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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love giving big companies my money
Having tackled a three-part series on social privilege (which you can find here, here, and here), I would like to turn to a (potentially?) less controversial subject and discuss how queer representation in video games has, of late, matured. Specifically, I would like to discuss the games Mass Effect 3 and Skyrim. ME3 and Skyrim are both good games that received widespread critical acclaim and sold a crap-ton of copies, so their presentation of queer themes in the game-world is—to my mind—important. I am also (in the interest of full disclosure) something of a Bioware fanboy, and you can find my discussion of queers in Dragon Age II here, as well as a more emotional reading of DA2 here.
Heterosexuality is everywhere. This is a point I’ve made before, but it’s worth re-iterating here. Of course, heterosexuals comprise the vast majority of the population, so this isn’t particularly surprising, but the point is less, “Hey, here’s an obvious thing!”, and more, “The widespread prevalence of heterosexuality in our culture means that queer representations are, comparatively, dramatically less widespread.” At some point, it’s nice for queers to be able to “connect” to things: to movies, to books, to comics, to video games, to whatever.
That is, how many movies do I have to watch where the guy gets the girl, the prince rescues the princess, and so on (to say nothing, of course, of the omnipresent, patriarchal gender roles on display) before I get to watch/read/consume/see/hear something I can actually relate to (because, sorry, I’ve got no real desire to rescue any princesses and get hitched).
And, although things are getting better, the inclusion of (for example) a “token gay” in a movie/tv show/book/video game/whatever is not a mature representation. So the request isn’t so much, “Hey, can you throw a gay or two into [media form]?”, it’s more, “Hey, can you provide a more accurate reflection of the world- i.e. can you include characters to and with whom I can relate because they’re more than one-dimensional?”
If we set aside arguments that game makers/filmmakers/writers/musicians ought to do this (because queers are people too, because ignoring our existence makes your world-building less realistic, whatever), we can set our sights upon the more positive and pro-active action of financially supporting companies that make good choices when it comes to the integration of queer storylines into their products. That is- why not put our money where our proverbial mouths are?
Aside from this, however, it’s worthwhile to discuss how queer storylines have matured and improved, and celebrate the good story-telling choices being made by companies like Bethesda and Bioware.
I’ve chosen Mass Effect 3 and Skyrim as points of discussion partially for the reasons listed above (popular games with widespread market penetration), partially because I’ve played them and can speak to them directly, but also because they both tackle a subject (those damn, troublesome gays!) in ways that are simultaneously different and effective.
Skyrim’s tackling of in-game relationships (and, therefore, of non-hetero sexuality) is, in many ways, very muted. Although Skyrim is an RPG, your character does not engage with other people in the game-world in the same way that your character in Mass Effect 3 does. The world is quieter, really, and if you end up with an adventuring companion, they’re not going to have a whole lot to say. Massively in-depth character development isn’t necessarily the point of Skyrim, though, so it is probably not surprising that in-game romance is not front-and-center. In fact, to get married in game requires some work (to actually unlock the marriage option requires going rather out of your way in many respects) and, though marriage brings actual, mechanical benefits to your character, it is by no means necessary, celebrated, or otherwise overly-encouraged.
In fact, in Skyrim (and this is explained, in-game, thematically), you pretty much unlock the marriage option, then pick someone you’re interested in, and get hitched. This might not sound like the “mature” storyline that I was mentioned above, but the maturity here is not in evidence in the actual marriage structure in the story (which you could probably- and fairly reasonably- argue is a little lackluster), but rather in the options open to the player. That is, my character (a dude) could propose marriage and get hitched to a dude without any discussion of its strangeness, without having to jump through extra hoops, without getting treated any differently by anything at all.
This is the correct way to approach queer inclusivity: by treating it as normal (because, for us, it is- as normal as your heterosexuality is to you); by not treating it like something outlandish, freakish, bizarre; by not calling attention to it.
You may (perhaps) argue (reasonably?) that the inclusion of queer-ness in games is just a stunt being pulled by companies for publicity, but I don’t think this argument holds water when games like Skyrim are encountered. Was there a lot of controversy over the in-game marriage equality? Well, there might have been, but I didn’t hear anything about it, frankly. There definitely was over Mass Effect 3, but their approach to story-telling is very different from Skyrim’s, so queer-ness was much more “in your face” than it is in Skyrim (where you essentially have to seek it out). In some sense, it seems almost overly-cynical to assert that this is just a business stunt, and, having read articles/tweets/forum posts/whatever from writers (at places like Bioware, and so on), I’m not convinced this cynicism is warranted.
If we can shift to Mass Effect 3, what we see is a game that accomplishes the same thing as Skyrim (presenting the homos without fanfare, without ridicule) in a different (but still mature) fashion. The emphasis in ME3 is very different, in many respects, than in Skyrim: character development is front-and-center, romances are fleshed out, there are extensive dialogue trees to engage in with a panoply of NPCs, and so on. Bioware has made real progress in its extension of characterization to queerness, with same-sex romance options being offered in Dragon Age: Origins, then back-tracking in Mass Effect 2 (with female-female romance as an option, but male-male excluded), then forward again in Dragon Age 2 (with options for male-female, male-male, female-female).
The lack of spectacle is my point, if we want to distill it down as far as possible. One of the characters in ME3 will (if you engage with him in dialogue) disclose backstory about his husband, and this is presented nonchalantly, as normal/typical/just-fine-and-dandy. Additionally, there is queerness woven into the background of the setting, too. NPCs will argue, discuss, fight, talk with each other as your character walks by, and you may (if you want) stop to listen. And so, I did a double-take when some random NPC was talking to another about her wife (because the integration was seamless, because attention wasn’t called to it, because no one was jumping up and down and saying, Look how inclusive we are!).
The inclusion of queer NPCs is a step forward, just as surely as the inclusion of queer romance options is. It’s an acknowledgment, in many ways, of our existence; it’s a way of saying, “This game-world is diverse, and so is ours”. Things are not perfect, and in some sense there’s almost a contradiction in what I am presenting here: I am celebrating the lack of celebration of queers in games. At some point, hopefully, this will be unnecessary. At some point, it won’t bother anyone that there are queer representations in game-worlds, but until that point, it seems worthwhile to say, “Yes, more of this, please, game companies,” and, “Thank you for including us in ways that we can appreciate”.
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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love default character settings
This is the third and (hopefully) final part of TBG’s series on privilege, "On Privilege". You can find the first two, equally-interestingly-named, posts here and here, respectively. In the first post, I undertook to explore the idea of social "privilege" and discuss what it is. In the second post, I attempted to draw a distinction between privilege and personal prejudice, while also discussing the individual experience of privilege itself. In this post, I would like to tie "privilege" back into gaming- that is, back here, to our hobby- and discuss how privilege affects games and why it can have negative consequences for our hobby writ large.
