I am sorry you have misconstrued my message, you seem to have overlooked the part where I said:
Only by acknowledging the differences in experience and treating those of each groups as individuals including their own individual experiences with being disenfranchised or not can you work to undo past damage.
I am not saying to treat people as anything other than individual people with individual experiences. I am saying you cannot treat people identical because people are not identical. You do not get equality or equity through treating individuals as having the exact same lived experience.
There is no talk in this thread about putting any 'at the back of the bus', so I am perplexed as to where you go that idea from. This thread has been entirely about being cognisant of your own biases and filtered perceptions, and how that may influence how inclusive you make your game space. In fact, it's the exact opposite of putting people anywhere on the hypothetical bus. It's about making sure you're not doing that, intentionally or otherwise.
I feel re-reading this thread might do you a service in understanding what people are saying. For example I said the following:
I think you've maybe missed the point of this thread; diversity is not a check-box exercise to ensure you meet a quota for fear of being judged 'un-diverse'. The praxis of diversity is about being aware of how inclusive and welcoming your game is. About not putting up barriers, intentional or unintentional, to people who are different from yourself for whatever reason.
What people here have been sharing is their own experiences with introspective self-consideration as to their own actions and how their own biases, subconscious or otherwise, might act as a barrier to people joining the game.
Ultimately, it does no one any favours to put words unspoken into anyones mouth.
One question I have that nobody has (unless I missed it) addressed is ageism.
What are the age ranges you have in your groups?
I know now that I am approaching middle age I have gotten some dirty looks from some when I interact with kids or young adults. Luckily enough DnD for me doesn't seem to have the same issues and I have played with teens and people 50+ with no issues...but have you all faced any issues with age in gaming?
I often see mention of age in LFG postings, so clearly it's a potential issue people are aware of. I can't say it's been problematic for me though, and I've been on both sides of the spectrum. You can have people wondering why a middle-aged guy (it's still more acceptable for women) is spending a lot of time with significantly younger players or if it's ok for a kid to be playing D&D with a group of otherwise middle-aged people, but the context can often help with that - if you're playing at a store or a club there's outsiders who can see you the whole time, and if you're playing online it's not really different from online multiplayer games in many people's minds. If I was a parent and my kid told me they were going to play at an adult friend's house, with that friend not being anyone I knew, I'd certainly not be too happy about that though. That's a concern regardless of the activity involved. Assuming everyone involved is on the up & up however it's really only a matter of boundaries regarding language, topics in the game and alcohol consumption. Jokes that are perfectly appropriate for my regular group, grim and gritty themes involving death, war, torture, religion and whatnot, and finishing a bottle of wine or a couple of glasses of your licquor of choice are probably not acceptable if you're playing with young minors.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
One question I have that nobody has (unless I missed it) addressed is ageism.
What are the age ranges you have in your groups?
I know now that I am approaching middle age I have gotten some dirty looks from some when I interact with kids or young adults. Luckily enough DnD for me doesn't seem to have the same issues and I have played with teens and people 50+ with no issues...but have you all faced any issues with age in gaming?
You can have people wondering why a middle-aged guy (it's still more acceptable for women) is spending a lot of time with significantly younger players
This is the part that is problematic. It does seem that older men tend to get ostracized a bit more if the group is made up of younger people....I see age as a requirement for application a lot for groups but I wonder if it would be better to just say "Age 18+?" and make it a yes/no to avoid unintentional bias.
One question I have that nobody has (unless I missed it) addressed is ageism.
What are the age ranges you have in your groups?
I know now that I am approaching middle age I have gotten some dirty looks from some when I interact with kids or young adults. Luckily enough DnD for me doesn't seem to have the same issues and I have played with teens and people 50+ with no issues...but have you all faced any issues with age in gaming?
You can have people wondering why a middle-aged guy (it's still more acceptable for women) is spending a lot of time with significantly younger players
This is the part that is problematic. It does seem that older men tend to get ostracized a bit more if the group is made up of younger people....I see age as a requirement for application a lot for groups but I wonder if it would be better to just say "Age 18+?" and make it a yes/no to avoid unintentional bias.
Eh... It’s not the group doing the ostracizing, it’s outsiders. As such, I’m not sure it should be that much of a concern as far as finding groups is concerned. Regardless, if there is an issue it’ll come out soon enough anyway. You can’t avoid bias altogether if it exists.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
One question I have that nobody has (unless I missed it) addressed is ageism.
What are the age ranges you have in your groups?
