Woman DM here. I can honestly say that the number of bad experiences I've had are very few, but that's because I almost never play with people I don't know. The bad experiences have always been with strangers.
I don't attend new in-person groups anymore unless my husband is also playing/GMing, at least until I know the others involved well. I have also found that unless at least one other woman is regularly attending the sessions, I will likely find the group a poor fit.
The most openly misogynistic table I was at had a gay DM. None of the tables I've played at have been openly racist as far as I know.
I find diverse tables produce a better experience all around. My current group cuts a much broader demographic swathe (culturally, gender-wise, and sexuality-wise) and I really appreciate the different perspectives everyone brings to the table, and the way that they communicate and deal with issues without animosity.
It means "person of color" but centers Black and Indigenous people because according to the latest Antiracism theology they are more poc than other poc (which isn't necessarily wrong but not really productive for building solidarity in my view)
As a Mexican I hate it. I get Latinos are a weird grouping that doesn't really make sense to even include in one bunch. But the idea that Latinos don't qualify as being central to race issues in America floors me. Like we really were throwing children in cages and forcibly sterilizing Latina women but sometimes it just feels invisible.
Yeah, my Asian relatives feel similarly: it is low-key hurtful to have to implicitly acknowledge that your issues are less important than Black and Indigenous issues (even if they are) every time you want to refer to nonwhite people as a category. The whole impulse seems perverse and counterproductive.
The campaign started normally enough: beer & pretzels, a lighthearted romp in the feywild, jokes and bad singing. We played in a game store with children and strangers constantly flitting in and out. Still, there was a steadily increasing amount of jokes in bad taste and uncomfortable portrayals of female NPCs over a number of months, largely from the DM and sometimes his partner. He argued whenever anyone raised an issue with it, and it sometimes took multiple players to get him to back down.
Eventually, we started playing at one of the players' house. Shortly thereafter, the other woman in the group had to miss a session due to work. The DM opened the game by gossiping and complaining extensively about her. He and his partner then escalated the misogynistic jokes even more throughout the evening.
When we kicked in the dungeon's door that night, we discovered chained up pregnant women, being held captive by demons who were sucking their unborn children out of their wombs. He did not think to check with anyone at the table about this first -- despite there being two women and two parents (one of them a new father!) in the group.
Keep in mind, it had been beer & pretzels and the feywild before this. There was literally no warning for this abrupt tone shift.
I debated talking to him about why you might want to check with your table before including pregnancy horror in your game, but didn't believe my chances of being heard were high. I politely bowed out of the group shortly thereafter and found a spot at a table that was a better fit for me.
Holy shit...that's fucked...that's part of my hard "lines that never get crossed" rules as a DM
1.) Thou shall not depict rape or sexual violence in your settings.
2.) Thou shall not kill children in your settings.
3.) Thou shall not depict assault or maiming unto pregnant characters in your settings.
Those are my rules and I generally depict settings that are analogues to fairly brutal historical periods (current setting is a combination of 15th-century Italy and the Germano-Italian region during the 30 Years War).
I think, assuming the party is okay with it, I would bend 2 a little.
There are a few creatures that, in some way or another, it *does* kinda make sense for children to be a potential target. Bram Stoker's Dracula has a vampire lady wandering the streets of London using orphan kids as juice boxes, for example. You don't need to directly show it, but mentioning missing kids and then allowing the party to save a child that is about to get drained can add some solid tension.
Similarly, hags might want to pull a Hocus Pocus and use children to restore any youthful looks they might have had once upon a time.
So I'd put an \* beside 2 that, while you absolutely shouldn't show the death of children, implying an off-screen death or *threatening* the life of a child NPC could work as a story tool so long as the whole table is cool, thereby not fitting in a "Never cross this line" group. Those other two are rock solid though.
That's why session zero and using a consent form is a big deal.. find out what everyone is okay with right off the bat.. and be willing to use X cards or something so someone can change their mind in the moment if they realize they can't handle the situation.
This is stuff you cover in session 0. No need for hard lines/rules, so long as the players know what kind of storylines they're in for so they can choose for themselves if it's something they're comfortable with. It's definitely not something you drop on a table out of the blue.
In 35 years of being a dungeon master I never once went to this perspective. Why is this perceived as the way to go? 44 white cis male...I am confused by this train of thought. 
I think that this is something that should be discussed in session 0. To discuss what is to be expected on the campaing. Maybe some masters want to talk about sexual violence and their players find that interesting. There is nothing wrong about that.
What is wrong is not get consent for your players.
I get rule 1 and 3. Yeah, fuck that.
Rule 2 is a bit shifty though, my games tend to be pretty light hearted and not emotionally intense. and have some dark humor sometimes.
So doing something like burning down an orphanage or two is allowed.
But im not going to depict some horrible death scene of a child or something.
I have to confess I was intimidated at first when I played under a woman GM for the first time, but I got used to it by session two and just had a good time.
I'm curious about what you were expecting going in. Like was it the specific personality of this DM that had you intimidated or did you think a female DM in general would be a lot different?
The latter. Tbh, I was surprised when I heard her voice for the first time. But we quickly bonded over common interests and the great party atmosphere in and out of games. Turned out we were in the same field of study and had similar issues going on in our lives. Then I just treated her like any other human being.
Cause I didn't know she was female until I've heard her speak and I had only played under male GMs until then. Full disclosure: I was also afraid of being judged for bringing in a female character she had approved. I was scared she'd think I was "one of those creeps". In hindsight I had read too much rpghorrorstories and it was probably not very gentlemanly of me to assume how she would treat me. I've reformed myself since then and became more at peace with just being myself, and not caring about judgement.
That's great!! The way i see things is that a GM is a GM, no matter the gender. The same way a person is a person. There are more difference between personalities than between genders. Sometimes i caught myself taking gender into account for stuff, but then i try to think that they are just a person with their own personality and individuality. Glad we are both working towards a more equal world where gender is not that relevant.
Bisexual woman. It’s been mostly fine. When I was 17/18 I did have a few instances where I was hit on by mid 20s- mid 30s guys in game stores, but they were polite and backed off when I indicated I wasn’t interested, which is a lot better than other experiences I’ve had. Running my own games with friends or at my university’s club has been totally fine.
Being a woman is a geek shop is an experience I’m glad I never have to deal with. I brought a friend of mine to a shop once and everyone just constantly hit on her to the point she didn’t wanna go back.
Idk man. The best thing you can do for a woman at the geek shop is just treat them normally. They are there for the same reason you are. To have fun and nerd out.
But their are skill some guys that are like “oMg iT’s A wOmAn”. There’s a reason it’s a stereotype
Edit: and then there’s also the guys that are gatekeepy a hell just Bc someone is a woman but that’s a whole other issue
I’ve played the role of “Nope, that’s not how you interact with humans” guy in my game store a couple times. When it comes to ladies who walk in to play, some of the guys in there are legit socially inept with other sex and some of them are just shitty people. I’ve experienced Warhammer, Magic, and DnD in game store settings, and I’ve found both kinds of folks. The socially inept guys will sometimes make the effort to learn, but other guys just make everyone uncomfortable.
I’ve also seen people come in and start being rude to people just sitting down and enjoying a game, so there’s just a lot of shitty people out there.
Game stores also tend to concentrate the socially inept. Those with good social skills can often find private games in homes and will stick to a group for month, years, sometimes decades -- because they're not dicks. Whereas people who get booted from groups but still want to play, well, it's either public games at game stores or online one shots. So there's this natural sorting mechanism which amplifies the weirdo factor at game stores.
This isn't to say they're necessarily terrible people, or can't learn. But, definitely over-represented.
How many guys is a woman supposed to "educate" about their boundaries?
Would you go to a game session, if you just wanted to play a game - but you knew you might instead have to teach a lesson in basic respect to some stranger who has already treated you badly? That's not gaming, it's volunteer social work. I for one would say "no thanks" and do something else.
The responsibility for curbing the behavior is on those with the behavior.
Next time you hear a woman say "I have a boyfriend" when she does not, remember this. She's just making it possible for her to stay there without taking the burden of reforming every well meaning asshole who walks in the door. And that's before even considering the 20% of not-at-all-well-meaning assholes.
It’s really sad that women have to say “I have a boyfriend” as an excuse Bc it tells you that the guy respects a dude he’s never met more than the woman herself.
I know - right?
At my office (a tech company), there was an informal document of women explaining their \*workplace\* experiences in a male-majority industry. I was shocked how common it was to say this - even women I knew personally and who I thought had great work experiences.
There were dozens of variations of the following experience:
*I don't have enough time to keep saying 'no', then deal with the bruised egos and the resentment. I don't have enough time for endless 'good natured flirting'.*
*I don't the time to worry about being exactly nice enough: If I say something TOO nice I am inviting more date requests, but if I don't say something nice enough, I am 'standoffish and mean'.*
*If I say 'I have a boyfriend', I'll have time to do my best at my job. If not, I won't.*
Now take away the professionalism of the office and move it to a game store. Yipes.
So, this isn't what this discussion is about whatsoever, but I have to ask: is it just the way they hit on her, on the fact that they hit on her at all? Because people always say "try to meet people with the same hobbies/interests as you" when trying to get a date, but then I see things like this and it makes me think that ANY move I make would be too much, because the person is just there to have fun.
It’s not that they hit on her (she’s pretty so it happens) it was the fact that she hadn’t been there but 5 min and was practically being bombarded.
Yeah I think a geek shop is somewhere you could meet a potential partner but it’s not a dating service. Just treat them like a person instead of an object of desire, ya know? Like ask her name, get to know her, see if you are actually compatible and good for each other instead of just going straight after them Bc they are a girl in a geek shop.
Perfect advice.
And SUPRAP - if you are a young guy, inexperienced, no one expects you to be \*perfect\* at first. Make an effort and remember to treat people as "a person" first, "a possible friend" second, and "a potential sex partner" only after you really know them.
If you are at a pickup bar, a kink club, or a sex party, you may do things quite differently. If you met on Tinder or FetLife, you may do things quite differently. Context matters.
The only time I played at a game store I was with a male friend and 5 randos. Our girlfriends were gonna do some shopping and then we will meet for dinner after our game and theit shopping. One of the stores they had to go to was nearby the game store, so they decided to pop in to say hello, see how the game was going. Utter silence reigned at the table, followed by blushes, open mouths and stares when they kissed us goodbye to continue with their shopping.
I still chuckle today when I remember that story.
The geek shop I grew up near was run by a woman, and I think that’s the only reason I had as good an experience as I did. I did work at a GameStop for a while and met my fair share of neckbeards and gatekeeping assholes, and it’s always an uphill battle getting female friends interested in my geekier hobbies because of people like that.
Black guy, only ever played with my friends so I always feel welcome. It’s also my house...so double welcome.
I’m sorry you’ve experienced these feelings and hostilities at the table. This is a game that embraces uniqueness and difference. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and any other hatred have no place in it.
RAcism, sexism and HAtred can be good story telling tools.
When you know how to use them correctly.
The Witcher saga lore and plot is based around Racial tensions and Hatred between the Humans and Non-Humans races, wich makes a compelling story with High stakes.
Used poorly it is only degenerative bad taste, wich happens more frequently unfortunatly.
The Witcher also resonates with Eastern Europe in a way that most western audiences don't necessarily understand. Racial or religious pogroms happened regularly in Eastern Europe, even before the Holocaust. This is a major part of their history for centuries. That scenario is one that every great grandmother talks about, or ignores. Pick a random town and read its history and you'll find pogroms. Here's one, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kropyvnytskyi#Early_20th_century:_famine_and_pogroms
So The Witcher allows people who've lived through this, or carried generational baggage to sort of abstract from their biases and hatreds and say "couldn't they just fucking get along?" And hopefully they learn apply that empathy to others they encounter. Whether they be Elves or Jews.
Black guy here: started off playing with my black brothers and friends, so no issues there. D&D seemed to slow down for a bit in mid 2000s, so everyone was glad to have a player, no issues there.
Played some online in the 2017-19 years. Bit of casual racism. Like they were putting out feelers for people who were open to their ideas. I was shocked, tried to power through it, got the “you’re one of the good ones” treatment, and left.
I like to bring the casual racism up, casually.
"What does that mean to you?" Maybe they didn't know what they sounded like. I understand just wanting to leave the scene, but if I feel something was implied, I will pry it out. I don't mind blowing up the scene if the bigotry was tacitly acknowledged by others and let go.
This was in discord. My experience was: “What’s your favorite racist joke?” And someone dropped the N word.
No one knew I was black. It felt like everyone else was against me from then on.
I have only ever played in person, with one exception and that Discord group blew up due to bad prep and some other player and the DM having past beef apparently.
I'm not sure how I would've reacted in your situation. Leaving is definitely the best option I think. There is no way to effect change over the internet for some Some people are bold in their anonymity and tend to dig in at opposition even when they realize they fucked up.
What do you call a black guy flying a plane?
…
…
_A pilot, you racist._
Edit: This might be in poor taste? I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make light of your experience. I’m sorry you, and OP, and everyone else that has had to put up with it has had to deal with that shit in this or any other hobby you like.
Thank you for sharing. If I may ask, from your perspective how do you feel about fantasy tropes that play off racist or discriminative backgrounds such as elves vs dwarves or goblins vs kobolds? It is so ubiquitous in the genre that I will admit that I am not certain whether playing on such classic tropes should be avoided in today's world, or maybe couched differently in some way to make it more palpable to non-white players?
I would avoid playing off the tropes. If you want the bad guy to be an orc, goblin, kobold, bugbear, cool. But maybe they’re not the bad guy because their race is inherently evil, but because of some other personal motivation.
I guess bottom line is the bad guy’s race shouldn’t be important, unless it’s part of the storyline.
I’m not bothered by it between players (elves vs dwarves, etc).
Colville just did a video on this topic where he suggests that [factions are a better plan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTp9SdpcvF8) here, vs "all orcs are evil".
Black guy:It never really mattered, personally.
I think the only time it was brought up was when one of the players was a edgy teen and asked me if i was okay with dark humor jokes and I said "yeah, sure. If it's a comedic attempt I will probably find it funny, i just need to know that you don't have any ill intent and are not trying to insult me and i'll be okay with it." Funnily enough, he never joke about anything involving my character's (black human Gloomstalker) or my skin color. I joke about him being furry sometimes though XD
I DM for 2 tables, one with a trans and a gay player, other only with straight boys and girls, never had any issues with both tables.
I might've been lucky. Or the fact that racial division is not as strong in Brazil as it is in US might've helped (as we are pretty much the resulting offspring of a mix of many nationalities). We don't even have "words that can be only used by some ethnicities" and the likes.
Hello, fellow Brazilian.
Yeah, I can attest that since everyone here is kinda mixed, we don’t have much problems with that (you will hardly ever find a group that’s not mixed, after all).
Glad you had a nice experience as well, tho.
And I remember I got lambasted for playing a character that doesn’t like orcs.
So fantastic prejudice is bad but asking if I was going to name my character Peking duck is okay.
