Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

[Greywind]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

From what I see, the difference would only be whether or not:

 

1) Metagame: the player is comfortable playing said character in that way. If yes, not a problem. If no, then why did they create said character that way.

 

2) Metagame: how exactly would their sexuality impact upon the game. Something that the player and GM would have to work out.

 

3) Is the character open or closeted? Depending on the standing of the character, if open, the character could be a poster for either gay rights activists or the anti-gay.

 

4) Or the character's sexuality may not be significant other than as a footnote, indicating which NPCs the character may spend time with when not doing spandex stuff.

 

What characters do we know of that are of alternate sexualities from source material?

 

Superman, Apollo, Midnighter, Batwoman, Saber and Cannon, Northstar, Vision, Renee Montoya just to name a few.

[Christopher]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Let me be more specific then' date=' because this question is really more of what I am asking: What would be the big deal with having some more superhero characters that are shown canonically to have same-sex romantic relationships either currently or in the past?[/quote']

It would not be a problem, if heteros would recieved the same amount of "extra effort". Currently neither sexuality get's noted as being the exclusive sexual orrientation of someone. What you try to do seems to give homsexuals an "advantage". over-emanzipation is a very easy form of discrimination.

So why should homo-supers recieve additional effort hetero-supers do not get? No "Gay Man", "Princess of Lesbos" or "Straigh Men" themed superheroes for the official books please. Such things are bound to step on the toes of somebody.

You can still do with your campaingworld whatever you like:

Consider the idea of Binary cloning plus artificial wombs for homosexual couples and you are good to make a world populated to 100% by LGB people who never have to worry what gender the partner has when considering family planning.

[Balabanto]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

It would not be a problem, if heteros would recieved the same amount of "extra effort". Currently neither sexuality get's noted as being the exclusive sexual orrientation of someone. What you try to do seems to give homsexuals an "advantage". over-emanzipation is a very easy form of discrimination.

So why should homo-supers recieve additional effort hetero-supers do not get? No "Gay Man", "Princess of Lesbos" or "Straigh Men" themed superheroes for the official books please. Such things are bound to step on the toes of somebody.

You can still do with your campaingworld whatever you like:

Consider the idea of Binary cloning plus artificial wombs for homosexual couples and you are good to make a world populated to 100% by LGB people who never have to worry what gender the partner has when considering family planning.

 

As far as a superhero game goes, there are a lot of different types of relationships in my superhero world.

 

But I will say this:

 

Binary Cloning is alternate sexuality. (Singular Cloning is not alternate sexualty, see a huge argument elsethread)

 

People praying to the Cocoon God and spawning life from a massive orb of fibers is alternate sexuality.

 

For all we know, there's an alien world where the creatures there release their fluids into a cup, swirl them in a long, boring ceremony, drink them, and a child gestates.

 

There's no accounting for alien anatomy forms.

 

In a super powered world, and I stress this: IN A SUPERPOWERED WORLD, Alternate Sexuality is far less important than it would otherwise be. My super powered world has female bishops and priests, it has gay marriage and all that other stuff, because man can fly, generate force fields, and shoot beams out of random body parts. I want a world where being a superhero matters. So I used the very idea of superheroes themselves to make these sorts of things less important, by making them more common.

[Christopher]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

[...]because man can fly' date=' generate force fields, and shoot beams out of random body parts. I want a world where being a superhero matters. So I used the very idea of superheroes themselves to make these sorts of things less important, by making them more common.[/quote']

That certainly a good approach.

Except that I now wonder about just how far "Alterable Originpoint" goes. And if limited controll in times of very strong arousal could be....problematic

[megaplayboy]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

At any rate, you probably don't want the origin point of your mega-beam to be "the small of my back, where I can't see anything and can't aim for #@#%".

[Orion]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

So do you just ignore all the DNPC wives/girlfriends in the official writeups?

