Diversity in stories as opposed to protagonists

[Erttheking]

I'll explain. If you make a war shooter set in the US military, it makes sense to make a male, often white, lead. Changing the character to female makes little sense, and doesn't fit. It's possible, but it creates a certain dissonance in the audience (It should be noted that it can be used for dramatic effect, as in the case of the original Metroid.) While the player might not reason out the why they feel that disconnection, it's that deliberate change that sticks out. I think it's this hang up that people often times mistake for misogyny, homophobia, or racism.

This again?

If I am to understand you correctly, I can play as an Orc, a Wizard, a Space Marine, an Anthropomorphic Fox, a Dinosaur, a Cyborg, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, and I'll be perfectly fine, but the moment I see, say, a female in the fucking US military the cognitive dissonance is supposed to be so overwhelming that I just won't be able to handle it? What the fuck is that woman doing? How is this even possible? I need to go lie down!

I'd rather not put words in your mouth, so I'm just going to ask you directly: if a WWII game came out that was trying to be, narratively anyway, realistic, but half of the Allied soldiers (just the Allies, not the Axis) were women, would you be able to take the narrative seriously? I'm just curious on your thoughts on the matter.

When people complain about women being in the military causing cognative dissawhatever, they're saying so because there are hardly any women in boots-on-the-ground roles in the military, mainly because women weren't allowed in most of those roles until recently. If Spec Ops had any female main charactrers, the game wouldn't make any sense as at the time of the game's release women weren't allowed into Delta Force, and having half of the 33rd be women would also be very... odd, since half of the regular army isn't female. There were women in the Army at the time I realize, but it still would have been odd.

I would like to tell you about a game called Expeditions Conquistador. It is set in 1517, with you taking command of a team of Conquistadors heading to Mexico to find fame, fortune and to bring civilization to the land. It's very historically accurate, with heavy xenophobia towards natives of North America (To the point where one of the possible characteristics of your soldiers can be racism), a lot of information about Native American civilizations (Such as the Aztecs) the brutal conditions that were faced on the frontier (If you only have one doctor and said doctor gets mauled by a alligator, you're pretty much fucked) the extreme overwhelming reach of Christianity (The Inquisition is mentioned at a couple of points as still being around)

Here's the thing though. Women are constantly shown holding the same position as men, with only an occasional throwaway line drawing any attention to it. Female soldiers, governors, doctors, scholars, missionaries...that's about it, there isn't exactly a massive job market on the frontier. It's kind of weird that the game is so historically accurate outside of these bits. But you know what? They still get across the feeling of the time period and the narrative is still interesting.

Also I would argue yes it is unrealistic for a woman to be in Delta Force. It is also very unrealistic for three men to be able to wipe out a unit numbering in the thousands all by themselves.

 

[Inglorious891]

I'll explain. If you make a war shooter set in the US military, it makes sense to make a male, often white, lead. Changing the character to female makes little sense, and doesn't fit. It's possible, but it creates a certain dissonance in the audience (It should be noted that it can be used for dramatic effect, as in the case of the original Metroid.) While the player might not reason out the why they feel that disconnection, it's that deliberate change that sticks out. I think it's this hang up that people often times mistake for misogyny, homophobia, or racism.

This again?

If I am to understand you correctly, I can play as an Orc, a Wizard, a Space Marine, an Anthropomorphic Fox, a Dinosaur, a Cyborg, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, and I'll be perfectly fine, but the moment I see, say, a female in the fucking US military the cognitive dissonance is supposed to be so overwhelming that I just won't be able to handle it? What the fuck is that woman doing? How is this even possible? I need to go lie down!

I'd rather not put words in your mouth, so I'm just going to ask you directly: if a WWII game came out that was trying to be, narratively anyway, realistic, but half of the Allied soldiers (just the Allies, not the Axis) were women, would you be able to take the narrative seriously? I'm just curious on your thoughts on the matter.

