Dear TieflingMelissa
Your take is stupid, ignorant and a joke and I'm going to tell you why.
I write this with an exasperated sigh after taking some time to cool down. Now, I like to keep things positive on this page but every now and again, I come across something so patently absurd that I can’t help but speak my mind on it.
In my time within the TTRPG space, I have seen some ignorant shit but what I am about to show you has to be the stupidest thing I have read today.
The person in question is Tiefling Melissa, a D&D VTuber, please do not attack nor harass this person. Her content, I could take it or leave it, she has a webcomic among other things she does, mostly livestreaming on Twitch last time I checked, but that is neither here nor there.
I’d like to go through this tweet by her, bit by bit, because… well it’s a doozy.
“I’m so sick of the culture war grift reaching D&D thanks to Muskie and his goons, especially as a full-time content creator…”
First and foremost, “grift?”
Melissa, you make your living off of D&D content, if your VTuber model is any indication, you really have no room to speak here. Also, clearly you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade or so, otherwise you’d realize the culture war surrounding D&D as a whole has been going on for quite some time and only reached a boiling point on its 50th anniversary. What’s more, you’re throwing shade at Musk, why? Is it because he pointed out the disrespect that’s been given to Gygax and Arneson, you know, the guys who invented the game that has existed since before you or I were born? Are you made he told WotC to burn in hell for it? What’s your issue here?
The Ultra-American TTRPGer is absolutely right here. I don’t think anything more needs to be said here.
The appeal to emotion here with your “…but not for them supporting human rights”, I ask you Melissa, who is the real grifter here?
I think this next part is ridiculous.
“D&D has gone woke?
This is on page 121 of the 5th Edition Player’s Handbook, released in 2014. None of you called it “woke” then, nobody threw a fuss over it.”
To answer your first question, even though I know you were playing at an attempt at mockery here: Yes, D&D has gone woke.
Rather than focusing on what the game has been since the 70s: a game of fantastical adventure;
it has been bogged down into a grey blobby mess, a shell of its former self, a glorified fetish buffet for people who think that their love of whatever weird shit they happen to be into needs to be shared with the world at large.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at r/rpghorrorstories for countless examples of this.
And don’t even get me started on your lore, your whole schtick, but as I am focusing merely on your post and not you yourself, I will refrain from it as it’s irrelevant on the whole.
Next, to you pointing out the section on sex in the PHB, what is this supposed to prove? That D&D somehow isn’t woke? I think that this hinders whatever case you’re trying to make rather than help it. Of course no one fussed over it, because no one was trying to throw their orientation or their need to feel validated in everyone’s faces like they have been since Radiant Citadel and maybe even before then. People were just trying to play a game, to have a good time, to do some adventuring after pulling a 9 to 5. I have to deal with people wearing their sexual orientation and gender identity enough outside of social media, why the fuck would I want to deal with it in my game as well?
“D&D wouldn’t be so popular and mainstream today if it wasn’t for 5th Edition and groups like Critical Role being so inclusive and welcoming.”
You have GOT to be fucking kidding me…
Are we really back on the “D&D wasn’t inclusive before 5th edition” bullshit that’s been disproven time and again by people much more experienced and better than I?
Now, I haven’t been in the hobby for very long, in fact, before my search for the origins behind one of my favorite D&D video games, I’d have paid it no mind. Hell, I still have my 3.5e core books to this day and while that’s not where I got my start, I can say with confidence that D&D was always inclusive. If by “inclusive” you mean anyone and everyone was welcome at the table if you had the drive to play and have a good time. I have never once not felt “included” in the TTRPG space, despite almost not even entering it due to a bad first experience with a DM.
But that’s not what you mean when you say “inclusive” is it? You mean inclusive of everyone who agrees to the exclusion of everyone else. And don’t try to lie, I know exactly what you mean.
D&D doesn’t care what race, sex, creed, sexual orientation you are and never has. Anyone could join in the hobby and it’s disingenuous to say otherwise.
As per your “Critical Role” comment, the only thing Live Play shows like Critical Role and the like did was put a spotlight on the game and bring it into the mainstream as you’ve said, but not for the reasons you’d like to believe. They didn’t make it more welcoming, they made it accessible to a demographic of people that probably would never have paid D&D any mind otherwise. There is a HUGE distinction there, even I could see that and I am not a fan of Critical Role. I enjoy the lore, the characters and the world of Exandria, its a good time. The other thing it did and I think this is important to note.
Take a look below:
I’m sure you’re plenty familiar with the cast of Critical Role, Melissa. This might be only from the first campaign but my point still stands. These professional voice actors gave D&D an image, trying to establish a connection, to be able to relate to their audience: “Oh, if they can play D&D, I can too.”
There is certainly no denying the impact that Critical Role has had on the hobby at large, not all of it good mind you, but as I’ve said before, it amplified the game by shining more of a spotlight on it. This was both good and bad for the hobby at large.
For one, the show set an expectation and unrealistic one. If a Dungeon Master could not perform to the level of Matthew Mercer as he did on the show, that was a bad thing and the DM should feel bad. I cannot speak to Mr. Mercer’s level of experience as far as DMing is concerned, I can however, say that he is a performer, that is what he does for a living, of course he’s going to put on a grand spectacle for the cast.
