D&D 5E 5e's new gender policy - is it attracting new players?

[Jester David]

I see Social Justice Warrior bandied about on the internet, and it's always sad and funny to me. The last I knew, justice and the pursuit thereof were good things. It's interesting how a term that by the casual definitions of each element could easily be applied to Ghandi, MLK, and Susan B. Anthony has been twisted into a pejorative.

Or, y'know, paladins.

Just saying.

 

[MechaPilot]

Or, y'know, paladins.

Just saying.

Well yeah, but paladins are a fine example of the fact than any group of people is going to have someone who takes what they do too far. If a person who pursues justice is a social drinker, then the paladin is a butt-chugging frat boy in constant danger of alcohol poisoning.

 

[Jester David]

Come on now. The whole point behind NPCs is to only give you enough info as it fits in the plot, and it's the DM's job to flesh out anything else. Is Leosin or Talis (from HotDQ) gay? Straight? They are whatever you want them to be. That's the whole point of playing a game with your imagination. But for 99% of gamers, sexuality never comes up or is an issue, so why devote man hours and page count to something that is easily resolved at the table by the DM and has no bearing on the adventure itself? I don't recall the sexuality or gender identification of anyone in the adventure paths.

The sheriff of Sandpoint, the town and centerpiece of the very first Paizo Adventure Path, is in a homosexual relationship with the theater owner.
But other than that, all the single NPCs are ambiguous - by design - so they can be objects of romance for any PC.

However, representation is still on their mind. It was noted by Paizo staff members (James L. Sutter IIRC) that when writing City of Strangers, diversity was on the author's mind and they worked to include lots of straight and gay characters in the book to create a representative and diverse city.
But forgot women.
It was pointed out to him too late that he'd forgotten to include female NPCs of note.

Which is the thing, if you're not careful and thinking about diversity and representation, it's easy to make all the important NPCs white males or relegate other races/ethnicities, genders, and sexualities to backrgound roles... if at all.

 

[Jester David]

Well yeah, but paladins are a fine example of the fact than any group of people is going to have someone who takes what they do too far. If a person who pursues justice is a social drinker, then the paladin is a butt-chugging frat boy in constant danger of alcohol poisoning.

Depends on your portrayals of paladins.

 

[Jester David]

Well, actually . . . . sure, the dictionary definition and traditional cultural understanding of the term "wife" refers to a female. But folks in the gay community have long chosen to use the term to refer to their spouses. Not all do of course, but many do so. I've had several gay couple friends where neither identified as female, but one was more feminine than the other and was referred to as the "wife", and the more "butch" partner as the "husband". I've seen lesbian couples do this too, from the opposite direction.

Okay, totally true. But this is more a discussion on trans, so I ignored that quirk.

 

[MechaPilot]

Depends on your portrayals of paladins.

Unfortunately, most of the paladins that I've seen have acted as if they were powered by self-righteousness instead of actual righteousness. At least a quarter of them take on a whole Judge Dredd "I am the law" mantle by asserting that they are right because they are holy warriors who are better people than the rest.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The whole point behind NPCs is to only give you enough info as it fits in the plot, and it's the DM's job to flesh out anything else. Is Leosin or Talis (from HotDQ) gay? Straight? They are whatever you want them to be. That's the whole point of playing a game with your imagination. But for 99% of gamers, sexuality never comes up or is an issue, so why devote man hours and page count to something that is easily resolved at the table by the DM and has no bearing on the adventure itself? I don't recall the sexuality or gender identification of anyone in the adventure paths.

Personally, I think that's a bit of a loss - love and relationships and questions of identity cut deep grooves into the stories we enjoy. They should be present - in all their diversity and weirdness - in the storytelling games we enjoy, too. Star Wars would be less epic without the Han/Leia thing. Harry Potter would be a paler world without the Ron/Hermoine thing. Avatar would be much less amusing without the Aang/Kitara thing.

Hell, even bald lust walks comfortably with D&D, historically and today, with lusty fey and buxom demonesses bursting out of the pages. And players frequently discuss their players' orientations and sexual proclivities (that carousing table means something!), so it's not like discussion of the topic is forbidden.

Human diversity makes for more interesting and varied stories. Why doesn't Leosin's love life come up? He's been captured by cultists for some time, is there anyone who worries about him? Anyone who is waiting for him at home? A fellow harper who hopes to catch his eye? Maybe he'd be a deeper character and less a living plot hook if he had some context like that!

