Confirmation bias and all but listen to the video and discuss.

Not interested?

Well presented and thought out.

I do though take issue with his slight insistence that there must be black people at every table. This is just tokenism from the other side of the fence. Or getting duped by the SJW rhetoric. I've been playing for longer than he has and you know how many handicapped players I've met? Yeah. Does every damn table need a handicapped person? Or an asian? Or a LGBTwhatever?

The answer is. No. You do not neeeeeeeed us at your table. Its nice if we are there. But the second you neeeeeed us there you've reduced us to a checkmark on the SJW score card and we will despise you for it.

Otherwise he hits on alot of the reasons.
Peer pressure being the biggest. Why arent there more black people in X. Because black people wont let them.

Ditto. Kudos for him tackling a tough subject that seems to come up as often as the lament of, "Why are there no women gaming?"

Huh, my own games have always been about as "black" as the local populace. Ditto for "asian", "gay", "trans", and probably a few others.

In the early days "girls" were scarce, but women make up about 50% of the folks I play with over the past 3 decades.

I must live on a different planet than some of these people.

In my experience, it depends where you are at.

At Penn State in the late 1980s, there were not a lot of black students in general, and so there were only a handful in geek circles, but they were welcome. Campus politics were racist in a "making entirely too big a deal out of everything to do with race" kind of way, and that made it harder to just be friends without it being some kind of litmus test or political statement. (I've never been anywhere as racist as college.)

In the 90's and 2000's I was involved with a tabletop/board gaming club in Philly, and with different demographics, there were a lot more minorities, and in some some chapters, blacks were the majority. And as a white person, I felt welcome there.

I havent watched the video yet, but i have had that expirence with peer pressure. Only for everyone to suddenly get into anime now lol.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 12, 2022, 03:46:47 AM
Confirmation bias and all but listen to the video and discuss.

I already said my peace in the video's comment section. But in a nutshell, 95% of blacks don't see a black role-model (TTRPG gamer) that they can then copy/join. Playing TTRPGs is acting white still to them. Also, race-swapping the artwork in books is not working (see black girl in wheelchair playing as the GM at a table in some books, lightning will strike several times and shark/bear attacks will happen all at once before this happens once).

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll on March 12, 2022, 01:00:20 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 12, 2022, 03:46:47 AM
Confirmation bias and all but listen to the video and discuss.

I already said my peace in the video's comment section. But in a nutshell, 95% of blacks don't see a black role-model (TTRPG gamer) that they can then copy/join. Playing TTRPGs is acting white still to them. Also, race-swapping the artwork in books is not working.

Interesting to see you comment here but not on your own thread to ask MongooseMatt about Shield Maidens. Why is that?

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 12, 2022, 01:05:04 PM
Interesting to see you comment here but not on your own thread to ask MongooseMatt about Shield Maidens. Why is that?

I just got here. Haven't gone through the posts yet.

OK, I just watched the video. As a quick overview for those who haven't watched it yet, the four reasons are:

Quote1. Ignorance - They haven't heard of it.
2. No Interest - They know of it, but it isn't their jam.
3. Black American Culture - Peer pressure that RPGs are not a "black" thing, and that those who do are perceived as "trying to be white".
4. Religious Stigma - The Satanic Panic among many churches which are influential among American black communities.

It was a little unclear, but it seems like he's suggesting that educating more people about RPGs and reaching out might get more black people interested.

I don't have any great insights as far as marketing. One observation I have is that science fiction seems to be doing better within Black American culture than fantasy is. There are a number of prominent black science fiction authors, and in pop culture, there are many sci-fi movies and tv shows with a black lead - Men in Black, Deep Space 9, etc. This is significantly less true of fantasy, but fantasy is dominant within RPGs.

Part of the problem is the idea that we somehow HAVE to get black people interested in RPGs, or that lack of interest in RPGs in the black American community is somehow reflective of RPGs themselves, as opposed to black American culture or personal preferences. Sometimes people have different interests. I had a friend who used to play with us in my first gaming group (who I met through the guy who introduced me into RPGs) who happened to be black (Hispanic) and one of the reasons he rarely played with us was cuz he was more interested in sports. We often tried to get him to play (cuz he was cool and we needed more people, not to fill some diversity quota), but he rarely did cuz he was usually more focused on training for track and field.

So where we supposed to have strapped him into a chair to make our game group more "diverse" (not that most of us weren't at least a bit mixed race and Hispanic already)? Or was it OK to accept that sometimes people have different interests?

edit: grammer 

Quote from: jhkim on March 13, 2022, 04:32:55 AM
OK, I just watched the video. As a quick overview for those who haven't watched it yet, the four reasons are:

Quote1. Ignorance - They haven't heard of it.
2. No Interest - They know of it, but it isn't their jam.
3. Black American Culture - Peer pressure that RPGs are not a "black" thing, and that those who do are perceived as "trying to be white".
4. Religious Stigma - The Satanic Panic among many churches which are influential among American black communities.

It was a little unclear, but it seems like he's suggesting that educating more people about RPGs and reaching out might get more black people interested.

I don't have any great insights as far as marketing. One observation I have is that science fiction seems to be doing better within Black American culture than fantasy is. There are a number of prominent black science fiction authors, and in pop culture, there are many sci-fi movies and tv shows with a black lead - Men in Black, Deep Space 9, etc. This is significantly less true of fantasy, but fantasy is dominant within RPGs.

My impression wasn't that he was proposing solutions so much as making a video saying he think a lot of people have misdiagnosed the reasons, and then offers insights based on what he has seen. I think it is more: here are the reasons why I think its the case, do what you want with this information. I haven't watched it since it came out though so I might be misremembering details.

I found this video a while back. It's certainly food for thought; I don't view equal participation per population as my goal, but I do think that cultural phenomena which prevent people from playing the games they enjoy is probably not good. Of the listed factors, I only think 3 and 4 are actually worth discussing as potential problems to rectify.

I know for a fact that regarding RPGs as "not a black thing" is a real peer pressure. I am notably less sure about the religious stigma; I think it's possible there's a reflex there, but the Satanic Panic was 30 years ago. Chances are, it's an atrophied reflex at this point.

But more to the point, I think D&D is a poor entry game for the black community in general. It's pseudopagan pantheon will trigger Satanic Panic reflexes, and I understand that blacks are less interested in High Fantasy-type games (although I don't know if there's enough black participation to make a case for a positive preference.) I don't think that RPGs will take off in the black community until after D&D is no longer the Gatekeeper RPG.

There are black game designers and their products have not made much of a dent in the black community as far as I can tell. Perhaps the black community has other interests.