Quote from: cranebump;1094110It's fair to say our tables, IRL, have probably always been accepting, especially when you consider how marginalized gamers were, at one time.

I think that posters in these forums who manifest so much racism and misogyny should not be overly congratulatory of how accepting tables of 40 years ago were. I don't think they were much better or worse than any other group of the day. But the traditional structure of RPGs supported significant bullying by any GM inclined to it, and you must have a naive view of human nature if you think the bullied and margninalized wouldn't turn around and bully and marginalize others if they got a chance.

QuoteI think it's also fair to say there wasn't much overt representation of diversity in the available materials until recent times. It's no bother to me if companies want to pitch their inclusivity.

Quote from: Omega;1094137Uhhh... There wasnt? Really? You must not have played many RPGs at all then.

Greyhawk pretty much right out the gate. Or at least by the time of the boxed set. And As Jeff points out above. Mekton. Theres lots of examples. People just werent virtue signalling it.

What, do you mean supplement 1 Greyhawk? The artwork in early D&D books was probably not good enough to guess the race of any human depicted, but they were pretty much all men (and the fighters were still fighting men). I'd have to pull out the 1e AD&D books but I don't expect they could be put forward as overt representations of diversity.

Quote from: rawma;1094159. But the traditional structure of RPGs supported significant bullying by any GM inclined to it, and you must have a naive view of human nature if you think the bullied and margninalized wouldn't turn around and bully and marginalize others if they got a chance.

What the hell have you been smoking.

Quote from: rawma;1094159I think that posters in these forums who manifest so much racism and misogyny

[video=youtube_share;YpddaZB9bcI]https://youtu.be/YpddaZB9bcI[/youtube]

QuoteBut the traditional structure of RPGs supported significant bullying by any GM inclined to it, and you must have a naive view of human nature if you think the bullied and margninalized wouldn't turn around and bully and marginalize others if they got a chance.

And interesting observation, considering the times.

Quote from: rawma;1094159But the traditional structure of RPGs supported significant bullying by any GM inclined to it

"If you're gaming with assholes, you're doing it wrong" was true 40 years ago and is still true today.

Quote from: rawma;1094159I think that posters in these forums who manifest so much racism and misogyny

Ahem...

[Citation needed]

Quote from: rawma;1094159should not be overly congratulatory of how accepting tables of 40 years ago were. I don't think they were much better or worse than any other group of the day. But the traditional structure of RPGs supported significant bullying by any GM inclined to it, and you must have a naive view of human nature if you think the bullied and margninalized wouldn't turn around and bully and marginalize others if they got a chance.

Gaming specific evidence that contradicts (in part) your claim:

http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

Non-gaming specific evidence that contradicts your claim: I am struggling to find a reference to the study, but there was some scholarly work observing groups of socially marginalized individuals (biker gangs, I think) and how they handle acceptance and tolerance that found that as a group, having experienced the pain of being ostracize themselves, they were more psychologically generous to differences and supportive of their peers because they had a self-selecting and separate "qualification structure" from typical social hierarchies.

Here's a similar idea along different lines (in this case, gangs in general) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/take-all-prisoners/200904/gangs-in-america-outcasts-ticket-success

The crux of the point being:
- Gaming has an open, self-selecting membership structure -- learning the rules of the game
- Gaming has a different quality/rules structure for evaluating an individual's worth -- playing/participating/knowing the game
- Human beings in general who have already experienced social rejection tend to be sympathetic/oversensitive to avoid evoking it in others

Quote from: rawma;1094159What, do you mean supplement 1 Greyhawk? The artwork in early D&D books was probably not good enough to guess the race of any human depicted, but they were pretty much all men (and the fighters were still fighting men). I'd have to pull out the 1e AD&D books but I don't expect they could be put forward as overt representations of diversity.

I happen to have the AD&D 1e books handy.