 

Pretty much so, as they play no role in the campaign. Besides, having a wife or girlfriend doesn't stop them from being bisexual, or even being gay but hiding the fact, in denial, etc. It's the fact that they have someone that regularly interferes with their costumed life that is important, not the sex of that person. Just as easy to say that the canon wife is actually male, stays at home, and raises the adopted kids.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

It would not be a problem' date=' if heteros would recieved the same amount of "extra effort".[/quote']

 

Many Champions characters have DNPC opposite sex significant others or have plot seeds indicating an interest in the opposite sex or have backgrounds indicating interest in heterosexual relationships. These characters have very strong indications of being heterosexual. Sure, there's not a little check box on their character sheet indicating this fact, but there really shouldn't have to be.

 

Many champions character have NO information at all. These characters are blank slates in that regard, though I think most people will tend to assume that the character in question is hetero by default if there is no indication otherwise, by virtue of both percentages and culture. If this was ancient Greece, maybe we would assume differently. But yes, in this area you can very easily say that the company has left it completely to the imagination of the GM and that's fine.

 

So far, in the entirety of this thread, we have come up with THREE examples of characters that may be LGB.

 

Ravenspeaker MIGHT be bisexual... or he may just like to mess with dudes heads. The writer of the character has confirmed it's not cannon one way or the other.

 

Justicar is gay, but only if you read closely.

 

In all the books published, with hundreds of official characters, we can find ONE clearly confirmed example of a gay character (Hydro).

 

No one has even managed to cite a single lesbian character, which I'll be honest with you, I find a bit surprising...

 

So there are literally more confirmed heterosexual characters on the Champions Team then there are confirmed homosexual/bisexual characters in the entire Champions Universe.

 

Currently neither sexuality get's noted as being the exclusive sexual orrientation of someone.

 

Are you actually saying that we should assume that someone like Defender might be/have been gay or bisexual, despite the fact there is no hint of it anywhere in his write up, despite the fact he's had dozens of girlfriends and despite the fact he's getting married to Witchcraft?

 

Seriously?

 

What you try to do seems to give homsexuals an "advantage". over-emanzipation is a very easy form of discrimination. So why should homo-supers recieve additional effort hetero-supers do not get?

 

He's not asking for special treatment, he's asking for better representation. Not even even representation...

 

No "Gay Man", "Princess of Lesbos" or "Straigh Men" themed superheroes for the official books please. Such things are bound to step on the toes of somebody.

 

Literally nobody in this thread has asked for anything even remotely resembling this remark and I have no idea why you would even wish to bring such an idea up.

 

You can still do with your campaingworld whatever you like:

 

Yes, we all know we can do whatever we like in our own games...

[Christopher]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Pretty much so' date=' as they play no role in the campaign. Besides, having a wife or girlfriend doesn't stop them from being bisexual, or even being gay but hiding the fact, in denial, etc. It's the fact that they have someone that regularly interferes with their costumed life that is important, not the sex of that person. Just as easy to say that the canon wife is actually male, stays at home, and raises the adopted kids.[/quote']

And if anything nelses fails, Jimmy Olsen is only less of a limitation because is doens't get's that frequently into trouble. Superman can still be as straight as a arrow and rescue him every week, while being married with Lois who takes it easier on pissing of bad guys because of their kids....

[Orion]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

I've tried to explain my POV, but I don't think you understand what I mean. Let me rephrase.

 

Having a background that shows a character is LGB is no less appropriate than having a background that shows a character is hetero. So what would be the big deal with having some more superhero characters that are shown to be LGB canonically? There will also be those characters that are unspecified/unknown. That's fine; I don't think anyone expects a checkbox for sexuality or anything. But if there are many, many character writeups that reveal that the character is hetero by describing pieces of their background that make it fairly clear, I don't see why there can't be some more characters that are shown to be LGB by describing pieces of their background that make it fairly clear.

 

Even though I prefer the characters canon sexuality be left blank the majority of the time, I do have to agree with you here. If the race/sexuality/religion/etc is stated at times, then it should reflect the culture in which the story takes place. If it is only mentioned for straight white protestant males, then it starts looking odd after a while. In my superhero stuff I note the race of all metahumans and recently noticed a strong lack of minorities, so I changed a couple, and created a couple more. If religion or sexuality played much of a role at all in the campaign, I'd start noting those as well, and would try to proportionally represent each group.

[dmjalund]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Didn't you know? All mutants are gay.

 

Thats why they call them homo superior

 

 

:ducks:

[Bloodstone]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Didn't you know? All mutants are gay.

