Veeky Forums - No, the OTHER kind of TG

I've run an Exalted game where one of the players was effectively transgender. They played a Delzahn woman. The Delzahn have rigid gender roles but with a caveat that anybody can swap genders in all respects (people address you properly, you have the rights/expectations of that gender) by wearing a specific sash. One of the players played a woman who had done that, in turn becoming the eldest son of the family. We didn't dive into dysphoria issues or anything, it was just an interesting facet of the character.

I've also had others, in low-magic or grittier settings, play warrior women that hid the fact they were women. One played a woman (in Warhammer) who took on a male identity in order to become a knight. That was explicitly a transgender subplot because, when they got found out, an abbot attempted to use them like a Jean of Arc type figure to rally behind. They refused on the basis that, even if they were denied becoming a night, they'd still want to be considered a man. This ended up making the abbot an enemy of theirs and the party became do-gooder fugitives.

>weren't just magical realms
Impossible

...

>The low-tier Druid spell reincarnation actually does work like that.
Not in 5e or 3.5 as far as I know.

yup, a cursed item in 1st and 2nd Ed.

>transgender/genderbending themes or narratives in games, fiction or other settings
Do you mean purely actual transgender characters, or just relevant themes?

Hi! I'm the user from the other thread. Reposting since it's relevant I guess.

I'm trans. Five years ago, when I was just starting to transition, I decided to play a trans character, partially so I could relate to her and partially as a challenge to see if I could make something like that relevant to the game without also making it uncomfortable or lewd.

The idea that I settled on was this: She was the eldest son of a noble family who ran away and had herself polymorphed by a wizard in the capitol capable of doing it, with a promise that her family would pay. Not only did they not pay, they disowned their (not)son when they found out what she'd done, which means she was left holding what ended up being, effectively, a high interest loan.

The backstory tied my character into power politics while also saddling her with a scandal that handicapped her enough that she couldn't steamroll social/intrigue encounters, provided NPCs for the DM to use who weren't necessarily friendly but, for their own reasons, might be willing to grudgingly assist the party, and gave me an excuse for why somebody would KEEP adventuring for years instead of retiring after their first big score. Pretty successful imo.

>She was the eldest son of a noble family who ran away and had herself polymorphed by a wizard in the capitol capable of doing it, with a promise that her family would pay. Not only did they not pay, they disowned their (not)son when they found out what she'd done, which means she was left holding what ended up being, effectively, a high interest loan.
Well-handled, I like this a lot. Nothing stops gender dysphoria from being a thing in fantasy settings and it's honestly not all that hard a procedure when you've got magic involved. But on the other hand, it probably wouldn't be all that socially acceptable to do.

The way it shook out in play was this: In combat and life or death situations her gender didn't come up, because why would it? This is D&D. But during social encounters and downtime rp even though only one other character knew her backstory, her being trans influenced her behavior in sudden ways.

She'd been a feminine boy and then got dropped unceremoniously into life as a boyish girl, with no mothers or sisters to teach her how to groom or dress herself properly, so she came off a little gruff and tomboyish (for a woman). Her lack of really any knowledge on how to get through life as a woman and her status as hired muscle made her feel jealous and inadequate in comparison to the sorceress and druid, both of whom were more traditionally feminine, and while she wasn't cruel or mean she would give them the cold shoulder a lot, especially at first.

The few times men did flirt on her at taverns or when dealing with soldiers she mostly just got flustered, had no idea how to react, and left, because she assumed they were playing some kind of a trick on her.

Also this was 3.5, where polymorph was a 5th level spell, meaning it cost *at least* 500 gold to have cast. Which, for a 19 year old newly homeless, is a lot of money to have to pay down while keeping up with interest.

d20srd.org/srd/spells/reincarnate.htm
5e.d20srd.org/srd/spells/reincarnate.htm

Thread is actually interesting, continue.

Pathfinder has a transgender iconic character who I thought was pretty good. The idea that her parents only cared about her transition because it meant they were going to have to pay a dowry was, I thought, a fun little bit of worldbuilding for her culture.

pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Shardra_Geltl

'ere we go lads

Once we found a paladin cursed by a demon prince to die as his seed was rotting him from the inside out, but since the demon's curse was stupidly specific, he wouldn't die if he was turned into a woman.

Very interesting character with a grim outlook on life, but the transgenderism rarely came into play (except for the fact that the dude had a wife and kids who left because of shame), overall very well writ, but again, not focusing on the stuff itself.

Had a character in Shadowrun once who was doing what they were doing to afford a transition and the meds for it.
It didn't come up much - once when she was asked point blank along with the rest of the crew why she was running, the other that when in the Matrix she was a he.

I guess that's tasteful in the sense it was, y'know, normal? Pretty much summed up my experience: part of what I was, not who I was, and not part of my identity any more than being blonde is.

