Quote from: Omega;1110318In mine gnomes are red skinned as I based them off of local legends of the "little people" that have been passed down. Years later TSR does the Atruaghin gazeteer for Mystara and it is native american & aztec/mayan themed. Great illustrations in that by Fabian by the way. His and Tim Trueman's NA depictions actually look NA.

Oddly this splendifiorous creation is missing from modern D&D... Clearly their Oppression Ranking isn't high enough.

Quote from: Omega;1110321Fixed that for you. :cool:

Nah, I had right the first time. This thread is proof of that.

Quote from: Pat;1110260D&D isn't a relationship drama. The only time someone's sexuality comes up is because it's an implied part of the background (peasant man and peasant woman live in the same house, they have kids, there might or might not be a "husband" or "wife" reference somewhere), or because it's part of a usually clumsy plot point, or there's a light reference to someone's magical realm (festhalls, all those Charisma 16-18 bar wenches, etc.).

It's just not important. That's why attempts at "representation" stand out, because they're explicitly highlighting something the rest of the game almost completely ignores.

Comeliness 16-18 bar wenches. Everybody forgets the short lived attribute of Comeliness......

Replying to Pat --

From Post #405, I summarized:

Quote from: jhkim;1108801In general, I'd usually want gay characters to be handled just like any other characters, like being left-handed or green-eyed. It shouldn't be a political point either way. They would just exist because such people exist within the setting. In settings with accepted same-sex marriage like modern-day U.S., or Blue Rose's Aldis, or Forgotten Realms - then I'd expect to see a few same-sex married couples if there are other married couples. In historical or pseudo-historical settings, there would still be gay people, but they would typically (but not always) be hidden or closeted.

I don't have any particular expectation about how often I'd see such characters. Modules aren't demographic treatises, and I don't have any demand that gay people exist in precisely the proportion they are in real life or the fictional setting. That means I don't have a problem with 0% gay but I also don't have a problem with 15% gay.

Quote from: Pat;1110260D&D isn't a relationship drama. The only time someone's sexuality comes up is because it's an implied part of the background (peasant man and peasant woman live in the same house, they have kids, there might or might not be a "husband" or "wife" reference somewhere), or because it's part of a usually clumsy plot point, or there's a light reference to someone's magical realm (festhalls, all those Charisma 16-18 bar wenches, etc.).

It's just not important.

I agree, and I feel like this is exactly what I've been saying. I think sexuality should be a minor background detail. I don't think an author should have to tiptoe around saying that two people are husband and wife, or that a "festhall" is actually a brothel. One should just be able to say those and not have it be a big deal. By contrast, jeff37923 created a thread specifically about how to have plots that hinge around being gay -

"Brainstorming: What Scenarios Would Hinge Upon a NPCs Sexual Orientation/Preference?"

That's the opposite about how I generally approach sexuality. I'd have that a character is straight or gay, and that's it. It's a minor bit of color that won't generally come up.

Quote from: Omega;1110318In mine gnomes are red skinned as I based them off of local legends of the "little people" that have been passed down. Years later TSR does the Atruaghin gazeteer for Mystara and it is native american & aztec/mayan themed. Great illustrations in that by Fabian by the way. His and Tim Trueman's NA depictions actually look NA.

You forgot to mention that Atruaghin Gazetteer is absolutely terrible, the nadir of the line. And it's not really Aztec or Mayan themed, except for a little about the immortals. It's based on the plains tribes.

Quote from: jeff37923;1110345Comeliness 16-18 bar wenches. Everybody forgets the short lived attribute of Comeliness......

Might need to bump that up a bit, Comeliness didn't follow the same scale as the other attributes. PCs could start with a score of 23, and gods could reach as high as 30.

Quote from: tenbones;1110339Oddly this splendifiorous creation is missing from modern D&D... Clearly their Oppression Ranking isn't high enough.

So true. So in my 5e version I guess I'll have them oppressing other tribes and nations. :rolleyes:

Quote from: jeff37923;1110345Comeliness 16-18 bar wenches. Everybody forgets the short lived attribute of Comeliness......

Lived a bit longer in Oriental Adventures. But yeah. It never caught on. Nor did pretty much 95% of the skills n Powers book for 2e with its plethora of new sub stats.

