Diversity Representation in MU*ing

[Grayson]

@JinShei To be fair, the American standard pancake does seem to be a bit more complicated than ours.

[JinShei]

@Grayson We have to be fair these days?! Who bought that rule in?

[Tinuviel]

@JinShei said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Grayson We have to be fair these days?! Who bought that rule in?

[JinShei]

@Tinuviel

[Tinuviel]

@JinShei said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Tinuviel

[Pandora]

Please don't do to communities of color what the MU* community has done to lesbians.

If you care about diversity in gaming, reach out to your black friends, your gay friends, your trans friends, your disabled friends, and let them know what they're missing out on in this hobby.

[Tinuviel]

@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

let them know what they're missing out on in this hobby

Which is... what, exactly?

[Pandora]

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

let them know what they're missing out on in this hobby

Which is... what, exactly?

Fuck your excellent point.
This is a great hobby plagued by some massive problems.

[Tinuviel]

@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

let them know what they're missing out on in this hobby

Which is... what, exactly?

Fuck your excellent point.
This is a great hobby plagued by some massive problems.

Well sure, it's great. For us, those already in it.
What's the big draw for other people, though? Why is this better than any other way they could spend their time?

[Pandora]

@Tinuviel Creative writing outlet? Text-based roleplaying is a goldmine of opportunity for anyone that loves fiction, but unfortunately in the earliest days it was plagued by the need to have certain things - regular, steady internet access, source books, a familiarity with thematic information, uninterrupted free time, etc. These things weren't as readily available to people from lesser means.

Now, if ever there was a time, it is NOW, to share something we love with people where there is no boundary, no cost-barrier, and less time-obligations than ever before. You might disagree as to the merit of MUing these days and I'd be hard-pressed to disagree, but if there are going to be 29 pages about diversity, let's at least consider PLAYER diversity.

Inviting Rachel Dolezal to your Ladies Who Lunch club doesn't make it more diverse. Pretending to be black doesn't add more blackness to a game.

[Tinuviel]

@Pandora Oh I agree, a more diverse player base leads to more actual diversity on games, that's a no brainer. But that's a very long term, and difficult plan that requires actual... recruiting, to an ancient system. There's no real easy "and this is how you MU" since everyone has different ideas of what is acceptable or proper.

That and we're a rather insular bunch, at least from my experience. If you don't know something mechanical, you'll get help. But if you overstep one of our many unwritten social codes, it's rare that an explanation is given. So I'd say that technically the learning curve is small, but in reality that's rarely the case.

[Prototart]

i’ve talked about it before but my experience in trying to get non-MU* people to MU* was a total nightmare and, honestly, my experience as someone who came to this from a non-traditional background/route isn’t a ton better, i’m just too dumb to stop coming back

yeah most places tend to be insular but the bigger problem is that the geek social fallacies are, like, the fucking Ten Commandments

with somebody who’s never been part of that - i guess, nerd culture, in my experience almost nobody lasts longer than like, a couple of months tops. because the most random shit can just be a total landmine that will trigger someone to go on like the most insane screaming tirade about, like, a comic from the 70s or whatever and people who didn’t grow up in nerd culture look at that and think “what the fuck,” not “oh yeah im like that about sonic’s arms.”

i used to invite bartenders, security guys, and other dancers

i don’t invite anyone anymore

[Darren]

@JinShei said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Darren ... a mix? One cup of flour, one cup of milk, one egg. Shake.

That's a great recipe for popovers but not for pancakes!

[Lotherio]

@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

This is a great hobby plagued by some massive problems.

So, basically its sort of like real life?

[Tinuviel]

@Lotherio said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

This is a great hobby plagued by some massive problems.

So, basically its sort of like real life?

Except this is optional.

[Prototart]

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Lotherio said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

This is a great hobby plagued by some massive problems.

So, basically its sort of like real life?

Except this is optional.

technically, so is life

[SparklesTheClown]

I think @Pandora brings up something that this thread is definitely capable of discussing.

The fact that the vast majority of lesbian characters in MUSHes are literally the same ultra horny sexpest character. Not that I have room to talk about sexpests, but I feel like I so rarely see lesbian characters who aren't obviously a dude RPing a fetish. If this was black characters they'd all be sitting around eating watermelon and nailing all the white women (I know it seems like I'm throwing stones from a glass house, but I definitely do things in MUSHes other than nail all the white women on most days).

[Pandora]

This post is deleted!

[Pandora]

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I think @Pandora brings up something that this thread is definitely capable of discussing.

