[Eclipse] Gender and Social Class

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm, I'm not sure what you mean by "concrete...likely to come into play", but it sounds intriguing. Would you care to elaborate? I'm a sucker for anything that adds another fun tactical layer to play!

Well, I didn't have anything specific in mind. The only thing that pops into my head is to do something standard like Hero System disadvantages, or GURPS disads? Familiar?

On the subject of beauty, do you have some chart for "conversions" of beauty scores? That is, if beauty is somehow genericized, then different cultures will see characters differently given different standards of beauty from culture to culture. Or do all cultures in the game somehow share the same standard of beauty?

Mike

[Ben O'Neal]

The only thing that pops into my head is to do something standard like Hero System disadvantages, or GURPS disads? Familiar?

Ahhh. Nah. These are all well and good, but I don't think the "disadvantage" system fits with the "feel" of Eclipse. Especially if they were only in place for negotiating with the gender rules (or maybe social class rules as well)... as they would feel "out of place" or just "stuck on" like a lonely post-it note.

On the subject of beauty, do you have some chart for "conversions" of beauty scores? That is, if beauty is somehow genericized, then different cultures will see characters differently given different standards of beauty from culture to culture. Or do all cultures in the game somehow share the same standard of beauty?

Nope, no chart. A few reasons. 1. beauty is an abstract measure of your own internal and external beauty, and not a measure of how other people view you (though it is used to interact with others, it does not itself measure their reactions). 2. no other attribute has that much attention paid to it, despite how other attributes like influence may change according to culture (some might feel that aggression is paramount, whilst others might think that confidence, subtlety, guile, or even reputation would be the most important things for influence). 3. the table would be useless, as it would merely be ascribing an adjective to a static modifier; ie: in one culture being plump might bring you a +1 modifier, whilst in another being grotesquely skinny might bring you a +1 modifier. In both cases though, you are only getting a +1 modifier. Does this make sense (it does in my head...)?

So basically I feel that GM fiat would handle cultural perceptions with far more aplomb than any table would, simply by roleplaying how NPCs react to the PCs based on the player's descriptions of their characters, and perhaps ascribing bonuses/penalties to social rolls based on that.

-Ben

[btrc]

A question and a comment:
Question: I saw a mention that attributes top out at 100. One of my personal feelings abut game design is that you shouldn't design beyond your abilities. That is, don't use numbers that are smaller than any reasonable chance of "simulating game reality". If you're using a percentile scale, this implies that your confidence in the "simulation" is accurate to a 1% level. I mean, if your margin of error is 3%, then 1% divisions are effectively meaningless and just add numbers for the sake of adding numbers. I've seen far too many percentile based games with combat modifiers of +13% or some specific skill with a -8% chance in situation X, and I wonder exactly which hat they pulled those numbers out of.

On the other side of the argument, percentiles have a better "feel" in some cases. If I say 65% on d%, most people have a better understanding of the chance than if I say 13 or less on d20. I tend to lean towards the "less numbers are better" side. Just a personal bias.

Comment: If you were looking for a way to handle 'ceilings' in a simple and useful way, apply your racial/social modifiers to the upper bound. So, if you have a +5 in something, then the ceiling for you is 5 points different than it would be for someone with a +0 in the same characteristic. So, if women had a strength penalty, this would lower their ceiling, and thus the strongest man would always be stronger than the strongest woman.

Greg Porter

[Lxndr]

You know, I don't really mind sexual dimorphism.

But... wow.  A man and a woman both put 10 points into Inf (I don't know what Inf is, sorry).  The man now has an Inf of 20, and the woman has an Inf of 10.  And that's with the smallest possible modifier, a +1.

Am I reading that right?  That sort of numerical divergence feels like a MASSIVE difference to me.  A man has 200% the capacity of a female for Inf (once again, whatever that is, and I'm picking Inf on purpose because of my total ignorance of what it is).  Well, not really capacity per se, since they top out at 100.

Let's take an upperclass man vs. a lowerclass man, and now look at Fla (flavor?).  For every 1 point the upperclass man spends on Fla (for he bottoms out at 0), the lowerclass man gets 4 points.  So they both spend for 10 points, and UC man gets ten, and LC man gets 40.  Once again, that just feels like an absolutely massive difference.

Maybe it works out in play, but my gut feeling is that there's a severe mismatch of proportions here.  What you have looks pretty much like a geometric progression, which feels excessive (just gut feeling here, since I haven't seen how this corresponds to the rest of your system).  Each +1 is a "+100%", and that just doesn't feel plausible.  

