Recently I was invited to write a short piece for "Queerness" as it was their "Gaming Month". I was only too happy to oblige and you can see the original article article in the queerness here...
Of course those that know me are undoubtably aware I love to wax lyrical, occasionally getting ..... er..a "little" long winded(?)
So the queerness article was somewhat abridged..and of course some the pictures I'd suggested weren't able to be used due to copywriter questions, thus I give you the long form unabridged stream of consciousness that is my thoughts on - at least one form of - LGBTQ+ inclusive gaming .... Enjoy!
I'm a 40 something Trans-Woman, who through various periods of life has been a video console, and PC gamer, with more recently a foray into table top gaming from the likes of fantasy flight and wizards of the coast.
Gaming is a great way to escape into whatever world we choose, it can be an incredibly immersive and refreshing way to plug into a story and "unplug" from reality for a while,particularly with the recent advent of VR systems.
However, occasionally the truth of our lived reality can bleed into games for better or worse. Many computer based games are "heavy" on the heterosexual male vibe for instance, with female characters often being very much a backstory element or drawn to resemble a cross between Jessica rabbit and Zena warrior princess.
This also occasionally bleeds over into real world attutudes, I'm sure many many female gamers can attest to accusations of "you only like it cos your boyfriend/brother does", or not being a "real" gamer. (whatever they are) And of course story line driven games often feature creative content that has romantic leads pretty much sticking to a heterosexual narrative.
So, for women, and for any LGBT gamer this can break the immersion from time to time, but things are beginning to change a little.
Perhaps driven partly by social change and partly by gamers feedback themselves, the scene initially began to change from 2000's with Buffy the vampire slayer characters like Willow, who was bisexual/lesbian, all the way up to current day where we have large film company productions giving a nod via the star trek movie reboots with Captain Sulu and his husband, plus Overwatch from blizzard has been confirmed to have a number of heroes that are LBGT characters, notably "Tracer"
So film, pc and console wise, things are changing, but what of the table top scene? Overall there is a huge range of cooperative and/or strategy games now on the market, from "time stories" to "Xcom" to "dead of winter" and one of many star wars universe games, "X wing" which has so many female pilots and main characters it's insanely good on the star wars "lore" angle. I've enjoyed playing them all. However over the last 18months I've gotten quite immersed in one particular table top "computer free" game that many readers may know of.
"Dungeons and Dragons" is a pen, paper & dice based game thats been around since the mid seventies. A group of players choose races and class abilities for their characters who live in a magical world of witches, warlocks, goblins and elves, dwarves and dragonborn, amongst others. Like Bilbo Baggins in the "The hobbit" & "The Lord of the rings", they set off on magical mysterious adventures. These follow either a prewritten campaign book or a "home-brewed" adventure plot. Crucially this game is played as group with up to 5/6 others, with one player as the game master. (known as GM or DM) The DM is effectively the judge/creator of the world and runs the game from behind a screen, serving up all sorts of stuff for the other players to deal with.
The rulesets have undergone various revisions over the years but the most recent is fifth edition, commonly abbreviated to 5e, all the rules for which are set out in the players handbook, published by wizards of the coast who license the game. In essence the players all role dice to determine success or failure of any actions their characters take and thus the story unfolds as a result.
The great thing about this game from an LGBT perspective is that within the races & classes you can play pretty much any thing you wish. Its a freeform gaming experience, very character driven and very much balanced between narrative and dice roll controlled combat encounters where the team battles other monsters and challenges thought up by the DM. (there are many other online resources and books for this) So you want be a Female eleven princess with a grudge? check! Fancy playing a great big Goliath warrior with a soft spot for Gnomes? check! How about a non binary all powerful dragon based creature? check! Or a singing bard with awfully good powers of persuasion and light fingers? check!
The game progresses on a systems of levels. New characters start at level one and as they gain in experience and strength in the world they level up, eventually hitting level 20 where you can battle such things as gods and titans and still come out on top...
Take me for instance, I have an elven princess, who is part Rogue class and part Monk. This makes her basically like Neo from the matrix (but with a much better hair style), and her back story is one of rebellion against her position in society. It's this back story that is so freeing in D&D, as you can do anything you like with it. However keep in mind that the more loose the threads of the backstory are, the easier you make it for the DM to have more leeway in building your character into a world, integrating things that pop up randomly which makes it more fun.
This all makes for some wonderfully hilarious moments as you all sit around the table telling this communal story, that non of you really have total control over. For example, a player might decide to open a door, for which they have to roll a skill check. That means rolling a 20 sided dice. The higher the number the more successful they are. Obviously a really strong character (meaning one that has a high number on their character sheet that they add to any "strength" roll) can still roll a 1 on the dice, meaning the DM as narrator then has to improvise on the spot and come up with a "spectacular" and often funny fail, for example, "as you go to push the door you trip over the foot of your axe and fall forward, your chin hitting the door with dull thud, and it slowly creaks open as you lay on the floor with a headache..." The rest of the characters then react to this and the story moves on....
If you'd like to see how the game is played I heartily recommend taking a look at some of the "GM tips" you tube series by long time gamer Matt Mercer. Matt, who has been DM'ing games for close to 20 yrs now, set up a game along with a few friends just for fun. They all happen to be voice over actors too, and for the last 18 months the game has been streamed online via twitch tv, with back episodes on youtube, the show is called "Critical role", and follows the fortunes of Vex, Vax, Percy, Grogg, Scanlan, Keylith and Tibs, a band of adventurers collectively called Vox Machina as they each complete their own story arcs within the wider world narrative. There is also the web series "Force grey" following a different band of adventurers but also DM'd by Matt, which is a slightly shorter format to watch and can give you the over all idea if you're new to the game.
On the subject of improvised funny character moments, here's one of the best from Matt that just occurred randomly in the game..."Vicktor the powder merchant" The party have gone unexpectedly to purchase black powder (gun powder) from a local merchant for Percy, ....meaning Matt had to create the character on the spot....enjoy!
Apart from all the tom foolery of the game itself the very nature of D&D's set up, i.e. being a collaborative role play based on diverse skill sets and traits is refreshing. The very ethos of the game is "Diversity, Difference and shared commonality of purpose". It's great to get family and kids into as it teaches them the value of team working to solve problems in a way school lessons perhaps never could, and also fosters an appreciation of the talents of others in their group. By having different races in a fantasy world the players are obliged to put themselves into the shoes of others, and view things from a different perspective. Often people who played D&D as kids cite this as formative in their relations with real world questions of race, diversity and difference. Matt in his games has created NPC (non player characters, like the loveable Victor) that are gay, bisexual, and None binary. These characters just inhabit the world as part of it. Sometimes the LGBT issue comes up in narrative, sometimes it doesn't. It's just there. The world at large certainly could do with a heavy dose of that type of awareness these days.
To highlight this further, since critical role began as a show, the community that has grown up around the game (known affectionately as "critters") is massive. Many of the art works have been done by fans, and guess what? many are LGBT and/or have other challenges in life. Heres a small selection of the work that has been done..
So to sum up, D&D for me really celebrates diversity, has a low barber of entry and is incredibly flexible in what you wish to make it. It's also hugely fun. So grab a few mates, read the books, get the snacks in and in the words of old bilbo himself,
"...cant stop now! I'm going on an adventure!"
See you on the road!
Sarah
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