Vapourware The Tangut Prophecy: FOnline RPG, Historical Fiction, 12th Century China

[Saduj]

I am criticizing his decision to switch his game from a language for which it is historically and culturally sensible to a language that is neither based on the idea that there is a larger English reading audience for it. When a premise is false so is the logic that flows from that premise. His effort to develop a game in his own time is, of course, very commendable, but his justification for switching the language of the game from his initial design is not sound.

Even if your premise is right, you're still assigning him a false motive for his decision. He could just be wrong about which language will gain the larger audience for his game. Your opinion seems based on the assumption that English speakers who know nothing about Chinese history wouldn't be interested in the game, which is hardly unassailable. His opinion seems based on the assumption that the English speaking audience is larger for a Fallout-ish game. Either of you could be right.

 

[CrazyLoon]

Oh man. Gone for a day and this is the result. One full page. Where do I even begin...

Edit: Though speaking of which, CrazyLoon, if you want or need any historical info or documents, I could quite easily get in contact with my relative and ask him to acquire and scan them. He has access to a ton of stuff in the fields of Chinese history and language (including proper pre-20th century Classical Chinese).

Thanks buddy. I'll drop you a pm if I need anything.

Onto the topic of having a female protagonist, it goes beyond writing a different game.

I do concur on the both male and female protagonist being an exception, but it is wrong to use that as a justification in this case. Male warriors are an exception, yes. Male generals are an exception within that exception. For females, it is an exception within an exception within an exception within god knows how many. It begs the question "How far does one want to go?" Even children were used as warriors in desperate times, now is it justified to play as a child? As a Japanese? As a Vietnamese? As a captured Roman soldier? As the last surviving Tocharian?

I'll agree, objectively speaking, all these ARE indeed plausible scenarios, but they are all excessively exceptional, to a degree nearing impossibility, to the point where believability is stretched and lost. It is historically justifiable to tell a story where the protagonist unifies all of China during the Song Dynasty, and then goes on to conquer all of East Asia, the Eurasian continent and Africa, and proceeds to sail to the Americas where he constructs a grand palace in the middle of the Wild West and spends the rest of his life eating buffalo steaks. It is also possible for one woman to defeat 100 people in close combat. Both are exceptional, and without a doubt possible and justifiable in historical terms, but undeniably ABSURD and STUPID, wouldn't you agree?

Possibility isn't a justification for absurdity, and some of these scenarios are well within that realm. Such events could be used for creating a novelty effect in very small doses, but as the focal point for a historical game? I don't think so. The difference between a historical fiction and a fantastical fairytale is that the former is not absurd, save for maybe "easter eggs." Playing as a female, in the role of an adventuring warrior during this time period, is overly exceptional, thus inherently absurd. Whereas for a male warrior, despite also being an exception in the big picture, is common enough to be recognised as a norm with a set of tangible principles and rules. Under the premise of playing a warrior, being male implies being part of an exceptional norm, probable and convincing, while in contrast, being female implies being simply an exception of exceptions, never a norm, in other words, it is absurd.

Granted, the concept of role playing a character is exceptional, it is not enough of a reason to completely ignore all historical norms for the sake of having an improbable but possible character, when the purpose of a historical fiction is to convey the probable AND possible.

I don't deny the existence of Jurchen and Mongol female warriors, since I'm well aware of their exploits. They are included in the game. My point is that having a female protagonist affects credibility in a very negative way. It's the same as putting a child in the main character's place, and make up an excuse of him reaching puberty faster than regular children.

 

[Azarkon]

But there is a point you do ignore, which is to my eyes the most important one: The game is about someone who does raise to martial glory. It is therefore natural for the main character to be one of 'the few' who do so. The premise itself is that he is one of those few who can, if he were not there would be no game.

What we do say is that to make this character a girl is different from that not because it is impossible (there are mongols in the game, we do know mongol girls could be warriors) but because it would require a lot of extra work from the point of view of the Southern Song context and culture: Court officials would react differently to you, your companions and enemies would react differently to you, even the peasants would react differently to you. For a certain amount of historical accuracy to remain all or most dialogues would need to rewritten, new options and paths through quests and conversations would need to be implemented, scripted scenes and events would need to be reworked. Few characters in the Southern Song period would react to a female warrior in the same way they do react to a male one. It would not be 'the same, just girly.'

