A thought occurs to me, Magpie Games . Please read this whole thing knowing that I’m a fan of your work, and love that you want all people to be represented. In the Look section, perhaps you could just leave the top two fields (the ones with gender and ethnicity) blank. This would let people write in what they want.
I first had this thought when I saw the Indigenous label and asked Indigenous to where? My wife is First Nations/Native Alaskan, which is much different than the Chippewa on my father’s side and unknown tribe near Colorado from which my great-grandfather was kidnapped as a child. Indegenous could refer to the Anangu and other groups of Australia or any number of peoples.
My wife’s cousins are Persian, which is not the same as Arab, yet both are considered Middle Eastern. I could go on with each listed group, but I think the point is clear.
If you truly want to represent everyone, maybe a couple blank spaces could allow more self expression? TYVM.
You know that you are not limited to the written down examples, right?
These are only for faster entry to begin the game.
I know, but I like to use the playbooks as physical character sheets, and I don’t like how it looks when I have to write something else in.
Plus, how is Ankit going to feel when he sees that there’s no option for Indian?
Some people will always see the lists as exclusive. I prefer blank spaces to write in as well. The “look” lists of pbta games has always felt more restrictive than inspirational to me.
Short list of examples has been good for Con games and getting things started quickly and when need has arised to expand the selection with character vision people have written the stuff there without too fuzz. Blank line might support this idea of openness, tho’ in practice it seems to be expected already.
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If you do not give varied examples people are more likely to go for their regional or the media default, which often will be white and cis. Putting it all in a list shows how there are other equal options and thus encourages more varied characters.
The options have to be phrased right of course and I do think people will take the lists as exclusive or will need a specific reason to pick something not on the list.
The list on the playbook is:
Asian or South Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, White
Which sounds really good starting point and do imply that you can wary from “White”.
To be clear I’m not against adding groups, only that the list is fast to use and also gives the feel that you can bring more to the table. I have felt that the powered by A list has done this – not saying that there isn’t room for improvement.
In fact, if the character sheet layout has room, a line for own addition could be nice.
Yeah, I think having space to write something in would be good, but the list should stay.
The problem with adding groups might be that you will never, ever be able to have a list so long and so detailed that you will cover every possible ethnic group, let alone those people who identify as mixed ethnicity. The OPs post mentioned Middle Eastern including both Arab and Persian, but then there are various sub-groups of Persian as well. And some people disagree as to who is a Persian and who is not.
Its a big can of worms.
Right. So maybe like a note before the playbooks, “Seriously, broaden your horizons people, and use this as an opportunity to explore all types of the human experience.” to show that you support diversity, and then just have blank spaces on the sheets.
Jacob Ross – Thanks for posting! We appreciate your feedback (and everyone else here in this thread).
In short, we’re done this look list before with Urban Shadows and we’ve learned two things:
1) Including lists of diverse looks gets us much more diverse characters. People are primed by the list to play a variety of cultures and ethnicities, which is pretty important for young adult superheroes (Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, etc). We’d love to just say “be diverse!” but it’s not enough.
2) People rarely use the blank. When we playtested both Urban Shadows and Masks with a blank in addition to the listed options, people just chose off the list to fit: “Oh, I’m circling Middle East, but I mean Persian.” In the interest of space, we decided to cut it, but it could totally come back if it seems important.
Cool, I respect that. Could I maybe talk you into including Indian as an option? They’re a very distinct group of people, and there’s like a billion of them in the world. Seems like it would be a popular option! 😀
Jacob Ross – We’ll discuss it! Thanks for contributing ideas. 😀
Additionally/Alternately, can we change “transgressing” to “transgender”? It’s the common term and generally more accepted; “gender transgression” is seen as more… ‘clinical’?… and less ‘friendly’.
Kelci Erne – Thanks for commenting! We love to hear from more people on this.
In general, the focus here is on look. A character who looks “male” doesn’t have to be male, they only have to look that way to others. As such, a transgender person can look “male, female, ambiguous, or transgressing.” None of those states imply anything about the character’s actual gender, which remains firmly in the control of the player no matter which option they choose.
The word ‘transgressing’ just seems to have a negative connotation.
Transgression: an act that goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offense.
Additionally, to fit more options in, you can use different list of ethnicities for different playbook. The Dungeon World character sheets I saw at GenCon had different options on different sheets, and had a enough space to pencil in something else if you preferred.