[Closed] Non-Binary Gender Inclusion but with a Contradiction


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Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

And if not during creation, possibly something that gets discovered through play.


Syndrous wrote:

Outside of a few random effects, a prestige class and a spell the only other thing I've seen that requires anything close to this is the Lust Demon, which has an aura that requires anything that could be attracted to it to take a save penalty vs the Lust Demon. It doesn't specify the gender but rather what the character would be attracted to.

The real question is, is that something players are normally mindful of during creation lol.

Yes, though it might never come up in play, depending on the way the story goes, the other players' willingness to have emotional themes in the game and whether it's something that is important to the character.

The lust demon seems like it could make for some contentious rolepaying though - I can imagine a situation where a player who has never even thought about their character's sexuality suddenly announcing that they are <insert whatever is most favourable> just to avoid a saving throw.


Neriathale wrote:
Syndrous wrote:

Outside of a few random effects, a prestige class and a spell the only other thing I've seen that requires anything close to this is the Lust Demon, which has an aura that requires anything that could be attracted to it to take a save penalty vs the Lust Demon. It doesn't specify the gender but rather what the character would be attracted to.

The real question is, is that something players are normally mindful of during creation lol.

Yes, though it might never come up in play, depending on the way the story goes, the other players' willingness to have emotional themes in the game and whether it's something that is important to the character.

The lust demon seems like it could make for some contentious rolepaying though - I can imagine a situation where a player who has never even thought about their character's sexuality suddenly announcing that they are <insert whatever is most favourable> just to avoid a saving throw.

Or announce they're ace, to avoid any such "weaknesses".

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Removed some additional posts and replies.


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thejeff wrote:
Or announce they're ace, to avoid any such "weaknesses".

I mean, in my many years in this hobby I've seen enough instances of "well, I'm a robot" or "I'm a plant" or "I'm not into members of other species" and all sorts of plausible diagetic justifications for "why I'm not into that" so I'm not remotely bothered if people want to play as androgynous or asexual characters for really incidental mechanical bonuses.


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Dan.Lavigne wrote:

As a gender fluid LGBT activist, I was originally impressed with the inclusion of nonbinary genders, and the reduction of male pronouns.

After reading the playtest book, I decided to ctrl-F and search for terms, "he" "she", "his" "hers", "male" and "female"

In 47 years of fighting in parades, (I'm 60 now) getting arrested for being gay, being beaten up for looking different, and otherwise being the dump-on of society, I can truly say that it has been and will continue to be, an uphill battle to gain recognition and true acceptance in society.

That being said.
Do the LGBT community a solid favour and either make the pronouns EQUAL instead of a ratio of 48/254 male/female, or replace all pronouns with a gender neutral "they".
Equality isn't about removing one gender, so the other can flourish. THat's what we're trying to get AWAY from.

I cannot possibly explain how difficult it is, to try to convince a town council to take you seriously, when all they see is an attempt at dominance, instead of inclusion.
Games, movies, and media, are all the same thing that way.
We are trying to move towards TRUE acceptance. Not what we have now, which is some corrupted sense of, "accept me or you're a bigot" mentality, which is just bullying people into accepting you, and pushing supporters further away each day.

Please strongly consider either replacing the pronouns with "they" "their" and "them" or using an equal amount of male/female pronouns. ("They" would be preferred, and simpler)

Number of times "she" is used: 185
Number of time "him" is used: 7 four times in one paragraph, and the other times, the male is a villain

Your hearts are in the right place, but you're doing more harm than good.
Please.
Please fix this.
Us old timers have worked too hard and come too far, to skip chances like this to see resolved into a manner where we can find true acceptance in a hobby that we all love.

Namaste
~Danielle

Danielle - thank you. Your post sums up what many of us are feeling, and says it extremely well. You are heard, and accepted, just the way you are.


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Dan.Lavigne wrote:

As a gender fluid LGBT activist, I was originally impressed with the inclusion of nonbinary genders, and the reduction of male pronouns.

After reading the playtest book, I decided to ctrl-F and search for terms, "he" "she", "his" "hers", "male" and "female"

In 47 years of fighting in parades, (I'm 60 now) getting arrested for being gay, being beaten up for looking different, and otherwise being the dump-on of society, I can truly say that it has been and will continue to be, an uphill battle to gain recognition and true acceptance in society.

That being said.
Do the LGBT community a solid favour and either make the pronouns EQUAL instead of a ratio of 48/254 male/female, or replace all pronouns with a gender neutral "they".
Equality isn't about removing one gender, so the other can flourish. THat's what we're trying to get AWAY from.

