Homosexuality in Golarion

[TanithT]

To swing things back around full circle, that's the interesting thing about evil villains versus good heroes, white hats and black. Your color vision here tends to be be highly dependent on your own cultural and religious lenses.

Are the people who insist on open depictions of LGBT characters in their RPG game good or evil?

Is systematically silencing LGBT people and denying them the same rights and representation as heterosexuals good or evil?

I know which side I stand on, and I know which side I think is evil. But the folks on the other side are equally convinced of the same thing, and there is absolutely nothing I can say or do to change that.

While this fact can seriously suck in the real world, it does make for excellent storytelling fodder. The Urgakh (Orcs) of my own fantasy world are not evil in the classic sense of evil. They are brutal, savage, militaristic and primitive, and also completely honorable in their own way. Break or cheat on an agreement with them, behave dishonorably, insult the land or poison nature with your industry, and they will find it good and honorable to raze your city to the ground and kill all of your children so that your greenkilling sickness does not spread.

What do the townfolk think of the fact that if they build too much too fast, the Orcs are going to defend the health of their land by smashing and burning that tannery that was dumping chemicals upriver? You guessed it - those Orcs are eeeeeevil.

Far as the Orcs are concerned? Those softskins are greedy greenkillers whose cowardly taint poisons the land and makes their children sick from drinking the river water. They are evil.

White hats, black hats, it's generally a lot more perspective than absolute.

[Andrew R]

I stick with Schrodinger's Orientation. Could be any unless it is somehow relevant. Is the inn keeper gay or straight? Both and neither unless his wife/child or male lover have a reason to exist. Is the bard coming onto the male or female PC? the one that makes the most sense and makes themselves the "target"

[Gorbacz]

Andrew R wrote:

I stick with Schrodinger's Orientation. Could be any unless it is somehow relevant. Is the inn keeper gay or straight? Both and neither unless his wife/child or male lover have a reason to exist. Is the bard coming onto the male or female PC? the one that makes the most sense and makes themselves the "target"

Do you stick with Schordinger's gender, Schrodinger's skin color, Schrodinger's hair color as well?

[Beckett]

Why not? It doesn't matter until someone opens up the box and checks.

[Kajehase]

Someone really should have called Animal Control on Schrödinger - that's animal cruelty, that was.

[Hitdice]

Kajehase wrote:

Someone really should have called Animal Control on Schrödinger - that's animal cruelty, that was.

Well, only half the time. :P

[Kajehase]

Try putting a cat in a bag and see if it agrees with you. ;)

[John Kretzer]

TanithT wrote:

Are the people who insist on open depictions of LGBT characters in their RPG game good or evil?

There could be alot more factors that would make them evil beyond this desire. But this idea would not be evil in of itself. Actualy it is a good action.

TanithT wrote:

Is systematically silencing LGBT people and denying them the same rights and representation as heterosexuals good or evil?

Or they could be (as is commonplace with these types of people) mostly due to ignorance...which does not neccessarily mean they are evil. Mostly for pewople like that...and others who feel the need to oppress anybody not like themselves I just feel sorry for the narrow world veiw.

The evil people are the people who use their ignorance to gain power.

[Kittyburger]

If you really think that other people having visibility as being valuable, worthwhile people is an attack on your way of life, you really need to consider the extent to which you have become a comic book supervillain.

[Hakken]

If we use that reasoning--we have to list which god every single person worships--cause what happens when you interact with someone and are a cleric---you would have more influence over someone of your own faith.

You should list how tall each person is. You should list how old every person is. You should list what nationality every person is(yes you are all in sandpoint--but as we know from real life--maybe there are ANdoran-varisians or Taldan-varisians or mwangi-varisians. Instead the nationality is only mentioned on the people where it makes a difference story wise in interacting with them. You don't find out exactly where the merchant from whom you bought your alchemist fire originally hailed.

. any one of those things can come into play. So in a "summary" of an NPC character you now have 30 things to list and it becomes a 1 page summary of every character. It is easier to leave it vague and if a GM chooses to change something they can.

In RotRL, they have a gay paladin and his mate. Those are the ones they SAY are gay. But if a GM wants they could make more gay. Once they start listing--those would be the only two gay cause the rest "may" be listed as being straight. It would more limit the GM from changing things to fit his group.

I would rather just leave NPC (who don't have a specific function) vague and let the GM for the group react to their group and fill in the specific details.

[John Kretzer]

Hakken wrote:

If we use that reasoning--we have to list which god every single person worships--cause what happens when you interact with someone and are a cleric---you would have more influence over someone of your own faith.

You should list how tall each person is. You should list how old every person is. You should list what nationality every person is(yes you are all in sandpoint--but as we know from real life--maybe there are ANdoran-varisians or Taldan-varisians or mwangi-varisians. Instead the nationality is only mentioned on the people where it makes a difference story wise in interacting with them. You don't find out exactly where the merchant from whom you bought your alchemist fire originally hailed.

