In any case, the phrase "Dungeon Master" has been around for like, twice as long as I've been alive. I've never heard any female players or DMs I've met or players with who have problems with it—I think at this point it's existed so long that it's no longer gendered, if it ever was. If I'm not mistaken, the original edition of D&D did mention that the phrase was gender-neutral.
I think chaotic evil characters make great individual villains. Lawful evil characters work better running evil organisations within a society. Lawful evil characters can certainly thrive in a dystopia, but to create one takes the kind of commitment and hubris you can only get from the truely righteous. After all, lawful evil characters know what they are doing is wrong; they just don't care. Only the lawful good would have the motivation to make the personal and societal sacrifices at the scale required to create a dystopia. Others may judge their actions as objectively evil. However, they believe themselves to be morally right. This is not the case with evil aligned D&D characters. Lawful evil or neutral evil characters would think, "why bother when someone else can do the dirty work." Chaotic evil characters would quickly get bored and do something else.
We get the word dystopia, not from people who deliberately tried to created hell on earth, but from those who tried to create a utpoia and failed. A dystopia is not something that anyone consciously aims for. It's just where they all end up.
Not exactly. A dystopia is just a vision of the future or of a world that is very negative. It often arises from a failed utopia, but doesn't necessarily have to.
A fun fact about the idea of a Utopia, is that it's based on the book by Thomas More (1478-1535), and it was a socio-political satire making commentary on societies. More specifically chose the word Utopia because if you break it down it is derived from the Greek prefix "ou-" (οὐ), meaning "not", and topos (τόπος), "place", with the suffix -iā (-ία) that is typical of toponyms; hence the name literally means "nowhere", emphasizing its fictionality.
A Utopia is literally "not-place", doesn't exist. The idea of such an amazing place simply cannot exist because it doesn't take into account human nature, people have wants and desires, ambitions, disagree on even the most insignificant things, so any system of government that tries to implement a utopia has to be tyrannical because it's the only way to impose that way of life on others.
A utopia is exactly the type of world a lawful-evil character would want to create, in my opinion, because if they're the ones at the top they have all the power and can dictate people's lives as he sees fit, and can kill, torture and maim anyone and everyone he pleases for complaining about it because they're guilty of sedition or something like that.
Hi Penelope, go to http://monkeyhousegames.com/shop/. They have print on demand versions available as well as PDF from DTRPG. They also publish ongoing Errata and NEW powers. And they have a FB page.
DM could become dungeon maker. Some games use words like narrator or guide.
The most common term outside of D&D is probably game master (because, well, not every adventure is set inside of a dungeon).
Yeah, I'm just proposing names that aren't even remotely gendered.
Does it matter? Gendered pronouns in and of themselves are not problems, nor should they be forcibly changed to fit a niche.
If a group has a woman a the dungeon master and she asks to be called something else, that's between her and her group and no one else. If she honestly doesn't mind being called the Dungeon Master then it's absolutely no one else's business to tell her she should be called something else.
I honestly do not see why people are so insistent that gendered names are problematic in and of themselves. Foreign languages use gendered verbs and titles as part of everyday speech.
At the very least, anyone and everyone is welcome at my D&D table so long as they can behave in a civil manner.
In my current gaming group, females outnumber the only male (me) four to one. Even before the pandemic hit, my school group (which I dm for) was two-thirds female and comprised of myself, four females, and one other guy. Once the pandemic hit, I chose two of the females (their names are Susie and Macy, changed for privacy) to play with me over zoom during lockdown, joined by my little sister, and Susie's as well. Needless to say, my group won't gatekeep for anything.
That’s awesome!!! Though I do notice you’re still the DM. One of the first groups I ever played in was a male DM and five female players.
Just out of curiosity, do you go to a college like Sarah Lawrence or Vassar? I did, and I was wondering if that might help explain the high percentage of female players in your friend group.
I'm currently at middle school. I typically feel a bit nervous about revealing my general age group due to the sad reality of gatekeeping for age (a whole nother topic), but I feel this thread is pretty safe for that kind of thing. In my original post, I neglected to mention that Susie and I have both been dming through the majority of the pandemic, at about a 50/50 prevalence. I probably could have had more male players in my group, but the only other male player in my pre-pandemic school group was a total jerk and didn't really seem like the ideal player. So, when it came time to handpick the people I wanted to play with for the foreseeable future, Susie and Macy were easily my top choices.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
May all of your spells roll the best things for the situation on the wild magic table and all your checks to seduce dragons roll nat 20's
At the very least, anyone and everyone is welcome at my D&D table so long as they can behave in a civil manner.
In my current gaming group, females outnumber the only male (me) four to one. Even before the pandemic hit, my school group (which I dm for) was two-thirds female and comprised of myself, four females, and one other guy. Once the pandemic hit, I chose two of the females (their names are Susie and Macy, changed for privacy) to play with me over zoom during lockdown, joined by my little sister, and Susie's as well. Needless to say, my group won't gatekeep for anything.
That’s awesome!!! Though I do notice you’re still the DM. One of the first groups I ever played in was a male DM and five female players.
