D&D General Just sweeping dirty dishes under the rug: D&D, Sexism, and the '70s

[Hussar]

It’s all in the past? Really?

A few years ago here, there was a very lengthy discussion about the treatment of women at conventions after a rather inconvenient number of examples came to light of game designers acting badly at conventions.

The serious solution proposed here was that women should wear body cams in order to have proof that they were being harassed in order to prevent women from falsely accusing men.

That wasn’t decades ago. Here is one link:

We're All Gamers Together: Why Harassment Has To Stop

Another piece talking about the harassment of women in tabletop gaming has surfaced on the internet. At least one of the incidents related in that piece has been substantiated as being true, so I am willing to accept that there is more truth in that article. Whether gamers, or geeks in general...

www.enworld.org

The idea that it’s all job done and we’re shutting down conventional would be laughable if it wasn’t so blatantly obviously meant to derail conversation.

 

[PHATsakk43]

I'm pretty sure White Wolf never outsold D&D. I think there was a brief window in 1996 or 1997, when TSR wasn't publishing anything new because of "a problem with the printer" where Palladium overtook them in hobby stores, but I haven't been able to find the ICV2 charts from those days so I'm relying on possibly faulty memories that are nearly 30 years old, so take that with a grain of salt. But while White Wolf was the New and Cool thing for Serious Gamers who want to Role Play and not Roll Play, it never seriously challenged the dominance of AD&D.

It was more that White Wolf was making a profit, which was something that TSR was failing at miserably.

Again, they never bothered to listen to their customers.

My guess is, like most things of the era, the “Women of Fantasy” calendars were losing money and likely cost more to produce than they were being sold.

That they even produced such a product, given how poorly it likely sold is indicative of not only a culture of misogyny, but arrogance and navel-gazing.

 

[Autumnal]

Confirmed: @Snarf Zagyg rates bards 7/10 and wants one on the cover of the next player’s handbook.

My understanding is that White Wolf outsold D&D one (1) month, shortly before the release of 3e, when there weren’t any new releases that month. What really matters, as @Staffan said, is that WW was making money selling to customers who including a lot of folks who hadn’t been well served (or served at all) by other gaming companies as well as veteran gamers.

(And keep in mind that there were ongoing D&D games among staff and freelancers. Despite occasional weirdness from marketing and an extremely visible minority among fans who needed t pop get some other kind of life, we’ve been nerds on the same bus all along.)

 

[Older Beholder]

Would anyone be against sexy centerfolds if there were both male and female models?

After all, women can be horny teenagers too.

I feel like you're missing the point. Do we really need sex(y depictions) to market a game to kids?
I don't even want to get started on the different ways horny teenage boys are viewed compared to teenage girls.

I think I remember seeing a "recent" drawing of a female orc in an apron holding a rolling pin.
For me, that's not D&D.

And doesn't such a picture reinforce gender stereotypes?

No, the picture you described doesn't reinforce gender stereotypes, there are also pictures of male and female dwarves cooking too.

 

[PHATsakk43]

Confirmed: @Snarf Zagyg rates bards 7/10 and wants one on the cover of the next player’s handbook.

My understanding is that White Wolf outsold D&D one (1) month, shortly before the release of 3e, when there weren’t any new releases that month. What really matters, as @Staffan said, is that WW was making money selling to customers who including a lot of folks who hadn’t been well served (or served at all) by other gaming companies as well as veteran gamers.

(And keep in mind that there were ongoing D&D games among staff and freelancers. Despite occasional weirdness from marketing and an extremely visible minority among fans who needed t pop get some other kind of life, we’ve been nerds on the same bus all along.)

I think the one quarter was when TSR was bankrupt and before the WotC bailout, not the 3E roll-out.

During the 3E roll-out they were probably making more money on Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment alone than White Wolf was bringing in.

As a former 90s gamer, I remember first hearing about the Vampire and Werewolf LARPers at some clubs in Charlotte and thinking they were the exact opposite of "serious" gamers. That opinion was further reinforced at my first duty station in early 2000 when we had to run off E-nothings who were running around base after taps in their issue raincoats, which were unfortunately a black semi-trenchcoat while standing barracks watches overnight.

 

[Autumnal]

You’re probably right and I swapped a label in my mind.

 

[mamba]

When someone responds to you with a reasoned post, how about not talking to them like they are an idiot? Measured tones, sir.

there was no reasoned response, just sealioning, and it got called out for it

Mod Note:
I think this post firmly fits the "sealion" pattern. Please find another discussion to take part in.

 

[Hussar]

Now, to be fair, when I was gaming at the FLGS in early 90's, LARPing was already pretty well established. Remember, Vampire was so big that it managed to actually get a season on prime time network TV. Something D&D has yet to manage.

Granted it was a single season, fair enough. But, that's still more than D&D, despite it's size, has ever done.

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But, what blows my mind is when people talk about things like, "well it was just that way then" or "a sign of the times" all the while ignoring that this has been a perennial issue. Go to the thread I lnked above. 19 posts in and you get someone straight up claiming that the problem doesn't exist. This isn't 1976 or even 86. This is in 2016! In 2016 people are actually seriously claiming that there is no sexism in gaming. :wow:

 

[Hussar]

there was no reasoned response, just sealioning, and it got called out for it

I did think it was pretty impressive to tone police someone for responding to a post that is publicly called out as violating board policies all the while not calling out the original post at all.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't know what the numbers were, but my impression in the 90s was Vampire was huge and catching a part of the D&D market (I knew lots of people who switched to white wolf). It also seems like it was bringing in lots of new gamers because of the different genre focus. D&D was still quite healthy, and most groups I was in, did both Vampire and D&D, but you the general sense where I was, was that D&D was kind of old fashioned and Vampire was cutting edge (I wasn't huge WW person but I did play in a number of WW campaigns during that period).