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

[I'm A Banana]

There is the racist presumption that PCs are white by default, but even if you have a dark skinned PC the benefit from something like that is still there because iirc it's the oils in the face that reflect light and not the color of the skin.

Sure, my point was mostly about the text's "white default" assumption being...well...not great. It clearly has that assumption. If the text was about oils and shine and not about your "pallid white face," it wouldn't be that little bit racist that it is.

And lets be clear, that's not cause to burn TCTHB and its authors as unrepentant racist swill, it's just noting that the presumption existed, and wasn't great, and we can do better going forward. It's important not to be precious and fragile about these things - perfection isn't the goal, it's just to keep being better than we were before. It's enough to say that we could use more representation of minorities in D&D without saying that there's some precise percentage formula that must be followed. The only goal is to be better today than we were yesterday. Every time that's true, it's meeting the goal. There's never a point where you've done "enough" and can call it "finished," it's a continual process of self-reflection as creators, as D&D players, and for WotC, as the stewards of the game. The work of being decent to other human beings can never really be said to be over.

Heck, there's reason to suspect it the assumption wouldn't hold up in 2e very well, anyway - "most gnomes have dark tan or brown skin and white hair," so presumably a gnome rogue would be in the same boat as a human rogue who had similar skin tone! Though there's nothing in the book about dying your hair...

 

[Ovinomancer]

It feels kinda crappy when people treat my existence as a "social issue" or a "political agenda" in our shared hobbies. There are enough people in the world who are either actively hostile or passively crappy towards us that little mentions like that are a huge boon.

Hey, I'm stoked you're a gamer and enjoy the same hobby I do. I don't think anyone here has said that you're existence is just a social issue. Don't conflate saying 'I don't want to have D&D become a part of the culture war' as equivalent to dismissing you. Unless you self-identify as a culture war, in which case, yeah, I see your point and that kinda sucks.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sure, my point was mostly about the text's "white default" assumption being...well...not great. It clearly has that assumption. If the text was about oils and shine and not about your "pallid white face," it wouldn't be that little bit racist that it is.

And lets be clear, that's not cause to burn TCTHB and its authors as unrepentant racist swill, it's just noting that the presumption existed, and wasn't great, and we can do better going forward. It's important not to be precious and fragile about these things - perfection isn't the goal, it's just to keep being better than we were before. It's enough to say that we could use more representation of minorities in D&D without saying that there's some precise percentage formula that must be followed. The only goal is to be better today than we were yesterday. Every time that's true, it's meeting the goal. There's never a point where you've done "enough" and can call it "finished," it's a continual process of self-reflection as creators, as D&D players, and for WotC, as the stewards of the game. The work of being decent to other human beings can never really be said to be over.

Heck, there's reason to suspect it the assumption wouldn't hold up in 2e very well, anyway - "most gnomes have dark tan or brown skin and white hair," so presumably a gnome rogue would be in the same boat as a human rogue who had similar skin tone! Though there's nothing in the book about dying your hair...

The best I can muster to this kind of argument is 'oh, good grief.' This is looking for offense. Shockingly, when you do that, you find it.

That book was written in the early nineties. Things are better today. I have little patience for arguments that hold up what's just obliviousness in an earlier time and put it under the microscope of today and claim that 'nope, this is still a problem.' Find a similar passage in today's material and I'll gladly jump on your bandwagon just to slap some awareness into the author. Until then, stop looking for offense in 20 year old sourcebooks.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The best I can muster to this kind of argument is 'oh, good grief.' This is looking for offense. Shockingly, when you do that, you find it.

That book was written in the early nineties. Things are better today. I have little patience for arguments that hold up what's just obliviousness in an earlier time and put it under the microscope of today and claim that 'nope, this is still a problem.' Find a similar passage in today's material and I'll gladly jump on your bandwagon just to slap some awareness into the author. Until then, stop looking for offense in 20 year old sourcebooks.

You're either not following my actual argument, or you're just inventing imaginary arguments to fight against.

I held that out as an example of how D&D hasn't always been the most inclusive.

If you don't disagree with that, then we can be united: D&D has sometimes been not great at inclusivity.