Just out of curiosity, do you go to a college like Sarah Lawrence or Vassar? I did, and I was wondering if that might help explain the high percentage of female players in your friend group.
I'm currently at middle school. I typically feel a bit nervous about revealing my general age group due to the sad reality of gatekeeping for age (a whole nother topic), but I feel this thread is pretty safe for that kind of thing. In my original post, I neglected to mention that Susie and I have both been dming through the majority of the pandemic, at about a 50/50 prevalence. I probably could have had more male players in my group, but the only other male player in my pre-pandemic school group was a total jerk and didn't really seem like the ideal player. So, when it came time to handpick the people I wanted to play with for the foreseeable future, Susie and Macy were easily my top choices.
In that case That is super awesome!!! And yeah, very wise to be careful about revealing your age. You sound very intelligent and mature, that’s why I assumed you were in college.
In that case That is super awesome!!! And yeah, very wise to be careful about revealing your age. You sound very intelligent and mature, that’s why I assumed you were in college.
Thanks! That's how I'd prefer everyone judge others. Just because some people under the age of 20 are jerks, doesn't mean we all are.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
May all of your spells roll the best things for the situation on the wild magic table and all your checks to seduce dragons roll nat 20's
But pandering and virtue signaling aren't the proper ways of dealing with inclusion and equality either. So, of course, backlash is expected. It's invading every genre. Hollywood is going broke over it. D&D may be the only "safe space" for this type of thing, though. Could be wrong, as I'm no marketing expert.
The issue I've seen in the forums is: You can't expect all politics to evade commentary on this site when WotC has been playing excessively politically heavy these last several months. But, because of the actions WotC has taken, I do think these types of topics are necessary and expected. Problem is, the US in particularly has been more divided than I recall it ever being in my lifetime. People are getting heated over simple stuff. Unfortunately, that permeates into our online presence as well. The heated talk needs to tone down. Irritated words and instigating remarks are not going to prove points or sway minds...just escalates the argument.
Civil discourse is needed and necessary for the building of the community. But, let's continue to do so in a respectful way.
I may have mentioned this before earlier, if so, I apologize, but in 1E or 2E, females were limited to a STR of 18/50 vs. males max was 18/100.
It was only 1st edition AD&D that had that limit. By 2nd edition the restrictions on ability scores by sex had been removed. In both cases though, exceptional strength was only available to fighters.
As with everything in the 1st edition, the rules were not particularly clear. I suspect the main reason for removing them was simplicity, although it did unfortunately negatively impact the strength ability score's relation to real world strength.
From 2nd edition on, the only place male and female characters are still distinguished, is in the height and weight tables. In 1st edition the amount your character could lift was linked to your weight. In 2nd edition this link was also removed except for a note that a character without exceptional strength could not lift more than twice their own weight. From 3rd edition, even that note had gone. There was still a rule that small races (halflings and gnomes) lifting capacity was 75%. By 5th edition the only remaining connection between size and strength is the goliath race with their Powerful Build feature.
To demonstrate how far from reality this has gone, if you want to make a character in 5e based on the men's Olympic weightlifting world record holder Lasha Talakhadze, that could lift 582 lbs, you would need to roll at least one 18 stat and put it in Strength, choose Variant Human and put one +1 in Strength, and take the Athlete Feat and put another +1 in Strength. You have about a 10% chance of rolling the stats you'd need. By contrast, to make a character based on the women's Olympic weightlifting world record holder Li Wenwen, that could lift 410 lbs, you could use the standard array. You wouldn't even need to put your highest stat in Strength. But to compare, your chances of rolling the 12 you'd need in at least 1 stat are over 99%. While elite male athletes are represented as barely possible characters in 5e D&D, elite female athletes are represented as commonplace. So that's one gender based inequality that has crept in over the editions.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm pretty sure Call of Cthulhu uses Keeper or Lorekeeper for it's word for DM.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
The One Ring uses Loremaster.
In any case, the phrase "Dungeon Master" has been around for like, twice as long as I've been alive. I've never heard any female players or DMs I've met or players with who have problems with it—I think at this point it's existed so long that it's no longer gendered, if it ever was. If I'm not mistaken, the original edition of D&D did mention that the phrase was gender-neutral.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
A fun fact about the idea of a Utopia, is that it's based on the book by Thomas More (1478-1535), and it was a socio-political satire making commentary on societies. More specifically chose the word Utopia because if you break it down it is derived from the Greek prefix "ou-" (οὐ), meaning "not", and topos (τόπος), "place", with the suffix -iā (-ία) that is typical of toponyms; hence the name literally means "nowhere", emphasizing its fictionality.
A Utopia is literally "not-place", doesn't exist. The idea of such an amazing place simply cannot exist because it doesn't take into account human nature, people have wants and desires, ambitions, disagree on even the most insignificant things, so any system of government that tries to implement a utopia has to be tyrannical because it's the only way to impose that way of life on others.