When people complain about women being in the military causing cognative dissawhatever, they're saying so because there are hardly any women in boots-on-the-ground roles in the military, mainly because women weren't allowed in most of those roles until recently. If Spec Ops had any female main charactrers, the game wouldn't make any sense as at the time of the game's release women weren't allowed into Delta Force, and having half of the 33rd be women would also be very... odd, since half of the regular army isn't female. There were women in the Army at the time I realize, but it still would have been odd.

I would like to tell you about a game called Expeditions Conquistador. It is set in 1517, with you taking command of a team of Conquistadors heading to Mexico to find fame, fortune and to bring civilization to the land. It's very historically accurate, with heavy xenophobia towards natives of North America (To the point where one of the possible characteristics of your soldiers can be racism), a lot of information about Native American civilizations (Such as the Aztecs) the brutal conditions that were faced on the frontier (If you only have one doctor and said doctor gets mauled by a alligator, you're pretty much fucked) the extreme overwhelming reach of Christianity (The Inquisition is mentioned at a couple of points as still being around)

Here's the thing though. Women are constantly shown holding the same position as men, with only an occasional throwaway line drawing any attention to it. Female soldiers, governors, doctors, scholars, missionaries...that's about it, there isn't exactly a massive job market on the frontier. It's kind of weird that the game is so historically accurate outside of these bits. But you know what? They still get across the feeling of the time period and the narrative is still interesting.

Also I would argue yes it is unrealistic for a woman to be in Delta Force. It is also very unrealistic for three men to be able to wipe out a unit numbering in the thousands all by themselves.

Spoiler

Huh...

You know what? I'll give you that one. Partially because you reminded me I really need to pick up Conquistador during the next Steam sale.

In the end I guess it's a case by case basis on whether or not ditching historical realism for gender equality is going to cause that cognative whatever. Personally, I just can't imagine Spec Ops being the same with half of the soldiers female. What the standard is for games that should and shouldn't break reality realism for gender equality is something I'm gonna have to think about.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

As opposed to? As in instead of? Sorry, I'd like both. Under-representation sucks, and I'm tired of it.
Frankly, I'd rather have a shallow woman than see an industry still reliant on the straight white guy.
I can't imagine plots being so consistently good that I'd be interested in playing as a straight white guy that often. And there's the problem. Keeping games aimed at guys, and not being welcoming towards women since women don't get to play as a familiar character.

Why can't we have both? Women can seek revenge, fight for their country, and do a lot of the plots guys are in.

Representation is important. If you don't think so, then realize your opinion represents you. If representation isn't important, then neither is your opinion, or you, for that matter. Representation seems much more important now, doesn't it?

 

[Erttheking]

This again?

If I am to understand you correctly, I can play as an Orc, a Wizard, a Space Marine, an Anthropomorphic Fox, a Dinosaur, a Cyborg, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, and I'll be perfectly fine, but the moment I see, say, a female in the fucking US military the cognitive dissonance is supposed to be so overwhelming that I just won't be able to handle it? What the fuck is that woman doing? How is this even possible? I need to go lie down!

I'm sorry, I just really can't stand this argument. "Oh, there's fantastical stuff in this universe but they decide to follow real life social norms for certain aspects?!?!?!? How dare they!" I mean Christ, it's even worse here since you're trying to compare fantasy universes with relatively realistic military fiction.

That would only be a legitimate point if military based video games had hard and realistic narratives, when most of them tend to have a flimsy relationship with being realistic, to put it generously.

 

[Rolaoi]

I'll explain. If you make a war shooter set in the US military, it makes sense to make a male, often white, lead. Changing the character to female makes little sense, and doesn't fit. It's possible, but it creates a certain dissonance in the audience (It should be noted that it can be used for dramatic effect, as in the case of the original Metroid.) While the player might not reason out the why they feel that disconnection, it's that deliberate change that sticks out. I think it's this hang up that people often times mistake for misogyny, homophobia, or racism.

This again?

