I ask because I came across this comment about putting gay characters in games:  The necessity of exposing the larger playerbase to the homosexual tendencies of two of its cast mates is never really expounded upon by ScreenRant. That’s not to mention that only a tiny percentage of people even identify as on the LGBTQ spectrum, even according to Gallup, which puts the national average at 4.5%. So why exactly would Blizzard force the majority of their straight players to have to engage with the homosexual tendencies of two of its non-straight characters? ()  And here:  So what better way to get back at the core gamers who dropped one-liners and zingers that have become memes of legend, than to strip away from gamers the last remaining normal character in Overwatch? Most people figured Soldier 76 would be safe. He’s a patriotic military man, a hard-fighting soldier with undying loyalty, and a code of honor. He’s the perfect representation for what the majority of gamers like to see out of a hero. And besides, you need at least one normal sized, healthy, properly muscled straight, white male with all of his limbs intact to cater to the majority of your playerbase. Right? … RIGHT?! The average male gamer typically gravitates toward a game where there’s a character who looks like he can kick butt and take names, and Soldier 76 was that guy.  ....  The last bastion for masculinity in a game that’s constantly bleeding testosterone faster than the Overwatch League bleeds viewership, ()  It's obvious that this guy thought that 76 was straight before this. So his outrage that his face character was revealed to be gay when there was no evidence to say otherwise beforehand is pretty sad. Beyond this there is a point he makes that is interesting. Is a characters sexuality really that important? Yes most gamers are straight, but does that automatically mean that every game character needs to be straight? Or is this an appeal to the majority fallacy?
121967
As we all know, the inclusion of LGBT characters has been a mighty controversial topic in recent film and literature (). Some love it with every fiber of their being, while others absolutely detest the very thought of it. Now, keep in mind that I am not here to start a political firestorm nor am I here to preach my own personal beliefs regarding this, I'm simply asking the question: will the inclusion of LGBT characters decrease potential sales?  In our game, a pseudo-'90s JRPG, one of our main story writers added two  (of a civilization with heavy Roman influence, but with different laws), both female, married. Originally hailing from an area in which LGBT relationships are looked down upon, I was quick to note that it may be too much controversy, but it truly depends on where you live—for him it was almost completely normal.  As I see it, we have three choices.   We can keep the characters just as they are. We can keep the characters, but only imply their relationship. We can alter the relationship entirely, changing one to a male.   Right now, our main goal is to satisfy the general public while still strongly appealing to those who actually played JRPG's such as Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy back in the day. Which of these three options should we choose to best enhance our sales, or, if it's not up there, what is the wisest way to go about doing this? I am looking for facts and data if possible and/or applicable.  EDIT: Our target audience is Everyone! Like we said, we’re aiming to satisfy the general public while still appealing to those who played JRPG’s back in the ‘90s.   EDIT II: Wow. Every almost answer here contained a wealth of information, and I'd like to formally thank all that contributed. I will be using the information from just about all of these answers, and I'm sure may others facing this issue may as well.  EDIT III: If you have comments that aren’t answers or you’d like to further discuss this, please refer to the  as opposed to commenting. Thanks!
46289
I DM for a group of a group of rather intellectual players. They like to discuss the situations at hand and really try to do the right things. I use that a lot by posing them with moral questions and missions where the "good" solution is not always obvious or even contradicts the mission target.  So far this worked out very well, but last round a new player joined our game. She plays an impatient, man-hating Amazon (her self-chosen description). The man-hating part kinda does work since she frequently gets into arguments with the male players, which is funny, but the impatient part is the real trouble.  Whenever the group stops to discuss something, she interrupts and just wants to fight stuff. Whenever they talk (in character) about anything else than the mission she interrupts saying that it doesn't matter or doesn't help the group.  Also, whenever someone says anything against her, she does get a bit offended.  In the end of the mission I put a moral choice, where they had to retrieve a magical object, but by doing so kill a whole forest and everything within it. While the rest of the group was discussing it, and trying to find a different solution (of which there where some), she just went ahead and cut that object from it's socket, thus killing the whole forest. This in turn will have negative consequences for the group and the world they live in in the sessions to come.  I expected her to be like that so I included a couple of things where only thinking would get them ahead and just charging into fights would hurt them, but she doesn't care about consequences and just barges in.  Since she doesn't fit into the group at all, I'd usually just put her into another of my groups where she'd fit better, but she's the girlfriend of one of the core players of that group, so I can't do that.  I thought about having an NPC, that the rest of the group know, join the group and keep her in check every time she goes overboard again, but I fear that by limiting her I'd take the fun away for her.  My problem here is not that I don't want the players to commit mass murder. I have another group that is quite murderous and that's fine. The problem here is that I have a quite homogenous group and one player that really doesn't fit the group. It's not even so much about her murdering people (which can be quite fun in an otherwise good minded group) but that she is disrupting the kind of play that the other players want to have.  Do you have any ideas what I can do here?  This is not so much a My-Guy-Syndrome, but rather a clash of expectations. I talked to the player in question. It is really not about her "having" to stick to her character, but rather that her character reflects herself. She says of herself that she is impatient and that she rather wants to fight than to discuss. In the end she wanted to get transferred into my other group, which is more combat-oriented and generally more diverse.
