Thursday, July 10, 2008

How diverse is your gaming group?

Mr. noisms over at Monsters & Manuals wrote up an interesting response to an ongoing discussion about race in D&D, and how the industry as a whole tends to default to the well-muscled white male human fighter -- despite the fact that we're playing a game that lets us pretend to be all kinds of much-more-interesting stuff: elves, Norse gods, well-intentioned aliens...heck, even grammar-school kids!

It got me thinking about the various gaming groups I've been a part of since 2000, when I started college and my gaming career began in earnest. I first fell in with a group of very creative and successful game publishers, who had recently collaborated on several acclaimed gaming projects. They were all about 7 or 8 years older than me, and they really helped give me a boost into the hobby. Looking back, they were -- quite literally -- the "Old Boys Club" of that small college town. That's the phrase my friend (himself a member of the club) used when reflecting on these inspiring fellows.

Fast-forward to Chicago. As I mentioned over at Monsters & Manuals, my most recent Mutants & Masterminds group was composed of one white dude, one white Jewish dude, one white chick, two Puerto Rican dudes and one black dude. Pretty much nothing was off-limits, and the mirth around the gaming table could get pretty raunchy at times. It was a slice of pure Americana, I think.

How about you guys? Can you top my group in terms of sheer diversity? Surely there's someone out there who's had Russians, Inuits and Sumo wrestlers rolling dice around the same table...

1 comment:

Sham aka Dave said...

Not diverse, at all. I'm playing with the same bunch of white anglo-saxon Protestants as always. Actually, we had a couple Catholic boys in the mix as well. But you get the idea. For the most part WASPs like me. You know, I never even thought about it before.

Our after-school D&D club was the same way, and that's where I recruited these guys over 25 years ago.

I guess that makes me non-PC.