. any one of those things can come into play. So in a "summary" of an NPC character you now have 30 things to list and it becomes a 1 page summary of every character. It is easier to leave it vague and if a GM chooses to change something they can.

In RotRL, they have a gay paladin and his mate. Those are the ones they SAY are gay. But if a GM wants they could make more gay. Once they start listing--those would be the only two gay cause the rest "may" be listed as being straight. It would more limit the GM from changing things to fit his group.

I would rather just leave NPC (who don't have a specific function) vague and let the GM for the group react to their group and fill in the specific details.

While I agree with you on most of the time having a summary of NPCs written up where it is up to the GM to fill in the blanks...I also like really detailed NPCs written up with lots of background material. There is a place for both type of write up for NPCs in the game.

[Xenophile]

As a side note, I'm now wistfully imagining an alternate timeline where there is a 72-page-and-growing thread labelled "Homosexuality in Golarion" that is exclusively about how non-straight people are viewed and treated in the various cultures and regions of this fictional roleplaying setting. 72 pages of on-topic discussion of this touchy but very interesting subject, doubtlessly containing disagreements and debates but always sticking to the core concept, rather than diverging into other topics such as what material should and shouldn't appear in certain published works.

[Hakken]

The point is---as a GM--I will react to my party.

IF your character is gay, I would like to know. I would change the interactions based upon that with the more pertinent NPCs. If I notice some of my players getting uncomfortable with too much sex talk (gay or straight), I will steer the interaction away from that. Same way as if the descripton of gore in combat gets too grizzly. We had a vegetarian in a recent group who was grossed out when a fellow party member started to eat a kobold they had killed---so I steered it away. If my party is enjoying an encounter "like ms feathers" than we will roleplay that up.

If an NPC has a reason for being mentioned being gay--then by all means put that in their description.

BUT don't list out every NPC on whether they are gay or straight if it does not come into the storyplay. That is pure ridiculous. As a gm if I choose to make them one way or another to fit my party fine. But to insist that they have to list every possible gay person in the town would be dumb. That would be like listing exactly which of the 6 gods every person in the sandpoint cathedral worships. Or what age, nationality of origin etc the merchant I just bought stuff from happened to be. I don't care---it would not change my interaction with that insignificant of an NPC.

[John Kretzer]

Hakken wrote:

The point is---as a GM--I will react to my party.

IF your character is gay, I would like to know. I would change the interactions based upon that with the more pertinent NPCs. If I notice some of my players getting uncomfortable with too much sex talk (gay or straight), I will steer the interaction away from that. Same way as if the descripton of gore in combat gets too grizzly. We had a vegetarian in a recent group who was grossed out when a fellow party member started to eat a kobold they had killed---so I steered it away. If my party is enjoying an encounter "like ms feathers" than we will roleplay that up.

If an NPC has a reason for being mentioned being gay--then by all means put that in their description.

BUT don't list out every NPC on whether they are gay or straight if it does not come into the storyplay. That is pure ridiculous. As a gm if I choose to make them one way or another to fit my party fine. But to insist that they have to list every possible gay person in the town would be dumb. That would be like listing exactly which of the 6 gods every person in the sandpoint cathedral worships. Or what age, nationality of origin etc the merchant I just bought stuff from happened to be. I don't care---it would not change my interaction with that insignificant of an NPC.

To be fair I don't think anybody is saying everyone who x sexual oriention has to be listed as that way. The arguement is more stemming from people who hate that fact any character (like the Paladin from Sandpoint...or the two NPCs from Wrath of the Righteous) are gay at all.

Both character in my opinion are well developed characters who happen to homosexual.

Also...question. Why does getting hired by a straight couple to rescue their adoptive child does not include sex overtones for your group...but a homosexual couple who hire the group to rescue their adoptive child suddenly go of into X rated territory?

You seem to imply that in your first paragraph.

[Kittyburger]

Xenophile wrote:

As a side note, I'm now wistfully imagining an alternate timeline where there is a 72-page-and-growing thread labelled "Homosexuality in Golarion" that is exclusively about how non-straight people are viewed and treated in the various cultures and regions of this fictional roleplaying setting. 72 pages of on-topic discussion of this touchy but very interesting subject, doubtlessly containing disagreements and debates but always sticking to the core concept, rather than diverging into other topics such as what material should and shouldn't appear in certain published works.

I know, that'd be really nice.

[Kittyburger]

To resolve the apparent discrepancy with the fact that Irabeth hocked a +2-equivalent magic sword to pay for her wife's transformation elixir (which per Wes Schneider should only have cost 2,000 GP or so), I want to suggest that she may have bought two from separate wizards to hedge against the possibility that one was mere colored water and illusion to lure the unwary. For something that important, you want to be sure.

