Can sexism be good for plot?

[Thornir Alekeg]

Well, I guess I just have not worried about it too much in my campaign. With three female players, one of them my wife, I will admit to avoiding purposely making it overtly sexist, but with that said, it is usually barmaids, the drunk male NPCs often harass the female PCs and the majority of guards and and soldiers are men. One of the female players plays her character as a very proper young lady who knits and does needlework and plys the big strong paladin for help at every opportunity ("Oh, this rain is so dreadful! Would you mind if I used your tent tonight and you slept outside? Oh, what a dear you are!"). On the flip side I have had fun when a strong female NPC started hitting on the same paladin. Can you say "cat fight"?

 

[Haradim]

Do you not worry about the issue, but still have a world that conforms to traditional gender roles (barmaids are chicks, barkeeps are men; noble lords fight and hunt, ladies do needlework; kings are always male, that type of thing)?

This is about as far as we go, when gender issues are brought up at all. We don't really worry about racism either; in fact, if anyone is likley to get riled up over someone's race, it'll probably be a PC. Nobody else really seems to care a great deal.

Though much of this may come from not really seeing much gain from including '-isms', for me at least, it's partly due to indecision regarding the severity of the '-ism'. Too minor (grumblings, minor comments in taverns, etc), and they won't even care to notice unless they feel like hassling whomever is treating them in a sexist/racist/etc manner. Much more than that (higher prices for half-orcs, people treating women as second class, etc), and they might just leave town, regardless of the peril about to fall upon it (assuming they don't get themselves in trouble over these situations).

Really notable '-isms' (militias/militaries who order women to stay out of combat, or the same groups who will likely leave a half-orc to die on the field, or societies that have strong, fixed roles for various groups, and who look down on those who try to go against the way of things) would likely lead to no characters on the receiving end of that treatment, opportunity to 'fight the injustice (or whatever)' or not, unless they were Neutral (or Evil) enough to really make a mess of things, and not necessarily for the better.

I wouldn't mind including racism or sexism in various parts of my campaigns, as it can present an interesting foe for PCs to fight - one that can't necessarily be beaten by skill rolls or the edge of a blade. Unfortunately, I don't think it would fly in my group, certainly not if taken to a notable degree.

 

[Wombat]

In the world I am currently designing, women developed magical powers; essentially they started as sorcerers. Men far later learned the trick through wizardry, but it is harder to learn (you must begin your character's life as a wizard, due to training restrictions, etc.), while women may be either wizards (with the same restrictions) or sorcerers (may develop at any time). On the other hand, not all women are sorcerers, only a small percentage of the population.

Conversely, men control most of the military; much like in our own world, women arediscouraged from the military as they are the main child-rearers -- anatomy and all that. This means that most weapon training and the like is a Men Only club.

The learned are split pretty much equally between men and women. Judges, scholars, and the like could as likely be men as women, but they tend to bring their own prejudices with them (as always happens) and there are endless intellectual debates over the relative merits of male versus female.

This means that there is a state of semi-equality. Few women are allowed to train with weapons, few men learn magic. Each is powerful in their own regard, but the genders are not precisely equal. Politically there is something of a tug-of-war -- while the society is nominally patriarchal, at least as far as naming practices are concerned, inheritance is left far more open. Some families go strictly primogeniture -- whoever is first born, regardless of sex, gets the whole ball of wax. Others go for first male. Others go for equal shares.

Politically the main kingdom follows straight primogeniture for the royal family, but the major noble families choose on their own.

In other words, sexism is built into the world, but it is a multi-faceted sexism where both sides can claim superiority in different spheres of influence. Since I have four men and two women in my group, they are now excited about how this will play out -- and they are adding extra background bits to muddle the picture further!

 

[Planesdragon]

I'm not going to make a sexist world when 4 of my players are women, two of them are pregnant, and one of them is my wife.

I think that about sums it up.

Do you realize how sexist it is to assume that (1) sexism would be directed against women and (2) that women would be offended by it?

