dnd

BerrornarI got a few responses to my post on D&D Next races that I would like to discuss here.

First, a comment from Impressions on the D&D Next Races Section by Deran.

I agree, that women have been treated badly in the past (and by some these days). I don't think this type of mentality should be portrayed in games. I think there are fundamental differences between the genders and should equally be addressed in the documentation. Describing male Dwarves as generally a little huskier than females doesn't seem to me that female Dwarves are any less important. I would like to see more information on female Dwarves and why some wear beards and others choose not to.

There are a few problems with this argument. Applying human sexual differences to dwarves has no basis in the game reality. Dwarves neither evolved nor were created by an Abrahamic god. They were created by Moradin and, as far as I can tell, before 3.5 (and maybe 3rd, I don't have a 3rd edition players' handbook), they were near impossible to tell apart physically. In fact, even Moradin's wife has a beard, one that has its own mythology associated with it. The only real sex or gender difference I could find, from Roger E. Moore's "The Dwarven Point of View" in Dragon #58, was an explanation that for whatever reason, fewer females were born than males. My understanding is that dwarven culture in general viewed adventuring in a negative manner, so given the low numbers of women born each year, it makes sense that a female dwarf adventurer would be rare. In everything else, it seems that males and females have approximately the same opportunities. If a female dwarf wants to spend her life as a craftsmen, she is allowed that freedom. If a male dwarf gets married, it was expected that he turn his focus to his home life. So these beliefs in fundamental differences between sex/gender make no sense in the context of a dwarf.

However, that tidbit about there being fewer female births leads me into the next question.

When I read (skim, really) over the races section, it reads to me like the guidelines for art orders got included in the draft. I find it really easy to imagine someone deciding that that information (art guides) would be useful in the draft races chapter, which might be part of why I read it that way.

Independent of the specific choices for very specific things like female dwarven beards (which is an interesting topic, but you guys have it covered already), I wonder what you think about gender dimorphism in art orders? I know that you've spent some time and effort on the topic of gender representation in fantasy art, and I think we agree that the very blatant differences characteristic of, for example, WoW are disturbing. I'm not sure how I feel about simpler and subtler indicators like half-elven facial hair, or `slight' height/bulk differences for elves.

Part of my motivation is this: I have several trans friends, and social cues like facial hair, grooming, and muscle bulk are important to them. In your opinion, is this something that's worth preserving in fantasy games, or is the cart pulling the horse?

I wanted to post this as a comment, but couldn't find the comment link. Thanks!
~Chad

I'm not sure if they were the art orders, but if they are, that makes me rather sad. That would mean that these things could not be addressed before the books come out and would be part of the game without discussion from the community. However, after doing some research, it seems likely that it came from 3.5. I'm also curious if it's related to video games and the such where there seems to be some difficulty in making females in general anything but skinny and big-breasted.

I want to be upfront, I'm no expert in transgender topics or issues and my experience is that many of my readers are not either. So I'd first like to give my definitions for a few terms before we discuss them. These happen to be my understanding of the terms and, in general, they can be quite hard to define precisely, I think in part because they are intended to define things that are, in reality, quite ambiguous. (Please, contact me if I'm grossly misrepresenting the meanings.)

sex - In it's most basic form, the label (male or female) assigned at birth based on physiological characteristics.
intersex - People who fall outside the physiological norms making labeling them with a sex difficult or results in them being labeled with a sex they do not have.
gender - Societal expectations and norms surrounding people of a particular sex and how we perceive ourselves. Gender is often referred to as a societal construct.
cisgender - People whose physiological expression matches their gender.
transgender - Peoples whose physiological expression does not match their gender.

I'm leaving out sexuality/sexual preference for now because it really deserves a post of its own.

I think the first thing we should discuss is that while we might label people as being cis or trans, that doesn't mean that all members of that group feel the same way about something. We cover up a lot of diversity in doing so, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for neutral, and some for bad. So, while these sorts of cues are important for some, they might not be for others, regardless of their gender.

However, we know that for some people being able to express gender in a story or game can be very important. When people complain about having too many strong women characters being nothing more but men with a different facade, what they often mean is that it feels like the gender of the person is completely irrelevant, we call that character a woman but nothing about what it means to be a woman in her society seems to affect her decisions or reactions. Generally they don't mean that no women can be portrayed in that way, but the lack of diversity in portrayals gets to them.

This lack of diversity in the D&D Next races is what bothers me. If three out of the four races present as males are larger than females, we lack a bit of diversity in our stories. That sex characteristic doesn't add much, if anything to the game. How is my gender as a dwarf different from gender in elves or in humans?

Additionally, in the case of the dwarf race, I find it detrimental to dwarf cis women. The aspects of society that are discussed in the description focus on mining and battle, two areas that regardless of historical accuracy, many people in the audience align with strength. People also tend to align smaller size with less strength. Thus, you take the one race that is supposed to be all about strength and create a sexual dimorphism that can easily imply a difference in prestige along gender lines, something that, as mentioned above, was lacking in some earlier editions of the game. Additionally, while I can imagine a world where magic users provide permanent body alternations, altering one's size and shape doesn't seem to be as interesting as figuring out the issues of how one fits into society or changes society to fit oneself.

