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

[Celebrim]

You're adding that yourself. I never said that. I said default D&D wasn't - as claimed - medieval Europe.

Well, as long as we are going to be semantic about it, the person you were responding to did not, as you claim, say D&D was medieval Europe. He in fact said, "D&D is patterned after medieval Europe", which is arguably quite as true or untrue as the claim that "D&D is a fantasy world of magic and dragons and elves." depending on how generous we are going to be in our understanding (which is apparently not much). Certainly the default setting of D&D is a fantasy world of magic and dragons and elves that is patterned after medieval Europe. Elves and dragons are after all features of fantasy medieval Europe, things that the medieval may have believed weren't fantasy but a real if rare and usually unseen part of their world. The hobbits and the elves are patterned after Tolkien's grand fantasy conception of middle earth, which is inarguably inspired and patterned after Medieval Europe and medieval epic romances. Neither of you however qualified your statement with 'default' or 'most usual'.

Yes, you do have to make D&D medieval Europe, but whatever setting you choose you have to make that too. You have to either homebrew or buy a setting book. Either way, you are making the world. There are published guides for playing D&D as a Viking campaign, or as a Roman campaign, or in bronze age Judea, or in Victorian Europe, and many many other besides. Is 'Masque of the Red Death' not D&D? And if it is D&D, then it is inarguably true that D&D is not "a fantasy world of magic and dragons and elves."

D&D is far more than that.

Again, you're adding stuff from your own mind; that didn't come from me. I was just responding to someone who told us D&D was medieval Europe.

Ok fine. So tell me what you think anyway. Is it inarguably sexist for a character burner/builder to generate different results for men and women?

What your campaign setting is is your business. But equally, you can't pronounce "D&D is playing evil goblins in a vast multicultural space empire spanning all of space and time". The very best you can say is that your campaign is.

And equally the very best you can say is "my campaign is a fantasy setting with dragons and elves". That's not even true of every published setting for D&D, much less homebrews. So if the originally poster was taking too much of short cut by saying D&D is patterned after medieval Europe, your focusing on that particular phrasing I think very much misses the point. Let's have a frank and open discussion about sexism in gaming, so long as you are allowing this thread to be open, and not a frank discussion about semantics and the meaning of the word 'is' and 'we'.

By 'we' I mean those of us participating in the thread. Do we stand by the conclusion that it is inarguably true that a published setting or rules set with a character burner or builder that generates different results for men and women is sexist? Is that something we all could endorse as obvious, and can we all agree that anyone who disagrees is self-evidently sexist? Because ultimately by raising the cry of 'sexist' we are passing moral judgment. You've closed threads before because the cry of 'sexist' was raised over issues like this. This is your house, and you are participating in the thread. I'd like to know what you think.

 

[technoextreme]

And yes, PCs are exceptional, but they still had many weaknesses and limitations, at least in 1E. They were a cut above the rest, but that is far from justifying the imposition of a modern worldview. Sorry, my point still stands.

How much you want to bet that even in campaign settings where it would be completely appropriate like Maztica it is completely absent?

Ok fine. So tell me what you think anyway. Is it inarguably sexist for a character burner/builder to generate different results for men and women?

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From a historical standpoint and not just cherry picking a subset yes it is entirely sexist.
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[Morrus]

Well, as long as we are going to be semantic about it, the person you were responding to did not, as you claim, say D&D was medieval Europe. He in fact said, "D&D is patterned after medieval Europe", which is arguably quite as true or untrue as the claim that "D&D is a fantasy world of magic and dragons and elves." depending on how generous we are going to be in our understanding (which is apparently not much). Certainly the default setting of D&D is a fantasy world of magic and dragons and elves that is patterned after medieval Europe. Elves and dragons are after all features of fantasy medieval Europe, things that the medieval may have believed weren't fantasy but a real if rare and usually unseen part of their world. The hobbits and the elves are patterned after Tolkien's grand fantasy conception of middle earth, which is inarguably inspired and patterned after Medieval Europe and medieval epic romances. Neither of you however qualified your statement with 'default' or 'most usual'.

Yes, you do have to make D&D medieval Europe, but whatever setting you choose you have to make that too. You have to either homebrew or buy a setting book. Either way, you are making the world. There are published guides for playing D&D as a Viking campaign, or as a Roman campaign, or in bronze age Judea, or in Victorian Europe, and many many other besides. Is 'Masque of the Red Death' not D&D? And if it is D&D, then it is inarguably true that D&D is not "a fantasy world of magic and dragons and elves."

D&D is far more than that.



Ok fine. So tell me what you think anyway. Is it inarguably sexist for a character burner/builder to generate different results for men and women?



And equally the very best you can say is "my campaign is a fantasy setting with dragons and elves". That's not even true of every published setting for D&D, much less homebrews. So if the originally poster was taking too much of short cut by saying D&D is patterned after medieval Europe, your focusing on that particular phrasing I think very much misses the point. Let's have a frank and open discussion about sexism in gaming, so long as you are allowing this thread to be open, and not a frank discussion about semantics and the meaning of the word 'is' and 'we'.

By 'we' I mean those of us participating in the thread. Do we stand by the conclusion that it is inarguably true that a published setting or rules set with a character burner or builder that generates different results for men and women is sexist? Is that something we all could endorse as obvious, and can we all agree that anyone who disagrees is self-evidently sexist? Because ultimately by raising the cry of 'sexist' we are passing moral judgment. You've closed threads before because the cry of 'sexist' was raised over issues like this. This is your house, and you are participating in the thread. I'd like to know what you think.

