The Escape Zone

Hi,

With Christmas comes holidays and with holidays, time off for enjoying your hobbies and interests. Oh, and if you’re a duffer like me, maybe an afternoon nap. Get in. 🙂

Minor Blog News

For unknown reasons, the side panel for Previously on YATGB… had done a runner, but that should now be back.

I’ve also added it to the Blogs page, seeing as that seems a popular stop off point for you.

Attention team: geekery approaching

I’m going to talk about a gaming – or gayming, if you want to mix the LGBTQ+ into the digital mix. That and some old school 80s pen & paper RPG stuff. If this is not your bag, that’s cool too.

BTW, bonus Geek Points if you got the Knightmare reference 🤓

I happened to stumble on an article by the New York Times called Video Games Let Them Choose a Role. Their Transgender Identities Flourished.

The main elements of the story are around how modern computer games – and dare I say the better ones? 🏳️‍🌈 – allow you to not only create your character, but customise how they look, sound, and how others refer to them.

Representation matters and not just from an angle that it’s inclusive and can help us trans gamers feel okay. In the unlikely event you’re involved in game design, and happen to read this little blog, let me say that as someone who buys games, I will skip games that offer no or very basic customisation.

For me, and here comes the validation, mental health, and enjoyment pitch 🙂 – if I’m going to put hours into playing a game, particularly a character driven one, I feel far more connected to a player character that’s like me. No, not a dumpy, balding middle aged bloke 😁 but how I feel I am on the inside: somewhere in a blend of genders.

Yes, I realise it’s not real and made up. buuut…. 🙂 inhabiting a world where the other characters accept mine as is, is a place where I feel accepted and legitimate. Yeah, even in the more fantastic (as in ‘not like the real world’) game settings of the far future (Cyberpunk 2077*), alternative worlds, (the funky 50s future post apocalypse of Fallout), silly stuff (Saint’s Row 2 to 4), to fantasy (Skyrim or Balder’s Gate).

[ * You were close CD Projekt Red, but with all the body modification of a cyberpunk setting, I think you could have gone a lot further. Not just in character design and voice, but in a setting where implants, technology, and cybernetics let you be nearly any way you want; having only one trans non player character in the game seems, well, odd. ]

Gaming isn’t all murder death kill

From a gentle gaming point of view – and by gentle, I mean story driven, almost virtual ‘choose your own adventure’ interactive fiction – games like Lake were incredible.

If you’re not familiar with that title, it’s got a strong Hallmark Christmas movie vibe… and not in a bad way! In short, a busy, big city character comes home to a rural backwater and delivers post and parcels. The village is spread around a large lake and it’s set in the mid 1980s.

The key thing here is you can pick who your character is (although being set in the mid 80s, your options are male or female). Plus you can choose to be be romantic (nothing rude, just hugs and dating) with any of the suitable characters regardless of their birth gender.

Being trans something or other, I played a female character and she had her happily ever after with the lady who ran the video store. A really sweet story. I could have made a joke here about “so much for trans people erasing lesbians” but if you believe that guff, you’ll just get cross 😜

Old School

Because I am ‘an old’, the 80s were a time spent playing pen & paper role-playing games.

No, Republican readers, D&D did not lead me into devil worship nor did it ‘trans me’. Of my friend group – who also liked heavy metal – none of us of where. It’s almost like that’s just panicky BS written to spook the parents, in some baseless moral panic 🙄

I was already aware of being different* when it came to my interests and gender. (* Not better or worse, just different…. and to keep my gob shut). After a few games with friends I felt safe enough to have a female character.

No, not the cheesy type of highly sexualised nonsense either (see AI image), but a capable, brave, and practically dressed hero.

Sadly, I can’t find the image from Dragon magazine which contained a rather funny spoof of such nonsense. A cartoon of two heroes at the bar and one is wearing a what I can only describe as a leather bikini. There’s arrows wedged in the cups and wrists bands. The caption? Luckily my armour saved me.

Here’s a screenshot from Fallout New Vegas and my character is sat down. Note the companion non player character is wearing jeans and not a skin tight crop top ensemble. I guess you don’t get a lot of protection from bullets, ghouls, and rad scorpions, so such characters would be dead 😉

I know it’s all make believe and not real. Yet, it helped. In a time where there was next to no trans representation, hearing a female name and the right pronouns helped keep the bad feelings away.

In case anyone is thinking that’s the only reason why I played RPGs, it isn’t. It was a fun, inclusive, group activity, where we worked to solve a mystery (“meddling kids!” 😉). It wasn’t a win/lose game against each other, and while the organiser of the game (games master) would provide story and antagonists, you didn’t fight against that person, but played through the story together.

What’s your point, Lynn?

A good question – if that’s not tedious self praise! 😁

I think there’s two things going on. Firstly, as someone who’s always been somewhere away from the main stations of male/female, having a place to be accepted and experiment is important.

In times when my mental health wasn’t great and school was more than a bit sh**, having such a gaming group helped me. Plus, I didn’t need to be out to be accepted, but I could stealth my way through it. Yeah, gaming nor RPGs are preparation for the real world, but sometimes, you don’t need to be all the way out. Sometimes paddling in the shadow end of the pool is enough.

The other thing and I guess this applies to maybe the next generation; let your kids play. While representation matters to LGBTQ+ people, don’t panic or try to ‘lock things down’. People are clever and smart, so they will find a way to find this that work for them. Maybe it’s better to give them space, accept them, and be there for them to be feel okay talking to you.

Who wouldn’t prefer an open and trusting relationship between parent and child? It may save some upset adults now and later.

L x