To clarify: I'm not accusing the game of any inherent gender bias or the players of the same. I'm simply noting that it would be interesting to see that data, more as an exploration of how modern roleplaying works than as a means of bludgeoning someone with 'wrong' choices. The only wrong choice is to denigrate someone else for theirs.
The subject of gender fascinates me, especially in this modern day where the very definition of the term is undergoing societal shift. Roleplaying has long been a means for people who're discontent with their native gender, or even simply those who want to explore a little, to try out not only a gender not native to themselves, but to experiment with presentation as well. It's a wonderful experience and I wouldn't mind seeing more research and discussion on it. One reason why I'm doing my durnedest to haul this thread back on topic. Edition Wars can go find its own.
I'm sharply critical of Wizards primarily because of how far they've fallen.
To clarify: I'm not accusing the game of any inherent gender bias or the players of the same.
Of all the people in the world the nerdy D&D people are generally the easiest of going, most inclusive. Obviously times have changed and old content is going to look out of date.
So does Friends episodes which were progressive at the time. 1/2 of Netflix content they have to put up a label "he this might look sexist now".
In another 25 years the next generation will come for todays kids generations as being out of date and biased. Such is the circle of life.
If you want to see *real* inequality for women there is no shortage of it in many non western countries where still womens lives are considered less valuable.
Measuring inequality in D&D by how many people picked a female D&D character just shows how little perspective kids have today.
I do have a preference for making male characters over female ones myself, though some of my most cherished characters are female. However, I also have a bigger preference for creature monster PCs vs more typical humanoid PCs like elves or dwarves.
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"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Can we...HEADDESK...please stop wasting...HEADDESK...time and oxygen...HEADDESK...on these threads? HEADDESK
Here's what ends up happening. People make all sorts of claims about D&D being a hotbed of all sorts of bigotry. Some of these claims spin out into crazy fantasia land. Some people push back and suggest that some of these claims are over the top.
The folks who push back get warnings and bans.
D&D used to have literal mechanical disadvantages to playing a female character over a male one. That's a gender equality problem that was literally founded in the mechanics of the game.
D&D was considered a boys club for the longest time because such a low percentage of the players were female. Now, there is a much larger percentage of players that are female than in previous years, but in no way is the problem solved. There are still many more males playing the hobby than females.
Stop saying that this is an overreaction, the "second satanic panic" or whatever BS you've (not specifically calling you out, your group in general) been saying in other threads. We're not trying to burn down your hobby, I like the game and enjoy playing it as much as you do.
Edit: If you don't like this type of thread, don't comment in it. It's as simple as that.
Man. It really feels like lots of folks in this thread are still pushing the ol' "no girls allowed DX" mentality, what with how sharp some of the backlash is against discussions of gender in D&D.
I just find the subject interesting. Clearly, D&D is not as unkind to women as it once was or as other places in the world can be. That doesn't mean there's no room or reason for discussion. Knock it off.
Just to try to elevate this conversation up a notch, when people are talking about social justice or improved conditions between men and women, genders, race and classes, the operable word these days isn't "equality" but equity. That is, it's not so much some sort of 50/50 standard of simple fairness. It's about groups that traditionally dominate something, like a hobby, and other groups that have traditionally been marginalized, and trying to give all stakeholders (in citizenship, a hobby, the economy, etc.) a greater sense of "buy in' and "return". Quantitiative metrics are still important but a large amount of work and analysis is done a at a qualitative level before something like quantitative solutions are resolved. A big part of how these processes work is listening to stakeholders who are active but marginalized and valuing their contributions. In a game debate, no one really loses anything besides an unexamined perspective.
5th edition is hardly different from 2nd edition. The rules and definitions are just a lot tighter, make more sense. There is more stuff to do with the classes. Spells are not accidentally over powered. The bounded accuracy changed a lot of fights. Magic items less exciting. I certainly miss things like % magic resistance but as far the core experience goes, its the same. 5e is just 2e evolved due to how game design has evolved over time. I grew up and loved 2e but I wouldn't go back to it.
D&D fundamental mechanics have changed over the years, but when one speaks about the differences in edition, the core mechanics are rarely the logic behind the discussion.