The same could be said for playing a demure, proper, and manipulative girl. It would be nothing like playing the guy who does raise to martial glory, and thus you are not asking CrazyLoon to add an extra option as much as you are asking him to make an entirely different second game so that you can play as a girl: Different quests, different characters, different dialogues, different gameplay mechanics. Would that demure, proper, and manipulative girl even be traveling the countryside alone?

So to add girls as you do want he would need to make three different games instead of just one, as historical accuracy is one of his objectives. Did we mention already this is one guy making the game he would like to play? Fo' free? What you do ask for would be no small undertaking even for a big team. If this game was a Diablo-like action RPG I would say 'sure, do add mongol warrior girls.' as there would be few NPCs and little dialogue to rewrite. But a Fallout-like game, by definition an actual ROLE-PLAYING game, would require a huge amount of work just to keep it historically accurate.

I think you are purposefully exaggerating the amount of work required to account for different backgrounds. By this token, having Jurchens, Tanguts, and Mongols in the game also require the development of 'separate' games because of their obvious cultural differences from the Han. The Jurchens were the ruling elites of northern China, and thus 'surely' had options and dialogue unavailable to the Han. Tanguts lived outside of 'China' and followed a culture closer to that of the Tibetans; they never thought of themselves as Chinese, nor did the Chinese think of the Tanguts as such. Mongols were tribal during this period and thus even more alien - imagine a bunch of illiterate, horse riding, fur wearing 'barbarians' who had no knowledge whatsoever of Chinese culture and you have the Mongols.

What does all this come down to? Simply put: designers have artistic license. No CRPG ever captures the full impact of your character background choices. The degree to which the dialogue, quest design, etc. have to differ is strictly a matter of design choice: you put in what you think is enough to make the background choices meaningful. You're not writing a historical simulator. To this end, having a 'girl' protagonist in the game does not require you to change everything about your game. What it does require is that you find a role for the 'girl' that is historically justifiable. In the context of his northern China setting, having a woman warrior is completely fine. The initial dialogue and NPC reactions have to change, especially from those persons loyal to the Chinese mainstream culture of the Song, but that's no different from what needs to be done to place a Mongol into the setting.

My bottomline is that having a female warrior in 12th century northern China is not as outlandish as people think, and indeed such figures did appear from time to time - ie the Yang Miaozhen mentioned earlier, a regional warlord who not only led troops but engaged in personal combat alongside her men. The Song court surely had a condescending disdain for such a person, but it did not prevent them from negotiating with her as a warlord all the same.

 

[tuluse]

Holy fucking shit, he doesn't want to write a female PC, and that's all there really is to it. God damn fucking merry-go-round of nonsense.

 

[CrazyLoon]

Agreed. This has gone on long enough. You assholes better stop before this thread goes GD.

 

[tiagocc0]

Ahh, and here I was gonna ask for a tranny pc a la codex style..

 

[Azarkon]

Oh man. Gone for a day and this is the result. One full page. Where do I even begin...

Edit: Though speaking of which, CrazyLoon, if you want or need any historical info or documents, I could quite easily get in contact with my relative and ask him to acquire and scan them. He has access to a ton of stuff in the fields of Chinese history and language (including proper pre-20th century Classical Chinese).

Thanks buddy. I'll drop you a pm if I need anything.

Onto the topic of having a female protagonist, it goes beyond writing a different game.

I do concur on the both male and female protagonist being an exception, but it is wrong to use that as a justification in this case. Male warriors are an exception, yes. Male generals are an exception within that exception. For females, it is an exception within an exception within an exception within god knows how many. It begs the question "How far does one want to go?" Even children were used as warriors in desperate times, now is it justified to play as a child? As a Japanese? As a Vietnamese? As a captured Roman soldier? As the last surviving Tocharian?

I'll agree, objectively speaking, all these ARE indeed plausible scenarios, but they are all excessively exceptional, to a degree nearing impossibility, to the point where believability is stretched and lost. It is historically justifiable to tell a story where the protagonist unifies all of China during the Song Dynasty, and then goes on to conquer all of East Asia, the Eurasian continent and Africa, and proceeds to sail to the Americas where he constructs a grand palace in the middle of the Wild West and spends the rest of his life eating buffalo steaks. It is also possible for one woman to defeat 100 people in close combat. Both are exceptional, and without a doubt possible and justifiable in historical terms, but undeniably ABSURD and STUPID, wouldn't you agree?

