Appropriation (Part Two)

Constant reader Matt responded to yesterday's post with a reply that echoes many of my own thoughts. I thought I'd start today by re-posting that comment in its entirety, just in case you missed it yesterday:

"Even if players confine themselves to character types that match their own experiences, the GM can't, any more than the writer can, without effectively vanishing all diversity from the game. If a white male GM can't run PCs that aren't white males, you end up with a game where anything important is done by white males. And that is pretty damned problematic in its own right.

The advice I have seen given to authors is to do a lot of research, accept that you'll get it wrong, get beta readers who can catch that, accept that you'll *still* get it wrong, and be able to admit that when called on it.

And even then, it's going to be problematic if you have a white person telling the story of non-white people; it's always going to be an outsider's perspective, the dominant culture looking at another culture. But I think it's important, even necessary, to make sure that the characters in our books and games look like the people we're trying to represent. Women, people who aren't white, a multitude of religions, etc., all exist in the real world, so we must have them in our stories, or we end up with stories that say those people don't matter.

This is much harder advice for a gamer - we're supposed to be having fun, so how much research do we really want to do? And the audience is limited to those at the table, so there's a much lower chance of someone catching screwups.

My current supers game is set in north-eastern Ontario, and I have been struggling with representing First Nations in the setting. It's fairly unreasonable to say there aren't any in the area, so there's a rez nearby, but I am worried that I haven't done enough research to avoid racist stereotypes and misconceptions.

The best answer I can come up with is to keep trying, and accept that we'll fuck up, and be willing to listen and change when we find out that we fucked up."


I agree wholeheartedly with the above.  To that, I can only add the following:

1. Research into playing characters outside your cultural group is really important. Do your homework, and keep doing it. Immerse yourself in that culture and try to pay it respect with your portrayal at the table. Accept that, like Matt says, you will probably still not get it right. 
2. Dramatic play at the table often means writing characters "large", if you follow me; players often default to characterizations that are more theatrical than natural, which can lead you down the path of stereotype or caricature. Underplaying a character of a different culture or gender is probably a good start at trying to inhabit that character sincerely and more realistically.

As Matt says, telling stories that are diverse and inclusive is a good thing -- we just have to work at doing it well. Being attentive and learning about another culture or point of view is a good thing, and indeed I would argue that all good art is an act of compassion. If roleplaying helps us understand each other even a little bit more, then that's a good thing well worth the effort.

Back when I was studying writing, I took it as the highest possible compliment that I wrote women characters well. That was not something that came easily to me, it was something I had to work very hard at, and be humble and willing to listen to criticism when I was getting it wrong.

And like all things that require hard work, the satisfaction of occasionally getting it right makes all the difference.

Appropriation (Part One)

I was listening to an episode of the Walking Eye podcast the other day that brought up an interesting, and important, topic in the roleplaying hobby. Cultural appropriation.

What that means, for those who didn't spend several years and many thousands of dollars in the university of their choice, is one cultural group adopting the elements of another cultural group. You might think of non-First Nations people who hang dreamcatchers from their rear-view mirrors, or maybe Elvis drawing a lot of his act from the music of black musicians. Or, to reference a current hot-button topic from the news, white chefs who practice "southern cooking" without any acknowledgement of the ethnic origins of that food.

So what's the problem with cultural appropriation? It's a problem because a great deal of the time, when this happens, it is done without any serious attempt to understand the culture that's being "borrowed" from. (Okay, let's be blunt - "stolen".) A player might take the part of a First Nations character, but only know as much about that character's culture as they saw in a few old Westerns or Jonah Hex comics. Then it's very easy to fall back on tired stereotypes, or worse, racist caricatures.

This is an issue for roleplaying to grapple with because our hobby is largely about taking a walk in another (fictional) person's shoes. Sure, sometimes that person is an elf or a wookie or whatever, but there are a lot of games where players might be in the position of playing a person in the real world. (And a lot of the time, even if you're playing a character that's clearly not a part of the real world, you might be playing that character as though they're a part of a real-world ethnicity; who hasn't played a game where someone played a Dwarf that spoke with a Scottish accent?)

Add gender or sexual identity to this, and things are really starting to get complicated.

I have to admit, I've done this before myself. I have played black characters on more than one occasion as a player, and I just got done taking the part of a First Nations character in a Deadlands game. I know many players who do the same, and others who play across gender lines on a regular basis. There's a very good chance that those portrayals might have been seen as stereotypes at best (or even racist), if someone from one of those ethnic groups had been sitting in. I'm sure there are women who find it problematic when men play female characters, if it's not done with great sensitivity.

