Queer As A Three-Sided Die: Round Table From GaymerX3

At the GaymerX3 convention in December 2015, several well-known tabletop roleplaying industry members took part in a discussion called "Queer as A Three-Sided Die" which dealt with issues of queerness in the tabletop community. The participants were Tim Motishaw (D&D Adventurer's League Regional Coordinator), Joseph Carriker (Changeling: The Lost, Relics & Rituals, Stormwrack), Jeremy Crawford (lead designer, D&D 5th Edition), Steve Kenson (Mutants & Masterminds), Donna Prior (OrcaCon, Green Ronin), and Wesley Schneider (editor-in-chief, Paizo). The YouTube video is below (51 minutes), but I've also borrowed a bunch of bookmarks from Wesley Schneider's website so you can drop in at points which interest you.

[video=youtube;xCQCO5ZCONo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCQCO5ZCONo[/video]

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[h=4]Bookmarks[/h]

• General Introduction (00:13)
• What is this Panel? (By Q3SD creator Steven Kenson; 1:11)
• “My Name is Joseph Carriker…” (05:00)
• “Hello Everybody, My Name’s Donna…” (07:36)
• “I’m Steve Kenson…” (11:10)
• “I’m Wesley Schneider…” (“Secret” Gamer Illuminati; 13:56)
• “I’m Jeremy Crawford…” (17:45)
• Coming Out Through Roleplaying (22:44)
• “Why Aren’t You Writing for Us?!” (24:19)
• I’m Not a Writer. How Can I Help Make Tabletop a Safe Space for Queer Content? (27:32)
• “…So Far in the Closet I Could See Narnia.” (30:46)
• Pushing Past Barriers to Participate in Tabletop (31:40)
• Dungeon Bears (33:16)
• The Experience of the Nerdy Queer (33:27)
• Donna Demonstrates Queer Tabletop Event Coordination (34:14)
• “It’s Hard Enough to Get ANYONE to Play Tabletop…” (34:36)
• Gravitas vs Safe Space (36:31)
• “There is Absolutely Nothing Wrong with Creating a Fantasy World Where Being Queer is Totally Okay.” (“Anyone Who Tells You Otherwise is Wrong”; 37:19)
• Queer Villains (39:09)
• I Love the Female Characters, But the Men… eh. (41:42)
• “Isn’t that $#%&ing Refreshing.” (41:27)
• “It is Truly an Issue.” (43:08)
• Men Get to Be Fabulous (44:42)
• Do You Find/Erase Homophobic/Misogynistic/Racist Content? (45:46)
• Moving Beyond Placeholder Characters (46:54)
• Diversity is Something We’ve Got to Always Be Considering (47:44)
• Descriptions of Male and Female Characters (49:12)
• Adventures We’re Excited For (50:54)
• Clapping (51:27)

 

[Fralex]

I really can't help but see the "X3" as a sort of squinting cat emoticon.

 

[ddaley]

+1

I have played D&D off and on for many years and it has been the same for my groups.

I don't want to know that they are Gay. I don't want to know if anyone is strait either. I frankly just do not care and do not really want any sexuality in my rpg games and if someone just HAS to bring a tiny bit in, it better be in character.

Really this issue is just a non issue with any games I have been to.

We don't care if you are strait,gay,boy,girl,young,old,black,white,religious or atheist,Democrat or republican!

All those things have nothing to do with the things that are important at the game table.

I realize that not all game tables feel that way. That is a sad thing.

I just think there are a heck of a lot more game tables like mine than the other.

Just be happy and get your game on.

 

[GameOgre]

What Jester said. Everybody has a sexual orientation. Straight people talk about theirs all the time, usually without even realizing they are doing it, because it's perfectly normal to talk about your loved ones and family.

Besides, "I don't want to have to know somebody is gay" is basically the same as "I want to be able to assume everyone is straight". Like it or not, we divide the world into defaults and others. And if somebody isn't explicitly declared to be other, they're assumed to be default. Look at all the chaos that ensued with, for example, the black actress cast to play Hermione in the new Harry Potter play. Hermione's race is never stated, so therefore everyone assumes she's white, and clings to that assumption even when the creator says it isn't necessarily so.

