Gender Identity as a Role Playing Game

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi YeGoblinQueen,

So the part I found most interesting as an idea is the Fairy Tale part. Evelyn as the princess who has been turned into an Ogre speaks so much stronger to me personally. It's a beautiful description that points to the heart of the matter, without requiring me to be very familiar with Transgendered culture. It allows me to explore the idea without having to worry about getting it "right" in my portrayal. Especially if the Ogre's form makes it hard for her to be who she really is....

As the game stands now, I'm unsure if I'd play it. Even if I decided to try playing it I'm unsure I'd be able to sell it to anyone else. I totally would consider buying it for it's social commentary, but that one degree of separation for me, would move the game to playable. The trouble I think I'd have now is my total ignorance of the culture you are writing about. Your game right now seems like the understanding of that culture is very important to playing the game. Also your game as it is now makes me sad, a whole area of suffering I just was unaware of. I think that one step back might allow me to examine the idea in a safer place. The fantasy angle removes part of the requirement of playing something I'm unfamiliar with and makes the game more understandable. This may not be your goal, as it may weaken the commentary portion.

I find it interesting that I'm mirroring some of the comments I received from my initial ideas for my game, and it makes me glad I decided to step back from what I was trying to address some.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

The fantasy angle removes part of the requirement of playing something I'm unfamiliar with and makes the game more understandable. This may not be your goal, as it may weaken the commentary portion.

No, actually that's the plan, to mix the fantasy element in there, so non-TG people have a frame of reference. The Stories would have a lot of symbolism and allegory, so that players unfamiliar with the culture can get a grip on it, and use it to play their characters correctly; the players familiar with the culture have a chance to reflect on their experiences on a theoretical level; and it should alleviate the tension of having to play actual transexuals, for the people who are not into that kind of stuff.

I find it interesting that I'm mirroring some of the comments I received from my initial ideas for my game, and it makes me glad I decided to step back from what I was trying to address some.

I know, don't worry. I keep saying the game is not supposed to be played, perfectly playable as I want it to be, exactly for that matter of theme.

There's this story I tell people, the Tale of the Nosferatu Paladin. It's about a friend of mine who used to play all pure lawful good paladins in AD&D - he was so hung up with that goody-goody stuff, that he never played any other colour but White in Magic: the Gathering, and all sorts of quirks like that.

One day we decided to play Vampire with me Storytelling. He said he wanted to experience the true horror of being a fallen creature of the night, so we should aim for a really involved game. I said I agreed and that he should let me choose his character for him, for realism, as his character wouldn't have much of a choice in the matter anyway. He liked the idea, so I turned him into a Nosferatu. That, he didn't like. In fact, he vehemently complained.

In the end I had to let him have his choice of clan with a gimmick a friend proposed. He really didn't want to play a monster.

So I recognise and understand that people need to be able to control the level to which their character's weirdness interferes with their personnal morality. I don't really see the point to try to force people to play a game they 'd find distasteful and possibly disturbing. I couldn't do it anyway and even if I did, it would be forcing them- which is wrong.

Yes, so there is a parallel to your game, but, as I said, please don't compare what TGs go through with something like child abuse. It's on a totally different scale. We suffer because our vanity is greater than our gender maturity. That suffering is our fault and ours alone, even if others are involved in it and enable it. We say that we don't have a choice in the matter, but the truth is that Transition happens in a time in our lives when we are in full control of all our faculties and most of us could hardly be forced into anything we didn't like. In fact, it's because we can't be forced into submitting our perception of our gender to that of society, that we ever begin transition in the first place. And that's only a few of us. Others choose to remain men or women, as they were born. They do that despite feeling the urge to realise their gender as much as the rest of us. So, it is a matter of choice, for us- it is nothing like rape when you 're vulnerable, weak and have no defenses in place strong enough to stop it.

