Race, Time Travel and Customisable MCs

Game Development
1

Hello! Apologies if this is a repeated topic, I tried to have a look around but thought it best to just ask. I’m currently working on a game and whilst I’ve tried to allow a lot of freedom in customisation I’ve hit a bit of a barrier - should the past react differently to MCs depending on their race/presentation?

I know the past isn’t as simple as anything non-conforming = kill them, especially given there’s three different periods the MC can end up in so the atittudes would depend on the where and when. If you ended up in London in 1666 they’d likely be more worried about you being dutch or a catholic than anything else but unfortunately racism was still a thing.

If you were playing a game where your MC could end up travelling to the past and you’d decided to play as a non-white character (I’d also worried about trans/enby characters but I was leaning towards they’d just assume you were cis male/female depending on how you’d present?) would you rather the game ignored potential reactions and focused on the plot or would you want a more reactive world for better or for worse?

This isn’t a post trying to say history was all white/cis/male/straight but simply the thing of depending on when you’d end up the reactions would surely vary?

Edit: This was not supposed to mean reactive as in solely bigoted, tried to clear it up with the dutch/catholic mention as to the fact that history wasn’t just cis/white/straight/male and that being a character that isn’t one of those wouldn’t suddenly get you hate crimed by anyone.

Just would you want the environment to react to you in response to your character customisation (gender presentation/race/appearance) both positively and negatively or rather stray away from that.

6 Likes
2

This is going to maybe feel like a non-answer but I stand by it.

You should do what feels right to you. You are the author. You are the arbiter of artistic choices. You should weigh the pros and cons and pick the one that feels more like you.

Are you very invested in accuracy? Are you very invested in players having reactive experiences? Are you very invested in players always having positive experiences? Are you very invested in progressive representation of modern audiences regardless of their historical realities? There’s not really a wrong answer, there’s only bad execution.

Some people will prefer the reactivity, even if it’s negative, and some people will prefer a positive experience, even if it’s inaccurate. You can’t make everyone happy. All you can do is lean into your natural inclinations as a writer/storyteller/game maker and execute it as best you can. If you finish the game with one of those things handled, it’s always possible to go back through and create a toggle and write it the other way too, but that is a shit ton of work and you should not commit to that at the beginning.

18 Likes
3

I love customizing the MC in games and feeling like that customization matters.

That said, unless the point of your game is to authentically explore these themes and you really want to provide an experience where you face and potentially challenge these things, I would suggest downplaying any bigotry and focusing on your plot.

Bigotry feels bad, even fictional historically accurate bigotry. I don’t have to deal with it because I was born into the lucky category, but I can’t imagine anyone who faces this stuff in real life is keen to sit down in a game and deal with it there too.

11 Likes
4

Personally, I think it comes down to the following:

  1. How much are you actually committing to an accurate portrayal of gender non-conformity and race in 1600s London? The way I see it, if you decide to write this, you have to look at the following:
    –Trans men, trans women, and some nonbinary people would be gender non-conforming for obvious reasons. You would have to add variables to how they present in order to see how “correct” their presentation of gender is for the time.
    –Cis women would be gender non-conforming if they are not in skirts and gowns and dresses, with the appropriate blouses and undergarments, with appropriate hair and shoes and hats. You would have to account for the treatment they receive.
    –Some cis men would be gender non-conforming if they are not in the appropriate trousers and clothing. They may be treated strangely for not having the appropriate long hair styled in the right way, or perhaps they would be mocked for not wearing heels.
    –As you mention yourself, whiteness vs non-whiteness is not simple. Are you willing to use your story to show how black people in 1660s London had their own diverse and positive community that strained at times in its relationship with white Britons due to xenophobia and stress from freed slaves seeking refuge from overseas?
    The way I see it, if you decide to add historically accurate negative attitudes, you need to add historically accurate positive ones too, or else the question becomes “Why did the author feel the need to include a racism/homophobia/transphobia/misogyny simulator in their game?”
  2. Why is a story regarding race/gender/sexuality in 1600s London a story you need to tell? Are these things you experience in your day to day life and you want to explore this in your writing? Do you feel strongly about the development of social ideals over time across history, and you want to share that with people? Or do you feel like you are pressured to do so in order to make people happy about historical accuracy? Do you feel strongly about your ability to be historically accurate, or do you feel you are educated enough to be properly historically accurate?
  3. What is the tone of the story you are writing? Is it lighthearted and fun, wacky shenanigans as the player travels through time? Is it serious and heavy drama, about seeking truths and answers or something like that in the past and future? Are you trying to balance both ends? Would subjecting your player to negative attitudes they may suffer in real life be something that fits within your writing and tone?