Second and an addendum to my first point, it also set an unrealistic expectation for the players as well. Now, unless you’re a theater kid (which seemed to be the show’s target demographic), you’re not gonna perform on the same level as a voice actor, nor should you be expected to. You’re not putting on some grandiose spectacle in front of an audience or streaming to an audience of hundreds, maybe even thousands of people (unless you do actually do live plays), you’re playing a game first and foremost. A fact that I think a lot of people who play 5e seem to forget.
Third, it brought out an ugliness in people that would have gone under the radar, if it were not for some narcissistic need to wear one’s identity on their sleeve for no other reason than to feel special. This is something I have never understood, attention seeking in a game where you roll math rocks while indulging in pizza and your beverage of choice. Suddenly, everyone needed to feel seen, to be represented in some way that in the grand scheme of things that ultimately amounts to nothing. As if social media wasn’t already a contributing factor to this problem, D&D and CR only seemed to amplify it. If you still don’t believe me, I once again defer to r/rpghorrorstories.
Fourth, it spread like a disease, eventually making its way back to the source, adding bullshit like “safety tools” to the game because, unfortunately, it’s also brought in a group of people who use the game as a substitute for therapy. Thus, the lines between reality and fiction are blurred. Character bleed has become one major problem as a result of these blurred lines, where if a player character is attacked in game, it suddenly turns into an attack on the player. Now, suddenly the game is no longer a form of escapism, but instead (in some cases) it becomes a counselling session that can be stopped at any time if a player encounters something they don’t like in the game. It takes away the power the DM should have in order to address whatever issue a player is having, thus destroying immersion of a game that’s supposed to be fun.
I can’t blame Critical Role for everything wrong with D&D, because now, it’s become nothing more than a marketing tool for Wizards of the Coast, in some vain attempt to continue the growth of the brand which stagnated somewhere between Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and Journeys from the Radiant Citadel. A brand that WotC feels is under-monetized because we just can’t have nice things without some soulless corporation poisoning the well.
“The game has been like this for 10 years (unnecessary comma) but you only cause a scene now? Isn’t that the definition of calling people ‘tourists’ that you like using so much?”
You’re only half-right here, D&D has been like this for 10 years… for 5th edition. For 10 out of a total of 50 years that the game has been around. Pocket change in the grand scheme but this is also an asinine point to make. I love the gaslighting here too, again I wonder if you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade or so because if you weren’t you’d know that WotC has been doing stupid shit for a long time now:
The Combat Wheelchair
Orcs somehow being an allegory for minorities
Drow also somehow being an allegory for minorities
The erasure of half-races, something that’s been in the games since its creation
And those are just a few examples!
Let me attempt to understand what you mean when you call those who have been in it longer than you or I “tourists”.
Let’s look at Urban Dictionary:
And I know this is exactly what you mean.
To address your question: no, this is absolutely not the case. People are tired of woke nonsense in the hobby because it’s the polar opposite of fun and goes against everything that D&D was. I want you to scroll back up Melissa and take a look at the booklet for OD&D there (I hope I am correct about that).
Now take a look at the Revised Player’s Handbook cover below:
One of these things is not like the other.
At exactly what point is what I’m about to show you, NOT woke?
What about this?
Only one of these two iterations of D&D includes these and it certainly isn’t the former. This is not D&D.
This, right here, this artwork for Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara is always and will always represent D&D to me. And you are free to disagree with that as you will.
Look, like Musk or hate him, I don’t really give a fuck, all it demonstrates is how petty you seem to be, over the man asking a simple question about buying Hasbro, which may or may not even happen. You’re mad, why? You even go so far as to throw shade at Americans.
Yes, D&D IS a global phenomenon and do you know who brought you that?
Americans.
Without whom, you would not have the means to craft and play out your barely disguised fetishes on public display all over your X feed.
You’ve got no respect Melissa and it’s quite pathetic.
You can’t argue the point, so you resort to personal attacks. And before you go calling me a hypocrite, answer me this: are you willing to actually have a discussion about these topics without resorting to petty insults? Or are you going to continue to deflect and block as I’ve seen you do?
I don’t normally do things like this, but my DMs are open and I am more than willing to have a conversation with you. We can agree to disagree on just about everything under the sun regarding this hobby. And I would like to believe that you would have more respect for those that helped bring to you this game, this global phenomenon as you so eloquently put it.
You get what you give Melissa and if you want to go ahead and block me, that’s fine, such a move will only serve to prove that I was right to call you on your shitty behavior and take. That and… well, I could throw the same energy right back at you.
I can tolerate many things, as I’ve been around the block a few times, but what I cannot abide are lies and disrespect, both of which you’ve done.
I might be small compared to you but if you think that I am going to lie down and take your shit, well…
Thank you all for reading, I know this is a bit out of character for me, but it’s something that I’m truly passionate about. And if you’ve stuck with me thus far, you are awesome, whether we agree or disagree on certain things, the goal remains the same. Laughs and good times.
~Sigmundr Orlandeau