It's ok for white dudes to play DnD.

Quote from: S'mon;1094509It's ok for white dudes to play DnD.

No it's not.

It's OK to play Human

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1094186Muh muhsoggyknees!

LOL. I'm gonna use that. Too funny!

Quote from: cranebump;1094502Well, 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.

Back in the day every female student I,  or any of the other gamers I knew,  encountered in High School had zero interest in science fiction or fantasy literature (even though nothing was gatekeeping them from buying  one of these books and reading them) and they generally regarded any male who did like this type of fiction as less than human and since players of RPGs are subset of SF/F fantasy readers they thought even less of us.  The female Physics teacher (an out Lesbian which in 80s  Northern Ireland was not exactly common),  that was supposed to be supervising  the club never actually  attended any of the club meetings she was supposed to be supervising (as it was 80's and the teachers were on work-to-rule industrial action to protest the fact that there was a Conservative government) refused any direct invitations to join a game. We would have been more than happy for females to join the club or at least treat us a fucking human.

Something  else to consider could it be that that outright hostility to white people  that poc communities foster and encourage is to blame  for someone from one of these communities not approaching an all white group and the fact that these communities also project the image that certain activities are white only  and if you take part them you are a traitor to your community?  Also if it was white gatekeeping that was stopping them from playing back in the day what was stopping from buying manuals and inviting their poc buddies to a game or do you think that only white people owned stores that carried the books back in the day and refused to sell them to poc customers or maybe not even let poc through the door?. The excuse of white gatekeeping is even more bullshit today since organisations, groups and after school clubs which exclude white people are encouraged and any protest by excluded whites gets them the label of NAZI.

Quote from: Gagarth;1094566Back in the day every female student I,  or any of the other gamers I knew,  encountered in High School had zero interest in science fiction or fantasy literature (even though nothing was gatekeeping them from buying  one of these books and reading them) and they generally regarded any male who did like this type of fiction as less than human and since players of RPGs are subset of SF/F fantasy readers they thought even less of us.  The female Physics teacher (an out Lesbian which in 80s  Northern Ireland was not exactly common),  that was supposed to be supervising  the club never actually  attended any of the club meetings she was supposed to be supervising (as it was 80's and the teachers were on work-to-rule industrial action to protest the fact that there was a Conservative government) refused any direct invitations to join a game. We would have been more than happy for females to join the club or at least treat us a fucking human.

Agreed and seconded except the part about the Lesibian teacher supervisor.

Most of us did not keep engage in any form of gatekeeping keeping any female gamers from the hobby. Nor any one else (gay, transgender or otherwise.) The first were either in the closet the second were called corssdressers and  made fun of unfortunately by pretty much everyone. Which Hollywood and the sJWs pretend never happened. Either way as Gargath says about female gamers their was almost zero interest in the hobby by female gamers way back in in the 1980s. They regarded male gamers with a mix of utter contempt only to be made fun of. Considered us nerds. geeks and losers because again unlike the revisionist narrative they considered male gamers a lesser life form. Only the sporty, handsome, popular jocks were fit to be their mates. The female gamers that did play were very few and far between and were mainly also social outcasts.

Since that does not fit into the SJW narrative and an unwelcome truth of the hobby back in the 1980s it does not exist.

Here is another thing we were contending with at the time.  We created a poster to advertise the club (which did not say White Males Only) and we were refused permission to post it anywhere on school grounds because the word Roleplaying was erotic and had sexual undertones.

Quote from: cranebump;1094502Well, 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..

Male-centric = the odd heaving bosom.  All women would be put off by a product with this sort of content. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3572[/ATTACH]

What also gets me with the SJW element in tje gamibg hobby is ecen if one advertises that a new gaming campsign is open to alk it is still not enough. The plsyers that attend all happen to be white, straight and male.

To the SJWs one is simply not trying hard enough to attract POC, gay or transgender gamers. Not trying hard enough are we supposed to force those gamers to attend and play. No way to win or satisfy the SJWs no matter how hard one tries.

Quote from: sureshot;1094574What also gets me with the SJW element in tje gamibg hobby is ecen if one advertises that a new gaming campsign is open to alk it is still not enough. The plsyers that attend all happen to be white, straight and male.

To the SJWs one is simply not trying hard enough to attract POC, gay or transgender gamers. Not trying hard enough are we supposed to force those gamers to attend and play. No way to win or satisfy the SJWs no matter how hard one tries.

These are the same breed who hospitalized a gay Asian man in the name of protecting gays and minorities. They are extreme poopy doo doo heads.

I can remember a single regular female gamer in my high school crowd, but that crowd was also the Rocky Horror Picture Show crowd, so we were all a bit - unusual. My first college gaming crowd had three regular female members, and my second college gaming crowd had 1 regular female member.

