As our hobby grows, I keep running into GMs and players who aren't the stereotypical gamer of the 1970s. Women, people of color, gays, trans, and even gray-haired oldies.
Which is great! More people to play with, to have fun with, to make friends with.
I have the original white box D&D set, and have been playing since the 70s. When a new player picks up a gaming book, do they see anyone that looks like their family? Images that include them? Or is there that barrier of "this is not for you."
Well, things are changing. And the lead author on The Gods Have Spoken: Deities and Domains, Vanessa Rose Phin, looks at the new 5E PHB to look at that change. Take a look on her blog. (Vanessa's also a major contributor to Gods and Icons.)
Of course this made me look at Dread Unicorn titles. Purple hermaphrodites are well represented, thank you very much. Numenera takes you out of the stereotypical RPG world in so many ways, art included. Our next titles are more in standard fantasy land, so we'll see what we can do there to make people feel like this is a game for them.
Some people have told me that if we make an effort to include more kinds of people, we could loose straight white males. Really? I think that's selling straight white males short. What if my sales are as flat as Star Wars: The Force Awakens?
Horrors!