The game is friendly to, welcoming, and accepting of LGBTQIA+. The rules make no mention whatsoever of any sort of restrictions on character creation, the DMG directs the DM to be welcoming and respectful, and the current development staff are making strides to be inclusive. Critical Role products especially tend to do a good job of that; Explorer's Guide to Wildemount and Call of the Netherdeep are both set in a world whose creator would be considered "aggressively egalitarion" if Matthew Mercer was capable of aggression, hueh. But other books of late have been following in Exandria's mold. This is increasingly a game where people simply are - a man can have a husband, a woman can have a wife, a character can be trans, agender, fluid, or whatever else suits them and these things will simply be mentioned as casually and openly as anyone else mentions cishet status/relationships.
Now, as others have mentioned, there are flies in the ointment. There's been backlash against the push towards more inclusive content in recent years, the usual crap wherein people complain about "wokeness", "political statements", and other assorted nonsense. The DDB forums here, however, push back against that, and you'll find that for every curmudgeon who wants to make a big stink about how he doesn't like there being gay people in his D&D, there's generally at least two or three other folks willing to fight him off his soapbox. Much like anywhere else in the world, there's a lot of people making an active effort, a lot of people who're just trying to get by, and a few people being unpleasant sticks in the mud getting offended that other people exist. Fortunately most of those are easy to spot and even easier to disinvite from your group, and even in the Looking For Group/Player forums here a very common tag you'll see for advertised games is "LGBTQ+ Friendly".
Don't let the flies stop you. D&D is for you as much as it is for anyone else, and almost everyone you meet on this forum will easily agree.
*i say clearly because often in adventures, there are no clear indications either way about the sexual or romantic orientation of NPCs.
Yes you're right. Maybe I haven't explained myself well. When I say that it is quite aseptic, I mean what I quote. Generally the game does not get into the sexuality of the NPCs or PCs. There are no mechanics for the sexuality of the characters, and it doesn't push you narratively one way or the other. There are other games that are clearly focused on LGBTQIA+ themes, such as Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Hard Wired Island. There are also other games with supplements designed with the LGBTQIA+ community in mind, such as Pride 2021 for SCION. In D&D there is none of that, but nothing prevents you from including it in your campaigns. And yes, there are hints here and there that show that the game is not hostile to queer theory or the LGBTQIA+ community.
Ultimately, D&D welcomes anyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or any other condition. And WoTC makes efforts so that no one feels left out. However, it does not focus on showing diversity either. I'm not saying they have to, the game isn't about that. Although it wouldn't do any harm either, and could help change some consciousness (although it could also have the opposite effect, that there are many idiots in this world). In any case, I would like to see official supplements focused on that.
From my personal experience, frequently playing in person and online, both with friends and or strangers from all around the world in french and english, i must say i never saw non-friendly LGBTQIA+ campaign group or Discord server, openly at least. But on the other hand i often see on various forums and gaming sites campaigns or servers openly advertised as being LGBTQIA+ friendly.
So i'd say in general D&D game and fans are LGBTQIA+ friendly, united by a common passion for roleplaying game. But like anywhere else, you will always find individual that may not be, but i'm fairly sure most table where an unacceptable comment or behavior would occur, there would be at least 1 person among the other players or DM that would respond or act against it. I know i would myself anyways and not just regarding LGBTQIA+ but racial, sexism or other discrimination for it has no place in the gaming community or anywhere else.
Perhaps it is the fault of my lack of knowledge of English (I am not a native), but seeing many of the comments I would like to ask a question. When you say "Friendly" you mean "non-hostile", right? I mention it because for me they are two different things. One can be non-hostile towards something, but that does not mean that it is friendly. He might not care, or he might never have thought about it.
From my experience, in today's D&D player community, I don't run into hostile people. But neither can I say that the tables I participate in (online or in person) are LGBTQIA+ friendly. Even here and there I still come across stupid jokes about elves being gay or effeminate and stuff like that. Probably the person who makes that "joke" does not mean to be hostile, but it does not seem very friendly to me either.
As others have said, individual tables will vary, but my experience has been that the game, and even more so, the community, seem noticeably more accepting than the general population.
And there is nothing in the rules themselves that in any way discourages that.
WotC tries to be gay-friendly, and it depends the people you find, then a tabletop group can be gay-friendly, family-friendly, Christian-friendly, Muslim-friendly, Chinese-friendly... and today straight males with female PCs are tolerated, in the same game you play Lara Croft or Chun-li in your videoconsole. Usually straight players allow yuri/lesbian ship in their tabletop, but they aren't interested into yaoi. There is a cursed item, the belt of the gender swap, used for comical plot. Straight or queer the players should talk prevously with the DM about limits during dates, seduction and flirting with nPCs.
In the past years ago where I live the D&D elves suffered the trope of no-interested-in the opposite gender.
99.9% of this is dependant on the people you play with - in the same way as "is football LGBTQIA+ friendly?" or "Is Darts LGBTQIA+ Friendly?". Dnd is simply a set of rulebooks, and they don't exclude anyone, so I guess that makes them friendly?
