What games / entertainment do well at inclusive worldbuilding?


Gamer Life General Discussion

Project Manager

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I'm looking for good examples of inclusive worldbuilding -- I'd like to focus on games, but if there's a comic book series, television show, etc. that's a particularly good example I'd love to hear about that too.

(Please note: I have zero interest in this turning into a thread about whether inclusivity is important or not, "historical accuracy," etc.

I'm trying to get examples of a group of games and other entertainment franchises that do a good job of representing a wide range of characters and generally being welcoming to all sorts of audiences. If you want to debate that stuff, you're free to do so elsewhere, but I'm looking for examples, not debate. Please keep it on topic. Thanks! :-) )


Dark Sun jumps quickly to mind. Dark Sun was launched with a RPG, Novel, and video game. The Book and the video game turned out to be better than the actual RPG imo but having it be a full media roll out really helped me understand the realm. It also did not hurt that Brom's art sold the hell out of that game. He was/is amazing.

But Dark Sun is not the best example of variety of character types due to the realms hard climate. Athas was a hard and cruel place and to survive you had to adapt or die.

Project Manager

Awesome, thanks! I'll take a look! :-)


Paizo, for one. We have all sorts of ethnic groups (really want to see Arcadia in the future for some Native American flavor), multiple technology levels, coverage of LGBT issues, enough gender equality that female characters are just as good as male characters while still retaining sexism as a possible story element, and so on.

Project Manager

I'm glad people feel we're succeeding on that front. :-) Any games or franchises?


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Elder Scrolls. Each of the races and provinces are based loosely on real world cultural groups, from American Indians (Bosmer/Wood Elves) to Arabs (Redguard) and from Sub-Saharan Africans (Argonians) to Norse (Nords).

Forgotten Realms, as a kitchen-sink setting, has Maztica (Meso-American), Kara-Tur (Far East), and Zakhara (Arabian), among other areas.

Dark Archive

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The White Wolf World of Darkness games, Vampire the Masquerade, Mage the Ascension, etc. often had 'splats' (such as the Akashic Brotherhood, Assamites, Black Furies, or Dreamspeakers) devoted to groups composed primarily by different ethnicities or groupings in the setting, or even entire sub-games (Kindred of the East, Mummy).

Aeon/Trinity concentrated on a future setting where the dominant cultures were China and Brazil, with Europe and America being in decline (and Australia and the 'United African Nations' also being strong powers). Aberrant, less so, but still set the most relevant 'centers' of the game in places like Addis Ababa and Ibiza (unlike the comic books that inspired them, which seemed to set their 'Greenwich Mean Time' with the assumption that New York City/Metropolis are the center of the universe).


Jessica Price wrote:


I'm trying to get examples of a group of games and other entertainment franchises that do a good job of representing a wide range of characters and generally being welcoming to all sorts of audiences.

One of the first games that comes to mind is GURPS. There are so many versions of that game, Gurps Fantasy, Gurps Space, Gurps Supers, to name a few. I think Gurps happens to be one of those games that a lot of people have played or suggest playing if you are looking for something specific.

Project Manager

Gurps doesn't have its own setting, though, does it?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

To respond to ngc7293, I think that what is meant is that GURPs encourages and has a structure for world building. It details many examples of ways that a GM could fashion their own game worlds from scratch, as well as provides supplements that have unique settings (GURPs Lensman, Wild Cards, the White Wolf and Star Trek adaptations to GURPs, etc.) as well as example settings (alternate worlds).

The original post could be interpreted as "Games that have mechanics for GMs to world build".

I think the original post mostly means "Games and franchises that have a lot of cultures and people represented, and continues to change based on fan input".

Please clarify if I am mistaken?

Hmmm....what horror would happen if GURPs also made "GURPs Rifts" and "GURPs Pathfinder / D&D 3.5". Combined with all the white wolf stuff that was set into GURPs, all those books combined might be enough to make singularities (black holes).

...and one RPG to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Project Manager

Yes, sorry -- I mean games that actually do the worldbuilding, not those that just give you tools to do it yourself.


