D&D 5E Mearls' "Firing" tweet

[nswanson27]

Is there are high level D&D tournament that requires high level play? If so, then yes, there should be a benchmark that needs to be met to play in it. You shouldn't have exclusionary elements for the game itself. To finish your analogy, that would be like saying "Can you return a 100+ mph serve? Do you know who won the first match between Borg and McEnroe and where it was played? If you don't you don't have any business playing tennis at all."

There are plenty of tables with the expectation that the people there are good with rules, make smart tactical decisions, and quick to grok lots of crunch. There are also lots of table that don't. My analogy didn't imply be awesome or don't play tennis at all, it's that differently ability levels are for different tournaments. There are even tournaments where if your ability rating is too good you're not allowed to play. Not trying to put a value statement on anything - it's just there's different tournaments/tables. There's a reason for all to exist.

The correlation is pretty strong.

Correlation is not causation. I've heard it used as cheap slam to try to shut down civil and open dialog (which IS probably where a lot of those types reside), and I've heard it used in good faith to try to articulate the presence of people with impure motives in an otherwise noble cause.

 

[Mistwell]

First, boy am I thankful for multi-quote or else I'd be spamming the thread with messages just to reply to people replying to me!

And you base this on what, your narrow experience?

I am saying that, lacking evidence to the contrary, people should not assume a correlation between two otherwise disparate groups. And, as anecdotes are not evidence, neither my own experiences nor a short list of tweets in reply to Mike Mearls are evidence of anything.

If you're going to imply a huge swath of players are sexist because of their attitude towards the rules, it would be wise to have evidence of such before you tell them to not buy your game anymore. That's my point - it was just a poor way for Mike Mearls to say what he's trying to say, despite understandingly being frustrated right now.

Would you say that in the past, the game had been played by predominately white males? Wouldn't it stand to reason then that many people who want to keep the game for some exclusive club would likely fit that category? And that the targets of their attempts would likely be members of other demographic groups?

No given the context we're talking about, I think you picked the wrong common denominators. The common denominators here that I think are most relevant are, "nerds" and "who like dense rules and lore about fantasy topics". I don't think in the past the people who played D&D congregated together because of their gender or race - they congregated together because of a fairly niche set of interests which casually can be categorized as "nerds who like dense fantasy books" starting at a time in their life where those other boys were the most likely to want to play that game and have those interests. If girls (in the 1970s and 1980s) who were also nerds and who liked dense texts about fantasy stuff also wanted to play, I suspect most would have welcomed it and still do. I just don't think gender and race were the more relevant commonalities.

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.

Well, and my experience differs. Like I said, I have seen role playing used as sexism more often. Guys who, in the role playing of the game, hit on women playing or say intentionally gross things to women. I just have not seen "liking dense text and lore" used as often to express sexism to women, even subtly. But I am not trying to substitute my experience for fact - I am saying I have seen no objective evidence of any of this so I don't think it's wise to make the claim and then "fire players" based on a lack of evidence these two things are related.

There may or may not be a general correlation between the two sets of jerk behavior: but it is apparent from reading the Tweets that there is a particular correlation among some of those being jerks to Mearls on Twitter right now and those who have historically been advocating jerky behavior to Mearls on Twitter for many moons. And correlation is not causation, but hard not to sympathize with his frustration after his excitement for hiring somebody he thinks has a lot to bring to the table.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

I do sympathize with his frustration (and said so in my first response to this thread). And I don't think it's surprising that him saying that attracts response to him from the kinds of people who fit the description. But I think that's more of a factor of him saying it as an attractor, as opposed to some representative self-selected respondents to him.

And with that, I think I will take a pause from this thread. I think people understand my position. I don't know that I am helping anyone understand a different perspective much at this point. So it's not that I am going to ignore replies to me (I will try to read them) but I'd like to go read some other threads here about D&D now rather than spend all my time in this thread

Also, if you REALLY want a reply to this topic...I once again encourage people to check out CircvsMaximvs.com, the sister site (also run by Morrus) to this site which has a lot more political and social conversation (with fewer rules). Some folks in this thread (and the prior one) have been mentioned in one of the threads there, concerning this topic.