The vast majority of games will include exactly what the dungeon master and group considers relevant to the game. If there is no warlock, there is no patron for the DM to make as an NPC. If there are no players inteested in any form of romantic roleplay, then the game will probably revolve around quests, and the sexuality of the NPC's will not even get a mention.
The best thing about Dnd is that it can ably accept just about anything that the players and DM bring with them. It's like the cave in star wars - "what's in there?" - "only what you bring with you".
I've yet to play a game where any character's or NPC's sexual preferences or gender identity came up or even mattered, to be honest. It's all about hat you want out of the game - and finding a group who want similar things, so the game is fun for everyone (EG if you have someone who wants to do puzzles all the time and someone who wants to do combat all the time, they often don't mix well for games without compromising).
Perhaps it is the fault of my lack of knowledge of English (I am not a native), but seeing many of the comments I would like to ask a question. When you say "Friendly" you mean "non-hostile", right? I mention it because for me they are two different things. One can be non-hostile towards something, but that does not mean that it is friendly. He might not care, or he might never have thought about it.
From my experience, in today's D&D player community, I don't run into hostile people. But neither can I say that the tables I participate in (online or in person) are LGBTQIA+ friendly. Even here and there I still come across stupid jokes about elves being gay or effeminate and stuff like that. Probably the person who makes that "joke" does not mean to be hostile, but it does not seem very friendly to me either.
"LGBTQIA+-friendly" means the table is openly accepting and supportive of people within or friendly to that alliance. As you say, there's a sharp difference between "friendly" and simple non-hostility.
What you may be running into , and what gets some folks' undies in a wad, is the enormous and overwhelming difference between "being inclusive" and "not being exclusive". Some people believe that "not excluding" is all they need to do. So long as they don't go out of their way to talk about there being no LGBT+ people in their world (as a DM) or their own dislike and distolerance for LGBT+ people (as a person), then everything is fine and nobody should have any issues. This would be the person who, as a DM (and this is an admittedly over-extreme example for the purposes of making the point clear) sees absolutely nothing wrong with making every last single NPC in their campaign world a white cishet human male who follows the religion of the most Yaweh-like god in the D&D pantheon. So long as they don't actively say there's no women, no LGBT+ people, no people of color, no nonhumans, or anything else like that in their world? They feel like there shouldn't be a problem. They're not actively excluding other people. They just don't see any reason why they need to go out of their way to "show off" LGBT+ folks, either.
When this sort of person gets pushback because their game/view feels "exclusive", they get very upset. They tend to snap back, accuse other folks of falsely accusing them of exclusionism (racism, sexism, creedism, or whatever other -ism is under debate), and start making noise about "wokeness", "politics"", and all that other junk because in their minds they're already being as accomodating as they need to be and they don't know why everybody else needs to be such a primadonna about it all. By the same token however, those people tend to be the first to be openly hostile to LGBT+ players. Not by being giant flaming exclusionists going on long-winded rants, but simply by discouraging any discussion of non-'normalness'. They're the ones who say "why does your character's sexuality matter?", "why does this NPC's gender identity matter?", "why does the king's skin color matter?" and the like. They excise any notion of it from the game, divorce anything that smacks of 'Other' from it, and believe there's nothing wrong with that.
Spoilers: there's everything wrong with that. Anyone can feel a particular piece of their identity is important to them for any reason; telling players to hide those pieces of their characters' identity because it makes your game feel more comfortable is not even slightly different than telling people to hide their own identities just to make yourself more comfortable. Not okay. And will never be okay again.
Frankly, I tend to think of LGBT+ friendliness as whether a table can pass what I think of as the Gay Bechdel Test: could a gay player at your table talk about his husband/her wife and share an ordinary story of married life (i.e. 'my husband and I were watching this movie last night and you wouldn't believe what they did in it...!'), and the rest of the table would react the same way to that story of married life that they would have had it come from a heterosexual player? If yes, then congratulations - your table is LGBT+-friendly. Open, easy acceptance of 'Other'-ness, with players who don't shut down any conversation that indicates a non-cishet background or identity. The ability to chatter freely about your own identity whenever it happens to become relevant, without feeling the need to hide what you are to keep your game or your new friendships.
And to be frank, there is no "non-hostility". There is 'friendly', and there is varying forms and degrees of hostile. If somebody tells a married-life story about them and their homosexual spouse, only to receive uncomfortable silence for a moment followed by "that's cool. Okay, where were we in the game again?", there's no "non" in front of that hostility. It is not enough to simply avoid active exclusionism anymore. "Not being exclusive" is not, never has been, and will never again be considered the same as "being inclusive."
Hopefully something in that morass of verbiage helps answer your question. It's a subject I tend to feel dearly about, so apologies for the long-winded burble.
Perhaps it is the fault of my lack of knowledge of English (I am not a native), but seeing many of the comments I would like to ask a question. When you say "Friendly" you mean "non-hostile", right? I mention it because for me they are two different things. One can be non-hostile towards something, but that does not mean that it is friendly. He might not care, or he might never have thought about it.
From my experience, in today's D&D player community, I don't run into hostile people. But neither can I say that the tables I participate in (online or in person) are LGBTQIA+ friendly. Even here and there I still come across stupid jokes about elves being gay or effeminate and stuff like that. Probably the person who makes that "joke" does not mean to be hostile, but it does not seem very friendly to me either.
