D&D 5E D&D as prophetic social development

[Xath McCath]

In D&D you can be anything. Want to be an elf, sure! Want to be an Orc, fine! Feel more connected to something in-between - that’s cool too! In D&D others ask you how you identify and how to identify you. D&D NOW is where we will, inevitably be, in another decade. The autonomy and self-determination of role playing games is leading the way towards social inclusion and acceptance of identity hitherto kept marginalised by dominant gender, sexual, racial, social, economic, spiritual and class identities. By offering such a panoply of character options RPGs are building character towards a just, equitable and inclusive future. The fundamental mechanics of the games are based on navigating and participating in continua of attributes (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Dex) and moral/social alignment. All things are fluid and possible! Even the way you make yourself in-game provides options; give it over to chance and the luck of the die, or self actualise though intentional decision in points-buy. D&D and RPG in general offer us a chance to explore, experience and plan for the justice yet to be born.

 

[Tony Vargas]

...

No, I'm not say'n it.

Y'know what, that's a lovely sentiment, you just hold onto that.

 

[Wepwawet]

That sounds a lot like Iain M. Banks' The Culture series

Still a long way to go, but I'm hoping that's where humanity is heading ... well, unless another dark age comes or all this goes up

 

[Libramarian]

Both D&D and RL have rent-seekers on top who promote only the sorts of diversity that don't threaten (and in fact help to distract us from) the economic injustices that benefit them.

If you think the race-class restrictions in the 1e PHB were draconian try reading the rules for publishing your own D&D content now. As a result we're all playing our genderfluid dual hand-crossbow-wielding half-Goliath Sorcerer/Paladins in extremely staid official APs that are basically expansions of 1e modules moved into the Forgotten Realms. So diverse.

IRL it's a big deal whether the software engineers at Google are 40 or 50% female but no one cares about the hundreds of thousands of people who make a living driving vehicles and are about to be made redundant. We would rather argue about whether a new sports arena has third gender bathrooms than whether the team owner should be able to force taxpayers to pay for his business's infrastructure by threatening to move their cultural institution elsewhere. The most profitable companies in the world are very homogeneous sexually and ethnically and make billions by moving money around in complicated ways rather than by building anything of substantive value but few people know who they are and how they work. It's nice to get to use whichever bathroom has the shorter queue but I'll be impressed by modern social liberalism when I can choose to identify as an accredited investor.

 

[Sunseeker]

A little generic engineering there, a little social reform there and we'll all be more concerned with if it's insulting to call a Vulcan an Elf than which one they identify as.

 

[ccs]

Yeah, I'm just here to kill & loot the dragons.

This real life crap can check itself at the door for 4 -5 hours come game night.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Both D&D and RL have rent-seekers .

Interesting.
It's not every day someone brings up the concept of 'economic rent' in this context. I'm curious how you think it applies to D&D. Is it just WotC collecting more than the game's worth from fans, or is it more metaphorical? Maybe 'system mastery,' corresponds to 'entrepreneurship' as a smoke-screen for D&D-game-imbalance-economy 'rents?'

 

[Dualazi]

In D&D you can be anything. Want to be an elf, sure! Want to be an Orc, fine! Feel more connected to something in-between - that’s cool too! In D&D others ask you how you identify and how to identify you. D&D NOW is where we will, inevitably be, in another decade. The autonomy and self-determination of role playing games is leading the way towards social inclusion and acceptance of identity hitherto kept marginalised by dominant gender, sexual, racial, social, economic, spiritual and class identities. By offering such a panoply of character options RPGs are building character towards a just, equitable and inclusive future. The fundamental mechanics of the games are based on navigating and participating in continua of attributes (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Dex) and moral/social alignment. All things are fluid and possible! Even the way you make yourself in-game provides options; give it over to chance and the luck of the die, or self actualise though intentional decision in points-buy. D&D and RPG in general offer us a chance to explore, experience and plan for the justice yet to be born.

First off, it's hilarious that you think that D&D is going to have a demonstrable effect on society at large from a moralistic point of view. While D&D has had a mammoth legacy across traditional gaming and the later video-game industry as well, I haven't yet seen any compelling data showing that it had any large effect on public morality. It's also worth noting that the game has had all of the things you mention more or less since its inception, and it likewise has not been the vanguard of social change.

Secondly, I don't know if you're just new or what, but D&D worlds certainly do include the opposite of the purported goals; racism is alive and well in FR, particularly in regards to orcs and drow, but even the casual enmity between dwarves and elves likely qualify. Though it's less prevalent, strict gender roles are also enforced, namely in drow and rashamen society. The setting as a whole does not try and paint itself as an egalitarian utopia, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that other D&D settings are likewise.

Lastly, the vast majoring of stuff mentioned there is either disingenuous (I have never seen anyone ask 'how you identify', merely name/race typically), or completely superfluous (gender, sexuality etc). I haven't played at as many tables as many of the veterans around here, but anecdotally I have never seen anyone make it a point to claim that they were "genderfluid" or any of its litany of similar labels. If it did happen, I can only imagine the response from most players would be "Okay. No one cares, we need to go find a way to stop the dracolich villain from world domination." D&D has always been sub-par at exploring real-world politics or social differences due to a legacy of black and white morality within a relatively defined universe, and aside from being a bad tool for the job it's also fairly rude to other players to bring in real world concerns if they're not interested in turning the campaign into a group therapy session.

Honestly I'm suspicious though, this reads like the tail end of an editorial piece posted by a user with only 9 posts at time of writing. Was there actually a question or area of discussion here, or were we just supposed to clap for your grandstanding of social issues?

 

[Remathilis]

I re-read this thing twice. I'm not sure I'm following.

If the OP is assuming that D&D is a gateway to greater cultural acceptance of non-traditional labels in society (be it gender, race, or such) I got bad news for him. D&D is a niche market. It has little grasp beyond its own sphere, and that sphere is tiny. Even if it did, I don't think its going to make the change he wants. Going from playing an elf in one game and a half-orc in another isn't changing identity/who you identify as; its playing a role (hence, ROLE-playing game). Its far more similar to acting in that regard; the actor doesn't "become" the person, she just assumes the role. (Well, method actors do, but they are a small subset of actors). An actor can play a gay man in a movie and then go home and make love to his wife; he's assumed nothing of the identity.

Furthermore, if you thing the gaming community is going to be the bastion of tolerance that usher's in this idea of fluid identity, you bet on the wrong horse. Morus literally was kicking people out a month ago for issues of inclusion. Its a community that still skews white and male demographically, and its own that has seen its own oppression (the stereotyping of nerds) and tends to be insular by nature. It could happen, but I don't think the notion of "being anything you want" coming from a guy pretending to be an elf in his basement is going to change the world.

 

[MoonSong]

If the OP is assuming that D&D is a gateway to greater cultural acceptance of non-traditional labels in society (be it gender, race, or such) I got bad news for him. D&D is a niche market. It has little grasp beyond its own sphere, and that sphere is tiny.

Yes, it is tiny but not only that. It is rooted into its particular culture of origin, and efforts to be inclusive that are valid for Americans might not be so much for non-Americans. For example in my country it isn't polite to remark someones race, a book or show that makes a big deal out of race and goes out of the way to showoff its "diverse multi-colored" people could be easily misunderstood as a racist work. People is people and if you remark someone's race you are excluding them and calling them sub-human. Just to give an example.

But overall, D&D is a game, I love it, we love it, but we shouldn't be reading too deep into it. That way lies madness.