Possibility isn't a justification for absurdity, and some of these scenarios are well within that realm. Such events could be used for creating a novelty effect in very small doses, but as the focal point for a historical game? I don't think so. The difference between a historical fiction and a fantastical fairytale is that the former is not absurd, save for maybe "easter eggs." Playing as a female, in the role of an adventuring warrior during this time period, is overly exceptional, thus inherently absurd. Whereas for a male warrior, despite also being an exception in the big picture, is common enough to be recognised as a norm with a set of tangible principles and rules. Under the premise of playing a warrior, being male implies being part of an exceptional norm, probable and convincing, while in contrast, being female implies being simply an exception of exceptions, never a norm, in other words, it is absurd.

Granted, the concept of role playing a character is exceptional, it is not enough of a reason to completely ignore all historical norms for the sake of having an improbable but possible character, when the purpose of a historical fiction is to convey the probable AND possible.

I don't deny the existence of Jurchen and Mongol female warriors, since I'm well aware of their exploits. They are included in the game. My point is that having a female protagonist affects credibility in a very negative way. It's the same as putting a child in the main character's place, and make up an excuse of him reaching puberty faster than regular children.

You accept the existence of capable Jurchen and Mongol woman warriors, have Jurchen and Mongol both as background choices, yet cannot conceive of a woman in the role of an adventuring warrior? That is logically contradictory. I only imagine that you have a specific storyline that wouldn't fit, in your mind, a female protagonist, in which case it is a matter of having a set protagonist necessitating male gender, rather than just the absurdity of having women warriors.

 

[Surf Solar]

Just let the guy develop his game ffs, it will most probably be free and looks amazing, what more do you want?

 

[CrazyLoon]

Because I don't let them play as a chick.

 

[Cool name]

You accept the existence of capable Jurchen and Mongol woman warriors, have Jurchen and Mongol both as background choices, yet cannot conceive of a woman in the role of an adventuring warrior? That is logically contradictory. I only imagine that you have a specific storyline that wouldn't fit, in your mind, a female protagonist, in which case it is a matter of having a set protagonist necessitating male gender, rather than just the absurdity of having women warriors.

I do think we all did make our points very clear. He already did read through it all and did say all he had to say about the topic. He did ask us not to continue with it as well. Play the game or do not play the game as he does want to do it.

Nah, too civilized. Go make us a sammich some kimchi bokkeumbap some fried rice, non-womyn! *slap*

Edit: Maybe you are right and I am exaggerating the amount of work required. I have yet to make a game so I wouldn't know for certain. I am presently kind of a storyfag so to be honest it would break my immersion in the game to play as a mongol, guy or gal, and have people react to me like I am a Han guy, and thus I do kind of come from the expectation he will actually make different people react truly different to your background (as in TRULY different, as it should be) and the historical focus he did mention does make me believe that's his objective at least, and thus to add a girl character would be a lot of work for little reward (or for little he would consider a reward). One way or another it is work he does not want to do, so let us just drop it. It is his game in the end: Our role is not to sit in the passanger seat and tell the driver what to do but to play the game as he does envision it and either enjoy it or tear it a new one.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

You're a bigot if you don't give an option for an albinos, handicapped, dwarf, autistic black transgender protagonist.

 

[Mortmal]

But there is a point you do ignore, which is to my eyes the most important one: The game is about someone who does raise to martial glory. It is therefore natural for the main character to be one of 'the few' who do so. The premise itself is that he is one of those few who can, if he were not there would be no game.

What we do say is that to make this character a girl is different from that not because it is impossible (there are mongols in the game, we do know mongol girls could be warriors) but because it would require a lot of extra work from the point of view of the Southern Song context and culture: Court officials would react differently to you, your companions and enemies would react differently to you, even the peasants would react differently to you. For a certain amount of historical accuracy to remain all or most dialogues would need to rewritten, new options and paths through quests and conversations would need to be implemented, scripted scenes and events would need to be reworked. Few characters in the Southern Song period would react to a female warrior in the same way they do react to a male one. It would not be 'the same, just girly.'

The same could be said for playing a demure, proper, and manipulative girl. It would be nothing like playing the guy who does raise to martial glory, and thus you are not asking CrazyLoon to add an extra option as much as you are asking him to make an entirely different second game so that you can play as a girl: Different quests, different characters, different dialogues, different gameplay mechanics. Would that demure, proper, and manipulative girl even be traveling the countryside alone?