The primary difference between 2nd edition and really all other editions of D&D was that 2nd edition AD&D was intended to be a story driven event game in which the players were considered a participating audience. The concept was that adventurers in 2nd edition would be scripted, event driven walk troughs which the players would experience through short windows of role-playing divided up by combats that offered an opportunity to give the audience a sense of participation. It was a game which intended its players experience the adventure stories like novels. Player decisions and player agency was largely discouraged, in most modules, there would be parts where they were outlawed outright.
Read through any 2nd edition module and you'll see their intention for the game, in particular Dragonlance adventure modules if you want to have a taste of what 2nd edition play was supposed to be like.
Players of course didn't use the game this way, most people picked a few mechanics out of the system and continued to run the game the way they always have, but that doesn't change what it was intended to be. Suffice to say 5e is as far away from that design philosophy as you can get.
tbh I don't get it.
I incorporated plenty of 1e/2e modules into my campaign back on 2e. For sure the likes of the Avatar Trilogy (Shadowdale, Tantras, Waterdeep) was a series of events that were difficult to change the outcome of. Is 5e tomb of horrors a different design philosophy than 1e/2e tomb of horrors. Probably not as deadly.
I haven't read enough of the bigger 5e modules I bought to see if that is really any different though. I don't think the characters wandering off and ditching the main quest to do barely prepared content from a DM is really "player agency". Or just preparing more side quests enriches the experience by a huge degree.
It certainly takes a lot more effort to create an adventure that has many very different outcomes. Doubles, triples some of the work. Its all how much spare time you had to put into it, which usually was never enough spare time.
Its a conceptual principle of game management, in particular the method by which you prepare for a game session.
Most DM's due to the nature of Dungeons and Dragons adventure modules acting as a sort of training tool for how to run games, learn as a result to prepare for outcomes, aka, they prepare the solutions to problems they pose in their adventure and potential decisions of the players. Modules have been written in this method even as far back as mid 1st edition AD&D days.
Many DM's did not learn by these examples, instead they cut their teeth of setting boxsets, which presented a world and assumed that you would run your own adventures in them. DM's that learned using this method where more likely to approach the game in the way these box set described D&D as a whole, as an open world which you manage but your players do with as they please. In this method of preparation, you prepare the setting, you define a wide range of global problems, many different factions, politics etc.. but you do not create solutions or prepare for outcomes. You run the game by the seat of your pants and assuming you prepared the campaign thoroughly, you should be ready to define any aspect of the game world.
Its worth pointing out as well many GM's that play other games had no choice but to run those games this way as this was the only way for really the large majority of games. I mean when you ran Vampire The Masquerade for example, you didn't create adventures or stories that players where expected to run through, you defined the city in which the chronicle took place and pretty much just reacted to the activites of the players. Its really on D&D that functions on the premise of preparing "adventures" in the sort of classic sense.
DM's that play this way tend to be a lot more narrative, they tend not to use battle mats and miniatures and so they effectively just describe things as they go based on their understanding of the game and player actions. They pace the game on the fly and if the game reaches a point where there is something akeen to a quest, they might prepare an area like a dungeon or drop in an adventure module into the story, but at that point the DM knows where the players are going.. the decision point is behind them.
Anyway the point here is that many DM's don't prepare adventures in the way your describing where you have "prepared" material or assumed outcomes. I for example don't, I never create an adventure with a solution or outcome. I have no idea what is going to happen, I just try to respond logically, realistically and believably to what the players are doing.
I started roleplaying with World of Darkness, so I’ve always favored setting sourcebooks over modules.
Riveting discussion on gender equality in D&D here, folks.
I'd honestly be curious to see how many characters in DDB are actively indicated as 'Female'. Hard to track that information since gender is form-fillable rather than a toggle, but it would be interesting to see what happened if they ran a search of the database for any common term related to the feminine gender. "Female", "Feminine", "She/Her", "Woman", Girl", and the like. See what percentage of characters comes back as provably female, given the common accusations of 'Male Fantasy' against the genre.
NoHammer, I'm not going to quote your post because it's so offensive and stupid. It breaks the website's rules, and will be cleared up soon, I hope.
But, I still want to address some of your points.
First, you don't seem to know what "equality" means. It literally means equal! If the amount of female and male players in D&D are not equal, the game is not gender equal! There is a gender inequality in pharmacy jobs. It is literally an "inequality" if the amount of males and females in a given profession are not equal.
Second, Yurei did not come and say "lets invent a problem and troll the community". I, like them, would like to see the female character percentage on D&D Beyond, and just because I like to know the statistics.
