How should IC discrimination be handled?

[Lithium]

@collective said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

@faraday

Let me start this by saying that I don't think 'Theme' trumps human beings. I just don't. If a hypothetical game runner does, they should post a notice saying so in policy or character gen, so I can move along and find another game.

But in those cases, it's perfectly okay for a given character to not like another character. What's not okay is to seek that character out to abuse them, if they've asked you not to. That does mean that certain people who must play their character as being assholes to a certain class of character might not get a chance to RP with many people of that class.

That's okay. Both players and characters are probably going to benefit by that distance and lack of tension.

Theme trumps all.

Without theme, then the game loses it's purpose. Without theme then people are not playing within the very /game/ that has been built. Theme violations are one of the most annoying and immersion breaking things that can happen.

If the /theme/ includes discrimination, then that is part of the theme. If it does not, then that is /also/ part of the theme. Trying to go against theme in /either/ direction is equally immersion breaking.

I would say I hate to type this, but I don't.

No game is meant for everyone.

There are plenty of games that I don't play on because I dislike the theme. That is 100% ok! It's not a good game for me.

Trying to force any game to conform to /you/ instead of the /theme/ is hubris and ego at crazy levels.

Nobody is forcing anyone to RP anything, you can always log off.

I say this as a trifecta of discrimination points, Lesbian, Native American, and a Woman. Just because I am those things does /not/ give me the right to try and change someone else's game theme, or anyone else's character. I will point out theme violations though, and hope Staff does something about that.

If I don't like the flavor of the Kool-Aid, I am not gonna drink it.

[Collective]

@lithium I respect your right to have an opinion.

And for the ... eighth time ... (thank god this is isn't a drinking game). At no point did I say that no game should have in-character discrimination. My 'hubris' is apparently in believing that no matter how many times I type that, people aren't going to read it as 'I want to take away your bigoted characters'.

I don't. I don't want to play with them, true. But I don't want to take them away, either.

As for 'logging off', I do. There are plenty of games where I've logged in and in the OOC room or the first scene or two IC I run into something I find distasteful. I go elsewhere. I don't make a fuss, don't change the game, I just go someplace else, on the theory that if that's the kind of fun they want to have, we're not going to along anyway.

[Collective]

@sunny said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

ETA: Is it really that big of an OOC ask for you (generic) to not use that particular word in reference to my PC?

To judge by this thread? Yes, yes it is.

And to be honest, it's pretty disappointing.

[Lithium]

This post is deleted!

[Collective]

@lithium I didn't.

I said it doesn't, unless there was a typo. Now I have to go look.

[Lithium]

@collective You're right, I misread. My apologies.

[Collective]

@lithium said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

@collective You're right, I misread. My apologies.

No worries.

[Seraphim73]

@deadculture said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

Oh, and the 8th Sea, as has been mentioned, is pretty equal in regards to how shipcrews are rostered. I don't think you'll find much in the way of gender discrimination there, at least functionally speaking.

Just for the record:

Among pirates and merchants, that's true, but the national navies are still male-only (although there are a couple of female characters who served as "boys" for a while), and it is difficult as a female character to have gone to a formal school for medicine or navigation. There is no homophobia in Tortuga or on the ships. There are also ex-slave PCs, and two slave-holding plantations on the island. Both sexism and racism exist in the world of The 8th Sea, but have been toned down to "good" Hollywood levels (because we all know that there are bad Hollywood levels of both too). It might touch PCs, but usually only by their players' choice or in off-hand sort of ways ("You're a doctor? Never would have expected it from a woman. Sure, you can take a look at the dead body.").

If someone is uncomfortable with that much, they are welcome to talk to Staff about it on the game, and we'll see if we can arrange a concept that is unlikely to touch on any of it.

@sunny said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

Now, if it was a Wild Wild West movie game (see: Will Smith), I would not expect there to be a problem with wanting to opt-out of the racism stuff. Cos that's not the point of it (we have giant spider robots, ffs, we are not going for historical accuracy).

Interestingly enough, there was a good deal of racism in the Wild Wild West movie. Heck, they nearly lynched the black main character.

[Apos]

@rebekahse said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

As someone who sticks around these games for the day-to-day narrative/social RP aspects rather than the endless cycle of PRPs, I get frustrated when a game's setting goes out of its way to remove every negative societal trait that I would potentially have to deal with. Maybe sometimes I want to play Joan Holloway or Betty Draper, you know?

Games set in crappy/oppressive worlds have flourished before, but it seems like there was some seismic shift over the last few years where everyone got worried they'd be labeled some sort of '-ist' and now everything's sanitized and pretty boring.

