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sandglass ([info]sandglass) wrote in [info]unfunny_fandom,
@ 2011-06-17 23:00:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
(Disclaimer: Wizards of the Coast already took the article down, but they also chose to put it up, so phooey on them.)

WotC hired a man to write an article on young girls and DnD.

I am a man.

Despite living a rich and fulfilling life, one thing I never got to be is a woman. Therefore, some readers are likely to ask, “What gives you the right, as a man, to talk about women?”

First of all, this article is not about women, but about children of the female persuasion. Children rarely write pedagogic articles (and thank goodness for that!) and so this ungrateful task falls upon my hairy adult shoulders. So while I may not be female, you, my hypothetical accuser, are not a child, hence we’re both in equal violation of authenticity.

Secondly, an observer from the outside may notice some truths that a member from within won’t. This is why people, at least smart ones, listen to other people. This is why we have psychologists, rabbis, priests, strangers on a train, and Uris: to get a different angle on our lives.

Thirdly, while I’m neither a girl nor often DM for young girls (they make hardly 10% of the demographic in my gaming groups), while writing this article I have consulted with female DMs, female players, and a guy who had the rare experience of running an all-girl group for a year. Much of the article is a summary of their experiences.

Lastly, and this is my main point, it’s all about fun and games. So please, for the aforementioned goodness’ sake, don’t take anything I write too seriously. My aim as I embarked on this monumental project was to help DMs avoid some of the pitfalls into which I had stumbled in the beginning of my career and to tell some amusing anecdotes while at it, not to expose all the intricacies of the human spirit.


So, an adult man is just as good an authority on girls as an adult woman, being a man means he can say things that women wouldn't, and he talked to girls, so all is cool! And if you take him seriously you fail, because he told you not to.

The rest of the article is pretty much 100% generalizations based on gender. If you don't fit into his stereotypes, prepare to blink out of existence when you read it.

Trigger warning for talk of rape and domestic violence:
LJ user Kynn did some web detectiving and discovered he is a raging misogynist, too.


(Post a new comment)


[info]harukami
2011-06-18 06:36 am UTC (link)
Wow... he hates running role-play elements of D&D and prefers keeping it mission-based?

He must be a terrible DM.

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[info]mmanurere
2011-06-18 12:09 pm UTC (link)
I'm sure the munchkins love him. And how long has it been since WOTC cared about the RPer segment of the market? The munchkins buy more supplemental stuff.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]digigirl132
2011-06-18 04:26 pm UTC (link)
That's what I was thinking. Why the hell would you want to keep role-play elements out of a role-playing game?

Though I realized that this is why these kinds of DMs (the ones who prefer mission-based, not the raging douchebags. Though they are often one in the same.) kill their PCs so often. If they're not building a world and character backgrounds, then they're not getting attached to the characters, and nobody really cares when one dies. I compare that to the games I learned D&D in, where I can count the number of character deaths we had on one hand, and each one was a Really Big Deal to the PCs.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]blue_penguin
2011-06-18 06:55 am UTC (link)
Regarding his "best RPG ever": so he'd really rather be playing FATAL? That is the impression I am getting, here.

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[info]kylenne
2011-06-18 09:17 am UTC (link)
That's all I could think of, heh. Though I do have to thank Wankers of the Coast for giving me yet another reason to be proud of my boycott. (Gutting the Realms was what did it for me initially, but these bastards are like the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to fail.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]notjo
2011-06-18 06:57 am UTC (link)
Kynn's post also has a link to the Google cache of the whole thing.

I'm actually kinda surprised they took it down, honestly. I wonder if it was the disclaimer because "Gaming site posts shitty gender-generalizing clap-trap" is surprising only when it's actually written as parody.

(Reply to this)


[info]the__ivorytower
2011-06-18 07:47 am UTC (link)
A friend of mine told me about this, and I was wondering if I should post it or not.

His 'disciplining kids at the table' article is also a fucking gem.