There is something else, that makes the comparison wrong, in my eyes and I want to address that too in my game. You see, there's this thing called "Forced Feminisation". Basically, it's a very common fantasy among TG people. It's a kind of BDSM fantasy where a man is forced to behave like an archetypal female slave by a woman, or a TG woman. The themes are bondage and submission, but there's something else there too, which I can't put my finger on and which makes the guy bits of me want to get sick and the chick bits wanna grab a big stick and go bash some heads in. I think it's tied with the way human beings seem to have so little restraint, when it comes to pouncing on the weak and taking advantage of them, which is part of what I perceive rape as. A great big solid chunk of TG women I 've met, desire to be forced into becoming women, even though they want it anyway. It's like they say "to be a real woman, you have to be weak and submit and let others do with you as they please". That's the part that makes me sick and mad.

That's the part I never want to have anyone live through if they can avoid it- describing it, making it into a "game" that will never be played, is fine. In fact, the game will be incomplete without it (as with so many other things) But if that must be part of the game- the game can never be played.

[redundant/double-pasted portion deleted at author's request - RE]

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Ah oops. Double past there. Sorry about that. There's three paragraphs repeating themselves in the end of the post. Sorry...

[Emily Care]

Hi YGQ/Clarabelle,

Serious topic you're tackling here. Great goal to get it out there.

You're interested in using d20 classes to show the restrictions on the characters that gender classifications enforce, how do you see that functioning? The games that I thought of in reading your example of play were Sorcerer and My Life with Master. The reaching out of Minions in MLwM, and the hard choices the character makes in Sorcerer and their impacts on their humanity.  Those might be useful mechanics for you to look at.

My thanks to you and HCM for sharing on this thread.

all the best,
Emily

[hardcoremoose]

By no means am I prepared to comment as fully as I'd like, but I do have a couple things...

Clyde's reaction mirrors my own...the most interesting aspect, to me, of the sample play is the introduction of the fantasy allegory.  Partly because I just like that stuff, and partly because I think it's less on the nose.  Not surprisingly, my first failed attempt at designing an rpg that addressed my own TG feelings was couched as a super-hero game with an emphasis on secret identities and whatnot.

Emily suggests Sorcerer, and I think that's a good idea.  In private e-mail, I specifically recommended Sex & Sorcery, for its discussion of gender in play.  For a game about gender identity, I think it's a serious oversight to not give any thought to the gender of the participants at the table (which is the primary consideration of my second, somewhat more successful attempt at designing a game to address some of my thoughts...forthcoming here at The Forge perhaps, but not the subject of this thread).  But for sure, Sorcerer might provide inspiration in any number of different ways.

[Sane]

This is dangerous ground you're treading. If you're not very sensitive about how you portray your subject you could end up upsetting a lot of people. The main problem I am having though is envisaging a large number of exciting and engaging adventures wherein a character's gender is vital to the plot. Traditionally the differences between the sexes have always been played down in RPG's, with female characters being (on the whole) capable of taking on any role that the male characters could.

That you're trying something different is definately applaudable, but the concept isn't grabbing me. As a dramatic hook, I'm just not feeling it, and I worry that it might provoke an unhealthy 'Us and Them' mentality between transgenderism and monogenderism instead of promoting understanding and acceptance if not handled with the utmost of care.

Ash

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Emily: Well, not d20 classes really, but Classes anyway. I may even rename them as "Castes" or something similar, to show they 're social classes and rigid ones at that. Or maybe not.

I think I 'll have a look at My Life With Master and Sorcerer, Moosie recommends the latter too. Sounds interesting anyway and I owe it to the author. I have unwittingly cannibalised his dice mechanic, I 'm afraid. It's called cryptomnesia I believe. At least I hadn't read PowerSystem yet...

Kinda cryptic all that I know. But not for long. Now that I know that the core of my little mechanic is old news, I 'll post it here and on my Lj for the game, no reason to keep being deliberately (I stress that) paranoid about it. Later today perhaps.

Moosie: The truth is I just couldn't make a game that was entirely about the real world, no matter how I tried...  I thought about making the fantasy portion into an entire game actually, where players visit an imaginary world where they are the opposite gender- kinda like that character from the Books of Magic, who was a man in the real world, a woman in the magic world.

Then there was also that horror idea about characters playing Succubi, my version of them being men who had their manhood sucked away by demons and now have to feed on the manhood of others, to remain alive, thus having become Succubi themselves. If I get a certain artist to make some illustrations for it, I 'm making that no matter what and screw the interactive sociology (just click on Amber Vile's Art or Sickness and Filth on my Lj links and you 'll see what I mean- she's supposed to do this game to, but she'll never get off her arse.)

