D&D 5E Mearls' "Firing" tweet

[Guest 6801328]

My experience with good gaming stores though is that the gatekeeper both keeps the riff-raff (people who are just there to cause trouble) out and is helpful and welcoming to new customers. The ones who just function as a bouncer are the negative gatekeepers, in my experience.

My current local store has some very effective gatekeepers, like one of the two owners and his wife: they are very good at helping you figure out if you'd like a new board game or not, or if an RPG would cater to your tastes or not. They know this by talking to you and getting to know you. THAT's what the gatekeeper is supposed to be.

I don't disagree with you that there's been systemic issues. I don't disagree that gatekeeping CAN BE USED as a negative. Check back on my initial post. I took umbrage with an un-nuanced universal statement.

But I do disagree that it isn't gatekeeping to gatekeep the gatekeepers. That's like saying it isn't harassment to harass people who are harassing people. No... it is harassment, and it's dishonest to think it isn't. We could follow this idea, if you want (serious; I like philosophy and applied philosophy... it's why I'm an old fart in law school and have worked for the government throughout most of the Bush administration and the Obama administration, only to recently join private industry). But that's probably way off topic... so... happy to go to another thread with you on it?

Yes, you are correct. That was an assumption on my part from the earlier part of the discussion from another poster and I apologize if it was incorrect to apply the same thought to your reasoning (as it seems it was, if I'm reading into your words correctly).

You are using 'gatekeeper' differently from almost everybody in this thread, and Mike Mearles.

In the context everybody but you is using it, it doesn't mean to keep out disruptive troublemakers. It means to keep out people deemed "unworthy" in order to reinforce a (delusional) sense of elitism.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I think nowadays you're not likely to see that kind of overt, face-to-face behavior towards women; but privately, or behind internet anonymity? In my experience the kind of person who likes the idea of content density as a barrier to entry is the same kind of person who would drop terms like "feminist agenda" and "SJW" in casual conversation.

...and use the word "poser" in anything other than an ironic context.

Because, you know, people pretending to love D&D in order to further their careers and get dates with supermodels are lurking behind every Settlers of Catan display rack.

 

[epithet]

Many pages ago, it was suggested that the takeaway from this discussion should probably be that Twitter is a bad place to say anything that isn’t trivial. I agree with that. A lot of people seem to be talking about “gatekeeping” in the context of your own D&D group, probably because the tweet reads that way without context. That’s not a D&D issue, that’s just how groups work socially. My group, for example, isn’t open to strangers. We have a mixed group, and we have huge disparities in game knowledge and experience, but we were a social group before we were a D&D group. Maybe that’s unusual, but it’s been the way I’ve always done it.

In context, however, it seems like Mearles was talking about people saying “she doesn’t have D&D expertise” as a way of saying “she is a girl, and girls have cooties. Ew!” I don’t know anything about this woman, and I don’t know what the criticisms have been. I suspect a fair amount of scrutiny would be directed anyone-male or female-who was hired for that position (we are nerds, after all), but if he believes the criticism she received was as a result of her gender, I’m in no position to argue.

I think one thing is obvious though... no one should ever use Twitter to try to say anything important.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I think one thing is obvious though... no one should ever use Twitter to try to say anything important.

Except for spontaneously redirecting the foreign policy objectives of the most powerful nation on earth, of course.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Bias can be fine depending on what its based on. I wish the local store had some bias against people who don't bathe.

Honestly, this is something I can't believe I've had to put in group social contracts before. I've actually lost players over it.

 

[epithet]

... people pretending to love D&D in order to further their careers and get dates with supermodels ...

I seem to have spent decades doing it wrong.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Because, you know, people pretending to love D&D in order to further their careers and get dates with supermodels are lurking behind every Settlers of Catan display rack.

Considering the number of celebrities that have come out in recent years saying that they are gamers, do you really think that anybody, male or female, would not fake liking a game that a celebrity plays just to get closer to him or her because of the idea, whether delusional or not, that a date or something could happen?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Considering the number of celebrities that have come out in recent years saying that they are gamers, do you really think that anybody, male or female, would not fake liking a game that a celebrity plays just to get closer to him or her because of the idea, whether delusional or not, that a date or something could happen?

Gosh it's a really good thing that some people appoint themselves Gatekeeper in order to ferret out those imposters and protect the celebrities, huh? (Sorry, @Katewelch, you're going to have to find some other way to stalk Vin Diesel...)

 

[Tanin Wulf]

I seem to have spent decades doing it wrong.

Got me a beautiful wife! ...then I started liking DND!

 

[Tanin Wulf]

You are using 'gatekeeper' differently from almost everybody in this thread, and Mike Mearles.

In the context everybody but you is using it, it doesn't mean to keep out disruptive troublemakers. It means to keep out people deemed "unworthy" in order to reinforce a (delusional) sense of elitism.

I know. I'm saying that they're the same definition, but the second one is when the first is taken way too far... and that some in this thread seem to be so zealous in throwing out the bathwater that they'd happily toss the baby too.

Put another way, what I'm saying is I think it's better to really, really think through and nuance statements because this is a forum where you can do that, not twitter where you can't. For instance: it does not seem to be "everybody but" me. It seems there are one or two, possibly more, others in this thread. But I won't speak for them because that would be assuming too far.