Eclipse Phase just got a nice reference on LGBT inclusivity

Wed, 2014-10-08 02:46

#2

ShadowDragon8685 ShadowDragon8685's picture

Was the author just trying to

Was the author just trying to cast things in the worst possible light to pick a fight? I'm referring to this bit in specific:

Quote:
Wizards of the Coast has not been at the forefront of representation until this announcement. In The Book of Exalted Deeds a particularly infamous image of a lady paladin staring down a pair of cuddling lesbian succubi is captioned “A paladin must choose between destroying evil and honoring love”. The image frames a lesbian relationship as something alien, other and associated with evil.

Or, perhaps, maybe, [i]just maybe[/i], succubi are demons, who have an "Always Chaotic Evil" alignment entry, and the fact that they're lesbians is [i]entirely tangential to the fact that they're succubi![/i] It seems like he was just [i]trying[/i] to pick a fight and cast something in the worst possible light, so he can claim gay-bashing on something that wasn't there.

—

Skype and AIM names: Exactly the same as my forum name. [url=http://tinyurl.com/mfcapss]My EP Character Questionnaire[/url] [url=http://tinyurl.com/lbpsb93]Thread for my Questionnaire[/url] [url=http://tinyurl.com/obu5adp]The Five Orange Pips[/url]

Wed, 2014-10-08 13:46

#3

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

If the only way that love

If the only way that love between evil beings is ever shown is with lesbians, then, uh, yeah, that's a problem. Especially when there's no mention anywhere in the edition that love between good beings might ever involve not being straight.

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Wed, 2014-10-08 17:52

#4

ShadowDragon8685 ShadowDragon8685's picture

Yeaaaaah, sorry, not buying

Yeaaaaah, sorry, not buying that. That's still more "pick a fight" cherry-picking.

—

Skype and AIM names: Exactly the same as my forum name. [url=http://tinyurl.com/mfcapss]My EP Character Questionnaire[/url] [url=http://tinyurl.com/lbpsb93]Thread for my Questionnaire[/url] [url=http://tinyurl.com/obu5adp]The Five Orange Pips[/url]

Thu, 2014-10-09 04:18

#5

Dison

I hate to say it, but I agree

I hate to say it, but I agree with Shadowdragon on this. There are plenty of more legitimate gripes one can make about D&D's approach to sexuality, and that one just feels like taking an admittedly stupid fluff blurb and using it to tar the entire game. Plus, let's be perfectly honest here, the Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Ultimate Evil or whatever were stupid, stupid, poorly written books from beginning to end, and to use them as ammo is somewhat disingenuous. Up until fairly recently, D&D did its best to avoid the entire topic of sex altogether, with even succubi and nymphs being shockingly G-rated as written (See: Succubi "Embracing" their target to drain their levels.). Overall, I think taking potshots at D&D because it's the most visible example of RPGs and twisting the evidence to fit the narrative is just bad journalism. Now, if the author had, say, attacked the cursed belt of gender reversal, or the drow being the classic example of "Femdom/BDSM is bad", they'd have had a much stronger foundation.

Thu, 2014-10-09 05:15

#6

Armoured

Its not cherry picking

Its not cherry picking journalism when, in fact, there is only one cherry. And its rotten. D&D 3e was many things, certainly a great game, but BoED and BoVD's hamfisted use of sex-as-evil tropes stood out because they were the only examples of sex at all in the entire 3e/3.5e line, which itself utterly dominated the market for almost a decade. That some of those examples also questioned non-heterosexual relationships, even indirectly, produced the problem. I've seen this exact example before, and its because its the very few that exist. It has only been recently that "mainstream" RPGs have explicitly had LGBT characters, and made their sexuality not a big deal. Paizo stepped out with Pathfinder, and it turns out lots of non-hetero people play games and wanted open inclusion. This added to Paizo's success, in a measurable way, and many other publishers are continuing the trend, most recently WotC finally joining in as well. I find it more interesting that none of the White Wolf lines were mentioned, which have had non-normative sexual examples for far longer. Many of those were problematic too, but in general WW games were aimed at a more mature audience, so it was never vilified by press in the way D&D was.

Thu, 2014-10-09 06:55

#7

Lorsa

I guess it's a matter of that

I guess it's a matter of that homosexuality often have been portrayed as evil, so those that are can be rather sensitive to things they see as reinforcing that idea, even if it wasn't the company's intention. The Book of Erotic Fantasy on the other hand, does have good characters which are homosexual.

—

Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]

Thu, 2014-10-09 08:36

#8

Leng Plateau Leng Plateau's picture

To put a good light on this

Perhaps we can look at this from another angle. RPGs as a whole have a pretty poor history of dealing with minorities of any sort and sexual minorities in particular; by ignoring, marginalizing, or demonizing those groups. On the other hand things are moving in the right direction (which is what the article was saying) and Eclipse Phase is doing an especially good job with that.

