You Know The Drill
We’re being asked to conform to an orthodoxy which we haven’t had a say in… Why were we not involved in the conversation?
Peter Whittle interviews London mayoral candidate Laurence Fox.
Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Perhaps this is salient: in the tabletop gaming hobby, “gatekeeping” (intentionally excluding certain types of people from the hobby) has been a terrible sin for decades. Originally this was driven by the usual handwringing about getting more women into the hobby, a fool’s errand anyway because women don’t want to play D&D or Warhammer 40K as it turns out.
I was in a tabletop gaming group that ran an ongoing campaign for, oh, six or seven years. It was heavy on couples — both husbands and wives playing, although my wife didn’t play (just wasn’t into it). About half the players were female. We’d rotate among different houses once a month, and we also had a play-by-email campaign going on. For a while a black guy joined the group. He was a work friend of one of the regulars, but it was weird because the guy was really quiet. He would literally go a several hour session without ever saying an extraneous word beyond what was needed to direct his character in combat. Now, this was a group where we were all joking and talking constantly — it was a social occasion as much as it was a game. It was very hard to become friends with a guy who won’t talk. Then at some point he stopped coming. I don’t know why. Nobody wanted to exclude him. Maybe he felt excluded, though. Maybe he went on to write essays about Whiteness in Gaming.
Why must it be more anguished in welcoming women than model railroading
Is that a rhetorical question?
Because D&D is almost entirely played by hormonal teenage boys (or hormonal adult boys…) who are desperate for female attention. Model railroading (or historical miniatures wargaming, the precursor to D&D) is mostly played by middle-aged men who have no overriding drive to pursue women.
He would literally go a several hour session without ever saying an extraneous word beyond what was needed to direct his character in combat
There are as many ways to play TTRPGs and motivations for playing as there are players. The guys over at Fear the Boot like to tell a story about a D&D group they encountered that seemed to think the entire game was a kind of endurance-mode video game level: they would literally open the Monstrous Compendium to ‘A’, and say “Round One: Aaarakocra!” then roll for number appearing and fight until they defeated the aarakocra or got TPKed, then roll for whatever was next in the book in alphabetical order, etc., etc. That was “D&D” to them.
So perhaps he was simply looking for a different experience. I frankly can’t understand people who unironically play Adventure Paths, but they sell quite well.
As so often, I understand barely half of what goes on here.
Is that a rhetorical question?
Perhaps not entirely, but since the topic has been raised re: age, I’ll offer rumination. Despite the difference in age group and perhaps aspiration, both are extremely bookish pursuits adjacent to feminine topics of interest (fan-fiction and dollhouse-making, for two) while having enough detail to allow highly focused typically-male digression (the comparison of 3.5 BAB progressions from 1 to 1/2 and effects on multiclassing a gish build, the Whyte descriptions of common locomotive types, etc. etc.). It’s not immediately clear that either *shouldn’t* have women interested, but the long-term tendencies are hard to ignore.
D&D allows a social outlet of sorts for the painfully shy that railroading doesn’t, admitted, but assuming it would ever be a target-rich environment for dating might be called the real fantasy taking place. Although, as a pre-filter for a suitably nerdy mate, perhaps…
The thrust of my comparison was that the outcome in sex ratio might be guessed from afar to be similar due to proclivities – it’s the expectation for d&d that’s unrealistic. Hence the agony in one and not the other, I suppose. “We never have enough girls at game night! We must be keeping them away somehow!”
I understand barely half of what goes on here
[ glares through gate ]
[ glares through gate ]
My level-9 raiding missions in Hades’ Star seem almost respectable.
It’s not immediately clear that either *shouldn’t* have women interested
D&D’s three biggest literary influences are The Lord of the Rings, Conan, and The Dying Earth. I think you’ll find a similarly-skewed sex ratio among readers of those works.
D&D started out as a way of personalizing the individual models in medieval skirmish wargames – toy soldiers, effectively. I think you’ll find a similarly-skewed sex ratio among players of those games.
D&D 3.0/3.5 character “builds” were intentionally designed as a mathematical puzzle that could be “solved”. I think you’ll find a similarly-skewed sex ratio among people who enjoy those puzzles.
Women, as a general rule, are less likely to enjoy fiddly detailed simulations that require tedious repetition to converge on a useful result and mastery of an esoteric corpus. This is also why there aren’t as many female scientists.
“Perhaps this is salient: in the tabletop gaming hobby, “gatekeeping” (intentionally excluding certain types of people from the hobby) has been a terrible sin for decades.”