I know now that I am approaching middle age I have gotten some dirty looks from some when I interact with kids or young adults. Luckily enough DnD for me doesn't seem to have the same issues and I have played with teens and people 50+ with no issues...but have you all faced any issues with age in gaming?
You can have people wondering why a middle-aged guy (it's still more acceptable for women) is spending a lot of time with significantly younger players
This is the part that is problematic. It does seem that older men tend to get ostracized a bit more if the group is made up of younger people....I see age as a requirement for application a lot for groups but I wonder if it would be better to just say "Age 18+?" and make it a yes/no to avoid unintentional bias.
Eh... It’s not the group doing the ostracizing, it’s outsiders. As such, I’m not sure it should be that much of a concern as far as finding groups is concerned. Regardless, if there is an issue it’ll come out soon enough anyway. You can’t avoid bias altogether if it exists.
I guess let me put it this way....if they are not including older people in their group is it different than not including woman or black people?
I am not sure you would give such a free pass to a group not including the latter two so why the first?
I often see mention of age in LFG postings, so clearly it's a potential issue people are aware of. I can't say it's been problematic for me though, and I've been on both sides of the spectrum. You can have people wondering why a middle-aged guy (it's still more acceptable for women) is spending a lot of time with significantly younger players or if it's ok for a kid to be playing D&D with a group of otherwise middle-aged people, but the context can often help with that - if you're playing at a store or a club there's outsiders who can see you the whole time, and if you're playing online it's not really different from online multiplayer games in many people's minds. If I was a parent and my kid told me they were going to play at an adult friend's house, with that friend not being anyone I knew, I'd certainly not be too happy about that though. That's a concern regardless of the activity involved. Assuming everyone involved is on the up & up however it's really only a matter of boundaries regarding language, topics in the game and alcohol consumption. Jokes that are perfectly appropriate for my regular group, grim and gritty themes involving death, war, torture, religion and whatnot, and finishing a bottle of wine or a couple of glasses of your licquor of choice are probably not acceptable if you're playing with young minors.
Good points here. I think there is some conflation between imaginative exchange and emotional intimacy being read by parents or other concerned adults, probably amplified if they're aware of the parasocial soap opera phenomena that's attached (so to speak) to Critical Role. I think parental attitudes have shifted in that they recognize the creative and social opportunity benefits as opposed to screentime where the social interaction is largely anonymized (especially over the past year+), and I'll balance my earlier diss of Critical Role with saying the program may also have helped outside adult perspectives "get it."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I guess let me put it this way....if they are not including older people in their group is it different than not including woman or black people?
I am not sure you would give such a free pass to a group not including the latter two so why the first?
I don't think I'm giving anyone a free pass, but let me clarify.
1) The most problematic age stigma has nothing to do with D&D and comes mostly from outsiders, not because of what they think or don't know about D&D but because they're not part of the actual group. Adults associating with minors is seen as (potentially) problematic pretty much regardless of context. I'm not going to go into detail about this as I don't think it's germane to the discussion and I probably couldn't without getting caught in the bad word filter anyway. Just saying, this isn't necessarily about the dynamics of D&D groups. That said, since you singled out my remark about older men getting ostracized more than women - that's primarily because of this, not because of any general ageist ideas.
2) insofar as we are talking about D&D groups, any age restriction is iffy. Why accept 18-year olds, but not anyone younger? Why would/should a group of early tweens have more/less of a problem with thirty-something players than forty-something players? To use the common adage: age is just a number.
What it really comes down to is that there are preconceived notions about age groups and those aren't always what people are looking for. Playing with minors comes with an expectation of having to keep it clean both in language and demeanor and incorporating mature themes in the campaign is a no-no - even if minors also swear, get up to weird stuff and can have a pretty good grasp of difficult topics. The big bad stigma alluded to above aside, playing with older players evokes images of dank basements and grognards who never grew out of their nerdy highschool awkwardness - I'm exaggerating, but's it's those preconceptions that are the crux of the issue.
I know the age 18 cutoff point gets used a lot, but's an imperfect tool and leans a lot towards easy justification for me. There's plenty of older guys I don't want to play with, for various reasons (I'm not going to, but I could point out half a dozen DDB forumites I'm pretty sure would fall squarely in that category :p). And let me be clear about this, that's absolutely fine. people don't (have to) get along with everyone else. It's 100% ok to tell someone things aren't working out and you don't want to play D&D with them. Give them a chance, yes, but your table is not a club that has to be open for everyone ever. There certainly are valid reasons for not wanting to include someone at your table, while still being inclusive. Being inclusive is having the things that shouldn't matter not matter, it's not having nothing matter. Age shouldn't matter; maturity on the other hand, that should be allowed to matter. Being a boomer or a gen-x'er or a millenial shouldn't matter; how you behave though, sure, that can count.