Third, playing a TTRPG is in no way the same thing as being a pharmacist. D&D is done for fun and enjoyment, and your amount of enjoying the game doesn't have to do with gender, shown by the recent increase in female characters in the hobby. D&D can be played in any way that brings enjoyment, with multiple different playstyles, for both males and females. Saying that it shouldn't be inclusive is at its core saying that D&D is and should be more popular among males than females.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
See what percentage of characters comes back as provably female, given the common accusations of 'Male Fantasy' against the genre.
Gender equality has nothing to do with the number of female vs male characters created.
No, but it does show perceptions. If characters are overwhelmingly one or the other, that shows a strong player preference for one or the other, which in turn indicates potential problems with perceived equality. If over eight of ten characters on the website indicate 'other than female', that seems like something worth delving into, hm? Assuming the crossplayers on either side of the gender gap more-or-less cancel out (which is not even remotely a given truth, but it makes discussion easier), that sort of huge gender disparity indicates an overwhelmingly male player base. That's a big problem for a game trying to improve its public diversity image.
Now, to be fair, I have no idea if that disparity exists. It's one reason why I'd love to see that data, see how many Gurlz there are in DDB. Accounting for the fact that a great many sheets likely don't bother filling in their Characteristics data and calling those a wash, I think it'd be worthwhile to see what the data said. Perhaps create one of those special graphs where each instance of a word/term in the 'Gender' field makes the term larger in the aggregate data. I don't know what those charts are called, but it sounds like it'd be an interesting piece of data to see.
Not really, because then you'd be delving into the slippery slope territory of telling people what they can and can't find interesting or willing to play as.
Letting people have all the options is perfectly fine, there is enough opportunity for any character of any type of whatever to be created so whether or not people predominantly play as a gender or a race is not an issue because at that point we'd be saying preferences and personal choices that don't hurt anybody are problems.
It may be interesting data to see how many characters are female, but it would be equally interesting to see how many characters are tortles, halflings, gnomes, elves or dwarves for the exact same reasons.
Fair assessment, Legion. It is worth noting, though, that 'gender never matters/impacts the game' can have its own issues. it's a problem with a lot of modern video game designs; the developers can be seen as forward-thinking inclusionists by simply not bothering with any code that differentiates between male and female in all-too-common 'Romance' systems or other similar situations. Rather than gender identities, preferences, or ideologies being celebrated as equal, those things don't exist. Everyone is a genderless mannequin who's equally compatible with every other genderless mannequin, which is its own, different kind of unpleasant.
Nevertheless, the rules of D&D 5e don't tend to enforce that view. Rather, it's left to each individual table to decide what sort of importance those roles and preferences have in their game, which is fine. I'm not necessarily bagging on 5e for being disinclusive, I'm more interested in seeing where the players fall out and how much of that potential inclusivity the players are actually making use of. Might be an interesting survey - 'have you ever played a character of a different gender than yourself? Have you ever played a character with a different sexual orientation than yourself?' So on and so forth.
Admittedly, the response percentages for that survey would be dismally low, but the subject of gender in general fascinates me. I'd simply like to see the data, regardless of what that data suggested. I usually play female characters
Fair assessment, Legion. It is worth noting, though, that 'gender never matters/impacts the game' can have its own issues. it's a problem with a lot of modern video game designs; the developers can be seen as forward-thinking inclusionists by simply not bothering with any code that differentiates between male and female in all-too-common 'Romance' systems or other similar situations. Rather than gender identities, preferences, or ideologies being celebrated as equal, those things don't exist. Everyone is a genderless mannequin who's equally compatible with every other genderless mannequin, which is its own, different kind of unpleasant.
Nevertheless, the rules of D&D 5e don't tend to enforce that view. Rather, it's left to each individual table to decide what sort of importance those roles and preferences have in their game, which is fine. I'm not necessarily bagging on 5e for being disinclusive, I'm more interested in seeing where the players fall out and how much of that potential inclusivity the players are actually making use of. Might be an interesting survey - 'have you ever played a character of a different gender than yourself? Have you ever played a character with a different sexual orientation than yourself?' So on and so forth.
Admittedly, the response percentages for that survey would be dismally low, but the subject of gender in general fascinates me. I'd simply like to see the data, regardless of what that data suggested.
I usually play female characters, but I’ve played guys a couple times in various campaigns and once or twice in con play, like one offs (my friend organizes a mini con every year where like twenty of us get together for a long weekend to hang out and game).
