Quote from: HappyDaze on July 17, 2021, 01:32:04 PM
Is it really about the sex or is it about the gender? I recall stories of biologically male sorcerers adopted more feminine dress and mannerisms as trappings of their magical traditions.

Since the lunar connection to menstruation (a frequently mentioned rationale in older texts and traditions) and childbirth require female genitalia, the modern fictional concept of "gender" doesn't really apply.  Cross-dressing (or dressing in a culturally unusual way) doesn't have anything to do with sex or gender, in any case...

Quote from: Zelen on July 16, 2021, 04:52:55 PM
Title is a bit clickbait, since I don't think it was a widespread belief that women had greater abilities than men.

Should women be considered to have a different sphere of abilities (up to and including magical abilities)? Sure. Wheel of Time makes this a central worldbuilding feature. In general actually representing the significant differences between the sexes mechanically would make for an evocative setting hook

Greetings!

Yes, Zelen, I agree. I think having some kind of differences between male and female in mystic abilities is pretty interesting. Wheel of Time did have a big thing with that concept, didn't it? Did you think Jordan presented that well in the books?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim on July 16, 2021, 04:54:54 PM

Quote from: SHARK on July 16, 2021, 04:15:40 PM
Thus, it makes me wonder, should women in our campaign worlds be provided with some kind of special spiritual and mystical abilities different from men?

I don't know about "should", but it's an interesting choice that can lead to fun play. This was the intro for my section on Norse Seidr for my Vinland campaign:

QuoteSeidr is a type of spirit magic practiced among the Vinlanders, originally borrowed by the Norse from their Lapp neighbors many centuries ago. It is sometimes known as "platform magic" for how certain major rituals are cast, where the sorcerer rests in a trance a raised platform. Among the Vinlanders, its practice is restricted to women (at least publically). Male sorcerers are viewed as effeminate, deceitful, and worse. In the sagas, every male sorcerer meets with a miserable and shameful death, though many cast powerful curses as they die.

Female practitioners -- known as gydja (priestess) and sometimes volva (prophetess) -- are more tolerated, although still not common. They rarely engage in full platform magic, at least not publicly. More often, they will go into trances by singing to prophesy, bestow blessings, and act as seers. They may also direct sacrifices to appease dangerous spirits, usually on autumn "winter nights". A young woman will generally learn her craft from an elder female relative. The degree of dedication varies, ranging from religious devotion to a hobby craft. A dedicated gydja (priestess) will generally be rewarded by gifts in return for prophecy and aid. She will act as a priestess of Freyja, the goddess of passionate love -- who is associated with the Virgin Mary in semi-Christianized Vinland.

Thus, in the campaign, the only Norse PC magicians were female. On the other hand, Algonquian shamans were always male.

In general, gender roles were strongly enforced in historical societies. I think the key is to make things equally fun for players of female PCs.

We also had some strong gender roles in campaigns set on Harn, but there the magical difference was less important - in part because Shek-Pvar (magicians) are so rare on Harn.

Greetings!

Nice, Jhkim. The Norse campaign sounds very cool!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 16, 2021, 05:24:04 PM
While I don't feel a need to have special rules for it, my internal design guidelines for sample PCs and NPCs in my game default to female adventurers having some type of magic or other inhuman source of power in contrast to men who are more often straight up warriors.

Basically, in my fantasy world, magic is the equalizer that allows women to be equal to the overwhelming physical superiority of men in much the way that modern firearms do more to level the playing field for women in terms of personal defense than any sort of martial arts ever could.