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Hmmm. Time to dig through my shelf of mysteries... let's see what we've got here. Are you specifically looking for any style of game? Traditional fantasy, modern, sci-fantasy? Going on the assumption that anything is fine:

Gamewise... Shadowrun maybe? Current edition doesn't have much yet, but the previous editions had books detailing real world settings in the cyberpunk-fantasy future from all over the place (most places except for Australia and New Zealand seemed to get a decent fleshing out in at least one book, and there were plenty of books like Shadows Over X books that covered various locations and cultures in detail). Native American culture also plays a large role in the setting, with a number of books having dealt with their traditions and their rise to a serious power in the present setting. Mesoamerican cultures also feature heavily in the game. The game is primarily focused on North America and (to a lesser extent) Asia (most specifically Japan due to stylistic reasons) but it certainly throws open the field to the whole world. Meta-humans (elves, orcs, dwarves, trolls etc) are accepted to greater or lesser degrees throughout the setting, and most of them have variants based on cultural myths (there are Oni variants of trolls in Japan, dark elves in the Norway and so on). Being Shadowrun, very few people are really good guys, and there's a lot of problems with the world, but they're problems almost everyone faces in the setting except the truly rich and powerful.

Honestly, most of the stuff I can think of is cyberpunk or dystopian stuff, where no one really cares where you're (culturally or physically) because everyone's just struggling to survive from day to day.

In terms of fantasy, you may find Sarah Douglas' earlier work useful. Specifically the Axis Trilogy (BattleAxe, Enchanter and StarMan) and the Wayfarer Redemption trilogy (Sinner, Pilgrim and Crusader). The six books as a whole are referred to as the Wayfarer Redemption series in the USA, There's also a series set later in the same world, Darkglass Mountain, featuring some of the same characters, but it's most definitely not part of the Wayfarer Redemption. While a large part of the story is driven by the hatred (intially) and tensions (later) between the Acharites (humans) and the other two primary races of the setting, the Icarii (winged people with song based magic) and the Avar (supposedly peaceful forest dwellers with a society that holds a surprising brutality), the real point of the story is healing wounds/rifts between their cultures and bringing the world together to face a deadly threat. Forgiveness plays a large part, and while none of the characters are immune to spite and hatred, and can be petty, they usually learn from it and accept when they were wrong, even if it takes a long time.

In case it bothers you, both trilogies have a lot of religious overtones, and a lot of nods towards Christianity/messianic religions in particular. The prophecy of the Star Man in the Axis trilogy is essentially predicting the coming of a savior who will unite and heal the world, and the worship of Artor by the Acharites is kind of a representation of the darker sides of religion (persecution, oppression by the church, etc). The Wayfarer Redemption kicks it up to 11, with the lead hero pretty much being a Jesus analogue (he resists the temptations of demons, grants forgiveness and absolves people of their sins, and leads the people to sanctuary and paradise to save them from the destruction of their world, despite the fact that many hate and fear him and what he represents) while the villains, the TimeKeeper Demons, are basically the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and most of their names and aspects that are references to religious texts. The ending is pretty much a case of the Rapture occurring... which admittedly confused the hell out of me when I started reading Darkglass Mountain and realised it was set in the same world a long time after the previous series.

I've rambled on a bit here, and I can't really think of much else that might be useful to you at the moment, but hopefully that gives you somewhere to start.


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Hmmm. Just realised my Sara Douglass suggestion may not be of much use if you're specifically looking for stuff that features real world cultures or analogues of them...

I'll have more of a dig around my bookcases and collections and see if I can find anything that may be more relevant tomorrow.


Well it hasn't been mentioned yet, but the Buffyverse was very inclusive, and involved a whole lot of worldbuilding over time. A great deal has been written about this, including at the tertiary level. It has so many games and products, and options to play the various characters and other odd sorts from varied backgrounds, but I didn't get into the games.

I second the points on shadowrun.

However, if you want an inclusive cast of characters in a game, and real attention to world building and filling it with all types, then Suikoden is something you should check out. There are sequels after the first one.

108 possible characters, under their own star of destiny, very diverse, great games.

Scarab Sages

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I second Shadowrun (the sourcebooks from former editions are still quite useful with the current incarnation). I also think the current Star Wars games by FFG do very good job at showing diversity in gender and enticity in their illustrations.


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Definitely Shadowrun, especially when you take into account Earthdawn, which has a similar level of worldbuilding that ties into Shadowrun. From a character creation perspective, the "ground-up" style of Shadowrun allows whatever type of character you can dream up. The Shadowrun novels had all manner of inclusivity, and actively explored some LGBT themes in the early 1990s.

In a more modern setting, the Dresden Files books and roleplaying game I think do a great job of having a really rich and inclusive world.