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[info]quantumreality
2011-06-18 08:10 am UTC (link)
I'm reading that article right now and all I can conclude is that he takes his gaming very srsly. (O_O)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]the__ivorytower
2011-06-18 05:16 pm UTC (link)
And maybe it's from my perspective, having gamed with not all that many kids, but they're usually just so happy to be there and included in 'adult things' that they behave.

...now, if we can do something about the 25+ year old adults that act as if they've never been disciplined in their lives...

My boyfriend is a DM for the D&D Encounters events. We have two twelve year olds, and the rest seem to fall into at least the 18+ category. The kids? Are mostly fine. They get a little excited at times, but they're usually good at settling down. One of the adults? Keeps doing things like threatening NPCs and insisting he needs ALL the loot and even wanted to loot one of his down party members, and my boyfriend told him, 'Look. Even if you personally don't like the people here, in character you're a party. You presumably all know and like each other. So stop it'.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]chibikaijuu
2011-06-18 08:59 pm UTC (link)
I think it depends a lot on the kid, and on the kid's age. I suspect it's pretty different, also, when the game you are running is kids-only any everyone is an age-group peer (and likely a classmate and/or friend).

I haven't played in ages, but I attended my brother's regular game last week (we were going out to something else after and his friend was giving us a ride). I didn't play, but I watched the whole game (which made me desperately want to play again, hah). One of the players is a twelve-year-old boy, who, well, plays like a twelve-year-old boy - at least, how I remember them playing when I was 10-14. His character is annoying and somewhat useless (he's got a bird he never uses, he's a thief but he's absolute crap at subtlety and keeps trying to pull off shit he can't do), he's loud and excitable and, again, keeps trying to do things he can't, echos statements that weren't even all that funny when the first two people said them (he's the pre-puberty version of that nerdy adolescent boy who is just one step behind every social maneuver and trying desperately to feel superior through intellect/perceived gaming badassery, which to be fair is a stage a lot of people I knew/know went through, and can be gotten over). I was sitting literally about as far away from him as anybody at the table could get, and I still kept wincing and mentally repeating "he's twelve, he's twelve, he's twelve". According to my brother, his dad, who was sitting next to me and seemed like a pretty awesome guy, and like the rest of the group was a good, balanced player, doesn't always come, and when he's not there, the kid is worse. (Turns out, oddly enough, that I know his wife, who showed up to drop off their daughter, and she's also a pretty cool person, so I have hope that kiddo will outgrow it. The daughter, by the way, is five or six and also plays, and started talking about how her character could totally have helped in the encounter and wondering why they didn't have a proper ranged character (a reasonable question - even their Ranger doesn't actually have any good ranged attacks - she's a Two-Blade Ranger). She was adorable, but she's also just graduated from kindergarten, so a little bragging is kind of cute rather than annoying.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]tehrin
2011-06-18 09:52 am UTC (link)
I am a man.

*golf clap*

while I’m neither a girl nor often DM for young girls (they make hardly 10% of the demographic in my gaming groups)

That's because none of them want to play with you.

He's kinda creepy.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]kitt_in_socks
2011-06-18 10:03 am UTC (link)
The term "children of the female persuasion" will never not be creepy, even if it's said jokingly with the complete understanding of how awkward a phrase it is.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]tehrin
2011-06-18 10:11 am UTC (link)
Especially when you can't tell if the meaning is more Miss Hannigan or more Humbert Humbert.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]ecchaniz0r
2011-06-18 05:05 pm UTC (link)
Thanks to Linkara, I will always hear that phrase (it often heralds worlds of helium-brainedness, in my experience) in my head as "AH AM A MAAAAAAAYUN".

It makes me giggle, and decreases the chances that I will, a la Fail Superman, start randomly punching.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]spawn_of_kong
2011-06-18 12:52 pm UTC (link)
I am a man.