I guess let me put it this way....if they are not including older people in their group is it different than not including woman or black people?
I am not sure you would give such a free pass to a group not including the latter two so why the first?
I don't think I'm giving anyone a free pass, but let me clarify.
1) The most problematic stigma has nothing to do with D&D and comes mostly from outsiders, not because of what they think or don't know about D&D but because they're not part of the actual group. Adults associating with minors is seen as (potentially) problematic pretty much regardless of context. I'm not going to go into detail about this as I don't think it's germane to the discussion and I probably couldn't without getting caught in the bad word filter anyway. Just saying, this isn't necessarily about the dynamics of D&D groups. That said, since you singled out my remark about older men getting ostracized more than women - that's primarily because of this, not because of any general ageist ideas.
2) insofar as we are talking about D&D groups, any age restriction is iffy. Why accept 18-year olds, but not anyone younger? Why would/should a group of early tweens have more/less of a problem with thirty-something players than forty-something players? To use the common adage: age is just a number.
What it really comes down to is that there are preconceived notions about age groups and those aren't always what people are looking for. Playing with minors comes with an expectation of having to keep it clean both in language and demeanor and incorporating mature themes in the campaign is a no-no - even if minors also swear, get up to weird stuff and can have a pretty good grasp of difficult topics. The big bad stigma alluded to above aside, playing with older players evokes images of dank basements and grognards who never grew out of their nerdy highschool awkwardness - I'm exaggerating, but's it's those preconceptions that are the crux of the issue.
I know the age 18 cutoff point gets used a lot, but's an imperfect tool and leans a lot towards easy justification for me. There's plenty of older guys I don't want to play with, for various reasons (I'm not going to, but I could point out half a dozen DDB forumites I'm pretty sure would fall squarely in that category :p). And let me be clear about this, that's absolutely fine. people don't (have to) get along with everyone else. It's 100% ok to tell someone things aren't working out and you don't want to play D&D with them. Give them a chance, yes, but your table is not a club that has to be open for everyone ever. There certainly are valid reasons for not wanting to include someone at your table, while still being inclusive. Being inclusive is having the things that shouldn't matter not matter, it's not having nothing matter. Age shouldn't matter; maturity on the other hand, that should be allowed to matter. Being a boomer or a gen-x'er or a millenial shouldn't matter; how you behave though, sure, that can count.
Never felt like age, gender, skin color and all other ways to classify people played any roll in my groups. not going to change now. As long as people enjoy hanging out and spending time together - i'm happy. :D
Moreover, I'm personally absolutely shocked that things like sexual preferences of fellow players are openly discussed and pushed to groups of outsiders on forums. These things are absolutely private, and I would deem it a shocking intrusion of privacy to discuss my friends sexual preferences on these forums. Did they even give you permission to post these out there ?
It's users I know next to nothing about aside from their username and the little info they've chosen to divulge, talking about other people I really don't know anything about without offering names or locations. And for all I know all of it is made up, since this is the internet. I don't think this amounts to a privacy problem. Even if you and I met tomorrow and I introduced you to my current group, you wouldn't really know anything about them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Exactly. I think that pushing an agenda of diversity on a small group of friends is utterly silly and actually dangerous.
This thread has no such agenda. The discussion has nothing to do with pushing anything on anyone. It is simply a space for people to share how diverse their play group is. There has been no shame in what individual play groups are like, no matter the composition, and it has been stressed many times that is not what the forum is about.
I mean there were those one or two people a couple pages back who said something like every online D&D group should perform some kind of diversity census before playing, but TBH I'm starting to suspect they were just being facetious (and the reaction to the comment didn't seem to be a favourable one either way).
I think it's cool that this thread was started, it's awesome to hear about how far D&D has come in terms of inclusivity and how diverse the fanbase really is (the present diversity of any individual gaming group shouldn't be an issue, it's how inclusive they are that matters).
I mean there were those one or two people a couple pages back who said something like every online D&D group should perform some kind of diversity census before playing, but TBH I'm starting to suspect they were just being facetious (and the reaction to the comment didn't seem to be a favourable one either way).
I think it's cool that this thread was started, it's awesome to hear about how far D&D has come in terms of inclusivity and how diverse the fanbase really is (the present diversity of any individual gaming group shouldn't be an issue, it's how inclusive they are that matters).
Exactly it was immediately met with the appropriate response and people moved on. It's not the meat of the content of the thread by any means.
