Aura Sight
Happy Pride! In light of these month-long rainbow-colored festivities, it seems like a good time to reflect on gender, sexuality, and inclusivity in gaming. And if that’s our task, I can think of no better example than Handbook-World’s premiere couple.
Thief and Wizard have been through quite a bit in their relationship. From intraparty thievery to clashing playstyles, and from dramatic drama all the way to the altar, they’ve managed to overcome their (mostly self-inflicted) obstacles to wind up happily wed. None of this was intentional on my part.
Back when I wrote the gender-bender plot for Wizard, I’d only intended a one-off gag in the tradition Futurama or Final Fantasy VII. After an enthusiastic response from fans, however, we made a Patreon poll asking whether Fem!Wizard should become a permanent addition to the comic. The results are history, but the creative process remains instructive for me, both as a writer and as a GM.
When you’re doing the world building thing, it can be easy to consign gender and sexuality to “afterthought” status. I mean OK sure, the designers will slip a note somewhere in the far reaches of their rulebook, but they more or less have to do that in this day and age. That’s not really what gaming is about though, is it? We’re all here to slay dragons and grab the gold! Deciding who the horny bard happens to be horny for isn’t that important, right?
The aforementioned Patreon poll begs to differ. When you’re in an interactive medium, what seems important to one player is BY NO MEANS what’s important to others. Your group might prefer to handwave issues of gender and sexuality, and that’s OK. But let’s not pretend that these questions aren’t absolutely critical to a broad swath of our community. Identity formation is a popular topic in my academic circles, but even outside of scholarly pursuits, making room at the table is good policy. The three-sexed Shirren in Starfinder, the androgynous elven deity Corellon Larethian, and even the bearded ladies of Middle Earth all serve to make their worlds richer and more complex. Even more than the world-building opportunities though, helping players to feel welcome inside your world is the mark of a good GM.
The phrase “representation matters” makes for handy shorthand, but I find that it undersells the concept. What we’re actually talking about is the ur-fantasy that undergirds D&D. We’re talking about the power fantasy. Think of dustjacket blurbs and back-of-the-box exclamation points: You can become the hero of your own adventure!!! Making sure that others can see themselves holding aloft the Sword of Power or wielding the Word of Blasting is essential to the experience. So when I discovered that, Holy crap! Issues of identity are important to my audience!, you better believe that I sat up and paid attention and took it seriously. How could I do anything less? We all make stories together, player to player and author to audience. Our hobby is fundamentally a co-creative one. And even if I don’t get everything right 100% of the time, I do believe that learning to listen to those other voices — especially when they’re very different from our own — is at the heart of co-creation.
Question of the day then! Have you ever adjusted your game world to make space for LGBTQ+ folks? From a design standpoint, is it better to build those ideas into your game from the beginning, or do you wait until they show up at the table? And just as important, how do you do so elegantly and naturally, avoiding the pitfalls of tokenism and pandering? Keep in mind that the answers to these questions may look different for a large gaming company vs. a small gaming group. So with all that in mind, sound off in the comments with your own take on gaming with Pride!
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I’ll admit, I never really made LGBTQ+ stuff for my worlds. I just feel that, as a Cis Heterosexual asian male, I don’t really have the information base to know how to handle such matters in an appropriately politically correct matter. Largely because what little I do know about LGBTQ+ stuff is when they’re being attacked or harassed, and somehow I don’t think constantly portraying them as victims all the time is something that would interest my players.
But there’s also another somewhat uncomfortable flipside to why I’m not sure how to handle that stuff, and that’s because of fetishes. I can’t deny my usually access to LGBTQ+ is either from porn or anime, which doesn’t exactly portray them as anything but da service bait for mindless thunks like myself. And in private I’ll drool over the cute dude dressed as a girl and simp for the totally-not-lesbians, but in public I know better than to admit liking that stuff because that doesn’t mean I actually respect them (which I do), I’m just attracted to them sexually. Which can be a weird thing to talk about even among friends.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I haven’t included LGBTQ+ because I’m not sure how to organically include them in such a way it doesn’t seem like I’m just inserting a fetish into my world. Like how can I write a bisexual person in such a way that their characteristics, motivations, skills, and beliefs aren’t solely defined by the fact their bisexual? Would it really matter if the Champion of the Dwarven Crypt Guard or the Archmage of the Red Tower are gay? In a world where magic is a known entity that not only exist but can be controlled, how complex would it be for someone to transition from the gender they were born with to the gender they identify with?
And that’s not even including the possibility that certain races or cultures have VERY strong opinions about how they feel about LGBTQ+ topics in-universe. I can’t imagine your standard fare Orcish hordes would treat a homosexual Orc woman with much respect considering how they’re usually violently patriarchal. And that’s to say nothing of the multitudes of human nations who may or may not share a similar historical and religious parallel to real life examples, and the reasons there-of.
I know it’s a fantasy game and everything can easily be handwritten away as “it is because I say so”. But with a topic as complex as LGBTQ+ stuff, I often feel it’s best to not try and mess with something I know little of, and should it come up in the game I’ll do my best to tread carefully. I know damn well I won’t be able to handle it in any way that would please everyone, so I just do my best not to make it a problem at all.
If you’re not super sure of these things, it should do just fine to pepper different kinds of people in without making a big show of it, either before or after they become relevant. If the little extra bits of what defines them come up, cool, and you can probably guess the basics of that identity at the very least.
As for in-universe restrictions, that borders on “it’s what my character would do” justifications for me, though slightly more sensible given the different nature of NPCs. Nonetheless, there’s usually either fiat or in-universe work-arounds that could be used, and it’s worth asking yourself (and maybe others, depending on the group) whether a given restriction would make someone uncomfortable without a good reason to still include it. In general, there are a large variety of people that have existed throughout history despite active persecution, and continue to exist, so at least for those who reflect humans it makes sense to reflect that too, even in small ways. Familiarity breeds comfort, even if you know you don’t have all of the info.
That’s just my take, anyway. You can never please everyone, but I don’t think that’s a good or bad thing. You just decide which chunk of people to please, even when trying to keep things neutral.
just treat queer couples and NPCs the same as you would their non-queer counterparts. It may not be 100% realistic, but it should make it easier to include them in your games without having to worry about whether you’re unintentionally fetishizing them. And believe me, unless you’re going into explicit detail on how hot it is that these two women are together or that this man wears a skirt I doubt anyone’s going to think you’re fetishizing them. Just my two cents.
Not to worry. We’re all trying to figure out this GMing thing together. 🙂
You’re right that it doesn’t make much difference to the typical fantasy story whether the Champion of the Dwarven Crypt Guard is gay. Same deal with Cleric in this comic: it doesn’t usually come up. But aside from the usual gags about seducing guards…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/gender-roles
…Simply allowing these people to exist when it’s relevant will go a long way. Witness Kalfa’s example further down this thread about the man sending you on a quest to find his missing husband. Or consider these NPCs over in the Giantslayer AP:
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Agrit_Staginsdar
The bottom line (for me anyway) is that these people exist in your world. Figuring out what that looks like is part of your job as a creative, whether you’re a show-runner or a GM. It certainly doesn’t have to be the center of your game’s universe, but it’s worthwhile to give it a little thought. That’s what this thread is all about. 🙂
“…Simply allowing these people to exist when it’s relevant will go a long way. ”
Thing is, we’re a bit over-all rare in the first place number wise in reality. So when it crops up, it will often feel forced to me just because it is there TO BE SEEN. Unlike say red hair it often isn’t visually obvious either so people go out of the way to talk about it. If I didn’t tell you while typing this though, seeing me walk down the street alone.. you would never know. So often attempts to include feel clunky- because it should almost never be a key thing. It SHOULDN’T be very relevant.
