4 Reasons Black People Don't Play Tabletop RPGs

Comments · 3.9K

• RP

  @RPGElite · 4 years ago · pinned

  Well, now that I've opened up this can of worms, tell me how many black people you've played RPGs with. Are there any playing in your current group? Scribble a little bit below and let the rest of the geekheads know.

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• CH

  @ChenowethGames · 4 years ago

  I owned a gaming store in the early 00s.  The store was in a southern Georgia college town.  We had a dnd group that was all black.  It didn't start out that way.  I DMed for the group for a while and it has 3 black guys, a Hispanic guy, a mixed guy and me a white guy.  I left the group cause of other responsibilities conflicting and another black guy joined and the Hispanic guy dropped to play Magic more.  The guys in the group bonded over there love of anime.  No one at their homes accepted their rpg hobby.  It got to the point that they would leave their books at my shop to not be hassled about it at home.  I've never seen an rpg table of all black kids since.  They were the greatest guys.  My store was a haven of sorts.  It didn't matter to anyone who you were outside of those doors.  Inside you were one of us.

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• GU

  @gutterkrawl153 · 4 years ago

  The first time I saw Pondsmith, (the creator of Cyberpunk) I did a triple-take. It is rare to see a black man at a game table, but to have one create an entire genre of RPG!? I was blown away.

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• MI

  @michaelmills2483 · 4 years ago

  As a black high school student in high school in the 80’s going to a private schools that had an RPG club was how I found out about them. Even though I was interested in them and friendly with people who played them, they thought my interest was not true, I was black, à good athlete and popular. It wasn’t until after college that I actually got involved in the hobby by chance. I meet a person at just duty while playing cards which we bonded over, talked about the scout science fiction fantasy series I enjoyed and eventually we became friends and he invited me to game with him and his group. It didn’t work out with his group but we ended up creating a separate group and I’ve been playing since then. Mostly now I GM and still love RPG’s

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• TW

  @twilightrave · 4 years ago

  After all the years of being called a burned cracker, this video has given me a little bit of comfort. Thank you brother for making this video. I made sure to share it everywhere I could.

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• BA

  @balogunojetade9146 · 4 years ago

  Good video. Throughout high school AND college and even now, our entire table was all Black. I have been playing ttrpgs since 1979. I am from Chicago. At present, I live in Atlanta. Keep up the great work.

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• FR

  @friendlyattack1181 · 3 years ago

  There was a minister on the radio the other day defending the hobby in light of satanic panic and stuff saying he played it with his son and it was a great way to develop team work, empathy, improvisation, dealing with different situations. I totally respect anyone who speaks there mind. We all have them and like you say everything will just be ignorance unless we allow ourselves to be heard. There's good and bad in every field

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• AR

  @AromanticPigeonMadness · 4 years ago

  It was so frustrating growing up as the only mixed person in my family and constantly having my interests judged as evidence as what "side I was on". I'd just talked in therapy yesterday about your third reason, about how my interest in innocuous things like fantasy books and TTRPGs were used as evidence that I was "too white". Which is just so insulting and people say it without even thinking twice.

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• TH

  @TheSheGoz · 4 years ago

  "I'm probably going to say something in this video that's going to offend some people..." Honesty usually does. Thank you for your honesty, and for your courage in openly talking about issues that aren't easy, or comfortable.

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• OL

  @oldhatAN · 3 years ago

  I ran Pathfinder Society weekly at a local store for almost three years.  This was back in the first edition Pathfinder days.  For those who aren't familiar with it, Pathfinder Society (PFS) was designed for walk-in play.  There was practically no barrier to entry at all.  The game was published under the Open Gaming License and the full rules were available online for free.  There were a bunch of pre-generated characters printed and ready so you didn't even need a character.  They didn't even need dice since I always had plenty.  It was all built around standardized, one-shot scenarios with standardized rewards so there was no time commitment beyond that session.  It cost $5 but that included $2 in store vouchers so it was really only $3.  I was the guy who ran the low tier intro scenarios so I met all of the new players.  Anyone with a desire to play and a few bucks could walk in, sit down and play.  In almost three years, I saw one black player.  He was a white-collar professional type.  I think he was an engineer of some sort.  He had to move for his job so he wasn't around for long.  That's the only black player I saw in 32-33 months of running PFS every week.

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• KA

  @Kamikei77 · 4 years ago

  As a black man that's been DM'ing since highschool I wish I could have given this video two thumbs up. You hit the nail on the head, great video from start to finish. The wind up had me cringing for impact but you killed it.

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• NO

  @NoFaceOrGun · 4 years ago

  I remember when a major metal musician &apos;Lemmy&apos; kilmister got an agony aunt style mail from a black fan. He was a kid whose black parents didn&apos;t understand his love of metal music and was being treated poorly as a result. <br><br>Lemmy got upset, saying that if people can&apos;t accept the things you like, they&apos;re not your friends. <br><br>It&apos;s really hard to grow up loving something that you&apos;ll be ostracised for.<br><br> It&apos;s hard to get involved in something like that when there is no one in your direct community who enjoys that hobby. You don&apos;t have that direct experience with it.<br><br>I became a dnd guy when normie group of friends ostracised me, I then found a bunch of nerdy guys who wanted to play dnd. I had no thoughts about it either way and fell in love with the community.

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