D&D General Should Bearded Female Dwarves be the Default?

[Hexmage-EN]

So after getting the Wildemount book I decided to read summaries of past Critical Role episodes. In the course of this I've discovered that in the world of Exandria it is apparently the norm for female dwarves to grow beards, which I'll admit is a detail I'm not a fan of. Personally I preferred the 4E take, where female dwarves often had very long and ornate hair styles. It also kind of bothers me that the short and stocky race is the only one whose females are bearded by default.

Out of curiosity, how do you all feel about this topic?

 

[Weiley31]

I wouldn't mind if they had mullets.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So after getting the Wildemount book I decided to read summaries of past Critical Role episodes. In the course of this I've discovered that in the world of Exandria it is apparently the norm for female dwarves to grow beards, which I'll admit is a detail I'm not a fan of.

Why not?

They aren't human, why should they have the same standards?

 

[Weiley31]

I mean, women (NOT ALL) sometimes have slight mustache hair at times.

Plus I think the bearded Dwarven women idea is a kind of a concept/joke in Lord of The Rings too.

So it's not really TOO outta norm for dwarven women to grow beards in that case.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I take my queues from Terry Pratchett. Female dwarves are virtually indistinguishable from males (unless you can get them out of their mail).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Why not?

They aren't human, why should they have the same standards?

It's obviously up to individual tables, but its not the norm in 5E (or indeed, any recent edition) as a default, because in general (individual exceptions apply) female players don't particularly like the idea that if they play a female dwarf, they should have a beard, which is typically regarded as a male secondary sexual characteristic/identifier. It's pretty much equivalent to all male elves having small-but-noticeable and feminine boobs as a default. Yeah, some people would be down with that. Some people would think it was awesome (and not necessarily the people you might expect), but some people would not enjoy it. And the default design of 5E is intended to make the game fun for the players, not to cause giggles for people not playing those genders of characters.

But to be clear, it isn't the default in 5E outside of Exandria. There may be specific settings where it is, but they're an exception to the default. I've literally heard people ask "why do so few female players play dwarves?" and pretty much everyone I've ever come across asking this has then admitted that they make female dwarves have beards in their campaign, and it's like, hmmmmm, what an astounding mystery. One for Sherlock Holmes for sure.

I mean, to be totally honest, I think it would be fine, but I think if you go there, you should really "blow the lid off" things in terms of races not being just "different-looking humans who live really long". All elves being able to change gender (even if they choose not to) is always cool. Dragonborn can lose their dragonboobs. And so on.

 

[Weiley31]

Personally I preferred the 4E take, where female dwarves often had very long and ornate hair styles.

And daaaang, as somebody who completely missed out on all of 4E, I'm really digging the Ornate Long hair of the female dwarves. Really badass looking.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

After doing some more research, it seems that beards aren't quite as common on Exandria's female dwarves as I thought.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's obviously up to individual tables, but its not the norm in 5E (or indeed, any recent edition) as a default, because in general (individual exceptions apply) female players don't particularly like the idea that if they play a female dwarf, they should have a beard, which is typically regarded as a male secondary sexual characteristic/identifier.

Anecdotal, but this is not consistent with my experience at all. IME, women tend to find the idea of bearded female dwarves awesome, and men tend to find it off-putting.

At any rate, the idea is popular enough I think it should be an option, but it is polarizing enough it shouldn’t be universal.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Anecdotal, but this is not consistent with my experience at all. IME, women tend to find the idea of bearded female dwarves awesome, and men tend to find it off-putting.

At any rate, the idea is popular enough I think it should be an option, but it is polarizing enough it shouldn’t be universal.

Yeah, I've come across that, but surveys I've seen of female players (years ago, admittedly), and asking real female players their opinion suggest it is a minority opinion among female players (at least the ones I've played with in the UK and US and Australia). And loads of male players think it's awesome - wildly outnumbering the few it makes uncomfortable. I've also seen several female players play dwarves, including in editions where it was beard-optional (rather than beard-never), and funny how not a single one of them had a beard, whereas a couple of male DMs I've played with, literally ever single female dwarf NPC has a big bushy beard because the DM thinks its hysterical (don't play with either of those guys any more, maybe they grew up eventually).

But yes as you say, it's polarizing enough to warrant not being universal (similarly to how having an elf that can change gender is a special choice).