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

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

I literally didn't bring anything new into the discussion with that post.

The post you quoted is about why inclusion in media matters, and responding to people who dismiss the testimony of people who it has mattered to because the people they know have never expressed feeling that way or experience that. It's a response to the idea that inclusion isn't a big deal, or that "one paragraph" isn't, as if that paragraph exists in a vacuum, when actually it is part of a continuing trend, and that trend is a huge deal. And that trend includes the cool black guy with the scimitar in the phb, and any number of other things. The issue isn't just about gender and orientation. The paragraph is there because LGBTQA people are harder to represent with pictures.

They need to do better still, in terms of representing those people, and people with disabilities, in adventures and other story text.

 

[Bagpuss]

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 think it has some influence, but hardly what you would call a game changer, more a gradual and logical progression as more people from minority groups move into positions of influence.

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.

No, but there is a difference between encouraging (via more inclusive art work and the like), catering to your existing audience (art work that reflects the European roots of the game) and explicitly discouraging people from playing which I've not seen occur in any published material, or at any game table I've sat at or convention I've attended.

Would you say Luke Cage or Spike Lee movies explicitly discourages white audiences from watching?

 

[Bagpuss]

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

A game changer isn't just for some people it changes the game for everyone involved. Therefore it should be significant to everyone involved in the game.

Like when they made it so goal keepers could only handle the ball in the penalty box rather than all the way to the halfway line.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Adding to flametitan's points:

5e has rakshasa and sphinxes in its monster roster.

PCs can be totem barbarians (not a northern European archetype), dragon-blooded sorcerers (to the best of my knowledge, the idea of dragons who become humans and have family with them comes fro East Asian folklore) and assassins (as I already mentioned, a West/Central-Asian archetype, and in 5e also potentially a non-magical ninja).

The weapon list includes scimitars (not European), blowguns (at least in my experience, most often associated with forest-dwelling hunter gatherers), and slings (in my mind associated with West and Central Asia, and according to Wikipedia also used in Spain and Portugal during mediaeval times, but not northern Europe).

 

[pemerton]

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.

I've been making three points in this thread, and pretty consistently.

First, there has never been a bar on playing PCs of various genders, sexes (or of no sex), races, etc; including the player playing a PC different in some or all of these respects from him-/herself. Nor has there ever been a penalty to the stats of female PCs (though in 1st ed AD&D women PCs had a stricter STR cap than male PCs).

Second, 5e clearly goes out of its way to make it clear that the publishers of the rulebook envisage all sort of people of diverse sexes, genders etc being part of the gameworld. (Just as 4e, with its halflings with braids and cornrows in art as well as text, made a similar point about race.) Given that I personally know people for whom a sense of being able to project themselves into an imagined world matters to their choice of film or movie viewing, I find it extremely easy to believe that the same is true for some RPG players; and the passage in 5e certainly might make that sort of thing easier for some of those people. Whereas some earlier presentations of the gameworld by the publishers, in my view, may well have been apt to generate a sense that certain people are not imagined by the publishers to be part of the gameworld at all.

Third, it is impossible to know how important the above phenomenon may have been to overall 5e sales, given the publicly accessible data.

So I don't know whether or not the passage in 5e has been a game-changer from the point of view of sales. For all I know, though, it may well have been a game-changer from the point of view of the capacity of certain people to see themselves as part of the gameworld.

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.

<snip>

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

I have no idea what sort of "special treatment" you have in mind, but no one in this thread has been talking about "special treatment".

There is no special treatment in having a gameworld presented as including people of diverse sexes, genders, sexuaities etc. If that's the gameworld WotC wants to present, that's its prerogative as a publisher. If WotC have done so because they feel it will increase the readiness of such people to engage with the gameworld - which is a pretty important element of D&D play - then that's also Wizards' prerogative. And interesting, too.

Would you say Luke Cage or Spike Lee movies explicitly discourages white audiences from watching?

For whatever reason, it seems that white people often have little trouble projecting themselves into imagined worlds where they are not depicted. That said, I remember when a white Australian television journalist once asked Toni Morrison whether she would ever write a novel with a white principal character. Toni Morisson's reply was that such a question would never be asked of a white author, as to whether they would ever write a novel in which a black person, or other person of colour, was the principle character.

Apparently at least that journalist couldn't easily project herself into Toni Morrison's imagined worlds.

(Luke Cage doesn't seem to raise this issue, given how much he hangs out with Danny Rand.)

 

[Bagpuss]

I think we are pretty much in agreement.

I've been making three points in this thread, and pretty consistently.

First, there has never been a bar on playing PCs of various genders, sexes (or of no sex), races, etc; including the player playing a PC different in some or all of these respects from him-/herself. Nor has there ever been a penalty to the stats of female PCs (though in 1st ed AD&D women PCs had a stricter STR cap than male PCs).

That's not what has been said by others earlier, but yes I agree with you on that.

Second, 5e clearly goes out of its way to make it clear that the publishers of the rulebook envisage all sort of people of diverse sexes, genders etc being part of the gameworld

Don't disagree there either.

