Sexism in Table-Top Gaming: My Thoughts On It, and What We Can Do About It

[Libertad]

What games then are still doing this? I am not familiar with any.

In video games, Elder Scrolls III Morrowind had different stats based upon your race's gender. And it's a relatively recent example, in 2002 as opposed to the late 70s.

 

[Crothian]

In video games, Elder Scrolls III Morrowind has different stats based upon your race's gender.

Isn't that game ten years old and not a tabletop RPG?

 

[Libertad]

That's why I listed it as a popular video game example. And fantasy RPGs like Elder Scrolls and the table-top fandom are tangentially intertwined.

My point was that despite originating 35 years ago, the strength thing keeps popping up in RPGs.

 

[Lwaxy]

Oh wow...

Ok, ignoring the somewhat off-topic parts, unfriendliness, trolling attempts and seemingly deliberate misunderstandings.

The "Sexism in RPG" is not about boobs or other more or less visible body parts. Neither the always almost naked barbarian nor the heroine constantly in various states of undress makes any logical sense in RPGs unless we explain it with weaki stuff like "her clothes are magic, they don't work if she wears pants" because no one in their sane mind would create an item like that. Ever. But really, even if they would and if women (or men) would use such un-clothing in my games...

This is an example I have seen.

Player 1 is an experienced player who wants to play a sexy heroine, which is nonetheless a no-nonsense woman despite chainmail bikini-like clothes and overexpressed female attributes. This heroine likes teasing the males and play off on her looks - as a lot of RL women would if they'd look like that. Now player 2's hero compliments her on her looks, is impressed as she expects and maybe he plays on his own muscles to make her like him. Player 3's hero would make sexist in-game comments, maybe because the char in question can't hold up to the heroine, or he's jealous of the attention player 2's char gets. I'd be all fine with this because it is in-game and sexist people will probably always exist. The other PCs don't care.

Payer 1 who plays the female char is male, nothing much more but the occasional comment about him doing a good job and being a woman and probably a few saucy jokes happen. A few games later, player 1 is female, you suddenly face out-game comments about her playing a stereotype sexy gal and how she would even know how to as she is rather the opposite body shape. And suggestions that she's just playing out her secret fantasies. Plus suggestions - out of earshot of player 1 but not mine - that she may be a tease in RL.

Pardon me? The guy who played the heroine the first time was not only much fatter, he didn't even have the same gender. THAT is sexist (and stupid to boot) - one of the few times we had a real problem in a group because of comments like that. The same group had absolutely no issue with the same female player portraying a fat, drug addicted, lazy elf in a Shadow Run game a few months earlier...

So all in all this does not look like a big deal for a lot of people I'm sure. But it is probably even worse than some very obvious instances. There are quite some examples of things like this going on in the world, including in RPG sessions, they seem so subtle and over all harmless. But those do the most harm in my view because people, mostly the male population, sees such comments and behaviours as normal when in reality it's more or less veiled sexism.

There was never much sexism in any games I played at (I'm not counting not allowing crossgender here) but there was usually a little. In both directions, but directed at female players more often. And a lot of times the people doing it did not really notice, and some times players felt uncomfortable and didn't dare to say anything because it was all "in good fun."

 

[Crothian]

It seems to pop up very rarely and no one seems to have any current examples. Did you also post this on video game message boards or are you just post to RPG focused ones with it? I saw the exact same post on RPG Net and wonder if you braved posting it on not so strictly controlled sites?

 

[Lwaxy]

So no, whether you are a woman or not (and I'm still not certain, because your profile says male), you don't get to speak for women. You aren't their appointed champion. You don't get to go around like a knight in shining armor defending them from the assaults of predatory males. Because there isn't one single way of looking at any of this, and not even among women, and you know - maybe they don't necessarily need your protection.

A man can't speak for women? Since when?

"We" don't need to appoint anyone. What "we" need is different from case to case. So while "we" may not need protection in a generalized way - yes, the victims of violence and sexism usually do.

And because there is no way of knowing what past experiences people have, it should be common sense not to allow blantant sex and violence in any game unless it was clearly, unmistakenly marked as such.

 

[billd91]

It seems to pop up very rarely and no one seems to have any current examples. Did you also post this on video game message boards or are you just post to RPG focused ones with it? I saw the exact same post on RPG Net and wonder if you braved posting it on not so strictly controlled sites?

So just what are you accusing the poster of doing? This strikes me as an oddly hostile insinuation. Who cares where the OP posted it? Presumably, he posted it in forums he regularly goes to. Are you suggesting he cherry picked his sites to find ones that would be more receptive? Is that a bad thing?