If I am to understand you correctly, I can play as an Orc, a Wizard, a Space Marine, an Anthropomorphic Fox, a Dinosaur, a Cyborg, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, and I'll be perfectly fine, but the moment I see, say, a female in the fucking US military the cognitive dissonance is supposed to be so overwhelming that I just won't be able to handle it? What the fuck is that woman doing? How is this even possible? I need to go lie down!

I already explained that further down with setting and story. Yes, you can be all sorts of fantastical things in video games, but, even when you choose to be fantastical, you need to address your audience's expectations. Without internal consistency, the game's narrative falls apart. Inserting any element, no matter how minute, that drags on the player's mind is enough to break immersion. It's bad story telling.

There's room for female soldiers when you establish that it's not the real world or a distant world that's like our own, but, until it becomes normal for women to be front-line soldiers, you're compromising the game's integrity to make a statement. Putting your own believes and opinions above the game you're making for someone else is the worst thing you can do professionally.

 

[Rolaoi]

You believe that more diverse stories will lead to more diverse characters, but really, wouldn't it be easier to start the other way around? It's cheaper and quicker to stick boobs or a darker skintone on a character just to give everyone their own avatar (for now as a temporary bandaid) than rebuild the gaming industries hesitation and general disinterest in writers. Developers (ESPECIALLY AAA ones) are still essentially learning how to integrate story into the medium (still), it's something that they're going to have to learn at their own pace

why o why do we have to stop and oppose diverse protagonists to fix unrelated story issues? we can't tackle two things at once?

It's one way to go, but I don't feel it's the best way to go. You're still left with Not-England Fantasy RPG's, military shooters in the Middle East, and all the other stories carrying the same tropes. I would like to see that changed, personally. There are a lot of stories to be told which can't be if we just stick with the same tools.

 

[Trollhoffer]

compromising the game's integrity to make a statement.

What about when the game's integrity and the statement are closely related, though?

It might be incorrect to think of diversifying representation in games is simply a matter of additional skins to choose from. Even if, tomorrow, FPS protagonists were magically female, those games wouldn't approach the concerns women face in our society. Rather, the structure of the game and the mechanics of the game can represent the issues of the depicted people. A game about poverty would probably do well to include extensive systems concerning the management of money... even if opportunities to interact with the breadth of that system might be few and far between.

The inclusion of additional skins and sound effects to represent different genders is a good thing in a vacuum, but I think the massive structural issue in place concerning diversity in games, specifically, is that we tend to think of games in very mechanically narrow ways. Those narrow mechanics aren't suited for representing some of the social issues our society is dealing with currently, but are better developed for broad fantasy scenarios, like commanding armies, sword fighting, and sneaking through enemy territory.

This problem is just as significant with the "art" games aimed at approaching some of these social issues. It is sometimes thought that having a noble artistic goal excuses designers from developing robust mechanical systems, but these goals are much better hand-in-hand than they are independently. Having games where the depiction of inequality is a part of the mechanical systems is much more likely to drive the point home than a purely aesthetic, more overtly second-hand experience of those kinds of events.

So I would agree with whatever segment of this debate is arguing in favour of the diversification of games from both a mechanical and social point of view. Most games we play come from perspectives that don't have to deal with arbitrary discrimination, impoverishment, or direct violence. And the way those things are often framed is very telling; for instance, violence is commonly a punishment we visit upon our enemies for being our enemies, rather than being a threatening force primarily used against you (which is a perspective much more in line with the experiences of coloured people and working class people, for instance). Additionally, few games have systems for the management and acquisition of money on the basis of time (however abstract that timeframe might be) -- which makes a lot of sense for a middle-class perspective where one's pure labour income is generally sufficient to support their needs. So we're often not only coming from the narrative perspective of a middle-class, white, hetereosexual male, but a *mechanical* one.

 

[Rolaoi]

snip

I really liked that post. Mechanics were something I hadn't really thought deeply of in this context, but I should have. Going back to Heather and Silent Hill, I think it may explain why females are so often made into protagonist in survival horror games. The mechanics are often times made in such a way that the player is weaker and preyed upon, so the developers might see it as making the most sense from a design stand point.

