Will you make transsexual Elves canon in your games ?

[Schmoe]

Huh. Interesting discussion. I'm actually surprised this hasn't turned into a dumpster fire, so that's good! Overall there's been a lot to think about.

At any rate, I have no plans to add it to my game because Corellon Larethian doesn't exist in my homebrew. If I had a player who felt strongly about having an ability like this, I'd have to think about it. I have no problem with exploring sexual identity (although it plays a shockingly trivial role in most of our games), but a limited "Alter Self" 1/day can be a pretty nice effect. I'd find a way to make it work in what I felt was a mechanically balanced way.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

@pming There is a world of difference between recognizing a currently marginalized segment of society within the elf race (a mainstream popular heroic race) and relegating them to a monster-race off shoot of a brain eating fundamentally dishonest creature. If you don’t see a relevance to that I’m not going to try and change your world view. I’ll just say it matters to the people it matters to, and is irrelevant to those it doesn’t matter to.

In regards to what I bolded above...

The first bold: this is one thing I just don't see. I'm sure it happens, but where I live (waaaaay up in northern Canada)...not so much. I have a bi-sexual friend, worked with two gay guys and (due to the long hair I have and short stature) I've been hit on by all manner of men...some gay, some drunk (some maybe both! LOL!). Of all the people I know, I can think of two that "just don't like gay people". They can't explain why, they both say that gay guys (they are both men) just kinda make them all "icky feeling". Uncomfortable. They don't care if someone's gay, they just don't like being around them because they feel wierd. ...shrug... Anyway, in my experience the whole "marginalization" thing just, well, isn't a thing any more than someones religion, politics or favourite hockey team is (ok, the latter can get folks into some pretty heated debates...but that's ok, it helps keep us warm in winter... ).

As for the second bold: I couldn't agree more. The only "problem" I see is when one side/person makes a big deal out of it so much, pushes their view/stance so hard, that others feel like they are being attacked or denigrated because they have different views. THAT, imnsho, is the bigger issue; intolerant people...on all sides. Intolerance is the enemy of acceptance, after all. I deal with it all by washing my hands of it and going hard-core I don't care. If someone plays a transexual elf in my game, I can deal with it...but they better not expect to be treated "special/blessed/with honour" or otherwise be given special consideration and special exemptions. Not going to happen.

But this is all "real life" stuff trickling into the D&D game by designers who...well...I'm not sure why, exactly I guess it's a trend or something. Like [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] said, he/we use it as a: "...restful escape from reality that I use D&D for". This is a fantasy RPG. If a group wants to explore " ...a kind of a psycho-drama, you might say, where people deal with problems in their lives by acting them out", to quote one intrepid reporter named Bud Hayden down at Peekquad Caverns ( @0:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VgqZB8u3h4 ), then go for it. What I vehemently oppose is official products trying to "force" me to use D&D to address real life issues. No thank you, Evil!

It's a slippery slope WotC is treading...the majority of D&D players, I would guess, want to play D&D; they want to make a character that isn't them, take that PC into deadly areas they would never go, kill monsters that don't exist, and recover vast treasure they will never have. "...and have deep, meaningful conversations about real-world issues that affects their real lives" is probably waaaaaaaaaaay down on the list.

I just want to DM an orc that defends against those pesky adventurers that keep kicking down his door to try and take his damn pie!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Also, has no one who doesn’t want to allow the blessing of Corellon ever played Eberron?

I run Eberron, and wasn't planning to make a big thing about including it as written. For a start Corellion and the origin of the elves don't fit that well with Eberron, so it would be unlikely to go by that name.
I've already had characters with no gender, characters that switched gender regularly, a character of one gender spiritually linked and trying to emulate a person of a different gender, and an actual transgender character in the game. Generally, if someone asked to play a character with the mechanical benefits of the Blessing, I'd ask why, and work from their answer to something that works.

 

[Charlaquin]

I run Eberron, and wasn't planning to make a big thing about including it as written. For a start Corellion and the origin of the elves don't fit that well with Eberron, so it would be unlikely to go by that name.

No, I mean Changelings. They can already change sex characteristics, so it seems weird to me that a lot of people are taking issue with it when it’s elves.

 

[TheSword]

But this is all "real life" stuff trickling into the D&D game by designers who...well...I'm not sure why, exactly I guess it's a trend or something. Like @Maxperson said, he/we use it as a: "...restful escape from reality that I use D&D for". This is a fantasy RPG. If a group wants to explore " ...a kind of a psycho-drama, you might say, where people deal with problems in their lives by acting them out", to quote one intrepid reporter named Bud Hayden down at Peekquad Caverns ( @0:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VgqZB8u3h4 ), then go for it. What I vehemently oppose is official products trying to "force" me to use D&D to address real life issues. No thank you, Evil!

