Historical settings

[Kanye Qwest]

With actors, there is still very much a step of removal. Actors follow scripts, which are works of fiction written by someone else. Actors do not get onstage and play out characters that they invented, that only they play, where they write lines on the spot.

You,re right, the closest equivalent to RP is improv...if improv where mostly players are very invested in playing out something that appeals to them, removed from the character. Not many mush players (in my experience) have a lot of acting experience. I do! Others do! But not all, not by a long shot.

[surreality]

@kanye-qwest I do see the point you're getting at, but I'm more on board with faraday on this one, in that I fully support games choosing to go this route -- but I don't agree with the underlying logic that depictions of discrimination, or settings or characters that include it, are something that should universally be forbidden in the hobby, or limited only to fantasy species/imaginary religions/etc.

Essentially, if that's what someone chooses to do with their game, I will back that choice completely. (As much as we've argued about random things in the past, you know I'm still behind you on the choices you've made for Arx and know you put plenty of time and effort into thinking them through.)

I won't oppose someone making a different choice by default, however. Some? Yes, I will. It depends on the specific circumstances, though. For instance, the game that someone was pitching that encouraged a wholly unmoderated 'stream of consciousness' channel that would allow slur language and hateful 'thoughts' to be transmitted to the whole of the connected game as an expression of 'realism' and 'how people really are' was a fantasy setting and not a historical one, but that isn't a choice I can say I'd stand behind or think was a good call as it was presented to the forum. (Could someone pull this off in a way that wasn't begging for disaster, and was instead a net add to the game? Possibly! It just wasn't that way.)

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I just go back to, I have played on historical games where a certain amount of period-appropriate discrimination was allowed and it wasn't a huge shit-fest. There were female soldiers in TGG campaigns where it was even vaguely historically appropriate (the Spanish Civil War and Stalingrad were the main ones) and it was fine. Largely because that really happened, we just leaned into it and played it up. There were female surgeons in WW1 (another environment where it really happened in a handful of make-shift cases) and part of the emphasis on the healing/medical code was to give female PC nurses something meaningful to do. There were a handful of PoC soldiers in the various campaigns (I played a Sikh dude as one of my bits) and it was OOCly fine. Discrimination tended not to be a thing that was frequently emphasized in terms of gameplay, though tensions between nationalities (which included English/Irish etc) made for interesting RP from time to time (particularly in WW1 where there was a mixing of units in the trenches for variety of characters). The more irritating players there tended to be ones who were focused on the MUD-like aspects of killing NPCs and hitting +shoot rather than doing character-based RP, and they didn't tend to create the sorts of problems being discussed in this thread.

I'm not sure how it'd play today, honestly. That was a good 10 years ago at this point (we are old) and the environment online has changed in a lot of ways. I think it would still work OK on a small game with very focused character types forced to work together in a stressful situation - which was what TGG was - but agree it's a matter of scope. If you're aiming for something bigger, I do think you'd get trolls or people who just wanted to be edgelords in ways that were 'realistic' but unpleasant. I don't think I'd ever blanket-bad IC ignorance, personally, but I also probably wouldn't run a pure historical game at this point in my life.

[faraday]

@three-eyed-crow said in Historical settings:

I also probably wouldn't run a pure historical game at this point in my life.

For me it comes down to respecting your fellow players. This is why I prefer cooperative/consent-ish games. There's a world of difference between someone throwing their character's IC ignorance around obnoxiously and someone leveraging that in a cooperative way to make an interesting story for all involved.

It's the difference between asking someone "Hey, is it going to bother you if my character responds badly to your female doctor? If so, I can bow out or take a different approach..." or - even better - working that into a story of how maybe you guys can learn to work together - versus just getting all up in someone's face under the banner of "But it's IC!"

[Arkandel]

@faraday said in Historical settings:

@three-eyed-crow said in Historical settings:
For me it comes down to respecting your fellow players. This is why I prefer cooperative/consent-ish games.

Even in the most consent-based games I've played someone could say things without requiring consent. So for example if I'm throwing a knife at your PC you can say it didn't hit you; if I'm throwing N-bombs you can't say I never said it. And if you're offended on an OOC level consent won't mean much.

I mean sure, if your players are respectful on that same OOC level there is no issue, but that's a really big if.

On the other hand I do dislike creating rules around trying to stop jerks from doing jerk things; it tends to impact good players the most, and the bad ones will figure out a way around them. I'm kind of torn on this one.

