16 votes

Dungeons and Dragons - short essays from celebrity DnD players

Posted by aphoenix
Tags: dungeons and dragons, anniversaries, lgbt, opinion, author.lillian barkley, author.anderson cooper, author.lev grossman, author.joseph gordon levitt, author.matthew mercer, author.ally beardsley, source.the washington post, long read, paywall
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/31/dungeons-dragons-anniversary-game/

Link information

This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.

Title
Opinion | For Dungeons & Dragons, the magic is in the memories
Published
Jul 31 2024
Word count
3541 words

10 comments

  1. [9]
    aphoenix
    Link
    This is maybe more for people who don't know much about DnD, but I enjoyed these short essays, especially the one from Ally Beardsley from Dimension 20 (Dropout.tv) who talks about playing their...

    This is maybe more for people who don't know much about DnD, but I enjoyed these short essays, especially the one from Ally Beardsley from Dimension 20 (Dropout.tv) who talks about playing their trans cowboy character from an early Dimension 20 season.

    9 votes
    1. [8]
      DefinitelyNotAFae
      Link Parent
      I loved Ally's essay even as someone that hasn't gotten into Unsleeping City. But I'm disappointed they picked all white people and no women at all. The contributions of Black and POC players and...

      I loved Ally's essay even as someone that hasn't gotten into Unsleeping City.

      But I'm disappointed they picked all white people and no women at all. The contributions of Black and POC players and DMs also go absolutely ignored. And like, that might be the D&D Gygax imagined, but it's not representative of who I see playing today.

      10 votes
      1. Notcoffeetable
        Link Parent
        An essay from Aabria Iyengar would have been great. I have a bit of a crush on her and her magnetic personality. Clearly WashPo was trying to get celebrity names that readers would recognize but...

        An essay from Aabria Iyengar would have been great. I have a bit of a crush on her and her magnetic personality. Clearly WashPo was trying to get celebrity names that readers would recognize but it isn't like a webpage can't fit more essays. It would have been a great opportunity to highlight some other voices.

        7 votes
      2. [4]
        aphoenix
        Link Parent
        On the one hand, I strongly and enthusiastically agree that it would be great to have people of colour and women - and adding Aabria Iyengar or Erika Ishii would have been easy ways to fix this....

        On the one hand, I strongly and enthusiastically agree that it would be great to have people of colour and women - and adding Aabria Iyengar or Erika Ishii would have been easy ways to fix this. There are so many not-just-white-men that play DnD, and the paper could have certainly showcased more people that fit the demographic.

        This part is difficult though, at least partially because I'm a middle aged white man, but here goes. I don't think this is the DnD that Gygax imagined, because the people involved are:

        • Anderson Cooper - a gay man (Gygax was homophobic)
        • Lev Grossman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt - two jewish men (Gygax was antisemitic)
        • Ally who is trans and nonbinary (Gygax would hate everything about that)

        I think arguably the only one who would potentially be on the Gygax approval list is Matt Mercer, and... well, Gygax would likely have hated Matt Mercer, who is generally an inclusive, wonderful person, who runs games that amplify and empower other voices.

        I guess what I'm saying is I agree for sure that the article would have been better with more voices, but I think it's a disservice to the people and voices selected to label them as "Gygax' D&D". I 100% believe he would have hated this entire author selection because of how far they would be from his preferred playerbase.

        6 votes
        1. [3]
          DefinitelyNotAFae
          Link Parent
          No I agree that there is a lot of diversity in the authors selected, which is why I mentioned just the lack of women and POC specifically. But, the pictures are all white male characters played by...

          No I agree that there is a lot of diversity in the authors selected, which is why I mentioned just the lack of women and POC specifically. But, the pictures are all white male characters played by white men and one white non-binary person. And I think there's an aspect of visible diversity that is key here.

          I don't know if Gygax said that gay men or Jewish men shouldn't or couldn't play nor do I know his explicit history of homophobia and antisemitism, rather than just assuming he did in fact have some. But he did explicitly say that women's brains made them uninterested and incapable of gaining satisfaction by playing any sort of RPG (except LARPing which is different and thus stupid essentially). The racism baked into the game (level caps for different races, the Anglo white human as default, evil savage races, etc.) may speak for itself though I don't really want to look further into his "biological determinism" today.

          So that may just be my lack of knowledge about his specific biases on those other areas. Gygax doesn't get to own this anymore though, so eff him either way.

          4 votes
          1. [2]
            aphoenix
            Link Parent
            I figured that we were in agreement. And yeah, I think not looking into hateful shit that some old dead dude said in the past is particularly worthwhile, and he was probably more sexist than any...

            I figured that we were in agreement. And yeah, I think not looking into hateful shit that some old dead dude said in the past is particularly worthwhile, and he was probably more sexist than any of the other things, so including more women in the article would have been great.

            Overall, I'm in the same boat as you - just happy that this hobby isn't owned by that guy anymore.

            3 votes
            1. Notcoffeetable
              Link Parent
              I didn't know about his bigoted views until last year when I read through the AD&D ruleset. Some of the weirdest rules about stats/levels for races and genders was bizarre. So glad we got away...

              I didn't know about his bigoted views until last year when I read through the AD&D ruleset. Some of the weirdest rules about stats/levels for races and genders was bizarre. So glad we got away from that quickly.

              2 votes
      3. [2]
        GenuinelyCrooked
        Link Parent
        It's not even representative of Critical Role or Dimension 20. They're both majority white, but there are people of color in both groups, and both have quite a few women.

        It's not even representative of Critical Role or Dimension 20. They're both majority white, but there are people of color in both groups, and both have quite a few women.

        2 votes
        1. DefinitelyNotAFae
          Link Parent
          I don't keep up with CR as much but the side quests for D20 have increased the representation significantly too. But since the concept seems to be famous people playing through the decades, they...

          I don't keep up with CR as much but the side quests for D20 have increased the representation significantly too. But since the concept seems to be famous people playing through the decades, they weren't even limited to Actual Play cast.

          3 votes