Given that I personally know people for whom a sense of being able to project themselves into an imagined world matters to their choice of film or movie viewing, I find it extremely easy to believe that the same is true for some RPG players; and the passage in 5e certainly might make that sort of thing easier for some of those people. Whereas some earlier presentations of the gameworld by the publishers, in my view, may well have been apt to generate a sense that certain people are not imagined by the publishers to be part of the gameworld at all.

RPGs are somewhat different than film and books however since you aren't tied to the character presented you create your own, thus are only limited by your own imagination, and as you have pointed out there has never been a bar on playing any particular type of character, at least not in the rules (unless you count things like Dwarven Wizards in earlier editions).

So what the publishers imagine isn't anywhere near as important as in other works of fiction be they film, books or computer games.

Third, it is impossible to know how important the above phenomenon may have been to overall 5e sales, given the publicly accessible data.

True there are probably a whole host of factors involved, most likely is they have just returned to the more normal state of affairs after the poor reception 4E got.

For all I know, though, it may well have been a game-changer from the point of view of the capacity of certain people to see themselves as part of the gameworld.

I think we just have to agree to disagree on the semantics of the phrase "game-changer".

For whatever reason, it seems that white people often have little trouble projecting themselves into imagined worlds where they are not depicted.

Well I'll admit when they talk about basketball or musical references in Luke Cage on Netflix, they loose me, but I'm not sure if that is because I'm white or because I'm from the UK, but I don't need to be able to project myself into that world to enjoy the series.

Still just to be clear it isn't a white person only thing, since you've said the same thing about minority groups seeing themselves in D&D. It's just a person thing.

 

[Sadras]

They need to do better still, in terms of representing those people, and people with disabilities, in adventures and other story text.

You're right, they need to do better still.
I WON'T be satisfied until they bring in to play a well-aligned, gender neutral, non-colour identifiable drow, with a slight limp and cleft chin, who possesses a healthy amount of cholesterol and suffers from bi-polar disorder during equinoxes, consumes large quantities of gluten free Halfling cider, and enjoys the occasional inappropriate content deleted over candlelight.

I DESPERATELY NEED THIS IN MY ADVENTURES AND STORY TEXT

 

[seebs]

A game changer isn't just for some people it changes the game for everyone involved.

This definition is unfamiliar to me. I'm used to it as a description of how much the game is changed for a given person, not as a general claim that everyone must be affected.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

This definition is unfamiliar to me. I'm used to it as a description of how much the game is changed for a given person, not as a general claim that everyone must be affected.

Hmmm, that's the first time I've heard of "game changer" used that way. Do have any texts at hand where the phrase is used like that?

The point of "changing the game" is that all players are affected and have to change how they play, meaning that those that can adapt fastest can get Ahead, while previous leaaders may fall behind if they are slow to change. The phrase usually doesn't refer to a literal "game", but to industry, politics etc.

 

[Lwaxy]

Oh my, how did we get here?

I haven't read all of it and wanted to stay out of yet another discussion involving inclusion. However, some things I really need to say.

1. Fat gamers. Stop. Making.Fun.Of.Them. I'm one of those. I've also lived in the basement, well, technically, the attic, of my parents for a long time because of the impossibility to get any sort of job with my disabilities. There is absolutely no need to pick on anyone based on how they look, they dress etc. And you know, most of those "fat guys" at the gaming stores around here hang out there to play (RPG, CCGs whatever) because they can't seem to get accepted into a home group. A few may have bad hygiene habits, but for the majority, it is because they are fat and get comments like "he'll eat all the pizza" or "my couch would break" or even "he must fart a lot" as excuses not to invite them. And yes, I got those kinds of comments, too, even from people knowing I barely eat or drink anything while playing for fear of getting my books or documents dirty.

2. On inclusion - I never, ever had any real issue with being accepted by male players (not counting those few thinking women couldn't GM well) I however had issues with other women (those who would have to be dragged into a gaming store or computer shop, and there were and are many many of those) who would look at me as if I was retarded to play with the boys (no matter if it was RPG, card and board games or soccer) and want telling me over and over that I must grow up to be a "real girl" and start dressing and acting like one. After all, the boys were just stupidly wasting their time and a real girl wouldn't do that. Unless of course it's spending hours on make up... So the sexism, for the most part, came from the females in my classes, including some teachers, relatives, employers and a lot of others I met. And I'm so tired seeing all issues we have with sexism like this being somehow blamed on the males more often than not.

3. No one needs to be told what chars they can and can't play. It should be obvious we can be whatever we chose and can portray in a sensible fashion. But please don't attempt a gay Vulcan who is secretly in love with the genderfluid Klingon - no, just no! It needs to stay within the frame of the world. And if I decide my world has no gay dwarfs, then play an elf or someone straight. If in my world there are no female knights (especially not ones wearing high heeled armored boots - I can't unsee the abominations just seen in the Dragonlance core book) then I won't make an exception for you. You may however start a rebellion about the latter.