Roleplay 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?
RPGPundit
I 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.
P.S. As an example I've played in an Atlantean environment that came complete with REH-era racist overtones. It was awkward for some people at the table, but I was able to largely draw the line between game and reallife in that case. There might have been lines that I'd not want crossed, but I would have been one of the last ones at the table so we never got there.
The former more than the latter, by a long shot. I'm just not all that interested in trying to game out realistic medieval attitudes.
I don't think treating all women characters as second class citizens is going to do anything to enhance the enjoyment of any of my games. I don't mind the PCs sneaking through the king's harem as a way to offer some cheap titillation, but the king maintains a harem because he's a skeevy old perv who can't maintain a relationship with a proper mistress. Meanwhile, the queen might have a harem as well.
Also, Amazons rule.
Quote from: jrientsI don't think treating all women characters as second class citizens is going to do anything to enhance the enjoyment of any of my games. I don't mind the PCs sneaking through the king's harem as a way to offer some cheap titillation, but the king maintains a harem because he's a skeevy old perv who can't maintain a relationship with a proper mistress. Meanwhile, the queen might have a harem as well.
Also, Amazons rule.
That's a good way to put it. I guess it would be interesting for the PCs to adventure in areas where gender norms are less egalitarian than the modern world from time to time. But to make such things part of the setting as a whole would make that setting less interesting to me.
We're talking about human society, right? Then I want it to be somewhat realistic, i.e. if there's a change in the gender roles I want a reason for it. Gender roles weren't just a big patriarchal conspiracy... But assume that magic (either by direct spell-casting or pure divine favor) is strong enough to radically decrease infant mortality. This would open the gates somewhat. Add in that the elves and/or dwarves don't have those gender roles as much, a female warrior god and some other background elements, and you could have a society that's pretty close to our modern one (in the more enlightened places). But this shouldn't come out of the blue. Don't just shoehorn gender equality in a unchanged down-and-dirty medieval setting. And no supernatural animals should be part of the reasoning...
I often like to play that society does all the stuff society did at the time, but society is wrong, in the ways that we (as modern people) view it to be wrong.
Like, where would Castle Falkenstein be without a rough and tumble Adventuress? And where would that Adventuress be without a society that can't really make heads or tails of her?
Somewhere in between, really.
One of the biggest things about games that can give them the "rub of the real" is that humans behave like humans. That means alot of them will behave badly.
That said, I am a product of my times, and I am less than tolerant of some things and won't put them in my games in a widespread manner.
It 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.
Quote from: ColonelHardissonThe former more than the latter, by a long shot. I'm just not all that interested in trying to game out realistic medieval attitudes.
Same here.
Also, 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.
I 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).
As my D&D groups are women heavy, I prefer the egalitarian view. Especially as D&D has fuck to do with medieval realities.
But:
I succesfully GMed "Last days of Constantinople", and there I opted for "as realistic as I could get". The female players took male characters and didn`t have any complaints.
For games like L5R or Harnmaster I like it if the female players get female characters which are "special" (widowed countess or female-bushi) in that they are not hampered by gender problems.
So it really depends on what is more important: historical accuratism or having a blast smiting skeletons. In a world of flying carpets and airship ridin`dire orc freebooters, there is no need for hampering them females.
I'll play either if the game is fun. If the game is not fun then it probably doesn't matter what the gender/racial equality level is at.
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?
RPGPundit
I have no perference either way, also long as it makes sense in the setting.
But there has to be one ground-rule: Wenches!
Whether they do it to earn money for law-school or because they've been born into this role, pressured by society, supporting their pock-ridden mother, yadda, yadda...
Wenches.
I tend to prefer the more historical, but independent women are more common in history than is often realised.
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." :D
"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.
RPGPundit
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.
RPGPundit
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...)
RPGPundit
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.
RPGPundit
the games that I have played ,where we had female players, no efforts were made to make the setting more or less sexist. IMO, it would patronizing to do so.
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?
That depends on if I plan to make that particular struggle a part of the character. Otherwise it's just bullshit that gets in the way at annoying times. Some will say thats more "realistic," but I say: yeah? So's stabbing you with a kitchen knife every time you take damage, but we don't do that shit, either, now do we?
Quote from: RPGPunditYea, 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.
Well, I do have a really wierd gaming group, but no, none of us are vikings. :p
My point is just that I don't feel that maximum accuracy is the same as most fun. We can get the most accuracy by having each of the players play characters just like themselves and set it in the modern-day. But that's not the most fun.