I put a genderfluid changeling in front of my players and they lost their shit. Not for any political reasons, but they became instantly fixated on if the changeling had a dick or a vagina. I refer to the character as ‘They’ and gave them a neutral name and the players are still losing their minds about it 4 sessions later despite the changeling not being near them at the moment.

Even if you don’t intend queer aspects to be focused on so intensely, sometimes they will be. I didn’t treat their identity as a big deal, the character didn’t treat it as a big deal, but the players did. I didn’t even bother correcting the players when they were referring to the changeling as He or She, and somehow that made them even weirder about it. (85% of my players are straight cis people btw)

>be paladin with deeply repressed dysphoria
>throw yourself at villains because you don't care about staying alive anyway
>big evil lich has prophecy saying no man can kill him
>take your shot anyway
>sword cuts him in half and he explodes
>party takes a good, long look at you
>"anything you want to tell us?"
>run away and never talk to them again

>be DM
>transitioned 10 years ago
>invite friends to game
>2 other tgirls
>2 queer girls
>1 token cis het white man
>absolutely zero trans issues or themes in every game in every edition we've played for months

I don't know who the hell it is that's trying to make their games political, but it's not me, and it's not us. We deal with this shit enough IRL and URL. I guess part of the escapism of D&D is not having to deal with trans drama.

>not saying it is by the will of his patron that he is able to slay that abomination
come on

...

Just answer the question does it have a dick?

Can confirm. Transitioning right now, group of 6, only two aren't LGBT, closest we ever got to those "themes" was that the ship's mechanic was a lesbian.

Closeted people tend to seek ways to express their feelings through fantasy, since they can't in real life.

Part of it, for me, is that most of the worlds and cultures these games are meant to emulate explicitly had people we could reasonably call queer or trans in them. Rome had a (bonkers) trans emperor(ess) and a caste of crossdressing eunuch priestesses who served one of the most revered state deities. Plains Indian cultures had the berdache and California coastal indians had joya, both of whom were assumed to have potent magical powers, both of which *should* be relevant to a setting like Shadowrun where Amerindian magic and culture have come flooding back. Ancient Scythians, one of the many cultures orcs are based on, figured out how to render estrogen and had a caste of trans woman diviners/elemental priestesses. Prettier actors in Elizabethan England and Edo Japan lived their roles as women off the stage so frequently that more prudish forces clamored to ban the practice in both places. I could go on.

We've always been here, and we've always occupied positions in society that would throw us into contact with rogues, scoundrels, wanderers, and monsters pretty frequently. I think that having us not show up at all is more of a political statement than having about 2 to 10% of your world be *some* shade of faggot.

Having your game have faggots isn't having them be some kind of political statement. Nobody gives a shit if the local alchemist is gay, and it's hardly if ever going to come up.
How many NPC's do you know who bed people? How many PC's bedding people ever comes up? Because that number should be a pretty low percentage of your characters total - so a handful of 'em might well be gay and you'll never know.

It's when your gay characters burst onto the screen, fling glitter in the air and announce they're here to suck cock and chew bubblegum people roll their eyes at it. Being any shade of faggot should be a footnote to a character like it should be to a person.

Stay strong little sister.

It makes me want to personally give them their injections if it will make them leave that shit at home.

I'm not talking about ancient Scythia, I'm talking about this world, in this generation, where 60% of the members of this community have personality disorders. By the way, that number is 1% in the general society. Dealing with that 60% is such a pain in the ass the other 40% wants nothing to do with you. Not the marches, not the meetings, not even this damn thread. I'd rather deal with the cis het white men of Veeky Forums who are 90% likely to be some kind of Diet Nazi, because while they're kicking my teeth in on the sidewalk, at least they're not backstabbing me.

>a caste of crossdressing eunuch priestesses who served one of the most revered state deities

Tell me more.

1% for trans people, 10% for all LGBT community, fine. I don't know that I've even thrown a trans NPC at my players before, and I only made the one PC, but it's still something that I think about when I'm worldbuilding and I don't think that, for me, including something like that would constitute a more political act than intentionally leaving it out.

And I don't think the point about trans people being present in underworld/mystical roles in the exact sorts of cultures these games emulate, only to be absent in the games themselves, is completely immaterial.

>The priest of Rhea, when taking shelter from the winter snow-storm he entered the lonely cave, had just wiped the snow off his hair, when following on his steps came a lion, devourer of cattle, into the hollow way. But he with outspread hand beat the great tambour he held and the whole cave rang with the sound. Nor did that woodland beast dare to support the holy boom of Cybele, but rushed straight up the forest-clad hill, in dread of the half-girlish servant of the goddess, who hath dedicated to her these robes and this his yellow hair.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galli

>Closeted people tend to seek ways to express their feelings through fantasy, since they can't in real life.
This exactly. The people who "magical realm" are the ones who can't express their desires in a healthy way in their everyday lives. That's why when people bring it up it's so often weird, embarrassing /d/ tier stuff.