There was that game about surviving a month in poverty that used the time and money management. Expanding upon it could really be a way to open peoples' eyes about what other people go through in a way that film or literature can't.

Thank you for introducing that point to me, Trollhoffer.

 

[f1r2a3n4k5]

I would generally agree. However, I would pose that it's a bit more complicated as it is the conjunction between the "protagonist" and the "plot" from which diversity arises.

So changing the "protagonist" in an otherwise explored setting, while not a solution if the changes end there, can still serve as the impetus for emergent story when done correctly.

You mention how it would be futile to include a female in a military shooter? I disagree. I think tons of fantastic story situations can be derived from such a simple change in protagonist. Especially since it's not preposterous that females are in the military. (And it's sort of a big deal now.)

Some themes for potential story: "Femininity in the military," "Succeeding in a male-dominated field," "Defying societal expectations for gender," "Gender and appearance."

Just think about how exploring these themes in, and simultaneously with, a military storyline would set a game so far afield anything we currently have.

Just off-hand, a similar example for another media. "Kill Bill." Tarantino could have used a generic male protagonist for his "revenge flick" storyline. However, by making the main character female, it tread new ground. Themes of: marriage, career vs. family, sexual exploitation, and motherhood could be explored. And the film thrived for it. Entirely without compromising the generic "revenge" plot found in countless other movies.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

This again?

If I am to understand you correctly, I can play as an Orc, a Wizard, a Space Marine, an Anthropomorphic Fox, a Dinosaur, a Cyborg, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, and I'll be perfectly fine, but the moment I see, say, a female in the fucking US military the cognitive dissonance is supposed to be so overwhelming that I just won't be able to handle it? What the fuck is that woman doing? How is this even possible? I need to go lie down!

Well, given there's a ban on sending female officers into active combat [http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/24/us/military-women-glance] it's not all that ludicrous a statement he made, probably not deserving of such sneering.

Don't get me wrong, it's not an impossibility for female soldiers to be in combat even with that deal with no active combat, and imagination is all for the good so having a game set where there are female soldiers in active combat roles is awesome but CURRENTLY it's not unreasonable to say it breaks some immersion (you could argue that the plot is already fictional so may as well keep going but that's slippery slope, yo)

If you'd like a different example, one I had, Assassin's Creed 3 with Connor? Or Ra'tonkeheton of the Mohawk tribe? One of the tribes who sided with the British because the Revolutionary army brutalised the crap out of them and their lands? I had a little bit of cognitive dissonance with that one, AND with how accepting they all were OF Connor and Achilles to begin with. The story could have been told as it was, with Connor, but having him become best friends with George Washington did break the immersion.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

In the end I guess it's a case by case basis on whether or not ditching historical realism for gender equality is going to cause that cognative whatever. Personally, I just can't imagine Spec Ops being the same with half of the soldiers female. What the standard is for games that should and shouldn't break reality realism for gender equality is something I'm gonna have to think about.

Well, in Spec Ops case, it may indeed have affected what they were going for.

Spec Ops was a deconstruction and subversion of few specific modern military shooter tropes. While it could have worked female soldiers into the narrative to address their token nature in the genre, that wasn't their focus and it might have diluted the message.

But I struggle to believe that shallow games like CoD or Battlefield would suffer with the addition of a female protagonist, especially since they have all but abandoned any pretense of reality. CoD at least introduced playable female combatants in Ghosts if only for multiplayer (correct me if I'm wrong on this, I haven't played it). As alarming as this sounds, that makes CoD progressive in this medium.

 

[mezorin]

They added women into COD Ghosts and the world didn't end, what's the big deal? Furthermore, couldn't you make the argument that the US Military is trying to get more recruits from all walks of life, to the point of opening the United States Marine Corps to women, so therefore to get the usual "expert knowledge" from the US military they would want to paint the current or future US Soldiers/Marines as being able to be women as well as men? Just a thought, as things have changed considerably even in the last decade or so.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

compromising the game's integrity to make a statement.

