Gender, Settings, Mechanics, and Everything Else

[Wik]

I was playing the old PS game Final Fantasy: Tactics earlier today, and had a bit of a laugh when I realized that women characters could use a special weapon accessible only to womenfolk - a handbag. Of course, the game is old, so maybe that sort of blatant sexism can be forgiven. Or maybe not.

But it raised a question, one that'd been on the backburners of my head for a while. Namely, what role should gender play in a fantasy campaign? And what role should it play in the mechanics of an RPG?

Those are, I should mention, two entirely different questions.

Setting and gender is one of those things that gets overlooked quite often these days, in our drive for political correctness. Fantasy worlds have become, for the most part, more egalitarian than our own world - a world where women are still not allowed to fight in the armed forces, for example. And while that's cool and all, I personally like settings that play around with that a bit.

Is it alright to have a setting where women (or men!) are relegated to secondary social status? What about having a setting where women (or men) are the only gender allowed in certain positions - leadership, for example, or religious functions? I was thinking of allowing only females to be priests for one of the main religions in a setting I'm working on, and saying that only men are allowed to be sailors (women are supposed cursed as crewmates).

I wanted to have a bunch of other situations where genders were defined, and set it up in such a way that female players could challenge those situations should they so please.

As for mechanics, same question. Is it alright to have mechanics that differentiate between the genders? While some mechanics might be purely fluff (for example, if I said only males could be sailors, it might make sense to prevent female players from starting with the "sailor" class or whatever), what about mechanical changes that are less fluff-like in nature? Can anyone think of situations where those mechanical changes are not obviously bad?

Before anyone says "talk to your group" or "see what the girls in your group think", let's assume that they're generally on board with my ideas, and wouldn't mind a bit of gender differentation, so long as I wasn't always throwing boys club stuff at them that excluded them (FWIW, my setting is still egalitarian, mostly).

 

[Stormonu]

I've run across a couple of RPGs that have a slightly different outlook towards women - Space 1889 is one that stands out in my mind.

If everyone's on board with the idea, and as long as every character still has something to do when things "go south" and the adventure begins, I don't see a problem with limiting certain roles to men or women, if it fits the campaign's society.

Of course, all throughout our history, there's always been exceptions to the social norm - and adventurers are almost always exceptional in some way. I don't think I'd make a hard limit against certain roles, but someone wanting to step out of the social norm should be ready for the scorn that would likely be heaped on them if they're discovered (the effete male who poses as a priest, the disguised lady captain who can outcuss her companions, etc.). Someone will always want to buck tradition, often just to see if they can get away with it.

 

[S'mon]

I think it's fine to create settings with a variety of gender roles, and to have realistic humans where the average male is much stronger than the average female. But for a D&D game (or similar action-adventure genre) female PCs (or males in a matriarchy) should be an exception, operating outside normal gender norms, and not subject to stat penalties that penalise particular class/sex combinations.

 

[Kzach]

Political correctness is it's own worst enemy. I feel it does more to harm the thing it's trying to protect, because it closes down healthy debate and places a priority on ethical grandstanding.

Which is of course why this topic will, more than likely, be closed down any minute now...

...in before the lock! Whoo!

 

[S'mon]

Political correctness is it's own worst enemy. I feel it does more to harm the thing it's trying to protect, because it closes down healthy debate and places a priority on ethical grandstanding.

Which is of course why this topic will, more than likely, be closed down any minute now...

...in before the lock! Whoo!

AIR the last one went 20+ pages and one charming fellow called me a rapist for saying that men are on average stronger than women.

 

[Roadkill101]

I consider characters to be an exception to the norm and as such typically disregard any mechanical rules that make gender differences a factor.

Setting fluff can be a bit more problematic in regard to any gender bias. Say for example the Forgottenhawk setting says there is no such thing as a female fighter. Well I would allow a a player to play a female fighter, and depending on how true to the setting I wanted to stay, then there may be only the one female fighter in the entire world as a character, possibly creating all kinds of challenges for that players character to overcome.

Normally, I run a homebrew setting and I can't think of any time where I personally implemented any forms of gender bias (other than that provided by nature i.e. males are incapable of giving birth outside of some magical means).

So when playing games where players are playing characters (oppossed to say a Mech), I prefer gender bias to not be present or at least be a non-issue for characters.

Maybe a bit off topic, but if IIRC, the 1e PHB, in the Foreword or Introduction, there is a bit about gender not being an issue. Yet when it comes to reading about the stats there is a table that lists the maximum value of a stat where females do not have the same potential as males (and further divided by race). So every time I see a topic on a board pop up about character gender bias, I am reminded of this discrepency. So if the game was supposed be neutral concerning gender bias, why were such included?

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I don't think I like the idea of mechanical differences, as they generally perpetuate stereotypes. On average, women are lighter than men and not as tall (let's forget for a moment the whole strength debate). Yes, the women you meet in the campaign will be shorter than the men you meet.

But the players are not average.

If a player wants to have a tall female player character, totally fine.


Having said that, I'll share two instances where I think, and would enjoy, gender affecting play.

1. Equipment and minor "skills". I'm not suggesting these be requirements, but perhaps norms. I'm thinking of modernish gaming here. A female character might have makeup on her person. She might be able to use it for disguise, and would likely (if she was a woman who wore makeup regularly, rather than a woman who eschewed makeup) be more adept at applying it than a man. Note that this does not rule out male crossdressers or male actors who apply their own makeup.

2. Cultural reactions. Different cultures might react to female or male pcs in different ways. To a degree, this is ok. It's better, as well, if there are both pros and cons to each gender, and for some cultures (e.g. amazons, matriarchies) to flip the common pros and cons by gender.


It's somewhat delicate, because it's usually not fun to play a character that is consistently the victim of bigotry, and oftentimes cultural norms, when brought to the level of sterotype, lead to that. On the other hand, why even play a female character (or male) if there is no difference between the two in terms of interacting with the world?


Whether the players are male or female, and at least in D&D, but really, most roleplaying games, they want to play a character worthy of a story. They play Joan of Arc, not French Peasant #4. Joan of Arc was notable, in part, because she was a female warrior and commander in a time when that was not the norm.

 

[Cor Azer]

I have no problem with gender roles being different in the game setting, with restrictions on who is generally accepted in what role, but enforcement has always been through roleplaying and NPC reactions - at the scale of simulation done in most RPGs, mechanical differences are so minute so as to make them pointless.

I did have one female player ask me once why I never used female BBEGs, do which I replied, "Just because you never figured out their schemes, doesn't mean they weren't there."

I've used many different stereotypes for males and females, young and old, and I've probably broken just as many. I've been fortunate that my players have always trusted me that any gender restrictions or bias in my games has been intended to make the game more memorable rather than any attempt to screw any players.

I note that my game group has been nearly half, or just over half, women for nearly 15 years, so I wonder if that mix of gender in the players (and hence, often in characters) brings such societal issues more to the front?

 

[KahnyaGnorc]

Depends on the cultures you create for your world. An amazonian culture would rarely have a male front-line warrior, while a more-traditional Tolkienesque dwarven culture typically won't have females front and center (or even out of their kingdoms).

One way to avoid problems, I think, is to have a variety of cultures and views of gender roles, with not a single one particularly dominant (or having a culture where gender doesn't dictate roles being dominant).

 

[Nagol]

My typical campaign milieu has a variety of cultures with a variety of social conventions and expectations for different sections of the population (gender, caste, background, class, etc. -- pretty much the gamut). The players get to choose where they'd like to go, where they'd like to settle down (if anywhere), what is acceptable, what to rail against and what to support.