Political correctness vs fun / emersion

[YetiChow]

It’s possible to have ineluctable difference (fancy wording favoured by Modernist philosophers which basically means differences which are so great that they can never be avoided or brushed aside, in other words one cannot be fully understood by the other/Other) between peoples without there being a “better” or “worse”, so from that standpoint I entirely agree with you here – it would be awesome to have races or even just cultures which are so irreducibly different to each other that they can never be fully conflated.

That doesn’t mean they can’t work together, in fact putting two or more of them together (e.g. co-op multiplayer) would likely be extremely powerful. They don’t have to be in conflict and they don’t have to be in a hierarchy, they can just… be.

That’s one of the beautiful things about simulation games, they allow us to test out ideas which are impractical or impossible to test out in the current reality.

And that testing doesn’t need to prove anything, either – that’s the other beautiful thing here. It doesn’t have to be about what’s right or wrong, what’s truthful and what’s wishful thinking… in a game, everything just is what it is. That means we can have a medieval kingdom in a European-styled forest populated entirely by dark-skinned hearthlings, and it doesn’t have to mean anything. If the player wants it to mean something, it can, and that’s wonderful, but it doesn’t have to, and that’s even better.

I agree on your earlier point about the concept art – we have very stereotypical job associations in the class sketches. However, in the game itself the brave and skilled knight who starts you on the path to township as an Ascendancy town is female, and the Ascendancy is ruled by a princess, so even though the concept sketches portray male warriors and female artisans the game itself doesn’t fall into that habitual stereotype. And you’re right, it’s a subconscious thing… so it’s great to see that stereotype being shattered, at least for the Ascendancy.

Stonehearth does diversity in what I consider to be the outright best way to handle it: none of that traditional roles stuff matters, anyone can be anything if they have the right skills. It’s got nothing to do with political correctness, it’s simply taking the most direct and efficient route to navigate that potential minefield by stepping over it altogether.

[AaronD]

@thatoneguy

Thanks AaronD. I can understand if you would prefer this topic not being brought into the game. However you just connected a lot of dots there that didn’t need to be. I don’t want to compare real world politics with this game either,. This is one forum post among many others and you don’t have to engage in it if you don’t want to.

I stand by my statement that the factions currently don’t have a big enough distinction between them, and I feel some richness is lost there and no mater how I play I get a mishmash of randomness. It’s as simple as that.

I take some comfort in the fact that while this may bug me a little it’s not bothering anyone else, even if the topic itself annoys you.

I think there is enough diversity:

http://www.hardcoregamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/StoneHearthFeature.jpg

Rayya usually have a darker skin color, their clothes and accessories (headband/body paint vs. hair band) and their tier 1 and tier 2 building are different. I dont see why we need even more to distinguish between them.

[thatoneguy]

I’d like to say thank you to everyone for being involved in this discussion and keeping it friendly. You have all put your cases forward really well and you have made me rethink this entirely. I can no longer stand by my original comments because you have proved them to be wrong and I agree. I think I got frustrated and went after a PC boogeyman that didn’t exist.

I have to admit on my latest play-throughs I have broken the habit of reloading and just gone with the flow and I am enjoying myself a lot more. I hope this thread did not make anyone feel uncomfortable. If anything it can now serve as proof that the devs have got it right and I would like to join you all in getting behind them to carry making this wonderful world as they see it. Others may still want to debate here but I feel it has reached its natural conclusion for me and I would rather join in with other topics (I promise to keep it uncontroversial).

Thank you once again for being patient with me and hearing me out. Well played all.

[MoonSight]

Okay, i’ll start with a Video by the Extra Credits, that alongside division talks about issues in games(race and such) and what they convey to the player and the world view

It is true that games and the world inside does convey meaning, weather the developers intend it or not, esspecially when the game is meant to take place in the real world(like the Division) the actions the characters make and the influence the race or gender makes the game convey a message

BUT here’s the thing, StoneHearth is a very different game in many sense, not only is it a fantasy world(in other words not reflective) it does not have strong emphasis on ‘Character’ rather than more of a community

Because, do you care of what the Hearthlings actually think? By themselves?
Here’s the thing, YOU are the one that determines what they think, you are the one that says “this guy’s totally thinking about Poyo Pie” the game itself does not have a big input on what you should think about

But what does it look like if it did?
As an Example, what if the conversations the Hearthlings had made actually difference in their preferences and behavior, and they tend to have arguments or backtalks, and it just happended to be the case that the white Hearthlings tend to have a higher probability to have arguments agains black Hearthlings and the white Hearthlings tend to start them, THAT conveys a world view, and. Since the game will encourage you to observe and act accordingly, this WILL send a message, even if it was a unintended coding that - when the game did the math, it was likely to be as above

