Never played Dragon Age, myself. What's the complaint? Bisexual = hedonist?

There's a frequent complaint that GLBT people are often depicted with an undue focus on their sexuality, mixed with deviance and othering.

If there's a gay guy, it's some rainbow storm of clothes, sashaying across the screen with the lithp to kill lithpth, talking about shoes.

Rather than, to pick a gay guy I know at random, a CS professor who dresses generally in boring button down shirts and slacks.

It's particularly bad for trans folks.


So, yeah. Imagine the following:

'We'd like to see more positive portrayals of Christians in comics.'
"Sure thing!"
...

"Say hello to Father O'Connell! He's a firm-handed disciplined Catholic priest. His love for young boys is tempered by his absolute faith, so while he may look, and dream, he WILL NOT TOUCH."

'What. The. HELL, man?!?'

"Oh for fuck's sake, you Jesus freaks are never happy."


(I doubt the Zevran example is that bad, though, again, GLBT folks are a little tired of the common refrain that 'man and woman, that's just the fabric of society, two men holding hands means we can't stop thinking of their anal sex EEW.)

Oh, and let me add... character romance?

Personally I am disinterested in it. I'm not interested in watching Bob and Bill play lesbian elf ninjas, which they tell me is TOTALLY FOR SERIOUS RP, and deal with their totally not gay portrayal of their budding romance.

Oh. My. God. Just ... just offscreen it, let's go kill orcs.


But I like context. We're saving the prince, who ran off from his retinue because he doesn't want to marry the princess (he is smitten for his stablehand). Unfortunately, he's been captured by orcs, dammit.

Or, 'hey guys, these are my parents. They can put us up while we are in the district.'

Quote from: CRKrueger;796918a one-armed warrior, a mage born without eyes, a fat hermaphroditic thief

Have you really never seen point-buy superhero games?  You put those disadvantages (possibly all of them) on your character in order to afford your awesome character concept.  Only slightly less common in fantasy settings; the very brief Pocket Universe rules have one-armed and one-eyed, and a few generic ones that could cover the others (but not blind).

QuoteWhen I roll 3d6, the fact that 18 comes up less then 12 doesn't mean 18 is being erased.

But if you claim to be rolling 3d6 and always come up with 8 to 13, then eventually we will suspect you're not rolling fair dice; that you're erasing 3 and 18.  That was Will's point about putting out a lot of material that never features anyone who isn't mainstream.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;796908Also, Erasure isn't about like, a single piece of work.

Its like the Beschdel Test, which is moronic to use as an indictment of an individual movie, but makes sense in context of the entirety of Hollywood.

Or BMI, which on an individual level can be pretty flawed (because yes, Lebron James is so overweight), but on a national level can indicate important trends.

Not every story or adventure or whatever is going to have an LGBT character. That is fine. But when there have been hundreds and hundreds of adventures made and they almost never show up... it gets a bit fishy.

That being said, if you find it too much for a single piece to mention a certain sexuality or gender identity, you are pretty much arguing for erasure.

And as for the "Waa waa, my games don't have any sexuality in them, so its not necessary" stuff... so fucking what? Your games don't have any at all. Good for you. That is fine man, that is how you want to run your game, coolio, no problems. But other people do. And we might like to have adventures with romantic subplots to them. Are we not allowed to play those?

Why flip out because someone wrote something that you aren't the target audience for, unless you have a moral objection to it? And if you have a moral objection to it, then you are a fucking bigot.

On the subject: Can anyone think of a adventure (would probably be in Paizo if there is) with a bisexual male NPC? I always find bi males to be the most underrepresented demographic. (The only two I can think of in fiction period are Jack Harkness and John Constantine)

I don't think anyone is really arguing against what you said. I have no problem if people love to have romance subplots in their game. I'm not familiar with the Paizo modules and Pathfinder.

How many adventures have romance in them? Should we have a sexuality field on a character sheet? My familiarity with published adventures is limited AD&D and the Birthright campaign setting.

The world my players play in has gay folk. If one of my players want to play a gay character or a transgendered character, that would be no problem. I really don't think people, or the majority of gamers, have an issue with any of that. Gay people exist. Transgendered people exist. It seems about 3-5% of the population is LBGT. If people run a game without any gay folks in it that seems more out of the ordinary than running a game with them in it.

It wasn't until a few years ago and on the internet that I ran into people that seem to have romance being a big factor in their games.

I think the most annoying part though is when you get a portrayal in fiction, and you ACTUALLY KNOW SOMEONE WHO ACTS JUST LIKE THAT, and people freak out over it.

Its like, look, maybe they don't act like you specifically do, but so what. As long as they don't play up their sexuality as their fault, I don't care.

(For context, the reason I asked about portrayal of bi-dudes, is that I personally, am a bi-dude, and never really see it anywhere. So I'm not a straight guy complaining about LGBT people complaining about LGBT characters).

