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Author Topic: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says  (Read 2683 times)

Thorn Drumheller

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https://web.archive.org/web/20220730013506/https://kotaku.com/dnd-movie-honor-among-thieves-trailer-marvel-1849345237

Man, I'm so glad D&D has been saved. Schwew, I was getting worried. The she/her author sets us straight....uh correct.
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Brooding Paladin

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2022, 10:28:05 PM »
LOL.  Also, LOL.  Amazing how a single lens is the only lens that matters. They make me tired…

Thorn Drumheller

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2022, 10:35:44 PM »
LOL.  Also, LOL.  Amazing how a single lens is the only lens that matters. They make me tired…

I know right?! I will bow to the author's authority when it comes to them being correct. Cause we can trust everything some idiot writes on a gaming site. LOL
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Mistwell

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2022, 10:46:15 PM »
https://web.archive.org/web/20220730013506/https://kotaku.com/dnd-movie-honor-among-thieves-trailer-marvel-1849345237

Man, I'm so glad D&D has been saved. Schwew, I was getting worried. The she/her author sets us straight....uh correct.

While I am sure the Queer community finds itself comfortable with D&D, it's a heaping mound of shit to credit any of the success of D&D with the Queer community. Because that community is very small, not all that known for embracing D&D any more than anything else really (like comics and video games and cosplay and kpop and whatever), and the D&D community is very large and known for attracting pretty much everyone as long as they have some tolerance for nerdom.

And it's driven primarily by things like Critical Role (which, while having one Queer member, is not a show tailored to the Queer community) and Stranger Things (not particularly Queer beyond a few brief plot points in later seasons) and earlier shows like Community (not Queer) and some animated shows (not Queer). And it's initial success was people who liked a more old school style (not particularly Queer).

The stuff they name, like queer-only actual play podcasts, and RPGs like Thirsty Sword Lesbians, make up a literal rounding error in the hobby. Probably more than 99% of D&D player have never even heard of those things. If those things didn't exist, the community would not be noticeably smaller at all. And it's not that I think those things are bad - there is nothing at all wrong with them. I just object to exaggerating their influence to the extreme like this author is doing. I assume because they live in an extreme bubble and is projecting their experiences as if they're universal and very influential, when they're not.

Also, whoever wrote or edited their headline does; not; know how; to use; semicolons.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2022, 11:05:10 PM by Mistwell »

VisionStorm

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2022, 12:05:37 AM »
Thank you for archiving this garbage and not making me give clicks to that dumpster site! That "article" was like 50% word salad trying to reach a word count quota or something. Even before I got to the juicy part I was already bored wondering when this oxygen thief was gonna get to how the QuEeR cOmMuNiTy supposedly saved D&D, or, you know...make any point at all.

No point was ever made. Everything was scathing, yet empty commentary on the trailer and the film's existence, and everything the director and the producer said at a con. Followed by making everything about "me, me, Me, ME, ME, MEEE!!!"

Quote
For roleplayers of queer identities, D&D is often the “action movie,” we’ll never get: a place where all the main characters can look and sound and dress like us. And it’s not merely the singular escape of one person, but rather the collective escape that we share with others. We can process our feelings about a world that wants us to not exist, yet we persevere. We can learn to form friendships and bonds with people after a lifetime of not having the best versions of ourselves put forward. That is a sense of “found family” that an Avengers movie can only provide by drowning it in headcanon—and even then, we’ll be accused of making everything about us when so little is.

Yes, you ARE making everything about you. And no, this film doesn't need to be about queers finding their identity through RPGs or listening to their pronouns through their characters, because this film isn't about YOU, it's about D&D. And D&D isn't about your confused gender nonsense. It's about going off on adventures, killing monsters, taking loot and saving the day, and maybe making some friends along the way. Not about some self-absorbed queer-affirming shit that's only tangential to your own personal play experience at most (and I doubt as important as you're making it out to be even then), but not relevant to the game or anyone else. None of this has shit to do with D&D!
« Last Edit: July 31, 2022, 12:07:34 AM by VisionStorm »

Jam The MF

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2022, 02:07:09 AM »
Hmm....