I cannot possibly explain how difficult it is, to try to convince a town council to take you seriously, when all they see is an attempt at dominance, instead of inclusion.
Games, movies, and media, are all the same thing that way.
We are trying to move towards TRUE acceptance. Not what we have now, which is some corrupted sense of, "accept me or you're a bigot" mentality, which is just bullying people into accepting you, and pushing supporters further away each day.

Please strongly consider either replacing the pronouns with "they" "their" and "them" or using an equal amount of male/female pronouns. ("They" would be preferred, and simpler)

Number of times "she" is used: 185
Number of time "him" is used: 7 four times in one paragraph, and the other times, the male is a villain

Your hearts are in the right place, but you're doing more harm than good.
Please.
Please fix this.
Us old timers have worked too hard and come too far, to skip chances like this to see resolved into a manner where we can find true acceptance in a hobby that we all love.

Namaste
~Danielle

I lost my response to this because of the website issues, but felt the need to come back to this.

You deserve more praise than you receive, of this I have no doubt, it take a lot of courage to stand against the grain, and even more in the current western world to openly disavow misandry. It is beyond encouraging to find such individuals who do not want to make me and others of my gender feel vilified or guilty because of the genitals I was born with. No one should feel that way.

Personally, I may be an outlier in this kind of discussion as I have been privileged with having had multiple different groups and players who fall everywhere on the spectrum of humanity, from hardcore left/right wingers, ethnically mixed groups, and individuals who have landed all over the LGBT spectrum. Sometimes, all at the same table, sometimes as guests or spectators (I tend to be very entertaining I'm told). In my experience (around a decade) these interpersonal issues have never come to my table in any sort of negative light, but rather are used in ways that expand the utility of having different world views and experiences. I hope that means that I'm doing something right as far as running my table goes, but it's entirely possible that it's all dumb luck.

The preference for me would be to see the iconics race/gender swapped around (halflings and gnomes seem to serve better in different roles now). It'd be nice to have a good ratio of he/she/they of equal standing. I didn't even notice that most of the references to villains is male, but it is somewhat telling.


I am unaware of any group in Pathfinder that is nonmonogamous, is there one? and if not why not create a culture that is? I feel that it would do a lot to have us represented positively in a role playing game. This thread is probably the best place I could think of besides creating a new thread. Thank you for your time!


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Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
doc the grey wrote:
Maybe make the feat something like "Nondescript" or "Doppelganger descended" and just expand it. Say something like, "Your features are so androgynous and/or nondescript that you have far greater ease disguising yourself as others." then just give the bonus to all other ones in the same size category. So like, a human with the feat could be really good at making themselves look convincingly male, female, orc, elf, maybe dwarf when they squat, black, SE Asian.

I like the suggested name for the feat.

Nondescript: Your features are so androgynous and/or nondescript that you have far greater ease disguising yourself as others, of either gender.


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It is strongly my preference that I be able to have an androgynous character at level 1 without spending any feats on it.

It seems like the flavor text of feats should exclusively tell you about things you have learned to do, rather than aspects of who you are or what you look like. At least, feats not universally acquirable at level 1 shouldn't have anything to say about who you are.

Like if we want to make a feat about being able to mimic people of a different gender identity can't we make it about one's understanding of social roles or body language (e.g. how to walk or sit or talk) than things like "what your facial structure is."

Sovereign Court

It sounds like the Innovades from Gundam OO.

They technically are genderless, but associate with a specific gender to fit in with humans. Tieria abuses that fact by dressing up in female clothing since "he" is only "he" in terms of dress and mannerisms and everyone was expecting "him" and not a female.

The "Nondescript" renaming suggestion sounds good, but that puts you as more "bland" than "in-between looking".

While you can have an androgynous character without Feats, there wouldn't be anything mechanical to it unless you do spend a Feat or some other cost to gain a mechanical advantage. Otherwise, it would get powergamed and become the new default.

I'd keep it as a Feat but rename it "Malleable Appearance" and make it so you can easily adapt the body language and features of other genders, races, etc., giving you a bonus on checks to mislead others about your true self.


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Yossarian wrote:
Ched Greyfell wrote:

Not everyone's story is the same.

I'm 43. I spent age 30 to 40 in lock-up for a non-violent offense. Pathfinder kept me sane in that awful place. I'm not on Facebook or Tinder or any of those.
When I left, I was young. When I got home, I was middle-aged.
I hear people on TV sometimes talking about being identifying as a non-specific binary gender-neutral unqueer pansexual. Or whatever. I don't know what any of it means. When I left home, there were men and women. I got home and everyone is whatever.
I appreciate the apology, Talonhawke.
I just need to stay out of discussions.

Thank you for sharing, and it's great that Pathfinder is this to you.

