D&D 5E Mearls' "Firing" tweet

Edited elsewhere.

I started playing D&D in 1978, and have played a great deal over the past 39 years.

I have seen the almost entirely male-only culture of it slowly change (at some times painfully so) to be more inclusive, divesting itself of the imagery of chainmail bikinis and the 'necessary' princess to rescue etc. into a much more inclusive game.

The extent of the evolution of the hobby was brought home to me in a new campaign I just joined as a new player a few weeks ago.

The GM is a lesbian, all the other players are women, and one has a husband who doesn't play, but is happy for her to...

... I was so delightfully taken aback by this situation that I just had to say during the first session to all there that this was the first game I had ever been in where I was the only guy!

I have always enjoyed the different energy and problem solving modus operandi a woman brings to a game, and in a few cases I have run games with more than one female player... but the ladies have until now always been in the minority, alas.

Mike is however alluding to something real and still present in the game - every but as much an unwelcome relic as the players who hold such opinions. It's a sexist expression of a elitist minority usually populated by grognard rules-lawyers who don't have much in the way of social skills away from the table, and not many more sitting around it.

I think the PhD students comment about data is nit-picking. Those of us who have been doing this for a long time all know Mike is right on the money with his comment.

The good news is, I think I can safely predict that such corner-case antisocial attitudes will fall away over time, and as more women and LGBT people come into the game, prejudice will get pushed out almost entirely, and where it still resides, will have to keep it's pathetic mouth firmly shut on the issue.

Roll on that day!

cbwjm said:

I may need to turn in my man card. I know practically nothing about cars, sports, or the godfather.

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No, a lot of us do not have the "macho" man card. I know the basics about cars, a decent amount about a couple of sports, and I hate all of the Godfather movies.

I see a lot of people tearing apart his "wording" which must be easier than actually debating what's he saying.

This whole, subjecting any woman who wants to work in traditional geek medium to a battery of nerd tests thing really has to stop. That's clearly what he was lamenting and good for him. With regards to Kate Welch, the very fact that she has to defend her credentials in this way is just so awful. She has design experience. She has more experience than a lot of others. But we're gonna put her through the gauntlet because she's a woman? C'mon people. We are better than this. As a community, we have to be better than this.

Mistwell said:

And there is no link at all that I know of between having that personal preference for gatekeeping in rules, and ones attitudes towards gender and gatekeeping women from gaming.

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Anecdotally, every woman I've ever played with has had a story where they were condescended to about the rules, under the assumption that they weren't a real gamer, with some obscure rule trivia being cited as proof. As often as not, when I answer an ad that's looking to put a new group together, if it's a mixed group then one of the men there will have this attitude toward the female player - and I've known several women who have stopped answering those ads entirely because they didn't want to deal with that behavior anymore.

That's not to say that there is a causal link between a preference for a certain type of game design and a misogynistic attitude, but there is a statistical correlation between players who have that preference and players who demonstrate that behavior. That specific combination of game preference and bad attitude occur together frequently enough that it's worth mentioning.

It's kind of like... gun owners, and people who commit acts of mass violence. Nobody is suggesting that owning a gun causally makes you likely to do such a thing, but a lot of people who want to do that sort of thing are also going to own guns, and it's a combination that's always worth keeping in mind.

Ancalagon said:

Well said. The amount of gaming material and lore is *immense* - especially if you don't restrict yourself to D&D. There are so many games out there. No one can know it all.

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I think I'd be more afraid of someone who did know it all than someone who didn't, were I to meet one of each.

Lan-"as opposed to someone who merely claims to know it all (about everything, not just gaming), of which we all probably know a few whether we want to or not"-efan

Mearls could have done a better job at expressing himself, but that is not always easy when coming from a place of frustration, disappointment, and anger.

*Deleted by user*

ad_hoc said:

It's not about having complexity in the rules.

It is using rules as an excuse to berate women. It's not the rules or the complexity thereof that is the problem.

Also see: Mansplaining

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You know, the funny thing is I've seen this happen at my local game store. Only it was being directed at other men. Seems the gender of the person the "gatekeeper" was checking didn't matter. He was just universally an ass to everyone. (The store owner eventually removed him.)

Or, as my wife put it when one of my women players (at the time we had a group of 3 women and 2 men and me as the DM) met this ass, "No. That wasn't because you were a girl. It was because he has no social graces."

TBH his statement was vague and blankety to unrelated issues and linking some peccadillos and preferences to sexism. It would have sufficed to say it's hard to believe that some people have a problem women in tabletop gaming.[13][/13]