So to add girls as you do want he would need to make three different games instead of just one, as historical accuracy is one of his objectives. Did we mention already this is one guy making the game he would like to play? Fo' free? What you do ask for would be no small undertaking even for a big team. If this game was a Diablo-like action RPG I would say 'sure, do add mongol warrior girls.' as there would be few NPCs and little dialogue to rewrite. But a Fallout-like game, by definition an actual ROLE-PLAYING game, would require a huge amount of work just to keep it historically accurate.

I think you are purposefully exaggerating the amount of work required to account for different backgrounds. By this token, having Jurchens, Tanguts, and Mongols in the game also require the development of 'separate' games because of their obvious cultural differences from the Han. The Jurchens were the ruling elites of northern China, and thus 'surely' had options and dialogue unavailable to the Han. Tanguts lived outside of 'China' and followed a culture closer to that of the Tibetans; they never thought of themselves as Chinese, nor did the Chinese think of the Tanguts as such. Mongols were tribal during this period and thus even more alien - imagine a bunch of illiterate, horse riding, fur wearing 'barbarians' who had no knowledge whatsoever of Chinese culture and you have the Mongols.

What does all this come down to? Simply put: designers have artistic license. No CRPG ever captures the full impact of your character background choices. The degree to which the dialogue, quest design, etc. have to differ is strictly a matter of design choice: you put in what you think is enough to make the background choices meaningful. You're not writing a historical simulator. To this end, having a 'girl' protagonist in the game does not require you to change everything about your game. What it does require is that you find a role for the 'girl' that is historically justifiable. In the context of his northern China setting, having a woman warrior is completely fine. The initial dialogue and NPC reactions have to change, especially from those persons loyal to the Chinese mainstream culture of the Song, but that's no different from what needs to be done to place a Mongol into the setting.

My bottomline is that having a female warrior in 12th century northern China is not as outlandish as people think, and indeed such figures did appear from time to time - ie the Yang Miaozhen mentioned earlier, a regional warlord who not only led troops but engaged in personal combat alongside her men. The Song court surely had a condescending disdain for such a person, but it did not prevent them from negotiating with her as a warlord all the same.

Its amazing to see the diversity of posters on the dex especially in this thread , from china history experts ( i appreciate your posts azarkon its enlightening) to the stereotyped troglodytes .... Obviously according the attitude of the developper, its aimed at his troglodyte buddies, well it may be free that's no reason to not criticize it. I doubt it to become a very sophisticated adventure with strong historic background.

 

[CrazyLoon]

Calling someone "troglodyte" is hardly criticism mind you.

I gave my reasons. I do accept female warriors. In addition, I also accept children and mentally challenged, am I such a troglodyte for not making the said playable?

 

[tiagocc0]

Person A: Hi guys, I'm making Mario Bros., you can play as Mario the plumber.
Person B: I want to play as female Humanity has risen! the plumber.
Person A: Nonsense, Humanity has risen! is not a plumber.

Man.. I love the codex!

EDIT: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 

[alkeides]

BTW, how prominent will Buddhism be in the game? I think this was a pretty interesting time for Buddhism in East Asia. The Tibetan Sarma schools were just getting formalized as lineages while at the same time both the Tanguts and the Song Chinese were establishing their own translation projects, sending scholars to India and receiving Indian and Central Asian monks. This new wave of translations didn't really seem to catch on in China though, except for correcting some erroneous interpretations of the sutras caused by earlier translations. Unfortunately there seems to be little research in English sources about this period; I don't know how the situation is with PRC sources. I know one paper that discusses the Song Buddhist translation project and can upload it somewhere if you're interested. Other than that, I know only of scattered references in other sources, such as in Manuscripts and Travellers: The Sino-Tibetan Documents of a Tenth-Century by Sam van Schaik, but I'm no expert of course.

Google Scholar brought up some other articles that cite that paper.


Yes, this is an attempt to redirect the discussion from female characters, which I find boring, to something that might be more relevant to the game since CrazyLoon is emphatic that there will be no female playable characters.

 

[oscar]

Obviously according the attitude of the developper, its aimed at his troglodyte buddies, well it may be free that's no reason to not criticize it. I doubt it to become a very sophisticated adventure with strong historic background.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/

I think this forum would be more suitable for you, as they produce "sophisticated" progressive games where no one bats an eyelid at a female wearing plate armour and mowing through hordes of enemies with a two-handed claymore.

