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

[Kursk]

Yeah, but I'm not advocating retroactively changing AD&D, this was directed at any advocates of bringing the rule back.

"Bring the rule back"? Not sure what you mean. If I run a 1st Ed D&D game, I use the rules as written. If I run 3.X I run with those rules.

 

[Salamandyr]

"Bring the rule back"? Not sure what you mean. If I run a 1st Ed D&D game, I use the rules as written. If I run 3.X I run with those rules.

By bring the rule back, I mean...include strength limitations in future games.

When I played AD&D I never enforced that rule, not that it ever came up, since nobody ever had a female character who rolled a strength score high enough for the limit to matter

 

[Kursk]

By bring the rule back, I mean...include strength limitations in future games.

I pretty much play games by the RAW.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So here's why I personally find gender-based ability score limits creepy. YMMV, of course; I can only speak for myself:

Whether any demographic as a group routinely outperforms anybody isn't the issue (in the real world, or in the made-up one). The issue is whether this particular character can do so. Whatever the general makeup of the populace of a fantasy world, I think men laying down the law and saying "No, you may not play a physically strong woman!" is icky as all heck. A player character is a player character is a player character; if someone wants to play a woman who is incredibly strong, why the heck shouldn't they? Who's to say they shouldn't?

And that's ignoring the fact that we're playing in a world with elves and dragons and orcs and golems and vampires... but definitely no physically strong women! That's just too far!

That's why ability score limits for genders are creepy to me. If folks want to play incredibly strong women, the rules should not prevent them from doing so. And if the rules don't (as they rarely do - these are usually houserules), certainly no person should prevent another from doing so.

Fortunately, I've never encountered this in real life. It's just a phenomenon I hear about on the internet.

Its an excellent point, but not all RPGs are FRPGs.

But in general, I agree: we're discussing games, sims. And as others have pointed out in other similar threads, in many cases, gender based stat mods are unfun.

Still, in most cases, the proposed stat limits don't actually prevent a PC from achieving the pinnacles of achievement in a given class- a 20Str isn't required to make 20th level in Fighter, after all.

And, in some cases, even in a fantasy setting, there may be a good reason for differences between the sexes to exist. In Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea, there is a difference between men's magic and women's magic...at least at first. The dichotomy, once implied to be inherent in the early stories, is, over time, revealed to be the result of chauvinism. But that doesn't change the fact that in that setting, there are simply no powerful female wizards because there is no way for them to learn the deeper mysteries.

Also, I have to ask: where would you stand on a PC race that displayed stronger sexual dimorphism than is typical than in humans? We see it in nature- for example, sometimes one gender (not necessarily the males) is not just bigger, but RADICALLY bigger, for instance...sometimes 5x, 10x or 100x larger. Similar behavioral differences exist in between genders in certain species, too.

That's a very unfair characterization of the argument. No one, not even the most ardent fan of strength limitations, is arguing against physically strong women. They argue, that physically strong women are not as strong as physically strong men, and the game should reflect that. I don't agree, but it's an arguable point.

For instance, the world record for the deadlift by a woman, one Becca Swanson, is 683 lbs. That's in incredible amount! I could maybe lift half that, probably closer to a third. She is dramatically stronger than me. But the world record for a man? Depending on how you calculate it, around 1100 lbs! That's about one and a half as much! Other weightlifting numbers show a similar disparity.

Again, I see no reason to impose every real world limit on fantasy characters. I prefer to abide by "action movie" realism. And it may be logically inconsistent for women being as strong as men to break a persons verisimilitude, when, say, a person being able to outthink a computer, or read people's minds doesn't. But it's not an inherent mark of sexism either.

Yep. Since an RPG isn't a sim, there's no reason they have to model every bit of reality just so.

While no RW woman may outlift someone like Mark Henry or out jump Mike Powell or even Peter O'Connor, there's no reason to assume that would be the case in a fictional world.

 

[Morrus]

Its an excellent point, but not all RPGs are FRPGs.

They're not all FRPGs, but they are all fantasies. So what we're talking about is people whose fantasy involves such things. Thus the creepy!

Also, I have to ask: where would you stand on a PC race that displayed stronger sexual dimorphism than is typical than in humans? We see it in nature- for example, sometimes one gender (not necessarily the males) is not just bigger, but RADICALLY bigger, for instance...sometimes 5x, 10x or 100x larger. Similar behavioral differences exist in between genders in certain species, too.

The important thing for me is that those PC races aren't represented in the player base. I won't ever meet a female kenku. There's no "this is what you are in the game". Though the closer the fantasy race is to human, the creep needle starts to climb.

 

[Ell-Egypto]

Red Sonja, Valeria, Belit. Shall I go on ?

 

[Morrus]

Red Sonja, Valeria, Belit. Shall I go on ?

Definitely! Keep going! Nothing wrong with cool lists of awesome female protagonists!

 

[Salamandyr]

Red Sonja, Valeria, Belit. Shall I go on ?

None of those characters was stronger than Conan.

 

[Kursk]

None of those characters was stronger than Conan.

Nor, as strong. But, still awesome fighters nonetheless!

 

[Crothian]

All of them can exist just fine in the rules of 1e. I had many awesome fighters with less then an 18 strength. Stats do not make a character awesome.