Race and gender affecting gameplay

[drizzan]

Don't be sexist, just because I play as a girl doesn't mean I should be treated differently. Women in Japan are being denied their rights because of their menstruation and you make a post like this. You monster!

 

GIRL POWER!!!

I think maybe alot of people here misunderstood me.

I just want my gameplay experience to get different by playing another race/gender, and not get another Skyrim where nothing matters.

 

I am not sexist at all, I like playing as both genders when i play games, explore all options and variations whenever possible.

Also the thing about Ceasars Legion treating women bad was just an example of differences between gender choices in a game, if you have played Baldurs Gate 2 you may remember that the drows in the underdark treat you alot better if you are female, I like that difference alot aswell.

 

So no people, I am neither racist or sexist, I just want to be immersed with a hopefully amazing upcoming game, and I thought i'd share my thought since who knows, maybe they help someone. =)

[Labadal]

I want to hear some good swear words and insults when I play the game, otherwise it will be a complete failure.

I want to read swear words and insults. Hopefully there will be some that I have to look up in a dictionary.

[AGX-17]

It's rather absurd to think Obsidian, of all devs, wouldn't flesh such a thing out in detail. There's no reason to fear they would make PE's handling of player's choice of race and sex in a way similar to Bethesda's (that is, barely/not at all.) Especially considering it's primarily text with a small amount of voiceover. I got called "my little honey-bunny" by the doctor at Camp Forlorn Hope when I was playing a Confirmed Bachelor Courier. Keeping in mind that race has always been a non-issue in the Fallout world (since the real conflict is between humans and mutants of various kinds; Super Mutants and Ghouls are almost certainly no longer the same species as Homo Sapiens.)

Edited February 9, 2014 by AGX-17

[Arkthuris]

One game that I thought approached gender issues in a pretty mature and straightforward way was Mount and Blade. Women and men were given no inherent stat bonuses but the game warns you that it is a medieval society and that the treatment of women is very much reflected in that. Until you get significantly more renown as a female character, you have absolutely no chance of a lord given you a fief (they even say that other lords will think that he's been "bewitched" regardless of your prowess in combat). Even when trying to court a lord, female characters have to find one who is more open-minded than his peers. Women after all, weren't usually mercenary captains or adventurers in the time period and that lifestyle is seen as "too wild" for men in the game. Hell there are two female claimants in the game who you can side with. In spite of how these things limit female characters, it's what actually paints Warband as a fairly progressive game. It features a sexist society while still having female characters equal to males in terms of stats and thus illustrates the irrationality of such a society.

 

Then again though, Pillars of Eternity may not take place in a traditional medieval society. Considering the role that magic may have in society (the forces of which I'm pretty sure don't care about your race/gender), traditional gender roles might simply not apply.

[teknoman2]

One game that I thought approached gender issues in a pretty mature and straightforward way was Mount and Blade. Women and men were given no inherent stat bonuses but the game warns you that it is a medieval society and that the treatment of women is very much reflected in that. Until you get significantly more renown as a female character, you have absolutely no chance of a lord given you a fief (they even say that other lords will think that he's been "bewitched" regardless of your prowess in combat). Even when trying to court a lord, female characters have to find one who is more open-minded than his peers. Women after all, weren't usually mercenary captains or adventurers in the time period and that lifestyle is seen as "too wild" for men in the game. Hell there are two female claimants in the game who you can side with. In spite of how these things limit female characters, it's what actually paints Warband as a fairly progressive game. It features a sexist society while still having female characters equal to males in terms of stats and thus illustrates the irrationality of such a society.

 

Then again though, Pillars of Eternity may not take place in a traditional medieval society. Considering the role that magic may have in society (the forces of which I'm pretty sure don't care about your race/gender), traditional gender roles might simply not apply.

well. PE is not at all medieval (before the 14th century to make an analogy with our timeline), it is set in a colonial-late renascence age (that would be late 16th to mid 17th century of our timeline). society was still sexist and male controlled at the time, but the social status of women had improved from the "barelly better than lepers" that it was during medieval times

[Diagoras]

 

 

but the social status of women had improved from the "barelly better than lepers" that it was during medieval times

 

What? This is the era that included some major political figures who were women, as well as serious acceptance of women on the battlefield. If anything, the professionalization of the Early Modern Period systematically excluded minorities from the new professional military class.