Like has been said before, tabletop RPGs were considered nerd territory until around the time that Vampire first came out - then all the goth chicks jumped in on the hobby.

Quote from: Gagarth;1094566Back in the day every female student I,  or any of the other gamers I knew,  encountered in High School had zero interest in science fiction or fantasy literature (even though nothing was gatekeeping them from buying  one of these books and reading them) and they generally regarded any male who did like this type of fiction as less than human and since players of RPGs are subset of SF/F fantasy readers they thought even less of us.  The female Physics teacher (an out Lesbian which in 80s  Northern Ireland was not exactly common),  that was supposed to be supervising  the club never actually  attended any of the club meetings she was supposed to be supervising (as it was 80's and the teachers were on work-to-rule industrial action to protest the fact that there was a Conservative government) refused any direct invitations to join a game. We would have been more than happy for females to join the club or at least treat us a fucking human.

Something  else to consider could it be that that outright hostility to white people  that poc communities foster and encourage is to blame  for someone from one of these communities not approaching an all white group and the fact that these communities also project the image that certain activities are white only  and if you take part them you are a traitor to your community?  Also if it was white gatekeeping that was stopping them from playing back in the day what was stopping from buying manuals and inviting their poc buddies to a game or do you think that only white people owned stores that carried the books back in the day and refused to sell them to poc customers or maybe not even let poc through the door?. The excuse of white gatekeeping is even more bullshit today since organisations, groups and after school clubs which exclude white people are encouraged and any protest by excluded whites gets them the label of NAZI.

Exactly, if you were a Geek you were ostracized, mocked & bullied by the mere fact of enjoying certain kinds of entertainment/games. Not a single girl/woman I knew back then was the exception, not even the girl that was better at math than everybody else. And when one of them talked to us she was bullied into ostracizing us too. Not many had the courage to tell them to fuck off until I was in my last year of high-school.

"Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free."
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn

People have different interests, goals and capacities. That girl that was the best at math? She went and became a pediatrician, because she didn't enjoy working with numbers but with people. A disparity in end results (the number of geeks in hobby Z from group Y) doesn't prove discrimination, gate keeping, etc.

The people saying male geeks were actively gate keeping women from their hobbies forget (or lie about it) that the single most important drive human beings have is reproduction, nothing would please a male geek than to meet a girl with whom he can talk about his hobbies. Which is why when the hobby becomes mainstream (and therefore attracts more females since now it's cool) male geeks received them with open arms, only to discover that many were just posers, fake-geek-girls and ideologues.

The "rules density", "complex lore", "canon" complaints about this being used as gate-keeping come from people not really interested in the hobby but in using it as a social marker (look I'm cool too!). The same goes for the "interrogation" complaints, we're not interrogating you snowflake, we're trying to have a conversation with you about something WE do feel an amount of interest and passion and you clearly not (or you would be happy to pick the brain of those who know more than you).

But this will keep being ignored and swept under the rug to maintain the narrative: "Male Geek Bad (even worst if it's a White one).

Fuck off to tell lies about my hobbies, my fellow geeks and me somewhere people don't know what it was like back when our hobbies weren't cool you fucking hipsters.

Quote from: sureshot;1094574What also gets me with the SJW element in tje gamibg hobby is ecen if one advertises that a new gaming campsign is open to alk it is still not enough. The plsyers that attend all happen to be white, straight and male.

To the SJWs one is simply not trying hard enough to attract POC, gay or transgender gamers. Not trying hard enough are we supposed to force those gamers to attend and play. No way to win or satisfy the SJWs no matter how hard one tries.

Because for them what matters is the end result, nothing else matters and should be either limited or prohibited if it detracts from their desired end result. This includes even the freedom of choosing your hobby. You either have full parity or your hobby will be destroyed by the rules they will impose on everybody wanting to participate on it.

Which is why they HATE stuff like the OSR, it gives people the freedom to write/play what they want. And since it's decentralized they have not a single point of entry that would allow them to change it to suit their needs. Which of course would destroy it.

Good point about the OSR.

It must drive some of the more ideologically inclined SHWs insane that besides creating their own version of the OSR they can't really do much to stop the elements or the movement as a whole.

Do you guys have transgenders in your rpg groups? It seems the rpg industry is full of them these days and I got quite alot of shit from such people on the Swedish forum. Don't get me wrong, but has it become trendy to become a transgender rpg nerd these days? I have noticed that quite a few of them have risen through the ranks and now get to be a part of the production of new rpgs, as scenario writers and such. They have quickly become people of great influence. Much of it is because they are transgenders in my book. But I could be wrong, of course. I'm just an old bald bigot.