I’ve loaded the past two posts up with a lot of caveats, a lot of disclaimers, a lot of attempts to say, "Hey guys, no one’s attacking you (least of all me), so let’s try to have a reasoned, measured discussion about social privilege and not be dicks while we do it". I will reiterate those here, in brief: Privilege is a thorny subject and it is imperative upon us to discuss it (as, frankly, all other topics) in a mature manner that absents itself from mud-slinging. It helps no one- least of all people who want to draw attention to privilege and its deleterious effects on society- if we enter into some kind of "discussion" that centers around attacking this person or that person, this group or that group, in some ill-considered attempt to score some rhetorical justice over our perceptions of past or present grievances.
Similarly, it is also important for us to approach this topic (and others) with an open mind, and the consideration that yes, it is possible that we might be wrong, or that we might have assumptions about the world and how it works that we’ve not examined, and so on. In other words, we ought to be polite, we ought to be kind, and we ought to be open to ideas that may challenge us. The experience of empathy is not something we should frown upon, and if, through discussion, we can open up our own experiential matrices to a fuller understanding of how Other People live their lives, well, that’s a worthwhile endeavor, I think.
But you’re not here for an after-school-special-lecture on how We Should All Be Friends Or Whatever, so let’s move on.
The most difficult part of a discussion about privilege is- at least in some sense- how invisible privilege can often be. We refer to things like "glass ceilings", and I think this metaphor is appropriate: A glass ceiling isn’t something that you’d necessarily see until you got pushed up against it. Privilege can be like this, too; we might not realize that we’re enjoying some social benefit or other until someone points it out to us. Privilege isn’t (necessarily) something that has to be related to Really Big Social Problems, though. The white privilege that I enjoy is certainly real, but privilege can trickle down into the cracks and seep into things that we might not expect.
In some sense, this blog itself is actually an example of privilege in our hobby, of privilege in gaming. When I started this blog, I did so because I thought that I might be able to bring an (hopefully) interesting perspective to a metaphorical table where queer views are (as far as I can see) usually underrepresented. I was met with a lot of comments to the effect of, "Why is this necessary?" and, "What could you possibly have to say about this? Sexuality doesn’t matter!"
I don’t hold these sorts of comments against the people that made/make them because I actually do understand why someone might genuinely think that this blog is unnecessary. Since heterosexuality is the default, the "norm", the assumption, in our society lots of people simply don’t realize how pervasive the influence of sexuality is on our culture, or on our way of life, or on our speech patterns, our hobbies, our movies, our television shows. An heterosexual sees an endless parade of male-female couples in advertisements, movies, tv shows, newspapers, hears songs about them on the radio, or at the opera, and it doesn’t faze them because why would it? It’s a representation of their life. This, in some sense, is their privilege: They don’t need to make any effort at relating to any of these things because they’re relatable by default.
Those damn-troublesome-queers, on the other hand, aren’t necessarily going to see it the same way. It isn’t that male-female couples in games (or wherever) bother me: I’m not ridiculous, I don’t begrudge anyone their happiness, and boy howdy that would be a miserable way to go through life, wouldn’t it? What does bother is the lack of representation, and it is this lack that we can see so obviously in the field of gaming.
We can see this lack obviously because when attempts at representation are made, a holy shit-fit is kicked up by- well, by certain people. When Mass Effect 3 was released a few weeks ago, its review-numbers were tanking on sites like Metacritic because of the high volume of people registering to deliberately give it a low score (usually a 0) to express their displeasure with those damn queers who just seem intent on ruining everything, apparently. ME3 is just an example- and one that I’m going to explore, later (probably), in more depth- but it’s not enough to just hand-wave away these types of responses as being from "jerks on the internet" or some such.
The fact is that these types of comments and reactions are commonplace whenever queer issues come up in gaming, and attributing them to some tiny group of people is silly, because these groups aren’t tiny. Similarly, if a game franchise does decide to include things like same-sex romance options (or whatever), the usual lineup of commentary gets trotted out. That is, if people aren’t just flat-out saying that "being gay is wrong and I don’t want it in my game", then the language gets couched in other ways, like, "I don’t have any problem with the gays but I don’t understand why they have to shove this in my face", or, "I don’t have any problem with the gays but this is obviously just [X Company] pandering to the Political Correctness Police".
Is it? Seriously, though. Is including a same-sex romance option in a game actually shoving it in your face? And if it is (somehow?), how is your experience any different from mine? In both cases, we’re seeing things in-game that are not representative of our respective sexualities/experiences. The privilege here- and in gaming, generally- is one of representation. You won’t have to worry about a game that doesn’t include heterosexuality in its role-playing elements, because they nearly all do (and if you do manage to find one like that- well, no big deal, you can just go buy one of the literally thousands of other games that appeals to your sense of self instead). (Note, here, that this discussion could easily be applied to questions of gender, or ethnicity, or physical ability, or whatever, but this blog is about gaymers, really, which is why I am restricting the discussion.)
The same controversy erupted when Bioware released Dragon Age 2 and had the audacity to include male-male and female-female romance options. You can read my reaction to it here, but of more direct interest is this post, wherein a "Straight Male Gamer" unwittingly illustrates how privilege operates in our hobby (and then David Gaider responds brilliantly).
The OP says things like, "Its [sic] ridiculous that I even have to use a term like Straight Male Gamer, when in the past I would only have to say fans". This is unexamined privilege speaking. David Gaider’s response is worth reading in full, but the main point I’m interested in is this:
Quote: "You can write it off as "political correctness" if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They're so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don't see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what's everyone's fuss all about? That's the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want."
This is how privilege spills over into our hobby. There are assumptions at work, assumptions about how the world operates, how people operate, what people like, and so on, and when games cater to the majority, it seems (to the majority) like it’s totally normal. (I will again reiterate that this is understandable, but once these things have been pointed out, they are no longer particularly excusable.) The normalcy of being catered to can blind "us" in other ways; like I said, my experience of the presentation of sexuality in games is not actually massively different from someone else's, it just *seems* different because society has decided it is.
In some sense, privilege is one of the- perhaps the main- thematic currents that has been running through my blog from the beginning. I’ve discussed gaymers and representation, and heteronormativity, and how to create more inclusive atmospheres for us, and so on. One of the points I’ve also consistently tried to make is that when our hobby is more inclusive- both in the atmosphere wherein it is played, as well as the actual games themselves- everyone wins. A greater experiential diversity doesn’t hurt anyone, and the corresponding expansion of our own empathetic possibilities is not to be dismissed as meaningless.
On a related level, gaming and gamers still remain outside the mainstream. Yes, ten million people play World of Warcraft. Yes, you can see legitimate television advertisements for Mass Effect 3. Yes, dudebros play games like... Halo, right? Or Battlefield 3? Look, I don’t really know. It’s one of those. Anyway, the point is that, to most people (at least in these-here Yoo-nited States), "board game" means Monopoly, Risk, or Scrabble. This thought horrifies us, as gamers (because it should, because Monopoly oh godsssss please noooooo, amirite?), but note the parallels here: The lack of experiential diversity among a lot of people leads them to conclude things about your hobby; it becomes difficult to explain that, "No, I mean, I actually play Magic [Settlers/Power Grid/Crokinole/Dungeons and Dragons/Apples to Apples/Killer Bunnies/Diplomacy]".
