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[Phmcw]

Realism means being like reality actually is/was. "Reality is unrealistic" just sounds like the forlorn cry of somebody who injured himself badly by copying something from a TV show. Things can be somewhat believable but not realistic, but that is only possible in fantasy settings (where there is magic or technology that fulfils Clarke's law by seeming like magic).

Well, three point : first it's used that way.

Second it's in TVtropes so they talk a lot about movies, and there is a variety of reasons why a simulacre can be more belivable than the real thing, either because the camera's image isn't real life (rain for instance) or because we simply expect them that way (gunshot, punch noises, car noises...).

And third, sometime peoples simply don't believe real things.
Be it politically correct history, whitewashed history, sound effects, .... you can run into beliviability problems if the audience have a flawed representation of reality. A fair share of the middle age wasn't as mysoginistic as we expect it to be, and a realistic game in that respect may be taken as unrealistic. Same for racism, really. No one is very racist against just one dude, they would be just curious. A black man in the middle ages wouldn't have clashed that much, and there has been black knights. After all they wouldn't shock much more than blonde in Spain or spanish in Scandinavia, if you keep in mind that peoples in the early middle age were sedentary.

We sometimes, yes, want to play the woman who is just some amazing soldier and no one cares and why should they?

Since in your average videogaame you decimate a few armies by yourself, that wouldn't be more unrealistic than it is now. But you can do it.

But we also want to play the woman who has to fight her way into a sexist society and lacks many of the fundamental skills normally only taught to men

Mount and blade : warband, make a female character, you'll have extra difficulties because of it. Very well done. Available for linux, windows and mac on steam.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Where in World War 1 did that happen? The Serbian and Russian armies made widespread use of female soldiers, including the only British woman to fight, Flora Sandes, who served in Serbia. A female soldier in these surroundings would not be unusual at all, though a pregnant one would be. Since Serbia lost a quarter of its population in the war, there was hardly time for sexism to get in the way.

If uneducated morons think a realistic portrayal is unrealistic, then that is their fault and developers should not be forced to act according to what people have "learned" from other fiction. Rain does not usually come down like a power shower. If you think it does, look outside next time it is raining. In the same way, if you think mediaeval women were all utterly powerless and did nothing, look at the primary sources written at the time and see that the evidence does not indicate that at all. Any gamers howling about how an accurate portrayal fails to meet their wrong expectations can be directed to the research sources to see for themselves. Regarding racism, for example, black figures can be seen in late mediaeval paintings mixed in with white figures, and nobody seems to mind very much. Religion was the big prejudice in those days, not race, but even that could be overcome if it was very convenient.

[Vector]

Also sounds good. What's your opinion on the whole issue of shoehorning LGBT people into games as a token minority? It seems like a trap that's easy to fall into. Also, how would you work it statistically? In a game with five named characters, it seems statistically unlikely that more than one would be homosexual, which would leave any homosexual person romantically uninvolved.

In my mom's side of the family: My grandfather apparently wanted to be a woman. My parent's generation is pretty quiet, but in mine, out of 9 cousins, there are two lesbians and a bisexual, plus whoever else is being quiet (there's been a lot of rumors about the men being queer, but they don't want to talk about it). I'm just saying--stuff like this can run in families, first of all, and second of all you don't have to have the homosexual characters necessarily in relationships with each other. People talk to each other about their relationships. It's totally a thing. And, socially, queer people flock together. You usually don't come up with characters by random statistical sample.

You also seem to assume that LGBT people don't make games. I don't think we're really into shoehorning. I think we just like writing about ourselves ;] It's not like LGBT people are shoehorned into real life, right?

More women of color, and... I know this is a long shot, but trans men and women shown in a positive light, if not protagonists.

LGBT men and women in general. I don't just want more representation for women, but for everyone. I think it would be great to be able to pick from a variety of games and know the protagonist isn't almost always going to be a straight white male. I admit I still game despite this being common, but seeing a strong female protagonist really draws me in.

I agree on this.

[Baffler]

Yes, but the thread is clearly highly "white" in any case because we are only referring to White Female protagonists aren't we?

What was the last Black Female main character? To my knowledge we don't have any.

As well, the talk about the effect of not having total female character saturation (as if 51% was somehow incredibly insufficient) I wanted to give this thread a bit of perspective.

Since right now we are talking about White Women, the second most privileged group in the world who are highly represented in all media.

