Quote from: VisionStorm;1131343Some top reviews from over at AMAZON:

Quote from: ...Girls liking girly stuff...*shocker* Nary a review from a boy to be found...In other News: Water is Wet...

Looks like this doll is really popular with the actual target demographic.

Exactly.

The real reason More Girls/Minorites are playing D&D is not because of gay gnome kings, or POC illustrations in a D&D core book.

Because the only people who really care about that nonsense are SJW's.

It is actually much more simple:

Quote from: jeff37923;1131164... girls and minorities were not barred from playing RPGs (except by social stigma of the times - RPGs are nerd games). The times have changed and the social stigmata has lessened considerably.....

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1131213... I want to point out that I think that's substantially because it's social cachet now that geek/nerd culture is "cool" rather than a social liability. The internet also makes it much, much easier to get into, e.g. by watching other people play to see how it's done and by making it easier to talk to people about it. ...and c) geek hobbies are actually really, really fun...

The social stigma for admitting in public that you play "D&D" / RPG's is at an all time cultural low.

So more young people of all walks of life are willing to give it a go.

Boys do not play with Dolls! They play with *cough** Action Figures.

Completely different.

Quote from: Shasarak;1131348Boys do not play with Dolls! They play with *cough** Action Figures.

Completely different.

Every Twelve year old boy knows this to be true!   LOL

Way back, one of my female players actually went on a bit how the unrealistic proportions of Barbie dolls could cause some girls to have body issues blah, blah, blah, and how it was unfair to project such an ideal on to impressionable young girls...

My retort was: "Have you ever actually seen a He-Man action figure?"

In the 80s, my gaming group in high school were all PROUD WHITE MALES!!!

Especially the non-white guys, our Japanese supremacist, and the girls.

Quote from: Mistwell;1131336

That is a really really gay doll.  I thought Ken was straight.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1131350In the 80s, my gaming group in high school were all PROUD WHITE MALES!!!

Especially the non-white guys, our Japanese supremacist, and the girls.

Thas funny, my High School group was all white males as well.  At first I thought that it was because my High School was a segregated boys school but now I realise it was because ADnD was a sexist dumpster fire.

Quote from: Mistwell;11313341) It's not the people who treated you badly. They were, for the most part, not even born back then. You're literally blaming them for what, being born the same gender as people who treated you badly 30 years ago?

What?  No.  Women didn't treat me badly, trend-chasing assholes did because beating down on nerds was the trendy thing to do.  I wasn't referring to any sex or race, but a personality type.

Quote from: Mistwell;11313342) It has nothing to do with being bothered by concepts you handled when you were 10 because there wasn't a wall of books back when you were 10. In fact, there were few books, and the adventures published were literally a few pages long, and there were not massive tombs of lore and massive dense multi-book shelves of rules.

You don't need more than the core rulebook to get by in almost any game nowadays, any more than you did in 1980.  There are advantages to reading splatbooks and setting books, but it's hardly mandatory.  Anyone genuinely interested in joining this hobby should be able to handle the relatively low bar of reading the core rulebook, and if that's too much effort for them to put in, we're better off without them.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1131343Some top reviews from over at Amazon..







Looks like this doll is really popular with the actual target demographic.

Seriously, you're citing a few amazon reviews of girls buying boy toys as evidence Mattel didn't try to expand their marketplace to attract boys as customers?

You knew that was weak when you typed it. Just fucking concede the point like a real man

Quote from: Jaeger;1131347Exactly.

The real reason More Girls/Minorites are playing D&D is not because of gay gnome kings, or POC illustrations in a D&D core book.

Because the only people who really care about that nonsense are SJW's.

It is actually much more simple:






The social stigma for admitting in public that you play "D&D" / RPG's is at an all time cultural low.

So more young people of all walks of life are willing to give it a go.

No man, seeing people who look like you on the cover of something does increase interest in buying that thing. That's pretty well proven psychologically. Marketing figured this out long ago.

But if you actually believed what you're saying, you wouldn't give a crap if black women appeared on the cover of your game books, right? But you do care. So obviously it does have an impact.