[milczyciel]

I'd be glad if it's anything like what there was in Arcanum.

This pretty much, though I must admit it would be an unimaginable money sink to satisfy MY hopes for a game recognizing all of the factors I deem to be important. In fact that would mean writing different dialogues for every race, gender, class and reputation I would end up. Add some recognition for decisions made through the game which I guess applies to more than 50% of game's text*. I.E. something that could never be.

 

If game has two, maybe three variables (like "the Witcher") then maybe, but in case of PoE I'll have to trim down my unreasonable expectations and hope it will at least differ from DA:O when after the Battle of Ostagar, my char and every one else pretty much forgot she's a vengeful female city elf with a blood of a noble on her hands.

 

And don't even make me start on "stupid-chars"

 

TL:DR

PoE will cater to those sentiments, and will quite probably kick ass in this regard, sure. But given the budget and the size of developer's team it can't be bigger than that. There's wishful thinking and there's outright self-deception. So it would be great if I'd stop doing the latter

 

* keeping it oversimplified: 5! makes 120 variables for that "out of thin air" 50% of text I pulled out. Even though they could be segmented and interchangeable, thus keeping that number far lower and less intimidating, it would still count as "****loads"

 

most games do racism in a hamfisted way. No subtlety at all. I sincerely hope that won't be the case for PoE

But isn't that truth about racism/sexism etc in general? When it's subtle, then it (in most cases) ends up being barely recognizable and even less often called out. Don't we tend to apply those terms to those who are either fiercely defensive and proud about it, or to those who's effort to hide it are indeed "hamfisted"?

[GrayAngel]

First of all to do such a thing a lot more money and time so most like it won't be done in this game to some extend it will be but that be some minor changes nothing major and second are World is not Sunshine's and Rainbows it very mean place so if you making Mature game that what you get racism ,subjugation, corruption and many more that mean Mature World.

Best it was show in DA: Origins when you have 2 different start as Dwarf one commoner other as nobility and that Mature if someone not play bother Origins in short as Commoner your nobody just because you born poor and as Nobility you have easy live to that point you could kill anybody below you.

[Sarex]

I think maybe alot of people here misunderstood me.

I just want my gameplay experience to get different by playing another race/gender, and not get another Skyrim where nothing matters.

 

I am not sexist at all, I like playing as both genders when i play games, explore all options and variations whenever possible.

Also the thing about Ceasars Legion treating women bad was just an example of differences between gender choices in a game, if you have played Baldurs Gate 2 you may remember that the drows in the underdark treat you alot better if you are female, I like that difference alot aswell.

 

So no people, I am neither racist or sexist, I just want to be immersed with a hopefully amazing upcoming game, and I thought i'd share my thought since who knows, maybe they help someone. =)

 

Dude, I hate to brake it to you, but it was a joke. I was just getting ahead of the train so that this thread (http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64997-body-types-and-video-games/) doesn't spill in to here. I even gave you a like on the original post. I really thought that the "GIRL POWER" bit was a dead give away.

[TrashMan]

I don't mean to sound negative or come off as a troll, however It dawned on me recently these types of requests are how we teach racism to people. You can show a baby to children of different cultures and nationality's who are between the ages of 4-10 and ask them between a black and white baby, which is the good one, pretty one, ugly one, the one that looks most like you, etc? You're not telling them which to choose, but by your asking them, 15 out of 20 of them will say the white baby is the superior one and the black baby is bad, ugly, etc. You are asking for the same thing in the game, only asking for it in a different way. Why should anyone be penalized because they're different? 

 

I think it's fair to get special perks based upon the class or role you play, but I really hope the mature thing to do in this instance is treat everyone with gender and racial equality. In fact, even this week- that seems to be a hot button in the olympics. 

 

 

Oh please. Lay off the preaching.

The "mature" thing to do cerantly isn't what you are proposing. It's more of ignoring such a thing as race exist.

And yet it does. And in case of PE, we're dealing with different species to be more exact.

Things like profiling will never go away. Ever. Because we're all doing it, it's part of how our brain works.

And if there is any setting in which such things are justifies, it would be fantasy setting. Because differences there can be far more than superficial.

 

***

 

I find white women more attractive then black. Does than make me racist? According to you, it does.

 

[HoonDing]

An all-female party could have certain... unique options to bypass combat. And perhaps, unique way of losing in combat as well, like in some oriental games.

