D&D 5E After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon

[delericho]

...1. went. Upon entering the museum, the clerk looked up and ask "So... she drag you in here?"
Right off the bat, the clerk was assuming:
a) my friend was the interested not her.
b) he was not a museum goer
c) he was their involuntarily
Which is not an uncommon attitude or response in the ...industry.

The same STUFF happens everywhere. At the Car dealer where my Mom was going to buy the car. At the RC shop where my wife was the customer. At the sewing store where I was the customer. At the gun show, at armour tent, church bake sale, etc etc.
When your customers are generally X it a usual thing when the outliner shows up.

"They do it too" is a lousy excuse for us engaging in crappy behaviour.

 

[jayoungr]

I conducted a poll at a Swedish rpg forum, asking what people have played over the year. With 103 responses, D&D was at 16%, Pathfinder at 9%.

Mutant Year Zero (a Swedish game) was at 25%, a Swedish fantasy rpg called Eon at 20%, Symbaroum (which is available in english but is Swedish from the beginning) is also at 20%.

Speculation: Do you think D&D would have a larger share if it were available in Swedish?

 

[jasper]

I saying it is normal behavior even in 2016. Only in mythical worlds or tv does a clerk automatically know who the customer truly is. If a store's customer base is mainly male then yes then when a female walks in with gaming question, I can deal with foot and mouth from the clerk. I still get strange looks when I buying cross stitch supplies, wedding cake supplies and other stuff which usually is a woman's thing.

 

[Maggan]

Speculation: Do you think D&D would have a larger share if it were available in Swedish?

If it hade been available in Swedish in 1982, when the rpg scene exploded in Sweden, it would be higher. But in Sweden, another game took the dominant position, and even though D&D later was translated it never stood a chance.

Maybe a bit higher, but swedes seen to prefer games produced in Sweden.

/M

 

[delericho]

I saying it is normal behavior even in 2016. Only in mythical worlds or tv does a clerk automatically know who the customer truly is.

The thing is, it's easy to fix. Instead of jumping to any conclusion, the clerk can simply say, "hi, can I help you with anything?"

If a store's customer base is mainly male then yes then when a female walks in with gaming question, I can deal with foot and mouth from the clerk.

Yes, it's not the worst thing in the world. And, yes, we can probably "deal with it."

But given that we can do better, let's do better.

I still get strange looks when I buying cross stitch supplies, wedding cake supplies and other stuff which usually is a woman's thing.

And if this were a site dedicated to cross stitching, wedding cake supplies, or whatever else, then I would say exactly the same.

 

[ad_hoc]

If I stumbled in there seeking sexual companionship? Yup, not my bar. I'd ask for directions to one more accommodating, but I wouldn't kvetch about them not being 'welcoming'. I'd migrate to a bar that was.

But there are no bars like that for you. And if people found out that you are a man and that you are attracted to women you would likely lose your job, your family might abandon you, you might go to jail, and you could be beaten or worse.

Then one day your friends invite you to play this new thing they found called a role playing game. In the book it says that characters in the game can be men if they want to, and it's okay to be attracted to women. Unfortunately after you point out the passage to them they call you a whiney jackal who is just out to ruin their lives. They declare the game to be ruined and never speak of it again.

So, if a shop doesn't explicitely say "We welcome guys in boots and metalband hoodies!" I shouldn't go there, or I should feel unwanted?

Ok, that was deliberately sarcastic. I think it could act as an impediment, but it's more in the head of person who feel it and in most cases not on the part of the affiliated. If you felt unwanted and shunned most of your life, you'll have a harder time to feel welcomed. But it's somewhat unfair to say "this group shunned me" when it's not true, all that happened is the group didn't explicitely invited you, but you are just as welcomed as the next person.

When Indiana enacted an anti-gay law Gen Con threatened to leave. They reluctantly stayed but ensured people that hate and discrimintation there would not be tolerated and that everyone was welcome. Businesses in Indianapolis went out of their way to put signs in their windows ensuring people that LGBT people were welcome.

We're not just talking about shunning people. We're talking about people who not long ago were not allowed to live legally. We're talking about people who are still being targeted with laws. We're talking about people who often need to think twice before holding hands in public lest they get beaten and killed. So yeah, putting a blurb in a book that it's okay to exist is a pretty good thing.

 

[seebs]

Who says it isn't okay? It's just absent. You are interpreting it as "political", when it very likely isn't.