Not really, because then you'd be delving into the slippery slope territory of telling people what they can and can't find interesting or willing to play as.
Letting people have all the options is perfectly fine, there is enough opportunity for any character of any type of whatever to be created so whether or not people predominantly play as a gender or a race is not an issue because at that point we'd be saying preferences and personal choices that don't hurt anybody are problems.
It may be interesting data to see how many characters are female, but it would be equally interesting to see how many characters are tortles, halflings, gnomes, elves or dwarves for the exact same reasons.
Wow, another slippery slope argument. I haven't seen one of those in. . . in. . . about a week?
No, what the results would tell you is whether or not female characters are less common than male characters on D&D Beyond. Absolutely no one is going to force you to play a female character if that is outside the range of what you want to play.
Playing female characters should be encouraged if they are played less often than male characters. Encouraged. That's it. Because otherwise, you're okay with less female representation in the game than male ones.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Not really, because then you'd be delving into the slippery slope territory of telling people what they can and can't find interesting or willing to play as.
Letting people have all the options is perfectly fine, there is enough opportunity for any character of any type of whatever to be created so whether or not people predominantly play as a gender or a race is not an issue because at that point we'd be saying preferences and personal choices that don't hurt anybody are problems.
It may be interesting data to see how many characters are female, but it would be equally interesting to see how many characters are tortles, halflings, gnomes, elves or dwarves for the exact same reasons.
Wow, another slippery slope argument. I haven't seen one of those in. . . in. . . about a week?
No, what the results would tell you is whether or not female characters are less common than male characters on D&D Beyond. Absolutely no one is going to force you to play a female character if that is outside the range of what you want to play.
Playing female characters should be encouraged if they are played less often than male characters. Encouraged. That's it. Because otherwise, you're okay with less female representation in the game than male ones.
No, but it does show perceptions. If characters are overwhelmingly one or the other, that shows a strong player preference for one or the other, which in turn indicates potential problems with perceived equality. If over eight of ten characters on the website indicate 'other than female', that seems like something worth delving into, hm? Assuming the crossplayers on either side of the gender gap more-or-less cancel out (which is not even remotely a given truth, but it makes discussion easier), that sort of huge gender disparity indicates an overwhelmingly male player base. That's a big problem for a game trying to improve its public diversity image.
Just want to add to this conversation 8 out of 10 characters being "non female" is not equal to 8 characters being male. It is possible that a few of those are non conforming.
My groups is me, male, and 5 of my friends, all female. PC wise, we have 3 characters who identify as female, 1 as male, and one as gender non conforming (they).
Let's not forget that when we talk about if the number of characters should be 50/50 or not. Also I do agree that PC character gender ratios is not equal to player gender ratios, but would find it interesting. If I took a guess it would be something like 60% male, 30% female, and the rest non binary.
Not really, because then you'd be delving into the slippery slope territory of telling people what they can and can't find interesting or willing to play as.
Letting people have all the options is perfectly fine, there is enough opportunity for any character of any type of whatever to be created so whether or not people predominantly play as a gender or a race is not an issue because at that point we'd be saying preferences and personal choices that don't hurt anybody are problems.
It may be interesting data to see how many characters are female, but it would be equally interesting to see how many characters are tortles, halflings, gnomes, elves or dwarves for the exact same reasons.
Wow, another slippery slope argument. I haven't seen one of those in. . . in. . . about a week?
No, what the results would tell you is whether or not female characters are less common than male characters on D&D Beyond. Absolutely no one is going to force you to play a female character if that is outside the range of what you want to play.
Playing female characters should be encouraged if they are played less often than male characters. Encouraged. That's it. Because otherwise, you're okay with less female representation in the game than male ones.
What is the slippery slope is figuring that if there aren't enough people playing as women that that decision of so many people is problematic and something that needs to be fixed.
People can play whatever they want to play. D&D is, and always has been, about options and letting people be whatever they want to be.
I don't care if people want to play male or female, drow or orc, halfling or human. I do care if someone comes along and tells me that I'm a problem because I don't go along with a social theory of what is and is not problematic nor do I want to be encouraged to play differently. If someone encourages me to play as a female and I don't want to, they will just have to tolerate it and let it go. If they don't, that's the slippery slope territory.
