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

[Tia Nadiezja]

Yep, yep. That's basically what I was getting at: That people need to realize doing it that way is still a choice. There is no "neutral default." There is no "I'm leaving race or sexuality out of this" option. Choosing to make a character straight (or white, or whatever) isn't leaving those aspects out; it's just selecting the majority option.

Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing; there are plenty of reason to make a character straight, white, etc. But it's still a choice, and it requires no more and no less justification than any other, different choice.

Assuming that the audience is dead, those things can be left out, but they have to actively be left out, and the audience will almost always bring their assumptions to it and apply them to the work.

The Harry Potter books never define Hermione Granger's ethnicity, but the vast bulk of the audience reads her as white. If romantic and sexual relationships are never brought up in any way - if no one has a wife, a husband, a fiancee, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, any sort of romantic or sexual relationship at all - sexual orientation is left entirely off the table. The moment the King has a Queen, though, you've made a choice, and even if there is no Queen, the audience will make an assumption.

The audience is not dead (though I tend to work on literary analysis from the idea of the author being dead), but the author can at least try not to make a decision. That's in and of itself is a positive choice and an effort, though.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, I can't speak for other authors, but I tend to write for the living. The dead don't pay for books.

(Although these days, many of the living don't either... *grumble*)

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Well, I can't speak for other authors, but I tend to write for the living. The dead don't pay for books.

(Although these days, many of the living don't either... *grumble*)

Eh, I was just spinning mental wheels last post. A small mental exercise... "If I wanted to not make a decision about my character's race/sex/orientation/whatever, how would I do that?"

 

[Mouseferatu]

Eh, I was just spinning mental wheels last post. A small mental exercise... "If I wanted to not make a decision about my character's race/sex/orientation/whatever, how would I do that?"

Oh, I got that. I was just being funny with it.

Well, "funny."

 

[Mouseferatu]

And just to be entirely clear...

I don't pretend to have this down perfectly, myself. I'm a white, mostly straight male. Learning not to default to that in my creative thinking, with my characters (both gaming and fiction) has been an ongoing process. My more recent works are much more inclusive than my early works, and I still have a ways to go before I've found a balance I'm happy with.

This isn't easy. I don't pretend it is. But I've come to know enough people--queer, PoC, trans, etc.--to recognize that expanding our understanding, and our creative efforts, is necessary and it's the right thing to do. And I believe it also makes us better gamers, writers, and people in the process.

 

[Hussar]

Let's walk back to the example for a moment shall we?

The only thing we know for facts are that the Magic judge asked someone to leave due to a politically charged slogan on his t-shirt. We have no other facts.

Now, there are all sorts of things that might have happened here. Maybe no one complained about the shirt until near the time that play was beginning - Magic tournaments usually have lots of people kind of milling about and it's entirely possible that the offended person didn't see the shirt until everyone started gravitating towards the tables, went and complained, and then the judge acted. It's possible that the judge had asked the guy previously to turn his shirt inside out and the guy didn't do so. It's possible that the guy got lippy with the judge and got booted for it. There's a huge number of possibilities here, including several scenarios where the judge was in the wrong.

That being said, I'm not really all that worried about someone getting booted from a fun function for wearing a politically charged and contentious t-shirt. Regardless of what the shirt says to be honest. A Magic tournament is hardly a political venue and, AFAIC, the only reason to wear a shirt like that at a venue like that is to cause drama. To put other players off their game, regardless of whether or not they are gay or straight or whatever their political views. Could it have been handled better? Maybe. Again, I'd like to know a LOT more facts than the single paragraph say so of one anonymous poster on a website. I'm certainly not going to flat out condemn the judge for ejecting this guy, just because he ejected him.

 

[Shasarak]

My objective here has not been, at any time, to call out or judge any particular person for anything regarding their backgrounds (which I don't know) or their inner thoughts (which are beyond me). If I've criticized, it's been the arguments presented and the way people make them - and yes, I think Sharsharak's argument (such as it was) was flippant and arrogant and completely without humility in the face of history.

Yeah, it is a flippant argument about a flippant subject regarding a Bigot going off at someones T-shirt while everyone was just trying to play a card game.

And interrupting a card game is serious business.

 

[aramis erak]

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"

Disapproving of one's choices isn't the same as hated of that same person.

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).

the table is buried in the AD&D 1E DMG. I've never seen it elsewhere, and didn't find it until someone gave me a page reference 5 years ago, despite my having played D&D since 1981 off and on.

It's never factored into my games. Promiscuity has always been a no-go at my table, except in Pendragon... where it can easily be mechanically handled with a fade to black and a die roll.

In fact, most of the people I've played with haven't had promiscuous characters.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Disapproving of one's choices isn't the same as hated of that same person.

It's hard to justify that in the face of the fact that you're asking people to give up, completely, the idea of family, love, and sex, forever, to feed your entirely unfounded view of morality.

the table is buried in the AD&D 1E DMG. I've never seen it elsewhere, and didn't find it until someone gave me a page reference 5 years ago, despite my having played D&D since 1981 off and on.

It's never factored into my games. Promiscuity has always been a no-go at my table, except in Pendragon... where it can easily be mechanically handled with a fade to black and a die roll.

In fact, most of the people I've played with haven't had promiscuous characters.

Wait... you haven't had characters with a lover in every port? Any heroes who follow up successful heroics with a roll in the hay with a lusty tavern wench or well-built smith's apprentice? You haven't had characters who go through relationships like Romeo, at one moment declaring true and undying love and the next rushing off after a subsequent pretty face of compatible species and gender? No garou in Werewolf availing themselves of the local kinfolk population, no vampires... Vampire is about sex. No vampires at all? No demons of Lust or angels of Creation engaging in good old-fashioned orgies in In Nomine, no... any concept at all... in the Game of Thrones RPG?

What games are you playing?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Wait... you haven't had characters with a lover in every port? Any heroes who follow up successful heroics with a roll in the hay with a lusty tavern wench or well-built smith's apprentice? You haven't had characters who go through relationships like Romeo, at one moment declaring true and undying love and the next rushing off after a subsequent pretty face of compatible species and gender? No garou in Werewolf availing themselves of the local kinfolk population, no vampires... Vampire is about sex. No vampires at all? No demons of Lust or angels of Creation engaging in good old-fashioned orgies in In Nomine, no... any concept at all... in the Game of Thrones RPG?

What games are you playing?

Not my place to answer, but in the spirit of laughter, there are still games of chaste knights, who blush when their lover tosses their handkerchief and would say it is scandalous to hold hands. Or perhaps a lover who is far away and pined for every night for they are a continent and a sacred duty away. Perhaps they are merely a lowly peasant, seeking to gain wealth and nobility to make themselves worthy of a far-away noble or royal to whom they have pledged their undying love and devotion.

Or, you know, there are goblins in the mines that need killing. Go kill them and we'll give you money so you can buy armor and go kill those gnolls in the woods so we can give you money for horse so you can ride out to the city and kill those other guys, only discover the true culprit is a dragon that needs killing.