Can you allay my concerns on this point?

[Mike Holmes]

Ahhh. Nah. These are all well and good, but I don't think the "disadvantage" system fits with the "feel" of Eclipse.

Neither do I. That's why I mentioned it dismissively. But I think the idea is sound overall. Have something happen to counter the effect, instead of the charge.

1. beauty is an abstract measure of your own internal and external beauty, and not a measure of how other people view you (though it is used to interact with others, it does not itself measure their reactions).

I keep trying to wrap my head around this idea. It's internal, yet it affects people's reactions. I'm not getting it.

2. no other attribute has that much attention paid to it, despite how other attributes like influence may change according to culture (some might feel that aggression is paramount, whilst others might think that confidence, subtlety, guile, or even reputation would be the most important things for influence).

Not getting at all what you're saying here. Who's paying attention in your sentence? People posting here, players, characters?

3. the table would be useless, as it would merely be ascribing an adjective to a static modifier; ie: in one culture being plump might bring you a +1 modifier, whilst in another being grotesquely skinny might bring you a +1 modifier. In both cases though, you are only getting a +1 modifier. Does this make sense (it does in my head...)?

Again, not seeing what you're saying, no.

So basically I feel that GM fiat would handle cultural perceptions with far more aplomb than any table would, simply by roleplaying how NPCs react to the PCs based on the player's descriptions of their characters, and perhaps ascribing bonuses/penalties to social rolls based on that.

This I agree on, in that it's a very complicated thing. That is, what is beautiful to one culture is downright ugly to another (lip rings come to mind). So, given that beauty is so completely subjective from culture to culture, the only thing that I can see a single rating meaning is the beauty that the character has in their own culture.

Flatly, I don't believe that there's such a thing as objective beauty. As they say, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

Mike

[Ben O'Neal]

I keep trying to wrap my head around this idea. It's internal, yet it affects people's reactions. I'm not getting it.

Ok, I'll do my best: :)

Have you ever seen someone, who, despite their physical features being not particularly striking, draws your eye and seems attractive? How about seeing someone who, despite their physical features being quite remarkably stunning, just doesn't "do it" for you? That's part of what I mean by internal. The other part is "innate", as in external, but a property of the individual, not the perceptions of the viewer. Some people, regardless of what culture you stuck them in, would be considered flat out physically ugly by practically everyone, and the reverse is also true.

For example, to the best of my knowledge, Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, is an ugly mofo in any language, but he obviously does it for someone (his wife), but I'd find it a bit of a stretch that he does it for her physically.

Brittany Spears is kinda like the other end. Personally, she does nothing for me, but ask any man from anywhere across the world if she is physically attractive and the answer will likely be an extremely high proportion of "yes".

Now, this is just a mental excercise. I don't have studies to back this up. But this is how it makes sense to me, and this is how the game reflects this reasoning. Also, the world of Eclipse is not Earth. It is a reflection of how I see it in many ways, and a complete divergence from it in others, but it is not Earth.

Not getting at all what you're saying here. Who's paying attention in your sentence? People posting here, players, characters?

None of the above. Me. I was referring to how much in-text/rule attention I was devoting to the attributes. If I designated more detailed rules for just one attribute, it would seem odd that the other attributes were left out. Sorry, I should have made that clearer.

Again, not seeing what you're saying, no.

Sorry. Ummm. Ok, maybe an example of the table might help. Say I was choosing to create a character from X culture. I look up X culture on the table, and I see that this culture values feminine-looking women, and affords them a +1 potential bonus to beauty. Then I'd see the column next to it saying that in culture Y fat women are valued more and they are afforded +1 potential bonus to beauty. Then I'd think "what the hell is the point of this table if every culture gives +1 potential bonuses?" The only function it might serve is to suggest to players how their character should look to be considered beautiful in a given culture -a decision they could make without the table. Did that make sense that time? Or am I misinterpreting the type of table you were referring to?

This I agree on, in that it's a very complicated thing. That is, what is beautiful to one culture is downright ugly to another (lip rings come to mind). So, given that beauty is so completely subjective from culture to culture, the only thing that I can see a single rating meaning is the beauty that the character has in their own culture.

Yeah, that. Except in my experience beauty is not so subjective, but on that issue I think we can agree to disagree. After all, many games have beauty stats that don't vary as a function of cultural location.



