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Tuesday, June 29, 2021
Keep your culture wars out of my D&D game!
Dungeons & Dragons is not an inherently political game. Groups of adventurers are small enough that they usually don't have defined political structures, and group dynamics depend on the personalities of the people involved. Before 5th edition, D&D was also a rather private game, played between friends. Those groups of friends tended to be homogeneous, with not much political or cultural conflict potential between them.
5th edition brought D&D into the mainstream, and onto video platforms where thousands of strangers could watch a game. Suddenly people running that sort of game needed to worry whether their epic campaign in which the players fought against the orcs for control of a fantasy kingdom could be interpreted as being racist. And companies trying to sell something in the D&D space needed to make sure that they were sufficiently "woke" to not offend the liberals.
But D&D has a cultural problem: It is very much a product of white, heterosexual, male culture. And in the culture wars, this is the only group not allowed to have their own culture. Nobody would complain these days that Blues music is "too black", but people do complain that D&D is "too white". The cultural orientation of D&D was never by design. All the groups I ever played with loved having for example female players. The percentage of D&D players playing a character of another gender is actually much higher than the percentage of transgender people in real life. And groups pretty much always consist of characters of a mix of different races. But if you put up a sign in a local gaming store looking for players, you simply mostly get men, and most of them will be white. The heroic fantasy genre simply attracts certain groups more than others. That led to some conflict on platforms like YouTube, where some D&D groups who put up content and looked for sponsorship from companies like Roll20 were told that these companies refused to sponsor groups that were overwhelmingly white heterosexual males. The larger audiences created a culture war in a domain where actually no conflict existed before.
And like so often, this creates a backlash. Now some right wing nutters around one of the descendants of Gary Gygax are forming a new company using the original TSR name, and are pushing a deliberately offensive and anti-woke agenda. The natural tendency of gamers to claim "my game is better than your game" is now being expressed in terms of how woke or anti-woke the game is. When in reality pen & paper roleplaying is fundamentally neutral, as it is a medium, a form of expression, which like a blank piece of paper is able to be used to express all sorts of thoughts. Roleplaying is a great way of self-expression. D&D has always been a refuge for the less popular, less socially accepted kids. A kid who was "different" always had a better chance to find acceptance at the local D&D table than in let's say sports. The last thing the hobby needs is a thought police from either side.
Labels: Dungeons & Dragons
- posted by Tobold @ 9:50 AM Permanent Link
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I agree with most of your points. It is true that I am not seeing any racism in the TTRPG that I know and play with my friends.
But on the other had, one of your comment appears stupid for me : "And in the culture wars, this is the only group not allowed to have their own culture." Clearly, white culture exist and is the dominant one. From superheros to Greek mythology, through movies and books, 99% of the culture we are exposed to - at least in Europe - comes from occidental white culture.
Seeing it from France, the woke culture is a minority, even not so vocal. It is mainly a tweeter thing, with very few impact in the real world. It might be different in other countries.
But on the other had, one of your comment appears stupid for me : "And in the culture wars, this is the only group not allowed to have their own culture." Clearly, white culture exist and is the dominant one. From superheros to Greek mythology, through movies and books, 99% of the culture we are exposed to - at least in Europe - comes from occidental white culture.
Seeing it from France, the woke culture is a minority, even not so vocal. It is mainly a tweeter thing, with very few impact in the real world. It might be different in other countries.
Yes, obviously white culture exists. But in the, admittedly US-centric, culture wars, history is not a valid excuse. For example the problem the Witcher had, because their game based on medieval Polish history didn’t include enough black people. And on the other side of the divide, a series like Netflix’ Bridgerton, where half of the nobles in Regency England are depicted as black, in blatant disregard for actual history. There is a very 1984ish vibe of “who controls the past, controls the future” going on in these culture wars.
If you're going to start parsing commercial entertainment for historical accuracy you're going to come up with a very short list indeed. More pertinently, a dominant, majority culture, by definition, can never be "not allowed" to express itself freely. That's simply a paradox that can't exist. If you start from the premise that "white, heterosexual, male" is the currently dominant, majority faction in a given culture, which would appear to be a reasonable position regarding Europe and the United States, de facto that is the group least requiring of "permission" from other groups to do and express itself as it likes.
