D&D 5E (2014) celebrating pride and lgbtq+ players 2021

[Yaarel]

I suspect, "they is" will sound natural in casual speech, contracting to theyre and theys depending on number.

 

[Cadence]

Do not forget the amazing apostrophe power of: y'all'dn't've.

You all shouldn't have, you all couldn't have, and you all wouldn't have, all in one word!

I've been down here (South Carolina from Illinois) for 23 years and haven't heard that one. It seems spectacular

I'll ask some of the SC natives I hang out with. Danger of trying to experience life while living in a bigger city and working at a University is it sometimes feels like looking for regional flair while shopping in a mall.

 

[Steampunkette]

I'm from Georgia, originally, along the Western side near Alabama.

Some days a couple friends and I would just play games of making up the dumbest words and Y'all'dn't've was the one with the most apostrophes we could manage...

And then we heard my best friend's cousin say it not 2 days later at a cookout in the park. "Y'all'dn't've brought all of this food, there was plenty already."

The cousin was 30 and we were 13 at the time, and it's not like he told his cousin about the word, the man lived in a different city.

 

[Cadence]

I'm from Georgia, originally, along the Western side near Alabama.

Some days a couple friends and I would just play games of making up the dumbest words and Y'all'dn't've was the one with the most apostrophes we could manage...

One I asked said probably. Another said, no, but had for "y'all shdnt've" (which I've heard and is in the spirit). I'm gonna have to see if I can use yours in conversation sometime.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The south also gifted us with y'all to help in the singular vs. plural you situation. <insert some random thing on whether it's always plural though and if it's mostly northerners who mess it up, and about the brilliance of all y'all>

Yep, I am in the South and ya'll is always good for when you don't know the number of people or the gender. It is also better than saying "you", as that can sound way too accusatory in a sentence.

And while it is not Southern, Dude has become quite the gender-neutral word too. Dude has not meant male in a long time now.

 

[Faolyn]

And while it is not Southern, Dude has become quite the gender-neutral word too. Dude has not meant male in a long time now.

As a child of the 80s, dude is a major part of my vocabulary. People are dudes, animals are dudes, inanimate objects are dudes...

 

[Gradine]

I am always welcoming and accepting and have been intentionally not replying to the trolls in this thread. I made a simple statement as one member of the community to another. I am sorry if you somehow saw that as an attack or something.

You perpetuated a false transphobic talking point and in doing so did harm to trans folx in this thread (including myself). I don't think your intent was necessarily bad, but the issue isn't that anyone "somehow saw that as an attack"; the issue is that it was one.

 

[Umbran]

I am always welcoming and accepting and have been intentionally not replying to the trolls in this thread. I made a simple statement as one member of the community to another. I am sorry if you somehow saw that as an attack or something.

Mod Note:
And I am sorry that you forgot the board rules. Do not discuss moderation in-thread, please and thank you.

 

[Gradine]

As a child of the 80s, dude is a major part of my vocabulary. People are dudes, animals are dudes, inanimate objects are dudes...

There's usually arguments about this in trans communities, but as someone who has lived their entire life in California, my experience is that "dude" is not just gender neutral but sapient neutral. That dog is dude. The red light is dude. A parking ticket is dude.

I think policing local colloquialisms is a bad policy; just don't call someone a thing they don't want to be called.

 

[SehanineMoonbow]

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.

Others have responded to this already, but I wanted to add my two cents, even though the thread has moved beyond it a bit. Of course everyone's playing style is going to be different, but many people enjoy relationships in RPGs, whether that is platonic or romantic. They also like fleshing out their characters, and that usually includes the gender of said character. I'm not judging your gaming style, but it does come up for others. I'm asexual, but I still form deep platonic bonds, and my characters often have relationships. I understand that some players don't go in to this kind of thing, but others do, and WotC is finally seeing that those relationships may not be the "default".

Or it can even be something as simple as going to an inn that is run by the innkeeper and his husband, rather than the "default" heterosexual relationship. It can be part of the worldbuilding without being central. And, as others have mentioned, while players and DMs have always played how they want, having the acknowledgement that lgbtq+ people can and should exist in fantasy settings, just as they do in the real world, by having NPCs that are diverse in gender and sexual orientation, is a step forward in helping the queer community feel seen. Regardless of what you do in your home game, having representation in gaming material is important. And it's not (or shouldn't be) "Bob is gay, look how gay Bob is. He's a paladin of Torm, and is so gay." It's not about emphasizing the orientation of an NPC. Rather, it's "Bob is a paladin of Torm, and he journeys with his husband/boyfriend Fred, aiding those in need." You're not placing emphasis on his homosexuality, what you're doing is presenting him as a person, the same way you would the "default" heterosexual paladin (to continue using paladin as an example). Because cis het has been the assumed for so long, having characters that are not is important. And it's not about listing their orientation, it's about showing it, such as in the example I gave above.

Just as in non gaming fantasy books, whether romance is a big theme in the books or not, there is usually a boy-meets-girl scenario. Thus, the assumed identity is cis-het. But by making it a boy-meets-boy or girl-meets-girl, or a nonbinary character, you are showing readers (the world, really), that they are people, too, and can have adventures and slay dragons the same as the "default" cis-het characters have.