Sexism in your campaign settings

[S'mon]

As GMs and players, do you think it's ok to have sexism inbuilt into the cultures of a campaign setting? Should it apply equally to PCs and NPCs, or should PCs be exempt from problems due to the PCs' gender? My female players (hi! have let me know that they don't like the anti-female sexism that seems prevalent in my current game setting, they want to be able to play PCs of their own gender without feeling that they have to overcome additional obstacles that male PCs don't face.
At the time I was very taken aback by this request. Thinking about it, my current setting area, which is explicitly modelled on swords & sorcery fiction (esp Leiber & Moorcock, some REH) does seem very sexist, with few women in positions of authority, an apparent 'glass ceiling'. My female players feel that there are not strong female NPC role models for them to follow.

I thought back to the (all male players) game I ran in high school (same world, different area), in that game there were lots of female 'leaders' - the head of the merchants' guild was female, so was the head of the wizards' guild and the top assassin, three of the most powerful & influential NPCs in that game. Back then I wasn't worried about emulating a genre - I was just playing AD&D. I don't know if I've become more sexist over time (I'm 31 now, was maybe 14 then), or just thoughtless in the way I've presented my world.

Have any other players/GMs had similar experiences? How did you handle it?

 

[hong]

As GMs and players, do you think it's ok to have sexism inbuilt into the cultures of a campaign setting? Should it apply equally to PCs and NPCs, or should PCs be exempt from problems due to the PCs' gender?

What we think is unimportant.

What your players think is what's important.

Have any other players/GMs had similar experiences? How did you handle it?

I handled it by banning female players.




Okay, maybe not.

 

[Numion]

Thinking about it, my current setting area, which is explicitly modelled on swords & sorcery fiction (esp Leiber & Moorcock, some REH) does seem very sexist, with few women in positions of authority, an apparent 'glass ceiling'. My female players feel that there are not strong female NPC role models for them to follow.

Is there a logical reason for the sexism? In our world much stems from tradition that was at some point dictated by different physiology (I guess). In a D&D world, however, physical prowess isn't the sole source of power. The greatest power comes from magic, which usually isn't gender specific. Is it in your campaign?

 

[LostSoul]

I think that sexism can have a role in the game, but only in certain circumstances.

For example, if you have a female PC in your game who wants to challenge conventional thoughts about a woman's place in society (in your campaign's society), then I'd have examples of sexism when the PC can get the opportunity to show them up. If you have a female Fighter, having some guy say "Girls can't fight," and then have the female PC take him down would be good.

You could also use sexism to make the PCs dislike a certain NPC, but I think that the PCs should get the opportunity to show up that NPC.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

My games are all of a very mature nature and we like to explore realistic notions. Because of this you will find, among other things, sexism (both sides), racism, true evil, grey values, religiosu intolerance, bigotry, torture and sex. I've found that the female players I have had have actually played towards and upheld sexism more than the guys. When the guys play a girl they usually try to break the mold and have someone who is a man's equal. The 5 main women who have played with me all played female characters who were one of two things: 1) evil to the core, almost to the point of being unsettling or 2) completely stereotypical wearing chain mail bikinis and j cups. It's always confused me, but since everyone seems to be having fun I let it slide.

 

[S'mon]

Is there a logical reason for the sexism? In our world much stems from tradition that was at some point dictated by different physiology (I guess). In a D&D world, however, physical prowess isn't the sole source of power. The greatest power comes from magic, which usually isn't gender specific. Is it in your campaign?

In my world men in general have greater physical strength on average than women (same as IRL) - I don't use stat mods for (human) race or gender, though, so players aren't mechanically penalised for playing female fighters. Men and women are equally good at arcane magic, as far as anyone can tell, and there are many female spellcasters - only a group of neutral-evil necromancers won't take female members, & this is because of their religious beliefs (that women are more in touch w the wellsprings of life due to their ability to bear children). The neutral & good wizardly societies don't discriminate; the head of one is male, the most powerful known member of the other is female. Many deities only take Clerics (or Druids etc) of one gender, usually the same gender as the deity. Many others take both, though.

However: _all_ spellcasters are rare in my low-magic campaign world, are seen as outsiders, and often hated & feared (mostly due to the aforementioned necromancers). So the 'traditional' route to power IMC is very much to be the "big man with big sword" (hi Hong!) - which the female players have told me they don't like. The current period is a chaotic era of warlords - almost all male - battling for dominance in the power vacuum left by the withdrawal of a colonial empire, so this is particularly exaggerated at present.

 

[DrZombie]

There's nothing as boring as a politically correct world where all the pubs have seperate toilets that are height-adjusted for the vertically challenged races. Look at the history, hell, look at politics today and you'll find no nation or religion where racism, sexism, bigotry and narrow-mindedness isn't an issue.

