Adventure Gamers - Forums

Baron_Blubba - 13 May 2021 11:30 AM

On topic: I’d like more adventure games about the Three Musketeers Saga, doing in a game-to-literature context exactly what Alexander Dumas did in a literature-to-history context: In his books, the protagonists never alter the course of established history. If Charles I *spoiler alert* was going to be executed, his characters would never change that fact. What they would do is play a behind the scenes role in either facilitating or attempting to stop the execution—they are, in a sense, ‘the secret agents of history.’ I would like a game, where we play, not as his protagonists, but as secret agents who at at work behind the scenes in his stories—fourth musketeers, if you will, although nothing as contrite as that.
I’m singling out Dumas because his stories would be *perfect* for adventure game adaptation, and the game world would be varied and beautiful and emotional. I’d love games based on many other pieces of literature too: Gormenghast (Mervyn Peake) could be sublime; much of the work of Victor Hugo (just leave Les Mis alone), Cyrano would be oh! So good!; Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche and The Lost Prince; Samuel Shellebarger’s (spelled his name wrong for sure) Prince of Foxes. All of these books take place in fascinating historic times and settings, with a focus on maintaining the integrity of the historical tapestry, while weaving in threads of fiction.

Yes! Brilliant ideas! Can someone please make this happen? So many interesting stories throughout history, and they just happen to be true!

I think what will happen eventually is there will be entire libraries of VR games based on classic works.

I’ll just say I disagree with your entire point. Superman as far as Clark Kent goes is a white guy because he has been since the 1920s, just like Batman aka Bruce Wayne is a white guy, Wonder Woman is a white woman, black panther is a black man. Spider-Man creators were smart because they made Miles Morales a different character not a black peter parker.

And yes and things do need to be accurate to an extent. Let’s take real-life races out of it for a second. I’m debating on whether or not to get the Mass Effect remaster. That game series has lore out the wazoo. Actually I would argue that’s the best part of this series, is the world-building and lore more than the actual main story. Well lets say by mass effect five or six they decide to do a topsy-turvy and rearrange everything as far as lore goes. fans would be outraged by that, and once again rightfully so, because it goes against the basic origin story of the mass effect universe. The fans will argue instead of rearranging the Mass Effect Universe why not just create a new IP and put your new ideas there. Star wars has that problem right now. And for the record I love The Last Jedi but I understand why some people hate it, and I promise you it’s not just because they’re bitter white men.

DCast - 12 May 2021 11:54 PM

I absolutely think that if someone wants to do it - they should go ahead and proceed, again, I’m for purely driven creative force, but I hope they have realistic expectations and understanding that there will never be a huge market for it. And if this kinda game actually happens to be phenomena where the developer managed not just truly explore condition, but also present a fully fleshed-out game play of, say, mystery solving - I’ll be the first one to say that he did what was practically impossible and back that up 100%.

I agree that it would require a lot of creativity to make a high-quality game which would unite the theme of how disability affects one’s life, and another more conventionally exciting theme such as, why not, solving murders. But still, I do think that it is possible to do so. The developers of such a game would need appropriate motivation to create it, and adequate artistic and game-designing skills. They’d also need the authorial vision for the project. It may seem practically impossible at first, but, to make an example, I guess no one could also imagine a game like Danganronpa existing, before the vision for it was hatched in its creator’s mind.

DCast - 13 May 2021 01:31 AM

In absolute majority of cases diversity is a physical quality all of us have (skin color or sex? - EVERYONE has those) and something person had NO CONTROL over. That straight white dude you referred to a couple of times had zero agency in being born white and hetero. It’s not an achievement a person worked hard for that is worth celebrating, and it’s not something someone made a conscious choice about - like, I want to be Asian or deaf - it’s out of everyone’s control.
 
So how can people want more of something that is a physical attribute and tells me NOTHING about a character as a person, and on top of that was just “chanced” at birth? The fact that someone is, say, black or gay or blind tells me nothing whether this person is a good friend or hard worker or a jerk or a softy. Nothing.

While I absolutely agree that personal qualities such as honesty, kindness, etc. (or the lack of such qualities) are infinitely more important when it comes to judging and understanding other human beings than physical characteristics they were born with it, such physical characteristics are also telling of that person’s identity, culture, and life experience. Therefore, I think it is impossible, whether we want it or not, to completely disregard, for example, someone’s skin color. When interacting with a black person, I have to assume that (s)he was most likely a victim of racism at least on occasion during their life. When interacting with a white person, I have to assume that (s)he was privileged in life when compared to this black person. I cannot view people regardless of the color of their skin, because color tells us something about the experiences that these people have had.

