Hello, I'm Felix, an independent game dev and writer since 2016. The purpose of this post is not to advertise my goods, but rather take an in depth approach into the madness and hostility I've encountered among "players" in the hobby. I'm not interested in hearing your personal opinion about me, so please show some self control and avoid dissolving this thread into something else.
From my perspective, for someone who returned to the tabletop scene in the last few years, I noticed the trpg hobby in particular is utterly divided. Shocker! Well, not really but YES, really!! I personally enjoy healthy disagreements, it's part of being human. Disagreements have been around since the dawn of time. It will remain a necessity. Sometimes you'll persuade others to your cause, sometimes you won't. It's okay to disagree, on whatever topic. The world won't end, I promise.
The trouble starts when you see cringeworthy behavior left and right, up and down. I mean, it was just like walking into a psychiatric hospital at first glance. It should come to no surprise the hobby in general is as unwelcoming and as closed off as it can be to new players. Gatekeeping is at ludicrous levels, harassment is rampant. Now, if I were to say everyone behaves in such manner, I would be no different. It isn't right to generalize a community in general over a few twisted individuals. Unfortunately the few are many when it comes to the hobby.
Fortunately there's still places like here, therpgsite, where speaking your mind isn't against the rules. Unlike everywhere else. To my understanding you gotta be a real asshole to get banned from the site. If you respect free speech and value creative freedom it's likely we will get along just fine. If you believe in twisted ideology and has problem with creative freedom then please do us real people all a favor and leave this hobby never to return. Stop trying to pass your unhappiness onto others, learn when to stop, seek help. Behave as you would in real life. Practice kindness and stop thinking people need to impress you, or get on your good side. According to google, we live in a world with a population of 7.753 billion (2020), you and I are like a spec of dust. Your desire to be superior makes you weak, and it shows.
That's why I thank my loyal fanbase with utmost sincerity from time to time, because when you look around there's nothing but assholes, bullies, and idiots in most communities related to the hobby. I kinda hope this thread becomes useful to anyone who takes the hobby serious and really enjoys it. Because it continues to get dissolved into shit by far too many. I thought the hobby was full of intellectual people, what happened?
Edit: One typo, please don't ask for a refund.
Yes, we've all seen it and the bulk of the problem seems to be based on ones personal politics and if you see games as a place that should be mostly free of such, or if you see it as a place to teach and enforce thought on others.
Quote from: FelixGamingX1 on October 30, 2021, 03:49:35 PMI thought the hobby was full of intellectual people, what happened?
RPGs went mainstream and then the midwits flooded in like a backed up toilet.
I agree, that we should consider videogames more serious and be mo pacient to other people. Any intolerance to people with another opinion is bad.
I want to make my hobby a work: become a professional esports athlete. I love games and recently read how pro gamers make money (here - https://cq-esports.com/articles/esports/how-much-money-do-esports-players-make (https://cq-esports.com/articles/esports/how-much-money-do-esports-players-make)) and i adore that. I could do what i want and earn money at the same time)
Quote from: AtomicPope on February 23, 2022, 08:28:12 PM
Quote from: FelixGamingX1 on October 30, 2021, 03:49:35 PMI thought the hobby was full of intellectual people, what happened?
RPGs went mainstream
Yup... That and all the emotional blackmailing from the bedwetting woke scolds.
There is also a problem when people say the problem is seen on the left and right.
Yes, it might be seen on both sides but the number of incidents is not 50-50 by a longshot. On the left they actively go after people and try to cancel them. On the right it's a snide comment and a hope to be left alone to game (along with a lot of schadenfreude when the left eats its own). Pretending everything is equal is intellectually dishonest.
I have seen gatekeeping with systems and/or rules quizzes which I found pretty silly. "You can't play Traveller with our group unless you can tell us the gravitational constant on Venus?? 8m/s^2? Nope, actually it's 8.87m/s^2. Sorry"
I've thankfully shied away from playing a lot of Warhammer Fantasy the mini war game because I like dwarves and the GW nerds at my local games shop said I was somehow less of a player because "dwarfs are too easy to paint and real GW players play armies that are hard to paint." I probably saved $1000s by being told my army choice was bad and not wanting to get into a group of art snobs.
Some games I've been drawn to by players being welcoming and having a good time. If you see people playing DCC at a con you'll experience it first hand. I don't think I've ever heard of a DCC group not being welcoming, loud, and fun-loving. Other games or tables not so much. If you can't expostulate about the lore to the point of naming all the neighboring countries of Oprak you can't play.
I understand wanting to play with people who have a similar love of the lore or the game, but there's got to be a limit.
Don't get me wrong. I get annoyed with players who say they have played a game for years yet must have the concept of an initiative roll explained at the start of nearly every combat. I'm not annoyed by new folks who don't know all the rules. Hell after 39 years of playing TTRPGs I can't honestly say I have every rule for every system I've played memorized. What get's my goat is 2 hours into a game and it's combat event number three and the call to roll initiate get's answered with a "how do I do that again..."
So long way of saying, yep I agree. Gatekeeping is a problem in the hobby.