Love is one of the things that inspires people to be heroic, to transcend their mortal boundaries. It would be a real tragedy if we left that entire spectrum of storytelling only in the hands of individual DMs to sprinkle in. And it might be just as big a tragedy if, when it did crop up, it was only one specific kind of love, instead of embracing great diversity of love that exists in the real world.

 

[SuperZero]

I don't recall the sexuality or gender identification of anyone in the adventure paths.

As has been pointed out a few times, that is not the case. It's not memorable because it's everywhere and it doesn't stand out.
GLBT characters could be mentioned as casually as the straight ones. It is no harder, and takes no time. None at all. Unless, maybe, you have a problem that needs to be addressed... but in that case, you need to address a problem and should be devoting time to fixing it.


I'm confused by what you're arguing for. You seem to think that inclusivity is good, but wanting it is bad unless you're Jeremy Crawford?

If a person who pursues justice is a social drinker, then the paladin is a butt-chugging frat boy in constant danger of alcohol poisoning.

Except instead of alcohol, it's justice.
...Maybe those things aren't metaphorically similar.

 

[MostlyDm]

That is an interesting clause. It certainly begs the questions "what settings are appropriate for LGBT folk," and "how is that appropriateness determined."

Uh... except I gave several examples of how that appropriateness might be determined? In the post you quoted...?

It seems like you're trying to make some sort of veiled implications about my mindset, which is... whatever. Your prerogative, but I'm not real interested in playing along.

Not all characters are appropriate for all campaigns. This is true in the various senses most wouldn't necessarily bitch about (e.g. this is a thieves' guild game, everyone should have levels of rogue, or at least a suitable background), but also in senses that people can choose to be offended by (e.g. the setting for this game is that you're in an army of the Incan Empire... so your race and gender are predetermined.)

I use those examples because I have seen both of those campaigns. They were fun. I've also been in games where there were no such restrictions. One of my favorite characters, that I'm still playing currently, is a portly old bisexual monk with a voracious appetite for physical pleasures.

My only point was: that's not appropriate for every campaign. Do you disagree?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

At least in my wholly un-researched, personal opinion: No, I don't think this policy is attracting new players. The word "attracting" indicates, to me, that the presence of this thing is not just a contributing factor for someone choosing to play, but is in fact what gets them to even consider playing in the first place--that, without the "attractor," the person in question would not even have stopped to think about D&D whatsoever, let alone the specific question "Do I want to play this?"

Advertising is a thing that attracts new players. Hosting organized play is a thing that can attract new players. Disseminating information about one's products is a thing that can attract new players. Individual proponents--such as DMs--who intentionally go out and try to find people who didn't play, but who would be happy about something in the books, can attract new players.

Including a particular line of text in the book does not and cannot, in and of itself, "attract" new players. It can motivate people who are already looking at the game to try it; it can motivate people *already* playing to keep playing; it can inspire some current players to choose to attract other people who don't play. But the mere presence or absence of particular text does not, in itself, make non-players into players.

My problem is that "attracting" feels too much like an action, and written text by itself cannot act. It can passively encourage action on the part of others, but it cannot act of itself. With all of that said, it may be that I am simply taking the question at face value, when it was meant to be sound-byte-y and interpreted in a lax way. E.g., "Does this contribute to more people choosing to play D&D?" To which my answer is a firm "maybe." Other games have been supportive of things like gender stuff for a long time already, so among people who already play TTRPGs, I don't feel like this is enough of a "splash" to make a particularly meaningful difference. Furthermore, although it's unfortunate, we have to remember that changes like this can also drive closed-minded people away. Such people will be uncommon, to be sure, but I'm not sure that they are negligible compared to the number that will decide to stick around primarily/specifically because of this particular text.

And all of the above should be considered sharply distinct from whether it is good that we have this text, and the overall slow changes in D&D that this bit of text is just one example of. I know some people--perhaps not very many, but some nonetheless--use games, particularly RPGs, as a way to "safely" explore their thoughts and feelings on tough questions because there's a natural "silo" built into playing a game. While I sincerely doubt that such people will decide to start playing D&D because of this text, people who already play D&D may feel encouraged to ask questions of themselves and think about their lives, which generally sounds like a pretty good thing to me.