If you like sci-fi, I really recommend reading the book The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. It's exactly about the sensation you are describing you experienced when you got home. Wrapped in a great sci fi story.

Ursula LeGuin's "The Left Hand of Darkness" is also a good read, and thought-provoking. Note, please, that the author in her later life regretted she used several cop-out elements in the book, rather than truly addressing the gender-identity questions at the core of the narrative. It's still a ground-breaking moment in fiction literature.


I would prefer no sex or gender entries on a character sheet. It is just not important to the game, in general. Everyone at the table may know your dwarf fighter is male, but it really doesn't matter (come up a lot). Just like with monster stats, has no real bearing on whether this pit fiend is male or female.


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Vic Ferrari wrote:
I would prefer no sex or gender entries on a character sheet. It is just not important to the game, in general. Everyone at the table may know your dwarf fighter is male, but it really doesn't matter (come up a lot). Just like with monster stats, has no real bearing on whether this pit fiend is male or female.

Drop the names and descriptions as well. Never really comes up in the fight scenes.

Sure, it doesn't matter for Nameless Mooks #1-3, whether those are goblins at low level or pit fiends at high, but for anyone that's going to get any personality or characterization it matters. Hopefully that will include the PCs. At least, I hope it will in the games I'm in.


thejeff wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:
I would prefer no sex or gender entries on a character sheet. It is just not important to the game, in general. Everyone at the table may know your dwarf fighter is male, but it really doesn't matter (come up a lot). Just like with monster stats, has no real bearing on whether this pit fiend is male or female.
Drop the names and descriptions as well. Never really comes up in the fight scenes.

Well, let's not get hysterical, I just don't think sex and gender come up that often, regardless of characterisation, personality, role-playing, etc, and I certainly don't want sex and gender to be focal points, things like only females can become Swanmays are cool, though.


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Vic Ferrari wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:
I would prefer no sex or gender entries on a character sheet. It is just not important to the game, in general. Everyone at the table may know your dwarf fighter is male, but it really doesn't matter (come up a lot). Just like with monster stats, has no real bearing on whether this pit fiend is male or female.
Drop the names and descriptions as well. Never really comes up in the fight scenes.
Well, let's not get hysterical, I just don't think sex and gender come up that often, regardless of characterisation, personality, role-playing, etc, and I certainly don't want sex and gender to be focal points, things like only females can become Swanmays are cool, though.

sex and gender come up all the time in an rpg, what are you talking about?

you may play as whatever you wish, or define them however you want and feel comfortable with, but saying that they don't matter from an RP perspective is the same as saying your race doesn't matter from an RP perspective.

You have likes and dislikes depending on what you are, and NPCs have likes and dislikes depending on how they see you. Your "character" is alive, has an appearance, and etc. You don't strip all those away just because they don't offer +x to a roll.


shroudb wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:
I would prefer no sex or gender entries on a character sheet. It is just not important to the game, in general. Everyone at the table may know your dwarf fighter is male, but it really doesn't matter (come up a lot). Just like with monster stats, has no real bearing on whether this pit fiend is male or female.
Drop the names and descriptions as well. Never really comes up in the fight scenes.
Well, let's not get hysterical, I just don't think sex and gender come up that often, regardless of characterisation, personality, role-playing, etc, and I certainly don't want sex and gender to be focal points, things like only females can become Swanmays are cool, though.
you may play as whatever you wish, or define them however you want and feel comfortable with, but saying that they don't matter from an RP perspective is the same as saying your race doesn't matter from an RP perspective.

It sometimes doesn't, much (Al-Qadim, Planescape, Sigil, etc). It's a fine descriptor, but not that important in the grand scheme of things, like, I don't really care what any of my friend's sex, gender, or sexuality is, particularly, just whether they are people I want to spend my time with.

Al-Qadim is a really interesting campaign, where the attitude, racially, is very cosmopolitan, such a great setting. Maybe I will start work on a Sha'ir for PF2!


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Vic Ferrari wrote:
I would prefer no sex or gender entries on a character sheet. It is just not important to the game, in general. Everyone at the table may know your dwarf fighter is male, but it really doesn't matter (come up a lot). Just like with monster stats, has no real bearing on whether this pit fiend is male or female.

When I did custom character sheets for my group I removed the "sex" or "gender" field and replaced it with "Pronouns". Since "what do I call you" seems more relevant than all the other stuff we could be implying here, and it works much better for some of the more unusual things in the game world (like Shirrens who have 3 sexes and Ghorans who have 0).

Since if people really want to make non-private information about their hair, method of dress, or how they pee that's something which can be implied through RPing to the extent the player wants to get into it and doesn't need to be on a character sheet.