That's not looking for offense. That's simply showing that D&D hasn't always been very inclusive. With evidence.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

It feels kinda crappy when people treat my existence as a "social issue" or a "political agenda" in our shared hobbies. There are enough people in the world who are either actively hostile or passively crappy towards us that little mentions like that are a huge boon.

The fourth-largest city in the country just basically voted that I shouldn't be allowed to use a public restroom without risk of assault and/or arrest. Yeah, I think we need to talk more about this stuff in basically every medium.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You're either not following my actual argument, or you're just inventing imaginary arguments to fight against.

I held that out as an example of how D&D hasn't always been the most inclusive.

If you don't disagree with that, then we can be united: D&D has sometimes been not great at inclusivity.

That's not looking for offense. That's simply showing that D&D hasn't always been very inclusive. With evidence.

Nope, you're right, we agree. I just didn't think you were making that trivial a point. 20 years ago, society was less inclusive. It's not exactly shocking to point that out about D&D 20 years ago. I guess I thought you were trying to make a larger point than that.

 

[Hussar]

The idea of leaving the NPC's orientation blank, to be filled in later, doesn't work in practical terms. That's what we do now. I mentioned that latest DDEX adventure, Shackles of Blood, some ways back. Three NPC's (well, actually 4) are identified as hetero. All other NPC's are blank. And that makes sense because for all the other NPC's, the notion of their sexuality probably will never come up. Random Red Shirt bad guy thug number 27 doesn't need that level of detail. But, the problem is, the only time you are identified is if you're hetero.

Again, for the umpteenth time, all that's being asked for here is a couple of examples, a bone or two, in published modules or whatnot, of non-hetero identified people. Do it enough times, and it's ok if it's the bad guy. It doesn't have to be major NPC's, heck, it doesn't even have to come up in play necessarily. It just has to be there. A bit. A smidgeon.

Why is this such a big deal to ask for?

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

The idea of leaving the NPC's orientation blank, to be filled in later, doesn't work in practical terms. That's what we do now. I mentioned that latest DDEX adventure, Shackles of Blood, some ways back. Three NPC's (well, actually 4) are identified as hetero. All other NPC's are blank. And that makes sense because for all the other NPC's, the notion of their sexuality probably will never come up. Random Red Shirt bad guy thug number 27 doesn't need that level of detail. But, the problem is, the only time you are identified is if you're hetero.

Again, for the umpteenth time, all that's being asked for here is a couple of examples, a bone or two, in published modules or whatnot, of non-hetero identified people. Do it enough times, and it's ok if it's the bad guy. It doesn't have to be major NPC's, heck, it doesn't even have to come up in play necessarily. It just has to be there. A bit. A smidgeon.

Why is this such a big deal to ask for?

Eh, I'm asking for more than that. I'm asking for it to be frequent enough that it doesn't feel like "a bone or two."

 

[I'm A Banana]

Nope, you're right, we agree. I just didn't think you were making that trivial a point. 20 years ago, society was less inclusive. It's not exactly shocking to point that out about D&D 20 years ago. I guess I thought you were trying to make a larger point than that.

It's not exactly a trivial point - it supports my larger point by showing a history of unintentional discrimination within D&D specifically (unless, I suppose, one wants to argue that this was intentional, I guess?). It was both not really the intent of these well-meaning writers, but also still the effect. It wasn't conscious.

This makes an important point: you can have effects that are bigoted without actually being aggressively bigoted yourself.

That's important because it's counter-intuitive. It's easy for us to presume that, you know, if we didn't mean to offend anyone, than anyone who gets offended is pretty much over-reacting by definition. It's not like TSR meant to be racist, but someone who rolls their eyes at that paragraph and says, "yeah, that's actually kind of racist, guys" is still right. It doesn't mean that TSR was being staffed by KKK members out of Lake Geneva, but the fact that it wasn't meant to be offensive doesn't change the fact that it kind of is.

That's worth mentioning often in part BECAUSE it's counter-intuitive - it's something easy to forget. If it's something that happens to TSR circa 1989, it's also something that probably happens to people today in some way (even if not in the same way).

