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.
Yes, gendered pronouns exist in the world. While there seems to be overmuch emphasis on policing language lately (something we might agree on), saying that using gendered language has No effect on the larger picture of how people think of particular social roles is stretching it. If people use "he" the large majority of the time to refer to a random doctor or a judge (rather than a specific doc or judge) it helps reinforce the impression that being a doctor or a judge is the natural purview of men, thus indirectly having some psychological effect on how many girls/young women imagine themselves going into such professions in the future. That there are languages with heavy use of gender built into them is a fact, but that does not mean we should unconsciously allow that to influence how we think about social roles pertaining to the game.
As it pertains specifically to this discussion, I don't know how many times people on these forums just assume that Random DM is going to be male. While there is probably little or no direct animus against non-male DMs in most such instances, it does reinforce the idea that DMing is the moreso the purview of men/boys than it is of women/girls.
Does it matter? Gendered pronouns in and of themselves are not problems, nor should they be forcibly changed to fit a niche.
<SNIPPED for brevity.>
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.
Since the subject of "foreign" language-specific automatic use of gendered verbs and titles is being brought up, I will remind readers here that two such languages are Spanish and French. Louisiana was colonized by French speakers and much of what is currently "the Southwest" was colonized by Spanish speakers (and power forcibly taken away from indigenous people) long before English speaking became prominent in those parts of the United States (and yes, I'm assuming that most people reading this thread are based in the U.S.). This is historical fact.
On another note, please keep in mind that there are many D&D gamers who are not gendered in a "woman" or "man" mold. There are some of us who are neither. I cannot speak for other non-binary people in regarding terms like "Dungeon Master", but I have heard it discussed that frequent use of gendered verbs and pronouns to speak of random groups of people to be an exclusionary linguistic practice that contributes to the social invisibility of non-binary people. That there are entire languages built on gendered verbs and pronouns (often derived from Latin) is also an uncomfortable social reality for us. Please keep in mind that the rate of physical violence against non-binary and transgender people is disproportionately high in many of these countries, even in comparison to countries like the U.S. where it is much less the linguistic norm to use gendered verbs and nouns. Again, no direct scientifically provable correlation, but social psychology is not nearly so predictable as chemistry or Newtonian physics.
One thing to understand about my ancestral culture is that gendered nouns and adjectives do not directly translate into actual genders. This is something that has evolved over time, but people keep pulling up a history that is best left to history, ignoring all the progress made today.
Latinx has no pronunciation to us and is used by virtue signalers who have no understanding of our culture. Latina is used only for strictly feminine and that is the only situation the word is used. Latino is used for all other gender circumstances. It's masculine only in context, gender ambiguous otherwise. Please, do not try to equate this to languages with specific words set aside for gender neutral. The so-called "masculine" is gender neutral for some decades now. The eldest (or those looking to start a fight on ancient semantics) are the only ones remaining who are easily confused by the modern concept.
Please, cut it out. We're nobody's scapegoats.
Ultimately, gender equality is up to us - all of us. We're a diverse people and it is a practical impossibility that we will agree on everything. We must work with each other and learn to understand each other. We might not like what we hear when discussing topics like this. We might not like the conclusions we reach. Nobody is ever going to get everything that they want, but that's all part of living among each other. It's easy to throw around the word, intolerance, to dismiss someone else's points, but from what I've seen over the years, all sides usually need to have more tolerance of each other - even things they don't 100% like.
Yes. There will be things that will be intolerable, and the choices are to educate, litigate, or separate, but education will never come from dismissal, litigation will never be fair when based on ignorance, and separation is just trying to kick the can down the road and letting things fester further - the worst outcome.
So, let's agree to try to be more understanding and be better - all of us regardless which side we're on and regardless what we have to work with. With engineering background, I believe there is always a solution but it might not be what we hoped or expected, but a solution that works must exist.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
As it pertains specifically to this discussion, I don't know how many times people on these forums just assume that Random DM is going to be male. While there is probably little or no direct animus against non-male DMs in most such instances, it does reinforce the idea that DMing is the moreso the purview of men/boys than it is of women/girls.