But the ongoing diversification of the hobby (as more and more games dispense with traditional, pre-conceived thematic notions and begin to explore inclusivity) is a good thing, because on some level we all have a proverbial "freak flag". It isn’t particularly "normal" to want to sit down and play a board game about, um, trains, or European postal systems, and yet here we are.
The ongoing and growing awareness of how these "different" and "other" things (like differing sexualities) is decidedly a Good Thing, and something that we ought to encourage. No one’s sitting down here to ask for preferential treatment; it’s a question, instead, about asking others to recognize the preferential treatment that they already receive, and to maybe think about it a little, and to realize how calls from "other" types of gamers for more and better representation are not something that hinder or harm the hobby, but rather help it.
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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love perspective
This is part two of TBG’s imaginatively-named series on social privilege, "On Privilege". You can find the first part here. In the previous post, I undertook to explore the idea of social "privilege" and discuss what it is. In this post I would like to focus more on the experience of privilege, as well as the differences between privilege and personal prejudice.
I will go ahead and note, again, that any discussion of privilege is going to be difficult, because people who enjoy privilege can often feel like they’re being attacked. This is problematic for a variety of reasons, but it’s something we should especially attempt to avoid because there’s really no point in having a conversation in which you simply attack someone- that just isn’t productive, and it certainly isn’t nice. Aside from that, of course, it’s often not the fault of people who have privilege that they have it. No one chooses to be born white, so if there’s privilege associated with whiteness, it doesn’t make sense for us to attack white people because they're white.
Similarly, it is also worth noting that privilege is experienced in different ways, in different places, by different people. There isn’t some grand "hierarchy of privilege" (or, at least, not one that I’m trying to advance) that says, "This type of privilege is better than this type of privilege". That is, although it might be possible to positively identify certain types of privilege that are "better" than others, it’s a largely meaningless point to make. In the previous post, I noted that I was speaking in generalities because I have to, and because I just can’t- on a practical level- endlessly nuance every single statement that I make.
This is related to that: Namely, the point is hollow because it falls from a discussion of social privilege on the macro level to a discussion of individual experience (that is, privilege on the micro level), and once you begin to do that, you need to take into account everyone’s individual circumstances. If we’re going to deal in generalizations, it might be possible to add this caveat: All other things being equal, it is more beneficial to be X than it is to be Y.
So, we might say (for example), "All other things being equal, it is easier to be white in the United States than it is to be non-white". So, if you have two identical people, one African American and one white, from identical circumstances, the white person is, generally speaking, probably going to have an easier time of things (of "life", if you will) because of the color of their skin. So, they probably won’t be pulled over by police as often (because the odds of being pulled over by a cop go up if your skin isn’t white), and there will be fewer glass ceilings in various career fields for you (how many black presidents have we had, after all?).
One of the biggest problems with this kind of discussion, however, is that these macro level discussions fail to take into account the micro, individual, experiential level, which can leave many people feeling alienated or attacked, as I’ve noted. "I haven’t had an easy time of things, so how dare you presume that my skin color has made things easier? Or my gender? Or my sexuality?"
In the case of sexuality, I can supply a super easy example: Same-sex marriage is simply not legal in most of the United States. So, if you want to get married and you are heterosexual- hey, no problem! You’ve got that right. If you’re queer, though- sorry! You’re gonna need to make a trip to New York (oh, but yeah, even that won’t be recognized on the Federal level... have fun, though!). This is a quantifiable example of privilege, but privilege gets messy because so many of these things aren’t quantifiable, which is where it can be helpful to move down into a discussion of the experience of privilege.
Let’s first zoom out by discussing what privilege is not: Social privilege is not about the hatred/prejudice that you may experience [new readers, or old readers who might have forgotten, are gently reminded that I use "you" in an entirely non-specific sense in my posts] because of someone’s personal dislike of you. That is, you might encounter someone who sneers at you when you self-identify as Christian, but this isn’t the same thing as (see above) lacking an actual right. Christianity, however, is the dominant religion on this planet, the dominant religion in this country, and Christians exercise their rights here freely. In other words, this trait of yours that someone may find personally distasteful is not one that closes doors to you on a society-wide level.
Now, a distinction may be drawn here that illustrates how privilege can be enjoyed differently at different places at different times by different people, because it is certainly safe to say that there are countries in the world where being Christian would shut things off to you. So you might say, "I’ve been treated poorly by people who don’t like Christians", but is that really the same thing as society-wide discrimination? Well, no, it isn’t. This isn’t to say that this kind of behavior is acceptable, but it is distinct from lacking social privilege.
The example of Christianity is an obvious one since it makes up the majority religion in the US, but it can also demonstrate some privilege-related issues that are not necessarily overtly discriminatory. For example, Christian holidays (like Christmas and Easter) are going to have a higher profile in the US simply because more people celebrate them. You’re more likely to get time off for Christmas than you are for an equivalent holiday from a non-Christian religion. This is still an example of privilege (the Christian is gaining a benefit here that the non-Christian would not necessarily get), but it’s also a good example of why attempting to arrange "privileges" into some sort of hierarchy is doomed to failure (where on Earth would this kind of privilege rank next to a lack of marriage equality?).
The experience of privilege is a complex topic, not least because the "experience", such as it were, is going to be different depending on the issue at hand (so my experience of male privilege is going to feel or seem different than your experience of heterosexual privilege, or whatever), and it’s easy to get derailed. That is, in our Christian versus non-Christian example, on the one hand we have someone enjoying privilege, and on the other someone who does not. The Christian privilege is still going to color their lives, though; the Christian is going to enjoy the benefits that come from belonging to the majority religion in society, while the non-Christian is not. This can take many forms, as I’ve noted, from more passive things like not having your holiday recognized (or at least not recognized as widely) to more active discrimination like being denied a job because you’re an atheist.
The lack of perspective that I mentioned in my previous post can bleed over into our understandings of privilege, even if we can grasp basic concepts like, "Women are far, far more likely than men to be raped, and therefore men enjoy don’t-have-to-worry-about-being-raped privilege". Privilege is oftentimes experienced as being catered to without knowing it- which, as I’ve noted, can make the whole discussion of privilege problematic for an individual. Let’s try another example: Sometimes if a woman complains about being cat-called on the way back from work (or wherever), a man might reply, "Gosh, I wish that sort of thing would happen to me".
This isn’t necessarily a malicious comment (though it can be). Rather, male privilege is at play here, and so the imbalance in perspective (female v. male) is yielding two exceptionally different interpretations of a situation. From the male perspective, this would represent an enjoyable state of affairs, because suddenly he’d have women telling him how attractive they found him. The female perspective on this, however, is colored not by the excitement of the situation ("Hooray, people think I’m attractive!"), but rather by a number of different factors, like the widespread prevalence of the rape of women in society (so this sort of attention becomes threatening), and that this is a common occurrence (and so is not a welcome change so much as a tedious repetition), and that there’s no effective way to respond to this kind of attention (because she’ll be called a slut if she enjoys the attention or a bitch if she ignores it). This is just an example, and de-constructing such broad concepts as "male privilege" can be difficult (there are certainly more forces at work in the above example than the few I’ve drawn out as examples), so what I’m saying shouldn’t be taken as completely definitive, or as an open-and-shut case.
