Gender Based vs. Gender Biased

[John Kim]

See what I mean? Apparently, the whole argument can be avoided by just agreeing with the constructivist side! It's so easy and clear now! [/sarcasm]  

Not at all. In a game without gender modifiers I could quite happily create a character and say 'She inherited his great strength from her mother who was a defencted Russian Shot-Putter' or 'She spent 4 hours a dauy in the gym to develop her great strength'. It's perfectly possible for the game system to take a neutral stance.

Actually, Simon, I agree with Ben here.  Having no gender modifiers is itself a statement just as strong as having gender modifiers.  By the way, you were right to chide me on this, Ben -- i.e. having gender-differentiated "classes" is indeed constructionist and is only "less controversial" in the sense that at least moderate constructionism seems more common (at least around this forum).  

What I was trying to suggest was having a different mechanics structure which doesn't imply being able to separate out social and genetic factors.  i.e. Having a set of modifiers for gender, a set of modifiers for race, and a set of modifiers for social class implies that you can distinguish between those.  But you could have a package -- perhaps called a "template" -- which includes the combined effects of all three.  i.e. The "elven commoner woman" package includes both the influences of elven society on women and the genetic dimorphism of elves.  This is what I was trying to suggest earlier, but on reflection I agree that calling it a "class" puts a constructionist spin on it.  

A nice touch might be having fantasy races with different gender roles.  i.e. You could have a "Hyena-folk" race where the females are stronger than the males and dominate society.  

The fact is that strong women realy do exist out there because individuals are not averages, they can be present in adventuring teams and can make interesting characters to play (or play with in a group) so therefore I see no reasonable reason or motive for eliminating them from a game.  

To be fair, gender-based attribute modifiers don't eliminate strong women from the game.  They may make them more costly, and they may cap women's strength at a lower level than a man's strength -- but proponents would say that is realistic (i.e. in the real world there are a number of men who are stronger than the world's strongest woman).

[KingstonC]

1) Most game systems do not attempt to formally assign diferent stats, or skills, or lifepaths, or whatever, to men and women. Ruleswise, most games are androgynous. There is no difference between men and women, mechanically, in most RPG's.

2) However, in the shared creative spaces that most RPG's create, the world is decidedly NOT androgynous. The differenciation of men and women in the game world still occurs, but through DRAMA mechanics, rather than through Karma or Fortune. So it's not as if you don't use a formal mechanical means of assigning men and women different roles in the game world, then the game is somehow sexually egalitarian. It's just that the gender differencation has moved from the expicit in the form of mechanics, to the implicit, in the form of drama.

3) Making somthing explicit in a games rules is a powerful way to focus player and GM attention on it. So if you want to address gender related premices, such as a game in which all of the PC's are women in talaban ruled Afganistan, it would powerfully focus player understanding of the premice if you, for example, ruled that no character could take the literacy skill, or gave each character a haram score to measure how far from their societies role for women they have strayed. And it would make no sence for male NPC's in such a game to be bound by the same rules, in fact, it would ruin the game if they were.

So, just because a game doesn't use gender based mechanics doesn't mean the game is sexist, and just because a game does use these mechanics doesn't mean a game is sexist.

-K

[Eric J.]

Okay, in this thread we've discussed:

Essentialism vs. Constructionism

Female and Male attribute modifiers in D&D

Female and Male attribute modifiers in general.

System Premise.

Game design and its model of society

Game design and its model of people

How audiences react to differences in Essentialism and Constructionism

How many Clefairies can dance on the head of a pin


So... The way I see it, we need to bring transgender issues into it.



Sorry, all of that was my attempt at humor.  Mr. Monkey needs to give this thread some direction.  For clarifiication on my previous points:

Quote:
Basically I'm saying that you have the huge potential to deprotagonise your players (the worst possible thing IMHO) with little benefit.  

If implemented poorly, any mechanic can do this. Some mechanics do nothing but this (like the ability to die). However, in theory, this can be avoided by successfuly addressing what I originally outlined as The Problem. However, it seems that deprotagonization of characters takes a back seat to personal feelings when gender is introduced.