Thus, while I agree that for a portion of the players, gender differences and representations of sexual dimorphism will be important tools in helping them play the character they want, I think we should be careful in what those differences can imply within the setting's society and have a preference towards including them when they increase our story options rather than repeating our own biases in the setting without thought.

To me, that's one of the most interesting things about having fewer dwarf females born each year. Dwarfs are a society built on tradition and clans. For males, family is both important (clan-based) and many of them will not have one (not enough females). For females, while one can choose to become a craftsmen or an adventurer, there has to be a lot of pressure to reproduce. For everyone, are clans patrilineal, matrilineal, or maybe not even based on genealogy but interest? Are daughters celebrated more than sons due to their rarity? Do some societies decide to go with a polyandry system instead of monogamy? Do some cis men marry non-dwarves instead? How do their families react?

In this case, the sex-based change in society provides a character with a wide range of decisions based on sex and gender. Instead of limiting character development, for players who want to, it expands it.

I'd argue that the size difference in elves, while breaking with traditional representations of elves in some ways, isn't as important as with the dwarves. Elves aren't particularly known for their strength and size doesn't have the same implications in regards to the things they are known for, such as their bonds with nature or affinity towards magic.

Note: A good starting point for understanding transgender is Transgender 101: 15 Things to Know

One of the common reactions to my discussion of the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth was, "Oh come on, that was written so long ago. Why are we talking about it?"

The reason why I discuss it is because if you immerse yourself in D&D material from that time period long enough, you start bringing the points of view into the current project. I already pointed it out a bit with the races, but it's even clearer in the deities section in the classes.

Sedille: "Sedille" © 2012 Jenna Fowler, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Here are the deities: Arcanist, Lifegiver, Lightbringer, Protector, Reaper, Stormcaller, Trickster, and Warbringer.

Now, I happen to like the creation of archetypes instead of specific deities. This is important because D&D Next is meant to unite editions. By using archetypes, they can provide mechanics for the different deities that work in Greyhawk and in Forgotten Realms. It's weighted a bit towards martial, but that makes sense given D&D Next development until this time, it's largely been dungeon crawls.

However, I do have issues with the descriptions of three of them. Lifegiver, Protector, and Stormcaller. Suddenly, out of nowhere, these deities and the concepts and traditions they represent become gendered. The Lifegiver deity, the one involved with growth, healing, and fertility, is "usually female." The Protector, the domain of defensive strength. As a martial deity, it's usually male, but as the community building, caregiving version, it's usually female. Finally, Stormcaller, which represents storms, wars, physical might, and courage is commonly barbaric and male.

At this point, some will argue that this is traditional, we shouldn't get upset at this. Yes, in patriarchal societies, this was typical but far from universal. But, those are patriarchal societies, something that should not be assumed for all games of D&D. What happened to not setting the thermostat?

Additionally, some may point out that well, we're talking about the deities themselves, not the player characters. The problem with this is that it still implies that there are gender-based distinctions within the setting itself. That men are war-like, courageous, and barbaric. Women are the lifegivers, community builders, and caregivers. Add on top of this the sexual dimorphism, and we're right back in the 1970s. Sure, there are strong female characters in the setting but they are rare and exceptional.

My suggestion, leave out the "usually male" and "commonly female." It doesn't add anything while still setting the thermostat as it were. For those of us who don't want that in our games, it's one less thing we have to explicitly fight against. Our players won't be reinforced into believing that genders are a particular way in our game. People who want this gender bias in their games will bring it to the game on their own. They are still fully supported, especially since the settings mentioned have this bias in them.

Please, don't explicitly put gender stereotypes into your setting, Wizards of the Coast.

Today the Dungeon Bastard released an awesome video about gender and gaming.

The person was seeking advice on how to break some of the men in the group of the habit of playing women. It starts of with a general question of why someone would want to play a character of another gender and then goes on to how he wouldn't mind but the other players are playing women poorly.

Bill Cavalier's answer starts off simple, "Who cares?"

In my experience, gender often gets handled in a strange way in our community. As Dungeon Bastard posted with his Facebook share of the video, "Playing a 3-foot tall gnome-like creature with an insatiable appetite and hairy feet? -Not weird at all. Playing the opposite gender? WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!" I see similar things like this quite often. We play in a world with magical fireballs, dragons, floating land masses, swords with their own ego and motivations, but women still need to be physically weaker than men or things are off and our suspension of disbelief ruined. We can roleplay a dwarf poorly, but when it gets to be a man playing female character, it's something that must be stopped?

