Diversity and Dragons

 

Like minded misfits would be a somewhat cliche way of describing us as a club but these days of course the geeky arts have risen to a new vogue and once niche brands have been bought out by progressively bigger fish to become international juggernauts. Warhammer now touts the development of a televised series based on the Eiaenhorn narrative and Dungeons and Dragons films and series have bubbled up more than once and I sense that it won't be long before we will be talking Dungeons and Netflix.

But in the current wave of political correctness diversity has now landed Tienanmen squarely within D&D in an attempt to impose homogeneity within the fantasy environment via the ubiquitous Trust and Safety committees. In the great tradition of all great leap forwards it seems that even mythical narratives will now be rewritten in the professorial light of oppression and grievance studies. With a statement from from D&D (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd) Orcs and Drow will no longer be regarded as evil to mitigate stereotyping, ability scores will be detached from different backgrounds to avoid racism, and connections between Romanians and vampires will no longer exist. Recently Games Workshop had also been drifting along these policy lines until a missive community backlash stopped them in their tracks via the recent 'Warhammer is for Everyone' initiative (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfH7NJnKoX8).

My point is not that I am worried that RPGs will be patrolled by  the political officers of the social justice regimes- they wont be - imagination will always win in the creative spaces. My concern is that  beloved brands may not survive the backlash from constantly splitting fan bases - the 'get woke go broke mantra' is beginning to claim ever larger organisations with Patreon now on the brink of collapse as the latest example of Trust and Safety overreach. We have never really changed as a bunch of dice rollers at the club as everyone who walks through the door is warmly welcomed whoever they are and those that stay do so as like minded free thinkers. In a strange inversion of the sixties, it could be that we are now the counter culture.