—

At least with Lovecraft, nobody pretends the gods are nice. And wherever you end up, there is guaranteed to be tentacles.

Thu, 2014-10-09 11:33

#9

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

Lorsa wrote:I guess it's a

Lorsa wrote:
I guess it's a matter of that homosexuality often have been portrayed as evil, so those that are can be rather sensitive to things they see as reinforcing that idea, even if it wasn't the company's intention. The Book of Erotic Fantasy on the other hand, does have good characters which are homosexual.

I think Book of Erotic Fantasy was a 3rd-party publication?

Leng Plateau wrote:
Perhaps we can look at this from another angle. RPGs as a whole have a pretty poor history of dealing with minorities of any sort and sexual minorities in particular; by ignoring, marginalizing, or demonizing those groups. On the other hand things are moving in the right direction (which is what the article was saying) and Eclipse Phase is doing an especially good job with that.

Oh, yes, things are definitely looking up. And I haven't even heard any enraged screaming about that one paragraph in the new D&D book. (Just missed it, I'm sure. I don't think things have improved so much that it's not out there somewhere on the internet.)

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Thu, 2014-10-09 12:30

#10

ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture

*pulls up PDF* yep BoRF is a

*pulls up PDF* yep BoRF is a 3rd party publication

Thu, 2014-10-09 17:17

#11

Nerathul

BoRF

I admit I don't have source, just vague memories but didn't Wizards of the coast fight against the book of erotic fantasies. From what I see they could publish it for OGL but they couldn't actually mention D&D or D20. Plus they responded to the book with this; "Wizards of the Coast is in no way associated with the product, “The Book of Erotic Fantasy,” referenced recently on Gamingreport.com. We find the subject matter distasteful and inappropriate and do not endorse, condone, or approve of its use with the Dungeons & Dragons game. While the OGL license allows anyone, even our employees, to produce products that are compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards does not approve or control the theme of any third-party D20 product. For more information about the OGL, see www.wizards.com/d20. Shaw Coté Public Relations Manager Wizards of the Coast"

—

In the sea without lees Standeth the bird of Hermes Eating his wings variable And maketh himself yet full stable

Fri, 2014-10-10 00:36

#12

UnitOmega

Erulastant wrote:

Erulastant wrote:
Oh, yes, things are definitely looking up. And I haven't even heard any enraged screaming about that one paragraph in the new D&D book. (Just missed it, I'm sure. I don't think things have improved so much that it's not out there somewhere on the internet.)

I've seen a little bit of jimmies rustled from it. Though, on a kind of positive note, it wasn't so much "Eww, mentioning gay and trans people is icky" but more of a "Okay, WotC, we were already playing a fantasy game where you can be whatever you want, why are you doing what we consider to be political pandering?". So it's mostly that people don't quite get what others might want out of "inclusivity". I will say that I had a similar response to shadowdragon regarding that particular part. I kind of rolled my eyes and thought "Okay, c'mon, you're sniping. The situation is obviously supposed to be a dilemma for the paladin, so there must be something good going on, and it's not the always CE succubi." I understand there have been negative associations in the past (and surely there are some still today), but that doesn't seem to be the intent, they just kind of phrased what they were getting at dumb. I mean, if [i]only[/i] heterosexual people are allowed to be evil, that's kind of discriminatory too, right? The point was that the succubi were evil because, well, by D&D's rather rigid alignment system, they're intrinsically evil, not because they feel like kissing other succubi (which, presumably some part of it had to be "good" enough that the paladin's supposed to be unsure what to do). But the rigidity of D&D's fantasy alignment/morality system is a different discussion, even if how the holding of "good" and "evil" to hard and fast standards is part of this problem.

—

H-Rep: An EP Homebrew Blog http://ephrep.blogspot.com/

Fri, 2014-10-10 01:05

#13

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

On its own, the BoED art is

On its own, the BoED art is not damning. But, when you consider that every time love is shown between fundamentally evil beings it includes one (or more) of: -Bestiality -Incest -Homosexuality and every instance of homosexuality involves fundamentally evil beings, [i]there is a pattern here[/i]. So yeah, while one instance of succubi being lesbians isn't a problem, all instances of homosexuals being evil is, and you can't (fairly) consider the former case in isolation from the context of the latter.

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Fri, 2014-10-10 03:09

#14

Dison

Not to be rude, but I'd like

Not to be rude, but I'd like to get some citations on other instances of homosexuality between evil beings, since so far we've got a sample size of exactly one. As for bestiality and incest, to put it indelicately, well, duh, they're intrinsically evil beings, of course their sex is going to be off-putting to current standard social mores, because that's basic propaganda at work. I'm not sure why it's even being brought up in this discussion, since it's rather a tangent to the actual point.

