Good on WOTC for diversity!

[Byakugan]

The 5e PHB had a little blurb about diversity and stereotypes. It wasn't really a big deal, but it meant a lot to me personally.

Continuing the awesomeness, is another first for an 'official' D&D publication. As far as I know anyways! CoS has 2 gay NPCs! Sure, they are dead and they don't really remember each other, but they are fleshed out enough to have names, an interaction with each other, and possibly a substantial role in the primary storyline. Also they are Paladins!

Thank you WOTC, for representing my tribe.

 

[jrothwell]

Oh wow. I must get caught up on my reading. Awesome job WotC!

 

[Voort]

...is another first for an 'official' D&D publication. As far as I know anyways!

The No Foolish Matter Expedition (DDEX 3-6) had a Halfling and his husband as a couple of minor NPC farmer characters.

 

[Pauper]

The mission statement of the Adventurers League (included on p.2 of the current ALPG) states that AL events must be inclusive of players of all backgrounds.

Diversity is a serious goal here.

--
Pauper

 

[RCanine]

Yeah, I've been critical of a lot of stuff WotC does, but their approach to gender and sexuality has been pretty awesome. Even their art has come a long way from the old Boris Vallejo days.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

The No Foolish Matter Expedition (DDEX 3-6) had a Halfling and his husband as a couple of minor NPC farmer characters.

I remember them. They were the first explicitly same sex couple I've seen in an adventure, but not the first gay NPCs that I've used. Whenever an NPC doesn't have an explicit reference to either gender or sexual orientation, I do a series of d% rolls to determine them. Here's the scale that I use:

Gender
Odd number: man
Even number: woman
1: transman
100: transwoman

Sexuality
1: asexual
2-10: homosexual
11-90: heterosexual
91-99: bisexual
100: sexual deviant (usually I choose something humorous that my table can play off of to gain Inspiration)

Now I don't always refer to this system if something about the NPC just screams to me that a certain orientation would make the scene more memorable. That's what led to the moment in Dues for the Dead, where the party was interrogating the Welcomers after capturing them. The female Half-Elf pleaded that she just wanted to get back to "my husband and kids," which garnered their mercy in not killing them. When the male Tiefling made the exact same plea, it caught the entire party by surprise. They ultimately ended up turning them in, but a bit of Stockholm Syndrome developed between the Tiefling and the Life Cleric.

This same reasoning is what led me to portray Fat Mar as the D&D equivalent of Big Gay Al from South Park. That was the only voice I heard in my head when reading his blurb.

 

[kalani]

I don't use any tables myself but sometimes decide that a character is X or Y. Unless it comes up in conversation however, I don't draw attention to this fact any more than you would draw attention to a Herero characters orientation. It just is. I see no need to draw attention to it and force it into the limelight out of context.

Sometimes it happens spontaneously as well. For example: the party was fighting bugbears. One of the female characters tried to shove a female bugbear. Her response; "oi. Watchit. I'm not into girls but he's into men".

And that was how Ferdinand the gay bugbear was born. It wouldn't have gone any further than an offhand comment were it not for one of the PCs accidentally flirting with him.

Ferdinand screamed "I'm going to eat you!" (In the literal sense". The PC retorted "I'm going to eat you too!" which gave it a whole new context. At that point Ferdinand started calling him sweety, mentioned that he likes it rough and his men unconscious and bloody, and took personal interest in KOing the female rogue in the party. She kept hitting him with her attacks and so he responded with: " we will snuggle later after I deal with your jealous girlfriend" (implying that Ferdinand thought he was poly).

Based on the responses from both bugbears - it was determined that bugbear sexuality is rough (kind of like a Klingons). The female thought she was being hit on when violently shoved, and the gay bugbear wanted to bloody his potential mate as part of the flirting

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

Most of the time I just use the Gender table when determining the composition of enemy groups. Sexuality rolls are made whenever PC interaction warrants it. The male Tiefling in my OotA table has had quite the affair with the innkeeper at Blingdenstone. His numerous successful "Seduction" (Persuasion) rolls were instrumental in raising the party to being treated as Friendly ("with benefits" ) by the Deep Gnomes. My plan is for her to become pregnant by the end of the Battle of Blingdenstone.

Kalani, thanks for filling my head with the thought of gay Klingons. I can never hear Qapla' the same way again...

 

[jrothwell]

In Rage of Demons one of the players tried to persuade the Orc Bully, Ront to join our party. He "persuaded" so well that Ront became quite attached to him. The players all thought that was hilarious and the GM went with it through the whole adventure. The player even ended up giving Ront a betrothal axe.

 

[warfteiner]

While writing DDEX3-13: Writhing in the Dark, I had a chance to try to move to gender-neutral pronouns for one of the characters. It was *far* harder than I thought it was going to be, and to be honest... racial history for that character aside, I'm not sure that I would've felt motivated to do so without the blurb in the PHB and the actions of my fellow global admin team.

That said, I fully admit that the way that I got to write about the character in that specific adventure is going to influence an upcoming project that I'm working on. I'm SUPER stoked that players are embracing those decisions, and I think that it's doing very good things overall for our industry and hobby.

Thanks folks. Seriously.