It's a slippery slope WotC is treading...the majority of D&D players, I would guess, want to play D&D; they want to make a character that isn't them, take that PC into deadly areas they would never go, kill monsters that don't exist, and recover vast treasure they will never have. "...and have deep, meaningful conversations about real-world issues that affects their real lives" is probably waaaaaaaaaaay down on the list.

Who said anything about deep and meaningful conversations? Isn’t enough that they just exist?

When you say designers including gay characters and trans elements in D&D products is a ‘slippery slope’... what do you mean? A slippery slope to where?

If a large number of people are gay, why is it unreasonable that one or possibly two NPCs in a 250 page adventure be gay? We’re not talking about gay story lines, just a character that happens to be gay.

Why does adding a character who happens to be gay into a story mean you’re bringing ‘real life’ into your game but a hetrosexual character is just fine? What issue is that forcing you to address? That Gay people exist?

Why does playing a gay/trans character mean you’re acting out a ‘psycho-drama’ or dealing with ‘problems in your life’ 5e seems to be firmly in the camp of having these things firmly in the background rather than being major plot issues.

There are lots of questions that arise out of your last post. It isn’t for me to answer them but the fact that these questions even exists suggest that many posters in these threads consider being gay or trans as being something other than normal. I like that D&D is part of trying to address issue in a small way.

 

[devincutler]

I run a homebrew world and no, I will not be adopting this gender shifting paradigm for elves, simply because my world does not have a Correllan Larethian as an elf god and my elf deity is not overly concerned about chaos and freedom and all that.

However, my elf goddess is connected to fertility, especially the sexual fertility of the fey races, and, as such, my elves have a very open view about sexuality, and most elves in my world are openly and unapologetically bi-sexual and some even open to bestiality. I am running an elf campaign and when a group of pixies polymorphed the PCs into goats and asked them to "revel" with a band of satyrs for laughs in exchange for a reward from the pixies, the elven PCs had no problem agreeing. The one non-elf in the party refused and did not take part in the revelry.

 

[Satyrn]

. . . a group of pixies polymorphed the PCs into goats and asked them to "revel" with a band of satyrs . . .

I, uh . . . that wasn't me! I have an . . . er . . . alibi . . . without pictures you can't prove I was there!

 

[Jester David]

For my campaign setting, I'm view this a little like winged elves.
Which are a thing.
Winged elves, or Avariel, have been in D&D since at least Dragon 51 in 1981, and also mentioned in The Complete Book of Elves. They were included in the Realms with 2e and are in the same Unearthed Arcana that had Shadar kai and sea elves.
I've never really done anything with Avariel. They're not part of my world's lore or part of my setting despite being an element of the game that is *almost* as old as I am. But if a player asked to play such a race, I'd probably allow it and simply add them into my world, expanding the lore of my setting and adding that little bit of extra depth.

I'm not adding sexshifter elves just yet to my setting. I'm musing on that lore and if I'd want the elves to view them as strange and blessed beings or just mild curiosities. ("You can alternate between being a man or a woman? How interesting. I haven't heard of that before. OH!! That elf has red hair! Do you see?") But if a player asks I'll probably say "sure, why the eff not?" After all, it's probably the least broken thing a player will ask special permission to do.

 

[Seramus]

We’re all going to be transsexual in the future, so we might as well get a head start on normalizing it. Provided we respect the feelings of the players at our table, of course.

 

[Zardnaar]

Who said anything about deep and meaningful conversations? Isn’t enough that they just exist?

When you say designers including gay characters and trans elements in D&D products is a ‘slippery slope’... what do you mean? A slippery slope to where?

If a large number of people are gay, why is it unreasonable that one or possibly two NPCs in a 250 page adventure be gay? We’re not talking about gay story lines, just a character that happens to be gay.

Why does adding a character who happens to be gay into a story mean you’re bringing ‘real life’ into your game but a hetrosexual character is just fine? What issue is that forcing you to address? That Gay people exist?

Why does playing a gay/trans character mean you’re acting out a ‘psycho-drama’ or dealing with ‘problems in your life’ 5e seems to be firmly in the camp of having these things firmly in the background rather than being major plot issues.

There are lots of questions that arise out of your last post. It isn’t for me to answer them but the fact that these questions even exists suggest that many posters in these threads consider being gay or trans as being something other than normal. I like that D&D is part of trying to address issue in a small way.

I think some people don't really want RL culture wars in D&D. I live in one of the more liberal countries in the world (New Zealand), have gays in our circle of friends, worked with a lesbian recently and a bi sexual man as of yesterday. No big deal. I don't care about things like gay marriage for example and don't really care about what consenting adults get up to in the bedroom. Doesn't mean I want to watch gay porn for example though.

I play D&D because its a fun game adding RL culture wars into it doesn't interest me. Its kind of Disney princes and princesses in a medieval fair type world although as I have gotten older I prefer it to be darker and grittier. Parts of my campaign world are not very fair to anyone, its not a modern liberal ideal but more of a ye olde bad things happen type event.