 

It's not exactly unchartered territory for Obsidian anyway, considering you could sleep with Matthew Perry in FO:NV, and have the Legionnaries try you out.

[PrimeJunta]

@TrashMan IMO it's generally a mistake to classify people as "racist" or "not racist." It's more accurate and more useful IMO to describe attitudes or actions that way. I believe everybody has some racist attitudes, and occasionally acts in racist ways. I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't, and I can't see how it could be otherwise, as we absorb our attitudes and learn our reactions from our social environment, and our social environment is deeply racist.

 

 

Just last week someone was talking about an acquaintance and said "well, you know, she's not all that careful with money." My reflexive reaction was "but she's Jewish!" Yeah, that was racist.

 

 

Thing is, different people deal with this situation in remarkably different ways. Many if not most get reflexively defensive about it. They angrily reject any suggestion that they might hold racist attitudes or act in racist ways, often inventing quite elaborate stories to avoid having to address such suggestions at face value. Others acknowledge that they too have such attitudes and occasionally act in such ways, and therefore pause to consider whether the suggestion might have some merit; if they decide that it does, in fact, have merit, they might even attempt to change their behavior on that point. Or if it's a deep, unconscious bias – as is usually the case – they attempt to be more aware of it and catch it before they act on it.

 

I much prefer to hang out with the second variety of people.

 

So yeah, I would characterize your preference for white women as racist, but I would not consider it helpful to characterize you as racist for it. It's just a racist attitude. Everybody has them. The more intersting thing is what you do with it. If I was in your shoes, I would acknowledge that preference, and then attempt to be aware of it and not let it influence the way I interact with women of any race.

 

 

 

I'm quite curious to see how you react to this message. It could go any of a number of ways, starting from the most common, reflexively defensive "I'm not racist dammit!" and going down any number of paths from there.

 

 

[drizzan]

 

I think maybe alot of people here misunderstood me.

I just want my gameplay experience to get different by playing another race/gender, and not get another Skyrim where nothing matters.

 

I am not sexist at all, I like playing as both genders when i play games, explore all options and variations whenever possible.

Also the thing about Ceasars Legion treating women bad was just an example of differences between gender choices in a game, if you have played Baldurs Gate 2 you may remember that the drows in the underdark treat you alot better if you are female, I like that difference alot aswell.

 

So no people, I am neither racist or sexist, I just want to be immersed with a hopefully amazing upcoming game, and I thought i'd share my thought since who knows, maybe they help someone. =)

 

Dude, I hate to brake it to you, but it was a joke. I was just getting ahead of the train so that this thread (http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64997-body-types-and-video-games/) doesn't spill in to here. I even gave you a like on the original post. I really thought that the "GIRL POWER" bit was a dead give away.

 

Yes I kinda realized that after I posted, it was an answer to other posts aswell though just didnt quote all of them.

But then again you never know on the internet so had to make a post like that to be sure noone misunderstood me. =)

[JFSOCC]

 

most games do racism in a hamfisted way. No subtlety at all. I sincerely hope that won't be the case for PoE

But isn't that truth about racism/sexism etc in general? When it's subtle, then it (in most cases) ends up being barely recognizable and even less often called out. Don't we tend to apply those terms to those who are either fiercely defensive and proud about it, or to those who's effort to hide it are indeed "hamfisted"?

 

I think there is a very interesting documentary for you to watch called "blue eyed" it's about a teacher teaching kids about racism through a rather intensive experiment, something which she's since also done on adults. Many adults going through it come out with a whole new realisation about racism that goes beyond what may have been obvious to them. Noticing that you are constantly subtly excluded from events, invitations, promotions, has a much more sour (and to my mind realistic) experience than "just" experiencing pejorative name calling, or violence. (especially as there will be expectation that you know how to deal with violence in project eternity) Having your Race (or your godlike heritage) be the explanation for malicious rumours, suppositions or judgement of your character goes far beyond how I've seen it displayed in games.

 

Having constant negativity showered over you and then when you fail because of it, because of your low self esteem, your poor chances, and then having your failure explained by your race. That kind of pain, I have not seen in games. Maybe it's because it's too touchy of a subject to deal with, but since P:E is going to be a game with mature themes, I believe it could be a good addition.

 

 

Just last week someone was talking about an acquaintance and said "well, you know, she's not all that careful with money." My reflexive reaction was "but she's Jewish!" Yeah, that was racist.

