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

[billd91]

I think it is directed at people who find females attractive (and ships, treasure, and pirate hats). That is mostly, but not entirely, men.

I am all for inclusiveness and equality, but trying to create a society where we deny our basic attractions is stupid and unhealthy.

It's not and never has been a question of denying basic attractions. It's a question of boxing depictions into limited forms in sexist ways and excessive amount of pandering. I don't mind a bit of fan service coming my way, but there does come a point where things have gone too far. When the pandering to my sexual desires makes the space, be it a product or hobby, uncomfortable for women, then it's gone way too far.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

A couple of thousand years of culture takes a huge back seat to 40000 years of monkey politics on the Serengeti Plains. Primate politics informs far too much of our behaviour to be simply waved away as "cultural baggage".

It's actually a couple orders of magnitude more than forty thousand years on the Serengeti Plain, but we're wandering a bit afield. The value of the Alien example is precisely that it holds behavior constant. If you want to say that Ripley behaves differently because she's a woman -- well, no, she manifestly doesn't. She behaves the way the script (written by a man, incidentally) tells her to. Any woman-specific behavior we perceive from her logically must be an illusion. And yet I don't hear a lot of complaints that "no real woman would behave that way". The character works, and works well. Remember what we're actually talking about here: the ability to play convincing characters of the opposite sex in D&D.

Are there statistical differences between men and women? Of course. Do they present a significant writing/roleplaying challenge? Not really. I find the worst-written opposite-sex characters are those where the writer assumes the differences are greater than they are, and tries to attach gendered motives to the vast expanses of human behavior that men and women in fact experience in common. The immature "boobs boobs boobs" D&D player? He's certainly not making his character's sex less than it is; he's making it more than it is.

 

[the Jester]

And, as far as Alien goes, I'd point out that while the script might not specify gender, the actual movie would be very different with a male lead. Never minding that Aliens would be a totally different movie with a male lead.

Funny thing is, Alien is a typical scream queen horror movie as written. The monster kills the campers one by one until the lead escapes. It's Friday the 13th in space. What sets Alien apart is you have an empowered female lead who is the very obvious leader of the group.

Okay, hold on now. Ripley is not the very obvious leader of the group at all- not until they're down to the last few survivors, if then. Yes, she's a kick-ass empowered woman, especially in Aliens, but she's just part of the ensemble in Alien.

 

[Dire Bare]

I find the worst-written opposite-sex characters are those where the writer assumes the differences are greater than they are, and tries to attach gendered motives to the vast expanses of human behavior that men and women in fact experience in common. The immature "boobs boobs boobs" D&D player? He's certainly not making his character's sex less than it is; he's making it more than it is.

A good example of this in literature is Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. While I enjoyed this series overall, Jordan writes gender, both male and female, terribly. His women are overly and stereotypically feminine, and the opposite is also true of the men. And the characters act as if there is this huge gulf of understanding between the genders, the men can never understand the women's behavior, and vice versa. Eck, I'm getting twitchy just thinking about it!

I wonder if he was that bad in his Conan books? I can't bring myself to read them, in dreadful anticipation of what I might find!

 

[Celebrim]

I find the worst-written opposite-sex characters are those where the writer assumes the differences are greater than they are...

I just finished 'The Goblin Emperor' by Katherine Addison, and because I enjoyed it very much (sufficiently to read it twice back to back, in order to give me time to think about it deeply enough) I was trying to convince my wife to read it.

But in doing so I realized that the book lacks any well written female characters. All the primary drama concerns fairly believable relationships between men, and all the women are stereotypically dead, or superficial, or largely unimportant to the story, or are very broad stereotypes (or some combination of all of the above).

For example, the romantic love interest of the male protagonist, never arises above romantic love interest, and she is very stereotypically made simultaneously a hot nerd and a kick butt warrior woman. But in the context, given the quite maturity and dignity of the male protagonist and the distinct lack of swashbuckling action for her to "hold her own" in, her warrior woman shtick comes across as immature posturing, childish bravado, and affectation. Indeed, all the male character's with any amount of warrior bravado are sexist jerks, and at best it might come across in the female character as cute... but even that depends on a very patronizing take on what's supposed to be an intelligent 22 year old woman. It's not cute when an adult acts like a 12 year old, male or female.