To me the best times it pops up is when it is a non-issue. The D&D starter box has a quest where the gnome leaders are a couple. (If I remember right!) It has zero to do with whats going on. You might not even run into them. That is the best way to do it. There, but really.. NOT there. Existing but not a point of anything important. Not drawn attention towards. Just another detail like the fact they are gnomes. Ones that aren’t even that key to whats going on.
Because thats just it to me at least. It’s a sliver of a thing of who I am. Important but not the be all end all if everyone was seen as valid. Also not something GMs should feel forced to include or they are somehow failing.
Make sense? Im a person, and while some make in an identity, I’m more then just that. I’d like to just be allowed and seen as normal. Just another cloud in the sky- and you don’t have to put clouds in every painting.
Just remember you can, and if it strikes you as a place it might fit well, do so. Don’t make it a checkbox that -must- be seen to be ticked off a list. Thats starting to be a very real thing and feels.. empty or insulting to me.
The checkbox feeling is something I struggle with. Not so much as a GM, but as a content creator and adventure writer. My current module work is set in 1980s USA, and the pregen characters need to be generated. What do they look like that ISN’T a diversity checkbox?
As a content creator for projects with mass appeal? I think honestly you’re already doing the two best things you can for it. Talking to people about it, and having characters which are more then just that.
Also sorry if the first may have come off a bit accusitory quoting you and launching into a ramble. Not the intent. To be clear HoH has been top notch about it, and I feel your other works are likely to be too because of the above.
Not at all. It’s a good discussion.
One day I’ll feel less self-conscious about the issue. As soon as I learn to do that I’ll have it made.
Maybe this is saying the obvious, but I’d suggest searching out LGBTQIA+ people who talk about their experiences. That’s easier to do today than ever—these days, trans YouTubers get interviewed by big traditional media outlets. That’s not specifically with regards to gaming, I just think learning about the lived experiences of people with different lives than me is interesting and enlightening.
As for practical advice in the short term…if you’re just running a game for your friends, you can probably just roll with what the rest of the group is doing. Probably not a perfect solution, but it’s straightforward (and the best advice I can give without knowing anything about your group).
This is simply beautiful. ^_^
😀
So, I have to ask, where does Wizard stand exactly, gender-wise? If we were to look at things “realistically”, then magically transforming a guy like that would give you an “artificial” trans man, unless the magic messed with their gender identity as well. But that didn’t seem to be the case so far. A closeted trans woman? Gender: “elf”? I originally assumed that you were just handwaving the whole issue – “Wizard used to be a guy, now she’s a girl, don’t overthink it”. That trope isn’t exactly trans representation – while it does usually comes with an aesop of “your sex doesn’t who you are”, which is nice, it also typically sidesteps the issue of gender identity. The transformed character is “supposed” to accept their new form, signifying that they have learned the aforementioned lesson, which comes with the unfortunate implication of “your gender identity must match what’s between your legs”. And that’s fine, I’m not expecting every author to take things like that into account, so long as they’re not actively being a dick I don’t have an issue with the actual trans aspect of the conversation being handwaved. But now that you gave Wizard a trans flag aura I started to wonder if there’s more going on here than I assumed.
I just assumed that Wizard’s player was a transwoman who came out after the campaign had already started and the DM helped them find a way to transition their character to match the player’s new identity or something along those lines. It could also be that Wizard just doesn’t care about their gender, in which case they still fall under the broader “trans” umbrella (which includes anyone who isn’t cis) and making the flag appropriate. Not sure if that was the intention, just my thoughts.
I had a comment on this subject all the way back in the wedding comic:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/thief-wizard-part-5-5
Someone had asked, “Wait, what does wizard identify as again? Since she was a man, but I feel she has settled into being a woman pretty well.?”
Here’s what I said there:
I get the impression that the elves in a lot of fantasy settings don’t really culturally distinguish between male and female to begin with (which is arguably an even higher level of enlightenment than what you’re after here). They’re portrayed in most media as being at least androgynous, and in the wildly popular fantasy comic Order of the Stick one of the main running gags is that nobody can tell if the main elf character is a guy or a girl
I feel like a two-panel-a-week gag comic isn’t the best format to clearly articulate the nuances of someone’s gender identity. I appreciate that Colin has tried to explain things in the comments, and I’m sure those ideas could be really interesting to explore in a different format, but I think it’s fine to just accept her as trans.
I’m just…like… out here doin’ my best, man.
https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/61353994.jpg
😀
Assuming Wizard is using Analyze Aura – is she reading her emotion aura, or her alignment? What do the pretty colors mean, Laurel?
Thief’s aura is in the colors and order of the bisexual pride flag, while Wizard’s aura is in the color of the trans pride flag. I see this as the primary meaning of the pretty colors.
Handy chart!
https://rainbowarlington.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/pride-flag-guide.png
Admittedly, today’s comic is pretty homebrew take on what “aura sight” does:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/aura-sight/
Still, I quite like the idea that elements of personality are mixed in with a person’s aura beyond Good/Evil: present = True.
I’m a cis white male, and there are no LGBTQ+ people in my social circle, so I’m really not in the best position to determine what’s good and what’s not, and how to approach those themes.
However, I feel like a good approach is just to make it normal. Like, include it, but don’t put excessive attention on it. Of course it’s a fine line between “treating it as normal without pandering” and simply ignoring it. It’s not easy.
There are some good examples in Rime of the Frostmaiden. There’s a ungendered NPC (which actually put me in a bit of a pickle since we play in French, in which there are no gender neutral pronouns. I’d like to get my hand on a French copy of the book someday to see how the official translation handled it), and there’s a gay couple, both of which are quest-relevant. But they’re not prominently displayed – the ungendered NPC simply gently correct people who use gendered pronouns to refer to them, and the gay couple is introduced with a man asking you to find his husband. They have personalities that go beyond their sexuality.
Besides, all of this makes sense IMO. In a world with magic, monsters, and all kind of stuff like that, I think people have other things on their mind than other people’s sexuality.
This is how I handle it in my games too! Sounds like I’ve been doing it right, makes me feel a lot better. And yeah, I absolutely agree with you on your point about fantasy settings—if you’re marrying a dwarf, I doubt people are going to care as much about their gender as they will about the fact that they’re a dwarf.
Let me know if you find that French version. It’s been a lot of years since high school French, but je suis curieux.
Great example with Rime of the Frostmaiden as well. That’s a recent publication, so it’s nice to have a case in point for how WotC are handling the issue.
My entire D&D group (…of three people) is very gay, and so whenever we do a session it’s almost guaranteed to be interrupted with jokes about how “So are they boyfriends?”
Quote from our Discord chat when making characters:
“How do our characters know each other? ”
“Tbh idk if I wanna put him in a relationship right now, but there is a reason behind the cantrips and spells i have: entangle, charm person, and hold person”
Lol. I suspect there’s a Handbook of Erotic Fantasy joke I should be using somewhere in that spell list.
Serious question: Do you feel like your group’s fantasy world is notably queerer than “baseline D&D” (whatever that is)? Or is it strictly out-of-character banter?