So what does this mean for the hobby? Should all us white middle class male nerds restrict ourselves to only playing white, middle class male nerds? This is a problem I had to grapple with as a writer for a time, because the problem is only magnified in the sphere of writing -- it's all too easy for a reader to spot when a writer is speaking outside his personal experiences, relying on tired stereotypes, or tokenizing members of a different ethnicity / gender. Who hasn't read a book or watched a movie or TV show when they said about a particular character "They would never say / do that"?

Does all art with a claim to legitimacy have to boil down to autobiography?

Oh to Live On Strawberry Mountain...

GREETINGS, MORTAL WORMS.

I AM MITHRAS, VAMPIRE LORD OF LONDINIUM AND SOON THE MASTER OF THE WORLD ENTIRE.

YOU MAY COWER BEFORE ME.

MITHRAS IS POWER INCARNATE, AND ALL WHO OPPOSE HIM ARE REDUCED TO WEEPING BEFORE THEY ARE UTTERLY OBLITERATED.

YET I AM NOT ABOVE VISITING PETTY TORMENTS UPON YOU WORTHLESS HUMAN KINE FOR -- WHAT IS THE VERNACULAR? -- SHITS AND GIGGLES.

BEHOLD THE PETTY HUMAN ESTABLISHMENT WHERE OTHERS OF YOUR KIND GO TO DROWN THEIR FEARS OF MY POWER IN PILES OF FATTY BACON AND PIECE AFTER PIECE OF PIE.

FOOLISH MORTALS! HASH BROWNS CANNOT SAVE YOU!

HERE IS THE SPECIAL THAT THIS DEN OF FEARFUL HUMAN KINE DROWNED THEIR SORROWS IN THIS DAY. THEY CALL IT THE "STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN". BAH, MORE OF A STRAWBERRY TOMB.

MITHRAS FEARS NOT ITS HEIGHTS OF CREAMY TOPPING DRIZZLED WITH STRAWBERRY SAUCE NOT UNLIKE THE SPILLED BLOOD OF YOUR PATHETIC HUMAN RABBLE.

THIS HUMAN FOOL THINKS SHE HAS THE FORTITUDE TO FACE MITHRAS IN A BATTLE OF FORK AND KNIFE.

MITHRAS WAS EATING BUFFETS OUT OF BUSINESS BEFORE YOUR ANCESTORS CROSSED THE OCEANS!

AND IT DOES LOOK LIKE A TASTY CHALLENGE...

WENCH! KEEP THE COFFEE FLAGON FILLED! MITHRAS DEMANDS IT!

HA HA HA HA!!! ONCE AGAIN, MITHRAS HAS TRIUMPHED!

MITHRAS IS A LITTLE SLEEPY, NOW, IT IS TRUE...

YET YOUR MEWLING HUMAN CHAMPION COULD NOT CONQUER THE TOWER OF BUTTERMILK PANCAKES, BROWN SUGAR, CREAM AND STRAWBERRIES. POOR FOOL! BEATEN AGAIN BY THE LORD OF DARKNESS!

YET THE FOOL IS INSOLENT! SHE WILL BE DESTROYED.

...PERHAPS AFTER MITHRAS HAS HAD TIME TO TAKE A LITTLE NAP.

I AM MITHRAS! ALL WILL KNEEL BEFORE ME OR BE DESTROYED!!!

Vulnerability

Sorry I've been absent from the blogosphere lately. The world of work has been taking its toll on my body and energy level, leaving me little to pontificate about subjects erudite and nerdtacular. But I digress...

As I've mentioned before, I've been running an online game for several months now. It's been a pretty good experience overall, though not without its technical and organizational issues, but one thing that's happened as an unintended consequence of this exercise is that I've missed out on my wife Megan's second game, After The Ball.

The game is a steampunk (perhaps I should say Teslapunk) fantasy set in a New York City that never was. The heroes are part of a subculture of inventors that are battling a scheming Thomas Edison analogue. All of this is great fun, and something I would likely have enjoyed playing if I'd been included (Megan is running it for Colin and a group of women who we don't usually game with) but I've had the slightly-different-but-still-awesome pleasure of playing the role of offscreen collaborator for her sophomore effort in the Big Chair. We bounce ideas back and forth as she prepares for an upcoming episode, and I suggest horrible ideas meant to make her players aghast and sad (by which I mean highly entertained). Megan has said that she enjoys having someone to collaborate with. It's fun for me too, although I don't get to directly see how well things play out.

The reason why I'm mentioning all of this here is that Megan came home in high spirits after this week's game, which was the spotlight episode for Colin's phrenologist character Thomas. Thomas has been struggling with his own mental health, and (as if that wasn't enough misery for one human being) wrestling with his feelings for one of the other player characters, Lillian. Megan tells me that Colin really brought it this week, playing out a lot of powerful scenes where Thomas really put his feelings out there. I know that Colin is often a very internal, cerebral player, so this constituted a big, risky effort on his part. Bravo, sir.