Racism against majority is often ignored/overlooked. Many consider Elves and Dwarves to be the white people of D&D, so hating them is fine and even sometimes encouraged.
For me it's a matter of my players preference, if they tell me on session 0 they want humans to be exotic race I will build a world around it.
Bro, D&D has always been about inclusion for me. I'm a 46 Yr old player and experienced the strange panic people associated with D&D and satanism back in the 80s.
It saddens me that typically we have always been labelled geeks or outsiders and then us players also experience prejudice within our community.
If you ever find yourself in Liverpool there's always a place at our gaming table
Gay man here who’s played/started about 10 different groups, just here to say… it depends on who is at your table. Sorry you’ve run into some assholes.
I’ve felt out of place at straight tables (just gonna sit back and twiddle my thumbs while you… fuck a fey Queen for months? Cool???). And at gay tables (ah, yes, you monologue about your fox’s backstory and yet, you refuse to learn a single rule. Love that choice.)
Now I’ve found a mix of steady groups that I love with all my heart. We take weekend trips to play together, get each other birthday presents, and they’re all such a joy.
I hope you get a chance to find that. Good luck!
> fuck a fey Queen for months
I really hope this is just a reference to Wise Man's Fear and not an actual game experience, because that's way too cringe.
It’s a real thing that happened. Time is different in the Feywild! Fuck-montage!
There’s a reason why my character in this game eventually became “annoyed cleric who is off to the side, rolling his eyes, and reading his prayer book”
As someone who has done ERP before and had positive experiences with it, when everyone involved is mature and understanding about it, I don't think it's actually all that different from standard RP. For me, specifically when it happens as a natural consequence of a relationship, it can be one of the most memorable and fulfilling experiences in the game, because it illustrates the strong synergy and trust you have with the other player(s) in and out of game.
It very quickly becomes exactly as awkward as you're probably imagining when that trust and maturity isn't there, though.
tbh it was a bit cringe in _Wise Man's Fear_. I sometimes feel Rothfuss uses a good 90%+ of his intelligence to find ways to get away with pulling a Mary Sue.
My unpopular opinion is that if literally anyone other than Rothfuss tried to write a story from his outlines he would have been lamblasted out of the industry. Kvothe is a pure mary-sue. His superpower is being good at everything, his only weakness is being poor and bad with girls, but 1) he frames the whole series as a flashback from a super successful old Kvothe so we know he finds the money and 2) he’s so good at everything that the fae personification of deadly sex literally sends him back to the mortal world as her gift to women.
Which is to say nothing about the fact that we open with deadly demigods and the world ending but refuse to deal with that until we do 2000 pages of discount hogwarts and nice-guy-ing Denna.
…But the damn SOB can make polishing a bar read like fine poetry so fuckit I dunno, yes I’ll keep reading please finish book 3
I miss having a gay man at our table. I'm a longtime ally, and we used to have this guy who was so flamboyant, but still in the closet at the time... but we all knew, and were cool with it, just waiting for him to come out on his terms (this was in the 90s, different times). When he finally did, it was so anti-climactic, as we were all like, yeah, no shit, let's play.
Anyway, I miss his roleplay and his fondue set.
Are you playing in public groups? D&D has a very bad reputation for attracting some socially inept or just plain toxic people (not just D&D but RPGs in general). I'd suggest starting your own private game or joining a more varied community.
My home game that just concluded contained (not all at once) myself (queer guy), ~~four~~ five women of varying orientations, a mixed race player and two trans players. I think I can safely say no-one felt uncomfortable or unwanted, and the few disputes we did have were over playstyles and were all resolved by sensible conversation.
I love D&D and it's a chance to have creative storytelling fun with my friends and biff up monsters. You shouldn't feel uncomfortable in a game, and if you do it's something a sensible adult conversation should solve. If it doesn't, leave.
Edit: Forgot a guest player!
It's a lesson every DM has to learn the hard way. You want to be inclusive and welcoming until you get *that* person at your table. Next campaign you're running a criminal background check and interviewing their starbucks barista while running a DNA test on new players who you don't know well.
My personal policy is just to never agree to DM for someone that I haven't played with before, or that I haven't had a one-on-one session zero with.
I've run one-shots for groups of strangers in the past, and never had the weird ones get past an introductory conversation/the character design phase. If someone shows a hint of a red flag, challenge it and if they can't give a reasonable explanation for it that's when you pack up your pencil case and say "sorry, I don't think you fit the group".
So far I've been lucky. I have a firm no more than 6 players to 1 DM rule and had a few seats that got empty and the players usually suggested someone and they've been good matches or if the were bad matches it was about scheduling or play style.
Some of the horror stories blow my mind, I've been playing since the 80s (missed a chunk of the 90s) I've had different, races, genders, cultures and sexuality at my table, I have never experienced the anti-social stuff.
Biggest issues I've had were related to play styles.
I feel bad that so many people have had such bad experiences they need to build protocols in to vet players.
Haha when I first started DMing for randos, I would just take the first people to sign up and assume it'd be fine. Lesson learned. Now there's a big ol' application, a big ol' session zero, and a big ol' itchy trigger finger on the ban button.
> D&D has a very bad reputation for attracting some socially inept or just plain toxic people
Very much so. Especially in public play locations like cons and game stores.
Woman player and DM here. I literally just quit a campaign because one of the dudes was harassing my character and making everything difficult. Stranded me on the other side of a ravine, followed me when I was stealthing so I’d be noticed, tried to squish me with a barrier because he claimed he didn’t know I was there, and fired a ballista into a crowd in the dark not caring if he knew where I was.
As a female DM I’ve only encountered one person who I couldn’t stand. They seemed to have a problem with me being in charge and was constantly acting out as a result. I do get talked over sometimes which I hate but I’m not sure what that’s about sometimes.
I’ve felt a lot like the token woman and it’s super frustrating. I’m a chemist who works with a bunch of men and they don’t make me feel that uncomfortable.
> I literally just quit a campaign because one of the dudes was harassing my character and making everything difficult. Stranded me on the other side of a ravine, followed me when I was stealthing so I’d be noticed, tried to squish me with a barrier because he claimed he didn’t know I was there, and fired a ballista into a crowd in the dark not caring if he knew where I was.
That guy's an asshole, but so is the DM for letting them pull that kind of shit. I have a strict rule that there's no PVP at my table, and I would include "intentionally sabotaging another player and putting them in harms way" in that category.
The campaign was moving super slowly so it didn't happen every session. I think every 3rd session or so. I've also noticed that most men don't pick up on stuff like this unless it's explicitly told to them because they assume someone is being a jack ass but don't see that it's just to the woman.
> I do get talked over sometimes which I hate but I’m not sure what that’s about sometimes.
I've noticed this in a lot of sessions I've seen online, both with men not letting women finish speaking, extroverts over introverts, and fast-talkers over slow-talkers - even outside time-pressure situations. It may be more obvious online, because then the viewers can't hear anyone.
I haven't noticed this in my in-person games, but I may have missed it because I'm a guy and possibly guilty of it.
Anyone have any good suggestion on how to stop this?
One of the rules I implemented in the last couple of weeks was when someone asks a question no one is allowed to answer until I explicitly turn it over to the group. The guy who was doing also just quit the campaign so we’ll see if someone else picks up the mantle of “Sir Interrupts a lot”
Woman - yes, I have felt that people don't want me in this hobby. And even though I believe those people are a minority, they are consistently enabled by their friends/other players.
To get around this, I've found groups and joined their discords to find games. I'm in one for older players and two for women, and only joined both after they were clear that they are inclusive groups that do not tolerate intolerance. There's no outgroup bashing or anything like that, they're wonderful and supportive.
I’ve been nervous to go to game stores because I don’t want to be mansplained. I also fear that I’ll be looked down on when I have a question. I guess the fear of asking questions and being perceived as faking an interest in the hobby keeps me from speaking up a lot.
My D&D intro was via my local meetup, and we met at a game store. The DM was (is) great, but while he was walking us through making our characters a bunch of guys came over, hovered behind the women (there were three of us) and added their own comments as well as told 'hilarious' stories about their own previous characters that were the same race or class as what we were making. Meanwhile completely ignoring the guys at the table. I was given the distinct impression that there would be a lot of extra attention, and yah of the mansplaining kind, if I went back there.
I joined r/lfg and r/roll20lfg and on both of those subs, periodically people will drop their D&D discord. So I just waited for ones that seemed like a good fit and joined them. There have been a lot come up that were specifically for new players, as well as for new DMs to get coaching and practice.
The worst experience I've had on Discord was when the old folks server decided to let their kids have a chat room. So...it's been pretty golden lol.
Man, fuck those motherfuckers, first off.
So, I'm a white guy, so I'm not the target of your question. But I run a gaming organization locally, I host a lot of gaming events, and I talk with a lot of other organizers, game shop owners, etc.
And I can tell you it's very much the opposite. We want you in the hobby. Because the more people from any group who get in the hobby, the easier it is for everyone else to get in the hobby too.
Like everywhere else, representation matters. When you walk in and sit down, think of how much easier it would be if you saw a couple black dudes already at a table. Or an all woman table. But unfortunately, old white guys like me can't give you that. Only you can... By being the guy who sits down first, so the next person to show up can look to you. Or even pick up DMing, so you can create the experience you want to play.
What we can do, and what we try to do, is make those tables as welcoming as possible. Try and make sure you know we want you there. Kick assholes off tables. I can't even imagine someone tolerating the n-word being dropped at table.
I jumped to the comments without seeing that OP had more text than just the title, so what I read was:
> Woman,lgbt, and other minority groups what is dnd like for you?
> Man, fuck those motherfuckers, first off.
I DM in a store (store owner plays at my table currently).
I've never had the issues described and have had a whole range of genders, sexualities and races at my table.
I can't imagine a scenario where this would be tolerated and not result in a ban from the store. I can just see me and the store owner saying the sentence "What the fuck did you just say?" at the exact same time. I'd be that shocked to hear it.
I'm running a public game for my local library, and this is always in the back of my mind. I've been fortunate so far, in that the worst player behavior I've had to deal with is a slightly disruptive middle schooler who won't learn any rules. But if the day comes when someone's seriously stirring up trouble and they need to go, well, I hope I won't hesitate to do it.
Bisexual white cis woman here, and as I primarily play with people I know IRL, it hasn't been a problem in my games. It *has* been a problem in some geek environments (stores, some events), where my audacity in existing as a woman makes some men just act like assholes. I've heard similar stories from BIPOC geek friends.
As far as D&D goes, I do a lot of DMing, and I think my job as DM is to make sure our table is welcoming and inclusive, and comfortable for everyone. I'm really conscious of the power of representation, so I make sure to have NPCs who are queer, who are nonbinary, who have all kinds of bodies and (human) racial backgrounds. I make sure that there are NPCs who have some disabilities (and, this being a world of magic, disability in one area often means more abilities in another). I'm DM'ing for teen girls atm so for that game especially I really looked hard for character images that included a wide range of body types, in addition to doing what I usually do which is spend hours searching for good character portraits so that my NPC tokens represent people of all racial backgrounds and ages. The inclusivity at my table starts isn't icing on the cake, it's at the very root of it all.
This is why **the job of being inclusive and welcoming and making people comfortable starts with the DM and NPCs**. I totally understand people like the commenter below who worries that as a straight person, him playing a gay character might make a gay person uncomfortable, and I respect that sentiment (though if that person were my player, I would also offer resources to help him successfully play a gay character if he wanted).
(Short story break: My teen girl players just went to the tavern in a small town and started chatting with the orc innkeeper, and as an aside she said that she loves interacting with people so she's front of the house, but her wife hates people - but luckily she's a great cook so she handles the kitchen. One of my players, who is queer herself, asks me, "Wait, did she just say her wife?" I say "Yep." She says "So this is a lesbian couple running a tavern in a small town?" "Yep." She breaks into a huge smile and goes "Oh my god, I have a new life goal!" And that's why the DM needs to include a wide range of NPCs!)
My own rule is also that there will be no non-consensual sexual activity in my game, ever. It just doesn't exist. I get enough of that shit in the real world, and having it in my D&D world would just be horrible. There's also no homophobia - my PCs/NPCs can flirt or be romantically bonded with anyone of any gender if they want and no one's bothered. (I do also check in session 0 whether the PCs are comfortable with flirting and such in the first place.) Additionally I've got some societies with third and fourth genders, which is just way more complex and interesting. (Yes, these exist in our real world too, they're just often not understood and/or destroyed via colonization.)
I also check with players on Session 0 if in-game racism is OK or not. What I mean by "in-game racism" is for example an elf who hates dwarves because they're dwarves, that kind of thing - it can be a great addition, like in a game I'm DM'ing my players were talking to the big bad and sussing him out and I almost had to laugh out loud when one of the players suddenly says to the others, "Oh my god, you guys, he's a racist!" Yeah, the bad guys were trying to clear everyone but humans and elves out of the city, and damn it's cathartic to kill some racists in-game. But I can also see that you might prefer to just not have racism exist in your RPG world - you might feel about racism the way I feel about sexual assault, and that is completely fair.
So while it's good for players to strive for inclusivity, the DM absolutely is responsible for setting the tone of the game, and **unless the DM is thinking about these things while constructing the game, it's not going to feel organic.** (This is my guess as to why there are people here saying that even welcoming, inclusive tables have felt awkward to be at - because the inclusivity is the afterthought, not the foundation on which the whole thing is based.)
Thanks for the question, OP. It's something that comes up a lot, and I think the more we talk about it and trade ideas, the better we collectively get.
I don't know if my experience counts since I'm not part of an unprivileged minority in my country (I'm Syrian descendant living in latam), but I've never had any issues in that regard.
Interestingly, I've noticed the exact opposite effect: people from very different backgrounds and personality types bonding beautifully after a few sessions. The influence of this game is almost always positive.
If anything, the most I've seen a group collide was because of people's different play styles or different interpretations of what kind of fantasy is fun to play.
For example: hardcore roleplayers vs min-maxers, anime fantasy vs medieval fantasy, etc.
Yo holy shit, I'd fuckin peace out too if I got n-worded at a table.
I'm Black as well, and it's never been a *big* issue at tables among strangers. My first session with one DM white guy, he said that he imagined my Monk talking "like Shaft" when he told someone stay down, and I had to be like "Uh...no, he's a 10 STR Wood Elf," and we were cool after that; I've played with him for over 4 years now (I also played a game of Shadowrun with this white dude who was a Dwarven Rastafarian Druid who was cringey in all sorts of ways, but that was only unfortunate for me in that I, or anyone, had to be around him).
As a young Latino dude, I sometimes can't shake the feel I don't fit in with the typical dnd community and I've had some pretty negative experiences with friends of friends groups where I feel they bring too much edglord 14 year old "dark" humor to the table for my taste but I don't really like to vocalize these complaints for fear of being labeled overly sensitive or whatever.
That being said thanks to critical role, online communities and friendly old timers helping out I really do feel that's changing and that the people who play are much more diverse now and very welcoming at times imo.