I see your spell list and raise you: Unseen Servant, Prestidigitation (color, scent, taste alterations), Arcane Mark, Animate Rope. In 5e, Thaumaturgy too.
*takes notes*
No. Nor will I. I think someone, once, played a different sex than their own but that was a rare thing and the guy was obviously trying to score woke points.
Your table-mate might’ve been doing so in bad faith, but in general, exploring or including stuff like that isn’t for “woke points”. Might be doing a friend, or several, a disservice to frame it that way. Many kinds of people exist whether or not that’s comfortable to those who didn’t know before, after all.
I mean I think you can do it with ease (if you wanted to) by just treating queer NPCs the same as you treat your straight cis ones. It’s a lot simpler than it sounds and can make some of your players feel more comfortable. It can be as easy as giving the nobleman whose gala the PCs are attending a husband instead of a wife, or making the pair of kindly old witches who live in the woods a couple. Just treat them as you would straight couples.
Not gonna lie? I kind of want those witches with these personalities: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ec/a5/d9/eca5d9ff959bb8350e41b90631432727.jpg
I’m reminded of the witch coven from Discworld: Estme Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick.
I’d be surprised. If your group is so straight that they almost never play characters who don’t match the player’s gender, I don’t see anyone wanting to score “woke points”. Most of my gaming group is center-right to hardline Libertarian, and most of our campaigns have at least one girl character being played by a guy or vise versa.
Yeah, yeah. I know the guy. I know his motivations well enough.
My relationship to LGBT is interesting. As a straight dude I’m fine playing any variety of male sexualities, and I’m fine playing as straight gals, but I am uncomfortable roleplaying female homo/bisexuality due to the long history of straight dudes writing/roleplaying female homosexuality for pandering and exploitative purposes.
One of my favorite characters was a gay dude, and it wasn’t that meaningfully different; he just liked a different set of secondary sexual characteristics. (Dwarves have very prominent SSCs on both sides. This is to contrast the extreme androgyny of Elves where nobody has any SSCs) He is also the only example I’ve actually seen of the “Seduce the dragon” trope; I rolled on Xanathar’s “This is your life” tables, and one of the weird things was that he had a fling with a Silver Dragon.
As for T, I’m not sure how meaningfully different roleplaying a transwoman would be from a ciswoman. For all the others at my table know all of my characters were trans, or none of them were. The only time I’ve seen it be materially different was in a Ravnica-stream where the characters had a weird trippy time-travel/possession/flashback thing where they were in the bodies of their guilds’ respective paruns. The Dimir character was a transwoman so being the the distinctly male body of Szadek was very off-putting to them.
Wish I’d been smart enough to make it subtle. I’d just seen Gurren Lagaan, fell in love with the anime, and decide to template my first gay PC off of this guy:
https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Leeron_Littner
It was not the most tactful way to play it. #regrets
The only trans character that springs to mind from first party materials is the Pathfinder iconic shaman:
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Shardra_Geltl
First game I tried to run, one PC was gender fluid. It didn’t get anywhere because they vanished in the middle of the first session.
By the way, hi guys! Hope you’ve been well.
*waves*
I think genderfluid is especially well-supported thanks to these guys and similar: http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/changeling
One of my gaming groups is half LGBT, so it goes without saying that particular group has always included representation in whatever game we’re playing. Our GM has absolutely no issue roleplaying basically any gender/sexual orientation etc. so the players are free to request relationships being included into a given campaign, just so long as the Fade to Black aspect is maintained.
Another group is basically all LGBT except for myself, but we haven’t had much of a chance in our current campaign (Curse of Strahd) to do more than touch on what’s already included in it (which is a fair amount for a D&D module). We’re just so stressed from the in-game struggles against that fucking vampire that we haven’t had much of a chance to appreciate or explore that aspect of humanity, though one of the other players has a huge crush on Esmeralda which we’re finally having a little bit of breathing room to explore.
My third and final group hasn’t included much if any, but that’s fairly understandable when it is a very large group (7 players) and almost all of them are straight dudes.
I’m intrigued by this bit:
Do you guys usually wait for a RELATIONSHIP REQUEST from a player? How do you usually go about initiating such a thing? Does the GM ever take the lead with offering up a love interest?
If there’s a background reason for the character to have a relationship, the GM will work with them on said relationship with an NPC from the character’s background via roleplay within session. If an NPC shows up that has good chemistry with the character, they can make it work too. The GM generally doesn’t straight up offer a love interest, but if the players show an interest in a character, it’s generally not off the table unless the group has royally fucked up and/or the NPC is not meant to be romanceable (the main BBEG for example).
As a gay guy, I guess it’s easier for me than most to make my tables LGBTQ+ friendly. I’ve gotten into the habit of always asking for the pronouns of my players and their PCs before we start (which also makes it easier to keep track of things like people playing characters with genders different from their own). I always end up throwing a bunch of queer NPCs into my games too, whether that queerness comes in the form of subtext, flirting with a PC of the same gender as them, a use of they/them pronouns, or being in a relationship with someone of the same gender. Haven’t gotten a single complaint from my players yet, which might be because I’v gotten lucky but more likely it’s because I still treat queer NPCs the same as I treat the rest of them, and I make sure that straight and cis people still exist in my world.
I’m glad I make choices like this. One time I had a female bartender flirt with a female PC and they ended up dating for the rest of the campaign. They were a cute couple!
Having said all that, I’ve made my mistakes. I’m a cis guy, so it was a little harder for me to get the hang of gender stuff—I remember one time when a player wanted to play a male PC who just looked extremely feminine and could be mistaken for a girl, and I thought it would be funny if one of my NPC guards got their gender wrong. The player didn’t get upset with me, and it was a oneshot so it didn’t really matter all that much, but looking back I still cringe a little. And I’m still not as great at this stuff as I want to be. I’ve had NPCs in the past who use they/them pronouns, but instead of correcting players when they get the pronouns wrong I just kinda sit there feeling vaguely uncomfortable. I doubt any players would flip their shit if I told them that the robot they were talking to didn’t have a gender. It’s something I need to work on.
One thing to keep in mind when including queer characters in your game: you don’t need to explicitly define sexualities. If the game’s in a modern-esque setting where people define themselves using terms like “trans” or “gay” or “bi” or whatever, it makes sense that people would define that stuff. However, that doesn’t need to be true of your world. People can just love people of the same gender or have a different gender identity without having to use a term for it. I don’t think it’s going to shatter anyone’s emersion if the innkeeper’s daughter is getting married to a woman instead of a man, so long as you’re not obnoxious about it (the innkeeper can be because he’s excited/nervous about his daughter’s marriage or he’s disgusted she’d choose to marry a dwarf instead of a human, you the DM cannot). Just treat LGBTQ people the same as straight, cis people and it shouldn’t be a problem. As a player, it always makes me feel more comfortable when some of the NPCs are queer.
The Shirren example on the OP is very much this. Remembering to refer to the host-gendered Chiskisk as “they” takes a bit of getting used to.
…
lol. Here’s a case in point. I just googled for a quick description of the character and got this Obsidian Portal site:
https://starfinderzero.obsidianportal.com/characters/chiskisk
Note how the copy up top refers to “they and them,” but that this GM’s summary down below slips back into “he.” Clearly, you and I aren’t the only ones struggling. I just think that struggling in good faith and with goodwill is what it takes.