The classic no-men Amazon society is more sexist, not less, than our civilization at its worst.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I try and run societies with reduced sexisim - this is both for my comfort and for the female player I game with. This has always been a sore point because sexism has been a fact for nearly all of Civ. and ignoring this element creates a problem with believable, historical socities.
I do have expected roles for women, such as gentile noblewomen and obvious minorities in fighting professions, they tend to be inclined towards druidism, magic and some clerical orders. People tend to consider high str women less attractive, and somewhat uncouth. People outside these roles are common enough not to raise eyebrows, but unless they have proven themselves some sexism occurs.
In a world where you can never be sure if the stranger is capable of meteor swarming the town, polietness is important.
The most fun we have had with this is a player's new stepmother telling her how pretty she looked in dresses, and giving her several new ones. Since the PC is a very physical monk, she took it with a lot of (well Roleplayed) quiet resentment.
The demi-humans are execeptions, with halflings having a matraical society run by psions and dwarves appear to be beared and brawny regardless, and consider a dwarf's sex a personal question. Many dwarven courtship rituals concern discovering this diplomatically. One player who went on to rule a dwarven kingdom (as an NPC) never more than hinted that they were female.

 

[Ibram]

Sexism has never been a very active part of my game. Its just not something often experienced by my players... but then who in their right mid is going to walk up an pinch a girls butt if they know that that girl is Jenna the Giant Slayer that just defeated an entire army of orcs in hand to hand combat?

 

[Zimri]

Do you not worry about the issue, but still have a world that conforms to traditional gender roles (barmaids are chicks, barkeeps are men; noble lords fight and hunt, ladies do needlework; kings are always male, that type of thing)?

Barmaids WILL always be female, there are serving boys as well though.

Barkeeps can be either gender.

Noble Lords do hunt and fight, so do Noble Ladies. I suppose anyone with adequate manual dexterity and wisdom/intelligence could do needlework.

Kings WILL ALWAYS be male. Queens can rule countries just as effectively though

 

[Ogre Mage]

Menzoberranzan

In 2nd edition, I played in a cleric of Lloth in a Menzoberranzan drow-based campaign. We were part of the 36th noble house of the city (but moved up to 32rd). The sexism, of course, was extremely pervasive and heavy handed. As a man, it was interesting to play a female PC who, through the lens of her society, saw men as second class citizens and subjugated them brutally. It was the only time I can think of that I played an "oppressor" PC. At first I had trouble with this, but after I read Homeland by R.A. Salvatore, I got pretty good at it. The DM was very skilled in integrating the sexist elements into the campaign world (his NPC portrayal of our Matron Mother was dead on, priestesses got first pick of treasure, etc.) and overall it was quite a rewarding, if disturbing, RP experience.

 

[SableWyvern]

I have no problem with including defined, even sexist, gender roles in grittier fantasy campaigns, and having these accepted as normal and good, even by heroes. If there were females in the group, I would gladly alter this balance if it would cause in-game problems (either due to an inability to effectively play a successful and heroic female, or if they simply found it off-putting).

In my more epic games, and some grittier ones, there tends to be less or no real distinction between sexes most of the time.

It's worth noting, I think, that sexism makes some traditionally heroic roles easier to play (eg, the damsel in distress). Of course, some people will find the very notion of the damsel in distress offensive to females, but until that is an issue for my group, it is not, IMO, worth giving much thought to.

What I am quite annoyed by is the removal of sexism, or any form of bigotry, from a setting where it should exist. Not RPing, but Dr Quinn Equality Woman is my best example of this. The idea of a community in the American Wild West that pretty much lived by modern Western values (or at least, saw the error of their ways when they didn't) completely destroyed any opportunity for me to Suspend my Disbelief. Not that it was the sort of show that would have interested me anyway ... but if someone wanted to run a Deadlands game with that kind of morality, and make it important to the campaign, I would be very wary of playing.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I do not have rules for gender differences in my game even though it happens in real life.
I do not have rules for weight differences in my game even though it happens in real life.
I do not have rules for eating differences in my game even though it happens in real life.
I do not have rules for sleeping differences in my game even though it happens in real life.
I do not have rules for going to the bathroom differences in my game even though it happens in real life.
I do not have rules for imitating a squaking chicken differences in my game even though it happens in real life.

Women are equal to men in my fantasy games because women's liberation started in prehistory when the first woman lobbed a fireball at the first men's outhouse. I don't worry about these issues. I don't see how they make for a better game. I don't see how they make for a more realistic game in the same sense that simply using the time to plan out the next encounter would be better spent. I don't care what my female or male players think about these things and since I spend my time planning the adventure than worrying about stuff like this, they have yet to complain or notice my lack of attention to these issues.



Just my two cents.