Diversity Representation in MU*ing
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@Pacha i think it would be great. I'm sorry, it seems like i'm trying to answer or correct you. Which is lame! it would be nice if there were more.
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@Pacha said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
My particular point is that I think it would be nice if there were more roster characters that were unambiguously written as being LGBTQIA
While I agree in theory, in principle I don't. The ideal roster character, in my view, is one that has a story but with details to be worked out by the player. The more room for player-driven customisation the better.
He/Him
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As far as LGBTQIA diversity goes, I think there can be a mix of "This character IS gay" or "This character IS asexual" and "This character has vague hints of towards their sexuality but it's up to you, the player, to decide which way to go."
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My PC on Arx is quite openly bisexual, and literally no one fucks with her shit.
And I’m happy with this so much.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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The first roster I picked up on Arx was unambiguously bi and hasn't yet been mentioned. I definitely played Dycard that way, too.
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I wonder how much the culture of individual games differs. When I got back into MUs in fall last year I wasn't really paying attention to this a whole lot but since then I've been on a few games and you can really tell the difference sometimes. Some game cultures are all but obsessed to the point it feels like you're playing MU* Tindr. Other games, people just -- don't care? Which is how it should be, because if you're not screwing somebody, then why the fuck should you care who they are screwing?
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@Ganymede said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
My PC on Arx is quite openly bisexual, and literally no one fucks with her shit.
And I’m happy with this so much.
Same.
Though, a woman Katarina was lovers with rostered, and someone new (AFAIK?) took the character. And they haven't logged in for a week so I've been in the limbo of "ha ha ha how are they going to react to this @mail of 'well, here's a summary of our past interaction.'"
ETA: I'm fine if they're like "oh, well, I don't really want to pick up that thread," because that's fair and no hard feelings, I just hope it doesn't make any weird drama or whatever.
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@reversed I always wonder about how to deal with this because you don't want people to not know where their character has been but you also don't want to be that person who shows up peering in a new player's bedroom window like "let's bang ok".
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I don't have the exact words I used handy but it was something to the extent of: "They were very close to the point that she was Katarina's personal bodyguard for a while during a recent thing, and Katarina is one of the people with a copy of her will in case of horribleness. Also, they were lovers, but if you have no interest in that, it's all good, no worries." Just kinda ripped the Band-Aid off.
Eta: and honestly the main reason I mentioned it was because the relationship had come up in RP with other people and I figured better to hear 'oh these two had a thing' than to have someone go 'oh, but I thought you and Kat' or something in RP and then they have to figure out wtf people are talking about. I've had similar situations on both of my alts and hated that worse!
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@saosmash I just don't even mention it. I just go 'Hey, our characters have some history, they've done this and that', where this and that is not about what happened romantically.
I mean, I wouldn't want to start something like that with a player I don't know, so why would I even tell them, they probably feel the same!
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@Goblin
It depends on how well-known the relationship was. If they were public and open about being lovers, other characters are going to know that and could possibly bring it up in RP. If it was on the secret dalliance, then you could get away with never mentioning it. -
@Ominous said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Another possible solution is incentivizing with xp. "We have these particular types of characters underrepresented right now. Make one and get a 50 xp bonus." However, I feel this would just get abused by people creating a stereotypical caricature just to reap the xp bonus. Whereas, a roster character has been created by staff, so should be more of a character than a bad joke.
Lol. Incentivizing diversity with XP? That's a shit-bomb waiting to happen.
The Center Cannot Hold.
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@HorrorHound said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Lol. Incentivizing diversity with XP? That's a shit-bomb waiting to happen.
Yeah, because WoD games haven't been doing this at all for decades.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
My point is, I can imagine all sorts of people doing something rather ignorant, it happens every day, but not doing something because someone on the internet can be both wrong and angry at the same time isn't really a reason not to. I'm, again, not advocating that anyone do anything outside of their comfort zone, but if anyone in this thread said that a white person playing a black person or whatever is basically blackface, someone please present me with that so I can see the argument. So far I've mostly seen people annoyed at grossly bad portrayals that I feel are more common sense things than anything.
The point is that back in the day, the more reasonable people would be willing to have a discussion about the implications of a white person portraying a black person in a roleplaying game. There would be rational, logical discussion about it. But due to changes in the past hmm, 20 years or so, those reasonable people are drowned out by less reasonable people. Where every time there are multiple reasons to do a particular thing, these people decide that you do this particular thing for the absolute worst reason.