Great take all around, though. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
In terms of adding LGBT+ folk to my worlds when DMing, I don’t actually “add” them as such; I just go with whatever feels right for the character. I mostly try to avoid tokenism by just not bringing the point of their sexuality/gender up unless it arises naturally. The characters learnt that a guard friend of theirs was lesbian after they needed fancy clothes, and got referred to her girlfriend, a tailor; aside from that, they never got invested in the personal lives of an NPC enough for the issue of sexuality and gender to come up. (While their have been the occasional non binary characters, they never ended up meeting the PCs).
That’s a useful paradigm shift. Well played!
Pretty cute comic. :> Though I’m inclined to echo the above question about the fuzzy nature of Wizard’s actual gender identity, I also know this comic doesn’t really focus on individual player things like that. Probably enough to guess what changed from your comment on initially thinking of it as a joke but getting feedback to take it farther.
Anyway! I have two main D&D/Pathfinder groups and they somehow both resulted in more and more players realizing they’re trans over time, including myself, so I do have a fair bit of respect for the power of representation and being able to explore such ideas, whether in small, quiet ways or big ones. I’m aiming to make my own little world with which run my own game someday, and my current approach is just to seed in such ideas/people in the worldbuilding without shoving them in the players’ faces. (It can run hand-in-hand with the pursuit of differentiating different species and cultures more, but my general goal would be to have various identities be neither common nor very rare, just uncommon or so.)
It certainly helps to set these things up from the get-go, makes things smoother and the like. But there are a few ways to alter compositions and have it make sense/be justifiable. ¯_(‘v’)_/¯
Wow, that’s a derpy interpretation of my little shrug emote, comment software, thanks. :b
¯\_(~w~)_/¯
I replied to HadACookie with my take on Wizard’s gender identity further up the thread. 🙂
In fantasy worlds, I find that nobles, lines of succession, and family lines are a useful entry point for queer stories. Check out Agrit Staginsdar as an example:
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Agrit_Staginsdar
Her lesbian marriage isn’t a problem. The issue is that her marriage is ending a dwarven bloodline.
Also, in reference to Corellon Larethian being androgynous, I want to put forth how much I love what Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes did with the elves. Every time I read about the Blessed of Corellon (elves who have the ability to magically change their sex at their will), I get a little bit happier.
It’s a nice detail, isn’t it? For the majority of folks, that’s a moment of, “Huh. Funky little worldbuilding note there. Neat I guess.” For others, it’s deeply meaningful. That seems like a good target to shoot for in terms of design.
With deities, it’s interesting in that they kind of operate on a different level – being omnipotent means that gender or ones divine avatar in the mortal plane is very flexible as far as sexuality and compatibility goes.
In Exalted, the Lunar Caste follow Luna, who is depicted as ‘equally male and female’, matron and patron of Lunars.
https://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0191.html
I know that Exlated 2e had that one couple where the lunar mate spends half their time as male and the other half as female.
If that’s the Desus relationship, then— oh boy.
That would be the one where Desus basically forces her to switch genders to the point of developing gender dysphoria through charm mind****ery and abuses her casually to the point her limit break is called the Whipped Dog.
He was so bad his entire being was retconned away in 3e.
I’m pretty sure any modern module or AP where any semblance of a romance plot involves PCs requires LGBTQ accomodations. After all, there’s no guarantee that the person with the prettiest face getting seduced by a NPC / Succubus is male, female, or some combo/lack of sexuality.
Enchantment spells that induce romance or lust also have the caveat of ‘platonic adoration’ when there’s no sexual attraction.
Jade Regent, for example, allows you to date/romance (platonic or otherwise) Shalelu or Ameiko regardless of gender as part of character generation. Reign of Winter and Wrath of the Righteous has similar options.
Videogames with RPG elements also tends to offer this (Mass Effect, Pathfinder Kingmaker…) for the sake of inclusion (even when the protagonist gender is fixed).
There’s generally two options here: on one hand you might be accomodating for different players and adapting NPCs on the fly (make them bi/pansexual), but on the other, NPCs might have their sexuality fleshed out in advance and there’s no need to change that to fit the PCs, and they respond to their desires to different PCs as a normal person would.
Our group has an in-joke that every character in Golarion is bi until proven otherwise.
It’s tough, because the whole “every character is bi” thing does strain suspension of disbelief. But on the other hand, you risk alienating players when “that one NPC I really liked isn’t romanceable because I’m a dude.” I’m honestly not sure what the solution to that one looks like.
On the other hand, that’s life. Gay and straight and otherwise, almost anyone could find themselves in a “I’m into this person, but they’re not into me” situation.
I’m trans. There are plenty of people I might be into who that’s a deal-breaker for, and that’s okay. Nobody is forced to like me. It would be creepy if someone was forced to.
If the DM has a character they envision as a gay man, and the straight woman PC is into him, the DM’s not going to let them get together. That would be a creepy rewrite of a character’s identity.
…So if the DM has a character they envision as a straight man, and the gay man PC is into him, why should there be a special exception? It would still be a creepy rewriting of character identity to let the two get together.
In RPGs, sexuality doesn’t matter until it does. I certainly don’t “roll for preference” for every NPC I write up. But if it does come up, why not go the “quantum ogre” route and let the NPC swing the PC’s way? That’s not a rewrite so much as a “yes, and.”
Here’s the rub though: We’ve got that privilege in tabletop. The bigger question for me is how to do that in a CRPG, where you do have to define everything up front. Remember when Dragon Age II stirred all that outrage over being too gay or not gay enough? It’s clearly something that industry doesn’t now how to do perfectly either.
At the tabletop, I typically have two categories of NPC: Ones where I’ve already decided their sexuality, and ones where I haven’t.
The former aren’t shifting for any reason. The latter: If a PC is romantically interested in one of these characters, I’ll probably let the relationship work and not sink their ship. If it’s for some scheme, like “Can we seduce the Duchess?”, rather than “I like the Duchess, however, then I’ll typically roll a die or decide randomly decide whether it can work out or not, and the answer might be no.
Sexuality can be an interesting trait for a story, mind you, particularly when you add fantasy elements which make the situation more complex via different species, the existence of magic that can change genders, induce love…
From political intrigue (a king who requires an heir but is gay, a female wishing to be a males-only ruler position…), to family plots (a character turning trans with magic to enable having a child with their partner, to romance (a PC reincarnated into a different species/gender).
In CRPGs, the easiest way to accommodate is allowing a clear dialogue choice – the players thus are those choosing the protagonists sexuality kind of via choice of partner and dialogue. Whether it feels natural is then dependant on the NPC partner in question, how well they’re written and whether they have a fixed sexuality (e.g. a male character who says ‘you ain’t my type’) or not (accepts the relationship regardless of gender/race/alignment).
I wonder if there’s any CRPG that lets you outright change your gender later in the game (via science or magic). This would allow NPCs to have their sexuality fixed to one/either gender and remain realistic to their desires of partner, whilst the PCs are able to thus ‘choose’ how far they want to go to romance this person, or to play a trans character for their own sake.
It’s not unlike a Cloud situation – your female high charisma bard would be more than capable of charming and seducing the duke to get access to the safe in his bedroom… But the Duke isn’t into gals. Luckily, there ARE potions to change your gender with, temporarily or permanently…
One of the few core rulebook elixirs in Starfinder is elixir of sex shifting. I’m pretty sure it’s there for inclusion reasons. This does sound like an interesting way to make it plot relevant though.
