D&D 5E What happened to the Hermaphrodites???

[jgsugden]

What highly upsets me is that I can't play a character with green eyes. I mean, I don't have green eyes, so it isn't about playing a PC that is exactly like me, but then again I do know people with green eyes and the absolute lack of rules allowing for green eyes on PCs does kind f exclude them from playing characters that they can most relate to...

Yeah, I know it is not the same. Wouldn't it be nice if they were equally as unnecessary to address?

 

[happyhermit]

I don't think the OT is anything to be concerned about, it seems clear that the passage wasn't having the intended effect and so they edited it, no indication they are backing off from being upfront about wanting the game to be inclusive.

I do find it a bit concerning that some people seem confused about the concept of self-censorship or soft-censorship to the point of possibly doubting it's existence. It's not a new or niche concept, it's a thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-censorship#Europe
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/self-censorship
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/self-censorship

 

[jaelis]

Self censorship makes sense if you mean avoiding saying what you want to say, because someone might harm you for it.

It doesn't make sense if you mean avoiding saying what you don't want to say, which seemed like how it was being used.

 

[Dire Bare]

I don't have anything to offer on that, but I did find this article which is a kind of interesting read:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Dungeons_and_Dragons

Actually, I guess in regards to the claim that there is an alt-right player base, I think you can make an argument just based on statistics that almost certainly there are many dnd players who consider themselves alt-right. cf:
https://gamingwhileconservative.wordpress.com/

But whether that is a big enough population to significantly affect, say, dnd sales, I have no idea.

Here is a starter.

http://failforward.co.uk/post/93348768153/how-dungeons-and-dragons-is-endorsing-the-darkest

Not trying to join Derren in his nonsensical rants, but none of these articles give any indication that there is a significant, much less large, community of alt-right D&D players. I know that there ARE alt-right D&D players, I've encountered a few of them on this message board, but just because they are loud doesn't mean they have any weight of numbers. Sure, Zak S and RPGPundit seem to be real pieces of work, and they clearly have fans, but again, no evidence of significant numbers of alt-right D&D players. Sadly, even small numbers of people can have significant impact, as is claimed in the Fall Forward blog post.

Then again, I rarely stray from the relatively safe waters of ENWorld, and purposefully avoid various internet cesspools where a lot of this dickery seems to be happening.

 

[abirdcall]

Not trying to join Derren in his nonsensical rants, but none of these articles give any indication that there is a significant, much less large, community of alt-right D&D players. I know that there ARE alt-right D&D players, I've encountered a few of them on this message board, but just because they are loud doesn't mean they have any weight of numbers. Sure, Zak S and RPGPundit seem to be real pieces of work, and they clearly have fans, but again, no evidence of significant numbers of alt-right D&D players. Sadly, even small numbers of people can have significant impact, as is claimed in the Fall Forward blog post.

Then again, I rarely stray from the relatively safe waters of ENWorld, and purposefully avoid various internet cesspools where a lot of this dickery seems to be happening.

You think you can have enough fans to have a name for yourself and yet those are not significant?

I mean, we can never even have one of these threads without the usual rhetoric from them. This is probably the tamest one of these threads I've seen (but then I've got most of them blocked by this point) and this message board is not their main stomping grounds I would think.

My point is that WotC knew that writing a blurb in the PHB that is inclusive to LGBTQ people would piss some players off. Do you think that is not true? I think it is blatently apparent. We have to go no further than ENWorld to see proof of it. There is a lot of vitriol on those threads and on other boards.

I would also bet that before 5e that player group was larger than players of LGBTQ identities, though I don't have numbers.

 

[Dire Bare]

You think you can have enough fans to have a name for yourself and yet those are not significant?

Yes. I bet you the majority of D&D fans have no idea who Zak S and RPGPundit are. I'd also bet the majority of folks on ENWorld don't know who those two are. I only know who they are from others complaining about them. I'm not saying these two cretins, and their fans, aren't having a negative impact, just that they don't have numbers . . . or, at least, I've seen no evidence that they do.

I mean, we can never even have one of these threads without the usual rhetoric from them. This is probably the tamest one of these threads I've seen (but then I've got most of them blocked by this point) and this message board is not their main stomping grounds I would think.

You're right, that every time (or, almost every time) a thread deals with these types of issues, the "alt-right" players come out of the woodwork. But it seems to be mostly the same few folks each time. Again, these folks loudly and constantly complaining, and even turning to harassment of others, doesn't make them a significant number of fans. Can they have an impact? Yes. They are loud and purposefully "get in your face". Like you, I've got most of the ENWorld offenders I've encountered on my ignore list. It's not a super long list.

My point is that WotC knew that writing a blurb in the PHB that is inclusive to LGBTQ people would piss some players off. Do you think that is not true? I think it is blatantly apparent. We have to go no further than ENWorld to see proof of it. There is a lot of vitriol on those threads and on other boards.

I think WotC knew that explicitly making D&D inclusive would upset *some* people, sure. And those upset folks just might get loud about it. But where they worried that they would offend a significant number of D&D fans by being inclusive, enough to lose measurable sales and/or get lots of negative PR? Eh, I'm not so sure they felt that was the case, I haven't seen any indication of it. Go on twitter and ask Mearls!

 

[Eltab]

What is not okay is what the alt-right does to those people. People's home addresses and phone numbers get posted on the internet and then they get harrassed day and night including with death threats.

1) That beyond-the-pale behavior is not an exclusive province of any particular political / social group.
2) The discussion is drifting away from the game and into IRL politics.

Let's get back on-topic.

 

[abirdcall]

You're right, that every time (or, almost every time) a thread deals with these types of issues, the "alt-right" players come out of the woodwork. But it seems to be mostly the same few folks each time. Again, these folks loudly and constantly complaining, and even turning to harassment of others, doesn't make them a significant number of fans. Can they have an impact? Yes. They are loud and purposefully "get in your face". Like you, I've got most of the ENWorld offenders I've encountered on my ignore list. It's not a super long list.

But that is even just here. Then you have the 4chan gaming forum and any manner of other websites that I have no idea about.

I think WotC knew that explicitly making D&D inclusive would upset *some* people, sure. And those upset folks just might get loud about it. But where they worried that they would offend a significant number of D&D fans by being inclusive, enough to lose measurable sales and/or get lots of negative PR? Eh, I'm not so sure they felt that was the case, I haven't seen any indication of it. Go on twitter and ask Mearls!

Sure, remember though that originally I was making a counter-point to the idea that WotC only went out of their way to be inclusive to avoid the wrath of whomever and so it was censorship. When really, they could have just said nothing at all and there would be no story to be outraged about. They are clearly okay with risking upsetting some people to say what they believe in because they did go out of their way to be inclusive.

 

[Eltab]

Everybody makes a choice about their character's gender when they create the character.

True.
I can't recall any rules that say, "if your character is male then you get -this ability- ; if not, you don't". Replace "male" with "female" or "hermaphroditic" or any other term, and the example is still valid.

It really doesn't matter what sex or gender your character is.

D&D IS COMPLETELY INCLUSIVE.

(Your character's attributes might matter when it comes to Interpersonal Interaction - IRL or inside the story - but that's something the gamers must deal with, not something the game must deal with.)

 

[Eltab]

Did they just assume that players wouldn't know what "intersex" meant?

A reasonable assumption.
Not everybody keeps up on changes to word meanings, or creation of new words to express otherwise-clumsy-to-describe ideas.