The RPG genre, and in this case not a "chose your own protagonist" and I am also saying it needs to have been sold in a store.

Just to eliminate obscure indie games.

Half Life 2 has Alex Vance, and while not the protagonist she's one of, if not the most important, NPCs. I'll give you that I can't think of any others though.

[Arx]

In my mom's side of the family: My grandfather apparently wanted to be a woman. My parent's generation is pretty quiet, but in mine, out of 9 cousins, there are two lesbians and a bisexual, plus whoever else is being quiet (there's been a lot of rumors about the men being queer, but they don't want to talk about it). I'm just saying--stuff like this can run in families, first of all, and second of all you don't have to have the homosexual characters necessarily in relationships with each other. People talk to each other about their relationships. It's totally a thing. And, socially, queer people flock together. You usually don't come up with characters by random statistical sample.

That's fair enough. Incidentally, homosexuality appears to have a strong genetic component according to recent studies, so it may well run in your family. That might get a bit awkward for romance in a game though.

The social aspect I hadn't thought of, I admit. I don't interact in person with any openly LGBT people, so I confess to not having much knowledge of that kind of thing.

You also seem to assume that LGBT people don't make games. I don't think we're really into shoehorning. I think we just like writing about ourselves ;] It's not like LGBT people are shoehorned into real life, right?

I'm confident LGBT devs like yourself can pull it off competently. I'm just worried about other studios might do, although I can't think offhand of any ways to unintentionally hideously mess it up. They do not necessarily have LGBT people in a position to influence decisions like that, at least going by the impressions of games from others.



I just realised how badly I could be said to be misplaced in this debate. I'm barely even a gamer.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Homosexuals in some past or present settings (anywhere where it is illegal or punished) will almost certainly be closeted, so it will not even feature in the gameplay unless the character becomes intimately involved with them. Sexuality cannot be determined by looking at someone. There may already be many homosexual characters in games; they just do not mention it.

[Vector]

People seem to assume that all games must take place in public space, rather than private settings in which emotional intimacy exists--that the character you're playing is inherently untrustworthy and wouldn't be entrusted with personal information. I think that that's kind of unfortunate.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There's also a certain style of storytelling that eschews realism when convenient (not simply being not accurate to reality, but clearly rejecting the standard of realism as important) for the sake of creating certain plot. It's not a video game, but I think the film Grand Budapest Hotel is a perfect example of this kind of thing. It's set in Vaguely Eastern Europe, absolutely none of the actors bother to change their natural accents to match this. It's set right before the outbreak of WWII, but plays fast and loose with the technological and social standards of that period. It is easily one of the best movies I've seen in years.

I also think this kind of narrative is good for including things that don't fit under pure realism without becoming an annoying preachy creator, which is something that comes in high demand.

[Virtz]

Where in World War 1 did that happen? The Serbian and Russian armies made widespread use of female soldiers, including the only British woman to fight, Flora Sandes, who served in Serbia. A female soldier in these surroundings would not be unusual at all, though a pregnant one would be. Since Serbia lost a quarter of its population in the war, there was hardly time for sexism to get in the way.

If uneducated morons think a realistic portrayal is unrealistic, then that is their fault and developers should not be forced to act according to what people have "learned" from other fiction. Rain does not usually come down like a power shower. If you think it does, look outside next time it is raining. In the same way, if you think mediaeval women were all utterly powerless and did nothing, look at the primary sources written at the time and see that the evidence does not indicate that at all. Any gamers howling about how an accurate portrayal fails to meet their wrong expectations can be directed to the research sources to see for themselves. Regarding racism, for example, black figures can be seen in late mediaeval paintings mixed in with white figures, and nobody seems to mind very much. Religion was the big prejudice in those days, not race, but even that could be overcome if it was very convenient.

"Widespread" is an overstatement in case of the Russians. They only had a token few battalions made at the end of the war, of which only like 2 saw front-line combat. They only really became relatively widespread in World War 2. And apparently even there they had problems getting to the front-lines (due to the higher-ups) despite there being Germans on Russian soil.

Also, historical accuracy is kinda debatable. On one hand you have history established by the "victors" (those who ended up in power and could villify the conquered and everything they stood for), and on the other you have sensationalist revisionists who would attribute homosexuality to a historical figure because someone called them gay once, ignoring that it was done with slanderous intent by a political opponent. You gotta stop and think about what these people are claiming, what their basis is, and what their motives might be, and most people don't have the time to look these things up cause they have their own lives to worry about. I wouldn't go and call people "uneducated morons" over it.