 

[Whisper72]

Hmm.... I would say that, following the First Rule of Diaglo (that people should be having fun, plaing a _game_), the first measure of whether sexism in-game is okay is thus dependent upon the DM and players.

If your players are somehow annoyed and have less fun playing, then I would say, it is thus not a good thing.

Maybe it also has to do with the (perceived) pervasiveness of it. If there is clear-cut sexism, as in the example of a male drunkard insulting a female fighter, the example of a necromantic guild without women as being creators of life, and maybe a kingdom (queendom?) of amazons discriminating men etc. are all fine, probably also for your players, simply because they are limited in impact.

The insulting man is merely a roleplaying thingy, and as long as it does not come up every advnture, is not really an annoyance.

The necro guild is simply there, but has no big impact on the world at large

The distinct kingdom can be left for other kingdoms.

Therefore, as long as it is a matter of adding depth and roleplaying possibilities for all players, and a way to interact with the issue in a way perceived as fun by the players, then IMHO the issue of sexism as such is not necissarily a bad thing.

If the issue pervades the whole world, and every adventure, every session, one is confronted with it somehow (whether explicitly in encounters, or implicitly with all rulers, important NPC's etc. being of one gender), then it will quickly become annoying, thus not fun, thus not good....

 

[Beale Knight]

Thinking about it, my current setting area, which is explicitly modelled on swords & sorcery fiction (esp Leiber & Moorcock, some REH) does seem very sexist, with few women in positions of authority, an apparent 'glass ceiling'.

This seems key to me. When you designed the campaign did you explicitly intend the sexism, or did it just sort of come organically as you kept things to your model?

If you intentionally designed things that way, I think you should have informed everyone, male and female, that things were going to be that way before characters were created and play began.

If the sexism just grew out of the model as you designed things and you didn't really notice until your female players griped about it, I think they have a legitimate, but not game-breaking, gripe. Ditto if you intended things that way and didn't tell them. Either way it's akin to creating an elf character only to find out later that IYC elves are virtual slave or an official underclass. That kind of surprise coming after the fact is no fun.

Of course on the flip side, if you intended things that way and told everyone so before the game got started, and no one said anything about it at the time, that's a different story.

Regardless, since it sounds like they're not having much fun with the sexist culture, could you change or add some things? Is it possible to introduce a campaign region where things are different? Perhaps an "amazon" style culture or a place where the sexes are culturally equal? Could a shake up in the campaign setting be legitimately introduced? Perhaps a secret society of fed up women, armed and ready to ignite revolution?

 

[reanjr]

As GMs and players, do you think it's ok to have sexism inbuilt into the cultures of a campaign setting? Should it apply equally to PCs and NPCs, or should PCs be exempt from problems due to the PCs' gender? My female players (hi! have let me know that they don't like the anti-female sexism that seems prevalent in my current game setting, they want to be able to play PCs of their own gender without feeling that they have to overcome additional obstacles that male PCs don't face.
At the time I was very taken aback by this request. Thinking about it, my current setting area, which is explicitly modelled on swords & sorcery fiction (esp Leiber & Moorcock, some REH) does seem very sexist, with few women in positions of authority, an apparent 'glass ceiling'. My female players feel that there are not strong female NPC role models for them to follow.

I thought back to the (all male players) game I ran in high school (same world, different area), in that game there were lots of female 'leaders' - the head of the merchants' guild was female, so was the head of the wizards' guild and the top assassin, three of the most powerful & influential NPCs in that game. Back then I wasn't worried about emulating a genre - I was just playing AD&D. I don't know if I've become more sexist over time (I'm 31 now, was maybe 14 then), or just thoughtless in the way I've presented my world.

Have any other players/GMs had similar experiences? How did you handle it?

Maybe it's possible you became more "historic" in your campaign flavor. I wouldn't necessarily say that putting only males into positions of power (even consciously) in a medieval European type setting sexist. Of almost all the cultures throughout the world (even those with no relation to one another) there has been a strong patriarchal bent.

For me, it depends on the setting. If I am trying to emulate a historic world, I tend to put men in power. If I am running something modern or a little more fantasy-based, I do things egalitarian. Maybe some cultures would be male-dominant, but as a rule, they wouldn't; and there quite possibly could be some female-dominant ones as well.

If your campaign hasn't expanded from its starting location much and it has become a problem then make some more egalitarian or matriarchal societies farther out for the PCs to travel to.

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As an aside, how many people have blacks in their campaign world? If you do, are they seafaring people? Do they live in hot climates? Are they primitive? This one is actually alot less historical and (in my opinion) a much bigger problem. Personally, I tend to make the base of operations for the PCs predominantly white (as all my players are white and are in all likelihood going to play white characters). But, as I said for matriarchal societies, I tend to use all different cultures in my campaigns.