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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 7650064" data-attributes="member: 6688858">"Sure, Jack Vance never gave the thoughts or opinions or abilities of his female characters much consideration"We're just talking about the Dying Earth books I assume? One of the main characters in Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy is female and a good part of the series is written from her perspective where her thoughts and opinions are center stage. You should be more careful making a comment like this about an author who has written dozens of books in several different genres over a period of like 60 years. But if we're just looking at the Dying Earth books, this is actually a funny comment because frankly, the protagonists do much worse things to women than save them from dragons. Cugel essentially rapes women several times, at one point kidnapping an entire family of women and using them as slaves (until they outsmart him). I'm guessing these books would still be problematic from a feminist perspective, but not because they overuse the damsel in distress trope.Also, I don't think it's fair to say "pre-3e D&D was often sexist or at least ignorant" without giving any examples of what you're talking about. D&D has always been remarkably progressive both in terms of sexism and racism in the context of the fantasy genre. I see lot more concern and self-criticism in the D&D community about our game's inclusiveness than I think is warranted, compared to similar stuff out there. Our game says all human beings are of one race; the Elder Scrolls games have a race of people who are kind of weak but good with money, and a race of dark-skinned people who have an "adrenaline surge" ability and a speed bonus. D&D makes no assumptions about the gender of the PCs; other videogames have a long history of assuming a male protagonist and objectifying female characters as discussed in that youtube video.Judges Guild put out an RPG with this cover in 1982:<img src="http://www.gatorgamesstore.com/media/b/a2079291243f60997d9004_m.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />I mean I appreciate the desire to constantly improve the situation but seriously, we're way ahead of the curve here.Regarding the rest of your article, I disagree that the premise of D&D has always been about protecting the weak from evil. The vibe I get from 1e is that the game is about exploring a fantasy world and making your character rich and powerful. I find this works better with the sandbox style of play and makes more sense with the small party concept and a dungeon setting in general; I dislike the contortions that usually have to be made in heroic D&D to explain why it's so important to clear a remote dungeon of evil rather than waiting for it to actually come and harass civilization, and why only the PCs are capable of doing it rather than the king just sending in his entire army, etc. I think wandering vagabond treasure hunter D&D is a fun and valid premise too and I hope that 5e doesn't assume heroic adventurers as strongly as 4e did.</blockquote>

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