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Pronouns honestly seem far less useful than sex/gender to me from the GM perspective. Whether you're a he/she/xir or whatever, the guards are going to say "Stop him!" not "Stop xir!" barring some really weird circumstances at work and having "Male" penned in your sheet tells me that while xir in on of itself means nothing.


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Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Pronouns honestly seem far less useful than sex/gender to me from the GM perspective. Whether you're a he/she/xir or whatever, the guards are going to say "Stop him!" not "Stop xir!" barring some really weird circumstances at work and having "Male" penned in your sheet tells me that while xir in on of itself means nothing.

A feel like unless a person is conspicuously presenting as one thing or another (which might be a disguise) the guard is unlikely to use a gendered pronoun in that situation anyway. Most likely they're going to use some immediately apparent identifier like "stop that elf" or "stop that one in red" since onlookers don't have the opportunity to glean more than superficial information about the fleeing person anyway, or do some rough estimation of their character like "stop that ruffian" or "stop that fop", else they will modify for the reason they are to be stopped like "stop that thief" or "stop that spy".

If the fleeing person is really nondescript, "stop them" suffices.


PossibleCabbage wrote:
Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Pronouns honestly seem far less useful than sex/gender to me from the GM perspective. Whether you're a he/she/xir or whatever, the guards are going to say "Stop him!" not "Stop xir!" barring some really weird circumstances at work and having "Male" penned in your sheet tells me that while xir in on of itself means nothing.

A feel like unless a person is conspicuously presenting as one thing or another (which might be a disguise) the guard is unlikely to use a gendered pronoun in that situation anyway. Most likely they're going to use some immediately apparent identifier like "stop that elf" or "stop that one in red" since onlookers don't have the opportunity to glean more than superficial information about the fleeing person anyway, or do some rough estimation of their character like "stop that ruffian" or "stop that fop", else they will modify for the reason they are to be stopped like "stop that thief" or "stop that spy".

If the fleeing person is really nondescript, "stop them" suffices.

"kill them all" seems to be a trend with our guards.


oneking wrote:
"kill them all" seems to be a trend with our guards.

I also find second person pronouns like "you there- stop, drop your weapons, and put your hands where we can see them" are handy.

I mostly reserve the personal pronounce for NPCs who have interacted with the PCs several times and have presumably figured out what the appropriate thing to call them is offscreen if not explicitly in a RP encounter. Popcorn mooks don't need to use pronouns anyway since they don't exist in the campaign long enough for "single word they to refer to someone" to become repetitive.


PossibleCabbage wrote:
Since if people really want to make non-private information about their hair, method of dress, or how they pee that's something which can be implied through RPing to the extent the player wants to get into it and doesn't need to be on a character sheet.

Bingo, and things like "I hate snakes!".


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I would prefer my character sheets to have a designated Name: field, and then a Description: field, that could be used to cover height, weight, hair color, eye color, gender expression, age, noticeable features and mannerisms, fashion sense, and whatever else the player wants to include. Or something as basic as kinda short, wears kilts if that's as descriptive as the player wants to be.

I play with several heavy-RP players who deeply care about the minutiae of character description in order to initially bond with a character concept, and a couple who just note down the basics and develop their character over the course of adventuring... well, apparently we now know I have an exquisitely braided beard and absolutely must have mint tea in the morning or I'm cranky all day.

The less stuff I have to GM-revise on the fly to keep my tables inclusive, the better. Paizo has been, overall, great about that - and I'm glad to see them consciously engaging during this revision. As much as I loved being there for the good old days when D&D was new, I don't miss the endless parade of chainmail bikinis and other limiting, dull tropes. Someday, maybe soon, a binary checkbox of "which cisgender heterosexual option are you going to be playing?" may be seen as just tired in the RPG community at large.


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I am kind of unclear why this thread keeps coming back, since Paizo folks have already said (in a different thread) that they don't want feat descriptions which aren't available for everybody at level 1 to imply that the feat is granting you something that might have always been true about you (such as androgyny).

So Close Match is getting changed, and people are free to write whatever they want in any of the non-mechanical fields on the character sheet.


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At my table, the disguise penalties are based on how far the persona is from you, the character, rather than base it off some as arbitrary as sex. If you are playing an androgynous character, you have no issues making yourself look male, female, or anything else but might get the penalty if you wanted to look like someone with extreme tertiary sexual characteristics, like most femme fatales, vamps, macho barbarians, etc. If you want to play an alchemist who's experiments left them with weird, animalistic mutations, you might not have to try as hard to pass as a druid, animal totem barbarian, or weird sorcerer, but might have a harder time trying to pass as anyone remotely mundane. That's the neat part about rpgs though, you can use your common sense!

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