31768
The achievement "Distinguished Service" requires that you beat Uprising on the regular gamemode on Legendary difficulty.  This means we can't pick our usual huge DPS heroes like Bastion and Orisa, and are stuck with Torbjorn, Reinhardt, Mercy, and Tracer.  The phases are as follows:   Hack all 3 terminals Defend the Payload until it's ready Escort the Payload until the gate Destroy all 4 Orisas.   So I ask this after having failed Uprising on Legendary dozens of times.   How do I beat Uprising on all 4 phases?   Specifically asking for the latter 3 phases.    Defending the payload is hard when it gets to the Bastions that drop in because Reinhardt's shield gets melted very quickly and Torbjorn has little to no DPS.  Tracer must be relied on but it seems there is no way to stop the perfect aim of Bastion as strafing around does nothing.  If and when we actually do manage to defend it, we're stuck on escorting, which is even harder thanks to the tank mode Bastions.  And finally, even if we do make it to the final fight, which has only happened once, the fight is so tough that even if we slowly inch ourselves closer to the end we run out of time.  The previous question I asked was different because Uprising (All Heroes) allows you to pick any 4 heroes to form your squad, but the original gamemode will not let you pick. Also, the achievement requires you to play the original mode -- Uprising (All Heroes) on Legendary does not reward players with the achievement.
23037
According to the  video, researchers have been able to develop an AI unit that is able to experience emotional states, such as greed, hunger, and curiosity. If the AI is currently experiencing an emotion, it will engage in certain behaviors. For example, if Mario is very greedy, Mario will look for coins. This approach is very similar to the Sims video game series, where emotional states are also represented, and AI characters will attempt to fulfill those drives.  Now, I can concede that the Mario AI is effective at simulating emotions. The media, however, has gone beyond this. Two articles, in particular,  troubles me.       I can accept the idea of Mario 'learning'. I can even accept the idea that Mario is 'self-aware' within his own environment. But I cannot intuitively accept the idea that Mario is feeling any emotions. It seems weird to think that EA programmers and German AI researchers were both able to accomplish the dreams of science fiction writers all over the world, and without anybody ever noticing.  Maybe my intuition is wrong though, and maybe Mario is indeed feeling emotions (even if they are not the same emotions as humans feel).
91381
So I've been thinking if it's possible to join the Stormcloaks only to realize Ulfric's an ass and kill him after that at some point of the game (I know you can't just go and kill him at first because he's an important NPC for the main story quests).  I don't want to join the Empire and - in my mind - what would make sense in my character's storyline would be him joining the Stormcloaks at first (because of how the game starts and my character being a Nord and having escaped with Ralof), but later realizing how Ulfric is only after power and how his fight against the Empire might even benefit the Altmers by weakening both forces (Empire and Rebellion). His Talos talk is just an excuse for his actions, as I see it. I really don't like this guy (he's a crazy racist who would do anything for power), but I also don't like what the Empire has become.  Please note that I don't really want spoilers about the plot, I just want to know if it is possible to challenge Ulfric to one-on-one combat "in the Old Nord Way" or just take the Rebellion for myself by assassinating him.
67003
I rarely play characters of the opposite sex, and I find that I'm not very good at it, at least in my own estimation.  This is hampering when I GM because it limits my range, and makes things hard when I do role-play a female.   I'm comparing my depiction of females to how I would play a male character, and I'm not seeing any difference, besides the bad falsetto. Women do make different choices and have a different way of arriving at a conclusion than men, but I'm not very good at mimicking that.  How can I improve this ability, and how different should I really make female characters than male?  Is this dependent on culture?
