Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Sense of humour / offensive check

cliffski

I’v started doing some of the flavor text for GTB. My plan ( to be explained more in a future video blog) is for it to be a bit ‘blackadder goes forth’ in approach. I am assuming you are a british soldier fighting in and endless world war I against the Germans.

Note that the ‘story’ is a very small part of the game, just a few mission briefings and the manual. You can ignore it happily.

My concern is that I might accidentally be offending some people. So my question to you is this. Do you find Blackadder and Allo Allo and other world war 2 comedy style things offensive?

I assume hardly anyone does, but if you are a German strategy gamer who would be put off a game that affectionately mocked the patriotic jingoism of World War I/II Britain, and referred to the enemy as the Hun, ‘Jerry’, The Bosch, etc… Is that offensive?

I assume not, but we live in an age where people take offense at almost anything, so I’m checking. My stats show 5.7% of GSB buyers are German. I’d rather they still bought the game.

17 thoughts on Sense of humour / offensive check

  1. Henning Wehn “That German Comedian from Radio 4” on stereotypes:
    http://www.henningwehn.de/writing/writing-independent-allo-allo-stereotypes.htm

    “it took me a few days to rediscover Germany as a country blessed with natural beauty and populated by pleasant people; not the grotesque version of popular British folklore.”

    That being said, it’s not as if Allo Allo and Blackadder were not mocking the Brits as well. Especially the satire of class in Blackadder.

    But the thing is, and especially with Allo Allo; often the Germans came out as grotesque, emotionally warped and peverse charicatures, but the stereotypes of Brits was a gentle self-mockery of affable bumbling posh buffoons.

    To which: Stereotyping-for-comedy is fine, as long as everyone is equally presented as grotesquely charicatured as everyone else…

    (Unless you’re confident in the writing enough to pull of the “using exaggerated stereotypes as a political comic device for highlighting the absurdity of using stereotyping as a means by which to relate to and represent other people, comically or otherwise” trick.)

  2. Yea, I think that if the game makes fun of everyone involved and also is very clearly not taking itself seriously (basically making fun of itself, partly for its stereotyping) then you should be ok with anyone who isn’t basically a powder-keg-for-taking-offense about any of the subjects you touch on.

    Of course, there will be those folks, and you can probably get more of them to buy your game by keeping your flavor text well away from… anything, I guess, having to do with our own backgrounds.

    But having genuinely entertaining flavor text could improve the experience to a point where you gain more sales than you lose. I dunno if the flavor text will be that good, but I’ve gotten a fair number of chuckles out of the stuff in your previous games.

  3. I’ve seen that comedian! I think so anyway, supporting stewart lee. he was absolutely fantastic. I remember his first gag being that germans don’t need as much of a sense of humour as the brits, because in germany “everything fucking works, doesn’t it!”
    Which is so true :D

  4. The Germans would be offended to be told that their sense of honour between pilots was so great, that they would force captured pilots to teach German schoolgirls home economics?

    The humiliation would be unbearable!

    Well, to avoid offending the Germans, the best thing to do is… (*whisper*) Don’t mention the war.

  5. Despite living in Germany when I was tiny, I never really was aware of the national flavour about such things, probably precisely because I was so tiny, and my biggest concern was the girl who kept stealing my toys at Kindergarten.

    That awful little 4-year-old aside, like the quoted comedian above, Germans have always unfailingly been the nicest people, so on moving back to the UK I found the pervasive stereotypes a bit puzzling, and sort of humorous and uncomfortable at the same time, but never figured out why, until later. It was this article by Nick Clegg in 2002 (y’know, before we could start hating him) that really opened my eyes: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/19/eu.germany

    I realised he’s right, I think he describes very well the German national feeling about the war – a desire to distance themselves from their past, while at the same time recognize that its a thing that happened, and accept the guilt.

    So, in the context of GTB, I agree with Cooper’s comment above – it might be fine if everyone is equally grotesquely caricatured, but even then, I’m not sure – it’d be interesting to hear more Germans weighing in.