In those circumstances, if "white, heterosexual, male" culure is in any way being restrained it must be, necessarily, with the consent, active or passive, of that culture. I suspect you may be confusing the disatisfaction of a segment of "white, heterosexual, male" culture with its whole.
In those circumstances, if "white, heterosexual, male" culure is in any way being restrained it must be, necessarily, with the consent, active or passive, of that culture. I suspect you may be confusing the disatisfaction of a segment of "white, heterosexual, male" culture with its whole.
"But if you put up a sign in a local gaming store looking for players, you simply mostly get men, and most of them will be white."
So why do you think this is? Is it because the game truly doesn't appeal to minorities and women or is it because for decades it was marketed and designed for the "default" which other posters have pointed out are white straight dudes.
This same line is said about video games. How many times do we see people say things like women don't like video games. Yet as time has gone on and mobile games have become popular as and gaming has crossed into the mainstream we see that women are one of the fastest growing segments of consumers of video games. Did women all of a sudden start liking games or was it something else?
Let's look at sports. Men often say things like well women's sports have less of an audience and attracts less players. On the surface that's true. But it also neglects the history of decades spent on growing men's sports women often not having an option to play at all. Well no duh less women are going to play and less people are going to watch.
How does that change? Do we try to promote women's sports? Or do we just throw our hands up and say oh well women must not like to play and no one watches anyways so what's the point?
People like to cite "history" as the reason things are the way they are yet neglect that history shows things have benefitted, catered to, and were designed for the "default" for centuries.
History is all encompassing. Cherry picking pieces of history to say "that's the way it's always been" while ignoring the WHY it was like that and other factors involved is a fallacy a lot of people fall in to.
So why do you think this is? Is it because the game truly doesn't appeal to minorities and women or is it because for decades it was marketed and designed for the "default" which other posters have pointed out are white straight dudes.
This same line is said about video games. How many times do we see people say things like women don't like video games. Yet as time has gone on and mobile games have become popular as and gaming has crossed into the mainstream we see that women are one of the fastest growing segments of consumers of video games. Did women all of a sudden start liking games or was it something else?
Let's look at sports. Men often say things like well women's sports have less of an audience and attracts less players. On the surface that's true. But it also neglects the history of decades spent on growing men's sports women often not having an option to play at all. Well no duh less women are going to play and less people are going to watch.
How does that change? Do we try to promote women's sports? Or do we just throw our hands up and say oh well women must not like to play and no one watches anyways so what's the point?
People like to cite "history" as the reason things are the way they are yet neglect that history shows things have benefitted, catered to, and were designed for the "default" for centuries.
History is all encompassing. Cherry picking pieces of history to say "that's the way it's always been" while ignoring the WHY it was like that and other factors involved is a fallacy a lot of people fall in to.
Yet as time has gone on and mobile games have become popular as and gaming has crossed into the mainstream we see that women are one of the fastest growing segments of consumers of video games.
That is a somewhat misleading statement. Fast growing, yes. But definitively not playing the same games. If you publish a new triple A game today with a hardcore “Dark Souls” -like gameplay, you can be pretty certain that over 90% of your customers will be male. And the same thing is true for roleplaying games: Combat-centric, heroic fantasy games attract more men, but there are games which are more about social interaction where groups are more frequently mixed.
I don’t know how you can work in some sort of accusatory language in the fact that tastes of men and women are different. And have always been. You don’t get the same gender mix in a cinema either for Rambo and Dirty Dancing. That has nothing to do with marketing.
That is a somewhat misleading statement. Fast growing, yes. But definitively not playing the same games. If you publish a new triple A game today with a hardcore “Dark Souls” -like gameplay, you can be pretty certain that over 90% of your customers will be male. And the same thing is true for roleplaying games: Combat-centric, heroic fantasy games attract more men, but there are games which are more about social interaction where groups are more frequently mixed.
I don’t know how you can work in some sort of accusatory language in the fact that tastes of men and women are different. And have always been. You don’t get the same gender mix in a cinema either for Rambo and Dirty Dancing. That has nothing to do with marketing.
@Tobold
You don’t get the same gender mix in a cinema either for Rambo...
While Rambo was made in an era where being "woke" was not a thing, you can surely bet that if another film from the franchise were made today, that the studio would be required to have focus studies on how to attract the widest audience, which could in turn, effect how the script was to be written, and again, could effect character selection in an attempt to broaden the appeal of the movie to more viewers. The same holds true for your next statement...