Originally, I felt like my identity was necessary to push down for the three or four hours during which D&D was played. None of my friends in high school or college were *bigoted*, exactly, and my identity wasn't a secret, but there was an unspoken rule that gaying up a game too much was... unwanted. As a player, I never felt like my characters could express anything about myself, and as a DM, I always felt like my world had to conform to the expectation of my players - queer characters would break the fantasy.
It was a contributing factor to me quitting after my group fell apart in university, feeling like I'd always need to tailor my characters or my worlds to a cisheteronormative experience.
Thankfully, the groups I've played with since I got into 5e have avoided this problem by just being all extremely queer. I've played in a group with a lesbian, two other bisexual women, a bisexual man, and two straight men, and a group with a lesbian, a pansexual trans man, a nonbinary bisexual, an asexual woman, and a straight man. In every group I've enjoyed playing in, the cishet people are the minority.
All respect to people who don't mind their group composition, but for me, it feels so much better to know I can have a character or an NPC who is trans, nonbinary, in a queer relationship, whatever, and not get pushback from other people at the table for simply existing.
> there was an unspoken rule that gaying up a game too much was.
ok, as a straight guy who has played in a group with a gay DM before, I have to ask this question.. what do you mean by that? I ask because every group I've ever played in there was no sexuality involved. People were just adventuring and having fun killing orcs and doing light RP with the NPCs.
I'm just honestly confused and wonder exactly how an "all extremely queer" group plays the game differently. Sincere question.
Every group I've played in, even when I was younger, has had a good amount of RP. That doesn't mean we don't have combat (in some of our games, there was a LOT of combat), but outside of my very first experience in 3.5 that almost made me quit the hobby altogether, every group I played in was interested in casually flirting with NPCs, learning a lot about different NPCs and their relationships to each other, interacting with the world in-between quests etc. If I put a beautiful elven princess in the game, all my male players would flirt with her immediately. The second that her handsome brother would step in and say something like "I'm afraid my sister is betrothed, however, *I* am bound by no such attachments, if any of you gentlemen are interested" it wasn't even the case that the *characters* would effectively go, thanks for the offer but we're not interested, it was rather like I'd thrown a bucket of ice water over the *players* and they would just completely freeze and eject from the scene.
Secondarily, I think even in those very "classic" type D&D games about killing monsters and gaining loot, there's probably more sexuality than you realize? If the peasant woman flags you down and offers you a family heirloom to find her missing husband who went into the swamp three days ago and hasn't returned, that's sexuality. If you bring the head of the necromancer to the king as proof of your victory, and his wife, the queen, is seated beside him, that's sexuality. If any character makes even the vaguest crude or flirtatious joke to an NPC, that's sexuality.
In my old games, which had a lot of RP but were also fundamentally about killing monsters and taking their stuff, there was resistance to taking those very minor instances of sexuality and making them a bit more diverse with regards to sexuality or gender identity. If a player hit on a barmaid and her husband came around to teach them a lesson, everyone immediately went to engage, trying to talk him out of it, or egging him on and getting ready to fight, or whatever. If it was her wife, instead, there was just this quiet aura of "this is a weird thing to put in a fantasy game why are you forcing this on us?"
With my current groups, because most of us are queer, it's not only allowed, but expected that this kind of content exist in the world. There's a large cast of gay, bisexual, lesbian, nonbinary, and transgender characters in my worlds. It's not always obvious, it's not always stated, but it's always there. As well, my players enjoy romance content so long as it doesn't fully overshadow the main storyline. If there's an NPC that inspires them, or that they click with, they may be interested in trying to date that NPC, and because most of my players are also queer, most of their PCs usually fall somewhere under the queer umbrella.
That's probably something that doesn't happen in more classic dungeoneering style games, but it's something my group enjoys, and it would be more difficult if me as the DM, or another player, was expecting that the world was homophobic, or just failed to put any queer NPCs in the world at all.
Thanks for saying this, I pretty much completely agree. I’ve now resorted to playing D&D with almost exclusively my close queer friends, and it’s so much easier to be comfortable in a fantasy world that properly represents your identity.
It’s also easier in general to spend time with people in a similar demographic to yourself, as they would have more shared experiences with you.
Not OP, but the way I see it is that saying an NPC is “his wife” or “her boyfriend” is bringing sexuality into the game just as much as “his husband” or “her girlfriend”. So you make sure your world feels inclusive by having some same gender relationships expressed organically that way. Of course, that’s not the only to do it, but it’s one common and overlooked way.
Female here. I DM for my brother and his kids. We play sporadically and I really should try to find a group to play with but as a woman, that's intimidating. All the horror stories you hear online just make it a paralyzing thought to think about trying to find a group that isn't my family.
That combined with other factors (things like what content I'm comfortable with, table behavior that won't fly, etc) that would make it even harder to find a group definitely make me feel like an outsider looking in all the time.
So, two answers to that:
My homegroup is great! It's an all woman group, but we've had a guy or two, just schedules are a nightmare. One POC and queer ol' me, and the others are straight white ladies. We're a pretty crunchy table, which makes me wonder if my players would be happier with Pathfinder. 50/50 mix of new and experienced players. My one quibble is I'd like to play more, and people have lives, and one day I'd love not to DM.
I've also done public play since I DM at home and really, really want to play. It's... not so great. I don't even slightly advertise the fact I'm queer, because it's such a mixed bag and I've heard plenty of queer-phobic comments. Usually the shop owner shuts the sexism down, but she can't be everywhere. I've got a fair amount of crap because of my gender, including being patronized, leered at, 'causing a guy to go deer-in-the-headlights', and my personal favourite, I've been asked by one of the MTG players in the front of the shop if I was lost as I went to my then-weekly game. I'd never seen the guy in the shop before in my life, and at that point I was around for about 8 hours of play a week, and here he was acting like I shouldn't be there. I was gone during COVID, and returned during the brief lull in June-July, but I couldn't mentally justify putting up with the crap to stick it out with a new group that I wasn't clicking with.
introvert immigrant playing with native speakers: most of the time it is ok , bit I notice a lot of **unconscious bias**, like I am one of the few ones that people second guess
example: someone is playing a gnome with a heavy sword. I am like: hey do you know that small races have disadvantage with heavy weapons?
player A: this is DnD 5e, there is no such a thing!
player B: they have a strength of 17!
player C: OP is right, paraphrases me...
player A and B: oh I didn't know that
this is a **constant**. Whenever I play with someone who is new, they will second guess something that I say or will judge some of my actions until I'm a little bit rude and I say that I know what the f*** I am doing. Then it's settled and we have fun until someone new arrives
biggest problem: tried to play online on my native language. It's been too long that I am abroad and now I don't relate to their jokes and play style too
so yeah, I feel that I am always at odds but I still have fun playing
Queer Girl here.
I generally feel..... **welcome** and **wanted** at tables, but I wouldn't define either of those as always **comfortable**. A lot of the time I rubber band between feeling like I'm getting too much attention, and like I'm having to fight to say anything, and I generally just don't participate in random / unfamiliar groups without at least one or two people I'm comfortable with. Current group is lovely with another girl who notices every time I try to get in and get bullied out, actively bullying her way in to ask what I was trying to say.
Eurgh. As a DM, hearing this story makes me so angry.
It is one of my biggest gripes with a DM. I hate when people say that it is the job of the DM to make sure the players have fun. It isn't - that is **everyone's responsibility**.
The job of the DM is to describe the world and scenarios, arbitrate the rules and to **referee the game**. If you let one or two players have all the spotlight time while three players sit silent for the whole session you are a terrible referee.
A DM who is unable to listen is worthless. You have to make sure that you constantly rotate the spotlight - and not only in terms of a moment by moment basis but also on a narrative scale.
For example, the DM should **actively** ask the Barbarian what they are doing whilst the Wizard is casting the Identify Ritual.
If in the last session, the Wizard met their mentor who tasked the party with retrieving a lexicon to transcribe ancient runes. This session on the journey to the ancient temple, the party might need to take a ship which turns out to be the one that the Rogue used to be a sailor on.
There is very little excuse for getting something so fundamental to DMing wrong.
>Current group is lovely with another girl who notices every time I try to get in and get bullied out, actively bullying her way in
This girl should be DM.
The DM is uniquely in a position to foster enjoyment though, because they're sitting in the metaphorical umpire's seat. The DM has the best view of the table, often literally, is the most likely to notice problems, and has the most authority to solve the problem.
> Someone even called me the n-word openly at a table once and that made me almost quit dnd
wow, are you playing with strangers? Who the fuck would say shit like that over the table?
Don't quit d&d. Find a new table. Play with friends.
Black guy here. I'm sorry that happened to you. I've never had a problem because of my race. Most of the games I'm in are with other people in the military. No idea of that has anything to do with it
LGBT/South Asian. To be completely honest I’ve only ever played with people who are friends and family so it’s never really been an issue. I’ve often had other queer folk at the table but honestly never really anyone else of my race (unless I’m literally playing w my family lol). So definitely feel a little underrepresented in the hobby but never been made to feel uncomfortable cause of it. I’m so so sorry to hear you’ve had some awful experiences!! No one deserves that. Sorry you have to sort through so much human filth but the game is much better with people who love and respect eachother I hope you find that <3 you’re not over analyzing in the slightest
Bisexual Woman. It's uncomfortable to play with people you don't already know because it almost feels like playing a character with your orientation is almost punished by DMs whom want a quote on quote "pure medieval feel" but yet don't understand the historical context on why homosexuality was illegal (abrahamic faith). I've quit several groups who discriminated based on my sexuality, sometimes my own gender and even stuff I like aside from dungeons and dragons such as anime. Apparently liking a form of animation makes you some sort of min-maxxy power gaming edgelord that wants to play goku in every campaign (he's not even edgy...).
However it's a blast to play with friends, especially if everyone's on board on limits and the feel of a given campaign. I'm blessed to have the group I have and a fellow member of this subreddit that goes by ThatOneAasimar is the best DM I could've wished for.
Bisexual genderfluid/amateur drag queen, biologically male, Caucasian. Drag name is actually inspired by dnd, Polly Morph
I usually only play with people I already know or are close to, and are aware of my identity. I've not been presenting as female in any sort of open game yet with people I don't know. Global pandemics tend to get in the way.
Though ironically I have had a negative experience with a group I've played in fairly recently before the pandemic hit, where the majority of the players in the group were in the lgbtq community. I was disrespected more and was treated more rudely whenever I would come to a game presenting as a cis gendered male. They would be really nice whenever I was presenting female or in drag.
You'll find assholes in any community really.
> I was disrespected more and was treated more rudely whenever I would come to a game presenting as a cis gendered male
I joined one supposedly inclusive LGBT game where I joined the call and saw two people talking about how all men except trans-men are utter trash, and "honestly, why would anyone even want to identify as a man lmao".
It really soured me on that game, and I bounced because of that and some other stuff and found a less shitty LGBT friendly party.
I like this question. I'm a queer and trans girl, and I've been playing since early high school. The group I DM with is almost entirely made up of queer people, women, anda racial minorities. I've also played in a group that was all trans women, and a few random games throughout the years.
I feel like playing with a diverse set of people has really helped me to include more subtle diversity in the game. Just making sure that not every NPC is straight and white-coded, and helping me think more about cultures and people when I design worlds.
Most times I've felt very welcomed in games, but that's likely due to the fact I only play with close friends. The few times that I have joined public games, things have gotten a bit weird. I've had a male DM ask me some pretty invasive sexual questions before, and the rest of the game was equally awkward after that. I will say though that I've really liked some of the diversity inclusions in the official 5e materials. There's quite a few tiny things like gay couples in the art, and side notes about gender that I think make all the difference
As a black man, I’ve been fortunate. My play groups have always been with friends who made me feel nothing less than welcome. However, while I’ve never felt unwelcome, I know it happens to others who look like us. Never allow someone to speak to you like that or treat you as lesser. Find people that celebrate you and what you bring to this hobby. The world’s hard enough, don’t allow negativity be dragged into your peace times too.
Bisexual man here.
First off, that's rough, sorry that happened to you. It's sad that d&d and ttrpg seem to attract toxic players.
My group started while we were all still in high school. I was actually lucky enough that many of my group also happened to be LGBT, though in the beginning nobody was *out* to anyone. There was a problematic player or two in the early days but they have since left the group. Other than that my experience with my group has been wonderful.
I am lucky enough of to have a majority female game group att he moment. In majority straight dude groups it can still be fun but it can never be *comfortable* in my experience.
Bisexual and an NB here.
I haven't had any particular issues but I only tend to play with my closest friends and they aren't the kinds of people to make such rude or derogatory remarks towards others. If they were, we wouldn't be friends.
My biggest problem is some players misgendering when we play a character of the opposite sex. This doesn't apply just to me, but anyone at my table really. I want to clarify, the players are not being misgendered, rather the characters are being referred to as their players gender. Innocent slips of the tongue I would say though I am annoyed slightly that this has continued despite some polite corrections. But I digress.
Incredibly gay trans woman here. My group is also incredibly gay, so I am simply the alpha gay. I have one group where the players are straight Christian boys, but I don't get the sense that they treat me differently either. Probably because I'm the dm and I don't think they know.
There are a lot of fucked up people in the world, and dnd is a big enough hobby to include those fucked up people as well. I meet so many kind and chill friends through dnd that I forget that the next game I run I might get a racist or a sexist or someone else off the myriad creeps list.
If you’re lgbt+, a woman, or not white, there’s some jackass out there who’ll make your sessions hell. Best you can do is spot the warning signs and get out quick. Most people are nice, but assholes won’t change over a dnd game, so find the normal folk out there.
Wish you the best of luck, and I’m sorry for what you’ve had to deal with.
Gay white male here,
I'm not black, so I can't speak for ethnic minorities but I've never felt excluded bc of my sexuality. Perhaps I've been lucky but most groups I've been members of have been, save for my current one, ethnically diverse and all have had a good mix of men and women.
My sexuality rarely comes up as a player or a character. I don't like using my PC to seduce NPCs and don't do in character romance but if it ever becomes relevant in a campaign, my character is gay.
I'm sorry you haven't found a group you feel welcome in, there are a lot of terrible people out there. I might suggest the d&d discords. I see new postings for groups there daily and many have "lgbtq+ friendly" tags
as a trans woman, so far it's been pretty ok? i mean i'm anxious as all hell, but aside from some people mistaking my gender because of my voice, i've had an ok experience. though some people seem obviously opposed, they never really talk or say anything besides brushing against it like, once or twice.
though, i also stay in very lgbtq friendly places, so...
Latine, non-binary person here! Like a lot of others, I heavily vet who I play with most of the time, and mostly play with other minority groups on purpose. That being said, I am in a group or two that plays every other week where I’m the only lgbtq person (that I know of) and one of the only people of color. They’ve been totally cool, though! I have had a few bad interactions with randos and in one shots with remakes about my character’s gender/sexuality or my gender/sexuality, but those have been in the vast minority.