I’m a brown cis heterosexual male and I DM two groups. One is entirely composed of 3-4 players all like me and the other is two brown men, two brown women, and one white man. I’m not aware of everyone’s sexual orientation in that second group but everyone is cis.
These are all people I know in real life, though. If I were starting a game online with complete strangers I would take diversity into account when building up a group, not in a box ticking/tokenism way but I would make a strong effort to avoid a homogeneous group vis a vis gender identity, race, sexual orientation, class, or neurodiversity.
Not only do I believe it to be the right thing to do, I also genuinely believe it makes the game better and (provided everyone is open) enriches the experience by exposing people to different views and life experiences.
As an aside one of the female players in my mixed groups is playing a male character and one of the male players is playing a female character and both RP it very well and very respectfully and I can’t help but think it’s due to the diversity of the group. In contrast when one of the players in the all male group plays a female character it’s offensive and sexist and I struggle with curbing that behavior.
Not trying to put you on the spot aaboulenein, but I wanted to quote this for posterity's sake.
As far as I can tell, this is the only post that gets anywhere close to resembling what you're talking about Lyxen. And even this is not pushing an agenda. It is one person saying what they would want to do for their online game and they state why they think it's a good idea. That is all.
This post was met with one response that disagreed with the sentiment and then the conversation moved on to the difference between diversity and inclusivity.
Much, much more has been said in favor of not forcing diversity, with numerous contributors trying to make it clear that forcing diversity is not the intention of the thread or the topic in general.
So please don't mischaracterize this thread and the conversations happening here. This has been a great thread with interesting and healthy discussions.
Notes: Please continue this personal conversation within a Private Message.
I am sorry you have misconstrued my message, you seem to have overlooked the part where I said:
I am not saying to treat people as anything other than individual people with individual experiences. I am saying you cannot treat people identical because people are not identical. You do not get equality or equity through treating individuals as having the exact same lived experience.
There is no talk in this thread about putting any 'at the back of the bus', so I am perplexed as to where you go that idea from. This thread has been entirely about being cognisant of your own biases and filtered perceptions, and how that may influence how inclusive you make your game space. In fact, it's the exact opposite of putting people anywhere on the hypothetical bus. It's about making sure you're not doing that, intentionally or otherwise.
I feel re-reading this thread might do you a service in understanding what people are saying. For example I said the following:
What people here have been sharing is their own experiences with introspective self-consideration as to their own actions and how their own biases, subconscious or otherwise, might act as a barrier to people joining the game.
Ultimately, it does no one any favours to put words unspoken into anyones mouth.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I often see mention of age in LFG postings, so clearly it's a potential issue people are aware of. I can't say it's been problematic for me though, and I've been on both sides of the spectrum. You can have people wondering why a middle-aged guy (it's still more acceptable for women) is spending a lot of time with significantly younger players or if it's ok for a kid to be playing D&D with a group of otherwise middle-aged people, but the context can often help with that - if you're playing at a store or a club there's outsiders who can see you the whole time, and if you're playing online it's not really different from online multiplayer games in many people's minds. If I was a parent and my kid told me they were going to play at an adult friend's house, with that friend not being anyone I knew, I'd certainly not be too happy about that though. That's a concern regardless of the activity involved. Assuming everyone involved is on the up & up however it's really only a matter of boundaries regarding language, topics in the game and alcohol consumption. Jokes that are perfectly appropriate for my regular group, grim and gritty themes involving death, war, torture, religion and whatnot, and finishing a bottle of wine or a couple of glasses of your licquor of choice are probably not acceptable if you're playing with young minors.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
This is the part that is problematic. It does seem that older men tend to get ostracized a bit more if the group is made up of younger people....I see age as a requirement for application a lot for groups but I wonder if it would be better to just say "Age 18+?" and make it a yes/no to avoid unintentional bias.
Eh... It’s not the group doing the ostracizing, it’s outsiders. As such, I’m not sure it should be that much of a concern as far as finding groups is concerned. Regardless, if there is an issue it’ll come out soon enough anyway. You can’t avoid bias altogether if it exists.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I guess let me put it this way....if they are not including older people in their group is it different than not including woman or black people?
I am not sure you would give such a free pass to a group not including the latter two so why the first?
Good points here. I think there is some conflation between imaginative exchange and emotional intimacy being read by parents or other concerned adults, probably amplified if they're aware of the parasocial soap opera phenomena that's attached (so to speak) to Critical Role. I think parental attitudes have shifted in that they recognize the creative and social opportunity benefits as opposed to screentime where the social interaction is largely anonymized (especially over the past year+), and I'll balance my earlier diss of Critical Role with saying the program may also have helped outside adult perspectives "get it."