What about when the game's integrity and the statement are closely related, though?

It might be incorrect to think of diversifying representation in games is simply a matter of additional skins to choose from. Even if, tomorrow, FPS protagonists were magically female, those games wouldn't approach the concerns women face in our society. Rather, the structure of the game and the mechanics of the game can represent the issues of the depicted people. A game about poverty would probably do well to include extensive systems concerning the management of money... even if opportunities to interact with the breadth of that system might be few and far between.

The inclusion of additional skins and sound effects to represent different genders is a good thing in a vacuum, but I think the massive structural issue in place concerning diversity in games, specifically, is that we tend to think of games in very mechanically narrow ways. Those narrow mechanics aren't suited for representing some of the social issues our society is dealing with currently, but are better developed for broad fantasy scenarios, like commanding armies, sword fighting, and sneaking through enemy territory.

This problem is just as significant with the "art" games aimed at approaching some of these social issues. It is sometimes thought that having a noble artistic goal excuses designers from developing robust mechanical systems, but these goals are much better hand-in-hand than they are independently. Having games where the depiction of inequality is a part of the mechanical systems is much more likely to drive the point home than a purely aesthetic, more overtly second-hand experience of those kinds of events.

So I would agree with whatever segment of this debate is arguing in favour of the diversification of games from both a mechanical and social point of view. Most games we play come from perspectives that don't have to deal with arbitrary discrimination, impoverishment, or direct violence. And the way those things are often framed is very telling; for instance, violence is commonly a punishment we visit upon our enemies for being our enemies, rather than being a threatening force primarily used against you (which is a perspective much more in line with the experiences of coloured people and working class people, for instance). Additionally, few games have systems for the management and acquisition of money on the basis of time (however abstract that timeframe might be) -- which makes a lot of sense for a middle-class perspective where one's pure labour income is generally sufficient to support their needs. So we're often not only coming from the narrative perspective of a middle-class, white, hetereosexual male, but a *mechanical* one.

The issue though is that A) writing and game mechanics are handled in very separate avenues and B) the writing quality is on average not that great.

To address point a, while I understand that a coder is very unlikly to also be a good writer, it seems that the teams don't really communicate with each other on how to make a unified vision though that's more bureaucratic and probably resolves itself for projects with a greater focus on interplay

The second point though is much harder to solve. First take a look at this portion of a game theory episode

The portion talks about how a lot of LGBT characters are censored or seen in a negative light. If in the current world, we can't make good LGBT characters, how do you expect writing to improve to the point that the interplay between writing and mechanics is strong. Coupled with the general feel of most stories being either power fantasies or being overly long, our track record in writing is a bit lacking. If we want games to be able to tell messages with the mechanics then we damn well be willing to rack horrible stories over the fires of hell in order to get improvement done.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I'm afraid what people are asking for at the story level a game can't exactly accomplish in its present state --- you either going to end up pissing off the button smashers or the in depth-immersion enthusiasts. There is a general rule in writing, in that, you don't always have to go over board in explaining/describing things because you let the reader's imagination fulfill the details while moving along with your plot.

This is why you see some people adore games like Balder's Gate vs Dragon Age --- because as you can see, hear, and look at the character, the older game made you imagine them which formulated the experience far more engrossing. This kind of happens in Mass Effect 1 where in certain instances, you don't really see half of the planets in the third-person, but you read the history behind a certain planet and you thus imagine the rest. When you come across those strange Protheon Orbs and the consort's prize enacts a vision in Shepard, its not shown to you... but you have to read it in a written text.