I was using it to illustrate the point that we can transform the often-kind-of-repugnant fantasy that we cull from as source material into something that is better than its source material in that respect, and one of the ways we can do that is by telling stories that feature things that would've been unthinkable in 1989 or 1919 or 1890 or earlier - things like black PC's. Or a tragic lesbian love-triangle. Or some random gay commoner. It runs counter to the argument that "this doesn't come up in D&D" by saying that sometimes having it come up in D&D is absolutely what you WANT.

It also serves to illustrate a point about vigilance: if you can cause discriminatory effects without holding an ounce of discrimination in your heart, it's important to keep an eye out for when that happens, and it's important to be able to correct yourself when you've done something a little bit awful, even if you didn't mean to, because you want the effects of your actions to line up with your intent.

An explicit policy of inclusion like WotC's or the OP's can serve to enhance that vigilance.

So pointing out that D&D was sometimes a bit awful about these things in the past is in part a call to learn from that history, so we don't repeat its mistakes and arrogantly presume that if we don't mean for it to be offensive, then it shouldn't be taken to be offensive. It's also in part showing that we aren't tethered to the past for our new stories - that it "not coming up in D&D" might be part of why you MAKE it come up in D&D, because there's awesome new tales to be told and adventures to be had when you look at D&D through that lens.

 

[seebs]

I'm very much not impressed by the intellectual acumen of a 'if you're not with us, you're against us' declaration. That's a statement of zealousness, not reason.

Lots of big words, but I don't think they show that you understood the argument. I'm not making any claim about who is with or against anyone; I am observing that the measurable effect of media which do not include particular categories of people, is to marginalize those people in society. If only some media are inclusive, people are more marginalized.

That said, I strongly disagree that the culture war must be waged on every front possible. Some places, like D&D, are far to niche to matter.

D&D matters to me, because I've been playing D&D for most of my life and it's one of my major social activities.

Whether or not D&D is at the forefront of the war is generally meaningless in the greater struggle. I wish you well (I voted for gay marriage, and support LGBT rights in general), but I'm sorry, I can't get so enthused that I must declare everything to be part of the crusade, and anyone not joyously enthusiastic about participating should be labeled as part of the problem. When you include the vast majority of everyone in 'part of the problem', you should start re-examining your definition of the problem -- you might have gone a bit too far.

If properly controlled studies show that a given thing is having a given effect, saying so is just plain truthful.

The thing here is, no one is advocating that D&D become some major battleground with thousands of hours of speeches about it in the Senate or anything. Just, you know, maybe sometimes an occasional character in a module who isn't hetero by default. This is not a particularly hard request to satisfy, it gives a clear and measurable benefit, and it does not appear to do any harm. Why not?

Goodness. I've never seen a D&D module with a Republican in it. Or an Ethopian. I suppose they've been erased in favor of elves and dwarves and whatnot? That's a patently ridiculous claim that a failure of equal time is erasure. Erasure is what happens when you're systematically removed (not ignored) from representative media. You're going too far.

I didn't say "equal time", and people do in fact appear to be able to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant categories. I was not talking about "erasure", specifically. But really, you think I'm "going too far" by suggesting that it would not hurt anyone if an occasional NPC were gay?

Sure its not, and I agree with you. I also think that having published 'blank space' for you add more if you'd like isn't a bad idea, and may be even more broadly preferable than trying to keep track of whether or not you've hit the right percentages in game.

Right now, there's lots of blank space; the issue people are observing is merely that there's no non-blank space that isn't heterosexual.

I mean, heck, this could easily be a minefield: "The only gay NPC in latest WotC adventure is the bad guy -- what are they trying to imply?!" I understand not wanting to engage in an area where people literally say 'if you're not with us, you're against us.' Which is why that kind of tactic receives so much pushback -- it's not useful because it leaves no room to engage in the middle. Which is where I think your suggestions largely fall, and where mine was intended before I was told that failure to agree entirely was the same as being an enemy.

Except that this isn't even remotely close to what I said. I did not say that anyone who isn't with us is against us. I said that media which are uninclusive contribute to marginalization. If you disagree, feel free to come up with citations to disprove the existing work in the field showing the effects of media representation. And even if you have such citations, you're making a heck of a jump from anything I said to anything you're responding to.