The reason I love the Dungeon Bastard is because it's important to point out that it doesn't really matter. When we frame it like it's a weird thing for a man to want to play a female character, it can send an unwelcoming message to others. When we are willing to suspend our disbelief and the physics of the world for things like magic or dragons, but not for a person who wants to play a stronger than real life female character, it sends a poor message about what we think is important.

And that is why gender-based attribute caps, penalties, and bonuses can be harmful. It's not about whether or not there are real life physical differences in strength. It's because by including them in a game we create, we're saying that that thing is really important about a real life thing, in this case gender. So important that we can't possibly play the game without having the mechanics enforce one particular vision of a fantasy world. It breaks my suspension of disbelief and fun to say, "I can imagine a world in which I can cast a fireball but I can't imagine a world where a woman can be just as strong as any man."

So, thanks, Dungeon Bastard, for pointing out the arbitrary nature of these things. Now let's kick some ass and have fun!

By the way, if you love Dungeon Bastard's advice as much as I do, you might want to check out his Kickstarter, The World's Worst Dungeon Crawl!

Attention: Spoilers of the Lost Cavern of Tsojcanth ahead.

Some people questioned how I could have a problem with the Lost Cavern of Tsojcanth. The main character from history is a woman afterall, and a powerful one at that. She imprisoned the demon

Having an evil main character be a woman isn't necessarily a problem. Heck, in a world with gender equality, that should happen about half the time. I have problems with the fact that the only prominent women in the world are evil. In the societies presented, such as the gnomes, there are no strong women. In fact, the female gnomes are non-combatants even when the blood thirsty PCs are at their door attempting to slaughter them.

Furthermore, there are additional issues with Drelnza. First, she is literally called treasure. Now some people might want to spin this into a "Look, motherhood transcends pure evil for Iggwilv considered her daughter to be her treasure." I could almost buy this, although I'd find that too a bit problematic, but Drelnza is presented as literal treasure, a golden Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.

The sleeping maiden is armored from toe to neck in gold chased plate mail. A long bastard sword is atop her body, its quillons below her breasts, its point near her feet. The woman's gauntleted hands are crossed over the sword's pommel. Her pale face seems composed. Her lips are bright red and her raven-hued tresses are lustrous. A helmet with plumes as black as the maid's hair rests on the slab just above her head.

To play up this Disney Princess connection even more, she attempts to manipulate and charm the party.

Drelnza will then awaken and be fully aware, but she will remain still until someone enters the chamber. Drelnza will then sit up slowly, pass a hand across her brow as if coming out of a strange coma, and then blink her eyes open. When she sees the party, she will smile sweetly and welcome her "rescuers" -using a vampiric charm on each member of the party. She will attempt to charm as many persons as possible before the whole party comes down into the lower portion of the sphere. As soon as a lawful good cleric comes within 10' of her, Drelnza's sword will spring into her hands, and she will smite the cleric. Drelnza has a bonus of +2 to hit and +4 damage with weapons, due to strength.

So, yes, part of me wants to say, well at least she's strong and bad ass. However, I'm not entirely sure this is due to her strength or due to the weapon itself. In fact, she also stands out for having a sword that has its own ego and intelligence. The sword is so powerful, it overshadows her.

Her sword is a chaotic evil bastard sword +4 with an intelligence of 17 and an ego of 20. Its special purpose is to slay lawful good clerics, and any such cleric struck by it must save vs. Paralyzation or be paralyzed for 1-4 rounds. The sword also has the following powers: detect good, detect magic, detect invisibility, flying. The sword can communicate telepathically, read languages, read magic, and speak Common, Hill Giant, Minotaur, and chaotic evil. Drelnza wears plate mail +2, and slippers of spider climbing (see the end of the module for details on this item).

I need to pause for a moment and ask an obvious question. Full plate mail, gauntleted hands, a helmet, but her feet are covered with slippers?

Also, here we have one of the few examples of NPC women fighting in this module (the exceptions being Trogoldytes, Formorians, Female Wolfwere, and Alu-demons, most of them being evil), and she's pure evil. In the good aligned groups, we have lots of male warriors, but the women are listed as non-combatants, as with the gnomes.

We also have no idea going into that room who she is. The module plays on the trope of wanting to save the sleeping woman, someone who is very often a princess. Sure the armor might throw it off a bit, but it's shining! She can't be bad, she probably needs to be saved, even though we were warned against saving her, but just look at her. Besides, if we don't do anything, we don't get any treasure. Clearly she's part of the treasure we're supposed to get.

While I can understand that at first glance, she seems like a badass character, in the context of the story, it's all off.

So, what would I change? Well, first, adding some female warriors who aren't evil would help a bunch. Make some of the border patrol leaders women, and the same with the gnomes, dwarves, and elves. If you want to keep her as the sleeping beauty, I might suggest putting some clues as to who she is. Maybe place some images of Iggwilv throughout the dungeon and when the characters come upon the warrior-maid, have them roll a check to see if they notice the resemblance to give them a chance against falling prey to her wiles. I'm sure that there are other things to do, but I think this would be a good start.