Monsters, Women, Glory, and Gold!

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Hello WSmith! How are you my friend? How is your family? Write me will you?

Thanks for the compliments! I have printed some of my threads, and other threads I have saved to the computer. I like Quaggoths, too! I'm thinking about reprising some articles that I did in the past. There seems to be so many new posters here, and a lot of new interest. Thus, I think there could be some more cool discussions!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[mmadsen]

mmadsen: actually, I would envision a conanesque "priest" as a social status, not as a class (just as Conan, the "barbarian" seems more like a fighter/rogue than the D&D berserker).

Absolutely, Melan. If anything, the Expert (or the CoC Investigator) would match a priest better than any D&D class.

Priests could be fighters, clerics (all of them with inflict, and no turning undead - maybe something else like two domain spells/level?), wizards or just about anything else. Several religions in my campaign have this loose definition of "priest" and it has worked well so far.

I don't mind a loose definition of "priest", but I can't recall any priests in Conan's adventures that were anything but spellcasters (mesmerists, illusionists, or demon-summoners) or simple priests. I guess some of the temple servants would be Fighters.

Demihumans should be either out or very rare.

Agreed. In that vein, I'm surprised Horacio suggested goblinoids as monsters.

Indeed, it is obvious to me that the creators of Original D&D didn't really care about them - they are just fighters or mages with a few extra abilities. And, if you look at the famous NPCs of the Greyhawk campaign, you notice that each and every one of them was a human, with not a single nonhuman among the magic-users.

Those arbitrary level limits kicked in...

On world and feel: a "proper" Howard-type world would have lots of the following things: wastelands, jungles, decadent wizards, lots of cheesecake (Frazetta is a good example of this - Vallejo is not ), uncaring gods, serpent-men, giant animals (and not too many dragons), unforgiving deserts, real evil and cruelty for its own sake, slavery as an accepted reality virtually everywhere, etc.

All good points. To my list then, I should add not just varied cultures but varied geography and terrain, and general evil and cruelty, with rampant slavery. (Oh, and I so agree about Frazetta vs. Vallejo!)

 

[sword-dancer]

This has got me thinking of exactly what elements go into a Conan-esque world:

• The monster palette: degenerate subhumans, ape-men, and man-apes (all Orcs with no armor and simple weapons); Dire Apes, Snakes, Tigers, etc.; an occasional Fiend/Demon.
• The technology: ancient, not medieval; giant (pardon, cyclopean) structures, but no plate armor (or crossbows?).
• The cultures: European, Middle Eastern, Far Eastern, and African.
• The magic: no friendly Gandalf/Merlin wizards, just power-mad sorcerers. (And despite the ritualistic fashion of much of the magic, some of it is quite combat oriented. Conan still wins with cold steel though.) Call of Cthulhu magic will probably fit quite nicely.
• Ancient Temples, Ancient Races, Ancient Rites, Ancient Lost Gods, etc.
• The vocab: savage, demoniac, ichor, wolfish, primal; learn to speak the way REH writes.

[*]The technology: ancient, not medieval; giant (pardon, cyclopean) structures, but no plate armor (or crossbows?).

The hyborean realms have High Medieval Tech, Crossbow and Fullplate, read Conan the Conqueror, for example, Conan the Rebell or Usupator.

[*]The magic: no friendly Gandalf/Merlin wizards, just power-mad sorcerers. (And despite the ritualistic fashion of much of the magic, some of it is quite combat oriented. Conan still wins with cold steel though.) Call of Cthulhu magic will probably fit quite nicely.

No Magic missile, fireballs, Ligtning etc.

By classes ad the non-magical Bard, Healer and such thing, add the Wot Woodsman would made sense. IMPOV

Demihumans, serpent mean, Wolfman etc would be enemies of humanity.

Priest as spellcasters, I would give priests who are casters a harder save for their targets or less risk for themselves.
DErketo priestess who wants to take on a man.
Set priest when he conjurs and commands demons in Sets work and so.
Friendly Casting priests only the hidden sect of Azura use Magic.
Mithra priests are forbidden to use magic, but give them bonuses to saves.

Death is the least danger to fear when it comes to magic, your soul could be also in terrible danger.

Shark

If some of your older posts would be repeated, I would be very intersted.
And i want also to know how the game of the Vampire King goes along.

