Brad.

Explain how 'real world has gay people, this fantasy world has none' does not constitute erasure.

Is that simple enough for you?

Quote from: RPGPundit;796815"quasi" is the keyword here. If you're playing a game set in actual medieval europe (even if it's a slightly-fantasy version of the same), then I would have an issue with the inaccuracy of portraying 21st-century style homosexual couples accepted by the 'regular society' of the time.

If you are setting it on a world that isn't Earth, that doesn't have christian monotheism as its dominant religion, that does have fireball (to say nothing of Change Self) style working magic, and monsters of all variety, then all bets are off. I wouldn't specifically have a problem with a world like that where, for particular and explicitly-understandable reasons, some or all areas persecuted homosexuality, but I also wouldn't have any problem at all with a world like that where you had a homosexual couple with adopted kids as owners of the local tavern.

And of course, if you've got a world that's like Classical Greece, or ancient India, or the pre-columbian Maya, then its just silly to be talking about the U.S. 21st century heterosexual-homosexual male-female divides at all.

In any case, if you are playing in a world called Golarion (or Faerun, or whatever) and you have no problem with Raise Dead and Orc Hordes but running into a gay couple in Waterdeep before entering the mountain-sized mad wizard's dungeon is causing you conniptions of incredulity or outrage, you may have a problem.

I think this is the fundamental point. Not all settings are replicas of medieval Europe. Dueteronomy may or may not be a thing in your setting. And if you tend to set stuff in the ancient world rather than medieval, there is even more room for dealing differently with sexuality. At the end of the day I think there are two kinds of fantasy settings, those that cleave very close to the real history and those that use the past as a source for inspirational backdrops but take great liberties (think Hercules and Zena where lots of modern stuff flows into the content freely). It is really a spectrum. But even if you are dealing with something strictly rooted in the middle ages, gay people would still exist in that setting. It isn't like having prohibitions against it in the setting's laws stops it from being something that occurs.

For me, I am cool with stuff like Golarion. They go further than I would in my campaigns bringing in stuff from our modern world, but there is audience for that (and something to be said for how that makes the setting more approachable for a lot of people).

Quote from: Will;796823Brad.

Explain how 'real world has gay people, this fantasy world has none' does not constitute erasure.

Is that simple enough for you?

Not including gay folks into your game isn't erasure. A lot of us run games and sexuality never comes into anything. Does my game world have gay folks? I'm sure they are there.

Quote from: Ulairi;796829Not including gay folks into your game isn't erasure. A lot of us run games and sexuality never comes into anything. Does my game world have gay folks? I'm sure they are there.

If you have married couples, arranged marriages, or any of that jazz? You have sexuality coming into things as much as 'Bob and Brethor live down by the docks, breeding cats when they aren't out defending the kingdom against aberrants.'


If you are wondering why the SJWs and radicals go so far, it's because of shit like this.

Quote from: Ulairi;796829Not including gay folks into your game isn't erasure. A lot of us run games and sexuality never comes into anything. Does my game world have gay folks? I'm sure they are there.

There is a HUGE difference between "Sexuality never comes into my game," and "when sexuality comes into my game it's always straight hetero man on top."

Sexuality has never come into my game in 40 years of D&D.  That said, if somebody said "my character is transgender*," I'd say "Okay."

* or whatever

Quote from: RPGPundit;796815"quasi" is the keyword here. If you're playing a game set in actual medieval europe (even if it's a slightly-fantasy version of the same), then I would have an issue with the inaccuracy of portraying 21st-century style homosexual couples accepted by the 'regular society' of the time.

If you are setting it on a world that isn't Earth, that doesn't have christian monotheism as its dominant religion, that does have fireball (to say nothing of Change Self) style working magic, and monsters of all variety, then all bets are off.

I now officially owe you a beer.

If it matters, my longest-running setting is one in which in the 'protagonist' nation, being openly gay or lesbian would have you ostracized and possibly imprisoned, and in some nations outright executed as a deviant.

If that's part of the world, fine.

It's the blithe privileged 'I've never thought about it but every single relationship is hetero and nothing I consider unusual ever appears, and how dare you ask me to think about that' that I reject as bullshit.

