Women and Children first?

Tonguez · Feb 6, 2008

The thread on Non-Human non-combatants got me thinking on how the role of females and whelps of other races are seen in your games.

Okay I can accept that young are physically weaker and less able but why the women? Why should Orc females be non-combatants, why can't gnolls be dominated by large alpha females, what would a eusocial gnome colony really be like

Anyway
Do all races in your game live in patriarchal: male-dominated socieities with females viewed as the 'weaker' gender?

Have you even considered the issue?

PS We'll ignore Drow for now - but what of other races

Aust Diamondew · Feb 6, 2008

If you have two tribes of hunter/gatherers.
And you send the women in as your primary combatants right aside the men and you loose half your women you'll have a much harder time recouping your population after the fight than the tribe who sent the men in as the primary fighters and kept the women as back up.
1 man can impregnate many women but not the opposite.

Short Answer: Men are more expendable.

That said you should still wipe out the orc women if you wipe out the orc men, they're just as dangerous (of course if they're prisoners or surrender it gets more complicated).

Gilladian · Feb 6, 2008

I have a catfolk race that is distinctly matriarchal/matrilineal. Who your father is means almost nothing, and being female gives you leadership. But the males are still the fighters, because they are stronger/more muscular and more aggressive than the females.

Dwarves have no gender/sex in my world. They are created by being carved from stone; life is breathed into them by priestly ritual. This is one reason they are a fading race.

I am debating having my "lizardfolk" race be dominated by larger, (more aggressive?) females. The risk of losing many breeders would be minimized by the egg-laying method of reproduction - it's much easier to produce multiple offspring from one female when eggs are laid.

Dias Ex Machina · Feb 6, 2008

In game, there are the Laudenian elves, which are completely equal in all forms. Our orc race, called the Pagus, are also uniform in both abilities and in social standing.

Then there are the Elder Tilen. Tilen were once lords of death that were forcedly sanctified. The majority of them are women, are much more powerful than descendant tilen, and they rule their species.

Snapdragyn · Feb 6, 2008

If you have two tribes of hunter/gatherers.
And you send the women in as your primary combatants right aside the men and you loose half your women you'll have a much harder time recouping your population after the fight than the tribe who sent the men in as the primary fighters and kept the women as back up.
1 man can impregnate many women but not the opposite.

Short Answer: Men are more expendable.

This only holds true for species or cultures without a predominantly monogamous social system. If pairings are typically monogamous, it won't matter if there's 1 male for 100 females, since he'd only pair with one. It's the same flawed logic used by hunters who refuse to shoot females of monogamous animals.

In animal species in which females are larger or more 'showy' than males, polyandry (one female mating with multiple males) is not uncommon (although monogamy is still the norm for some such species, such as hawks & eagles). In a sapient species with a polyandrous social system, it might be that males would be the more numerous & expendable 'cannon fodder', or conversely females might express (& heighten) their greater social power by being powerful warriors.

Hrm. Now I'm wondering about setting up dwarven societies as matriarcal & polyandrous, with a human-sized female having multiple husbands & some of the surplus being sent out as adventurers & traders. Would explain the dearth of female dwarf sightings, & throw in an interesting surprise for anyone who might meet one. 'I swear, she was 6' tall & had a beard to her knees!'

Elder-Basilisk · Feb 6, 2008

Much as westerners are loathe to talk about it openly or in mixed company, humans have a large degree of sexual dimorphism. Though there are individual differences, in general human men are both larger and stronger than human women--and quite significantly so. (Compare the average, median, and mean height and weight of men and women in any study if you doubt this--or if you want to look at extreme cases of both sexes, compare the height and weight of NBA players to that of WNBA players). That's genetics. It's not true of every real life species (and in some it even works the other way) but it is most likely one of the more significant reasons that women have not generally taken a combat oriented role in most (evolutionarily speaking) successful human societies.

But if you're looking for a reason that combatants of non-human tribes are generally male, sexual dimorphism and population growth (as mentioned before, the reproductive capability of a society is more significantly limited by the number of females than by the number of males).

DrunkonDuty · Feb 6, 2008

Dwarves IMC are egalitarian, there's no distinction between the male and female in terms of size or physical power. Thus they can play equal roles in combat. In evolutionary terms this may not be a great idea but that I guess is why they have such a unified society. And standing in the society is not based on role in war in any case. In fact soldiers, although respected, have little political power. Guilds are where the movers and shakers go and there are no gender boundaries. Age boundaries, yes.

Haven't much thought about other races, but then my current campaign has been going a long time now and it's Dwarf-only game.

(musing noises)

Last year I played in a short lived Orc game. All PCs were Orcs (except the one player who MUST play elves and thus took a Drow.) The female Orc character was treated as a second rate citizen, especially by my character. Which was a shame since she dealt out the healing and always claimed others needed it more than me.

In terms of PCs I never make any difference in stats terms. No reason why a female player should be disadvantaged in a game. Even if the majority of women of fantasy race X are smaller and physically weaker I simply hand wave it and say that the PC is an exceptional case. One of the rare cases where I'll sacrifice verisimiltude for a meta game reason. I will have occasional NPCs give a female character a hard time because of their gender, but that's to illustrate what an arse the NPC is.

Actually, one of my "started but never completed" campaign worlds is based entirely on humanoid races. I've gone into some detail on societies including gender roles. If anyone likes I can trawl through it when I get home tonight and post a synopsis of what I dreamed up.

Dannyalcatraz · Feb 6, 2008

Dwarves have no gender/sex in my world. They are created by being carved from stone; life is breathed into them by priestly ritual.

I'm doing something very much like that myself in one of my campaign works in progress!

As for others...

A "draconic" humanoid race in one of my campaigns is extremely sexually dimorphic. The females are large, winged and warlike. The males are the smaller, cunning spellcasters.

A fey/elf plant race is only distinguishable by sex (by outsiders) when somebody flowers...

Many of my shapechangers are hermaphroditic, either all of the time or serially (like some lizards or fish).

Dias Ex Machina · Feb 6, 2008

As you might have figured out by the preposterous banner ad, I like females in all my races. There's no fun in everyone being made the same (which is my philosophy in life, as a matter of fact).

What's fun sometimes is writing how gender roles deviate in different cultures/races from what we know or expect, especially in the fields of courtship. I don't think I would ever create a hermaphroditic race unless they still required two sides to mate. No asexual budding in my books! Call me a romantic.