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

[Mouseferatu]

I dunno, you tell me since YOU brought it up. Noone named Nazis, Hitler, WWII or the Holocaust in their statements.

To be fair, I mentioned a swastika shirt as an example.

I also stand by it, because I was using it as an example of a symbol of hate, and something potentially interpreted as threatening. That's not the same as saying "The Holocaust is identical to what's happening now." (Although I don't think it makes a huge difference to the many people who have been beaten to death for being gay, that the situation "isn't identical.")

 

[Chaosmancer]

To the question about paragraphs 1 and 4, the answer is, yes, the GM should have the sole power to override characters as he sees fit. I explained in a different post why I generally do not allow homosexual or transsexual characters, and it's not a moral argument. My entire point is that the crowd that this blurb attracts are those who say that the GM is subservient to the rulebook, when it should be the other way around.

As for paragraph 2, I ignore it, but the book would have been better without it; it feels like a way of saying, "How can we repeat the theme of 'play what you want', but with sex?" Why not say, "Your character can be sexually promiscuous, or a wife beater, or have a sword called 'Jew Killer'"? All things that are true, but not printed.

As for number three, expecting to be treated decently is not the same as expecting that everybody is going to agree with everything you do. You can do things I don't approve of and still have the reasonable expectation of being treated like a human being. Frankly, you can be a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and I'd still treat you like a decent human being at the game table. Now, if you bring your theories of race into the game, that is probably going to be a problem.

I find this a bit... logically fascinating. You mention the KKK, and how you would accept a member of that group into your circle, but then claim that bringing their idealogy into the game would be a problem. Yet, in the first paragraph and your post on your beliefs you have absolutely no problem bringing your theories on "gender politics" into the game and using your authority as the GM to enforce your view. I find it startlingly inconsistent.

This is not about morals in so far as asking "is what person A does in their everyday life moral", but it is an issue of morals for me in that "Am I treating the people I am around with decency and respect, especially if they are a group who is currently facing great hardship"

As for your questions on if A, B, or C could be a game? Sexual promiscuity has been an artifact of DnD gameplay for a long, long time. I don't remember which rule book it was, but their was a table for orgies in DnD version 2.0 I think? (Terrible with actual edition names). A Wife beater would be... very hard to swallow. Essentially I'd be giving permission for a player to attack and severly injure a helpless NPC multiple times for the purpose of... beating and killing helpless people??? I'd probably see the player doing it, confront them, and then if I was the GM I'd turn that around in a heartbeat. Wife made a demon pact and is now a warlock out to give your soul to her master. A sword named "Jew Killer" in a world without Jews.... yeah, I'd shoot that down instantly.

And here is where I feel the crux of the point is. You are comparing wanting to play an alternative gender to wanting to play a Racist, a predator, a... the sense I'm getting is as though you feel they are attacking you somehow, but in this situation you are not the Jews or the women being beat by drunk husbands. That's the other side.

I'm probably pressing the envelope here, but there was a story from... I think it was Eastern Europe somewhere, about four years ago? A LGBT rights group was protesting in front of a courthouse for marriage equality. A church group organized a counter-protest. During the event the church group turned into a mob, whipped into a frenzy, and attacked the peacefully protesting Rights group. The woman they were interviewing recounted making it back to the bus, and a man shoving his fist through the glass windows of the bus, severely lacerating his arm, attempting to grab her and pull her outside where the mob could beat her to death. He wanted to kill her, and was willing to injure himself to do so.

I... I can't imagine feeling that much hate for someone else. I can't imagine having that sort of hate directed at me. We are a lot better in Western Europe and North America than a lot of other places on the globe, but there are still reports of people being beaten, discriminated against, and all manner of horrible things. I hear some of these stories, and I don't seek them out. I could ignore them and they won't effect my daily life because I'm not a member of that minority. It is very different for people who are of that minority, who hear of people attacking people like them consistently, in public forums and spaces that should be safe.

I normally don't get into things like this, but I'm tired and had a lot to deal with today. Just felt like the time to say it.

It's as inappropriate to do it the way it was done, by waiting until the tournament starts, not privately talking to the guy, not attempting to make arrangements with him, publicly shaming him, etc.. as the shirt itself. What the judge did is indefensible. That's not how adults should behave. He's in a position of authority and abused his power to make himself feel better by aggrandizing and engaging in a public shaming punishment instead of dealing with it appropriately.

So take him aside quietly before the tournament begins and talk to him about it, explain why the shirt is likely to harm others, explain how it's fine if he will just change his shirt, and work with him to find a shirt he can wear instead. That judge doesn't know what led that guy to have those beliefs, what went into his experiences, and what impact a public shaming like that will have on him. And he should at least give the guy an opportunity to quietly defend himself and explain his reasoning as well. It's not the judge's job to publicly make an example of that guy over that kind of issue. It's not how it should have been done.