I must be missing something, which is quite possible. I used to play wargames before moving into D&D after seeing Gary Gygax run a campaign at an Origins convention. I played in other’s worlds and had one of my own, and we had a circle of friends that we played with. Sometimes women played, usually they came in through our connections with the Society for Creative Anachronism. If there was any “gatekeeping,” it was more along the lines of “is this person right for our group” rather than “are they a certain type.”
I could see the problem if there was a college club organized around the games, but my sole experiences revolved around friendship as a criteria for joining in.
Speaking of comic books, Ace points us to something sure to revive a dying “industry”.
Women, as a general rule, are less likely to enjoy fiddly detailed simulations that require tedious repetition to converge
Quite so.
I was suggesting that an attraction one might suppose on a facile level “women like renn faires and downton abbey!” or “women like decorating dollhouses!” belies that (possibly misdirected at times) intensity required for building a 5 foot long HO railway siding with little bits of moss and plants along the way, or the careful choice of deity for the right domain spells in one’s cleric.
The end result of expecting women to like to optimize their wizard’s spellbook as much as a guy is disappointment – and probably worse among those whose “gifts” render them unable to realize what is and isn’t a normal level of interest intensity.
“DM’s girlfriend” remains a well-worn trope due largely to the “other reason for being there than the sheer spergery” aspect. It’s not that anyone is keeping the gate, it’s that the room beyond the gate is full of textbooks and cheeto dust.
Because D&D is almost entirely played by hormonal teenage boys (or hormonal adult boys…) who are desperate for female attention. Model railroading (or historical miniatures wargaming, the precursor to D&D) is mostly played by middle-aged men who have no overriding drive to pursue women.
I think is a fallacious stereotype. I’ve played tabletop RPGs (ironically rarely D^&D) since college and the life profiles of the players changed as appropriate to people of their age. It is still generally male-weighted, but not by too much. The campaign I’m in right now is all male, but most of us are married with kids. The wife of one of the players plays with him in a different campaign. Previous campaigns have been mixed sex, but with the majority tending male. What I have noticed is that it is a very White thing. My previous post is my only firm example of encountering a Black in an rpg (There’s a guy in my current campaign who’s racially ambiguous. I swear, I’ve been acquainted with him for about 20 years and I still don’t know if he’s mulatto or middle eastern or what! His presented behavior, if you never saw his face is “White nerd.”). I’ve had a couple Asian girls in either D&D or LARP games I’ve been involved in. I think they like the cosplay (for the LARPS).
I must be missing something, which is quite possible
I should have mentioned that it’s debatable how much gatekeeping ever actually occurred, outside individual groups. I know one woman who described a D&D group in her high school she wanted to join who were exceptionally strict about who they accepted, but that seemed to have more to do with requiring everyone to dress up as their character, speak entirely in character for the entire session, and learn a small encyclopedia of lore before playing.
It’s essentially impossible to say that anything is typical of people who play TTRPGS because the vast, vast majority of the hobby happens in private among groups of friends who don’t really follow “the hobby”. People who write fanzines aren’t typical, people who go to cons aren’t typical, people who go to organized play events aren’t typical, people who post online or stream their D&D sessions aren’t typical.
I do think that people who do do all of those things are mostly interacting with other people who do those things and as a result are likely to mistake those people as typical. Hence the disconnect between gamers who claim orcs are racist and that the hobby discriminates against women, and the gamers who are befuddled by such claims.
it’s that the room beyond the gate is full of textbooks and cheeto dust
The indie RPG scene is doing great work to present game designs that eschew fiddly number-crunching in favour of generating relationship drama, and that scene is at a wild guess about 25% women designers and maybe 40% women playing (these numbers exclude men pretending to be women for woke cred).
I know of absolutely no female D&D players who obsess over character builds the way the average 3.x player does, but I know plenty who will obsess over making in-setting food and bringing it to the session, or crocheting dice bags, etc. The majority of the kitschy Etsy gamer accessories are made and sold by women.
I think is a fallacious stereotype
I’m being somewhat hyperbolic here. There are certainly vastly more women playing D&D now as we’ve had about two decades of D&D references being part and parcel of mainstream popular entertainment. My experience is that a lot more women will try playing D&D for a session or two, and not just as “DM’s girlfriend” or whatever, but only the same proportion of women will stick with it as has always been the case. Female DMs are still as rare as hen’s teeth.
Again, indie RPGs are the exception here, where there are a lot more female GMs.
[ checks comments ]
NERDZ!!
[ resumes anime while cleaning WWII rifles ]
NERDZ!!
Well…..you’re not wrong.
