Non-Binary inclusion for MC

Game Development Writing and Content
43

So I didn’t read the whole thread but I wanted to reply to this bit. Not all choices need to have a major effect on a game.

When I want to go to the market I can either go on foot or driving; it won’t change the result, I’ll get to the market either way. Sometimes you can have choices just change things slightly, it doesn’t need to have a major effect to give some sense of freedom to the player.

Now, about other choices that aren’t maybe won’t be referenced at all in the game (such as the ones relating to character appearance) it doesn’t need to change the story to have an effect. For example when you give the player a choice to select their hair color; while it won’t affect anything else in the game, for some players it can allow them to better visualize what their character looks like.

For games with 3D engines and character creation this is common; the choice of hair color will not change the game in any way, but it’s there for the player to better represent what they want for the appearance of their character. Even in text games you’ll see such options because for some people it is important to have some sort of way to cement the image that they have.

On my game I added plenty of character options like that and people are still requesting more, things like tattos, piercings and the like. It’s all to help them reinforce their imagination and get better immersed in the story and invested on their main character. You can also use them at specific times for some flavor text to reinforce it even more, but even then it’s not necessary.

As mentioned before, even the pronouns do change the experience, since they will be commonly used by other characters, to me that does feel like change enough. It’s not like every scene in the game will be different for male, female and nonbinary MCs right?

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44

When I created this thread, it was because i needed ideas for how to include a nb main character though now it feels like that isn’t what the vast majority of you all want. Rather, it seems what you actually want, rather than nb interactivity, is the pronoun alteration, is that correct?

Because the poll seems to run contrary to this, should I add another poll to give people another chance to mark their views?

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45

Bit of advice for making this easier: try playing through any voiced BioWare game and seeing how many lines need to change to reference the player character’s gender and thus have to have two versions recorded at great expense(ignore protagonist lines; they need one per voice anyways). Answer: not very many.

Most basic trick from Dragon Age: they use a gender-neutral “Ser” honorific for knights so when the player character is referred to like one they don’t need to have “Sir” and “Dame” versions. Likewise, TOR Sith are always “Lord” so they don’t need a “Lady” version of a third of the dialogue. By making these very simple setting rules and enforcing them consistently, they shave a huge chunk of the VA budget increase that would otherwise be required to have two genders.

That particular trick is mostly irrelevant in text because you can just insert variables for those cases, but it’s a good illustration of the principle: it is surprisingly easy to structure English to be gender-neutral without anyone noticing you’re even doing it, and it makes handling any number of genders really easy. There are of course limits to how far this will take you, but it allows you to focus on only the areas where it fails so the whole thing is a lot less work.

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46

Here’s the thing about pronouns. If your character is never talked about behind their back or addressed by strangers like “Can I help you miss/mister” you could probably write a whole came using no pronouns for your character. " You feel the gunshot wound" " the man looks slat you ‘hey are you alright there friend?’ he asks you" etc. I’d say if you can’t do that it says more about your skill as a writer than it does pronouns and preference. Additionally The Maid from Heart of The House is the best NB character I’ve ever seen.

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47

I actually have a fanfic where I go a big plot arc just not addressing a particular character’s gender because I’m not sure what that person’s gender identity is in the original(translation issues). Using a name instead of a pronoun will take you decently far. The only part that I even consider a bit odd is using “siblings” where I’d use “sisters” if the character definitely identified as female.

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I do not think this is clear to most people. It got conflated with the use of pronouns as a means of inclusion.

To answer your question: I treated a NB MC in the same manner I treated having male and female MCs.

It required a bit more prose in some parts of my game (choosing an uniform) but for the most part it required very little adaptation. I also had multiple NB NPC characters in my game and the only issue I found writing them was when they were in a group together because multiple use of they/them pronouns got confusing.

I had a lot of feedback from non-binary folk to help me and that made the world of difference.

My advise to you is: Write your game and then get specific feedback from non-binary testers regarding those sections you are concerned about.

It is that simple. There really can not be specific feedback on ideas until they see the differences you are trying to go for in the writing.

As an aside: The use of pronouns is a devise to establish closer contact and connection with your readers/gamers. That is why most authors here use pronouns, even if nothing else is changed within the game. It helps connect with some, even if it does not help with everyone.

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49

I mean if I had to guess why people might take offense to the original post that’d be my first clue

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50

I don’t think people are saying they don’t want anything more than a change of pronouns.
What they have said is that they disagree with you about pronoun changes not having any value in itself. That doesn’t mean they think it is the only thing with value.
I suspect it’s a case of the word “pandering” having different connotations for different people.