[TanithT]

Gorbacz wrote:

Do you stick with Schordinger's gender, Schrodinger's skin color, Schrodinger's hair color as well?

For the average window dressing NPC, yes. Unless you really want to stat up 200 people for your town and write a detailed character background, history and physical description for every turnip farmer and fish merchant that lives in it. Plus character art sketches. I don't, so my average window dressing NPC who will get from zero to maybe 5 seconds of on-camera time is likely to be a very brief and mostly empty template.

I guess my players could decide that they want to spend an hour talking to the fish merchant, who is not involved in the plot or in anything more exciting than taking people's money in exchange for dead fish. I don't know why they would want to, but if they did, that's what improv skills are for. And maybe a few handy NPC templates you can keep under the table and swap off the details for as needed, when the PC's want to poke for some reason at the "set extras".

So no, I don't know what gender or color the fish merchant in my town is until the players start interacting with them. Which they probably won't even if I mention in passing that this seaport town has a large fish market and an economy based on fishing, by way of window dressing. So I'm not going to stat this up in advance.

Plot advancing NPC's are a whole other story and do need much more detailed writeups. It's just not practical to do this for every bit of the window dressing.

[Tirisfal]

Quinnae's laying it OUT.

[Kittyburger]

The phrase "shoving it down my throat" is really gross. Please stop using it.

[Samnell]

I think it was really cool to make Kyra the gay iconic and I'll tell you why: By making the cleric the gay iconic, Paizo sent the message that not only was being gay not a huge issue in Golarion, you could be gay and have the ass-kicking goddess that put Rovagug in his box when the rest of the gods were all crapping their pants smile on you.

Which, actually, is a pro-religious message too. You can be on the side of the angels and love who you love, no problem.

But the objection here, like the objection to Irabeth in WotR, is just that: Non-heterosexuals, like non-whites or non-cis-males, are supposed to understand that they simply don't have the potential that other people do. We can't be that good. We need to know our place.

I mean, look at the list of objections:
Irabeth is a paladin. Apparently neither half-orcs nor lesbians are fit to be paladins.

There are good reasons for orders of knighthood to reject half-orc applicants, which are totally not racist even though the only objection is that she's a half-orc.

A half-orc had a loving family, because apparently they must all be the fruit of rape.

Irabeth is politically successful. That's no job for women or half-orcs, let alone gays.

Furthermore, Irabeth is actually a good, reasonable person. Like a paladin. No half-orc, woman, or gay person could ever be any of those. It's just outrageous!

But most outrageously, Irabeth dared love her gal and make sacrifices for that love, like she actually experienced love like a normal person. How dare she? How dare Paizo?! Obviously she's just the authors' crappy wish-fulfillment character.

Sure, there's a big difference between this and locking up all the LGBT people. I don't think that people expressing these objections would ever stop at just locking us up. Clearly it's not our freedom that offends them, but rather our existence.

[Hakken]

John Kretzer wrote:

Hakken wrote:

The point is---as a GM--I will react to my party.

IF your character is gay, I would like to know. I would change the interactions based upon that with the more pertinent NPCs. If I notice some of my players getting uncomfortable with too much sex talk (gay or straight), I will steer the interaction away from that. Same way as if the descripton of gore in combat gets too grizzly. We had a vegetarian in a recent group who was grossed out when a fellow party member started to eat a kobold they had killed---so I steered it away. If my party is enjoying an encounter "like ms feathers" than we will roleplay that up.

If an NPC has a reason for being mentioned being gay--then by all means put that in their description.

BUT don't list out every NPC on whether they are gay or straight if it does not come into the storyplay. That is pure ridiculous. As a gm if I choose to make them one way or another to fit my party fine. But to insist that they have to list every possible gay person in the town would be dumb. That would be like listing exactly which of the 6 gods every person in the sandpoint cathedral worships. Or what age, nationality of origin etc the merchant I just bought stuff from happened to be. I don't care---it would not change my interaction with that insignificant of an NPC.

To be fair I don't think anybody is saying everyone who x sexual oriention has to be listed as that way. The arguement is more stemming from people who hate that fact any character (like the Paladin from Sandpoint...or the two NPCs from Wrath of the Righteous) are gay at all.

Both character in my opinion are well developed characters who happen to homosexual.

Also...question. Why does getting hired by a straight couple to rescue their adoptive child does not include sex overtones for your group...but a homosexual couple who hire the group to rescue their adoptive child suddenly go of into X rated territory?

You seem to imply that in your first paragraph.

hmmm went back and reread the paragraph and didn't see that. Sorry if it implied that. for me if a module said a homosexual couple hired someone to rescue a child that is what happened. Those are RELEVANT characters and fleshing them out is fine. If the neighbors on their street had nothing to do with the kidnapping than, saying 'the jones's are also gay as are the smiths, while the browns, hennisons and chaddwells are straight" makes no contribution.

I would not bat an eye at the couple being homosexual and would just keep gming the story.