The 14 female sample PCs include;
- a kobold gadgeteer
- a dwarf "arcane cyborg"
- a dryad
- an elf priestess
- an elf sharpshooter/sniper
- a fetch nightmare
- a gnome mastermind (schemer who creates openings for allies)
- a golem wizardess (only female in shape; basically a robot)
- a human sorceress
- a human theurge
- a malfean mystic
- a malfean shapeshifter
- a mutant (half-orc) templar (6'6"/280 lb.)
- a mutant (spiker) acrobat

The other 16 (plus a few companions granted by background features) are men and far more likely to be straight up warriors;
- a ravenkin storm priest
- a minotaur warrior
- human mercenaries (companion characters of the minotaur)
- a dwarf knight
- a dwarf squire (companion character of the dwarf knight)
- a dwarf gadgeteer
- dwarf apprentices (companion characters/sons of the dwarf gadgeteer)
- a young glacier dragon
- a young fire giant
- an elf knight
- elven house guards (companion characters of the elf knight)
- a fetch shadow wizard
- a fetch outlaw mastermind
- a gnome beastrider
- a gnome monk
- a golem swordmage
- a golem warpriest of the forge god
- a human captain
- a human bodyguard (companion of the human sorceress)
- a malfean monk
- a mutant (troll) warrior

Greetings!

Interesting, Chris! That's quite the set-up you have going there! I think that there are a number of cool ideas that can differentiate male and female mystical characters, particularly. As you mentioned also, I can't shake the notion that men should also have definite physical advantages. In most athletic pursuits, the very best females in whatever sport tend to only perform at slightly above average for *average* male competitors. Top tier athletics are absolutely dominated by men, and the women don't tend to compare well, despite themselves being in the top 5% of all female athletes, anywhere.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Most in the thread are probably already aware, but Hildegard von Bingen is an excellent historical case study on this point. You could also do worse than her music to set a spirituality-focused mood in a campaign.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess published a magic sourcebook called "Vaginas Are Magic." With a bunch of spells that are only usable by females. 

You should, as always, consider the implications of this.   A setting where women reliably have mysterious but verifiable magical powers is also a setting where when you go raiding, you need to prioritize killing the women as quickly as possible, since they are likely to have magics you have not seen and cannot counter.

You'd presumably see a lot more war-to-the-knife low level conflicts, since stopping a rival tribe from being able to oppose you would necessitate also destroying their breeding population.

Or, of course, you can do it the other way around, and assume that women as a whole can actually muster enough magic to counter their opposite number's strength and aggression, but then you're building a setting in which magic is a force used as commonly and reliably as physical strength is in our world.  Which would be really interesting to read if someone tried to set it up, but also would be by necessity divorced from its mythological roots.

Quote from: robertliguori on July 19, 2021, 09:18:40 AM
You should, as always, consider the implications of this.   A setting where women reliably have mysterious but verifiable magical powers is also a setting where when you go raiding, you need to prioritize killing the women as quickly as possible, since they are likely to have magics you have not seen and cannot counter.

You'd presumably see a lot more war-to-the-knife low level conflicts, since stopping a rival tribe from being able to oppose you would necessitate also destroying their breeding population.

Or, of course, you can do it the other way around, and assume that women as a whole can actually muster enough magic to counter their opposite number's strength and aggression, but then you're building a setting in which magic is a force used as commonly and reliably as physical strength is in our world.  Which would be really interesting to read if someone tried to set it up, but also would be by necessity divorced from its mythological roots.

I dunno that it needs to be "reliable" so much as just "more common."

Adventurers are, depending on setting, your 1:1000 to 1:1 million members of the population. So if sorcery pops up in say, 1:100k men but 3:100k women you're going to have a significant larger population of female sorceress' than male sorcerers among adventurers, but all of them combined are basically 1:25k of the general population so maybe one in a dozen towns might have ONE sorcerer/ess... not nearly enough to make murdering the entire female population of a region a viable prospect.

Even at a 1:1000 male and 3:1000 female ratio (presuming there are non-adventuring sorcerer/ss types whose innate magic doesn't align with adventuring and are basically level 1-2 at most) it's still not something where putting every woman to the sword makes any sense.

Basically, there's a whole range between "every woman has magic" and "women have magic more often than men do."