I am defining "diversity" as non-male or non-obviously-human-white, so depiction of fantasy races is considered "diverse".

Player's Handbook:
- Clearly "diverse" images: p18, p43, p122, p93, p108, p109
- Up to interpretation diversity (shadowed/armored/indistinct): p10, p12, p13, p14, p15, p23, p27, p42, p47, p56, p65, p71, p83, p90, p97, p101, p102, p120
- Non-player-character type images (monsters, inanimate objects): p57, p69, p92, p98, p107, p121
- Wholly "non-diverse" images: title plate, p11, p68, p81

So out of 33 total images:
- 18% are "diverse" by the definition above
- 55% are up for interpretation / leave room for the viewer to "see themselves"
- 18% are irrelevant to the question
- 9% are "non-diverse"

If you're specifically concerned with women, then p18, p43, and p122 are the only explicitly female representations. Consider that that is roughly the same count as unambiguously white and male depictions as well, with the vast majority of the illustrations being open to interpretation / seeing one's self.

Which would make sense, given that it is a game marketed towards imagining a character you care about and then his or her exploits.

While I'm here, I might as well quote a few lines from Gygax's preface:

Quote from: E. Gary GygaxAfter all, the game's major appeal is to those persons with unusually active imagination and superior, active intellect -- a very demanding audience indeed. Furthermore, a great majority of readers master their own dungeons and are necessarily creative -- the most critical audience of all! Authoring these works means that, in a way, I have set myself up as the final arbiter of fantasy role playing in the minds of the majority of D&D adventurers.

...

No individual can actually dictate the actual operations of a campaign, however, for that is the prerogative of the Dungeon Master, first and foremost, and to the players in the individual campaign thereafter. In like manner, players greatly influence the events of each particular campaign, and they must accept a large portion of blame if it is a poor game, and if the campaign is outstanding, they deserve high praise for helping to shape the game and playing well.

I read the whole preface a couple times, and not once do I see any masculine pronouns, though I suppose I could have missed it. For the entire preface, Gygax leaves it wide open for DMs and players and fans to be any combination of male or female. That actually strikes me as remarkable, especially for a copyright date of 1978. I suppose it could be accidental, but having just finished "Master of the Game", that seems unlikely to me.

In any event, intentional or not, I find no exclusionary assumptions and it seems to me like a pretty clear invitation for all comers to pick up the book and play.

Oh, and one more thing, rawma.

Quote from: rawma;1094159I think that posters in these forums who manifest so much racism and misogyny should not be overly congratulatory of how accepting tables of 40 years ago were.

You've been on this forum for five years and you haven't noticed that members who "manifest so much racism and misogyny" as you claim get banned pretty quickly?

Quote from: rawma;1094159But the traditional structure of RPGs supported significant bullying by any GM inclined to it, and you must have a naive view of human nature if you think the bullied and margninalized wouldn't turn around and bully and marginalize others if they got a chance.

The concept of getting up and leaving the game table of a crap GM is foreign to you as well, huh? Are you talking about real people or professional victims here? "No gaming is better than bad gaming",  and all that.

Of course, if someone is weak willed or juvenile or just plain damaged goods, they can inflict the same behavior which they suffered under upon others. Or they can be adults and know that they shouldn't cause others the misery that they have suffered under. Right there is the primary problem with SJWs and their virtue signalling, these are people who never got the memo that if they didn't like how they were treated then they shouldn't treat others that way.

Quote from: jeff37923;1094174You've been on this forum for five years and you haven't noticed that members who "manifest so much racism and misogyny" as you claim get banned pretty quickly?

I'm pretty sure rawma's definition of "racism and misogyny" is pretty broad.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1094176I'm pretty sure rawma's definition of "racism and misogyny" is pretty broad.

I was going to say exactly the same thing. I'm guessing we can translate that bit of drivel as "I've been offended, therefore it's both racist and misogynist".

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1094172Oh, and one more thing, rawma.

