by karen » Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:42 am
I've been thinking about this a lot... My gut reaction was to jump in and support Morgue, but I wanted to be sure that I had valid reasons beyond friendship. I admit my bias. I believe in Morgue's sensitivity, his good intentions and he is frequently one of my sounding boards for appropriateness and feasability of gaming (and life) ideas...
I recently ran a game with a character with a Chinese name. I did a bit of research to ensure the name could be used for either gender (like the other names in the game) but they had what was to me, a more or less western back story... They'd grown up in Fleet Academy... Their dad had always dreamed of being a pilot, but was prevented by Fleet nepotism. Nevertheless, in one run of the game I was asked by a player if I expected him to speak with a fake Chinese accent. The (reassuring to me) response from the rest of the room was "Please don't"
I also now realise that in writing the character as a stereotyped environmental scientist type, driven by a desire to prove themself to an immigrant father doing relatively menial work, I may have inadvertantly mimicked other stereotypes (though in fact I could equally have been describing my own father and gave the background and name combo to this character simply because they were the last one I wrote and they weren't a Lapin)
I work in a professional environment where we have many staff, students and visitors from overseas. Twice I have been in a meeting with 4+ other people where a(n educated professional) Kiwi was talking about how people of some nationalities (it was clear from context that they meant Chinese) had lower standards of hygiene. On each occasion, I was the only person who spoke up. Yes... this a provincial centre, not Wellington... Nevertheless, whatever we as writers and GMs write and intend by what we write, we have very little control over how our players interpret and play their characters. Someone with strong prejudices, especially if they are (as many of us are) unconscious of them may incorporate those into their characterisation. I'm not sure how you deal with that...
My tuppence worth. I would like to play this game... I really wouldn't like to wreck it. I trust your sensitivity as writers, but this will be a LARP for many many people. I guess have learnt the hard way that I can't assume that other people, even in the educated geek community, share my (liberal, I think, but so apparently is Mitt Romney) sensibilities.
I will also be pretty busy this year but if a criterion for having an opinion on this is helping a little, then please let me know what I can do.
Last edited by
karen on Thu Feb 09, 2012 10:43 am, edited 1 time in total.