No, I believe you mean, "I AM A MAN!!!" *punch* [/Linkara]

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[info]ecchaniz0r
2011-06-18 05:05 pm UTC (link)
DANGIT, beaten to the punch.

*da dump tsch.*

Thank you, I'm here all day.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]chibikaijuu
2011-06-18 09:08 pm UTC (link)
Oh, Linkara. Sometimes your perspective bugs me a little, but mostly I love you, and this is a good deal of why.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]a_mae_zing
2011-06-19 06:09 pm UTC (link)
+1

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]misachan
2011-06-18 03:08 pm UTC (link)
I wonder if he's any relation to the guy who joined one of the games I was in, zeroed in on me as the only girl at the table and started quizzing me about why there was so much "gay stuff" in anime and why all the guys looked like girls and what the hell, why did girls like that?

I was so glad he only showed up for two weeks.

(Reply to this)


[info]kattahj
2011-06-18 08:55 pm UTC (link)
So while I may not be female, you, my hypothetical accuser, are not a child, hence we’re both in equal violation of authenticity.

Ah, but the question is, have you ever been a woman? I'm willing to bet that's a no.

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[info]chibikaijuu
2011-06-18 09:07 pm UTC (link)
I might not be a child any longer, but I certainly remember what it was like to be a girl. A girl who sometimes played D&D, even. So he can bite me. (Yeah, I picked "girly" classes, but played them the way I do today - I take a caster/ranged class and pump up any melee skills or vice-versa, because yeah, I like to play ranged classes and thus keep my characters mostly our of harm's way, but sometimes you really just want to smash things. When I LARPed I actually ended up more of a stickjock than anybody expected, because I've pretty much always been "the girly one" and was always way into character creation.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]sandglass
2011-06-19 12:41 am UTC (link)
He never "gets" to be a woman, poor dear. His words, because apparently to him being a woman is some kind of fine vacation

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]chibikaijuu
2011-06-18 09:17 pm UTC (link)
I think the only excuse I can think of for the decision is that it's part of his larger series on gaming with children, because that's what he does - he goes around to school and community centers and introduces children to tabletop RPGs.

However, that's no excuse for a lot of what he's said in any of the other posts in the series, either. It's like, "here are some observations I've made about playing with kids and how they play, NOW I SHALL TAKE IT FAR TOO FUCKING SERIOUSLY." Do you need to keep playings focused on the game, and make sure they're not interfering with the enjoyment of the other players? Yes. Does that mean dealing out punishments the way you would to adult players? Not so much. These are fucking eight-year-olds you're talking about. Plus the misogynistic crap he's said at other times is just disgusting.

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[info]puipui
2011-06-19 06:06 am UTC (link)
he goes around to school and community centers and introduces children to tabletop RPGs

D: D: D: D: D:

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[info]a_mae_zing
2011-06-19 06:11 pm UTC (link)
Meaning that he actually scares children away from tabletop RPGs, if his attitude in the article is any indication.

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[info]puipui
2011-06-20 03:25 am UTC (link)
Just the idea of him being around children at all is truly disturbing, let alone the mental picture of him traumatizing young girls with his rampant sexism and general ickiness under the guise of supposedly teaching them about games that he doesn't actually want them to ever play anyway. D:

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[info]a_mae_zing
2011-06-19 06:15 pm UTC (link)
I'm tempted to have join the campaign I'm running for my little sisters (didn't start out that way, but the brothers quit) and watch them pwn his ass and be all around better players than he. And they're not even ten.

He'd probably say it was all my fault, as a DM of the female persuasion.

(Reply to this)


[info]moongazingfae
2011-06-20 01:44 pm UTC (link)
For what it's worth, I'm not a DnD player as such but the warlord with a dinosaur femur he was describing sounds like fun. That may be my character should I start playing...

(Reply to this)


[info]bcaluroso
2011-07-15 08:59 pm UTC (link)
Now the cache isn't showing up. Anyone got screenshots?

(Reply to this)


 
   
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