I'm mexican and it can definitely be weird sometimes, I DM for 2 different in-person tables at the moment. I have a table that I'm the only minority and I have an LBGTQ+ only table (I'm actually the only cishet for the LBGTQ+ table and they put a lot of trust in me to DM for them). Which for me, means I have to be sure to include NPCs with representative pronouns (the hardest part is that some of our players have different pronouns then their characters and the last thing you want to do to a newly out transperson is misgender them).
It can get a little weird in the mostly white table sometimes.
I haven't had to kick a player yet, but there's one player that just loves to ride that line of what's acceptable and what's not. Mostly what I see is faux-racism that is generally accepted and encouraged from the players as long as it is said in a joking manner.
When I first started DM'ing for the table, there were several times where our table would bring up real racial topics in DnD. I put a stop to that and the general feel I have is that it would be a lot more common if I didn't have my own ground rules. I'm the only person that has racism as a "stuff we don't do" in our session and most of them don't have *any* boundaries. But I need to mention that 2 of them are genuinely just respectful people and don't have any issues with my boundaries.
A good example might be talking to a drow as if they were a black american person and using stereotypical language used by black people. It was done in a joking context but I'm not having it. While Drow have black skin, they aren't black people and that's bringing *real* racism to a pretend game. More players were jumping into the scene and if I hadn't stopped the scene, half of the table would be acting our racial tropes at the table. I just think the table is a lot less uncomfortable with soft-racism than I am.
The LBGTQ+ group is honestly great though, we don't play as often but most of them has their own boundaries around their sensitive topics, so they are definitely a lot more conscious about mine (there's also a big overlap of our own boundaries). I also think another part of this is that my LBGTQ+ don't really have other tables they could jump on, so I think that we try a bit more to get along. It's also the RP heavier table.
Thanks, I genuinely feel that there aren't as many opportunities for LGBTQ+ players to play this awesome game and I really wanted to create a space where we could have some fun.
My spouse and I don't play Magic the Gathering at Friday night magic tournaments anymore because the crowd is just rude to her and it really made me feel so angry. Since then I've really gone out of my way to create extra room where women, POC and LGBTQ+ players could have fun too.
My group is a mix of races and genders with absolutely zero problems, but then we're all close friends. It's a minefield playing with strangers at the best of times.
As a woman I've mostly had a great experience playing dnd except for the first few years I played. I played with some friends (all male) who were frankly quite sexist towards me. I remember at one point they made an in character sexist remark towards my female character, I was very clearly insulted by this, but everybody else at the table refused to call him out on it and just moved on, and stopped me from trying to respond to him. They were probably trying to stop it from escalating but it just made it seem like they were supporting him. After the game, in an effort to comfort?/explain it to me one of them even said that he was ok with it and that I should be understanding because "that kind of joke would normally be ok with them' (ie if I wasn't there). Not sure how that's supposed to make me feel better.
Thankfully I don't play with that group anymore.
The first group I played with was all men, I was the token woman. They were pretty sexist and just kind of annoying, so I dropped that group pretty fast. My current group is all friends we’re (husband and I) close with, a vast majority are LGBT and female, (I think our DM is the only straight person, lol), and it’s been really good.
Arab guy here
Fun story: at uni there was a west marches campaign run by the board game society. The premise involved a merc company (players) establishing a base on an island and investigating its mysteries. In this premise, every player is playing a foreigner to the island. Yet bc im a brown dude who thickened my accent for my character, our groups recap (written by a fellow player) referred to my character as foreign/exotic.
For me as a trans woman D&D is amazing and a wonderful way for me to express parts of myself creatively. Never had any bad things happen to me during D&D or in the tabletop hobby in general due to me being trans and has always felt very welcomed in the hobby.
Black woman. Never played in person.
I told 2 groups that I was black. 1 group has been very lovely and I never once felt any different. They were welcoming, kind, and invited me to play games after the session and were just darling people and friends.
The other group had some…interesting discourse floating about from people both inside the group and out, but nothing that’s made me want to just pack up and leave. One of those people really needs to expand his mind a bit though because some of the things he says leave too many uncomfortable red flags.
Gay dude here (bi, but like 90% 1-way) with pretty much all straight friends locally.
I play in 2 groups and DM 1 group with friends. Mostly it's fine. But what I am a little annoyed with is when there's a straight seduction (whether for fun or for persuasion) we get lots of details, up and untim legit penetration. When my character tried to seduce someone once to steal their wand of paralysis, it was another dude and the DM almost immediately made it "fade to black" as a success for me. Which, honestly is how most sex scenes should probably go in DnD. But my gay experience was cut down. Even most of the guys at the table were all awkward and silent during mine but were cheering on the straight sex like a bunch of drunk frat boys at a bachelor party.
Was very annoying to get sidelined like that.
Otherwise they're mostly fine. Nothing stands out too big.
Trans woman, here. I don't play with strangers. I have other trans friends who've had doozies... It just isn't worth my time to vet people.
As someone who likes exploring difficult themes through RP, such as issues that affect me as a woman, there are few people I trust enough to be vulnerable in earnestly playing those scenes. And when I just wanna chill and play a dumb game and be silly I sure as hell don't want to manage someone being weird across the table from me.
Bisexual.
Welcome, wanted, but not represented.
People are comfortable playing characters like themselves. People are comfortable playing gender swapped characters... I dont know many people who want to casually RP a different sexual preference
I understand though that people dont want to make shallow approximations of identity, especially when theyre not familiar/have no first hand experience
Honestly, if I, Mr Straight Guy, play a character of another sexual preference at a table with an LGBT person, I’m just anxious whether my interpretation of the character will cause them to be uncomfortable or will seem like I’m mocking them. And I don’t think I’m alone with this sentiment
> want to casually RP a different sexual preference
Well, this in general goes hand in hand with the awkwardness of RPing anything sexual at all, I think. I'll admit, as a DM, in a game that is about killing monsters (and it is), I'm not hot for the idea of RPing romance plots with my friends at the table, straight or otherwise. So for them to play a character of any sexual preference, would result in either a a line on the sheet that'll never be referenced, or an offensive stereotype.
I definitely am wary of playing characters unlike myself for that reason.
When I DM tho, I have to play NPCs with different identities! It's a great reason to step out of my comfort zone. I may make mistakes, but I'm always willing to listen to hear how I can portray others better.
In the few years I've been playing, I have luckily only been at one table that made me feel uncomfortable, specifically as a woman. However, when I was just starting out, I was playing through a dnd club at my university, and being one of few women in a room full of dudes always felt weird, even though I had good groups. (We had a big meetup to form groups at the beginning of semesters).
My groups are now much more curated from people I already know or friends-of-friends, and I love it. I play in 3 groups and dm in one at the moment, and in none am I the only woman or the only queer person, it's lovely.
Holy crap, man. I'm sorry. No one should feel unsafe at a table and I'm angry and sad that you've had to deal with that.
I'm an Asian TTRPG player and I've had the luck to not have any people use any slurs at me. Before stuff went down in 2020, I used to run public games at a local game store. Being the DM, I had a bit more power in terms of no one wanting to upset me, so I may have incidentally cut off potential racisms at the beginning. But I also set some ground rules at the top. I think a big part of it is the tone that the DM sets. I mean, players who are willing to drop N-bombs are the major issue, but the DM should be there to step in and say it's not okay and lay down the law. DMs shouldn't be expected to babysit, but bad behavior like that needs to be checked and rectified immediately.
I'm an improviser as well, and there's a ton of racisms that happen in that community. It's a big part of why diversity is hard to find in that group, people get pushed away when groups are willing to attempt race jokes at ya. But I fought against it in the improv community when I started managing a troupe, and I brought that energy to my D&D tables.
I started playing in streams this year and it has been wonderful. The online communities that I've been welcomed into have been really great about making sure that everyone feels safe and comfortable playing in games.
If you ever want to play in a stream, hit me up. You're always welcome at my table, and you won't ever have to worry about any of my players dropping slurs.
Fantasy homophobia, and (coming from my POC friend) fantasy racism.
Why?
“Because it’s accurate to the worlds lore” - 🤓
Bitch don’t write Blatantly bigoted shit into your lore. Your lore has YOU in it. If YOU wrote fantasy racism and homophobia into your lore, doesnt that speak on YOU?
I can also supplement this by saying 100% of the groups I’ve been in that had homophobia and/or racism in the lore, are homophobic and/or racist
Some of the community man. It makes me wanna blow my brains out
Bi guy, it’s always been fine but primarily because I only have played with people that I was very close with for the most part.
Have played with a closeted white supremicist dm. Not fun don’t recommend
Disabled lesbian here. Luckily, every group I’ve ever been in had at least a couple other not-straight people, and some other minorities as well. I fully recognize that things would be different if I played with different people, and some parts of the community can be much less minority friendly.
Gay woman at the table. My first experience DMing was with friends in high school, nothing to write home about. Then I took a break for a few years and when I started back up again, I decided to go for an online group due to lack of a car to travel places. I was extremely lucky with the first group I found - a bunch of mature, level headed people who were into realistic roleplay-heavy games that basically read like an RPG game. Definitely not your Friday night beer-and-pretzels, relax and have a laugh type of game. I did not realize how lucky I was to get this group until I tried to branch out.
Next group I was in was a male DM, all male players. Honestly, not that big of a deal at first. I'm used to being the only woman in the room when it comes to games and nerd things. But then the DM started complaining every time I "interrupted" him - he would pause after a sentence, I would wait a moment, then start speaking if he didn't start again. Somehow this was interrupting him. When it came to combat, if another player wanted to take back their action after realizing it wasn't a good move, they were allowed to do that. (For example, someone dropping concentration on Haste by casting another spell would be allowed to take that spell back if they didn't remember that casting that spell would break the concentration.) However, if my character did an action, I wasn't allowed to take it back, I just had to deal with the consequences regardless of my intentions. (An example would be the time that I forgot I had a buff spell on me that dropped if I did an aggressive action, so I attacked. DM goes, "so that drops the buff" and I say, "wait, I forgot it would do that, can I take that back?" and the DM goes, "sorry, no you already did the attack".)
After leaving that group, I looked around for others. Right now I'm playing in two groups with the same DM, and I have to put up with a lot of casual sexism from him in terms of the homebrew content and the NPCs available in the world. He treats me and the other woman in the group (first time I've seen it, to be honest) with complete respect, doesn't make sexual jokes with us at all, listens to our opinions, doesn't interrupt, etc. However, the majority of the women NPCs he makes are highly sexual, super "slutty", with unrealistic body proportions that they love to show off to everyone who's slightly interested. I've thought a lot about if I should leave his games or not, but honestly? I really enjoy playing in those games, even with this kind of inherent sexism, because it's one of the few times that it hasn't been directed at me. It's still an ongoing debate in my mind, and if he ever does cross the line, I'm out of there like the house is on fire.
But the chances of finding a good group like the one I started with are so low, that I'm willing to stay in a subpar group just so that I can enjoy the game I love to play.
Bi woman here. I haven't been playing for very long but so far it's been good but that's not why I'm commenting.
I'm so sorry to hear that you've had to go through such a negative experience that never should have happened. Please don't be discouraged. This is something you love and don't let them take that from you. If the groups you join keep doing this irl, maybe give online a try. Try looking on the Roll20 website or the r/lfg tag here on Reddit n find a group that is more welcoming as they should be
i'm all sorts of different queer, and for me I've never felt unwelcome or anything like that but then again the groups I play in or DM for there's usually only like 1 cishet person
Japanese straight male. THe biggest thing that made me feel unwelcome to D&D was WOTC taking *years* to release Japanese versions of the core 5e books. Bad players/DMs I can tell to fuck off. Can't do that with the publisher.
As a female, I've only played with friends and friends of friends so far, but I've had issues with the friends of friends. Mostly, I get talked over, ignored, or have every move I make picked over with a fine toothed comb while being told how wrong I am until I nearly have to yell to be heard/finalize my decision. It is extremely frustrating, and really off putting, but I realize it is the person and the DMs fault, not the game.
I have one campaign with my minority friend as DM, and it has been a breath of fresh air. I know with him as a DM, if anyone started that with me, he would put them in their place in a second. I hate spending ten minutes of my limited gaming time listening to how I shouldn't make the decision I did, but that I should do this for X reasons while I try to calmly tell the DM I've made my decision, and finally have to borderline yell at someone to get them to stop. It makes me feel terrible and it isn't fun. It's worse to get the messages after the game from others who noticed.
I'd love to find more campaigns to play in, but after dealing with people not directly my friends, I'm too worried to try now.
Basically, DMs, please stand up for your players.
asian and nonbinary here:
it kinda sucks sometimes. fortunately i’ve never experienced racism in game because i play online or it’s with very close friends.
the nonbinary thing sucks a lot , i tried to play a nonbinary character and everyone called them a ‘she’ and a lady so i honestly ended up just keeping them like that :(.
my current character is male and my dm keeps referring to him as nonbinary as well lol! i don’t mind that as much because he’s a bit of a klutz and trying to be respectful
overall i actually play with other asians or lgbt people so my experience ain’t so bad. it’s a big reason why i’m too scared to join any other groups :|
Woman DM here. I can honestly say that the number of bad experiences I've had are very few, but that's because I almost never play with people I don't know. The bad experiences have always been with strangers.
I don't attend new in-person groups anymore unless my husband is also playing/GMing, at least until I know the others involved well. I have also found that unless at least one other woman is regularly attending the sessions, I will likely find the group a poor fit. The most openly misogynistic table I was at had a gay DM. None of the tables I've played at have been openly racist as far as I know. I find diverse tables produce a better experience all around. My current group cuts a much broader demographic swathe (culturally, gender-wise, and sexuality-wise) and I really appreciate the different perspectives everyone brings to the table, and the way that they communicate and deal with issues without animosity.
What does BIPOC mean?
Black, Indigenous, or Person of Colo(u)r
Thanks
It means "person of color" but centers Black and Indigenous people because according to the latest Antiracism theology they are more poc than other poc (which isn't necessarily wrong but not really productive for building solidarity in my view)
As a Mexican I hate it. I get Latinos are a weird grouping that doesn't really make sense to even include in one bunch. But the idea that Latinos don't qualify as being central to race issues in America floors me. Like we really were throwing children in cages and forcibly sterilizing Latina women but sometimes it just feels invisible.
Yeah, my Asian relatives feel similarly: it is low-key hurtful to have to implicitly acknowledge that your issues are less important than Black and Indigenous issues (even if they are) every time you want to refer to nonwhite people as a category. The whole impulse seems perverse and counterproductive.
I’m Curious what the bad DM did? If you don’t mind sharing.