 

http://explosm.net/comics/2768/ Edited February 10, 2014 by JFSOCC

[rjshae]

Every such major element of reactivity just multiplies the cost of production. It might be better to limit it to just a few bigoted individuals and assume everybody else has accepted a diverse world in which soul-based magic can turn anybody into a powerful individual.

[Failion]

If anything obsidian should make a parody of the Marxist crap they indoctrinating into college students now days. Have like that half dragon chick from icewind dale 2. A big brute evil woman antagonist that constantly brings up for the men she bullies or kills to check their privilege. And even if she killing men and women tell them to check their privilege regardless and HER privelege to commit mindless acts of pure evil. So basically a lunatic feminazi.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Failion

[Agremont]

Oh dear.

[rjshae]

I volunteer Failion to write the agitprop lore...

[Death Machine Miyagi]

This issue is why I've found it extremely difficult to get into the Elder Scrolls games. When all paths are open, and every NPC reacts to you almost exactly the same regardless of race or background or accomplishments or anything else, the PC you've created loses all flavor and becomes a generic set of stats on legs. 

 

If I'm part of a persecuted minority, I'd like to feel persecuted. If I'm part of an honored group, I'd like to feel honored. I created an Altmer in Skyrim hoping to feel the hatred of the Nords for the oppressive Thalmor, to be blamed for all the suffering they were going through under the persecution of that organization. Never happened, and so my Altmer was boring, and so I stopped playing.

 

So yeah, this is important to me, too. Obsidian has a good track record on this, though, so I'm not worried.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I volunteer Failion to write the agitprop lore...

 

Its like a piece of bait just waiting there for someone to lunge at it. Who will be the first?

[drizzan]

I also want to to lift forward a great RPG: Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines.

There is one vampyre "race" (Malkavians) which has unique dialogue throughout the entire game, that is extremely cool.

I hope we will get the dumb playthrough again like in the fallout series, those characters are very fun to play.

[Tamerlane]

 

I volunteer Failion to write the agitprop lore...

 

Its like a piece of bait just waiting there for someone to lunge at it. Who will be the first?

 

Well, nobody pounced on Drudanae's... uh... fantasies...

[Sheikh]

Its worth mentioning that indeed, Bethesdas and perhaps more precisely Todd Howard's attitude in my opinion serves as exactly the attitude NOT to have when making an RPG.

[fkldnhlsdngsfnhlsndlg]

I feel it is really important that the race and gender you play has an impact on the world

 

Shouldn't this be the other way around?

[TrashMan]

One game that I thought approached gender issues in a pretty mature and straightforward way was Mount and Blade. Women and men were given no inherent stat bonuses but the game warns you that it is a medieval society and that the treatment of women is very much reflected in that. Until you get significantly more renown as a female character, you have absolutely no chance of a lord given you a fief (they even say that other lords will think that he's been "bewitched" regardless of your prowess in combat). Even when trying to court a lord, female characters have to find one who is more open-minded than his peers. Women after all, weren't usually mercenary captains or adventurers in the time period and that lifestyle is seen as "too wild" for men in the game. Hell there are two female claimants in the game who you can side with. In spite of how these things limit female characters, it's what actually paints Warband as a fairly progressive game. It features a sexist society while still having female characters equal to males in terms of stats and thus illustrates the irrationality of such a society.

 

Then again though, Pillars of Eternity may not take place in a traditional medieval society. Considering the role that magic may have in society (the forces of which I'm pretty sure don't care about your race/gender), traditional gender roles might simply not apply.

 

Honestly, given that men and women AREN'T equal physicly, I find this as a cop-out. It's a cheap way to place the massage "men and women should be treated equally" by making them completely equal...when in reality they are not.

Of course, you're not going to treat them COMPLETELY equally in RL either, but we are talking in general terms here.

 

 

 

 

So yeah, I would characterize your preference for white women as racist, but I would not consider it helpful to characterize you as racist for it. It's just a racist attitude. Everybody has them. The more intersting thing is what you do with it. If I was in your shoes, I would acknowledge that preference, and then attempt to be aware of it and not let it influence the way I interact with women of any race.

 

It's a matter of taste. No different than preferring redheads to blondes.

Not something I would classify as racist.

I don't see how it would affect the way I usually interact with women.