D&D 5E After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon

[pemerton]

Most D&D is kinda focused around Northern-European white mythology.

D&D is a game where Paladin, Druid, and Bard are all specific classes, but samurai, shaman, or yogi are not. Its a game which has rapiers and longbows on the weapon list, but not tulwars or atl-atls.

Monks have been characters in the game since at least 1978. (Earlier, for those who used the Blackmoor supplement.)

Assassins have the same length of pedigree, and they are a West-/Central Asian archetype.

And the original PHB had tulwars on the list (as a sub-type of scimitar) but not rapiers. UA added atlatls but not rapiers.

Its a game where the "historical" pantheons include Greek, Norse, and Celtic but not First-people, Chinese, or Indian.

The original DDG included Amerindian, Central American, Chinese, Indian and Japanese pantheons.

Its a game with ice-giants, nymphs, and banshees but not Wangliang, Shita, or Quinametzin.

The original MM included rakshasa, ki-rin, lammasu, shedu, coutal, gold dragons, hobgoblins wearing samurai armour - and that's just off the top of my head.

I'll also mention that the list of social titles in Gygax's DMG included non-European titles.

Frankly I think your whole post here is projecting your conclusion onto the actual gamebooks published in 1977-79.

Is it any wonder back when the majority of writers and players were men of White European ancestry that things were written with similar people in mind?

No one is confused about the sociology of authorship.

But explaining why certain material is published for a particular audience doesn't seem very relevant to the question being discussed, which is - if you explicitly flag certain sorts of people as part of your gameworld, will that increase the appeal of your game to those people, because encouraging them to see themselves as part of the fiction.

I doubt the DM I met at a game-day in College who was very homophobic (he wouldn't let a male play a female PC in a one-shot because "that's gay") would change his mindset because his 5e PHB says its okay to be non-traditional.

No one has suggested otherwise (though, as I posted not far upthread, WotC seems to exercise a disproportionate degree of influence over RPGers judgement).

The point is not about changing homophobic (or racist, or sexist) people. It's about the publisher making it clear to certain people that it envisages them being part of the fiction that the publisher is selling and promoting.

I've gamed with members of the LGBTQ community. I know other people who have as well. They never felt they needed to be binary gendered or straight because the rulebook lacked explicit permission.

Clearly over the years without an explicit invitation (through art direction, or paragraphs in the PHB), minority players have joined the hobby

Who has denied this? Like Remathilis, I have gamed with members of the LGBTQ community. No one has said that there are no such RPGers.

Some people will engage with fiction that doesn't invite them to project themselves, as they are, into it.

But that doesn't change the fact that others won't, or won't with the same degree of enthusiasm.

the gameworld never gave the impression of exclusion, merely it never felt the need to spell out the inclusion. D&D is a game where you can pretend to be an elf, a half-devil, a dragon-man, a servant of Thor, a cultist of Cthulhu, or any number of fantastical archetypes. However, it doesn't let you be gay or trans or anything other that CIS because it lacked a paragraph saying so before 2014?

All those other things you mention have been expliclty part of the gameworld.

Back in 1977 the authors of Traveller thought it worth mentioning that characters in Traveller can be of any race or gender. The producers of the original Star Trek series thought it mattered not having all the cast be white American men.

You might think these things are irrelevant. THere are obviously plenty of fiction publishers/producers who think they're not.

Now we are seeing a greater diversity in the writers we are seeing greater diversity in subject matter and the people it appeals to.

So you agree?

 

[pemerton]

I certainly know people who are "seriously interested" in movies or TV shows and will choose not to watch ones that have no people of colour in them, because they're sick of engaging with fictional works that they are not invited to imagine themselves a part of.

Newsflash: They're not seriously interested. They are watching with racial blinders on. You're basically saying that people who lack representation cannot enjoy fiction of another area.

Newsflash!: Are you serious?

First, saying that some people get sick of watching movies where everyone is white isn't "basically saying that people who lack representation cannot enjoy fiction of another area". It's saying that some people get sick of not seeing themselves in fiction.

Second, you reference to "another area" is ridiculous. The places where people of colour live aren't "another area" from America. They live in America, including in Detroit.

Third, I believe you don't know the people I was referring to. I know them. I can report that just a few days ago, I was channel-surfing with someone who wouldn't settle on a particular show because it had only white people and she was sick of that.

Fourth, if you want to see "racial bliners" at work, I refer you to the great "is Hermoine black?" debate.