Greg, Eclipse is a d20 dice system. Attributes max a at 100, which, given the diminishing returns table, equates to a max attribute modifier of +40. This sort of modifier is far beyond what would be "realistic". We're talking +10 below Angel stats here (THE most powerful beings beneath Gods, having mods around +50). Eclipse is a game of journeying from being "only human" to becoming "fucking unbelievable".

Regarding ceilings... I dunno. I like that everybody, low-born or high-born, male or female, human of whatever, cannot exceed the same boundaries.



Alexander, regarding what happens when you put points into a stat... yeah. Hence I doubt any two characters will ever put the same amount of points into the same stat. To put 10 points on one stat to get 20 out necessitates that you will suffer in another stat. The idea being to put more points into those stats that you don't have a potential mod for, and put less points into those with high potential mods. Also bear in mind that species and social class stack. After all, 1 point in an attribute costs 3GP, and you only get 200 (maybe 250, depends on how things turn out when I make a few characters), and that needs to buy skills too.

Fla=Flame=emotional aptitude/compassion. You're right, it is a massive difference. But the size of the difference means nothing unless it adversely affects play.

See, the modifiers represent potential. If two completely different people put the exact same amount of effort into something, then they will almost certainly end up getting a different amount out of it. For instance, I can eat as much as I want and excercise once in a blue moon and never put on weight. Another person may have to excercise every single day and watch what they eat just to maintain a particular body weight.

Ideally, my original hope was to implement a much smaller potential bonus. However, as you noted, +1 is as small as I can make it. If I make it into fractions then things become hairy and I don't want that. If I say "for every X points you spend, you will get Y for free", then I risk losing acuity, because every player will only ever stick in the amount of X necessary to get Y, no more and no less. Plus it becomes much more difficult to keep track of during play, because players would have to know how many points they raised an attribute last time, to know how many more points they need to get Y.

I'll try to come up with a few characters over this weekend to see how it works. Feel free to do the same :)

-Ben

[Maarzan]

But why should the noble poet get a bonus to leadership later when he never used the option to train in his youth and probably never left his noble household. (as indicated by his GP split)

Because he is a noble. Other nobles will treat him like a noble (if a bit of a pompous/stupid one), and the lower-classes will treat him as a noble. Just the mere fact of his station is enough to carry weight in Eclipse's society.


-Ben

This was probably one of the worse exapmles I could have used. Try again:
Take a young noble. In his young years he could have used his position to get a decent education. But instead he was hunting, partying and taking part on martial games (i.e. he didn´t put points into crystal). Now he is grown up and on un urhent mission. He and his troup of retainers are in an old library and they have to learn as much about their abysal enemies as they can. And according to your rules as looks if he would learn more than his lower class clerk retainer.

My idea is that the classes would be a fitting abstraction of the unplayed young years. But after that the result of these young years would rule the advancement characteristic. Points like nutrition and resources will still influence the advanecemnt vastly too, but I fear to put this into the abstraction of social class will often bite with percepted reality.
The knighted commoner on the battlefield will have to wait probably for years before he can earn the fruits of his improvement with several of the attributes if the war continues.

Someone mentioned bachground options. This could deal with things like the offspring of well done middle class having access to good education and nourishment too or dealing with poor nobles.

The problem with beauty is that probably too many people have a common understandment of the term at odds with your definition. Probably renaming it into the good old charisma does a better job?

Regarding granulary of the scale. You probably can´t measure influences exactly enough to go into single percents. But the skill score itself can be described at this level and from my experience it counts at this level. I know that for example in sports that some meager looking percent can make the difference between certain victory and no chance at all under controlled circumstances.

[Ben O'Neal]

Take a young noble. In his young years he could have used his position to get a decent education. But instead he was hunting, partying and taking part on martial games (i.e. he didn´t put points into crystal). Now he is grown up and on un urhent mission. He and his troup of retainers are in an old library and they have to learn as much about their abysal enemies as they can. And according to your rules as looks if he would learn more than his lower class clerk retainer.

A few points here: my understanding of nobility in medieval times was that children couldn't just "choose" to hunt party or whatever. Families back then, and especially noble families, were fantastically strict with their children. A noble child would have no choice but to learn exactly what the father wanted them to learn, and do what the father wanted them to do.
Secondly, regarding the noble learning more: no. If they have less points in an attribute, then they are lower, regardless of potential. Searching through a library will not increase an attribute, so no, the noble would not learn more. But if, when they next reached a point of advancement, they chose to put their points into crystal, then yes, they could raise their crystal higher than a lower class person could.


