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

[GMforPowergamers]

If you can say "my wife" within earshot of your two small kids and it's not an issue, I don't quite get why Hypothetical Lesbian Gamer Janelle would be forbidden from saying that.

I don't know either... in fact an old friend did mary his boyfriend and we call them husbands... I don't know what part of "no sex contact in game" you aren't getting. DOn't make your PC hit on anyone...npc, or pc... it is not exceptable ever in those games... that's it you made up this stupid 'wife/husband' rule not me... I said no talking about sex or gender at the table...

I mean, you probably wouldn't go into graphic detail about turgid members and gimp masks or whatever and Janelle probably shouldn't either, but there's a big gap between "Hey, kids, my wife and I <blank> our <whatits> and <boing!> our <doohickeys> and she really likes it when we <ooooh>," and "My wife was drivin' me bananas about the dishes last night so I didn't get to bake the cookies for the group like I said I would SORRY."

and there we have "Exceptable" and "Non exceptable" in fact since me and my brother in law joke about 'crazy mommy' you (you being male or female) jokeing about a crazy wife would fit right in... but no talking about sex or gender...

Your PC is straight, your PC is gay your PC is trans your PC is other... Keep it to your self at a table with these kids...

Neither of my gaming groups includes small kids within earshot, and I know that sexual innuendo and dirty jokes are a part of both my in-person group which is mostly gay men AND my online group which I think is all straight guys.

go back and reread my first post it lists 3 groups... and three different table edicts on the subject...

Thinking about it, this....may be because both groups are mostly guys, though the former includes a (straight) woman and the latter sometimes includes a straight woman. I kind of wonder now if both have had the same thought: "allright, guys, stop talking about wangs for like 30 seconds, okay? I wanna kill some goblins."

Though some of my largely female groups have been known to be pretty raunchy, too...

...maybe the kids are the deciding factor.

in my 3 examples... yes the kids are the deciding factor.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm pretty sure I'm hearing what you're saying. If there's kids around, keep explicit sex talk and raunch out of the game. As a father myself, I'm totally with you.

The lingering question is whether identifying your character as having a sexual preference, any preference, bring too much sex talk into a game with kids? Since there's an assumed default of "straight", a player might figure it's important to bring up their character as non-straight just to make that a point of differentiation. Is that too far in a game with kids, because there's little point to be talking about sexual orientation at all during a D&D game?

it depends on how you handle it... if you go to the brothel after the dungeon then NO NOT EXCEPTABLE>>>GAY OR STRAIGHT if you mention wanting to start a relationship in an adult manor that goes any deeper then a kids movie NO NOT EXCEPTABLE GAY OR STRAIGHT if you make a one off joke about running away on your adventure to get away from your nagging S.O you skirted the line and just let it go at that (GAY OR STRAIGHT)

 

[seebs]

yea, and the fact that at least my neice for sure doesn't under stand that (God I don't know how much my nephew does or doesn't understand yet) means it goes un mentioned...

You just mentioned it. That's the point. You are mentioning sexual relationships. You are not talking about them being sexual, but then, neither do the gay people, in general. If the amount of mentioning you just did is okay, then the amount of mentioning I've ever seen of gay or trans people's love lives should be okay too. If it's not, well, then it sure is odd that you didn't even notice that you were doing it, exactly as I said.

it's almost like you think they know there parents do in there bed at night, and it's ok to talk about it with little kids...

Well, honestly? I know at least five people who were raped for years because no one was willing to tell them enough about sex for them to realize that what was happening was okay, so yeah, I would rather people at least give kids some kind of brief overview of the topic.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You just mentioned it. That's the point. You are mentioning sexual relationships. You are not talking about them being sexual, but then, neither do the gay people, in general. If the amount of mentioning you just did is okay, then the amount of mentioning I've ever seen of gay or trans people's love lives should be okay too. If it's not, well, then it sure is odd that you didn't even notice that you were doing it, exactly as I said.

stop trying to win and read what I write.... There is 0 talk about sex or gender in m

Well, honestly? I know at least five people who were raped for years because no one was willing to tell them enough about sex for them to realize that what was happening was okay, so yeah, I would rather people at least give kids some kind of brief overview of the topic.