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Shadowrun does such a good job of creating that melting pot of cultures that all reside in the same cramped smelly space.

My favorite world building book series is Dune (obviously). But for fantasy I think Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age is consistent in it's grim depiction. It's filled with all sorts of scoundrels, toothless rogues and pirate women.

As far as TV/movies Firefly is a no brainer. So much diversity between characters and cultures.


I think I understand now. By its own name, Gurps is Generic and you wanted a system with everything created inside. Gurps is made to be everyone's game. So is Champions, there isn't anything specific about it.
However, there is DC Heroes which is based on the DC comics universe.

There is also the Star Trek RPGs which are based on the Star Trek Universe
There is also the Star Wars RPGs which do the same thing.

It's not exactly world build, but if you want that there is Larry Niven's Ring World. First there was the book and then there was the RPG.

You could say you could do ANYTHING on Niven's Ringworld, but it was set in his Known Space universe, so there was only so much to be found even on a Ringworld.


Hmmm. Having had a proper look through my collection... I'm sad to say I'm coming up fairly blank. Nothing's jumping out at me as being particularly good examples of inclusive world building...

This is actually a little irritating. I wouldn't have expected such a poor result.

Project Manager

Tinkergoth wrote:

Hmmm. Having had a proper look through my collection... I'm sad to say I'm coming up fairly blank. Nothing's jumping out at me as being particularly good examples of inclusive world building...

This is actually a little irritating. I wouldn't have expected such a poor result.

<wry> That's one of the reasons I posted here and in a bunch of other places. I was having a very difficult time coming up with examples.

I'd say the Star Trek universe did a good job (at least pre-reboot). N.K. Jemisin does some great stuff, and the Marvel universe is visibly trying to do better. Shadowrun has been doing a good job, I think, and Dragon Age, Guild Wars, and Borderlands have all been pretty inclusive.

But it's hard to come up with very many. Fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding still seems overwhelmingly white, even when it does better on gender. There may be POC in the universe, but they're often Othered pretty hard, and they're rarely stars of the story. And that's not even getting into, for example, how non-neurotypical people are portrayed.

Scanning my bookshelf and DVD/game shelf ended up being pretty depressing.


Jessica Price wrote:
Tinkergoth wrote:

Hmmm. Having had a proper look through my collection... I'm sad to say I'm coming up fairly blank. Nothing's jumping out at me as being particularly good examples of inclusive world building...

This is actually a little irritating. I wouldn't have expected such a poor result.

<wry> That's one of the reasons I posted here and in a bunch of other places. I was having a very difficult time coming up with examples.

I'd say the Star Trek universe did a good job (at least pre-reboot). N.K. Jemisin does some great stuff, and the Marvel universe is visibly trying to do better. Shadowrun has been doing a good job, I think, and Dragon Age, Guild Wars, and Borderlands have all been pretty inclusive.

But it's hard to come up with very many. Fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding still seems overwhelmingly white, even when it does better on gender. There may be POC in the universe, but they're often Othered pretty hard, and they're rarely stars of the story. And that's not even getting into, for example, how non-neurotypical people are portrayed.

Scanning my bookshelf and DVD/game shelf ended up being pretty depressing.

Are you looking for shared universes - like gameworlds and media properties and that kind of thing, or are you also thinking of individual author's worlds or even individual books?


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Jessica Price wrote:
Tinkergoth wrote:

Hmmm. Having had a proper look through my collection... I'm sad to say I'm coming up fairly blank. Nothing's jumping out at me as being particularly good examples of inclusive world building...

This is actually a little irritating. I wouldn't have expected such a poor result.

<wry> That's one of the reasons I posted here and in a bunch of other places. I was having a very difficult time coming up with examples.

I'd say the Star Trek universe did a good job (at least pre-reboot). N.K. Jemisin does some great stuff, and the Marvel universe is visibly trying to do better. Shadowrun has been doing a good job, I think, and Dragon Age, Guild Wars, and Borderlands have all been pretty inclusive.

But it's hard to come up with very many. Fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding still seems overwhelmingly white, even when it does better on gender. There may be POC in the universe, but they're often Othered pretty hard, and they're rarely stars of the story. And that's not even getting into, for example, how non-neurotypical people are portrayed.

Scanning my bookshelf and DVD/game shelf ended up being pretty depressing.