When it comes to video-games, you can have an adventure game with a black protagonist, in which it absolutely won’t matter that this person is black. In this hypothetical game, the same character could also be white, and the game and its story would remain completely the same. And that’s cool (although, probably more or less unrealistic).

However, you can also make a game with a black protagonist who is faced with issues arising from racism. This character could be fully-fleshed out, (s)he could be a wonderful human being, kind, educated, and intelligent, which would be tragic because of the obstacles (s)he would face in the game which were created by racist characters (of course, not all obstacles in this game need to have racism in their origin). And that’s where the color of protagonist’s skin comes into play and becomes important. Such a game would, also, be socially relevant, because it would raise additional awareness to the problem of racism.

DCast - 13 May 2021 01:31 AM

The call is for MORE diversity, which is statistically unrealistic

Another way to look at this is to not think about the number of players who belong to this or that minority, but to consider the number of such developers instead. I am saying this because a friend of mine (for whom I have a lot of respect, although this doesn’t mean that he is necessarily correct), told me recently that the reason we are seeing so many ‘diverse’ characters in movies and episodic (ex-TV ) shows, is because most writers working in these industries in fact belong to certain social minorities. And being truthful to their art (and supported by executives, who support the creation of such characters because of the current PC, socio-political climate), they do not care that most of their viewers are not actually part of such minority groups.

I think the same reasoning can be applied to video-games, if many developers are, in fact, ‘diverse’. Is that true, though? I don’t know, probably not…? However, if it were true, these developers would be compromising the integrity of their stories if they intentionally weren’t creating such diverse characters (and going against their artistic instincts while doing so), for the sole reason of believing that creating such characters would be statistically unrealistic, and thus wouldn’t make them enough profit because of the players’ demographic.

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Having said all of this, I am pretty much speaking theoretically. The themes I personally would like to see more of in adventure games, actually don’t have much to do with diversity, minorities, nor learning about how disabled people cope with their conditions (although I obviously don’t have anything against that). But, I will write more about this later, as I am running out of time now… 

millenia - 13 May 2021 05:26 PM

To comment on some other ideas mentioned here:

I’d also love a game where the protagonist would be a small kid, and had to overcome some very simple obstacles - for adults. This could be really fun.

Wasn’t this the idea with Among the Sleep? I haven’t played it so I don’t know if it fulfilled that function.

There are probably more games of this kind than we think, where the player has limited capabilities - whether as a cockroach or a goose or an incorporeal ghost.

Just seems like a double standard to me, you could easily replace spawn or blade with a white guy, black panther not so much bc of where he is from. But spawns origin is a guy who gets killed. I dont think it should be done but to not consider it, is hypocritical at least to me.

As to historical games/movies you are correct in principal, but if you were making a king henry the 8th movie, you wouldnt replace all his wives with husbands for obvious reasons.

I guess it all boils down to what is sacred to you or not, i know a crap ton of fans hated the synder version of superman bc he was so angsty and not the wholesome boy scout. For the record i dont care if there is a black superman, if there is good characters and a great story, but if im being honest seems like a publicity stunt by WB. Kind of like what they are doing with he-man

millenia - 13 May 2021 09:47 AM

I disagree with the notion that minorities should be represented in the same percentage they exist irl. The importance of representation is to be able to find (without going into great lenghts) all kinds of role models. I actually find this kind of offensive in the way I described already earlier: “you already have minorities shown here and there, no need to have more”. There are plenty of reasons to have more. And don’t forget that we have quite a lot of representation of cops and even witches etc. Entertainment doesn’t relate to real life like that.

I’m not saying what they should be, I’m saying it’s reasonable that they are. If there’s a small percentage of transgender people, there will be a tiny percentage of not just transgender writers, but also those who are interested in making in adventure games with transgender character. The percentage of people who aren’t transgender AND are interested (genuinely) writing about transgender characters in their games will also be small, because more people tend to write about either stuff they have familiarity with or personal experience, or they have to have really sincere interest in writing (and hence learning) about that experience. It would also be naturally small, just like percentage of people writing about people with disabilities. It’s normal. We should celebrate those that do it already and realize that it will never be a huge number, just like it will never be a huge number of people writing of the hardships of living in a remote island community, or with some obscure mental disorder. Anything short of that will be coming to people and say – “Hey, that’s what I want you to write about” and get upset if they planned for a different thing, like a “dreaded” white straight male protagonist, even though that was the story they wanted to write to begin with. And I’m not saying that you’re getting upset, but plenty of people do.