And I realized that my wife probably wouldn't like it nearly as much, because among other flaws she'd find the female characters in this story shallow and even insulting. And ironically, this is in part because the author was trying to write gender positive characters, but instead just drew from a shallow pool of stereotypes - the progressive female scientist in a sexist conservative culture, the kick-butt warrior girl, the woman who wants a traditional man's job, etc. This despite, or maybe even because, the story was written by a woman.

So I reject the notion that the gender of the writer determines whether they can write strong characters of a particular sex. I gave up on 'The Dresden Files' because in part I found the author's male characters thinly drawn and borderline insulting. Shallow characters are seldom enough to ruin the story entirely - I still enjoy some Heinlein's despite the fact that he only ever has about 3 characters and they are all dumb - but it is a consideration.

I agree with you that vast expanses of human experience are experienced in common, and I generally disapprove of theories that say someone's experiences are so unique that someone that doesn't share their race or gender shouldn't right about them.

 

[Celebrim]

A good example of this in literature is Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. While I enjoyed this series overall, Jordan writes gender, both male and female, terribly. His women are overly and stereotypically feminine, and the opposite is also true of the men. And the characters act as if there is this huge gulf of understanding between the genders, the men can never understand the women's behavior, and vice versa. Eck, I'm getting twitchy just thinking about it!

It's interesting that for a while Jordan was writing bodice rippers under a female pseudonym ("Reagan O'Neal"). So one person's excessive gender characterization, is perhaps another reader's steamy hot fiction filled with interesting melodrama. I know women that believe "there is this huge gulf of understanding between the genders" and will castigate any man that denies it. I think it would be a mistake to think that "the female mystery" is an idea cultivated only by men.

I have up on Jordan about the time who was sleeping with who, or who wanted to sleep with who, became it seemed a larger matter worthy of more wordage than anything else in the story. But that's a personal and probably not gendered mattered of taste. There are many male authors that have written their stories in the same fashion and so lost my interest, and you can go to some place like Goodreads and find that works like that are avidly consumed by a largely female subculture of readers that like to fetishize romantic relationships and often openly admit it is a principle attraction in a work.

It's not like Jordan (or in GRRM) only appeals to male readers.

I wonder if he was that bad in his Conan books? I can't bring myself to read them, in dreadful anticipation of what I might find!

Well, the original Conan books are about as sexist of literature as you'll ever encounter.

 

[Dire Bare]

It's interesting that for a while Jordan was writing bodice rippers under a female pseudonym ("Reagan O'Neal"). So one person's excessive gender characterization, is perhaps another reader's steamy hot fiction filled with interesting melodrama. I know women that believe "there is this huge gulf of understanding between the genders" and will castigate any man that denies it. I think it would be a mistake to think that "the female mystery" is an idea cultivated only by men.

I have up on Jordan about the time who was sleeping with who, or who wanted to sleep with who, became it seemed a larger matter worthy of more wordage than anything else in the story. But that's a personal and probably not gendered mattered of taste. There are many male authors that have written their stories in the same fashion and so lost my interest, and you can go to some place like Goodreads and find that works like that are avidly consumed by a largely female subculture of readers that like to fetishize romantic relationships and often openly admit it is a principle attraction in a work.

It's not like Jordan (or in GRRM) only appeals to male readers.

Yeah, I'm aware that fantasy literature doesn't hold a monopoly on treating gender poorly . . . or rather, writers lacking the skills to portray gender realistically. I'm also aware that it isn't just novelists that sometimes view the world through lenses that perceive gender in this way. I'm sure we all have people in our lives who insist are men are jerks and can't be understood, and/or all women are overly emotional and who can understand them?

And, as you point out of course, this can become an attraction for certain genres or authors. The Twilight series didn't exactly treat young relationships in any sort of realistic or healthy way, but is hugely popular. Plenty of movies and other artistic media get it wrong too.

I'm also sure I've read plenty of fiction that didn't have realistic female characters or had shallow stereotypes of one sort or another . . . and didn't even notice!

Still, the way Jordan wrote gender and sexuality in the Wheel of Time was incredibly sophomoric and jarring for me and took me right out of the story each time Egwene tugged on her braid! It was incredibly blatant, at least for me, even though there were tons of strong female characters in the series.

I'm sure many of his fans didn't notice, or didn't care, or even praised his "understanding" of how totally different and alien men and women are to one another!!!

