Using the hobby for your political agenda, or how I've discovered that Twitter is full of assholes

I'm triggered. I've been triggered for almost a week now, and there's no visible end in sight. Fucking hell, I don't even want to write this post, but without some venting, I'll probably get only pissed off even more.

I've created my hobby-only Twitter account more than a year ago. Since then I've been quite active, tweeting about my ongoing RPG campaigns, posting Horus Heresy-event photos, and sometimes, and generally enjoying the content that the other people provide their on a daily basis. One thing that irked me a bit was all the DnD stuff flying around. There are a lot of folks there who play Dungeons and Dragons, and are really into it. Like, REALLY into it. Which is not a bad thing! Hey, I've started my RPG experience with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, back in the early 90's. I still have fond memories of those times. The thing is, DnD right now is kind of a trend on the West. It's a cool thing to be a DnD player, posting the pictures of your dice, unique costumes, making #FollowFridays for all your fellow nerds. It's like a next best thing. Joe Manganiello and Matthew Mercer, two very popular actors, as well as a few other celebrities, helped make Dungeons and Dragons a thing worth checking out, and lots of people jumped on the bandwagon, discovering for themselves a plethora of unique, and fantastic worlds to explore.

As a staunch RPG nerd, I can only support this movement, even though I'm not a DnD players. I've always preferred darker and grittier titles, like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Polish Monastyr and the classic World of Darkness. That said, I'm always in support of promoting our hobby to the mainstream audience, and thanks to DnD, it is no longer associated with "basement-dwelling people who don't really like soap and water, and are social recluses". At least that is how often the roleplayers have been viewed by the larger society. So that's good news, right?

Yeah, especially since now the newest trends, present on Twitter RPG scene are politics and social commentaries. Something that the roleplaying games are definitely not know for, nor should they be.

Lately I've been observing a lot of social drama on Twitter (which I'm sure is also present on other online communities, but fortunately I don't really have time to venture beyond Facebook, TT and a occasional Discord server), centred around inclusivity, gender-related issues, and race in the roleplaying community. There are two sides of conflict - the right, which is always on station to provide some good, old fashioned bigotry, racism and lack of empathy, and the left, who are so full of themselves, infuriatingly self righteous, and can't provide a single, well built argument, even if their lives depended on it. I haven't seen one, literally ONE, good argument from both sides of this conflict, during my entire stay on Twitter.

But what conflict am I talking about, exactly? Well, the newest hot topic is centred around all inclusive gaming spaces for people of color, LGBTQ folks etc. It is obviously a rather important topic, since not everyone is feeling comfortable enough to play with peeps, who are, for example not of the same sex or sexual orientation. I get that, I really do. What I don't get is insulting people of different sex, putting everyone from a certain demographic into the same bag, and generally waging a fucking crusade to prove one's point. People who do that are A) assholes, and B) are horribly misguided, as they're effectively feeding their opposition large ammounts of ammo to shoot back at them.

You want to promote tolerance and kindness - act like that! Do not cross into the bigotry zone, do not become what your enemies think that you already are. I'm sorry to say that, but as much as I despise racists, homophobes, and chauvinists, the ammount of vitriol coming from the so-called "progressive" left is just disgusting. Not to mention, said homophobes, racists and chauvinists have often presented a much bigger restraint in conversations, than their opposition. As a left-leaning individual, this fills me with sadness, but I guess we are living in troubled times, when the art of discussion is slowly fading away, replaced by name calling, invectives and general douchebaggery.

I personally think that it is perfectly reasonable for people to play with whom they want (duh). I.E. if a person of color feels bad around the dreaded "white heterosexual CIS males", he or she should not be forced to play with them. Creating all inclusive groups is fine, but only for a time. You see, RPGs are built around intercation and discovering new things, and I'm not just talking about dropping DnD for a time, and checking out a few, new systems (something that I wholeheartedly support). It's also about experiencing interactions with other, different people. People of different ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, political views etc. If you're only playing with "your" people, there's a big chance that you'll greatly diminish your chances of discovering new and fantastic environment, full of wonderful folks, who are truly worth interacting with. You are, in effect, locking yourselves up within a small circle of people, from which you'll probably never emerge. In the end, this is something completely opposite to the ideas of roleplaying, and tabletop games in general.

During my many years of roleplaying, I've had all sorts of people at my table: the far right, the far left, gay people, straight people, people of color etc. I've alwats valued the experience of meeting and playing with so many different individuals. Sure, not all of them turned out be cool or solid, or worth staying in contact with. But even if I did not wanted to play with them any more, it wasn't because of their political views or sexual orientation, but because they've turned out to be bad players. Sometimes toxic, sometimes undependable. Me and my friends, we never had any trouble with others because of who they were outside of the table, and that's what is imporant, and that is something that a lot of Twtitter crusaders forget about. They're so militant in their views, those people from both sides of the conflict, that they're effectively organizing a witch hunt, rationality be damned.

I can't stand to watch this, I can't stand to read another acid-infused post about "beta cucks", "purse puppies", "incels" or "toxic white males", popping on my feed. You people try to use this fantastic, wonderful hobby, which promotes dialogue, cooperation and coexistence, and turn it into a weapon for your petty and disgusting, ideological wars. Stop it. You don't have the right to do this, and I don't want you to continue doing so. I don't want you to use my hobby for your own, horrible ends. You don't have the right!

To those of you, who are willing to look at the bigger picture, and letting go of bigotry and sensless strife: prove that you're above these petty, hollow conflicts, and show the whole world that our hobby is the one that unites, and not divides. Be better people. It's simple as that. 

Until next time, when I'll hopefully be able to write about something nicer, and lestt stress-inducing.

Xathrodox86

P.S. I was so fed up with this topic, that I didn't even put any graphics in this post. Yeah, it's THAT bad. This is also my first, quasi-political/social article, which I've posted on my blog. I sincerely hope that it will be the last.