 

[alkeides]

Though it would be awesome to actually have some videogames about Water Margin/水滸傳 instead of just RotTK. Are there any at all?

Suikoden series, although it is very loosely based on the source of course.

 

[JarlFrank]

I'm one of those guys who always choose to play as female when the option is available but this discussion is fucking ridiculous.

He doesn't want to include the option for a female PC and he has his reasons for it. He's making a game that is fucking unique in its combination of setting and gameplay system, so this is just a trivial issue. Heck, if you don't like that decision, wait for the release and mod in a playable female PC.

But fuck, that's surely a trivial thing to complain about when we're about to get a fallout-like game in a unique historical setting for fucking free.

 

[shihonage]

I'm pissed I don't get to play as a cat in "Frogger" because cats are also known to cross roads. Let's make this an issue.

 

[Cool name]

Suikoden series, although it is very loosely based on the source of course.

I did know about those. To call them 'loosely based' would be, say, quite generous. I did always feel they kind of took that proverb about how Water Margin is not for the young as a challenge.

But I am still grateful for the intention and the will to help me you did show.

 

[Saduj]

I'm pissed I don't get to play as a cat in "Frogger" because cats are also known to cross roads. Let's make this an issue.

Funny you should mention that because I raised this very issue when I met one of the bigwigs from Konami back in 1981, shortly after the game's initial release. He agreed that while cats are known to cross roads, they were not known for crossing bodies of water by hopping from floating object to floating object. I agreed that while this was true, the behavior was not the norm for frogs either. Furthermore, there were several well known cats who were documented as having accomplished just such a feat in the preceding 20 years:

Mr. Jingles, 1963
Winnifred, 1967
Tibs III, 1974
Alfonse, 1974
Taffy, 1977
Rusty, 1980

I shan't repeat what he said but safe to say, the troglodyte reverted to type.

 

[laclongquan]

As an opening I say I agree with the amount of work involving a female char in that time period. For a RPG, it's necessary big. So if CrazyLoon dont want to do it, it's entirely understandable. And there's a critical difference between having female warriors as NPCs, and having them as player character.

Now, back to the main argument

I refuse to make another Three Kingdom fairytale so folks can virtually bang Diaochan as Lubu once again.

It's OK if you don't want to do it.
But please don't insult my lifetime goal adolescence dream.
Every sane man will love to smooch the girl + while riding the Red Hare + hacking and slashing 1000 soldiers along the way.

On topic your game is very promising.
I salute you bro.

Shut your mouth. My adolescent dream is wielding a 81 pound long halberd, riding Red Hare, break through five armies, slaying six famed generals, and banging two of my sisters-in-law. If not possible, I want to dual wield a spear and a sword, riding through ten thousands troops like moses part red sea in chang ban campaign.
Lu Bu is overrated.

 

[mondblut]

Though it would be awesome to actually have some videogames about Water Margin/水滸傳 instead of just RotTK. Are there any at all?

KOEI's Bandit Kings of Ancient China, no? I only vaguely know WTF Water Margin is, but I think the game was based around it.

 

[CrazyLoon]

The Tibetan Sarma schools were just getting formalized as lineages while at the same time both the Tanguts and the Song Chinese were establishing their own translation projects, sending scholars to India and receiving Indian and Central Asian monks. This new wave of translations didn't really seem to catch on in China though, except for correcting some erroneous interpretations of the sutras caused by earlier translations.

The Song translation project was started in 980 and predated the Tibetan Sarma, which did not begin to develop until the early 11th century. The Tangut translation project was established much later, in 1159.

 

[alkeides]

The Tibetan Sarma schools were just getting formalized as lineages while at the same time both the Tanguts and the Song Chinese were establishing their own translation projects, sending scholars to India and receiving Indian and Central Asian monks. This new wave of translations didn't really seem to catch on in China though, except for correcting some erroneous interpretations of the sutras caused by earlier translations.

The Song translation project was started in 980 and predated the Tibetan Sarma, which did not begin to develop until the early 11th century. The Tangut translation project was established much later, in 1159.

Well, it's true that the Sarma tantric lineages only started to be propagated then, the second wave of Buddhist diffusion could be stated to have begun around the same time as the Song during the reign of Yeshe Od though.