My dark skinned mage in Diablo AND Diablo 2 did a fairly good job saving the world - (minus the whole traveller thing). I do consider both games to be at least pseudo RPG.

Talking about wheelchairs?
Consider the two characters from Planescape:Torment - Morte the Talking Skull and Ignus the Burning Man. The former had even *no body* to walk on, so he even couldn't get his legs disabled :). And the latter obviously didn't walk too.
And who's going to say those two were not fun to play? Wheelchairs would be just as fun, though it does take some creativity to bring them to life, so to say.
The same problem with blacks - people lack creativity and stick to cliches like white burly characters with great big swords. And if you make the burly guy's skin black, he still looks cliche. It doesn't change a thing.
Then, Oblivion (and the former TES games too) has made blacks (Redguards) the best warrior race! Isn't that a relief? ;)

Quote:

Original post by JBourrie Barrett

Nobody seems to have noticed this but it was exactly what I thought after reading the OP's post :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barret_Wallace
Barret ftw :)

I think it more has to with that most people (and especially large companies) are generally afraid of offending minorities. You can make a white main character do/say prettymuch anything in a game nowadays and not catch flack for it unless it is really too far.

But if you make a minority that is in some way stereotypical or offensive to that minority, there will be a huge uproar. Look at GTA:Vicecity, they removed the Haitians for the Xbox version because of the complaints.

Game companies are out to make a profit, and getting sued is a bad way to do that. I really can't blame them for playing it safe with the way society is today.

To: OP

Just a question, do you find the fact that there aren't any black RPG heros (main heros) really offensive?

I don't find it offensive but more suprising in a way

the MAJOR reason is the RPG game designers and moreso typical players are more in tune with repeating the same old Tolken/middleages of Europe inspired fantasy worlds.

The D&D/tolken/middle ages stuff sells, so they make more of it...drawing from the same sources of inspiration each time until we have drawn the narrowminded and short sighted conclusion of just what sort of fantasy world an RPG takes place in.

Nevermind that there is a rich history of myths, legend, and fantastic creatures in African culture, Indian culture, Asian culture and middle eastern culture to tap into...some truely unique, wonderful and inspired fantasy settings could easily be developed focusing on those myths, lands and legends...

But then you run the risk that typical RPG players will ignore your efforts. as they are far more comfortable with the cliched settings, character types, and situations.

Further confuseing the issue is the near obsession with "realisam" in RPGs...more "realistic" fighting, inventory structures, historicaly accurite magic basied systems and weapon damage models...Which ironicly is totaly going against the grain of the fantastical game setting and situations...but the typical RPG fantasy setting is largely inspired by european "white" man myths and legends...So, then the games human characters should be "white" too.

But of course, not that much thought goes into it when developing RPGs...its more of "well this is how its always been, so we will continue the practice"

My two cents.
The character is designed to fit into the role that goes with the game world. This will usually be the stereotype of who would fit that role. Any deviation from the expected will require some clever explanation on the part of the designer. The greater the delta from normal, the more need for explanation. But this can be a big strength to make a character interesting. So, onto my second point.
I also think there is an odd sense of modern culture that creeps into this situation. If I am asked to role play a dragon, I am free to indulge my own conceptions of what that should be since any opinion on this is equally valid. If I am asked to role play (I am a white male) something culturally sensitive like a modern black man, then my sensitivity radar goes off and I am greatly constrained because I don't want to inadvertently insult my avatar by doing something HE wouldn't do or be considered to be exploiting that character. It's not very rational, but in thinking this topic thru I find this thought coming up a lot. I would feel like I want to role play, but would be afraid that I would get it wrong, which would distress me internally. Only if the character was in a non-cultural role such as a doctor, would I feel free to role play him. I would play as a doctor, not as a black, white or zebra striped person. In sum, I think it is the real world baggage we bring with us that keeps us from seeing more black main characters. Good think more games are allowing us to create our own characters!

Quote:

Original post by Iftah 2) the classic RPG take to back to midevil Europe (Knights, dragons, mages, princess, etc...) and Tolkin stuff (elves, orcs, dwarves...) so blame Europe and Tolkin for the white heores Iftah.

Tolkin books have black people. They are mentioned in LOTR and Silmarilion. But on the other hand, they are mentioned as evil. [sad]

Truthfully there is no "excuse" as to why blacks haven't been very prominently featured in video games or at least non more valid than layzness, habit, and lack of imagination (all of which are great traits for game creators).

Its just a matter of the fact that the world is how it is, and by-and-large thats how it stays. As an example have you noticed how langauge works, words have connotations based on their historical and original usage, because the world of today is a day-upon-day creation built upon the world of yesterday ... withmost days being nothing more than a simply repeat of a simple pattern just as most other days. This is both the reason why the world in mass doesn't change much and paradoxically the reason why single individuals are so damn influencial. The original creators or 1970s pen-and-paper RPGs happened to choose european fantasy themes, so such is the bulk of the work today. Just as people like Judas Priest set the style of Heavy Metal, actors like John Wayne built upon and reinforced the sterotypes for western and war heros, and shows like Survivor and The Real World built the framework into which reality TV is judged.

There are black heros in all genres of creation, and white, asian, female, handicaped, etc. But the majority of most creation will be fasioned largely after whatever the original genre definers have set to be the "norm". And I would wager that the "norm" has almost nothing to do with the purchasing society as a causal reason (because most new invented genres are counter-culture by their nature - created by youths and young adults to fill the gaps left by their older selves). For instance the "punk" musical movement was not created to market music to a large body of punks that had been abandoned. The musical movement created the society, it tapped into a feeling that was present in a significant group and personafied it in a new and ressonant fasion. MMO games we're not invented to cash in on the massive pay-per-month crowd just waiting for a chance to spend money regularly to socialize online and complete quest after quest. They we're created step-by-step organically out of previous "nerdy" RPGs and the rise of multiplayer, and one-day they crossed a line where they finally had both the appeal and marketing to expand their market (everquest). And then another day a hardcore gamer group with a strong art sense somehow took them to the next level in mass appeal (WoW) - creating a world lush enough and fantastic enough that even adults could understand the idea (if not the desire to play all the time).

Back to my statement about the originality being key ... right now (and for the past 10-15 years or so) there has been a very very popular market in Germany (and other European nations) for the creation of new and fun board games. Both family oriented and stratigic hardcore gamer oriented. These games flourish on the simple combination of solid game mechanics and an interesting theme, not on their possession of anything German relevant. I would in fact consider Germany one of the most racist cultures of the 20th century (rising again these past 3 years), and yet still they have created many wonderfull South American and African themed games.

It is simply up to designers and writers to invoke their imagination and creativity in these matters and dig a little deeper than shallow mass-market sales talk (oh oh, we need a big-black thug, a big-titied red-head and a crew-cut white hero) ... don't get me wrong, I love the big-titied red-head but I'm sure some people out there want a large-breasted asian and two well-endowed black women to save. More to the point, I think people would pay good cash for good writing if it just wasn't so damn hard to do (what percentage of blockbuster movies aren't just rehashes of tried-and-true formula).

This is not a game phenomenom, its a cheap-buck, no-thought, mass market phenomenom