 

[mrm1138]

It's not and never has been a question of denying basic attractions. It's a question of boxing depictions into limited forms in sexist ways and excessive amount of pandering. I don't mind a bit of fan service coming my way, but there does come a point where things have gone too far. When the pandering to my sexual desires makes the space, be it a product or hobby, uncomfortable for women, then it's gone way too far.

Yes, and furthermore, while denying attraction and sexuality may be unhealthy, there is a way to do it without tipping over into objectification. That is the biggest problem with the stripper pirate illustration above. It's part of a much larger tradition of women being depicted in ways that pretty much accentuate only their sexuality.

I think a good contrast would be something like this image:



It's not perfect, since Mara Jade is still in that ever-so-popular pose for heroic women where they're kind of contorting to show off their bodies, but this pose makes a bit of sense due to the fact that she looks like she's in mid-swing with her lightsaber. While she looks attractive/sexy, she also looks strong and capable.

 

[Fergurg]

So to answer the original question:

Very unlikely, and frankly, I don't want to deal with the kind of players who would be positively affected by the blurb and you shouldn't want to either, for reasons I will explain.

The most common response, and the most logical, is, "Why did you waste the ink to print this?" It's a fancy way of saying, "Define the characters as you want." Why? As a general rule, who wouldn't? Most characters who feel the need to make homosexual characters would do so whether that print was there or not.

People who don't like it will simply do what I do and ignore it, or at the most, draw a line through it with a black felt marker and call it a day. To my knowledge, nobody has refused to buy the book over two sentences that really, just restate something that has always been there.

Now, as for the people who read this and it made a difference in favor of buying it, I would never want to game with them because they can be split into two groups. First one is that those who see it as a sign that those they deem as bigots are not welcome - as evidenced by the fact that when I pointed this out, one person said, "yes, exactly."

The other group, and this one is more toward the problem that it brings directly to the entire RPG community, is those who have the mentality that the GM is hardbound by the rules of the book. I remember reading the exact words, "Now, whenever a DM tells me I can't make a bisexual character, I can point to this paragraph and tell him to STFU and he has to let me." The kind of players who refuse to accept the idea that the GM (or DM) can override the rulebook are players that I want nothing to do with.

 

[Celebrim]

The Twilight series didn't exactly treat young relationships in any sort of realistic or healthy way, but is hugely popular.

Having never actually read The Twilight series, and holding my own opinions on the subject as to what is realistic and healthy that seem to differ from both the author and her critics, I'm inclined to think that it's less a matter of realism or healthy fantasy than those fantasies and that depiction where not the fantasies and depictions the writer was supposed to have.

As opposed to 'Girls' or 'Sex in the City', which we all know is realistic and healthy, right?

Again, having never having an interest in reading Twilight, I read some very interesting critiques of why Twilight was wildly successful that penned it on I think some very realistic fears and insecurities young women experience with regards to their blossoming sexuality. Exactly whether the author's fantasies regarding romance are healthy appears to be entirely a matter of opinion. People seem to be essentially saying, "You aren't having my fantasies, so you are having the wrong ones." or even, "You aren't having my life, so you are having the wrong one."

Plenty of movies and other artistic media get it wrong too.

What does "getting it wrong" mean?

Still, the way Jordan wrote gender and sexuality in the Wheel of Time was incredibly sophomoric and jarring for me and took me right out of the story each time Egwene tugged on her braid! It was incredibly blatant, at least for me, even though there were tons of strong female characters in the series.

Well, let's put it this way. I didn't find Egwene to be an attractive figure. But I'm sure lots of readers, both male and female did.

I'm also increasingly skeptical of the phrase "strong female characters". Conan has "strong female characters as well" - sword wielding pirate ship captains for example. Red Sonya is a "strong female character". So is Witchblade. So is Vamprella. The ancient Greeks had one of the most sexist cultures in history. Their idea of a perfect woman was a man with female body parts. I can't help but noticing that there is an increasing overlap between "strong female character" and a male chauvinist's ideal woman - sexually available or even aggressive, doesn't form attachments, sensual, enjoys traditionally masculine pursuits, terse but active, passionate but never emotional, etc. Is that realistic and healthy, or is that just someone else's fantasy?

I'm sure many of his fans didn't notice, or didn't care, or even praised his "understanding" of how totally different and alien men and women are to one another!!!

Yeah. That's exactly my point. Is the problem that everyone isn't on board your cultural project, and is that always a problem?