The reason people assume Random DM is male is because, statistically, Random DM is in fact male, not because DM is a gendered term. If you want to disrupt people's assumptions about that, you have to either change their experiences, or use wording that is explicit (for example, you could give an example of play section where the players' genders are reasonably clear and are mixed).
As it pertains specifically to this discussion, I don't know how many times people on these forums just assume that Random DM is going to be male. While there is probably little or no direct animus against non-male DMs in most such instances, it does reinforce the idea that DMing is the moreso the purview of men/boys than it is of women/girls.
The reason people assume Random DM is male is because, statistically, Random DM is in fact male, not because DM is a gendered term. If you want to disrupt people's assumptions about that, you have to either change their experiences, or use wording that is explicit (for example, you could give an example of play section where the players' genders are reasonably clear and are mixed).
I don't have any particular qualms about the term "DM". And I'm pretty sure that my starting the discussion about the relative lack of women (and trans) DMs on YouTube and podcasts is a method of adjusting D&D gamer expectations about whom they expect to DM for them, esp. in "public" spaces, like conventions and hobby stores.
One thing to understand about my ancestral culture is that gendered nouns and adjectives do not directly translate into actual genders. This is something that has evolved over time, but people keep pulling up a history that is best left to history, ignoring all the progress made today.
Latinx has no pronunciation to us and is used by virtue signalers who have no understanding of our culture. Latina is used only for strictly feminine and that is the only situation the word is used. Latino is used for all other gender circumstances. It's masculine only in context, gender ambiguous otherwise. Please, do not try to equate this to languages with specific words set aside for gender neutral. The so-called "masculine" is gender neutral for some decades now. The eldest (or those looking to start a fight on ancient semantics) are the only ones remaining who are easily confused by the modern concept.
Please, cut it out. We're nobody's scapegoats.
I am not trying to scapegoat anyone here. I am stating something that I have observed as a non-binary person trying to navigate real life, living in a metropolitan area that is largely Latinx/Latin@. The Latinate languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese Are heavily gendered. That is fact, not opinion. As one of the few vocally non-binary people in this discussion, I felt a need to point some things out since this discussion veered into gendered verbs, pronouns, and nouns.
I have mixed emotions about the "Latinx" word. Ultimately, I do not think it is up to non-native Spanish speakers to determine the usefulness/legitimacy of introducing this word as a new standard. I will say though, that I know for a fact that some of those who support use of "Latinx" are of Latin American ancestry and are transgender or non-binary. What term you decide to employ in your life or on these discussion boards is totally up to you. Again, I am trying to clarify some nuance of what is being discussed, not trying to insult anyone.
This is a reminder to keep the discussion on topic (gender equality in D&D) and not to allow it to meander off into general discussions of language, pronouns, or anything that is not suitable for this forum.
I remember a post or racial equality on here having about 26 pages of comments. Before a mod stopped the foolishness.
It generally all depends on how quickly (or not) someone hits the “Report” button. If nobody reports the foolishness then it all comes down to when the Mods notice it. If someone reports it right away, they typically come-a-runnin’.
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.
Yes, gendered pronouns exist in the world. While there seems to be overmuch emphasis on policing language lately (something we might agree on), saying that using gendered language has No effect on the larger picture of how people think of particular social roles is stretching it. If people use "he" the large majority of the time to refer to a random doctor or a judge (rather than a specific doc or judge) it helps reinforce the impression that being a doctor or a judge is the natural purview of men, thus indirectly having some psychological effect on how many girls/young women imagine themselves going into such professions in the future. That there are languages with heavy use of gender built into them is a fact, but that does not mean we should unconsciously allow that to influence how we think about social roles pertaining to the game.
As it pertains specifically to this discussion, I don't know how many times people on these forums just assume that Random DM is going to be male. While there is probably little or no direct animus against non-male DMs in most such instances, it does reinforce the idea that DMing is the moreso the purview of men/boys than it is of women/girls.