 

[Elf Witch]

What games then are still doing this? I am not familiar with any.

I think you are deliberately being obtuse. Hackmaster 5E which was recently published considered having strength caps. I was one of many gamers who wrote to tell them how unhappy that made me. The fact that it is still being considered in this century almost 40 years since it was taken out of DnD shows me that it is not a thing of the past.

 

[Crothian]

So just what are you accusing the poster of doing? This strikes me as an oddly hostile insinuation. Who cares where the OP posted it? Presumably, he posted it in forums he regularly goes to. Are you suggesting he cherry picked his sites to find ones that would be more receptive? Is that a bad thing?

It was a question, try not to look for fault where none exists. I saw the same post on RPG Net and was curious if he posted it other places. Since he also lists faults with video games I am also wondering if he posted to video game oriented sites.

Edit: he just joined here this very month so EN World is not a forum he regularly goes to. RPG Net he has been there a little over a year so impossible to tell if that is a regular haunt of his or not. Since I cannot tell, I ask questions.

 

[Celebrim]

I didn't claim to speak for all women in my posts, but you're doing a lot of it by saying "they don't need your protection."

I don't see how that follows. What I am doing is pointing out the relationship between your post and chivalry.

The thing about sexism, is that people aren't always aware when they are being sexist, right? Sometimes they have to be educated, so you have to challenge people on sexist attitudes when you see them.

As far as post-traumatic issues go, everything you say about victims of sexual violence is equally true about victims of violence generally. I don't think it is unreasonable to be sensitive in the portrayal of the evils of this world. I've had to deal with provoking emotional distress in players for introducing NPCs who had abusive parents. There are all sorts of subjects that require care at the table. If we wanted to put caution and advisory warnings for everything that could cause emotional distress, I don't know where we'd start or end. But I really feel you are being disingenuous here. These are issues that affect male and female gamers alike. You make some lip service to that, but it's pretty inescapable that you bring up rape in the larger context of sexism toward women and your primary concerns are focused in that direction. In the context of your OP, you bring up rape primarily with regard to an area where men are being insensitive towards women. You aren't bringing up sensitivity about rape or any other subject in a gender neutral way when you bring it in an essay with the thesis that you have. Even the first sentence of your rape discussion is, "Make no mistake, tabletop gaming is primarily a male-dominated hobby. But there are many women gamers out there..." I don't feel I'm putting words in your mouth to interpret this as primarily being about protecting the feelings of women, nor to think that you are invoking rape primarily because by tying your argument to rape, you are implying if you disagree with me you must support rape.

As for me putting words in your mouth, you didn't seem to have a problem putting words in the mouths of the CthulhuTech developers (who as far as I can tell have never said what you quoted them as saying). My guess is that the CthulhuTech developers probably said something a little less obviously dumb like, "Why do we treat sexual violence as inherently worse than all other violence?", which might be a question I could answer but isn't the 'common fallacy' you choose to debunk nor is it entirely obvious that it is a dumb question.

But let's just start quoting you then:

But they all have content which if examined closely, is very troubling. Magical Native Americans in Werewolf, Neo-Confederate apologia in Deadlands, and even a creation myth for the Drow in Complete Book of Elves which is no different than the real-world Curse of Ham (evil people are marked by their dark skin)...An important thing to keep in mind is that writers make mistakes. White Wolf screwed up with World of Darkness: Gypsies, but they since apologized and the original writers don't work anymore. I have no problem continuing buying from them...A writer who doubles down on his stereotypical "noble savage" African nation while ranting about the PC Police is digging himself into a deeper hole... Is World of Darkness: Gypsies racist? Yes. Is it sexist to impose an artificial limitation on female PCs in D&D? Yes. But that doesn't make all WoD and D&D players racist and sexist. We can acknowledge problematic content, change it and discard it, when it impacts other peoples' enjoyment by reinforcing systemic stereotypes and imposes arbitrary limits on common fantasy archetypes.

Wow. So many ways I can "make a mistake". So many ways I have to worry about giving offense to you. So many things you need to apologize for and cry mia culpa over.

I'm not sure I can ever have a campaign that isn't going to be potentially offensive to someone. Oh my, World of Warcraft portrayed native americans as cows! That's so racist. The Drow are black skinned, that's so racist!