 

[kenjib]

Exoticism, I think, is one of the key elements of obtaining the Howard feel. Elephant headed demigods, eastern cities of vice and sultry women, occult curses of egyptian god kings, remote tropical islands with bizarre and deadly inhabitants - all that kind of good stuff. It also seems hard to capture the feel without something akin to Atlantis casting it's shadow over everything that followed - some kind of lost civilization that was highly advanced and which left ruins scattered across the world.

 

[Mistwell]

"voluptuous and beautiful women" ?!?

Begin Rant.

I've gotta do it. It's going to bring heat down on me, I know. And I don't like being critical of creativity (nor any form of censorship). But I feel compelled to beat my head against this rock anyway, in hopes that somebody will understand.

The title of this thread, "Monsters, Women, Glory, and Gold!", along with part of the description stating "voluptuous and beautiful women, who are also often terrifyingly dangerous as they are seductive" is (here it comes) very sexist, sterotypical, and the kind of thing I was hoping was finally, at last, gone from this game.

It's exactly the kind of statement that makes some (not all) women turn away from this game. It makes some (not all) women feel alienated, and unwelcome. When I asked some women (not a statistically large sample, but the only sample I had) why they did not play the game, or why they waited to play the game until they were older, they all said essentially the same thing: "Boys, when they are teenagers and first playing the game, did not want girls playing. When I tried to play, they didn't explain the rules very well (and the rule books were over-whelmingly large and complex, requiring a huge commitment of time to figure out, which didn't seem worth doing if I didn't feel welcome to begin with), they didn't treat me like an equal, and they made fun of me when I did something "wrong". I think it was a male bonding kind of thing."

I think this game attracts a disproportionate number of men. I think it would be a good thing for this game, and for the entire genre of fantasy fiction as a whole, to attract more women. You can disagree with either/both those statements, and all I will say is "fair enough". I have no large-scale study proving that many more men play this game than do women, I just know it's true (on a level that I think a court would accept under the Judicial Notice rule - any reasonable person with even limited experience in the field in question would accept it as fact). And as for it being a good thing to increase the number of women interested in this game, well, that really is just a matter of opinion. I think it would increase the popularity of the game as a whole, would help reach the critical mass of interest necessary to break in to the mainstream of entertainment, would result in more diverse supplements to the game, and that all of those things would be a good thing.

I'm making this post with full knowledge of what some of the more compelling responses will be:

"Conan-type fantasies portrayed women like that, and they were interesting/cool books/movies. We shouldn't have to change that just for political correctness. Nobody is making you play your game like this, you play your politically correct setting, and we will play our kind of setting."

Those really are all good responses. I still, however, think it does not outweigh the interest of getting rid of the sexism in the game. And it IS sexist. Yes, there might be "strong and handsome men, who are also often terrifyingly dangerous as they are alluring" in the setting in question. But that wasn't the focus of the setting, wasn't in the title of the post, and misses the point even if it had also been mentioned. Men do not feel alienated from this game. Men have had no trouble being portrayed as heros in the past. If you think it is wrong that women are turned off by focusing on voluptuousness and seduction, fine. But (some) women DO shy away from the game because of those things, and the reputation that the game carries, going back to the first edition of this game, of drawings of women wearing silly chainmail bikini's with breasts that are larger than their heads.

Let the flames begin. I know I won't persuade the vast majority of people here. It's probably a futile thing to even say any of this. I know that, 15 years ago when I was a teenager first playing this game, I would have disagreed with this post myself.

But then maybe someone will rethink this issue next time it comes up, even if they disagree with me now. I can hope that this genre will grow up, can't I?

End Rant.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Mistwell wrote:

Quote:

"The title of this thread, "Monsters, Women, Glory, and Gold!", along with part of the description stating "voluptuous and beautiful women, who are also often terrifyingly dangerous as they are seductive" is (here it comes) very sexist, sterotypical, and the kind of thing I was hoping was finally, at last, gone from this game.

It's exactly the kind of statement that makes some (not all) women turn away from this game. It makes some (not all) women feel alienated, and unwelcome."
____________________________________________________
End Quote.

(SHARK chomps violently at the air, before lighting up a fine cigar!)

Well, Mistwell, the description of the women characters was a obviously demonstrable allusion to the women opponents that Conan often faced off against. As to being sexist, etc, etc, well, Robert E. Howard was himself very different from men today. Mr. Howard lived and wrote in the 1920's and into the early and mid 1930's. That was obviously a good seventy years ago. Thus, the allusion is simply accurate to the CONAN ENVIRONMENT. It won't set well with arch-feminists at all. I don't think it was expressly meant to. Besides, in speaking of the CONAN ENVIRONMENT, I don't really think someone that concerned with political correctness would even be interested in reading Conan.