"LGBTQIA+-friendly" means the table is openly accepting and supportive of people within or friendly to that alliance. As you say, there's a sharp difference between "friendly" and simple non-hostility.
What you may be running into , and what gets some folks' undies in a wad, is the enormous and overwhelming difference between "being inclusive" and "not being exclusive". Some people believe that "not excluding" is all they need to do. So long as they don't go out of their way to talk about there being no LGBT+ people in their world (as a DM) or their own dislike and distolerance for LGBT+ people (as a person), then everything is fine and nobody should have any issues. This would be the person who, as a DM (and this is an admittedly over-extreme example for the purposes of making the point clear) sees absolutely nothing wrong with making every last single NPC in their campaign world a white cishet human male who follows the religion of the most Yaweh-like god in the D&D pantheon. So long as they don't actively say there's no women, no LGBT+ people, no people of color, no nonhumans, or anything else like that in their world? They feel like there shouldn't be a problem. They're not actively excluding other people. They just don't see any reason why they need to go out of their way to "show off" LGBT+ folks, either.
When this sort of person gets pushback because their game/view feels "exclusive", they get very upset. They tend to snap back, accuse other folks of falsely accusing them of exclusionism (racism, sexism, creedism, or whatever other -ism is under debate), and start making noise about "wokeness", "politics"", and all that other junk because in their minds they're already being as accomodating as they need to be and they don't know why everybody else needs to be such a primadonna about it all. By the same token however, those people tend to be the first to be openly hostile to LGBT+ players. Not by being giant flaming exclusionists going on long-winded rants, but simply by discouraging any discussion of non-'normalness'. They're the ones who say "why does your character's sexuality matter?", "why does this NPC's gender identity matter?", "why does the king's skin color matter?" and the like. They excise any notion of it from the game, divorce anything that smacks of 'Other' from it, and believe there's nothing wrong with that.
Spoilers: there's everything wrong with that. Anyone can feel a particular piece of their identity is important to them for any reason; telling players to hide those pieces of their characters' identity because it makes your game feel more comfortable is not even slightly different than telling people to hide their own identities just to make yourself more comfortable. Not okay. And will never be okay again.
Frankly, I tend to think of LGBT+ friendliness as whether a table can pass what I think of as the Gay Bechdel Test: could a gay player at your table talk about his husband/her wife and share an ordinary story of married life (i.e. 'my husband and I were watching this movie last night and you wouldn't believe what they did in it...!'), and the rest of the table would react the same way to that story of married life that they would have had it come from a heterosexual player? If yes, then congratulations - your table is LGBT+-friendly. Open, easy acceptance of 'Other'-ness, with players who don't shut down any conversation that indicates a non-cishet background or identity. The ability to chatter freely about your own identity whenever it happens to become relevant, without feeling the need to hide what you are to keep your game or your new friendships.
And to be frank, there is no "non-hostility". There is 'friendly', and there is varying forms and degrees of hostile. If somebody tells a married-life story about them and their homosexual spouse, only to receive uncomfortable silence for a moment followed by "that's cool. Okay, where were we in the game again?", there's no "non" in front of that hostility. It is not enough to simply avoid active exclusionism anymore. "Not being exclusive" is not, never has been, and will never again be considered the same as "being inclusive."
Hopefully something in that morass of verbiage helps answer your question. It's a subject I tend to feel dearly about, so apologies for the long-winded burble.
First off, thanks for this blurb, it helped me to realise a few things I hadn't thought of.
Would I be right in saying, though, that this falls much more heavily on the side of the people than the rules - and honestly, I feel like the rules don't offer representation to any actual people on account of them being built around representing fictional characters. That is to say, nowhere in the D&D books does it say that you can have a transgender black woman, but neither does it say that you can have a white cisgeder man. Any assumptions you make about the people which you can represent with the rules for dnd are the ones you bring yourself.
Which is where the people come in. And I can definitely see the resoning behind, for example, not making every couple in your game a straight couple of the same "race" (species).
Honestly, I feel like D&D falls under "Does'nt exclude" for absolutely everything. It neither promotes nor excludes any sort of person, so it's neutral - it's not "Friendly" to anyone.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to think of some more varied NPC's to fill my world with!
One of the main designers of D&D is openly homosexual. The game itself is very accepting of you.
Some people who play D&D aren’t, and some people are. So you need to ignore the people you don’t accept you and play with groups of people who do accept you.
That is to say, nowhere in the D&D books does it say that you can have a transgender black woman, but neither does it say that you can have a white cisgeder man. Any assumptions you make about the people which you can represent with the rules for dnd are the ones you bring yourself.
Which is where the people come in. And I can definitely see the resoning behind, for example, not making every couple in your game a straight couple of the same "race" (species).
Honestly, I feel like D&D falls under "Does'nt exclude" for absolutely everything. It neither promotes nor excludes any sort of person, so it's neutral - it's not "Friendly" to anyone.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to think of some more varied NPC's to fill my world with!
I mean, there is THIS BIT from the PHB that specifically mentions:
You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture’s expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.