I meant that this type of mechanic can be especially, since you could possibly give players negative incentive to play the type of character they want (i.e. if female or male is in the characters premise and the system discourages the type of female or male that they want to play).  I'm not sure what you mean by "However, it seems that deprotagonization of characters takes a back seat to personal feelings when gender is introduced."

Quote:
If you're making a <some type of game> what modifiers would be appropriate? Are they appropriate? Or... how would a mechanic like this appeal to an audience?

This is amusing because I've seen many forgites give advice to newbies along the lines of "don't worry about what other people want, just design the game that you want". I've given such advice myself, and I think it is perfectly relevant to all design aspects.

Er... I was just wondering if that's what we were discussing.  I wasn't advocating that people let their personal freedom become corrupted because of a gender issue.

Anyway, I agree with pretty much everything you've said Ravien.  

This is another point that has torqued the debate out of shape several times. It is impossible to intelligently discuss design aspects when you have fundamental disagreements about the design goals.


So, I think that rather than going around in circles re-stating our positions, we ought to decide, for the specific purpose of this thread, what answers we want to give to (1) and (2) above and then go from there. Kris, it's your thread. Am I making any sense, or am I full of it?

SR

Because it deserves being restated.

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyron

[SlurpeeMoney]

Wow. I started this thread as, basically, a way to discuss a topic in which I am interested without the long arguments that stemmed from it in previous attempts to do so. Now, as tempers are beginning to again heat up over it, people are looking to me for direction in the topic. I feel slightly intimidated.

In my current group of players, which numbers as few as 3 and as large as 6, depending upon circumstances, we have three women. Each of them has, at different times, indicated that they feel stifled in a neuter game in which the benefits of being a woman are not represented by the system. I simply thought that adding mechanics that would allow people to make better use of the gender-based strengths they know and use in real life would be of benefit to them, and thought that this would be a good place to start looking for ideas on how to handle it.

So let's go from that. How do you add gender-based strengths (regardless of where they come from, society, biology, entemology, whatever) into a game fairly? In fact, let's even take the "fairly" out. Let's be as unfair as needed to get the point across; what things should women be incredibly good at in a game? What things should men be incredibly good at in a game? How would you make the rules and the setting reflect on those strengths? At the same time, what should they be really bad at? What can men do that women can't do? What can women do (other than the obvious and game-unrelated "Give birth") that men can't do?

One thing I want to stop seeing in this thread are the following words: "This/that/you/whatever makes no sense." Let's stop trying to tear down other people's theories and thoughts; it's not constructive and leads to people defending themselves, which in turn leads to fighting. Let us instead try to build upon the ideas presented by others, so that we can begin to construct a series of inter-related thoughts, rather than a discourse on Essentialism or Constructivism. If something rubs you the wrong way, ignore it. If it's an integral part of something you want to build on, change it. Note the change, let us know why you changed it (to suit the statistics, to better fit a particular type of setting, what have you), and be done with it.

And that's it. That's the direction this thread should take. Let's talk about the differences between men and women, regardless of how they develop. Let's talk about how those differences can factor in our games. Let's talk about how to bring those differences into our games. And lets build on eachother's statements and ideas without having to qualify them first.

Will that work?
Kris
"Someone send me money. I must buy a slurpee."

[contracycle]

And that's it. That's the direction this thread should take. Let's talk about the differences between men and women, regardless of how they develop. Let's talk about how those differences can factor in our games. Let's talk about how to bring those differences into our games. And lets build on eachother's statements and ideas without having to qualify them first.

Will that work?

No.  Because we still have not asnwered the first question, to whit, "why are we doing this?"

I still don't understand the POINT of the question.

In my current group of players, which numbers as few as 3 and as large as 6, depending upon circumstances, we have three women. Each of them has, at different times, indicated that they feel stifled in a neuter game in which the benefits of being a woman are not represented by the system.

Lets take this.  I have no proffered multiple examples of neuter systems that would, IMO, facilitate the expression of any or most character concepts of either sex.  As KingstonC pointed out, all of these systems are invariably used to produce game worlds that  are not androgynous.  So perhaps you could expand for us on exactly what it is the players feel is missing?

