Poll: What kind of gender options do you prefer in games you're playing?

I think that it largely depends on whether you see a CoG as a game or as a book.

When you view it as a game, then of course you’d want as many gender choices as possible. It’s only fair, after all.

But are gender choices actually feasible? Swapping around pronouns doesn’t really change the gender at all, does it? It’s still the same character, but in order to accommodate for the various gender options, said character is no longer easily identifiable - in order to make the character more androgynous, the character becomes blurred.

Furthermore, I do not consider a simple pronoun swap to be a gender option; sure, it can work in certain cases like in Choice of the Dragon, but just look at what went on in Choice of Broadsides; instead of an epic story that chronicles how our main character disguises herself as a man and joins the navy, we get a simple pronoun swap for the entire game which is then thrown into our faces as, “there, here’s your gender option.” In reality, it’s just swapping stereotypes around and about, and did nothing to add to the story.

I think that for most cases, CoGs should remember that they’re still books. And books absolutely need to have characters in them. Sacrificing a character’s character, blurring what makes a character himself/herself, just for the sake of swapping a few pronouns to keep up a pretense of equality? It just isn’t worth it. If anything, the blurring of the character makes the entire book fall flat on its face.

I’m not saying that gender options should never be given. I’m saying that, if gender options are to be given, then they should truly be written from the heart. Instead of trying to undefine well-established main characters, a new character should be made for the gender option.

Some might argue that this essentially doubles the amount of work necessary to create a game - but I’d argue that this is basically what a gender option should be.

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Do you know, I’m actually in favour of games wherein straight men get the same gameplay experience as everybody else does for a change. So games in which straight men have absolutely zero romantic options open, where they cannot play a character that has their orientation, where it’s just assumed that they’re not straight.

I don’t actually see this as penalising. Would you say that every single game that does not allow for a female protagonist is penalising women? Would you say that every single game which does not allow for same-sex relationships, is penalising GBL players?

Can you imagine what it’s like playing when the majority of games are like that. Where there’s absolutely no representation at all. Games in which there are no straight men, not as protagonists, not as NPCs, they just don’t exist.

Dragon Age provides two options for straight men, that’s not penalising them. That’s being extremely inclusive. (Especially since that’s just two options for gay men as well. I’m looking at the wiki and it appears that there’s two female options for women, and straight female characters get two additional straight options for a total of four for them.).

I loved how Choice of Broadsides, and the first Choice of Romance handled things. I loved how it was possible to play a female character, who came with absolutely no baggage, who didn’t have to deal with sexism, who could just be awesome. That while there were prejudices in the game, they were not because of her gender. I don’t think that was a lesser experience. It’s one of the things I loved about both games. Yet none of the games since have followed suit.

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I fear I’m about to open a huge can of worms with my next statement but here goes…

There’s that “straight white male” privilege that David Gaider talks about surfacing again.

Here we go with a link: http://www.nomorelost.org/2011/03/25/straight-male-gamer-told-to-get-over-it-by-bioware/

David says it far better than I could.

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I quite enjoy his current games. I think largely due to the adult content. I’d certainly be interested in what he could do outside of an adult setting but I feel they would lose too much.

I apologise if any of my above statement came across as upsetting to non-straight players, that wasn’t my intention, I think it’s more a case that no one gender or sexual preference should be penalised for the sake of another, even if it fair to say for the mass amount of time straight players have had it much easier. As a straight male I clearly find hetero relationships more appealing to watch played out, though I have no problem with same-sex ones if portrayed with the same level of tact as other types. Any romantic relationship played out properly is good, even if it means I won’t have the same level of interest in it as others.

(BTW I played Mass Effect as a Female Shepard and she romanced Garrus in the end cause Garrus is awesome. And I’ll probably create a female character from Frezia’s race for Dragonball Xenoverse because that male dominated universe needs more kick ass females like 18 and Videl. So long may there be female characters in video games, and not just for the eye candy but because they’re awesome. Got the same principle for all of Marvel and DC’s female super heroes.)

My personal preferences are;

Being able to choose my gender, when it actually matters. If you’re getting the same playthrough all the same then it’s not super important just sorta garnish.

I do prefer it when every RO is bi, I want to tailor my own story after all, and there’s no guarantee that I’ll fall for the ROs that were tailored for whatever gender I picked. Bioware are notorious for disapointing me in that regard. Whether the ROs are genderswaps or not doesn’t matter as long as they make me care.