You don’t need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon’s image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character’s sexual orientation is for you to decide.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
That is to say, nowhere in the D&D books does it say that you can have a transgender black woman, but neither does it say that you can have a white cisgeder man. Any assumptions you make about the people which you can represent with the rules for dnd are the ones you bring yourself.
Which is where the people come in. And I can definitely see the resoning behind, for example, not making every couple in your game a straight couple of the same "race" (species).
Honestly, I feel like D&D falls under "Does'nt exclude" for absolutely everything. It neither promotes nor excludes any sort of person, so it's neutral - it's not "Friendly" to anyone.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to think of some more varied NPC's to fill my world with!
I mean, there is THIS BIT from the PHB that specifically mentions:
You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture’s expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.
You don’t need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon’s image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character’s sexual orientation is for you to decide.
Ah, there you go then. they are frendly to everyone!
I mean, I think it's an attempt, at least. It's sometime contradicted by material that is subtly unfriendly to people, but at least the devs seem to be on the lookout for that kind of stuff going forward.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Yurei1453, It is a very interesting tought. And perhaps it is the next step that the community should take in the interest of inclusivity.
Okay, hardly anyone is openly hostile (for lack of a better term) to anything that isn't heteronormative. Nobody forbids you to play a transgender character or whatever. But is it included in the games? When designing a campaign do you assume that all characters are "Straight White Male" by default? Perhaps we should consider it and actively include other options from the enormous color palette that reality offers us. And do it normally, without this having a vital importance in the plot. I mean, it might matter, but it's okay if random, non-straight characters pop up here and there. Maybe you're buying weapons at the blacksmith and the woman who runs the shop says, "Wait, I'll ask my wife if we have that item." And nobody is surprised. No player thinks "Wait, something weird is going on here." Because nothing weird is happening. It's an ordinary lesbian couple who own a blacksmith shop.
I don't know if I'm explaining myself, but I think when we get to that point we can talk about a truly inclusive D&D community. Unfortunately I think we are not there yet.
And I'm going to correct myself about something I said a few posts ago. Although the game is not about that, it is necessary. We can't stay that D&D doesn't actively exclude anyone, but we should demand active inclusivity in adventures. Starting with ourselves and our games, but also in official campaigns. And maybe some pedagogy from WoTC. Can you imagine a supplement that gives tricks to make the games much more inclusive? And official videos with advice on this could also be published. And things like that.
As others have said, individual tables will vary, but my experience has been that the game, and even more so, the community, seem noticeably more accepting than the general population.
And there is nothing in the rules themselves that in any way discourages that.
Agreed.
Just my two cents on that part, until recently being a "nerd" in general as been a social stigma and playing D&D is as nerdy as most "mainstream mundanes" are aware of being possible. When I first started going to conventions a little over 15 years ago one of the first things I noticed was how aggressively friendly most people are at such gatherings of nerds and I quickly realized that it's a variety of social tribalism. We, as nerds, quickly feel more comfortable and relaxed when surrounded by others who share our nerdiness and are often quick to be accepting of anybody who isn't a straight up ******* and shares our interests in a way that most people we regularly interact with simply don't understand. It's a "one of us" type deal. Yes, there are some people in "our circles" who are in fact straight up ******** and they tend to be tribal to the extreme even within the greater tribe, violently rejecting anything and anybody that isn't more or less exactly like themselves. Thankfully these ******** are a minority within the greater nerd culture and are typically easy to quickly identify and avoid.
This tribal analogy was most obvious to me one time at GenCon in Indianapolis when I was walking to a bar and grill just around the block from the convention center for lunch (the Ram if you're familiar with it, it's always packed during the con). That particular day in August was also the day of the Indianapolis Colts first preseason game and the stadium they play in is right down the street from the convention center. As I stood on the corner I watched a mass of football fans in visually homogenous blue and white (Colts colors) approach from one direction while an equally large gaggle of convention-going nerds who were dressed more eclectically but still identifiable as a general group by the badge lanyards everybody was wearing over their t-shirts and in numerous cases full on cosplay (including a few Imperial stormtroopers walking down the sidewalk in formation with Darth Vader, I'm dead serious) coming from the other direction. The two groups were approaching from right angles and blocked from each other's sight by the buildings until they rounded the corner and literally ran into each other. People who were obviously strangers among both groups reflexively clustered together as they flinched away from the massed weirdos that provoked instinctive "other" responses, and after awkwardly sifting through heads turned back from both directions with many variations of "WTF is with those freaks" being muttered by all. Then when I was sitting at the bar in the Ram about a half hour later talking football with a local, he noticed my lanyard and asked what was up with all the weirdos, figuring I could explain it in terms he would be able to understand because I'd been speaking his language about the previous year's NFL playoffs. After about two minutes we both gave up on him understanding the concepts of TTRPGs, LARPing, sci-fi and fantasy miniatures games, CCGs, and so on and decided to stick to talking about football and beer for a bit until we parted ways and I went back to my people.
Yurei1453, It is a very interesting tought. And perhaps it is the next step that the community should take in the interest of inclusivity.
