I would disagree with you on Tempest and Voss being neither. Or, I presume those are the ones you’re listing as neither. If they’re not, disregard this, and shake your head at my presumptiveness.
While they are both aliens, and thus we can’t necessarily tell genders by looking at them, they both have qualities that make them look like human men. Being human, myself, that makes me automatically have a bias toward calling them male. Plus, while Tempest’s bio very skillfully avoids pronouns, Voss’s bio repeatedly refers to him as “he”. If Voss were intended to be of indeterminate gender, I imagine they would have used “it” or avoided pronouns altogether, like they did with Tempest.
On the other hand, you don’t appear to be counting Young Legacy.
Indeed I’m counting Tempest and Voss as neither. And I think u r right, Voss should be male since his bio implied so. But I still think Tempest is inconclusive.
If you look carefully, I think you’ll find that Tempest’s bio actually refrains from using gendered pronouns for Tempest; however, it does use “his” for Voss.
I will admit the characters in this game are diverse without the feeling of “Oh no, we need at least one female character…”. Same goes for race for the most part… not that most characters are not white, but the characters who are not white are not awful stereotypes. Even Haka works great, he has this mythological larger than life “Hercules” feel.
I like the gender balance (being a father of a daughter) and I think they’re doing pretty well with racial diversity but wouldn’t mind seeing even more of that. Even when a character’s race isn’t directed by their power set or background, why not toss some color in there? I think it makes things more interesting.
I appreciate that the gender/racial balances feel natural and not “forced”.
I also greatly appreciate the fact that >G has tastefully avoided the comic trend of rendering all female characters with improbable or downright impossible anatomies.
My gaming group is 50% female (awesome to have three great friends whose wives are all also gamers), and the female characters and their artistic treatment is part of what has made this game a continuous presence at our table. I backed for the enhanced edition, because we have literally worn out some of the decks in our original set. It has probably seen better than 200 games, all told. (We have even run two simultaneous games with one set…that was craziness).
Lessons that can be learned:
1.) Show women some respect, and they may actually enjoy your game.
2.) If you find a game that has followed lesson #1, sleeve the darn thing ASAP!
Well sure, not “forced”. I’m just talking about how in the “Thor” movie, Heimdall was a black guy and Hogun was Japanese. No reason for it, but I thought the diversity made things slightly more interesting. It’s just nice to see characters of color who don’t have to fit a stereotype, like all black characters being either “street” (Luke Cage, coughMr.Fixercough) or “tribal” (Black Panther). Having Iron Man’s Rhodey or Green Lantern’s Jon Stewart mix up the otherwise all-white scenery is pleasant.
Let’s give credit where credit is due. In SotM, Visionary is Asian (Chinese I think), although Wraith looks more Asian to me in some of her pix than Visionary ever does. Haka is aboriginal, which is close to the “tribal” stereotype I mentioned before, but I think it works pretty well. Fanatic is latina. Mr. Fixer is black (and “street”…). That’s all good stuff. The rest of the crew is lily white, which isn’t a bad thing, but I also don’t think anything would have been harmed by giving Tachyon or Bunker or Absolute Zero a little bit of pigmentation. I’m not advocating for a rainbow coalition for its own sake. I just like it when people think different(ly).
It would be like when you find out that Samus is a woman at the end of Metroid. “Wait… Absolute Zero is secretly two kids standing on each others shoulders inside the armor?!”.
Personally I’m Mexican (living in Boston now) and I’m happy for the very few latin superheoes out there. Or the few Bostonian superheroes, lol.
I’m always amazed by how many companies think that they’re doing themselves a favor by insulting a good half of their possible customers, and try to really support when a company makes respectful decisions about gender/race/whatever.
PS “Aboriginal” is actually considered offensive by most Native/Indigenous Australians now (much like the term “Oriental” when referring to Asian stuff), not that a lot of people outside of that region are likely to be that up on their racial politics/activism.
I’m not quite seeing how Mr. Fixer is “street” personally he seems old fashioned rather then anything. Besides he knows martial arts not just going around punching things randomly until it goes down.
I didn’t mean “street” as in cool. I meant he comes from the street, which I think being a poor mechanic qualifies him for. I’m not even saying that that’s a bad place for a character to come from. But just as with movies or any other kind of medium, it would be nice if that wasn’t the only part black guys could be cast to play.