I also like it when I can get with as many people as possible in one playthrough. Complications stemming from such a choice I’m prepared to accept, as long as I can always choose to juggle, e.g. no ultimatums ala you have to choose one of us unless there’s a possibillity to smooth talk your way out of it. In fiction, I like to eat my cake and have it too, or rather, eat lots of cakes. :smile:

Mirror’s edge, Remember me, Tomb Raider, are all good games with strong women.

I’m thrilled to be getting discussion from people with such diverse reactions, so thank you!

p.s.: I love Garrus Vakarian. In a slightly obsessive, probably unhealthy paraphiliac kind of way. :flushed:

@Sashira
“Non-binary options are great. All that means is the terminology gets more complicated (who’s gay or straight, if a male or female is neither the same or opposite gender?)”

This is why “androsexual” and “gynosexual” exist. Other trans people prefer being called straight or gay depending on their genitals, but that’s a very risky move to ask that and I’ve only found it in a few. Some trans people, I’ve found just don’t care about labels or call themself queer as a catch-all.

“My game is set in high school, before a lot of trans people will have had a chance to transition”

I never took hormones. A good percentage of transgender people (even if binary) never do, ever. My coming out was research, planning a way to talk about it to my mother, and reintroducing myself at college (I had just dropped out of high school because of my chronic illness) under my pronouns and new name.
Are you perhaps thinking of transsexual when you write this? I have barely any idea what you mean at all that isn’t somewhat offensive/ignorant here? Please clarify.

"But changing your identity isn’t as simple as snapping your fingers and saying, “I’m obviously female, whatever my chromosomes might be, so treat me like that.”
gdi, cis people. Yeah… it kind of is. Ever heard of “genderfluid”?

You’re coming off as slightly transphobic, or at least ignorant, with these last two comments here. If you want to talk about it more in depth, don’t worry about starting a private conversation with me.

@anon48296871 I’m not so sure about the original Tomb Raider, but the reboot seemed good. Mirror’s Edge was amazing with its female characters, so much so that when fans sexualised Faith by redesigning her the producer and developers were shocked and terribly disappointed.

Thanks for the offer - I will write you, but it would also be awesome to post some of the basics here. (“Prefers_girls” was a hidden variable, but of course it makes sense that there’s an actual term for it.)

I knew that hormones and/or surgery might not ever be part of transitioning, a process that I had also thought of as including whatever coming out or changing of official status (like ID cards) was involved in their identity shift, so I may have said that badly. Or be misunderstanding something else entirely.

As for identity changing not being simple - I’m not talking about “reality”, i.e. what you know you are. What I meant is that in a semi-realistic environment, being trans or bi or any other minority gender identity/sexuality might give you a certain bond with other people with the same experiences, but there will also be backlash from people who can’t accept it. Or who will, y’know, say ridiculous things about you because they don’t know any better.

I’ve had more trans friends since moving to California, but I haven’t wanted to bother them by grilling them about game design (or to make them sit down and educate me about areas I remain ignorant about, which clearly still exist.) So if you’re willing to give me or other designers feedback about how to make these things better, thank you.

Please expand? Is it a game here I can check out, or check if I’ve already checked it out?

Community College Hero, the game @HornHeadFan is coding. It’s going into closed Beta at the beginning of February (I think the 1st?) but if you ask today you can still get in. Yes, I know all of this because I just weaseled my way in.

In that case I’ve already checked out the public demo and am waiting for a full release to buy :smiley:

I remember those comments of David Gaider. He says a lot of good things, I don’t always agree with everything but I really admire how he’s out there, making a positive difference in the mainstream games industry.

I’m going to say that I think only one game has really hit it for me in terms of letting you play a character with a fluid gender, and that was Seven Winds. It’s an unfinished WIP, but I loved how you could switch between forms as you pleased, as the occasion suited. It was the game that drew me into joining the forums, just because I loved it so much and wanted to tell the author how wonderful it was.

I liked Choice of the Dragon’s handling too. I think that after that, the games which don’t have you set a gender at all are most comfortable for me. I like it being so completely unimportant. I do appreciate every game that does try to allow for non-binary options though.

Not to pick on Psy-High but it rather annoyed me in that it stated the school was GBLT friendly, however there was absolutely no evidence of that T. From the moment we were plunged into gender-segregated bathrooms without a care of what a minefield that can be in relation to trans issues, to forcing us to wear gender-confirming clothes to the prom. Genderqueer does come under the trans label, but there was no real opportunity to do anything but conform to the gender we picked right at the start. But trans issues aside, I’d really wanted my butch female character to be able to wear a tux to the prom (she wore just her normal jeans to the previous party, and didn’t care at all about what she wore so the sudden shift to wearing a fancy dress and caring about it jarred me) but there just wasn’t a choice.