Okay, hardly anyone is openly hostile (for lack of a better term) to anything that isn't heteronormative. Nobody forbids you to play a transgender character or whatever. But is it included in the games? When designing a campaign do you assume that all characters are "Straight White Male" by default? Perhaps we should consider it and actively include other options from the enormous color palette that reality offers us. And do it normally, without this having a vital importance in the plot. I mean, it might matter, but it's okay if random, non-straight characters pop up here and there. Maybe you're buying weapons at the blacksmith and the woman who runs the shop says, "Wait, I'll ask my wife if we have that item." And nobody is surprised. No player thinks "Wait, something weird is going on here." Because nothing weird is happening. It's an ordinary lesbian couple who own a blacksmith shop.
I don't know if I'm explaining myself, but I think when we get to that point we can talk about a truly inclusive D&D community. Unfortunately I think we are not there yet.
And I'm going to correct myself about something I said a few posts ago. Although the game is not about that, it is necessary. We can't stay that D&D doesn't actively exclude anyone, but we should demand active inclusivity in adventures. Starting with ourselves and our games, but also in official campaigns. And maybe some pedagogy from WoTC. Can you imagine a supplement that gives tricks to make the games much more inclusive? And official videos with advice on this could also be published. And things like that.
I agree with you that this is what I would consider inclusive - that these things are both present and unremarkable, IE you don't get to town and hear the people gossiping about those women who run a blacksmiths or anything like that.
I disagree that it is the responsibility of D&D to make that the way though. This sort of thing is down to the people playing, and is the duty of their mentors (parents, teachers, culture, etc.) to make these things unremarkable and perfectly normal to them. It's all down to the group, not the books.
For example, if a mixed LGBTQIA+ group were to encounter those blacksmiths in a published adventure, they wouldn't consider them in any way out of the ordinary, whereas if a group who were brought up in a less accomodating society met them, they might think that they are in fact an unorthodox or unusual occurrence.
Further to this, it is important that D&D provides a comfortable area for players to enjoy themselves in. If such a group play a game where everyone is straight and white and skinny and beautiful and muscular and healthy, and they enjoy themselves, they are playing D&D right. If adding things which they are uncomfortable with, regardless of whether it is "acceptable" for them to be uncomfortable about them, makes them enjoy the game less, then they are playing the game wrong.
Diseases and such exist in real life, lots of games avoid them if people are uncomfortable. Spiders exist, but people avoid them if it makes people uncomfortable. confined spaces, drowning, people flirting with the players, romantic scenes, gore, and so on, all things which people can avoid if it makes them feel uncomfortable. And there is no reason why anything should be excluded from that list.
So I think it comes down to the fact that the rules for D&D support playing in any environment and including anything which makes you feel comfortable and makes you enjoy yourself, and it also allows for anything to be excluded if it makes people feel more comfortable too. So it all comes down to the group - as long as you're having fun, then that's what matters. If you can't have fun without LGBTQIA+ representation in the world, that's fine - there are plenty of groups which have it, so you'll need to find one!
Yurei1453, It is a very interesting tought. And perhaps it is the next step that the community should take in the interest of inclusivity.
Okay, hardly anyone is openly hostile (for lack of a better term) to anything that isn't heteronormative. Nobody forbids you to play a transgender character or whatever. But is it included in the games? When designing a campaign do you assume that all characters are "Straight White Male" by default? Perhaps we should consider it and actively include other options from the enormous color palette that reality offers us. And do it normally, without this having a vital importance in the plot. I mean, it might matter, but it's okay if random, non-straight characters pop up here and there. Maybe you're buying weapons at the blacksmith and the woman who runs the shop says, "Wait, I'll ask my wife if we have that item." And nobody is surprised. No player thinks "Wait, something weird is going on here." Because nothing weird is happening. It's an ordinary lesbian couple who own a blacksmith shop.
I don't know if I'm explaining myself, but I think when we get to that point we can talk about a truly inclusive D&D community. Unfortunately I think we are not there yet.
And I'm going to correct myself about something I said a few posts ago. Although the game is not about that, it is necessary. We can't stay that D&D doesn't actively exclude anyone, but we should demand active inclusivity in adventures. Starting with ourselves and our games, but also in official campaigns. And maybe some pedagogy from WoTC. Can you imagine a supplement that gives tricks to make the games much more inclusive? And official videos with advice on this could also be published. And things like that.
Don’t they kinda do this with the published adventures already?
From what I can see, it seems like the mechanics of the game are pretty open to anything. Even the race thing isn't as simple as saying "orcs/drow/elves/whatever is always bad/good", since there are lore examples of good drow and bad elves and Eberron orcs having saved their world from an invasion of aberrations. So I think whatever problems someone would run into are dependent on what the individual players bring to the table.
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The game is friendly to, welcoming, and accepting of LGBTQIA+. The rules make no mention whatsoever of any sort of restrictions on character creation, the DMG directs the DM to be welcoming and respectful, and the current development staff are making strides to be inclusive. Critical Role products especially tend to do a good job of that; Explorer's Guide to Wildemount and Call of the Netherdeep are both set in a world whose creator would be considered "aggressively egalitarion" if Matthew Mercer was capable of aggression, hueh. But other books of late have been following in Exandria's mold. This is increasingly a game where people simply are - a man can have a husband, a woman can have a wife, a character can be trans, agender, fluid, or whatever else suits them and these things will simply be mentioned as casually and openly as anyone else mentions cishet status/relationships.
