Melinda and Tropes vs. Women in Video Games

[0player]

Ah, people taking on the amazingly hard job of justifying the absence of minorities in videogames.
Are the hours good, I wonder?

[Delmuir]

Ah, people taking on the amazingly hard job of justifying the absence of minorities in videogames.
Are the hours good, I wonder?

People just don't want to feel like they're having "social justice" forced down their throat like political correctness is currently. Thus, they react dismissively and defensively.

I don't blame them.

Having said that, it's just a weird storyline. You save a girl from murderous cultists and then go hit on her? It's weird.

I don't find it offensive because I'm not a hyper-sensitive crazy person but it adds little to the game and it's bit anachronistic. Should it be changed? I don't think it really matters. If someone is actually bothered by it, fine, but I don't think it's a big deal.

Still, if someone wanted to make a better storyline that didn't involved saving a near-butchered woman, I'd be in favor of that. Same with race. I wouldn't mind having some racial options, if for no other reason than I'd love, love, love to run around with a sweet afro, killing demons.

[Effigy]

Representing minority groups fairly is challenging from development standpoint I think, especially in a fantasy setting that's not directly equivalent to our own world. The easy route is to just add random skin tones to all the NPCs, but then you're only representing them in appearance and not culture (assuming cultural norms on Earth would even be the same in the game's world). Is it really "fair" to make the non-white characters essentially palette-shifted clones of the white characters? I would say it's probably better than having everyone be white, but the question remains.

On the other hand, if you try to give different racial groups their own distinct identity, you risk turning them into caricatures or stereotypes, which can be just as bad as not having them at all. And if there are only a few characters of a given race in the game that get any kind of in-depth characterization, you risk making that character a representative of his/her whole group which is a sort of indirect stereotyping. This is especially true because, by virtue of being minorities, there should logically be fewer individuals of these groups than of the majority group. (Unless the game world has different demographic ratios than Earth, of course.) You have to walk a fine line to make the representation fair without going overboard. If you're not part of a given group, it's hard to portray it in a way that will ring true to actual members of that group.

The same issues with fairly representing non-white races can also be present when trying to fairly represent women in the game. Women are often largely omitted or reduced to stereotypes in games. If you go to the other extreme and make them just like the male characters, they're not really women anymore--they become men with a female character model, essentially. To fairly represent the group, you need a broad spectrum of character types. Part of the problem is that it's hard to make believable female character if you don't have the female perspective, and female game developers are underrepresented in the industry. Men's attempts to portray women will naturally be biased, regardless of their intentions.

In short, representing women and minorities in games is an admirable goal but we should temper our expectations. The best way to get an accurate portrayal of these people is for them to be involved directly in game development.

[0player]

People just don't want to feel like they're having "social justice" forced down their throat like political correctness is currently. Thus, they react dismissively and defensively.

I'm... not actually talking about women representation here, Delmiur. If you could read the previous messages before acting defensively and dismissively yourself, you'd do me a favor.
Because there is something to blame certain people for.
Also it's kind of strange how everyone sees the spooky ghosts of social justice while what's happening is largely quite the opposite.

In short, representing women and minorities in games is an admirable goal but we should temper our expectations. The best way to get an accurate portrayal of these people is for them to be involved directly in game development

All too true, Effigy, all too true.

[Delmuir]

As was noted, there are plenty of important female characters in the game. There's no reason for anyone to get uptight about one, insignificant trope that isn't relevant to the plot of the game. Someone will, of course...

The question of race is easier… just randomize it as Effigy suggested. There's no sense in trying to design a racial culture given that the audience is mostly English speaking.

Is it a big deal? No, not really, but it'd be a nice flavor to have in the game if someone felt like designing it.

Ultimately, it's a game, made by and for a small group of people. If someone thinks it's important, let them code an add-on. There seems to little gained by debating social prejudices on this forum.

0player,
Defensive? You're reading more into it than is intended. Easy to do, seeing as we don't know each other. I will note that when I said "people don't…" I wasn't coyly trying to speak for myself with distancing language. If I mean something, I'll say it clearly and plainly.

For the record, I'm as calm as they come… I don't get defensive. I work in politics. My feelings don't get hurt and my tone never changes… I always sound slightly bored.

If it helps, just read every single word I write in a slow, flat, drawl because that's what I sound like.

[0player]

If it helps, just read every single word I write in a slow, flat, drawl because that's what I sound like.

Your "ha ha" gives that away .
The other points stand, though. You don't really have to defend a guy who goes to great length about why it is entirely necessary to justify the absence of "vocal minorities" and why ancient societies clearly had none non-heterosexuals.
Nevermind that a) that's not true and b) that's a fantasy.
The whole point of the exercise of the worldbuilding isn't to create something that can be explained. You have to aim for believable and likable. And, trust me or not, some people actually feel cheated when they're not represented in their favourite video game. Myself included, of course.
You may call this entitled, but I'd say that entitled is never feeling the discomfort and dismissing it as insignificant for superficial reasons.

[spottedshroom]

Representing minority groups fairly is challenging from development standpoint I think, especially in a fantasy setting that's not directly equivalent to our own world. The easy route is to just add random skin tones to all the NPCs, but then you're only representing them in appearance and not culture (assuming cultural norms on Earth would even be the same in the game's world). Is it really "fair" to make the non-white characters essentially palette-shifted clones of the white characters? I would say it's probably better than having everyone be white, but the question remains.

