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

[Jessica]

I'm an LGBT person and I really like that the passage is there as a way to say "welcome". I myself don't play LGBT characters because the real world is full of cruel people and I don't want to draw attention to myself.

 

[Ovinomancer]

How about we have any--and I mean on a regular basis, not a token--and then we can discuss or argue about whether we need to worry about keeping count, or whether it's "enough"?

That's fair, but instead of having designated NPCs of specific gender or orientation (including all and none), I'd prefer to see 'blank space' NPCs, ones where that information is specifically left out for the DM to fill in any way they want. Still no problem with specifically calling it out if it's germane to the story, but I'd rather see 'bartender, gender and orientation up to DM' than specifically gay 1/2 elf MtW bartender. The former allows people to tell the stories they want while still having the impact of making the DM think about it a bit before going boring, straight, and cis, than having arguments about the proper distribution of LGBT groups in printed materials.

In short, I don't view D&D as the appropriate vehicle for sexuality consciousness. Leaving space for people to add their own sounds fine to me, mandatory representation doesn't.

 

[seebs]

That's fair, but instead of having designated NPCs of specific gender or orientation (including all and none), I'd prefer to see 'blank space' NPCs, ones where that information is specifically left out for the DM to fill in any way they want. Still no problem with specifically calling it out if it's germane to the story, but I'd rather see 'bartender, gender and orientation up to DM' than specifically gay 1/2 elf MtW bartender. The former allows people to tell the stories they want while still having the impact of making the DM think about it a bit before going boring, straight, and cis, than having arguments about the proper distribution of LGBT groups in printed materials.

In short, I don't view D&D as the appropriate vehicle for sexuality consciousness. Leaving space for people to add their own sounds fine to me, mandatory representation doesn't.

What if the writers wanted to include it, rather than it being mandatory? It's not as though it'd be at all new or unusual to find that a writer intended to include such a thing, and someone else made them take it out.

And honestly I'd rather have them just include specific examples, because otherwise the default will be for most people not to actually-think-about-it, but to just go with "default" because that's easier.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What if the writers wanted to include it, rather than it being mandatory? It's not as though it'd be at all new or unusual to find that a writer intended to include such a thing, and someone else made them take it out.

And honestly I'd rather have them just include specific examples, because otherwise the default will be for most people not to actually-think-about-it, but to just go with "default" because that's easier.

And what, exactly, is wrong with that? I'm all for D&D being more inclusive, but I'm not okay with that morphing into 'we need to do something with D&D so that people think about this social issue'. Again, D&D is not the proper vehicle for social awareness campaigns.

 

[seebs]

And what, exactly, is wrong with that? I'm all for D&D being more inclusive, but I'm not okay with that morphing into 'we need to do something with D&D so that people think about this social issue'. Again, D&D is not the proper vehicle for social awareness campaigns.

It turns out that all media are the proper vehicle for such campaigns, because media that aren't part of them are directly and actively opposing them. Representation in media has huge impact on how people treat other people. When media omit categories of people, those people suffer as a result. Humans do not have the ability to meet enough people to have a reasonably representative sample of the population, and will tend to react with relative hostility to unfamiliar people, or people in categories they haven't been exposed to before. Media representation reduces that bias.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

That's fair, but instead of having designated NPCs of specific gender or orientation (including all and none), I'd prefer to see 'blank space' NPCs, ones where that information is specifically left out for the DM to fill in any way they want. Still no problem with specifically calling it out if it's germane to the story, but I'd rather see 'bartender, gender and orientation up to DM' than specifically gay 1/2 elf MtW bartender. The former allows people to tell the stories they want while still having the impact of making the DM think about it a bit before going boring, straight, and cis, than having arguments about the proper distribution of LGBT groups in printed materials.

In short, I don't view D&D as the appropriate vehicle for sexuality consciousness. Leaving space for people to add their own sounds fine to me, mandatory representation doesn't.

What people are asking for is that other groups be treated the same as cisgender straight folks. Adventures have NPCs that are blatently identified as cis (pretty much anyone with a detailed description) and straight (anyone with an opposite-sex partner, spouse, or lover). If you refuse to have non-cis and non-straight people, that is erasure. It is discrimination. It is wrong.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

It turns out that all media are the proper vehicle for such campaigns, because media that aren't part of them are directly and actively opposing them. Representation in media has huge impact on how people treat other people. When media omit categories of people, those people suffer as a result. Humans do not have the ability to meet enough people to have a reasonably representative sample of the population, and will tend to react with relative hostility to unfamiliar people, or people in categories they haven't been exposed to before. Media representation reduces that bias.

This. This is Truth.

With the addendum that media - and D&D - frequently show straight cis people. Is my existance somehow more worthy if controversy because I am trans? Is my love life more worthy of controversy because I am with another woman?

Or, when we hide our gays, are we just catering to the bigots who turn my life into something controversial so they can hurt me without repercussions?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

And what, exactly, is wrong with that? I'm all for D&D being more inclusive, but I'm not okay with that morphing into 'we need to do something with D&D so that people think about this social issue'. Again, D&D is not the proper vehicle for social awareness campaigns.

Yeah I'm just not really interested in a D&D that is trying to push social issues rather than just anyone can play and have fun. If it starts to get preachy I'll move to something else. Not that they have shown they are moving in that direction, the comment in the PHB didn't really register much with me, I just kept on reading, but if it really made some people feel more accepted by the game that’s great.

 

[Mouseferatu]

A D&D that includes straight characters but not gay is pushing social issues. It is, in fact, "pushing social issues" more than a D&D that includes mostly straight, but some gay, characters.

This is the point people seem incapable of grasping. Making a character straight is a choice, just as making that character gay would be. If one doesn't need justification, neither does the other. And this includes secondary or indirect references to sexuality, such as characters who are married or have families.

Having an occasional gay (or trans) character isn't pushing an agenda; it's recognizing that people are people.

 

[seebs]

Yeah I'm just not really interested in a D&D that is trying to push social issues rather than just anyone can play and have fun. If it starts to get preachy I'll move to something else. Not that they have shown they are moving in that direction, the comment in the PHB didn't really register much with me, I just kept on reading, but if it really made some people feel more accepted by the game that’s great.

Well, the thing is... A setting where there are no depicted gay characters is also pushing a social issue, and moving away from "just anyone can play and have fun".

You can't make media that don't push social issues at some level. "Against the Slave Lords" has as a premise that slave lords are bad things.