Quote from: deadDMwalking;1079016Gaining skills and experience requires opportunity.  

Opportunity (or the lack of) is often correlated with race.  

As a society, we either need to ensure equal opportunity (preferred) or we have to address the results of that lack of opportunity with the damage it does to society.  The 'best person for the job' might not be able to get there because of a variety of roadblocks including, but not limited to, various 'gatekeeping' attempts all the way up to the job itself.

The only barrier of entry to playing roleplaying games is the ability to read and maybe not even that if you have a DM to run thing for you.

Well-argued article on how the influx of RPG streaming fans is already changing organized D&D play.

https://gnomestew.com/dd-adventurers-league-and-a-more-narrative-style-of-play/

Quote from: S'mon;1079047The average SJW makes the average D&D nerd look like The Fonz.

Quoted again for Truth.

Preach it brother.

Quote from: sureshot;1079045Maybe it is just me yet all the SJWs in the hobby demanding more POC, female, gays and trans all come off as having a very creepy totalitarian bent when they demand it be done. ...

Creepy is the operative word here.

Quote from: sureshot;1079045How dare you say that Jaegar. Check your white privilege.

But my Mom is from Guatemala. You are confusing me now.

Do they allow half-checks?  

The obvious solution to this problem is simply to ban white cishet males from D&D.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1079085The obvious solution to this problem is simply to ban white cishet males from D&D.

Cishet males?

Go home Armchair Gamer, you're drunk. ;0)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1079085The obvious solution to this problem is simply to ban white cishet males from D&D.

Yes, because Exclusion is THE way to be Inclusive.

Quote from: S'mon;1079044There seem to be a good number of black D&Ders in London these days. Did use to be quite rare though. I'm guessing it's much like white 'jock' culture being down on the nerds.

I was struck by how many black players the Tomb of Annihilation campaign apparently attracted, and most have stuck around to play other stuff. Sometimes Diversity Casting in RPG settings can feel silly, but for American & British D&D campaign settings I guess it makes sense to have some 'these are the black people' ethnies, so black players don't have to play white PCs if they don't want to.

It's better now that geek hobbies carry less stigma in general, but even now it's not primarily white people keeping these minorities from playing, but their own communities.

Quote from: sureshot;1079043All our society has to be based on is a meritocracy and nothing more.

This is a laudable concept I will start believing in the day we manage to get all professional athletes deliberately give up on doping. Because the matter of fact is that some people will always look to their tribe(s) for help to gain an (unfair) advantage over their competitors. My impression is that it is currently is okay for anyone to do so in the US, except for straight white cis males. A meritocracy would also literally demand of parents that they will be okay if their child fails in life if it is less gifted than others.

It's not going to happen. Modern society means having multi-dimensional (sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc) competition between tribes for supremacy. Between the most aggressive members of each tribe, at least. And demanding fairness and justice is sometimes (not always) no more than means to an end in this game. And all of that is of course just the background for individual efforts for excellence.

Welcome to the future, this is your life now.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1079105Yes, because Exclusion is THE way to be Inclusive.

Sadly to some of the nuts out there. Yes. They use the word inclusive. But what they really preach is tokenism or worse.

Quote from: Omega;1079132Sadly to some of the nuts out there. Yes. They use the word inclusive. But what they really preach is tokenism or worse.

ENW does a lot of Banning for Inclusivity these days. I recall I once told them they were a lot more inclusive before they were Inclusive.

Quote from: Haffrung;1079073Well-argued article on how the influx of RPG streaming fans is already changing organized D&D play.

https://gnomestew.com/dd-adventurers-league-and-a-more-narrative-style-of-play/

Seems reasonable - despite the use of made up bell curve graphs - and applicable beyond OP. Definitely seen a shift towards more in-character roleplay at the table, despite how lame the 5e PHB Traits-Bonds-Flaws system is. I think this is an actual 'Mercer Effect', one I like - I dislike the 3e era emphasis on char-op 'lonely fun', I prefer a renewed emphasis on what happens at the table.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1079129This is a laudable concept I will start believing in the day we manage to get all professional athletes deliberately give up on doping. Because the matter of fact is that some people will always look to their tribe(s) for help to gain an (unfair) advantage over their competitors. My impression is that it is currently is okay for anyone to do so in the US, except for straight white cis males. A meritocracy would also literally demand of parents that they will be okay if their child fails in life if it is less gifted than others.

It's not going to happen. Modern society means having multi-dimensional (sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc) competition between tribes for supremacy. Between the most aggressive members of each tribe, at least. And demanding fairness and justice is sometimes (not always) no more than means to an end in this game. And all of that is of course just the background for individual efforts for excellence.

Welcome to the future, this is your life now.

I know meritocracy is more of a dream than anything else. I would still prefer that over " treat me better than everyone else because of my race, gender, sexual identity" garbage. All due respect you want me to hire you to fix a roof make a good case without using race, gender or sexual identity politics. Try any of those three with me and you are shown the door immediately.

It reminds me of disastrous business pitch on Dragon Den https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiEOd7Ks8xk

Quote from: S'mon;1079147Definitely seen a shift towards more in-character roleplay at the table, despite how lame the 5e PHB Traits-Bonds-Flaws system is.

It works. But personally I think it is both too convoluted and at the same time, not as well explained as it should be. I can see what they were aiming for. A mechanic to resolve NPC interactions the DM could use, or not. But the basic reaction table they provide does the job on its own. Though not as easily as BX's did.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1079124It's better now that geek hobbies carry less stigma in general, but even now it's not primarily white people keeping these minorities from playing, but their own communities.

198?: The first Black person I gamed with, Charlie Whitley, had a cousin who played with us once and had played in another game once. Charlie said that his cousin enjoyed gaming but  stopped because his friends made fun of him. I guess those were Black friends, although I'm not sure. The SF fan, comic book fan, etc. community were Charlie's friends, so he played until he passed away in the Nineties.

Later in the Eighties, another Black player, Art, gamed with us constantly. He had some friends who were critical because of the satanic panic. I don't know if race ha anything to do with it. He quit when he got married and his wife found out that there were girls in the game. He came back years later, after his divorce, still gamed, with another group, after he moved out of state.

I think Bryan, another Black player, started playing about the same time. He played for a long time and he said that he was looked at as strange in his community. I think he is strange and I tell him so on Facebook once in awhile. He was a voice against the satanic panic in his church.

Chris was white but his Black wife Doris also played. However, she was one of those "also played" spouses who aren't there so much for the gaming but to be with the spouse.

That is far from all of the Black players in the New Haven community but I think the sample supports the idea that the community thought ill of gaming.

Quote from: Omega;1079066Except you can not make inclusivity happen. The moment you do it stops being about being inclusive and you relegate us to a dam checklist.
If the only reason you want me at the table is because you want a "cripple" to check off your inclusive (read: virtue signaling) list then Im probably going to punch you in the face.

Instead just play the damn game and hope to attract the interest of anyone. Not just those on some checklist.

Actually you can.

"We welcome everyone, not least people in wheelchairs"

"But you haven't actually made it possible for me to get my wheelchair inside the building!"

So one thing these tyrannical SJWs have done in times past is push (successfully?) for building codes to require wheelchair access. So that has helped some.

But if they are hosting a convention in an old building, it might be exempt. Okay, but that doesn't prevent the organizers from considering solutions to the problem, and ideally do that in advance, rather than being called out for it later.