If you publish a new triple A game today with a hardcore “Dark Souls” -like gameplay, you can be pretty certain that over 90% of your customers will be male.
Do you honestly think that a game from a major publisher would not be crafted in such a way so as to broaden the audience appeal in todays climate? What if the game included a female protagonist and the story was crafted in such a way that it appealed to female gamers as well? Would your 90% of male customers be justified in showing outrage and not purchasing the game? And what would their justification for that decision be based on? Would you consider it to be a rational decision?
If combat-centric games attract more males, as you state, what would be the harm or foul if future iterations of the same game were designed to have a broader appeal to women? Personally, and as a white heterosexual male, I have no issues with women wanting to play D&D. What I do have a problem with is the "cancel" culture that exists to where people lose their jobs when they openly resist any of the changes I speak of above. So either the "right wing nutters" forming the new TSR company are right, or they are wrong. So why is it so wrong to let people vote with their wallets in support of, or against these kinds of ideas?
You don’t get the same gender mix in a cinema either for Rambo...
While Rambo was made in an era where being "woke" was not a thing, you can surely bet that if another film from the franchise were made today, that the studio would be required to have focus studies on how to attract the widest audience, which could in turn, effect how the script was to be written, and again, could effect character selection in an attempt to broaden the appeal of the movie to more viewers. The same holds true for your next statement...
If you publish a new triple A game today with a hardcore “Dark Souls” -like gameplay, you can be pretty certain that over 90% of your customers will be male.
Do you honestly think that a game from a major publisher would not be crafted in such a way so as to broaden the audience appeal in todays climate? What if the game included a female protagonist and the story was crafted in such a way that it appealed to female gamers as well? Would your 90% of male customers be justified in showing outrage and not purchasing the game? And what would their justification for that decision be based on? Would you consider it to be a rational decision?
If combat-centric games attract more males, as you state, what would be the harm or foul if future iterations of the same game were designed to have a broader appeal to women? Personally, and as a white heterosexual male, I have no issues with women wanting to play D&D. What I do have a problem with is the "cancel" culture that exists to where people lose their jobs when they openly resist any of the changes I speak of above. So either the "right wing nutters" forming the new TSR company are right, or they are wrong. So why is it so wrong to let people vote with their wallets in support of, or against these kinds of ideas?
"I don’t know how you can work in some sort of accusatory language in the fact that tastes of men and women are different. And have always been."
You are kind of missing what I'm getting at Tobold.
Are men just naturally predisposed to like medieval fantasy tropes or is it because we have spent decades teaching kids those tropes are for boys and girls should be playing with dolls and cooking toys?
Do men like Rambo because they are just naturally more aggressive and like action or because we spent decades teaching boys to be "manly" and girls to be dainty?
While yes obviously people's tastes differ we aren't raised in a vacuum and people are shaped by the culture around them. It's no wonder less girls like Rambo when the culture they grew up in discouraged them from liking things like Rambo.
In Fornite about 30% of players are females. In gaming overall only about 7% of players in shooters are women.
Why are more women playing Fornite then other shooters? The core gameplay is same, shooting. This tells me the issue is more involved then just "women don't like shooters".
You are kind of missing what I'm getting at Tobold.
Are men just naturally predisposed to like medieval fantasy tropes or is it because we have spent decades teaching kids those tropes are for boys and girls should be playing with dolls and cooking toys?
Do men like Rambo because they are just naturally more aggressive and like action or because we spent decades teaching boys to be "manly" and girls to be dainty?
While yes obviously people's tastes differ we aren't raised in a vacuum and people are shaped by the culture around them. It's no wonder less girls like Rambo when the culture they grew up in discouraged them from liking things like Rambo.
In Fornite about 30% of players are females. In gaming overall only about 7% of players in shooters are women.
Why are more women playing Fornite then other shooters? The core gameplay is same, shooting. This tells me the issue is more involved then just "women don't like shooters".
What if the game included a female protagonist and the story was crafted in such a way that it appealed to female gamers as well?
How many women play Bayonetta?
I don’t believe that it is necessarily a question of the gender of the protagonist. The whole idea of the importance of representation is overblown. In a completely abstract game you would still get more men in a more competitive and hardcore game, and more women in a casual game.