Quote from: Brad;796814You do realize this is a fucking game you're talking about right? It's not an exercise for pushing some political agenda. If you feel the need to add gay dudes to your game, go for it, but not including them says literally nothing other than, "I didn't include them." And, honestly, if we're supposed to be so inclusive of everyone, why even bring it up at all? Aren't you paradoxically making a big deal out of something that shouldn't be a big deal..?

EDIT: Post #666. My work here is complete.

In the past non-heterosexual people were oppressed in Europe.  Their sexual practices went underground, eg gay men meeting in loos/ heath-land, disguising their true sexual identity.  Thus on the surface, there weren't any back then.  This didn't mean they did not exist however.  Being gay/lesbian/ bi/ trans is perfectly normal.

Yes - we play games.  To have fun!  Thing is, some gamers are lesbian, gay, bi or trans.  Others of us have friends who are.  Some of us are keen to have different sexual orientations in their games.  Quite frankly: what is your problem?!

Why have LGBT characters in games?  A better question - why not? Why deliberately exclude them? We know now, thanks to better education and awareness, that society, cinema, gaming etc has excluded the LGBT characters from starring in films, in game narratives etc...... Now we know this, why can't game writers seek to rectify this, and have greater diversity of npcs in the stories we play?

Or should our games recreate sexist, racist, homophobic bigoted cultures from the past....where the normal is you play a white muscular barbarian and go wenching ala Conan?

In games we try to have fun.  Whilst racism, homophobia, sexism etc can be part of a game, over-playing them can be unfun.

For example, if one was to recreate a culture of racism in the society you were in and a player had a pc from an oppressed minority, it would not be much fun to have them subjected to vile abuse, being chased by lynch mobs etc etc.  Neither would it be fun if all their interactions with the dominant ethnic group were tense, abusive affairs..... it would produce a very negative and oppressive gaming atmosphere.  

There is nothing abnormal about there being lesbian, gay, bi or trans people/ relationships in games.  The problem was in the past game writers were blind to their existence.  Normal meant husbands and wives back in Gygax's day.  Today, modern game writers are making sure their games are inclusive and make sure narratives appeal to a diverse range of gamers, not just the white, heterosexual male ones.  What is so bad about that?

In fantasy games, anything can go!  The only limits are your imagination.  With magic, sex changes are thus very possible.

Moreover as Pundit, Will and others have said, there are many other non-European cultures in which LGBT sexualities were/ are perfectly acceptable in history.

The only people making a big deal out of this are people like you and Stupidquestion - since you are homophobes.

As a Stonewall campaign in the UK from 2 years ago stated:

"Some People Are Gay.  Get Over It."

Of course, no one is forcing you to buy these games.  There are literally 100s if not 1000s of d20 scenarios out there with no LGBT characters..... But the point is, these worlds and stories are flawed for their creation of worlds where they are no LGBT npcs.  Where normal npcs are heterosexual.  Where this is the default assumption for every npc.  The same can be said about the focus of narratives on faux-white mediaeval societies, where black people are described as natives and live in jungles etc etc.  All very tiring.

Personally I think it is really refreshing that finally games writers are catching up with 21st century social mores.  Not only will this be affirming to members of minority groups who are gamers, it also makes for new and thus more interesting stories.... re-telling the same narratives, eg there is a princess who has been captured by an ugly hag....go rescue her etc..... gets tired.... Just as Shrek the movie reinvented fairy stories by inverting them and updating them with modern social mores, so too can the same be done to fantasy roleplaying scenarios.  Thus for me, this is an excellent development and I look forward to greater verisimilitude in all areas of gaming life.  There is still a long way to go yet however.

Quote from: Will;796838It's the blithe privileged 'I've never thought about it but every single relationship is hetero and nothing I consider unusual ever appears, and how dare you ask me to think about that' that I reject as bullshit.

I will admit that sometimes you annoy the shit out of me, but sometimes you really nail the heart of the matter.  This is one of those times when you've nailed it.

Go get a beer.  Get one for yourself too.

Quote from: Omega;796725Keep on the Borderlands has the innkeeper, his wife and family. In fact Im pretty sure theres at least two or three families mentioned. Same for I'sle of dread with the natives.

