Quote from: BalbinusI tend to prefer the more historical, but independent women are more common in history than is often realised.

Very true!  A "historically accurate" pirate game that denied the existence of Anne Bonney and Mary Read, for example, would be pretty silly.

Quote from: TonyLBVery true!  A "historically accurate" pirate game that denied the existence of Anne Bonney and Mary Read, for example, would be pretty silly.

Once in an online swashbuckling game the GM said he would allow female characters.

So some guy posted links to an actual 17th Century Frenchwoman who took multiple lovers, fought several duels (successfully) and was in every sense a swashbuckler and would have made a great PC.

The GM was not so keen, I think he thought her ahistorical ironically enough.

Quote from: AkrasiaAlso, if you include magic in your setting, there is a whole source of power available to women that can be used to help justify a (more) equal status for them.  Access to an ability to blow violent misogynists up with fire balls could have advanced the cause of women in a magical 'medieval' society.

Oh nice one: "Mages Melf and Drawmij made men and women equal."

"The Gods didn't make men and women equal. MAGIC MISSILE DID, BITCH!"-NahaJawen the Wanderer.

Seriously, it depends on where we look at.

Now, despite what many people might believe, men became dominant mainly because of upper body strength. Hold up, give me a moment to lay this out before you get pissed off...

To plow a field/run a farm, you need upper body strength and endurance. Two things that men were designed for that and fighting. While some women may be able keep up with the men, those are few and far between. One woman and three or four men can keep a farm running, while it would take six to eight women to get the same work done on the same farm, and they'd need 6-8 people worth the food.

However, in my campaign world, magic provides some of what industrialization gave to women. Sure, in farm areas men are mostly dominant, but even the most howling sexist farmer isn't going to argue with a woman who can shove a fireball up his ass.

Cities, where there is industry where women can compete (clerks, bankers, tailoring, etc), men and women are pretty much equal. Rulership, which depends on who can hold the throne, goes to the strong. Magic lets women flash-fry howling bigots with swords who would otherwise be a local warlord.

So, I guess I have a mixture of history and idealism.

The biggest, meanest, most powerful figure in my campaign settings history was a female. People don't even speak her name, just call her "Herself"

Quote from: AkrasiaI still think elements of sexism, classism, and racism can play a role in defining the societies of a fantasy medieval world.   But I don't have a problem with there existing many exceptions to such attitudes -- especially among 'exceptional' individuals (like the PCs).

Me = What you said. They can be useful things to wrestle with if the PCs seem inclined in that way.  I'm actually sort of a whore for the Little People vs. the Powerful Wankers story, and that tends to find its way into a lot of my campaigns in some facet or other.

Quote from: SosthenesBut there has to be one ground-rule: Wenches!

I guess I should have mentioned that earlier, but I had taken it as a given.

In my female heavy D&D games, we have two sided sexism directed at the NPCs. Wenches and stupid brawny villains included. Though it never cropped up as a discussion point. Wouldn`t have pundit asked, I wouldn`t have thought about it. Good sign, I guess.

In my all guys D&D game, we are too focussed on ass-kicking. The only instance of sex as an issue came when we grew famous and were besieged by marriage propositions.
Oh yes, and my character was granted a night with an aspect of his godess!:cool:

The former, by a country mile.  I'm not interested in realism, I'm interested in larger-than-life escapades.

I think we have a general consensus here, as most campaigns always have true gender equality for player characters. The world might be historic, idealistic or just different, but in lots of campaigns the adventurers live outside the rules of normal society. So apart from role-playing hooks (GURPS would call that a "social stigma"), female players suffer no negative effects. If normal women are penalized, they are the Jean D'Arcs, the Lady Godivas, the Boadiceas of their worlds.

This could get a lot tougher in low-fantasy settings. I've been playing a lot of D&D lately, where the gender is secondary quite often. If the frost giant attacks, whether he/she is male or female doesn't really matter much (yeah, okay, apart from the "frigid bitch" comments). I always get accused that a lot of my villains are female, but that's just my players trying the get at me. My NPC demographics are very PC...