Actually, just had a thought. It's set in our world, since it's urban fantasy, but you could try Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series. The main character is a London Met police officer whose family are from Sierra Leone, and his family make regular appearances. There was a bit of an outcry for a while because the US publisher had changed the cover from the UK one to a picture of the main character holding a flame... and between the announcement and the release it was suddenly changed so the man on the front was shown as a silhouette instead of making it clear he was a POC. The also changed the name of the first book from The Rivers of London to Midnight Riot, but while irritating it's not as much of an issue.


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From memory, (so I could be wrong), but some of the goddesses of the rivers of London that the series is named for (including Mama Thames if I recall correctly) are also of varying race, despite being "family". Essentially it's because they're women that have somehow been chosen as avatars of the rivers. Mama Thames was a nurse who threw herself off a bridge into the Thames in despair, and after she awakened she chose the others over time to be her daughters (each of them represents a tributary, so there's Lady Tyburn, Fleet and so on).

The male half of the family (The Old Man of the River, or Father Thames and his sons) represent the rivers upstream of London (but still part of the area) are pretty much all white from what I can tell, but I think that's because most of them are much older than the city side of the family (it's suggested that Father Thames could have been some kind of Roman official), with the younger members being typical salt of the earth country gentlemen and travelling folk.

Liberty's Edge

Jessica Price wrote:

<wry> That's one of the reasons I posted here and in a bunch of other places. I was having a very difficult time coming up with examples.

I'd say the Star Trek universe did a good job (at least pre-reboot). N.K. Jemisin does some great stuff, and the Marvel universe is visibly trying to do better. Shadowrun has been doing a good job, I think, and Dragon Age, Guild Wars, and Borderlands have all been pretty inclusive.

But it's hard to come up with very many. Fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding still seems overwhelmingly white, even when it does better on gender. There may be POC in the universe, but they're often Othered pretty hard, and they're rarely stars of the story. And that's not even getting into, for example, how non-neurotypical people are portrayed.

Scanning my bookshelf and DVD/game shelf ended up being pretty depressing.

Well, on the sci-fi novel side Weber's Harrington series lacks much diversity in sexuality. There are a lot of characters but other than passing mention I can't recall a gay character. Well, there's Honor and Lady Alexander's marriage, but that's primarily pseudo-romantic and political and very complex since they're not the only ones involved. Honor's mother is bisexual if I remember, but she's been monogamous with her husband since marriage.

The narrative,however, is dominated by female characters and characters of color though. The titular character is half ethnically chinese. Her mother is one of the foremost geneticists in the universe, the House of Winton (ruler of the Kingdom/Empire of Manticore are very dark skinned African, with three female members including the queen being important characters. The Queen of Torch is also of African extraction, along with her Minister of State and military commander. The movers and shakers in the Solarian Union in that area have Indian names, and so does one of the rulers of said Union. Despite the Prussian trappings (the founder was a little odd) the Andermani Empire is ruled by an ethnically Chinese aristocracy. One of the Manticoran Navy's two institutional heroes is a woman and the other is described as a very dark complected man.

The main character could be said to not be neurotypical, but probably not the way you mean. Victor Cache's... I'm not really sure how to describe it... extreme pragmatism and compartmentalization but that's not quite right, are certainly not typical especially combined with his almost crippling lack of ability or experience in social situations despite being a spy.

On the simpler and more mundane side, I really enjoyed season one of Sirens with both Hank and Voodoo filling as non-straight characters (gay and asexual, respectively). Hank's basically the anti-gay stereotype. Veteran, highly masculine, into sports, etc and Voodoo is very very weird, but her asexuality isn't the focus of her weirdness. A third character in the EMT depot is highly ocd. A comment from one of the other EMTs is that she's an encyclopedia of medical knowledge and skills, but don't give her an odd number of grapes. Everyone's oddities are accepted and embraced by the rest of the depot, but everyone also gives everyone else a hard time about them in a friendly manner as well, and they're not really the focus of the drama or comedy. Good cable sitcom.

For games, well, there's Eclipse Phase, where you can play a transmale dolphin living in a swarm of robotic beetles who is dating an asexual and non-gendered AI that likes inhabit an organic body that looks like Samuel L Jackson and helps prevent the extinction of humanity - whatever humanity is defined as this week - and the only thing that will draw a second glance (outside of those Jovian biochauvanist bigots) is that you're members of Firewall.