I’m talking about some social media encounters so I don’t really have them saved, sorry. Though haven’t you honestly seen those snide remarks for example in Steam reviews when some game has “SJW themes” as they put it? I see this constantly, even when the game is obviously made with thought and love.

All in the matter of context, honestly. I’ve also seen SJWs ganging up and closing the project that has nothing to do with any social issue because they dug up some comment on Twitter they didn’t like years ago. It’s pretty tribal out there, and I don’t get it. But I wouldn’t say it’s only “racists and sexists” who raise questions and objections, some of them are valid. And in case of certain games, we get plenty of political or social agenda crammed down our throats. Again, this will vary depending on the particular game, but I prefer no blanket statements like that because I’ve been a token, and I don’t like being a token, so I will raise an issue with it when it comes to me, for example, so by extent - I see it as being prominent in the entertainment as well.

And I cannot fathom how asking for characters that would represent oneself would be a superficial request. I think this is something everyone should be requesting.

Because those qualities, in my opinion, do not represent anyone to a degree that matters. I haven’t met anyone who wants to be known as “gay that is also good at comedy”, or “amputee who is also fantastic family man”. I did meet people who are good comedians who happened to be gay though, and great fathers who happened to have amputations. By putting qualities that people had no control over at the front, the important ones get lost. I know both people I wrote about above in person, and I had conversations with both. Both expressed the same sentiment – “I wish I’d be known as a good comedian and people come to my show, give me audience feedback and just stop talking about me being gay at all. It’s my personal business and it has nothing to do with my life’s work or my writing” (along the same lines with the amputee dad). So I don’t know if that is something, like you said, “everyone should be requesting”. Up to an individual here, not a chorus of people.
Come to think about it – we are all representatives of something. No one escaped diversity or losses. Be it being ethnic minority or dealing with a mental issue or physical issue or a social one. I don’t look for personal representation in instances when I experienced something tragic or where I really differ from majority. It doesn’t matter to me if there’s a character with the same issue in film or games. I know what I am, and I don’t need validation from external sources, I’m comfortable being me with all the issues even if nothing will ever represent it, so I’m genuinely not looking for it,  and I think it’s safe to assume that not everyone does.

We aren’t asking about cardboard cutouts of minorities but those “living breathing” examples with emotions and complicated issues. What is so weird about wanting that whole person being gay instead of straight? Seriously? Sexuality and gender for the most part are not physical qualities, btw.

It’s a strange thing to want in a person because it has nothing to do with their character whatsoever. It just doesn’t. It’s not going to make them a better cop or meaner witch, so requesting just that makes it odd to me. I want a mean witch, and if she’s lesbian – cool. But I don’t just want lesbian whatever-character-as-long-as-they-are-lesbian – that makes no sense to me, because in first case I get the idea of general qualities, and in the second – only that a person prefers to sleep with women, which I could care less about, I care about exactly how mean she is as a witch.
Gender is a social construct, so sure, one can switch it any day they like these days, and it’s whatever floats their boat. Sexuality though… I haven’t personally met people who consciously chose to be, say, gay. Most of the LGBTQ+ I know tell me they never had a choice – that’s how they were born.

And yeah, definitely we should have more short men and fat people etc. represented too. It’s all about normalising things that are normal. These minorities who never - or almost never - see themselves anywhere are feeling otherness.

Again, you’re either assuming here for the entirety groups of minorities or only happen to talk to those who want to be represented and not the others.
I don’t think we should be “normalizing” unique authentic things, so I think that’s where we differ. I think we should keep them that – unique and authentic and celebrate exactly that about them, the fact that there aren’t many of them. Majority of people from all kinds of races and ethnicities in extremely multi-cultural Los Angeles that I personally meet are actually don’t want to be “normalized”, they always show me what the music/films/books are in their country like and love talking about specific of their culture and aren’t looking to be a part of mainstream, they like to be “far few and between” and stand out. To be quite honest, many don’t think about it at all – they just living their lives. That’s just my personal experience YMMV.

