I'm seeing quite a few new people piling on to the anti-woke brigade upon learning that woke has over taken DnD even though that has been happening for over a decade and they just hadn't noticed until now. So I did my best to explain it and realized that I didn't have all the details. So, I'd like your help.

What were the key moments in the woke infiltration? When ere they? What people and forums were instrumental in pushing wokeness into gaming? What events were use to push the woke narrative?

I had told the guy I was talking to today that the whole "Orcs are racist" narrative wasn't new, that it has been around from since before 2012, but when did it actually begin?

That's a very good question.  I bet you get some good information.

When WOTC started work on D&D 3.0 the content of their first ever Player's Handbook, reflected some of their own personal preferences regarding gender, and having less white guys.  The big name creators involved, were in on that stuff.  They thought it was important to start changing the way D&D had been previously.  It's been growing and growing, ever since the year 2000, and the 3.0 edition.

Quote from: Man at Arms on January 10, 2025, 04:48:45 AMThat's a very good question.  I bet you get some good information.

When WOTC started work on D&D 3.0 the content of their first ever Player's Handbook, reflected some of their own personal preferences regarding gender, and having less white guys.  The big name creators involved, were in on that stuff.  They thought it was important to start changing the way D&D had been previously.  It's been growing and growing, ever since the year 2000, and the 3.0 edition.

They had a diverse cast of iconic characters. Then marketting said "where is the white male human fighter?" and they added Regdar last minute. Then out of spite to marketting guys, they included at least one picture of Regdar meeting an unfortunate fate in supplements.

That was Monte Cook and co that made Numenera later on. The infamous "ttrpg consent sheet" is their product, or at least had their approval when made.

I wasn't born yet to actually see the shift and might be wrong, but Vampire the Masquerade might be impactful enough to be considered first major infiltrarion. A different kind of demographic started to have an interest in the hobby ("theater kids") and as their priority shifted to woke issues, they added those to the games they play/design.

I would argue that full-woke arrived in 2015-2016. A few things happened around then (which coincide with me too movement, panic over the Trump election, etc.)

1. Gencon threatened to move in response to the governor of Indiana's religious freedom bill

2. This article was published in a blog--and I don't even know if it was real, or someone trolling. But it was taken seriously

https://latining.tumblr.com/post/141567276944/tabletop-gaming-has-a-white-male-terrorism-problem

3. The people running the Ennies said they were going to control for content created by marginalized authors and designers, and started discriminating against any author or designer who expressed moderate or conservative views

4. Paizo started featuring POC characters in their books and advertisements. When I was at Origins in 2015, there was this big banner with a black, female Paladin. Soon after that, WOTC follow suit with race-swapped characters, etc.

Obviously, sites like enWorld and rpg.net were raging leftists going back much further than this, but woke didn't start hitting the mainstream until 2015-2016.

5. Chaosium ownership changed and a new edition of CoC came out which featured pronouns on the character sheets, chapters in books about LGBT people in Victorian society, etc.

6. Numerous conventions, such as Gamehole in Wisconsin, changed their official logo to include the expanded rainbow. Gamehole also features events restricted to POC

but the *earliest* example of something weird and photo-woke that I can find is the cover to the TSR module "Queen of Spiders" in 1986 which features a bunch of Drow women. All of them are clearly black women, and a couple look like Tina Turner. I was like WTF is this? Drow are not African--they don't look like that. I don't know if this was some political or ideological thing, or if the artist just liked Tina Turner lol

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on January 10, 2025, 08:55:54 AMI would argue that full-woke arrived in 2015-2016. A few things happened around then (which coincide with me too movement, panic over the Trump election, etc.)

Agreed. IIRC, it was either GenCon or Origins that has Anita Sarkeesian as a guest speaker in 2016.

She's the biggest feminist grifter there is, starting with GamerGate and famous for saying "everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is political" or something to that effect.

Anita is an insufferable c*nt.

Quote from: Man at Arms on January 10, 2025, 04:48:45 AMWhen WOTC started work on D&D 3.0 the content of their first ever Player's Handbook, reflected some of their own personal preferences regarding gender, and having less white guys.  The big name creators involved, were in on that stuff.  They thought it was important to start changing the way D&D had been previously.  It's been growing and growing, ever since the year 2000, and the 3.0 edition.

To me that is woke in a nutshell. Instead of trying to create a campaign setting full of non-white guys they decide to alter what existed to make it have less white guys. I don't know if this is (1) Knowing that there aren't enough non-white guys playing to buy such a setting so it would be a big fail or (2) they like tearing things down and changing existing things more than building new things.