As I understand it, your game has differences depending on whether the MC is male of female. In that case, non-binary MC’s should have equal (not same but equivalent) changes, or it sends the message that non-binary isn’t a real gender identity.

It’s completely fair that you want to make those differences, both possitive and negative, in your game.
The problem you run across here is that when a game has negative consequences for choicing a female or minority character, those consequences are usually the exact same sexism/racism/homophobia/transphobia/ableism those people run across every day in their real life, and so, some people are really tired of that, and wary of any game that has differences based on those factors.

Without having a lot of details, or a lengthy demo to make it clear what you are doing, people are going to assume that it will be the same as they normally see.

As for helping you with ideas for how to include non-binary MC’s, I really can’t do that without more info.
With what you have already giving, it seems really straightforward, so I guess there must be some info I’m missing that make it difficult?

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51

Well, reading this thread, i can see you want to know how you should include a non-binary option for the protagonist, or even if you should. Being non-binary myself, i like to have that option anyway, even if the difference is purely aesthetic. As someone already said, that can make a great difference to the player, even if their gender doesn’t make a difference for the game, it is a question of identity, and if the protagonist is supposed to be the player itself, no matter how superficial you think it is, it is purely for the sake of the immersion the person must have. Not including the option to be non-binary would be the same thing as not including the option to be female or the option to be male, and i think you can see how that would be a problem.
But, apparently, what the player is would make a difference to the world around them, in your game, and i like that. I am happy when i have the choice to be non-binary in a CoG game, but most of them that have that option don’t take your gender in consideration at all(i mean, i would like to live in a world like that, but it is too detached from the reality i live in, and even fiction needs to have some roots in reality so that it can engage people reading it). Now, if you want to know what you should do in your game to portray a non-binary protagonist in a way that makes a difference, i can only say, being non-binary myself, what i think you should do:
People judge others by superficial characteristics, mainly appearance. You could make the assumption that players who choose to be non-binary would have a character with an androgynous appearance, so the world’s reaction to them would play out according to that. By my experience, some people could assume they’re male, others could assume they’re female, others would avoid referring to them in a way that assumes their gender, and some people would outright ask. The tricky thing here would be how the player reacts to these situations, because obviously not everyone would respond the same way, and may even act differently depending on the situation. It can be really hard to explain to someone that you are neither a man nor a woman, some people aren’t even capable of understanding that, and others think that gender = the sex your body has.
Now, you could also give the option for the player to choose if their appearance makes people think they’re feminine, masculine, or androgynous. With androgyny, there is what i said above. With feminine and masculine, some people can accept being viewed that way because it is unreasonable to expect that everyone will understand how they feel about it, depending on the situation, it is just way too much trouble.
I think trying to cover every variation of how a non-binary person can react to a situation, or how the world reacts to them is pretty much impossible, so, i will try to explain about being non-binary: People will judge others by appearance, so if you are trying to simulate reality, keep that in mind. Speaking for me, i identify as non-binary because i am against the very concept of pre-judging people because of their sex, gender, or appearance: Yes, biologically, sex does make a difference, in the sense that if they had a different body, they would be kind of a different person. But that is irrelevant, as people vary so much that you can’t assume a single thing on a person based on that. So i imagine any conflict with a non-binary protagonist about their gender would be with characters that don’t understand or have a misconception about the things i just speaked about. I hope that gives some insight on how you should approach this option in your game.
On a side note, what about hermaphrodites? I only played one text game that gave me that option, so i long for seeing the option to be hermaphrodite in more games…

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52

Not really.
In fact, it’s totally up to you to make the choice of gender more impactful in your story. I’ll say it again, “it depends on your worldbuilding.”

Heck, I don’t think this is something you need to ask people on “how to make nb matters,” if I’m not reading your intention wrong. It’s something you can figure it out yourself.

We just

since from your replies, you seem to dismiss the “just pronouns” kind of nb inclusion.

To clarify, it’s great when our gender impacts the story. But beware the danger that comes with it: alienating minority and promoting any kind of bigotry.
If you tell your story wrong, it can lead to a devastating review since not everyone on the internet is level-headed.

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53

Understatement of the century. :grin::grin::grin:

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54

Hoi, I was trying hard to not write “triggered.”

55

I’ve got a hypothetical question along these lines, relating to a game I’m considering writing if I can get the time and focus.