I disagree. Using a pronoun is never discriminatory. If we keep making caveats here and there, changing the language we speak to hopefully not offend some hypothetical person then we will redefine pronouns, gender and the differences and similarities between the two, very much like Newspeak in George Orwell's 1984 was designed to do, erase the ideas and concepts so no one could question them.
If we keep going down the path of redefining words, or changing them, we will redefine language in such a way that there will be nothing unique or special about either women or men. Want to celebrate things about women and the advances women have made in achieving equality then you'll have to accept that there are key differences in pronouns, language and adjectives, and it'll be best to let the language change organically as more and more women begin choosing to take up positions that are not actually denied to them but for some reason, statistically speaking, choose not to engage in in the same numbers as men. I could be wrong about that as I don't have hard numbers on hand, I'm only speaking from personal experience and what I've seen from other people talking about it.
I'm against forcing anyone to say something, do something or be something they don't choose for themselves. If women want to play D&D, great. If women want to be the DM, great. No one should try to force the issue about gendered pronouns on anyone. If a girl DM wants another title, that is between her and her group and no one else. If she doesn't care, then no one else can tell her how to run her game at her table, and if anyone tries to shame her for not using the correct language to fit their ideology then that person is no better than Big Brother in an Orwelian dystopia.
True gender equality can only occur organically, and not through force, and luckily, it has already happened. There are no benefits to being a man in D&D that a women doesn't also have, and there is nothing women characters have that men also don't have access to. It does not matter one bit if the Dungeon Master, or the Master of the Dungeon and the game, means a gendered pronoun to you or not because, as I said, it does not matter. There is no reason to be a women or a man, save for your own personal interest in the roleplay and no one can take that away from the players, and the DMs who try quickly find themselves without players.
This is a reminder to keep the discussion on topic (gender equality in D&D) and not to allow it to meander off into general discussions of language, pronouns, or anything that is not suitable for this forum.
Female adventurers are exceptional. They should be able to be equal to male adventurers in every way.
Adventurers are meant to be above average, that's why ability score rolls are biased high. But Olympic athletes are also exceptional; at least, they are in the real world. It seems a shame to me that, in contrast to male athletes, female athletic achievement is represented as unremarkable in 5e D&D.
My preference would be for human males to be superior in some aspects and human females to be superior in others; and for the other races to be differently dimorphic.
My preference would be for human males to be superior in some aspects and human females to be superior in others; and for the other races to be differently dimorphic.
The practical effect of 'different but equal' is historically 'actually unequal'.
Female adventurers are exceptional. They should be able to be equal to male adventurers in every way.
Adventurers are meant to be above average, that's why ability score rolls are biased high. But Olympic athletes are also exceptional; at least, they are in the real world. It seems a shame to me that, in contrast to male athletes, female athletic achievement is represented as unremarkable in 5e D&D.
My preference would be for human males to be superior in some aspects and human females to be superior in others; and for the other races to be differently dimorphic.
Look at the physical differences between a halfling and a half-orc, compared to the differences in stats between them. Do you really think that the physical differences between a male human and a female human are high enough to warrant gender-based ability score modifiers?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
This is a reminder to keep the discussion on topic (gender equality in D&D) and not to allow it to meander off into general discussions of language, pronouns, or anything that is not suitable for this forum.
I mean I think gender equality and pronouns go hand in hand but it's disheartening to see the staff of D&D Beyond disagree with this.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Female adventurers are exceptional. They should be able to be equal to male adventurers in every way.
Yes, gendered pronouns exist in the world. While there seems to be overmuch emphasis on policing language lately (something we might agree on), saying that using gendered language has No effect on the larger picture of how people think of particular social roles is stretching it. If people use "he" the large majority of the time to refer to a random doctor or a judge (rather than a specific doc or judge) it helps reinforce the impression that being a doctor or a judge is the natural purview of men, thus indirectly having some psychological effect on how many girls/young women imagine themselves going into such professions in the future. That there are languages with heavy use of gender built into them is a fact, but that does not mean we should unconsciously allow that to influence how we think about social roles pertaining to the game.