[faraday]

@arkandel said in Historical settings:

Even in the most consent-based games I've played someone could say things without requiring consent. So for example if I'm throwing a knife at your PC you can say it didn't hit you; if I'm throwing N-bombs you can't say I never said it. And if you're offended on an OOC level consent won't mean much.

Obviously it depends on the game and it's policies, but there's a difference between consent (which, yes, is more geared towards the knife example) and cooperation (which implies a philosophy of how players are expected to approach each other and work together in game). I would argue that if cooperative storytelling is your game's mission statement, then engaging someone with offensive language is running contrary to that mission.

[Tinuviel]

@arkandel said in Historical settings:

On the other hand I do dislike creating rules around trying to stop jerks from doing jerk things

Have detailedish rules tailored for 'decent people that sometimes make errors of judgement' and an ultimate open-ended 'anti-jerkwad' rule. Then whenever a punishment for the latter is applied, be open and transparent about it. This not only ensures that players know what will trigger your ire, but it also allows them an inside view of the way staff works when it's usually a "don't look behind the curtain" thing.

[Ziggurat]

@tinuviel That's not really true though. F&L was set in Vegas, and the shooting that happened at that concert went down while that game was live, but the event was kept OOC only - folks (I think rightfully) decided it'd be in poor taste to RP about that in a WoD game. I'm currently working on a WoD MU set in Charleston, and I've had to wrestle a bit with what that means for the Dylan Roof shooting. In terms of game mechanics, that church would be a Wound, or Malus Loci, or possibly be haunted by ghosts. But I think using the victims as props is disrespectful, and using the event as a prop is kind of disrespectful, even - at least because the way that manifests in WoD is very visceral, by way of ghosts and spirits and the like.

In your everyday life, I'm sure you have a couple of conversations a week, minimum, about the political circus in DC, if you're American. Trump's newest gauche remark or tyrannical power play, etc. Recently friends of mine have been talking about Bolsonaro's election, even, which happened in Brazil. But no one talks about these things IC on a MU, and the racist or discriminatory policies that we are experiencing IRL don't come up on these MUs. You don't get a lot of scenes with MAGA hats, or ICE investigators, or proud boys beating up Spring Courtiers that they perceive as 'degenerates'. Some of that stuff would fit right into WoD (unfortunately), but people come to these games often in search of escapism. They don't want the prejudices and social ills of their lives to follow them into their fantasy world, and I can't fault them - I often feel the same.

If you can have a game set in 2018 where NPCs dont talk about the Kavanaugh hearings or detention camps at the border, POC characters are not harassed or living with fear that they will be lynched (just happened in Ferguson like last week), where there are no 'Unite The Right' rallies, and discussions between PCs about what they will do if birthright citizenship is repealed, etc etc........ you can totally have a game set in 1925 where the N-word isn't tossed around in every scene, women are able to carry around guns without all the menfolk nudging each other and cracking up, and so on.

ETA: That said? As an ST/player I have never shied away from my NPCs sometimes saying things that are racist or discriminatory if I felt it were realistic. A homophobic ghost is going to say homophobic slurs, a racist vampire is going to make casually racist remarks. I don't usually go full-Tarantino with it, sure, maybe more Martin McDonagh where an NPC might casually insult someone as a 'f*g' or something to that effect. I always try to drop a disclaimer at the start of the scene or before a particularly nasty pose that the character might offend or be disruptive and that folks should page me if they have concerns or need to establish boundaries. If no one reaches out? I assume we're all prepared for an HBO original series level of brashness.

[Tinuviel]

@ziggurat I certainly agree that specific events can be ignored or what-have-you. But in terms of wide-spread social wobbling, I think it'd be... disingenuous, I guess, to totally pretend they're not there.

I'm not saying that every plot or NPC or whatever has to react to it outwardly, but the perception and feeling of a time and place should be preserved as much as possible. Naturally, if you're setting a game in now, and an event happens you aren't prepared for, then skirting around it is definitely appropriate especially if it's of a horrific nature.

I'm also not shouting for PCs to react 'authentically' really, though that's an option if that's what you want to explore... There are ways of portraying a level of racism or sexism or homophobia without outright yelling 'bender' every opportunity you get.

Still, games are about fun and if something isn't fun to play, you shouldn't have to play it. That said, if you don't find it fun to explore the causes of, say, the Harlem Renaissance, then you shouldn't use that as your backdrop. If you don't want to explore the legend of the Trojan War, don't set your game in the period that's going on.

Most folks don't play a modern game to explore those themes, and that's fine. But if someone says "oh we're making a game set in the latter half of WWII in California..." some folks are going to think "Okay... so are the Japanese-Americans in camps, or..."