Toxic Masculinity & TTRPG Culture | Gaining Advantage 037

April 12, 2024
faces of Steven Dashiell and Dale Critchley with red D&D Ampersand with Mars (male) symbol arrow: A masculinity crisis in D&D?

We explore the connections between language, masculinity, and tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) experiences with sociologist Dr. Steven Dashiell. He studies language in male-dominated spaces like gaming conventions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpXNTI2m2lk

We discuss how language use, rules lawyering, gamesplaining, and off-topic conversations (metadiscourse) at gaming tables can create barriers. These reinforce masculine norms and potentially alienate players from underrepresented groups. Dr. Dashiell shares research on gendered speech patterns, the historical invisibility of women TTRPG players, and the challenges that women face asserting themselves without seeming overly aggressive.

The conversation also covers the benefits of increased gender diversity in TTRPGs. Dr. Dashiell explains how bringing your authentic self enriches the gaming experience for all. He offers insights for designers to create more welcoming, inclusive spaces.

Whether new or experienced with TTRPGs, this episode provides a valuable perspective on building a more equitable gaming culture.

Links:

Show Outline:

00:00 Welcome and intro
00:21 Accessible character sheet for print & reading disabilities
00:56 Ready-to-Roll: Fairweather Friends D&D adventure Kickstarter
01:29 Interview with Dr. Steven Dashiell sociology of language
04:57 Gender representation in TTRPG spaces
06:24 Metadiscourse and inside references
07:21 Masculine language and behavior in gaming
08:18 Rules lawyering and excluding players
12:14 Gamesplaining
14:51 Historical gender erasure of women gamers
16:12 Benefits of diversity in tabletop RPGs
18:26 Murderhobo
25:08 Charisma in D&D and its effect on inclusion
28:36 Male dominance in D&D
31:33 Bringing your authentic self to gaming table
41:40 Designing more inclusive TTRPGs
50:32 Gendered guilt when missing game sessions
52:01 Jerks and toxic behavior study
57:31 Support Inclusive Gaming



Improvements in TTRPG Inclusion

April 12, 2024
Black background with a grayscale woman in a wheelchair

When we launched Limitless Heroics, we said, ”Limitless Heroics is more than an RPG book. It’s a petition. Back this project, and you communicate to every game publisher on earth that disabled people exist and can easily be included in their games, that the customers want that representation, and that accessibility and representation are necessary core features for future products.” Some scoffed at that. Others called it virtue signaling. But we truly believe that these small actions have a ripple effect on the industry and the world.

Efforts toward inclusion have definitely improved over the years. Third party products like Ancestry & Culture and An Elf and an Orc Had a Little Baby offer suggestions for better representation and an alternative to the bioessentialism that has had such a prominent role in Dungeons & Dragons throughout its existence. Wizards of the Coast began making changes with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and took racial representation to the next level with the announcement of Journeys through the Radiant Citadel, and we applaud these efforts and see the leader of the industry providing a positive example for racial representation.

But what about disability representation?

The first well-known effort to better represent disabilities in role-playing games came from the viral Combat Wheelchair, followed closely by the inexplicably controversial ”ramps in dungeons” adventure in Candlekeep Mysteries, but note that the latter, while published by Wizards of the Coast, was only designed to be accessible by its author, Jennifer Kretchmer, not by direction from the company, which is obvious in that that’s the only adventure in the collection that includes any deliberate accessibility. (GURPS and the Hero System also include disabilities, but it does more harm than good.)

Besides a handful of very small games floating around itch.io, Accessible Games produces Psi-Punk and Survival of the Able, and Evil Hat’s Fate Accessibility Toolkit was the first deliberate representation publication by a second tier publisher, and it’s still considered the best of its kind in the industry, and while it’s brilliant, it’s also the best because it’s the only one of its kind until Limitless Heroics finishes production.

Other third party offerings have stepped into the D&D system with examples like Adventures in ADHD and our own Accessible Adventures of the Week, but those examples remain rare.

Proof that Tony Stark Has a Heart

But now Marvel has thrown down the Infinity Gauntlet of accessibility with the Marvel Multiverse RPG, including limited but deliberate disability representation. Disney/Marvel by no means leads the TTRPG space, but they’re the first company to enter it in recent years with the potential to challenge WotC on their home turf. While Marvel’s past TTRPG offerings haven’t challenged D&D for dominance, that’s not necessary even now to see more inclusion. (No, I have no illusions that Limitless Heroics influenced this decision.)

As more publishers, especially media companies whose reach extends beyond the TTRPG sphere, implement disability inclusion in their game systems and campaign worlds, the more it becomes expected. Imagine how odd a campaign world of all white characters would seem today thanks to the civil rights movements and the ongoing work of millions to demand racial representation. In the same way, games and other media without a broad range of orientations and gender expressions are becoming increasingly expected.

The more we see accurate and positive disability representation throughout different forms of media, the more it becomes a standard. I look forward to the day when the lack of disability representation becomes noticeable.



Gaining Advantage 009: Variety is the Spice of Second Breakfast (with @TBHalflings)

April 12, 2024
Gaining Advantage: Making Lives Better through tabletop role-playing games; Wyrmworks Publishing Logo; Disability symbol with wheelchair wheel replaced by d20; Brain with embedded d20; Three Black Halflings logo

More often than not, variety makes things better. We welcome Jasper William Cartwright and Jeremy Cobb, 2/3 of the podcast Three Black Halflings to talk about diversity in the gaming space.

  • 0:00 Introduction
  • 2:39 2/3 Black Halflings
  • 55:48 Wrap-up

Manually captioned. Transcript available at our website.

3BH Links

Wyrmworks Publishing