D&D 5E Should the next edition of D&D promote more equality?

[timASW]

So, you're saying that everything ever published by any gaming company sucks, because the artists and writers did not have 'freedom of expression' and were working in a shared-world project with guidelines and limits? I do not think you understand how professional publication works.

If you literally mean great art in human history, the Mona Lisa was a commissioned work. So much for that theory.

I'm saying it has sucked worse and worse as time went on and corporate interests (and purse strings) started to have more control then the artists vision like the early days.

If you disagree that seems like fodder for its own thread and poll though.

 

[Obryn]

Even so far as to include Mary Magdollen in a position of extreme importance at jesus right hand (some would say pregnant) at a time when the extremely anti-women catholic church would never have approved of it.

You're using The DaVinci Code for your art history lessons? Honestly?

-O

 

[TanithT]

I'm a writer, not an artist. But if I'm given a character to work with who happens to be male, Hispanic and bisexual, and a specific setting to tell a story in, damn skippy I can work with that, and I can do it compellingly enough to breathe life and believability into the scenario. Because that's what a good writer does.

There is a word for people who can't work with what they're given and can't take commercial red-pencil edits calmly because they are too in love with their own 'creativity'. That word is 'amateur'. The stereotype of the wild-eyed artist demanding full artistic freedom and not being willing to play well with others isn't always grounded in reality.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Do you seriously have any idea how horrific and toxic a viewpoint that is to anyone who doesn't get to play the game of real life on the lowest difficulty setting, eg, as a cisgendered heterosexual male? Please go read some Scalzi before you put your foot in your mouth again.

Thanks for that link.

 

[GSHamster]

I dunno. To an extent this has already been done before, see Blue Rose. That was a pretty decent book/setting, but it did feel a bit "forced". And a bit "twee", but that may have been the intelligent animal companions.

Among other things, D&D has to reflect not only society, but also historical and fantasy literature. I am not certain that it is a good idea for the game to get ahead of the literature it is based on. And almost all the older, more well-known fantasy is very straight. Of the top of my head, the only older fantasy writer I can think of with significant gay characters is Mercedes Lackey.

I think a game that was more based on Urban Fantasy would work better, something like D&D Modern.

However, if D&D does go this route, I do hope they have some ethnic or gay villains, as well as heroes. It is a bit tiresome for all the villains to be white males. And somewhat condescending too, denying people the full breadth of humanity.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"There's no way to avoid D&D being a product of the culture that produces it, no matter how hard you pretend [that's not the case]." Or, denying reality will not strip the game, as published, of cultural baggage.

This has nothing to do with how hard you can pretend to be magical elves in fairyland.

-O

Actually, to an extent it does. Once you can imagine dragons and unicorns, it is easy enough to imagine a world in which humans with mucho melanin were were the dominant empire and enslaved the paler ones. Heck, the have even been movies 'bout that kind of reversal.

Just because we want to include FRPG-appropriate images of women and non-Caucasians, it does not necessarily follow that those images be loaded down with RW contexts.

 

[TanithT]

You're using The DaVinci Code for your art history lessons? Honestly?

Oh. You just finished reading the DaVinci Code?

Hmmm.

 

[Li Shenron]

Ack... wasn't expecting my thread to cause so much controversy! Apparently it really is still a sensitive topic...

I just want to pop in and say this is one "sacred cow" I hope gets slaughtered.

...

I don't think it needs to tackle sexual relationships at all in the text, but if it somehow needs to, then I'm all in favor of inclusiveness there, too.

I agree on the chainmail bikini sacred cow, I was being ironic when I mentioned it.

As for the part of the OP, regarding sexuality, I think the wise choice there for the game is for the art to stay away from depicting explicit sexuality in the core game, whether that be hetero- or homo- or bisexuality or any other form of sexuality.

Absolutely!! I was in no way suggesting that the artwork or the story should feature sex. That's just not what a game of D&D is about! A specific DM might decide to feature sex in their game, but it's just not a regular part of the D&D genre.

Romantic relationships are also a very marginal part of D&D typically, unless the DM or the players bring it up.

What I had in mind was simply that, just like every now and then there are husbands and wives NPC in one adventure, there can also be same-gender consorts. Without any unnecessary details or comment. Just like you wouldn't need to add any comment on having King X married with Queen Y, you wouldn't need to mention what they do in bed or provide a picture of them hugging or kissing, would you?

