Pronouns in D&D - How should gender be handled?

[Argyle King]

To be honest, even though I voted, the issue of pronouns really isn't something which is important to me. I understand why it is important to some other people, but it's simply not something I feel that strongly about.

 

[steenan]

My preferences are not strong and I can live with any approach other than avoiding pronouns (it makes the text quite unnatural and grating).

In things I write I alternate between male and female pronouns. In some cases, I treat the GM as a female and players as males. In others, especially when describing a list of characters splats, I just switch between genders for successive entries.
This approach is very natural for me, because I generally play in mixed groups, with me or my wife typically taking the GM seat.

 

[Libramarian]

"they" as a generic pronoun. It feels natural to me to use "they" when referring to a position like "the DM" rather than a specific person.

Alternating between male and female pronouns is confusing and can come across as self-indulgent, especially if the author insists on always using the female when referring to the DM, for whatever reason.

 

[Morrus]

.
Alternating between male and female pronouns is confusing

I honestly don't understand how anybody can be confused by it. What's the confusing part? I can imagine it would be if the same example was switching the genders of the subjects within itself; that would be bad writing indeed. But nobody ever did that in the 3E or Paizo books, and I can't imagine they'll do that in D&D Next either.

 

[Iosue]

Most older D&D players will remember back to 1st and 2nd edition when the masculine pronoun (he, him, his) was used generically.

Not B/X. It used "he or she". E.g, "To choose a class, a player should first look for his or her highest ability scores." Or "As a cleric advances in level, he or she is granted the use of more spells."

Other than that, I would prefer gender-neutral "they". Purists will hate it, but it provides clear communication, and fills a lexical need.

 

[Zhaleskra]

If we're going to stick to prescriptive grammar, remember that certain species are automatically assumed to be one gender or the other until you know, e.g., Humans are male, cats are female, dogs are male, and so on.

As a fan of World Tree, which I know did not create the pronoun, I am fond of the pronouns "zie" and "zir" for hermaphrodite, unknown gender, and not genderless. They do a better job than "hir" and "shi" which don't sound any different from "her" and "she".

 

[Janx]

Its natural to read "her" if the subject is inherently female. Its natural for me to understand the masculine pronoun to be capable of being used to apply to men and women equally, because that's the traditional mode of the english generic masculine. I understand the arguments for more inclusion, but logically, and for me, the generic pronoun is more inclusive than a specific pronoun. By eliminating the generic masculine, one eliminates the pronouns that are actually capable, in english, of being the most inclusive. The trend then becomes of using a generic plural, "they," to apply to singular figures, but I think that is no less clumsy in some instances.

I think the problem with the " english generic masculine" is that only us guys got the memo that it was indeed the "english generic masculine"

Everybody else thought it just meant "us guys"

In this day and age, it seems the general writing consensus is that using the plural as a genderless placeholder for a singular person is crap writing style.

And that using He all the time is sexist as it presents a male only world.

As it only matters what the offendee thinks, that pretty much clinches the matter. Making some of the example characters be female is pretty much the adopted practice to reduce the implication off male bias.

However, there is a good solution. Use concrete examples. Alternate between examples of fictional males and females in your examples of play. That way, 'he' or 'she' will be perfectly natural. Examples of play are given too little attention as it is.

This is the very point of modern he/she pronoun usage.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Everybody else thought it just meant "us guys"

All future D&D books with hence forth be required to use "youse guys".

On the other hand, "y'all" is a prefectly acceptable gender-neutral singular or plural pronoun ...

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I think the problem with the " english generic masculine" is that only us guys got the memo that it was indeed the "english generic masculine" (snip)

Not really.

You would be surprised how many women understand the rules of English grammar.

 

[Janx]

Not really.

You would be surprised how many women understand the rules of English grammar.

Not the ones who object to Stewardess, Waitress, history, or man hole covers.

These are the kind of topics where somebody's going to take a statement and assume your sexist.

Is sticking to the guns of "it is the best standard to always use the male masculine when referring to a person or role generically" really worth it?

Writing in a style that incorporates both genders naturally seems more like better, inclusive writing than capitulating to an equal respect cause.