@egg said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@Auspice So the two choices are to play someone exactly like yourself or a stereotype?
It doesn't have to be like this. People can educate themselves. I don't even run a game so I have zero power to "shove" anyone into doing anything at all. All I'm doing here is talking.
Okay then, tell me.
Why should I play a black person?
@Kanye-Qwest said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
why are 22 year olds experts of everything that ever could be accomplished by a person
Have you ever met a 22 year old that didn't think they were an expert on everything?
@egg said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
If I spend most of my leisure hours in a place where "representing yourself" = white (and even moreso, Aryan half of the time), shouldn't I want to see change there?
Sure.
Blaming people for being white is a stupid fuckin' thing to be doing though.
@Roz said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@Tinuviel I think you're conflating a few things. One, having a fantasy setting decide to basically forego racism as part of the theme doesn't mean that all the players and the OOC experience will suddenly be free of bias, because OOCly we're all still brought up in this system.
Second, I think you're conflating "this experience was valuable for my personal learning and I think others could find it valuable, too" with "all games must provide this specific experience in the same way."
No, actually. Not even remotely, on either of these points.
I am speaking, specifically, about the idea that was raised that playing a POC character to tell and experience stories from the viewpoint of a POC, specifically to try to understand their point of view in reality.
@Sparks said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Granted, that pressure is more common in anything set in the modern-day world, as opposed to fantasy worlds, but I'd argue that the modern-day world is where being willing to expand your viewpoint is actually potentially important to things outside of pretendy fun-times internet story games. Since we aren't experiencing widespread and systemic real-world racial oppression of elves, or werewolves, or Togruta, or anything else mythical or purely fictional.
We're literally talking about people playing things outside of our experience and having our conceptions challenged.
Not having those conceptions rendered inert by a fantasy/fictional setting, challenging them.
How can you challenge your OOC conception of a POC's experiences without any of the impacts of what being that race entails?
@Sunny said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@Kanye-Qwest said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
since people are upvoting i'll double post instead of edit to add: but that works because it's a fantasy game. I'm not saying all games should be that way. We aren't invalidating anyone's real life experiences in Arx, any more than we are recreating or exploiting them, BECAUSE it's a fantasy.
The feedback I've heard about this from folks is good. It worked! I mean nothing is perfect, but by and large mission accomplished. It definitely doesn't DIRECTLY apply to non-fantasy games, but I do think it's valuable to examine if we can apply parts and pieces of your approach. Maybe? I don't know.
It depends what you want, naturally.
The more... verbose people in this thread seem to want a place to actually explore the reality of being a POC. Which, unfortunately, requires at least a historic series of events that Arx specifically set out to avoid.
Let's not speak as if we embody the will of our tribes, yes?
@Tributary said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Dude. She's pink. She has head tails. She shoots lightning out of her fingertips. She is NOT a person of color. Unless that color is PINK.
Well. She was a slave, and is occasionally still treated as second-class citizen in spite of her achievements...
ETA: This is not a serious contribution to the topic.
To add to my last: I'm not afraid of getting my portrayals wrong or causing offence (seriously, has anyone thought of me as someone that cares about that?). I'm afraid of being bored. I never play myself, or a version of myself, or much really resembling myself (aside from general intelligence and wit. Playing dumb is dull for me.) because I am myself, and I'm boring.
I think that if we, as a community, really want to have our conceptions challenged and our biases tested... we really need to stop talking about what we think we should do and instead get actual people with actual stories to tell and give them a place to tell those stories. Nobody gives a fuck what a middle-class white (though not White, technically) person thinks about how a black dude from the Bronx would deal with a situation. But I'd be fascinated to see what an actual Black person from the Bronx does differently to me.
I'd love more gay characters. But I sure as shit don't want straight people trying to tell gay stories.
@Sunny said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
I mean, I honestly don't mush for the challenge of it. Difficulty/challenge/work are just not things I want to do. Sometimes they're required to get to the good stuff, but I want this fun to be (relatively) easy for me, because everything else in my world is so damn hard.
ETA: When I want a challenge, my go-to is challenges that involve SKILL and objective success/failure metrics. Not my collaborative hobby. Not roleplay.
