Vox Article: "How Tabletop RPGs Are Being Reclaimed From Bigots and Jerks"

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Spectrum
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Re: Vox Article: "How Tabletop RPGs Are Being Reclaimed From Bigots and Jerks"

Post by Spectrum »

It's times like this that I wish I was able to upvote on this forum.
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Ares
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Re: Vox Article: "How Tabletop RPGs Are Being Reclaimed From Bigots and Jerks"

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Neo-Paladin wrote: Fri Feb 14, 2020 11:40 am What irks me is that persistent need to paint the whole gaming community with the broadest of strokes. Are there problems? Sure. Are there people who could and should behave better? As it is with every single group of people on the planet: Of course!

But it's tiresome to see the gaming community suddenly being depicted as this rancid cesspool of *insert the respective -ist or -phobe noun of your current pet peeve* when it is factually untrue.

No doubt sooner or later we're the ones who're going to have to "reclaim" gaming from moral busybodies - who always ruin the fun, no matter what political side they are on.

Can't we just skip this nonsense and roll some dice?

PS: As for Lovecraft: I second the notion that most of his racism stemmed from pathological fear. As someone who himself suffers from anxiety disorder and depression, I can relate to the idea of being terrified of everything. And in his time, he had no one (before he met his wife) to tell him that no matter how scared you are, it's NOT okay to just label everything that terrifies you as subhuman. On the contrary. Doesn't make his views right.

But you do not have to agree with someone to understand where they are coming from. He might have changed for the better had he been granted a longer lease on life than he ultimately had. We'll never know.

I think it's fine that they mention his problematic views, but this whole doubling down needs to stop. It never ends well. I am also all for mentioning other notable authors in the field of cosmic horror, no matter their backgrounds. But to try and deplatform Lovecraft posthumously to garner virtue points while making money off his legacy is morally dubious at best.
I agree with everything you've said here.

Since the late 70s tabletop gamers have been vilified by overprotective parents and moral busy bodies as having a corrupting influence on their kids and leading to things like devil worship. And even after that dialed down, gamers were still largely picked on by other people for engaging in a non-mainstream hobby. Now that geek culture has become mainstream, even profitable, we've got a different set of moral busybodies claiming that geek culture is some den of bigotry. Now geek culture needs to be saved from itself by people outside the hobby, largely by pushing out the people that established it. It's a trend we've been seeing in entertainment for a while now.
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Spectrum
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Re: Vox Article: "How Tabletop RPGs Are Being Reclaimed From Bigots and Jerks"

Post by Spectrum »

I came across a reference last night that it's also a big problem in knitting communities online. The same game of space being invaded by the woke, driving out the actual crafters and being left to wither.
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Re: Vox Article: "How Tabletop RPGs Are Being Reclaimed From Bigots and Jerks"

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To further expand on the idea of "If your first impulse when you hear "gaming has a bigotry problem" is "what about the innocent people?" you're actually more interested in covering up the bigotry problem than solving it.":

a) My first concern is always with the innocent, whether it's innocent people that are suffering under bigotry or innocent people being accused of bigotry.

b) My second thought on hearing "gaming has a bigotry problem" is to ask "DOES gaming have a bigotry problem?", because if anyone is going to make a sweeping statement like that, I'm going to need to see some evidence. I can easily believe that there are bigots within the RPG community, because once any group gets to be a certain size, it's going to have it's assholes. We certainly should do what we can to not include bigotry in our games, but that's the responsibility of each individual group to police themselves.

Because these people are mostly teenagers, young adults and adults of every age. They have agency, intelligence and a responsibility to each other. If someone is acting like a tool in a group, it's up to the group to deal with him. And if the group is composed of tools, it's up to yourself to extract yourself from said group.

I will bet folding money that 95% of all tabletop gamers are not bigots, racists, sexists, homophobes, what have you. Geeks in general are welcoming of folks, since what binds us together is a love and appreciation for whatever our fandoms are. As long as you show a genuine interest, existing knowledge, a willingness to learn, and aren't a dochebag, geek culture by and large will let anyone in. We've had women and non-whites in the industry since the beginning, and groups like this was one of the few places geek girls could indulge their interests before shows like Buffy made it more acceptable to be a geek girl.

So while I agree every group should do what they can to stop bigotry where they see it, RPG creators and people outside of the hobby/industry calling gamers bigots is not going to change anything. Bigots don't care if you call them bigots, they aren't going to change if you call them out, they only change with time and effort. Meanwhile all you've done is insult the vast majority of gamers by claiming bigotry where there is none, and potentially turn them off to you.

Because much like the Red Scare of the 50s, no one likes being accused of being something they aren't, and the only people who enjoy fear mongering are people who benefit from it.
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Re: Vox Article: "How Tabletop RPGs Are Being Reclaimed From Bigots and Jerks"

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Spectrum wrote: Fri Feb 14, 2020 4:23 pm I came across a reference last night that it's also a big problem in knitting communities online. The same game of space being invaded by the woke, driving out the actual crafters and being left to wither.
Intersectional knitting communities. Is nothing sacred?
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Re: Vox Article: "How Tabletop RPGs Are Being Reclaimed From Bigots and Jerks"

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Spectrum wrote: Fri Feb 14, 2020 4:23 pm I came across a reference last night that it's also a big problem in knitting communities online. The same game of space being invaded by the woke, driving out the actual crafters and being left to wither.
If this is the case I think it is, it's a bit more nuanced. Said knitting forum was getting a bunch of people who were spouting objectively hateful views who kept opening the conversation with indicating support for Trump. To stem the flow, they adopted a strong policy against Trump support. I'm still not quite happy about it, and I would have preferred a more broad ban on politics over one particular politician, but it's not much different than if we had a bunch of people who kept saying they wanted to discuss CrossFit, but would always branch from there to the white supremacy roots of that movement and how the gyms need to be "more exclusive", and Ares needing to ban discussion of CrossFit because it was constantly leading to the white supremacy talk.

And no, there's nothing inherently racist about CrossFit. It just seems to attract a lot of white supremacists, an ugly issue that few people like to talk about (personally, I dislike CrossFit more for the lack of authenticity to their certification and their dismissal of frequent injuries with "they were too weak to continue").
Spectrum
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Re: Vox Article: "How Tabletop RPGs Are Being Reclaimed From Bigots and Jerks"

Post by Spectrum »

I came across the article/person that was talking about the knitting forums again: Dr Karlyn Borysenko.
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