You can post a thousand of these images and to SJW clowns, it's just more proof of your racism and misogyny.

However, its good to post these images for people who weren't there 40 years ago who might have working brain cells.

Quote from: rawma;1094159I think that posters in these forums who manifest so much racism and misogyny should not be overly congratulatory of how accepting tables of 40 years ago were. I don't think they were much better or worse than any other group of the day. But the traditional structure of RPGs supported significant bullying by any GM inclined to it, and you must have a naive view of human nature if you think the bullied and margninalized wouldn't turn around and bully and marginalize others if they got a chance.

Muh wacism! Muh muhsoggyknees! Muh patriarchy!

Quote from: Spinachcat;1094184You can post a thousand of these images and to SJW clowns, it's just more proof of your racism and misogyny.

However, its good to post these images for people who weren't there 40 years ago who might have working brain cells.

It's just so sad. It's like watching someone die of thirst because they're hallucinating that water is poison.

This hobby that more than many others has a built-in factor of come as you are and imagine better things being falsely smeared as somehow evilly exclusionary.

Dust the chip off your shoulder, let go of the cynical hot takes, and try having a good time with the elf game, instead.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1094186Muh wacism! Muh muhsoggyknees! Muh patriarchy!

Yet the same poster say absolutely nothing when RPG.net behaves ten times as worse because nothing can go against the narrative about us being misogynist, racism.

We were social outcasts in the hobby. Sure where some in the hobby turned away from being allowed to play because of their gender, sexual orientation or race. To the level that the current SJW narrative makes it out to be not by a long shot.

Quote from: rawma;1094159I think that posters in these forums who manifest so much racism and misogyny should not be overly congratulatory of how accepting tables of 40 years ago were. I don't think they were much better or worse than any other group of the day. But the traditional structure of RPGs supported significant bullying by any GM inclined to it, and you must have a naive view of human nature if you think the bullied and margninalized wouldn't turn around and bully and marginalize others if they got a chance.

What, do you mean supplement 1 Greyhawk? The artwork in early D&D books was probably not good enough to guess the race of any human depicted, but they were pretty much all men (and the fighters were still fighting men). I'd have to pull out the 1e AD&D books but I don't expect they could be put forward as overt representations of diversity.

1: Well its good to see you can still spout nonsense like the best of the SJW nuts. Try again please.

2: I figured one of you loons would pull the ol "But its not diverse... ENOUGH!" card. And you even doubled down and played the extra "No women!" card. horray!

Quote from: Omega;1094137Uhhh... There wasnt? Really? You must not have played many RPGs at all then.

Greyhawk pretty much right out the gate. Or at least by the time of the boxed set. And As Jeff points out above. Mekton. Theres lots of examples. People just werent virtue signalling it.

Well, near 40 years of playing, so I've seen and played quite a few. Pretty sure if we perused more than a few instances, we'd find there's a marked difference in representation over the years. Just looking at gender alone, quite a few old modules (and I've read many more than I've gotten to play through) are pretty male-centric. Doesn't surprise me--that was the perceived (and, I would argue, actual) clientele, correct or not. It doesn't take away anything from the argument that many of us feel we've been welcoming at our individual tables. It also doesn't take away from someone else's perception, formed via experience, that they may have been made to feel unwelcome, at some point. There's too many stories of female gamers being treated like shit to ignore. As for the Mekton piece, one example does not constitute blanket proof. I think one CAN say something like "Gaming was historically more inclusive than it is given credit for, and here are some examples of that." But it's pretty hard to make the case that, back in the day, this wasn't basically a white dude's hobby, or was perceived as such, anyway. I'll just add here that I've been running open RPG clubs in high schools for over a decade now, and the respondents are usually white males. This, in schools with majority-minority populations. I will say the number of girls was MUCH higher at my last stop, though. This doesn't prove anything, of course, but that's what I've actually seen among the younger cohort.