I’m not sure I’d agree on the straining suspension of disbelief thing – in our own world, cultural expectations have shifted dramatically in terms of “everyone is X unless they’re an exception”, so to me saying “in this world, bisexuality is the norm and/or culturally expected the way being heterosexual is in our modern society” isn’t more odd than some of the other elements of worldbuilding that can be thrown around without issue.
I also think it offers a fun opportunity to pull the whole ‘grab interesting stuff from history’ trick: historically, sexuality was seen differently than it is now. Even if the setting world’s default is bisexuality, you could easily have cultures where they define sexuality along lines like “is the active/penetrating partner or the passive/penetrated partner” – which is something that was done historically. Then you also have concepts like defining sexualities as genders, where some folks wanted to organize gay men and lesbians as a third gender, separate from straight men and straight women.
All of these offer opportunities to sew things together, like – if one has a society of angry, conquest-happy orcs, very much following a might-makes-right paradigm, they could easily develop a Roman-esque view of sexuality, where anything that has the orc in question in control (on top either figuratively or literally) is Correct, and the alternative is shameful and Incorrect. It’s a view that’s odd to us, but it both emerged historically and (IMO) seems to naturally emerge from premises of “everyone is bi (how do you define sexuality, if at all?)” and “conquest / winning battles = good, losing battles / being conquered = bad” as a major cultural element.
Rome. You’re talking about Rome. 😛
I honestly don’t feel qualified to talk about the distribution of bi vs straight people. You get into questions of biological determinism, gross generalizations about “typical societies,” and similar pseudo-scientific silliness.
What I will say is that going too far in the “everyone is bi” direction feels off to contemporary sensibilities. On the one hand it’s a departure from our own society (as we’ve already discussed), but on the other it erases subject positions other than bi. And implying that gay people don’t exist in a setting is its own kettle of fish.
I am Ace, and I have a lot of queer and trans friends, so it’s something that comes up a fair bit in our games. I do make an active effort to include hints that people aren’t straight or whatever in casual worldbuilding, and I don’t care what kind of gender or sexuality any character has, we’ve had the full range over the years pretty much. Because it’s a part of my life, it wasn’t a difficult thing for me to worry about including.
I do applaud all GMs who make the effort to add that kind of thing in to their worlds even when they don’t have the experience ,though. It means a lot. Representation really does matter.
Any thoughts on the hypothetical “all straight table?” What is the benefit to adding queer folks to a game world when you know that none of the players are LGBTQ+? I feel like this can be an important question when recruiting allies.
Well, I wouldn’t dunk on anyone who, with few queer friends and no queer players didn’t really think to make it a thing, but like you say in your post at the top is true – including these things makes the world richer. Having, IDK, a kingdom run by two Queens is interesting. Having a race of agender folk makes them obviously culturally distinct.
And it also sends a message to potential players that if they do want to have a gay character or similar, that that wouldn’t be a big thing. That your table is friendly to that kind of thing. Which may well be a reassurance for someone not 100% confident in other people’s reception of their identity.
I definitely agree with the end of paragraph five about non-standard systems.
For a start it’s usually my policy in writing and roleplaying to have anything based on a real creature follow the mating systems of that creature, so gnolls would be female dominant and it would be hard to distinguish the males from the females, formians and abeils and so forth would be almost exclusively asexual, myconids and other fungus people would have hundreds of different sexes (with any two different sexes being sufficient for reproduction), etc.
That said, a male formian that dreams of becoming queen and starting their own colony sounds like a hell of an NPC.
That’s actually probably pretty bog standard if we assume that formians advance the same way other outsiders do. IIRC the myrmarchs are the males and they’re one caste below the queens
And its also standard for clownfish
I think I made a note on one of my past character sheets „is into boys“ just so that any charm stuff from female NPCs could be denied.
Apart from that, me currently playing a female catfolk and DM‘s girlfriend playing the male face of the adventuring party is about as divers as it gets.
I know that Laurel has made it a point in the past to roll for her PCs’ preferences.
Is that a d2, d3, or some other die? 😀
It’s been a while. I know it was a d10, but the percentages escape me. I believe it was something like 1-7 straight, 8 gay, 9 bi, and 10 for less common subject positions. The intent was to mimic IRL demographics, though that’s obviously easier said than don. No to mention the fact that IRL demographics might not reflect a setting accurately. Still, I thought it was a neat bit of randomness to tack onto a character.
That doesn’t accurately mimic the IRL distribution.
Nope. No special exceptions and no special attempts to “make space” for people. My table already has space for people who want to play some roleplaying games.
I’m trans and asexual. I don’t like being pandered to, and I HATE seeing anyone get special privileges. If someone else wants that, whatever, but my table is the wrong place for them to get it. I refuse to give an LGBTQ player/character more spotlight or cool stuff than I give the cis/het players. They can be happy with an equal share, or they can leave.
All I’m suggesting is that LGBTQ+ people exist in the game world. It can be a fraught topic, and for some folks even mentioning them or pointing out that the princess has the hots for the sorceress feels like pandering. The question in my mind is how to include these identities elegantly.
Inclusion is fine, of course, though there definitely is such a thing as hamfisted inclusion. As you say, it’s about doing it elegantly.
My favorite LGBTQ characters tend to be the ones where it barely even comes up that they’re LGBTQ. Using this comic as an example, Thief’s “Nah, I’m cool with it” reaction to Wizard’s usual drama-queen antics was pretty nice to see. A quick “This happened, this character is okay with that, the relationship will continue, now on with the comic” was something I quite liked. Since then, they’ve been in a relationship, but it’s not a constant “This is an LGBTQ relationship!” spotlight, just “This is a pretty cool relationship between two people who work well together”, which I’m glad for. Even though this page does give it some spotlight, I’m fine with it because from what I’ve seen of the writing, you’re probably not going to turn this one page into a hamfisted and constant thing.
I suppose I’m saying I think you’ve handled the dynamic well, and that you’re not overdoing it.
Thanks, Cinnamon!
And yeah, this is very much a one-off for Pride. Same deal with X-mas comics. I’m not about to make Krampus a recurring character.
It’s weirdly difficult for a lot of folks though. I know I’ve felt some of the same stress as the well-intentioned commenter at the top of this page: Am I doing it right? Will I offend anyone when I get it wrong? Would I just be better served ignoring the issue and including only the most Tolkien of relationships and hoping it never comes up?
In my mind, today’s comic is all about helping those folks.
My gaming group is composed almost entirely of straight cis guys (with a couple of straight cis girls), and politically they tend towards the conservative end of the political spectrum. Sometimes someone will just casually mention that their character is a lesbian, and my recent changeling character is intentionally implied to be genderfluid in their backstory, but LGBTQIA+ stuff isn’t really present in our games and I’m not confident enough to be the one to introduce it. Doesn’t help that our games tend to be pretty hack-and-slashy; not much room for gender/sexuality there, and if I made my character clearly non-straight I’m worried the the others would react negatively to me “forcing” “politics” into the game.
I should get back into online TRPGs. I played a lot of those in high school and college, especially play-by-post, and usually had a better time there. More time to think over each line/action and less schedule sensitivity meant longer and more detailed stories could play out more easily, and I’m not just stuck with whoever happens to be playing D&D in my area.
