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

[Hussar]

Which tends to imply that you're the one who can't keep sexuality/sexual-identity out, because I certainly have had games where gender was never a plot component.

No rescuing a princess? None of the NPC's had significant others, ever? Note, he did include sexuality or gender in that, so, one or the other. Your PC's were all genderless individuals who never once made any sort of romantic comment (of varying levels of maturity) towards an NPC? No half-whatever characters? It's pretty hard to escape any reference to gender and/or sexuality in an entire campaign.

 

[mrm1138]

Which tends to imply that you're the one who can't keep sexuality/sexual-identity out, because I certainly have had games where gender was never a plot component.

Were the PCs sexless mannequins?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

A good article on the subject can be found here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/anne-theriault-/mens-rights-movement_b_5049999.html

This is emphatically not a good article on the subject. It is on practically every level an object lesson in how not to write. It's full of fiery rhetoric, progressive buzzphrases, and easy generalizations, but gives no names, quotations, or any other specifics that might actually be persuasive to a layperson -- it's written entirely to preach to the choir, and like a lot of choir-preaching just comes across as nasty and offputting. It is, in short, shooting its own case in the foot. Try this instead: Misogyny: The Sites. No nastiness needed, just facts.

 

[seebs]

Which tends to imply that you're the one who can't keep sexuality/sexual-identity out, because I certainly have had games where gender was never a plot component.

Gender is not sexuality or sexual identity. Gender is just the question of whether people are male or female. I don't know that I've ever seen a game where the question of whether a character was male or female was never addressed at all.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I'd like to point out that the most historically accurate RPG I won, "Pendragon", even recommends doing this when it comes to female PCs.

What a winning typo.

But saying "you're a girl, and this club is no girls allowed" is just too close to our own recent history for it to be something I want to see reflected at my table. Ever.

This seems to be the crux of the issue: are you just saying how you would run your table, or are recommending/requesting/insisting that all tables run the same way?

(as a side note, I had a player want to be an awakened bear recently. I inititally said "no" because it seemed silly, but changed my mind, used half-orc statistics, and went from there. And then, because I didn't want every second NPC reacting to it, decided that a lot of animals had been awakened recently, and that the PC was far from unique. And suddenly, huge doors have opened in my campaign world. Good times).

Yeah, sometimes it's remarkable how the "Say Yes" DMing philosophy can pay off. It's almost like you're cheating. You're getting your players to do half the work for you, and like it!

 

[Rygar]

I dunno how old these kids are. Youngest I've had in D&D games with us is 9, and by 9 she thought it was important to have backstory ideas about characters because that was part of what made the game fun.



Well, yes, the character needs a backstory to be an Actual Person. It's a roleplaying game. I'm fine with "no sexuality", but I'm not sure how I could make sense of a world in which absolutely no one has romantic relationships even off-camera.

GM is right, there isn't any requirement for romance or sexuality in any form of D&D. D&D is expressly designed such that "Roleplaying" is entirely optional and not a core component of the game. You can play an entire game of D&D without ever encountering an NPC or interacting with an NPC in any way beyond single statements that direct you to the next dungeon like "Go get a Dragonorb" and not a single rule would be violated.

Just because you can do something in an RPG doesn't mean you have to do it, or that everyone does it. I've seen more than a few games where no one is interested in roleplaying, and this has been prevelant in D&D since at least 1st edition as you can still find reviews of modules that say "If your players don't like Roleplaying then this module might not be for them", and what passed for roleplaying at that time is a great deal less involved than what many people mean today.

So it really is not necessary to address these topics in any way during a game.

 

[Sunseeker]

Gender is not sexuality or sexual identity. Gender is just the question of whether people are male or female. I don't know that I've ever seen a game where the question of whether a character was male or female was never addressed at all.

That's not correct.

Sex is whats in your pants.
Gender is a codified set of social norms attached to a specific set of genitals.
Gender identity is the assortment of social norms you attach to yourself.
Sexual orientation is what you are physically attracted to irrespective of your genitals.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

That's not correct.

Sex is whats in your pants.
Gender is a codified set of social norms attached to a specific set of genitals.
Gender identity is the assortment of social norms you attach to yourself.
Sexual orientation is what you are physically attracted to irrespective of your genitals.

...aaaand, since there are entire university departments called "Gender Studies", with big shiny buildings stuffed with full-time tenured professors and shelf after shelf of impressive-looking books, the question of what "gender" is may be just a wee bit beyond the scope of this conversation.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

So... just caught up on the thread.

It is in fact possible, if no characters (including NPCs) have any relationships at all outside "We are friends who hunt orcs, those are orcs who need hunting, that is the store where we buy things after we hunt orcs," to have a game where sexuality is entirely irrelevant. It sounds like that is the sort of game GMfPG is running with his niece and nephew; if they enjoy it, that's lovely and he should keep it up, though honestly that wouldn't have held my interest even as a kid, and it basically denies them the "roleplaying" component of "roleplaying game" as much as mechanicless relationship writing denies the "game" component.

It's also not the norm. The innkeeper's wife/husband - and his/her attractive son/daughter - is nearly as much a stock character in RPGs as the innkeeper him/herself. The moment those characters show up - the moment anyone, at all, ever, has a family - you've brought sexuality, if not sex, into your game (and, by the by, I've never once, in my entire career as a player and GM, had graphic sex be described at the table. The most I've ever seen is "They go off to a room/tent/whatever together; fade to black." That's acceptable in a PG movie. Nearly all Disney films also involve sexuality, and the vast bulk of those are G-rated - the moment we know it's Beauty being courted by the Beast, or Lady eating spaghetti with the Tramp, or Robin gives a longing fox-look toward Marian, or Prince Charming kisses Sleeping Beauty... guess what? We're talking about heterosexuality). I'd be astounded if a campaign that featured any amount of roleplaying, at all, has ever run more than two sessions without that.

 

[Lanefan]

GM is right, there isn't any requirement for romance or sexuality in any form of D&D. D&D is expressly designed such that "Roleplaying" is entirely optional and not a core component of the game.

If so, that's a big design-philosophy change from 1e days where the PH specifically tells the player: "...you become Falstaff the Fighter...you interact with your fellow role players...{e}ach of you will become an artful thespian as time goes by...". (AD&D PH, page 7)

You can play an entire game of D&D without ever encountering an NPC or interacting with an NPC in any way beyond single statements that direct you to the next dungeon like "Go get a Dragonorb" and not a single rule would be violated.

You can, but why ever would you want to?

Just because you can do something in an RPG doesn't mean you have to do it, or that everyone does it. I've seen more than a few games where no one is interested in roleplaying,

Which at face value makes no sense at all, as D&D is at its heart a role-playing game.

and this has been prevelant in D&D since at least 1st edition as you can still find reviews of modules that say "If your players don't like Roleplaying then this module might not be for them", and what passed for roleplaying at that time is a great deal less involved than what many people mean today.

Fair enough; some written adventure modules expect a lot more role-played interaction than others. It's also a warning to the DM that she'd better be on her toes and ready for such if she decides to run that adventure.

However, and very important: not all role-playing involves NPCs. You're also role-playing every time you talk to another party member. As combat starts, all it takes is a simple yell of "Go left, I've got these!" and you've drifted into - horrors! - role-playing.

So it really is not necessary to address these topics in any way during a game.

It's not necessary to force them into the game where they wouldn't otherwise make sense; that would be just another (mild) form of railroading. But by the same token if they come up as a consequence of the natural run of play there's no need to squash them or censor them.

Lan-"then again, I can't see myself ever allowing anyone under the age of about 12 at my table in the first place"-efan