It's been several years since I browsed it (so my recollection may be wonky), but Eclipse Phase perhaps?

The impression I got from it was a culture that had moved "beyond" our current sociological problems to a whole slew of new ones. I confess I never did more than idly flick through from time to time though, so that perception may not have been due to the setting itself.


Steve Geddes wrote:

It's been several years since I browsed it (so my recollection may be wonky), but Eclipse Phase perhaps?

The impression I got from it was a culture that had moved "beyond" our current sociological problems to a whole slew of new ones. I confess I never did more than idly flick through from time to time though, so that perception may not have been due to the setting itself.

pretty accurate really. I'd have recommended it myself but since I've never played a lot of it compared to Shadowrun and other games, it didn't really occur to me.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The Storyteller games from White Wolf pretty much set the benchmark for inclusivity in RPGs. I don't think Paizo has met this benchmark, but it's gone far beyond what D+D standards were in the 3.X days.

Earthdawn was pretty high in it's own way.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jessica Price wrote:
Gurps doesn't have its own setting, though, does it?

GURPS had sort of a mainline fantasy setting but not so much the way TSR/WOTC and Paizo grounded it's work. GURPS did a lot of licensing and did a bunch of settings. This wasn 't the problem as it was with TSR as GURPS never fell into the obligation of having to crank out a truckload of books for each one.

Much of GURPS material was freelanced to authors like Bob Schroeck who's produce worlds, such as GURPS IST (which originated from a Villains and Vigilantes campaign that I ran) or adaptations of licensed work such as The Prisoner.


LazarX wrote:

The Storyteller games from White Wolf pretty much set the benchmark for inclusivity in RPGs. I don't think Paizo has met this benchmark, but it's gone far beyond what D+D standards were in the 3.X days.

Earthdawn was pretty high in it's own way.

That's a good point. In the World of Darkness games, no one cares what ethnicity/gender/whatever defining feature you are, because it's all second fiddle to the fact that you're something else (be it a vampire, werewolf, changeling, or whatever else) and it's all about surviving as one of those in a world full of even scarier things. EDIT: Well, maybe not ALL about that, but certainly some of the splats have some pretty terrifying major antagonists. The True Fae for the Changelings (made even worse by the fact that they're implied to be what Changelings can potentially turn into), the Idigam for the Werewolves, things like that.

Never got to look into Earthdawn. It's one of the earlier "worlds" mentioned in Shadowrun isn't it? The Fourth World or something like that? An earlier part of the cycle where magic was prevalent, but since society hadn't reached the stage it's at in Shadowrun it was more traditional fantasy instead of cyberpunk/fantasy is how I've always heard it described.


Jessica Price wrote:
Tinkergoth wrote:

Hmmm. Having had a proper look through my collection... I'm sad to say I'm coming up fairly blank. Nothing's jumping out at me as being particularly good examples of inclusive world building...

This is actually a little irritating. I wouldn't have expected such a poor result.

<wry> That's one of the reasons I posted here and in a bunch of other places. I was having a very difficult time coming up with examples.

I'd say the Star Trek universe did a good job (at least pre-reboot). N.K. Jemisin does some great stuff, and the Marvel universe is visibly trying to do better. Shadowrun has been doing a good job, I think, and Dragon Age, Guild Wars, and Borderlands have all been pretty inclusive.

But it's hard to come up with very many. Fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding still seems overwhelmingly white, even when it does better on gender. There may be POC in the universe, but they're often Othered pretty hard, and they're rarely stars of the story. And that's not even getting into, for example, how non-neurotypical people are portrayed.

Scanning my bookshelf and DVD/game shelf ended up being pretty depressing.

If you have a problem with whites in fantasy, or fantasy being overwhelming white then come on a magical journey to Dark Sun's Athas.

No one is white. All are tanned, with a lot of nomad tribes and demihumans in a highly arid climate, as well as some of the most interesting monsters in a setting (BEWARE OF PLANTS).

Earth whites are not present, white civilisation does not exist (it feels more post apoc sci-fi than Tolkienean fantasy, and that is why) and if the pale were present they would have been kept out of the sun (owned slaves, so "whites" would be property), subterranean, or inhuman - some elves or giants can be pale/blue/grey. No worries of white-porting into Dark Sun. No worries at all.

