Will you make transsexual Elves canon in your games ?

[flametitan]

I like it a lot, and just added it to my game world as the norm for non drow elves, rather than a special blessing. I'm still on the fence about whether mixblood elves should obtain it. (As in my world the D&D standard elf is born from generations of their elven family intermingling with the other races, while the "pureblood" elves rule upper caste. It totally makes sense to me for purebloods to have it, but I'm unsure about mixbloods.)

 

[Satyrn]

I actually think a proficiency is probably more valuable than the ability to change gender 1/day. But now that you have suggested it, I like the idea of allowing an elf pc with the gender change ability to start off with gender randomly determined each day and the option to learn to control it via downtime.

But I love downtime. I love the passage of time in the campaign. And I am pretty liberal with training for proficiencies during downtime- I allow skill, language, tool, weapon, and armor proficiency training. And sometimes specific special abilities or techniques under the right circumstances (e.g. a monk can learn the Falling Star Strike special ability from the old monk hermit).

I think it would suit a a background trait. And you could even create a Blesssed of Corellon background, probably based on acolyte, available to elves.

And if you used drow, it could be the feature of a Cursed by Correllon background.

 

[The Big BZ]

Yes.

 

[Yaarel]

Not to get too deep into the weeds here, but this has gotten me thinking on this on what is probably far too ridiculous of a level of detail.

So first of all, to define terms, "sex" is what the body is right now, "gender" is the psycholodgical identity of the elf. I can see sex falling into at least four categories- male, female, and at least two categories or hermaphroditic/dualsexed, with the possibility of an asexual body type as well in some cases (though I don't think there is any canon support for that). But I think there's a strong likelihood of more levels of differentiation in elven bodies, and therefore in pronouns. There's also a chance that different pronouns exist for elves who shift sexes and those who don't.

Elven gender might not even really exist as a construct. I have always seen both elven gender and sexual preference as, typically, highly fluid; so if there is such a concept in elven society, it's probably very well-developed and detailed, accounting for lots of variants. So for instance, the pronoun you use for an elf might vary for an elf who changes gender when it changes sex, vs. one whose gender remains male regardless of its sex.

This is turning into a deep ramble... but yeah, I could see dozens, maybe hundreds, of different pronouns in Elvish. Of course, I also have the view that non-elves typically never learn more than advanced babytalk in Elvish due to its complexity; the long-lived elves have plenty of time to elaborate their language in ways that require deep experience to untangle. So a human who spoke Elvish would probably only use the most basic three or eight or something pronouns.

Especially, because the gender is sacred, it is likely to have specific terms.



In reallife, I avoid referring to God as ‘he’ or ‘she’, because the concept is too abstract for these genders to make sense, yet God is too personal for ‘it’ to make sense. So, I end up using ‘God’ as a pronoun: ‘God did this Godself’, and so on. Heh, fortunately, the word only has one syllable. Note, specific aspects of the divine might be masculine or feminine. But the divine encompasses and transcends either.

The point is, when a distinction becomes culturally important, a word for the distinction increases in need.

 

[Umbran]

I have two 13 year-old girls in my current 5e game, that are not my own children. I'm not addressing sexuality pretty much at all, so this is not a point I would bring up. If one of the girls *asks* about this, I'll have a quick talk with their parents before anything else.

 

[Yaarel]

Generally, it is good to answer a kids question honestly, but at the level of the question. There is rarely need to volunteer information. A precocious mind might ask more questions. It is ok to answer respectfully and honestly.

 

[Yaarel]

I think it would suit a a background trait. And you could even create a Blesssed of Corellon background, probably based on acolyte, available to elves.

And if you used drow, it could be the feature of a Cursed by Correllon background.

Background is the perfect design space for this! Gender-swapping can be in the ‘special resource’ part of the background.

 

[Satyrn]

Gender-swapping can be in the ‘special resource’ part of the background.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at.

 

[Remathilis]

No.

The whole change-gender-on-the-fly thing is something I added to Orcs in my games a long time ago, to differentiate them a bit from all the other humanoid types. Happy with this. Elves don't need it.

THAT'S and interesting take; I'd accept that.

As for my game, I'd allow it. Its a specific God's blessing, so few elves would ever experience it (most NPC elves are born one gender and stick with it) but if a PC wanted to do it, I wouldn't care in the least. PCs are special snowflakes anyway.

Honestly, in a world where most monster genealogies begin with "a wizard did it", a race known for wizardry being able to change genders seems the most pedestrian thing they could do.

 

[Dualazi]

Nope. I tend to keep serious elements of gender/sexuality out of my games because it's not the time or place that's appropriate for those discussions, and this option also runs the risk of involving political discourse, which is likewise discouraged at my table. The risks vastly outweigh the returns and I would consider it a big red flag if a prospective player was dead set on the option.