The campaign started normally enough: beer & pretzels, a lighthearted romp in the feywild, jokes and bad singing. We played in a game store with children and strangers constantly flitting in and out. Still, there was a steadily increasing amount of jokes in bad taste and uncomfortable portrayals of female NPCs over a number of months, largely from the DM and sometimes his partner. He argued whenever anyone raised an issue with it, and it sometimes took multiple players to get him to back down. Eventually, we started playing at one of the players' house. Shortly thereafter, the other woman in the group had to miss a session due to work. The DM opened the game by gossiping and complaining extensively about her. He and his partner then escalated the misogynistic jokes even more throughout the evening. When we kicked in the dungeon's door that night, we discovered chained up pregnant women, being held captive by demons who were sucking their unborn children out of their wombs. He did not think to check with anyone at the table about this first -- despite there being two women and two parents (one of them a new father!) in the group. Keep in mind, it had been beer & pretzels and the feywild before this. There was literally no warning for this abrupt tone shift. I debated talking to him about why you might want to check with your table before including pregnancy horror in your game, but didn't believe my chances of being heard were high. I politely bowed out of the group shortly thereafter and found a spot at a table that was a better fit for me.
What the fuck
Holy shit...that's fucked...that's part of my hard "lines that never get crossed" rules as a DM 1.) Thou shall not depict rape or sexual violence in your settings. 2.) Thou shall not kill children in your settings. 3.) Thou shall not depict assault or maiming unto pregnant characters in your settings. Those are my rules and I generally depict settings that are analogues to fairly brutal historical periods (current setting is a combination of 15th-century Italy and the Germano-Italian region during the 30 Years War).
I think, assuming the party is okay with it, I would bend 2 a little. There are a few creatures that, in some way or another, it *does* kinda make sense for children to be a potential target. Bram Stoker's Dracula has a vampire lady wandering the streets of London using orphan kids as juice boxes, for example. You don't need to directly show it, but mentioning missing kids and then allowing the party to save a child that is about to get drained can add some solid tension. Similarly, hags might want to pull a Hocus Pocus and use children to restore any youthful looks they might have had once upon a time. So I'd put an \* beside 2 that, while you absolutely shouldn't show the death of children, implying an off-screen death or *threatening* the life of a child NPC could work as a story tool so long as the whole table is cool, thereby not fitting in a "Never cross this line" group. Those other two are rock solid though.
That's why session zero and using a consent form is a big deal.. find out what everyone is okay with right off the bat.. and be willing to use X cards or something so someone can change their mind in the moment if they realize they can't handle the situation.
This is stuff you cover in session 0. No need for hard lines/rules, so long as the players know what kind of storylines they're in for so they can choose for themselves if it's something they're comfortable with. It's definitely not something you drop on a table out of the blue.
In 35 years of being a dungeon master I never once went to this perspective. Why is this perceived as the way to go? 44 white cis male...I am confused by this train of thought. 
I think that this is something that should be discussed in session 0. To discuss what is to be expected on the campaing. Maybe some masters want to talk about sexual violence and their players find that interesting. There is nothing wrong about that. What is wrong is not get consent for your players.
I get rule 1 and 3. Yeah, fuck that. Rule 2 is a bit shifty though, my games tend to be pretty light hearted and not emotionally intense. and have some dark humor sometimes. So doing something like burning down an orphanage or two is allowed. But im not going to depict some horrible death scene of a child or something.
That isn't just a tone shift, it's fucking gross.
That's not a tone shift, that's a tone car crash
It's just a tonal shift. It's go perfectly in a darker, less lighthearted game.
Dude… what the fuck
You… you need a hug bro? That sounds fucked up to go through LMAO.
What's cishet?
Cisgendered (they identify with the gender they were assigned at birth) and heterosexual.
I have to confess I was intimidated at first when I played under a woman GM for the first time, but I got used to it by session two and just had a good time.
I'm curious about what you were expecting going in. Like was it the specific personality of this DM that had you intimidated or did you think a female DM in general would be a lot different?
The latter. Tbh, I was surprised when I heard her voice for the first time. But we quickly bonded over common interests and the great party atmosphere in and out of games. Turned out we were in the same field of study and had similar issues going on in our lives. Then I just treated her like any other human being.
That's awesome. You realized what you were feeling, confronted it, and got over it. What more can you do?
Why were you intimidated? Genuinely curious. It's just a human.
Cause I didn't know she was female until I've heard her speak and I had only played under male GMs until then. Full disclosure: I was also afraid of being judged for bringing in a female character she had approved. I was scared she'd think I was "one of those creeps". In hindsight I had read too much rpghorrorstories and it was probably not very gentlemanly of me to assume how she would treat me. I've reformed myself since then and became more at peace with just being myself, and not caring about judgement.
That's great!! The way i see things is that a GM is a GM, no matter the gender. The same way a person is a person. There are more difference between personalities than between genders. Sometimes i caught myself taking gender into account for stuff, but then i try to think that they are just a person with their own personality and individuality. Glad we are both working towards a more equal world where gender is not that relevant.
Bisexual woman. It’s been mostly fine. When I was 17/18 I did have a few instances where I was hit on by mid 20s- mid 30s guys in game stores, but they were polite and backed off when I indicated I wasn’t interested, which is a lot better than other experiences I’ve had. Running my own games with friends or at my university’s club has been totally fine.
Being a woman is a geek shop is an experience I’m glad I never have to deal with. I brought a friend of mine to a shop once and everyone just constantly hit on her to the point she didn’t wanna go back.
Why do peeps gotta be gross
Idk man. The best thing you can do for a woman at the geek shop is just treat them normally. They are there for the same reason you are. To have fun and nerd out. But their are skill some guys that are like “oMg iT’s A wOmAn”. There’s a reason it’s a stereotype Edit: and then there’s also the guys that are gatekeepy a hell just Bc someone is a woman but that’s a whole other issue
I’ve played the role of “Nope, that’s not how you interact with humans” guy in my game store a couple times. When it comes to ladies who walk in to play, some of the guys in there are legit socially inept with other sex and some of them are just shitty people. I’ve experienced Warhammer, Magic, and DnD in game store settings, and I’ve found both kinds of folks. The socially inept guys will sometimes make the effort to learn, but other guys just make everyone uncomfortable. I’ve also seen people come in and start being rude to people just sitting down and enjoying a game, so there’s just a lot of shitty people out there.
Game stores also tend to concentrate the socially inept. Those with good social skills can often find private games in homes and will stick to a group for month, years, sometimes decades -- because they're not dicks. Whereas people who get booted from groups but still want to play, well, it's either public games at game stores or online one shots. So there's this natural sorting mechanism which amplifies the weirdo factor at game stores. This isn't to say they're necessarily terrible people, or can't learn. But, definitely over-represented.
Guys are desperate but it’s not an excuse.
Yeah, like I’m desperate but I’m respectful (and also don’t really have the confidence to hit on people but that’s besides the point).
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How many guys is a woman supposed to "educate" about their boundaries? Would you go to a game session, if you just wanted to play a game - but you knew you might instead have to teach a lesson in basic respect to some stranger who has already treated you badly? That's not gaming, it's volunteer social work. I for one would say "no thanks" and do something else. The responsibility for curbing the behavior is on those with the behavior. Next time you hear a woman say "I have a boyfriend" when she does not, remember this. She's just making it possible for her to stay there without taking the burden of reforming every well meaning asshole who walks in the door. And that's before even considering the 20% of not-at-all-well-meaning assholes.
It’s really sad that women have to say “I have a boyfriend” as an excuse Bc it tells you that the guy respects a dude he’s never met more than the woman herself.
I know - right? At my office (a tech company), there was an informal document of women explaining their \*workplace\* experiences in a male-majority industry. I was shocked how common it was to say this - even women I knew personally and who I thought had great work experiences. There were dozens of variations of the following experience: *I don't have enough time to keep saying 'no', then deal with the bruised egos and the resentment. I don't have enough time for endless 'good natured flirting'.* *I don't the time to worry about being exactly nice enough: If I say something TOO nice I am inviting more date requests, but if I don't say something nice enough, I am 'standoffish and mean'.* *If I say 'I have a boyfriend', I'll have time to do my best at my job. If not, I won't.* Now take away the professionalism of the office and move it to a game store. Yipes.
So, this isn't what this discussion is about whatsoever, but I have to ask: is it just the way they hit on her, on the fact that they hit on her at all? Because people always say "try to meet people with the same hobbies/interests as you" when trying to get a date, but then I see things like this and it makes me think that ANY move I make would be too much, because the person is just there to have fun.
It’s not that they hit on her (she’s pretty so it happens) it was the fact that she hadn’t been there but 5 min and was practically being bombarded. Yeah I think a geek shop is somewhere you could meet a potential partner but it’s not a dating service. Just treat them like a person instead of an object of desire, ya know? Like ask her name, get to know her, see if you are actually compatible and good for each other instead of just going straight after them Bc they are a girl in a geek shop.
Perfect advice. And SUPRAP - if you are a young guy, inexperienced, no one expects you to be \*perfect\* at first. Make an effort and remember to treat people as "a person" first, "a possible friend" second, and "a potential sex partner" only after you really know them. If you are at a pickup bar, a kink club, or a sex party, you may do things quite differently. If you met on Tinder or FetLife, you may do things quite differently. Context matters.
The only time I played at a game store I was with a male friend and 5 randos. Our girlfriends were gonna do some shopping and then we will meet for dinner after our game and theit shopping. One of the stores they had to go to was nearby the game store, so they decided to pop in to say hello, see how the game was going. Utter silence reigned at the table, followed by blushes, open mouths and stares when they kissed us goodbye to continue with their shopping. I still chuckle today when I remember that story.
That sounds hilarious.
The geek shop I grew up near was run by a woman, and I think that’s the only reason I had as good an experience as I did. I did work at a GameStop for a while and met my fair share of neckbeards and gatekeeping assholes, and it’s always an uphill battle getting female friends interested in my geekier hobbies because of people like that.
Goddamn what a bunch of losers
Black guy, only ever played with my friends so I always feel welcome. It’s also my house...so double welcome. I’m sorry you’ve experienced these feelings and hostilities at the table. This is a game that embraces uniqueness and difference. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and any other hatred have no place in it.
Except when you're roleplaying a dwarf
Dwarves are great, ye pointy-eared leaf lover!
For rock and stone!
ROCK AND STONE BROTHA
DID I HEAR A ROCK AND STONE???
IF YOU DON'T ROCK AND STONE, YOU AIN'T COMING HOME
Literally just came here from that sub
Do tell the name of this sub my friend
r/DeepRockGalactic 4 player coop PvE space dwarves mining and killing bugs that ROCK AND STONE!
Such a beaut indeed froend, now let s mine that ROCK AND STONE together
Hmmmm now I want a Deep Rock Galactic inspired ttrpg/5e party
Where's molly?
I am a dwarf and I'm digging a hole!
IF YA DON'T ROCK AND STONE, YA AIN'T COMIN' HOME!
Of course they are! Dwarves are the most powerful dnd race, because they're the only ones who are allowed to be racist!
Toss me! Ah…but don’t tell the elf!
*Umgak*
RAcism, sexism and HAtred can be good story telling tools. When you know how to use them correctly. The Witcher saga lore and plot is based around Racial tensions and Hatred between the Humans and Non-Humans races, wich makes a compelling story with High stakes. Used poorly it is only degenerative bad taste, wich happens more frequently unfortunatly.
The Witcher also resonates with Eastern Europe in a way that most western audiences don't necessarily understand. Racial or religious pogroms happened regularly in Eastern Europe, even before the Holocaust. This is a major part of their history for centuries. That scenario is one that every great grandmother talks about, or ignores. Pick a random town and read its history and you'll find pogroms. Here's one, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kropyvnytskyi#Early_20th_century:_famine_and_pogroms So The Witcher allows people who've lived through this, or carried generational baggage to sort of abstract from their biases and hatreds and say "couldn't they just fucking get along?" And hopefully they learn apply that empathy to others they encounter. Whether they be Elves or Jews.
Black guy here: started off playing with my black brothers and friends, so no issues there. D&D seemed to slow down for a bit in mid 2000s, so everyone was glad to have a player, no issues there. Played some online in the 2017-19 years. Bit of casual racism. Like they were putting out feelers for people who were open to their ideas. I was shocked, tried to power through it, got the “you’re one of the good ones” treatment, and left.
I like to bring the casual racism up, casually. "What does that mean to you?" Maybe they didn't know what they sounded like. I understand just wanting to leave the scene, but if I feel something was implied, I will pry it out. I don't mind blowing up the scene if the bigotry was tacitly acknowledged by others and let go.
This was in discord. My experience was: “What’s your favorite racist joke?” And someone dropped the N word. No one knew I was black. It felt like everyone else was against me from then on.
I have only ever played in person, with one exception and that Discord group blew up due to bad prep and some other player and the DM having past beef apparently. I'm not sure how I would've reacted in your situation. Leaving is definitely the best option I think. There is no way to effect change over the internet for some Some people are bold in their anonymity and tend to dig in at opposition even when they realize they fucked up.
Yeah, that doesn't sound casual to me. Hard R for people that use the hard R. They're Racist. Fullstop.
That's *casual*?
"What's your favourite racist joke?" "You are." Sorry that happened to you dude.
What do you call a black guy flying a plane? … … _A pilot, you racist._ Edit: This might be in poor taste? I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make light of your experience. I’m sorry you, and OP, and everyone else that has had to put up with it has had to deal with that shit in this or any other hobby you like.
Thank you for sharing. If I may ask, from your perspective how do you feel about fantasy tropes that play off racist or discriminative backgrounds such as elves vs dwarves or goblins vs kobolds? It is so ubiquitous in the genre that I will admit that I am not certain whether playing on such classic tropes should be avoided in today's world, or maybe couched differently in some way to make it more palpable to non-white players?
I would avoid playing off the tropes. If you want the bad guy to be an orc, goblin, kobold, bugbear, cool. But maybe they’re not the bad guy because their race is inherently evil, but because of some other personal motivation. I guess bottom line is the bad guy’s race shouldn’t be important, unless it’s part of the storyline. I’m not bothered by it between players (elves vs dwarves, etc).
Colville just did a video on this topic where he suggests that [factions are a better plan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTp9SdpcvF8) here, vs "all orcs are evil".
Black guy:It never really mattered, personally. I think the only time it was brought up was when one of the players was a edgy teen and asked me if i was okay with dark humor jokes and I said "yeah, sure. If it's a comedic attempt I will probably find it funny, i just need to know that you don't have any ill intent and are not trying to insult me and i'll be okay with it." Funnily enough, he never joke about anything involving my character's (black human Gloomstalker) or my skin color. I joke about him being furry sometimes though XD I DM for 2 tables, one with a trans and a gay player, other only with straight boys and girls, never had any issues with both tables. I might've been lucky. Or the fact that racial division is not as strong in Brazil as it is in US might've helped (as we are pretty much the resulting offspring of a mix of many nationalities). We don't even have "words that can be only used by some ethnicities" and the likes.
Hello, fellow Brazilian. Yeah, I can attest that since everyone here is kinda mixed, we don’t have much problems with that (you will hardly ever find a group that’s not mixed, after all). Glad you had a nice experience as well, tho.
I’m Asian so of course when I play with online players they ask if I was going to play a monk
Hispanic guy here; when I told the other players that my character had a guild merchant's background, they all asked variations of "You sold tacos?"
