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

[WhimsyTheFae]

Is "wear your asbestos armor" supposed to be serious advice to anyone who wants to play a fun game?

 

[Mallus]

Is "wear your asbestos armor" supposed to be serious advice to anyone who wants to play a fun game?

I guess it depends on how much of the hostile hotly-contested battle for dominance occurs outside of the game world around your table.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

For life advice, I'm okay with it, but it doesn't come across as the best advertisement to grow the hobby.

EDIT: "Oh, you will have a great time, just ignore the misogyny and marginalization that comes with playing."

 

[Celebrim]

Is "wear your asbestos armor" supposed to be serious advice to anyone who wants to play a fun game?

No, it's serious advice for anyone who wants to interact with humans.

 

[technoextreme]

There is some commonality in the group, or there wouldn't be a group.

I don't think the really is though. At least the most tenuous of connections I can make between all of the geeky activities I've seen in Boston is eccentricity but even that is kind of pushing it. At best its probably a bunch of distinct and completely isolated subcultures that can get lumped in together as geekdom.

 

[Celebrim]

For life advice, I'm okay with it, but it doesn't come across as the best advertisement to grow the hobby.

Ahhh, good. It was intended as life advice. It wasn't intended to be an advertisement to grow the hobby.

In my opinion, the best advertisement you can possibly have for the hobby is to run a large open inviting table where people have a good time.

Are we going to get "I'm geekier than thou" over how many people we've introduced to the hobby, or can I take it as accepted that everyone understands life advice to a person who has experienced problems in some dysfunctional situation is not nearly the same as what you say to person who wants to know why you play or what it's like to play or is curious about joining your group?

 

[Mallus]

No, it's serious advice for anyone who wants to interact with humans.

Cel, it's not unreasonable to expect/work towards/even demand a modicum of respect in social situations, both public and private.

Respectful interaction can and does happen all the time, despite our primate brains.

 

[Celebrim]

Cel, it's not unreasonable to expect a modicum of respect in social situations, both public and private. "Polite company" happens every day, despite all the rudeness in our chest-thumping primate brains.

I think you are bordering on willful misunderstanding at this point, Mal.

No, of course it is not unreasonable to expect social dysfunction is not the norm. In 30 years of gaming, I can rarely think of any cases of the sort of dysfunction we are talking about here - and most of those occurred with my grade school and high school groups. But it is also unreasonable to expect that social tension and conflict will never happen, and in particular it is explicit to this thread that it has already happened.

The norm at EnWorld is polite conversation. That doesn't mean that emotions don't occasionally run high, and ill considered words are not occasionally said. Would it be bad advice to suggest to posters of EnWorld that they be slow to become offended and angry?

 

[Le Noir Faineant]

Oh lordy... Keep talking, governor, I mean, mythago.

What do you mean, what would it "be"? What about having a male author or a male audience would make the books "be" something else? (I guess the author photo on the jacket would be different.)

On the off chance that you're here to exchange ideas, and not just to post them... Would there be a difference for you if the DM who brought the party to the whorehouse was female?

Writing Chicks Be Trippin': The RPG is free speech.

And rightfully so. But are we talking about "Chicks Be Trippin'" (which I shall copyright tonight), or are we talking about occasional sexism in games? Deliberate, or accidental sexism? Or, rape in games? Or, rules that discriminate against female characters in games? - Again, on the off chance that you're simply not getting what I mean, instead of being deliberately confrontational, those are many different things, not one.

Similarly, it IS possible to play a character who's a bigot without ruining the game for people who are targets of that bigotry, but it's often very difficult and "but I'm just RPing!" is not magic.

Again, and with the best intentions, I tell you, you're comparing apples and oranges. You seem to think of one specific kind of roleplaying; that is too narrow a point of view. For example, should I really go to my Dark Heresy group and tell them that, according to you, we are likely to support ethnic cleansings, as this is what our characters do? - Now, troll players, as you describe, again, are a completely different thing.

We might all agree on extreme examples, but look in this very thread for how people differ on whether less-obvious things are or aren't "sexism". This especially gets complicated when people throw in all the other factors that you mention in other contexts, like "intent".

Most of this is really just bickering about semantics. Does your group enjoy playing together? Because, as long as nobody complains, chances are people actually enjoy playing together. The more subtle examples of perceived sexism are all debatable, and they are not game-related.

Sexism within the roleplaying community in general, or, sexism between people that don't know each other - There's no rational reason to artificially segregate this.

Oh, well, yes it is. Because your conduct with strangers is different than with people you know and share a certain level of trust with. Hopefully.

The whole issue of 'normal men' is something you dragged in yourself, in your earlier comments about how mean gaming ladies pick on "virile men" and don't understand manly behavior like pretending your imaginary alter ego is having imaginary sex with imaginary prostitutes.

YES YES, because "sexism", that's really something when the average person doesn't think of men patting women's buttocks, but of Demi Moore talking Michael Douglas into submissively boinking her on an office chair. Totally gender-neutered statement! I get ya!

In the absence of someone claiming that it is, need we really derail the discussion into a pointless and redundant assurance that the (primarily male group of) people discussing the issue are not hating on the male gender?

Hating, I don't know. Discriminating against, for sure! Or was it a woman who was accused of her casual sexist remarks giving a PTSD patient a mental breakdown?

 

[Le Noir Faineant]

Cel, it's not unreasonable to expect/work towards/even demand a modicum of respect in social situations, both public and private.

Respectful interaction can and does happen all the time, despite our primate brains.

On a side note, I think what would make this discussion easier would be if we could all agree that people don't have to be in Jaeger-driving sync to hang out together. Especially in activity-based social environments, chances are you will have a lot of very different individuals working together in a relatively close environment. - Friction will happen, one way, or another.