More Diversity in NPCs PLEASE
spacehamzter
Member Posts: 77
I have to admit with all this talk of diversity I feel kind of left out as a black man. In fact, playing Baldur’s Gate sometimes feels like I am visiting the Rocky Mountains. The higher I go up in levels the whiter it gets. Most if not all the human characters I meet are white in the games. BG1 & BG2 made it a point to have at least one black NPC to make the quota but that just makes it like real life, where a black person is needed to appease the so called “white guilt”. This also brings up another point that I want to make to my gay and transgender friends. Get used to guilty people putting just “one” of you in their games, movies or work place to make themselves feel good. As you noticed the new DLC includes one of each. One black, transgender, gay romance option, and a bisexual option. This makes the point Al Sharpton made when people voted for Obama when he said, “it makes guilty whites feel good”. As a person of diversity all I want is a game where I can see real diversity and not just a quota. Why cant we have several LGBTQ characters in the game and more colored people.
***Edit -I took a look at what Ed Greenwood had to say about diversity on his FB page. All I have to say is, I think Eddy has been spending too much time making books for the Adult Section of the bookstore. His emphasis, as I read it, is geared more toward sexual diversity. In contrast, if I had to guess, I would say that 95% of stuff with his name behind it involves mostly white characters and white worlds, which to me is hypocritical. Before anyone mentions R. A. Salvator and old Drizzt. As a black man I see Drizzt as the Kunta-Kinta of the Drow who became the Toby for the white races. It’s plain to see the reverse class warfare that the drow brought to the realm. I mean look at the evil black drow who live in the cave and are slave masters. Now, the mighty white High Elves feel justified and are the victims. This is an obvious political statement that almost makes a mockery of black history.
***Edit -I took a look at what Ed Greenwood had to say about diversity on his FB page. All I have to say is, I think Eddy has been spending too much time making books for the Adult Section of the bookstore. His emphasis, as I read it, is geared more toward sexual diversity. In contrast, if I had to guess, I would say that 95% of stuff with his name behind it involves mostly white characters and white worlds, which to me is hypocritical. Before anyone mentions R. A. Salvator and old Drizzt. As a black man I see Drizzt as the Kunta-Kinta of the Drow who became the Toby for the white races. It’s plain to see the reverse class warfare that the drow brought to the realm. I mean look at the evil black drow who live in the cave and are slave masters. Now, the mighty white High Elves feel justified and are the victims. This is an obvious political statement that almost makes a mockery of black history.
Post edited by spacehamzter on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Hardy har har
As a rich, white, corporate CEO with an offshore bank account, I found Yoshimo to be the best NPC in the series. Seriously, Yoshimo just exudes cool. "Fleet of foot, and all that." "I can dance on the head of a pin as well." "Hiiii-ya..." He's a badass, independent-operating bounty hunter. Token or not, he's still the best, and is much better than Annoymen.
As for hypocritical...For instance were I to say I feel underrepresented or left out because there are no characters with my skin color, that is in and of itself racist.
Hell, consider some games which contain NO humans. I don't feel any less a part of the world, insulted, or judge the game for lacking diversity that mirrors our real world. See, because the game is Fiction, set in a DIFFERENT WORLD not meant to be a microcosm of OUR world . You ask me, I say the PC mindset of today takes Fiction way too serious and people who insist that everything be realistic or that they are represented should try and relax rather than dream up ulterior motives and slights over things like Baldur's Gate.
You know, because it's FICTION, and if you're seeing Drizzt as Kunta-Kinta, perhaps you're reading too much into the character.
Just my opinion of Corse....
SOD, I'm only a few hours in and I love it Completely I have about 6 groups currently going through it
I am sorry that you are offended by the notion of diversity in Forgotten Realms not being on par with your expectations. I'm sure, nobody meant to offend you.
More seriously, I understand where you are coming from, but also feel that creators are most likely going to create based on things that they have experience with and center in their own lives. Yes, works by 'white people' will largely focus around other 'white people' with 'non-whites' playing only token parts, but that is true of pretty much everyone. Thus, Creed, written and directed by African Americans has no Asians in it, while Snowpiercer, written, directed and produced by Koreans has no one of Middle Eastern descent. This isn't meant to dismiss your concerns, as I certainly respect and understand them, but I do feel a bit leery at blaming any particular ethnic group.
I am made hopeful, however, by the fact that 'Western society' is becoming more and more progressive, largely as a result of globalization and global representation in works. Gone are the days, for example, of Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese man in Breakfast at Tiffany's or Al Jolson wearing blackface in the Jazz Singer. I have confidence that as people become more aware of concerns such as these coming from different groups, society as a whole will be able to work together to address them.