I really dug the link right below this comment:
https://www.tribality.com/2020/02/04/a-guide-on-queer-characters-for-allies/
I also found a neat article from the Paizo folks with some of their canonical examples:
https://wesschneider.tumblr.com/post/93277599246/50-lgbtq-characters-in-the-pathfinder-rpg
They typically allow this content to exist without making it the center of attention. That seems like a solid approach.
Honestly? All LGBT themes passed me and all the groups I`ve ever had by.
Two of my groups consisted of heteros only, the other two had two different gay guys each. But the LGBT themes and tropes (handily summarised here: https://www.tribality.com/2020/02/04/a-guide-on-queer-characters-for-allies/) just never entered play “in a meaningful way” in either of those four groups.
I remember a male half-orc PC entering a romance with Graz’zt, a trap in ToA changing the gender of a yuan-ti PC, the fact that pretty much all the other PCs were aromantic asexuals (not stated, just played that way). But at the end of the day all of those players wanted to overcome meaty challenges like epic heists or difficult fights. Or simply setting a forest full of enemy spies aflame.
Sexuality and gender identity are heavy roleplay topics to demand from people who rarely remember their PC’s backstory but sure know that they dish out ≈20 slash damage with each strike.
That said. In the very first campaign I DMed, the BBEG organically developed to a “Straight Gay”, as in “non-camp” (organic over pre-planned btw. Always). Not that anyone cared much, the group simply noted that fact and that was it.
Great article. Thanks for the link!
I think that may be the dominant aesthetic at the moment. Not every campaign needs to be She-Ra. But simply including such characters in your world — allowing them to exist! — comes with a number of benefits.
We, and i, have played several queer characters. Every piece of world-building is a tool, whatever is used or not doesn’t matter. So, yes, LGBT+ got a place even in world-building. Some worlds are far more tolerant others not so much and everything on the middle too. We always try to do it naturally, not like rioting, and with respect. That said it hasn’t bean the main theme of any campaign, yes of some pc. Like in a game one of the pc was a princess that disguised as a guy to fight on the war. She end up liking being a guy to the point he becomes prince. Bi characters are usual, i have play several. Then again for cultural things we are not afraid to include things better left for the Handbook of Erotic Fantasy in a normal campaign. Getting laid isn’t that strange on the games we play. Fade to black always, except exceptions 😉 So gender and sexuality end up being mentioned on the table for interactions for time to time. It would be strange to roleplay an elf but not another orientation that isn’t your on a RPG after all 🙂
What would that even look like? Maybe a game set in “Left Hand of Darkness” world?
This is its own trope. Think Mulan:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SweetPollyOliver
My instinct is to say that it’s somehow distinct from trans narratives, but I’m not sure I could defend that claim.
I know at least one gamer that refuses to play non-humanoids. These folks exist!
A Left Hand of Darkness campaign would be awesome 😀
Mulan while a good example of the trope isn’t a good example of the campaign. It wasn’t as dark as Berserk, but it wasn’t that light either 🙂
Maybe it’s the crowd I hang around with, but in my campaigns there’s always at least one LGBT+ character within the party. Sexuality isn’t so much a part to it, we try to keep things clean, but for intra-party romance and NPC romance it comes up. We don’t really treat it any different than we do other romances. Oddly, despite having a fair few transfolk (myself included) at my tables, we’ve not had any trans characters. Dealing with dysphoria in-universe is probably not the wish fulfillment experience most would want out of D&D.
Also, I love this comic so much! So cute!!! I’ve sent it to my table and friends.
What does a trans adventure story even look like? Mostly we’ve had that cursed belt from D&D, where getting rid of the curse is the point of the quest. It plays into a “being trans is a curse” narrative, which makes it a less-than-ideal vehicle. But on the other hand, if you’re in a magical world, then the “happy end” of becoming your desired gender is pretty dang easy: find wizard, acquire spell. That doesn’t make much of a story. So beyond “who gets to romance whom,” I literally don’t know how to accommodate a dysphoria in-universe storyline. If you know of anyone that’s done it well, I’d be curious to know!
Laurel likes to tell the story of an interview she once saw with Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi. In one of her anecdotes, Takeuchi described seeing a young fan in a comic shop pick up one of her books and tell her mom, “This one! I want this one!” Laurel became a comic artist to chase that feeling of pride and accomplishment and making someone’s day a little brighter.
She mentioned that story this morning when I showed her your comment. Thanks for that. It means a lot.
“Have you ever adjusted your game world to make space for LGBTQ+ folks?”
No, because they were always there from the start. I started gaming in the early 80s and always presumed they existed within the game world just as they did in the real world and historically.
It’s just me I guess, but I never had this big need to trumpet from the highest mountain over being decently inclusive, and my groups were always decently inclusive, so I missed out on all the “evil exclusive gatekeeping” every else seemed to experience along the way. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met my share of jerks at cons, but in my local games? It’s always been a haven of decent people.
+1 to that. I’ve used the same approach for as far back as I care to analyze my games.
If someone wants to play a lesbian, gay, or other such character? Then they play that character. No fuss, no drama – they’re just there.
For instance, in the game I’m running now, last session a lady PC and lady NPC were in gender-concealing telepathic contact, each thinking the other one was a guy, resulting in a proposal to go out for drinks. When they got within physical proximity and discovered the truth, there was slight embarrassment – but the drinks are still on. The player coincidentally is going to be missing next session; we’re explaining it that the two characters are on a date which fully occupies their attention.
There’s nothing to trumpet, nothing to really plan for. It just happens, if and when it comes up.
Check out GreatWyrmGold’s comment a little higher up the page. They mentioned how, “If I made my character clearly non-straight I’m worried the the others would react negatively to me ‘forcing’ ‘politics’ into the game.”
When the existence of queer folk gets construed as inherently political, implementing those characters successfully becomes a real challenge. In my mind, this thread is more for that style of table. From what you say, your group sounds like it’s got the trick of LGBTQ+ relationships down. Great little example with that date. 🙂
I think this may be the heart of the matter. Allowing people to exist in your world shouldn’t be hard. But I think there are a number of tables out there that don’t include the oh-by-the-way queer folk exist style of design:
https://wesschneider.tumblr.com/post/93277599246/50-lgbtq-characters-in-the-pathfinder-rpg
Remembering to include such folks takes an actual effort when your own life doesn’t include them.
Paizo has always been exceptionally good about this. Representation is fairly common (though not absurdly so- generally a few npcs per campaign) and they run the gamut of alignments, ideals and personalities- feeling like real people, rather than a box to check.
Examples include Irabeth, a half-orc paladin and her wife Anevia, both champions of the crusades against the demons of the worldwound.
Both Taldaris, the founder of Taldor, and his descendant, Stavian the first, were known to be openly bisexual, Taldaris even using magic to allow for pregnancies with his male consorts (either he or his partner using magic to switch genders for the duration)
They also include the Thrune of Cheliax, infernal leader of an Asmodean Theocracy hell-bent (literally) on subjecting the world to Chelish rule. One of her consorts is a boss in the Skull and Shackles campaign. It’s said that her devil advisors are reigning in her plots and schemes, which says something about the woman’s plans for those she conquers.
There’s also, somewhat more front-and-center, the fact that Shelyn, Sarenrae, and Desna (the goddesses of Art, The Sun, and the Stars) are in an open relationship. Desna is also notable for having slept with Pharasma herself (though Pharasma refuses to even admit this MIGHT have happened, Desna is a lot less shy about it.) as well as Cayden Calien, formerly human, now the god of Adventure.