I've never made it a secret that I consider inbuilt mechanical ability caps for women to be sexist. I've opined on that many times. I'm pretty sure I've also done so in this very thread, but I'm not going to scour it to check. I've even produced videos about it. It's no secret.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Of course there are fantasy elements, but that does not lessen what I said. It was intended to have elements of medieval Europe with fantasy elements mixed in. That says nothing about modern worldviews imposed on it.




Yes, adventurers who are products of their society and culture, so that brings us back to the original question rather than getting us anywhere: What are the attitudes of that society? That, of course, is up to each DM/GM, but my point was that it's silly to expect a ruleset (1E) to reflect a 21st-century mind-set when it was not meant to do so.

And yes, PCs are exceptional, but they still had many weaknesses and limitations, at least in 1E. They were a cut above the rest, but that is far from justifying the imposition of a modern worldview. Sorry, my point still stands.

And that point would be that female characters are stuck with less potential for greatness in certain classes in a fantasy game just because a rule says so. Its so funny because OD&D and B/X play just fine without these stat modifiers. If you happen to roll an 18 STR for your female halfling its all good and won't break the game. Personally I find the whole exceptional strength range more game breaking than removing the caps for females would be. The limitations imposed are arbitrary and ridiculous. Why can't a half-orc male be as strong as a human male? Same arbitrary reasoning.

Equality in stat generation doesn't have to equate to a modern worldview for the campaign world. In the population at large, on average, men will be stronger than women. The population average is what is going to drive tradition and culture, not a few outlier adventurers. There can be a handful of 18/00 female fighters running around in the world without a universal opinion that women are stronger than men. Not using the stat caps will have little effect on the campaign game world but a huge effect (for the better) on how others perceive your attitudes towards players in your game.

 

[Celebrim]

Equality in stat generation doesn't have to equate to a modern worldview for the campaign world. In the population at large, on average, men will be stronger than women.

Suppose instead of a character burner/builder, the source book has a demographics generator (handily included also as a program on an accompanying CD) that lets a DM quickly generate villages, towns, and provinces in rich detail. And this particular generator is trying to model exactly what you've here asserted - that men are on average stronger than women - such that for a village or town the average strength of the men is a point or two higher than the average strength of the women. And further, the maximum strength possible for an NPC in the demographic generator is a point or two higher for male characters than female characters, so that the strongest NPC's in a 'world' will be overwhelmingly male.

Is this game also sexist?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Suppose instead of a character burner/builder, the source book has a demographics generator (handily included also as a program on an accompanying CD) that lets a DM quickly generate villages, towns, and provinces in rich detail. And this particular generator is trying to model exactly what you've here asserted - that men are on average stronger than women - such that for a village or town the average strength of the men is a point or two higher than the average strength of the women. And further, the maximum strength possible for an NPC in the demographic generator is a point or two higher for male characters than female characters, so that the strongest NPC's in a 'world' will be overwhelmingly male.

Is this game also sexist?

Not really IMO. Demographics, npc ability score distribution, etc. are all background data. Background data doesn't directly affect the enjoyment of actual people playing the game like PC stat caps do.
I'm all about making sure the real people who gathered to play are treated with respect and afforded equal opportunies. I don't care about making sure that fantasy worlds are all politically correct. Anyone who gets overly butthurt over fictional places not involving actual people should work on getting a life instead of playing an rpg.

 

[Celebrim]

Not really IMO. Demographics, npc ability score distribution, etc. are all background data. Background data doesn't directly affect the enjoyment of actual people playing the game like PC stat caps do.
I'm all about making sure the real people who gathered to play are treated with respect and afforded equal opportunies. I don't care about making sure that fantasy worlds are all politically correct. Anyone who gets overly butthurt over fictional places not involving actual people should work on getting a life instead of playing an rpg.

Ok, now suppose that in a fit of purist for sim, the same game has the following character builder options:

a) Construct a village. Each player is randomly assigned an inhabitant of the village as their character.

OR the more generous optional rule

b) Construct a village. Each player may select the character in the village that they wish to play.

Is this game system now sexist? Note, I'm not asking if this is a particularly well designed game. I'm not asking you if this is a game you'd like to play. I'm not asking if the game would be enjoyable for every body. I'm asking is this game actually immoral and worthy of condemnation on those grounds. Would such a design actually motivated by hatred and fear of women, and ought we when encountering the design be uncomfortable by the implications of the design for women?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Ok, now suppose that in a fit of purist for sim, the same game has the following character builder options:

a) Construct a village. Each player is randomly assigned an inhabitant of the village as their character.

OR the more generous optional rule

b) Construct a village. Each player may select the character in the village that they wish to play.

Is this game system now sexist? Note, I'm not asking if this is a particularly well designed game. I'm not asking you if this is a game you'd like to play. I'm not asking if the game would be enjoyable for every body. I'm asking is this game actually immoral and worthy of condemnation on those grounds. Would such a design actually motivated by hatred and fear of women, and ought we when encountering the design be uncomfortable by the implications of the design for women?

Now we are back to forcing the background demographic assumptions upon active players. I would not consider such a game to be immoral purely on those grounds but it would be unfair from a gamist standpoint. As to the motivation of the designers, I wouldn't really care. There might be as many women who would love the game as hate it and they shouldn't be denied the right to play it if they want.

 

[Hammerforge]

I'm pretty sure a medieval laundress would kick my ass in an arm wrestling competition.

Maybe, but you're from a different society altogether, one that medieval Europe/D&D is not patterned after. The relevant question is: Would she beat a typical medieval male adult in an arm-wrestling contest?

 

[Hammerforge]

How much you want to bet that even in campaign settings where it would be completely appropriate like Maztica it is completely absent?

What would that prove? It might just mean that the creators of that setting were doing the very thing I am arguing against: imposing a contemporary worldview onto an ancient setting.