D&D General “‘Scantily Clad and Well Proportioned’: Sexism and Gender Stereotyping in the Gaming Worlds of TSR and Dungeons & Dragons.”

[Charlaquin]

I just saw it as a goofy comedy and not anything to aspire to. And certainly not a place to get theological lessons or moral lessons lol

I mean, yeah, as adults, we can recognize that. But, kids are impressionable, and are influenced by basically all information that they take in, often unconsciously.

 

[Emerikol]

If characters weren't balanced by level, you'd have a point. But an elf who adventures with his human friends is too powerful to adventure with his children. Campaigns are still measured in human generations, not elven ones.

I think the whole original point of D&D's race restrictions was due to the longevity of demi-humans. I think a better approach would either be a max level or have x.p. required to advance massively increase almost exponentially at some point like after 20.

Someone above (sorry, can't remember who) the notion of an elf born on Earth in the Middle Ages could live to the millennium. Think of all the things that elf would have seen. The plague, the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the World Wars, the Space race, and the digital age. The idea of one person seeing all the history first hand is mind boggling. Even a young elf has a human lifetime worth of time to master all manner of skills and learning. The idea that a 120 year old elf and a 20 year old human have the same levels, skills and abilities should be farcical! What, did the elf sleep though class for 90 years?!?

You could pretty easily come up with reasons that are legit if you wanted. Maybe elves develop slower so they really are immature. Think this can't be tied to genetics? There are humans who just stop maturing at young ages. From six, to twelve, to sixteen. You also are not allowing for culture which might have them doing things that don't show up as D&D skills or proficiencies or levels.

So while an elf may live 700 years, the game does nothing with that because it would fundamentally change the nature of the world in ways that would be unplayable.

I've always accounted for it. For one example, I made the birthrate among elves incredible low. It's not impossible.

Anyway, getting off topic. Just saying the idea that any species can be more than a funny costume is aspirational, but not practical.

I agree here in the sense that getting a player to think in a truly alien way is probably asking a lot. So having races that "resemble" humanity is good. And even if played less than perfectly it is a game and if it feels right to the group then it's good.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Adults aren't the much less impressionable. Look at the 'joker' subculture, or all the people that think a movie literally called American Psycho is a handbook on how to be cool, look at how podcasts and tiktoks convince people of the absolutely dumbest things.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I mean, yeah, as adults, we can recognize that. But, kids are impressionable, and are influenced by basically all information that they take in, often unconsciously.

It is a subject for another day but I saw so much of the messaging they had for us as kids backfire on my generation. I think it isn't always as clear cut as people think

 

[CleverNickName]

Adults aren't the much less impressionable. Look at the 'joker' subculture, or all the people that think a movie literally called American Psycho is a handbook on how to be cool, look at how podcasts and tiktoks convince people of the absolutely dumbest things.

Mmmm, delicious Tide Pods^TM

I think this was one of the first large-scale exploits of YouTube's new (at the time) algorithm that rewarded negative engagement. Or maybe it was one of the most harmful? I remember reading something about it back in the day.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

In my experience, Vulcans very often claimed to be acting based on emotionless logic, but their actions tended to demonstrate that this was a rationalisation at best.

I would further point out that claiming one’s actions are driven by logic as a rationalisation is very common behaviour among internet posters, i.e. humans.

“Facts don’t care about your feelings!”

Star Trek: Picard had a Vulcan named Krinn who was played by Kirk Acevedo, who rationalized and came to the very logical conclusion about why he should be a gangster.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is a subject for another day but I saw so much of the messaging they had for us as kids backfire on my generation. I think it isn't always as clear cut as people think

Hence why I said that the takeaway is not “don’t tell stories with flawed protagonists” but “teach young impressionable people how to think critically about the media they consume.”

 

[TiQuinn]

Adults aren't the much less impressionable. Look at the 'joker' subculture, or all the people that think a movie literally called American Psycho is a handbook on how to be cool, look at how podcasts and tiktoks convince people of the absolutely dumbest things.

Yeah, there's a lot of movies and books like this from really obvious ones like "Fight Club" to stuff that can fly under the radar like "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World". And often, the main character is meant to be satirical or for the audience to identify with them but still realize how broken they are, and the latter falls completely flat. Mafia movies take the cake here.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Adults aren't the much less impressionable. Look at the 'joker' subculture, or all the people that think a movie literally called American Psycho is a handbook on how to be cool, look at how podcasts and tiktoks convince people of the absolutely dumbest things.

Heck, an large and profitable subset of American media is basically just propaganda, conspiracy theories, and self-delusion. We live in a world where people are intensely susceptible to misinformation, and it takes active guard duty for an individual to sort it out (and even then nobody's 100% effective).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, it's tough to do. Any kind of construction/point-buy kit is difficult to balance and complex ones (I'm thinking of experiences with GURPS, in college) are rife with opportunities for min-maxing.

I don't think its that hard, especially if you make it not player-facing, so as to not tempt it to be another min-maxing tool (but then, I still mostly prefer build point systems so dealing with that is just part of the gig); there's going to be some ability to focus on things a species is good at and/or shop for one with benefits you want and problems you don't care about, but that's true with any case where the species definition is not primarily cosmetic, whether pre-made or made by end-users.

I do think swapping out the standard species for setting-specific ones that fill similar niches can be a great way to customize a setting. I always cite the example of Bigfella Games' Creepy Crawl and Thousand Year Sandglass, which swapped the classic three demihumans from B/X or Labyrinth Lord for bespoke alternatives.

Yeah, but then you often run into fans of the general system who feel put upon because they expect the standard species.