Looks at copies of Twilight In the East (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21779/1914-twilight-east) and 1914, Offensive à outrance (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/46669/1914-offensive-outrance) on my bookshelf.
I even playtested https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4207/kharkov-soviet-spring-offensive with a classmate of mine oh so many years ago.
I even playtested https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4207/kharkov-soviet-spring-offensive with a classmate of mine oh so many years ago.
I remember that! Sold all my AH and SPI games and magazines as I haven’t played them in many many years (not enough of a nerd?)
The indie RPG scene is doing great work to present game designs that eschew fiddly number-crunching in favour of generating relationship drama,
feminine topics of interest (fan-fiction and dollhouse-making, for two)
That all sounds absolutely horrifying to me, and I’m female. But that’s probably one of those “exceptions that proves the rule” deals. /shrug “Typical” or “stereotypical” female stuff just bores me or gives me a screaming headache. I’ve found that if you go into the male-dominated job/hobby/whatnot, and take it as it is, realize the ball-busting for what it is, can laugh with them at you, and don’t try to change things, you’ll gain some kind of acceptance. I also realize that I’m in the minority, and that a majority of women enjoy exactly what Daniel outlines. They can have it too – I’ll stick with my tomboyish, nerdy pursuits. It’s a big enough world – there’s room for all sorts. Or there used to be. Now, I’m not so sure.
Female DMs are still as rare as hen’s teeth.
When I found one I married her to make sure she didn’t get away 😀
10 years later, we’ve settled into a groove of alternating which of us GMs for each successive campaign our group plays.
LabRat: worked for me too, at work (starting out all those millennia ago, my field was largely male and so was my business arena) and elsewhere. I got into canoes and kayaks, plus hiking, some time back and my experience across the board was that people in all those activities were helpful, patient and friendly. So I strove to be likewise, and it seemed to have worked well enough.
There’s a very rapidly growing “we need to bring back gatekeeping” movement. No women, no blue-haired freaks of indeterminate gender, no race hustlers,
I know practically nothing about the games in question or their demographics, but it isn’t surprising to hear of disaffection and pushback, given the broader annexing of cultural niches by woke-lings. From comic books and Doctor Who to knitting groups, the results have not generally been glorious. Sort of, “You have to let me join your Stupid Little Club so that I can rapidly transform it into something you can’t abide.”
@pst314, the Wargames Committee of the Military Affairs Club of West Point back in those rather ancient times almost always had someone playing https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2802/war-europe in the club room. (I remember one conversation after glancing at the map: “Oh, wow; is this the end of 1944?” “No, we kinda screwed up the Russian Campaign; it’s mid-1943.”)
My very first issue of S&T was the one with https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7051/kampfpanzer-armored-combat-1937-40. My last issue was the one with https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8324/china-war-sino-soviet-conflict-1980s.
If you are still interested in that sort of thing, then perhaps either http://www.vassalengine.org/ or https://www.spigames.net/ could provide something useful.
NERDZ
I guess you can argue that D&D has little to do with what has happened and with what might happen.
Wargames can (and should) have a lot to do with the past and future.
@pst314, now that I’ve thought about it, IIRC the screwed up invasion of Russia that I saw over 40 years ago on the map was in mid-1942. The Axis counters on the eastern front were contiguous and stacked to the max, but so were the Soviet counters; the latter had another row of counters that were contiguous and stacked to the max behind the front lined.
Regarding the intrusion of wokeness into pre-existing worlds, an example comes to mind. I thought I’d type it out before I forget. It’s fairly mild, but still telling, I think.
At the end of Avengers: Endgame, an old Steve Rogers passes his shield, and by implication the mantle of Captain America, to Sam, not Bucky. This is clearly intended to be a stirring and important gesture, regarding race and whatever. But it feels contrived, somewhat out of character, and – as yet – it doesn’t quite work. And part of the reason is that it jars with in-universe logic. Sam’s skillset doesn’t really suit throwing around a vibranium shield. And the wings of his flying rig are already used as a shield – it’s one of his signature party tricks. The second shield seems superfluous, incongruous.
Also, in-universe, the shield-hurling isn’t just a matter of practice; it requires superhuman strength and coordination, which Sam doesn’t have. But Bucky does, being intended as a duplicate of Rogers, power-wise. We’ve seen Bucky use the shield quite effectively. But hey, two white males. And so, for the sake of a political gesture, suspension of disbelief is somewhat undermined. The in-universe rules are broken. It’s possible, of course, that the writers of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier may acknowledge this in the forthcoming TV series. But the heavy-handed politics has created a problem that now has to be fudged or explained away.
