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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 6218334" data-attributes="member: 8835">Fair point.  Why is this an issue in RPGs, and not widely discussed in regular books?I suspect that it is because RPGs are generally addressed to the reader and are about controlling an avatar in the game that represents the reader.  So failing to recognize the gender variance in the audience (the reader) is a pretty big snub.Conversely, reading a fiction book, it's written about the author's characters in first or third person.  It's not sexist that the protagonist of the Dresden Files is a male. Consider however, that in works of fiction, authors have already been hammered on not having enough black people or strong female characters.  The modern crop of authors seemed to have received and read the memo.  I would suspect that THEY were the first in the writing industry to feel the pressures to change.In non-fiction, I imagine any kind of how-to or self-help book might have a similar "talking to the reader" situation that RPGs have.  As I don't think I've ever read any of those, I couldn't say what the current writing style is.Otherwise, most non-fiction is in the relaying facts business, which is likely pretty cut and dried.  President Kennedy was shot in 1963.  The fact that he was male or got shot has little to do with sexism, as it is simply a fact of nature that his DNA defined him as a male.  Somebody would have to go looking for trouble to argue with the author that his chapter on the known facts of JFK's assassination was written in a sexist or gender excluding way (or the author started some trouble)</blockquote>

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