As it pertains specifically to this discussion, I don't know how many times people on these forums just assume that Random DM is going to be male. While there is probably little or no direct animus against non-male DMs in most such instances, it does reinforce the idea that DMing is the moreso the purview of men/boys than it is of women/girls.
Since the subject of "foreign" language-specific automatic use of gendered verbs and titles is being brought up, I will remind readers here that two such languages are Spanish and French. Louisiana was colonized by French speakers and much of what is currently "the Southwest" was colonized by Spanish speakers (and power forcibly taken away from indigenous people) long before English speaking became prominent in those parts of the United States (and yes, I'm assuming that most people reading this thread are based in the U.S.). This is historical fact.
On another note, please keep in mind that there are many D&D gamers who are not gendered in a "woman" or "man" mold. There are some of us who are neither. I cannot speak for other non-binary people in regarding terms like "Dungeon Master", but I have heard it discussed that frequent use of gendered verbs and pronouns to speak of random groups of people to be an exclusionary linguistic practice that contributes to the social invisibility of non-binary people. That there are entire languages built on gendered verbs and pronouns (often derived from Latin) is also an uncomfortable social reality for us. Please keep in mind that the rate of physical violence against non-binary and transgender people is disproportionately high in many of these countries, even in comparison to countries like the U.S. where it is much less the linguistic norm to use gendered verbs and nouns. Again, no direct scientifically provable correlation, but social psychology is not nearly so predictable as chemistry or Newtonian physics.
One thing to understand about my ancestral culture is that gendered nouns and adjectives do not directly translate into actual genders. This is something that has evolved over time, but people keep pulling up a history that is best left to history, ignoring all the progress made today.
Latinx has no pronunciation to us and is used by virtue signalers who have no understanding of our culture. Latina is used only for strictly feminine and that is the only situation the word is used. Latino is used for all other gender circumstances. It's masculine only in context, gender ambiguous otherwise. Please, do not try to equate this to languages with specific words set aside for gender neutral. The so-called "masculine" is gender neutral for some decades now. The eldest (or those looking to start a fight on ancient semantics) are the only ones remaining who are easily confused by the modern concept.
Please, cut it out. We're nobody's scapegoats.
Ultimately, gender equality is up to us - all of us. We're a diverse people and it is a practical impossibility that we will agree on everything. We must work with each other and learn to understand each other. We might not like what we hear when discussing topics like this. We might not like the conclusions we reach. Nobody is ever going to get everything that they want, but that's all part of living among each other. It's easy to throw around the word, intolerance, to dismiss someone else's points, but from what I've seen over the years, all sides usually need to have more tolerance of each other - even things they don't 100% like.
Yes. There will be things that will be intolerable, and the choices are to educate, litigate, or separate, but education will never come from dismissal, litigation will never be fair when based on ignorance, and separation is just trying to kick the can down the road and letting things fester further - the worst outcome.
So, let's agree to try to be more understanding and be better - all of us regardless which side we're on and regardless what we have to work with. With engineering background, I believe there is always a solution but it might not be what we hoped or expected, but a solution that works must exist.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
@Song_Of_Blues, @EricHVela thanks. You both make some very good points.
The reason people assume Random DM is male is because, statistically, Random DM is in fact male, not because DM is a gendered term. If you want to disrupt people's assumptions about that, you have to either change their experiences, or use wording that is explicit (for example, you could give an example of play section where the players' genders are reasonably clear and are mixed).
Actually, I was wrong about that. The male and female height and weight tables were dropped in the 4th edition.
I don't have any particular qualms about the term "DM". And I'm pretty sure that my starting the discussion about the relative lack of women (and trans) DMs on YouTube and podcasts is a method of adjusting D&D gamer expectations about whom they expect to DM for them, esp. in "public" spaces, like conventions and hobby stores.
I am not trying to scapegoat anyone here. I am stating something that I have observed as a non-binary person trying to navigate real life, living in a metropolitan area that is largely Latinx/Latin@. The Latinate languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese Are heavily gendered. That is fact, not opinion. As one of the few vocally non-binary people in this discussion, I felt a need to point some things out since this discussion veered into gendered verbs, pronouns, and nouns.