Now, as others have mentioned, there are flies in the ointment. There's been backlash against the push towards more inclusive content in recent years, the usual crap wherein people complain about "wokeness", "political statements", and other assorted nonsense. The DDB forums here, however, push back against that, and you'll find that for every curmudgeon who wants to make a big stink about how he doesn't like there being gay people in his D&D, there's generally at least two or three other folks willing to fight him off his soapbox. Much like anywhere else in the world, there's a lot of people making an active effort, a lot of people who're just trying to get by, and a few people being unpleasant sticks in the mud getting offended that other people exist. Fortunately most of those are easy to spot and even easier to disinvite from your group, and even in the Looking For Group/Player forums here a very common tag you'll see for advertised games is "LGBTQ+ Friendly".
Don't let the flies stop you. D&D is for you as much as it is for anyone else, and almost everyone you meet on this forum will easily agree.
Please do not contact or message me.
I’m a bisexual girl and I’ve never had a problem. (Though tbh I don’t always tell people this when I first meet them.)
Yes you're right. Maybe I haven't explained myself well. When I say that it is quite aseptic, I mean what I quote. Generally the game does not get into the sexuality of the NPCs or PCs. There are no mechanics for the sexuality of the characters, and it doesn't push you narratively one way or the other.
There are other games that are clearly focused on LGBTQIA+ themes, such as Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Hard Wired Island. There are also other games with supplements designed with the LGBTQIA+ community in mind, such as Pride 2021 for SCION.
In D&D there is none of that, but nothing prevents you from including it in your campaigns. And yes, there are hints here and there that show that the game is not hostile to queer theory or the LGBTQIA+ community.
Ultimately, D&D welcomes anyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or any other condition. And WoTC makes efforts so that no one feels left out. However, it does not focus on showing diversity either. I'm not saying they have to, the game isn't about that. Although it wouldn't do any harm either, and could help change some consciousness (although it could also have the opposite effect, that there are many idiots in this world). In any case, I would like to see official supplements focused on that.
From my personal experience, frequently playing in person and online, both with friends and or strangers from all around the world in french and english, i must say i never saw non-friendly LGBTQIA+ campaign group or Discord server, openly at least. But on the other hand i often see on various forums and gaming sites campaigns or servers openly advertised as being LGBTQIA+ friendly.
So i'd say in general D&D game and fans are LGBTQIA+ friendly, united by a common passion for roleplaying game. But like anywhere else, you will always find individual that may not be, but i'm fairly sure most table where an unacceptable comment or behavior would occur, there would be at least 1 person among the other players or DM that would respond or act against it. I know i would myself anyways and not just regarding LGBTQIA+ but racial, sexism or other discrimination for it has no place in the gaming community or anywhere else.
Perhaps it is the fault of my lack of knowledge of English (I am not a native), but seeing many of the comments I would like to ask a question.
When you say "Friendly" you mean "non-hostile", right? I mention it because for me they are two different things. One can be non-hostile towards something, but that does not mean that it is friendly. He might not care, or he might never have thought about it.
From my experience, in today's D&D player community, I don't run into hostile people. But neither can I say that the tables I participate in (online or in person) are LGBTQIA+ friendly. Even here and there I still come across stupid jokes about elves being gay or effeminate and stuff like that. Probably the person who makes that "joke" does not mean to be hostile, but it does not seem very friendly to me either.
Agreed.
WotC tries to be gay-friendly, and it depends the people you find, then a tabletop group can be gay-friendly, family-friendly, Christian-friendly, Muslim-friendly, Chinese-friendly... and today straight males with female PCs are tolerated, in the same game you play Lara Croft or Chun-li in your videoconsole. Usually straight players allow yuri/lesbian ship in their tabletop, but they aren't interested into yaoi. There is a cursed item, the belt of the gender swap, used for comical plot. Straight or queer the players should talk prevously with the DM about limits during dates, seduction and flirting with nPCs.
In the past years ago where I live the D&D elves suffered the trope of no-interested-in the opposite gender.
99.9% of this is dependant on the people you play with - in the same way as "is football LGBTQIA+ friendly?" or "Is Darts LGBTQIA+ Friendly?". Dnd is simply a set of rulebooks, and they don't exclude anyone, so I guess that makes them friendly?
The vast majority of games will include exactly what the dungeon master and group considers relevant to the game. If there is no warlock, there is no patron for the DM to make as an NPC. If there are no players inteested in any form of romantic roleplay, then the game will probably revolve around quests, and the sexuality of the NPC's will not even get a mention.
The best thing about Dnd is that it can ably accept just about anything that the players and DM bring with them. It's like the cave in star wars - "what's in there?" - "only what you bring with you".
I've yet to play a game where any character's or NPC's sexual preferences or gender identity came up or even mattered, to be honest. It's all about hat you want out of the game - and finding a group who want similar things, so the game is fun for everyone (EG if you have someone who wants to do puzzles all the time and someone who wants to do combat all the time, they often don't mix well for games without compromising).
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"LGBTQIA+-friendly" means the table is openly accepting and supportive of people within or friendly to that alliance. As you say, there's a sharp difference between "friendly" and simple non-hostility.