The world fractured in 2016 when a certain someone won something; prior to that, the mask would occasionally slip but the relatively normal people weren't afraid to keep the weirdos in check simply for sake of the sales.   The most vocal and attention seeking people in the US suffered and instant mental breakdown that they have since never recovered from.   Now the mask isn't slipping but thrown off and the crazies are screaming about how proud they are that they discarded it.

2016 MIGHT have been when some took notice because of the big things happening, but you don't go from zero to one million in the blink of an eye.

The infiltration was underway even under TSR, IMHO the first sign was an article in Dragon about Chainmail Bikinis. Sadly I can't remember the issue.

Do you think that fallout from Gamergate contributed to the woke problem? Where does Mike Mearl's "firing" of grognards on Twitter fall in all this, was it a symptom or a motivating instigation? Did the woke approach RPG gamers because they were considered easy targets for subversion based on the Five Geek Social Fallacies or is that just an explanation of the social environment?

That depends on how one defines 'woke' and the degree of infection. One of the first issues of Dragon I ever bought (#168, April 1991) included a Forum letter decrying the 'game racism' of painting goblinoids as purely evil and only enemies, and included thoughts on alternative ways to use them. (It didn't draw the parallels to real racism.)

There have been differences of opinion about the game from the beginning. If I were to identify a tipping point at when 'official D&D' began to tilt in a more progressive/revolutionary direction away from its roots, it would be the acquisition of TSR by WotC and the resulting shift in the game's local and corporate culture.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on January 10, 2025, 12:07:05 PMIf I were to identify a tipping point at when 'official D&D' began to tilt in a more progressive/revolutionary direction away from its roots, it would be the acquisition of TSR by WotC and the resulting shift in the game's local and corporate culture.

That was the starting point.

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on January 10, 2025, 08:55:54 AMbut the *earliest* example of something weird and photo-woke that I can find is the cover to the TSR module "Queen of Spiders" in 1986 which features a bunch of Drow women. All of them are clearly black women, and a couple look like Tina Turner. I was like WTF is this? Drow are not African--they don't look like that. I don't know if this was some political or ideological thing, or if the artist just liked Tina Turner lol

This is it, by Keith Parkinson.



I don't think it's evidence of woke, though - just liking Tina Turner.

EDITED TO ADD: Parkinson later made the Guardians collectible card game that was designed with Bribery cards for "Babes", "Beer", and "Gold" - each of which was a core card type.

Quote from: Ruprecht on January 10, 2025, 09:37:03 AM

Quote from: Man at Arms on January 10, 2025, 04:48:45 AMWhen WOTC started work on D&D 3.0 the content of their first ever Player's Handbook, reflected some of their own personal preferences regarding gender, and having less white guys.  The big name creators involved, were in on that stuff.  They thought it was important to start changing the way D&D had been previously.  It's been growing and growing, ever since the year 2000, and the 3.0 edition.

To me that is woke in a nutshell. Instead of trying to create a campaign setting full of non-white guys they decide to alter what existed to make it have less white guys. I don't know if this is (1) Knowing that there aren't enough non-white guys playing to buy such a setting so it would be a big fail or (2) they like tearing things down and changing existing things more than building new things.

OD&D and AD&D were almost entirely white characters - but there were a number of pushes to have non-white characters in D&D during the TSR years after OD&D and AD&D. The first I remember was Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan in 1980, which had non-white pregenerated characters part of the Toltec-inspired "Olman Empire". Deities & Demigods (also 1980) had a bunch of non-European mythos, and TSR later published Oriental Adventures, Al-Qadim, and Maztica as official settings.

The D&D cartoon starting in 1983 featured a black girl as one of its core characters.



That said, I'd agree that 2E released in 1989 intentionally also had all-white character illustrations - as well as cutting out demons and devils and other sanitizing. So 3E was really the earliest edition that featured less white guys.

Still, both Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms have always had a lot of non-white guys. They were designed as broad settings with lots of different ethnicities, not just European. But until 3rd edition, non-white characters weren't featured in the core rulebooks.

Quote from: jhkim on January 10, 2025, 01:15:48 PMI don't think it's evidence of woke, though - just liking Tina Turner.

Evidence of him liking a certain kind of female form...the Rifts cover comes to mind.

Quote from: jhkim on January 10, 2025, 01:52:17 PMThe D&D cartoon starting in 1983 featured a black girl as one of its core characters.

Yeah but Diana is svelte, speaks clearly, and is obviously somewhat intelligent and nice. She's like the exact opposite of the black chicks in D&D now.

Quote from: jhkim on January 10, 2025, 01:52:17 PMStill, both Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms have always had a lot of non-white guys. They were designed as broad settings with lots of different ethnicities, not just European. But until 3rd edition, non-white characters weren't featured in the core rulebooks.

  Not quite. There's a black magic-user in the 1991 Rules Cyclopedia, p. 20.