The point, of course, is that the experience of privilege- both sides of it- is and will be different depending on our individual circumstances, but it is still valuable to recognize the existence of privilege around us, even if it’s only to improve our own empathetic responses to others.
In the next (and- hopefully- final) post, I’d like to bring this conversation back around to gaming and discuss how privilege can (and does) impact our hobby, and why the negative consequences of this impact diminish our gaming on a general level.
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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love being a little more self-aware (or not)
I’ve put up a lot of posts on this blog, many of them calling for tolerance, acceptance, understanding, and a more welcoming approach by geeks to our hobby on both the macro and micro levels. I think this is an important topic (why, I even write a blog about it!), not only because this sort of thing is the Right Thing To Do, but also because there are positive consequences for everyone when the atmosphere of a game night or a tournament or of the hobby as a whole is more inclusive, more welcoming, more inviting.
Whenever I talk about tolerance, however, this blog gets/has gotten/will-almost-certainly-get a fair number of comments from people who draw the false equivalency (inadvertently or otherwise) between the "discrimination" or "intolerance" that they (usually white, straight, Republican, males) face and the discrimination and intolerance faced by queers (and others). This is a problematic attitude, but right now I’m less interested in the false equivalency that’s being drawn in this kind of a comparison and more interested in why this kind of equivalency gets made.
From the outset, I ought to note that this post isn’t intended as a personal attack on anyone- either people who’ve made those sorts of comments on this blog or not- but rather an exploration of a topic (privilege) with the intent to open eyes. The problem here is the lack of perspective: The idea that, for example, someone’s distaste for you because you vote Republican is equivalent to the hatred and discrimination that marginalized groups face (like, say, getting killed because you’re a gay) is demonstrably untrue, but the people who make these sorts of points aren’t doing so (usually) to be deliberately disingenuous, or because they want to be jerks, or whatever. Rather, these comparisons and equivalencies get made because the group making them enjoys a certain amount of social privilege and is unaware of the (sometimes, total) absurdity of what they’re saying, at least from the viewpoint of said marginalized group.
Privilege can be a difficult topic to explore, because groups that enjoy it often feel as though they’re being attacked when it is discussed, pointed out, or otherwise criticized. It can be hard, at times, to turn the microscope around and examine ourselves, after all, which was why I explicitly noted that this post isn’t intended as an attack on anyone, but rather as an exploration. After all, I enjoy a great deal of privilege: I’m white, male, able-bodied, and from a favorable socio-economic background. I will also freely admit that I may have been resistant or even hostile, in the past, to the ideas that I’m now putting forward because, again, when you’ve been catered to all your life (in one aspect or another), the removal of that privilege (or the examination of it) can seem like a personal attack.
Okay, blah blah blah, but what is privilege, actually? "Privilege" is an advantage or a benefit that a certain person enjoys. This is the foundational definition of it, really. When we’re talking about social privilege (i.e. like in this blog post), we’re talking about a set of circumstances that benefit a person or (usually) a group of people basically by default.
"But Jason!" you might say, "I’ve had a hard life! Things haven’t been easy! Where’s my privilege been this whole time? Some privilege might’ve been nice!"
A fair point. Let’s go ahead and note that I’m talking in generalities because I have to; I can’t endlessly nuance every statement that I make to note that some people have it harder than others; that some people enjoy fewer benefits from certain types of privilege than others; or that the audience reading this blog post right now might enjoy very little privilege. So that’s the great big caveat: Different types of privilege apply to different types of people in different circumstances to greater and lesser degrees.
Okay, but back to privilege. Privilege is problematic because it’s usually silent, it’s usually the social default. People get used to privilege, and oftentimes it’s actually impossible (or nearly so) for people who’ve enjoyed privilege their entire lives to wrap their heads around it. That is, they lack the proper vantage point; they’ve lost perspective; or, rather, they’ve never had the perspective.
I’m using a lot of rather vague language here because I’m trying to establish a foundation for this conversation before I move into something more specific, something more relevant to this blog, to this audience, and so on. Let’s have a quick example: Because of the economic background in which I was raised, I lack the perspective to understand the mentality of someone for whom going to college isn’t just a given. Not only was it expected that I would go to college, it was assumed that I would do so. And why wouldn’t I? So, for me, attempting to put myself into the shoes of, say, a teenager who is faced with the idea of dropping out of high school in order to take care of their brothers and sisters because they’re simply too poor to afford for anyone to just up and leave like that is problematic.
This is not, of course, to say that I am incapable of that kind of introspection or empathy, but rather that it is difficult for me because I lack the foundational perspective from which it’d be an easy thought experiment. Fortunately, self-awareness, philosophical self-examination, and the experience of the other side of privilege (let’s just call it discrimination, for now) can help put us into a frame of mind wherein we are capable. Of course, it’ll always be more difficult for me to empathize with someone because of their socio-economic background (I’m just harping on this as an example, here) than it will be with someone because of their sexuality, because in the latter case we’re both experiencing the same kind of discrimination (or, at least, the same kind of lack of privilege).
In short (too late?), privilege is something that impacts our mentality, our worldview, our perspective: privilege is about being catered to, it is about enjoying benefits, circumstances, and even legal rights that other people simply do not enjoy because of their personal backgrounds (be those related to ethnicity, sexuality, economic status, gender, or whatever).
Whenever someone talks about this being "a man’s world", this is shorthand for male privilege. Here’s an interesting take on male privilege that contains a lot of excellent (and still relevant) examples of male v. female privilege in modern society in the form of a Male Privilege Checklist. For example, "I am far less likely to face sexual harassment at work than my female co-workers are", or, "If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are relatively low".
This, of course, is true. And you can enjoy multiple types of privilege and discrimination at the same time. I enjoy male privilege, but I don’t enjoy heterosexual privilege. That is, I can (let’s go with the example above) walk down the street with relatively little fear of being raped, which is privilege that my gender affords me, but there are streets I can walk down with fear of being harassed because of my sexuality. The flipside of this is an heterosexual male, who can walk down a street without fear of either of those, or an heterosexual female who doesn’t need to fear harassment because of sexuality, but does need to fear it because of gender, or a queer female who has to worry about both.
This is just a primer, after all, on privilege. It’s a complex and varied topic and one that can engender a lot of hostility in one side or another if not explored in a manner that is mature and reasonable. It’s no use, after all, asserting that people who enjoy privilege are bad. Privilege is inherently neutral. Privilege just is. There are reasons for the rise of certain types of privilege that may not be inherently neutral, to be sure, but it’d be unfair to blame someone just because they were born white, or male, or straight, or whatever.
