Genders - What's the difference?

[Barastrondo]

D&D has very little in common with today's Urban Fantasy except for many of them have characters that play D&D or reference it in some way.

Whoo, I disagree profoundly. A Song of Ice and Fire, the Abhorsen trilogy, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Codex Alera, Bas-Lag, the Taltos books, the Malazan books, Deed of Paksennarion -- all written by people who once gamed regularly or still do, and it frequently shows if it isn't out-and-out showcased (like Mieville's "adventurers" in Perdido Street Station).

It's in that weird place where you can argue that yes, D&D isn't as directly inspired by pre-existing fiction as it once was -- but at the same time, a lot of what's on bookshelves is directly or indirectly inspired by D&D. The only real difference is that most fantasy fiction that owes something to D&D scales back and limits its palette, whereas D&D, as always, incorporates whatever it can into itself.

 

[Crothian]

Whoo, I disagree profoundly. A Song of Ice and Fire, the Abhorsen trilogy, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Codex Alera, Bas-Lag, the Taltos books, the Malazan books, Deed of Paksennarion -- all written by people who once gamed regularly or still do, and it frequently shows if it isn't out-and-out showcased (like Mieville's "adventurers" in Perdido Street Station).

No you don't. That's not what I define as Urban Fantasy so our definitions are different for the term. From Wikipedia

"Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements" and "The prerequisite is that they must be primarily set in a city."

So, I look at fantasy set in cities but also modern times like Dresden Files, Mercy Thompson, Weather Wardon series, Kelly Armstrong Women of the Other World, Kim Harrison's series, Anita Blake, and others like those.

Edit: And I'm not saying one definition is more correct just that we are obviously not thinking about the same exact genre when we hear the term.

 

[Barastrondo]

No you don't. That's not what I define as Urban Fantasy so our definitions are different for the term. From Wikipedia

"Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements" and "The prerequisite is that they must be primarily set in a city."

So, I look at fantasy set in cities but also modern times like Dresden Files, Mercy Thompson, Weather Wardon series, Kelly Armstrong Women of the Other World, Kim Harrison's series, Anita Blake, and others like those.

I had to go back and reread the jump that went from "fantasy stories and literature" over to "urban fantasy" in particular. I think I found it!

So, yes, we don't disagree. My post is probably less of a disagreement with yours and more of posting anecdotal support for GSHamster's position. Books written now take more of an inclusive stance overall than they once did, and perhaps part of that is due to gaming.

(Urban fantasy is probably more of an argument why games like Vampire should not have mechanical differences between the sexes -- which is fortunate, as they don't.)

 

[Janx]

Whoo, I disagree profoundly. A Song of Ice and Fire, the Abhorsen trilogy, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Codex Alera, Bas-Lag, the Taltos books, the Malazan books, Deed of Paksennarion -- all written by people who once gamed regularly or still do, and it frequently shows if it isn't out-and-out showcased (like Mieville's "adventurers" in Perdido Street Station).

It's in that weird place where you can argue that yes, D&D isn't as directly inspired by pre-existing fiction as it once was -- but at the same time, a lot of what's on bookshelves is directly or indirectly inspired by D&D. The only real difference is that most fantasy fiction that owes something to D&D scales back and limits its palette, whereas D&D, as always, incorporates whatever it can into itself.

I don't think you 2 are debating the same thing.

the books B cites are Fantasy novels written by gamers

The books C alludes to are Urban Fantasy novels that have characters that are often gamers.

Running an Anita Blake, Dresden Files, Mercy Thomson RPG game would be quite different from a "traditional" D&D game. Which is what I believe C is talking about.

Urban Fantasy is NOT the same as Fantasy (assuming I mean sword and sorcery for the most part in a pseudo medieval world, definitely not our world in modern times way).

In the case of Codex Alera written by Jim Butcher, who not only is a gamer, but also a LARPer, he also writes the Dresden Files, where the protagonist also plays a D&D-like game.

D&D seems to be inspired by sword and sorcery fiction. It doesn't seem to be inspired by Urban Fantasy, as that genre has a diffrent style than D&D.

For the record, I read Dresden Files. My wife reads a metric-crapton of Urban Fantasy as her current obsession. I've read some of the new comics, and watched the shows with her. I'm fairly "up" on it.

D&D has no Saturday night specials, Chlorofiends, walmart parking lot battles, vampires with teenage angst, issues with the general populace being unaware of the magical, or everything's normal but voodoo and zombie's work.

It just ain't the same, though I could use the rules to run a game (more like d20 modern + the magic add-on)

On the gender thing, It's my observation by my wife's books, that they more often have a strong female protagonist. And a lot of sex. dresden files being the exception (he abstains a lot, and he's a guy). Heck, the Dresden TV show got canceled partly because SyFy bough ads for younger men, but the demographic watching it was 30something women. it also got canceled because the CEO invested in wrestling, and the VP backing the show didn't.

 

[GSHamster]

Yeah, I meant Urban Fantasy as Crothian points up. It was more of an example of a sub-genre of Fantasy. I was sort of thinking about fantasy RPGs in general, rather D&D specifically, when I wrote that post.

But it wasn't the only sub-genre I pointed. Young Adult fantasy is often a lot closer to D&D, and strong female protagonists are very large part of that sub-genre.