BS if you knew 5 people who were raped you wouldn't throw it around to win an argument... that is a very touchy topic... and one you should be WAY less cavaler about throwing around. Child endanger ment and rape are totally not what we are talking about we are talking about a game of make belive with my neice and nephew...

by the way this is WHY I wont talk about it with them... look where you went...

 

[TwoSix]

You just mentioned it. That's the point. You are mentioning sexual relationships. You are not talking about them being sexual, but then, neither do the gay people, in general. If the amount of mentioning you just did is okay, then the amount of mentioning I've ever seen of gay or trans people's love lives should be okay too. If it's not, well, then it sure is odd that you didn't even notice that you were doing it, exactly as I said.

I'm really straining to see where you're having a disagreement with [MENTION=67338]GMforPowergamers[/MENTION]. He basically said "Don't talk about sex at the gaming table with kids." You're extrapolating a problem with mentioning "My character's husband or wife" that he's explicitly said he doesn't have.

Well, honestly? I know at least five people who were raped for years because no one was willing to tell them enough about sex for them to realize that what was happening was okay, so yeah, I would rather people at least give kids some kind of brief overview of the topic.

That's a fairly divisive topic. I know many people who fall on both sides of the "give the kids the talk early" divide who I think are good parents.

 

[seebs]

I don't care what you belive... if you mention sex in a game with my 6 and 8 year olds I will boot your butt...gay or straight.

But the example you gave of a gay character as "mentioning sex" wasn't any more of a mention of sex than what you are doing every time you refer to your "brother-in-law" or "kids".

I call BS I have never seen anyone who 'makes a passing mention of a significant other' mattering... I don't care if you say "My boyfriend would love this game" or "My girlfriend would love this game" in passing... But if your character is trying to mack it with a guy,girl, or other (DO mindlayers have gender) you will be asked to leave...

Happens all the time. Someone mentions a husband, they're a dude, someone else says "hey, let's not talk about sexual orientations here".

You just made this bias up... I said from the start no double standard...

I know you said it. I believe that you are also sincere. However, that is not how human brains work. Humans notice unusual things but not commonplace things. I've been watching people do this for years. If they believe me to be male, and I refer to a "wife", they don't notice that I said anything that might imply something about orientation, but if I say "husband", they notice.

because you want an excuse to be a jekr...

No. I don't need excuses if I want to be a jerk! However, I don't believe this thing because I've never seen it be actually true, and I've often seen people say it, and clearly sincerely believe it, but at the same time their actions prove that it's not true.

except no one cares who your dateing... they care that you keep details out of ear shot of 2 young kids... details about gay or straight... they are too young for it.

Except that, in reality, if I mention a same-sex partner, people say I shouldn't talk about that near kids, while if I say the exact same things about an opposite-sex partner, they don't notice. When I mention the same-sex partner, they think "I just heard something about sexuality".

guess what you make a false comparison... I don't care who you like who you kiss or when...just don't talk to a kid about it for god sake...

As noted, "protecting" the innocence of kids is a disasterously bad strategy. Kids are really good at discarding information they don't care about, and generally if they can ask the question, they can handle the answer.

double standards go both ways... if I wont let someone play "Randy the ROgue" and let them seduce and woa woman and make off hand remarks about there money going to wenches... why should I let someone play "Gary the Gay" and go off about making it with guys and likeing the kings butt?

No one suggested that you ought to. But what usually happens is that people will let someone say their character is married, but if the partner is same-sex, they suddenly declare that this is Exposing Kids To Sexuality.

Maybe you really don't do that, but the fact is, the level of mentioning of relationships you did when describing your table is something that I have frequently seen people react to with hostility and assertions that it is "shoving your sexuality in other people's faces".