I like D&D, and I am not queer.  I didn't need someone to come along and save it.
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Reckall

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2022, 08:36:43 AM »
That's exactly why I called the site Wokeku in the D&D movie thread. It is a very well known fact ;D

"Stranger Things" is an interesting phenomenon. The show has only two POC character (Lucas and his sister, Erica) and one lesbian (Robin). The lesbian angle isn't "in your face" and her coming out scene was very sweet. Maybe Will is gay but the jury is still out if he is in love with Mike or he simply yearns for the simpler days of their friendship and cannot adjust to the realities of growing up.

And all the characters of every age, gender and sexual inclination have to cooperate to win the day, with every one of them being flawed or damaged in some way (the opposite is true too: the actor who plays Jonathan protested with the writers that his character was totally negative, but no one in ST is totally good or evil; he was right and the writers put in his background that he was bullied too, leading to one of the key moments of season three).

And all the above led to the escapist show of the last ten years.

Is the actor playing Lucas being targeted by racists? Of course, as a small percentage is endemic in every slice of populace. But no one involved in the show is so insane to attack their gigantic fandom over it. ST is the practical demonstration that "racism!" and "misogyny!" are the cries of the desperate, and that wokeness isn't the path to success. True, the "Guardians Of Our Pop Culture" whine about these choices the show made. (*) Everyone else is enjoying it.

(*) For a fun experience, search with Google a random book, comic or movie/show (no matter the era) and add  "problematic": you will always get hits. I just tried with "Little Women", "Jane Austen" and "Watership Down". Actually, scratch "fun": it is a sobering experience about how many lunatics have a megaphone these days.
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Kerstmanneke82

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2022, 08:42:53 AM »
I did once post an article about the same topic a few months ago. This is the link, though I see it's now hidden behind a paywall, it used to be not so.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/style/dungeons-and-dragons.html

To me, it's simple. I was born in 1982, got in touch with D&D for the first time around 1990 or so. Keep in mind, I'm from a non-Anglophone country and even now we can see that TTRPGs are not superpopular here. Probably because we also don't have debateclubs and so on, language isn't that superimportant, as well as improv and the like. We had those little children's books which were basically stories with D&D stamped on them, plus HeroQuest so that's my first steps in that world. Some ten years later, that's when, in my eyes at least, D&D got way more popular, thanks to fantastic games such as Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights, and the internet, of course. Since streaming those games, people found out people like us really aren't weird goblins hiding in the basement, but just normal people having fun. Then people saw they could make money off of it, and they jumped on the bandwagon - including LGBTQI+-people. Those people are welcome at my table, as long as they keep their politics out of it. Thus, in my world, small creatures have 25ft movement, ability score increases are fixed and Drow and Orcs are, as a general rule but with exceptions, evil if not at least non-good. So yeah, they didn't save D&D but they jumped on the wagon because it's what hot nowadays. At least that's my opinion.

Svenhelgrim

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2022, 08:49:02 AM »
Whatever. 

Just keep them away from the children.

jeff37923

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #9 on: July 31, 2022, 08:51:25 AM »
“This is an unfair thing about war: victory is claimed by all, failure to one alone.” - Tacitus

"Meh."

THE_Leopold

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2022, 02:38:17 PM »
All my gay players are sick of the gaslighting and championing for all this shit.

They want to roll dice, get loot, and have a good time and not make their hobby into some political circus just because they sleep with someone of the same sex.
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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #11 on: July 31, 2022, 05:25:35 PM »
No one actually plays "Thirsty Sword Lesbians". It's a product that only exists so people who probably don't play any RPGs at all from Tumblr, Twitter and Kotaku (apparently) can talk about how "important" it is.
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Thorn Drumheller

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2022, 08:04:04 PM »
No one actually plays "Thirsty Sword Lesbians". It's a product that only exists so people who probably don't play any RPGs at all from Tumblr, Twitter and Kotaku (apparently) can talk about how "important" it is.

I agree, at least as far as YouTube is concerned. I occasionally look for actual plays of various woke rpgs on YouTube and it's pretty much crickets for Thirsty Sword Lesbians and Coyote & Crow. There were some initial play tests but there's been nothing ongoing.

Ah well, another rpg lost to the ages/s
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Visitor Q

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2022, 06:58:02 AM »
I'm afraid to say the author failed to even start talking about the queer community before I lost interest. Is there a TLDR version?

Ghostmaker

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Re: D&D saved by Queer roleplayers.....or so some idiot on Kotaku says
« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2022, 07:01:40 AM »
I'm afraid to say the author failed to even start talking about the queer community before I lost interest. Is there a TLDR version?
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