[Polyhedron] Are women interested in this type of fantasy?

[Silver Moon]

Yeah, chime me in with the Princess of Florin too. I've role played for quite some time now with people of both genders, and role playing is role playing. The characters don't have to be a relection of the person playing them. (At least I hope that's true, as my female elf is rather pregnant right now).

 

[Ravellion]

A woman rescuing her partner in fighting the evil overlord, falling in love with him later? Sure. The female protagonist would seem to stick up for her partner and lover to be, allowing for sexual tension and good dramatics.

A woman rescuing the scrawny, pasty, ineffectual boy with a handsome face, then immediatly falling in love with him? Nah. It would make the female protagonist seem even more whimsy and strangely enough less strong.

These might be culturally defined, or hardwired into the brain, but in the end that doesn't even matter. It shows of poor catering to the current decidedly unenlightened human audience, and hence is a marketing mistake at least. I also don't see the need for the roleplaying industry to break away so drastically and start trailblazing in this area, as its impact on western culture is infinitesmally small.

Rav

 

[Squidibus]

Hmm. I haven't yet played the minigame in question (though I have read over it), but from experience, I have seen female PCs (both players and characters) involved in those kinds of romantic situations.

The most recent (and the one which I think is most closely relatable to this topic) is an unplanned romance in a post apocolyptic RPG I recently ran. The woman, playing a tough, generally competent warrior and diplomat, ended up with a fairly combat ineffective technition. It was an almost amusing reversal of the fantasy 'princess in distress' cliche that was the crux of the plotline at several points.

 

[Kesh]

Okay, Tashego had it right. "Romance" is a term for literary works that were fantastic in nature. For instance, Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" is one of the important novels of the Romantic period.

Much of the confusion comes from the fact that many Romance novels were by women authors, and also focused on breaking traditional roles and stereotypes. Jane Austin is a strong source of these.

Iron Lords of Jupiter falls into the first category of Romantic adventure.

 

[Ravellion]

Okay, Tashego had it right. "Romance" is a term for literary works that were fantastic in nature. For instance, Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" is one of the important novels of the Romantic period.

Much of the confusion comes from the fact that many Romance novels were by women authors, and also focused on breaking traditional roles and stereotypes. Jane Austin is a strong source of these.

Iron Lords of Jupiter falls into the first category of Romantic adventure.

Mary Shelley. Pet peeve. English lit student and all. Wife to Percy Bysshe Shelley, who died in a storm on an Italian lake age 25 IIRC.

The romantic movement has nothing to do with romances funnily enough. In any case, Austen's novels were neither "Romances" nor "Romantic". Austen's novel were mostly "Novels of Manners".

What happened in your rpog last wednesday for me is not interesting in this case. This is Polyhedron magazine breaking with traditions which are hard for people to accept being broken. I don't think anecdotal evidence is going to prove much here unfortunately (unless we get loads and loads of it).

Rav

 

[Emiricol]

I asked my wife whether, if she were on an adventure with a man and she had to rescue him at some point, she would be interested in him romantically. Just out of curiosity.

To my surprise, her answer was a flat, no hesitation "no". She didn't even bother to qualify or temper the statement with some hedge language (maybe, perhaps, if, etc).

It surprised me because my wife is probably the most strong-willed women I know, and she's into Karate, etc. Makes me glad I was in the Marines

 

[SemperJase]

Interesting diversion. Romance from Encarta:

Romance (literature), literary genre popular in the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century), dealing, in verse or prose, with legendary, supernatural, or amorous subjects and characters. The name refers to Romance languages and originally denoted any lengthy composition in one of those languages. Later the term was applied to tales specifically concerned with knights, chivalry, and courtly love. The romance and the epic are similar forms, but epics tend to be longer and less concerned with courtly love.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

You know a male that needed to be resuced in some circumstance, need not be ineffectual and weak. He could have actually been a pretty tough guy, but was just a little stupid when he got himself into a fight he couldn't handle.

 

[Corinth]

The reverse of gender roles in the presentation of Iron Lords of Jupiter broke my suspension of disbelief, but this didn't mean that I didn't like the minigame.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

A woman rescuing her partner in fighting the evil overlord, falling in love with him later? Sure. The female protagonist would seem to stick up for her partner and lover to be, allowing for sexual tension and good dramatics.

A woman rescuing the scrawny, pasty, ineffectual boy with a handsome face, then immediatly falling in love with him? Nah. It would make the female protagonist seem even more whimsy and strangely enough less strong.

How often are the rescued women actually "ineffectual"? Frankly, the idea is just as rediculous to me with the genders crossed. You guys are taking a bad choice of words (ineffectually instead of lss effectual in combat or physical realms) and turning it into a mythical argument.

The romantic adventure story is of a strong physical protagonist, who rescues someone who is physically weaker. Usually the rescue-ee is not in fact ineffectual and later aids the rescuer in some way either by becoming more physically effectual or using other mental or social skills. Look at the first terminator movie or any of the star wars films. SJ seems to think that if the more physically compentant person (rescuer) is female, there can't be a romantic subplot, because of his assumptions of how ALL women's brains work. Others have brought up spurious psuedo scientific claims and railed against the mythical specter of political correctness all to tell us that ALL women would react against this, its yucky for them to even suggest such an unnatural role reversal, yadda yadda....

Get over it, guys. In case you hadn't noticed, in our admittedly small sample of women who roleplay, there isn't ONE who objects to the idea of rescuing a romantic interest, or even having one who is physically weaker than herself. (I don't know if Emirical's wife is a gamer or not). I would LOVE the oppertunity to physically defend my bf, though I won't claim to be any more competent than him. The idea of a woman falling for a rescued man is no weirder to me than a man falling for a rescued woman, and with similar caveats. Sure a truely ineffectual man (ineffectual on all levels) would be pretty unattractive, so is an ineffectual woman, and I would immediately lose all respect for a male hero who fell for a useless princess. Which they generally don't.

So the magazine includes one throwaway line to indicate that this genre isn't an excuse to sideline female characters and has a cover picture with a (probably well proportioned and dressed in a sexy if not cheesecake fashion) woman on it, and this kind of overreaction is what we get? I think I can spot the hypersensitivity around here, and its not from woman or article writers who realize there are women in the hobby... If you are so threatened by the idea of someone leaving the possibility open for a plot where a woman rescues a man say it... but you can stop pretending it has anything to do with how women think - its all about how SOME men apparently think.

Kahuna burger