What you may be running into , and what gets some folks' undies in a wad, is the enormous and overwhelming difference between "being inclusive" and "not being exclusive". Some people believe that "not excluding" is all they need to do. So long as they don't go out of their way to talk about there being no LGBT+ people in their world (as a DM) or their own dislike and distolerance for LGBT+ people (as a person), then everything is fine and nobody should have any issues. This would be the person who, as a DM (and this is an admittedly over-extreme example for the purposes of making the point clear) sees absolutely nothing wrong with making every last single NPC in their campaign world a white cishet human male who follows the religion of the most Yaweh-like god in the D&D pantheon. So long as they don't actively say there's no women, no LGBT+ people, no people of color, no nonhumans, or anything else like that in their world? They feel like there shouldn't be a problem. They're not actively excluding other people. They just don't see any reason why they need to go out of their way to "show off" LGBT+ folks, either.
When this sort of person gets pushback because their game/view feels "exclusive", they get very upset. They tend to snap back, accuse other folks of falsely accusing them of exclusionism (racism, sexism, creedism, or whatever other -ism is under debate), and start making noise about "wokeness", "politics"", and all that other junk because in their minds they're already being as accomodating as they need to be and they don't know why everybody else needs to be such a primadonna about it all. By the same token however, those people tend to be the first to be openly hostile to LGBT+ players. Not by being giant flaming exclusionists going on long-winded rants, but simply by discouraging any discussion of non-'normalness'. They're the ones who say "why does your character's sexuality matter?", "why does this NPC's gender identity matter?", "why does the king's skin color matter?" and the like. They excise any notion of it from the game, divorce anything that smacks of 'Other' from it, and believe there's nothing wrong with that.
Spoilers: there's everything wrong with that. Anyone can feel a particular piece of their identity is important to them for any reason; telling players to hide those pieces of their characters' identity because it makes your game feel more comfortable is not even slightly different than telling people to hide their own identities just to make yourself more comfortable. Not okay. And will never be okay again.
Frankly, I tend to think of LGBT+ friendliness as whether a table can pass what I think of as the Gay Bechdel Test: could a gay player at your table talk about his husband/her wife and share an ordinary story of married life (i.e. 'my husband and I were watching this movie last night and you wouldn't believe what they did in it...!'), and the rest of the table would react the same way to that story of married life that they would have had it come from a heterosexual player? If yes, then congratulations - your table is LGBT+-friendly. Open, easy acceptance of 'Other'-ness, with players who don't shut down any conversation that indicates a non-cishet background or identity. The ability to chatter freely about your own identity whenever it happens to become relevant, without feeling the need to hide what you are to keep your game or your new friendships.
And to be frank, there is no "non-hostility". There is 'friendly', and there is varying forms and degrees of hostile. If somebody tells a married-life story about them and their homosexual spouse, only to receive uncomfortable silence for a moment followed by "that's cool. Okay, where were we in the game again?", there's no "non" in front of that hostility. It is not enough to simply avoid active exclusionism anymore. "Not being exclusive" is not, never has been, and will never again be considered the same as "being inclusive."
Hopefully something in that morass of verbiage helps answer your question. It's a subject I tend to feel dearly about, so apologies for the long-winded burble.
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First off, thanks for this blurb, it helped me to realise a few things I hadn't thought of.
Would I be right in saying, though, that this falls much more heavily on the side of the people than the rules - and honestly, I feel like the rules don't offer representation to any actual people on account of them being built around representing fictional characters. That is to say, nowhere in the D&D books does it say that you can have a transgender black woman, but neither does it say that you can have a white cisgeder man. Any assumptions you make about the people which you can represent with the rules for dnd are the ones you bring yourself.
Which is where the people come in. And I can definitely see the resoning behind, for example, not making every couple in your game a straight couple of the same "race" (species).
Honestly, I feel like D&D falls under "Does'nt exclude" for absolutely everything. It neither promotes nor excludes any sort of person, so it's neutral - it's not "Friendly" to anyone.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to think of some more varied NPC's to fill my world with!
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One of the main designers of D&D is openly homosexual. The game itself is very accepting of you.
Some people who play D&D aren’t, and some people are. So you need to ignore the people you don’t accept you and play with groups of people who do accept you.
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I mean, there is THIS BIT from the PHB that specifically mentions:
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Ah, there you go then. they are frendly to everyone!
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I mean, I think it's an attempt, at least. It's sometime contradicted by material that is subtly unfriendly to people, but at least the devs seem to be on the lookout for that kind of stuff going forward.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Yurei1453, It is a very interesting tought. And perhaps it is the next step that the community should take in the interest of inclusivity.
Okay, hardly anyone is openly hostile (for lack of a better term) to anything that isn't heteronormative. Nobody forbids you to play a transgender character or whatever. But is it included in the games? When designing a campaign do you assume that all characters are "Straight White Male" by default? Perhaps we should consider it and actively include other options from the enormous color palette that reality offers us. And do it normally, without this having a vital importance in the plot. I mean, it might matter, but it's okay if random, non-straight characters pop up here and there. Maybe you're buying weapons at the blacksmith and the woman who runs the shop says, "Wait, I'll ask my wife if we have that item." And nobody is surprised. No player thinks "Wait, something weird is going on here." Because nothing weird is happening. It's an ordinary lesbian couple who own a blacksmith shop.
