# D & D got woke and that's good because you should have all been playing that way (or not if you didn't prefer)) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** rpg-dnd-wargames\ **Created:** [February 17, 2021, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114 "2021-02-17T10:36:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/281 "2021-02-26T10:50:57Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > And some day I really want to play with a group of folks who want to shoot the shit in character. Ever tried LARPing? ---
**Author:** ![Manwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Manwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manwich)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/282 "2021-02-26T11:02:38Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > You’re very kind! I definitely am dealing with some mismatched expectations. For one player (my brother) the town politics is pure candy, and he wants to dive headfirst into righting the wrongs of all their imperial bullshit; the lawful neutral guard captain receives the worst of his contempt. For another player, she says very little in the game besides, “I poke it with my spear,” and that’s where she finds her joy in the game. Another player wants more canonical Greyhawk and is I think a little nonplussed by my lack of interest in the pantheon; a fourth player has highly specific character goals involving the missing artifacts of her people, only I can’t figure out how to incorporate that story, since all the hooks I throw at her get dropped, either through distraction or through their not being what she actually wants. For me, I enjoy most the grace notes of roleplaying; the Critical Role podcast has become my new favorite thing. **Dorkness** , you deserve real proper role-players (many types could be ok) but you have your loved ones to play with, its probably not going to work too well. Do you think you can make the group work? I mean trying to roleplay at a high expectation level with newbies can be an avenue of disapointment. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/283 "2021-02-26T11:47:08Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Ever tried LARPing? It’s been decades, but back in the early nineties, when LARPing was still young, I helped write two massive, 50-60 character one-shot LARPs. One was White-Wolf based, and we created 60 complex mage/werewolf/vampire characters that had to deal over the course of the evening with the antics of a corrupter demon that had accidentally been summoned. One teenage werewolf was newly active and was trying to navigate her super-intense relationship with her boyfriend, trying to figure out how to tell him about her new status. Meanwhile, her teen boyfriend had just been vamped, and was trying to break the news to his girlfriend. We named them Montag and Cabot, and made sock accounts on a BBS that a lot of our players were on, posting in character for a couple weeks before the game as a way to set things up. God, we were such nerds. Our other enormous LARP was, in retrospect, kinda problematic. It was set in a backwoods insane asylum, where a rogue psychiatrist had accidentally invented a procedure that imparted psychic powers to its subjects. The FBI was there to investigate; a Hannibal-Lecter character was looking to take over the procedure; a pyromaniac character had gained the ability to set fires; and over the course of the one-shot, characters affected by the procedure started forming a hive mind. I miss those days. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/284 "2021-02-26T12:06:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Deciding to just go slay a dragon just because it’s not shiny is dumb regardless of alignment. Dragons are a pretty big deal-- If you’re fighting one, you should be prepared in detail for that fight, because if you don’t, then you’re likely to get your butts handed to you. Sure, you’d get your butts handed to you if you attack it with swords and fireballs, but not if you just slap it with your fist. It’s like the Towel of the fantasy world - the dragon will surely assume that you’ve a godlike potency with which you can just flick it around like a plaything should you so choose, as long as you flagrantly display this indifference to its might by never actually hurting it. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/285 "2021-02-26T13:09:04Z")
> [@smilingbandit](#): > > In another context I would agree _except_ that Drow were never coded as African-American This isn’t really relevant. It is associated red with the general cultural pattern of white/light is good and black/dark is evil. It’s a pattern that affects everyone’s psychology and colors our perception of white people and black people, even when there are no other African-American-related cultural traits involved. The “dark-skinned ones are all evil” will and does mix in to our toxic cultural race stew and as will all aspects of things that touch in race we need to be vigilant about it. The “well, actually, it’s not really about African-Americans” explaining doesn’t change that. ---