Sane: The sad truth is that the "Us and Them" mentality is there and it's there on both sides of the so-called gender divide. Or four sides, as it were. You know how kids grow up with this boys against girls thing? Then they learn about sex and it becomes straights vs queers. And then the queers fight back and it all goes to hell.

Well, it's not my fault, really. Or anybody's. It's just the way things are- but I 'm not leaving it out of my game because it is unpleasant. I mean, I 'm trying to speak about the real world, right? And the real world is a real mess, if you want my opinion.

Traditionally the differences between the sexes have always been played down in RPG's, with female characters being (on the whole) capable of taking on any role that the male characters could.

[you-----> can opener ----> can of worms] 

[Sane]

Sane: The sad truth is that the "Us and Them" mentality is there and it's there on both sides of the so-called gender divide. Or four sides, as it were. You know how kids grow up with this boys against girls thing? Then they learn about sex and it becomes straights vs queers. And then the queers fight back and it all goes to hell.

That's kind of what I'm afraid of. So long as you're careful about how you present things you might be OK, but I wouldn't want to play a game that seemed, whether intentionally or accidentally, to reinforce rather than discourage that gender divide and sexism in much the same way as you'd never get me to play a game where real-life racism was reinforced. I like RPGs because of the equality they tend to promote.

Anyhoo, I am definately not saying that it won't work, and I wish you all the best with the project, but please be careful. If there's one thing I hate, it's prejudice and it's all too easy to offend people accidentally with even the most innocent turn of phrase. This is especially true with a game that has a comedic side to it. There's a fine line between laughing with someone and laughing at them.

Ash

[YeGoblynQueenne]

And how does it promote sexism or racism to speak about it? Or, of course, any kind of prejudice? I think it does exactly the opposite. It exposes it, it reminds us it is real and gives us that little bit more of a motive to stand up against it.

But of course, the game is not about prejudice. It's about gender identities. Sometimes people get into trouble because of theirs, but that is not the central theme of the game. It's just not one that can be left out.

It 'd be a bit like speaking about space travel and not mentioning that you need to bring your oxygen bottle along, see?

Btw I disagree that RPGs promote gender equality because they allow female characters the same career choices as the males. For one thing, that's absolutely realistic; women can, do and have historically fullfilled all the same roles as men, including those of professional soldier, heavy industry worker, national and/or religious leader and career criminal. So RPGs wouldn't be failing to promote equality if female characters couldn't be warriors (or whatever) like males- they would be actively opposing it. Do you see what I mean?

There are no gender inequalities. We invent them and they hurt us, but that doesn't mean I 'm not going to talk about them because they're artificial. I 'll talk about them exactly because they are artificial- and point out the fact.

Now, who is that going to upset except bigots? And they 're always upset about everything anyway. 

Besides, I think the equal options for RPG characters of either gender has a practical side to it too- restricting character creation by gender, would equally restrict character creation options for players who did not feel comfortable to play cross-gender characters. That would hurt a game. So I wouldn't be too quick to put it all down to the collective open-mindedness of game designers- or even their wish to remain politically correct.

Btw, I hope you didn't mean that this game is "comedic" or that it's about laughing with/at trannies. Please read my first post very carefully if you did. It's not meant as a philosophical treaty- but it's definitely not satirical either.

[Sane]

And how does it promote sexism or racism to speak about it? Or, of course, any kind of prejudice? I think it does exactly the opposite. It exposes it, it reminds us it is real and gives us that little bit more of a motive to stand up against it.

I'm not saying it does, I'm saying that with a semi-comedic base there is danger that some people might interpret it as such if the subject matter is not treated with the utmost care.

Btw I disagree that RPGs promote gender equality because they allow female characters the same career choices as the males. For one thing, that's absolutely realistic; women can, do and have historically fullfilled all the same roles as men, including those of professional soldier, heavy industry worker, national and/or religious leader and career criminal. So RPGs wouldn't be failing to promote equality if female characters couldn't be warriors (or whatever) like males- they would be actively opposing it. Do you see what I mean?