 

[Bagpuss]

So you agree?

I agree it isn't game changing if that's what you're saying, just a natural progression. LGBTQ, women and PoC have always been part of the hobby (as we agree), nothing barred them before, the paragraph in the PHB only explicitly called out what had been happening at game tables and conventions for years.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree it isn't game changing if that's what you're saying, just a natural progression. LGBTQ, women and PoC have always been part of the hobby (as we agree), nothing barred them before, the paragraph in the PHB only explicitly called out what had been happening at game tables and conventions for years.

So, you genuinely beleive that the continuing trend of greater inclusiveness in gaming materials and nerd media flgsnerally have nothing to do with the continuing increase in participation from marginalized groups? I suppose you also think that the LGBT folks and women and POC you knew thirty years ago who weren't discouraged from playing represent most of all people of those groups, too.

Yeah, the Tumblr kids aren't the ones in a bubble.

 

[aramis erak]

I'll say that the least welcomed players have been the ones who go all Social justice Warrior at gatherings where other geeks just want to play. And without exception those SJW types have been taking offense at not being pampered to. They don't want equality, they want superiority. And they don't deserve special treatment - neither better nor worse.

And the worst of the lot are ACTIVELY DISRUPTIVE about demanding special treatment.

 

[Mistwell]

"None of the women I know have been charged extra or otherwise ripped of by mechanics assuming they don't know better, so I'm pretty sure it's a made up problem."
"No black people I know have been harassed by racist cops, I'm pretty sure the ones who claim to have been just didn't cooperate."

Folks, if you refuse to believe people on this stuff, because you've never seen it, and assume that the people you know would tell you if they had experienced it, you are willfully ignoring evidence so that you needn't confront your worldview.

I feel like this posts crosses the line. We had a nice thread about a good thing happening with D&D. People followed a single side-topic for a while, which was at-best only a minor component of the very many reasons and factors that come into play with sales and marketing for this game. And, now we're talking about black lives matters in this thread?

Enough guys. This is not a politics message board. People often come here to escape talking about things like politics. There are lots of politics boards i the world, there are even message boards which devote a lot of time to talking about RPGS and politics, but this isn't that message board. Heck, this board has a sister site in CircvsMaximvs that talks about politics a lot, and RPGs.

Bottom line, you guys are seriously dragging people down in this thread by trying to make this some catch-all to talk about political topics of the day. There is no Black Lives Matter link to this thread - it's not an issue linked to anything we're talking about, and it makes for a rotten analogy to anything being discussed because it's a hotbutton political topic. Please, I am begging you, cut it out. Don't make this community about people ripping each other apart over political issues. Life has enough of that already.

 

[Shasarak]

Fourth, if you want to see "racial bliners" at work, I refer you to the great "is Hermoine black?" debate.

Spoiler

Well, that was an easy question.

 

[Remathilis]

Monks have been characters in the game since at least 1978. (Earlier, for those who used the Blackmoor supplement.)

Assassins have the same length of pedigree, and they are a West-/Central Asian archetype.

And the original PHB had tulwars on the list (as a sub-type of scimitar) but not rapiers. UA added atlatls but not rapiers.

The original DDG included Amerindian, Central American, Chinese, Indian and Japanese pantheons.

The original MM included rakshasa, ki-rin, lammasu, shedu, coutal, gold dragons, hobgoblins wearing samurai armour - and that's just off the top of my head.

I'll also mention that the list of social titles in Gygax's DMG included non-European titles.

Frankly I think your whole post here is projecting your conclusion onto the actual gamebooks published in 1977-79.

Actually, I was taking of 5e, but please feel free to use whatever edition you want to argue your point.

 

[flametitan]

Actually, I was taking of 5e, but please feel free to use whatever edition you want to argue your point.

Using 5e, we have: Yeti, which are Nepalese in origin; Oni, which are Japanese; Monks still have a heavy Asian flavour to them; Couatl are Mesoamerican; the DMG has an entire section on flavouring equipment for a Wuxia game; and the art tries to do everything it can to dispell the idea that a character necessarily has to be an anglo-saxon, or even of European culture to be a valid D&D character.

Not to mention the creatures unique to D&D that don't really mesh with European folklore.

 

[seebs]

Having an effect in edge cases isn't a "game changer", to be a game changer it has to be an event or idea that has a significant shift in the current way of doing or thinking about things.

And it does. For some people. That's a game changer for those people.