But if the potential bonuses for advancement and chargen are incongruous with people's perceived realities, can someone else suggest a better way to model the effects of social class and shit? I mean, if I don't model it, then I feel that these options become meaningless and have no place in a game. It is also incongruent with my perceptions of reality to say that two people, born of different gender in different social classes with different access to resources could potentially be the same.

So any suggestions at all about a better way to approach these issues would be very much appreciated.

-Ben

[contracycle]

Then I'd think "what the hell is the point of this table if every culture gives +1 potential bonuses?" The only function it might serve is to suggest to players how their character should look to be considered beautiful in a given culture -a decision they could make without the table.

Yes.  But by providing the table, you are formalising that statement; thats is a suitable and valid use of a table.

A few points here: my understanding of nobility in medieval times was that children couldn't just "choose" to hunt party or whatever. Families back then, and especially noble families, were fantastically strict with their children. A noble child would have no choice but to learn exactly what the father wanted them to learn, and do what the father wanted them to do.

Hmm, for some, but theres no particular reason to believe this was universal.  However, I would say that being raised in that milieu will reinforce a sense of identity, personal value, and pride, purely as a feature of the psychological environnment.

[Mike Holmes]

I get the beauty idea now. I still think that even "inner beauty" would be culturally subjective in the real world, but if it's universal in your setting, that works just fine.

Mike

[Jason Lee]

I don't know if this has been brought up yet (in any of the many threads), but you've got the the great Chun Li fallacy going on by giving women an agility bonus.  Yes, I do blame fighting video games for this perception.

Women, generally, have greater joint flexibility, but it comes at the cost of increased risk of hyper-extension.  They also have a lower center of gravity, but the usefulness of that is offset by structurally weaker knees (knobby knees are more common in women) and less efficient thigh muscle leverage because of hip displacement.  Plus, the generally lower muscle mass to inert body weight ratio hinders agility (muscles move the body).  I'd make the costs the same on Agility for men and women, if not transfer the bonus to men.

I see you've got the traits nicely balanced, and the great Chun Li fallacy may be an expectation you want to cater too, but it's not particularly realistic.  Pet peeve of mine, but to each his own.

[Andrew Norris]

Alexander, regarding what happens when you put points into a stat... yeah. Hence I doubt any two characters will ever put the same amount of points into the same stat. To put 10 points on one stat to get 20 out necessitates that you will suffer in another stat. The idea being to put more points into those stats that you don't have a potential mod for, and put less points into those with high potential mods. Also bear in mind that species and social class stack. After all, 1 point in an attribute costs 3GP, and you only get 200 (maybe 250, depends on how things turn out when I make a few characters), and that needs to buy skills too.

Ravien, I'm not sure that I follow you here. Are you saying that players will optimize their choices such that they don't bother to put any points into the attributes that are costly for them? Or only a handful?

If so, I see a problem. You're saying that the modifiers represent slight variances in potential across gender and social groups, and yet you're encouraging these differences to be vast for PCs.

If I understand you correctly, then, female characters aren't expected to buy much physical strength at all, as even a +1 modifier greatly increases its cost. That seems to directly go against the idea that you presented  that modifiers represent a difference in potential. It seems that an average group of created PCs is going to usually stick very close to the "stereotype" for their respective origin. Is that an intended effect?

On another topic,

But if the potential bonuses for advancement and chargen are incongruous with people's perceived realities, can someone else suggest a better way to model the effects of social class and shit? I mean, if I don't model it, then I feel that these options become meaningless and have no place in a game. It is also incongruent with my perceptions of reality to say that two people, born of different gender in different social classes with different access to resources could potentially be the same.

Question. Does something have to be modeled to have a place in the game? I tend to disagree.

If something is part of the text of the game, but has no mechanical rule governing it, it's probably setting or color, but it still exists. Even hardcore Sim games contain lots of content that's "part of the game" without having rules for it. For example, if one nation uses curved swords while another uses straight swords, that might be relevant to the game without there being any in-rule differences between the modeling of the two types of swords.

I can't see a problem with just having text in your game saying "In this world, males are usually stronger than females" or "Nobility are better-educated than peasants" and leaving it at that. In play, the players and GM could come to a consensus as to whether that meant for them that no female character would take a high strength, or whether they'd take it as a guideline for NPCs only, or just ignore that detail completely.

I personally have no problem with saying that two people from different backgrounds might turn out very similar. It sounds like it could even be an interesting story. You take that as unrealistic. If you were to state your preferences as guidelines within the setting, and not as mechanical rules, we can both get what we want.