Only you know the answers to those questions, and I think working that out will help you decide what the best step is for this.

15 Likes
5

Well, here’s what you can do that I I think make sense and will make it easier:

  1. Write from a POV of a character. Focus on that character. It could be any character but every variation of the story comes after theirs (‘You can also play as a white male! But it was written with a black woman in mind’ if that doesn’t show, all the better).
  2. That means picking a struggle and focusing on it primarily, and the rest can be controlled with variables or downplayed. If you don’t want to focus on struggle, downplay all struggle.
  3. You don’t have to put in your game struggle you don’t want to focus on.
  4. You don’t have to represent everybody.
  5. The most important goal is to finish your story to your liking.

I like reactive games but I know how much work they take. I suggest focusing on reactivity that is important to you. Historical fiction - or historical-ish fiction - already takes a lot of work without imaging a crowd of judgemental people grading you on how well you did.

1 Like
6

I think this is generally the most important point: is this a story which is about the bigotry? And if you’re going to let people play as straight, white men, then you’re probably not writing a story about the themes of bigotry.

Also, reality is often unrealistic (or at least, as we’d perceive it). For example, the Chevalier d’Éon lived in London about a hundred years after 1666, and was either trans or nonbinary (although they wouldn’t have had the language to describe their identity at the time). And although they were the source of much speculation (as to their “real” gender), they never faced any real issues, legal or otherwise (due to their queer identity; they were also a French spy who defected to Britain and published a whole load of saucy secrets about the French leaders, and that did cause them a lot of trouble).
Likewise, there would definitely have been a reasonably large amount of non-white people in London at the time, for example the woman seen here:

image
image777×696 50.4 KB

(The picture, incidentally, is far more upset with the fashion of putting little cloth shapes on your face – a real fashion in style in around 1666 – than with the idea that black and white women could be friends and equals.)

I think, all-in-all, there’s nothing wrong with commenting on the existence of someone who would be considered unusual, but as @RedRoses says, does it have to be negative? Why not have positive attitudes?

11 Likes
7

Yes, remembering that the past wasn’t homogenous is important, and that there were major ups and downs in bigotry rather than a uniform history of racist/sexist etc. oppression.

7 Likes
8

Personally, I would prefer a world where my character’s identity is factored into the story in realistic ways, keeping in mind that history doesn’t always fit into our narrow understanding of “how things were back then” and reactivity doesn’t have to mean “all oppression all the time.”

Perhaps your character, if they know in advance they’re visiting the past, will want to prepare differently based on who they are. Maybe they can encounter other people who share their identity and learn that history was more complex than we tend to think. What would it be like for a black person to visit a time before the development of racism as we understand it today? How would people of various identities react to the realization that the average straight white man in 1666 actually had an extremely constricted existence by modern standards? What would it be like for a white character to travel to China or central Africa in a world that wasn’t raised on Western media, in which they were just a weird-looking outsider? How would a man who had always viewed women as equals respond to a world in which female roles were determined as much by biological realities as societal beliefs? If bigotry does rear its ugly head, how does the character respond to it, and how do the people around them feel about that response?

Granted, not all of this may fit your specific story, but I hope this sets you thinking about the ways you can make the story reactive to your character’s identity without simply inundating them with the worst history has to offer.

6 Likes
9

Thank you for all your responses! Replied to them all in this as didn’t wish to spam via seperate replies to all, please don’t feel any pressure to respond! For clarification the actual years you’d visit are 1945/1895/1795!

@levviathan Honestly that’s not a non-answer at all! It’s good to have a reminder that whichever direction I lean with this I won’t be able to please everyone! They’re all very good questions I’ll have to ask myself over the course of this.

