🏳️‍🌈Pride Month- Celebrating Representation in TTRPGs🏳️‍🌈

[ProfessorDetective]

I'm just going to shout out an indie LGBT+ TTRPG I love: Moonlight on Roseville Beach by R. Rook Studio.

Premise: Summer, 1979. Disco is on its way out while the AIDS Epidemic is on the horizon.

The players are a group of young folks trying to settle around Roseville Beach and Pinewood Harbor, an LGBT+ haven on Rose Island, just off the coast of Metropolis City, Manelin County, USA.

Problem (discounting the bigoted authorities on the mainland): Rose Island is also a hot bed for the supernatural. Witches, shapeshifters, cults to cosmic horrors. Hell, YOU might be one. Your goal? Make friends, pay your rent, and save your new home from evils both within and without.

Basically, The Shadows Over Fire Island. Love this game, love its style and aesthetic. It's also fairly light, mechanically (d6 dice pool with skills/magic). And the studio is doing a Kickstarter for a supplement, sometime in July. Hope that goes well, I need more of this.

 

[Gradine]

To speak to some of the earlier examples: if your only instances of queer representation are manipulative sexual predators... that's not great? It's pretty bad, actually? It's a finer line than it initially seems because queer identities aren't so precious that we can't or shouldn't ever depict them as wrong or even as evil but like... if the only bisexual in this entire campaign is exactly the kind of monster homophobic people describe gay people as, that's basically a tacit agreement with their characterizations.

Other forms of "representation" that we could actually do without:
1) Comedic relief where the "comedy" is entirely contained within the person's identity (modern Persona games combine this with the "sexual predators" thing above for absolutely HI-LARIOUS scenes like cross-dressing men dragging an unsuspecting teenage male protagonist off )
2) Trans people who are there entirely to be fetishized (early Cyberpunk 2077 promo material, looking at you)
3) Non-binary characters who are amoral shapeshifters who thrive on deceit and chaos (aka The Reason It Took Me Years To Finally Finish She-Ra)

 

[Faolyn]

And Guillermo came out on What We Do In The Shadows.

Just about everyone is bi on WWDITS (dunno about Colin Robinson). Guillermo is unusual for not being bi.

 

[billd91]

Huge shout out to Steve Kenson, one of the best writers, activists and RPG designers I've encountered.

Speaking of Steve Kenson, and by extension Mutants and Masterminds/Freedom City, he recently tweeted that people would say they were members of the Johnny Rocket fan club (Johnny Rocket being the first publicly out super in Freedom City).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just about everyone is bi on WWDITS (dunno about Colin Robinson). Guillermo is unusual for not being bi.

Well yeah- that tracks generally with a lot of lore & subtext about vampires and other immortal creatures of legend. But it was interesting & notable that one of the two characters in the house whose love lives we know so little about would come out. And hilariously implemented in the storyline. (A tad darkly, too.)

 

[WayneLigon]

The first LGBT+ representation I can remember seeing is in Chaosium's adventure At Your Door (1990), set in modern day Not-San-Francisco. One of the lawyers you encounter has a young man as his live-in, and in the side-adventures, the two Wiccan dudes are described as 'discrete lovers'.

 

[Vael]

For those that subscribe to Dropout TV and enjoy live plays ... the next Dimension 20 was announced, Brennan will be DMing for four Drag Queens.

 

[MGibster]

o speak to some of the earlier examples: if your only instances of queer representation are manipulative sexual predators... that's not great? It's pretty bad, actually? It's a finer line than it initially seems because queer identities aren't so precious that we can't or shouldn't ever depict them as wrong or even as evil but like... if the only bisexual in this entire campaign is exactly the kind of monster homophobic people describe gay people as, that's basically a tacit agreement with their characterizations.

I get where you're coming from. As far as Curse of Strahd goes, I can't remember if there was any other representation in it. I only remember Strahd because he's so memorable they named the whole campaign after him.

Many years ago, I ran an all dwarf campaign where the PCs were on a treasure hunt to gather items in order to woo the most eligible bachelorettes in all of dwarfdom. On the surface, they met a dwarf who was a hunter, and most brave and manliest thing you could be was a hunter because they lived on the surface where they could fall off the earth at any moment. Anyway, this dwarf had a companion, another male, who lived in the hunting shack with him. This hunter was not at all interested in marrying either of the bachelorettes, which was odd because doing so would bring him and his family a lot of honor. The players didn't even question why this dude was helping them instead of trying to get married himself and never figured out that his hunting companion was more than a hunting companion. Maybe I was too subtle?

 

[ReshiIRE]

I get where you're coming from. As far as Curse of Strahd goes, I can't remember if there was any other representation in it. I only remember Strahd because he's so memorable they named the whole campaign after him.

Many years ago, I ran an all dwarf campaign where the PCs were on a treasure hunt to gather items in order to woo the most eligible bachelorettes in all of dwarfdom. On the surface, they met a dwarf who was a hunter, and most brave and manliest thing you could be was a hunter because they lived on the surface where they could fall off the earth at any moment. Anyway, this dwarf had a companion, another male, who lived in the hunting shack with him. This hunter was not at all interested in marrying either of the bachelorettes, which was odd because doing so would bring him and his family a lot of honor. The players didn't even question why this dude was helping them instead of trying to get married himself and never figured out that his hunting companion was more than a hunting companion. Maybe I was too subtle?

Considering the fact that there are plenty of lesbians (and presumably men who love men / gay men as well) online talking about how, despite the fact it's clear they are a couple, some people think they are sisters... or mother and daughter... or just 'friends' EVEN WHEN ORGANISING A WEDDING...

I don't think you were being too subtle. People just might not pick up those things for whatever reason - though for your friends it sounds like it was fairly innocent reasons.

 

[MGibster]

Considering the fact that there are plenty of lesbians (and presumably men who love men / gay men as well) online talking about how, despite the fact it's clear they are a couple, some people think they are sisters... or mother and daughter... or just 'friends' EVEN WHEN ORGANISING A WEDDING...

I don't think you were being too subtle. People just might not pick up those things for whatever reason - though for your friends it sounds like it was fairly innocent reasons.

Another reason might be that romance is just not a big part of any of the games I run or particpate in. At least I can only think of a few times over the years where romance actually played a part on the story in a more significant manner than a character spending all their gold on hookers and blow in between adventures. If I were a player, I might have missed it as well simply because I'm not looking for it.