The context of the character must match the world, situation, and environment in which you put him/her in. In an example, if you were to make a Rome type of game but you wanted to avoid a white male as a Centurion and you suddenly put a woman in there, it would just look ridiculous if not 90% unlikely. However --- if you spun that same game in which you played a Celtic tribe woman that ended up being a leader against the Romans....well that is a different take all together and would fit the plot and premiss nicely. Simply putting a darker skinned character, making a character suddenly gay/bi-sex ect, putting a female physic on them for the sake of doing so is simply being misleading if not fraudulent, and you'll be seen as so.

It must make sense. It must fit the narrative.

I am just not convinced from the way I've seen stories of these AAA titles go that you have the talent nor the corporate backing that would allow such creative freedom to happen.

Yes, representation should hit in the narrative but if you are setting your game in the modern world, I would expect modern representation. Are women put in more non-combat roles than combat role, yes but that doesn't mean they don't fight and we can't have them as characters in FPSs. If you are in a fantasy, what is stopping you from making a world where homosexuality exists in tandem with heterosexuality with no real issues. What is stopping us from having LGBT NPCs and player characters. Even if we do have representation, the fact still stands that the majority of our stories are either self-insert fantasy, self-congratulatory, or just poor in charcterization.

To put into perspective, I love Persona 4. I think I have made that clear with my screen name. The characters are well fleshed out and written with clear conflicts and quirks while not being defined by them; they are unique people that can be seen as if you were describing a real person with personalities. The fact that these characters are considered extreme outliers in gaming instead of the baseline standard of how you should make characters speaks about our writing quality (note, audience surrogates have a lot more leniency but it still stands that our writing sucks)

 

[Trollhoffer]

Thank you for introducing that point to me, Trollhoffer.

My pleasure. A great way to see this kind of thing in action is by playing Mount & Blade, a kind of light feudalism simulator that puts you in the shoes of an individual medieval person with no overarching, objective goal. Certain elements of the game illustrate some of the points I was making, such as income pressure and gender discrimination. The combat system is also really good, which is important given that games ought to be interesting to play from the outset. Egalitarian social objectives are noble, but good core mechanics make or break a game experience in the long run, naturally.

The issue though is that A) writing and game mechanics are handled in very separate avenues and B) the writing quality is on average not that great.

These aren't unrelated. I feel that the whole concept of writing and mechanics being entirely separate things is the wrong way to go about telling stories through media underscored by mechanical systems. While some games do manage to tell very good stories with the medium, most don't. It might be that games too often take the superficial example of books and film without seeing what makes those stories work in their native contexts. Many of the best stories within any medium are those tailored to the medium in question, and video games are no example. Consider how Dark Souls is a game about combat and exploration, then uses those elements to sell its story beats (as interpreted by the player). For instance, in the Painted World, there's a cliff with three corpses near the edge. You're drawn to them, as each has a collectible item, which turns out to be the Soul of a Proud Knight -- so, three proud knights perished upon this cliff. But how? If you look around, you'll see what appear to be cages with mangled bars bent outward. Something escaped from those cages and slew those three proud knights. Using only the placement of environmental objects, Dark Souls tells a very short story, using incentives from item pickups and the placement of environmental objects to draw the player towards a conclusion. That is in no way, from a conventional point of view, "writing". But it is game design and development (specifically level or map design), and it does in fact tell a story.

So there it is. We can merge writing with other disciplines within games development. Some people already have, throughout the history of the medium. But for whatever reasons, this hasn't clicked with the mainstream.

The portion talks about how a lot of LGBT characters are censored or seen in a negative light. If in the current world, we can't make good LGBT characters, how do you expect writing to improve to the point that the interplay between writing and mechanics is strong. Coupled with the general feel of most stories being either power fantasies or being overly long, our track record in writing is a bit lacking. If we want games to be able to tell messages with the mechanics then we damn well be willing to rack horrible stories over the fires of hell in order to get improvement done.