@Keller There would absolutely always be the option to challenge any negative reactions presented towards the MC, it’s more so that there’ll be reactions at all I was worried about - both positive and negative. The intent would definitely be to explore what’s presented authentically as whilst the reason you end up there is plot I’d like the periods and the people within them to feel like more than a stop-gap. But it’s a good point that even fictional and only for a specific segment it could still make the game a negative experience for players which is what I’m worried about.

@RedRoses You raised a lot of really good points/questions so I put it under the cut just to respond to them all! Thank you for your feedback/advice!

Summary
  1. 1600s was more of an example than hard fact! But of course your point still stands, there would be reactions to the appearance of the MC along with the MC being able to push back on any negative reactions they face. It isn’t just going to be them trudging along as everyone’s a dick, there’ll be plenty of more mundane things to react to and positive ones depending on how willing the MC is to interact with the people around them. I was planning on asking about presentation during the initial character creation and setting a variable for what the MC was wearing before they go through the tear so that it isn’t as simple as you chose to not dress in a gender comforming manner = reaction they’ll be baffled by your clothes regardless in most cases. And of course there’d be more than just white people living what we’d consider normal lives, especially as the plan is for London & Manchester to be the cities this revolves around - both have always been diverse places to be. But of course you’re right to point out that for each negative interaction there should be positive and the inclusion of negative reactivity should be properly considered.
  2. It’s not necessarily that I think I need to tell a story regarding these things but that the MC will be ending up in these settings and I worry if no one reacts at all to them - especially the people they’ll more meaningfully interact with them - it’ll be left feeling hollow? A gay man in 1895 meeting a gay MC feels like there should be something happening there? I want where the MC ends up to feel real and the people to feel real instead of it being a stop-gap they’re stuck in as part of the plot. I’m not educated on every era but I’m willing to put the work in and given I’ll be writing three/four very specific historical settings in specific places I’ve already been able to do a decent chunk of research on the attitudes and demographics of the place at that time.
  3. It would fit within the tone, I’m trying to keep it vague as it’s quite a bit plot thing but I’m now aware that the vagueness is likely not helping my response to your very detailed advice - the MC ends up in the past to escape someone, there’s a portal/tear they jump through and where they end up is up to a previous decision the MC has made. The tone is sort of sci-fantasy/thriller where the player is seeking answers as to their past and also trying to stop a destructive group who are very much trying to kill a large group of people so I don’t think any negative reactions would be too jarring in tone?

1945/1895/1795.

@jay-walker I really appreciate this advice, a bit of a concern is this isn’t going to be a historical fiction game but the character will be in a historical setting for a portion of it - so it’s a bit of a balancing act as to how much attention and focus should go to this bit.

@ParrotWatcher It’s not a story about bigotry and even as I said the reactivity question isn’t just “Should I put bigotry in my game?” So much as are people comfortable with the idea of a character commenting on their race/gender presentation/sexuality within the historical context at all? They’ll be surprised by what any character is wearing/looks like depending on where they land but the question was more so about how comfortable people were with the ideas of comments towards more personal aspects.

I’m aware of the historical diversity of Britain, especially the towns and cities with ports but even Hadrian’s Wall had diversity, although I hadn’t heard of Chevalier d’Éon so thank you for sharing that! I’d thought the comment about how in 1666, for example, being white but not from around there could be more dangerous than being black was me sort of trying to say I’m not planning on pretending history was solely white straight people having a great time and that’s all and Britain did not have anyone from anywhere not white living normal lives. But I worded it clumsily so I apologise for that.

@Havenstone
Sorry if I gave you the impression it would be solely negative or that it would act as though it was all homogenous, I’d thought using reactive instead of talking about racism/slavery/bigotry would help but I clearly need to be a bit more succinct in this. Got nervous asking for advice so I somewhat word vomitied instead. Thank you!

@AletheiaKnights Of course! The character unfortunately doesn’t know in advance, although if that’s something that could help readers feel more comfortable there may be a way for me to facilitate that albeit it wouldn’t be a large window of time. And they’d absolutely meet a range of people! It’s a tad location locked to Britain because of how what they’re using works but genuinely a really cool point and idea as to how it would work on a larger scale. And it absoutely does help get the ball rolling as to the variability of the reactivity!