 

[evilbob]

I feel like transgender identity is a modern thing, and not really a good fit for the kind of fantasy games that people tend to associate with D&D. It's not incompatible or anything, just not really something that should be focused on any more than a characters sexuality in general.

That said, WotC has done a pretty good job of using a writing style that's not male-oriented since they took over the brand. Go read the 3e books and you'll see a very healthy (probably half) number of chapters written using female pronouns, so it's obvious they were trying to broaden the audience even going back that far.

Beyond that, I just don't see the point in trying to force every real-world current event issue into an RPG game like D&D.

Haven't read all 51 pages because I think the 2nd post sums up some of the points that are missed fairly well. This is an honest, well-intentioned post that is actually a little off-base and accidentally becomes very insulting.

First: being transgender is something that has happened since people were people. Sometimes cultures handled it well, sometimes poorly. We're in a "poorly" trend at the moment, which is why people think that maybe it hasn't always been. We're getting better, though.

Second, just because they put "her" about half the time isn't "a good job," that's "less than the bare minimum." Unfortunately the bare minimum is so far above what the last ~40 years of D&D have been, it certainly looks like big strides. All that to say: there is a long, long way to go. Even the 5.0 PHB - which again, makes HUGE STRIDES - has a long, long way to go.

Third, "force every real-world current event issue into an RPG game" - really? This is the point at which a well-intentioned comment becomes offensive, and one may want to think carefully about why it would be offensive to say something like this. What if I told you that you, personally, are just a "political" issue and you probably shouldn't play D&D because it's not for people like you and by simply existing you're messing up my game? That's pretty insulting, right? That's basically what that quoted line means.

Hopefully the rest of these 51 pages got better because this is where I stopped reading.

 

[seebs]

BS if you knew 5 people who were raped you wouldn't throw it around to win an argument... that is a very touchy topic...

I spend a lot of my time talking to survivors. It's not a "touchy" topic for me. It's a part of daily life that I keep in mind when dealing with a lot of people I know. But I care more about helping them recover and survive than I do about other people's comfort levels, so instead of treating it like a super-dark horrible thing that must never be mentioned, I treat it like a thing which is part of the world and we have to deal with it sometimes.

and one you should be WAY less cavaler about throwing around. Child endanger ment and rape are totally not what we are talking about we are talking about a game of make belive with my neice and nephew...

You asked whether I think it's okay to tell kids things about sex. My answer is "failure to do so is child endangerment". You don't have to agree with this answer, but accusing me of making it up is sort of spectacularly inappropriate.

If you'd like, I can get a bunch of the people to send you detailed accounts, just so you can rest assured that I wasn't making it up. We all know how important it is to provide adequate proof of victimization to random strangers so they don't have to be mad at you for making it up.

 

[seebs]

I'm really straining to see where you're having a disagreement with [MENTION=67338]GMforPowergamers[/MENTION]. He basically said "Don't talk about sex at the gaming table with kids." You're extrapolating a problem with mentioning "My character's husband or wife" that he's explicitly said he doesn't have.

That is because I have observed that in reality, people often say exactly what GMforPowergamers is saying, but then when an actual person mentions a spouse, suddenly it turns out that merely mentioning being gay is "discussing sexuality and inappropriate for kids". And they always say exactly what GMfPG is saying, but then it sometimes (not always!) turns out to be something else entirely.

And that something else is the thing that has made this be an issue; I've seen too many people turned away from gaming groups for merely mentioning in passing a boyfriend or husband.

 

[seebs]

If you are playing a woman, just play a woman... if she used to be or was born a guy that has to stay in your head if you are playing with my neice and nephew...

Why? That's not explicit sexuality. It's no more of a gender claim than "Bob is male" or "Mary is female" is. Why would it be okay to claim that a character is a woman, but not that a character is a trans woman? What's the difference that makes one of them okay and one not okay?