Again, I doubt writing improvements are going to be independent of mechanical improvements. The biggest block is that so many people consider writing and mechanics to be entirely different things to begin with, when there have been examples of games that merge those disciplines for quite some time. Consider the conventional structure of fiction, where the story's contents are tied together by consistent themes. In the video game equivalent, those themes make an excellent basis for game mechanics, as they're the ideas that underscore the entire experience. If game mechanics were more often related to the themes of a work, then games might pick up more narrative cohesion by accident. For instance, in a game about poverty, the player might have the option to do volunteer work and thereby gain some valuable work experience... or they could involve themselves in profitable crime, turning that some amount of time into direct income. Simply giving players the mechanical option of crime, and balancing it to be more realistic as a financial option than the honest path, throws into focus the regrettable situation many criminals find themselves in -- even if they would much prefer to be an honest person. Giving poverty and crime this kind of intersectionality already tells an implicit story, even if it's a very broad and abstract one -- it just does that with broader thematic concepts than literal pieces of individual dialogue.

Remember, our species has been mastering linear storytelling for thousands of years. We've just stumbled upon the first mass-marketable way to tell non-linear stories to broad audiences, and we're choking hard because we're relying on wisdom that's antiquated in context of these new possibilities. Relying on the old knowledge to get us through probably isn't going to work, and even if it does, the result will be less than video games are capable of. Naturally, that old wisdom is still perfectly good and valid in contexts where it has clearer application... but that probably isn't in the here and now, with such an incredibly abstract medium.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

There's room for female soldiers when you establish that it's not the real world or a distant world that's like our own, but, until it becomes normal for women to be front-line soldiers, you're compromising the game's integrity to make a statement. Putting your own believes and opinions above the game you're making for someone else is the worst thing you can do professionally.

The fuck?

Are there only female soliders in distant worlds that are similar to our own? The last time I checked there are female soliders here too.

Guy, there isn't anything wrong with having a white male lead. The problem with your argument isn't your insistence that verisimilitude is important to narrative experiences. It can be, depending on the story in question, and I happen to enjoy it very much. It's your bizarre insistence that the presence of women in the US military will create a state of "cognitive dissonance". It's a ludicrous assertion.

Well, given there's a ban on sending female officers into active combat [http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/24/us/military-women-glance] it's not all that ludicrous a statement he made, probably not deserving of such sneering.

Enlisted women made up 2.7% of the military's front-line units. Women were barred from the infantry, but were allowed to serve on gun crews, air crews and in seamanship specialties. Among officers, women represented 5.4% of those involved in "tactical operations."

Despite the official ban on combat, women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan often found themselves engaged in firefights. Women made up 67 of the nearly 3,500 Americans lost in hostile fire in Iraq and 33 of the 1,700-plus killed in combat in Afghanistan; more than 600 others in Iraq and 300 in Afghanistan were wounded.

Where does something become so outrageous that it becomes dissonant? Or "doesn't fit"? He literally implied you could not construct a game featuring a protagonist in the US military who was female without introducing dissonance and upsetting the audience.

..and having the protagonist - an American front-line soldier mowing down waves of Muslims in order to control the area for the sake of Western corporations be an Arab-American Muslim transgendered woman.

Thank GOD for straw men. Where would we be without them? We'd have to put TIME and EFFORT into debating issues.

I'd rather not put words in your mouth, so I'm just going to ask you directly: if a WWII game came out that was trying to be, narratively anyway, realistic, but half of the Allied soldiers (just the Allies, not the Axis) were women, would you be able to take the narrative seriously? I'm just curious on your thoughts on the matter.

You mean in this very specific, rigidly historically accurate example you've outlined, would it make sense to NOT be historically accurate? Gosh, I guess it wouldn't be.

When people complain about women being in the military causing cognative dissawhatever, they're saying so because there are hardly any women in boots-on-the-ground roles in the military, mainly because women weren't allowed in most of those roles until recently. If Spec Ops had any female main charactrers, the game wouldn't make any sense as at the time of the game's release women weren't allowed into Delta Force, and having half of the 33rd be women would also be very... odd, since half of the regular army isn't female. There were women in the Army at the time I realize, but it still would have been odd.