What I'm coming around to is the fact that High Trust, High Drama offers players great rewards, but also demands much of everyone at the table. To experience the highs (ha) of a game where the personal pressure on the characters is cranked way up, you need to be able to accept that your character is going to inevitably be placed in situations that might make some players uncomfortable. That means you're often in a position of feeling very vulnerable in front of your fellow gamers.

I've already written about Commitment to a scene (or, as Megan would say, The Fuck It! School of Acting) in an earlier post. Check it out if you haven't already.

Most roleplaying games don't expect players to engage in scenes where their character expresses their feelings for a romantic partner, or is tormented by the thought that he may have killed someone during a momentary lapse of reason. Most games don't dwell on that kind of emotional baggage. For a High Drama game, this is "meat and potatoes" stuff; yes, it's demanding, but the strong feelings that this kind of play generates are powerful. In my mind, there's nothing so immersive as feeling what your character is experiencing.

For the neophyte, especially one that typically plays games which veer sharply away from this kind of emotional immersion, this could be a hard thing to do. Or some kinds of emotion might be harder than others; a player who prefers to play in the "butt-kicker" style probably knows all about righteous or vengeful anger, but might balk at playing out a scene that's about loneliness or rejection or love.

This is where the High Trust part of the equation comes in, the net that's there to catch you when you take an emotional leap of faith in a game. The other players in this style are there to support your choices, and provide both encouragement and opposition/pressure as necessary to bring out the best in your game. As in theatre, everyone who comes to the game is there to have a good time and see some good, meaty scenes. They want you to succeed, to push yourself into risky territory, and ultimately to come out the other side exhilarated (and possibly emotionally drained).

They are not going to laugh at you or think less of you somehow if you let down your barriers in character during a HTHD game. That is part of the social contract between players in the style: create a safe place for everyone at the table, so they can explore exciting, dramatic scenes together.

Be like Colin. Go for it.

Swords & Sorcery & Space Cruisers: DREADSTAR

I'm skipping ahead a bit, because there is still one more "major" title to talk about on the list of Good Old Stuff that emerged from First Comics in the early 80's, but that's because today I'm going to talk about one of my all-time favourites.

A little context first. Jim Starlin began to make his mark on the comics world in the 1970s. His surreal, metaphysical space opera takes on characters like Adam Warlock and Captain Marvel (who he would ultimately kill off in Marvel's first graphic novel, The Death of Captain Marvel) laid the foundation for much of his later work, and changed the Marvel Universe in profound ways -- especially in the stories he wrote about one of Marvel's arch-villains, the Mad Titan Thanos. Yeah. When he shows up again in an Avengers movie, you can thank Jim.

Dreadstar - The Graphic Novel

It's hard to imagine now, but Marvel had a creator-owned imprint called Epic Comics in the early 80s  (edited by the late, great Archie Goodwin) that published a wide variety of interesting and more adult-focused titles like Steve Englehart's Coyote, Elaine Lee's Starstruck, Sergio Aragones's Groo The Wanderer, and of course its premiere title, Dreadstar. In addition to allowing creators ownership of their work, the line was not subject to the Comics Code Authority, and so were able to produce material with more adult themes. The books were mostly produced on higher-quality paper and could only be had through direct sales at comic shops or subscriptions. (It now seems amazing to remember the days when newsstand comic book "spinners" at convenience stores were the primary means for comic book fans to get their books.)

Back to Starlin. Jim had begun the story that would evolve into Dreadstar in Marvel's Metal Hurlant-esque SF magazine Epic Illustrated. In a galaxy-spanning yarn called The Metamorphosis Odyssey, Starlin told the tale of a small group of rebels battling an oppressive galactic empire (there was a lot of that going around in the late 70s). Unlike other small bands of rebels, however, their solution to the problem is monstrous: eliminate the enemy utterly by using a doomsday weapon to destroy the entire Milky Way galaxy. The only survivor of this battle is a fierce warrior from a polar world called Byfrexia with a magic sword -- Vanth Dreadstar.

Starlin continued the story of the Metamorphosis Odyssey in the Dreadstar graphic novel, which picked up where the battle had left off -- Dreadstar awakens, wounded, on a agricultural world at the edge of another galaxy. He makes a life there with the evolved feline-human hybrids who farm the world, and marries a human woman living there.