The inherent neutrality of the existence of privilege is dispensed with, however, when one is made aware of the privilege and/or when one abuses it. So, someone might make a rather ignorant comment from a relatively innocent (albeit privileged) perspective. Were this to be explained to him, then it would be incumbent upon him not to keep making those kinds of comments (because they’re ignorant) and to understand why that kind of comment is misguided. We shouldn’t, as I said, necessarily hold privilege against someone, but should rather aim for education (and, for example, on this point I am sure that I have plenty more to go, too). The condemnation ("That’s just privilege talking!") can only (or ought only) come once people are aware of their privilege but abuse it anyway.
In my next post, we’ll discuss how privilege is experienced from both sides. The examples provided so far are merely meant to be illustrative; we can return to the issue of what it’s like to have privilege, as well as explore the issue of what the difference is between social privilege and the benefits it confers (or doesn’t) and the experience of individual prejudice.
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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love not being hypocritical
I’ve spent a fair amount of time on this blog discussing the benefits of being tolerant, as well as discussing our ethical need to extend our tolerance beyond the gaming table. It is my opinion, however, that we- as geeks- have a special obligation to be tolerant, and that many of us ought to have the personal life experience to garner a better understanding of why tolerance and acceptance both at the gaming table and in the world writ large are necessary and good.
Although "gaming" as an activity is gaining more and more currency in our culture, the fact remains that many aspects of our hobby are still very much off the radar of what is considered "acceptable" or within the "norm". It seems safe to say that card- and board-based games are rising in popularity (for example, more people are now playing Magic than ever before), though I think it is reasonable to assert that it is in the area of video gaming that most of the gains have been made (both on the level of games like Halo and Skyrim as well as games like Angry Birds).
Gains made by any gaming platform are almost certainly good for the "gaming" hobby as a whole; the assertion that playing games is "childish" or "immature" is certainly something that continues to dog this field of activity. It’s certainly unfortunate, but as more and more people discover that gaming is actually pretty okay, this attitude will (and, I think it has begun to already) diminish.
Despite this, harmful stereotypes still exist about gaming and gamers, and we need look no further than the "overweight, basement-dwelling, mountain-dew-swilling virgin who plays Dungeons and Dragons" type to realize that "our" collective image is not what it should be. (Let’s set aside the question of whether or not we ought to have a collective image at all for now.)
A perception that an activity or a group of people is outside "the norm" (whatever that is) is basically a necessary condition for prejudicial behavior to take place: Playing Dungeons and Dragons is not normal ("Get a life!"); playing Magic is not normal ("Is this like the Pokemon cards kids play with?"); sitting down to a board game on Friday night with friends is not normal ("You’ll never get a girlfriend at this rate."). These kinds of attitudes are widespread, and they can definitely rear their ugly heads in a variety of places. The stereotype of the "isolated nerd" in high school exists for a reason, after all: you don’t get picked on for playing football, but you do for playing chess.
It is because of these attitudes and occurrences that I think we, as Geeks, have a special obligation to ensure that our hobby is welcoming and open. It is my opinion that- all other reasons aside- those who have experienced intolerance in their lives are even more obliged to be tolerant than those who have not. After all, if you’ve felt the sting of being isolated, being shunned, being made fun of, being whatever, then you have a duty to make sure this kind of viciousness doesn’t repeat itself.
There are a variety of reasons that people engage in malicious, prejudicial behavior, but it is well-known that a group subjected to persecution is not always going to be tolerant and open, and sometimes people who’ve been persecuted will seek out another marginalized group that they can target to re-assert some measure of control over their world. This behavior seems especially regrettable not only because they are perpetuating the same kinds of harmful behaviors that have run them down in the first place, but also because, having been on the receiving end of malice, they ought to have gained a greater empathy for people who are being discriminated against.
Let me take a moment and backtrack a little here: I do not wish to draw a false equivalency here between the discrimination and harassment experienced by a geek and the discrimination and harassment experienced by someone because of their sexuality (or race, gender, and so on). You don’t get the shit beaten out of you for playing a board game in public, but you can (and will!) have that happen if, say, you and your same-sex partner engage in any sort of public display of affection. (And, really, they’re not executing people in Iran for playing Blokus.)
It’s worth pointing out, of course, that in certain circumstances (especially, say, high school), the experience of nerds/geeks/dorks can mirror that of LGBT people. A nerd can get beaten up in high school just the same as a queer, so I don’t want to trivialize the damage that can be done. However, the sheer scope and scale of LGBT harassment is simply different (nerd teens don’t have a suicide rate four to eight times higher than their peers, for example, but LGBT teens do), so what I don’t want the takeaway here to be (not that it was necessarily going to be, but there it is) is, "I got called names in high school so I know what it’s like to be discriminated against".
You don’t, really, but the point is that experiencing some sort of discrimination, harassment, or otherwise prejudicial behavior ought to give you a launching point for greater empathy with those who really do have to deal with serious crap in their day-to-day lives. This is why, for example, I get so frustrated when I hear homophobic (or racist) remarks in the context of multiplayer video games. (And to forestall the inevitable, "Jason, why do you play with such terrible people?" comments that I get on nearly every post I make about this issue, I’ll note that, for example, you’re going to come across this sort of thing in an MMO regardless of how well you try to insulate yourself from it.) That is, if you’ve had some experience with being a social outcast, or with getting called names, or shunned, or even beat up or whatever, then you definitely should know better than to extend that kind of behavior into any sphere of your life, or to direct that kind of malice at anyone else.
I have a feeling this is coming as more than a little bit preachy ("But Jason, we already don’t discriminate, we’re so awesome!"), so I would note that if you’re already at the place such that your gaming table is a welcoming, accepting, and open environment, then that’s super! But maybe not everyone around you is. Sometimes we can engage in regrettable behavior (in actions or in words) that stems not necessarily from malice but from neglect. Slipping into the use of unfortunate language ("Oh my god this game is so gay!") is something that can happen easily, but gently pointing out to someone, "Hey, maybe let’s avoid that kind of language. I mean, you remember how much it sucked in high school to get bullied, right?" is a good way to appeal to the empathy-launching-point that I’ve been discussing.
Ultimately, what the gaming community writ large ought to be is one that is ahead of "regular society" in terms of offering an environment that is welcoming and accessible to everyone. The endemic nature of racist and homophobic language in video game environments (and elsewhere, to an usually-lesser extent) is truly regrettable. Turning this kind of perception around (by self-policing, if possible) and moving towards a better, more inclusive atmosphere for gaming everywhere is something that we should absolutely strive for. Peoples’ personal experiences with social marginalization ought to give them a starting point to understand why this kind of wish for tolerance, acceptance, and so on, is not only reasonable but desirable, and if we can all move forward from that empathetic point (or even without it), our hobby will be the better for it.
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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love geeklists
TBG is back! You may have figured that out because I already posted about TBG being back, of course. To celebrate TBG's return*, I have compiled an exciting list of games that could use a sassy gay friend.
This is my third list, personally, but it is only the second list that TBG has done. Aaaaand here it is:
10 Games That Could Use A Sassy Gay Friend
Read it. Love it. (Thumb it?)