 

Thats why they call them homo superior

 

 

:ducks:

 

 

Damn, must spread rep

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

At any rate' date=' you probably don't want the origin point of your mega-beam to be "the small of my back, where I can't see anything and can't aim for #@#%".[/quote']

 

But if there was ever an excuse to take the Inaccurate limitation, that would be it.

[phoenix240]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Believe me, I'm well aware of my ability to change the sexualities of characters if I wish.

 

And no, my problem isn't that I want characters based around their sexuality (although when you are a minority, your identity as that minority usually becomes more salient, so it makes sense that a gay superhero might become a spokesman for LGBT rights, etc.). It's just that there is so little canonical representation at all.

 

Are you familiar with White Wolf's Aberrant setting? It actually addresses this.

[phoenix240]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Let me clear something up since it keeps being mentioned. I am not talking about explicitedly detailing sex in game when I say "dealing with sexuality and romance". You can do that, I see no problem with adults doing it if the want too and enjoy it but that's not a requirement for having characters with romantic lives and functional sexualities any more than its required to detail trips to the toilet to have characters that eat and drink.

 

 

I have noticed that the superhero/comics genre is one that seems to make people more hesitant to deal with the topic than others, at least in role playing games. Actually most types of interpersonal play and stories seem to be frequen4tly ignored in supers role play IME. I find that a bit regrettable since its such a rich ground for role playing and interaction but different strokes for different folks. And I can fully understand the desire for more representation for alternate sexualities but homosexuals. Most people like to have characters that can identify with to some degree and a person's sexual orientation is a big facet of their life. Many characters are black slates so to speak but that's not quite the same as having it acknowledged. Imagine if the gender of a most characters wasn't mentioned or stated to be male and women were told "You could just imagine they're women if you want" or "Just change some characters to women". It wouldn't be quite the same as having actual superheroines.

[Christopher]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

I have noticed that the superhero/comics genre is one that seems to make people more hesitant to deal with the topic than others' date=' at least in role playing games. Actually most types of interpersonal play and stories seem to be frequen4tly ignored in supers role play IME. I find that a bit regrettable since its such a rich ground for role playing and interaction but different strokes for different folks.[/quote']

You mean that the average love-interest get's brainwashed, killed, or pseudo-dies more often per relationship-phase than I can coun't? This playing around with the emotions of people is something I just can't stand. Not in soaps, in comics, cartoons and not the way the news try to do it. And especially not when it is about love.

 

Imagine if the gender of a most characters wasn't mentioned or stated to be male and women were told "You could just imagine they're women if you want" or "Just change some characters to women". It wouldn't be quite the same as having actual superheroines.

Then something with our perception of superheroines is wrong, when we still can't accept a women with exaclty the same background story as a man. If it was just the picture, you can just make a different one.

But no, it is something in the way women "should" react to certain problems/situations that makes them so different from men. Thus the same backgroudn story does not fits for a man and women. For me, this is one form of instinctive chauvnism and gender separation I could not overcome yet.

[Mister E]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Then something with our perception of superheroines is wrong' date=' when we still can't accept a women with exaclty the same background story as a man. [/quote']

 

The problem is about an abstract difference that does not transcend actual people.

 

We are ultimately more alike than different.

 

If it was just the picture' date=' you can just make a different one.[/quote']

 

This is how I feel about it.

 

If you want to make a difference, change something.

 

But no' date=' it is something in the way women "should" react to certain problems/situations that makes them so different from men. [/quote']

 

What is the problem?

 

Is it the way people of different gender distinctions actually act?

 

Is it the difference between the way they should act?

 

I agree it is presumptive to base a distinction on a possibility: such as the way things should be. That would be arrogant.

 

It is prudent to base distinctions on the way things actually are.

 

Thus the same backgroudn story does not fits for a man and women. For me' date=' this is one form of instinctive chauvnism and gender separation I could not overcome yet.[/quote']

 

Some backgrounds address the problem & some don't.

 

If the problem has been addressed, it can be changed. This is easy.

 

If the problem has not been addressed, then it can be. This is almost as easy as changing one that already exists... because if it already exists, then it can be examined & its fundamental parts can be potentially utilized.