He eventually makes a friend -- another visitor to the world, a weird-looking wizard named Syzygy Darklock (who Starlin introduced in a stand-alone tale called The Price). Dreadstar finds the wizard agreeable company, but his drinking buddy often seems to steer the conversation toward things that resemble the "bad old days". He urges Vanth to get involved in the ongoing, destructive war between two empires -- the Monarchy  and the theocratic Instrumentality. Vanth is having none of it, but his happiness is short-lived, as the world is attacked by Monarchy forces. Vanth's wife is murdered, and he swears revenge. He assassinates the ruler of the Monarchy, installing a weak king in his place.

Dreadstar hits the ground running.

As we begin the series, Dreadstar and Syzygy are scheming to bring an end to the war, crippling or destroying both of these cruel empires that grind up innocents in their endless battles. They have gathered up a small but deadly band of rebels to fight their war, including the last surviving cat-man from Dreadstar's adopted homeworld, Oedi; a lunkish but canny smuggler named Skeevo; and a blind "cybernetic telepath" named Willow. Dreadstar's rebellion hits the ground running by robbing an Instrumentality space station that holds a chunk of the empire's treasury.

Although they are able to manipulate the weak king of the Monarchy, the rebels face stern opposition from the leader of the Instrumentality, the formidable Lord High Papal. The Papal is truly ruthless, a mighty sorcerer who does the work of strange alien gods. He hounds Dreadstar's rebels with a succession of deadly enemies, including sorcerous Cardinals, bounty hunters, and agents like Infra Red and Ultra Violet who have strange powers. (In the latter case, IR and UV got their powers from an Instrumentality bomb dropped on their home city of millions in an attempt to kill Dreadstar and Darklock. When she learns the truth, Ultra Violet joins the rebel band.)

The series has many exciting twists and turns, which I won't spoil for you here, except to say that -- unlike many stories in the comic book world -- the battle between the rebels and the Papal eventually reaches a climactic conclusion. Our heroes are put through the ringer on the way to the war's end, and not all of our heroes get there alive.

Dreadstar is a rousing adventure tale, but it would have faded with the years if that was all it was. The thing that made it riveting reading back in the day was the difference in tone in this book, compared to others of the era (and indeed others of the Epic line): there was a sense that, from the beginning of the series, Starlin had set the stakes as high as they could possibly be -- cosmically high, of course, but without losing sight of the many lives that hung in the balance when Dreadstar made a decision. This was a comic book about war, and about the ugly consequences of war, and the ugly decisions that "heroes" have to make to serve a greater purpose.

Dreadstar & Co. battle a horde of Starlin's signature mandroids.

Yes, I would call it a superhero comic of sorts -- our heroes have strange powers and wear brightly-coloured costumes. Vanth himself eventually adopts an outfit that is unmistakably a superhero costume. There are big set-piece battles against armies of weird foes, breathless chases, and the sort of cosmic weirdness one would expect to see in a book like Silver Surfer or the aforementioned Captain Marvel.

This was one of the first superhero comics that treated its subject with a serious mind, however -- the threat of cosmic genocide or war atrocities was never far away, and there was a real sense that the heroes were paying a price for the rebellion that they spearheaded. In a way, Dreadstar is like Star Wars if you let the camera linger a little longer over the consequences of some of the boffo action sequences; "Star Wars Is Hell", if you like. The idea that war is a bloody, self-perpetuating thing -- often justified or propped up by things like religion -- haunts every page of Dreadstar. (Weirdly, Dreadstar's brightly-coloured heroes somehow seem to have aged more gracefully than Epic's other space war saga, Alien Legion, which I also loved back in the day. Alien Legion somehow seems too tame and mild today to take seriously, while Dreadstar still packs a narrative punch.)

It's not as dark as something like Frank Miller's Born Again or The Dark Knight Returns or Alan Moore's Watchmen, but you can see the seeds of those great works being planted here.

Vanth takes on the Lord High Papal. Note Dreadstar's new costume.

Eventually, Dreadstar was to leave Epic Comics for a new home at First Comics. My understanding is that this was due to a struggle with Marvel over reprints of Dreadstar that they had begun, in a cheaper format, called Dreadstar and Company. The series didn't enjoy as long a run at First, and after Starlin wrapped up his epic tale of the Monarchy-Instrumentality war, the writing chores were handed over to the capable Peter David.

Starlin went on to do much more cosmic adventure, including DC's Cosmic Odyssey and the Infinity Gauntlet series from Marvel, and personal creations like The Weird and Breed. After many years of silence on the Dreadstar front, there is a rumour that we might at last see another new chapter in the saga. Starlin's Dreadstar and Metamorphosis Odyssey material is finally back in print through SLG and Dynamite Publishing. You can find these reprints -- and often, the original issues -- at your Friendly Local Comic Book Store. Check 'em out.