 

[CleverNickName]

The most important part of the tweet to me is 'you're fired'. It is a clear unequivocal stance of solidarity. He states in no uncertain terms that he doesn't count the opinions of toxic people.

Boom goes the dynamite. We need more men to take this approach in the gaming industry, especially those in leadership positions.

Men who feel threatened by the inclusion of women need to take a good hard look at themselves and what they enjoy about their hobby, and ask themselves what really makes them feel that way. Because I bet it's not "the lore" or "rules complexity."

 

[redrick]

There are plenty of tables with the expectation that the people there are good with rules, make smart tactical decisions, and quick to grok lots of crunch. There are also lots of table that don't. My analogy didn't imply be awesome or don't play the sport at all, it's that differently ability levels are for different tournaments. There are even tournaments where if your ability rating is too good you're not allowed to play. Not trying to put a value statement on anything - it's just there's different tournaments/tables. There's a reason for all to exist.

There is a difference between carefully selecting the people who participate in a private gaming group and excluding people through the overall structure of a hobby.

Now, if I found that the criteria I was using to select gamers at my table led to certain demographics being turned away, I, personally, would look at those criteria and ask if they were as important as all that.

Likewise, if the system in question is designed so that decent systems mastery takes years of experience and familiarity with a lifetime of D&D and RPG tropes, that is the hobby, as a whole, gatekeeping new players. Can you pick up what you need to know to be able to play at an "advanced" table by reading the relevant sections of the PHB and going to a half dozen games at an AL store? Or do you need a master's degree in Dungeons & Dragons which, coincidentally, is handed out at nerd-bro university?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

So in the past the RPG industry structurally excluded everyone but Mr. Whitey?

 

[redrick]

So in the past the RPG industry structurally excluded everyone but Mr. Whitey?

Speaking about the United States here, but in the past, pretty much everything structurally excluded everyone but Mr. Whitey.

There is a discussion elsewhere on this forum as to why the historic demographic of D&D skewed so hard to white males. As a white male myself, I don't want to speculate too much. But, regardless of whether or not the industry intentionally excluded people other than white men, or just ended up that way through happenstance, those demographics persist to this day, and the only way to change that is to bring new people in. (Or drive old people out, I suppose.)

 

[Gradine]

The most important part of the tweet to me is 'you're fired'. It is a clear unequivocal stance of solidarity. He states in no uncertain terms that he doesn't count the opinions of toxic people.

I certainly hope that, if and when I ever become a content creator, I have the courage to state in unequivocal terms the exact kinds of toxic people I don't want purchasing or utilizing my product.

I'm not sure there's much more to add to this thread; the worst of the bad actors have already been dis-invited from the party and the bulk of the disagreement seems to come from semantics more than anything else.

I'll just add my voice to echo that things like mansplaining and misogynist gatekeeping in D&D (like in many aspects of nerd culture) is still a thing that exists, and it all deserves to be snuffed out or otherwise disinfected via sunlight. Note that rules/lore gatekeeping is a popular tactic of gatekeeping but not nearly the only one. I still hear stories about female players having their PCs singled out for sexualized violence as a way to demean and drive them away.

Also a sidenote about "evidence"; but there's a relatively significant amount of privilege that goes into deciding what does and does not qualify as "evidence". Situations like these exist, as evidence, primarily through anecdotes; how could it not be? It's people telling their stories, sharing their experiences. You can debate about how wide-spread the issue without a serious academic study, but to dismiss that it happens at all is to accuse the people sharing those experiences as liars. From there it's a matter of deciding how many times it needs to happen, how many stories you need to hear in order to believe it's a problem worth dealing in.

To be perfectly honest, one time is too many.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No given the context we're talking about, I think you picked the wrong common denominators. The common denominators here that I think are most relevant are, "nerds" and "who like dense rules and lore about fantasy topics". I don't think in the past the people who played D&D congregated together because of their gender or race - they congregated together because of a fairly niche set of interests which casually can be categorized as "nerds who like dense fantasy books" starting at a time in their life where those other boys were the most likely to want to play that game and have those interests. If girls (in the 1970s and 1980s) who were also nerds and who liked dense texts about fantasy stuff also wanted to play, I suspect most would have welcomed it and still do. I just don't think gender and race were the more relevant commonalities.

