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From: Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: [phys.org] Queer tabletop roleplaying games provide valuable lessons
 that even 'Dungeons & Dragons' can learn from
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2024 09:51:34 +0200
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Queer tabletop roleplaying games provide valuable lessons that even 
'Dungeons & Dragons' can learn from

by Cody Mello-Klein, Northeastern University

By studying how some tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) are putting 
queerness front and center, Northeastern researchers found ways even 
"D&D," the biggest TTRPG in the world, can be more welcoming and 
inclusive for players.

Decades ago, if you played Dungeons & Dragons, you were, at best, 
labeled a nerd or an outcast and, at worst, a Satan worshiper.

How times have changed.

Now, more than 50 million people have reportedly been involved in D&D, 
the most popular TTRPG, in the world. It was recently adapted into a 
movie, and livestreamed games of D&D have become multimedia franchises 
in and of themselves.

But in the TTRPG space, D&D, which is published by Wizards of the Coast, 
has not been without its critics, many of whom have pointed out the 
game's complicated history with race and gender. More recently, the 
game's designers have taken steps to make the game more inclusive, but 
progress comes slowly to a major franchise like D&D.

However, the world of TTRPGs is vast, and there are plenty of games 
outside of D&D that are taking steps to make their tabletops more 
welcoming. A group of Northeastern University researchers has released 
research specifically focused on the queer TTRPG space and how some game 
makers are designing experiences that put queerness front and center 
and, in the process, make more inclusive experiences for their players. 
The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the 19th 
International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games.

Alexandra To, an assistant professor of art and design at Northeastern 
University, game designer and co-author on this research, says the idea 
at the core of their research is a game design term known as the magic 
circle.

The idea is that when players enter a game, they are "entering this 
alternative social space where different behaviors become appropriate," 
To says.

In Duck, Duck, Goose, players tap people on the head and chase them in a 
way that would be out of line outside the game. In TTRPGs, all the 
players understand that they are roleplaying as a character and going on 
an adventure with other players who have also created characters to 
roleplay.

But for queer players, or players who might just want to play a 
character of a different gender or sexuality, that can come with some risk.

"If you decide to play a classic fantasy game, hopefully you have some 
relationship with the other players, but you don't necessarily know that 
everyone is going to be open to you playing a character of another 
gender," To says.

Queer players have always played games like D&D, but often they have to 
"homebrew," or customize the rules, to make it a more welcoming 
experience or at least make it clear that players are safe to engage in 
identity play, To says. The seven games that the researchers included in 
their study make gender and identity play an explicit part of the rules 
and mechanics of the game.

"Even though we know that kind of play is permissible in other spaces, 
naming it explicitly, putting these mechanics out there explicitly so 
everyone is asked to address that directly is providing a lot of safety 
and cover for all of the players at the table," To says. "It's setting 
the stage for [how] we're all going to have a conversation about this 
and be open in this space together."

A lot of the work these game designers do to make their games more 
inclusive starts with how players create their characters.

Sleepaway, a TTRPG that puts players in the shoes of camp counselors 
trying to protect their campers from a supernatural force, lets players 
choose their gender by pulling words together from two categories. One 
is a list of adjectives, and the other is a list of nouns, mostly animals.

"Even if you're not thinking about gender a lot in your everyday life, 
you have to think about what that 'rusted eagle' means to you as a 
gender in your head if you're going to interact with this [other 
character]," says Jailyn Zabala, an author on the research and doctoral 
student at Northeastern.

The character sheet provided by Wizards of the Coast to help players 
create their D&D characters doesn't even include a place to note a 
character's gender or sexuality. That doesn't stop players from 
including it, but it does suggest what the game's priorities are, most 
of which involve creating something like a fantasy "combat simulator," 
Zabala says.

Most of the games the researchers looked at prioritized things other 
than combat, like forming relationships. Even when games involved the 
potential for combat, they shifted the focus to "narrative things that 
happen in a conflict, and there are a lot of mechanics for de-escalation 
and conversation," To notes.

In Monster Hearts, players can take an action in the game to "turn 
someone on" and their success is determined by rolling dice, regardless 
of what labels a character might have put on their sexuality. Those 
situations don't require characters to change their identities in 
response. However, Zabala says it serves as an in-game reminder that 
sexuality is not a choice and that external forces can impact a person's 
emotional, physical and sexual responses in a situation.

"That is playing with the idea of the fluidity of sexuality," Zabala 
says. "Even if you are identifying a certain way, it's still possible to 
feel feelings outside of that."

The designers of mainstream TTRPGs like D&D are starting to push these 
kinds of conversations and ideas to the forefront to match the diverse 
player base that is already pushing for change. But To and Zabala say 
that even the biggest TTRPG in the world could stand to learn a thing or 
two from these kinds of games.

"A lot of games have been using the same patterns and ways of creating 
games that have been set in stone … but under that are these baked in 
assumptions that if you do care about [having these conversations], that 
should be something you should be trying to challenge," Zabala says. "I 
think it is getting more popular even in more popular TTRPG publishers. 
If 'D&D' is going to start putting stuff like that in their games, then 
it's like, 'OK, we're figuring it out.'"

More information: Jailyn Zabala et al, Queer TTRPGs' Visibility, Safety, 
and Allegory as Resistance, Proceedings of the 19th International 
Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (2024). DOI: 
10.1145/3649921.3650022