D&D 5E The Pilosus, a player race with 6 Genders for your 5th edition Sci Fi setting

[Scott Graves]

True dat brother. I used to SUCK at spelling (well before computers had spell checking on everything) and because people didn't take me seriously online I had to learn how to spell and correct my own grammar. Embarrassment may not be popular in todays scholastic culture but it sure worked on me.

Repeat after me. "The mouse told a tale about how he lost his tail.

 

[Scott Graves]

I have no issues with an alien race with multiple genders either. I did want to point out the issues with having such a high birth rate, and the issues of having so many genders. More genders, especially 5, and having all of them needed for the reproductive process is very restricting on the species, which actually could be a contribution to them having such a high birth rate.

We did the math too. I was reading the article to my son (and going into grammar German party in control during WWII through much of it) and he's a serious math geek. He said "Five kids per parent?" He knows how much of a pain in the butt he was all by his lonesome as an only child. Imagine having 29 whatever you call young siblings with all those genders. Imagine the diapers alone... ALL AT ONCE! Terrible Two's all at once. Egad, they'd best be the most mellow people in the universe or else there would be a WHOLE LOT of REALLY late term abortions if you take my meaning.

We figured no one with children invented that race. Unless they had masochistic tendencies.

 

[dwayne]

We did the math too. I was reading the article to my son (and going into grammar German party in control during WWII through much of it) and he's a serious math geek. He said "Five kids per parent?" He knows how much of a pain in the butt he was all by his lonesome as an only child. Imagine having 29 whatever you call young siblings with all those genders. Imagine the diapers alone... ALL AT ONCE! Terrible Two's all at once. Egad, they'd best be the most mellow people in the universe or else there would be a WHOLE LOT of REALLY late term abortions if you take my meaning.

We figured no one with children invented that race. Unless they had masochistic tendencies.

Man they are build around a group mentality were everyone works for all, they hate being alone and are kind of fearful of it as they honestly have never been so. Even the one gender they treat badly they would never just turn it away to be alone it's not in their nature. I did it this way for a reason which will be documented at a later date, as it is meant to be an odd thing for the race that is so counter to they way they are. A contradiction of a sort to make them that much more of a oddity, any ways back to the grind stone, also sorry for snapping sometimes i get too deep into the characters and my feelings take on a life of their own.

 

[dwayne]

I have never in my life considered an English Major to have value until today. Find one and have them help you with everything you write. At the very least refer to Weird Al's song "Word Crimes". Please. For the sanity of all.

I tak goad rally whad u meen not lik to weed tooo mooch oh tay weld yor weilcomb to reave

 

[dwayne]

Boy my block list just keeps getting bigger, the amount of jerks on this site is just astounding. By the way did i spell that right enough for you?

 

[Scott Graves]

Man, they are built with a group mentality where everyone works for all. They fear being alone because they have never been alone. Even the gender they treat badly would never be turned away and forced to be alone. They simply cannot do such a thing.

I did it this way for a reason, which will be documented at a later date, as it is meant to be a twist that forces them to live in a way that runs counter to their nature. A contradiction that will make them that much more of a oddity.

Anyway, back to the grind stone. I am sorry for snapping sometimes, i get too deep into the characters and my feelings take on a life of their own.

Made a few changes, I hope you see how easier it is to read through. Point you seem to be missing is the ratio of offspring to parents. People who have twins are treated by other parents like some kind of saint for not killing one of them and keeping the other. When a couple pops out 5 kids they have to count on a lot of family and friends because they can't keep up with five. Now you are proposing 5 to 6 children per person in the coupling. That would require assistance. A lot of assistance. A society with that high of a birthrate wouldn't have time to do anything else but raising children. Their medical tech would be advanced but again, not much else would. No time for anything but working with the children.

Drunk and now tired. Going to bed. nighty night. Don't let the bed bugs bite

 

[Warforged DK]

English majors help you spell "Would you like fries with that".

I recognized that rather quickly with my English Major, so I went on to be a Lawyer.

