Gay men or women who play D&D

[Argent Silvermage]

Re: Re: Yes I am!

lol, been there for a few of these, many times folks aren't as shocked as you think they will be

The worst part was It took me 10 minutes to finaly say it and my friend Annabelle jumps up and says in her loudest voice "I won the bet! Pay up suckers!" They had had a betting pool anoung my friends on when I told them. It started when the met the guy I would eventualy fall in love with...the cheating lieing piece of @#!%$#@....But I'm not bitter or anything!

To say the least I was mortified....I have since gotten over myself.

 

[Tjaden]

Add another gaymer to the list... I just wanted to say that I really respect all of your opinions and beliefs towards homosexuals. I think everyone in my gaming group knows I'm gay now, except maybe one or two who don't game with us much anymore. Unfortunately, I am the only gay one in the entire group, and at times it can be pressuring, especially when someone makes the occasional gay-bashing joke. On the inside, I'm not one to take those sort of comments lightly, but I usually don't let my anger show, which keeps the game going without too much trouble. Anyway, on a side note, please let me know if there are any gay gamers located close to downers grove, IL, or university of iowa (where i will be going soon). I did notice that Wulf lives very close to me, but I didn't see anything about his orientation, and I'm also sort of looking for people in iowa right about now.. (no offense Wulf) I love this board!

 

[Duncan Haldane]

gamers more accepting....

I've believed this for a long time. For many years now I've been attending 4-6 game conventions a year. I've played hundreds of different characters in many settings, genres and systems.

Because of this I've had exposure to the mindsets of many different characters. I remember one game at a convention where I played a middle-aged, single jewish woman, who was homophobic and extremely religious. I am a gay male aetheist (and at the time I was in my early twenties). But even though I am so different to that character I still managed to understand her life, and think about things from her perspective. I argued her points, and defended her sensibilities.

I came out of that game with a better understanding of zeal - something I've never really had in my life. I could see more of the world because of experiencing this person.

I believe the saying is "before judging a man, try walking a mile in his shoes" - something like that anyway. When rolelplaying, especially if you do get into the mind of a character, you are walking that mile in their shoes.

And once you do that you can see that people are people. They want love, they want acceptance, they want life. They want to be happy and safe. That is common to us all (I know someone will dispute this, but so what). Once we can see this, and accept it, we can accept different people a lot easier.

And so, to re-iterate, I suggest that by playing many different roles (at least when people get into character rather than just seeing a set of stats), one learns to accept different people.

Duncan

 

[Olive]

i'm going to out my sister, who is a gamer, and sometimes posts here as well... but i'd hate to answer the questions on her behalf, so i'll just email her the thread...

 

[JESawyer]

Re: Yes I am!

In short Gamers are the most accepting people in the world, in my opinion.

I'm very happy so many of you have had pleasant experiences with gamers, but I have noticed the opposite. In my experience, RPGers are among the most homophobic people I deal with. They may be polite or silent when gay or bisexual people are around/watching/listening, but I've seen far too many bigoted gamers to think that they are open-minded, as a rule.

It actually got so bad at one point that in the middle of a bunch of stupid gay jokes, I laughed excessively and loudly said, "HA, HA! GAY! IT'S FUNNY! LET'S GO TIP SOME COWS AND BEAT UP DARKIES." And then everyone sort of mumbled and walked away.

 

[Rashak Mani]

I wouldnt say I´m homophobic but I do feel a little bad around overly gayish people.... or better saying I used to. I was a very shy teen and introverted with very bad sense of sex and image. Anything Gay was kinda of threatning. Gay jokes and so forth help give security. I had no gay friends to make the point that it wasnt nice making gay jokes either or that they are nice people.

Maybe it was this kind of gamer you were having contact ? Gets better with age sometimes.... at least in my case I am much better in relation to others sexual preferences. I wouldnt say gamers are more so than others.

(They do say overly homophobic people are closet gays so I try to keep any homophobia under control... In fact a colleague of mine wouldnt stop cracking gay jokes, sometime later I discovered he had found his gayer self.... amazing... he was all macho bullsh*t all the time. )

Once we become adults and we make friends that are straight, gay, lesbian, religious (this is the hardest one), etc... we learn a lot and respect more. Then its no big issue anymore.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

Where're the women?

Wow... Plenty of gay gamers hanging around, but where'd all of the women go?

The group I play in includes two women.

One of the women is my wife.

The other woman is the eldest of our group. She's our most recent recruit, and has never before played in a PnP RPG.

In fact, she defected to D&D from Everquest.

Ha!

 

[Asathas]

Yep... here's another one.

I'm 33 now... I've been gaming since I was 10. I started "exploring" when I was 11 and started coming out as gay at 17. Now that the stage is set...

First to answer the original question... if my sexuality has in any way influenced my gaming (and thus my membership in a different minority) it's in two ways:

One - I don't tend to play gay characters. I think the years of assuming I was straight simply because I hadn't stopped to figure things out followed by several years understanding I was gay but not being out about it made it a bit more "mainstream" to play a straight character. My last 6 characters have been (most recent first) a straight drow assassin (he's a predesigned character so don't shoot me please), a neuter tremen druid/fighter, a straight male lizardfolk shaman, a neuter modron mage, a straight female druid/monk, and a straight arabic dwarven mage. As you see, I have a few asexual characters but the rest are straight.

Two - Our gaming group meets in my home. My other half and I started the group with some gay friends almost 5 years ago. One of them had to quit due to medical problems and another because he and his partner moved away. We added a straight couple who had been friends of mine and a straight (although into B&D/S&M/Leather) male friend of theirs. When their friend left the group due to lack of available time, we put out the word we were looking for new players on the WOTC web site forums. As part of the posting, we explained that we are a gay couple and the group meets in our home. No, we aren't going to molest, convert, or in other ways hassle any one but prospective gamers had to understand that they'd be coming to our home and that is one place we don't take attitude and certainly not insults. We added 4 players from that posting and all of them have stayed with the group now for over a year. We also have two new players who are both gay although only one plays regularly.

The group has been as cool as I could ever imagine. In our main campaign, one of the straight guys plays a bard who "boinks" anything with two legs and we're not sure if that's a limitation or just a matter of lack of opportunity. In a previous campaign, one guy played a character with a fetish for non-humans and the more non-human the better. Generally sex doesn't come up much in the game but if it does, it's not an issue to sweat over. We're all friends and spend at least 40% of the time teasing each other and having fun. Reminiscing over past encounters in-game and especially those memorable bad die rolls.

Though I didn't mean to get so long-winded, my point was generally that we have to take a bit more care about who we play with just to make sure that the sessions remain fun and that we're not getting lectured and/or insulted in our own home. And as for myself, I've spent so much time in my life just trying to blend in, that I don't tend to play characters who are strongly noticible in the area that I qualify as a minority. I've played just about every bizarre race, class, background, and what-have-you, but my own minority doesn't seem to come up. I guess I'm somewhat concerned... possibly even afraid... about putting it that much in the faces of folks I consider friends. I guess I'm not as "out" as I thought I was.

Mr. Night, Saoghail, Asathas, Nordom, Niolo, and damn if I can't remember the name of that dwarf... or you could just call me Adam.

 

[SSS-Druid]

UH-oh, combat boot, flannel shirt, baseball cap wearing guy with short blonde hair... Must be homophobic. Quick, delete the thread!

Heh.

Don't be too sure; you just described my ex.

 

[el-remmen]

Wulf said:
I've never known a straight man to seriously play a gay character.

I have. Of course, I was playing a monk who was repressing all physical desire - so the fact never came up in the very brief game that unfortunately ended before we got to do much. . .