  6. My main obejct of humour is the British, and their optimism, understatement, and silly obsession with cricket and bowling references despite being in the middle of a horrific bloody war.
    Obviously to lampoon that, you have to use the language they used, and exxagerate it, but I plan to steer more towards silly references to eton and cricket and less into slagging off the Germans.

    I’m also concerned that Americans will not like a game where it’s impleid you are British, but I think they will get over it. At the end of the day its a tower defence/ RTS hybrid with mechs and tanks. This is just icing.

  7. I don’t think you need worry about the American audience. There are quite a number of Anglophiles in the US, not to mention most people think the accent is cool.

    As for myself, when I first heard of GTB I was thinking that you needed a “lead” unit of infantry kicking a soccer ball (football for those outside the U.S.) across the battlefield.

  8. Why not have a later expansion from the German perspective with some humor aimed the other way?

    Or you could have both sides making fun of us Americans. There is after all endless fun to be had with “Yanks”.

    Looking forward to the new game!

  9. Well, I am German and I bought GSB so maybe I should weigh in. Still don’t know if I will buy GTB, but if I don’t, it certainly won’t be because of the portrayal of Germans in the backstory, which will be cosmetic anyway.
    I also doubt that you will lose any German customers as long as it is funny and doesn’t take itself seriously. Despite the stereotypes Germans do have a sense of humour (although we certainly could improve on it).

  10. I think you’re worried about it too much. The only people that might complain wouldn’t have bought your game anyways. We see this all the time, in every form of media. Boycotts by people that aren’t consumers of said product have little to no effect on your bottom line.

  11. From a business point of view, even if it offends some Germans, good humour may win you the same number of buyers elsewhere… or more. Whether this is a price you want to pay is, of course, up to you.

  12. +1 for the soccer/football unit

    The best way I can think of is to caricature the Germans in a similar way, exaggerating things German soldiers stereotypically overfocused on or brought up out of context. Maybe a German reader can recommend a German counterpart to the football unit?

  13. I like the idea of a german expansion. As for the mockery, I’d be fine with it just as long as you make equal fun of everyone.
    It would be a mistake however to use WW2 mockeries/jargon when the background story starts with World War I, back then Germany was a very different country compared towhat it became after the Great War and many of the reasons for the later rise to power of the Nazi Regime originated from the devastating and bitter end of the Great War and humiliation by the allies. So, without that, no WW2, and therefor no WW2 flavored mockeries. But I guess I’m putting too much thought into it :D
    The whole GTB backstory reminds me a bit of the book(s) of Michael Moorcock: “A nomad of the time streams”. And that excites me even more than huge tank/mecha battles!

  15. “I’m also concerned that Americans will not like a game where it’s impleid you are British, but I think they will get over it. At the end of the day its a tower defence/ RTS hybrid with mechs and tanks. This is just icing.”

    You mean, as opposed to being a cat-based dragon king, a female weapons maven, or a couple of bouncing Italian stereotypes complete with handlebar mustaches? I think most of my fellow countrymen (and women) will undertand that they’re playing a game where their role includes a British identity. Just be sure to apply the same style and depth of cruel, unusual humor to all nationalities, and no one will mind. Or at least, be able to say so without having the world laugh at them.

  16. I haven’t been able follow the progress of GTB but I kind of assumed you’d be able to play both sides anyway so you could just have a juxtaposed tutorial from the German pov which pokes fun at the Brits, maybe hooray henry’s leading the average downtrodden tommy?

  17. I am German and I approve of the “typical british” mockery of “us”. As long as it shows that it is in fact HUMOUR! I’ve had the pleasure of talking to some british people, where I missed exactly the part, where they knew it was all supposed to be funny.

    Just don’t be scared about it – you’d have to be really REALLY offensive to offend us enough, so that we wouldn’t be all over a game about German Supertanks with lasers.

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