28352
How can we make our character move smoothly across tiles? He moves tile by tile, but that looks unprofessional. In addition, when you hold down the arrow keys he zips across the screen. How can we prevent that from happening?
67498
I know that the game hasn't even been out for a week, but does anyone know if any cheat codes have been released by Activision yet?  I know that they must exist since there is a cheat codes menu within the game.
99839
I know , but wouldn't they be better without the horizontal scroll bars?   Sort of related to . (The consensus seemed to be that people were lazy or didn't notice. But there are still some legitimate reasons to have lines over 80 chars or so.)
62831
How do I help the PCs to create meaningful relationships with NPCs?   Maybe it is a result of my group playing too many one-dimensional adventures trying to find whatever MacGuffin they are after each week, but most of the time my PCs don't tend to value NPCs too much. Every time they meet an NPC they quickly evaluate what immediate values the NPC can give or tend to ignore them.  What I would really like is to have some good relationships where the PCs actually go out of their way to help NPCs without selfish motivation or even just to try to think of NPCs more and how their actions affect others.  I am not looking for a specific game rules solution to this, but instead techniques to get the players to feel attachment to these fictional characters.
49895
I am a member of the network and posting anonymously for my safety.  CW: References to and examples of hate speech  I don't want to put blame anywhere, but unfortunately due to the huge turmoil created by the recent CoC changes, several right-wing websites have started reporting and thus directed attention of far-right groups to this network. I don't want to provide any links, but it's not too difficult to find examples with your favorite web search engine.  Now, while you have the typical gut wrenching hate speech with murder and torture fantasies, there was one particular case where someone posted pseudo-code for automatically going through the member database of SE and finding users who have listed their pronouns in their "about me" section. The pseudo-code then moved those users into a category for torture and extermination. While at this point it's pseudo-code I fear it's not too unlikely to think that someone could put this into a working tool for doxxing LGBTQ users on this platform. It seems that the Neo-Nazis consider the downvotes on the CoC FAQ an affirmation of their views.  I therefore have removed my pronouns from my "about me" section. This is unfortunate. In the past I did feel welcome. The few situations in the past where someone misgendered me have all been resolved quickly and easily, with everyone being friendly, understanding and accepting when I corrected them.  Now I don't dare correct people any more, not because I fear backlash from the particular person in the particular situation, but because literal Neo-Nazis are now watching this platform with horrible intentions.  I have no idea how to fix this, but I guess we can only wait for things to settle down.
20004
In the vein of  - Pete Hines, Bethesda's VP of PR and Marketing, when asked if Skyrim would support gay marriage :     You can marry anyone...Not any NPC, just mean any male or female.   So obviously some NPCs are off the list.  I assume I can't marry Jarl Balgruuf, but what about Irileth?  What about the Graybeards?  What about already-married NPCs?  Is it any "important" NPC, or is it more or less than that?  Has the Skyrim Creation Kit shed any light on how to determine this?
99840
This question has nothing to do with whether or not SE wants to fix   things or engage with the community, the answers to that are already   known: ‘nothing to fix’ and ‘no’. This is about the origins of the   discontent with the way the long time veteran community as a whole has   been vilified and blamed for the few rate bad actors in the past and   used as a scape-goat for whatever the corporate entity has in mind for   their future to save their reputation or whatever.   TL;DR  It is not and never has been  It is not, and it is not about Monica either, she is caught in the middle of something, made a public example of as a warning, and all that was completely avoidable regardless of her opinion on the pronouns and the CoC.  It is just the logical backlash against the continuation of the blanket vilification that the Stack Overflow community experienced with the Jay Hanlon , but now applied/implemented against the entire StackExchange of communities.   There are many that are on the autistic spectrum that are probably an inordinate percentage of the technical communities, especially Stack Overflow, and when they get accused of malice when there is none and without any proof in the comments and their flags of abuse are ignored and they are sent curt messages by the moderators handling the flags to suck it up, or that they are mocking someone when they are asking a legit question in all sincerity, it seems like a double standard and hypocrisy at its most egregious cases.   I am done with the abuse here, from the moderation staff, from those that just want to lash out at everyone and accuse everyone of everything implicitly just because that is the popular thing to do right now. And to paraphrase Jay Hanlon,      I know when I am not wanted or appreciated, you know how? Because, you   told me so ...   The first 3 or 4 dozen times should have been enough of a message, but then again, those of use that are on the spectrum do not get the hint as easily as others.   And to those that think, good the problem people are self removing themselves, good riddance, I put 10 years into SO, had a huge impact number and never once was abusive to any group. I was vocal when people attacked me or my character in public comments and their comments were allowed to stand because they were part of the cool kids weaponizing the first CoC changes, because well they were better at manipulating language and people to language lawyer their abuse as polite,  when one person did comment in my defense that polite abuse is still abuse they got their comment deleted as well. You are losing allies, with no sarcasm, your online paradise you are creating, I hope you get what you want.  This outcome, this place the sites are in, is not unexpected and could be completely predicted and completely avoided.
