Character Creation Has A Race Problem

[Rokke]

Well, here this is again. And again I'll point out that works of fiction don't have to represent anybody. The only well rounded and enjoyable gaming experience they HAVE to offer is to make the game playable through gameplay and mechanics. So I'll ask this: why do people feel like fictional characters have to represent them? How does a character not sharing superficial traits like skin color or gender keep you from enjoying a game? Is skin color the only thing you care about in a person?

I don’t see it as an end all be all as much as a nice touch. When I was a kid playing Pokémon I imagined that my trainer looked like me. After a few games they let me play a female trainer. The more recent games now let me pick a skin tone close to my own. Neither of these were mandatory changes I needed, but they improved the overall experience for me.

I think people get too hung up on buzzwords instead of seeing more options for customization.

[Joven]

I don’t see it as an end all be all as much as a nice touch. When I was a kid playing Pokémon I imagined that my trainer looked like me. After a few games they let me play a female trainer. The more recent games now let me pick a skin tone close to my own. Neither of these were mandatory changes I needed, but they improved the overall experience for me.

I think people get too hung up on buzzwords instead of seeing more options for customization.

I guess I'm the Odd Man Out since I don't feel the need to see myself in a game. If I have the option then I usually purposefully choose characters that are different from me. I'm me 99.95% of the day, in that other 0.05% I don't want to have to think about anything related to being me and lose myself in someone else's story.

[Rokke]

I guess I'm the Odd Man Out since I don't feel the need to see myself in a game. If I have the option then I usually purposefully choose characters that are different from me. I'm me 99.95% of the day, in that other 0.05% I don't want to have to think about anything related to being me and lose myself in someone else's story.

My main is a max height Au Ra man. I’m a five foot nothing girl lol. Like I said, having or not having the option to look like myself is not a deal breaker for me, but it’s a nice addition for those that would, for one reason or another, want to look like me.



@thread
I don’t really see the point going in circles about supposed racism cause it’s how we get 40+ page threads going “I don’t like your tone” “Well I don’t like your tone”. It was totally possible to keep this thread on track but lordy some folks cannot help themselves. I hope OP (or anyone really) adds the suggestions for the hairstyles/skin tones to other threads or start a new one. It’s customization guys. At the end of the day it’s just more customization.

[Joven]

My main is a max height Au Ra man. I’m a five foot nothing girl lol. Like I said, having or not having the option to look like myself is not a deal breaker for me, but it’s a nice addition for those that would, for one reason or another, want to look like me.

I can understand that viewpoint, but some people on here seem to think it is absolutely necessary for everybody to be represented in everything all the time and I just can't agree with that.

[Emstidor]

I don’t see it as an end all be all as much as a nice touch. When I was a kid playing Pokémon I imagined that my trainer looked like me. After a few games they let me play a female trainer. The more recent games now let me pick a skin tone close to my own. Neither of these were mandatory changes I needed, but they improved the overall experience for me.

I think people get too hung up on buzzwords instead of seeing more options for customization.

Ironically enough, your Pokemon example is a case of what the OP and other people in this thread are arguing against.



Don't you see they CLEARLY just substituted darker skin on characters with traditionally caucasian features, which is NOT ENOUGH and stands as evidence of the DISCRIMINATION that PoC have to endure every day!

Is it any wonder people didn't take this thread seriously?

[Aana]

Ironically enough, your Pokemon example is a case of what the OP and other people in this thread are arguing against.



Don't you see they CLEARLY just substituted darker skin on characters with traditionally caucasian features, which is NOT ENOUGH and stands as evidence of the DISCRIMINATION that PoC have to endure every day!

Is it any wonder people didn't take this thread seriously?

Which part is Caucasian again? The grapefruit sized anime eyes? the spec pen drop tip that represents an entire nose? The completely non existant lips? These are a symbol of a human face. No human on the planet, let alone race of people actually look like this. They are approximations of a human. A caricature of a homosapien. If you were to draw the darker skinned people to include the same ridiculous caricature style features but of black people you would end up with big fat cartoon lips and a wide nose and people would be pointing to the racist drawings of the jim crow era and be outraged. Heck the only 'caucasian' thing about them is the white ones have an option for blue eyes and the darker faces only have darker eyes. Thats the most realistic thing in this whole image lol.

[Miste]

Don't you see they CLEARLY just substituted darker skin on characters with traditionally caucasian features, which is NOT ENOUGH and stands as evidence of the DISCRIMINATION that PoC have to endure every day!

Is it any wonder people didn't take this thread seriously?

I've never seen anyone IRL look like those characters. They are drawn in the typical anime style which does NOT follow realistic depictions of people IRL. IRL people don't have one line of a mouth and basically a black dot on their face signifying a nose, but that is the style of anime, they don't have well defined noses or lips, and it rarely deviates. It is an art style.

We need more options, faces, hair, etc, yep, no problem there, but the idea that certain facial feature shapes are linked solely to a be all and one all representation of a race is absurd and using it as an argument for that is just pointless.

We just need more options because the current creator doesn't have enough variety in general, not because of some nonsense that they are discriminating by not having the exact shapes everyone wants.

Facial features such as nose shape, eye shape, and lip shape are not 100% linked to your race. The world is too diverse to think in such narrow-minded black and white terms.

Just because someone has a certain shape of eye, a certain shape of nose, a certain shape of lips then they must 100% be or represent a certain race all because of that? Nope.