I'm pretty sympathetic to this. My take though is it's not a seismic shift so much as there just being less games. Like if someone wanted to make super grimdark gritty Gorean style Arx, I wouldn't think they were wrong or anything like that, just it isn't what I was going for, and I hope people do make more games that can appeal to things that are more mutually exclusive, like just whether something has a more competitive rather than collaborative vibe.

I'm definitely not trying to remove conflict entirely because of course that would be boring, but it's just what kind of stories staff wants to tell. Like I'm perfectly down for telling stories about classism and the abuses of power therein, and if someone was looking to play like some of the tropes that deal with hard lives on my game, I'd nudge them in that direction (and have). I think the issue is less sanitizing settings and more what kind of RP someone is looking for in an environment and whether the game is set up to accommodate it, regardless of theme, lemme give an example.

Say Jill really wants to RP a character as dealing with institutionalized disadvantages, and enjoys the RP from overcoming systemic struggles. Okay, maybe racism and sexism doesn't exist on the setting, but classism does, and she rolls up a character that's impoverished and could get pushed around for being poor. That still might not be what she's looking for, for a couple reasons, even if it fits the bill.

Because when people want these conflicts, the way they find them fun can be really wildly different. Like some people really want an organic feeling of antagonists jumping at them unexpectedly. That can be a blast for some people. But if you have a super collaborative environment, people just might not be playing antagonists at all, even if it's implicit in the setting, unless you have key ways of encouraging that and making sure it's okay. Basically it veers towards full consent, and that can be murder towards immersion and organic development as people fall back and carefully construct encounters to be mindful of comfort levels. Some people would find that zero fun, since they just want to jump right in, let people hit them as hard as they can, and roll with it. Most RPIs are like that, and other people would find that INCREDIBLY offputting, and quit immediately if they had that because they did not sign up to be bullied the moment they hit the grid.

Games might have the exact same theme, but wildly different ways of approaching player conflict, and it could either give a player what they want or not at all.

[Sunny]

@seraphim73 said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

@sunny said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

Now, if it was a Wild Wild West movie game (see: Will Smith), I would not expect there to be a problem with wanting to opt-out of the racism stuff. Cos that's not the point of it (we have giant spider robots, ffs, we are not going for historical accuracy).

Interestingly enough, there was a good deal of racism in the Wild Wild West movie. Heck, they nearly lynched the black main character.

So you think the racism was the point of the movie? Pretty sure I did not say that movie had no racism. It clearly had it. It would've been a bad example if it didn't. I said it would be reasonable for people to opt-out of that type of RP in this setting because it's not the point.

ETA: To clarify, re-enactment isn't the point.

[Seraphim73]

@sunny I don't think that racism was the point of the movie, but considering that it involved would be Confederate holdouts, an attempted lynching, "jokes"/taunting about slavery, and several people remarking with surprise on the idea of a black law enforcement officer, I would say that it was certainly one of the lesser themes of what was otherwise a whacky steampunk-y (delightfully) bad action movie.

That said, I think it's perfectly reasonable if some games want to scrub such things from their setting, and some games want to leave it in. People will vote with their logins. I do think that any game that makes racism or sexism or homophobia a major theme should be asking to get no players outside of a small group of assholes (and if the game is all bigots with nobody to be prejudiced against, they're likely to be disappointed too).

[peasoupling]

@bored said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

I'm also not sold that 'fantasy racism' safely, 100% avoids the nasty implications.

All I know is my favorite Dragon Age origins are Dwarf Commoner and City Elf.

[Sunny]

@seraphim73

Yep. I agree that there was racism. At no point did I suggest such was not the case.

[Ganymede]

@sunny said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

ETA: Is it really that big of an OOC ask for you (generic) to not use that particular word in reference to my PC?

I don't see anyone disagreeing that with the premise that if someone asks you to OOC stop something, you should stop it.

But I'm beginning to lose the point between the goalpost-shifting here.

I play homosexual characters. I don't expect people to know if I will take a slur right or wrong OOC. I'd prefer if they didn't use slurs IC, but I can understand that their PC might do so. I'd probably avoid RPing with them in the future.

But, because I don't really know if someone's going to take the N-word or a slur well OOCly, I try to avoid using them. And, as I can't find any particular reason to use an "-ist" when building a PC, I don't see why people don't try to use other tropes and ideas to create their edgy antagonists.

I probably wouldn't create a game with a policy of DON'T USE THESE WORDS. But I might.

[surreality]

@collective said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

But ... surely you can't be saying that I should moderate my words because they can be painful to real people behind the screen?