>We've always been here, and we've always occupied positions in society that would throw us into contact with rogues, scoundrels, wanderers, and monsters pretty frequently.

>And I don't think the point about trans people being present in underworld/mystical roles in the exact sorts of cultures these games emulate, only to be absent in the games themselves, is completely immaterial.

The reason for that, is if they included references to LGBTQ characters in games in the seedy underworld and other negatively viewed areas, they'd be called pigs and torn apart.

If you live in a world with magic or advanced tech, you'd never know if you'd thrown a trans NPC at them because they'd be presenting as their chosen gender thanks to either magic or tech or else they haven't transitioned and it's completely irrelevant because they'll be presenting as their sex.
Being a faggot is just... a thing some people are. Whether or not you suck cocks and whether or not one of those is yours is irrelevant to you healing me, providing me with goods and services, giving me my job or bleeding out from the arrow the team just put in you. How many bandits have you killed that might have been gay? How many did you ask?

You can easily assume that you've got your accurate representation, because when is it likely to come up with any NPC you meet?

Flawless

Nah

That's the reasonable way to handle it. And then there's the awkward nerd DM way:

"There's a 1% chance that any woman you seduce secretly has a penis, lol"

Rolled 49, 16, 44, 100 = 209 (4d100)

rollan

Look if I'm seducing the gnoll I know that I'm the 1% and I what I'm getting into. Or more accurately, what's getting into me.

I actually don't even know why I'm arguing! I think I just had a bad day and I'm feeling contrary. You're right. I'm glad your game is chill.

>You're right. I'm glad your game is chill.

Dear diary, Veeky Forums was pretty cool today.

>male
>young adult
>half-dragon
>unused to new size, constantly fumbling

So literally no one has brought up The Freak? The God-Walker of the Magical Transvestite from Unknown Armies?

Rolled 98, 67, 83, 94 = 342 (4d100)

All right, lets do this.

>TARRASQUE MILF
>attacks party and demands they tattoo and give her peircings

In another thread there was a guy who had a murderhobo rogue that was forced to crossdress as a woman.

Its unclear if it was magical realm though, his party made the character do it because he was wanted and needed a disguise. But the gm offered to give him a bonus if the player crossdressed as well,

"I-I'll give you a b-b-bonus is you get under the table and c-crawl over here..."

>5e
>Warlock with alter self
>Has so many identities he can no longer fully remember who he originally was
>About 20% is women
>He was pretty sure he is originally a guy
>Parry member asks if he is sure, they have travelled for a long time, and he seemed to recall an incident where the warlock was definitely a girl
>Warlock is no longer sure
This is the best version of this I have seen played.

I got a copy of his original character sheet, and it said male. The thing is that when he put on a lasting disguise, he changed the gender on his sheet to not forget it. (He initially put it in his notes, but still forgot it, so he just changed the rather arbitrary gender at the top of the sheet)

At some point, he could not actually remember what he originally was. When the party members also wasn't sure, he became unsure himself, so his assumption of being a guy was disregarded despite being true.

I was a fun character to mess with. And despite fears of magical realm, that never actually happened. Even the one time he slept with a guy while transformed into a woman was just a good old fade to black, and it was plot relevant.

...

My tiefling bard is rather androgynous and probably could pass for a woman. He's also pretty gay, but it hasn't come up much, beyond being checked out by a crummy old sailor, and being reluctant to kill a satyr.

...

>your epic level campaign now revolves around finding a way to get a Tarrasque piercings

Nothing says you switch gender though.

The problem arises when there are people who specifically want transgenderism, and not simply magic genderbending.

That's like literally wanting to go through the whole process of changing from one sex to another, AND still keep all the drama that goes with it, instead of the fantasy of magicking it away and changing completely, no complications or added bullshit at all.

Because at that point, it's clearly to nurse your boner for pity partying and the woe-is-me aspect of it.

you technically switch biological sex, not gender

Rolled 12, 46, 96, 54 = 208 (4d100)

let's go

Teenage Grey Dwarf Female, bitches about having to wear female underwear now

Seems legit

My old DM haa a genderless species that reproduced through a combination of some being able to create "eggs" and large amounts of psionic energy to create a new being. Because of how difficult it was to maintain the "egg" their genders were "Provider" and "Keeper" rather than "Male" and "Female", but it lined up with the gender roles of "Man fight, woman watch child" along with the biology of sperm and ovum (though one kid could have multiple fathers and the mother's genetics weren't passed on). Changing your role was met with mixed reactions, and with outright hostility if it would endanger an egg.

