Representing LGBT+ Characters in Games: Two Case Studies

[Music] hello everyone my name is torie Shaffer and I will be talking to you about my experience representing LGBT+ characters and games so first of all let's talk about Who I am I am a writer an air designer I currently work for spell break a PvP fantasy game which is currently in beta in the past I worked for Elder Scrolls online an MMORPG set in the Elder Scrolls universe and a game called backbone which was an indie you are Detective narrative set in a dystopian future I also wrote for the quest Manor of mass for Elder Scrolls online which included a character named alchemy who was elder scrolls first openly transgender woman and that quest ended up winning a GLAAD award for outstanding video game in 2018 GLAAD is the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against

Defamation and works to create respect to help endorse respect to our presentation of the lgbtq+ community in media and this is my contact information you can see my website my Twitter and my email feel free to contact me if you have any further questions or comments about this presentation so how can we ensure respectful lgbtq+ representation and games so we're gonna talk about what is LGBTQ plus representation what does good representation look like I'll use examples of my own work to show how I respectfully represented the lgt Plus community and I'll give you some tips and tricks to help you create lg+ representation in your own games so first of all what is l - t + representation so it's characters and media's who have a minority sexuality and/or gender so lesbian gay bisexual

transgender but also asexual demisexual non-binary characters any character who is not straight and/or cisgendered it has a very troubled history obviously I think that's something that's well known there's been a lack of representation in media there's been stereotypes harmful tropes and because of this kind of lack of representation and negative representation the lgbtq+ community can be very sensitive to how they are represented which is why we need to work as game developers and anybody who creates media to make sure that their representation that we are putting out there is respectful to the community more so than you know people who are not LGBT+ characters who are not lgbtq+ and we need to ensure that we are understanding and cognizant of those issues and of that history when we are creating these characters so know what

does respectful lgbtq+ representation look like gonna be giving you some pillars of good representation that would also apply to other marginalized groups if that's something that you know you're interested in as well so realistic is this betrayal accurate in a sum it's a portrayal that avoids stereotypes and make sure that the character isn't define isn't defined by their sexuality or gender and this is helped by research making sure that you know game developers who are working on this content are as diverse as possible and also consuming community approved lgbtq+ media things that have had a positive response from the lgbtq+ community in making sure that you understand kind of the types of

identities that you're representing this is considerate is the narrative considerate of past and current lgbtq+ issues making sure that characters are not inherently bad because of their sexuality or gender the narrative should not punish a character because of their identity even if the society that character is a part of does it varied to different very diff and things how you represent that person how you present them in the game can really define if something is considered or not and obviously once again mindful of the lgbtq+ community in the past representation making sure that your narrative is sympathetic to these characters so question how is the narrative treating this character what's the message the narrative is giving to the player about this character and there I get any being like mindful of all that explicit our characters explicitly stated to be lgbtq+ you know

do they openly say like you know their identity or openly talk about their I get in these experiences but you have to be mindful of doing this without the characters consent having other characters reveal a character's identity can be you know it's just something that you want to avoid both in games and real-life making sure that you had the consent of that individual that their identity can be openly talked about or shown and just the best way to do that is to make sure the character is the one telling the player who they are and what their identity is respectful as the characters identity respected by the narrative making sure that that lgbtq+ identity is never the butt of a joke you can have these characters be funny you can have these characters makes jokes but not in a stereotypical harmful way you have to be respectful of the lgbtq+

community and kind of their experiences in making sure that you're not relying on you know those harmful things and being respectful to the community as well on social media making sure that on social media your studio your developers are not making harmful you know jokes or comments about the lgbtq+ community and just being mindful of how that community the lgbtq+ community reacts to your characters and interprets your characters in your stories if somebody has a head cannon that a character identifies a certain way or two characters have a certain kind of relationship making sure that you respect that because that is how that player is deciding to consume your content so that they are represented I'm making sure that you never feel like they're wrong for doing so or that they're less air for doing so I suppose so just being cognizant of your community and how they can see media and how you treat them on social media and events and things like