Assuming, that is, that the series doesn’t insert more racial politics in a similarly awkward fashion.
Also, nerd!
Late to the party, I know but:
Has no one ever heard of being a trailblazer?
I have.
Have they?
Have they?
Is she from a planet with heavy gravity?
She is a planet with heavy gravity. It’s her superpower.
@pst314, the Wargames Committee of the Military Affairs Club of West Point back in those rather ancient times almost always had someone playing…
Do you know about this from personal experience? I knew an avid player who graduated West Point in the mid 70’s. We played various SPI and AH games when in high school together where he was a far better player than me and deeply interested in matters of strategy and tactics.
…if you are still interested in that sort of thing, then perhaps either…
Thanks, but I only sold all my games recently when I finally faced up to the fact that I wasn’t going to play them anymore–and really needed to clean house lest my heirs throw them in the trash.
Wargames can (and should) have a lot to do with the past and future.
Learned a lot from playing those games and from reading the articles in S&T.
She is a planet with heavy gravity. It’s her superpower.
She’s so dense, light bends around her?
It’s her superpower.
Akshually she possess a magic backpack bequeathed to her byOH MY GOD SHUT UP! 😃
Akshually she possess a magic backpack bequeathed to her by
No, no, she was exposed to some kind of head-shrinking atomic radiation. Clearly.
Maybe that’s her superpower. In moments of crisis, she can reduce the size of her head, but not her body, by 28%. Just enough to look odd. As superpowers go, it is, admittedly, a little niche.
“…D&D is almost entirely played by hormonal teenage boys…”
Yes, as best I recall most (but not all!) of the D&D players I knew in the 70’s and 80’s were indeed young males–although I didn’t play so my knowledge might be unreliable, having only met the ones who showed up at the same social events as me. I do retain the impression that the females were more often playing other games albeit just as nerdy ones.
“…historical miniatures wargaming…is mostly played by middle-aged men who have no overriding drive to pursue women.”
I’ll take your word for that, and do get the impression that they are now relics of the past. But how about the situation a few generations ago, before the advent of all those board games? I have read about a few groups of young men who wargamed with miniatures back in the 30’s and 40’s.
David — as far as Avengers is concerned I suspect there’s no question about “if” regarding injection of gratuitous racial issues, just a matter of when and how. Witness Muldoon’s conspicuously-tormented Filipina kayaker and her aggressive trashing of people she insisted were her Friends and mentors. I reread her little screed and found it just as bizarre the second time as the first. Consider the photos with it, which are pretty typical for a cool-weather whitewater jaunt: think you could look at any of those boaters and (except for extreme size and musculature) venture a reliable guess as to the sex of any of them, let alone ethnicity such that you might profess shock/horror at the contamination of the Lower James’ previous racial purity by the participation in group of a (gasp) FILIPINA interloper? I promise you I couldn’t, and I’ve been boating for a long, long time. Bodies are covered throat to toe with shapeless drysuits, heads with completely unsexy — not to mention non-ethnic — helmets, hands are gloved … shoot, you can barely tell there’s people in those getups, let alone distinguishing at long distance the national origin of someone whose name certainly doesn’t evoke resonances of a Pacific island group (sounded more Greek than anything else to me) and whose photo didn’t exactly scream her ethnicity either. There were multiple anomalies in her wail, but that circumstance really stood out.
Akshually she possess a magic backpack bequeathed to her by
No, no, she was exposed to some kind of head-shrinking atomic radiation. Clearly.
An experimental Internet gas, actually.
I swear I am not making that up.
“You have to let me join your Stupid Little Club so that I can rapidly transform it into something you can’t abide.”
Oh no!
The second shield seems superfluous, incongruous
I have heard uncomfirmed (and unconfirmable) rumours that it was a last minute retcon. Sebastian Stan was signed for a three picture deal when he was cast, and the plan (allegedly) was for him to take over the shield and extend the Captain America franchise. His rather shoe-horned-in appearances in subsequent Avengers movies fulfilled the contract terms without having to give him a lead role.
Marvel has teased a ton of legacy heroes, from Spider-Man to Cassie Lang to Captain America II or III. I doubt they can pull that off; such characters have never been able to capture mindshare.
as far as Avengers is concerned I suspect there’s no question about “if” regarding injection of gratuitous racial issues, just a matter of when and how.