The fact that the vast majority of lesbian characters in MUSHes are literally the same ultra horny sexpest character. Not that I have room to talk about sexpests, but I feel like I so rarely see lesbian characters who aren't obviously a dude RPing a fetish. If this was black characters they'd all be sitting around eating watermelon and nailing all the white women (I know it seems like I'm throwing stones from a glass house, but I definitely do things in MUSHes other than nail all the white women on most days).

Exactly this. I'm not going to lie, the idea of a bunch of white people sitting around chatting for 20+ pages about how to artificially inflate the diversity in games makes me nervous for what that artificial diversity will look like, and the continuing chatter about how the community is too insular to invite in minorities so it's better to pretend to be them instead is tragic as fuck.

Fix the culture if you want diversity, and if you can't be bothered, leave us out.

[SparklesTheClown]

@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Exactly this. I'm not going to lie, the idea of a bunch of white people sitting around chatting for 20+ pages about how to artificially inflate the diversity in games makes me nervous for what that artificial diversity will look like, and the continuing chatter about how the community is too insular to invite in minorities so it's better to pretend to be them instead is tragic as fuck.

Fix the culture if you want diversity, and if you can't be bothered, leave us out.

I do think that there are a surprising amount of minorities in this hobby, but I think they tend to congregate around certain places, or stay under the radar. Like, Mega Man MUSH and String Theory (even though ST is invite only now) both have more minorities than the average MUSH. The concentration of trans people on Mega Man MUSH is higher than I've seen anywhere else, which is a part of the reason I've been trying to talk non-MUSHer trans friends into giving it a try.

I think this thread definitely has value, as I'm a strong advocate in I'd rather white people or straight people or whatever have some kind of place where they can ask sincere questions and sincerely educate themselves on things. I think it's more helpful than not.

I've been planning my own MUSH for quite a while (taking my time this time, which is why I haven't mentioned it), which I hope will be a fresh experience that makes POCs and LGBTQ people feel welcome and such, and obviously everyone else. There's certain MUSHing cultures, by no real fault of their own, where a minority would just not necessarily feel like they belong to that OOC culture. It's not anything malicious, and I'm not gonna start dropping game names, but some MUSHing cultures are just culturally not somewhere a minority would feel all that comfortable on an OOC level, just on the sheer fact that they can't relate to the OOC culture. Which for me is more of a neutral statement than "this is good" or "this is bad", just that I want to try to encourage a larger variety of OOC MUSHing cultures. They definitely exist, Mega Man MUSH's very leftist minority friendly culture, String Theory's very family oriented culture where literally the whole MUSH is friends, they're very different from each other, and are also very different from other games.

I've talked a lot in the past, even in my batshit insane WORA days, about how you can build and run a game to encourage a particular kind of culture. And I think that beyond honestly simple to avoid things like toxicity and such, it's definitely possible to build a game that feels welcoming to minorities on an OOC level. But what I failed to understand in the past is that it helps to bring people along who will actually help encourage your game to be a certain way, which is why one man shows aren't great. That's why I'm bringing so many friends along when I make my MUSH, to help me turn it into what I want it to be.

I don't think creating a particular OOC culture is a simple feat without starting out the gate with that plan in your mind. Like, those games I mentioned, they're at a point where their culture likely isn't going to change very much. Arx's culture is unlikely to change, any MUSH that's established itself at this point is not likely to change. Ultimately, if you want big cultural changes on an OOC level, you've gotta make a new environment for it.

That said, encouraging minority options in a roster game and making the characters feel more diverse, both in culture and as individuals to be honest, is one thing that can help an already existing game with this. And yeah, I do think that actually playing said characters helps, but again don't force yourself just because of that.

I've legit seen people outright not bother joining a game because it was like "ugghhh another New England/Maine game where everyone has a mansion and is a white CW character". And I've personally played countless games that take place in an urban environment but it's obvious that the people who made the game have never lived in said environment or even seemingly watched media that took place in said environment, so the characters live in this bizarrely uncanny way because there's no one to creatively drive the game to actually feel like what it's supposed to be.

And by bizarrely uncanny way, I mostly mean everyone is rich, which is so tired and overdone in modern settings. "I live in Hell's Kitchen please come hang out at my 100,000 square foot apartment with my baby, it's so rough here". Honestly, nearly every character not being rich would go such a long way in making settings feel more relatable and down to Earth, and not like a soccer mom power fantasy.

In Arx it makes sense that people are rich, since it's a game mostly focused on nobles. So I just wanted to point out that this complaint excludes Arx, as everyone being rich is narratively appropriate and serves a purpose (plus people choose to be things other than rich).