Though sure, you shouldn't adapt to what the mainstream thinks, just go with the most accurate you could establish yourself, or whatever you feel would serve gameplay best.

[Urist Tilaturist]

There's also a certain style of storytelling that eschews realism when convenient (not simply being not accurate to reality, but clearly rejecting the standard of realism as important) for the sake of creating certain plot. It's not a video game, but I think the film Grand Budapest Hotel is a perfect example of this kind of thing. It's set in Vaguely Eastern Europe, absolutely none of the actors bother to change their natural accents to match this. It's set right before the outbreak of WWII, but plays fast and loose with the technological and social standards of that period. It is easily one of the best movies I've seen in years.

I also think this kind of narrative is good for including things that don't fit under pure realism without becoming an annoying preachy creator, which is something that comes in high demand.

That is surrealism, I suppose, with it being the opposite of realism. Surrealism is fine as an artistic choice unless the creator wants to make a believable world, or expect the audience to take it very seriously.

If the player character becomes intimately involved with a character, then his homosexuality may be revealed. What I meant was that some NPCs whom the player does not interact with in much depth may be homosexuals. The player just never finds out.

About Russian female soldiers: you are right in that there were not huge numbers of them, but my point was that their presence would not be unbelievable in that context, especially in irregular or partisan forces.

By considering several sources, and maybe some secondary ones too, it is usually possible to get a fairly objective account of a historical event or period. The accounts presented to the modern public should be considered in this way.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That is surrealism, I suppose, with it being the opposite of realism. Surrealism is fine as an artistic choice unless the creator wants to make a believable world, or expect the audience to take it very seriously.

I don't think surrealism is the right word. I'm not sure what the right word is, but media in this class can be plenty believable and serious. It tends to be among the more rich media out there.

[Vector]

I think Magical Realism is what it's typically called--another example being One Hundred Years of Solitude or the like.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Right, there we go, that's it. Though I think it's a bit of a misnomer since it doesn't have to involve anything fantastical or literally impossible, it just often does.

[smeeprocket]

are we arguing that including everyone but white, straight, cis-gendered males is not realistic again?

Seriously stop. I don't care about your feelings being hurt or you suspension of disbelief because johnny hero turns out to be a transman or gay.

It's not even like the bulk of games are realistic to the point where this is an issue.

You are just splitting hairs and finding excuses to exclude everyone but your own from video games.

I recently picked up a game, Dino D-Day, that I keep trying to get others to play with me. (It's fun as hell.) It has dinosaurs and Nazis together and is so not realistic, but the bulk of the military characters on the axis and allies side are men. HOWEVER, there is a communist woman and a french resistance fighter women both on the allies side. (I think the axis is all men, and dinosaurs, they get all but one of the dinosaurs, because it was NAZI SCIENCE that resurrected them.) This is a game that is far from AAA rating and they took the time to put in females that they frankly didn't have to because 90% of their playerbase is male. They went all out on the war time propaganda too, the sexist stuff aimed at house wives included, and they wove it all into a reality where dinosaurs had returned and were fighting for the Nazis. They did a great job, and in no way did it hurt the game to add those women.

It may seem "token" to include transpersons or members of the LGBTQIA+ (should I start adding U and P, I've seen those on there lately...,) or PoC, but that's because you are a part of the "norm" what you see everyday is your reality. The rest of us aren't seeing our reality, we are also experiencing your reality.

Why is your reality more realistic and meaningful than my reality? You're reality is a soap opera reality to me. It is fictional. Real people are not all white, straight, cis-gendered, and male. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities. They are diverse and varied. A myriad of individuals that all matter just as much as the last.

I don't think it is too much to ask that we get thrown a bone once in awhile and included in the games we play.

I DO NOT care if it is not realistic to you. All of us, this menagerie of different types of people, have existed since humanity started. We kept quiet because we didn't have the presence or strength to fight for our representation.

I think one of the biggest problems with not identifying your privilege in these instances is you seldom feel the urge to share. It is about maintaining said privilege and not extending that privilege to everyone else.

Stop it. Just Stop.

[Sheb]

Yeah, the discussion kinda derailed to just generally speaking about "realism" is. You do need to chill a bit smeeprocket, you can be a tad to quick to judge and react, it's not the first time you do it.