Mr Feige, the Big Marvel Cheese, has been making some drearily woke noises of late. And when these things are injected into what should be an escapist fantasy, two hours of sugary fun, they’re usually done in such a cack-handed way that it disrupts the illusion. When I buy an IMAX ticket and tie up half the day to travel across town to the local multiplex, I don’t do it to be reminded of the real world, or the weirdly dogmatic preoccupations of leftist writers.
Oh no!
Heh. Yes, quite.
I have heard unconfirmed (and unconfirmable) rumours that it was a last minute retcon.
Endgame was on the whole a disappointment, badly paced, and frequently boring, and that scene just felt… off. The political gesture trumped the in-universe logic, breaking the spell.
Trashfire HTML corrected, by the way.
Her “magic backpack” is actually a pocket dimension with seemingly infinite space, from which she can pull out useful or random objects…
Snacks, blood glucose meter, portable O2 concentrator, mini-fridge for insulin…
An experimental Internet gas, actually.
Remember when some New Age charlatan promised to deliver homeopathic doses via the internet? (Not sure how people thought substances were supposed to be transported in Ethernet packets, but it is technically true that an Ethernet packet can carry zero molecules of anything you wish.)
The last 18 hours on here has been ……… interesting.
The last 18 hours on here has been ……… interesting.
Is it everything you dreamed it would be?
Well I have been having some pretty strange dreams lately.
Mr Feige, the Big Marvel Cheese, has been making some drearily woke noises of late.
I seem to recall he’s essentially withdrawn from the MCU post-Endgame. I think he’s a canny office politician; he’s seen that the incoming agenda cannot be deflected or stopped, he’s completed his magnum opus, and now he’s mouthing the right platitudes so he can maintain his position while enjoying his multi-story jewel-encrusted gold mansion.
In the 1990s, when Star Wars was a thing most people had forgotten about, George Lucas said that he didn’t see himself as a director but as a filmmaker. His goal, he claimed, was to advance the state of the art of filmmaking to the point that anyone with $30,000 and a garage could make a feature film.
I think technology is well beyond that point now, and the market is prime for someone to do exactly what Lucas did with Star Wars – produce an entertaining film that anyone and everyone can enjoy and distribute it outside the regular channels.
If Disney won’t do the Indiana Jones reboot with Chris Pratt, perhaps some enterprising young director can take a stab at it.
Nice to see people chime in with AH and SPI memories. I had built up quite a collection of games since I started playing in the ’70s, including the original homemade Trafalgar game that I (sob) subsequently sold. I moved into D&D and built up quite a library of material there, including products from Flying Buffalo, Judges Guild, and even started contributing material to the DragonQuest line from SPI before the company imploded. I was even into alternative comic books, buying everything from undergrounds, black and white indies, and even a few Marvel and DCs when they were worth buying.
Weird to be looking back at that and wondering where that person went.
When I buy an IMAX ticket and tie up half the day to travel across town to the local multiplex, I don’t do it to be reminded of the real world, or the weirdly dogmatic preoccupations of leftist writers.
That.
And when these things are injected into what should be an escapist fantasy … they’re usually done in such a cack-handed way that it disrupts the illusion.
I found myself considering how it is that many creators of books, plays or films manage to imbue their oeuvre with a clear set of moral principles without becoming preachy or hectoring. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because they aren’t hateful cunts, who lack the talent necessary to conceal that fact from their audience.
Cough Brie Larson cough.
Do you know about this from personal experience? I knew an avid player who graduated West Point in the mid 70’s.
@pst314, I graduated from there in 1980, so odds are likely that I missed the guy you knew. The class of 1977 were firsties (AKA seniors) when I was a beanhead (AKA plebe AKA freshman).
There was almost always some team of people playing War in Europe while I was there; I’ll admit that I didn’t join the club until I was a yearling (AKA sophomore). There was another time (different run of the game) when I saw that the Axis player had pushed the Soviets to within a few hex rows of the eastern map edge. It turns out that the Axis player(s) had misplaced an errata page that reduced the Axis ability to extend the rail network in Russia.
FWIW, juniors were called cows. That terminology has probably changed by now, even though it pre-dated the arrival of women (which happened in my class).
Cough Brie Larson cough.
Heh. Again, quite. But the woke ham-fistedness is quite extraordinary, even among people who are otherwise quite deft at their trade. You could, for instance, compare the all-girl fight scene in Infinity War, in which Natasha, Wanda and Okoye face-off against Proxima Midnight – and which is fun and doesn’t feel contrived or gender-gratuitous – and the overtly feminist all-girl line-up shot at the end of Endgame, made by the same directors, and which very much does feel gratuitous, and cringeworthy, and which prompted mocking laughter. Not, I suspect, the intended effect.