Sexism in your campaign settings

[StalkingBlue]

...For example never split the party. I once put forth a plan to split the party in half and approch the enemy from opposite directions. Nope we can't do that we must charge in as a party and let the fighters get in the way of the area effect spells.

Sounds like people who've played under a lot of abusive DMs before. There's players who'll _never_ split up. There's players who'll _never_ surrender. Usually that's due to nasty experiences in the past with DMs who'll gleefully screw PCs at every opportunity for splitting from the group or getting captured.

As I said before there were mistakes made in the early days that put the party in danger and that to has been hard to live down.

We don't have the same glass ceiling you have we may never become party leaders but we can and do make a difference in the game world.

It sounds to me that a lot of your problems are world oriented you don't see the same problems in your midnight campaign. The DM has the power to change that. He needs to get rid of that glass ceiling and allow your PCs to be as important as the male PCs.

I think S'mon is trying to listen to our concerns, he's the one who started this thread after all!

We'll be playing tomorrow, I have a list of female NPCs in positions of power that my PC will be seeking out. We're also still talking about it I guess (although not in public) - if we hit on a brilliant solution I'll report.

I do have a question have any of the male players played a female character and if they did they experience this glass ceiling?

None ever tried as far as I know.

 

[Elf Witch]

I don't know about your group, but my group has an aversion to party leaders, be they male or female. In my expirience, "party leader" usually translates to "someone who bosses around the other PCs, takes all the credit when the party accomplishes something, and has most of the campaign's story centered around them (to the exclusion of the other players)".

So, neither of the D&D groups I'm currently participating in has a leader. Decisions that affect the party are usually decided after a minute or two of discussion among the PCs.

That is not how we view party leader. The party leader does not tell others what to do or how to play. They facillate the planning stages I guess you could say they are the final voice. After listening to the plans says okay this is what we are going to do. Maybe a better term would be battle leader. A good leader like the player who just left made us very effective in battle we played to our strengths and compensated for our weakness.

Things get discussed but I have found with our group that without some one to make the final decision we end up spinning our wheels not sure what we should do. People get impatient with the dithering and we just go, charge head long into the situation.

In the four years we have been playing DnD the party leader has never been the center of attention and the rest nothing more than sidekicks.

 

[Elf Witch]

Sounds like people who've played under a lot of abusive DMs before. There's players who'll _never_ split up. There's players who'll _never_ surrender. Usually that's due to nasty experiences in the past with DMs who'll gleefully screw PCs at every opportunity for splitting from the group or getting captured.



I think S'mon is trying to listen to our concerns, he's the one who started this thread after all!

We'll be playing tomorrow, I have a list of female NPCs in positions of power that my PC will be seeking out. We're also still talking about it I guess (although not in public) - if we hit on a brilliant solution I'll report.



None ever tried as far as I know.

Have fun tomorrow, I hope your game goes good and that you can find some solutions to the problems.

 

[S'mon]

Thanks Elf Witch! Fingers crossed...

I think part of the problem at the GMing end is definitely that the campaign wasn't set up to accommodate the preferences of most of the current players (m&f), but a lot of it is presentation (my side) and perception (players' side). I hadn't heard this complaint until last Monday, but apparently the discontent has been there a long time.
Hopefully today I'll present and the players will perceive more of the opportunities within the game-world that they feel have been absent.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

the challenge is playing a woman in a sexist setting, both are a form of challenge that can both be "fun" if the goal is playing in character and making choices to overcome said challenges.

Sure. But the problem is that you aren't giving a female player the same choice as a male one. The female one must face those challenges, if she wants to play her own sex. That's unfair and sexist, IMO.

 

[StalkingBlue]

Sure. But the problem is that you aren't giving a female player the same choice as a male one. The female one must face those challenges, if she wants to play her own sex. That's unfair and sexist, IMO.

Thanks LP - I agree.

 

[S'mon]

Sure. But the problem is that you aren't giving a female player the same choice as a male one. The female one must face those challenges, if she wants to play her own sex. That's unfair and sexist, IMO.

I think it depends on whether the players knowingly & willingly signed up for those challenges (female PC dealing with sexist world) when they joined the game. Apparently my players didn't.

 

[mythago]

To demand otherwise would be like a feminist playing in a chess championship and demanding that the game be about capturing the queen rather than the king

You're saying that if that chess player showed up in a tournament and was told "Sorry, the queen only gets to move one space at a time--house rule," that it would be OK as long as the tournament sponsors could point to a time in the history of chess where the queen only got to move one space, and because it's THEIR tournament, darn it, so play with the gimped queen and treat it as a challenge.

ANd if the challenge is fighting the 8th level wizard or if the challenge is playing a woman in a sexist setting, both are a form of challenge that can both be "fun" if the goal is playing in character and making choices to overcome said challenges.

If a black player were posting here that the white guys in his group never took him seriously, all the NPCs in the world were either white or bad gangsta-rapper ripoffs, and he was tired of his dark-skinned PC being ignored or harassed by the NPCs in the game, would you advise him that some people might find it "fun" or a "challenge" to overcome racism in-game?

Yes, there are probably players who would enjoy such a scenario. It's a bad idea to assume that one's players enjoy recreating real-life hassles in game. I notice not too many people beg their GMs to run scenarios where they have to fill out their tax forms correctly or try to get into a mandatory class with a long waitlist.

 

[S'mon]

If a black player were posting here that the white guys in his group never took him seriously, all the NPCs in the world were either white or bad gangsta-rapper ripoffs, and he was tired of his dark-skinned PC being ignored or harassed by the NPCs in the game, would you advise him that some people might find it "fun" or a "challenge" to overcome racism in-game?

Some people might - he clearly doesn't. That's the situation I seem to have IMC. Game in 40 minutes - wish me luck!

 

[Thanee]

You don't need luck.

Bye
Thanee