Actually, I'd argue Erasure is really really really super gay.

Quote from: Will;796929Oh, and let me add... character romance?

Personally I am disinterested in it. I'm not interested in watching Bob and Bill play lesbian elf ninjas, which they tell me is TOTALLY FOR SERIOUS RP, and deal with their totally not gay portrayal of their budding romance.

Oh. My. God. Just ... just offscreen it, let's go kill orcs.


But I like context. We're saving the prince, who ran off from his retinue because he doesn't want to marry the princess (he is smitten for his stablehand). Unfortunately, he's been captured by orcs, dammit.

Or, 'hey guys, these are my parents. They can put us up while we are in the district.'

To me the scenario with the Prince running away with his stable hand would be fine. Maybe including it would make my game world better.

Quote from: Spinachcat;796601I am totally forcing 1989 to make his next Ranger gay. I am sitting her right now casting a ritual curse upon him through the computer screen!

Will, touch your noggin to the screen to empower my curse upon him!

So first he has Tool Proficiency (Hipster Glasses) and now he gives spellcasting bonuses too?  Is this a Feat or Background, Will?

Quote from: Will;796927Never played Dragon Age, myself. What's the complaint? Bisexual = hedonist?

There's a frequent complaint that GLBT people are often depicted with an undue focus on their sexuality, mixed with deviance and othering.

If there's a gay guy, it's some rainbow storm of clothes, sashaying across the screen with the lithp to kill lithpth, talking about shoes.

Rather than, to pick a gay guy I know at random, a CS professor who dresses generally in boring button down shirts and slacks.

It's particularly bad for trans folks.


So, yeah. Imagine the following:

'We'd like to see more positive portrayals of Christians in comics.'
"Sure thing!"
...

"Say hello to Father O'Connell! He's a firm-handed disciplined Catholic priest. His love for young boys is tempered by his absolute faith, so while he may look, and dream, he WILL NOT TOUCH."

'What. The. HELL, man?!?'

"Oh for fuck's sake, you Jesus freaks are never happy."


(I doubt the Zevran example is that bad, though, again, GLBT folks are a little tired of the common refrain that 'man and woman, that's just the fabric of society, two men holding hands means we can't stop thinking of their anal sex EEW.)

I played Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2 and I think a lot of the complaints are that the NPCs are just sexual conduits and not actual characters. It's not that the NPC is gay, it's that the NPC is whatever you want him/her to be. I actually think when it comes to LBGT representation games like Dragon Age are insulting. I actually would have no problem playing a video game where the main character is gay. I would rather have my character be gay and have a compelling story than what Bioware does.

Quote from: rawma;796930But if you claim to be rolling 3d6 and always come up with 8 to 13, then eventually we will suspect you're not rolling fair dice; that you're erasing 3 and 18.  That was Will's point about putting out a lot of material that never features anyone who isn't mainstream.

Imagine a Northman...

Guess what?

The fact that the first thing into your mind wasn't an Inuit doesn't make you a bigot.

Quote from: rawma;796930Have you really never seen point-buy superhero games?  You put those disadvantages (possibly all of them) on your character in order to afford your awesome character concept.  Only slightly less common in fantasy settings; the very brief Pocket Universe rules have one-armed and one-eyed, and a few generic ones that could cover the others (but not blind).



But if you claim to be rolling 3d6 and always come up with 8 to 13, then eventually we will suspect you're not rolling fair dice; that you're erasing 3 and 18.  That was Will's point about putting out a lot of material that never features anyone who isn't mainstream.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796940Imagine a Northman...

Guess what?

The fact that the first thing into your mind wasn't an Inuit doesn't make you a bigot.

http://sciencenordic.com/what-vikings-really-looked

Quote from: Ulairi;796938I played Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2 and I think a lot of the complaints are that the NPCs are just sexual conduits and not actual characters. It's not that the NPC is gay, it's that the NPC is whatever you want him/her to be. I actually think when it comes to LBGT representation games like Dragon Age are insulting. I actually would have no problem playing a video game where the main character is gay. I would rather have my character be gay and have a compelling story than what Bioware does.

Eh, I've seen my wife playing DA2, and from what I saw, the bisexual female character was obviously bisexual. It wasn't like she was straight if you played a dude, and gay if you played a lady.

I mean, I watched as she hit on my wife's female character, then watched as she hit on the dour elf dude. What she was didn't change based on what you were, she just liked you whether you were a dude or lady because she liked dudes and ladies.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796940Imagine a Northman...

Guess what?

The fact that the first thing into your mind wasn't an Inuit doesn't make you a bigot.

I pictured a guy in spandex and a cape with a working compass on his chest and a weathervane on his head. So, not sure what that makes me.

Quote from: TristramEvans;796945I pictured a guy in spandex and a cape with a working compass on his chest and a weathervane on his head. So, not sure what that makes me.

The thread winner, I think.