One could make a case though for very strong and capable women as allies to Conan, throughout many stories. Beyond this, there are some problems, Mistwell.

I wrote such specifically and conscious of the CONAN ENVIRONMENT. You are reading far too much into what *I* wrote, as I didn't say any such things. My thread has not a thing to do with sexism, oppression of women, blah, blah, blah. You have to really get the Lego set out to build such an argument from what I wrote.

Next, if "women", somewhere, somehow, *out there* are so hyper-sensitive and shallow as to *avoid playing D&D* because of *My Thread*--then, really, too bad. Good. I didn't write the thread with such politically correct baggage in mind. I'm not out to save the frippin world, nor am I out to somehow recruit every woman possible to play a damn game. It's just pouring way too much socio-political ideology into the game, in my opinion.

My enjoyment of playing D&D, enjoying the CONAN ENVIRONMENT, and blending elements as desired, to play a fun game, has not a whit to do with how I personally regard my wife in particular, women who play in my game, or women in general. And if there are women who can't separate the difference, then I wouldn't imagine many people wanting them to play anyways. I certainly wouldn't welcome them to play in my group. And ultimately, it displays that they have far deeper issues to deal with than a intellectual thread dealing with a role-playing game focused on a fantasy environment.

Cheers! (You did ask for it, Mistwell!)

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[S'mon]

My wife was reading this thread earlier and she asked me to point out that she is voluptuous and alluring.

Good, well-reasoned response Shark. BTW I find that at least in PBEMs, a lot of women do want to play in Conanesque games and find Tolkienesque settings somewhat insipid. It varies by person. Different people like different things. Eg many women prefer Anne Rice-based Vampire & LARPing to round-table D&D dungeon-bashing, that doesn't mean that either is an invalid play style for either men or women.

I do find it offensive that people try to censor others' play styles or settings for such abstract reasoning as the poster presented. What the hobby needs is variety, a variety of settings and play styles to appeal to the broadest possible number of potential gamers. I find "all female characters in all games must all wear chainmail bikinis" and "no female character in any game may ever wear a chainmail bikini" to be equally unlikable propositions.

Oh, and I loved your setting ideas Shark, great as always.

 

[kenjib]

Hello Mistwell,

I actually agree with most of your points completely. However, Conan has always been a series written from the masculine perspective and written about masculine fantasies. There are very strong women in many of the stories as well but the Conan is primarily about a man's world. This is really, almost more than anything else, the central theme of Conan. Conan himself is a distillation of every imaginable masculine stereotype into a pure archetype of unbridled manhood. Consider that Tarzan is identical to Conan, right down to the physical description. This is an archetypal figure that represents something - and the world around him is designed to be his playground. Men reading the fiction can live vicariously through Conan in order to satiate their deepest masculine urges - a sort of mental shelter from an increasingly passive society.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this. There's also nothing inherently wrong with beatiful, sexy, and *cough* receptive women. It's certainly nothing like the Amazon supplements in which men are treated as chattel reproduction slaves or outsiders to be raided, raped, and murdered. I agree that historical circumstances make the objectification of women and the co-opting of their sexuality much more problematic than doing the same for men, but this is a tricky topic, no? After all, if Conan is indeed primarily a manifestation of men's fantasies, how can you remove this and stay true to the feel and spirit of his world?

Is it improper for men to have masculine fantasies at all? I should certainly hope not. Imagine the terrible consequences of the repression created by a society that does not condone any outlet for masculine fantasy. Is it wrong for these fantasies to include scantily clad, beautiful women? Again, I think not.

The problem comes with context and ultimately depends on who is playing in the campaign and whether or not they are offended. Depending on the players certain types of content may need to be revised or removed. I agree that it's a very sticky topic but I don't think the answer is quite so clear as you present it (nor as shark presents it for that matter). Yes, I think that it's alienating toward women and yes, I also think that it is overly prevalent in D&D (I really don't like the art for Avalanche Press nor Mongoose myself), however in the specific context of Conan I don't see anything wrong with it. There is a time and place for many things, and in my opinion this is certainly one of them.

 

[hong]

I agree that it's a very sticky topic

... if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Speaking of which, I think it's time this thread got an

Adkison

before everyone gets carried away.

 

[Vaxalon]

I think there is room in the "barbarian" setting for strong, active female characters.

It's not the same genre, clearly, but many of the same themes are possible in that kind of setting.