Bored Gaymerly Yours,
jason
*This should be understood as, "I'm working on some Super Cereal posts right now but here's something to distract you until those are done"
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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love actually blogging and not being lazy I guess
I started this blog, "The Bored Gaymer", here on BGG almost one year ago. From February to August of 2011, I attempted to "explore the intersection of queer issues and gaming" in a way that was (hopefully) accessible, interesting, and- at times- entertaining. My posting here, however, became less frequent and eventually petered out for a variety of reasons, none of which are things that you are interested in.
Over the course of the blog’s life I received a great deal of positive feedback (and plenty of negative feedback too, if we are being honest), all of which I was (and am) grateful for. Towards the end of 2011 I started receiving a number of messages from different people asking me when the blog was coming back, and, since we all know that one message is representative of literally thousands of people, this meant that several thousands of people were clamoring for the return of my blog.
I then proceeded to make an incredibly ill-advised promise to several of my friends that I would revive the blog and start being awesome again in January of this year. As you can see, it is now the last day of January and I am posting, so I am technically keeping my promise (and, as we know from Futurama, being technically correct is the best kind of correct).
Since I don’t want this to just be a lame "Hey guys, I’m coming back!" post, I thought I’d offer a bit of retrospection regarding this blog, BGG’s most popular blog with "Bored" and "Gaymer" in the title.
Over the course of 2011, I posted 26 times here: 24 of those posts were substantive, 1 of those posts was a request for topics "you all would like to see here", and one of them was a post regarding the geeklist that I did for the blog.
Those 26 postings garnered over a thousand comments (1023, in fact), the vast, vast majority of which were not mine. I am still grateful to everyone who helped to make many of those threads very productive, constructive, and interesting. I deleted only an handful of comments that were made; though there were some that were arguably offensive, I preferred (and prefer) to be lenient and only delete comments that are obviously malicious in intent.
This averages out to about 40 comments per posting, though there are several significant outliers (7, 8, 11, and 86, 92, 106). The most-commented-on post award (note: this is not an actual award) goes to "On Dealing with Gaymers at the Gaming Table", which produced 106 comments (!), while the second-most-commented-on post was the blog’s introductory post, wherein many of the comments consisted of, "I don’t see why this blog is necessary".
So here we are, with a pompous post about how great my blog is and how much people talk about it, which is probably not the best way to revive a blog but here we go because, as they say, I’M THE CAPTAIN.
It is my hope to continue to use this blog to promote discussion of issues (oh no, there he goes with the Gay Stuff again) that may not be raised with any real frequency in the mainstream outlets of our hobby (and, as ever, your suggestions for content are most welcome). Your constructive comments and feedback are always appreciated (both as comments here and as private messages elsewhere), of course, and I hope that my long hiatus hasn’t lost me the excellent commenters here who had such valuable things to add to the discussion (shameless flattery still works, right guys?).
TL;DR: Hey guys, I’m back!
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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love playing House Greyjoy
There are a lot of games out there, covering a lot of different topics, time periods, and genres. It is more or less inevitable that we, in the course of our gaming careers, will encounter games with content that we find objectionable, or otherwise ethically reprehensible. (Indeed, every now and then a thread pops up here on BGG to the effect of, “I’m a Christian and I don’t like <x> game”, as if to be illustrative.)
The question arises, then, as to whether or not one can, ought, or should play a game with objectionable content; whether or not one can separate one’s gameplay from one’s self; whether or not it’s okay to play a terrible, terrible character in a game. I’m sure not everyone has this problem, but I certainly do: I’ve zero interest in playing in an “evil” campaign in Dungeons and Dragons, I’ve always found games like Grand Theft Auto thoroughly distasteful, and I have significant reservations about playing House Greyjoy in Game of Thrones.
But is this reasonable? Or, rather, am I being unreasonable in my aversions to these kinds of settings or emotional investments?
I have long believed that one’s style of playing games is (or, at least, can be) an indicator of one’s personality. But does this mean that, when we play Game of Thrones, House Greyjoy must always be given to the least moral of our gaming group? And does playing an evil character in a tabletop RPG make one evil?
The answer to these two questions is obviously “no”. A better question would be whether or not it’s alright to actually harbor these objections. And, on the whole, I think it is. (“But of course you would say that, Jason,” you might protest, “you already have them. Durrrrrrrrr.” This would not be an unreasonable objection.)
Frankly, everyone is going to have lines that they don’t want to cross. Would you play a rape- or genocide-themed game? No, that would be horrifying. These are extreme examples to illustrate a point: namely, that it is possible to have objections to themes/content/genre. But surely these are outliers? Is it reasonable to extend that kind of objection (to rape, genocide, &c.) to milder things?
A lot of this, I think, can be boiled down to the fact that we play games to have fun and to enjoy ourselves. In that sense, it would be silly to require that anyone play a game that made them uncomfortable. And, indeed, if you have religious/moral/ethical objections to certain games, well, that’s your prerogative.
On the other hand, if we’re playing Game of Thrones (you can substitute any other game you like, it’s just a convenient example), my refusal to play House Greyjoy is a touch unreasonable, since someone has to. Of course, these kinds of particular objections (distinct from, say, flat-out refusing to play a game like Chaos in the Old World) can be overcome if there’s someone in your group that doesn’t mind (or even prefers) to play the group/character/whatever that you don’t want.
But what if no one wants to play that faction? I think, in that case, you’d just need to suck it up. I mean, if you want to play the game, you’re going to need to be willing to take that position upon yourself, since it’d be unfair to force other players to accommodate you in such a circumstance.
In some sense, these kinds of objections are going to be unreasonable from the outset. Or are they? If I say, “No thanks, guys, I don’t want to join an evil DnD campaign”, is that silly of me? I know some perfectly nice people who have played or are playing characters that one might regard as “evil”, but that doesn’t make them bad people (indeed, they aren’t).
And is there an inherent hypocrisy here? Well, maybe. That depends, really, on the consistency of these kinds of objections. If I’m unwilling to slip into an evil role in one game, am I okay in doing it in others? And what’s the degree? Is it okay for me to object to Grand Theft Auto, but to then be perfectly content to send out squads of conquistadores in Age of Empires?
There is a difference, yes, though I think that it’s touching on a much larger moral issue (issues of gradation and levels of evil, as well as issues of the personal and impersonal, and so on), so I’m going to leave it largely alone. The point, rather, is that if some things make someone uncomfortable and some don’t, well, that’s not that big of a deal. Games are games, they are meant to be played and they are meant to be fun.
Ultimately, if your preferences aren’t interfering with other people (as in the case of refusing to take on a certain role and thereby forcing someone unwillingly to adopt it as their own), then I don’t see a problem with any of it. If your own discomfort does get to the point where it might seem unreasonable, or unwieldy, or unfair to those around you, well, it can be helpful to remind yourself that a game is just a game, and these little plastic (or wooden) pieces on a board aren’t actually going to bleed and die, and the pixels on the computer screen- hmm, they might bleed and die, but they’re not real. (Well, not yet, anyway.)
