Increasing representation in your tabletop writing is a noble pursuit, but make sure your work is balanced. If your only portrayal of, say, a POC is a villain, you might inadvertedly be villainizing their culture as a whole!

For every negative portrayal, include a positive one.

— Justice Ramin Arman (@justicearman) January 18, 2022

This was some of the best advice I’ve been given over the past year or so, and it’s something I look for whenever I’m reviewing others’ work.

This also extends to monstrous portrayals. If all of your human NPCs are men, but most of the monsters are women, that’s not a good look. As with many things, there's some nuance to this, and it's not always a hard and fast rule depending on your story, the complexity of the character, or even how many NPCs you have at your disposal. But it's something to look out for.

— Justice Ramin Arman (@justicearman) January 18, 2022