We recently had a chance to play an interesting scenario, set in an interesting time. We played a Deadlands: Noir scenario set in 1935 New Orleans. We’re a group that has played together for years, though our Savage Worlds experience isn’t extensive.
While the characters were new to us (we were testing out pre-gens for a con scenario), we’re quite comfortable with each other as players. Despite that advantage, we hit a rough patch where one of the players felt de-protagonized due to the intersection of a character flaw and his character’s race.
The Characters
We each selected characters based in large part on a quick description and an image. We wound up with a diverse cast; a 16 year old black girl, a locally famous black boxer, a limping white bartending Texan, and a society woman who concealed her intimate relationship with a black singer.
At the table, some of those elements were concealed; Dill (the society woman) kept her secret for the first two thirds of play. Similarly, the bartender concealed his huckster powers throughout, while the girl’s voodoo abilities proved pivotal when she brought them into play.
The characters played off each other and the setting well; their backstories gave them all ties to accept each other’s aid and abilities in our search. The strong hooks for characterization encouraged us to play from the personalities and flaws. The investigation was interesting and played off of the segregated nature of New Orleans in the setting; when the group was in black neighborhoods, black characters tended to lead, while at the snooty banks, the society woman led.
The Problem
Unfortunately, while the advantage of each pair leading in their respective neighborhoods made sense, enduring slights passively didn’t work for the black boxer’s player. He noted a flaw on his sheet that he wouldn’t back down, so he refused to sideline himself when his presence was challenged in the wealthy neighborhoods. It was tense, because we as players were all rooting for him, but most of us expected it go poorly. When confronted at the bank, the character was faced with a terrible choice: to back down and betray his deeply held beliefs, or have his evening of play come to an early end (via police interference–getting detained or arrested for refusing to meekly go on his way).
Unfortunately, that frustrating choice cost the player his engagement for the rest of the night. Later it made sense for the boxer to lead, but the player had checked out. Figuring out those relations, and approaches the GM could take to challenge the group while retaining the feel of a complex setting, proved to be some of the most useful play testing feedback.
It’s Tricky
Race, sex, and identity can all be difficult to discuss with people you know; for example, watch just about anyone’s discussion about roles, stereotypes, or prejudice go horribly awry within a few comments on any social media platform. While it’s easy to laugh about how aliens and elves are played without hesitation, there aren’t real hobbits at your table to quirk their eyebrows and ask, “Is that really how you see me?”
While it may be artificial, the player characters should all be able to get along–at least to a Legolas/Gimli level of deep respect over superficial teasing. There are going to be plenty of reasons for blame later when the dice betray you–don’t sabotage the game by creating a group that won’t function before the first session even begins. Messy settings can be tricky, but you can build very gameable cultures that are intriguing, interesting, and full of unique flavor.
Gone Right?
I suspect many of us have played at tables where race and sex have gone awry–but have you played at tables where it was handled well? I’d love to hear examples of rewarding play in comments.
Racial challenges are one of those issues that it’s best to discuss with the table before you start dropping them into the game, as they can go beyond telling a story and start impacting the players, rather than the characters, which threatens the fun.
If you want to introduce controversial story elements (racism, sexism, abuse), it’s always best to get your players’ buy-in before you hit their characters over the head with them.
I wish I could upvote, +1, or like that comment.
Yes, this can’t be said enough. If your group is looking for mindless escapism, it’ll be painful when you’re depicting a historical struggle and players are sidelined. Similarly, playing a historically accurate bigot or sexist in a game that’s not engaging in that way with the setting is terribly disruptive.
I once played a black character in a Deadlands game where the GM was very real about the racism. The exclusion of my character, while somewhat of a bummer in the game, made me really think about some of the damage done by racism. I know my gaming experience is nothing compared to the real racism people face, but anything that breeds empathy is good.
The exclusion is frustrating, especially if you’re looking for an escapist game. The horrifying thing is that as players, we’re usually playing someone with exceptional latitude or competence, and it only lasts for a few hours.
It’s sobering when you realize that you can set aside those disadvantages as soon as the session ends, but the character (and people in the situations that you’re reflecting) can’t turn off the experience because it’s frustrating or they’ve reached their limit.
In The Gift, the first module of the Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy for Kaidan, the xenophobic nature of the people of Kaidan (analog Japanese) treat the foreigner PCs as ‘gaijin’, even calling the entry port to Kaidan, Gaijinoshima – island of the gaijin. (Gaijin is a derogatory term that means “barbarian” or “long noses”, essentially meaning “outsider”). The local prejudices force the PCs to jump through hoops just to get traveling papers to enter country and complete their mission. Buying supplies is very limiting, and the party is forced to deal with the local criminal syndicate just get past the bureaucracy. So racism plays a part, where all the PCs are the slighted party involved. Also while there is an opportunity for PCs to learn to speak Kaidanese, by the merchant that hired the party as escorts – if nobody chooses to learn the language, the eventual demise of the merchant will put the PCs in a tough spot. I didn’t make it overt, but prejudice against the PCs is an issue in that module.
That sounds like it’s also a good way for the players to learn about the setting right along with their characters; as foreigners, they’re not going to know much about the region. Especially if they don’t speak the language!
I use my game world as a testbed to explore the issues and consequences of various -isms. For example, relations between the various fantasy humanoid species (humans, elves, and dwarves) range from suspicion to outright hostility. Even amongst members of one species there are strong differences rooted in nationalism and ethnocentrism. I warned all my players of this before they joined, and they’ve embraced it.
The one sticking point, though, in this safe experiment has been sexism. Recently one of my female players objected to occasionally meeting sexist NPCs. I’ll paraphrase our discussion:
“I hate sexist NPCs. You should stop using them.”
