Hey all,
I've been gaming since I was 13 (I'm now 31). In all of that time, I can count the number of African American people that I've encountered on one hand (and not use all five fingers either). One of them is the guy who introduced me to D&D. I've seen a few latinos and asians (that includes Indians and Pakistanis et. al.) as well; not represented as much as their U.S. population, but I have seen a few. The fact that I've only met 3 African Americans that play RPGs got me curious. Are you/do you know and African Americans and/or other ethnic minority that plays RPGs? I specify RPGs because I've seen quite a few kids of all ethnicities playing CCGs.
My original gaming group in the '80's was half hispanic, half white. Our current gaming group includes a half-native American and an Asian American. One of our old hispanic friends from high school wants to play, but can't due to work conflicts.
I have never played with any African-American gamers, although I have seen several around over the years. I wish our gaming group and gaming in general was more diverse.
My immediate co-workers are all hispanic, but none of them have time to play due to family, work and other activities that take precedence.
I think the older you get the harder it is to start a new, very involved hobby that takes up regular chunks of time.
I'm interested in where you live, Animus. I've lived all over the US and I find my gaming groups to be representative of the population.
-Amber S.
One of my groups in the 1990's contained 3 African-Americans out of 13 total players...the one after that had 0 out of 5, then 1 out of 8, then 0 out of 4...
My current group has 1 out of 8, with 1 Middle Eastern player, also.
M
I'm interested in where you live, Animus. I've lived all over the US and I find my gaming groups to be representative of the population.
-Amber S.
I curently live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was born and raised in New Orleans.
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For my first decade of gaming, in my rural hometown in southern Illinois, the cultural diversity of our groups was exactly *zero*. Of course, that might be because the only culturally diverse student in school was my friend, Dave McTaggart, who managed to be 1/2 Irish and 1/2 Vietnamese, and he was more interested in sports and cars.
In college, naturally, things opened up some, but not vastly. I went to University of Evansville in Southern Indiana, and we had a decent racial diversity. I think in our group (the total pool of players) we had 1 Native American, 3 African Americans, and 1 Latino.
One of my black friends dropped one of the funniest lines during a Call of Cthulhu game. During a moment of mounting tension, he suddenly lept to his feet and yelled "Oh sh%t!! I'm a black man playin' in a horror game?? Man, we never make it into the second act!"
Destroyed the mood for a bit, but it was worth it! And for the record, he made it into the second act, but not the final curtain.
One of my black friends dropped one of the funniest lines during a Call of Cthulhu game. During a moment of mounting tension, he suddenly lept to his feet and yelled "Oh sh%t!! I'm a black man playin' in a horror game?? Man, we never make it into the second act!"
Destroyed the mood for a bit, but it was worth it! And for the record, he made it into the second act, but not the final curtain.
That's hilarious! I can appreciate the humor in that.
Hey Animus,
We are practically in each other's backyard. I live and have lived up and down the westside of the Detroit metro area (currently Redford) since forever. It is true that there is or at least was a lack of non-WASPie players in my experience growing up. Part of this I feel is marketing bias (ever see a person of color on a Red Box Set?) left over from built-in biases that stretch back to Tolkien, Lovecraft, medieval fiction (think Crusades) and other genere writers (Note: these are some of my favorite authors/stories and any bias they had I like to think was because of the times they lived in and the nature of their work). I also remember the days when GENCON was like 99.99% white guys (scrawny backpackers or people who looked like they just consumed one) and one scared 20-something in a chainmail bikini. Since then I have seen a rise in multi-ethnic/gender gaming groups, but like everything here in the Rustbelt it took it's sweet time getting here. I still game with my second group (since High School) and we are as lilly white as you get.
For the record, I myself am a German-Polish-Scotish-Native American and always use the write-in section of sociology forms to say so.
The ever-cheeky,
GGG
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I've played since I was 13 and I have only ever met 2 african american gamers. One quit after he turned 16 and thought rpg's were "gay" another, My good friend Andre, is the best paladin player I have ever run. No one I know ever got into his character the way andre did. He quit gaming with us when his alcoholism got the better of him.
by the way, I am a pale white Irish American kid (27) living in the Portland Or area
This is a fascinating topic. I'm black and I've been playing D&D since high school(let's say about 1994). My first group was quite mixed- three white, one puerto rican, and myself. We gained and lost a few people over the years, until the end of high school, when we were two asian, three white, and one black(myself), and one puerto rican. Things didn't get interesting until I went to college and started DMing regularly. This time it was three black(including myself), five white- except I was the only male in the group!
Personally every group i've been in about 4 groups have always had a black person, how every i haven't seen many hispanics. but i think the real minority in D&D is women. like thats a shock to anyone here
A friend of mine who is a member of our regular game group is an African American and has been interested in and play RPG's for many years. I would agree with some of the other folks on here that the real minority in gaming today is women. I've never been a member of game group that met on a regular basis which had a female member. It's strange because I've known a number of women who were very interested in fantasy/sci-fi fiction but they weren't into gaming. I thought that would be a natural progression but I guess not.