The hypothetical is, say I wrote a game that, as of half an hour before I send it in, does differentiate between male and female characters in minor ways. The player joins an organization that has male and female dorms, and there’s a couple scenes of getting settled in and chatting with dorm mates, though most of the game is on missions or otherwise in fully mixed company and it’s just {subjectpronoun} that differentiates. Then with thirty minutes on the clock I decide I want to add a non-binary option, so I create a new set of values for {subjectpronoun} and company, set ${logicgender} to male, and do a quick sweep for fixed text that references gender. Net effect: nonbinary player characters get they/them pronouns but in every scene split count as male (I could also let them pick whether to count as male/female, but I’m in a hurry so I can’t do this scene-by-scene). Should I do that or not?

Now that’s obviously a constructed hypothetical and if I plan to include nonbinary player characters I’d do it a little more gracefully (e.g. at the dorm split there’d be like three lines to the effect of “we only have two dorms; which would you prefer?”) but overall it’d be recombining the male and female scenes. Yes, obviously I could change the story and setting a bit so as to no longer require separate male and female versions of any scenes and render the issue moot, but, well, I kinda prefer it when games with gender options have little differentiations like that. My gold standard is Persona3 Portable; it introduced a female main character option for a previously fixed male option, and yet did it so well it’s impossible to tell it wasn’t the other way around just from playing it. So if I were doing just binary genders I would include it. And since I’d be fitting this in as a hobby between work and other hobbies I’m realistically not going to make three versions of a scene rather than two. I might get exceedingly clever with the scripting to sorta fake it, but at best the “third version” would be frankenstiened together from parts of the other two. I’d try to make it as seamless as possible, but if a player looked they’d be able to tell that I’d have written sections slightly differently if I had made a full third version. It’s the code version of the sisters/siblings thing; it wouldn’t be wrong but I’d do something different if I wrote for nonbinary specifically.

So the question is basically is that good enough to be nonbinary inclusive? I wouldn’t be satisfied (in fact, I often do many runs through a game as male and female but skip nonbinary because I expect it to basically be that) but it’s the opinions of the people who would be included that matter.

  • Do that
  • Do nothing

0 voters

If the overwhelming answer is nothing I’d consider shifting the story to eliminate gender differentiation altogether; three distinct coequal versions would be beyond my time commitment.

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Well, if you think it is too much work, it is way easier to eliminate the gender differentiation(even though i like the realism these things add), because, as i said here, people judge by appearance, so it would work if you had the option for the non-binary to count as “male” or “female”. But i always prefer to maintain my appearance androgynous, for example, so that would be a variable you would have to write if you want the full inclusion. I don’t think it would be bad if you gave us the first two options, or if you made a frankensteined version of the two for the non-binary, i would be satisfied to have one of these options if it was available, but considering you don’t have a lot of time available, i recommend and vote for “Do nothing”

57

Well, at a minimum I’d almost certainly have a choice that basically would be “nonbinary person, do you want the male scenes or the female scenes?” But the low end is you get that choice exactly once and it applies in every scene.

I’d do more than that minimum if actually writing, but it’d land somewhere in between that minimum and what I’d do for the binary genders, so knowing if the minimum would be acceptible would shape how much I’d allow gender to influence. Like whether I have gendered dorms; reducing two scenes to one scene rather than adding 1-2 scenes.

Also, it’d by necessity have to be somewhat generic because there’s not just three genders any more than there’s just two genders, and I’d really hate to have a nonbinary option that’s just tailored to a subset. I mean, there’d be a big coding lift for “he sometimes, she others” so there’s still a limit, but if I’m doing three options I’d want to include nonbinary people who try to maintain an androgynous appearance and who don’t. Which means minimizing the impact of appearance (the organization would be very strict about respecting gender identity so as to allow having it briefly alluded to without impacting events much).

58

The way I’ll handle it is simply asking the player.

“Well, we only got the dorms for male and female at here. Which one do you want?”

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59

That is decidedly on the table; the minimal is having that set the version you get of every scene, including any outside the dorms. Intermediary is giving that choice at every point where there’s a branch.

What’s not on the table is adding, say,

Or if you don’t want either we can give you a private room in the gym

Which I’d consider doing if workload were not a factor

60

Psst, quick tip:
Like it or not, there will always be someone out there who prefers the gym instead of the dormitory, no matter their gender.

This is the kind of important consideration when writing with nb in mind, at least for me.

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Sure; the point being that the choice is only offered to non-binary people in-universe because they only have the two dorms but it is strict policy to respect gender identity. If they had three dorms everyone would be in the dorms.

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If you’ve figured it out, then go ahead.
Might want to consider a scenario where the MC is not the only NB character. Where would they go?

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