 

Otherwise, you have to make everything up from scratch... and I don't advise doing that. According to Carl Sagan, the first thing you would then need to do is re-invent the universe, which is not just incommensurable, but daunting.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Although it is an awesome special effect to put on mundane powers--"My attack instantly destroys and remakes the universe, exactly as it was, except the target takes 8d6 normal damage".

[phoenix240]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

You mean that the average love-interest get's brainwashed, killed, or pseudo-dies more often per relationship-phase than I can coun't? This playing around with the emotions of people is something I just can't stand. Not in soaps, in comics, cartoons and not the way the news try to do it. And especially not when it is about love.

 

Different strokes for different folks. Personally I enjoy character interaction, dealing with relationships and their difficulties and rewards both as it relates to being a costumed crimefighter (or whatever), your kidnappings, hostage situations and whatnot and more mundane things like dealing with family, children, trying to maintain a relationship in a stressful lifestyle, finding time to spend with a loved one etc. A game that was a consecutive string of fight scenes and investigation rolls would be dull to me.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Comic book characters have romantic subplots fairly frequently, actually. Sometimes it even propels a plotline(Daredevil/Elektra). If you're doing any degree of "genre simulation" in your campaign setting, well, that's part of the genre.

[phoenix240]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Although it is an awesome special effect to put on mundane powers--"My attack instantly destroys and remakes the universe' date=' exactly as it was, except the target takes 8d6 normal damage".[/quote']

 

"I don't fly. I move the universe around me."

 

I think the point has been missed. I was attempting to illustrate how off putting it is to not even ANY (or precious few) characters that are much like you too would be, be it based on sexual orientation, gender or whatever. Just saying "Well, youc an change the characters to be whatever you want" doesn't really fix the problem, IMO. If there were no black characters in Champions Universe or no women (or only one or two out of dozens and dozne of NPCs) I think it would ring as off to more people.

 

Generally, many people don't encounter that. We're male, white, heterosexual etc. We are very well represented. I think Hero Games is bigoted. It's just a perspective that seems to be considered very much and it wouldn't be a bad thing, AFAIC, to see a broader spectrum of characters.

[Mister E]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Although it is an awesome special effect to put on mundane powers--"My attack instantly destroys and remakes the universe' date=' exactly as it was, except the target takes 8d6 normal damage".[/quote']

 

That is awesome.

 

"Protect yourself from this, Mother Bleeper! What? You ain't got no extra-dimensional defense? Aaah... Isn't that cute."

[phoenix240]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

Comic book characters have romantic subplots fairly frequently' date=' actually. Sometimes it even propels a plotline(Daredevil/Elektra). If you're doing any degree of "genre simulation" in your campaign setting, well, that's part of the genre.[/quote']

 

You're preaching to the choir as far as I'm concerned. I love that kind of thing but apparently Christopher (and others) do not. And that's cool.

[Clonus]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

It would not be a problem' date=' if heteros would recieved the same amount of "extra effort". [/quote']

 

They do. Every character written with an opposite sex DNPC or a mention of how he's motivated by the death of his wife or the girl who rejected him in college gets that extra effort.

[Mister E]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

They do. Every character written with an opposite sex DNPC or a mention of how he's motivated by the death of his wife or the girl who rejected him in college gets that extra effort.

 

Likewise...

 

... every character written with an opposite sex DNPC, or...

 

... a mention of how (s)he's motivated by the death of his/her wife/husband or the boy/girl who rejected him/her in college...

 

... also gets that extra effort.

 

 

~ Mr./Ms. E ("It's just not working, anymore. I can't do this. See? It's not the same.")

[Jhaierr]

Re: Alternate Sexualities in Champions and Supers settings

 

It would not be a problem, if heteros would recieved the same amount of "extra effort". Currently neither sexuality get's noted as being the exclusive sexual orrientation of someone. What you try to do seems to give homsexuals an "advantage". over-emanzipation is a very easy form of discrimination.

So why should homo-supers recieve additional effort hetero-supers do not get? No "Gay Man", "Princess of Lesbos" or "Straigh Men" themed superheroes for the official books please. Such things are bound to step on the toes of somebody.

 

I was gonna respond to this, but Bloodstone said pretty much exactly what I would've said.