And it used to be that you could safely ignore these people. Everyone could see that they were being irrational. Being contrary just to be contrary. Not any more.
You might say, "Oh, but D, there's only a very small chance of running into these people on a MU* somewhere." And to that I say, "Bull-fucking-shit." You might say, "Oh, but D, there's little chance that they could have any pull or impact." Bullshit. "Oh but it'd all stay in that game and you could just walk away if things got bad." Bullshit.
But yeah, just, like, there's really only two possible explanations for situations like these.
- The person playing the character is doing so on a degree so bad that it's obviously bothering people (I have seen this happen before and on some occasions I have seen it be so extremely bad that I was like "How is it possible that they have no idea how bad this is?")
I'm not concerned about playing something so bad that it bothers people. That wouldn't be the point of playing a black person. I'm not interested in playing a terrible stereotype. And I would not do that. I'm concerned about the second part, below.
- The person accusing the player of not doing something correctly is obviously wrong in some way and has a misunderstanding of what they're even talking about in such a way that it would be obvious to most people observing.
This is the crux of my problem. Yes, it might be that people would see that it is obvious. However, that has not prevented people from being hounded from a MU*, or being banned by such a person who happens to own/operate the MU*. My concern is that with the rise of "doxxing", my regular life would be impacted because I had the "temerity" to attempt to roleplay a person whose skin colour was not the same as my own.
It's fucked up, but I've seen it happen. It's not worth the risk, at all.
But, on the flip side, every criticism of what someone does isn't a take-down or assassination attempt. Sometimes you did do something wrong, sometimes you did fuck up playing that character, and sometimes you just need to take the L when it gets explained to you and not develop some weird years long bizarre trauma because someone said you're bad at black characters.
Your last sentence completely misses the point. It's not me with the trauma.
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idk. I have played sever black people and many non white people and never had anything approaching a shitstorm, or even a heckle. Experiences differ.
edit: several. i didn't sever anyone. I had on fake nails
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@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
The point is that back in the day, the more reasonable people would be willing to have a discussion about the implications of a white person portraying a black person in a roleplaying game. There would be rational, logical discussion about it. But due to changes in the past hmm, 20 years or so, those reasonable people are drowned out by less reasonable people. Where every time there are multiple reasons to do a particular thing, these people decide that you do this particular thing for the absolute worst reason.
And it used to be that you could safely ignore these people. Everyone could see that they were being irrational. Being contrary just to be contrary. Not any more.
I really wonder who you think are the more reasonable people in this debate, because it kinda sounds like this was never your discussion to have, to begin with, and stuff that was never OK is now actually being treated like it isn't OK. Whereas before the more reasonable people, who in this debate I'm gonna assume are people of colour, would be drowned out if they tried to raise their concerns.
Because this just sounds like the MUSoapbox version of that ol' 'PC culture has gone too far, you know back in my day we could call people a f— and a n— and nobody would bat an eyelid'.
And to that I just can't properly respond at the moment, because Stradivarius don't make violins small enough.
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@Kestrel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
I really wonder who you think are the more reasonable people in this debate, because it kinda sounds like this was never your discussion to have, to begin with, and stuff that was never OK is now actually being treated like it isn't OK. Whereas before the more reasonable people, who in this debate I'm gonna assume are people of colour, would be drowned out if they tried to raise their concerns.
Because this just sounds like the MUSoapbox version of that ol' 'PC culture has gone too far, you know back in my day we could call people a f— and a n— and nobody would bat an eyelid'.
And to that I just can't properly respond at the moment, because Stradivarius don't make violins small enough.
The more reasonable people are the ones who would take things at face value, and not assume the worst.
And your second paragraph there is exactly that, assuming the worst. That was not what I was talking about.
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@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
The more reasonable people are the ones who would take things at face value, and not assume the worst.
You must be new here.
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@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
The more reasonable people are the ones who would take things at face value, and not assume the worst.
but
@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
The point is that back in the day, the more reasonable people would be willing to have a discussion about the implications of a white person portraying a black person in a roleplaying game.
How can you both take things at face value and have a discussion about implications, unless your stance is there are no implications so the discussion shouldn't happen?