To me, it all feels a bit like "I want to be special too, just like everyone else".  So, what systems have you been using, and what is it that these players feel is missing?

What can women do (other than the obvious and game-unrelated "Give birth") that men can't do?

Again, I find this baffling - here IS a major difference between men and women and you choose not to address it!!!  Absolutely, where are the childbirth rrules in RPG?  In fact, there are some, mostly in the games that make an attempt to be generational.  MOST games ignore these aspects of reality though because they are focussed on other matters, however.

[Ben O'Neal]

Ok contracycle, consider combat.

Many games do not mechanically distinguish between combat and other actions. In such games, the mechanical difference between selling bread and choppng someone's head off is zero. In effect, all actions are metaphorically "androgynous". But some people (like me), want to be able to explore the difference between baking bread and killing people. Such systems flatly do not allow this. They don't place barriers in your way, they just don't pave the road. These systems do facilitate the creation of any character concept for sure. But why then, do some people not like them? Why don't we all play GURPS, FUDGE, or HQ? Because some people like to be able to distinguish between things and see that distinguishment taken advantage of. That is what the players feel is missing: the ability to explore avenues that they wish to explore. You are saying, flat out: "there is no reason for you to want to explore that". I am saying, flat out: "you have no ground to stand on in making such a claim".

Regarding pregnancy in games, I see no reason why someone shouldn't include them, but I also see no reason why they should, except that they wish to. If I say "I want to model realistic warfare, but I don't want to model grenades", then how is that different to saying "I want to model realistic gender differences, but I don't want to model pregnancy"? Why is one wrong and the other acceptable? Personally, I'd love to see pregancy implemented in a game providing it opened up interesting avenues of play. Don't believe me? Look here, bottom of my post. Like everything, there's no point in including anything at all unless it is interesting and can serve to enhance the play experience. You may think that gender can never do that, I think otherwise. Some people agree with you, some agree with me, some have totally different opinions, and no-one is wrong.

I still don't understand the POINT of the question.

I don't know how much more clearly it can be said: "to open up interesting avenues of play for exploration and enjoyment."

Er... I was just wondering if that's what we were discussing. I wasn't advocating that people let their personal freedom become corrupted because of a gender issue.

Sorry if it seemed like I was attacking you or questioning your opinions/motives, I merely found that last question amusing. Sorry if it seemed like I assumed you were advocating people conform, I never made that assumption, I just thought the point needed re-stating.

-Ben

[contracycle]

OK, I'd like to start here:

I don't know how much more clearly it can be said: "to open up interesting avenues of play for exploration and enjoyment."

Thats a fair enough statement in isolation; the problem is that it applies equally to so many things.  I might introduce either pregnancy or breadmaking equally for the same motive.

You are saying, flat out: "there is no reason for you to want to explore that". I am saying, flat out: "you have no ground to stand on in making such a claim".

I'm sorry but I really must insist that I have not said that at all.  I have said that, without a specific intent, it looks suspiciously like a knee-jerk.  What I have said is that the response 'because reality is like that' is not adequate in and of itself.

So lets focus more closely on this:

Ok contracycle, consider combat.

OK, great.  Let me paraphrase: "This is a game that explore melee combat.  For such a topic, the material differences between male and female musculatures are within both the systematic scope and the degree of resolution and are reflected accordingly".

I have to say that this still does not IMO necessarily lead to the conclusion that the method you have chosen is necessarily called for on this basis; as we discussed by PM, I still consider descriptive rather than prescriptive systems to be superior.  But at least now we have a REASON for the interest your system demonstrates.

But also note that now it is not gender differences that are the subject of exploration... gender differences are ancillary to the primary focus of exploration, which is (melee) combat.

Like everything, there's no point in including anything at all unless it is interesting and can serve to enhance the play experience.

Yes absolutely agreed.

You may think that gender can never do that, I think otherwise. Some people agree with you, some agree with me, some have totally different opinions, and no-one is wrong.

In fact I have posted numerous examples of how sex and gender can be very interesting to explore.  But moving swiftly on...

Don't believe me? Look here, bottom of my post.

