Sexism in your campaign settings

[StalkingBlue]

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.

That is the crux, yup.

And so I spoke to S'mon today - I've retired my character and am taking a break from his game.

Thanks again for everybody's advice and good wishes.

 

[hong]

That is the crux, yup.

And so I spoke to S'mon today - I've retired my character and am taking a break from his game.

Thanks again for everybody's advice and good wishes.

... I was actually joking about banning female players.

No, really.

 

[Elf Witch]

That is the crux, yup.

And so I spoke to S'mon today - I've retired my character and am taking a break from his game.

Thanks again for everybody's advice and good wishes.

I am sorry that it didn't work out. But sometimes taking a break is a good idea.

 

[Nisarg]

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?
.

No, especially to the first one. As I already said before, there is NO excuse for the actual PLAYERS and the actual DM to behave in a sexist way (or racist way, or what have you) to another actual PLAYER.

Likewise, where did I ever say anything about "stereotypes"? It seems to me that its actually you guys who are talking about female "stereotypes"; you would have us all play in a PC-world where ALL women were just as tough and as good as men at everything, while still retaining some kind of "femeninity" vaguely defined as being able to talk about feelings and being in favour of big interventionist government.

That's the steotype.

I'm talking about accurate simulationism. That if you are living in a feudal world that is meant to be in any way like our own medieval era, women were treated differently, and could not follow all the same roles in all the same ways as men. And likewise, the simple REALISM that there is no one single way that women "are like", there are as many different kinds of women as there are women, and there's no need to put the feminist-stamp-of-approval on your historical game.

Likewise, if I had a black player (or asian, etc etc.), and was playing an historical campaign; say for example my version of Deadlands where I DON'T whitewash history the way they do and you would seem to want to, I would take the player aside and tell him "look, in some campaigns you might play in a fantasy made-up world where its the 19th century in america and yet a black character is going to be treated just the same as a white guy, and women the same as men, and no one hates the chinese, and indians are respected, etc. etc. But to me that's a whitewash to history and an INSULT to the reality of what these groups went through. The reality was that 19th century america was a horribly racist and sexist place, and part of this game is going to accurately address some of the real issues of what people of colour and women had to go through in that kind of world. If you don't think you could enjoy the seriousness of that kind of game, please let me know, but know that if you are willing to play and want to play a black character I'd work with you to make the racism he'd be confronted with an important character-building issue for him".

So you, apparently, feel this is somehow racist? Its not MORE racist to say "lets just pretend all that bad stuff my ancestors did to your ancestors never happened, and instead imagine a happy fun world where we were always equal"? That's the middle class white american state of denial in action! The "lets just try to pretend it wasn't that way" school of race relations. (which is second in repugnant idiocy only to the much much worse middle class PC-guilt school of race relations where EVERYTHING is racist, and in all of history white men were ALL complete evil bastards who oppressed everything that moves, but everyone else was always good and noble and could never be bad).

Likewise, to me it is MORE sexist to run a historically-simulationist game (and again, you can run a funny or light-hearted game that isn't meant to be a deep social construct and then none of this applies, I'm not saying that ALL games must be the way I'm saying), where women and men get along perfectly and even though its a medieval feudal world with all that this implies regarding cultural conceptions somehow women can be treated no differently than men ever at all.

Nisarg

 

[Celtavian]

re

That is the crux, yup.

And so I spoke to S'mon today - I've retired my character and am taking a break from his game.

Thanks again for everybody's advice and good wishes.

Disappointing that it couldn't be worked out. I really couldn't get a feel for what was going on. I guess I would have had to be there. It certainly must have been a bad situation if you had to retire your high level character.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

And so I spoke to S'mon today - I've retired my character and am taking a break from his game.

Thanks again for everybody's advice and good wishes.

I'm sorry to hear that, StalkingBlue, even though it may have been for the best. What saddens me is that both you and S'mon seem to enjoy gaming together, and S'mon honestly seemed unhappy at the situation you found yourselves in.

Ah, well. Guess sometimes these things can't be helped.

 

[S'mon]

I'm sad about it, but it seems like it may be for the best. On the upside I've picked up some useful ideas from this thread & talking with SB on how to GM better; Randomling's female spy-master PC really shone today, it was great fun for me, the others enjoyed it too I think, and I hope to follow her progress in creating and expanding a mighty information-gathering network that can change the course of Ean history (for the better?)...

 

[randomling]

On the other end of this, I was very pleased with my level of achievement in today's session and am actually feeling very much more inspired about playing my character (whereas previously I was feeling quite disheartened). I felt genuine independent power from two different female NPCs today, and though my voice in the group is still not as loud as I'd want it to be, but I feel that's genuinely improving. (The only dodgy moment was rolling a saving throw on the basis of something somebody else said my character was doing - that teaches me not to speak up!)

StalkingBlue, I'm really sorry that you've decided to take a break as I've hugely enjoyed playing with you (we'll still get to DM for each other I know but it's not quite the same!).

I will keep you apprised of developments, OK?

 

[Dirigible]

(The only dodgy moment was rolling a saving throw on the basis of something somebody else said my character was doing - that teaches me not to speak up!)

Lordy. Sounds to me like your group needs a swift kick in the RESPECT!

 

[randomling]

Lordy. Sounds to me like your group needs a swift kick in the RESPECT!

Hmm, that's actually fairly symptomatic of my lack of assertiveness in the group, which is not an entirely separate issue from sexism in the game IMO. I'm learning to balk when I'm told rather than asked what my character is doing (by other players not the GM!) but because I've been unassertive in the past it's a pattern that's only being shifted slowly.