People of color in Wesnoth

[Yomar]

At some point there were evn black ppl in England, actually they were present in europe evn in ancient ages because roman empire imported them to use them as slaves or to fight in theyr ranks.

revansurik here are some links that you may find interresting

http://historum.com/european-history/34 ... 789-a.html

http://aalbc.com/reviews/themoors.htm

[doofus-01]

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EDIT2: Forget it, I didn't really expect a constructive answer, so I don't know why I posted. I didn't contribute anything to this, my apologies.

[revansurik]

Well, the sprites' skin doesn't need to be so dark; after all blacks' skin (as do whites' skin) have different shades of dark brown, some being lighter, others darker. I think a moderate brown hue could work with the sprites. And this because we're talking about a black faction; if we think of a Native-American-like faction, or a Central-Asian-like faction, or a East-Asian-like faction, a light hue of brown certainly wouldn't be a problem when making the sprites.
Ah, and Yomar, thanks for the links

[johndh]

I would actually like to avoid getting caught in the trap of thinking we need to flesh out a whole bunch of other human nations, because that's a great way to get a half-assed conglomeration of fantasy counterpart cultures like Forgotten Realms eventually became. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, and I think this is worth doing. In fact, it might be most effective to leave most of the details to the players' imagination. The people coming up with the lore only need to know a little bit more than the players do and, since we're (at this time) seeing everything through Wesnoth's cultural lens, that might be very little. This can potentially add an air of mystery to it as well.

E.g. "I come from Washraha, to the south. My parents were sailors, trading our people's spices for Wesnothian gold. I was just a boy when Guthwin's men took my father's head, and I have honed my skills with shield and axe ever since, waiting for the day I can take my revenge." Here we have a brief background for a hypothetical character. It lets the players know why this character looks different from the majority, it mentions a little something beyond the lands we're familiar with to expand the players' world view and let them know that there is much more to this world than Wesnoth proper, it gives just a taste of that foreign nation itself to get their imaginations going but leaves most of it unknown, and it introduces a plot element so as to not derail a story with needless exposition. I just came up with that on the spot, I didn't need to write up a detailed treatise on the land of Washraha, and I feel that's really all you need to start off with. Eventually, as more and more of these characters and stories come together, a more developed picture of these foreign lands will start to form organically, and then if it needs to be formally codified then so be it.

What about the people of the Green Isle being the result of different migratory waves from humans of other lands, and thus being ethnically diverse? This would explain the presence of different ethnicities inside Wesnoth, and would even explain the presence of the dark-skinned guys in TRoW story images

Where do you think the islanders got the idea to set sail for Wesnoth? The island could have had some active trade ports, and surely travelers from afar could have tipped them off that there was an untamed continent of monsters across the sea.

[Pentarctagon]

E.g. "I come from Washraha, to the south. My parents were sailors, trading our people's spices for Wesnothian gold. I was just a boy when Guthwin's men took my father's head, and I have honed my skills with shield and axe ever since, waiting for the day I can take my revenge." Here we have a brief background for a hypothetical character. It lets the players know why this character looks different from the majority, it mentions a little something beyond the lands we're familiar with to expand the players' world view and let them know that there is much more to this world than Wesnoth proper, it gives just a taste of that foreign nation itself to get their imaginations going but leaves most of it unknown, and it introduces a plot element so as to not derail a story with needless exposition. I just came up with that on the spot, I didn't need to write up a detailed treatise on the land of Washraha, and I feel that's really all you need to start off with. Eventually, as more and more of these characters and stories come together, a more developed picture of these foreign lands will start to form organically, and then if it needs to be formally codified then so be it.

This is what I meant earlier. However, it still requires someone to actually write it for however many people, the addition(s) needs to get approved to be added to the dialog, and then ideally "Washraha" and others added to a section in the wiki so people looking to expand on foreign areas know they exist.

[johndh]

This is what I meant earlier. However, it still requires someone to actually write it for however many people, the addition(s) needs to get approved to be added to the dialog, and then ideally "Washraha" and others added to a section in the wiki so people looking to expand on foreign areas know they exist.

Sounds good to me.

[Yomar]

I mean even the D&D games have black people, even dark skinned eleven races like stated in the D&D Dragonlance game.

Here is a link for an image of D&D Pathfinder with some characters, and there are black persons too.

http://paizo.com/image/content/Pathfind ... enFull.jpg

[Jeffers0n]

Where do you think the islanders got the idea to set sail for Wesnoth? The island could have had some active trade ports, and surely travelers from afar could have tipped them off that there was an untamed continent of monsters across the sea.

In TRoW the prologue mentions a Western mainland, and states that the Prince of Southbay discovered the Great Continent. So maybe there were black people in the Western mainland. Some may have settled on the Green Isle and then have gone to Wesnoth.

[revansurik]

In TRoW the prologue mentions a Western mainland, and states that the Prince of Southbay discovered the Great Continent. So maybe there were black people in the Western mainland. Some may have settled on the Green Isle and then have gone to Wesnoth.

This is what TRoW's intro says: "You must recall that the route from the western continent to our Green Isle was perilous at the best of times — so perilous that a stable trading relationship between the mainland and the Isle could never be maintained." This hints that the Islefolk used to communicate with the western continent, so they could have come from there - or maybe from a south-western continent, one that is at lower latitudes (because people who live near the Equator line tend to have dark skin).

