Rethinking Story: "The Diversity Problem"

Over on the Beamdog forums there's a thread talking about gay characters in video games, and whether or not game writers should make a concerted effort to include such characters in their stories even where they don't make sense. It's your typical discussion where people on both sides of the issue assert their opinions, and they either agree to disagree or they start to deconstruct the other person's view to assume something damning about that person's character.

"You don't care about good stories, you only care about representation."
"Your unwillingness to accept LGBTQ characters reveals your latent homophobia."
"You're not representing LGBTQ players effectively if you're just tacking on the tag at the last minute before your story goes to print."
(These aren't actual quotes, just a characterization of how these conversations typically go.)

It's an important topic, and both sides are important ends of the spectrum. On one side, as a writer you want to make sure that your story is diverse enough to appeal to a wider audience. If your game's world is filled with white people, any black player entering that world will feel isolated.

On the other side of the fence, as a writer you want to maintain your artistic integrity, and develop your world in a way that's believable. So you don't want to just throw in a gay character "because diversity". If you've never met a transgender person, you don't want to start writing a transgender character that may offend that segment of your audience.

Both sides are right. You don't want to offend the audience you're trying to represent, and you also don't want to exclude that audience entirely.

The question we should be asking ourselves as writers isn't "Should I include diverse groups in my writing?" but rather "How can I make my writing represent a more diverse audience and still tell a good story?" When we start thinking of the how, suddenly the "problem" is revealed to be a challenge instead.

Those of us participating in this debate, we all agree that there needs to be more diversity in our stories, in our characters, in our worlds. More diversity leads to better and more diverse stories. So let's stop arguing about whether or not we should or can do it--let's stop focusing so much of our attention on the Bechdel Test and whether or not that crap film we saw passes or fails--and start talking about how we can do it well in our own writing.

I realize I'm providing no answers here. That's the job of the individual writer, and everyone's creative process is different. But we've been wasting a lot of energy trying to convince people that this thing needs to be done. That energy would be better spent actually doing it.

Continuing the Conversation

When writing a new character, it's important that the character be believable. How do you create a believable character that also represents an underrepresented group?

Evolving Designs: Assassin's Creed

This is going to be a long one; you've been warned.

Assassin's Creed was one of those games that immediately grabbed my attention when I first saw the trailer. It had atmosphere, texture, mythology, and a musical score that was wonderfully dramatic. I didn't own a Playstation 3, but my roommate at the time did, and together we dove into the Animus to discover the secrets of the Templars and Assassins. And we both loved the game, but there were also some obvious problems with the game's free-running system. Occasionally Altair would run into a hot spot that would send him sailing off a ledge into oblivion rather than into the much less lethal haystack; or perhaps worse, into the haystack rather than up to the next handhold.

That was six years ago. Ubisoft has released six more Assassin's Creed titles, and although each game is set in the same universe and the mechanics are largely the same, there are elements that have evolved, grown, or disappeared altogether since AC1.

I had the bizarre notion last year to play as many of them as I could, as quickly as possible. I made it through Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood, Revelations, and III. What you are about to read is the product of that experience.

You'll notice that Assassin's Creed III is rarely mentioned. I'll explain why in more detail in a later piece if I have time; in many important ways, AC3 doesn't play like an Assassin's Creed game.

On my desk I have six pages of Assassin's Creed notes. I'm going to distill them down as much as possible, to talk about the changes that were made between each game, why they worked, where they failed, and how they could have been done better.

My Favorite Shoe

Do you ever miss your shoes? Not the ones you're wearing; that wouldn't make sense. I should explain.