I shared this comic on the r/Pathfinder sub. There are A LOT of examples:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder/comments/ns9kfa/looking_for_examples_of_lgbtq_characters_in/
And that’s not a bad resource to look at when it comes to designing diverse NPCs.
Yeah, I could have listed a lot more but at some point it felt like I was beginning to just ramble on rather than make a relevant point. it’s one of many reasons I really like paizo’s writers.
Ain’t nothing wrong with learning from successful examples. 🙂
My game has a very casual attitude towards LGBTQ, though we have no Lesbian, Gay, or Trans players, only a couple who are Bi, Queer, and Poly. One of our players couldnt decide on things like their characters sexuality, gender, or politics initially, and rolled a d% with real world statistics, they found themselves with a sapiosexual gender-fluid male. Noone had a clue about these for quite a while, but in retrospect it was clear. They were the second character to enter a relationship, and ended up as the mother of literally all humans still alive in the current state of the campaign world, after they confessed to a cis straight male and swapped their sex for him.
When these characters made their own demiplane, and founded a kingdom within, they ended up taking an action that really upset one of our former players (previous campaign) who is a trans activist. They “erased” trans people from the kingdom… by providing incredible cheap access to sex change elixirs for anyone who wants one. An unskilled laborer could afford to buy a permanent elixir with two weeks of wages, or a week long potion with about two hours of wages.
That was last campaign, in the current one, they are playing the children of the three relationships from the last one, after an apocalyptic event got rid of 99.99% of all life in the material planes, pretty much only outsiders and dragons remained alive. Their fears have led to some interesting relationship dynamics as they try to ensure the survival of their species. There are only two couples across 20 survivors, though one of the paladins is in a very large closed poly relationship, and the other is in an open relationship, most people are in tuples, and the concept of forced transition is getting played on, mostly as a “necessary evil” with most of the men carrying a baby much of the time, and most people ending up needing to change their sex multiple times due to their laws (made by them) to have maximal genetic differentiation. I can only imagine how much this would upset some people, and going over this kind of thing in a game is an interesting way to consider the issues involved. By going through these kinds of things in game, we even got our conservative republican to stop being so disturbed by non-traditional relationships, and have gotten him to actually consider alternative lifestyles as valid rather than strange and dangerous!
This is the difficulty I mentioned in my reply to Abby further up the thread. The inherent conflict implied by trans characters is becoming your preferred gender. When that conflict is trivialized by magic (which I suspect trans folk would love IRL) it gets removed as a significant narrative element. I know there’s a rich tradition of gender play in SF literature (e.g. “Left Hand of Darkness,” “Aye, and Gamorrah,” etc.) but fitting those elements onto the tabletop is something I haven’t seen. Your current game sounds like an interesting case study along similar lines.
I think what makes it most frustrating that they are annoyed is that the difficulties for individual trans people in it were trivialized by the work of many trans people in it, I think we spent about as much time on that as we did in taking down a tyrant who was using mind magics to get the populace to obey them without question, regardless of the order.
My primary gaming group is a very mixed bunch, so we’ve never had to adjust for LGBTQ stuff, they’re been present since the get-go. Including characters that fall under the LGBTQ spectrum is second nature for most of us.
One wonders when it will become second nature for everyone. Writing in the middle of a time of cultural change can be hard work, and there’s a lot of pressure to get it right:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/voltron-showrunner-apologizes-to-fans-following-outrage-over-gay-characters-storyline
I always interpreted the Wizard as being sort above and outside of gender. Like they got flipped and were like “whatever, I wasn’t super attached to doing that anyway, I guess I’ll do this now”
I feel like this is a fair read. 🙂
I’m probably Ace with Bi appreciation personally, but obviously the horny bard is a trope for a reason.
I don’t make a big deal out of these ideas, and in a fantasy world, maybe your character is double extra gay who swings out their Mighty Meat whenever someone gives them a sidelong glance while brushing off their favorite one liner pick up lines (or take it the other way with mega lesbian and her crushing Pelvis of Doom, whatever). And let’s not forget hetero greaseball, which knows no one gender.
But I’m an artist, I’m a bit weird, and I’m Ace like I said. I just about literally do not care and it’s certainly not a lynch pin in my character writing, even if there are exceptions to that. My players though… some of them are ok with sexual content, and others DO NOT WANT IT AT THE TABLE. Like at all.
And I think our hobby is particularly guilty of trying to include everyone that we forget about the person who is practically throwing up in their mouth when they see any sort of egregious sexual content in game, no matter if its LGBTQ, straight, or otherwise. Academic circles are really guilty of excluding these people as well, essentially mocking them for being small minded and telling them to ‘get over it.’
For my part… I don’t want to be like that in general, and certainly not to my friends. So my compromise is that very sexually charged content happens in side sessions between the people who want to be there.
For some people that’s not going to be progressive enough. And to that I say those people are selfish, neither progressive nor inclusive.
Big honking difference between “queer folks exist” and “sexually charged content.” I think that might be the happy medium.
Check out the Paizo examples I linked elsewhere in the thread. The Rime of the Frostmaiden example strikes me as a good one too. Those are close to what I’m imagining in published products. Home games can afford to be more tailored though, as you say.
Eh, sliding scale of expectations. I use a more egregious example because, again, I’m an artist. A furry artist. I have seen some things.
I’m also well studied in a number of different fields. Actually, there’s a question for you! Have you ever done an RP session with anyone that had you wondering if you had crossed an sociological ethical lines? Like upon thinking about all the mind games the villain was playing, actually sat down and thought MAYBE you went too far?
I know I have, and that experience informs a great deal of my caution these days.
I’ve come to like the interpretation that NPCs are bisexual by default unless region/religion/etc would define them otherwise. Basically, if I as GM haven’t put any thought into what their sexuality is, they’re bi and open to any PC interactions.
For worldbuilding purposes, I’m purposely trying to make sure to include LGBTQ+ while making my own setting. Mainly I’m focusing on having a very diverse Pantheon (with different orientations and plenty of relationship drama all around), making different regions feel like they have different values/cultures/governing styles/etc., and making different races feel like the have different values (which are reflected in their racial pantheons – i.e. if dwarves tend towards patriarchal while elves tend towards matriarchal, then the important dwarven deities tend to be male gods while the important elven deities tend to be female goddesses).
I generally like these types of things to be built into a setting at some level, since it can give players jumping off points when designing their characters, along with helping make the setting feel more diverse. For example, in a current game a PC decided to delve into how a Leshy, being a plant, does not have to conform to the typical expressions of gender that humanoids have – which probably never would have happened otherwise without the ancestry description considering the player rarely does anything like that.
By my reading, it’s basically a decision to value player agency over verisimilitude. And since that version of “verisimilitude” is itself in question (e.g. how “typical” are our own cultural assumptions about sexuality?) it makes good sense as a choice.
I know how you feel about Wizard’s “temporary” change taking on a life of its own. In one of my writing projects, there was a “magic, non-consensual gender flip” plotline that ended up kind of taking over the story because it was so interesting. Kind of a tightrope balancing things so it was neither the end of the world nor a cakewalk for the character, but it worked. On the advice of a trans friend, the ending even changed so that the magic change couldn’t be undone by magic, and the character underwent a “conventional” transition (hormones and surgery) instead. Figuring out how a cis person would deal with suddenly becoming trans was also a mind-expanding experience for me personally, and I hope it could help non-queer readers understand trans struggles better as well.
