D&D 5E After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon

[abirdcall]

D&D and how it approaches sex and gender over the last 35 years:

Here are how various Player's Handbooks instruct the player to determine the sex and gender of their character.


1978: AD&D 1e


"Although the masculine form of appellation is typically used when listing the level titles of the various types of characters, these names can easily be changed to the feminine if desired. This is fantasy -- what's in a name? in all but a few cases sex makes no difference to ability!"

Under the heading: The Game in the introduction.
Later in the introduction under: Creating the Player Character
"(after rolling stats)...The player then decides what race the character is, what the character's class is, the alignment of the character, and what the character's name is to be."

No mention of choosing sex or gender.

There are also restrictions on female characters (no restrictions for male characters). If you are a woman and sitting down to play some 1e AD&D and rolled an 18 for your strength your options are limited to human and half-orc. No dwarf, elf, gnome, etc. for you. And if you play a fighter you will be penalized on your bonus strength roll.


1995: AD&D 2e Revised Edition.

"The sex and name of your character are up to you. Your character can be of the same sex as yourself or of the opposite sex."

This is written as a paragraph among a big blurb of text under the heading: Other Characteristics in Chapter 2: Player Character Races


2003: D&D 3.5e

"GENDER: Your character can be either male or female."

This has its own heading in the section: Vital Statistics in Chapter 6: Description. It is in between the sections on religion and looks, personality and background.


2008: D&D 4e

"5. Age, Gender, Height, Weight:
These details are up to you."

Under the heading: Character Sheet in Chapter 2: Making Characters



2014: D&D 5e

"SEX: You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behaviour. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.

You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphorditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide."

This under the heading: Character Details in Chapter 4: Personality and Background.

It should be noted that this edition of D&D spends a lot more space than others on character background and personality.

The term hermaphrodite is used instead of intersex. A glaring mistake to make when going to lengths to be inclusive.

A distinction is made between sex and gender and there is a mention of sexual orientation as something to consider in character creation. The player is also now allowed to make a genderqueer or non-gendered character. The simplicity of the part regarding sexual orientation allows for asexual characters too.

Also note that there is no entry for sex or gender on the character sheet. This omission is what inspired me to look into this topic.

 

[Jester David]

Also, let's take a look at other editions:

3e PHB: the iconic monk is a black woman, the paladin is also a woman (I'm not sure which ethnicity she could be but she's not caucasian white), the sorcerer is an Asian-esque man (and in very fetish-like gear), the druid is an half-elf woman, rogue is a halfling woman, wizard is an elf woman. There's 7 iconic male characters (fighters have two, a dwarf and a human) and 5 female.

That was done on purpose. But funny thing...

During the days of TSR, there was a mandate that the central figure on covers had to be a white male. Because the higher ups believed the audience was primarily white males and would be reluctant to buy books that didn't prominently feature characters they could identify with.

There was no generic white male in 3e initially. The D&D team wanted the "fighter" to be the dwarf: Tordek. As it was WotC, they were deliberately reversing the trend. However, some of the higher ups worried about the lack of an obvious white male and pushed them to add one. So they created Redgard the fighter.
Then Redgar became the central iconic of the lead in to 3e. He was on posters and cardboard standees. He was the face of 3e D&D, and he wasn't even supposed to be there. (Which is why they kill him in the art so often: the team hated him).

Which informed Pathfinder in that respect. They've taken it a step farther by adding age and body type into the mix...

I think, when making criticisms, it's better to be accurate.

AD&D is sexist in all sorts of ways - 2nd ed moreso than 1st ed, in my view - but supposed rules mandating PC gender aren't an example of this.

And I will be interested in your thoughts on the change of pronoun between editions of AD&D - as I said, I think it's very significant and tells us something about RPGing more generally.

I see the explicit open-ness of 5e as an attempt to recapture and build on that pronoun open-ness of AD&D, and the relative inclusiveness of Moldvay Basic (with the iconic Morgan Ironwolf). Which is part of the broader attempt to make the game ordinary ("mainstream") rather than the province of a certain subcultural minority. The ordinary world includes women, and non-straight, and non-white people. The fact that the rulebook feels the need to point out that this is also true for the gameworld tells us a lot about what the publishers expect to be the default oultook of their core player base - they recognise that if they want their game to appeal more broadly they need to expressly rule out from the get-go the sorts of responses that (eg) were given about 4e halflings with cornrows.