It is agreed that women can do pretty much any job that men can, and vice versa of course (there are some pretty darn good male midwives for instance). However historically, the roles of men and women, especially in a medieval setting, have often been very much divided. Therefore presenting a situation whereby, in a setting comparable to our own middle ages, women can take any role in society, RPGs do indeed promote gender equality. It's not just about ability, it's about perceptions of ability and historical precedent.

There are no gender inequalities. We invent them and they hurt us, but that doesn't mean I 'm not going to talk about them because they're artificial. I 'll talk about them exactly because they are artificial- and point out the fact.

Now, who is that going to upset except bigots? And they 're always upset about everything anyway.

Well, there *are* gender inequalities from a physical side of things, such as the male predeliction toward genetic disease, and I was once told by a reliable source that women have lower tolerance to G force, making them (IN GENERAL, not in specific) less suitable to being fighter pilots and astronauts. Naturally all of these 'inequalities' are medical in nature, and few of them are universal. As I'm sure we all know there have been very successful female astronauts in recent years. The problem is that people generalise, and that's where prejudices spring from.

Btw, I hope you didn't mean that this game is "comedic" or that it's about laughing with/at trannies. Please read my first post very carefully if you did. It's not meant as a philosophical treaty- but it's definitely not satirical either.

It was your use of the description 'Tongue-in-Cheek', meaning given to the use of satire and irony, that concerned me in this matter. You also stated that 'right there you have a world view, a classification of peoples' personalities' which implies that personality is a direct upshot of someone's sexual preference.

Ash

[YeGoblynQueenne]

OK, we 're getting kinda pedantic here. So let's go back to the basics, eh?

You 're afraid the game might upset some. Who exactly? This is not a rhetorical question, I 'm sincerely asking. Please tell me who or what kind of people you think would be offended. Then I will ask you what, but first tell me who.

And thanks for the feedback.

[Sane]

OK, we 're getting kinda pedantic here. So let's go back to the basics, eh?

You 're afraid the game might upset some. Who exactly? This is not a rhetorical question, I 'm sincerely asking. Please tell me who or what kind of people you think would be offended. Then I will ask you what, but first tell me who.

And thanks for the feedback.

No problem.

Transgendered, gay, lesbian and straight people could be offended, depending on how they are presented in the text and just how tongue in cheek it is, how overtly stereotyped these genders become within the context of the game, and of course the personality of the individual (you can please all of the people all of the time). People can be very touchy about their gender. It could also upset Christian fundamentalists due to strong religious beliefs they have with regard to sexuality, but then again what doesn't? It's more the first of the two that could be a problem in my view. Oh, and be sure to put a 'mature themes' sticker on the product somewhere, if only to cover yourself as it where.

Just be careful to avoid lurid stereotypes and crass generalisations and you should be OK.

Ash

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I should explain that the "tongue in cheek" part in that first post referred to the (working) title for the game. Not to the game itself.

I expect some of the people you mention will get offended if they ever get to hear about the game. For one thing, "trangsendered, gay, lesbian and straight" describes quite a broad segment of the population!

But gender is a battlefield these days and it's practically impossible to speak about it without getting a strong negative response from someone. It's Farhenehit 451 out there!

However, as I said before, that is not my fault. I must be able to express myself and I 'm just one person. I won't make any money out of it, neither do I represent any "interests". My purpose is not to offend of course, nor to make fun of anyone. I would hardly be making a whole game just to ridicule of myself, would I?

About avoiding stereoytpes, well, that's the idea of the game. To present gender roles as exaggerated stereotypes. I really can't avoid that then.

Anyway, I don't really think anyone will really ever get upset about my little game. Just how many people are going to read it, do you expect? And no sticker will be needed; like I said, it's going to be a free PDF.

[Sane]

I expect some of the people you mention will get offended if they ever get to hear about the game. For one thing, "trangsendered, gay, lesbian and straight" describes quite a broad segment of the population!

Pretty much 100%, though of course I don't expect every single one of 'em to be offended.

About avoiding stereoytpes, well, that's the idea of the game. To present gender roles as exaggerated stereotypes. I really can't avoid that then.

That's kinda what I was afraid of.

Ash