T̶u̶m̶b̶l̶r̶ wofl Megathread

[Aces]

Personally I can't say whether designers can only write about what they know. I don't imagine Shigeru Miyamoto based Mario off of his crazed drug trips in the seedy part of Tokyo. For games where story is the driving element, I can see how the designer's gender would be more relevant. But for simpler gameplay driven games, there's no need to have the experience of being a female/minority. You can just make the main character a different race/gender and that'd be that. This is a good first step because as we diversify gender/ethnic representation in video games, women and minorities will feel less alienated by the medium and become interested in game design.

I don't get why you have to have a character that's a white man to fully utilize your story-writing potential though.
There's nothing special or radically different about a female protag or a black/hispanic/asian etc protag.

I think it's more of a bias than an actual crutch in thinking.

[Ad Bot]

[ultimamax]

Yeah. I've heard lots of people discuss the issue of writing female characters, but not being a writer/game designer myself I declined to challenge him on that statement. But yeah it's definitely not a big deal to have to write a character that's different from you.

[ultimamax]

It wouldnt matter if someone made a lead of some show or story a POC the tumblrs would still scream at them about something thats wrong.

Tumblr SJWs screams at everything. Ignore them. Their view should not be something you take into consideration when discussing social justice issues.

[Foxscotch]

if you can't write a character that is unlike you then you're a bad writer lol

[Aces]

if you can't write a character that is unlike you then you're a bad writer lol

Well i didn't want to put it that bluntly, but yeah.

Independent game designers aren't too keen on writing as big companies who pay people to make a storyboard or something.

[McJobless]

if you can't write a character that is unlike you then you're a bad writer lol

Or maybe you're a great writer who realises that there's a huge difference in motivations and thought processes between the two lovees, as well as the influences from different cultures. A male born in Mexico and a male born in England will have entirely different ways of thinking about things.

Like any good professional writer, I prefer to do research and write based on what I have complete knowledge on, over making stuff up and then pissing people off/my story being written-off as intellectually-challenged.

EDIT:

Independent game designers aren't too keen on writing as big companies who pay people to make a storyboard or something.

wotm8

I'd argue they're more keen on writing. Story is a big part of many indie games. Just because they can't hire some big name writer to do it, doesn't mean they can't try and use known successful writing tactics to make their stories better.

[Aces]

A few indie games have great writing but the majority don't in the sense that there literally is no story.
It's either a hit or miss.

[McJobless]

Yeah, because too many don't care :/ A lot of people enter the industry assuming that because they can play games, they can make games (and make games which are similar to what they've played but with minor differences and suddenly that's supposed to make an incredible game).

I dunno. I just know that when I'm behind the helm, I prefer to have somebody with experience talk to me about it so I can try and get the most interesting elements. I think the only female game character who was (probably) entirely written by a male and was actually good (a deep, complex character) would have been Kreia in KotORII.

[Aces]

Also I don't think that it's actually possible to write a bad female/minority character as long as they are interesting and not stereotypes.
Idk but I can see some good female leads in anime/television shows so that's where i'd draw inspiration from with character creation.

[McJobless]

I can agree with that. Since I like to think of characters as tools to give meaning in the story, so long as your character is not just there to be a love icon, annoy people (like a scrappy) or what have you, but has an actual role and their actions don't wildly differentiate from their personality, that works for me.

[Aces]

I'd say if I had one series to take a lesson from it'd be Fire Emblem.
Large female/male cast. Writing gets better with every new title that drops. Building your own personalized team and all that stuff.

Maybe I just like the series too much but that'd be it.

[ChickenMaster]

on the subject of female protagonists and people on tumblr complaining about stuff, when I had finished Transistor (by supergiant games), I went on the transistor tag to see other people's thoughts and stuff, right?

most of it was ordinary reviews, and some screencaps from the game, but every once in a while, i'd come across a silly review by a sjw
and i thought it was funny, because some people were complaining about the gay characters not being gay enough, lmao. as in, not having their loveuality be their entire identity. their reason being that representation doesn't matter if it's not at the forefront of the game! lol

[Bosnik]

yes we get it sjw's are dumb now look at this tragic love story









this is the only stuff that will make me visit tumblr still

[Foxscotch]

what just happened

[Zay]