I can agree it was handled very poorly by the judge. No matter how much I could agree with the idea behind his actions, he turned the game into a political statement by not dealing with it before the game. However, hypothetically, what if he had talked to the player, told him he would have to change his shirt, and the player refused to do so? Would the judge be then okayed to act as he did? I ask because I know we don't have the full story, and I could see someone trying to make a statement by refusing to change and then the judge booting them when they saw the player had not.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

So you see it as a good thing to get rid of the "wrong people" from what is already a niche hobby? "We're driving 'those people' out, so buy our products" is a selling point?

And I am the type of GM who would ban bisexual characters unless there is a VERY good explanation why I shouldn't. This is because I have never seen an example of bisexuality or homosexuality in PCs that was not either A) trying to be stereotypically homosexual for the shock value, or B) trying to make a real-world political/moral statement.

I also generally ban transsexuality because in a world full of magic, it doesn't make sense; think your body is the wrong gender? Get magic to fix it. Problem solved.

Others have responded to you on this at least as well as I can, so I'll leave their responses and move forward.

Wasn't planning on defending it, but since you can't wait for me to do so, I will. Moral and religious disapproval of homosexuality, transsexuality, and really, most other things, is not bigotry; it is disapproval. Bigotry is declaring that a person has no value and should be driven out of a city, job, or the role playing community. Believe it or not, not everybody who says homosexuality is wrong is acting out of hate. Most aren't.

Further, transsexuality is, ultimately, a religious claim; it is based on the gnostic assertion that the mind and spirit are superior to the physical world, and that the physical world is wrong when they are in conflict. I do not believe that, and I will not act as though I do.

The role-playing community is full of people of many different views on many different things. To declare openly that you support changing the demographics so that only "the right people" play in the hobby, as the actual bigotry.

Thank you.

Everyone who says homosexuality is wrong is acting out of hate, out of discrimination, out of a desire to treat certain people's lives and loves and existence as worth less than those of others, full stop. They lean on "morals" or religion or any number of other excuses to justify their desire to discriminate - to disapprove not of specific actions but of the lives of others - to try to make themselves immune to criticism for it, but they are bigots.

I know this because I am, in addition to a lesbian and a transgender woman, also a Christian. I read my Bible, regularly. I grew up in the Evangelical movement, where I was expected to read Bible constantly. I can say this without hesitation: There is no one, not one person, who does not read the Bible and, consciously or not, separate the things we are expected to follow from those we are not, and, more than that, separate the things that are required of us in order to be virtuous and Godly from the things which are morally abhorrent to us, yet demanded by God or God's prophets of God's followers. We read the Bible and apply our experience of the world around us, our own sense of what is right and what is wrong, and, honestly, what we can just assemble the energy to approve or disapprove of. Thou shalt not kill? Great, let's follow that one. Ban on mixed fabrics and eating crawfish? I came from an Evangelical church in southeast Louisiana; that went right out the window. Stone your children to death and force women to marry their rapists? Right there in the Law, but the vast bulk of Christians - even those who violently oppose gay rights - would look at someone who attempted to make policy of those commands as monsters.

We pick and choose. We all do. We all build our own moral and ethical frameworks, based on our surroundings and our own consciences. Which means that those who hate homosexuals, those who campaign to keep children in the foster system rather than allow them to be adopted by loving gay couples, those who violate court orders to deny people who have loved each other for decades the dignity and recognition of marriage, those who would tie a gay man to the back of a truck and drag him through the streets or hang him from a tree, those who would stand up behind a pulpit and call simple all-giving Christ-like love sin, those people choose to believe that. Their religion does not compel it from them, God does not compel it from them. You have chosen to discriminate, and I will not have you blaming my God for your choice.

As for being transgender being Gnostic... I'm neurologically female. The state of being transgender might be spiritual, but it's definitely epigenetic. I don't need to make a religious claim to justify my gender identity; it is written in my body at least as much as in my spirit.

 

[Sunseeker]

To be fair, I mentioned a swastika shirt as an example.

I also stand by it, because I was using it as an example of a symbol of hate, and something potentially interpreted as threatening. That's not the same as saying "The Holocaust is identical to what's happening now." (Although I don't think it makes a huge difference to the many people who have been beaten to death for being gay, that the situation "isn't identical.")

True. but you weren't making a comparison, ie: anti-homosexual marriage=nazis. You were saying that most people have no problem with things we find offensive being removed, clearly demonstrating that whether or not someone is offended is defined by the offended and adjudicated by an official, not by the offender.

 

[Celebrim]

If there was a simple, easily defined bar, you'd already see it in the legalese on many conventions and other such events. There isn't. A lot of it is always going to be up to individual judgment, and not everyone's going to agree.

Oh. I see. So the standard is just whatever the judge dislikes? Anything the judge takes exception to, that's the bar?

The fact that acceptance and safety cannot always be encouraged perfectly or consistently doesn't mean we shouldn't make the attempt.

Ok. So, apparently having particular Bible verses mentioned on your t-shirt is sufficient to meet the bar. Note, that you've also already done some wiggling here. The standard the judge set was not "change or leave". You've already walked that back. The standard the judge set is no bigots here. Are you or you not walking back your former defense of the judge?