Looking at 1e and 2e, they weren't overly sexist per se. They didn't treat women as secondary or inferior so much as forgot women even existed half the time. (Which is a whole other type of sexism.) There's not a single named woman in the Village of Hommlet, with all the women being "wives" save one farmer's "handsome but bossy" spinster daughter. Keep on the Borderlands mentions female goblins and kobolds and the like, but tends to have them being less effective in combat (or outright noncombatives like the children) and seem to be there for flavour and verisimilitude more than any actual need. The NPCs at the keep are not really assigned genders (not being "male humans") but neither are they given a race. Being human is just assumed (just like being dudes).
There's a real gender apathy. As if Gygax didn't even care enough about women to even make them subservient.

I'm not sure if this is better or worse than having women as nothing but cheesecake victims...

 

[Jester David]

The term hermaphrodite is used instead of intersex. A glaring mistake to make when going to lengths to be inclusive.

Well, in fairness "intersex" started as an umbrella term that included hermaphroditism. It's not an appropriate term for people/the community because it's misleading and not always accurate when describing an individual. But the term is used descriptively to refer to portrayals a god (i.e. art of said god) where "hermaphrodite" might be more accurate.
And is a relatively new label (<10 years at the time of publication).
Plus using the term "intersex" would confuse casual readers, while the more scientific term is more well known; educating cis people is part of the reason that passage exists.

But, most importantly, at the end of the day, they tried. I'm not going to fault them for trying and not achieving perfection, because if you do that you encourage them not to try again next time.

 

[Mistwell]

Guys, isn't this issue really an entirely different topic from "After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon"?

 

[PMárk]

Guys, isn't this issue really an entirely different topic from "After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon"?

Indeed it is. But lately the topic tends to coming up at some point in every discussion and situation*. Watch the recent WW Grand Masquerade 2016 Q&A video.

*Ok, maybe not in the ranger-topics. Or yes, I don't know after a while I lost interest in those.

 

[abirdcall]

But, most importantly, at the end of the day, they tried. I'm not going to fault them for trying and not achieving perfection, because if you do that you encourage them not to try again next time.

Absolutely. And everyone I have talked to about it sees that. The effort of inclusion is what counts the most which is why people find 5e to be inclusive.

They finally care enough to say that diversity is welcome.

Also, scientifically speaking, intersex is the correct term.

Guys, isn't this issue really an entirely different topic from "After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon"?

You don't think being inclusive has impacted sales of 5e? I don't think it is the only factor, but I do think it is a major one.

According to the website linked earlier retail sales of RPGs increased by 40% from 2014 to 2015. That didn't just happen because 5e is a better made game than other games/editions. It happened because there are people playing RPGs now that didn't feel comfortable or welcome to do so before.

 

[Mistwell]

You don't think being inclusive has impacted sales of 5e?

I don't think the decision to use a different term than intersex has had a material impact on whether or not the 5e PHB has remained on the best sellers list at Amazon, no.

 

[abirdcall]

I don't think the decision to use a different term than intersex has had a material impact on whether or not the 5e PHB has remained on the best sellers list at Amazon, no.

Yes, because that is what we had been discussing.

This is beyond disingenous, but if you really wanted to derail the thread then you have succeeded in that at least.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Yes, because that is what we had been discussing.

This is beyond disingenous, but if you really wanted to derail the thread then you have succeeded in that at least.

It had already been derailed. Well, not so much derailed as it had gotten well off the main lines of the rail network and onto distant siding.

 

[Mistwell]

I think these are some of the major factors in prolonged sales of 5e on Amazon, in no particular order. It's not an exhaustive list, but I think these were all material factors in success:

1) Involving a lot of "Bellwether" people during pre-production as consultants. These people, who may not themselves be designers, are opinion leaders for a meaningful subset of players/buyers of RPG games, and getting their buy-in early on led to large followings from groups that had previously been paying less or no attention to a new edition of D&D;

2) An extensive closed, and then even more extensive open playtest of the rules, gave an even larger segment of people a sense of buy-in to the edition during production;

3) A large scale marketing effort (including solicited reviews) at key online magazine-like sources with high levels of readership by people who tend to buy games caused some viral marketing to spread through social media and create a lot more awareness of the upcoming game;

4) Outreach and ongoing communication with various celebrities and television shows increased acceptance of D&D and brand recognition as a "key" nerd product in an era of nerd products being highly popular;

5) Increased focus on retail store benefits caused those retails stores to feel more connected to the product line and more willing to carry it and support it;

6) Increased focus on in-store playing of the game increased word of mouth on the game and actual play experience with it;

7) Making 5e "feel" more in-line with old-school play got the attention of players who had lapsed from the game;

8) Making 5e a solid, fairly good and flexible game attracted more players/buyers;

9) A significantly reduced release schedule decreased the sense that there was a "wall of books" entry barrier to the game, and focused much more press and player attention on each new product for longer periods of time to build anticipation rather than spreading attention out over many products;

10) Releasing a solid starter set at a relatively low price carried in big box stores attracted more people to try the game out for the first time.