![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevAs mentioned in a previous post, when I'm having a substantive discussion about race or gender on a game-related discussion board, there's about 50% chance that the moderators will close or delete the thread. I stopped doing my back-up of my posts here because we were getting some really good discussion in, even some of it heated, and I felt safer about the chances of that stuff remaining around at least for awhile. Now we've had our first moderator-visit, and while it was done with a very light touch, it did remind me that I'd been wanting to wrap some of my posts up again.
(this is long and not so well edited.)
[gnome fighters]
Lots? Some, perhaps, though not in any books I own. The iconic third edition gnomes are a bard and an illusionist. And don't forget that -2 to strength in 3e.
In 4e, they've barely shown martial gnomes at all, unless they're rogues. The 4e designers are explicit in saying that gnomes do not tend toward the defender role, period (Design & Development column, Dragon 372, January 2009). The Underdark book has a gnomish caravan guard, and that's all I've noticed. As I mentioned the Ebberon halfling items make it somewhat more-possible to make an enjoyable gnomish fighter or barbarian-type (with two-handed Small weapons). As a fan of the smaller races, I consider this distinctly insufficient. I admit to some hyperbole, but I am still disappointed. They don't have to be spectacular at the role...but plenty of NPCs do things inefficiently. Why not more gnome fighters, barbarians, warlords?
[people with disabilities erased in fantasy, in part by being "Made Whole" by magic]
I'm a fan of the fantasy trope where a character becomes interesting by virtue of embracing what might otherwise be seen as challenges. I see what you're saying about the mythic proportions of making something whole, but I echo unicore in noting that it gets *old*, if we only ever see people either victimized or made whole. There's this giant middle ground, left mostly fallow -- let's do more with it!
["If you want more marginalized people in the culture, make your own!"]
"I'd like to have more diversity in my stories, but it's too hard, so I'll just keep writing about able-bodied cis white men." And then people kvetch about how formulaic mainstream stuff is.
You think that underrepresented groups need to write all our own movies *and* books *and* whole gaming systems *and* make our own art -- oh, WAIT A MINUTE we're doing that already, and mainstream movie studios and publishing houses all marginalize those creations, because stuff that doesn't fit the status quo is assumed to be non-profitable because the people who make those decisions make them conservatively.
....so what we *really* need is to start our own movie studios and publishing houses and OH WAIT A MINUTE we're already doing that and then we don't get any shelf space or airtime because the people who make *those* decisions assume that the only stuff that will sell is the stuff that is already selling.
...so then what we *really* need to do is stand up and make sure that the people who make the decisions about what movies to make and what books to publish and who gets shelf space and who gets marketing money know that we are here, and we are prepared to spend money on these products if they are available and OH WAIT A MINUTE that's exactly why it's important for us to speak up and actually talk about things we'd like to see that aren't already being well-supported.
"go make your own" is a crummy answer to this problem. It's been happening all along & has been insufficient. As I believe I mentioned (EDIT: in another thread on this board), the way that change happens is when the people who hold existing power in the culture explicitly make change. Which means that *all* these things need to happen. Not just at the content creation level.
[regarding "wouldn't it be possible" as a crux of fantasy]
Yes, indeed. The best things start with "wouldn't it be cool if...?"
(good stuff snipped, for which I can only say, "I agree!")
[questions as to whether discussion of disability is on-topic]
I, for one, am glad to see this discussion here. I'm a believer in Intersectionality, which says that different forms of social injustice interrelate and the ways in which they interact with each other are important to examine & talk about.
For instance, in this very thread somebody brought up the difference between the person-who-stays-home vs. the person-who-goes-out-and-does-things. In the stated example, it was "a merchant's wife" vs. "the merchant" but the same thing shows up when looking at "a person with disabilities" vs. "that person's caretaker" (because god forbid we have a people with disabilities in a fantasy milieu who can take care of themselves!).
[regarding sexual orientation in fantasy]
Saying that "we don't know" is disingenuous. We have a great deal of evidence about goes in those unspoken gaps.
There's a well-known phenomenon called the unmarked category, which manifests in things like the white racial frame and gaming-mini titles of "adventurer" vs. "female adventurer" and "elf wizard" vs. "female elf wizard" and, yes, default assumptions of heterosexuality. What is considered the default for un-named cases is usually very well communicated. To people who fit into the unmarked category, this default is mostly invisible unless you're looking for it. To people who don't, it's very evident(*), whether we like it or not.
