Sexism in your campaign settings

[Dirigible]

Well, if you say so. I just don't think it's cricket directing someone elses character, but if that's the way your group does things.

 

[randomling]

Well, if you say so. I just don't think it's cricket directing someone elses character, but if that's the way your group does things.

I don't think it's cricket, either - it's going to change, believe me. It's just taking a bit of time.

(I think it's partly because I'm a woman - StalkingBlue has been ignored in the group too, and is far more assertive than I am - and partly because I've been slovenly in the past about objecting to it.)

 

[GSHamster]

(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!)

Wow! If this happened to my character, I would be livid! The entire concept of directing the actions of another player's character is messed up. This goes way beyond prejudice in the setting. At the very least the DM should be (pointedly) confirming your character's actions with you.

 

[randomling]

Wow! If this happened to my character, I would be livid! The entire concept of directing the actions of another player's character is messed up. This goes way beyond prejudice in the setting. At the very least the DM should be (pointedly) confirming your character's actions with you.

To his credit, a similar thing happened a few minutes later, and he did exactly that (pointedly asked me what my character was doing when somebody else said "I said she was...").

 

[Drifter Bob]

I'm sorry to hear it didn't work out. I do have a lot of respect for all three of you though for making the effort. I think it was courageous of S'mon and Stalking Blue and Randomling to discuss this in a public forum, courageous and probably in some ways risky. It's bound to heighten emotion in the short term, but perhaps it will also provide the necessary jolt to rearrange things.

I have a policy that I don't play rpg's generally unless we have a reasonable amount of females in the group, 1/3 to 1/2. I guess this is because I like to involve my girlfriend in the group and she doesn't like being the only lass, and I also think it leads to a more balanced, fun, and interesting game, not to mentoin aesthetically more enjoyable. (Plus, my jock friends don't mock me when I compare my afternoon spent playing D&D in the company of women folk with their 'male bonding' over some football game with a group of 8 meathead guys...)

In any event, I've enconutered a lot of problems along the way though not exactly the same as S'mon's, which I think seems to partially stem from the world he has created to adventure in. I've made some suggestions along those lines but obviously he has very set ideas on it, and my beliefs on the roles of women in history are clearly in the distinct minority (despite all the evidence )

The interpersonal side of this may be at least as important though. One of the things I learned from activities I was in as a lad was that sometimes men have to make an extra effort to not shout down women. I brought this to DM'ing and it seems to help. Louder, more assertive players and DMs alike need to sometimes stop and take a moment to let everyone else speak. This applies to lots of groups and individuals regardless of sex. I did notice some players who would systematically talk over female players in particular though, and I had to take them to task by taking time out to systematically make sure the other players got a chance to talk, sometimes I had to tell them to reign it in a little bit.

I've noticed that even normally assertive women like my girlfriend will get pretty quiet sometimes at a table full of excited shouting men, for whatever reason.

With one exception, the men always handled this ok, and after a short time, we were able to roll back some of the extra efforts as the groups learned for themselves that working together and hearing all voices often led to better tactical and strategic decisions being made.

My campaign worlds, incidentally, aren't PC, there are penty of sexist people in them, both good and bad, and unfairness and evil of every sort. But there are also subversive currents throughout any and every society, and this is what makes it easier to thrive in for those who are for whatever reason are at the lower end of the pecking order.

Also, as someone else stated, adventurers as a class are often outsideres anyway, but once they have gained some power, they don't have to take a lot of crap from ordinary folks on whatever basis. The country bumpkin in the conservative province might not approve of a female PC riding up the road like a man on a horse instead of sidesaddle, but when he notices her notched up armor and weapons, and the severed heads hanging from her saddle, he wisely keeps his mouth shut.

DB

 

[S'mon]

To his credit, a similar thing happened a few minutes later, and he did exactly that (pointedly asked me what my character was doing when somebody else said "I said she was...").

I'm trying - I got a bit stressed when you were all in the water-filled cave with the cold-trap and you were all polymorphed into earth elementals from a polymorph spell (hmm - should've audited Leo's spell list I think!) and Leo's player expected you all to be able to turn into water elementals (because he confused it w 3.0 polymorph self) etc etc. I should prob have been a lot harsher on implementing the restrictions of the 'polymorph' spell. Xiang's player did seem to expect he could give orders (direct to DM) as to what Cailin did, a habit he needs to be broken of.