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I don't think I'm giving anyone a free pass, but let me clarify.
1) The most problematic age stigma has nothing to do with D&D and comes mostly from outsiders, not because of what they think or don't know about D&D but because they're not part of the actual group. Adults associating with minors is seen as (potentially) problematic pretty much regardless of context. I'm not going to go into detail about this as I don't think it's germane to the discussion and I probably couldn't without getting caught in the bad word filter anyway. Just saying, this isn't necessarily about the dynamics of D&D groups. That said, since you singled out my remark about older men getting ostracized more than women - that's primarily because of this, not because of any general ageist ideas.
2) insofar as we are talking about D&D groups, any age restriction is iffy. Why accept 18-year olds, but not anyone younger? Why would/should a group of early tweens have more/less of a problem with thirty-something players than forty-something players? To use the common adage: age is just a number.
What it really comes down to is that there are preconceived notions about age groups and those aren't always what people are looking for. Playing with minors comes with an expectation of having to keep it clean both in language and demeanor and incorporating mature themes in the campaign is a no-no - even if minors also swear, get up to weird stuff and can have a pretty good grasp of difficult topics. The big bad stigma alluded to above aside, playing with older players evokes images of dank basements and grognards who never grew out of their nerdy highschool awkwardness - I'm exaggerating, but's it's those preconceptions that are the crux of the issue.
I know the age 18 cutoff point gets used a lot, but's an imperfect tool and leans a lot towards easy justification for me. There's plenty of older guys I don't want to play with, for various reasons (I'm not going to, but I could point out half a dozen DDB forumites I'm pretty sure would fall squarely in that category :p). And let me be clear about this, that's absolutely fine. people don't (have to) get along with everyone else. It's 100% ok to tell someone things aren't working out and you don't want to play D&D with them. Give them a chance, yes, but your table is not a club that has to be open for everyone ever. There certainly are valid reasons for not wanting to include someone at your table, while still being inclusive. Being inclusive is having the things that shouldn't matter not matter, it's not having nothing matter. Age shouldn't matter; maturity on the other hand, that should be allowed to matter. Being a boomer or a gen-x'er or a millenial shouldn't matter; how you behave though, sure, that can count.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Good points and even better summary so thanks!
I better understand your position and agree.
Never felt like age, gender, skin color and all other ways to classify people played any roll in my groups. not going to change now. As long as people enjoy hanging out and spending time together - i'm happy. :D
It's users I know next to nothing about aside from their username and the little info they've chosen to divulge, talking about other people I really don't know anything about without offering names or locations. And for all I know all of it is made up, since this is the internet. I don't think this amounts to a privacy problem. Even if you and I met tomorrow and I introduced you to my current group, you wouldn't really know anything about them.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
This thread has no such agenda. The discussion has nothing to do with pushing anything on anyone. It is simply a space for people to share how diverse their play group is. There has been no shame in what individual play groups are like, no matter the composition, and it has been stressed many times that is not what the forum is about.
I mean there were those one or two people a couple pages back who said something like every online D&D group should perform some kind of diversity census before playing, but TBH I'm starting to suspect they were just being facetious (and the reaction to the comment didn't seem to be a favourable one either way).
I think it's cool that this thread was started, it's awesome to hear about how far D&D has come in terms of inclusivity and how diverse the fanbase really is (the present diversity of any individual gaming group shouldn't be an issue, it's how inclusive they are that matters).
Exactly it was immediately met with the appropriate response and people moved on. It's not the meat of the content of the thread by any means.
Scottish DM here.
Most of my players/fellow players are dudes, all of them as far as I know are white and there's a mix of sexualities.
I don't think this is a problem though. You're friends with who you're friends with and sometimes finding people who like D&D is a challenge.
Never mind that, Scotland isn't exactly the most diverse country when it comes to race.
Not trying to put you on the spot aaboulenein, but I wanted to quote this for posterity's sake.
As far as I can tell, this is the only post that gets anywhere close to resembling what you're talking about Lyxen. And even this is not pushing an agenda. It is one person saying what they would want to do for their online game and they state why they think it's a good idea. That is all.
This post was met with one response that disagreed with the sentiment and then the conversation moved on to the difference between diversity and inclusivity.
Much, much more has been said in favor of not forcing diversity, with numerous contributors trying to make it clear that forcing diversity is not the intention of the thread or the topic in general.
So please don't mischaracterize this thread and the conversations happening here. This has been a great thread with interesting and healthy discussions.