No matter our differences, we can all agree that belligerent midwit atheists are the most insufferable of all cunts.
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (132)
sorted by:
Looking at the D&D community, I'm far more sympathetic to that view than I was before.
There's nothing inherently wrong with roleplaying games per se. But look how how many queers there are in this hobby, more than most anything else. Look at how many choose tiefling as their go-to. Why are they drawn to it? Why are these groups so dysfunctional while others are far less so. Even by the standards of the modern era, rpg hobby circles are a fucking trainwreck.
I do think that roleplaying as an evil diety worshiper needs a proper prep and mindset if it is to be done at all. There needs to be actors for evil roles. But these people are diving into it enthusiastically, no prep.
Also, the hells in dnd are just the pop culture hell (inferno style with many circles) and devils named after actual demons. Rather than it being subtle allegory or its own invention. It's just hell.
And so I've come to worry about a game where you can roleplay worshiping devils, where the hell isn't creative, and where the community has fallen to being queer. More than any other nerd community. There's something to be wary of here. I at least wouldn't just let my kids go play it. We're having a chat first at the very least. That community is deeply spiritually ill.
I really don't disagree with you at all.
In the 90s, my memories of D&D were pretty much just that the same nerdy kids who played video games and were in to science fiction and fantasy ALSO played D&D. My group was 100% male (briefly had one girl, and her presence almost made the whole thing fall apart due to thirst), 100% straight, etc. We were just nerds.
We often had a kind of persecution mentality. The cool kid and girls and others at school made of nerds, so we accepted anyone else who didn't quite fit in.
And yeah, that's basically the story of how D&D turned into a hobby for social misfits rather than people who were into the roleplaying and fantasy elements. Gatekeeping would have been nice, but D&D was kind of set up, at least in my experience, to be anti-gatekeeping. We were desperate for more people!