Why are white people the majority in the RPG community?

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

Why are white people the majority in the RPG community?

Let me qualify this:

When I say this, I say this from my own experience growing up in Victoria and Vancouver BC, (Vancouver has lots of immigrants from China and India, Victoria is still an English Colony in some parts of town.) In my 15 yrs of experience, I've gamed with about 25 different people (small # for many ofyou, I agree.) In that time, the only "non white" people I've gamed with were a half italian/ half native american, an italian who'd I'd politically incorrectly classify as "not quiet white", and another half italian/ quarter native american woman who's skin was sort of white, but not what I'd call "caucasion/white" either. (Wow, just realized they're all part italian, never occured to me before. ) Everyone else has been some mix of english/scottish/german/irish/scandinavian/some white people country

I'm not trying to be offensive about this... It's just bothered me for a long time, like it's some kind of dirty secret that I'm a white man playing a white man's game that somehow doesn't include people of different backgrounds.

Is the RPG industry "white" in it's focus/marketing? Should "race" really matter in such a hobby? I don't think it should matter, I don't think it does matter... But somehow it does? gah.

It's just been bothering me. Apologies for toes I've stepped on. Thoughts are welcome.

[Halfjack]

I suspect serious devotion to frivolity is related to some variant of Maslow's hierarchy, and minorities may not all/typically be in a position to take themselves so lightly as to feign elfdom. Culturally, it might be energy poorly spent until a firmer foundation has been laid.

[Bankuei]

Should "race" really matter in such a hobby?

In theory, no. But as long as you have a hobby where the mass media is influenced by race, and the social structures are influenced by race, race affects things (like gender affects things, like any social construct affects things).

Though it is possible to create small spaces where these things aren't so pervasive, it almost always requires mindfulness on the part of participants.

Which is why most of the game groups I have played in are either all people of color or half, at least - because we like to have games where we can have escapism without clueless/hurtful behavior and sadly, very few people are able to put aside privilege and assumption enough to get there.

But don't worry, I'm sure this thread will quickly give us many, many prime examples answering your question... unintentionally, of course.

Chris

[Carl Stanford]

People like to tell and hear fairy tales and legends the world over. Children everywhere play "pretend". People in all cultures play games.

The hero's journey (from level 1 to badass) is an archetypical story that can be found in almost all cultures.

In other words, I have no clue why the majority is white as nothing about tabletop roleplaying is exclusive to Western society, but somehow it is.

Indeed strange....

[Jonah]

Because white people have the most imagination?




*ducks*










(Just my opinion of the thread's question, which can result in no good answer [unless there's some obscure sociology study I haven't seen] and probably no good can result from)

[Crowqueen]

ROFL @Jonah's last statement.

I play both Magic and D&D, and I have noticed some black kids playing Yu-Gi-Oh, but none playing either of the Wizards' games.

I suspect it is mostly a cultural phenomenon. As loathe as I am to say this, I think it is background that counts. Black kids here - in the UK btw - have their own subcultures, D&D and Magic are almost universally a white hobby. Yu-Gi-Oh is a bit of a crossover. I don't know about Asian kids (by Asian I mean British Asian, which is usually people from India/Pakistan) - I've seen a couple who play Magic, but not D&D. There are no non-whites at our sci-fi club either.

On the plus side, RPGs and sci-fi stuff are BIG in the former socialist bloc countries, they were even selling the Hungarian version of the AD&D rules on the main concourse at Budapest's Keleti station when I was there several years ago. I was tempted to bring it home as a souvenir, but it was the last day of my holiday and my budget (and my weight limit for the plane home) was pretty much draining away.

[Ryan Samuelson]

The only thing that comes to mind is that most rpg gamers, in general as a whole, tend to skew towards more education rather than less education (this is based on a couple of scholarly studies I've seen in the past that indicated that gamers on average tended to have slightly higher education that the general public). And although the racial demographics in the US colleges and universities have been changing, they historically been dominated by white people. Given that many people are first introduced to rpgs in college this might be one of several factors that have lead to the majority being white.

This is just a guess on my part though.

[Denys]

I've gamed with hundreds of people over the years, many of them non-white.

I really do think if all you've gamed in is a "white" corner of the world, then guess what -- you're going to have gamed with whites only.

[CodexArcanum]

Originally Posted by Heaven's Thunder Hammer

Should "race" really matter in such a hobby? I don't think it should matter, I don't think it does matter... But somehow it does?

I tend to play skill-based games, so race and class aren't very important.

Oh ok, for serious then:

Well, I just deleted a big post because I'm trying to dance around what I want to say so I won't come off as racist, but I might as well just blurt it out. Basically, I think that, statistically, white people have more opportunity to go to college. That means, historically, white people were heavily involved in things like computers, fiction writing, and other activities that lead into roleplaying.

And I have no idea how to go about researching that or anything, it's just a feeling I get from going to a predominately white college in the south. I don't, for the record, think that roleplaying is a "white hobby." I think everyone can enjoy it and I game with people of all races, sexes, and sexual orientations. I'm not talking about people here, just statistics.


I've actually always been a bit baffled that roleplaying or at least collaborative storytelling, doesn't catch on more with low-income, often heavily black, communities. It's a cheap hobby, but I'd guess that the heavy stigma of nerdyness taints the whole thing.

[Crowqueen]

Originally Posted by Denys

I've gamed with hundreds of people over the years, many of them non-white.

I really do think if all you've gamed in is a "white" corner of the world, then guess what -- you're going to have gamed with whites only.

Where are you?

I'm in south-east England, about thirty miles from London, which is an incredibly diverse area of the country, and I've always lived, been to school with and worked with Asians/blacks/Chinese etc. Reading where I live is a mosaic of a whole ton of different cultures, ethnicities and linguistic groups, including just about every successive wave of immigrants including Jews (who have had a synagogue here since the 1650s when Jews were permitted back into England). In fact the whole town was founded by Saxon immigrants in the 900s.

And yet...none of the non-whites I've ever met gamed.

Still, next time I go to the game store I'll probably now see a lot of different people, so maybe I've just not noticed, which for a thirty year old is probably par for the course over here.