Quote from: jhkim;1110380Replying to Pat --

From Post #405, I summarized:


I agree, and I feel like this is exactly what I've been saying. I think sexuality should be a minor background detail. I don't think an author should have to tiptoe around saying that two people are husband and wife, or that a "festhall" is actually a brothel. One should just be able to say those and not have it be a big deal. By contrast, jeff37923 created a thread specifically about how to have plots that hinge around being gay -

"Brainstorming: What Scenarios Would Hinge Upon a NPCs Sexual Orientation/Preference?"

That's the opposite about how I generally approach sexuality. I'd have that a character is straight or gay, and that's it. It's a minor bit of color that won't generally come up.

To an extent I agree with this and the quoted posts about FR specifically.  But for D&D in general, and especially RPGs as a group, there are plenty of different strokes for different folks, and it's largely a matter of what your group is comfortable with and the setting.  Most campaigns I've played in have been very sex-neutral and largely abided by the T for Teen sort of mantra.  We may torture enemies for information and brutally murder old folks who wronged us, but even the implication someone was visiting a brothel, much less what may transpire within, is danced around and ignored.  That being said, it's not the only way to play, and being default doesn't make it "correct".  In my homebrew setting, Aphrodite as a Goddess has temples that are pretty brazenly brothels.  The priests, priestesses, and acolytes of Aphrodite are pretty openly whores, and the magic they practice to perform the miracles of their deity, let's just say it's not PG-13.  That doesn't mean it needs to be spelled out in explicit detail any more than the decapitation and disemboweling of the PC's enemies needs to be, but it's there and part of the setting, because it makes sense contextually and logically, based on history and intellectual consistency.  In such a setting, if someone chooses to engage with the faithful of Aphrodite, it makes *sense* for them to be pretty open about their sexuality, because it's directly related to their practices, interests, and the ways they are expecting to interact with the PCs.  Meanwhile, a follower of Tempus will almost certainly NOT bring up their sexuality in pretty much any context, and you'd have to tail them and monitor who goes in and out of their tent to have an idea regarding it, as it has absolutely nothing to do with their primary interests or the way they expect to interact with the PCs, barring individual interpersonal complications.

I will say I am not a huge fan of how prudish most media, including generic RPGs, tend to be.  Sexual content is intrinsically tied to the existence of biological life.  We don't need to spell out what the PCs do in regards to that any more than we need to spell out them eating or sleeping or breathing or relieving themselves, but it like any biological function CAN be a point of interest, and it makes as little sense to me to gloss over that aspect of life as it does to try to dance around eating and drinking and hide what goes on when they stop at a tavern.  Maybe I'm alone in this, let me know.  Fundamentally my guiding principle is, are my players expressing interest in it, and is it just one or two players while the rest of the PCs fall silent, or are they all interested, and if they are all interested, let them explore whatever they want to explore, whether that's trade negotiations, drinking contests, crafting, sexual activity, or whatever else.

It's not really about the presentation of sexuality.

It's about the desire to appropriate *anything* and everything from normal society and make them Woke. None of the issues within the individual segments of the Intersectional Religion has *anything* in common with one another - they are groups of people following the pied-piper's narrative that they are oppressed by White Heterosexual Male Patriarchal Culture, and *everything* is a product of that, and needs to be co-opted or destroyed.

If it were about sexuality only - adult players wouldn't *really* be debating this. It's about the pandering political agenda being inserted into everything for purposes OTHER than real-world issues that L's or G's, or POC's, or T's or anyone else conveniently co-opted into their bullshit agenda based on immutable characteristics that *NO ONE* can change, have to face.

But they pretend it matters. It doesn't.

Quote from: Giant Octopodes;1110430To an extent I agree with this and the quoted posts about FR specifically.  But for D&D in general, and especially RPGs as a group, there are plenty of different strokes for different folks, and it's largely a matter of what your group is comfortable with and the setting.  Most campaigns I've played in have been very sex-neutral and largely abided by the T for Teen sort of mantra. We may torture enemies for information and brutally murder old folks who wronged us, but even the implication someone was visiting a brothel, much less what may transpire within, is danced around and ignored.

