Yet another black guy or yet another bassy voiced hulking character using street slang?

See, the first one is bad.  The second one is a character trope.  People get tired of character tropes.  Remember the bald, space marine trope? The shirtless, bandana wearing Rambo trope? Or the buxom busted chick with attitude trope?  It's not their race.  It's not their sex.  It's not the their demeanor.  It's their trope.  A combination of character traits that may start off interesting but then itself becomes a generic character type that gets boring after the nth iteration.

Yet another black guy or yet another bassy voiced hulking character using street slang?

See, the first one is bad.  The second one is a character trope.  People get tired of character tropes.  Remember the bald, space marine trope? The shirtless, bandana wearing Rambo trope? Or the buxom busted chick with attitude trope?  It's not their race.  It's not their sex.  It's not the their demeanor.  It's their trope.  A combination of character traits that may start off interesting but then itself becomes a generic character type that gets boring after the nth iteration.

Well that's where we disagree then I suppose. A simple observation or describing attributes is one thing, but if it's inferred that the color of one's skin somehow makes for a negative attribute (or even a small factor), I don't see how that can be construded as anything other than a racist observation, at least to a small degree. 

I totally get that there are certain "tropes" that I feel would be a positive for arts and entertainment to steer from and utilize more unique, underrepresented attributes. But I don't know.. for my money at least - a person's (real or fictional) personality, actions, overall character, etc is far far more important than simply the way they look, especially with baked in traits like race. But maybe that's just me. 

We aren't even talking about a trope, we're talking about the attempt to create a trope in order to satisfy an agenda.  "Gruff White Male Protagonist" is nothing but smoke and mirrors.  We're supposed to believe that "Gruff" is the primary descriptor?  Bullshit.  What is that even supposed to mean?  That the person fighting to survive in a living hell isn't dancing and singing as they fight zombies?  A serious character in a serious game isn't a trope, it's just common sense.  

Looking at a character and deciding that they're boring just because they look kinda-sorta similar to other characters is shallow and unimaginative.  I'm reading a really good book right now where one of the characters is a beautiful princess with long, golden hair.  Gosh, how boring--except, of course, that she's one of the best characters in the book because events turned her from a spoiled child into someone ruthless and unhinged.  

Because that's all part of that trope. Color and sex are part of the gruff aspect of that character trope.  If it were a gruff Asian female, well that certainly wouldn't fit the trope, now would it?  That would be something largely new and not over-saturated in the industry.

But we are talking about a trope here. We're supposed to believe that gruff, white and male are the primary characteristics. It's the whole package, not just gruff.

And by the way, beautiful, white females with long golden hair as a princess is also a boring old trope.  You're literally calling his initial reaction as unimaginative without grasping the irony of the the game (book, movie, etc...) using an unimaginative trope for a character.

Wait so you're saying you're consuming a piece of media where at first impression the character is a boring trope but turns out to be really interesting? 

Man if only the article said something like that...

Because that's all part of that trope. Color and sex are part of the gruff aspect of that character trope.  If it were a gruff Asian female, well that certainly wouldn't fit the trope, now would it?  That would be something largely new and not over-saturated in the industry.

But we are talking about a trope here. We're supposed to believe that gruff, white and male are the primary characteristics. It's the whole package, not just gruff.

And by the way, beautiful, white females with long golden hair as a princess is also a boring old trope.  You're literally calling his initial reaction as unimaginative without grasping the irony of the the game (book, movie, etc...) using an unimaginative trope for a character.

Oh, so you don't know what a trope means.  That explains why you aren't understanding my posts.  Perhaps I should call them cliches.  Does that make more sense now?

You think a trope is the same thing as a cliche and you're saying that I'm the one who doesn't know what it means?  That's interesting.

I wasn't the one you were talking to, but yeah, they are basically synonyms.

Here is Merriam Webster:

"Trope: a common or overused theme or device : cliche"