that so I'll be talking about my first examples elder scrolls Illini we talked about two examples here so my first example is a quest in the Elder Scrolls online Somerset expansion or chapter which is an MMORPG set in the Elder Scrolls universe a high fantasy setting that explores various themes from the very GetGo and elder scrolls online it was a cited that LGBT+ characters were a part of that universe and they were just accepted by their society as to not alienate lgbtq+ players who may be playing Elder Scrolls online and also just because we wanted representation to be you know able to put in the game very easily I think and a lot of characters to identify is that without worrying about societal repercussions so there's a variety of LGBT+ characters in Elder Scrolls online but mostly a representation lesbian bisexual characters things of that nature which

is why I was really excited when I got the opportunity to work on the quest involving the character alchemy who is the first openly transgender woman in Elder Scrolls she is respected by her society she's respected by the narrative us I'll get into it a little bit and she's in the quest manner of masks for Elder Scrolls online Somerset as I said she does have some predecessors who are non-binary the god vivec the Daedric princes but we wanted to make sure that that her character reflected a transgender woman to experience and that was how she openly identified us so the manner of mask quest this is just a short description but were nine who is shown on screen right here renee has asked me to find her brother lair adele and stop him from joining the house of reveries i'm audition as well in order to figure out who he is so this is a high elf she's a high elf who is looking for her brother and she says oh no my brother's trying

to join an acting troupe and I want him to be a mage like I am you have to figure out who he is because everybody in this acting troupe wears masks on their face so she says you should audition as well see who my brother is find out whoever there is so I can talk him out at this nonsense in surprise surprise lurid L now identifies as alchemy and is a woman and that's how you kind of learn through the quest Garrett if that alchemy is transgender because you're introduced to this character as grenades brother Lera del and then you've learned about this character alchemy and eventually it's revealed that she used to identify as Leroy Dell and she's to identify as a man and Sheena identifies as alchemy and a woman so just kind of going through this question kind of seeing if it's if it's respectful you know is this realistic is this a realistic representation of a transgender woman so first we made sure

that alchemy was a fully fleshed out character with her own hopes and dreams she does feel that she must keep her identity a secret from her sister but hopes for her sister's acceptance now this is because she's an actress when her sister wants her to be a mage but yes it is supposed to reflect the fact that she is a transgender woman and that she wants her sister's acceptance as that identity as well she felt uncomfortable in her old identity identity and now feels happier with her new one and more ways and just her gender you know she was also very unhappy as a mage at a scholar but you know we wanted that to reflect her kind of change over to her new identity as a woman as alchemy and she's connected to and supported by other transgender characters off screen she talks about those experiences and how those people have helped her kind of you know embrace and really love her new identity but we never show those characters in the class just because of time constraints and

character constraints and things like that is this considerate so we made sure that alchemy was an ally to the hero and accepted by her sister we wanted to keep it very positive for this kind of first four-way for a this first time representing a transgender woman in elder scrolls you know online in elder scrolls period we make sure that the player never reveals Alchemy's identity without her explicit consent the player does advise alchemy and she wants to talk to her sister or not but the player never says her identity or tells other people about her identity it's it's all alchemy doing that and Somerset her society you know her homeland of the High Elves Somerset accepts her identity and doesn't really care that she's transgender which is again going with that overall theme of LGBT+ characters being accepted by the society or their societies and elder girls um is this explicit alchemy Oakley admits that she

is transgender she talks about her passe and me and her current identity she discusses other transgender High Elves in Somerset that she's met and she talks about their experience as well and um dialogue after the quest and she speculates that there are many such individuals all over Tamriel this was something we wanted to write into the class because we wanted to make sure that players who are transgender whatever race they decide to play if they were an orc or a Nord or a dark elf that yeah you exist you in the world it's just not high elves you know it's everybody every race has kind of this um these individuals and she talks about that and we just want to make sure that players felt comfortable role-playing as their own characters you know as a transgender identity so is this respectful Alchemy's identity is never spoken in a joking or harmful or mean-spirited way you know she's

referred to as a woman as she is the player never is able to make harmful comments because we didn't want to like upset lgbtq+ players who may be playing as that character for that option even exists just make sure it's very respectful all the way through she's featured a number mark materials for Somerset but she was also included in our international Woman's Day posts last year which a lot of players were really really happy about that we included her in this community picture just a small little token meant so much to so many people again making sure that social media is also respectful and representing lgbtq+ community is very important in games as well I'll nothing is perfect we did have representation concerns I think you're always going to have concerns about the content you produce in the media and the representation you produce you know in any media stereotypes yeah it's a