My “In Search of Sanity” group has two queer players, and one of them has fielded a trans woman PC who magically transitioned before the campaign started. It has not come up yet at all (I don’t think the other players even know), but it soon will when the Tatterman (who this character has built up a rivalry with) refers to her as “little boy.” I have gotten the player’s permission to do that, but it was months ago and I’m pretty sure they’ve forgotten, so I think it’ll be startling. Even with that permission, I probably wouldn’t do it except that this is a horror campaign, the player’s stated horror preferences were “unsettling psychological horror” and the Tatterman is supposed to be deeply despised by the players. On balance, I made Denman Winoparess, the kitchen staffer who has seen the Tatterman in person, a trans man who recently came out and has not magically transitioned. The PCs have learned Winoparess has seen the Tatterman, and when they return to the chapel to find him, the guard who points him out will say something like “Winoparess? Oh yeah, she’s over there. He. He’s over there. Sorry. Not used to it yet.” That felt like the best way to introduce it naturally, and shows that Briarstone Asylum is an inclusive but realistic workplace. (I considered having one of the doppelgangers be trans and their transformation representing their desire to transition realized horrifically by Tatterman’s power, but that seemed TOO horrific and having the potential to come off as quite insensitive, even though their violent tendencies would clearly be the result of Tatterman and not of being trans.)
In my upcoming mystery oneshot, the same player who made the trans PC has made a non-binary (female-presenting) “hit on everyone and make sex puns all the time” character who has an open crush on one of the female NPCs. The player does not know this, but this quirk actually fits perfectly with my plans, for, by total coincidence, a major element of the mystery revolves around the NPC’s sister once having a same-sex romantic relationship that her mother deeply disapproved of. I highly expect that the PC will hit on the NPC in her mother’s presence and get a not-so-subtle hint to knock it off, which functions as a clue for later.
I also have a weird personal headcanon regarding an NPC from the Paizo AP Second Darkness, Alicavniss Vonnarc, thanks to sloppy copy editing. The book “Endless Night” more than once refers to Alicavniss as male (including in her statblock!) despite the character being obviously and significantly female (she holds the title of “First Daughter” in a strictly matriarchal drow society – and another character is “First Son”). So my headcanon is that Alicavniss was born male, but her mother saw her great magical potential, had her magically changed to female and went to great lengths to make sure no other drow found out. (Imagine the scandal!) Alicavniss may or may not enjoy the change, but she definitely appreciates the power and status it brought her. If I ever run an adaptation of that book, I think I’ll include rumors about this headcanon (such as a claim she only takes female lovers), and possibly a way that the PCs could acquire proof and use it to gain leverage against her. The point wouldn’t be to make a comment about queer issues so much as to further emphasize how toxic and cutthroat drow society is – ANYTHING can be sacrificed for power.
Lastly, regarding representation, I was working on a story in a D&D-like medieval setting, and one day I said to myself “what if [one of the main characters] was intersex?”. And then I asked myself some follow-up questions: “Would/could it come up in-story, or would it be a post-facto ‘the author says this’ thing?” “Would it be relevant to story elements or just be a listing on the character’s fact sheet?” “Does it fit with the character’s planned arcs and growth?”. And to my surprise and delight, being intersex (though not knowing it at first) actually fit quite well with her arcs about identity and uniqueness while at the same time, the setting provided some ways that her condition could be discovered and be relevant. The end result was a cooler AND a more diverse story, all from keeping my mind open to atypical possibilities!
Easily one of the best comments in the thread. I absolutely love that you come at this with concrete examples.
It seems to me that gay/lesbian storylines are increasingly present in popular fiction. The term “romanceable” has a lot of currency, so for a lot of writers (myself included) making those relationships visible is becoming second nature. Less so the trans subject position. Nice to see thought provoking examples of ways to include that perspective in the hobby. Well done. 🙂
The best example I had waiting in my back pocket comes from Exalted 2e. There’s a magic item that allows the bearer to transform from male to female or vice versa. That’s pretty much all it does. And when you look at the item as an ST you can’t help but thinking, “Who would use such a thing? Why is it in the game?” Enter the Dragonbloods, with their emphasis on dynasty and bloodlines. Such an item could allow a power-hungry house more flexibility in making marriage alliances…much to the potential chagrin of the bride / groom. It winds up functioning as a combination of your drow example and your cis person suddenly becoming trans example.
Thank you! Strangely enough, because I am an asexual/aromantic person, I find it HARDER to put in gay/lesbian elements than other forms of queerness because it’s not really natural for me to have romantic elements in things anyways. (I acknowledge that ace/aro representation in media is very tricky without loudly announcing it by name in an unnatural-feeling way, and so instead simply request an increase in non-romantic male/female friendships, a real and common thing that fiction routinely ignores.)
Your Dragonblood example reminds me of something someone said earlier about a kingdom where only males can take the throne, and a princess who decides that, to paraphrase King Henry IV of France, “Paris is worth a dick.” Sure would have made the War for the Crown AP a lot shorter. (Though I’m a little skeptical that this would work, since presumably the objection to queens is a mental/spiritual thing and not a genetic one. It’s not like if a hag turned the king into a woman, everyone would suddenly say “well, time to replace the monarch!”. At least not without giving it a few months to get fixed. Actually, that sounds like a fun adventure: the king has been gender-flipped and needs the PCs to fix it before anyone finds out. Wacky mix of hag-hunting, MacGuffin-getting and the frantic roleplaying of excuses to cover up what’s going on so the nobles don’t find out.)
Sounds like the premise for an anime.
In my setting, apart from within a couple of cultures where both lineage and monogamy matter a lot, I’ve essentially totally ignored stereotypes around sexuality as an element of the culture. The setting was formed from the lingering remnants of a highly socially advanced state that fell two thousand years ago, so I simply decided that their attitude on these matters didn’t really change. It’s not uncommon for people in my setting to have multiple partners outside of or instead of marriage, particularly in the upper and middle classes, and nobody bats an eye at the sexuality of others in most of the world. It’s simply, unless one visits those one or two cultures, a non-issue.
Also, three of the PCs are absolute asexual icons. This is seen as more unusual in the world, and has led to difficulties with some prejudiced individuals on one occasion, but I never forget to remind those players what a good job I think they’re doing of portraying it in a human and unexaggerated fashion.
Happy Pride, everyone!
Sounds like the World of Warcraft approach:
I have a player who identifies as nonbinary, and uses they/them pronouns. They are consistent in playing characters who identify similarly, and it has provided me a wealthy base of archetypes to draw from. Their combat cyborg Bo Beep was by no means asexual, attracted to both men and women. Their current character is a thri-kreen sniper (we’re now playing Dungeons the Dragoning) who has yet to really shine, as the campaign just started, but I think it’ll be yet another revelation for me. And of course, just as in WH40K, Dungeons the Dragoning orks have one gender, and it’s ork. They reproduce by spores.
However, I’ve been including alphabet mafia characters in games since my very first Pathfinder campaign. I ran the adventure path Curse of the Crimson Throne, which recommends that the NPC Trinia, a bard who makes an early appearance and shows up again later, would make a decent cohort for a PC with leadership. If that PC is charismatic, it may even develop into a romantic relationship. I saw no reason to change that simply because the PC in question was female.
Tinia is parkoursexual.