I've not had had any of these problems in all my (many) years role-playing here in the UK. Perhaps I've been lucky or perhaps it's a US culture wars thing?
Quote from: MadMattUK on March 22, 2023, 10:48:31 AM
I've not had had any of these problems in all my (many) years role-playing here in the UK. Perhaps I've been lucky or perhaps it's a US culture wars thing?
I haven't had these problems in 40 years of role-playing in the US. It is a culture wars thing for sure, but most of us just want to play. There are angry folks on the left and right ends of the spectrum, and this forum is mostly folks from the right end because as the OP mentioned they're welcome here and not so much elsewhere. But this forum is hardly representative of the whole of the US RPG community. Plenty of legit viewpoints here, but it is most definitely an echo chamber.
Basically I've never heard the term "woke" used here in the UK and very, very rarely "SJW". Basically I scroll down very quickly when I see them used by either side of the debate as I doubt that very few have definitions of either term that others would agree with.
Quote from: MadMattUK on March 22, 2023, 11:57:26 AM
Basically I've never heard the term "woke" used here in the UK and very, very rarely "SJW". Basically I scroll down very quickly when I see them used by either side of the debate as I doubt that very few have definitions of either term that others would agree with.
In my experience, SJW is purely pejorative. I've never heard someone accused of being an SJW describe themselves that way. But an "SJW" might very well describe themselves as "woke" and mean that as a point of pride. So if you see someone use the term SJW you immediately know they stand in opposition to the "woke agenda" (whatever that is, as you say, definitions vary.) But with the term "woke" the speaker could be on either side of the divide.
I do think woke is moving towards SJW in that the connotations are becoming increasingly negative as the term is generally used.
But not, thank God, here in the UK!! (Or at least not by my gaming group).
Nor in my groups. But the terms turn up in about 30-40% of the threads on this site.
Unfortunately this happening in the RPG scene is just one effect of the larger culture war. We're in a lot of trouble with how alienated we are from each other.
I keep coming back to and re-reading (and sharing) this essay: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
It's long, and mostly not about exactly the same thing as this post, and very good and worth the read.
The part that this post reminded me of is section III of the essay, where he talks about how the different political/cultural "tribes" almost exist in overlapping, phase-shifted universes. The author doesn't know ANY creationists. "Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth."
I don't know how much we used to have this, but we seem to have lost the ability to tolerate different perspectives when it became possible to self-segregate to the astronomical degree he points out in this piece.
Roleplaying could theoretically be a place that recreates people gathering in the evening (on whenever) to tell stories and connect, but – at least online – it seems we're largely falling down on this front.
This isn't a both sides problem. The problem is overwhelmingly coming from the left. It's not a coincidence that the one forum that is run by someone on the political right is also the forum where you can speak your mind even if you don't agree with him. When the left is in charge, their point of view quickly becomes the only acceptable point of view with people being openly banned for wrongthink/being a bad fit or just not agreeing hard enough/concern trolling. SJW is a descriptive term. It was a positive term coined by the left to describe themselves. It has become a negative term because the people it describes are the fucking worst. These are genuinely awful, hateful people.
There's an important distinction you should draw between 'the hobby' as whole, and the section of it that is visibly active online. I agree that the latter is divided and embroiled in culture war, but it's also only a very small section of the hobby. It just seems larger because it's in public view.
For example, my group of players would probably be described as 'woke' by many members of this forum. They're all broadly leftist in their political beliefs, and demographically you've got trans, gay, non-binary, black, and mixed-race in there. They're just the people who are my friends and who wanted to play. But when we play, none of that stuff comes up. There's no X cards, and nobody balks when I mention the 'race' of a character. We kill orcs because they're evil and we have a good time. We actually play without bringing politics into it - the very thing the 'anti-woke' people keep calling for. But you will never hear from them, just like you won't hear from the vast majority of groups that just play, because they're not posting.
Quote from: mekhawretch on January 06, 2025, 07:28:13 AMThere's an important distinction you should draw between 'the hobby' as whole, and the section of it that is visibly active online. I agree that the latter is divided and embroiled in culture war, but it's also only a very small section of the hobby. It just seems larger because it's in public view.
For example, my group of players would probably be described as 'woke' by many members of this forum. They're all broadly leftist in their political beliefs, and demographically you've got trans, gay, non-binary, black, and mixed-race in there. They're just the people who are my friends and who wanted to play. But when we play, none of that stuff comes up. There's no X cards, and nobody balks when I mention the 'race' of a character. We kill orcs because they're evil and we have a good time. We actually play without bringing politics into it - the very thing the 'anti-woke' people keep calling for. But you will never hear from them, just like you won't hear from the vast majority of groups that just play, because they're not posting.
Nobody cares. And I mean that as a good thing. Nobody cares how your group plays, or how my group plays, and that is the way the hobby should work. As long as the players are having fun, the RPGs are doing their job.
And this is why "anti-woke" is a thing. Because game companies started putting crap in their games to tell me how I should play it, what topics I must avoid, what topics I must include, and how real-world politics needed to be "represented" at my table. If all your players want made-up pronouns for their characters, nobody cares. When a game company tells me that I must accept those made-up pronouns in order to run their game, that's when people start to care.