Do you really want to take a potential female gamer--one who's grown up with stories by Tamora Pierce or Robin McKinley--and then tell her that in D&D, her Keladry of Mindalen is a worse fighter solely because she is female?

Exactly how long do you think that female gamer will last as a D&D player?

 

[JustKim]

Well, we have game mechanics for species (elf, dwarf, human, and so on) - that does more marginalizing of some choices and not others, right? Do you object to them? How are gender mechanics different than race mechanics?

Note, I'm not a fan of gender-based mechanics for humans or near-humans (like dwarves and elves and orcs, and so on), but I think the answer to the above questions are important to the discussion.

A better parallel would be to compare game mechanics based on gender to game mechanics based on real racial ethnicities.

Crothian, if everything is either male or female, and you give +2 Strength to everything that is male, that's little different from a Strength penalty to everything that's female. Either way, my female warrior is inferior to her male counterpart in some way. Her role has been relegated so that being a very good warrior is no longer a choice. If it's been replaced by a bonus that enables her to be a very good healer, that doesn't matter one speck to me if I want to play a female warrior. That's what I mean when I say I want the full range of choices available to male characters.

 

[Crothian]

Crothian, if everything is either male or female, and you give +2 Strength to everything that is male, that's little different from a Strength penalty to everything that's female. Either way, my female warrior is inferior to her male counterpart in some way. Her role has been relegated so that being a very good warrior is no longer a choice. If it's been replaced by a bonus that enables her to be a very good healer, that doesn't matter one speck to me if I want to play a female warrior. That's what I mean when I say I want the full range of choices available to male characters.

It could be we are looking at the game from very different places. Numbers are IMO not the be all end all of a character. I would not consider a Fighter (any edition) with a 16 Strength to be less worthy of one with an 18. Even if all other traits and abilities were equal which we know is never the case. Many times in my own limited experience it is more about what actions the character takes and how the character is played that define it more so then stats on a sheet. But as I said that is something not everyone does as play styles differ.

Also, the literature of young women in fantasy are filled with characters that are not as strong as their male counterparts but still become better fighters through emphasizing their own combat advantages. So, it seems like it would be an accepted arch type by the genre.

 

[Celebrim]

A better parallel would be to compare game mechanics based on gender to game mechanics based on real racial ethnicities.

Crothian, if everything is either male or female, and you give +2 Strength to everything that is male, that's little different from a Strength penalty to everything that's female. Either way, my female warrior is inferior to her male counterpart in some way. Her role has been relegated so that being a very good warrior is no longer a choice. If it's been replaced by a bonus that enables her to be a very good healer, that doesn't matter one speck to me if I want to play a female warrior. That's what I mean when I say I want the full range of choices available to male characters.

This depends very greatly on the other details of the implementation of the system.

1) In the system, is strength the be-all-end of all of being a great warrior?
2) In the system, is there a way for a warrior to maximize the benefits of being 'wise'?

Suppose we had an elective set of powers that gave various bonuses to warriors on the basis of high wisdom: reduced chance of surprise, accuracy bonus with missile weapons, better initiative, better defence versus combat manuevers, and so forth. Suppose further more that in combination with the usual perks of high wisdom a 'high wisdom fighter' is a viable concept under the rules so that conceivable one might be tempted to build a warrior which did not maximize strength in order to buy a reasonable level of wisdom. Under such a system it is conceivable that a trait, 'Female', which granted a racial bonus to Wisdom in exchange for a racial penalty to strength would be desirable for certain builds. Sure, you might be inferior in some ways, but you might be superior in others.

We might as well complain that characters with the 'Female' trait made better wise warriors than characters without.

The ultimate question at stake as you make it seems to be no more than whether gender ought to be nothing more than fluff and window dressing. I'd want to know why gender alone of all things seems to you to be best rendered as fluff? Would you really prefer that any other significant aspect of of a characters background not be reflected on the character sheet, or is it that you think that gender is entirely cosmetic and superficial?

 

[Celebrim]

Also, the literature of young women in fantasy are filled with characters that are not as strong as their male counterparts but still become better fighters through emphasizing their own combat advantages. So, it seems like it would be an accepted arch type by the genre.

I'm very strongly reminded of the scenes in 'The Gamers II: Dorkness Rising' where the pushy chauvanist character insists that the fighter has to be a burly, stupid tank in order to be effective, only to have the female attendee successfully create an optimized fighter that abuses various options in the game system that favor combatants with a high dexterity and intelligence.

 

[Janx]

Is all about being unfairly penalized? What if the gender you wanted to play got bonuses but no real penalties then? Or it was well balanced and the penalties were done fairly?

Let's assume that a +2 strength is as good as +2 dex (sort of is, one gives +1 to hit, the other gives +1 to AC, negating it)

Giving males +2 STR and females +2 DEX would shift what gender I have to play to optimize for a class.

Want to be a burly fighter, better be a male. Going to play a rogue, better be a female.

Sure, somebody can argue "it's only +2, whats the diff between 16 and 18" but the reality is, I'd rather have an 18 if I can get it.

Now elves get a +2 dex, so what's the difference between picking a race, and picking a gender?

I think the difference can be pretty big. Picking a race is fluff. It's part of let's pretend. Picking gender? That's something some people struggle with and have surgeries for.

Top that off with playing cross-gender is usually creepy, offensively done, or so bland that there wasn't a point to doing it. So why encourage or penalize it?