stereotype that lgbtq+ people are actors that that's truth it's not I don't think it's particularly harmful stereotype but it is something that a lot of media does or talks about and things like that and that was just something that we decided that she fit in well this was we created the um the acting troupe and the lure of the acting troupe before we introduced alchemy so this was just something that we felt she fit into well but we had to be cognizant that this was a stereotype her appearance alchemy wears a mask everybody in the manner of asks are sorry everybody in the house of reveries which is her acting troupe wears a mask they talk about it all the time they talk about why they do that but you know we have a trans character who is wearing a mask and it's never really shown her face again this was part of the Lord before we introduced alchemy but it we were cognizant that that may have been something that was you know something

that we wouldn't have wanted to do but it did fit into the lore and in the game you know and that's just something that we had to kind of be cognizant of but unfortunately you know he did have a character whose face was was covered the resolution the ending resolution is very quickly handled we wanted to show that Rijn I'd accepted alchemy and loved her still and a very positive experience but yeah it happens very quickly because that's kind of the quest is only so long and the narrative is only so long so we wanted to make sure that the resolution kind of came together in a very positive way we're aware you know of these issues but you know sometimes the gameplay just kind of you can't have perfect representation the way that you really want it to be and she's the one and only at the point of this quest alchemy was the only transgender woman in the game

which creates much higher stakes is less realistic portrayals of the many facets that transgender people the more representation you have the more rounded your representation is because you can show different sides of that identity different facets of it but yeah definitely you know wanting to include alchemy in this content and then build on her representation which I'll talk about in just a little bit so as you can see fan reaction was super positive super great um I was really happy with how the community accepted this quiet and just love this quest you can see these these comments that have including here just like super excited I've had fans come up to me and be like oh at the end of the quest when they hug I cried because it meant so much to me so just you know is it's a quest that means a lot to me a character that means a lot to me because of how much it means to other people which is what representation is really all about representing these the lgbtq+ community it's for the lgbtq+ community first and foremost that they feel a respectfully

represented and their eggs and they're gonna be excited and happy to be represented here's some fan art just wanted to include this I really like these uh these pieces and how they came out of alchemy and then we want a GLAAD award in 2018 which I was I'm super honored that we were able to win this um and they just kind of really caught on that the story reflects the reality of transgender people today even though it doesn't explicitly talk about like you know Brunei doesn't you know Renata accepts her sister for who she is you know accepts off the me but you know we we use that kind of narrative about being a mage and a scholar to kind show that without explicitly showing that I suppose you did say so yeah and then building you in representation I Merck Meyer was the DLC came right after this it's about argonians the lizard people and elder scrolls and their Lord just

has that they can change gender that they are able to do that with the help of their tree gods and in that society they are go nians are really all about change and accepting change so i was able to create a like concept it in wrote for request a small quest where there was a transgender man a transgender woman character and then i also wrote a book called a grand transformation just talking about how society celebrates this and celebrates when argonians when one of their members of their tribe changes their gender so the next example I'm going to talk about is a character in backbone now backbone is a new our narrative game about a rocking detective living and dystopian Vancouver it has very heavy themes of racism misogyny and yes homophobia it's a society that is heavily homophobic and most of the LGBT community the lgbtq+ community is heavily closeted for their

own protection and those who aren't are rejected you know they might be sent to jail rehabilitation camps it's it's heavily influenced by homophobia in America and Russia and you know this created a new challenge for me how do I create respect representation in a very disrespectful game world with a very disrespectful and homophobic Society so you know thinking about that I concept it and created the character Sophia so Sophia who is not pictured here these are two main characters but when I contacted this character and creator should not have any art associated with her so I'll just be talking about her today and kind of how I created her character and how I concept it her to be our special presentation even though she herself is disrespected by her society so Sofia is a lesbian NPC who has been rejected by her society and her family and forced into homeless so just thinking about you know my four

pillars is this realistic unfortunately yes Sofia has a developed personality and opinions you made sure that she was a fully fleshed out character but her lack of and her lack of status as a homeless individual allows her to speak openly about her sexuality to the player-character and unfortunately homelessness is just a common issue within lgt plus community especially youth especially teenagers or young adults because of being rejected by their families and Sophia does reflect this so yeah trying to make her as realistic and fleshed out as possible is this considerate um I made sure that Cynthia was a sympathetic character and a victim of her society not of the narrative that her society was the one who rejected her and didn't accept her and I wanted to allow a member of the lgbtq+ community to speak about society's discrimination against them I didn't want you know I