I think this is the point at which things are diverging, because while the decision may not have been a consciously-considered political decision, it was absolutely a decision which had its roots in societal-scale things; people didn't include things because their culture didn't suggest those as things that would need to be included.

When the idea that people like you exist is consistently "just absent" from the entire world, that can be stressful.

And the other thing is... Most people won't feel strongly on this by default. If the game never mentioned the thing, the first person in a group to think that their character is probably trans might get people reacting with distress because "why did you bring up this confusing topic I wasn't thinking about, that's not in the game". If the game mentions it, even once, even in passing, then it's just a thing that the game mentioned in passing, no big deal. And that's going to have very significant positive impacts on a lot of people.

You're quite right that there's a significant difference between explicitly excluding a thing and merely not mentioning it, but there's also a significant difference between merely not mentioning it, and specifically being inclusive.

I'd also point out that 1E AD&D adventures were full of heterosexuality. Look at all those opposite-sex married couples with kids. Sexuality was clearly part of the setting and existed in the backdrop.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I guess so, in the same sense that Call of Cthulhu might have included a random generation table for determining the ancestry, depraved look, etc for people of "mixed" ancestry. (The language actually used by HPL is often less genteel than "mixed".)

But pointing to the fact that the pulps were sexist, and in certain respects even pseudo-pornographic (eg REH's Vale of Lost Women), is only to explain how, not to deny that, they included some sorts of people but not others.

AD&D tended to inherit this in its approach to gender and sexuality. The harlot table is one example.

Upthread I distinguished between what the rules of the game permitted or forbade - and in this respect they had very little to say about sex, gender or sexuality, other than the AD&D 1st ed STR limits for women - and the language of, and fiction presented in, the books, which is a signal from the publisher to (what it takes to be) its audience.

Just to give one example: despite the fact that the AD&D MM describes dwarves as being "typically deep tan to light brown of skin" and gnomes as "wood brown, [with] a few rang[ing] to gray brown, of skin", I think nearly every depiction of a dwarf or a gnome in an AD&D book, AD&D-era Dragon magazine, etc, shows them as having basically northern European skin tones.

Wait so wenching is sexist? Dang! Honestly having a table that lists a type of prostitute a randy adventurer may encounter as he looks to spend his hard earned gold has got to be a different thing than REH racism.

And sure, white male upper Midwest people who liked wargaming and medieval European style fantasy fiction put together D&D, and were the main audience. So of course the game is going to reflect that, a fantasy Europe type environment.

Personally for me female characters have been part of the game since I first got the red box and read about the adventures of that nameless fighter and his lovely cleric companion Aleena. Damn you Bargle!!!!

 

[Azzy]

If you want to actually destroy D&D go ahead and keep pushing the "progressive intersectionality" cultural Marxism as the core tenet of the game.

Can someone please translate this from Tin-Foil-Hat to English for me?

 

[Umbran]

Wanting a drink? I have no issue with getting a drink in a black gay bar. Do you know why? Because as long as I can get a drink, the bar is serving the function I entered for - getting a drink. Unless they become fractious over my presence, I would feel just fine.

Okay. I suspect many would take that as a questionable statement, but, for our discussion, let us take that as 100% true.

Then you are apt to have a major issue at this juncture, as by your statement you probably lack full understanding of what is driving this discussion. Quite frankly, if that's the case, you may well lack the perspective to understand the issues here.

Please allow me to explain how most of the stated demographic would likely feel - decidedly uncomfortable. Humans, speaking generally, are a highly tribal species. We have pretty strong notions of "in-group" and "out-group", or Them and Us. And we act accordingly. We tend to avoid places that are filled with Them, and not with Us. When put in such situations, humans typically end up with some level of anxiety - and I mean that in a rather clinical sense, including the raised blood pressure and increased levels of adrenaline and other hormones related to stress in the bloodstream, and so on.

This is entirely natural thing, and not the result of a conscious, rational process. It is how most of us are built, an aspect of human nature that we must accept and work with. In order to understand the conversation, you must accept that this happens. Maybe you, personally, do not respond to such matters, but the rest of the population struggles with this every day. Our cultures spend a great deal of time reinforcing ideas of Them and Us, and wanting to be part of Us, and not with Them, drives much of human behavior on the individual and the cultural levels.

The response, "Well, everyone else should be just like me - 100% rational and not caring at all that they are surrounded by Them," is about the same as the response, "Well, they should just suddenly have olfactory senses that are 1000x stronger." It runs contrary to their nature, and they can't just stop being that way. It is, frankly, not workable, a non-starter.