Thu Aug 18, 2011 11:25 pm
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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love my elf-witch of terrible power
I apologise for the long delay and the disruption in my normal one-post-per-week schedule here TBG. Today I’d like to discuss a fairly common phenomenon: that of playing a character, in a game, of a gender other than your own.
There are plenty of jokes, stereotypes, and clichés around about how all the women on the internet are, in fact, just men pretending to be women, and these clichés extend into the gaming world, as well. In World of Warcraft, it was a well-established joke that all the female night elves were, in fact, being played by male gamers (because female night elves were the most “attractive” of the races). Is this a bad thing? Is it wrong to present yourself as a female character if you’re a male (or vice versa)? Is there a difference between doing this in a digital sphere (like World of Warcraft) and doing it in-person (like with a tabletop Dungeons and Dragons campaign)? And is there a difference in how you get treated when you do this?
The first question, I think, is “Why?” Why do men and women play characters of opposite genders? (I am, here, talking more specifically about engaging in an RPG-esque setting/game, rather than simply taking a female character in a much shorter game. That is, if you take a female character in Last Night on Earth or Clue or Arkham Horror, it’s not the same as from rolling one up in WoW or DnD since the time and emotional commitment is vastly different.) I think there are a number of answers to this question, and any person’s answer(s) may have elements of one, some, or all (or none?).
The most superficial (but by no means uncommon) answer is that guys (and, presumably, gals, though I’ve heard this answer predominantly from men) like playing female characters because it gives them something to look at on-screen. That is, an hetero guy might be more interested in staring at Lara Croft’s, uh, backside, while playing through a long game than at, uh, whatever the attractive-male equivalent of Lara Croft is. This isn’t really that unreasonable, frankly (and why should it be?), though it’s an answer more or less necessarily limited to a digital- rather than tabletop- game.
Another reason guys might play a female character in a digital environ is to mess with people. I’m not that interested in this, frankly, because I don’t think this constitutes a sizable chunk of the male-playing-female (or female-playing-male) demographic.
A further reason for this cross-gender switch is that a woman might want to play a man (online) in order to avoid harassment. This, at least, is not something I’ve ever heard in the opposite (that is, men don’t play as women because they want to avoid harassment). It’s fairly well established, I think, that women in online games are more susceptible to harassment or otherwise unwanted sexual (or other) advances; some women deal with this issue simply by adopting a male character/avatar and side-stepping it entirely. This is, of course, completely understandable, since we play games to escape, not to be bothered- to have fun, not to have to deal with creeps.
A reason related to this one might also be that a man would play a woman because of the special treatment he might get. I’ll discuss this more in a bit, but some guys may be willing to put up with the harassment in order to receive better treatment at the hands of others.
These reasons are all practical, in their own ways, and I’m sure there may be other reasons that people engage in this kind of in-game gender-switching, but the most interesting reason (to me) is one that is applicable to both digital and tabletop environs: That is, playing an opposite-gender character in-game allows that person to, if you will forgive the crudeness of this statement, “get in touch with their masculine/feminine side”. Whatever you might think about the masculine/feminine binary (it’s stupid, it’s obsolete, it’s restrictive, it’s natural, it’s necessary), there can be no doubt that there is still a great deal of pressure in our culture and society to conform to these roles (just ask those terrible beer commercials where a guy is chastised for not being “manly” enough after doing something that his friends don’t perceive as falling with the masculine prevue).
In this sense, then, I think it is entirely fair to say that playing an opposite-gender character is not only not a bad thing, but indeed can be quite a good thing. I don’t see any problem with the more practical reasons listed above (except, of course, the underlying problems that might cause some of them, i.e. women getting harassed in gaming environments); if a guy wants to look at Lara Croft’s rear while he plays a game, well, what’s the big deal?
And is there a difference between a tabletop and a digital exploration of these cross-gender player characters? Well, absolutely. The more “practical” reasons aren’t really open (or necessary, frankly) in a tabletop setting, and there might even be perfectly harmless explanations for this kind of gender-bending. I will provide a personal example to illustrate (hopefully) a couple of points.
When I first started playing World of Warcraft (don’t worry, I’ve been clean for over a year now), I rolled up two characters: First came Lucius (my traditional handle), a Night Elf Hunter. Next came Lucilla, an Human Priest. Lucilla was born for two reasons: First, I wanted a Tailor so I could make bags for myself (no, really), and second, because hey, classical allusions FTW woooo. After a brief hiatus from the game, I returned and found the Priest class far, far more interesting, and so my main character shifted from Lucius to Lucilla. So here I was, all of a sudden, presenting as female in-game.
One of the first things I noticed was that there was absolutely a difference in how I was treated. There was a little harassment (but not much), but mostly there were suddenly a bunch of players interested in helping me out. I didn’t need- or particularly want- the help (I rock as a priest, just sayin’), but the concept itself was interesting to me. Why should these people, all of a sudden, be interested in helping me out?
(I am inevitably reminded of The Guild’s single, “Do You Want to Date My Avatar?”, which I highly recommend.)
Is this duplicitous? Is (or was) it wrong to present a female character when one is not, in fact, female? It would’ve been duplicitous of me to assert that I was a woman in real life, of course, but I never did that, and, if asked, I willingly divulged that I was a guy. I never felt a need, though, to constantly parade around shouting that I was a guy, just in case some random stranger might mistake me for a woman. In fact, I don’t really think we have an obligation to advertise our gender when we’re gaming online. Why should we? If we’re heading into a fantasy land of escapism, is there really a problem if we feel like escaping into a different gender for a spell?
The question changes a little when considering a tabletop game, since the other players are going to know you (herp derp, you’re sitting at a table with them), so there’s no actual deception (intended or unintended) involved. It seems (to me, natch) that any expression of an alternate gender role or identity in a game is not necessarily (ever?) a bad thing. If games provide us with an outlet to express things that society might otherwise frown on, then why not? It is certainly regrettable that a guy might need to turn to DnD to get in touch with his “feminine” side, after all (why shouldn’t society allow such a thing? Screw you too, society), but is there any reason to deny the opportunity?
I just rolled up a female character this past Sunday (pew pew! FEAR MAH HOLY FIRE) for a new DnD campaign I’m joining. Is this a big deal? Does it matter? Should it matter? (My last character was a dude, for what it’s worth- which shouldn’t be much, or anything, really.) I’m not doing it so I can be creepy, or use it as an excuse to flirt, in-character, with another player (again, that’d be totes mcgotes creepy), but because, hey, why not?
The long and short of it is this: I don’t see any compelling reason to consider that this kind of gender-bending is, in any way, a bad thing. In fact, quite the opposite: I think it might actually be quite helpful. I’ve recommended before that, hey, a straight guy might want to play a homo in an RPG, because, well, broadening one’s horizons, trying to come to understanding of others, is never a bad thing. It can be difficult to empathise or sympathise with others if we abstract them to the point of Otherness, but maybe RPGs offer us a chance to step into someone else’s shoes and consider (however in-artfully, or inaccurately, because- certainly- these cannot be true representations), even if only for a little while, what it might be like to be something/someone different. Perhaps if more people considered this kind of viewpoint-expansion it might be a little easier for us, collectively (as gamers, as gaymers, as people, as whatever), to understand each other a little better.