Regardless, thank you for bringing up your concerns and I appreciate your comments.
Look at his face. He isn't amused at your constant trolling.
Well, I post in favor of Beamdog and thus I agree partially with you, I think even one is good enough FOR A TRANS character, but black people are a much larger percentage of the population and they deserved a lot more characters. The problem is that the mythologies that inspire such games are mostly greek and norse, of course there are all kinds but those two are by far the most referenced. In Pen and Paper they went a long way towards inclusion, Pathfinder (DnD 3.5 OGL) even had monster from my country (Brazil) folklore. In PnP there are indians-like, japanese-like, egyptian-like, african-like also gays, crossdressers, transgenders... Videogames however are not that inclusive since material is limited.
For now games are mostly made by and for the white male, we are slowly walking towards some diversity, I hope people listen to you and put lots of black people in RPGs, I just don't think it is going to be in Baldur's Gate.
As a result there are a lot of chlichés reproduced: We have something like Africa and something like Asia and that's where most of the black/asian looking people are and they have their own cultural thingies. Whith this they are mostly a rip off from our real world, from a western colonial viewpoint. What most fantasy worlds are missing is a believable history of migration and such.
But in the end it's how you handle the setting. For example in original BG colonization of the Americas was brought up. There was talk of a "New World" and a slaughtering by Flaming Fist soldiers taking place there. I found this one very good.
A FR adventure taking place in one of the more "exotic" areas of the realms could indeed be interesting. Would be a challenge to avoid said problems and still be believable inside the FR lore. Don't know if it's suppossed to be a political statement. More based on this traditional white=good and black=evil thing creators didn't reflect upon. But I agree that this is maybe the most problematic part of the FR setting in the first place.
We never ask straight, white cisgender able bodied/minded people to identify with other characters en masse. They are very much centred, especially cis white men in general. So why is it okay to ask a put upon minority to have relate to other characters constantly, but not the privileged group?
It's not so much about relating to people different to yourself - I mean, most of my characters are PoC and I'm white(I try my best to handle this with care) it's about SEEING yourself in these different worlds. Even things that focus on aliens tend to have a lot of coding.
What you're describing in your post actually IS an issue. How race is treated in D&D is one of my hang ups with it.
I don't try to see myself in another world, especially roleplaying. Me, I look for characters regardless of who or what they are and stories that interest me. I roleplay the PC according to who THEY are, what drives them, etc. rather than who I am. And I certainly don't go looking for ulterior themes that I might interpret as belittling history.
Again, it's FICTION.
There are, by the way, games out there that don't have white people in them. Do I take offense of their absence? Or if white people are represented and represented poorly or negatively? Nope, I like the game if it's good, but don't judge it as to how the setting pertains to our world unless the fictional one is obviously intended to reflect reality.
D&D, as with a ton of Fantasy worlds, is not intended as such and people need to get over their issues with it or (again) move onto something they don't find insulting or upsetting.
@Google_Calasade so if some of us have opinions that you sound like a "dumb ass" for saying this I want you to be ok with the fact, "they just are". (not saying you are one but if I was it shouldn't matter anyway, at least from your point of view)
Real diversity isnt just about adding stuff on sexual identity, for me it mean more possibility for the player in choice in their quest, in the people they can meet, in the character they can play, diverse way to get to your objective, to handle a situation or just in how you react to some weird people you meet.
It is absolutely true we do not ask cis, het, white men to identify with other characters in the same way we are expected to identify with cis, het, white men by default. You are the default - this is not a subjective observation but statistical fact.
Whether or not it's fiction is irrelevant. There are countless examples of Muslims in your country working hard as doctors, teachers, inspirational people. But ultimately people still get their conceptions from video games, films and TV shows. Media representation - and by extension fictional media is HUGE, especially when it comes to trans people. When South Park came out with the "Dolphin argument", we had to deal with a decade of that shitty false equivalence hitting us over the head.
There is a difference between Factual and True. Fiction may not be factual, but it can still be true. Read Caitlin R. Kiernan's the Drowning Girl(which has queer & trans characters), it explains this. An account I have of a transgender character may not be factual. It did not factually happen. But if it's accurate - and it's not dishonest which is the opposite of telling the truth, if it resonates with the real life experiences of trans people - it's true. It's why a lot of Folk Tales survive - they may not be Factual, but they're True.