So, say, in our Buffy campaign group we had four women and two men -- and there were four female PCs and two male PCs. But the two men had female PCs, and two women had male PCs. Everyone liked it.
I'd agree that there are some common failings in playing the other gender, like playing to stereotypes or missing subtleties. However, I'm also suspicious about complaints about how people play -- since in my experience these often have the same flaws in reverse. In my brief period of playing online, there was a fair amount of cross-gender play, but the rate of guessing was pretty bad. What was also more telling, though, was how people guessed that a player was really a man or woman. I remember in particular talking with someone who was infuriated when other players would say she was a man playing a female character because she didn't act "girly" enough.
Quote from: RPGPunditI 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.
RPGPundit
I'm pretty much in line with this. There are some settings that revolve around their prejudices; cutting out the discrimination would cripple the impact of the game world. Other settings do pretty well with egalitarianism, which is my personal default (as a boy I pretty much modeled my idea of What Women Are off of Ripley and Vasquez.)
All the same, a game without wenches is like a day without wenches.
Quote from: T-Willard"The Gods didn't make men and women equal. MAGIC MISSILE DID, BITCH!"-NahaJawen the Wanderer.
Tim, if you ever get bored with YotZ (or even if you want a break) you just
have to write this setting up as an OGL Urban Arcana sourcebook. I've tried to get Urban Arcana to work for me, but I always wondered why I didn't just play Shadowrun instead. This? this works
Quote from: RPGPunditWow. 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.
RPGPundit
I was making a generalization. I will bring up the subject when I have women players, but I'll only do it with people I trust. When talking of running a hypothetical game, I tend to think in hypothetical people. Since I don't know these hypothetical people, my OP stands. However, with a group of people I knwo, it's a different story.
One of the best Dogs in the Vineyard games Ive ever run had a female player whose character had to talk an independently minded woman into obeying her husband...it rocked.
So, sorry for the confusion.
I'd prefer to play in a fantasy game where modern sentiments are in place regarding gender roles, but I've never really played in a realistic fantasy (oxymoronic? maybe realistic medieval) setting.
Talking from the perspective of a guy that plays/runs the former category of game rather than the latter, I find women to be extremely fascinating on a lot of levels, and having a wide range of options open for them to fill offers a lot of added dimension to the gaming experience, IMHO.
Depends on furthur details of the setting honestly.
If its supposed to be 'historical' or some represention of it--then I'd prefer it be accurate or give reall GOOD reasons (like Pendragon, suggests--using the heritage of mythology it draws upon laden with warrior women.)
One of the funniest things I did, that challenged the PC's...
They journied by ship to another continent and got off their ship and entered the docks. At the docks, a powerful looking woman backed up by women in platemail asked: "Whose property are these men?" The woman was looking at the half-orc man with undisguised lust.
The birth-rate was 5 females for every male. Males were thin and sickly (-4 Str, -6 Con) and had a tendency to die from SIDS.
The male characters had to deal with being considered the property of the female characters. The female characters had to provide the male PC's with luxuries and spa treatments, etc. (A half-orc barbarian wearing mascara... LOL)
In a nieghboring nation, only females were born with magical or psionic ability, so once again males were second class citizens.
Fun game. :)
Depends on how the players feel about the level of realism (sexism?) in the setting. Generally if it's fantasy I leave that stuff out. There are a hell of a lot of other real world themes I can incorporate into the setting, than just real world attitudes of sexism etc.
As far as historical settings go, again it depends. If I was going for a larger than life, exceptional people type campaign, then it really wouldn't be a problem. However if it was a more down to earth average joe (jane?) context, then it would be pretty difficult to navigate the terrain so to speak. Besides dealing with the period detail, I would have to incorporate the everyday casual sexism into the game -not a problem if I was running a specfic kind of real world/real world issues campaign, which I have done before - but not really practical for most of my other games.
But at the end of the day, player enthusiasm trumps (sometimes) whatever historical jones I have. In my In Harms Way campaign, the women in my group - all 4 of them - wanted a more egalatarian feel for the campaign.
I didn't really have a problem with this. After all I still got the themes I was trying to cultivate (but has since taken a life of it's own) - hubris, ambition, compassion, loyalty...and as one character said to another "at the end of the day, the captain -she - stands alone staring out there...wondering what new mischief, the waves bring forth"...good stuff .
Regards,
David R