didn't want to make sure that look sorry I didn't want her mother to talk about her experiences or her friend or somebody else but for Sophia to be able to talk about her experiences herself to give a voice to that community is this explicit um I mean Sophia does obli state that she's an she was in a relationship with another woman and she shares that story with a brutal honesty to the player-character you know wanting to make sure that the player understood what her identity was and how society did not accept that and is this respectful the player character does not make any assumptions about Sophia or judge her maybe the person playing the game does but we did not want the player character to do so you know the player character just ask questions allow Sophia to give her own thoughts in her own opinion and we also researched and tried to avoid lesbian tropes and media such as like a lipstick

lesbian dead lesbian syndrome these are common tropes trying to avoid those to make her not a stereotypical character or stereotyped character today of course we had concerns you know she has a tragic backstory her backstory and her current life very dispiriting but this is a result of her society not so much that the narrative you know it's punishing her for her identity but that her society has punished her for her I guess her identity she's a mouthpiece she's act as a voice for her entire community and as we know different perspectives lead to more rounded narratives this was just unfortunately because of limited characters limited time it's a short game and you know this was kind of a character that I was a little concept out who was able to talk about her experiences because of her position in society you know if she was just walking down the street or if she was you know

in a crowded bar she wouldn't talk about these experiences but because of you know where she was at the time and who what her status was she was able to tell the player-character yeah this is what happened to me and this is who I am and one and only she's the only openly NPC we meet again short narrative closeted society we wanted to make sure that we had this representation but it would you know it's always nice to have more representation and a more rounded lgbtq+ you know representation to show your audience and your players and to talk about and to have in your story so yeah so just two very different experiences for me and experiences to write about in to research and to give but always making sure that no matter how the game world sees the character that I as a creator and the narrative that I helped create is respectful to those characters and that's all about those four pillars you know being respectful being

considerate being realistic being explicit you can do those things and make sure that those are elements that your narrative has no matter how your story kind of sees this character or your your society of that world sees the character so just some tips how can we ensure that our games have our special lgbtq+ representation research research research making sure that you understand these identities to understand their history you understand kind of where these characters are coming from hiring for diversity and making sure that your studio welcomes that diversity if you have LGBTQ plus people in your studio or in your creative team they are able to give a much more like a better insight into that community into that representation studio initiatives to create that diverse representation being noleads need to be the one to say hey guys let's make sure that we're creating a diverse cast a diverse story and

supporting designers who want to create that representation giving them the time to research giving them the resources needed making sure that you're positive about that initiative of creating those characters can go a long way as I said your social media presence needs to be lgbtq+ kept positive as well making sure that you are not saying anything rude or degrading and in keeping that LGBT plus positive representation going throughout all of your studio initiatives marketing things like that in consulting the experts I talked you know about diversity readers but and there are a lot of individuals who you can hire on as a diversity reader to play your game and to play through the narrative to give you you know notes about the representation that you are presenting another group you can talk to is glad it's they are a media group they are bared for consultation and to give you advice about your game gamer X is a

group that talks about a lot of game like gamer perspectives but there are another resource that you can reach out to this website clearly represent me has great examples of video game representation a lot of information that you can read through just another resource that I found very helpful in my own research yeah so just the takeaways I want to kind of stay here is that LGBT+ characters and narratives deserve a place in games they deserve to be represented and representation does not need to be perfect to be respectful you know you're going to have hey choose within your game play within your narratives and you're just going to have to try to use as much you know as much of those pillars as you can to ensure that even though there might be you know some issues that overall you are giving a respectful you know story for this character be to be a part of a respectful role and fans will respond

positively to respect representation I know it can be scary because when you get it wrong the lgbtq+ community is very upset but you've got to you know know that when you really try to put yourself out there and create that diverse representation you will get a lot of you know excitement and - Cheers honestly and it's just very important for the community to be represented and to be shown in media and video games is included in that right so let's work together to ensure that every game has respectful lgbtq+ representation like I said you can contact me if you have any more questions or comments you know I have my website up here my twitter my email feel free to reach out I'll answer as best I can and thank you so much for sitting through this presentation and you know hearing oh but I had to say I hope you have a good evening afternoon thank you