So, yeah, nobody cares how you play at your table. Give the same courtesy to everyone else, and we're fine. Start telling me that "all your orcs can't be evil because black people" and we have a problem. Capisce?
Genuine question: in what situations have you - personally - been told to include or exclude certain topics, use certain terminology you disagree with, etc, in a game, with any degree of actual force or coercion? Obviously you don't have to play the woke games at your own table if you don't want to, and if it's in a public setting with total strangers, then you do have to reach some kind of agreement with the host and the other players - but you can always walk away from that table too.
If there's a situation I'm not considering I want to hear it, but at the moment the only way I can see this effecting you is that you sometimes have to see other people posting about stuff you disagree with. Which goes back to my original point that the posting is not the whole of the hobby.
Quote from: mekhawretch on January 06, 2025, 02:22:55 PMGenuine question: in what situations have you - personally - been told to include or exclude certain topics, use certain terminology you disagree with, etc, in a game, with any degree of actual force or coercion?
Need some help moving those goalposts? I hear they're heavy.
Who was talking about people putting guns to your head? No one. But, when I go to a convention, a game store to run public games, online on VTTs, people expect me to run the rules as they are printed in the book. So if the book says to not play orcs as evil, if the rules say to use imaginary pronouns, etc., then I'm going to lose my convention ticket, my spot at the table, my access to the VTT (see Roll20 for direct examples of this) if I'm not toeing the line. We were all fine playing our games whatever way we wanted to, until the woke came along and infiltrated the companies that make the games, the moderators of the message boards about the games, and the VTTs where people play the games.
The whole "if they don't kick down your door" argument is tendentious bullshit. I tell you what, would you complain if your favorite game posted a preface in its next edition that stated that there were only two sexes and "trans" doesn't exist, not in the real world or in their world? Would you keep playing it? Would you ask your players to abide by that as a condition of using a VTT or going to a convention? You'd still have your home game, so you'd be fine with that, right?
This isn't a "problem" for leftists because it's the people they want to shut up that are getting affected. Flip the ideology getting attacked in the games and we'd never hear the end of the whining...
Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 06, 2025, 03:52:31 PMQuote from: mekhawretch on January 06, 2025, 02:22:55 PMGenuine question: in what situations have you - personally - been told to include or exclude certain topics, use certain terminology you disagree with, etc, in a game, with any degree of actual force or coercion?
Need some help moving those goalposts? I hear they're heavy.
Who was talking about people putting guns to your head? No one. But, when I go to a convention, a game store to run public games, online on VTTs, people expect me to run the rules as they are printed in the book. So if the book says to not play orcs as evil, if the rules say to use imaginary pronouns, etc., then I'm going to lose my convention ticket, my spot at the table, my access to the VTT (see Roll20 for direct examples of this) if I'm not toeing the line. We were all fine playing our games whatever way we wanted to, until the woke came along and infiltrated the companies that make the games, the moderators of the message boards about the games, and the VTTs where people play the games.
I wasn't talking about guns to the head either. You did answer my question and brought up some things I'm not familiar with so that's helpful. Do you have a specific example where you, or anyone in fact, was actually ejected from a public game or a convention for running a game with evil orcs, or refused to use imaginary pronouns when the game system required it, or otherwise refused to play ball with woke terminology? Your response was only broadly claiming that it's something what would happen, and I'd like to know if it has happened and how regularly it does happen.
On Roll20, again, I'd like to know when have they actively barred people from using their service for not complying with woke terminology or woke games? I did an admittedly brief Google and didn't find much - I skimmed their Community Guidelines and it looks pretty standard for any online media or games company, but enlighten me if I missed something - and in the thread here on woke game companies, all it says is they've publicly supported BLM (and if you want to boycott them for that then that's on you), and they pulled a sponsor from a livestream because they "didn't want more straight white guys", which is a quote which has no source, so if you can give more information on that please do.
QuoteThe whole "if they don't kick down your door" argument is tendentious bullshit. I tell you what, would you complain if your favorite game posted a preface in its next edition that stated that there were only two sexes and "trans" doesn't exist, not in the real world or in their world? Would you keep playing it? Would you ask your players to abide by that as a condition of using a VTT or going to a convention? You'd still have your home game, so you'd be fine with that, right?
This isn't a "problem" for leftists because it's the people they want to shut up that are getting affected. Flip the ideology getting attacked in the games and we'd never hear the end of the whining...
As you answered my question I'll answer yours. I probably wouldn't publicly complain if my favourite game did that, I might be disappointed, and I'd stop giving the creators my money (as would many others, shortly before it goes out of business), and maybe find a way to hack whatever was unique about the game itself into another system. I don't use VTTs or go to conventions, and neither do my players, but if in order to be allowed entry we literally had to swear on a copy of Harry Potter that there are only two genders and trans people don't exist, and during our games we couldn't use the singular 'they' pronoun under any circumstances, then yeah - I'd probably not go, and advise my players not to either. But we wouldn't be missing much.