The Gauntlet G+ Archives

Is anyone here in contact with Shane McLean, the author of Cheat Your Own Adventure? I need to get in touch with them about a project we are about to undertake, but I have no idea how.

I have been thinking about the Toronto massacre quite a bit. In addition to being utterly horrific, the Gauntlet has a lot of ties to the Toronto gaming scene. I’ll confess to knowing absolutely nothing about the incel phenomenon before this happened, and so I started doing some research.

Some notes from my research: I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that some young men feel entitled to sex, and that society’s failure to give them (their version of) what they want is reason enough for them to lash out violently. As a gay man, one of the things I am keenly aware of is just how much society fucks up little boys. Like, we just fuck them up to no end. Little boys are actually extremely sensitive and friendship-oriented, but then we shame them for it until they start acting like “men.” And so, of course, many young men never learn to process their emotions, they never learn how to make genuine, lasting friendships; all that matters is how tough they are and how competitive they are. Some of these young men will go on to be the “winners” and some will go on to be the “losers.” (I am putting those in quotes here because many of the guys who go on to be “winners” will be deeply unhappy later in life because they have no real friendships and because they bottle up their feelings until it kills them.)

There is a gaming point to be made here: the Gauntlet, as a community, rejects this notion that we shouldn’t talk about how we feel. We practice a really active care and concern for one another. If you are having a rough patch, if the day is getting the best of you, you can say what you need to say in our Slack and no one will tell you to toughen up, no one will shame you for being weak, and, indeed, someone will ask “Is there anything I can do to support you?” This has been part of our community culture for a long time. But what I find fascinating and occasionally frustrating is how our community is perceived by outsiders. And that perception is 100% colored by a culture of toxic masculinity. The number one thing I hear is some version of “The Gauntlet is a cult.” Imagine that! Imagine being so confounded by the idea of a group of people who are genuinely kind to one another that the only way you can understand it is to call it a cult. Another common perception, usually from women, is that there is something… untrustworthy about the Gauntlet, a vague sense that something is off about our community. Those perceptions are coming from a more legit place–our community is largely male, and online spaces dominated by men are often extremely toxic–but they’re also dead wrong, and again, it really comes down to how we are trained to view masculinity.

All of this is to say that fixing young men isn’t going to be easy. On a macro level, it might even be impossible. But one thing we can all do is manage our spaces; we can choose to change the cultures we exist in. And I should say: it’s not solely on women to change these cultures. Men have to do that work, too. In fact, it’s probably more important that men do it.

Anyway, this incel business has been on my mind. It kills me that this is a thing happening in our culture right now, but I take a small comfort in knowing I am managing my spaces for the better.

The highlight of my day was definitely this comment from a community member regarding Fear of a Black Dragon:

“Such an exceptional podcast. It sucks that story gamers run the best OSR podcast, but you really do.”

Cc: Tom McGrenery

The More Seats at the Table newsletter that highlights marginalized game creators that is flying around right now is super-interesting. They have a very particular definition of marginalized, but that’s their prerogative; overall, it seems like a nice project, and the people involved are good people.

Here is my issue with it: a lot of people with the market power to actually hire marginalized game creators are going to throw a dollar at this and then call it good. And you fucking know that is what’s going to happen.

One of the things I find insanely frustrating about the hobby, and I’ll just stick to the indie side of things for now since that is my particular area of knowledge, is how there is a whole lot of talking but not a lot of doing when it comes to diversity issues (and then those of us who are doing the doing get cred-checked into oblivion, but that’s a separate obnoxious discussion).

One of the ways I have seen this newsletter framed (by Jason Morningstar and others) is that it’s a failure of the market on the consumer side that the work of people from marginalized communities doesn’t get the kind of traction it should, and that if only there was a way to get the word out about these games, then everything would be better. That’s… partially right. Except here’s the thing: I spend more time than you can possibly imagine trying to elevate and promote niche work from game designers, many from marginalized communities, that might not otherwise get much notice. It makes some difference on the margins, but ultimately, I’m not changing anyone’s life. Do you know why? Because in this hobby, consumers look to the publishing imprints they recognize to know what to buy and what to skip over.

(This is actually part and parcel with another thing that bugs me and that I have complained about before: the people who have the most to protect when it comes to their business are always the first ones to publicly de-emphasize the need to present your work in a polished, professional manner; they encourage a loose, informal approach to design and publishing that they would never, ever, practice themselves.)

More Seats at the Table is a lovely idea, but the only way this change happens is if people with actual project budgets begin putting their money where their mouth is.

And so what to do about this, vis-a-vis the Gauntlet? Because this has to be more than just me complaining, right? Here is my thinking: we presently exist in a very interesting space. We possess both the power to hire game creators from marginalized communities through Codex (and we do, meager though our budget may be) as well as talk about the people who aren’t hiring people from those communities through the podcasts. I may start sending out some questionnaires to be sure I’ve got a really good handle on how much of a problem this really is. I am willing to accept that my instincts about this situation might be totally wrong, but I won’t know for sure until I start researching it. If anyone wants to help with this little project, I would greatly appreciate it.