51117
I suppose you all have read  unpopular answer. People have responded critically and sarcastically towards SE's declaration that they "will not be answering any questions or comments about that going forward". Assume SE will hold firmly onto their declaration, all current situations (License change, fired mods, CoC mess) will remain permanently under the status quo, and the community's voice will be constantly ignored, possibly with radical ones removed. It's like we're no longer able to change, or even affect whatever SE's heads have decided or are going to decide.  A harsh comparison for SE is against Hong Kong, where so far only 1 out of 5 demands has been fulfilled and the remaining ones seemingly unreachable. While HK citizens can subvert the government, we most likely won't since SE is a commercial company after all. I've seen attempts to replicate the functionality on a new website (I assert I saw that in a user profile but can't find it now), but I'm not positive towards its future of building another community. What are our next steps at the current situation?  If I must say - I would unwillingly say that we proceed as usual - but I guess many won't accept this "solution".
14103
I believe that it is generally a good thing that all the PCs travel together, as a "party". This way the GM has to manage one environment – not, say, five. The problem is how the GM can ensure such a relationship between the characters.  One simple and really great solution is to require the players to design their characters so that they know each other. This has the added advantage of cross-backstories – as the players try to adjust their stories to fit together, they get and create hooks for more narrative!  However, I am now experimenting with giving the players complete freedom at character creation and later meeting in-game. No luck so far.  It is not easy, as trusting someone with your life (what happens during combat) is not a trivial thing. Furthermore, people generally like others with the same behaviour/interests/skin colour. Fantasy is all about diversity – you do not character-generate a strong man with a sword, no, you generate a half-ogre with an axe never before seen!  How can the GM get players, with diverse characters who are strangers to each other, decide to have their PCs act as a coherent group. I absolutely want to avoid asking my players to just solve this through metagaming ("Hey Joe, think of a way to get together with those, I can't story-tell two separate groups at the same time!").  I'm not having the stereotypical problem where a bunch of PCs meet for the first time and are automatically so paranoid of strangers that they start trying to kill each other. My players have just created a bunch of characters who have their own legitimate interests, and are faithfully following those in completely different directions that don't result in a classic "party". I put the PCs in great peril together and everyone escaped by their own devices, but now I have to figure out get the guy who ran for the hills back together with the couple that entered the city. And, I want to do it by resorting only to reasonable in-game events, not out-of-game metagame suggestions.
11882
I'm looking through the PHB and I notice that none of the Classes explicitly state an Alignment or Race limitation.  There is flavor text, but there is nothing that looks like a rule. I see some stuff scattered around, e.g., Alignments lists Paladins under Lawful Good. This seems like an actual rule since it doesn't say "Many Paladins" or "Most Paladins" but very definitively "Paladins". I know that Paladins are Lawful Good in older revisions, but assuming I knew nothing about D&amp;D, is there a definitive (RAW) grid somewhere in the PHB or supplemental documentation?  Or is a Neutral Good Tiefling Rogue perfectly acceptable?
32975
It was noted that the Terminators (T101) were infiltrator units, designed to infiltrate the resistance.  Given the ragged undernourished humans of the time, wouldn't making an infiltrator body into the hulking over-built Conan The Destroyer frame be something totally illogical if your goal is to blend in?   Why not use a more "normal" body? Robots already have metal frame and super-strong muscles, so size wasn't required to bump the combat capacity as with flesh and bone humans.