In a purportedly constructive discussion where you're trying to be heard and have your concerns taken seriously? You're damned right I am saying that slinging around accusatory language in such a way that it characterizes anyone who disagrees with you as desirous of being vile as a person (not a character) is not the smartest way to get people to be eager to listen to your perspective or give much of a damn at all about how you feel. Respect either goes both ways, or it doesn't get anywhere.

I mean, do I need to playing a character on a MU to get immunity from that obvious bit of common decency?

A character on a game, again, is not real. You, the actual person, are slinging insults at other actual people. The difference is non-trivial. You and your targets are real people.

The most irritating aspect of this is that most of those targets are already very aware and empathetic toward this issue and do not believe in forcing this kind of play on others who want no part of it.

Here's the thing: Why is it hurtful to suggest that it's hurtful to use that kind of language and bring those situations into play? Why is calling a gay player's gay character a fag okay, but saying 'I have to wonder why you want the right to call somebody a fag' not okay?

Except that's not what you said. Nobody would have a problem with that being said, and that is exactly the sort of question that could generate reasonable debate. Claiming that people who are interested in this discussion and finding means to create games that may have these elements as consensual or opt-in aspects of the setting -- of which I am one -- would still be allowing people who are interested in exploring these themes with fully informed and consenting roleplay partners, and, as such, are getting accused of encouraging 'human beings to be vile and hurtful to one another'.

And that's just bullshit.

I'm having a problem with the disconnect in logic and empathy here. And this is, by the way, a textbook conversation about dealing with Others. One of the quickest responses is always, 'How can we make this about how uncomfortable it makes me when you talk about how uncomfortable I'm making you by doing/saying this thing?

Sorry, nice try, but no. Own your fucking words already: you wrote them, and you clearly know what words would not have been damning of others but still conveyed the same reasonable question for debate because you used them above. You don't get a pass on saying something nasty and hurtful any more than anybody else does.

For the record, I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I AM bringing up the obvious and fundamental questions that underlay the whole disagreement. And that is, yes, uncomfortable.

When you are claiming that people are asking for the right to be vile and hurtful as players, yes, you really actually are accusing them of something pretty horrible.

I am unironically sorry folks are having to think about this stuff. Apparently for the first time.

Maybe try not saying that to a bisexual fat woman if you want to have a reasonable discussion of any kind, as if there's no discrimination that person might have encountered in their life. Particularly one who started a thread on this very same subject months ago.

[ThatGuyThere]

I am really split on this issue, I mean I do not make characters that have real life prejudices, they might hate mutants or Gangrels or whatever fictional game thing, but nothing that is an RL thing.
As far as using the terms, I would avoid that at all cost even if I was playing a character that used the term ICly. Much like with the characters I do play I rarely type out the swearing when and if they do it. For example:
"Bob lets loose a few choice expletives as he drops his hammer on his toe, "This has been the worst day of my life..." more expletives fly before he closes with, "I am going home."
I do this because i know some people find swearing off putting so until I know OOCly the the others in the scene are fine with coarse language I avoid typing the exact details even if ICly my character is not avoiding swearing. The big difference being in the case of RL slurs I would not be comfortable OOCly using them either regardless of how the other people in the scene felt.
That said I would definitely side eye any game that went so far as to ban the language from being used, yes it is the staffs prerogative but to me it just feels too nannyish for my tastes. though I fully support the right of anyone to avoid RP with those who for whatever reason they do not find enjoyable rp with.

[bored]

@sunny said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

Many of these historical games are set in time periods where there's no indoor plumbing, rampant disease, people not bathing, water and food that could possibly kill you, no reliable birth control, women dying in childbirth all over the place, etc.. The world during these time periods was not actually enjoyable or fun. A lot of these things tend to be glossed over for historical settings, realism be damned, because this part isn't fun for anybody playing in it.

Give Firan some credit, yo. It had lack of birth control and women dying in childbirth alongside the vicious racism, IC/OOC homophobia, and state-sponsored rape. Plus I think there was a disease tp once.

[deadculture]

@bored Don't forget the unofficial memes.

[surreality]

Actually, Firan... sigh. I remember the 'only RL women can play prostitutes' thing mentioned long ago. (I never played there, but it appeared to be confirmed by multiple sources, and was not just some random rumor.)

I think we can all agree that is a disturbingly gross example of sexism on all possible levels, though.

[deadculture]

@surreality said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

Actually, Firan... sigh. I remember the 'only RL women can play prostitutes' thing mentioned long ago. (I never played there, but it appeared to be confirmed by multiple sources, and was not just some random rumor.)

I think we can all agree that is a disturbingly gross example of sexism on all possible levels, though.

No, it's true. That was a hard requirement to play a whore.