On rare occasions, most commonly after having read about the latest sexual harassment story or having heard about another abusive man (they’re mostly men) in table-top role-playing spaces, I ask myself why I stick around in a culture that so obviously have issues with people who are Black, Asian, Latino, Indigenous, mixed race, women, non-binary and queer in general.¹ Like me. I’m a woman. I’m also queer and probably neurodiverse. Only probably, my evaluation is still ongoing. Anyway.

I think of this, and then I remember the joy I get from playing. The way we build worlds together, create jokes that no one will ever understand except the people who were there at the time.

On occasion you get pure magic. You get defiant goblins gnawing on turkey legs, you get dwarves who for some reason turn into a fantasy version of a Jehova’s Witness, except replace Jehova with Marthammor Duin and the knock on the apartment door with a dungeon and a set of very confused dungeon dwellers, unable to make sense of either the dwarf or the message and by the rule of confusion lays down arms.

You get a company of fresh level 1 “heroes” almost wiped out by a snake in a well, and a stern warning to never open a kitchen cupboard without backup. You get barbarians that are so literal in their interpretation of instructions that almost everyone is knocked out.

You get so close to a total party kill that when avoiding it the entire group is screaming from joy.

You get paranoid players checking everything for traps.

You get gnomes who intentionally keep losing their marbles.

You get potential hobgoblin porn.

You get side character NPC Romulans that were only intended to appear once become the antagonist of a three year campaign.

I love role-playing games, not because of rules and frameworks, but because all those books hold potential magic. Every group I play with can become legendary, amazing, a joyful exploration of endless possibilities. They can be profound and shocking or they can be a comedic release just when you need one.

We build worlds together. Sometimes they contain diplomatic elves and jealous, bird-themed fighters. Sometimes they contain hero-worshipping Dragonborns with heroes that might not be so heroic (or smart). Sometimes they contain defiant goblins and what actually might be hobgoblin porn, but who knows because what is porn to a hobgoblin, after all?

1. I’m listing all these not because I want to get a better word count, but because I’m currently reading a book about the data gap between women and men (women don’t exist in the world of data), and one of the arguments made is that if we reduce people to “marginalized groups”, we hide how many people are actually IN that group, which makes it easier to ignore. I’m still trying to find a way to write that is inclusive, so I’m testing this out for now. Let me know if you have issues with it in the comments. I’m open to suggestions and learning.