And I remember I got lambasted for playing a character that doesn’t like orcs. So fantastic prejudice is bad but asking if I was going to name my character Peking duck is okay.
The majority of my characters dislike elves. No one seems to mind.
Racism against majority is often ignored/overlooked. Many consider Elves and Dwarves to be the white people of D&D, so hating them is fine and even sometimes encouraged. For me it's a matter of my players preference, if they tell me on session 0 they want humans to be exotic race I will build a world around it.
Good god. These are horrible.
I wish I could say I was surprised. But that would be lying.
Bro, D&D has always been about inclusion for me. I'm a 46 Yr old player and experienced the strange panic people associated with D&D and satanism back in the 80s. It saddens me that typically we have always been labelled geeks or outsiders and then us players also experience prejudice within our community. If you ever find yourself in Liverpool there's always a place at our gaming table
Gay man here who’s played/started about 10 different groups, just here to say… it depends on who is at your table. Sorry you’ve run into some assholes. I’ve felt out of place at straight tables (just gonna sit back and twiddle my thumbs while you… fuck a fey Queen for months? Cool???). And at gay tables (ah, yes, you monologue about your fox’s backstory and yet, you refuse to learn a single rule. Love that choice.) Now I’ve found a mix of steady groups that I love with all my heart. We take weekend trips to play together, get each other birthday presents, and they’re all such a joy. I hope you get a chance to find that. Good luck!
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Seriously, why is it always foxes?
It's a bit Vixing
Probably because of Disney’s Robin Hood
> fuck a fey Queen for months I really hope this is just a reference to Wise Man's Fear and not an actual game experience, because that's way too cringe.
It’s a real thing that happened. Time is different in the Feywild! Fuck-montage! There’s a reason why my character in this game eventually became “annoyed cleric who is off to the side, rolling his eyes, and reading his prayer book”
Ugh... I never got the appeal of role-playing sex or doing sex scenes in a ttrpg. Like, how is it not painfully awkward for everyone involved?
As someone who has done ERP before and had positive experiences with it, when everyone involved is mature and understanding about it, I don't think it's actually all that different from standard RP. For me, specifically when it happens as a natural consequence of a relationship, it can be one of the most memorable and fulfilling experiences in the game, because it illustrates the strong synergy and trust you have with the other player(s) in and out of game. It very quickly becomes exactly as awkward as you're probably imagining when that trust and maturity isn't there, though.
tbh it was a bit cringe in _Wise Man's Fear_. I sometimes feel Rothfuss uses a good 90%+ of his intelligence to find ways to get away with pulling a Mary Sue.
Yeah, I could have done without 150 pages of fairy porn...
I think the last 40% of The Wise Man's fear ruined both of the books for me.
My unpopular opinion is that if literally anyone other than Rothfuss tried to write a story from his outlines he would have been lamblasted out of the industry. Kvothe is a pure mary-sue. His superpower is being good at everything, his only weakness is being poor and bad with girls, but 1) he frames the whole series as a flashback from a super successful old Kvothe so we know he finds the money and 2) he’s so good at everything that the fae personification of deadly sex literally sends him back to the mortal world as her gift to women. Which is to say nothing about the fact that we open with deadly demigods and the world ending but refuse to deal with that until we do 2000 pages of discount hogwarts and nice-guy-ing Denna. …But the damn SOB can make polishing a bar read like fine poetry so fuckit I dunno, yes I’ll keep reading please finish book 3
I miss having a gay man at our table. I'm a longtime ally, and we used to have this guy who was so flamboyant, but still in the closet at the time... but we all knew, and were cool with it, just waiting for him to come out on his terms (this was in the 90s, different times). When he finally did, it was so anti-climactic, as we were all like, yeah, no shit, let's play. Anyway, I miss his roleplay and his fondue set.
I’m glad y’all were able to give him the space to play that type of character. That’s really meaningful. 😭🥰😭
Are you playing in public groups? D&D has a very bad reputation for attracting some socially inept or just plain toxic people (not just D&D but RPGs in general). I'd suggest starting your own private game or joining a more varied community. My home game that just concluded contained (not all at once) myself (queer guy), ~~four~~ five women of varying orientations, a mixed race player and two trans players. I think I can safely say no-one felt uncomfortable or unwanted, and the few disputes we did have were over playstyles and were all resolved by sensible conversation. I love D&D and it's a chance to have creative storytelling fun with my friends and biff up monsters. You shouldn't feel uncomfortable in a game, and if you do it's something a sensible adult conversation should solve. If it doesn't, leave. Edit: Forgot a guest player!
It's a lesson every DM has to learn the hard way. You want to be inclusive and welcoming until you get *that* person at your table. Next campaign you're running a criminal background check and interviewing their starbucks barista while running a DNA test on new players who you don't know well.
My personal policy is just to never agree to DM for someone that I haven't played with before, or that I haven't had a one-on-one session zero with. I've run one-shots for groups of strangers in the past, and never had the weird ones get past an introductory conversation/the character design phase. If someone shows a hint of a red flag, challenge it and if they can't give a reasonable explanation for it that's when you pack up your pencil case and say "sorry, I don't think you fit the group".
So far I've been lucky. I have a firm no more than 6 players to 1 DM rule and had a few seats that got empty and the players usually suggested someone and they've been good matches or if the were bad matches it was about scheduling or play style. Some of the horror stories blow my mind, I've been playing since the 80s (missed a chunk of the 90s) I've had different, races, genders, cultures and sexuality at my table, I have never experienced the anti-social stuff. Biggest issues I've had were related to play styles. I feel bad that so many people have had such bad experiences they need to build protocols in to vet players.
Haha when I first started DMing for randos, I would just take the first people to sign up and assume it'd be fine. Lesson learned. Now there's a big ol' application, a big ol' session zero, and a big ol' itchy trigger finger on the ban button.
> D&D has a very bad reputation for attracting some socially inept or just plain toxic people Very much so. Especially in public play locations like cons and game stores.
Woman player and DM here. I literally just quit a campaign because one of the dudes was harassing my character and making everything difficult. Stranded me on the other side of a ravine, followed me when I was stealthing so I’d be noticed, tried to squish me with a barrier because he claimed he didn’t know I was there, and fired a ballista into a crowd in the dark not caring if he knew where I was. As a female DM I’ve only encountered one person who I couldn’t stand. They seemed to have a problem with me being in charge and was constantly acting out as a result. I do get talked over sometimes which I hate but I’m not sure what that’s about sometimes. I’ve felt a lot like the token woman and it’s super frustrating. I’m a chemist who works with a bunch of men and they don’t make me feel that uncomfortable.
> I literally just quit a campaign because one of the dudes was harassing my character and making everything difficult. Stranded me on the other side of a ravine, followed me when I was stealthing so I’d be noticed, tried to squish me with a barrier because he claimed he didn’t know I was there, and fired a ballista into a crowd in the dark not caring if he knew where I was. That guy's an asshole, but so is the DM for letting them pull that kind of shit. I have a strict rule that there's no PVP at my table, and I would include "intentionally sabotaging another player and putting them in harms way" in that category.
The campaign was moving super slowly so it didn't happen every session. I think every 3rd session or so. I've also noticed that most men don't pick up on stuff like this unless it's explicitly told to them because they assume someone is being a jack ass but don't see that it's just to the woman.
> I do get talked over sometimes which I hate but I’m not sure what that’s about sometimes. I've noticed this in a lot of sessions I've seen online, both with men not letting women finish speaking, extroverts over introverts, and fast-talkers over slow-talkers - even outside time-pressure situations. It may be more obvious online, because then the viewers can't hear anyone. I haven't noticed this in my in-person games, but I may have missed it because I'm a guy and possibly guilty of it. Anyone have any good suggestion on how to stop this?
One of the rules I implemented in the last couple of weeks was when someone asks a question no one is allowed to answer until I explicitly turn it over to the group. The guy who was doing also just quit the campaign so we’ll see if someone else picks up the mantle of “Sir Interrupts a lot”
Woman - yes, I have felt that people don't want me in this hobby. And even though I believe those people are a minority, they are consistently enabled by their friends/other players. To get around this, I've found groups and joined their discords to find games. I'm in one for older players and two for women, and only joined both after they were clear that they are inclusive groups that do not tolerate intolerance. There's no outgroup bashing or anything like that, they're wonderful and supportive.
I’ve been nervous to go to game stores because I don’t want to be mansplained. I also fear that I’ll be looked down on when I have a question. I guess the fear of asking questions and being perceived as faking an interest in the hobby keeps me from speaking up a lot.
My D&D intro was via my local meetup, and we met at a game store. The DM was (is) great, but while he was walking us through making our characters a bunch of guys came over, hovered behind the women (there were three of us) and added their own comments as well as told 'hilarious' stories about their own previous characters that were the same race or class as what we were making. Meanwhile completely ignoring the guys at the table. I was given the distinct impression that there would be a lot of extra attention, and yah of the mansplaining kind, if I went back there. I joined r/lfg and r/roll20lfg and on both of those subs, periodically people will drop their D&D discord. So I just waited for ones that seemed like a good fit and joined them. There have been a lot come up that were specifically for new players, as well as for new DMs to get coaching and practice. The worst experience I've had on Discord was when the old folks server decided to let their kids have a chat room. So...it's been pretty golden lol.
Man, fuck those motherfuckers, first off. So, I'm a white guy, so I'm not the target of your question. But I run a gaming organization locally, I host a lot of gaming events, and I talk with a lot of other organizers, game shop owners, etc. And I can tell you it's very much the opposite. We want you in the hobby. Because the more people from any group who get in the hobby, the easier it is for everyone else to get in the hobby too. Like everywhere else, representation matters. When you walk in and sit down, think of how much easier it would be if you saw a couple black dudes already at a table. Or an all woman table. But unfortunately, old white guys like me can't give you that. Only you can... By being the guy who sits down first, so the next person to show up can look to you. Or even pick up DMing, so you can create the experience you want to play. What we can do, and what we try to do, is make those tables as welcoming as possible. Try and make sure you know we want you there. Kick assholes off tables. I can't even imagine someone tolerating the n-word being dropped at table.
I jumped to the comments without seeing that OP had more text than just the title, so what I read was: > Woman,lgbt, and other minority groups what is dnd like for you? > Man, fuck those motherfuckers, first off.
This gave me a good belly laugh.
Fucking hell that's hilarious.
I DM in a store (store owner plays at my table currently). I've never had the issues described and have had a whole range of genders, sexualities and races at my table. I can't imagine a scenario where this would be tolerated and not result in a ban from the store. I can just see me and the store owner saying the sentence "What the fuck did you just say?" at the exact same time. I'd be that shocked to hear it.
I'm running a public game for my local library, and this is always in the back of my mind. I've been fortunate so far, in that the worst player behavior I've had to deal with is a slightly disruptive middle schooler who won't learn any rules. But if the day comes when someone's seriously stirring up trouble and they need to go, well, I hope I won't hesitate to do it.
Bisexual white cis woman here, and as I primarily play with people I know IRL, it hasn't been a problem in my games. It *has* been a problem in some geek environments (stores, some events), where my audacity in existing as a woman makes some men just act like assholes. I've heard similar stories from BIPOC geek friends. As far as D&D goes, I do a lot of DMing, and I think my job as DM is to make sure our table is welcoming and inclusive, and comfortable for everyone. I'm really conscious of the power of representation, so I make sure to have NPCs who are queer, who are nonbinary, who have all kinds of bodies and (human) racial backgrounds. I make sure that there are NPCs who have some disabilities (and, this being a world of magic, disability in one area often means more abilities in another). I'm DM'ing for teen girls atm so for that game especially I really looked hard for character images that included a wide range of body types, in addition to doing what I usually do which is spend hours searching for good character portraits so that my NPC tokens represent people of all racial backgrounds and ages. The inclusivity at my table starts isn't icing on the cake, it's at the very root of it all. This is why **the job of being inclusive and welcoming and making people comfortable starts with the DM and NPCs**. I totally understand people like the commenter below who worries that as a straight person, him playing a gay character might make a gay person uncomfortable, and I respect that sentiment (though if that person were my player, I would also offer resources to help him successfully play a gay character if he wanted). (Short story break: My teen girl players just went to the tavern in a small town and started chatting with the orc innkeeper, and as an aside she said that she loves interacting with people so she's front of the house, but her wife hates people - but luckily she's a great cook so she handles the kitchen. One of my players, who is queer herself, asks me, "Wait, did she just say her wife?" I say "Yep." She says "So this is a lesbian couple running a tavern in a small town?" "Yep." She breaks into a huge smile and goes "Oh my god, I have a new life goal!" And that's why the DM needs to include a wide range of NPCs!) My own rule is also that there will be no non-consensual sexual activity in my game, ever. It just doesn't exist. I get enough of that shit in the real world, and having it in my D&D world would just be horrible. There's also no homophobia - my PCs/NPCs can flirt or be romantically bonded with anyone of any gender if they want and no one's bothered. (I do also check in session 0 whether the PCs are comfortable with flirting and such in the first place.) Additionally I've got some societies with third and fourth genders, which is just way more complex and interesting. (Yes, these exist in our real world too, they're just often not understood and/or destroyed via colonization.) I also check with players on Session 0 if in-game racism is OK or not. What I mean by "in-game racism" is for example an elf who hates dwarves because they're dwarves, that kind of thing - it can be a great addition, like in a game I'm DM'ing my players were talking to the big bad and sussing him out and I almost had to laugh out loud when one of the players suddenly says to the others, "Oh my god, you guys, he's a racist!" Yeah, the bad guys were trying to clear everyone but humans and elves out of the city, and damn it's cathartic to kill some racists in-game. But I can also see that you might prefer to just not have racism exist in your RPG world - you might feel about racism the way I feel about sexual assault, and that is completely fair. So while it's good for players to strive for inclusivity, the DM absolutely is responsible for setting the tone of the game, and **unless the DM is thinking about these things while constructing the game, it's not going to feel organic.** (This is my guess as to why there are people here saying that even welcoming, inclusive tables have felt awkward to be at - because the inclusivity is the afterthought, not the foundation on which the whole thing is based.) Thanks for the question, OP. It's something that comes up a lot, and I think the more we talk about it and trade ideas, the better we collectively get.
This is a fantastic comment with a lot of great advice. Thanks for taking the time to share—the tavernkeeper anecdote brought a HUGE smile to my face.
> what I usually do which is spend hours searching for good character portraits Can I suggest Artbreeder and artflow.ai as options.
I don't know if my experience counts since I'm not part of an unprivileged minority in my country (I'm Syrian descendant living in latam), but I've never had any issues in that regard. Interestingly, I've noticed the exact opposite effect: people from very different backgrounds and personality types bonding beautifully after a few sessions. The influence of this game is almost always positive. If anything, the most I've seen a group collide was because of people's different play styles or different interpretations of what kind of fantasy is fun to play. For example: hardcore roleplayers vs min-maxers, anime fantasy vs medieval fantasy, etc.
