Ischaldirh wrote
That all aside, there are other reasonably valid explanations for referring to these creatures as "it". For example, it may simply be that morphologically, male and female monstrous humanoids are nearly indistinguishable. It would not be unprecedented - many animals on Earth are difficult to sex. Perhaps it would require a high INT or WIS score to be able to tell the difference. Additionally, they may actually simply all be sexless: creatures spawned by Cruentus for the sole purpose of war and violence.
+1
Yeah I don't think it has anything to do with charisma. It's just that there's no discernible difference, or they don't have a sex at all.
Look at the animals vs. the humanoids:
- lions have a visible difference (mane), and I think all the lions in game have a mane. But they're still referred to as "it" not "he" right?
- That makes me think it has less to do with charisma and more with intelligence. The "it" seems to me more referring to them as savage creatures with lower intelligence. And of course this is relative - to the humans the kobolds are savage dumb brutes, even though they may have their own society
- for animals that don't have a visible difference, it would be strange to say "he" or "she" - how can the player tell? (The odd exception is the adult male vs. female carnivorous mutant bunnies. Maybe we should remove those gender modifiers and just call them "adult")
- the same should apply to kobolds, orcs, etc. They're all ugly, their gender bits are covered by clothing, so the player can't tell. I do think it would be somewhat interesting to read "she blocks your attack" or "he hits you" when fighting a goblin. But we should look at each species individually and decide which ones have a discernible difference. The NPCs have an assigned gender because they're relatively famous - the player recognizes them, knows who they are.