The excuse that this is all because boys are given tin soldiers to play, and girls are given dolls, is a bit last century. Kids in this century are educated a lot less gender-stereotypical. And still girls behave differently than boys. A good part of one’s nature is genetic, not learned.
How many women play Bayonetta?
I don’t believe that it is necessarily a question of the gender of the protagonist. The whole idea of the importance of representation is overblown. In a completely abstract game you would still get more men in a more competitive and hardcore game, and more women in a casual game.
The excuse that this is all because boys are given tin soldiers to play, and girls are given dolls, is a bit last century. Kids in this century are educated a lot less gender-stereotypical. And still girls behave differently than boys. A good part of one’s nature is genetic, not learned.
There are genres which are popular with women, and games in those genres (time management and hidden objects for example) often have female-centric plots and protagonists. This is not new.
I would not like to see developers of these games pressed to change them in order to make them more attractive to men, any more than I want to see developers of genres popular with men pressed to change them in order to make them more attractive to women.
I would not like to see developers of these games pressed to change them in order to make them more attractive to men, any more than I want to see developers of genres popular with men pressed to change them in order to make them more attractive to women.
Certainly men and women do have inherently different tastes, on average. However, I don't think we are anywhere near figuring out how much of that is because of how they tend to be enculturated when growing up vs. inherent psychological differences.
That said, I get really frustrated with woke culture sometimes. The main reason is that I agree with most of their ultimate goals, and the movement shoots itself in the foot by constantly getting upset over things that no reasonable person should be upset about. Whether a fantasy race in a PnP setting is similar to the race in the literature that it's is based on/ steals from is something I am prepared to put on that list.
That said, I get really frustrated with woke culture sometimes. The main reason is that I agree with most of their ultimate goals, and the movement shoots itself in the foot by constantly getting upset over things that no reasonable person should be upset about. Whether a fantasy race in a PnP setting is similar to the race in the literature that it's is based on/ steals from is something I am prepared to put on that list.
@Tobold
I don’t believe that it is necessarily a question of the gender of the protagonist. The whole idea of the importance of representation is overblown.
I agree that the gender of the protagonist is less of a an issue, but representation is a point that could be well argued. WoW hit the ground running with multiple races and a healthy representation of both sexes for all races. Would WoW have been as successful if it only had male characters? The answer to that question would obviously be no, so I think representation does play a key role in making players feel welcome in the game world.
I think the key distinction here is how you are comparing single player games(Dark Souls, Bayonetta..etc.) with games such as D&D. The reason I say this, is that D&D has no rules about who is allowed to play. Everything is dealt with on a social contract level, which can vary from group to group, and could very well present issues when one group determines that the game was made only for them to play. It's akin to someone giving a homeless woman a Monopoly board game and then snickering to themselves as they walk back to their home to play with "smart, educated, and successful white CIS hetero male" players. I highly doubt that you would argue that this behavior would be something that is determined by gender or genetic disposition, or that it would be acceptable behavior. It is obviously a behavior that is rooted in the prevailing cultural ideologies to which that person belongs.
I don’t believe that it is necessarily a question of the gender of the protagonist. The whole idea of the importance of representation is overblown.
I agree that the gender of the protagonist is less of a an issue, but representation is a point that could be well argued. WoW hit the ground running with multiple races and a healthy representation of both sexes for all races. Would WoW have been as successful if it only had male characters? The answer to that question would obviously be no, so I think representation does play a key role in making players feel welcome in the game world.
I think the key distinction here is how you are comparing single player games(Dark Souls, Bayonetta..etc.) with games such as D&D. The reason I say this, is that D&D has no rules about who is allowed to play. Everything is dealt with on a social contract level, which can vary from group to group, and could very well present issues when one group determines that the game was made only for them to play. It's akin to someone giving a homeless woman a Monopoly board game and then snickering to themselves as they walk back to their home to play with "smart, educated, and successful white CIS hetero male" players. I highly doubt that you would argue that this behavior would be something that is determined by gender or genetic disposition, or that it would be acceptable behavior. It is obviously a behavior that is rooted in the prevailing cultural ideologies to which that person belongs.
I would find your point about World of Warcraft more credible if I knew of any MMORPG ever that had only male characters!
Everything is dealt with on a social contract level, which can vary from group to group, and could very well present issues when one group determines that the game was made only for them to play.