I live in Canada. There are hardly any people here with Texan accents, but I don't experience fucking cognitive dissonance and get upset when I hear one because the fabric that makes up the reality of my existence is starting to fray.

If OP wants to argue for proportional representation in games for the purposes of verisimilitude, OP can fill his boots. OP did not argue that. OP argued that casting a female protagonist in a US military game...not a WW2 game or Spec OPs, just "A US Military Game", would be so weird and off-putting that the audience would feel disconnection. 15% of the military, yet seeing one would be so out of place that it would shatter one's immersion.

None of this has anything to do with "being progressive". I don't give a shit if anyone puts women into their US Military manshoots, I'm probably not going to play them anyway and their character choices are entirely their own. I'm debating with someone who suggested that having a female protagonist in a US Military game "didn't make sense", was "dissonant", and would cause "disconnection" and "hang-ups".

 

[Netrigan]

I'll explain. If you make a war shooter set in the US military, it makes sense to make a male, often white, lead. Changing the character to female makes little sense, and doesn't fit. It's possible, but it creates a certain dissonance in the audience (It should be noted that it can be used for dramatic effect, as in the case of the original Metroid.) While the player might not reason out the why they feel that disconnection, it's that deliberate change that sticks out. I think it's this hang up that people often times mistake for misogyny, homophobia, or racism.

This again?

If I am to understand you correctly, I can play as an Orc, a Wizard, a Space Marine, an Anthropomorphic Fox, a Dinosaur, a Cyborg, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, and I'll be perfectly fine, but the moment I see, say, a female in the fucking US military the cognitive dissonance is supposed to be so overwhelming that I just won't be able to handle it? What the fuck is that woman doing? How is this even possible? I need to go lie down!

I already explained that further down with setting and story. Yes, you can be all sorts of fantastical things in video games, but, even when you choose to be fantastical, you need to address your audience's expectations. Without internal consistency, the game's narrative falls apart. Inserting any element, no matter how minute, that drags on the player's mind is enough to break immersion. It's bad story telling.

There's room for female soldiers when you establish that it's not the real world or a distant world that's like our own, but, until it becomes normal for women to be front-line soldiers, you're compromising the game's integrity to make a statement. Putting your own believes and opinions above the game you're making for someone else is the worst thing you can do professionally.

If we're doing the standard Call of Duty "realistic" shooter where you're sending troops to various hot-spots to do X, Y, or Z in a modern or historical setting where no such women existed in said role, then yes.

But it's amazingly easy to go off-script, even in the real world. Such as there were no black soldiers integrated in with the white soldiers during WWII, but that didn't stop a black naval cook from manning a gun at Pearl Harbor and shooting down Japanese planes. It would be dead-simple to come up with a scenario where a female soldier finds herself being an active participant following an enemy attack because she just simply happened to be there when it went down and was trained to deal with it. If a rag-tag team of defenders is put together to go up against a much bigger force, it's highly unlikely that someone will demand the girl sit this one out because she doesn't fit the military narrative.

Now if your purpose is to just pin your eyes back and have some fun, then the rules can go out the window. Doctor Who has been abusing this kind of thing for decades, as no one wants the past to be as depressingly racist or sexist as it probably was (although history is surprisingly cosmopolitan if you poke around with female pirates, black law men in the Old West, the Soviets had female fighter pilots in biplanes, maybe even a black English Queen... played by Helen Mirran in the movie, natch). If you wanted to do some over-the-top WWII shooter based on the heist movie Kelly's Heroes with a black general voiced by Sam Jackson and a hot-shot female sniper, you could probably get away with it because a wacky heist game set in the middle of WWII operates under a very different set of rules than a realistic one... the movie featured a hippy tank commander played by Donald Sutherland.

At most, I'd say I wouldn't expect to see various elements in a realistic war shooter and no one (apart from the Spike Lees of the world) will be upset if you stick pretty close to that. But there are plenty of ways for someone to go beyond that if they so choose.