“You recognize that while some NPCs belittle your PC for being female, most don’t, and nothing in the mechanics or the world itself has held you back from growing powerful and being widely recognized as such, right?”
“Yes.”
“Furthermore, when you’ve encountered sexist NPCs you’ve generally been able to show them the folly of underestimating you or mistreating you, right?”
“Yes.”
“My intent with including sexist elements was to portray real-world problems but in a fantasy setting where they are easier to overcome. Have I missed the mark?”
“The thing is, I put up with enough crap every day in the real world because I’m a woman. My fantasy world is not one where I get to humiliate chauvinists at will; it’s one where I don’t have to deal with that problem at all.”
That’s where Bookkeeper’s point about explicit discussion holds so true, and where the discussion you had with her is a great example.
Have you changed the world or game to downplay or eliminate the sexism after that conversation? Did you find a compromise where their sexism continues to exist but takes up less attention and screen time, or the elements that she most dislikes were eliminated?
I mentioned both racism and sexism because I treated them differently when perhaps I shouldn’t have. The racist aspects, I got buy-in from my players on. The sexist aspects, I did not. There are a number of reasons for that. One of them is that while racial differences and distrust are core elements of my campaign concept, sexism is not. So I’ve addressed this player’s concerns by largely dropping sexism from the story. It’s no loss to me, and there are still plenty of other social ills we continue to explore.
That sounds like a great example of keeping your eye on the ball and making a table where everyone’s comfortable. Well done!
Similarly, for my Kaidan setting, I’ve greatly downplayed any issues of sexism, as much as possible. One has to agree that historic Japan is very sexist in many aspects of its culture and still true today. Still in an RPG some of its players may be women or others that might not want the overt inclusion of sexism. For example, most samurai women in historic Japan were wives and daughters, but not soldiers with very few examples of actual warriors who were women in history. I’ve not suggested that such are rare in Kaidan.
When GM’ing GURPS Banestorm, because it’s semi-based on historical “realism” they added the sexism. My wife looked at it and said pretty much those exact same words. I stripped it out of the setting and the game flowed fine.
I would extrapolate the buy in more with con games, the person running them should go through your pre-gens and ensure they don’t have hindrances, flaws, disadvantages, etc that end up being licenses to be an asshat unless they well broadcast it’s that type of game.
I alas found that the hard way when running a game and couldn’t figure why a couple of people were being such bone heads…then I realized they were “playing their character”. Which may be immersive for them, but the others were taken aback by it. I now am careful to either bland out the characters or ensure the game description includes comment about the characters.
This is interesting. I feel the same way she does – and her phrasing was perfect there, it’s hell putting up with the sexism built into the rules, let alone having it in game as well (2nd ed dnd – minotaur horn length signifies status and females have shorter horns, and the number of games where my warrior gets -x strength, +x charisma). Usually the GMs don’t put any sexism in, but then while I always play ladies my ladies tend to stand out in other ways than their gender (species, age, visual distinctiveness). When I do make gender a defining feature I usually play on it heavily (for humour), which I think counts as initiating (‘oh thank you, I do so love unsolicited comments about my appearance’).
But in one game (Dnd 2nd) I’m playing a character from the dragonlance setting – a female knight of solamnia in disguise (pre-heroes of the lance). The knights at this time take their vast tomes of rules very seriously – among them is a passage which ‘Prohibits the hand of a woman from wielding the blade of a true knight’. I found the novels depicted a deeply sexist society (particularly depressing as one of the two authors is a woman), and they bothered me enough to want to try and address it somehow. I thought it would be interesting to play a lawful woman who buys into that attitude but keeps finding herself unable to put down the blade (she’s impersonating her duty-shirking twin brother until she can find him and make him replace her – family honour thing). I’m definitely ready for some sexism with this character.
I’ve ran a few games based loosely on historical settings, (Weird Wars, a WWII horror setting, and Werewolf Wild West) and having generally at least one female gamer at the table (my life partner Rosella) the issue of gender inequality has been an expected part of the setting by everyone at the table.
Before hand I made sure to speak with my players and let them know how close to the historical reality of gender and/or racial inequality I was planning to portray the setting and get their thoughts on it and any changes they’d prefer to see.
The short talk before the game usually put everyone on the same page and they were able to handle the setting and their characters without much difficulty.
In the werewolf game I readily awarded rage points to characters at anytime they experienced notable discrimination to represent how it would upset and frustrate them and give them a good reason to potentially “snap” when someone pushes them too far, and helped signify that in game without being too overt.
I like the use of fueling Rage; that’s a great way of having the mechanic mirror the players’ emotions too.
Talking about how it’s going to be handled is key; it sounds like you avoid trouble by being clear upfront. That’s how I like it as both a player and GM.
Awarding rage points is really clever, making prejudice part of the rules is genius.
An alternative is also to occasionally gender flip it as nothing makes sexism / racism / etc. easier to unpack and understand than taking the expected norms and swapping them around. Keep all the history the exact same, and swap things over. Yeah, it’d make it more centre stage than it normally would but it can make for fantastic short campaigns!
I can find myself struggling a little with defaulting to white men in my games, and when I don’t make a character white I also have to remind myself that the colour of their skin and their culture aren’t their defining characteristics. I found this link really useful – http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/38865619233/a-few-tips-and-resources-for-writing-characters-of
And this one is a good summary of what not to do: http://www.springhole.net/writing/offensivemistakes.htm
My PCs in Warhammer are going to Cathay soon, which is loosely based on China. We sat down and played a few rounds of microscope to flesh out the history of the region, which went quite well and gave me loads of ideas. I’m thinking this period of the story will give me lots of practice not defaulting to white.