*Because* everything is dealt with on a social contract level, D&D doesn't need political interference from either left or right on what can and what cannot be represented in the game. D&D gives you the freedom to play with male and female players, each of which can play a male or female character of whatever sexuality. But that has to be their choice! You can't tell the last player who rolls his character that he needs to play a female character, just so that the gender distribution in the group is representative. You can't tell your group that they aren't eligible to play together, because there isn't a homosexual black guy among them. It's awesome that D&D has optional rules for characters in wheelchairs, but those rules need to remain optional, for players who for personal reasons want to play such a character.
*Because* everything is dealt with on a social contract level, D&D doesn't need political interference from either left or right on what can and what cannot be represented in the game. D&D gives you the freedom to play with male and female players, each of which can play a male or female character of whatever sexuality. But that has to be their choice! You can't tell the last player who rolls his character that he needs to play a female character, just so that the gender distribution in the group is representative. You can't tell your group that they aren't eligible to play together, because there isn't a homosexual black guy among them. It's awesome that D&D has optional rules for characters in wheelchairs, but those rules need to remain optional, for players who for personal reasons want to play such a character.
@Tobold
You can't tell the last player who rolls his character that he needs to play a female character, just so that the gender distribution in the group is representative. You can't tell your group that they aren't eligible to play together, because there isn't a homosexual black guy among them.
Oh come on, Tobold. This is a bit of a stretch, even from you. If you know of actual political processes that are trying to force these things you speak of, please point them out and we can discuss them with some merit. Also, what is your definition of when something becomes political? I ask this because it seems that you forget that political correctness has been around in the US since at least the 80's when "words" first started to become offensive....long before the age of the internet. Loot boxes became politicized when the backlash from them became so great that certain politicians felt compelled to take action against them. But I'm just not seeing a political push to force the things you mention in your above reply. Social activism, perhaps? Most certainly.
You can't tell the last player who rolls his character that he needs to play a female character, just so that the gender distribution in the group is representative. You can't tell your group that they aren't eligible to play together, because there isn't a homosexual black guy among them.
Oh come on, Tobold. This is a bit of a stretch, even from you. If you know of actual political processes that are trying to force these things you speak of, please point them out and we can discuss them with some merit. Also, what is your definition of when something becomes political? I ask this because it seems that you forget that political correctness has been around in the US since at least the 80's when "words" first started to become offensive....long before the age of the internet. Loot boxes became politicized when the backlash from them became so great that certain politicians felt compelled to take action against them. But I'm just not seeing a political push to force the things you mention in your above reply. Social activism, perhaps? Most certainly.
If you know of actual political processes that are trying to force these things you speak of, please point them out and we can discuss them with some merit.
Here you are! YouTuber pitching a D&D stream event to a company and being told: "We don't want to do business with you, because you are five white men."
Here you are! YouTuber pitching a D&D stream event to a company and being told: "We don't want to do business with you, because you are five white men."
@Tobold
Here you are! YouTuber pitching a D&D stream event to a company and being told: "We don't want to do business with you, because you are five white men."
I watched the entirety of that video and I fail to see how this incident is politically motivated. The presenter even makes remarks about the SJW angle of what was said, and accurately states that it is racist in nature. He then pitches another company in lieu of Roll20 and basically asks his followers to vote with their wallets in support of the other company. But again, I have to stress that what was represented in the video was not political in nature, but rather it was just more of the same inane SJW blather by an employee who works for an obviously socially progressive company. If gaming is to be affected by political machinations, where is the partisan advocacy needed for it to become an actual political issue?
Here you are! YouTuber pitching a D&D stream event to a company and being told: "We don't want to do business with you, because you are five white men."
I watched the entirety of that video and I fail to see how this incident is politically motivated. The presenter even makes remarks about the SJW angle of what was said, and accurately states that it is racist in nature. He then pitches another company in lieu of Roll20 and basically asks his followers to vote with their wallets in support of the other company. But again, I have to stress that what was represented in the video was not political in nature, but rather it was just more of the same inane SJW blather by an employee who works for an obviously socially progressive company. If gaming is to be affected by political machinations, where is the partisan advocacy needed for it to become an actual political issue?
Isn't racial segregation a political issue, and has been since the 60s? Why would "we don't want to do business with you on our lunch counter, because you are black" be a political issue, and "we don't want to do business with you on our YouTube channel, because you are white" be not a political issue?
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