We have had other products feature such and even in a much more visually explicit way (think Game of Thrones, but also The Temple of Elemental Evil computer game). I don't think their business was damaged by it, actuallly I think the business of GoT actually in part benefits from it (which is for my personal preference, not a good thing either, but this is beyond the point here).

When I wrote "promote equality" I meant that the focus is on the word equality. Just like when D&D shows plenty of adventuring females, including monster females and female leaders (good or evil), it's not really "promoting" that RL-women should be more adventurous or have more leadership so why occasionally featuring a king with a prince consort or a queen with a princess consort "promote" homosexuality? Does showing that something merely exists automatically suggests that people should do it?

OTOH, is showing that these things exists automatically suggests that people should accept their existence, then I'm definitely in favor of it (not everything of course! just talking about this thread's topic strictly).

 

[Li Shenron]

If you want a world background setting that shows a solid 'slice of life' well enough for everyone to suspend their disbelief in a fantasy culture, tell good stories and be inspired by the characters, then paint that.

This is certainly something complicated to discuss...

Many posted a comment about representing a reasonable fantasy world, but what is the basis for "reasonable" or "realistic"? An average of fantasy literature works? European middle ages world? Today's earth?

Because IMHO D&D has already taken a bold stance for man-women equality which definitely do not correspond to the European middle ages. So this is not IMHO a very good argument against having pictures of black characters.

My main point is that D&D can feature what we want. Having more black characters in the artwork or some occasional gblt NPC in the story does not "spoil" the D&D tradition in any way... it's a cosmetic change, but it is a change that can make a huge difference to how a lot of people see the game from the outside.

There is something which just feels weird right now... asian characters appear in the game, hispanic characters appear in the game, even irrealistic people with purple (or other unrealistic color) eyes appear in the game... but black characters are extremely rare. Why?

 

[TanithT]

The problem is that the game, as it is currently, does not shy away from depictions of sexuality. Specifically it sexualizes almost all depictions of women, while men are consistently shown as strong, powerful, competent and appropriately dressed for adventuring. Sexualized images that depict males as passive objects of gaze with a sensual come-hither look or pose are incredibly rare. What you see instead (though much less often) are male power fantasies, where some muscles might be showing, but it is clear that he is not being depicted as an inappropriately sexualized object. A great many female 'adventurers' definitely are. And let's not even talk about comic books.

When I say inappropriately, I mean is is very stupid to go dungeoneering in lingerie. Victoria's Secret is not that it grants a +5 to AC.

I agree that it would be reasonably okay just not to have any explicit sexual depictions in the game of anyone's orientation, but that just isn't how it actually is right now, by a very long shot. The basic theme of 'women have to be sexed up for male gaze' is so pervasive in fantasy art and literature as to be an unthinking default and essentially invisible. It is a deep salt sea that the average fish doesn't even know he's swimming in. Unless of course you aren't a fish, and you're choking and drowning in the stuff. The fish don't care. They honestly don't even know why you have a problem. The ocean is invisible to them. It is simply a comfortable and natural environment. For them, not for you, but it's going to be natively difficult for a fish to understand why an environment that works seamlessly and effortlessly for them is oppressive to you.

The only time it really becomes visible is if the comfortable status quo is threatened. The people who are used to having it 100% their own way, the ones who feel entitled to have it 100% their way because that's how it always has been, start screaming at the very idea of losing even a tiny piece of that privilege. Not cool, yo. Seriously not cool.

The direction of sexualized gaze in fantasy art and literature is overwhelmingly heterosexual male. That's the standard. Everything feels natural and works great for your eyes if you are that gender and orientation. The fact that it can feel horribly unnatural, weird, unpleasant, oppressive, No Fun, like you are being excluded or targeted, or even scary or threatening, is unlikely to occur to someone who has never been made to feel that way by the default direction of sexualized gaze in their hobby.

I do like your thinking about presenting same gender consorts in a completely ordinary, non dramatic, non explicit way. As for strong, healthy, non-sexualized female models not promoting female equality in the real world, seriously, why shouldn't it? Everyone is entitled to grow up with stories about characters like themselves being the heroes, whether they are male or female or trans, black or white, gay or straight. And I do hope they are good inspirational stories, even if they are only fiction.