Now, I want Romeo and Juliet, in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!!!!!11!!one!!!
Gatekeeping Part II: The OG (Original Gatekeeping)
I don't understand much of the gate-keeping.
Theater of the Mind, at least to some degree, has always been around in my area. I have been playing D&D without both player maps/grids and miniatures since 1979/1980. Everything on the player side has been through verbal description. I have witnessed a few individuals whom started playing D&D with one of the earliest major So Cal groups (and whom continue to play with the original boxed set) run sessions without any maps at all- I sat in a session with one of them a little over a year ago.
House rules as a gate keeping device is also foreign to me. Every group that I have played D&D with have always included house rules- it has always been expected. Furthermore, those same OG D&D gamers I had mentioned all used house rules.
Male Only is pretty foreign to me as well. Since 1984, every group with whom I have played D&D with has included female players (this excludes mom's who sat in to try it). If the groups that I had gamed with prior to 1984 had known females interested in rpgs, we would would have welcomed them.
And, while I have not seen it, I know gamers of color whom were told "rpgs were for only white people" ( a few of them were also told this by non-gamers of their own ethnicity). This form of gate keeping was a completely foreign to me. I have been playing with groups that have included non-whites members since first being introduced to the game.
Theater of the Mind, at least to some degree, has always been around in my area. I have been playing D&D without both player maps/grids and miniatures since 1979/1980. Everything on the player side has been through verbal description. I have witnessed a few individuals whom started playing D&D with one of the earliest major So Cal groups (and whom continue to play with the original boxed set) run sessions without any maps at all- I sat in a session with one of them a little over a year ago.
House rules as a gate keeping device is also foreign to me. Every group that I have played D&D with have always included house rules- it has always been expected. Furthermore, those same OG D&D gamers I had mentioned all used house rules.
Male Only is pretty foreign to me as well. Since 1984, every group with whom I have played D&D with has included female players (this excludes mom's who sat in to try it). If the groups that I had gamed with prior to 1984 had known females interested in rpgs, we would would have welcomed them.
And, while I have not seen it, I know gamers of color whom were told "rpgs were for only white people" ( a few of them were also told this by non-gamers of their own ethnicity). This form of gate keeping was a completely foreign to me. I have been playing with groups that have included non-whites members since first being introduced to the game.
cbwjm
Seb-wejem
Really? it can't be ToTM? It has to be complex? Are they stuck in 3e and 4e with their plethora of options and grid games? It's weird what people say nowadays, when we started DnD in high school, ToTM was the only way we knew how to play and it was with the Rules Cyclopedia, not exactly what I would call a complex ruleset.
I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion, even wrong opinions.
Twiggly the Gnome
Legend
Years ago I ran a Dragonlance campaign using the original Alternity rules set. Someone wandering by and observing us might describe what we were doing as playing D&D, and I probably wouldn't have cared enough to correct them. I don't think I would have described what we doing as playing D&D.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Eyyyuuuhhh.... The relationship is more complex than that, though. Sure Hamlet is Shakespeare and A Christmas Carol is not. But is The Lion King Shakespeare? Or is it Tezuka? And for that matter, is Jungle Emperor Shakespeare, and what does that make The Lion King? And is Scrooge Dickens, or is it Langley?
Eltab
Lord of the Hidden Layer
I, too, would have that initial reaction. But I would not put it into words just yet.
A) The recent context for "dice-less" was a bunch of high school students at lunch. I would not want my dice out where one can bounce off the table, across the floor, out of my sight, and some other kid pocket it to look over later - the die is now lost to me.
B) From a distance, I cannot tell if one of the kids has an app on their phone to "roll dice" for them (random number generator) and is using that to fill in for the physical dice
C) They might be at a narrative part of the plot where they need to discuss something before any action will be ready.
The only way to know for sure is to wander over, look and listen as I pass by. Even ask if I can join them.
GreyLord
Legend
I was one of those wargamers. IN MY OPINION...part of what you say is inaccurate. You didn't need miniatures or special dice to play a wargame, in fact, my contingent of wargamers didn't use miniatures at ALL most of the time.
I played wargames via the chits and board. This was something that became bigger with Gettysburg and other wargames that came with chits and hexes and other various ways and instruments.
You are right, there was pushback, but I don't see it quite as you portray it. It was more of a snobbish type of outlook to my mind, where the wargamer deals with REAL historical items vs. the fantasy imaginations of other things. They are interested in the recreation of history, or the enactment of history requiring historical accuracy to see how things could turn out differently or why they turned out the way they did. They play it to engulf themselves in the history itself and to be a part of it while playing the game.
On the otherhand, fantasy was more the realm of those who didn't like or enjoy history as much and wanted to create stories. One was for the historians and businessmen, the other for the English and literature majors.
However, it was not so much gatekeeping in the way you portray it as seeing RPG gamers not in the same place as wargamers. It was not saying that D&D players had to play wargames or could not play wargames so much as seeing those playing D&D as lesser than wargamers (at least in some ways). A sort of disdain for the new type of "wargame" that was being published...that it had no place among "TRUE" wargames or wargamers.
Of course, with the decrease (at least to my perception) and gradual decline of chit and board wargames over the past few decades (and I'd say, ever since RPGs took their steam, and the rest of the audience who did miniature wargaming overall were replaced with another type of wargaming such as that WITH FANTASY and SCI-FI such as warhammer) that sentiment has disappeared to be non-existent in rather short order (not really even being a factor as soon as a few months (if even years) after OD&D's release even).
TLDR - IMO Not so much of the same type of gatekeeping as you are saying, as much as looking at RPGs as lesser things for the same audience than Wargames, and that RPGs were a different sort of beast. Something comparatively short lived as RPGs and new Wargames of Fantasy and sci fi slew that beast rather quickly.
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lowkey13
Guest
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