Simpsons is one that i also stopped watching a long time ago. I stopped around the time i graduated high school, which was… 16 years ago? I feel old. Simpsons was amusing but was never a show i got super into. The really early stuff was great though
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From the article comments:
This must obviously be for white cis dudes. I’m a Black Woman who likes to have my characters look like me. Why would I want to put up with the same sort of sh*t in an RPG that I put up with irl?
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Why would a cis white dude play as a black character? Pretty sure 99% of them never would have given it a thought before this. ETA - explained better below.
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You’d be 99% wrong, actually. As a cis white dude, for example, I play roughly 50% female characters and wildly varying skin colors. My current Skyrim character, for example, is a grizzled, old, dark-skinned female veteran =). In paper-and-pencil D&D games, my friends play a ridiculously wide variety of characters, of all races, colors, sexes, and sexualities.
The percentage is probably relatively high BUT you can drop the “99%” silliness. Over-generalization isn’t OK or particularly useful, no matter who the subject is.
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The writer has a point but misses entirely the commentary that South Park is making. If anything the game is helping broadcast the kind of systemic bullshit minorities have to deal with, and complaining that wanting to play a black character will cause the game to be harder is unfair is precisely the conversation the game is trying to start.
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OK, 99% is high, but just based on avatars alone in a lot of games I’ve played, minorities are still minorities. Yes exaggerated generalities aren’t helpful.
Yes, I’ve known since MUD days about men playing female characters, and know people who play various sexes in races in RPGs as well.
What I should expand upon is - I can’t see anyone who would NORMALLY play a different race or sex of a character being pissed because it effects difficulty. One would think someone willing to live out of their skin would also acknowledge there are and should be differences in doing so. i.e. Charisma penalties with part Orc characters.
Anyone getting pissed at this most likely never played anything but their standard white characters anyway, and unlikely they would have thought to cross over to something else - unless they are one of the racist jackoffs I’ve seen who try to make horribly racist carciatures for the LOLs.
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But I wonder if most the people the message is meant to reach will just shrug their shoulders and play on “easy” mode as usual, while the people who already understand the message will be forced to play at a disadvantage just like in RL, unless they choose “easy” mode instead?
Does anyone know how accurate the slider is in terms of difficulty?
ETA:
I do think there is the possibilty of disadvantaging the very people the concersation is meant to be about in an attempt to start a conversation with those who need the message most-which reinforces the idea that everything is made in service of cis white men…
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Well, of course. The ones getting their BVDs bunched over this are nearly all “Gamergater”/Reddit troglodytes ^^’.
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I dislike playing games on the easiest possible difficulty because its completely devoid of challenge. And i’m not a glutton for punishment, i generally don’t play at the hardest possible setting but i definitely don’t go the easiest either.
Making selecting white and correlating it to making the game as unchallenging as possible will likely cause white gamers to question themselves and their privilege. Also, this is South Park. No one consumes that show with the expectation of not being challenged in any way.
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Also might want to reread the comment quote.
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That really depends on the priorities of a given player and if they care more about toon design or difficulty. Seems really hit or miss.
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As I read it, the “this” in her first sentence isn’t the ability to play as a black character but the joke, which I agree is very much “for white cis dudes” since as a group we are pretty much the only ones who consistently and wilfully fail to get the point that is being made. So I guess her point is that a joke which is aimed at skewering white people ironically ends up feeling exclusionary to everyone else.
This line here seems to entirely overlook that there are non-white gamers, and that some of them are getting pissed over this. I’m not totally sure that you have grasped the point being made by the person that I’ve quoted.
I’ll bow out here, I only wanted to connect a question that I read to an answer that I read, I can’t say that I’m personally upset over the joke and I feel like I’m unqualified to speak for those who are.
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The slider is definitely a very specific joke or commentary. But it seems to me like the logical conclusion of such a joke, if they had done it as just a dialogue by a character that “being white is easy” but not backed that up then no one would really give it a second thought. Baking it into the core of the game on the other hand has given that joke some teeth, and here we are talking about it. I’d say it’s successful.
Edit: I should add that yes, it does suck for those that want the racial aesthetic to be wholly unrelated to difficulty. I am not being dismissive of such criticism against the game, but i hope that my personal thoughts on the matter help resolve one’s conflicting feelings on it. I don’t think that the joke is being done just to be salacious, i think they’re really trying to say something important and i’m willing to give them credit and slack for it. If you disagree i respect your opinion.
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Successful? Maybe if success is forcing some people to see the difficulty slider and maybe consider it in a larger context, but not without collateral damage, IMHO.
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I added some additional thoughts above, but i do understand where you’re coming from (and others as well). I don’t think they’re doing the joke for the sake of being edgy, and as such i can live with the difficulty slider as a minority myself. If someone else has stronger feelings on it that’s alright, i can only speak for myself and i’m happy to attempt to see things from another point of view.
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As a fellow non-white person, I get what you’re saying, and while I do game, this probably won’t be a title I’ll be picking up.
OTOH, the idea of making the game harder for POC in an attempt to “teach” doesn’t sit quite right.
Maybe some players will try both ends of the slider and gain some new perspective. Maybe not.
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Mea Culpa, I’m at work skimming through stuff and I misread the quote you made.
She has a valid point, but at the same time I think the game creators have a solid point on the social commentary.
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And that’s a fair assessment on your part, i’ve passed on my fair share of movies, books and games. I can only hope that the topic at hand will be a teaching moment for some people, if its seen as just a joke then the whole exercise was pointless.
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Unlike your typical internet racist commenter that gets called out and then tries to say, “lol I’m not racist, it’s just satire”, Parker and Stone are actual masters at making true satire out of so many horrible things.
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The type of humor they often do is quite difficult because there’s such a fine line of gratuitous lazy offensive jokes, and incisive satire/commentary. I couldn’t imagine trying to do that kind of content on the regular.
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