I think trans inclusion is tough, especially when there’s few previous examples we can look at and say “that’s how to do it.” Even then, we’re going to make mistakes. Hopefully though we’ll get there, eventually.

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I personally prefer that characters in a game be “potentially MC-sexual” unless there’s a story reason why they won’t be, which is kind of the default in CoG. Less effort to write, more options, no frustration from those who both like playing women and want a relationship with Tali’Zorah (insert your preferred unavailable gender combination here). I admit that this is shamelessly viewing the game as a game and every character in it, ultimately, as something to contribute to the player’s overall enjoyment. It gives the player more options and fewer limitations.

Incidentally, in fantasy settings where this is an issue, I actually like the idea of splitting marriage and romance, as seen in Dragon Age: Origins, where marriage is necessarily heterosexual while romance is free, and where the marriage can be romantic but doesn’t have to be. For an example of a WIP where this is the case, see Guenevere (and I think Cataphrak has indicated that the Infinity series will look like this too, though anything Cataphrak says about unpublished work probably doesn’t mean what we think it means). Separating the concepts of love, marriage and sex is always interesting.

Rant mode ON

But then, I admit that I personally dislike the extremely high pedestal our culture places on conventional romantic love. Uniting with another person and creating a single, exclusive unit for sharing sex, love, and life is so automatically seen as desirable that the idea that someone might not want that is not even considered (okay, one exception: it’s understood that someone might prefer to screw multiple partners without emotional commitment, and that character probably won’t be condemned for it, but even that character can expect to find a romance). In the 21st Century, the media’s come to accept that gays exist, but games with gay romances tend to simply replace “one man and one woman” with “two individuals.”

/rant

@FairyGodfeather: GLBT-friendly does not often seem to include transsexuals, despite the wording…(Psy High is also unambiguously ace-unfriendly; there is absolutely no way for your character to be asexual and they will always be attracted to Tyler-Taylor. But that’s another story.)

@WulfyK: Just to be sure I understand what you’re saying, are you suggesting that @Sashira allow the PC to mind-control someone into a romantic relationship with them?

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Over thinking the choices is a bad idea, in my opinion. One of the reasons I got confused in creatures such as we.

Male or female option at the start, then branch to selected romantic prospect. Simple, it doesn’t need to be more complicated than that and making it so, again, adds confusion.

If you’re okay with adult content, you may be interested in Fenoxo’s current game in progress. A recent update allowed you to specify if your MC was monogamous, polyamorous, prefered a single romantic partner but with an open understanding that each of you were open to bounce some bed springs with anyone else and another option I forget.

How much of an impact that will have on the rest of the story I don’t know (the game is still in progress and older content is rarely retrofitted to take in to account new content, but regardless his games are fun and account for numerous days of my time.

Fenoxo is not my type of adult content (the problem with tossing a dozen different fetishes onto a single character is that there’s something to turn everyone off), but that’s nonetheless an interesting concept.

Is Choice of Robots the only game that allows for you to be in a poly relationship? There’s an option for you, your lover and your companion-bot to be together, I think. I think all of the other games treat it as infidelities and while there may be love triangles, there’s always conflict there.

I was disappointed that it was never an option in Choice of Romance where it seemed as if it would best fit. That there was never an option to treat the Monarch’s relationships as anything but infidelities which you tolerated at best, and actively sought to kill those he looked at at worst. Yet at the same time you could have been married yourself while having an affair with the Monarch, and you could also have affairs of your own. I suppose it would have been a different game if it had accepted the idea of being in an open relationship, and both of you being poly, and perhaps even regularly inviting thirds into your bed to spice things up.

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The more I read @FairyGodfeather’s posts, the more vigorously I nod my head. Not just in this thread.

I voted for “Writing a story from one definite point of view is fine, so I’m okay with not choosing my main character’s gender,” but I only sort of mean that.

I’d rather pick (though I’ll generally pick to play a girl/woman), but there are some genres where the protagonist’s gender is part of the formula. If the author wants to do the work of inverting the formula, awesome. But it’s OK with me if they’ve got other creative things going on. And, like, this basically only holds for genres where the main character is usually female, since it’s hard to distinguish between main-character-in-this-genre-is-male and patriarchy.

As for romantic interests… I haven’t been unhappy with either less options (NPCs with static preferences across playthroughs), MC-sexuality (which, I agree with @malinryden, doesn’t necessarily mean the character is bi- or pansexual), or everyone’s bi.

I do think its good to present a range of genders both for the protagonist and various NPCs, ideally without comment otherwise (off-topic: But an idealized world with no or way less, depending on author ability, oppression).

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