A utopia is exactly the type of world a lawful-evil character would want to create, in my opinion, because if they're the ones at the top they have all the power and can dictate people's lives as he sees fit, and can kill, torture and maim anyone and everyone he pleases for complaining about it because they're guilty of sedition or something like that.
Pages and Pages on these forums prove this point.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Absolutely not! How could the players fear me if they called me simply 'maker'!? (/jks - because this is the internet)
Yeah, I'm just proposing names that aren't even remotely gendered.
Hi Penelope,
go to http://monkeyhousegames.com/shop/. They have print on demand versions available as well as PDF from DTRPG. They also publish ongoing Errata and NEW powers. And they have a FB page.
Life's hard - get a helmet!
Thank you.
My group (well one of my group) calls me General Mungler.
Does it matter? Gendered pronouns in and of themselves are not problems, nor should they be forcibly changed to fit a niche.
If a group has a woman a the dungeon master and she asks to be called something else, that's between her and her group and no one else. If she honestly doesn't mind being called the Dungeon Master then it's absolutely no one else's business to tell her she should be called something else.
I honestly do not see why people are so insistent that gendered names are problematic in and of themselves. Foreign languages use gendered verbs and titles as part of everyday speech.
I'm currently at middle school. I typically feel a bit nervous about revealing my general age group due to the sad reality of gatekeeping for age (a whole nother topic), but I feel this thread is pretty safe for that kind of thing. In my original post, I neglected to mention that Susie and I have both been dming through the majority of the pandemic, at about a 50/50 prevalence. I probably could have had more male players in my group, but the only other male player in my pre-pandemic school group was a total jerk and didn't really seem like the ideal player. So, when it came time to handpick the people I wanted to play with for the foreseeable future, Susie and Macy were easily my top choices.
May all of your spells roll the best things for the situation on the wild magic table and all your checks to seduce dragons roll nat 20's
My first char (and namesake) Lili Scheppen!
Proud member of the cult of grammar! (grand inquisitor)
In that case That is super awesome!!! And yeah, very wise to be careful about revealing your age. You sound very intelligent and mature, that’s why I assumed you were in college.
Thanks! That's how I'd prefer everyone judge others. Just because some people under the age of 20 are jerks, doesn't mean we all are.
May all of your spells roll the best things for the situation on the wild magic table and all your checks to seduce dragons roll nat 20's
My first char (and namesake) Lili Scheppen!
Proud member of the cult of grammar! (grand inquisitor)
Guys, we just had ANOTHER thread locked....tone it down a bit.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Yeah, there probably have been more locked threads these last three months than last year.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
And there's an obvious pattern in what led to them being locked, too.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Inflammatory political discussions?
And trolling, personal insults, and circular discussions.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
But pandering and virtue signaling aren't the proper ways of dealing with inclusion and equality either. So, of course, backlash is expected. It's invading every genre. Hollywood is going broke over it. D&D may be the only "safe space" for this type of thing, though. Could be wrong, as I'm no marketing expert.
The issue I've seen in the forums is: You can't expect all politics to evade commentary on this site when WotC has been playing excessively politically heavy these last several months. But, because of the actions WotC has taken, I do think these types of topics are necessary and expected. Problem is, the US in particularly has been more divided than I recall it ever being in my lifetime. People are getting heated over simple stuff. Unfortunately, that permeates into our online presence as well. The heated talk needs to tone down. Irritated words and instigating remarks are not going to prove points or sway minds...just escalates the argument.
Civil discourse is needed and necessary for the building of the community. But, let's continue to do so in a respectful way.
It was only 1st edition AD&D that had that limit. By 2nd edition the restrictions on ability scores by sex had been removed. In both cases though, exceptional strength was only available to fighters.
As with everything in the 1st edition, the rules were not particularly clear. I suspect the main reason for removing them was simplicity, although it did unfortunately negatively impact the strength ability score's relation to real world strength.
From 2nd edition on, the only place male and female characters are still distinguished, is in the height and weight tables. In 1st edition the amount your character could lift was linked to your weight. In 2nd edition this link was also removed except for a note that a character without exceptional strength could not lift more than twice their own weight. From 3rd edition, even that note had gone. There was still a rule that small races (halflings and gnomes) lifting capacity was 75%. By 5th edition the only remaining connection between size and strength is the goliath race with their Powerful Build feature.
To demonstrate how far from reality this has gone, if you want to make a character in 5e based on the men's Olympic weightlifting world record holder Lasha Talakhadze, that could lift 582 lbs, you would need to roll at least one 18 stat and put it in Strength, choose Variant Human and put one +1 in Strength, and take the Athlete Feat and put another +1 in Strength. You have about a 10% chance of rolling the stats you'd need. By contrast, to make a character based on the women's Olympic weightlifting world record holder Li Wenwen, that could lift 410 lbs, you could use the standard array. You wouldn't even need to put your highest stat in Strength. But to compare, your chances of rolling the 12 you'd need in at least 1 stat are over 99%. While elite male athletes are represented as barely possible characters in 5e D&D, elite female athletes are represented as commonplace. So that's one gender based inequality that has crept in over the editions.