 

[S'mon]

The interpersonal side of this may be at least as important though. One of the things I learned from activities I was in as a lad was that sometimes men have to make an extra effort to not shout down women. I brought this to DM'ing and it seems to help. Louder, more assertive players and DMs alike need to sometimes stop and take a moment to let everyone else speak. This applies to lots of groups and individuals regardless of sex. I did notice some players who would systematically talk over female players in particular though, and I had to take them to task by taking time out to systematically make sure the other players got a chance to talk, sometimes I had to tell them to reign it in a little bit.

I've noticed that even normally assertive women like my girlfriend will get pretty quiet sometimes at a table full of excited shouting men, for whatever reason.

Yup - my wife has commented on this too, and she's pretty assertive! It's not intentional sexism, but male group dynamics especially in a casual situation can marginalise women. GM & players do IMO need to make an effort to give everyone, m & f, the chance to talk - in the end it benefits everyone, both my female players are very bright and had a lot to add to the game, Randomling's PC Cailin is really just coming into her own now and can benefit the group hugely in the future, I believe.

 

[Terraism]

I don't think it's cricket, either - it's going to change, believe me. It's just taking a bit of time.

(I think it's partly because I'm a woman - StalkingBlue has been ignored in the group too, and is far more assertive than I am - and partly because I've been slovenly in the past about objecting to it.)

Hiya, Randomling. For what it's worth, the same thing happens in my game - players directing other player's actions - and not actually to the female player's character, but to one of the guys, who never argues. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this part, anyway, is more of a case of assertiveness than gender (though I'll grant that the dynamics and relationships at the table might directly impact the assertiveness of some players.)

 

[Lord Pendragon]

For what it's worth, the same thing happens in my game - players directing other player's actions - and not actually to the female player's character, but to one of the guys, who never argues. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this part, anyway, is more of a case of assertiveness than gender (though I'll grant that the dynamics and relationships at the table might directly impact the assertiveness of some players.)

Yes, this can also happen with men who are less assertive. My campaigns are often based around court intrigue, which means there are some sessions where the "encounter" is a masked ball, rather than a dungeon filled with monsters. In such circumstances, though I don't roll initiative, I do go around the table and ask each player in turn what he'd like to do. If the player has nothing in mind, s/he mingles, but every player gets a chance to take part, without trying to force their voice to be heard over the pack.

I'm glad that at least one of the women is staying in the group. From the first post it seemed obvious to me that S'mon wanted to try and fix things, and it sounds like he's starting to do just that. Between S'mon and Randomling, that group will be trained and ready for StalkingBlue to rejoin in no time.

 

[Nisarg]

A BTW to some of my earlier posts. I had talked about this thread to my gaming group, which at this moment includes one female player. We had just recently also played a session where that female player experienced some pretty extreme discrimination for being a woman (the ruler of this city-state refused to even acknowledge her prescense other than as "the woman" of the male party leader, and the rest of the party had the run of the palace and the city but she was limited to the women's part of the palace).

So it became a good moment to bring up the issue and see what the group as a whole and this female player in particular felt about it. She said that she enjoyed that session very much, she liked the challenge of it, and had no problem differentiating between what was happening IN GAME and what I and the other players are like out of game. She specifically wanted me to mention here that she, as a woman, had no problem with that scenario, given that it made sense in that culture for that character of hers to experience those problems.

Now, the more I think about this the more I reach the conclusion that the problems some of the other female gamers on this thread have encountered may be a case where the sexism is spilling over onto the game GROUP itself. Its one thing to have an NPC "sexist noble" ignoring your female character, its quite another to have the DM ignore you as a player. If you're feeling marginalized, or useless, or incapable of getting anywhere, in the game, then the problem is not about the setting, its about the gaming group (and the DM in particular). I think the difference between what some of the other female posters experienced and what my female player experienced was that I still gave her lots of things to do, and the sense that she was doing important things, and that once she learned the social rules of the city-state she was in, she could operate effectively in it (sometimes in ways or in places men couldn't get to). In other words, she had relevance, and progress, and the whole experience led to a deepening of her character's personality and thus a deeper connection between her as a player with her character. Those are the basic goals of an RPG, after all: To develop your character (and I'm talking personality, not just stats), and to have fun.

So again, with the other women who are having problems with their gaming groups, I think the problem isn't some kind of inherent sexism or endemic social crisis, its your gaming groups.

Nisarg