 

[Parmandur]

Maybe I didn't articulate my arguments well enough. I'll try again:

The games repeatedly try to manufacture a moral dilemma where you're given a binary choice between curing the genophage or condemning the krogan to extinction. The dilemma being based on the assumption that krogans are inherently predisposed to breeding out of control. It's a disturbing neo-malthusian space man's burden type of deal that wouldn't be out of place in a Tom Kratman novel.

The logistics as described don't work. The krogans aren't biologically feasible. In fact, any population control dilemma like this doesn't seem feasible.

I'll describe this using the "r/K selection theory." It's been discredited but it's still a useful shorthand.

Essentially, a r-selected species produces a lot of offspring and invests zero parental care because most of those offspring won't live to reproduce. By contrast, a K-selected species produces a small number of offspring and invests parental care to ensure most live to reproduce.

With me so far?

The krogan are described as an r-selected species. The problem here is that it isn't feasible for an r-selected species to develop near-human intelligence. Why? Because things like language and culture and science need to be taught. The krogan should never have been able to develop sapience without a K-selection strategy.

Although the krogan are repeatedly claimed to be an r-selected species, what little we actually do see of their child-rearing practices does resemble a K-selected species. That is, they raise a small number of offspring who they instruct in language, culture and science. At the end of Mass Effect 3, we see a slide in which a krogan couple hold a baby after the genophage is cured. One baby, not a thousand.

It isn't physically possible for krogans to lay ~1000 eggs per year as they are stated to. An adult krogan is about 8 feet or so tall. A krogan newborn is about 2 feet tall. It isn't physically possible for a krogan woman to pop out a thousand of those two foot babies through her vagina every year, or approximately three births per day.

The writing contradicts itself depending on whether it wants you to be sympathetic toward the krogan or not. It rarely provides hard numbers but when it does those numbers are blatantly absurd.

I don't understand how this is so difficult to understand. The writers tried to pose a neo-malthusian population control dilemma. The problem is that the dilemma is physically impossible and relies on the player having no knowledge of the biological and mathematical science that it butchers.

I basically agree with you regarding the absurdity of the neo-Malthusan moral dilemma, but I will point out that the Krogan did not develop their own culture naturally, the Salarians uplifted them for their own purposes. They have an unnaturla society of violent sociopaths, and it didn't work out well. Then again, the logistics for that wouldn't work either, so...

 

[JacktheRabbit]

You can obviously create whatever system your want but this race would never survive and likely never even evolve as there is not enough generic diversity advantage here to offset how much of a challenge it would be to find that many mates.

Furthermore you make it even more unlikely as you state it takes a specific activity being done to get it be known a gender.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Mmm... This really depends on how you define gender. Modern gender theory, as it pertains to humans, would disagree. Most scholars on the subject nowadays agree that gender is performative, and there are plenty of animals that have more than two sex-related roles that different members of their species perform. Even if we go with the now largely scientifically outdated concept of sex and gender being interchangeable, it is far more complex than the traditional male/female binary, even for humans. Plenty of animals have more than two clear-cut sets of sex characteristics, including humans, and plenty of animals change sex characteristics under certain conditions (humans not included). Granted, there are no species on earth that require more than two parents to produce offspring, but saying that all species on earth that reproduce sexually have only two genders is an oversimplification on multiple levels. The data is clear, gender and sex are both spectra, in humans and other animals alike, so I see no reason the same wouldn’t be true of fantasy races and/or fictional life forms from other planets. Requiring more than two members of the species for reproduction would be an extraordinary biological oddity and would therefore demand extraordinary fictional justification, but the idea of a race with more than two genders is downright pedestrian to anyone with a working knowledge of either gender studies, zoology, or both.

From a REPRODUCTIVE view there are only two genders each with a specific see of plumbing designed to work with the plumbing of the other gender.

From a psychological view one can discuss multiple gender subtypes based on lifestyle, genetic mutation, trauma, etc, but all those subtypes with very rare exceptions due to generic disorders contain the physical components of one of the he two genders that exist to facilitate reproduction.

The creator of this post is not discussing psychological variations in gender. He is talk about six actual different genders each of which is necessary in the process for reproduction.