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

[Celtavian]

The author is Stuart Hill. I quite enjoyed the whole series, and there is a lot of Norse inspiration throughout, as well as some other areas that I won't spoil.

Thanks. I'm going to check it out.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Honestly, I don't approve of going with "spouse" or "partner" or other gender-neutral terms in cases like this. We've had decades of assumed heteronormativity. If we're going to be inclusive, we need at least occasional instances of specific examples that fall outside those parameters, not merely situations that could.

This right here.

If WotC is going to be inclusiveness, it has to be inclusive. Not just allow us to add inclusive ideas with our interpretation of vague terminology in the modules - actually be inclusive.

Especially with AL modules. AL doesn't allow editing of modules, so that whole stack of people mentioned in the Expeditions quote above are wired into the module as straight.

 

[rollingForInit]

I think the word "spouse" would generally be bad, unless they intentionally want the spouse's gender kept hidden in-game. As in, perhaps the Prince escaped from his inheritance and married another man, and this enraged his father and now he doesn't really want it brought up. Then, he could mention his husband as a "spouse" in-game. Or if the character is of the type that believes that gender doesn't matter, which would also be valid. But the DM would still have to know.

Other than that, if the character is going to talk about a significant other, they'll probably mention the gender at some point, and if WotC strives to be more inclusive, having explicit same-sex partners is the way to go. In the end, if a particular DM is homophobic, they can change it themselves.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

This right here.

If WotC is going to be inclusiveness, it has to be inclusive. Not just allow us to add inclusive ideas with our interpretation of vague terminology in the modules - actually be inclusive.

Especially with AL modules. AL doesn't allow editing of modules, so that whole stack of people mentioned in the Expeditions quote above are wired into the module as straight.

Actually the AL allows DMs to change some minor aspects of an adventure, as long as the primary plot points and encounters remain unchanged. The first time I ran Dues for the Dead, the tiefling bandit ended up being outed as gay during some clever wordplay. The half-elf wanted to get back to "my wife and kids," which the party accepted as normal. Then when the tiefling wanted to get back to "my husband," everyone assumed that the tiefling was suddenly female. That's when I simply pointed to the paragraph about sexual orientation and said "Fifth edition, all inclusive." Needless to say, he was treated so well by the human Cleric while being held captive that a minor case of Stockholm Syndrome was added for RP flair.

If you feel that your AL table is the right fit for such character substitution, then know that you have the empowerment to make such changes as you see fit. My general rule of thumb is not to mess with recurring characters, as keeping track of such changes over time can be tedious. Therefore, I usually only make sexuality and gender rolls for one-off characters who are poorly defined as-is.

 

[seebs]

All driver licenses have biological gender on them, regardless of your gender identity. Perhaps you need to go read what transgender means.

That's not even close to consistently true now. Many people have ID that doesn't match the guess originally put on their birth certificate, and the requirements for getting it changed vary with region, ranging from "you can't, ever" to "tell us what you want it to say and we'll send you a new one".

 

[aramis erak]

There are occasional legends of female warriors, but no real standouts on the battlefield. There are a few female war leaders (relative to male war leaders) of note. Boudica and Joan of Arc amongst the most well know. Hind and some other female Arabic tribal leaders. They didn't take up arms.

Both Boudicca and Jeanne d'Arc DID take up arms. Boudicca the Sling, Jeanne d'Arc the sword and board. Both were best known for being inspirational leaders. Boudicca was not noted for melée, but did engage in ranged warfare. She died at her own hand (poison) to prevent her capture (and presumably, enslavement and/or rape).

 

[aramis erak]

All driver licenses have biological gender on them, regardless of your gender identity. Perhaps you need to go read what transgender means.

No, they don't. once they get to a certain point in the transition process, the ID is changed to their identified gender. It's several YEARS into the process, usually about the time of the top surgery. I've know a few persons whose ID said female and still had their phallus swinging... in one case, because his/her/its psychiatrist refused to sign off on the bottom surgery.

Some states make note of transgender - I've seen one ID that, under gender, said "TF". But that was years ago. She was post surgical transgender.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Both Boudicca and Jeanne d'Arc DID take up arms. Boudicca the Sling, Jeanne d'Arc the sword and board. Both were best known for being inspirational leaders. Boudicca was not noted for melée, but did engage in ranged warfare. She died at her own hand (poison) to prevent her capture (and presumably, enslavement and/or rape).

Jeanne d'Arc carried a sword but, by her own testimony, never got anywhere near the enemy with it. She was an untrained teenager, after all, and standing on the front line would have been a huge risk to herself and her cause for basically zero reward.

 

[Celtavian]

Both Boudicca and Jeanne d'Arc DID take up arms. Boudicca the Sling, Jeanne d'Arc the sword and board. Both were best known for being inspirational leaders. Boudicca was not noted for melée, but did engage in ranged warfare. She died at her own hand (poison) to prevent her capture (and presumably, enslavement and/or rape).

I'm looking specifically for warriors that could engage in single combat against a male, since the character I'm writing is one of three people traveling together in a world where males are the dominant warriors. I found quite a few instances of women as part of a generic war force. The Celts employed female warriors with ranged weapons as noted by Roman historians to their disgust. I've thought of making her a pure ranged fighter. Eventually if not engaged in army versus army, you're going to end up in single combat. It's been an interesting look at warfare.

The one thing I did find is that we have very Roman ideals when it comes to women. I knew Rome had an immense effect on Western culture. I did not realize how much. Most people tend to think that our treatment of women comes from Christianity. It does not. It comes from Rome. Roman ideals concerning chastity and virginity became a strong part of Western culture, when they were not as prominent in the Jewish culture. The Romans trusted the flame of Rome to Vestal Virgins. The Virgin Mary is much more a Roman ideal than a Jewish one. The Romans did not allow women in combat even though they had gods like Athena and Diana. They were very much believers in chaste and modest female behavior. Females were to be kept in the home and away from general male contact. This was not a common value in Europe prior to its Romanization. It's interesting to see how much influence Rome had on Europe and the way they developed culturally.

There are examples of females having warrior duties in Europe during ancient times, just not prominent champion warriors amongst their culture. It usually wasn't standard for glory. Even Celtic women would glorify powerful warrior husbands in song and choose men that were powerful warriors as husbands over taking up arms themselves, though quite a few Celtic women knew how to fight with some weapons like bows and darts.

Joan of Arc was one of the few known to fight on the front lines. She was never renowned for killing many, but she fought and probably killed quite often. Her history is very interesting. She was a very abused person, even by her own people once she had become their figurehead. Her end was not kind, though her faith remained true in the end.

 

[Celtavian]

Jeanne d'Arc carried a sword but, by her own testimony, never got anywhere near the enemy with it. She was an untrained teenager, after all, and standing on the front line would have been a huge risk to herself and her cause for basically zero reward.

Very true. If she were captured or killed, would have been a huge blow to the French cause. Though I thought I had read early on that she had went into battle prior to rising to be Joan of Arc.