I think you’re failing to see that he’s criticizing a group not for being interested in A and B, but because they use A and B to try and prevent others from enjoying what they enjoy. Mearls has no problem with dense rules or detailed lore. So those are not the important factors at play.

It’s the gatekeeping that he’s criticizing, not the tools used to gatekeep.

Now...I just threw out the comment about the traditional demo of D&D from the old days to illustrate the connection that you failed to see. I don’t attribute such behavior to all or most long time players who fit that description.

But if you don’t think that there are some old grogs who think D&D is “being dumbed down for the masses” who also don’t want women involved in the hobby....then I’d say you haven’t read the replies to Mearls’s tweet or the other discussions online where it’s come up.

People are flat out demonstrating the correlation.

 

[Kinematics]

Correlation is not causation.

No one has claimed that it is. They've said that correlation is correlation.

No argument has been made that gatekeeping rules and lore has caused sexist behavior. They've said that gatekeeping rules and lore often go hand-in-hand with sexist behavior. Often enough to be notable and recognizable, like a trope. This is often misrepresented by those trying to pretend it's not a problem.

Because it's a correlation, there's no requirement that the existence of one implies the existence of the other. It's just that it's completely unsurprising when such behaviors both manifest in the same person.

In particular, working backwards, exclusionary sexist behavior needs a methodology. This may range from hateful harassment and death threats, to passive-aggressive behavior to push someone out of the gaming circle. Gatekeeping is just another means to achieve an end, and a relatively common one because it's so easy to justify as "rational". It allows someone to whitewash their actions, pretending innocence, and that they're not really sexist, they just really feel it's important to carefully examine everyone's qualifications before they're allowed to join, while hiding the very different bars that women (or other exclusionary targets) have to meet vs men.

It's a correlation not because A implies B, but because A is such an easily excusable method of achieving B. Death threats and open mocking aren't "acceptable" methods (despite being quite common on the internet), so they instead find a method that has legitimate uses, and thus can be masked as a legitimate use.

Just like your tournament examples. There are legitimate uses for segmenting groups based on various qualifications, and people will use that fact to pretend that there can't possibly be non-legitimate uses for the same techniques. People abusing such techniques will hide behind legitimate uses, and have other people cover for them for the same reason.

People will gravitate to this methodology for the same reason a Barbarian will take Great Weapon Master over Actor — it's more effective for achieving their ends. Thus the increase in correlation, as people find the most effective methods of keeping other people out, while minimizing the heat they take on themselves.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

1. I don't care that the new hire at WotC has XX chromosomes. I do care about if she's going to produce something I like, can use, and will buy. The only thing that can determine that is time, and her. I am a bit skeptical based on what I've heard about her lack of direct RPG DM'ing experience. But...I am hopefully optimistic.

2. Can somebody, anybody, please point me to a good description of just what "toxic" means in regards to the uses it has been use in this thread? I get that it is generally a "negative connotation" or "not a good thing"...but what defines if a person is "toxic"? Anybody? Beuler? ... Beuler? ... Beuler?

3. My experience in regards to the "boys club" or "no girls allowed" stuff in RPG/Gaming is simple: Never encountered it. As in, never. Zero. My wife (Yen-Wang-Yeh rest her soul) joined in a couple of other gaming groups when we were just dating/going out. She never expressed anything along the line of "the don't want/like me because of XX". She did leave a couple of those groups because the people playing them were either using RPG'ing as an excuse to get drunk/high, or because they were extreme "Munchkins" (as we called them [powergamers who cheat] back in the day). So...yeah. I'm not seeing any sort of barrier to gaming for anyone other than people who have barriers to general social behaviour and capability. (e.g., the type of people who you wouldn't want to hang around with anyway).

4. There is no #4. There is only Zule.

^_^

Paul L. Ming