Kyle Brink is the executive producer of Dungeons and Dragons. He was just in a podcast saying that white guys can’t leave Dungeons and Dragons soon enough. This is disheartening to hear. DnD always had a special place in my heart. Growing up in the eighties it was one of my favorite past times. Granted I haven’t played in a long time due to numerous reasons. I want to, but life kind of gets in the way. Although I still buy, well bought, books and dice. But hearing my money is no longer needed or wanted because I’m white is kind of strange. Dungeons and Dragons back in the day did no favors for you socially. You were considered an outcast, a geek or nerd. I always welcomed anyone who wanted to play. But times are different now. Something I once loved is telling me I’m no longer needed or wanted for the crime of being white.
Role playing games are near and dear to my heart. Although I focus my time more on PC gaming than table top gaming these days. The first role playing game I ever played was an obscure game called Might and Magic. My mother got it for me one Christmas. It was early 80s, I had no Idea what it was. It was a rule book and a quest book and two small 20 sided dice. This wasn’t your average table top game where you read the inside cover of the box to learn it. You had to read an entire book. So I learned it, it was different and fun. I mentioned it at school and one of my friends. He said if you like that, you have to try Dungeons and Dragons. Intrigued I bought that and a couple of quest books. I was blown away. The presentation, the dice, the rules was so much fun.
There was a lot more art. I’m a very visual person and the art in these books fanned the flames of my imagination. The back of one book in particular, Dungeon Module B2; The Keep on the Borderlands. I’ll never forget the day. It was late fall and cool, the window in my room was open and there was a nice breeze. I was laying in my bed staring at this illustration. It was four adventures going up a winding path to a dark ominous castle. The sun was setting, golden hour if this was a photograph. The setting sun highlighted the adventures who were merely silhouettes. It was hard to tell their classes. Maybe a wizard, fighter, thief, and a paladin. One was definitely female because I see boobs, well boob, actually maybe its just part of their cape. Anyways, the color pallet was haunting to me, the yellow, reds, and purples. The contrast it cast on the castle highlighting the battlements and towers gave an ominous feeling of what lies inside. To this day this image still give me chills. I got my graph paper and mapped that castle out and the multi level dungeon underneath. The monsters, the combat, the adventure, the picture was DnD.
My friends and I had a blast. Their were times we had to recruit our reluctant brothers and sisters to get a full party but we got by. Exploring dungeons, fighting monsters, slaying dragons, looting treasure, and gaining XP. It was simple. It was fun. It was Dungeons and Dragons. We even survived the satanic panic. Then we all kind of moved on with our lives, many moved out of state, got jobs had families. So the books and dice were put away.
Although I really wasn’t playing anymore I always kept tabs and whats going on with DnD. I can only shake my head. People who were trying to be allies were actually showing their racial biases. When a website called Orcs problematic because if you chose that class you had to take a racial modifier. They tried equating Orcs to people of color even though you can be a person of color in the game, you know human. Equating Orcs to black people says more about you than the people who don’t make that connection. Then came the Tumbler audience and they started injecting sexuality into the game. Then gamers were accused of using math and complex rules as a gate keeping tool for keeping minorities out. Again something we never said, but they implied. Wizards of the Coast started to amend the rules which were never set in stone anyway. Rules in DnD were always just a guide. I don’t think my friends and I ever stuck to the rules. We just had fun. But if Dungeons and Dragons wants to hate me, and they do, I’ll just bow out. Especially at this point in my life its super easy. I’ll always have great memories with my friends and the fun we had. They’ll never take that from me. It’s a shame, but this white guy is out. Kyle Brink, I really don’t know what you were trying to prove if it was just virtue signaling or something else.