Most published worlds I know of are rather egalitarian. Can't remember how Harn treats its members of the distaff side...

Quote from: blakkieI can play both ways for the most part. Game != reallife. My character's morals !=  me. I understand you may have issues with that given your finicky stands on settings.

I can actually play in either type of setting; though the latter only if its consistent with the rest of the world. I have no problem, for example, with the conception of gender role equality in the Forgotten Realms.  I would have some problem with it in Warhammer.

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Quote from: joewolzIt all depends on who I'm playing with.  Honestly, if the players are all men, then I would borach the subject of a more Historically correct game.  If they weren't all men, I probably wouldn't bring it up.

Wow. Double standard.  I mean, why not "broach" it? See if your female player wants to have no difficulties due to playing a female, or might actually be interested in the conflict of having to work around being a "woman in a man's world"?

Shit, some of my best memories of good roleplaying have come from female players who were playing women in settings where they had to confront a sexist  society.  They all tended to deal with the issue in different ways, too...

Note that sometimes, I've had male players play female characters; and its never as good.  They don't really seem to be able to act coherently in a sexist setting; but in a non-sexist setting they act just like they were men, basically. Part of why I'm against the whole "gamer in drag" concept.


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Quote from: TonyLBVery true!  A "historically accurate" pirate game that denied the existence of Anne Bonney and Mary Read, for example, would be pretty silly.

Absolutely. Which is why you can't really argue against the concept from the point of view of "it would limit my players too much"; I mean shit, how can you say that when there were at least a couple of literal female knights out there; and a whole slough of "warrior queens" and "ladies of the court" with immense political power?  Female players can always opt to go for that..

Hell, in my Roman campaign, my female player ended up becoming Emperess; reaching a level of power that none of the male players will ever be able to attain (because they're all immortals, and part of the "rules" of the roman immortals is that none of them can ever be emperor; but there's nothing against one of them becoming emperess...)

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Personally I can go either way.  Just don't halfass it.  Make a decision one way or the other and have a mostly fantastical setting where such concerns are not relevent, or a mostly historical game where such attitudes are present.

Quote from: RPGPunditRoleplay in a fantasy medieval setting where modern sentiments are somehow transplanted as far as gender roles are concerned (ie. women have all the same jobs as men, are considered equal); or would you rather play in a fantasy medieval setting where the sentiments toward gender were more or less like the real medieval sentiments?

As others have noted, there's a false dichotomy here.  The question implies that the only two choices are modern sentiments or historical medieval ones.  

In general, if I'm playing fantasy, I want it to be fantasy, not a poor excuse for history.  Give me walking gods, earth-shattering spells, water flowing uphill, the dead rising, talking animals, and so forth.  That goes for societies as well.  I like something different: totalitarian rule by the sorcerer king; or rule by a scary but mostly benevolent cult whose members transform into cats; or anarchy made civil by the dragon judges.  

Quote from: RPGPunditNote that sometimes, I've had male players play female characters; and its never as good.  They don't really seem to be able to act coherently in a sexist setting; but in a non-sexist setting they act just like they were men, basically. Part of why I'm against the whole "gamer in drag" concept.

Well, I agree in a sense that the farther the player is from the character, it's more difficult to be accurate and thus less "good" in the sense of closely representing reality.  So, if my group all played modern-day geeks, they'd have more accurate portrayals than if they were playing Prussian officers in WWI, or vikings, or ninjas.  This applies to me as GM as well -- I'm more accurate in portraying a modern-day suburban background than if I'm portraying 14th century Japan.  

On the other hand, we often enjoy portraying things far outside our experience.  I like playing a violent barbarian or sinister assassin, even if its vastly different than me and I may not be doing it as accurately as characters closer to me.

Yea, the difference is you don't often get barbarian vikings showing up to play in your campaign, so that you can see the difference between a regular joe playing a viking and a viking playing a viking.

At least, not unless you have a really wierd gaming group.

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