And I believe In Search of the Unknown has in its background that the leader of Quasqueton married his former adventuring companion?

I don't know about B2, but you are wrong about Isle of Dread - no married couples there - and In Search of the Unknown does not say anything about the marital status of either adventurer AFAICR, though I think one is indicated to have had a lover.

I remember reading through City State of the Invincible Overlord and finding not one married couple in all the hundreds of NPCs. It's implied that the two owners of Naughty Nannies might be romantic as well as business partners; that's it.

In Paizo stuff I can recall three married couples - secretly-lesbian Queen Ileosa who poisons her husband King Eodred in Curse of the Crimson Throne, the happily married innkeeping couple in Kingmaker, and the couple in Wrath of the Righteous.  99%+ of NPCs are not listed as married; and probably 99.9% of non-homosexual (heterosexual or unspecified) NPCs are not listed as married. Marriage in Golarion is kinda gay.

Quote from: Bren;796736Meh. You all are way too liberal.

Personally, I'd favor the Paladin needing to retire before getting married to anyone

That was my feeling when I read it. The character is supposed to be a crusader on a probably-doomed mission to fight the Worldwound until death. But she seems to spend more time on her personal life than on actually fighting demons. And her church/order thoroughly approve of this. The author seemed to deliberately strip out all the sources of (melo)drama that would normally be applied liberally, if this were eg a straight male paladin in love with a woman.

Quote from: Old Geezer;796844I will admit that sometimes you annoy the shit out of me, but sometimes you really nail the heart of the matter.  This is one of those times when you've nailed it.

Go get a beer.  Get one for yourself too.

I'll take it!

(Well, tonight once the kids are in bed. And it'll probably be vodka. Which I discovered LAST night tastes awesome with that fizzy Emergen-C. IT'S MEDICINAL)

Quote from: Ravenswing;796801Honest to God, for everyone who blathers on about how touchy and oversensitive the liberal SJWs are, your kind really does react like a wounded buffalo when your sensibilities are jarred.

I have no sensitivities regarding the issue. It doesn't offend me. I'm an atheist, liberal, tolerant Canadian who supports gay marriage and thinks sex change operations should be publicly funded.

What I'm not into is:

Identity politics
Us vs Them worldviews
Social crusades that are more about cultural signalling than utilitarian improvements
'Check your privilege'
Naff romantic subplots in D&D adventures

Quote from: Ulairi;796829Not including gay folks into your game isn't erasure. A lot of us run games and sexuality never comes into anything. Does my game world have gay folks? I'm sure they are there.

Exactly. I have no use for adventure content that does not come into play in an adventure. "The stableboy is the runaway son of the dour miller, who moved to the village five years ago from the kingdom of Amirite, where he was priest who had an illicit affair with a priestess and was cast out by the jealous high priest [bullshit... bullshit... bullshit]". Since everyone I've played with is interested in looting tombs and outwitting sorcerers, and has no interest whatsoever in seducing innkeepers and reuniting estranged lovers, that content is extraneous. And I'm willing to bet it doesn't come into play for 80 per cent of the people who play adventure paths. It's there for the market of Paizo customers who read APs but don't play. It's written by hacks who desperately want to write fiction but don't have the talent. And it's an opportunity for the publishers to signal their cultural allegiances. But it has fuck all to do with playing a game.

Quote from: Will;796747I suppose 'largely ignored' is one of those comfortable phrases.

Haffrung, Omega came up with those off the top of their head.

Yeah, but most of them were wrong.

On another note, one potential problem with 'inclusivity' is White Hat Syndrome.

I saw this most often with online gaming, where the minute your Victorian gentleman said anything negative about lesser races, EVERY SINGLE PC rushed over to tell you how horrible you were and how inclusive they were and bla bla bler bla.

Everyone is so eager to display Happy Pixie Merry Land that nothing bad ever happens unless they have an explicit black hat.

I hope people will see a pattern in my views, that I think conflict and people being WRONG make for interesting drama and cool stories.

Part of that is that, you know, sometimes the good king Jerald is kind of an asshole about some stuff. Sometimes people aren't nice, or inclusive, or egalitarian.

That gives you something to fight against/for, if you are so inclined.