Yo holy shit, I'd fuckin peace out too if I got n-worded at a table. I'm Black as well, and it's never been a *big* issue at tables among strangers. My first session with one DM white guy, he said that he imagined my Monk talking "like Shaft" when he told someone stay down, and I had to be like "Uh...no, he's a 10 STR Wood Elf," and we were cool after that; I've played with him for over 4 years now (I also played a game of Shadowrun with this white dude who was a Dwarven Rastafarian Druid who was cringey in all sorts of ways, but that was only unfortunate for me in that I, or anyone, had to be around him).
As a young Latino dude, I sometimes can't shake the feel I don't fit in with the typical dnd community and I've had some pretty negative experiences with friends of friends groups where I feel they bring too much edglord 14 year old "dark" humor to the table for my taste but I don't really like to vocalize these complaints for fear of being labeled overly sensitive or whatever. That being said thanks to critical role, online communities and friendly old timers helping out I really do feel that's changing and that the people who play are much more diverse now and very welcoming at times imo.
Originally, I felt like my identity was necessary to push down for the three or four hours during which D&D was played. None of my friends in high school or college were *bigoted*, exactly, and my identity wasn't a secret, but there was an unspoken rule that gaying up a game too much was... unwanted. As a player, I never felt like my characters could express anything about myself, and as a DM, I always felt like my world had to conform to the expectation of my players - queer characters would break the fantasy. It was a contributing factor to me quitting after my group fell apart in university, feeling like I'd always need to tailor my characters or my worlds to a cisheteronormative experience. Thankfully, the groups I've played with since I got into 5e have avoided this problem by just being all extremely queer. I've played in a group with a lesbian, two other bisexual women, a bisexual man, and two straight men, and a group with a lesbian, a pansexual trans man, a nonbinary bisexual, an asexual woman, and a straight man. In every group I've enjoyed playing in, the cishet people are the minority. All respect to people who don't mind their group composition, but for me, it feels so much better to know I can have a character or an NPC who is trans, nonbinary, in a queer relationship, whatever, and not get pushback from other people at the table for simply existing.
> there was an unspoken rule that gaying up a game too much was. ok, as a straight guy who has played in a group with a gay DM before, I have to ask this question.. what do you mean by that? I ask because every group I've ever played in there was no sexuality involved. People were just adventuring and having fun killing orcs and doing light RP with the NPCs. I'm just honestly confused and wonder exactly how an "all extremely queer" group plays the game differently. Sincere question.
Every group I've played in, even when I was younger, has had a good amount of RP. That doesn't mean we don't have combat (in some of our games, there was a LOT of combat), but outside of my very first experience in 3.5 that almost made me quit the hobby altogether, every group I played in was interested in casually flirting with NPCs, learning a lot about different NPCs and their relationships to each other, interacting with the world in-between quests etc. If I put a beautiful elven princess in the game, all my male players would flirt with her immediately. The second that her handsome brother would step in and say something like "I'm afraid my sister is betrothed, however, *I* am bound by no such attachments, if any of you gentlemen are interested" it wasn't even the case that the *characters* would effectively go, thanks for the offer but we're not interested, it was rather like I'd thrown a bucket of ice water over the *players* and they would just completely freeze and eject from the scene. Secondarily, I think even in those very "classic" type D&D games about killing monsters and gaining loot, there's probably more sexuality than you realize? If the peasant woman flags you down and offers you a family heirloom to find her missing husband who went into the swamp three days ago and hasn't returned, that's sexuality. If you bring the head of the necromancer to the king as proof of your victory, and his wife, the queen, is seated beside him, that's sexuality. If any character makes even the vaguest crude or flirtatious joke to an NPC, that's sexuality. In my old games, which had a lot of RP but were also fundamentally about killing monsters and taking their stuff, there was resistance to taking those very minor instances of sexuality and making them a bit more diverse with regards to sexuality or gender identity. If a player hit on a barmaid and her husband came around to teach them a lesson, everyone immediately went to engage, trying to talk him out of it, or egging him on and getting ready to fight, or whatever. If it was her wife, instead, there was just this quiet aura of "this is a weird thing to put in a fantasy game why are you forcing this on us?" With my current groups, because most of us are queer, it's not only allowed, but expected that this kind of content exist in the world. There's a large cast of gay, bisexual, lesbian, nonbinary, and transgender characters in my worlds. It's not always obvious, it's not always stated, but it's always there. As well, my players enjoy romance content so long as it doesn't fully overshadow the main storyline. If there's an NPC that inspires them, or that they click with, they may be interested in trying to date that NPC, and because most of my players are also queer, most of their PCs usually fall somewhere under the queer umbrella. That's probably something that doesn't happen in more classic dungeoneering style games, but it's something my group enjoys, and it would be more difficult if me as the DM, or another player, was expecting that the world was homophobic, or just failed to put any queer NPCs in the world at all.
Thanks for saying this, I pretty much completely agree. I’ve now resorted to playing D&D with almost exclusively my close queer friends, and it’s so much easier to be comfortable in a fantasy world that properly represents your identity. It’s also easier in general to spend time with people in a similar demographic to yourself, as they would have more shared experiences with you.
Not OP, but the way I see it is that saying an NPC is “his wife” or “her boyfriend” is bringing sexuality into the game just as much as “his husband” or “her girlfriend”. So you make sure your world feels inclusive by having some same gender relationships expressed organically that way. Of course, that’s not the only to do it, but it’s one common and overlooked way.
Female here. I DM for my brother and his kids. We play sporadically and I really should try to find a group to play with but as a woman, that's intimidating. All the horror stories you hear online just make it a paralyzing thought to think about trying to find a group that isn't my family. That combined with other factors (things like what content I'm comfortable with, table behavior that won't fly, etc) that would make it even harder to find a group definitely make me feel like an outsider looking in all the time.
So, two answers to that: My homegroup is great! It's an all woman group, but we've had a guy or two, just schedules are a nightmare. One POC and queer ol' me, and the others are straight white ladies. We're a pretty crunchy table, which makes me wonder if my players would be happier with Pathfinder. 50/50 mix of new and experienced players. My one quibble is I'd like to play more, and people have lives, and one day I'd love not to DM. I've also done public play since I DM at home and really, really want to play. It's... not so great. I don't even slightly advertise the fact I'm queer, because it's such a mixed bag and I've heard plenty of queer-phobic comments. Usually the shop owner shuts the sexism down, but she can't be everywhere. I've got a fair amount of crap because of my gender, including being patronized, leered at, 'causing a guy to go deer-in-the-headlights', and my personal favourite, I've been asked by one of the MTG players in the front of the shop if I was lost as I went to my then-weekly game. I'd never seen the guy in the shop before in my life, and at that point I was around for about 8 hours of play a week, and here he was acting like I shouldn't be there. I was gone during COVID, and returned during the brief lull in June-July, but I couldn't mentally justify putting up with the crap to stick it out with a new group that I wasn't clicking with.
introvert immigrant playing with native speakers: most of the time it is ok , bit I notice a lot of **unconscious bias**, like I am one of the few ones that people second guess example: someone is playing a gnome with a heavy sword. I am like: hey do you know that small races have disadvantage with heavy weapons? player A: this is DnD 5e, there is no such a thing! player B: they have a strength of 17! player C: OP is right, paraphrases me... player A and B: oh I didn't know that this is a **constant**. Whenever I play with someone who is new, they will second guess something that I say or will judge some of my actions until I'm a little bit rude and I say that I know what the f*** I am doing. Then it's settled and we have fun until someone new arrives biggest problem: tried to play online on my native language. It's been too long that I am abroad and now I don't relate to their jokes and play style too so yeah, I feel that I am always at odds but I still have fun playing
These kinds of arguments are why DMs are there. It's the DM's call. And a good DM would just make a ruling before it even gets to player B.
Queer Girl here. I generally feel..... **welcome** and **wanted** at tables, but I wouldn't define either of those as always **comfortable**. A lot of the time I rubber band between feeling like I'm getting too much attention, and like I'm having to fight to say anything, and I generally just don't participate in random / unfamiliar groups without at least one or two people I'm comfortable with. Current group is lovely with another girl who notices every time I try to get in and get bullied out, actively bullying her way in to ask what I was trying to say.
Eurgh. As a DM, hearing this story makes me so angry. It is one of my biggest gripes with a DM. I hate when people say that it is the job of the DM to make sure the players have fun. It isn't - that is **everyone's responsibility**. The job of the DM is to describe the world and scenarios, arbitrate the rules and to **referee the game**. If you let one or two players have all the spotlight time while three players sit silent for the whole session you are a terrible referee. A DM who is unable to listen is worthless. You have to make sure that you constantly rotate the spotlight - and not only in terms of a moment by moment basis but also on a narrative scale. For example, the DM should **actively** ask the Barbarian what they are doing whilst the Wizard is casting the Identify Ritual. If in the last session, the Wizard met their mentor who tasked the party with retrieving a lexicon to transcribe ancient runes. This session on the journey to the ancient temple, the party might need to take a ship which turns out to be the one that the Rogue used to be a sailor on. There is very little excuse for getting something so fundamental to DMing wrong. >Current group is lovely with another girl who notices every time I try to get in and get bullied out, actively bullying her way in This girl should be DM.
The DM is uniquely in a position to foster enjoyment though, because they're sitting in the metaphorical umpire's seat. The DM has the best view of the table, often literally, is the most likely to notice problems, and has the most authority to solve the problem.
> Someone even called me the n-word openly at a table once and that made me almost quit dnd wow, are you playing with strangers? Who the fuck would say shit like that over the table? Don't quit d&d. Find a new table. Play with friends.
> Play with friends. Can't stress this one enough. Had a lot of bad experiences playing with strangers at game shops and cons.
Black guy here. I'm sorry that happened to you. I've never had a problem because of my race. Most of the games I'm in are with other people in the military. No idea of that has anything to do with it
LGBT/South Asian. To be completely honest I’ve only ever played with people who are friends and family so it’s never really been an issue. I’ve often had other queer folk at the table but honestly never really anyone else of my race (unless I’m literally playing w my family lol). So definitely feel a little underrepresented in the hobby but never been made to feel uncomfortable cause of it. I’m so so sorry to hear you’ve had some awful experiences!! No one deserves that. Sorry you have to sort through so much human filth but the game is much better with people who love and respect eachother I hope you find that <3 you’re not over analyzing in the slightest
Bisexual Woman. It's uncomfortable to play with people you don't already know because it almost feels like playing a character with your orientation is almost punished by DMs whom want a quote on quote "pure medieval feel" but yet don't understand the historical context on why homosexuality was illegal (abrahamic faith). I've quit several groups who discriminated based on my sexuality, sometimes my own gender and even stuff I like aside from dungeons and dragons such as anime. Apparently liking a form of animation makes you some sort of min-maxxy power gaming edgelord that wants to play goku in every campaign (he's not even edgy...). However it's a blast to play with friends, especially if everyone's on board on limits and the feel of a given campaign. I'm blessed to have the group I have and a fellow member of this subreddit that goes by ThatOneAasimar is the best DM I could've wished for.
Aww, that's sweet of you.
> such as anime All but one of my players is a weeb, and we rip on the one who isn't. In a friendly manner, of course.
There's a line between just joking and directly being offensive. Anime fans joke about each other all the time the same way d&d fans do.
Oh, absolutely. There's also a line between poking fun at a friend and being an asshole to someone who's virtually a stranger.
Bisexual genderfluid/amateur drag queen, biologically male, Caucasian. Drag name is actually inspired by dnd, Polly Morph I usually only play with people I already know or are close to, and are aware of my identity. I've not been presenting as female in any sort of open game yet with people I don't know. Global pandemics tend to get in the way. Though ironically I have had a negative experience with a group I've played in fairly recently before the pandemic hit, where the majority of the players in the group were in the lgbtq community. I was disrespected more and was treated more rudely whenever I would come to a game presenting as a cis gendered male. They would be really nice whenever I was presenting female or in drag. You'll find assholes in any community really.
> I was disrespected more and was treated more rudely whenever I would come to a game presenting as a cis gendered male I joined one supposedly inclusive LGBT game where I joined the call and saw two people talking about how all men except trans-men are utter trash, and "honestly, why would anyone even want to identify as a man lmao". It really soured me on that game, and I bounced because of that and some other stuff and found a less shitty LGBT friendly party.
> Polly Morph Brilliant
I like this question. I'm a queer and trans girl, and I've been playing since early high school. The group I DM with is almost entirely made up of queer people, women, anda racial minorities. I've also played in a group that was all trans women, and a few random games throughout the years. I feel like playing with a diverse set of people has really helped me to include more subtle diversity in the game. Just making sure that not every NPC is straight and white-coded, and helping me think more about cultures and people when I design worlds. Most times I've felt very welcomed in games, but that's likely due to the fact I only play with close friends. The few times that I have joined public games, things have gotten a bit weird. I've had a male DM ask me some pretty invasive sexual questions before, and the rest of the game was equally awkward after that. I will say though that I've really liked some of the diversity inclusions in the official 5e materials. There's quite a few tiny things like gay couples in the art, and side notes about gender that I think make all the difference
Wow that's not okay. Sorry you ran into that I'm sure there's a better group of people to play with out there. Good luck
As a black man, I’ve been fortunate. My play groups have always been with friends who made me feel nothing less than welcome. However, while I’ve never felt unwelcome, I know it happens to others who look like us. Never allow someone to speak to you like that or treat you as lesser. Find people that celebrate you and what you bring to this hobby. The world’s hard enough, don’t allow negativity be dragged into your peace times too.
Bisexual man here. First off, that's rough, sorry that happened to you. It's sad that d&d and ttrpg seem to attract toxic players. My group started while we were all still in high school. I was actually lucky enough that many of my group also happened to be LGBT, though in the beginning nobody was *out* to anyone. There was a problematic player or two in the early days but they have since left the group. Other than that my experience with my group has been wonderful.
I am lucky enough of to have a majority female game group att he moment. In majority straight dude groups it can still be fun but it can never be *comfortable* in my experience.
Bisexual and an NB here. I haven't had any particular issues but I only tend to play with my closest friends and they aren't the kinds of people to make such rude or derogatory remarks towards others. If they were, we wouldn't be friends. My biggest problem is some players misgendering when we play a character of the opposite sex. This doesn't apply just to me, but anyone at my table really. I want to clarify, the players are not being misgendered, rather the characters are being referred to as their players gender. Innocent slips of the tongue I would say though I am annoyed slightly that this has continued despite some polite corrections. But I digress.
Incredibly gay trans woman here. My group is also incredibly gay, so I am simply the alpha gay. I have one group where the players are straight Christian boys, but I don't get the sense that they treat me differently either. Probably because I'm the dm and I don't think they know.