I hope you don't take that as off-topic. It's just that you asked for other suggestions of how you might handle this type of thing, and I think moving it from System to Setting is a reasonable option, one that a lot of games have used.

[Jason Lee]

I didn't touch the mental differences before, because I was sort of avoiding it.  Anyway, here is a list of neurological differences between men and women, courtesy of The Society for Women's Health Research

The structure of the brain and the way it functions is different in women and men.

•  Adolescent brain development appears to be different in males and females. Males age 6-17 years have been shown to display more prominent age-related decreases in gray matter (the part of the brain than allows us to think) and increases in white matter (which transfers information between distant regions) than females. These changes in brain composition appear to be linked to developmental processes in which nerve cell connections are "pruned" in gray matter and made more efficient (myelinated) in white matter. The more dramatic changes seen in males may be related to the different effects of estrogen and testosterone on the brain.

• Women have smaller brains than men, with women having more gray matter and men having more white matter. This finding may help explain why women are typically better than men at verbal tasks, while men are typically better than women at spatial tasks, as well as why the sexes perform equally well on intelligence tests in spite of males having larger brains.

•  Although men and women have been shown to process some language tasks similarly, in other aspects of language processing there are significant sex differences.

•  Imaging studies of the living brain indicate that in women, neurons on both sides of the brain are activated when they are listening, while in men, neurons on only one side of the brain are activated.

•  Men and women appear to process single words similarly, but in the interpretation of whole sentences, women use both sides of the brain while men use one side.

•  Boys have a higher incidence than girls of developmental language disorders, such as developmental dyslexia. Despite these differences during childhood, it is not clear whether adult women have better verbal skills than men.

•  Men and women process spatial information differently.

•  When negotiating a virtual reality maze, both men and women use the right hippocampus to figure out how to exit. However, men also use the left hippocampus for this task, while women do not, and women also use the right prefrontal cortex, while men do not.

•  In an imaging study, men were found to activate a distributed system of different brain regions on both sides of the brain while performing a spatial task. Women, however, activated these regions on only the right side of the brain.

•  Women appear to rely on landmarks to navigate their environments, whereas men tend to use compass directions.

•  Males typically have twice as many neurons as females in the cerebral cortex, the gray matter that covers the majority of the brain's surface. However, females appear to have twice as many connections between neurons as males, leading to an overall equal number of neural processes.

•  Boys are more prone to mental retardation and learning disabilities than girls. This may be due to the fact that male fetuses require the maintenance of higher numbers of nerve cells in the cerebral cortex than female fetuses - early damage to the male developing brain could result in higher losses of needed neurons.

•  As the brain ages, the amount of tissue mass declines and the amount of fluid increases. This effect is less severe in women than in men, suggesting that women are somewhat less vulnerable to age-related changes in mental abilities abilities.  However, women are more prone to dementia than men, perhaps because any disease that leads to loss of neurons is likely to cause more connections per neuron to be lost in women.

•  The cerebellum, an area of the brain important for posture and balance, and the pons, a brain structure linked to the cerebellum that helps control consciousness, are larger in men than in women.

•  Some functions of memory appear to be different in males and females.

•  Higher rates of blood flow in certain portions of the brain are associated with increased memory of verbal tasks in women, but not in men.

•  Compared to men, women have been shown to be better at remembering faces.

The above is full of a lot of medical jargon, though I think they are nice about explaining most of it.  Point one in particular I think needs a little explaining.  Myelinated nerves transfer signals faster, but that shouldn't be read as 'men think faster'.  Likewise, though grey matter is 'thinking meat' that doesn't mean women have more thinking ability.  It's complicated, and I'm not knowledgeable enough to speculate about what that neurological difference actually means for cognitive function.

The hippocampus is part of the brain and plays a role in memory formation of personal experiences. It also probably pitches in for spatial memory and navigation.

Dementia has a specific medical definition (loss of cognitive function - Alzheimer's Dementia is the most common dementia), but I don't think that's relevant to the discussion here.

*****

So, given the data you can make up your own mind, though I think if you wanted to accurately reflect the cognitive differences between men and women, Spatial and Verbal should be your primary mental divisions.  Probably not a real "fun" division for a roleplaying game though.

[NN]

I think the best way to model "the effects of social class and shit" is a mixture of skill availablity, languages, money, contacts, and knowledge rather than attributes.

If you want nobles to be in charge, dont fuss about with their leadership score. Just make them in charge.