Agreed. I want my characters to be interesting, obviously, with things that are occasionally challenging to play with without being a challenge to think about. If I wanted to challenge my preconceptions or my biases, I'd read a book, not play a game. And I think that's perfectly okay. So sure, partly it's escapism. I don't want to turn off the news and go to a game only to have to deal with the same damn thing. But mostly it's about my interests. I play old characters, generally, because that interests me. I play characters of cultures that interest me. I play characters with quirks that interest me.
And I utterly detest the suggestion, however mild, that I have to seriously consider the real world and all its flaws when making a character that is supposed to interest me.
@Sparks said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
I just tend to think "characters that entertain me and others" and "characters who differ from my own personal OOC viewpoint and experiences in significant/meaningful ways" are not mutually exclusive
And that was nowhere even near the point I was trying to make.
@silverfox It's not simply about being our escapism. It's about being our place to do our thing, within the confines of whatever setting we're in.
If I choose not to deal with a certain kind of story, so long as it's reasonable within the confines of the overall game story, then I have the expectation to have that choice simply accepted and everyone move on. The same goes for those that want to explore the intricacies of race, or culture, or whatever else.
I really hope that I'm not coming across as bigoted or bullying here, as that's not my intent. Gaming is an excellent tool to explore all kinds of things, I just don't care to be told that I must think about X, Y, or Z all of the time always or else I'm a bad person.
@Sparks said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
But if I did read a correct implication there, then I think trying to limit yourself to only roles you have direct personal knowledge of is limiting, both narratively as a player
You didn't read it correctly, no.
And yes, your overall point is valid. But my only response is... so?
I don't want to use my fleeting RP time to break biases or shift my viewpoint. I want to play characters that entertain me and others. I spend my entire life learning about cultures and experiences both extant and extinct. I don't want to do that when I get to play make believe with my friends.
So again, people are going to play what they want to play.
@Sunny said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
I agree it would be nice to see a more diverse collection of characters.
It absolutely would.
But I'd hate to suggest the idea that we should all play a POC, or queer, or differently-abled (or whatever the term is now) character simply because we want diversity for the sake of having it.
I'm all for encouraging diversity in terms of players and characters. Diversity of all kinds.
But people will always want to play what they want to play, and we shouldn't suggest that they shouldn't. Unless there's some inherent evil or immorality to what they're playing that goes against the setting.
@Kanye-Qwest said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@Groth said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Should people challenge themselves more and make more of an attempt to portray other cultures?
We do that, plenty. By playing in fictional settings with their own cultures.
Is gaming a good way to explore things you can't in your reality? Absolutely. Would I trust any random Tom, Jane, or Ashley to explore that with me on a MU? Christ no.
wow excuse you i am very trustworthy
I'd probably be exceptionally trusting with you regarding certain things I could explore. But I know the online you, at least more than I do the average bumfuck MUer.
ETA: This sounded more like a clumsy pickup line at a BDSM club than how I intended...
@Groth said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Should people challenge themselves more and make more of an attempt to portray other cultures?
We do that, plenty. By playing in fictional settings with their own cultures.
Is gaming a good way to explore things you can't in your reality? Absolutely. Would I trust any random Tom, Jane, or Ashley to explore that with me on a MU? Christ no.
@egg said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
why do people love blue eyes? Is it just because they're pretty?
Because they do. That's literally all the reason anyone should need to play any kind of character they want, barring the socially and morally unacceptable ones.
You can't make people interested in something, in a casual hobby setting, they aren't interested in by demanding they think about it real hard. Why do I want to play a white person? Because I'm a white person, and it's easy. Could I play a straight Puerto Rican woman with aspirations to become a neurosurgeon? Sure. It'd be fuckin' boring for me, though, because that's not what I want.
I'm here to entertain myself and enjoy my time, not fill a quota.
People find blue eyes appealing. So they want to play someone they find appealing.
So fuckin' what?
@egg said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Not malice. Just apathy/ignorance.
Okay, well you're attributing that where it isn't warranted. Playing a white character doesn't mean people are apathetic to anything, it means they want to play a white character.