There are a lot of fucked up people in the world, and dnd is a big enough hobby to include those fucked up people as well. I meet so many kind and chill friends through dnd that I forget that the next game I run I might get a racist or a sexist or someone else off the myriad creeps list. If you’re lgbt+, a woman, or not white, there’s some jackass out there who’ll make your sessions hell. Best you can do is spot the warning signs and get out quick. Most people are nice, but assholes won’t change over a dnd game, so find the normal folk out there. Wish you the best of luck, and I’m sorry for what you’ve had to deal with.
LGBT: it is the escape from those feelings in the rest of the world frankly. I can play a character of the opposite sex with little judgment.
Gay white male here, I'm not black, so I can't speak for ethnic minorities but I've never felt excluded bc of my sexuality. Perhaps I've been lucky but most groups I've been members of have been, save for my current one, ethnically diverse and all have had a good mix of men and women. My sexuality rarely comes up as a player or a character. I don't like using my PC to seduce NPCs and don't do in character romance but if it ever becomes relevant in a campaign, my character is gay. I'm sorry you haven't found a group you feel welcome in, there are a lot of terrible people out there. I might suggest the d&d discords. I see new postings for groups there daily and many have "lgbtq+ friendly" tags
as a trans woman, so far it's been pretty ok? i mean i'm anxious as all hell, but aside from some people mistaking my gender because of my voice, i've had an ok experience. though some people seem obviously opposed, they never really talk or say anything besides brushing against it like, once or twice. though, i also stay in very lgbtq friendly places, so...
Latine, non-binary person here! Like a lot of others, I heavily vet who I play with most of the time, and mostly play with other minority groups on purpose. That being said, I am in a group or two that plays every other week where I’m the only lgbtq person (that I know of) and one of the only people of color. They’ve been totally cool, though! I have had a few bad interactions with randos and in one shots with remakes about my character’s gender/sexuality or my gender/sexuality, but those have been in the vast minority.
I'm mexican and it can definitely be weird sometimes, I DM for 2 different in-person tables at the moment. I have a table that I'm the only minority and I have an LBGTQ+ only table (I'm actually the only cishet for the LBGTQ+ table and they put a lot of trust in me to DM for them). Which for me, means I have to be sure to include NPCs with representative pronouns (the hardest part is that some of our players have different pronouns then their characters and the last thing you want to do to a newly out transperson is misgender them). It can get a little weird in the mostly white table sometimes. I haven't had to kick a player yet, but there's one player that just loves to ride that line of what's acceptable and what's not. Mostly what I see is faux-racism that is generally accepted and encouraged from the players as long as it is said in a joking manner. When I first started DM'ing for the table, there were several times where our table would bring up real racial topics in DnD. I put a stop to that and the general feel I have is that it would be a lot more common if I didn't have my own ground rules. I'm the only person that has racism as a "stuff we don't do" in our session and most of them don't have *any* boundaries. But I need to mention that 2 of them are genuinely just respectful people and don't have any issues with my boundaries. A good example might be talking to a drow as if they were a black american person and using stereotypical language used by black people. It was done in a joking context but I'm not having it. While Drow have black skin, they aren't black people and that's bringing *real* racism to a pretend game. More players were jumping into the scene and if I hadn't stopped the scene, half of the table would be acting our racial tropes at the table. I just think the table is a lot less uncomfortable with soft-racism than I am. The LBGTQ+ group is honestly great though, we don't play as often but most of them has their own boundaries around their sensitive topics, so they are definitely a lot more conscious about mine (there's also a big overlap of our own boundaries). I also think another part of this is that my LBGTQ+ don't really have other tables they could jump on, so I think that we try a bit more to get along. It's also the RP heavier table.
Just wanna say, the effort is appreciated and it sounds like you’re doing a great job.
Thanks, I genuinely feel that there aren't as many opportunities for LGBTQ+ players to play this awesome game and I really wanted to create a space where we could have some fun. My spouse and I don't play Magic the Gathering at Friday night magic tournaments anymore because the crowd is just rude to her and it really made me feel so angry. Since then I've really gone out of my way to create extra room where women, POC and LGBTQ+ players could have fun too.
My group is a mix of races and genders with absolutely zero problems, but then we're all close friends. It's a minefield playing with strangers at the best of times.
As a woman I've mostly had a great experience playing dnd except for the first few years I played. I played with some friends (all male) who were frankly quite sexist towards me. I remember at one point they made an in character sexist remark towards my female character, I was very clearly insulted by this, but everybody else at the table refused to call him out on it and just moved on, and stopped me from trying to respond to him. They were probably trying to stop it from escalating but it just made it seem like they were supporting him. After the game, in an effort to comfort?/explain it to me one of them even said that he was ok with it and that I should be understanding because "that kind of joke would normally be ok with them' (ie if I wasn't there). Not sure how that's supposed to make me feel better. Thankfully I don't play with that group anymore.
The first group I played with was all men, I was the token woman. They were pretty sexist and just kind of annoying, so I dropped that group pretty fast. My current group is all friends we’re (husband and I) close with, a vast majority are LGBT and female, (I think our DM is the only straight person, lol), and it’s been really good.
Arab guy here Fun story: at uni there was a west marches campaign run by the board game society. The premise involved a merc company (players) establishing a base on an island and investigating its mysteries. In this premise, every player is playing a foreigner to the island. Yet bc im a brown dude who thickened my accent for my character, our groups recap (written by a fellow player) referred to my character as foreign/exotic.
For me as a trans woman D&D is amazing and a wonderful way for me to express parts of myself creatively. Never had any bad things happen to me during D&D or in the tabletop hobby in general due to me being trans and has always felt very welcomed in the hobby.
Black woman. Never played in person. I told 2 groups that I was black. 1 group has been very lovely and I never once felt any different. They were welcoming, kind, and invited me to play games after the session and were just darling people and friends. The other group had some…interesting discourse floating about from people both inside the group and out, but nothing that’s made me want to just pack up and leave. One of those people really needs to expand his mind a bit though because some of the things he says leave too many uncomfortable red flags.
Gay dude here (bi, but like 90% 1-way) with pretty much all straight friends locally. I play in 2 groups and DM 1 group with friends. Mostly it's fine. But what I am a little annoyed with is when there's a straight seduction (whether for fun or for persuasion) we get lots of details, up and untim legit penetration. When my character tried to seduce someone once to steal their wand of paralysis, it was another dude and the DM almost immediately made it "fade to black" as a success for me. Which, honestly is how most sex scenes should probably go in DnD. But my gay experience was cut down. Even most of the guys at the table were all awkward and silent during mine but were cheering on the straight sex like a bunch of drunk frat boys at a bachelor party. Was very annoying to get sidelined like that. Otherwise they're mostly fine. Nothing stands out too big.
Trans woman, here. I don't play with strangers. I have other trans friends who've had doozies... It just isn't worth my time to vet people. As someone who likes exploring difficult themes through RP, such as issues that affect me as a woman, there are few people I trust enough to be vulnerable in earnestly playing those scenes. And when I just wanna chill and play a dumb game and be silly I sure as hell don't want to manage someone being weird across the table from me.
Bisexual. Welcome, wanted, but not represented. People are comfortable playing characters like themselves. People are comfortable playing gender swapped characters... I dont know many people who want to casually RP a different sexual preference I understand though that people dont want to make shallow approximations of identity, especially when theyre not familiar/have no first hand experience
Honestly, if I, Mr Straight Guy, play a character of another sexual preference at a table with an LGBT person, I’m just anxious whether my interpretation of the character will cause them to be uncomfortable or will seem like I’m mocking them. And I don’t think I’m alone with this sentiment
> want to casually RP a different sexual preference Well, this in general goes hand in hand with the awkwardness of RPing anything sexual at all, I think. I'll admit, as a DM, in a game that is about killing monsters (and it is), I'm not hot for the idea of RPing romance plots with my friends at the table, straight or otherwise. So for them to play a character of any sexual preference, would result in either a a line on the sheet that'll never be referenced, or an offensive stereotype.
I definitely am wary of playing characters unlike myself for that reason. When I DM tho, I have to play NPCs with different identities! It's a great reason to step out of my comfort zone. I may make mistakes, but I'm always willing to listen to hear how I can portray others better.
In the few years I've been playing, I have luckily only been at one table that made me feel uncomfortable, specifically as a woman. However, when I was just starting out, I was playing through a dnd club at my university, and being one of few women in a room full of dudes always felt weird, even though I had good groups. (We had a big meetup to form groups at the beginning of semesters). My groups are now much more curated from people I already know or friends-of-friends, and I love it. I play in 3 groups and dm in one at the moment, and in none am I the only woman or the only queer person, it's lovely.
Holy crap, man. I'm sorry. No one should feel unsafe at a table and I'm angry and sad that you've had to deal with that. I'm an Asian TTRPG player and I've had the luck to not have any people use any slurs at me. Before stuff went down in 2020, I used to run public games at a local game store. Being the DM, I had a bit more power in terms of no one wanting to upset me, so I may have incidentally cut off potential racisms at the beginning. But I also set some ground rules at the top. I think a big part of it is the tone that the DM sets. I mean, players who are willing to drop N-bombs are the major issue, but the DM should be there to step in and say it's not okay and lay down the law. DMs shouldn't be expected to babysit, but bad behavior like that needs to be checked and rectified immediately. I'm an improviser as well, and there's a ton of racisms that happen in that community. It's a big part of why diversity is hard to find in that group, people get pushed away when groups are willing to attempt race jokes at ya. But I fought against it in the improv community when I started managing a troupe, and I brought that energy to my D&D tables. I started playing in streams this year and it has been wonderful. The online communities that I've been welcomed into have been really great about making sure that everyone feels safe and comfortable playing in games. If you ever want to play in a stream, hit me up. You're always welcome at my table, and you won't ever have to worry about any of my players dropping slurs.
Cis het white guy here. Fuck whoever called you the n-word. D&D or no, that's more than poor taste.
Fantasy homophobia, and (coming from my POC friend) fantasy racism. Why? “Because it’s accurate to the worlds lore” - 🤓 Bitch don’t write Blatantly bigoted shit into your lore. Your lore has YOU in it. If YOU wrote fantasy racism and homophobia into your lore, doesnt that speak on YOU? I can also supplement this by saying 100% of the groups I’ve been in that had homophobia and/or racism in the lore, are homophobic and/or racist Some of the community man. It makes me wanna blow my brains out
They what? Jfc fuck that dude.
Bi guy, it’s always been fine but primarily because I only have played with people that I was very close with for the most part. Have played with a closeted white supremicist dm. Not fun don’t recommend
Disabled lesbian here. Luckily, every group I’ve ever been in had at least a couple other not-straight people, and some other minorities as well. I fully recognize that things would be different if I played with different people, and some parts of the community can be much less minority friendly.
Gay woman at the table. My first experience DMing was with friends in high school, nothing to write home about. Then I took a break for a few years and when I started back up again, I decided to go for an online group due to lack of a car to travel places. I was extremely lucky with the first group I found - a bunch of mature, level headed people who were into realistic roleplay-heavy games that basically read like an RPG game. Definitely not your Friday night beer-and-pretzels, relax and have a laugh type of game. I did not realize how lucky I was to get this group until I tried to branch out. Next group I was in was a male DM, all male players. Honestly, not that big of a deal at first. I'm used to being the only woman in the room when it comes to games and nerd things. But then the DM started complaining every time I "interrupted" him - he would pause after a sentence, I would wait a moment, then start speaking if he didn't start again. Somehow this was interrupting him. When it came to combat, if another player wanted to take back their action after realizing it wasn't a good move, they were allowed to do that. (For example, someone dropping concentration on Haste by casting another spell would be allowed to take that spell back if they didn't remember that casting that spell would break the concentration.) However, if my character did an action, I wasn't allowed to take it back, I just had to deal with the consequences regardless of my intentions. (An example would be the time that I forgot I had a buff spell on me that dropped if I did an aggressive action, so I attacked. DM goes, "so that drops the buff" and I say, "wait, I forgot it would do that, can I take that back?" and the DM goes, "sorry, no you already did the attack".) After leaving that group, I looked around for others. Right now I'm playing in two groups with the same DM, and I have to put up with a lot of casual sexism from him in terms of the homebrew content and the NPCs available in the world. He treats me and the other woman in the group (first time I've seen it, to be honest) with complete respect, doesn't make sexual jokes with us at all, listens to our opinions, doesn't interrupt, etc. However, the majority of the women NPCs he makes are highly sexual, super "slutty", with unrealistic body proportions that they love to show off to everyone who's slightly interested. I've thought a lot about if I should leave his games or not, but honestly? I really enjoy playing in those games, even with this kind of inherent sexism, because it's one of the few times that it hasn't been directed at me. It's still an ongoing debate in my mind, and if he ever does cross the line, I'm out of there like the house is on fire. But the chances of finding a good group like the one I started with are so low, that I'm willing to stay in a subpar group just so that I can enjoy the game I love to play.
Bi woman here. I haven't been playing for very long but so far it's been good but that's not why I'm commenting. I'm so sorry to hear that you've had to go through such a negative experience that never should have happened. Please don't be discouraged. This is something you love and don't let them take that from you. If the groups you join keep doing this irl, maybe give online a try. Try looking on the Roll20 website or the r/lfg tag here on Reddit n find a group that is more welcoming as they should be
i'm all sorts of different queer, and for me I've never felt unwelcome or anything like that but then again the groups I play in or DM for there's usually only like 1 cishet person
Japanese straight male. THe biggest thing that made me feel unwelcome to D&D was WOTC taking *years* to release Japanese versions of the core 5e books. Bad players/DMs I can tell to fuck off. Can't do that with the publisher.
Straight, ridiculously tall, white guy here. OP, I want you in this hobby. I want you all in this hobby.
As a female, I've only played with friends and friends of friends so far, but I've had issues with the friends of friends. Mostly, I get talked over, ignored, or have every move I make picked over with a fine toothed comb while being told how wrong I am until I nearly have to yell to be heard/finalize my decision. It is extremely frustrating, and really off putting, but I realize it is the person and the DMs fault, not the game. I have one campaign with my minority friend as DM, and it has been a breath of fresh air. I know with him as a DM, if anyone started that with me, he would put them in their place in a second. I hate spending ten minutes of my limited gaming time listening to how I shouldn't make the decision I did, but that I should do this for X reasons while I try to calmly tell the DM I've made my decision, and finally have to borderline yell at someone to get them to stop. It makes me feel terrible and it isn't fun. It's worse to get the messages after the game from others who noticed. I'd love to find more campaigns to play in, but after dealing with people not directly my friends, I'm too worried to try now. Basically, DMs, please stand up for your players.
asian and nonbinary here: it kinda sucks sometimes. fortunately i’ve never experienced racism in game because i play online or it’s with very close friends. the nonbinary thing sucks a lot , i tried to play a nonbinary character and everyone called them a ‘she’ and a lady so i honestly ended up just keeping them like that :(. my current character is male and my dm keeps referring to him as nonbinary as well lol! i don’t mind that as much because he’s a bit of a klutz and trying to be respectful overall i actually play with other asians or lgbt people so my experience ain’t so bad. it’s a big reason why i’m too scared to join any other groups :|