**Author:** ![Manwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Manwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manwich)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/286 "2021-02-26T18:03:24Z")
RPG is a lot like the Sopranos where you realise its a systemic problem. And that time Carmella goes to the shrink and he tells her, yeah you’re unhappy because your life is predicated on violence and evil, you’re a parasite, you can’t be happy being evil. Adventurers need a raisin detra beyond finding baddies to kill. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/287 "2021-02-26T21:07:36Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > It’s just evolved a bit, if that is what you want to have fun. And sure it is fun. Just as kicking down doors, killing monsters and looting their treasure is fun. D&D is a game, it’s supposed to be fun. > > However, you and your table have fun is the important part. Not being “woke” or not woke. I agree, but the problem (as seen in this very discussion) is that’s not enough for some people. Everything has to be “problematic” and you’re a bad person for enjoying the game. Nothing is allowed to just be what it is from the source it’s from. It all has to have some terrible coded racial effect whether or not it’s relevant to the source material… ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/288 "2021-02-26T21:13:38Z")
And that _is_ wrong. **Have fun.** Rule one. Now sure, you may have to search around a bit to find the _right_ group and DM, and that’s Ok too. Mind you, I have fun with both the “kick down doors, kill monsters and loot their treasure” groups and the groups where we can play for 8 hours and never have a combat. But if _you_ dont have fun in the “kick down doors, kill monsters and loot their treasure” that doesnt mean they are having badwrongfun. It just means you need a different group so you can have fun. Woke is great but **fun** is the important thing is a game. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/289 "2021-02-26T21:28:10Z")
As Rich Burlew, author of Order of the Stick (a DND based web comic), very wisely pointed out: > [@](#): > > But beyond that, no fiction is meaningful if its lessons cannot be applied to the world that we, real actual humans, live in. If you are going to dismiss any themes or subtext present in any fantasy story as simply not applying to our world because that world has dragons and ours doesn’t, then you have largely missed the point of literature as a whole, and are likely rather poorer for it. Fantasy literature is ONLY worthwhile for what it can tell us about the real world; everything else is petty escapism. So if I can make even one person think about how we treat people of other races (or religions, or creeds, or what have you) by using the analogy of Redcloak, then it will have been time well spent on my part. When I DM, I do so by that same philosophy. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/290 "2021-02-26T21:56:14Z")
That sounds great. I’d love to see some of your scenarios. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/291 "2021-02-26T21:57:37Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > you’re a bad person for enjoying the game Who is saying that? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/292 "2021-02-26T22:02:34Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > Everything has to be “problematic” and you’re a bad person for enjoying the game. Literally no one is saying that. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/293 "2021-02-26T22:06:18Z")
Have you read the OP? > [@Manwich](#): > > My summary: Woke roleplaying is basically good, old rulebook style had a lot of shit, feel free to roleplay however YOU like. > > D & D with evil ugly monsters is shit for story telling and for game play unless you’re a fuckwit or in a hurry (both of which are fine). > > More nuanced worlds are better. Traditional ugly, evil by nature, “other” baddies were: > > - racist (not being sensitive, the idea of an ugly, inherently evil other race we need to kill because they will kill us if we don’t is a human weakness) > - Boring, cliched, offering fewer opportunities for plot development. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/294 "2021-02-26T22:17:32Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > That sounds great. I’d live to see some of your scenarios. The last time I got to run a game, we were playing in Eberron, timeskipped ahead about a decade. Politically, everyone is recovering from the Last War and starting to jostle for an advantage in the next one. The main antagonists (although they definitely didn’t appear antagonistic at first) were the Brelish. It is implied in the campaign setting that the king of Breland, Boranel, is likely to be the last king of that nation, with democracy taking hold. I decided to roll with that, and in my slightly fast forwarded timeline, his heir abdicated the throne instead of taking power and stepped aside in favor of a parliamentary government. The party’s enemies were a rising political party who tapped in to deep resentment fostered by the losses of the Last War to rise to power. Early in the campaign they often worked with the party, as they were the main force getting things done and solving the problems faced by commoners in Breland, but the more the party got to know them the more they realized that they were very much a