Why Straight White Guys Shouldn't Always Play Games As Themselves

Robert Rath

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Why Straight White Guys Shouldn't Always Play Games As Themselves

Sometimes it is beneficial to play games as a character outside your comfort zone. You might be surprised at the results.

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Jan 12, 2012
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Interesting piece. I'll note that it doesn't apply only to straight white guys; I'm brown and I think about this stuff as well (still straight and male, though). I usually, if given the option, make a female PC in an RPG because I'm interested to see if that opens up any unique paths.

Also, typo on the last page.
Its worth it for a gay teen living in the Bible Belt who can be himself digitally, even tough he has to hide everywhere else.
 

Steve Waltz

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May 16, 2012
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I remember my kick in the face was in Fallout: New Vegas. It was probably my 30th run through the game and I decided to play as a female working for Caesar?s legion, mainly to enjoy the irony. I remember how frustrated I got when I was told to take a hike when I asked to participate in the arena. ?Take a hike. No arena for you! That part of the game is for MALE characters only!? Man, as a straight white male, that knocked those rose-tinted sunglasses right off my face.
 

Westaway

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Thunderous Cacophony said:
Interesting piece. I'll note that it doesn't apply only to straight white guys;
Most people who read and write these articles believe only white people can be racist and having a non-white heterosexual male character is somehow virtuous.
 

Burnouts3s3

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An interesting piece. I think there's a delicate balance to be held that we don't let the character's race/gender/sexual orientation be the defining measure of a character.

What I've noticed, and this is only my half-formed idiotic opinion, is that all the traits that make a good character: motivation, backstory, reactions, etc. are gender-neutral.

Also, I never understood the stigma of race-swapping or gender-swapping. It worked for Idris Elba in Thor so I don't see why making a character that was originally a man and making him a woman (like how Bob's Burgers changed Dan to Tina) is a bad thing.
 

CelestDaer

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I actually was doing research on Carmen Sandiego the other day because I started to formulate a movie idea for her, and I never realized she was meant to be latina. Never even crossed my mind. The interesting thing for me was when I stepped back and looked at her background as a whole. She started off as an Agent, and decided that was too easy, so she became a master thief. Let me simplify a bit... She started off on the side of 'good' by Acme's standards, and went 'evil'. She wears red, and pretty much nothing else. Huh... I suddenly noticed way too much symbolism that may or may not have been intentional...
 

tzimize

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Westaway said:
Thunderous Cacophony said:
Interesting piece. I'll note that it doesn't apply only to straight white guys;
Most people who read and write these articles believe only white people can be racist and having a non-white heterosexual male character is somehow virtuous.
Truer words...

I dont care what kind of character I'm playing as long as its a good one.

I'd love to see Black Panther on the silver screen. Not because he's black, but because its an interesting character with a potentially exotic and different setting.

I'd love to see a Wonder Woman movie. Not because I want to secretly be a girl, but because I love the character.

If I CAN choose, I will almost always choose to play as something ELSE than a white male, because thats what I am, and I enjoy imagining to be something else. In RPGs I've played females, dwarves, gnomes, elves, aliens...you name it. One of my most interesting characters ever was the Dwarven Princess I played in Dragon Age: Origins. And she was that interesting not because she was female, nor because she was a dwarf, but because of the fantastic intro-quest with the dwarven nobility and the resulting relationships with my/her siblings.

I will respectfully disagree a tiny bit with the article author and repeat myself from similar threads: We dont need more diverse protagonists, we need more INTERESTING protagonists. Interesting characters are not interesting because they are white or black, or a dwarven princess. They are interesting because of the situation they are put in and the experiences they have had/have.
 

Jandau

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Dec 19, 2008
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A big thing here is that there's a big difference between games where you play as a predetermined character and games where you get to make your own. There's a world of difference between playing a black dude in Walking Dead and making a black dude in Skyrim or Mass Effect - mainly that in the latter cases, not much changes, if anything at all. It's a cosmetic choice, and nothing else.

When the choice of skin colour in a game is purely cosmetic, then it can't really teach me anything about what other people go through, now can it? Same with sexual orientation - if me being gay doesn't bother anyone, then it makes no difference. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying social commentary should be shoehorned into every game, just that there's no point in trying to experience being a different race or whatever if nobody cares about your race in game.

That being said, as a Straight White Male, I enjoy games with protagonists that aren't any of those three things and I do agree we need more of them, if for no other reason than to show what it's like to walk in someone else's shoes for a bit.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

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Sep 10, 2008
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Rather ironically the character that dragged me the most out of my comfort zone wasn't Lee, because I roll-played as I normally do as a someone trying to do right (it doesn't help that I look 'generically ethnic').

Captain Martin Walker took that honor, even though he is a bog standard TPS/FPS protaganist. It was his story that did it.

Ultimatlu the character is clothing for the player, if you really want to broaden their view focus on the path you are guiding them along, not what colour their shirt is.
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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Not sure how playing as a black avatar would be different from playing as a white avatar. Does the black avatar have powers the white avatar doesn't? Sounds a bit racist just to say that it would be meaningful to do this if one point of the article was that you don't even have to use it to educate.

