D&D 5E D&D Promises to Make the Game More Queer

[Morrus]

D&D Promises to Make the Game More Queer

Let's spell it out:

Gay characters/NPCs/whatever: Good
Using game to push ideological points (regardless of what that point is): Bad.

Simple enough?

No, it’s *not* simple enough. The world doesn’t work like that.

If I include a heterosexual couple (or a thousand heterosexual couples, or make the King and Queen heterosexual) in my game am I pushing an ideological point? Who decides if I am?

And... even then. Even then. *Even then*. What’s wrong with making that point in my book, film, comic, book?

 

[tombowings]

How do you determine whether or not a gay dude was included to make a point?

If one of the designers tells a reporter that he included the gay dude in order to make a point. The only reason I have any problem with these NPCs inclusion is because Crawford went up and told every he included them in order to push an ideological agenda. Otherwise, I would give him and everyone else at WotC the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Caliban]

If I include a heterosexual couple (or a thousand heterosexual couples, or make the King and Queen heterosexual) in my game am I pushing an ideological point? Who decides if I am?

Well, obviously Tombowings decides that. Haven't you been paying attention?

 

[Morrus]

Otherwise, I would give him and everyone else at WotC the benefit of the doubt.

How magnanimous of you. I’m sure they were waiting with baited breath.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Because you said the three he gave you weren’t enough? This is one of the oddest conversations I’ve had in a while!

Er, those are your words, not mine.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I dunno. The impression I got from your examples was that gay characters could only be in D&D if they are demon worshiping villains or else socially rejected as criminals.

Or Greek or Roman-inspired.

 

[MechaPilot]

That one's a fact. And I have no problem with that part of the quote. However, there are two parts of the quote:

1. "I wasn’t about to have this book go out and not acknowledge..."
2. "...people like me exist."

Personally, I see nothing wrong with part 2. It's not propagandist at all. It's factual. My problem is with part 1, which shows an intent to present a certain world view.

Now, as I have stated before, the inclusion of "people like [him]" (which is a terrible way to phrase his motivation), could be handled well and make sense within the context of the source material and the adventure, but the way Crawford states his intentions is unsettling. They point at a political or at least an ideological motivation, which makes the inclusion of the LGBT a propagandist advance.

Relating to your problem with #2, as I asked before, does the adventures containing the homosexual NPCs state how the other NPCs view the homosexual relationship of the homosexual NPCs? If the adventures don't say, then the adventure is just giving the DM background on those characters, and the people around them may approve or disapprove. If there were a concentrated effort that no villainous or scumbag NPC could be homosexual, then you'd have a point. However, in the absence of a "homosexuality must be included only in a certain light" doctrine, the fact that an NPC is homosexual is no more propaganda than the fact that a given NPC is male, female, black, white, tall, short, fat, thin, etc.

 

[Teemu]

I want a D&D game that has some echoes of medieval Europe and more specifically looks like the fantasy I have enjoyed in the past in many respects. I am not into robots and magical trains. Its no less silly than my magic hammers, but I am not into the imagery.

People are fine with ignoring the absolute importance of Christianity when playing a Medieval-inspired game because our Western society has long since embraced the idea of religious freedom. We don't bat an eye at pretending to worship pantheons of divinities, but from the perspective of the Medieval society the game draws upon, it's tantamount to worshiping the Devil. This may sound kind of a silly point, and the point is just that -- it's silly because religious freedom is so ingrained in our culture.

But some folks are not quite as ready to ignore Medieval notions on gender and sexual minorities. And the reason for that is because our society has just barely started to move away from treating queer people as taboo and something socially unacceptable.

The selective nature of what we keep from the source material (old European societies and cultures) is very much linked to our current societal attitudes.

 

[cmad1977]

How do you determine whether or not a gay dude was included to make a point?

If he's included at all apparently.


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[FormerlyHemlock]

So I'm a practicing and devout Catholic, so I should be your intended audience here, but I can't feel this argument. The generic Cleric class suits the D&D game because different campaign settings have different cosmologies and theologies.

I recently ran Curse of Strahd and it was in an explicitly alt-Earth version of Romania, so all the Churches were Christian Churches (Eastern Orthodox, natch) not Morninglord Churches. And the one cleric PC in the game was a Dominican from Vienna. The game supports it just fine. It also supported having a Nature Cleric NPC who was an Odinist. Your problem is with the sameness of the Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/Dragonlance settings, not the class rules.

Oh, absolutely. I thought this thread was about APs like Storm King's Thunder, but settings books would qualify too.

I'd love to see a return of the Athar from Planescape, for example. It's a fairly logical position for a fantasy character to take on religion, especially a wizard.