Randomly Generated Characters, Race, And Text Based Games

[docclox]

I'm trying to make a game with a lot of randomly generated women. It's a text based game (Engram 17 elsewhere on this board) so I need to work up a description of each of them. I've hit a snag trying to think how to describe skin color/race/ethnic backgrounds and since it's a problem with a potentially wider scope than the game in question, I thought I'd give it its own thread.

The thing is, I really don't want to upset anyone with unintended casual racism. For a more visual game, it's easy. You have skin tone and eye shape to suggest an ethnic background and you don't need to describe it beyond that. For text, I need words and words are a minefield. There's also a problem trying to find probability distributions. Race is pretty much a discredited notion so there's not much there. Ethnicity is much discussed, but it's fuzzy as hell taking culture into appearance as much as appearance. So that's lots and lots of ethnic backgrounds to consider. Do I really want to distinguish between White/English and White/Welsh, for instance. To say nothing of Black/Welsh, Asian/Welsh, etc..

That's further complicated by the fact that I want a far-future setting. The setting I imagine is one where Earth is barely remembered, never mind Wales. So referencing Earth regions is going to be tricky without spoiling that.

Right now I'm thinking to leave it to the player's imagination. But if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

 

[muttdoggy]

We can still identify by color and race. There will always be white and black skinned. For the asian races, we can say Oriental or Asian. We can say Arabic, Persian, Indian, etc for the middle east. And don't forget that in the future, we will take our literature with us and it's a reminder of our diversity. I would hazard a guess that it's not unknown for someone in the future that he/she can say "I'm descended from those who settled in western Europe back when we lived on Earth." Or "My parents are descended from those who called themselves the "Japanese" back on Earth."

 

[docclox]

Hmmm... "oriental" and "indian" could work. They have to be one or two word descriptions in my case since I want something that will fit on a status line. But that could work. Thanks.

 

[DSSAlex]

I feel like "oriental" has weird old timey racism vibes. Seeing it takes me right out of a story that isn't set in like 1870's.

If it's set far enough in the future that Wales is a half-lost memory you could probably create your own language for these cultures. Leave vague hints in the text. An alert reader could figure out District 12 maps to the ruins of West Virginia, otherwise it's just nano quantum particles.

 

[docclox]

I'm not really worrying about language. I'll assume everyone speaks the same language, whatever it is. I'm just after a way to describe, or at least hint at skin color. "Oriental" seemed fairly harmless to me, but then I'm a middle aged white European male, so I'm not in the best position to judge these things. That said, without citing country of origin the next thing that occurs is skin color. But while "white" and "black" are fairly harmless, "yellow" invokes the Yellow Peril and Fu Manchu and I'd sooner avoid that.

East Asian, maybe. I've never been happy with "Asian" since it covers such a diversity, geographically speaking.

East Asian, Middle Eastern, European, Indian, African, Native American and maybe Oceanian to cover native peoples of Oceania and the original inhabitants of Australia and New Zealand. Hmm...

 

[muttdoggy]

There's one guarantee.. we've got our history in literature stored digitally in the future. But what's not known is what the current culture is. We could have one where they self-segregate due to many wars and conflicts so identifying by country of origin is super important. There could be a future where we are more assimilated and it's not a concern anymore so that would be why we would tend to forget the old countries and governments.

 

[grev]

I think a key point to think about before deciding what descriptors to use, Is what viewpoint is the story being told from. is it first person or narated with dialogue? if all the descriptors come in the form of the MC's thoughts then yes you would have to limit reference to earth based knowledge. however if its third person or narrated then you can get away with some liberties. for example

first person * what i saw before me was a shorter than average woman with long straight jet black hair, eyes the color of ochre that tapered to the corners more so than one would normally see and a rich almost olive skin tone *

cant really come up with a good example for the third person option unless you establish the "story teller" as something or someone who would have this knowledge.

also you could fore go the specificity of labels by using simile and a thesaurus. instead of saying black skin. just say skin as dark as coal. dodges uncomfortable words and still gets the point across

 

[grev]

for probability distribution, it might be an interesting idea to have settings that let your players decide what they want for themselves you could even have a color swatch of skin tones with a slider next to each color to indicate the likelyhood of a character having that color of skin that way you still wouldnt have to "say" what color it is and they could decide for themselves if they want to see content involving those suggested races

 

[docclox]

I suppose a little background here will probably help.