Unless the game somehow educates us on the minority's culture or how other culture's interact with them. Otherwise it would be entirely pointless with no intrinsic difference besides looks. Really, except for in cutscenes I don't even really notice avatars while I'm playing the game anymore than I notice my hands while I'm driving. Avatars are just tools, extensions of oneself that allows interaction within a digital world. As such, I can be a little red rectangle and not bat an eye. So why would being a differently-toned skin color make any impact by itself?

Honest answer, I get that people have to deal with prejudice. I get that people withhold jobs and common niceties based on race, gender, religion, and orientation. I've been held back based on race and gender too and I understand how that feels. Even if I hadn't been I'd have understood the feeling. I honestly do not desire to be dragged into a lesson that many of us already know just because someone thinks I'm ignorant because I'm white, male, or straight. It's the same reason I hate the anti-cigarette ads even though I don't smoke. Yeah, I get it, smoking is bad but you're grossing me out with absolutely no justification to be talking to me, a non-smoker, about quiting. Hell, I want to start smoking just to ease myself after some of those tooth pulling/skin tearing ads.

Then again, maybe this would make a difference for people who focus on race. I mean, you wrote the article in a way that you actually wondered if a character was disagreeing with you because they were a different race. You were literally having racist thoughts about people just because they disagreed with you. How you played the same game I did and focused on race the whole time is interesting. But here's a question, when you play a game as a white character and are in a disagreement with a black character, are you wondering if they're just arguing with you because you're white? To me, they're just 1's and 0's so the thought of them having been raised with prejudices doesn't occur to me, but this is highly fascinating to think of people who do attribute history and other personifications to a digital creation.

I think what you really mean is that ignorant people should put themselves in other people's shoes. That's a good statement. Instead you made it racist, sexist, and whatever you'd call someone who thinks a person doesn't understand something based on orientation. It's a pretty lofty statement to think we would all benefit from that. But, from the words on your article I see your own personal experience was enlightening for you so perhaps you just assumed that it would be meaningful for others too if you weren't racist and it still made you think.
 

UberPubert

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Jun 18, 2012
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What a nakedly click-baitey way to get across what is otherwise an agreeable point.

Yes, playing as characters who are not like yourself is a great way to explore other perspectives in life. Why is the immediate assumption that straight white guys all have the same perspective, and that playing as anyone - *anyone* - who doesn't fit those labels is going to be significantly different?

Do not allow this man to fool you, straight white men are not a hive mind, we're individuals too. I swear.
 

Darkness665

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Dec 21, 2010
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Worst case here. Old white guy. Playing video games before there were any PCs even. Ooh. But I played a lot of RPGs before there were video games and Role Played the hell out of them. That experience has colored my decision on character selection ever since. First character is almost always a female (thief/ranger/archer/magician), young and not the main race in the game. Always a secondary race.

Often it really doesn't matter in the game itself. But it matters to me and how I (role-)play the game, RPG or not. Fallout 3, young black girl looking for dad and saving the wasteland. Second choice is a white guy who could be neutral, magician/cleric or a thug. From my personal view leaving the white guy safe zone behind is a major draw of video games. I know how to play a white guy. Been there, done that - forever. Give me something/someone to expand my horizons with. Even if it is my default female thief of some lesser race. Also I never let slavers live, no matter the game, no matter what. I would rather lose than let slavers live.
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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UberPubert said:
Do not allow this man to fool you, straight white men are not a hive mind, we're individuals too. I swear.
It was good to see you at that male privilege and dominance meeting. Remember, this week's goal is to spread the idea the people of Middle Eastern descent are bad drivers so that more white males can get bus driving jobs this winter. [/joke]
theluckyjosh said:
"You never truly know someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes."

This is a great adage.

However, when you open with "you straight white guys", you imply one demographic, and only one, has a problem.
With, probably unintentional, subtext of "...and the rest of y'all are all the same."

And you lose a lot of the good the message might otherwise have done.
Yeah man, you don't know what it's like to be black until you've walked a mile in the shoes of a black character designed by white people... wait a minute...
 

UberPubert

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Jun 18, 2012
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Lightknight said:
It was good to see you at that male privilege and dominance meeting. Remember, this week's goal is to spread the idea the people of Middle Eastern descent are bad drivers so that more white males can get bus driving jobs this winter. [/joke]
[joke]Sorry I didn't say hi, I must not have recognized you underneath your white hood (OOPS!)[/joke]
 

Phasmal

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Jun 10, 2011
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I'm still stunned at the amount of comments in topics like this that think that fair representation is `demanding to be catered to`. Fair enough, those people have made up their minds and I'll not try and change them- they can keep struggling over it.

OT: I like to change up my perspectives every now and again. I do think a lot of people have trouble putting themselves in someone else's shoes.
It's always disappointing when you realize someone is doing a thing just because you are a certain race/gender. It doesn't even have to be a hateful thing, it's just weird. Being able to experience that in a different way in games I think certainly helps to empathize with the character.