There are at least a thousand ways I could illustrate and demonstrate this assertion, but in this case, I’m thinking of a very specific example, which I’ll get to in a little bit.<\/p>\n
First, a little history.<\/p>\n
I’ve been messing around with role playing games pretty much ever since I was old enough to decide how I’d spend my free time; I think I got my copy of the magenta Basic D&D box back in 1980 or 1981, when I was about 9 or 10 – maybe for my tenth birthday, actually – and after that? Well, I’m sure you can imagine how I got from there to here.<\/p>\n
The funny thing is – the wonderful, fantastic thing I only just realized this morning – in all the time I’ve been messing around with RPGs, I’ve almost never been a part of a group that matched the typical image of a standard D&D group: a bunch of white, cis male<\/a> gamers. (There are a few exception to this, one of which I’ll get back to in a sec.)<\/p>\n I’m not saying every group I was involved in was a diverse, enlightened crowd of high-browed intellectuals – I mean, I played in high school, with a bunch of high-schoolers, after all – but it was never just a bunch of white dudes being white dudes. My high school group counted the class valedictorian (and elven druid) as a member – she’s a practicing doctor out in the Black Hills, these days. In fact, every campaign I’ve ever run (and all but one I’ve played in) has had a mix of men and women. The most recent campaign I ran<\/a> was damn near perfect in terms of participants, by which I mean white straight guys were the minority.<\/p>\n And please don’t think I’m saying that out of some kind of white guy guilt, because that’s attributing me motives far more noble than the reality, which is that I’m just kind of selfish: I like my RPG sessions to be interesting, and homogeneity is fucking boring. Diversity in a creative space is life blood<\/em>.<\/p>\n So, yeah: I’m lucky.<\/p>\n I’m also – as I was recently reminded – privileged.<\/p>\n See, for the last few months, I’ve been laboring under a terrible<\/strong><\/em> first-world problem: with my new job (great pay, coworkers, and benefits), wonderful wife I love spending time with (often watching great genre TV over a fast internet connection), three amazing kids who like spending time with me, and a new puppy to hang out with, it’s difficult to find enough time to work on my next novel and<\/em> schedule some gaming.<\/p>\n How can<\/em> I go on under such a burden…<\/p>\n Anyway, I recently had a chance to get a little gaming in via Roll20\/Hangouts – a classic scenario I’d never had the chance to play, using a system I really enjoy.<\/p>\n And folks, I’m here to tell you: it was like jumping headfirst into raw sewage.<\/p>\n![\"Yeah,](\"http:\/\/cdn.meme.am\/instances\/500x\/58618224.jpg\")
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