But anyway, assuming you are not, suppose at a tournament someone shows up with a T-Shirt that reads, "Assembly of God Annual Youth Convention 2013 - "For we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us." Now, you (the judge) are ok with that shirt, presumably. But the theoretical gay guy who was feeling threatened comes up to you and says, "Errr... that bigot over there in the T-Shirt makes me feel really threatened." And, maybe you aren't as savvy as the first judge (you did have to look it up), and you go, "What? I don't understand." And he says, "Well, he's a religious fundamentalist. He takes a literal reading of the Bible, and I happen to know that they recently made a public stand that marriage is between a man and a woman. He's literally believes I deserve to die because I'm gay, and he scares me." So the judge goes over and says, "Say, do you believe that the Bible is the literal word of God?" And the guy says, "Yes. I do." And the judge says, "So, you believe Romans 1:28-32 is literally true then?" And the guy says, "Well, yes. I believe all scripture is the inspired word of God." And the judge says, "And you believe marriage should only be between a man and a woman." And the guy says, "Yes, of course. That's what the Bible says."

And the gay guy is standing there watching you. So now what?

 

[Mouseferatu]

True. but you weren't making a comparison, ie: anti-homosexual marriage=nazis. You were saying that most people have no problem with things we find offensive being removed, clearly demonstrating that whether or not someone is offended is defined by the offended and adjudicated by an official, not by the offender.

I appreciate that you got that. I hope most everyone else did, too.

 

[Shasarak]

I dunno, you tell me since YOU brought it up. Noone named Nazis, Hitler, WWII or the Holocaust in their statements. The line you quoted said "the past". There is far, far more abuse of homosexuals in recent western history than the Holocaust. Does "the past" include the Holocaust? Yes it does. It also includes Witch Burnings and the Spanish Inquisition (both of which often targeted "immoral" sexual acts). As we as things just as Harvey Milk and that Matthew kid out here in Wyoming.

Looks like it was Mouseferatu used it as an example.

But really it is not appropriate to compare a t-shirt to real atrocities.

WOTC likely should have a dress code for participants. But its facetious to say everyone needs to wear a white shirt. WOTC has a legal right to control the message their tournaments send. They are just as much within their rights to boot people for wearing red as they are to boot people for wearing heavy metal T-shirts. It's a private tournament on private property. There's no freedom of speech there. The exact same rules apply there as they do here. We're allowed to do exactly as much as the property owner allows us to.

In any case, this whole "issue" is also a red herring.

It is not facetious, it is called being fair and equal since, as you point out, you do not get to decide what is upsetting to me as long as there is a bigoted Judge who can miss use his authority it is better just to avoid the whole issue.

 

[Mistwell]

However, hypothetically, what if he had talked to the player, told him he would have to change his shirt, and the player refused to do so? Would the judge be then okayed to act as he did? I ask because I know we don't have the full story, and I could see someone trying to make a statement by refusing to change and then the judge booting them when they saw the player had not.

If you explain, and they have an opportunity to respond, and the judge listens and decides the shirt remains inappropriate but the player chooses to not change their shirt, then they can't play. And sure, if the player was making a spectacle of themselves and loudly publicly refuses to change, then I think it's fair game to more aggressively eject them.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Oh. I see. So the standard is just whatever the judge dislikes? Anything the judge takes exception to, that's the bar?

Neither what I said nor what I meant. I specifically said "some." I also thought it was clear that I was implying "individual judgment following certain broad but set guidelines," but apparently not. So I'm saying it now.

Note, that you've also already done some wiggling here. The standard the judge set was not "change or leave". You've already walked that back. The standard the judge set is no bigots here. Are you or you not walking back your former defense of the judge?

In my "former defense," I also said the judge should probably have asked the shirt be changed or removed first.

I also have zero interest in discussing more and more specific corner cases. You're trying to drill down and pin me to a detail that I've already mentioned is tricky, shifting, and often context-specific. Guess what? If it wasn't, we wouldn't need to have this conversation. The answer is "I don't know, and I haven't pretended to know." Where do you draw the line on racism or sexism or antisemitism? Those have degrees and shades of gray, too. Those have support in the holy books of various religions, too. And you know what? We're still wresting with those, too, but we've gotten a lot better about it, despite not always having hard, obviously dawn lines. The same will happen with homophobia, and I'm simply not going to get caught up in the idea that this time we have to draw rigid, always-applicable rules just because some people demand them.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Looks like it was Mouseferatu used it as an example.

But really it is not appropriate to compare a t-shirt to real atrocities.

I wasn't. I was comparing a tee-shirt to a tee-shirt, and real threats to real threats.

I'm Jewish. If I see a swastika on a shirt, I am going to worry that this person is a physical threat to me. It may not be likely, but I must and will consider that it's possible.

It's the same with homophobic shirts and gay people, only violence against them is a lot more prevalent and even acceptable in many places.