Fri, 2014-10-10 06:43

#15

Smokeskin

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Was

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:
Was the author just trying to cast things in the worst possible light to pick a fight? I'm referring to this bit in specific:
Quote:
Wizards of the Coast has not been at the forefront of representation until this announcement. In The Book of Exalted Deeds a particularly infamous image of a lady paladin staring down a pair of cuddling lesbian succubi is captioned “A paladin must choose between destroying evil and honoring love”. The image frames a lesbian relationship as something alien, other and associated with evil.
Or, perhaps, maybe, [i]just maybe[/i], succubi are demons, who have an "Always Chaotic Evil" alignment entry, and the fact that they're lesbians is [i]entirely tangential to the fact that they're succubi![/i] It seems like he was just [i]trying[/i] to pick a fight and cast something in the worst possible light, so he can claim gay-bashing on something that wasn't there.

Yeah. And for it to be a dilemma, it can't be read as “A paladin must choose between destroying evil and honoring [evil lesbian] love”, can it? It pretty much has to be “A paladin must choose between destroying evil and honoring [honorable lesbian] love”, or it makes no sense.

Fri, 2014-10-10 12:42

#16

Erulastant Erulastant's picture

Dison wrote:Not to be rude,

Dison wrote:
Not to be rude, but I'd like to get some citations on other instances of homosexuality between evil beings, since so far we've got a sample size of exactly one. As for bestiality and incest, to put it indelicately, well, duh, they're intrinsically evil beings, of course their sex is going to be off-putting to current standard social mores, because that's basic propaganda at work. I'm not sure why it's even being brought up in this discussion, since it's rather a tangent to the actual point.

It's being brought up because homosexuality is frequently compared to those two things by certain voices in american politics, and WotC grouping them together in this way is...not good. Graz'zt, the Dark Prince (One of the demon princes) is coded as bisexual. I'm not sure I can find more examples because I'm not sure more LGBT people [i]exist[/i] in the (3.5) D&D cannon. Which doesn't make it better. Even if there are only 1-2 examples of evil gay people, if there are 0 examples of neutral or good gay people (And I've gone looking) it's still a problem.

—

You, too, were made by humans. The methods used were just cruder, imprecise. I guess that explains a lot.

Thu, 2014-10-30 05:26

#17

Darn_the_Vargr Darn_the_Vargr's picture

Bark

"Graz'zt, the Dark Prince (One of the demon princes) is coded as bisexual. I'm not sure I can find more examples because I'm not sure more LGBT people exist in the (3.5) D&D cannon. Which doesn't make it better. Even if there are only 1-2 examples of evil gay people, if there are 0 examples of neutral or good gay people (And I've gone looking) it's still a problem." Eh man, you've provided enough citations to make a good point. I like the numbers logic here, you can't argue against facts and instances. The issue of non-heteronormative sexuality being associated with 'non-good' groups is, sadly, heavily ingrained in media culture. It's so bad that those familiar with TVTropes will know what I mean when I drop the phrases, "Deprived Bisexual," "Bestiality is Depraved," "Psycho Lebian," "Extreme Omnisexual," "Lesbian Vampires:" Captain Jack, Zevran, and so many villains (or just morally interesting characters) seem to be associated with evil or distasteful things. I'm pretty tired, but anybody that can fill in please do. More cites would be great, I'm kinda interested to see who else gets named. Also, it's never rude to ask for cites. I'd expect that from anyone with a brain.

—

"You think that of Me? I! Am the ONE WHO KNOCKS!"

Tue, 2014-11-04 12:27

#18

Vivax

Hey guys. I'm the author of

Hey guys. I'm the author of the original post on Queereka and I just wanted to say that I was thrilled to see a discussion of my article on the EP forums. I think I can clear up some things for people if anybody still cares. 1) The reason I cited the Book of Exalted deeds is exactly the reason that Smokeskin, Darn_the_Vargr and Erulastant mentioned. There are scant mentions of cannon LGBT characters in DnD and the few that exist are members of "always evil" species. That frames LGBT love as something aberrant that only occurs between evil creatures. 2) I didn't mention anything White Wolf did because I am woefully unfamiliar with WoD and it's portrayal of LGBT people. I didn't want to misrepresent WoD either by calling them on something it's clear they didn't do. 3) DnD was not terribly sex positive or sex inclusive at all and most mentions of sexuality were in reference to monsters or evil characters. Book of Exalted deeds even had that chastity vow you could take that gave you chastity super powers. When sex is coded as evil and evil characters tend to have sex with animals, rape, incest or LGBT sex that lumps a minority group into a bunch of blatantly criminal sex acts. Contrasted with the chastity as a power source and it's a stark picture. 4) RPGs and games have a history of being bad at portraying people of color, women and LGBT. The "evil lesbian succubi" are part of this trend. I don't care if some succubi are lesbians. I care that the only lesbians portrayed are succubi. 5) The point of the article was to illustrate the progress that games have been making, using the WotC announcement as a springboard for lay audiences. Eclipse Phase is fantastic in how progressive it is as is Pathfinder. I hope that other publishers follow this route in content where there is room for it.