Here are the profiles of some of my potentially controversial characters: Rigor/Mortis Class: Rigor - warrior Mortis - mentalist Abilities: Rigor - creates items from components Mortis - telepathy/kenesis Bio: Dual personalities Rigor Typical "All-American" man. Likes beer, women (especially cheerleaders), gadgets. Mortis Hyper-sensitive politically "correct" feminist. Dislikes Rigor and all men like him with a strong passion. Jenny (name pending Class: White Mage (with an offensive secondary attack) Abilities: Chronic halitosis that inflicts poison status on the target(s). Bio: A little girl (9 - 11 age range) who is in a state of constant isolation because of her repulsive breath. Marsh (name pending) Class: Undetermined, may be a mimic (think Gogo in FFVI, if you're familiar with that game) Abilities: Uses second hand marijuana smoke to inflict confused status on target(s). Immune to confuse Bio: Stereotypical Hollywood hippie, combined with aspects of real hippies (there is a difference). Otis (name pending) Class: Warrior Abilities: Spews alcohol on target(s), inflicting sleep status Bio: Town drunk of Brumley As you can see, these characters are a bit on the south end of politically correct. Just Rigor/Mortis alone could have mental health advocates, feminists, and maybe even transgendered advocates (male with female personality) on me, not to mention alcoholics (Otis), and possibly even hippies and those who suffer from halitosis. If this game ever made it to distribution, would the flak from these groups take down my indie lone wolf company?

I think in the end, you won't have to worry about it. The politically correct secret police are more interested in overly violent games than in odd characters being politically incorrect. And they are still gnawing on GTA and probably soon Doom 3. They tend not to mess with the 'small-timers' like you and me.

Anyway, how many feminists, hippies, etc. play games? Just don't offend your main target market, and you can't go wrong.

That being said, Marsh's illegal drug use will probably give you a mature rating. If you don't care about such things, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Whats the point? It sounds like your trying to be politically incorrect just to be politically incorrect. Unless these charecters contributes to your game in some way, such as humor, then their is no point in including it.

Rigor/Mortis is no worse than Al Bundy from Married with Children, Sex from Herman's Head or Archy Bunker from All in the family.

Jenny is not controversial at all.

Marsh glamorizes pot smoking, but as long as Cheech and Chong exist, there's no politically illegal way to make fun of hippies. Hell, Cartman from South Park tells us about hippies all the time. Jews too!

Otis is no worse than Barny Gumble, at least, the one from earlier seasons, since he's been semi-clean for a while now.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster Whats the point? It sounds like your trying to be politically incorrect just to be politically incorrect. Unless these charecters contributes to your game in some way, such as humor, then their is no point in including it.

Not at all. I came up with these characters five years ago, along with the rest of the concept for the game, and then I recently decided to do some serious work on it, which is when the PC issue came up. I didn't create these characters to be politically "incorrect." I created them because I thought they would be funny.

Well, in all fairness, Rigor/Mortis was given to me by a friend, but I came up with the rest.

You have a good point, Numsgil and dede. I'm thinking of changing Marsh's secondary attack to "Stoner talk" to confuse the enemy, because stoned hippies can get pretty confusing, but that might be too subtle to be a decent effect.

Of course, That 70's Show depicts drug use and I don't think it has any higher than a TV-PG rating.

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Original post by dwmitch Of course, That 70's Show depicts drug use and I don't think it has any higher than a TV-PG rating.

I think you've discovered the oddity of the ratings system. I don't know exactly what (other than gratutious violence and sex) will earn a game an M rating, but I know in movies any depiction of drug use gets you an 'R' rating faster than anything else.

The problem with them all is that they're not standardized, and I can't keep em all straight in my mind. I suppose someone should do some research...

Well, not me. Someone else.

And I like your ideas for the characters. I don't find any of them offensive. I'm all for politically incorrect for humours sake. But I'm pretty loose as far as these things go. It always amazes me what some people find offense at, so it's good to see you taking it into consideration.