I'm not making pronouncements of what I'm guessing based on a tiny bit of data: D&D's deities are not asexual, and so far the ones that have been partnered have had opposite-sex partners: Moradin and Berronar. Asmodeus and Bensozia. Corellon and Lloth, Angharradh, and/or Sehanine, depending on which edition & which setting. Tiamat and whole lot of male dragons. And so on.
Suggesting that we just make-believe that anything that doesn't fit the dominant culture is hidden in the undefined parts just underscores the marginalization I'm arguing against in the first place. We already do that in reality-world and it sucks. I'm calling for WotC to take a lead on building a fantasy world that is *explicitly* not heterocentric, ableist, male-centric, etc.
(*) as it often comes in the form of: "Oops! When we say *people*, we don't actually mean *you*."
[and more]
I still think WotC can and should take a lead when it comes to making their campaign settings less problematic. As contrasted with the other option that was under discussion when I made my comment, which was to leave players digging around for our diversity in the undefined spaces.
I'm holding that "pretend the diversity lives in the undefined parts" strategy up to the light and declaring it flawed.
[regarding gnomish fighters, again]
That's a good point. When did swordmages come out? Perhaps they hadn't been designed yet, when that column was written?
And hey, I found another martial gnome in the core books: There's a gnome defender as the example for "here's how to create a companion character" section in the DMG2. And with regards to the ableism discussion that's happening lately: The companion character is described as "has a limp." Yay DMG2! Contrast with the entirety of published Dungeon magazine & Dragon magazine articles since 4e launched, in which the only NPCs who limp are elderly females who have never been anywhere near battle. (They must have a box they pull things out of. Two different authors, two old women with "a pronounced limp".) Nice to have at least some mention, but, sheesh stereotype much?
If the next group I GM for is short a defender, I'm giving them one of those gnome defender companion characters. I'm enthralled. Tough, rash, "big for a gnome" gnome! There's a whole *two* of them in the whole shelf-full of WotC books my gaming group owns. Which is much better than only one. ("short" a defender? har, har. I swear I didn't do that on purpose.)
Didn't we just get a new Editor-in-Chief for the magazines? Hey, Steve Winter, the core rulebooks are outshining the *heck* out of your magazines when it comes to diversity. What'cha going to do about it?
[regarding "reverse sexism"]
Kvetching about "women being sexist against men" is what happens any time somebody tries to address a situation unbalanced in favor of men. The process of trying to level the playing field gets people screeching about OMG what about the menz!? because we are *so* accustomed to the status quo that any attempt to change it feels "unfair" at first blush.
This is about using different words to talk about different concepts, which is a necessary thing. Off in another thread on this forum, I talked about the difference between the public sphere & the private one. That's relevant here, too. The -isms start to lose their meaning when we attach them to individuals. Sexism, ableism, racism, etc. are things that occur in the public sphere. They are attached to systems, and they occur systematically. On an individual level, however, what we are looking at is *bias*. In the private sphere, and to some extent on a micro-level in the public sphere, bias happens. Bias can work with or against existing institutionalized -isms. It is important to differentiate bias that supports the systematic disparity vs. bias that works against systematic disparity. It is also important to differentiate either of these kinds of bias from the kind of oppression/repression/-ism that's encapsulated in a system. They are all different, but they all interrelate.
Otherwise the attempts at leveling the playing field get silenced with the rhetoric of the existing system of inequality, and that's icky.
Your dismissing this concept -- and every attempt to discuss it -- as mere pedantry while saying that other people are not engaging with the concepts at hand seems particularly disingenuous.
[regarding a sudden mention of islamaphobia (making a point which I'm not yet sure I understand)]
If you're trying to bring discussion of anti-religion bias into this discussion about bias in general, it would help if you were more explicit, because right now your comment is a little out in left field. Intersectionality is awesome, but it does usually require some patience to get all the dots connected if you're trying to do it in a forum that's not accustomed to doing it all the time.
