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

[billd91]

You still gotta add them for the right reasons...

Adding them to official campaigns just to add them in isn't adding them for the right reasons

Why not? LGBT people exist, LGBT players exist. Why should there be some kind of special justification for LGBT NPCs to exist other than they simply should exist?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Again, do the adventures specifically say how the other NPCs react to the homosexuality of the homosexual NPCs?

Well, based on the article, it says that they have a legal status which is recognized by the local community as a form of marriage. That implies a high (and anachronous) level of acceptance.

If not, then normalization is only present if the DM wants it to be. DMs, given the same facts, could easily run the NPC community's reaction to the homosexuality of the homosexual NPCs very differently. If there is no text that confers judgement (for good or ill) upon the homosexuality of the homosexual NPCs, then it's literally just another character trait like height, weight, race, etc.

But if so, then normalization is present, and it constitutes propaganda.

Do we agree on that?

 

[Caliban]

That isn't the discussion.

The discussion is about including gay characters in a game, your dislike of it, and every time someone pins you down to make you actually explain one of your simplistic pronouncements, you pivot with some arbitrary new detail.

You are being incredibly dishonest and disingenuous.

Actually, he's been pretty consistent.

He doesn't object to gay characters being included in the game.

What he objects to is (what he believes to be) Jeremy Crawford stating that they were included specifically to promote acceptance of gays. Because that turns it into promoting a politcal agenda, and that's bad.

I disagree with him, but he has been consistent about it.

 

[Nagol]

Maybe this isn't about you. And note that Crawford says nothing about compelling anyone to do anything.


Pop quiz: in what year was heterosexual marriage legalized in the United States?

1754, depending on what you constitute marriage legalization though some straight marriages weren't legal in the U.S. until 1967.

 

[Morrus]

Honestly, none of these people bother me. It's a game. It's completely separate from the real world. That's what I like about it. My entire point can be summarized as follows: It's a game, how about we all stop trying to push out agenda with it, alright.

No.

(Because it isn’t separate to the real world).

 

[Satyrn]

Pop quiz: in what year was heterosexual marriage legalized in the United States?

For what colour of people?

 

[Teemu]

There is no INappropriate medium. This is the point of being inclusive, to show that such things are to be treated as totally normative, so they could pop up anywhere. The point is actually not to highlight the difference but to make the difference so normalized that it ceases to be a difference - so that, eventually, places like wherever you're teaching don't even notice the sex of the person that the blacksmith has as a mate.

Indeed. Imagine if D&D had existed 100 years ago. Can you imagine what the reaction would've been if you'd included female characters of all professions, classes, and social positions in an adventure module? We've come a long way since and female representation has come far enough so that we don't even blink when we encounter women who are blacksmiths, guard captains, or doctors in our RPGs.

That's exactly my point. Crawford did highly the difference, which turned what he did into an ideological stunt. I have nothing wrong with the adventure or the gay characters. I just don't like the motivation before including them (politicizing a game), regardless of what the message might be..

Ok, you like the message -- you support the normalization of queerness. How do you think that normalization is achieved, if not through "politicizing?" People have to make conscious efforts to add those minority characters, otherwise they will remain in the taboo section.

 

[tombowings]

No.

(Because it isn’t separate to the real world).

There's the root of our disagreement, then. You think it's OK to use the game as an ideological arena. I just want to roll dice and make bad jokes in my own little world.

 

[Morrus]

D&D Promises to Make the Game More Queer

In

Using media to as a way to promote any ideology, whether I agree, disagree, or am unsure about it: Wrong medium. Find a podium.

Repeating it over and over and over again isn’t going to make you right.

We *understand* your argument. Repeating it over and over won’t make us suddenly see the light. We *disagree* with it.

Life is your podium. You don’t get to tell people to go to the back of the bus.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Nazis make great villains for period appropriate gaming! 1930s-1960s pulp hero/covert action/action adventure/superhero gaming can be great fun.

That's pretty much what I meant by "except as drow." Including them where they enhance the game, instead of as propaganda for metagame reasons, is 100% okay.