Absolutely, there are different strokes for different folks. Some groups are T-for-Teen. Apparently, there are some groups where even G-rated material is avoided -- where just having two NPCs be man and wife might be too much information. I haven't seen that extreme much, but if people want to play that way, they're welcome to.

Most of my non-D&D games tend to have some visible romantic relations - like in Champions, it was common for a character to have an NPC girlfriend or boyfriend, or in Buffy the Vampire Slayer there were various romantic subplots, or in historical / pseudo-historical games there was some maneuvering over marriages (usually arranged marriages). In D&D, I've typically seen less of this -- though there is at least an understanding that NPCs would be in relationships.

Quote from: Giant Octopodes;1110430I will say I am not a huge fan of how prudish most media, including generic RPGs, tend to be.  Sexual content is intrinsically tied to the existence of biological life.  We don't need to spell out what the PCs do in regards to that any more than we need to spell out them eating or sleeping or breathing or relieving themselves, but it like any biological function CAN be a point of interest, and it makes as little sense to me to gloss over that aspect of life as it does to try to dance around eating and drinking and hide what goes on when they stop at a tavern.  Maybe I'm alone in this, let me know.

No, I feel similarly. I like a variety of games - including some with romantic melodrama, along with plenty without. But the standard of avoiding even G-rated mention of romance seems strange to me. In my D&D games, there will typically be at least mentions of, say, interest in a comely bar-maid or similar.

Quote from: jhkim;1110612Absolutely, there are different strokes for different folks. Some groups are T-for-Teen. Apparently, there are some groups where even G-rated material is avoided -- where just having two NPCs be man and wife might be too much information. I haven't seen that extreme much, but if people want to play that way, they're welcome to.

Most of my non-D&D games tend to have some visible romantic relations - like in Champions, it was common for a character to have an NPC girlfriend or boyfriend, or in Buffy the Vampire Slayer there were various romantic subplots, or in historical / pseudo-historical games there was some maneuvering over marriages (usually arranged marriages). In D&D, I've typically seen less of this -- though there is at least an understanding that NPCs would be in relationships.

It's not even different strokes for different strokes, it's often just the nature of the game and the group. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer is very explicitly a show about relationships, and the RPG emulates that, so dating is an important part of the default premise. The super-hero genre as a whole is only one step removed from Soap Operas, so there will be significant others to rescue and maybe some forbidden attraction. But D&D? Despite the terrible anime, the dungeon isn't really a place to pick up girls or guys. And unlike Pendragon, where the downtime and things like marriage are formalized, D&D's downtime is often brushed over or ignored.

The second reason is because having a sexually- or even romantically- oriented game requires everyone be on the same page, and comfortable with everyone else around the table expressing that degree of sexuality. Essentially, it works best with mixed peer groups, i.e. people who in other circumstances would be sharing girl talk, locker room talk, or flirting. If you have kids, strange old men, happily married couples, and so on, you're probably not going to focus much on romantic or sexual relationships because nobody really wants to think about each other that way.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1109851For some people, the inclusion of minorities is not a political act; it's just reflecting the world that they see.

Sadly, WotC has demonstrated that this level of inclusion is for attention and not just a reflection of the world we live in. And I'm torn if this adventure, which makes a gay character a villain and mentally ill, should be presented in a Starter set. Imagine being a young member of the LGBT and this game you are hearing about as inclusive, casts someone you identify with as mentally ill and the bad guy.

Quote from: Sunsword;1110916Sadly, WotC has demonstrated that this level of inclusion is for attention and not just a reflection of the world we live in. And I'm torn if this adventure, which makes a gay character a villain and mentally ill, should be presented in a Starter set. Imagine being a young member of the LGBT and this game you are hearing about as inclusive, casts someone you identify with as mentally ill and the bad guy.

Imagine being an old white guy with a beard that suffers from anxiety & depression and discovering that that they've cast an old white guy with a beard as a crazy necromancer... Same shit, different labels.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1110925Imagine being an old white guy with a beard that suffers from anxiety & depression and discovering that that they've cast an old white guy with a beard as a crazy necromancer... Same shit, different labels.

Your strawman is showing.