I feel like you can worry less about ethnic cultures in a fantasy game with non-human races, although then there's the risk of human == white and non-human == non-white.

The same issues with fairly representing non-white races can also be present when trying to fairly represent women in the game. Women are often largely omitted or reduced to stereotypes in games. If you go to the other extreme and make them just like the male characters, they're not really women anymore--they become men with a female character model, essentially.

Well, "just like the male characters" usually means "well developed." Male characters get enough development that their male-ness isn't their defining characteristic. Female characters often don't. "Men with a female character model" would seem to me to be a vast improvement.

Part of the problem is that it's hard to make believable female character if you don't have the female perspective, and female game developers are underrepresented in the industry. Men's attempts to portray women will naturally be biased, regardless of their intentions.

I see your point, but lots of male writers have created deep, believable female characters. Just because you can't be perfect doesn't mean you shouldn't try to be good.

The best way to get an accurate portrayal of these people is for them to be involved directly in game development.

Agreed, but I feel like avoiding the worst reductive tropes is the best way to encourage women and minorities to get involved.

[donkatsu]

I find it interesting how there would be no issue of ethnicity if everyone was just @s. ASCII mode to the rescue!

[Effigy]

@spottedshroom: I agree. I guess my message is intended more to explain the difficulties of changing things rather than to discourage doing it.

@donkatsu: But all the @ are white!

[0player]

Agreed, but I feel like avoiding the worst reductive tropes is the best way to encourage women and minorities to get involved.

It's also often about developers' personal biases, but from what I've seen, the dev community of ToME might as well be the most unbiased place on the Earth. So if there are any females wishing to join the fray, there probably is going to be far less problems than you anticipate!
...Reassuring, I know.

I find it interesting how there would be no issue of ethnicity if everyone was just @s. ASCII mode to the rescue!

Eh, donkatsu, I hate to tell you, but books largely contain letters (some only ASCII ones!) and they still get those problems.

[HousePet]

But isn't avoiding the damsel in distress trope marginalising damsels in distress?
If we want to encourage minorities, we can't just exclude them from the world.

[Ivels]

I think everyone is mistaking the forest for the trees here. The forest that, may I add, is populated by bears.

Oh.

Oh shit, you say, and you realize that while you've been nitpicking the details of yet another bipedal character's story, you've been ignoring the entire family of Ursidae species. You shoulders slouch a little and you now must bear the weight of having committed literary speciecide. But that's not your fault, is it? You are a human and it's only natural for a human to write about other humans, right? May be the bears can just write for themselves, you think.

Bears do not have opposable thumbs, and you are a terrible person for having just thought that.

Where is the lore about Norgos lair? Where is the much needed exposition of Bearscape? Why aren't there any bear characters? Why is the bear always a bad guy?

[anonymous000]

I don't understand the discussions going on here. What does the political correctness bullshit have to do with make the game more fun?

[Mankeli]

Agreed, but I feel like avoiding the worst reductive tropes is the best way to encourage women and minorities to get involved.

Just out of curiosity: Do you think that because, allegedly, there is a bias in how women are portrayed in video games (and to a certain degree I would agree that there is), then it follows that there can be absolutely no weak, "tropish" women characters in, let's say, ToME? Because I think your posts could be interpreted that way. You yourself admitted that not all female characters in ToME are "tropish" and as I already wrote in my previous post, maybe the most crucial character of all characters, at least how I see it, is a women with a ton of flavour and influence. Also, like others and myself have explained, there are pretty flat and useless male characters too.

I think it's a pretty big leap in logic to go from "let's portray women like more interesting and real persons in video games" to "no weak or uninteresting or tropish women characters allowed at all". If you think that ToME in general uses tropish female characters, then I would sort of understand your position (although I'm not sure I would agree with that but your position would be logical). But you haven't said that.

Also, I'm not sure if avoiding ALL the tropes/cliches in ALL circumstances is the best away to encourage women and minorities to get involved. After all, fantasy worlds are full of cliches like dwarves being sturdy, rude and drinking beer, dragon's hoarding treasures etc. To a certain degree, fantasy worlds ARE a cliche. If we just focus on the negatives then I think there is always the danger of potentially positive changes becoming a witch hunt (like the orc breeding pits and countless other examples in other games). I think the best way would be exactly what ToME has done in Linaniil: The most powerful and one of the most interesting characters is not a HUGE bearded murder berzerker from the North but an ambituous demigod powerlevel female wizard with a vision and a goal. Making a change by introducing positive examples and that sort of stuff.

EDIT. Writing is hard. What I was trying to say in short was that I think that the context largely defines whether something is a trope "vs. women" or not. That is because not all characters can be interesting nor important (movies have side characters etc.) If the context is that women in general are useless then one could think that saving Melinda is just another example of this attitude. However, I don't think this is the context in TOME and women are in general portreyed as much more complex and "real" people.

[edge2054]

There are similar sound biological and sociological reasons to not include other vocal minorities..

Yeah, I read that argument too. When we limit ourselves to western civilization it's very easy to justify our own assumptions about the world. Other ancient cultures were not only accepting of lgbt people but even celebrated them. The Greek's feelings about sexuality had way more to do with misogyny then biological pressure.

Anyway this thread is officially derailed at this point. I'll see about adding some other romantic options for members of the player base. Darkgod's talking about deeper character development for Melinda but I don't want to spoil anything.

If anyone has specific ideas for romantic subplots or wants to contribute to the writing of them, please start a new thread. Thanks