For what I have planned, there's a jungle valley on an alien world. And inside that valley there are scattered thirty unarmed female targets, and five hunters who have to "capture" them all. And the player is thrust, possibly unwillingly into the role of one of the hunters.

Now all you know about any of the girls is a blip on a head-up display. Until you get to visual range anyway. Then you get something like this:

First Name: Flossie
Second Name: Mossy
Age: 28 Standard
Background: Housewife
Participation: Unwilling/Abductee.
Status: PREY!

So I'd quite like add some more details:

Height: 1600mm
Dimensions: 36-24-36
Ethnic Background: European
Hair Color: Blonde
Hair Style: Short, curly

And that's probably the total extent that race or ethnicity is going to be part of the game. I just want to give the player a couple of visual hooks so they can mentally fill in the details for the scene. For the most part I'm going to keep the sexy bits fairly short and generic, so the initial picture is important.

for probability distribution, it might be an interesting idea to have settings that let your players decide what they want for themselves you could even have a color swatch of skin tones with a slider next to each color to indicate the likelyhood of a character having that color of skin that way you still wouldnt have to "say" what color it is and they could decide for themselves if they want to see content involving those suggested races

I sort of like the idea, but it's a text only game for the most part. About the only art I have planned is a radar map of the hunt arena, and maybe some watermark background images. That does make me wonder about blue or green skinned types, whether as genetic offshoots or just cosmetic treatments ... but I think I'd like to keep it a little more grounded than that. Or at least, I'm going to be testing the player's suspension of disbelief quite enough in other areas, if you see what I mean.

 

[grev]

I suppose a little background here will probably help.

For what I have planned, there's a jungle valley on an alien world. And inside that valley there are scattered thirty unarmed female targets, and five hunters who have to "capture" them all. And the player is thrust, possibly unwillingly into the role of one of the hunters.

Now all you know about any of the girls is a blip on a head-up display. Until you get to visual range anyway. Then you get something like this:

First Name: Flossie
Second Name: Mossy
Age: 28 Standard
Background: Housewife
Participation: Unwilling/Abductee.
Status: PREY!

So I'd quite like add some more details:

Height: 1600mm
Dimensions: 36-24-36
Ethnic Background: European
Hair Color: Blonde
Hair Style: Short, curly

And that's probably the total extent that race or ethnicity is going to be part of the game. I just want to give the player a couple of visual hooks so they can mentally fill in the details for the scene. For the most part I'm going to keep the sexy bits fairly short and generic, so the initial picture is important.



I sort of like the idea, but it's a text only game for the most part. About the only art I have planned is a radar map of the hunt arena, and maybe some watermark background images. That does make me wonder about blue or green skinned types, whether as genetic offshoots or just cosmetic treatments ... but I think I'd like to keep it a little more grounded than that. Or at least, I'm going to be testing the player's suspension of disbelief quite enough in other areas, if you see what I mean.

if you are hunting targets wether willingly or not i assume there are objectives? like capture 3 women with x features or something like that? or is it really just to describe who you see. cause if its just for descriptive purposes then why would the heads up bother telling ethnicity. especially if nobody knows about ethnic backgrounds. perhaps you as a hunter might know about them. after all a good hunter would research as much as possible about their target. i would limit the HUD to only basics as far as appearance hair color and style body features inc skin bust (if relevant ) and a basic descriptor of body shape. slim athletic shapley plump etc. participation and status are good too. and then through mc thought you can go into more details based on what he might deduce by looking at her.

 

[docclox]

Tell ya what: the fastest way to explain what I have in mind is probably the mission briefing from the game. This is just a test fragment rather than the whole thing. (Also this information decloaks early in the game, but not until after a certain event. So mild spoilers if anyone cares about such things).

File is HTML, TWINE format. Just unzip and double click the HTML file.