Same thing with sexual orientation. If we really did agree to just not talk about it, gay people would become entirely invisible, and everyone would assume everyone was straight. Suggesting that nobody should acknowledge their sexual orientation isn't a neutral position.

If you walk up to a game table expecting and looking for unfairness you will find it. Being biased isn't just a one way road. I'm not saying unpleasant things can't happen, I know they do.

I just think that for every group of unpleasant people who would harshly judge someone based on their sexuality or one of the many other reasons humans find to be jerks to each other, there are five tables that would instead offer a warm seat and good times role playing.

As far as the games go for my group, sexuality is just something we deal with only very peripherally and even then it is a in character thing. If you want your character to be gay I don't have a issue with that but the game doesn't need to be about that. The same way it doesn't need to be about the strait guy being strait.

We don't care if you are gay. It's not a issue.

What will be a issue is are you a good player? Do you make the game fun and make the game a better place. If that is the case,then no matter who you are and what you define yourself as, welcome to the party and we will very shortly be friends!

 

[Morrus]

We don't care if you are gay. It's not a issue.

It's really not about what you care about, though. It's about the issues these real people experience in their gaming lives.

 

[oakthorne]

Autocorrect. I bet he's seen that before!

You literally have no idea.

 

[oakthorne]

What will be a issue is are you a good player? Do you make the game fun and make the game a better place. If that is the case,then no matter who you are and what you define yourself as, welcome to the party and we will very shortly be friends!

Let me ask you a question along these lines.

Will I find myself and my relationships in your game setting? Will the marriages in your setting be only between men and women? I'm not talking about some romance-focused game - but just the innkeeper and his croftwife, or the king and his queen. Does your setting encompass enough broad thought to include imaginary monsters and fantasy races, but not enough to include queer persons?

And please, do not deliver on the "there is no orientation of any kind in my games" unless everyone reproduces by binary fission. It's there. You don't see it as such, but rest assured - we do.

I'm not saying you have to have those elements in your game. But don't step up and pretend that we've got some "other agenda" for discussing those elements, my friend. We are all enjoying our explorations of various modes of fantasy world-building and -exploring. Discussion of relationships in a setting is just as valid as discussion of divine magic or draconic politics - except that queer relationships and persons (like political intrigue, medieval economics, and arts of swordsmanship) are something from the real world that we're interested in seeing in our fantasy. So we do what nerds do: we talk about it.

There's a name for folks who show up to criticize those elements but not the ones other people discuss. Just sayin'.

 

[hardvice]

The "I don't care if anybody is gay, black, etc." viewpoint is one that I most often encounter from well-meaning people. It is said with the best of intentions: why can't we all just get along? Unfortunately, what it really tends to stem from is a failure to account for other people's experiences and perceptions. If you're white, you don't think much about race because you don't have to. If you're straight, you don't think much about sexual orientation because you don't have to -- etc. If you belong to one of those "other" groups, however, you don't have the luxury of not seeing race or not caring about sexual orientation because they directly impact your life everyday.

In terms of sexual orientation, lack of representation is one of the most common problems. Not only do you (until very recently) never see characters like yourself, but you're simultaneously inundated with stories, tv shows, movies, songs, etc. about straight people's relationships and sexuality. It gets a bit exhausting after a while.

I personally got into roleplaying largely because it gave me the opportunity to play people who are nothing like me, but as I began to figure out who I was, I realize it also gave me a great opportunity to be a part of telling stories where somebody like me was the hero -- something I almost never saw back then. It seems like making a big deal out of nothing if you've never experienced that kind of invisibility, but there are times when it was almost life-saving just to be reminded that people who were like me existed, and were just as capable of saving the day.

I'm very fortunate to have been a part of a number of groups that understood why this was an important part of the storytelling to me. I don't always roleplay characters who are LGBT, and when I do it's not always an obvious part of the story, but if we hadn't been willing to talk about it, and at least been open to the possibility of making it as much a part of the story as straight characters and NPCs romantic and family life, then I would never have had the opportunity to help tell those stories. And that would have been unfortunate.