I don't know if I'm explaining myself, but I think when we get to that point we can talk about a truly inclusive D&D community. Unfortunately I think we are not there yet.
And I'm going to correct myself about something I said a few posts ago. Although the game is not about that, it is necessary. We can't stay that D&D doesn't actively exclude anyone, but we should demand active inclusivity in adventures. Starting with ourselves and our games, but also in official campaigns. And maybe some pedagogy from WoTC. Can you imagine a supplement that gives tricks to make the games much more inclusive? And official videos with advice on this could also be published. And things like that.
Just my two cents on that part, until recently being a "nerd" in general as been a social stigma and playing D&D is as nerdy as most "mainstream mundanes" are aware of being possible. When I first started going to conventions a little over 15 years ago one of the first things I noticed was how aggressively friendly most people are at such gatherings of nerds and I quickly realized that it's a variety of social tribalism. We, as nerds, quickly feel more comfortable and relaxed when surrounded by others who share our nerdiness and are often quick to be accepting of anybody who isn't a straight up ******* and shares our interests in a way that most people we regularly interact with simply don't understand. It's a "one of us" type deal. Yes, there are some people in "our circles" who are in fact straight up ******** and they tend to be tribal to the extreme even within the greater tribe, violently rejecting anything and anybody that isn't more or less exactly like themselves. Thankfully these ******** are a minority within the greater nerd culture and are typically easy to quickly identify and avoid.
This tribal analogy was most obvious to me one time at GenCon in Indianapolis when I was walking to a bar and grill just around the block from the convention center for lunch (the Ram if you're familiar with it, it's always packed during the con). That particular day in August was also the day of the Indianapolis Colts first preseason game and the stadium they play in is right down the street from the convention center. As I stood on the corner I watched a mass of football fans in visually homogenous blue and white (Colts colors) approach from one direction while an equally large gaggle of convention-going nerds who were dressed more eclectically but still identifiable as a general group by the badge lanyards everybody was wearing over their t-shirts and in numerous cases full on cosplay (including a few Imperial stormtroopers walking down the sidewalk in formation with Darth Vader, I'm dead serious) coming from the other direction. The two groups were approaching from right angles and blocked from each other's sight by the buildings until they rounded the corner and literally ran into each other. People who were obviously strangers among both groups reflexively clustered together as they flinched away from the massed weirdos that provoked instinctive "other" responses, and after awkwardly sifting through heads turned back from both directions with many variations of "WTF is with those freaks" being muttered by all. Then when I was sitting at the bar in the Ram about a half hour later talking football with a local, he noticed my lanyard and asked what was up with all the weirdos, figuring I could explain it in terms he would be able to understand because I'd been speaking his language about the previous year's NFL playoffs. After about two minutes we both gave up on him understanding the concepts of TTRPGs, LARPing, sci-fi and fantasy miniatures games, CCGs, and so on and decided to stick to talking about football and beer for a bit until we parted ways and I went back to my people.
I agree with you that this is what I would consider inclusive - that these things are both present and unremarkable, IE you don't get to town and hear the people gossiping about those women who run a blacksmiths or anything like that.
I disagree that it is the responsibility of D&D to make that the way though. This sort of thing is down to the people playing, and is the duty of their mentors (parents, teachers, culture, etc.) to make these things unremarkable and perfectly normal to them. It's all down to the group, not the books.
For example, if a mixed LGBTQIA+ group were to encounter those blacksmiths in a published adventure, they wouldn't consider them in any way out of the ordinary, whereas if a group who were brought up in a less accomodating society met them, they might think that they are in fact an unorthodox or unusual occurrence.
Further to this, it is important that D&D provides a comfortable area for players to enjoy themselves in. If such a group play a game where everyone is straight and white and skinny and beautiful and muscular and healthy, and they enjoy themselves, they are playing D&D right. If adding things which they are uncomfortable with, regardless of whether it is "acceptable" for them to be uncomfortable about them, makes them enjoy the game less, then they are playing the game wrong.
Diseases and such exist in real life, lots of games avoid them if people are uncomfortable. Spiders exist, but people avoid them if it makes people uncomfortable. confined spaces, drowning, people flirting with the players, romantic scenes, gore, and so on, all things which people can avoid if it makes them feel uncomfortable. And there is no reason why anything should be excluded from that list.
So I think it comes down to the fact that the rules for D&D support playing in any environment and including anything which makes you feel comfortable and makes you enjoy yourself, and it also allows for anything to be excluded if it makes people feel more comfortable too. So it all comes down to the group - as long as you're having fun, then that's what matters. If you can't have fun without LGBTQIA+ representation in the world, that's fine - there are plenty of groups which have it, so you'll need to find one!
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Don’t they kinda do this with the published adventures already?
It is as friendly as the table you're playing with.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU
From what I can see, it seems like the mechanics of the game are pretty open to anything. Even the race thing isn't as simple as saying "orcs/drow/elves/whatever is always bad/good", since there are lore examples of good drow and bad elves and Eberron orcs having saved their world from an invasion of aberrations. So I think whatever problems someone would run into are dependent on what the individual players bring to the table.