Rolled 39, 43, 85, 39 = 206 (4d100)

I've got something like that in a game I'm running. One of the party members is playing an older bounty hunter, in his 50s, who's pretty much perpetually drunk and as a result very forgetful, spacey, and playing to the drunken master schtick. However we decided that that's not entirely just the alcohol. As some of his backstory, he was originally a woman who due to tangentially plot related shenanigans, got her spirit torn from her body and stuck in the spirit realm. By the time she was able to get free her spirit was discombobulated enough and warped enough that it jumped into the first open body it could find, and ended up in the body of a man. Occasionally in the presence of spirit-realm stuff he'll get flashes of his old memory, but his character is built on half-remembered ideas of a past life.

This is mostly for his/her daughter however, who has followed in her mother's bounty-hunting footsteps and is now soon to be tracking down the party once we start the "arc" most focused on that character.

It's an A:TLA game. The daughter is June. I can't fucking wait.

Also rolling.

>1% for trans people
Last I heard, it's actually sub-1%.

I, unironically, can't wait for you to kill yourself.

I threw a Girdle of Genderswapping at my party once, knowing one of the chucklefucks would throw it on without identifying it. Hence Rosie became Roswald for several sessions. I didn't expect she would be the one to take the bait but it was good fun.

Or you show up but it isn't limelighted or called attention to. You don't mention if every middle-aged man has erectile dysfunction or not, do you? Because it's irrelevant almost every time.

I think it's around 0.3% or so, if I recall.

Rolled 67, 99, 51, 67 = 284 (4d100)

Shitting up your thread for my own curiosity.

Kill me yourself bitch.

I'm curious as to your reasoning.

Because you're an aberration, the world would be objectively better without you and your ilk in it.

>Aberration
Well shit, am I? When do I get the ability to communicate with the Deep Ones? Why did nobody inform me of my Eldritch heritage?

Extrapolate

>eldritch blast

Oh god.

I think you mean "elaborate". To extrapolate is to make deductions with the materials presented, to elaborate is to explain further.

>Mature Female Chaos Gnome
Huh. Didn't know those were a real subspecies. I'll probably enjoy getting to dress like one of those rich southwestern ladies who paints watercolors and wears brooches, that seems like a Chaos Gnome kind of aesthetic.

See if you actually believed that, if you GENUINELY believed that, you would be here, with a gun, blasting your hot load down my throat, TONIGHT. Come ventilate my boiouccy if you're really a man.

Pretty sure user means in the conventional sense, you delusional freak.

Give her Craft (Windchimes)

Don't threaten me with a good time. But seriously, why should I bother doing that when there's a fair chance

That was weird. Anyway, why should I bother doing that and potentially going to prison when you're going to do it for me soon enough?

Becauae real men do what's right when what's right needs doing. They don't leave it up to chance. Are you a man or are you a triggered little pussy that has to throw a tantrum and start kicking over sandcastles the moment something hurts hos feefees?

Find my place, show up with a gun tonight, and prove you're not a weak little bitch.

What would you know about being a real man?

It's called "sarcasm", user.
It's often used in a humorous manner, in this case it's also being used as a form of dismissal.
Poster knows that the term "aberration" is being used to degrade and refer to being something less than human in reference to their gender dysphoria. Poster also finds the sentiment laughable, so turns it into a joke based on "aberrations", a type of monster often used in tabletop, a medium in which we are all familiar and thus would be in on the joke with.

Basic communication and context is very important for understanding the English language, you'll have more fun with it when you're fluent.

I'm aware of what it is, I'm aware of what they're doing, but why should I humor the freak?

>Poster knows that the term "aberration" is being used to degrade and refer to being something less than human in reference to their gender dysphoria.
But that's accurate.

>Freak
>On the board where adults play make believe and share their thoughts and stories about it
>On the site where you're always one click away from any kind of freakshow you can think of for both interests and people generally

Seriously though, if you don't wanna humour someone you're supposed to ignore them, not give a post that seemingly completely misses the point and pull a "I was only PRETENDING to be retarded!". C'mon user, they teach this in posting 101.

Oh my god bigotposter is fucking boring.

In the spirit of anything to change the subject, here's Samus (who is newhalf) dressed as pepsi man.

Why so? Does everyone with autism count as less than human? What about any other form of mental illness or condition?
If so, what even defines human to you?

>why should I humor the freak?
you could also be silent instead of acting like a retard

It made them(You) go on the typical "it was sarcasm" monologue that no one gives a fuck about. A sarcastic remark is ruined if you have to explain it.

Yes, autists and other retards should also be killed and the people that spawned them sterilized.

>What would you know about being a real man?
I know what's not a real man, and you definitely aren't one.

Coming from a delusional faggot, that means less than nothing.

Heil hitler amirite

this kind of goes both ways