(Yes, I steal cool names from books, video games, and mythology. Fight me. :) )
This is a list of characters that I've been playing in 5e. I've been playing since the start of 2nd. I remember there being this very sexist disclaimer in the 2nd Edition players handbook about pronouns. It was pretty shitty (I'm not going to repeat it, if you're curious I'm sure you can google it). I like 5th's approach much more.
A survey about character gender, player gender, and how often they align would be fascinating.
I identify as Non-Binary (I don't care what pronouns are used, though I'll probably respond faster to male ones and giggle at female ones) and mostly Pan myself.
**Edit: I found a niftier way of wording a thing**
I'm a woman, but I see it more like "Who's story would I like to play?", when I make a character.
For example, my current (and only) chara right now is a male Woodelf Druid (Circle of the Land - Coast).
Other characters I'd like to play one day:
and if I'd ever play my main ESO chara, a Dunmer Nightblade, in D&D
Out of curiousity (and because I have currently the page open) I counted the Gods and Goddesses of the D&D Pantheon and got to:
To clarify: I'm not accusing the game of any inherent gender bias or the players of the same. I'm simply noting that it would be interesting to see that data, more as an exploration of how modern roleplaying works than as a means of bludgeoning someone with 'wrong' choices. The only wrong choice is to denigrate someone else for theirs.
The subject of gender fascinates me, especially in this modern day where the very definition of the term is undergoing societal shift. Roleplaying has long been a means for people who're discontent with their native gender, or even simply those who want to explore a little, to try out not only a gender not native to themselves, but to experiment with presentation as well. It's a wonderful experience and I wouldn't mind seeing more research and discussion on it. One reason why I'm doing my durnedest to haul this thread back on topic. Edition Wars can go find its own.
Please do not contact or message me.
Of all the people in the world the nerdy D&D people are generally the easiest of going, most inclusive. Obviously times have changed and old content is going to look out of date.
So does Friends episodes which were progressive at the time. 1/2 of Netflix content they have to put up a label "he this might look sexist now".
In another 25 years the next generation will come for todays kids generations as being out of date and biased. Such is the circle of life.
If you want to see *real* inequality for women there is no shortage of it in many non western countries where still womens lives are considered less valuable.
Measuring inequality in D&D by how many people picked a female D&D character just shows how little perspective kids have today.
I do have a preference for making male characters over female ones myself, though some of my most cherished characters are female. However, I also have a bigger preference for creature monster PCs vs more typical humanoid PCs like elves or dwarves.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
D&D used to have literal mechanical disadvantages to playing a female character over a male one. That's a gender equality problem that was literally founded in the mechanics of the game.
D&D was considered a boys club for the longest time because such a low percentage of the players were female. Now, there is a much larger percentage of players that are female than in previous years, but in no way is the problem solved. There are still many more males playing the hobby than females.
Stop saying that this is an overreaction, the "second satanic panic" or whatever BS you've (not specifically calling you out, your group in general) been saying in other threads. We're not trying to burn down your hobby, I like the game and enjoy playing it as much as you do.
Edit: If you don't like this type of thread, don't comment in it. It's as simple as that.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Man. It really feels like lots of folks in this thread are still pushing the ol' "no girls allowed DX" mentality, what with how sharp some of the backlash is against discussions of gender in D&D.
I just find the subject interesting. Clearly, D&D is not as unkind to women as it once was or as other places in the world can be. That doesn't mean there's no room or reason for discussion. Knock it off.
Please do not contact or message me.
Just to try to elevate this conversation up a notch, when people are talking about social justice or improved conditions between men and women, genders, race and classes, the operable word these days isn't "equality" but equity. That is, it's not so much some sort of 50/50 standard of simple fairness. It's about groups that traditionally dominate something, like a hobby, and other groups that have traditionally been marginalized, and trying to give all stakeholders (in citizenship, a hobby, the economy, etc.) a greater sense of "buy in' and "return". Quantitiative metrics are still important but a large amount of work and analysis is done a at a qualitative level before something like quantitative solutions are resolved. A big part of how these processes work is listening to stakeholders who are active but marginalized and valuing their contributions. In a game debate, no one really loses anything besides an unexamined perspective.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I started roleplaying with World of Darkness, so I’ve always favored setting sourcebooks over modules.
That’s a great idea
NoHammer, I'm not going to quote your post because it's so offensive and stupid. It breaks the website's rules, and will be cleared up soon, I hope.