In my experience, on the WotC boards gender and race bias get responded-to more quickly than religion or disability bias. However, I've seen them all go by unmentioned at times; the response is by no means perfect. And in all cases I've seen, the response has not been one-sided; there's always somebody arguing for the side of the status quo. So while I don't agree with you across the board, I can't say I completely disagree with you, either.
(this is long and not so well edited.)
[gnome fighters]
Lots? Some, perhaps, though not in any books I own. The iconic third edition gnomes are a bard and an illusionist. And don't forget that -2 to strength in 3e.
In 4e, they've barely shown martial gnomes at all, unless they're rogues. The 4e designers are explicit in saying that gnomes do not tend toward the defender role, period (Design & Development column, Dragon 372, January 2009). The Underdark book has a gnomish caravan guard, and that's all I've noticed. As I mentioned the Ebberon halfling items make it somewhat more-possible to make an enjoyable gnomish fighter or barbarian-type (with two-handed Small weapons). As a fan of the smaller races, I consider this distinctly insufficient. I admit to some hyperbole, but I am still disappointed. They don't have to be spectacular at the role...but plenty of NPCs do things inefficiently. Why not more gnome fighters, barbarians, warlords?
[people with disabilities erased in fantasy, in part by being "Made Whole" by magic]
I'm a fan of the fantasy trope where a character becomes interesting by virtue of embracing what might otherwise be seen as challenges. I see what you're saying about the mythic proportions of making something whole, but I echo unicore in noting that it gets *old*, if we only ever see people either victimized or made whole. There's this giant middle ground, left mostly fallow -- let's do more with it!
["If you want more marginalized people in the culture, make your own!"]
"I'd like to have more diversity in my stories, but it's too hard, so I'll just keep writing about able-bodied cis white men." And then people kvetch about how formulaic mainstream stuff is.
You think that underrepresented groups need to write all our own movies *and* books *and* whole gaming systems *and* make our own art -- oh, WAIT A MINUTE we're doing that already, and mainstream movie studios and publishing houses all marginalize those creations, because stuff that doesn't fit the status quo is assumed to be non-profitable because the people who make those decisions make them conservatively.
....so what we *really* need is to start our own movie studios and publishing houses and OH WAIT A MINUTE we're already doing that and then we don't get any shelf space or airtime because the people who make *those* decisions assume that the only stuff that will sell is the stuff that is already selling.
...so then what we *really* need to do is stand up and make sure that the people who make the decisions about what movies to make and what books to publish and who gets shelf space and who gets marketing money know that we are here, and we are prepared to spend money on these products if they are available and OH WAIT A MINUTE that's exactly why it's important for us to speak up and actually talk about things we'd like to see that aren't already being well-supported.
"go make your own" is a crummy answer to this problem. It's been happening all along & has been insufficient. As I believe I mentioned (EDIT: in another thread on this board), the way that change happens is when the people who hold existing power in the culture explicitly make change. Which means that *all* these things need to happen. Not just at the content creation level.
[regarding "wouldn't it be possible" as a crux of fantasy]
Yes, indeed. The best things start with "wouldn't it be cool if...?"
(good stuff snipped, for which I can only say, "I agree!")
[questions as to whether discussion of disability is on-topic]
I, for one, am glad to see this discussion here. I'm a believer in Intersectionality, which says that different forms of social injustice interrelate and the ways in which they interact with each other are important to examine & talk about.
For instance, in this very thread somebody brought up the difference between the person-who-stays-home vs. the person-who-goes-out-and-does-things. In the stated example, it was "a merchant's wife" vs. "the merchant" but the same thing shows up when looking at "a person with disabilities" vs. "that person's caretaker" (because god forbid we have a people with disabilities in a fantasy milieu who can take care of themselves!).
[regarding sexual orientation in fantasy]
Saying that "we don't know" is disingenuous. We have a great deal of evidence about goes in those unspoken gaps.
There's a well-known phenomenon called the unmarked category, which manifests in things like the white racial frame and gaming-mini titles of "adventurer" vs. "female adventurer" and "elf wizard" vs. "female elf wizard" and, yes, default assumptions of heterosexuality. What is considered the default for un-named cases is usually very well communicated. To people who fit into the unmarked category, this default is mostly invisible unless you're looking for it. To people who don't, it's very evident(*), whether we like it or not.
