D&D 5E celebrating pride and lgbtq+ players 2021

[imagineGod]

You’ve never had married NPCs? NPCs with male and female parents? An elderly couple running a tavern? Featured a wedding? Had a kingdom ruled by a king and queen? In 40 years?

Well, good for you. I guess, but that does make you very much an outlier.

No exactly impossible but very improbable.

Quite regularly, I also run hack-n-slash delves into the caves of many levels for loot and leveling up.

But obviously, it is impossible to always run those sort of arcade-style adventures for everyone. Some games actively focus on family play, the Adventure in Middle Earth Bree-land scenarios are very rustic farming family type ( I remember those because they were boring).

So, no, 40 years is not plausible to avoid human relationship in every D&D session but not totally impossible.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, FR is probably the single most adult setting, not for homosexuality, but for all the brothels, sex cults/gods, violence, torture, cannibalism, etc..., it's alot more spicy then other D&D settings and especially MtG settings. Lots of fun, but it makes it extremely funny that FR is the setting they market to families.

Eberron has cannibalism/violence/torture implied to the same level as the FR doesn't it? Maybe we're talking older FR products where it was explicit not implied. Pathfinder seemed to be slightly more grim than the FR too.

I find this incredibly hard to believe.

Quite. I think this is more reflective of the perceptions and thinking of the poster in question, rather than any kind of reality, at least as it pertains to other people's characters, which he explicitly included in this claim. I suspect if you asked the other players in the campaigns you'd get very different answers.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

Really. Like someone reported it.

Yes, and like some other words for people, when used by people outside the community, it is done so as a dismissive and derisive thing. Add on how tone is lost in text, and how on a site like this, nobody knows whether you are LGBTQ+... you can perhaps realize the issue.

Of course I realize it NOW
After learning some a-holes use derogatorily
Ironically, I was originally going to go with "queer" but opted not to because I didn't want to accidentally offend anyone

 

[BookTenTiger]

I don't get it.

In 40 years of playing D&D I can never remember any characters with any kind of sexual preference.

I have never played a heterosexual character, I have never played a bisexual character, I have never played a homosexual character, I have never played a cisgender character, I have never played a transgender character. For the most part I have not DMed characters that fall into those buckets, labels and stereotypes, nor can I remember other players with such characters.

This is not a "thing" in the games I play and essentially every character I have ever played has been asexual with no defined sexual preference. To date, they have all had an identified a gender. So not binary, but not necessarily cisgender either. There were male characters and female characters, but I never put any effort into making them cis or trans and to be honest I don't know what the difference would be if I did. How is a cisgender Tiefling woman different than a transgender Tiefling woman. They are a female Tiefling regardless! To be clear I have played female characters with beards (mostly dwarves), and men who could not grow facial hair (mostly elves). I have played weak and small men, strong and huge women and vice versa. Were they cis or trans? I have no idea and I was the one who created and played them!

I just don't understand what exactly this is about and what exactly an "LGBTQIA+ setting" is as my games, including games in all published settings have been this way from the beginning.

Now if this is talking about discrimination against certain players, that is an entirely different story, but if we are talking about the game world and characters in the game, I do not understand what it means or what it is supposed to mean.

Remember that just because something is unsaid doesn't mean it's not true. If we tell a story in which we don't state the race, gender, identity of the protagonist, we fill in those details with whatever default is in our head.

For example, generic smiley... What gender is it? What race? What sexuality? Of course there is none, but our brains provide one anyways. And usually that identity is one that is already overwhelmingly represented in media.

I don't think it's your responsibility to have diversity represented at your table, especially if you are playing D&D more boardgame style than anything. But I do think Wizards of the Coast should continue its trend of representing diversity in its art, NPCs, and settings. And that often means explicitly stating the gender or even sexual orientation of characters.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

I just don't understand what exactly this is about and what exactly an "LGBTQIA+ setting" is as my games, including games in all published settings have been this way from the beginning.

Now if this is talking about discrimination against certain players, that is an entirely different story, but if we are talking about the game world and characters in the game, I do not understand what it means or what it is supposed to mean.

It's about making people who haven't been welcomed into tabletop games (or society as a whole) feel welcome
To make products where the readers can see someone who looks or acts like themselves or their family
About presenting worlds that are fantastic but also realistic, and have all types of humanity represented

 

[BrokenTwin]

Of course I realize it NOW
After learning some a-holes use derogatorily
Ironically, I was originally going to go with "queer" but opted not to because I didn't want to accidentally offend anyone

I personally prefer to use queer as a blanket term for anybody not cishet (cis-gender, heterosexual), but I know some people dislike its use. I choose to use it because it allows me to identify myself as non-cishet without having to out my specific characteristics to the abyss of the internet, and allows others the same courtesy. And I have my own reasons for not wanting to engage in the politics of the ever-changing acronym.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

I personally prefer to use queer as a blanket term for anybody not cishet (cis-gender, heterosexual), but I know some people dislike its use. I choose to use it because it allows me to identify myself as non-cishet without having to out my specific characteristics to the abyss of the internet, and allows others the same courtesy. And I have my own reasons for not wanting to engage in the politics of the ever-changing acronym.

Same

Also I'm super lazy and typing out or saying LGBTTQQIAP+ is a mouthful and I always forget a character or typo

 

[ccs]

No, my point stands, just maybe you cannot see it.

Many people assume carnal relationships are the default for all adults. But thet are not and that is only signaled in the expanded LGBTQIA which I highlighted to the poster before you made your wrong assumption.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. I will amend my statement to "You have definitely missed their point."
As in you didn't even understand it. You & they are talking about two entirely different things.

 

[ccs]

Same

Also I'm super lazy and typing out or saying LGBTTQQIAP+ is a mouthful and I always forget a character or typo

And it'll only get worse. Imagine once it expands to cover the entire alphabet & starts spilling out into symbols or Greek or Cyrillic or something.... Probably just have to abbreviate to human.

 

[Faolyn]

I don't get it.

In 40 years of playing D&D I can never remember any characters with any kind of sexual preference.

Well, many players enjoy writing up lengthy backgrounds or coming up with goals for their PCs, which may involve romantic/sexual relationships as some point. This could be as simple as "After the brigands murdered by husband, I took up my sword and set out..." Or two players may decide that their characters are in a relationship. Obviously, not everyone wants to write up something like that with their characters--but I can't think of a group I've been in where at least one player hasn't included something like that in their PC's story. Even I've included things like that, and I'm aroace in real life.

I just don't understand what exactly this is about and what exactly an "LGBTQIA+ setting" is as my games, including games in all published settings have been this way from the beginning.

Now if this is talking about discrimination against certain players, that is an entirely different story, but if we are talking about the game world and characters in the game, I do not understand what it means or what it is supposed to mean.

You know how most gaming books, up until recently, used the male pronouns for everything, largerly because the default assumption was that the readers were guys. But then people realized that hey, women game too, and started including female or actually gender-neutral pronouns as well.

It's like that. Up until very recently, it was pretty much the default (in all media, not just gaming books) that a character was cis-gendered and heterosexual, because it was assumed that the reader/viewer was also cishet. Except that, surprise! There are plenty of people who aren't cis or het. So why not include them as well in the game?