Examples:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PAuQdl9p3d8/TqmxGYISOGI/AAAAAAAAAHA/CWUrVf2xUyA/s 1600/excerpts_20100712.jpg

http://media.ideaanddesignworks.com/idw/covers/S/solicitations/2011/03_marc h/DungeonsDragons_DarkSun03_cvrB.jpg

http://www.pathguy.com/Part1a_s.jpg

Dark Sun put a lot of stuff out over the years, if ye be curious.


Steve Geddes wrote:

It's been several years since I browsed it (so my recollection may be wonky), but Eclipse Phase perhaps?

The impression I got from it was a culture that had moved "beyond" our current sociological problems to a whole slew of new ones. I confess I never did more than idly flick through from time to time though, so that perception may not have been due to the setting itself.

That's a very good description of Eclipse Phase, which I think meets the OP's criteria. Although personally I always thought octopus were much less well represented than squid. It's entirely free to check out if you want to.

And Exalted, which hasn't been mentioned though White Wolf has, and where the character on the 1st edition cover was supposedly picked specifically because people had said fantasy rpgs needed a white male with a sword on the cover. The same character appears in some of the novels and I think one comic book.


Jessica Price wrote:

But it's hard to come up with very many. Fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding still seems overwhelmingly white, even when it does better on gender. There may be POC in the universe, but they're often Othered pretty hard, and they're rarely stars of the story. And that's not even getting into, for example, how non-neurotypical people are portrayed.

Scanning my bookshelf and DVD/game shelf ended up being pretty depressing.

Game companies need to actively seek diversity if it is something they truly want. I think a lot of underrepresented peoples find opportunities elsewhere for a variety of reasons both real and perceived. So waiting for resumes that may never appear is not an option. Find them and hire them.

Jess, what would you like to see in an RPG?

The Exchange

I feel like "inclusive" is not quite well defined enough for me to give an accurate answer, but assuming what it means is that the setting includes people of non-white skin color and women as well as males - all of those in ways that are not stereotypes - here are some:

1) Paizo with Pathfinder :)

2) Bioware with their single player RPGs - and they get better at it with time. Players can play as male or female, humans come ina variety of races and of course there are many made up races as well. Lately they also have a lot of non-heterosexual NPCs, with the player being able to control the sexual preferences of their character.

3) Magic:The Gathering is actually one of the best places of inclusive fantasy (in some ways I believe they have surpassed Paizo in this regard). The game has the great advantage of playing with an entire multiverse, where each year as new cards come out they represent new worlds. So there's a really nice mix of cultures and human races represented. It's played completely straight and doesn't feel forced at all. It doesn't stop with the art on the cards, either - ths story (for those wishing to follow it through flavor text on the cards and information found on the internet) includes many non white-males in prominent roles.

4) XCOM: as a computer game about a global army created to stop an alien invasion, XCOM allows the place their base wherever they want on Earth and recruit soldiers of any nationality and sex. Additionally, of the three "characters" in the game, one is a European woman, one an American man and the third I'm not entirely sure about but his brown skin and slight accent suggest he is not an American. All in all the game embraced the fact that it's story is about the whole human race and not just the U.S.

These are four examples that leaped to me right away. Additionally there are many others that I think are less worthy of mention, for various reasons - Portal, the new Tomb Raider, Heroes of Might and Magic, etc.

Now if we also allow books, movies and TV shows then that really opens the floodgates and allows a list that for most intents and purposes is limitless. Some of the top examples that occur to me: Wild Cards, anything by Alistair Reynolds or Robin Hobb or JK Rowling or...

Well, on second thought I'd forgo mentioning the more obvious ones. Instead, here's an unobvious one: Face Off. Whether the movie is good or not is up to debate (I like it), but what it does is something very few of it's genre do: actually be inclusive. It has a good amount of female characters. I'm not talking about over the top female ninjas with heels like you normally see in action movies, but just people who are female. Additionally the characters (male and female) are spread over a variety of nationalities and origins - afro americans, russians, asian and Cageians (I'm fairly certain Nicolas Cage is not human, anyway).


Scott Lynch's Loch Lamora series I would say is set in a setting that is pretty inclusive, although the series revolves around two heterosexual men as the main characters.

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

D. Vincent Baker's Apocalypse World leaves much of the world-building to the players, but it has the nice touch of every character sheet having a list of suggested looks and names and such that would fit the game's general tone. Gendered terms are listed under "looks," and include options like man, woman, concealed, ambiguous, and transgressing.

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