But, I still want to address some of your points.
First, you don't seem to know what "equality" means. It literally means equal! If the amount of female and male players in D&D are not equal, the game is not gender equal! There is a gender inequality in pharmacy jobs. It is literally an "inequality" if the amount of males and females in a given profession are not equal.
Second, Yurei did not come and say "lets invent a problem and troll the community". I, like them, would like to see the female character percentage on D&D Beyond, and just because I like to know the statistics.
Third, playing a TTRPG is in no way the same thing as being a pharmacist. D&D is done for fun and enjoyment, and your amount of enjoying the game doesn't have to do with gender, shown by the recent increase in female characters in the hobby. D&D can be played in any way that brings enjoyment, with multiple different playstyles, for both males and females. Saying that it shouldn't be inclusive is at its core saying that D&D is and should be more popular among males than females.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Not really, because then you'd be delving into the slippery slope territory of telling people what they can and can't find interesting or willing to play as.
Letting people have all the options is perfectly fine, there is enough opportunity for any character of any type of whatever to be created so whether or not people predominantly play as a gender or a race is not an issue because at that point we'd be saying preferences and personal choices that don't hurt anybody are problems.
It may be interesting data to see how many characters are female, but it would be equally interesting to see how many characters are tortles, halflings, gnomes, elves or dwarves for the exact same reasons.
I usually play female characters, but I’ve played guys a couple times in various campaigns and once or twice in con play, like one offs (my friend organizes a mini con every year where like twenty of us get together for a long weekend to hang out and game).
Of the characters I've created, half are female. But then, I let the dice decide the characters I play.
My friend does the same thing and she has the same overall ratio you do.
Wow, another slippery slope argument. I haven't seen one of those in. . . in. . . about a week?
No, what the results would tell you is whether or not female characters are less common than male characters on D&D Beyond. Absolutely no one is going to force you to play a female character if that is outside the range of what you want to play.
Playing female characters should be encouraged if they are played less often than male characters. Encouraged. That's it. Because otherwise, you're okay with less female representation in the game than male ones.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Agreed
Just want to add to this conversation 8 out of 10 characters being "non female" is not equal to 8 characters being male. It is possible that a few of those are non conforming.
My groups is me, male, and 5 of my friends, all female. PC wise, we have 3 characters who identify as female, 1 as male, and one as gender non conforming (they).
Let's not forget that when we talk about if the number of characters should be 50/50 or not. Also I do agree that PC character gender ratios is not equal to player gender ratios, but would find it interesting. If I took a guess it would be something like 60% male, 30% female, and the rest non binary.
I actually made a gender fluid character.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
What is the slippery slope is figuring that if there aren't enough people playing as women that that decision of so many people is problematic and something that needs to be fixed.
People can play whatever they want to play. D&D is, and always has been, about options and letting people be whatever they want to be.
I don't care if people want to play male or female, drow or orc, halfling or human. I do care if someone comes along and tells me that I'm a problem because I don't go along with a social theory of what is and is not problematic nor do I want to be encouraged to play differently. If someone encourages me to play as a female and I don't want to, they will just have to tolerate it and let it go. If they don't, that's the slippery slope territory.
Kvoth "Crow" Malakari: Male Half-Elf fiend pact Warlock (Ace)
Betha Andersdotter: Female Human Totem Barbarian (Attracted to Strength, otherwise Pansexual)
Lark in the Meadow: Male Tabaxi Rogue(Mastermind)/Bard(Lore) (Ace)
Xan: Non-Binary Moon Elf Wizard (Bladesinger) (Pan)
Mazeni: Female Half-Elf Rogue(Arcane Trickster) (Pan)
Cleodora: Female Satyr Bard (Lore)/Warlock (Fey) (Pan)
(Yes, I steal cool names from books, video games, and mythology. Fight me. :) )
This is a list of characters that I've been playing in 5e. I've been playing since the start of 2nd. I remember there being this very sexist disclaimer in the 2nd Edition players handbook about pronouns. It was pretty shitty (I'm not going to repeat it, if you're curious I'm sure you can google it). I like 5th's approach much more.
A survey about character gender, player gender, and how often they align would be fascinating.
I identify as Non-Binary (I don't care what pronouns are used, though I'll probably respond faster to male ones and giggle at female ones) and mostly Pan myself.
**Edit: I found a niftier way of wording a thing**