 

[GameOgre]

Let me ask you a question along these lines.

Will I find myself and my relationships in your game setting? Will the marriages in your setting be only between men and women? I'm not talking about some romance-focused game - but just the innkeeper and his croftwife, or the king and his queen. Does your setting encompass enough broad thought to include imaginary monsters and fantasy races, but not enough to include queer persons?

And please, do not deliver on the "there is no orientation of any kind in my games" unless everyone reproduces by binary fission. It's there. You don't see it as such, but rest assured - we do.

I'm not saying you have to have those elements in your game. But don't step up and pretend that we've got some "other agenda" for discussing those elements, my friend. We are all enjoying our explorations of various modes of fantasy world-building and -exploring. Discussion of relationships in a setting is just as valid as discussion of divine magic or draconic politics - except that queer relationships and persons (like political intrigue, medieval economics, and arts of swordsmanship) are something from the real world that we're interested in seeing in our fantasy. So we do what nerds do: we talk about it.

There's a name for folks who show up to criticize those elements but not the ones other people discuss. Just sayin'.

Sure. We have all kinds of relationships in the game world, pretty much if it's in the real world it's in the game and all kinds of stuff that is not in real life. Most of it is standard husband and wife but all kinds of stuff abounds.

We keep it pretty darn tame though as far as what is covered on screen. Tame as in very little overt sexuality. Different people are comfortable with different levels of sexuality so we error on the side of caution. We also have players of different ages playing, with kids running in and out of the room or playing the role of monsters or just sitting with a D&D coloring book on the floor.

 

[GameOgre]

The "I don't care if anybody is gay, black, etc." viewpoint is one that I most often encounter from well-meaning people. It is said with the best of intentions: why can't we all just get along? Unfortunately, what it really tends to stem from is a failure to account for other people's experiences and perceptions. If you're white, you don't think much about race because you don't have to. If you're straight, you don't think much about sexual orientation because you don't have to -- etc. If you belong to one of those "other" groups, however, you don't have the luxury of not seeing race or not caring about sexual orientation because they directly impact your life everyday.

.

Your viewpoint is one that I often encounter from well-meaning people. I hope it is said with the best meaning intentions unfortunately sometimes it is not.

See often I am told by complete strangers that something is wrong with me. I must be at least a little bit racist or sexist or homophobic because of who i am. What my skin color is or what sex I find attractive.

That because I am a white male heterosexual I can't understand other peoples pain or what they sometimes have to go through. That I can't really be a decent person who treats all human beings like human beings.

Nope, the problem is me.

But on the RARE off chance that it isn't me then I am one of the rare ones because most people like me ARE the problem.

Look all I wanted to do with these posts was to say next time you guys saddle up to a rpg table realize that most gamers do not care what your race or sexuality is, we don't care how old you are or what political party you are. We just want to sit down and have fun and role play taking down the bad guys and claiming our share of the loot!

I'm not even saying there are not some crappy people out there. There are. What I am saying is that those people are few and far between(though they always seem loud) and while we will never get rid of all of them they are few and we are many.

It's not the other way around.

 

[Fralex]

It's about striking a tricky balance between not caring what someone is, and not ignoring what someone is. [MENTION=57914]GameOgre[/MENTION], most of what you said sounded fine to me, it was just that "I don't want to know" line that tripped up some people's sensors. That's the sort of sentiment that tends to be associated with those crappy people you mentioned, the ones who think the very existence of different orientations is somehow offensive, and that any acknowledgement of them, no matter now innocuous, is like having those "deviants" force their opinions down innocent straight people's throats.

I doubt that's what you were trying to convey, but for people who have been told things like that their whole lives, well, it's easy to see why they'd have little patience for it. The unfortunate truth is that even if the genuine jerks are few and far in between, they are very loud and have a habit of poisoning the phrases they're most fond of yelling. Until the world moves on and they quiet down and/or die off, it's best to avoid sounding like them.