nationalistic force, and quote distrustful of outsiders. There was much intrigue involving Droaam, the monstrous kingdom, as well as the Lord of Blades, and the party became very distrustful of the new Brelish regime somewhat before I wanted them to - I was hoping to make the Brelish leadership allies at first despite the undercurrent of xenophobia, but the party turned against them at the first sign of it. As a result I decided to ship the party off to Xen’Drik for some treasure hunting (and races for artifacts against Brelish agents, Indiana Jones style) while the party secured their hold on Breland in preparation for the Next War, which I hoped to have break out once the players were high enough level to get involved on a meaningful level. Unfortunately that’s where we had to end the campaign. My idea was to flip expectations by having the Democratic faction be the bad guys (who, as Americans, I expected my players to naturally side with over monarchists or the undead aristocracy of the other kingdoms) and that worked for a time, but they picked up on the undertone of xenophobia very very quickly and noped right out of Breland. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/295 "2021-02-26T22:28:28Z")
Now that I think about it, Next War Eberron was a really fun setting and if I ever get to DM again I’ll probably go back to it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/296 "2021-02-27T01:26:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > **Have fun.** Rule one. Not really. There aren’t really any rules about how people choose to spend their leisure time, nor are there rules that govern what opinion I have (if any) of your choices. If you spend your leisure time having a great time by kicking puppies, I’ll look askance at you. Turns out if you spend your leisure time burning crosses in your own back yard, I won’t care how much fun you’re having, I’ll think less of you. If your leisure time involves making silly poems about concentration camps, I’ll think that’s gross. And sure: if your D&D games are about mass slaughter of goblin babies because they’ll grow up evil, I’ll lose respect. I trust those who’ve lost my respect will somehow struggle on through their lives. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/297 "2021-02-27T02:19:02Z")
> [@Rich Burlew](#): > > Fantasy literature is ONLY worthwhile for what it can tell us about the real world; everything else is petty escapism. That’s rather condescending. Don’t tell me what something is worth to me. When I’m in the mood for petty escapism, there’s no substitute for it. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/298 "2021-02-27T05:39:25Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If you spend your leisure time having a great time… what the holy **FUCK** does this have to do with D&D? ---
**Author:** ![Manwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Manwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manwich)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/299 "2021-02-27T10:13:59Z")
I had this great mentor RPG dude he even owned one of the shops in town he was great I’ll tell you about him, what a dude, what a dude, just wait. He inspired me to go to the state library to research flavours of Czech anachism and I was but a small boy although the library was in walking distance (for call of ctthiulu my czech was detailed in backgrounf\_. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114/300 "2021-02-27T13:57:23Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > [@DrDeth](#): > > > > **Have fun.** Rule one. > > Not really. There aren’t really any rules about how people choose to spend their leisure time, nor are there rules that govern what opinion I have (if any) of your choices. > > If you spend your leisure time having a great time by kicking puppies, I’ll look askance at you. Turns out if you spend your leisure time burning crosses in your own back yard, I won’t care how much fun you’re having, I’ll think less of you. If your leisure time involves making silly poems about concentration camps, I’ll think that’s gross. And sure: if your D&D games are about mass slaughter of goblin babies because they’ll grow up evil, I’ll lose respect. > > I trust those who’ve lost my respect will somehow struggle on through their lives. I don’t know about you, but i distinguish between people who kick puppies for fun and people who play exploding kittens, or kick minecraft tame wolves for fun. The first involves actually hurting real creatures that have the capacity to suffer. The latter two don’t. D&D orcs don’t have the capacity to suffer, either. I pulled out some old AD&D source books I have, and i agree that it’s unfortunate that all the PCs look like white people, and the orcs are kinda swarthy. But that doesn’t make killing orcs the same as burning crosses on your back yard. > [@DrDeth](#): > > > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > > If you spend your leisure time having a great time… > > what the holy **FUCK** does this have to do with D&D? I thought his analogy was obvious, if overstated. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/d-d-got-woke-and-thats-good-because-you-should-have-all-been-playing-that-way-or-not-if-you-didnt-prefer/933114.md?page=16)