BUT StoneHearth does not follow this fashion, the difference is that the game does Not Tell You Anything, it is built as a blank slate for you to insert the story, and the races are meant to be there as a Cultural aspect of a faction, the long lifestyle happended to deliver a skin color over another, evolution it it’s accurate form but not to an extent that it only meant One Skin tone, it’s just more likely to be that skin tone, and Rayya has the argument that, even if the person was a white person, the sun would be enough to darken their skin, which is true for Rayya’s children whom reside in the scorching desert.
The ascendancy on the other hand, live in a temperate Biome, not Really encouraging the favor of race, and i know you are more on the side of more White people mainly because the culture of medival seems more fit to it, it is probably more safe for the devs to have a diverse mix, and it’s not even that random after-all, and the 50% white chance and 25% for each brown and black chance, is, i suppose, more reflective on the real world, as White people are quite a population in the UK and the US which this culture is based on, but the reason this doesn’t come to political correctness is that the game does not aknowlage or make a deal about it
Are there some black and brown people in your town? Well, okay, that’s just that.
There are no perks or benifits of having more of one skin tone over another, and that IS a statement, that they Are Equal, and really, i don’t see a problem in that.

If you want a more dominant proportion of white Hearthlings(for esthetics), go ahead, mods can do that for you, and it doesn’t hurt anyone, but i do think that StoneHearth is a game that has little issue with race and gender

But i do encourage other community members to consider this more, at-least a tiny bit, because SH is deffinitely not a game that makes a deal out of race or gender, nor is it a current issue(in my eyes), but we should be aware of a game’s design and a potentially unintended statement it makes, we should try to be a Aware community on thees regards if we do want to avoid some future debates or issues, and a lot more if you are wishing to be a developer in the future.
If it’s not your cup o’ tea, sure, don’t worry about it, enjoy your game, but for the people that do want these, maybe a little more attention on these could be better, because while i do understand the seeming irrelevance of this, i also do see an avoidance(no offense), because as I said, i do Not see a problem with SH and it’s take on race and gender, but it is quite an important thing to think about, but again, if it’s not your Cup o’ Tea, just enjoy your gama, because we know it’s one hell of a good game after-all

[thatoneguy]

Thanks for the video and the post. Some really good points in there.

[YetiChow]

Building on that, Clockwork Empires is a perfect example of a game which consciously plays its worldview and influence cards to send a message… but rather than just reinforcing expectations, CE actually subverts them a lot of the time, or at least tries to make a point about not getting hung up on the small stuff.

For example, in CE characters are very likely to argue – they’ll argue over political ideologies, religious practices (“Hey, I don’t want to be sacrificed to an elder being! I don’t care if you think it’s a great honour” lol), or just what kind of hat is the best hat. They won’t get into an argument based on skin colour or gender though – so they’re arguing about actions and deeds rather than appearances.

If Stonehearth does add any more character simulation, I’d like to see it be based around characters’ deeds rather than their inherent traits. If one charcter is hogging all the Poyo Pot Pies, then it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the other hearthlings to get annoyed by that.

As you say though, we need to be aware about the potential implications of design decisions; since the Devs may not think of all of those implications when they make a choice which seems characterful and harmless. My moment with the dark-skinned farmers is a perfect example of how an entirely coincidental situation can present a totally different facade – to me it was simply that the dark-skinned hearthlings were perfectly suited to being farmers (high Body and moderate Mind scores, ideal for working hard all day… they were genuinely the best candidates I had at the time for that job), and I needed fiber and Silkweed was the quickest option. However, to another player who wasn’t aware of why I set those guys as the farmers, it would have looked like I was singling out the only two black hearthlings to pick “cotton”.

That’s the larger issue here – there’s a deeply rooted, socially constructed history that none of us have direct control over; and it’s going to insert itself into the context/perception of every single decision that team Radiant make (not to mention the things that players post about while playing the game.) Obviously they can’t divert energy to constantly think about all the different cultural and political implications of all of their design choices, particularly when 90% of them won’t actually have a cultural or political impact… but we here on the forums can keep an eye out for any “rogue” implications which slip in unintentionally. Of course, if Radiant want to make any overt political statements then we can also help them refine those so they can’t possibly be misinterpreted… but I’d be really surprised if they took that path since that’s simply not their style.