I also don’t choose my friends like I choose my entertainment. I find it stranger to make that connection in the first place.

I tend to gravitate towards characters I can personally relate to or find lots in common with, if we’re talking protagonists. I don’t care if people are fat or disabled or bisexual in real life – that’s not why I chose to surround myself with them, so why would I care about that when it comes to characters in games? That’s my connection.

I don’t know much about the racial tensions in US and don’t pretend to, that’s not really what I’ve been about here.

I actually really appreciate this statement, because I’m also not well-versed on the social issues in other countries and will never pretend like I am. Seems to be many people’s favorite pastime though – a pet peeve of mine.

But I am a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and an activist too, also experienced with mental issues and a lot of other things. I am definitely asking for myself and for the others in my community and I can strongly relate to some other groups too.

Ah, so you do ask for yourself. It makes more sense to me now, but I’m just surprised that the ask is not for a particular game or experience along the lines of “I’d like to make a game about coming out to conservative family” (random example) – which is a wholesome story where sexuality and gender would play prominent meaningful part and have value as a base of a story, but rather for – “just make more people in games gay”, which adds zero value to those people in terms of what kind of human beings they are.

With the risk of people calling me “a white saviour”, I really don’t feel like the very small minorities should be left just fending for themselves. Others need to support them. I’d be screwed if others wouldn’t support me.

Where are these minorities who are “just fending for themselves”? Minorities whose representatives I meet are pretty outspoken people. Assuming they need your support is assuming that they are inferior to you and don’t have what it takes to stand up for themselves. Give people more credit, they are much more capable than you believe them to be. That’s precisely why it’s called “white savior” – when a white person decides that someone is poor and weak and helpless, and there they are – they will step in and help them like superior being of some kind. Minorities of any kind in general, especially those people in them who are true survivors are incredibly resilient, and I’ve met a lot of them who are resistant to the “let me help you, you are a minority” mentality. Support sometimes comes from stepping back and letting people voice what they want for themselves - letting them speak instead of speaking for them. I think it has been a whole lot of yelling going on behalf of others lately in the world, so much , as matter of fact, that “the others” aren’t really being heard anymore, especially their discontent for being relegated to a category of “spoken for” instead of “listened to”. That’s a very personal take, though, so this is subjective, of course. And it also may vary by the country as well.

In addition of actually thinking that more diverse representation is important, I just plain want more diversity, because I find it fun. I don’t need other people to understand it really, as long as they let me want it without having to explain myself thoroughly or having to expose my own gender or sexual identity to them. Because I should be able to want this no matter what minorities I personally represent or don’t.

Same goes the other way though, right? People should be able to write a story that they wanted and if it happened to not be a diverse one – they shouldn’t need for anyone to understand them. They just thought it was a fun story. Yet, many seem to consistently hang up on the “straight white male” element they think is overwhelming. Well, many people, it seems, find straight white males to be fun and they write stories about them, and it doesn’t matter what minorities they represent or if they represent any at all.  And I’m not even a straight white male. As long as one dishes out – one should be able to take it, eh?
But in all seriousness, you shouldn’t have to explain yourself thoroughly or expose anything. You choose to. Or you can choose not to. Or at least that’s the way I thought it went.  You should absolutely be able to want whatever you want, and no one is stopping you. I find questions “why?”, though, lead to interesting discussions. “Why”, however, doesn’t equate to “you shouldn’t”. It’s a merely a question you can always ignore.

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This was a great discussion overall. I’m glad I got to hear all kinds of opinions. I now have a better understanding of something I had less understanding of before all this, and I think it’s a worthy conclusion. For my part, after hearing opposing (and interesting) opinions I will stand by my decision. No one has to agree with me, and maybe I’m the odd one out, but I don’t care if people that I talk to in real life are fat or old or gay or disabled, I care if they’re fun or intelligent or easy-going or patient or reasonable.. etc, and that’s how I’d approach characters across all mediums as well, so It’ll come down to actually quoting BB in one of his posts when he said: “Perhaps it might be more true for an individual to say ‘I want/need more diversity’ rather than ‘we need more diversity.’”
Like I said, I don’t NEED diversity (it’s an odd thing to need), but I welcome it, especially if it doesn’t feel tacked on or forced and done skillfully.

I also want to nominate BB for “Oh, The Reasonable One” award.