Again I’m really sorry if I gave the impression to people that I just meant reactive = bigoted. I’d planned for it to go both ways but I think it’s really good to have it more explicitly pointed out that the negative direction needs far more consideration as to the weight of it.

5 Likes
10

Argh, now my number pattern brain is annoyed by the fact that they’re not all the same last two numbers.

1 Like
11

Where would you be?

1 Like
12

I really love all the in-depth answers here, and how positive, constructive, and helpful this thread is compared to some others I’ve seen on the topic.

But I seriously want a game now where this is a major plot point that the MC has to deal with. :joy:

7 Likes
13

I’m kind of weirdly touched by the fact that each of these fashionable ladies is wearing stupid little cloth shapes in a color that provides the best contrast to her own skin tone, while today’s oh-so-enlightened society is only just now getting around to making brown Band-Aids.

4 Likes
14

They’re not all that different from temporary tattoos. I can see it coming back.

2 Likes
15

Gently pushing against the implication that a game and any of its given elements are necessarily about what feels good. This particular brand of negative feelings is a valid factor in many games, whether that is the whole point of the game or not. From Baldur’s Gate III with its (albeit mainly flavor text) fantasy race and to a lesser extent gender reactivity that a ton of players connected with to games as serious and dark as the one about realizing you’re complicit in the Holocaust. The same premise that causes some to distance themselves from a game will lead others to private message you that it’s the best, most realistically cathartic game they’ve ever had the privilege to play–such is the way of opinions. I personally appreciate games that speak to my experiences for a whole host of reasons. Likewise, I enjoy and see the value of games that instead favor inclusivity and offer a purely ideal world to escape to, at least on that front. Not to mention the spectrum of games with some combination therein too.

Regali wasn’t purely referring to ~isms~ when bringing up reactivity of course, but I wanted to express that the presence of them in some form does not degrade a game’s worth, merely changes player base. On the topic of reactivity as a positive, negative and neutral whole, keep in mind regardless of what the thought is, people will have some kind of thought on human diversity. Even when that thought is “it doesn’t matter at all, hardly anyone ponders it,” or “it makes us stronger and should be celebrated,” it’s cultural sentiment at work. Culture is a part of world-building, whether in realist, grim, idealized or wholly glossed over historical fiction, so I am not one to say there has to be a point outside of that per se.

But all that aside, to me, this question is an artistic choice and has little to do with what potentially makes a better game. There’s room for all types. As such, I agree with @levviathan’s response. What is important to the author? Which audience is the author attempting to write for? What criticisms–and there most certainly will be criticisms any way you shake it–does the author feel prepared to tackle? These are two sides on ultimately the same coin we’re talking about here. I always throw the ball back in the writers’ hands in these scenarios because if they lean too hard into something they were not willing to do, it will show in execution.

So @Regali, to quote you, would you want the environment to react to you in response to character customisation or no? If you have no true preference as either player or writer, then you could go with whatever you think would be simplest so you don’t put undue stress on your task load.

4 Likes
16

You’d be in either London & Manchester! :slight_smile: 1945 London, 1895 Manchester, 1795 London

1 Like
17

For what it’s worth I was too!

18

I like the way you phrased your question.

The awnser would mostly depend on the type of story.

Is it a Bill and Ted style comedy? Then no, unless it was for humor.

Is it a serious dealve into these themes?
Then yes.

Is it an epic Sci-Fi adventure? Then maybe a mild mention but nothing more than a minor sub-plot to agnowledge our choices in character creation and/or status as fish out of water before going back to what we came for.

That’s my opinion but I agree with @levviathan saying that it should feel right. Don’t force it where it doesn’t belong, and don’t take it out of where it does.

3 Likes
19

Depends on whether or not you are using our history or your own universes history. I have a planned WIP that is like an alternate universe to the Roman Empire in their own world. They’re issues are slightly different than ours during that time period. If you are using our history, I would suggest using what was prevalent during those times. The art is not the author, a disclaimer goes a long way also.

If it’s your own world, use it at your own discretion and also, disclaimer.

3 Likes