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Jason Beck
United States
Springfield
Virginia
Hail, hail, Robonia, a land I didn't make up
If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
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Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love abusing inside knowledge of my friends’ temperaments
Whenever we play games, we tend to approach them in different ways depending on our fellow gamers. That is to say, we may not act or play a game in precisely the same manner with a group of people we’ve never met than with a group of close friends. This can manifest itself in socialization- for example, we may be more or less talkative with a group we don’t know out of nervousness or shyness, or we may be more comfortable making ribald jokes with our friends.
Aside from this, however, we may approach the game itself in a different manner. Perhaps negotiations should be treated differently, or maybe you wouldn’t bargain for resources in quite the same way. The question that might arise from this is, “Is it okay for my play-style to be influenced my meta-game information?” In other words, if we’re playing a game with a bunch of strangers, that’s fine, but if we play a game with a group that we’ve played with for months on end, is it okay for our play-style to shift; to change; to alter; to subtly begin to reflect the people around us?
Here’s an example: Your group plays Risk 2210 and one of the players can always, always, always be counted on to occupy the moon. Is it okay to allow this knowledge to alter your strategy? Is it okay to plan around it, to expect it? You wouldn’t, after all, have this knowledge, were you to play a bunch of people you’ve never met before, and so your strategic outlook might/would change.
Another, more specific, example: You play games with yours truly, and over time come to find out that I vastly prefer strategies that allow me to build- that is, I’m not a ruthless warmonger. If we sit down to play Seven Wonders, and you are sitting next to me, will this encourage or discourage you from having a military component to your strategy? Well, presumably, it would encourage you to do so, because you have background knowledge that indicates it has a higher chance of being successful against me than against different opponents.
Now, whenever I run games, I always insist that outside relationships get checked at the proverbial door. I am wholly uninterested in playing Game of Thrones with you and your significant other if you two are going to team up, regardless of the circumstances. Any kind of, “If you do/don’t do <x>, honey, you’re sleeping on the couch tonight”, is seriously frowned on (it is not, after all, fun for anyone else). If we accept that this position is reasonable- and I think it is- does the kind of meta-game knowledge that I’ve discussed above fall into this category? In short, is what I’ve been talking about acceptable? Or is it ethically dubious?
Another example: When I was in middle and high school, I played Diplomacy (and Colonial Diplomacy) quite a bit with two groups of friends (there was a lot of cross-over between the two). Since we played fairly consistency, drawing from the same pool of people, we got to know each others’ play-styles. In this atmosphere, I began deliberately constructing a reputation of absolute trustworthiness- that is, in a game rife with backstabbing, I made it known, by words and actions, that if I made a treaty with you, it was ironclad- no backstabbing would follow. This actually worked out exceptionally well for me, and my win percentages were very high (though probably half of them were dual-wins).
Was this wrong? If I insist that you cannot bring outside influences to bear on a game (e.g. “Can I borrow two dollars, bro? I totes won’t attack you this game if I can”), does this sort of reputation-building cross a line? Or, from another angle, is it the same as reputation acquisition? Yet another example: I used to play Pirates! (the constructible card game with the adorable ships) at my FLGS every now and then. The group that played was fairly stable, so they got to know me over time. To my surprise, I got a reputation as being extremely ruthless (this still baffles me a little, since the game is called Pirates!, and everyone has ships that shoot at each and also there are sea monsters). This wasn’t an intentional act (like my sterling reputation in my Diplomacy circles, which was), so I can hardly be blamed for it (except, I suppose, insofar as I did things to “earn” this reputation). Does it, too, cross the line?
I think, on a very practical level, that this kind of thing is inevitable. If I’m going to play with the same, excellent group of people every other Sunday (and I do), it’s simply going to happen that they’re going to get to know me and vice versa. (You can ask them about the reputation I have acquired in our group yourself, but I will say that they are all wonderful, charming people- veritable paragons of humanity- and I’m not just saying that because some of them read this blog.) Just because something happens naturally, however, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good thing.
On the whole, though, I actually don’t see anything wrong with this, as long as boundaries are respected. If I play a predictable strategy in a certain game every time we play, well, I don’t see a problem with you exploiting your knowledge of that to take me down. It would be a problem if you said, “Jason, you owe me five dollars, so don’t attack me”, first, because I don’t owe you five dollars, and second, because you’re dragging an outside relationship into the game (in this case, that of lender-debtor).
In that case, we might term this latter difficulty that of “extra-gaming relationships”- that is, relationships outside the game- and we might use the term “meta-game information” to discuss information that we have about other players that informs our strategy, but that is itself not wholly a product of the game that is being played.
As such, I think it’s valuable to draw a bright red line between the two: Dragging extra-game relationships into games is actually worrisome for a couple of reasons. First, because games (for the most part) ought not be taken personally. If I throw your navy out of a sea province I need so that I can drop armies into White Harbor and claim victory, I need you to not hold it against me, because, dudebro, chillax, I’m not doing it because I dislike you as a person, I’m doing it because we’re playing a game. Similarly, if I make a promise to you to leave Mecatol Rex, but then pass legislation giving me permanent ownership of the planet (and whatever, I did move my forces away from it, so I technically did not lie to you), it’s not because I don’t like you (I do!, that’s why we play games together).
Anyone who’s ever played Diplomacy can tell you why games should not be taken personally (it’s famous for destroying friendships for a reason, after all). But if we attempt to remove external pressures on the game system (that is, extra-game relationships), there doesn’t appear to be any reason to remove our knowledge of other people and their strategic tendencies or personalities.
On the whole, our use of meta-gaming information is natural, inevitable, and, as far as I can see it, perfectly fair, so long as it isn’t mis-applied. Frankly, you could probably sum up most things regarding games down into a simple maxim, “Don’t be a dick”, and that’s as applicable to this concept (meta-gaming information) as it may be to any other.
That being said, boundaries are necessary. It is appropriate for me to plan around the fact that this player favors early-game surges of strength, while that player prefers to build up an overwhelming force and bide his time. It is not appropriate for me to do something like, say, talk about snakes for ten minutes when I know that such conversation is going to make someone at the table deeply uncomfortable. Sure, it might cause them a couple of strategic missteps, but that’s a seriously dick-tastic move. Alternately, “Hey Jason, what’d you think of Caprica? Pretty shitty show, right? Oh, and it’s your turn.” Still kind of dick-ish.
Of course, I might just be constructing straw-men to make a point; I’m not sure that many people would actually do something like bring up a topic specifically to throw someone off or disrupt their train of thought (but hey, I’m sure there are some that do). It is, rather, meant to be a juxtaposition to demonstrate that there are fair and unfair ways to utilize your knowledge of your friends, their personalities, their temperaments, their preferences, their strategies. Delineating clearly between extra-game relationships and meta-gaming information can help us, on the whole, draw clear lines between in-game activities and out-of-game activities, something that can (or at least, ought) to help us not take games personally.
Go forth, gamers, and be nice (and sexy).
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