[goblinThing]

If I may make a suggestion;

It seems a far easier path to let the community at large address the issue in it's entirety. If someone feels their/a race is underrepresented, they could do a simple sprite recolor/story piece/portrait for X unit and post it on the forums. With constructive feedback and a little teamwork, (which the wesnoth forum is great at providing) the product could be committed to mainline.
--The crux of my thoughts being: Dang, those horsemen baseframes look AWESOME. I would much rather see new content like than an ethnic variety. If it bothers people, they can easily fix it--oftentimes some minor tweaking in photoshop would do the job.
Not all things are that simple, of course--the writing could take some effort, etc. etc. So, developer support will be needed... But does is this really a priority?


disclaimer, of sorts: I have a little bit of trouble conveying the proper tone. The above is not meant to be aggressive/offensive in any way, but I'm a little concerned that is what it reads like... Not My Intent!

[Midnight_Carnival]

Ok, as someone of mixed african and european ancestory (not sure if I'm dark enough to be included) I personally would be offended by having "people of colour" included purely for the sake of somebody somewhere showing off how pollitically correct they can be. If there is some reason for non-white people to be included in the plot, sure, even a lame excuse, if somebody wants to for some reason rewrite HTTT so that Konrad is black complete with afro and 70s ghetto slang... well, whatever floats your boat I just don't see that adding some token darker people (as said, what about asian?) could be anything more than a misguided gesture.

Look, I'm not picking a fight, trolling or anything like that. I just feel quite strongly that needless adding darker people sprites is somewhat patronising and pointless. There have been UMCs with darker people and that is fine - and there is no reason they shouldn't be in mainline, but since there is no real reason they should, well to me it just makes an issue out of something which I don't see many people getting too offended by.

-that's the extent of my views, thanks for your patience.

[fabi]

Ok, as someone of mixed african and european ancestory (not sure if I'm dark enough to be included) I personally would be offended by having "people of colour" included purely for the sake of somebody somewhere showing off how pollitically correct they can be.

I feel the same, but having no "poc" ancestors (as far as I know).

(as said, what about asian?)

And native American people? Bushman? Hispanics?
We would end up introducing a lot new portraits and plot changes (which are mostly already done by now),
just recoloring them would be silly and not enough.

Wesnoth's characters tend to be very one-dimensional, either being pure evil or pure heroes in most cases.
In order to avoid the suspicion we would need to have the same amount of evil/good characters on each of the different "races".
This restrain makes it hard to develop a good plot explaining why a certain character is at his place in the story.

Still the new Khalifate faction is a good opportunity to introduce some none European looking characters.

Sorry if I used any term that isn't considered political correct.

[taptap]

There is a whole era with a good campaign featuring "sprites of colour": Era of Four Moons and Panther Lord as the campaign. As I felt very uneasy about the idea at first, but enjoyed the campaign and wrote a review about it on the wiki review page, I believe this is of relevance to the topic.

I find it hilarious when people argue pseudo-scientifically for changes to a derivative fantasy-world. (Wesnoth is Middle-Earth without copyright issues and some additional changes!) I like the idea of adding new factions where suitable, but it should be justified by gameplay, fun whatever (as with the Khalifate) not as a token representation.

The main problem for any attempt at "politically correct" high fantasy is the racial tension in the portrayal of elves/humans and orcs and this can not be solved within the framework of elf-orc fantasy by the inclusion of more sprite pigmentation. Tolkien inspired high fantasy can still pleasantly work as long as this stays subliminal and tells other stories, but when you start with sprite pigmentation without addressing the oliphant in the room, meh. Orcs have according to Tolkien "mongol features" and the whole range of tropes from evil scimitars, composite bows, orcish hordes from the east pretty much associate them with the various mongol/turkic invasions while at the same time putting them as always chaotic, evil. I don't mind this much in Tolkien, but when you start "realistic" fantasy orcs and elves have to go.

P.S. If you want to explore racial tensions in a fantasy setting Wesnoth's egg-laying races are a good option - not representing anything but therefore allowing to address the topic with less anxiety. I found this theme quite well played in Roar of the Woses.

[Gambit]

I personally would be offended by having "people of colour" included purely for the sake of somebody somewhere showing off how pollitically correct they can be.

There are several reasons for doing this and "showing off how politically correct they can be" isn't one of them.

If there is some reason for non-white people to be included in the plot, sure, even a lame excuse

They'll have just as much a reason to be there as the white ones.

if somebody wants to for some reason rewrite HTTT so that Konrad is black complete with afro and 70s ghetto slang...

Yeah, because that's totally what is being suggested here.

I find your reply to be very disingenuous overall.

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Regarding the whole concept of tokenism, that's only a problem when leaned on as a defense against accusations of racism. If/when someone points out something racist, and you reply with "No, we have this one black guy so it can't be racist." — that's when the concept of token characters becomes a problem. That's why the phrase "Token black guy" became negative. Because people thought having one black guy in their show/movie/game, would make all their other problems go away. And they were ignorant enough to state that proudly.

You're all right. Adding a handful of people of color to the game with no story is not an instant solution. No duh. It solves nothing on its own.

But the conclusion you've drawn from that: "we're better off just doing nothing" is wrong.

Because at least this is at least a start. And it's the only start. Right now there's nothing. And if we don't do this, there will continue to be nothing. And doing it does not hurt.

[taptap]

"Because at least this is at least a start. And it's the only start. Right now there's nothing. And if we don't do this, there will continue to be nothing. And doing it does not hurt."

Seriously, saurian or orc genocide* starts to be morally agreeable when a few of our good guys have a darker skin? That is what I call a moral compass.

* Enacted in mainline Legends of Wesmere on saurians, proposed for orcs in several campaigns.