I'm not making pronouncements of what I'm guessing based on a tiny bit of data: D&D's deities are not asexual, and so far the ones that have been partnered have had opposite-sex partners: Moradin and Berronar. Asmodeus and Bensozia. Corellon and Lloth, Angharradh, and/or Sehanine, depending on which edition & which setting. Tiamat and whole lot of male dragons. And so on.
Suggesting that we just make-believe that anything that doesn't fit the dominant culture is hidden in the undefined parts just underscores the marginalization I'm arguing against in the first place. We already do that in reality-world and it sucks. I'm calling for WotC to take a lead on building a fantasy world that is *explicitly* not heterocentric, ableist, male-centric, etc.
(*) as it often comes in the form of: "Oops! When we say *people*, we don't actually mean *you*."
[and more]
I still think WotC can and should take a lead when it comes to making their campaign settings less problematic. As contrasted with the other option that was under discussion when I made my comment, which was to leave players digging around for our diversity in the undefined spaces.
I'm holding that "pretend the diversity lives in the undefined parts" strategy up to the light and declaring it flawed.
[regarding gnomish fighters, again]
That's a good point. When did swordmages come out? Perhaps they hadn't been designed yet, when that column was written?
And hey, I found another martial gnome in the core books: There's a gnome defender as the example for "here's how to create a companion character" section in the DMG2. And with regards to the ableism discussion that's happening lately: The companion character is described as "has a limp." Yay DMG2! Contrast with the entirety of published Dungeon magazine & Dragon magazine articles since 4e launched, in which the only NPCs who limp are elderly females who have never been anywhere near battle. (They must have a box they pull things out of. Two different authors, two old women with "a pronounced limp".) Nice to have at least some mention, but, sheesh stereotype much?
If the next group I GM for is short a defender, I'm giving them one of those gnome defender companion characters. I'm enthralled. Tough, rash, "big for a gnome" gnome! There's a whole *two* of them in the whole shelf-full of WotC books my gaming group owns. Which is much better than only one. ("short" a defender? har, har. I swear I didn't do that on purpose.)
Didn't we just get a new Editor-in-Chief for the magazines? Hey, Steve Winter, the core rulebooks are outshining the *heck* out of your magazines when it comes to diversity. What'cha going to do about it?
[regarding "reverse sexism"]
Kvetching about "women being sexist against men" is what happens any time somebody tries to address a situation unbalanced in favor of men. The process of trying to level the playing field gets people screeching about OMG what about the menz!? because we are *so* accustomed to the status quo that any attempt to change it feels "unfair" at first blush.
This is about using different words to talk about different concepts, which is a necessary thing. Off in another thread on this forum, I talked about the difference between the public sphere & the private one. That's relevant here, too. The -isms start to lose their meaning when we attach them to individuals. Sexism, ableism, racism, etc. are things that occur in the public sphere. They are attached to systems, and they occur systematically. On an individual level, however, what we are looking at is *bias*. In the private sphere, and to some extent on a micro-level in the public sphere, bias happens. Bias can work with or against existing institutionalized -isms. It is important to differentiate bias that supports the systematic disparity vs. bias that works against systematic disparity. It is also important to differentiate either of these kinds of bias from the kind of oppression/repression/-ism that's encapsulated in a system. They are all different, but they all interrelate.
Otherwise the attempts at leveling the playing field get silenced with the rhetoric of the existing system of inequality, and that's icky.
Your dismissing this concept -- and every attempt to discuss it -- as mere pedantry while saying that other people are not engaging with the concepts at hand seems particularly disingenuous.
[regarding a sudden mention of islamaphobia (making a point which I'm not yet sure I understand)]
If you're trying to bring discussion of anti-religion bias into this discussion about bias in general, it would help if you were more explicit, because right now your comment is a little out in left field. Intersectionality is awesome, but it does usually require some patience to get all the dots connected if you're trying to do it in a forum that's not accustomed to doing it all the time.
In my experience, on the WotC boards gender and race bias get responded-to more quickly than religion or disability bias. However, I've seen them all go by unmentioned at times; the response is by no means perfect. And in all cases I've seen, the response has not been one-sided; there's always somebody arguing for the side of the status quo. So while I don't agree with you across the board, I can't say I completely disagree with you, either.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2010-05-29 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-06-26 12:56 am (UTC)