

It turns out that "who is married" often matters in the resolution of adventures. Often enough that some relationships are depicted, anyway.

If it actually matters to the adventure then hey, the more detailed info about the relationship the better. Its the window dressing stuff that doesn't need to take up space.