Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1055577Yeah, specifics are welcome.

With the Realms, it's arguably in keeping with what I've heard about Greenwood's original vision.

Greenwood's Magical Realm?

Quote from: KingCheops;1055570Slightly off topic but maybe not.  That's now 2 books in a row -- Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron and Waterdeep Dragon Heist -- where WotC felt it was necessary to have a sidebar celebrating how sexually woke both places are.  After my defense of the elves in Mordenkainen's I'm starting to feel a little disappointed.

Well it was not as bad in Mordenkainen as many blew it up to be.
I have not seen these two new books. How bad is it? Just another sidebar or more?

Quote from: RandyB;1055578Greenwood's Magical Realm?

Oh definitely. I always allow as much Greenwood-ism as possible in my FR, while still toning it down considerably from his original vision. If there's one pseudo-medieval setting where gay marriage and other Blue Rose-isms seem to fit, it's FR.

Quote from: Apparition;1055572What did the virtue signalers do in Wayfinder's Guide?

The only things I can find by doing a search of the pdf for the word "gender" are:

"Changelings have a fluid relationship with gender, seeing it as one characteristic to change among many others."

"A kalashtar mixes a personal prefix to the name of the quori spirit within the kalashtar. Each spirit has a gender identity, but this might not match the gender identity of the kalashtar host. A female kalashtar may have what others would consider a masculine name, because she's tied to a spirit with a masculine identity."

"The typpical warforged has a muscular, sexless body shape. Some warforged ignore the concept of gender entirely, while others adopt a gender identity in emulation of creatures around them."

If there is something other than those 3 references they don't use the word gender or are from an updated version of the document that I don't have.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1055577With the Realms, it's arguably in keeping with what I've heard about Greenwood's original vision.

Right. It's kind of par for the course with the Forgotten Realms. The only difference is that in the past a game designer using published material to elaborate on his or her sexual fantasies was considered embarrassing, whereas now it's apparently the vanguard of wokeness...

Quote from: rgalex;1055598The only things I can find by doing a search of the pdf for the word "gender" are:

"Changelings have a fluid relationship with gender, seeing it as one characteristic to change among many others."

"A kalashtar mixes a personal prefix to the name of the quori spirit within the kalashtar. Each spirit has a gender identity, but this might not match the gender identity of the kalashtar host. A female kalashtar may have what others would consider a masculine name, because she's tied to a spirit with a masculine identity."

"The typpical warforged has a muscular, sexless body shape. Some warforged ignore the concept of gender entirely, while others adopt a gender identity in emulation of creatures around them."

If there is something other than those 3 references they don't use the word gender or are from an updated version of the document that I don't have.

That's certainly enough to make a point. One of the things that's become apparent to me over the years in all of my own gaming experiences is that gender is completely irrelevant. In 40+ years of gaming, none of our tables have played any scenario where gender matters in the remotest way. Not once.

(The "female characters are weaker" rule in 1e is one of the first things our group ignored, because ... we liked to play strong female characters.)

That Paizo feels the need to mention gender in three different contexts tells me that these writers either have had a very different gaming experience from my own (and thus their game is less likely to appeal to me), or that they are simply inexperienced, and their design ideas have some other origin.

Quote from: rgalex;1055598The only things I can find by doing a search of the pdf for the word "gender" are:

"Changelings have a fluid relationship with gender, seeing it as one characteristic to change among many others."

"A kalashtar mixes a personal prefix to the name of the quori spirit within the kalashtar. Each spirit has a gender identity, but this might not match the gender identity of the kalashtar host. A female kalashtar may have what others would consider a masculine name, because she's tied to a spirit with a masculine identity."

"The typpical warforged has a muscular, sexless body shape. Some warforged ignore the concept of gender entirely, while others adopt a gender identity in emulation of creatures around them."

If there is something other than those 3 references they don't use the word gender or are from an updated version of the document that I don't have.

Hmmm I remember reading something a couple of weeks ago that sent an Alt-Right Shitlord Snowflake alert to my brain but I can't find it now.  I must have dreamed it into being and must now do some serious self-contemplation.  I seem to recall some sort of sidebar with a sort of inclusivity statement but I can't find it on DnD Beyond.

I didn't know that that was the way Forgotten Realms rolled.  It was a bit of surprise to see Volo writing about it so clearly.  I assumed it was a new thing but I guess not.

Quote from: Zalman;1055615That Paizo feels the need to mention gender in three different contexts tells me that these writers either have had a very different gaming experience from my own (and thus their game is less likely to appeal to me), or that they are simply inexperienced, and their design ideas have some other origin.

Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron was written by WotC, not Paizo. You can tell because the three races mentioned as having non-human gender norms are the new races originally introduced in Eberron. Paizo does not have the rights to those and has never written any clones of them even though it should be easy.

Quote from: Zalman;1055615That's certainly enough to make a point. One of the things that's become apparent to me over the years in all of my own gaming experiences is that gender is completely irrelevant. In 40+ years of gaming, none of our tables have played any scenario where gender matters in the remotest way. Not once.

(The "female characters are weaker" rule in 1e is one of the first things our group ignored, because ... we liked to play strong female characters.)

That Paizo feels the need to mention gender in three different contexts tells me that these writers either have had a very different gaming experience from my own (and thus their game is less likely to appeal to me), or that they are simply inexperienced, and their design ideas have some other origin.

My experience is the same. However, in the last decade or so I've noted adventures (especially Paizo and WotC adventure paths) include more romance and romantic backstories. I don't know if this is meeting some new market expectation, or if the writers today are just more interested love triangles, jealousy, etc. as adventure elements, or, more often, backstory that has no effect on the game. I don't really get it, but some people out there apparently feel it's important to know that the innkeeper who will feature in one scene is secretly in love with the barmaid, or that the head of the local thieves' guild's latest lover is hated by her previous one. I'd guess it's a combination of RPG adventures becoming fictional reading material along with the fantasy genre in general increasingly featuring romantic storylines as the demographics of readers change.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1055618Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron was written by WotC, not Paizo. You can tell because the three races mentioned as having non-human gender norms are the new races originally introduced in Eberron. Paizo does not have the rights to those and has never written any clones of them even though it should be easy.

Thanks for the correction!

Quote from: Haffrung;1055621My experience is the same. However, in the last decade or so I've noted adventures (especially Paizo and WotC adventure paths) include more romance and romantic backstories. I don't know if this is meeting some new market expectation, or if the writers today are just more interested love triangles, jealousy, etc. as adventure elements, or, more often, backstory that has no effect on the game. I don't really get it, but some people out there apparently feel it's important to know that the innkeeper who will feature in one scene is secretly in love with the barmaid, or that the head of the local thieves' guild's latest lover is hated by her previous one. I'd guess it's a combination of RPG adventures becoming fictional reading material along with the fantasy genre in general increasingly featuring romantic storylines as the demographics of readers change.

Interesting, I wonder as well, as you say, if this is actually something the gaming public cares about, or just the writers. And when I say "gaming public", here I mean people actually purchasing the products. I am reminded of the excellent recent tweet by Clay Routledge:

QuoteWe are living in an era of woke capitalism in which companies pretend to care about social justice to sell products to people who pretend to hate capitalism.

Quote from: rgalex;1055598The only things I can find by doing a search of the pdf for the word "gender" are:

"Changelings have a fluid relationship with gender, seeing it as one characteristic to change among many others."

"A kalashtar mixes a personal prefix to the name of the quori spirit within the kalashtar. Each spirit has a gender identity, but this might not match the gender identity of the kalashtar host. A female kalashtar may have what others would consider a masculine name, because she's tied to a spirit with a masculine identity."

"The typpical warforged has a muscular, sexless body shape. Some warforged ignore the concept of gender entirely, while others adopt a gender identity in emulation of creatures around them."

If there is something other than those 3 references they don't use the word gender or are from an updated version of the document that I don't have.

Again, two of these races are not necessarily gendered whereas the kalashtar are often "fluid."

jg

Quote from: James Gillen;1055649Again, two of these races are not necessarily gendered whereas the kalashtar are often "fluid."

jg

Yeah those aren't what I remembered being upset about (fantasy races are expected to be different) but for the life of me I can't find what it was.  Probably a brain fart and we can likely end this derail.

Quote from: S'mon;1055458I think Starfinder would be considered successful by normal RPG standards, but obviously is no D&D 5e.

I'm sure that if Starfinder had been written by some small-press publisher and had the sales it did, it would be a spectacular success.

But for Paizo? Not nearly enough to save them.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1055495Although depending on who you are, you can probably find some in the OSR who despise you, too. I'm pretty sure Zak S and the Pundit have no use for me and mine, for example.

I have no interest in your ideology. Unless you're an active and vocal Neo-Nazi or Terrorist or something like that, I don't want you out of the hobby, I don't want to force you to Publicly Declare your allegiance to mine, I just want you to enjoy gaming.