[Ben O'Neal]

Ok, a few good points here:

Cruciel (1st post): Regarding flexibility, you are correct on average, but not in the extremes of human potential. I direct you to this abstract, and to lines 5 and 6. Basically you're right, that in average and the extremes of potential, when all other factors are accounted for (such as training, diet, and age), males are significantly superior to females in all physical measures except flexibility. And the reason, as you noted, is because we are just built differently. PM me if you want more studies, or you can just search for your own.

Andrew, I'm not sure I understand your concerns. IF players stick to the "stereotypes", then they will definately suffer in other areas. If they don't want to suffer in those areas, then they have to divert from the stereotype.

Question. Does something have to be modeled to have a place in the game? I tend to disagree.

Well, IMHO, yes and no. It depends on the relative importance of that thing to the game. In a world where gender has a strong influence on place in society and how you interact with other people (like any world similar to earth), then I think it needs to be modelled. If one nation uses curved swords and another uses straight ones, this is not going to have any significant impact on anything except sword choice. So I feel that if the aspect in question is significant in the world, it should be modelled. If it is not-so significant, it can be setting. Make sense?

I hope you don't take that as off-topic. It's just that you asked for other suggestions of how you might handle this type of thing, and I think moving it from System to Setting is a reasonable option, one that a lot of games have used.

Not at all, I did ask for it and I appreciate your input. It is a reasonable option, but one which, as I just stated, is not in accord with my basic design philosophies.

Cruciel (2nd post): That was kinda funny. I love reading stuff from places like "The Society for Women's Health Research", because it's always funny to see what they leave out, which is often just as if not more important than what they include. frex:

Women have smaller brains than men, with women having more gray matter and men having more white matter. This finding may help explain why women are typically better than men at verbal tasks, while men are typically better than women at spatial tasks, as well as why the sexes perform equally well on intelligence tests in spite of males having larger brains.

...but white matter/grey matter means absolutely nothing when it comes to verbal and spatial tasks. This "finding" means didly squat except that information is processed faster in a male brain than in a female brain, and that more complicated processing can occur in a female brain than in a male brain. The reason females perform better at verbal tasks has nothing to do with white matter/grey matter, it has everything to do with the left hemisphere bias and overall lower degree of lateralization in a female brain. The reason men perform better in spatial tasks has everything to do with the strong right hemisphere dominance and strong lateralization of the brain.

Another one of my favourite omisions is the "Boys are more prone to mental retardation and learning disabilities than girls." claim minus the "but they are also vastly ovre-represented at the other end of the scale too, to the tune of a 13:1 ratio". I love that omission, it's hilarious. But I could give a 5000 word essay on this, so I'll stop here. Suffice to say that there were quite a few missing pieces and a few falsified claims.

So, given the data you can make up your own mind, though I think if you wanted to accurately reflect the cognitive differences between men and women, Spatial and Verbal should be your primary mental divisions. Probably not a real "fun" division for a roleplaying game though.

Yeah I could, and yeah it would make roleplaying odd, to say the least. But the differences in fluid and crystal ("logic and analysis" and "learning and memory") are also accurate (see this topic for some references).

NN: But I don't just want nobles to "be in charge", I want the authority of a noble to be able to be challenged. Eclipse isn't about setting hard and fast rules about what is and isn't possible, it's about saying this is how things are, what are you going to do about it?

Also, those suggestions for "social class and shit" are already implemented. Attributes were just another thing that was influenced.


But all of this has really become moot, unfortunately. Over in this theory thread, Ralph (Valimir) suggested breaking Eclipse apart and turning it into a bunch of smaller, more focused games, each with their own mechanics devised especially for the pursuit of that focus. Originally, Eclipse was meant to be a BIG RPG, but logistically, tearing it into smaller parts is much easier to achieve. They will all share the setting, but they will have unique mechanics. Maybe social class and gender may find their way into some of these things, but as long as the mechanics of each game are designed solely for the pursuit of that game's focus, gender and social class probably won't even enter into it, and species will almost never be an option. Maybe one day I will bring it all together again, and make a BIG RPG out of it all, but that would be a while away.

So in closing, thanks for all your posts everyone, your input has been helpful and appreciated. My next topic may very well be the beginning of a new game, focused on one aspect of Eclipse. From Ralph's and Andrew's posts in that thread, I will probably start with: "You are members of an ancient and secret guild, whose goal is to ensure the fulfilment of ancient prophecies, and you are being sent to a recently discovered country to establish a new base of operations. You play members of the dark and feared guild of assassins known as the Wraiths, whilst also maintaining the public façade of local merchants", and see where I go with that.

Thanks,
-Ben