Quote from: Valatar;1131376What?  No.  Women didn't treat me badly, trend-chasing assholes did because beating down on nerds was the trendy thing to do.  I wasn't referring to any sex or race, but a personality type.



You don't need more than the core rulebook to get by in almost any game nowadays, any more than you did in 1980.  There are advantages to reading splatbooks and setting books, but it's hardly mandatory.  Anyone genuinely interested in joining this hobby should be able to handle the relatively low bar of reading the core rulebook, and if that's too much effort for them to put in, we're better off without them.

Yes you don't need them, but the impact of them being there on the shelves is real. Pathfinder figured this out. WOTC figured this out. Why have you not figured out that seeing a wall of tomes has a negative impact on acquiring new players to the game, regardless of what you "need" to play the game, because you don't even get as far as figuring out what is and is not needed. You walk away, because the apparent investment to begin is too great.

Quote from: Mistwell;1131378No man, seeing people who look like you on the cover of something does increase interest in buying that thing. That's pretty well proven psychologically. Marketing figured this out long ago.

Women and minorities have been playing Tabletop RPG's for years, and it's nothing to do with Current Dungeons and Dragons becoming more woke.

It's everything to do with Whitewolf games though. Vampire and it's related products brought more minorities and women into gaming than anything else ever has.

Much as Jaeger has said, all that's happened now, is things like Marvel and shows such as Stranger Things have made geek stuff mainstream. Dungeons and Dragons has pivoted off of that and brought in a bigger audience. The two are different causes.

You're completely ignoring the fact Minorities and Women were here in great numbers before hand, and specifically because of products released in the 90s.

D&D itself has a bigger audience now because of the zeitgeist of nerd culture having exploded on the mainstream, drawing in more people from everywhere. It wasn't like suddenly minorities looked at a copy of D&D and said, "AT LAST! I AM REPRESENTED! NOW I WILL PLAY!" They were already playing. No it's simply more people are playing, whites and minorities both because of Iron Man and Netflix.

Has anyone in the rpg industry spoke up in defense of Mike Mearls?  It must suck knowing that none of the people he worked with for so long are either cowards or not really his friends.

Quote from: Mistwell;1131377Seriously, you're citing a few amazon reviews of girls buying boy toys as evidence Mattel didn't try to expand their marketplace to attract boys as customers?

You knew that was weak when you typed it. Just fucking concede the point like a real man

You have yet to make a point for me to concede to and my counter was iron tight. All you did was post a picture of a male Barbie doll and assume that was evidence that Mattel was trying to expand their market to attract boys, like Ken dolls weren't always a thing (marketed to girls) since back in the day.

Even if you were to provide actual evidence that Mattel was specifically trying to market this doll to boys (which you haven't) my point still stands, because the fact that it's girls these dolls are being bought for means their efforts failed. Which is precisely the sort of thing I was talking about in the post you replied to by bringing up this doll. Arbitrarily trying to make a product appeal to a "wider" audience that wouldn't be interested in it regardless doesn't work.

Quote from: Mistwell;1131378No man, seeing people who look like you on the cover of something does increase interest in buying that thing. That's pretty well proven psychologically. Marketing figured this out long ago.

Damn, I didn't know Buffy was a Hispanic guy with black hair.

Quote from: Mistwell;1131378But if you actually believed what you're saying, you wouldn't give a crap if black women appeared on the cover of your game books, right? But you do care. So obviously it does have an impact.

Nobody cares that a black woman appears in the cover of a game book. They care that characters that have absolutely nothing to do with the game world appear in the cover.

Quote from: Valatar;1131376Anyone genuinely interested in joining this hobby should be able to handle the relatively low bar of reading the core rulebook, and if that's too much effort for them to put in, we're better off without them.

Given the size of many core rulebooks, I'd definitely disagree. If a player can grasp the core mechanic and note down their to-hit and damage dice/modifiers, I'm happy enough.

Quote from: Mistwell;1131377Seriously, you're citing a few amazon reviews of girls buying boy toys as evidence Mattel didn't try to expand their marketplace to attract boys as customers?

You knew that was weak when you typed it. Just fucking concede the point like a real man

Extraordinary claims (Mattel is seriously targeting Barbie at boys) need extraordinary evidence!