I have mixed emotions about the "Latinx" word. Ultimately, I do not think it is up to non-native Spanish speakers to determine the usefulness/legitimacy of introducing this word as a new standard. I will say though, that I know for a fact that some of those who support use of "Latinx" are of Latin American ancestry and are transgender or non-binary. What term you decide to employ in your life or on these discussion boards is totally up to you. Again, I am trying to clarify some nuance of what is being discussed, not trying to insult anyone.
This is a reminder to keep the discussion on topic (gender equality in D&D) and not to allow it to meander off into general discussions of language, pronouns, or anything that is not suitable for this forum.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I remember a post or racial equality on here having about 26 pages of comments. Before a mod stopped the foolishness.
SAUCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It generally all depends on how quickly (or not) someone hits the “Report” button. If nobody reports the foolishness then it all comes down to when the Mods notice it. If someone reports it right away, they typically come-a-runnin’.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Summary of this thread for people who just saw this or want to refresh their memory:
There were some neat female characters in early edition sourcebooks
Yeah but there were mechanics in their limiting female characters specifically.
D&D has done a lot better at that in recent editions
Why are there so few women DMs?
Reasons vary. In some groups it isn't even a problem.
Dungeon Master is a bit gendered...
No, it isn't really.
Okay everybody, try not to get this thread blocked.
Proud poster on the Create a World thread
😂😂😂😂
Thanks for answering my post about screen names
I disagree. Using a pronoun is never discriminatory. If we keep making caveats here and there, changing the language we speak to hopefully not offend some hypothetical person then we will redefine pronouns, gender and the differences and similarities between the two, very much like Newspeak in George Orwell's 1984 was designed to do, erase the ideas and concepts so no one could question them.
If we keep going down the path of redefining words, or changing them, we will redefine language in such a way that there will be nothing unique or special about either women or men. Want to celebrate things about women and the advances women have made in achieving equality then you'll have to accept that there are key differences in pronouns, language and adjectives, and it'll be best to let the language change organically as more and more women begin choosing to take up positions that are not actually denied to them but for some reason, statistically speaking, choose not to engage in in the same numbers as men. I could be wrong about that as I don't have hard numbers on hand, I'm only speaking from personal experience and what I've seen from other people talking about it.
I'm against forcing anyone to say something, do something or be something they don't choose for themselves. If women want to play D&D, great. If women want to be the DM, great. No one should try to force the issue about gendered pronouns on anyone. If a girl DM wants another title, that is between her and her group and no one else. If she doesn't care, then no one else can tell her how to run her game at her table, and if anyone tries to shame her for not using the correct language to fit their ideology then that person is no better than Big Brother in an Orwelian dystopia.
True gender equality can only occur organically, and not through force, and luckily, it has already happened. There are no benefits to being a man in D&D that a women doesn't also have, and there is nothing women characters have that men also don't have access to. It does not matter one bit if the Dungeon Master, or the Master of the Dungeon and the game, means a gendered pronoun to you or not because, as I said, it does not matter. There is no reason to be a women or a man, save for your own personal interest in the roleplay and no one can take that away from the players, and the DMs who try quickly find themselves without players.
I foresee this thread being locked soon.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Adventurers are meant to be above average, that's why ability score rolls are biased high. But Olympic athletes are also exceptional; at least, they are in the real world. It seems a shame to me that, in contrast to male athletes, female athletic achievement is represented as unremarkable in 5e D&D.
My preference would be for human males to be superior in some aspects and human females to be superior in others; and for the other races to be differently dimorphic.
The practical effect of 'different but equal' is historically 'actually unequal'.
Look at the physical differences between a halfling and a half-orc, compared to the differences in stats between them. Do you really think that the physical differences between a male human and a female human are high enough to warrant gender-based ability score modifiers?
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.
I mean I think gender equality and pronouns go hand in hand but it's disheartening to see the staff of D&D Beyond disagree with this.