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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5636351" data-attributes="member: 2067">It's fine to play around with gender roles and the like in the setting and story material, and that can have some ramifications on rules bits. Drow females get +Wis, Drow males get +Dex, or whatever. I would personally feel uncomfortable if any game felt the need to codify in the rules the subtle physical differences between the actual human genders, though. There are physical differences. They are of such fine detail, compared to the difference between, say, an elf and a human, let alone a dragon and a human, or a terrasque and a human, that they are not generally worth making mechanically distinct. The rules are not meant to model reality, so using them to enforce a "realistic" gender model (subject to the DM's interpretation of "realistic") seems remarkably small-minded, and would make me question where the DM's priorities in this game lie. There are MUCH bigger things to worry about, and unless gender roles are going to feature prominently in the coming campaign, it'd be pointless. And if gender roles ARE going to feature prominently in the coming campaign, I'd be worried, since the potential for awkward gaming suddenly skyrocketed -- there's not many people I'd trust with those issues in simple casual conversation, let alone in the medium of a game of D&D. For fantasy races and imaginary societies, though you basically get a pass from me, as long as you don't expect to pigeonhole my own character based on gender. If I want to play a badass female halfling fighter with a gnarly scar on her face and a tendency to sit with her legs open, I'd generally expect the DM to roll with it, even if she gets weird looks and sexist comments on occasion (which she then fixes by kicking ass). In D&D, she's still a heroic heroine, and she still saves the town from dragons, and maybe she earns respect, admiration, and sweet, sweet gold from even the turnip farmers who expect their wives to be barefoot and preggers in the kitchen, and maybe she helps them to question that (or fails to, and creates a lot of widows...awkward...). I don't think you need to go overboard and be hyper-PC about it, especially if the folks you personally game with are on board (y'know, if the people you game with are on board for FATAL, that's great, even if it's not my noise), and I think there needs to be room for exploring gender dynamics in a fantasy role, since they're tied up so tightly in myth and legend in general anyway. But I do think you need to be careful not to weird out your players, and you do need to make sure the game is fun for all different types of characters. Do that and you're solid. The former you're the best judge of (and you could probably get away with things that an RPG company never could), the latter you just need to be aware of enough to avoid it.</blockquote>

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