Who is going to be appointed to keep track of all of this? I'm not that familiar with the stuff you site, but if my Tumessi make references to gypsy myths, is that over the line? If I have nation that was among other things inspired by the thought, "What if the romanticized African Kingdoms portrayed in films like Eddie Murphy's 'Coming To America' were real?" Is that too far into your 'noble savage' territory? In my game red hair signifies a fairy ancestry, and its particularly common among the Concherri people. Can you say, "Irish! Racist!!" I look at these laundry lists of things I'm suppose to take great umbrage at, and instead I just see people leaping to judgment and moral outrage because they can. One of the starting traits you can choose for your character in my game is "Fair Sex". I'll let the text speak for itself:

FAIRER SEX [TRAIT]
You are a female that comes from a culture and a race with significant differences in form and custom between the sexes. As a result, you have a slighter and more fragile build than is typical for your race, but you have a well developed intuition and natural charm.
Prerequisite: Female, required background
Benefit: You begin with -4 Strength, but +2 Wisdom and +2 Charisma. You cannot take this advantage if it would reduce your strength below 1.

"Problematic"!

And with such a laundry list we seem to have gone very far afield from you initial statement: "Many cases bear striking similarity; an uncomfortable attitude towards women gamers in various forms and degrees."

Back to your Scythians, isn't the whole point of citing the existence of a warrior culture that it is not unreasonable for women to be competent fighters? So the fact that there is very ambiguous evidence for rare cultures or individuals that may have fought doesn't really address the heart of your complaint. No one denies women have always fought. The foulest chauvinist would be willing to accept that. If you aren't accepting, "Women have always fought and won.", then you aren't accepting anything of relevance.

Suppose for example we have this well meaning GM whose just finished Neil Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy or for whatever reason is suddenly and deeply enamored with the idea of a gritty semi-realistic adventure campaign set nominally in the real 17th century pre-Enlightenment Europe. And he likes the Burning Wheel system or something similar as a resolution system for the swash buckling character driven game he envisions, and creates a custom character burner for the game where your characters starting abilities are based in part on life choices you make for the character. He spends six months getting the game ready, and Jane Gamer hears about the game and wants to play.
"Great", says the DM, "It would be interesting to have someone that can bring a real women's perspective to the table."
And so Jane comes to the first session where they are going to make characters and she says, "Hmmm... I notice that you have separate life paths for men and women."
"Well, yes."
"And I had really intended to play a female swashbuckler, but there is no way using the female lifepath to generate a character that is as skilled of a soldier as you could using the male life path."
"Well, yes. Women weren't normally expected to have a martial role in 17th century France. Many of the lifepath branches even on the character burner represent fairly rare backgrounds suitable only for heroic characters like we are planning to play. But there isn't really a realistic lifepath that gives a women as much starting martial skill as is possible for the most skilled man. You can however start with a woman whose martial skill is above the ordinary man, and of course you can focus on those skills as you develop your character in play."

Sexist? Is Jane right to be outraged? Things would be even worse if the DM had read "The Pillow Book" and was inspired to do realistic 11th century Japan. Where I see this going is essentially saying it is wrong to have any setting which isn't egalitarian because it might make people uncomfortable. And indeed, based on your laundry list, I suspect 'egalitarian' is a rather narrow term for the specifics of what you are going to eventually insist on.

And there is an additional problem. Again, quoting you:

Women exist, and comprise a significant portion of our population. We can afford some liberties with fantasy creatures because they're wholly fictional: if dwarves are strong due to divine blessings of Moradin, we can accept that as part of the setting.

When one crosses into reality is when things get problematic. When you deal with real people, inaccuracies are less tolerable. Particularly when we reinforce stereotypes.

I find this incoherent. When you deal with real people, inaccuracies are less tolerable? So gender dimorphism must be written into every setting to deal with the real differences between men and women? After all, women really are less strong than men. That isn't an inaccuracy. Even in our modern age when women have so much more opportunity than ever before, we ought to be horrified at the suggestion of women boxing men or facing them in the octagon. And while it isn't probably that rare for there to be a women who could kick my butt, it is the extremely rare women with the physical skills to play even high skill level football. It isn't sexism to acknowledge that, especially if you are going to insist on 'accuracy' when dealing with things that are 'real'. Not all gender dimorphism is a result of enculturation. I think rather you are going to insist that the game be inaccurate if that is what it takes to avoid reinforcing stereotypes. We can take liberties with a fantasy setting and have men and women be equally skilled in martial arts, have equal upper body strength, and so forth and I'm ok with that. But I'm uncomfortable with is a blanket assumption that any setting that doesn't take such liberties is sexist, and by implication of your essay that the guy who "make this mistake" is uncomfortable with female gamers and doesn't take rape seriously enough.