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From a commercial standpoint, it's not political, it's basic economics. Also, I don't know why making a fantasy game more open, respectful of diversity, and fairer in its depiction of race and gender is such a problem. "I'm down with that dragon flying, breathing lightning, and that dude just...

I find nothing "morally" offensive about that picture (other pieces of art featured in Exalted do, however, anger me profoundly). It isn't particularly sexist either (it's exploitative, yes, but the character portrayed isn't debased or dominated by a male character). What it is, is dumb. The men...

I'd remove them completely. As long as "skills" of some sort exist, they're a needless abstraction. I understand, though, that my opinion is very far from the mainstream, and wouldn't fly for any edition of D&D.

Back in Victorian England, the social and moral mores of the era were largely dictated by men. Nowadays, in various areas and domains within the artistic milieu, we see a movement towards a more representative and inclusive image of women in "commercial art" (mainstream movies, comic books...

The problem with this idea of racially homogenous societies is that it makes no sense when you consider the practical implications of magic; scrying and teleportation makes it possible for inhabitants of different areas of the world to travel to other parts of that same world. So a wizard...

I am not a hypocrite when I say I want fewer pieces of cheesecake art in D&D books. I am not a bigot out to put women in garb that covers them from the top of their heads down to their ankles. What I'm saying (and I believe others in this thread and others like this one across the internet are...

I'd argue it's possible to include those elements as long as they are portrayed as the ugly, repulsive things that they are, and that those who perform such acts or partake in those activities be considered antagonist as a base setting assumption.

No, it's not. If you had seen the inside of a gym in the past decade, you'd know that women can develop pretty much the same strength that men can. They just won't develop the same muscle size. The SOLE reason more women (who want to train or lose weight) don't hit the weight room as hard as...

I could see it working. If you assume Charisma symbolizes strength of personnality, effects that go against your internal view of yourself could target it. On the other hand, if Wisdom reflects your capacity to correctly perceive the world around you, effects that alter or dull this could target...

Sorry about that, we don't have those stores in Quebec and I only checked my facts after the... uh fact. Still, I feel my point stands because I doubt a boycott by a handful of overzealous bigots caused a major retailer to just fail.

Exactly. From a pure economics perspective, adding diversity will not hurt your product. And I'll add that those who do get offended and take their money elsewhere, well you don't want them as part of your clientele to begin with.

Actually, there was a gay character in at least one D&D video game (the Temple of Elemental Evil one, if I'm not mistaken), and same-sex romances were actually discussed as a possibility for Baldur's Gate 2's plot (again, maybe I'm remembering wrong). So it's not like WotC is afraid of touching...

The barbarian in your exemple isn't sexualized because he is a male power-fantasy insert, not something a girl gets off on. If he was a female idealized man, he wouldn't look like what you'd expect. (There was a comic related to this, dealing with the portrayal of superheroes, but I can't find...

No, it isn't. The world's population is roughly 50-50% male-female, the fictional universe in which D&D games exist have about the same demographics, so it's perfectly representative of reality to use both pronouns. It is when you consider that this is a fantasy world populated by orcs, ogres...

It's not a question of "playstyle". In a game where you the player only have a limited number of choices when it comes to how you can interpret your character mechanically, it's important that the text allows you to understand the impact a specific choice is going to have. Whether you want...

I don't think anybody has any problem with suboptimal options being included in a rules system, I sure don't. I just want those options to be clearly labeled as such so that no player is tricked into taking it.

When the designers came out and stated that that was what they were basing their design efforts on, I knew the game was in trouble. Seriously, how hard is it to understand that "feel" isn't something that can be replicated; it's a wholly subjective concept. The "feel" of D&D, to me, is...

Actually, I'll argue it's more organic than the nine levels of spells (10 if you consider cantrips a spell level) that we got in 3.X (9 and 7 back in previous editions). We're just used to say "oh yeah, meteor swarm, totally a 9th level spell". To everybody outside the hobby, that makes zero...

It's not about having weaknesses or not, it's about unknowingly handicapping yourself by making a choice that looks good, but really isn't (see toughness, very, very situational or PF prone shooter, absolutely useless). In the end, all characters should have weaknesses, there's a reason RPGs...

Easy, you either: 1) Use the 20 (or 30, whatever) levels of the game and distribute spells among those, adding granularity and gauging more easily the power at each level. 2) Silo out utility spells (haste) from the attack spells (fireball) so that the selection of one does not limit the...