I believe you; I also quite like the structure you propose.  I'm very keen on more attention being paid to generational games and and systems that bring much more of the human experience into play rather than just combat simulations.  If you would like to discuss the proposal further, I would be happy to contribute.

[SlurpeeMoney]

Why are we doing this? Because all of my female players have expressed the concern, and I want to enable them to have as much fun as they can at my table. And, because I want to, which, in an entertainment media like role-playing is all that can really be asked.

We play Palladium Fantasy quite a bit, but have been steadilly moving away from it in favor of Witchcraft and Vampire, with a bit of The Wheel of Time, some Tribe 8, some Exalted and some 7th Sea.

SlurpeeMoney
"Having to go to work may result in short posts."

[Ben O'Neal]

Thats a fair enough statement in isolation; the problem is that it applies equally to so many things. I might introduce either pregnancy or breadmaking equally for the same motive. (bold emphasis mine)

I fail to see how that is a problem at all. If you think a game about the exploration of breadmaking is interesting and enjoyable, then where does the problem come in?

OK, great. Let me paraphrase: "This is a game that explore melee combat. For such a topic, the material differences between male and female musculatures are within both the systematic scope and the degree of resolution and are reflected accordingly".

Ummm, correct me if I'm wrong (I know you will), but I think you've misinterpreted my point. My point was to look at combat itself, in isolation, and completely regardless of gender, and to see that as an analogy to gender, itself, in isolation, completely regardless of combat. The two things, can, of course, be mixed, but my point, I think, was lost in your response.

I'm sorry but I really must insist that I have not said that at all. I have said that, without a specific intent, it looks suspiciously like a knee-jerk. What I have said is that the response 'because reality is like that' is not adequate in and of itself.

I apologise for the misinterpretation then, but that is exactly how I have percieved your comments. All in all though, I agree that "because reality is like that" is inadequate. I think you'll find I never said otherwise (nor has anyone else, to my knowledge). Indeed, many other reasons have been given, not least of which is the one I gave earlier which you agreed with. I believe that the only instances where that reason has been given, are in response to questions of the sort "but why those particular differences", as opposed to "but why any differences". For the former, I would argue that such a response is entirely adequate, along with "because I like it that way", and pretty much any other reason you care to add.



Kris, you mentioned that your group has played The Wheel of Time. I love Jordan's novels (though I wish he would hurry up about finishing the damn series), and my impression of the game was that it totally failed to address the very strong theme of gender in his novels. As such, I have never played it because I feel it would not allow me to "live the story" in any meaningful way, basically forcing me to play AD&D as a different character. Of course, I also had a problem that despite the taint on saidin (saidar? I can't remember which is which) being removed in the novels, there was no such allowance in the game, which really destroys any sort of parallel to the chronology. How did you find it? What were the problems (if any) that you and/or the other members of your group had with it? Did gender become an issue in your sessions (for better or worse)?

Perhaps if you give us all a bit of info about the sorts of problems that you and your group have had specifically regarding gender, and how you think those problems might be addressed, we may be able to keep this discussion safely held at arms length in a little box that is your group's experiences and expectations. With a little luck, if we can successfully address those problems we may all walk out of here with a little bit more than we came in with. It's your call though, just a friendly thought.

-Ben

[contracycle]

Why are we doing this? Because all of my female players have expressed the concern, and I want to enable them to have as much fun as they can at my table. And, because I want to, which, in an entertainment media like role-playing is all that can really be asked.

Can you be more detailed about the specific concerns they expressed?

[jrs]

I'm going to echo contracycle's request and add the following:

1.  What are the "benefits of being a woman" that your fellow players identify?

2.  How do they want to see these benefits applied in the game?

3.  Can you give an example from play that illustrates the current dissatisfaction?

I think that dealing with the specific needs of your group would be the most useful place to start.  

Julie

[Andrew Norris]

Wow. I have to admit I find the newly (re)introduced topic much more captivating. Can I get a trip over to a parallel universe where this much time and thought has been spent discussing how to give those players what they want from the game? :)

In order to discuss this, though, we'd need to know their specific concerns and desires.

My gut reaction is that what would be more useful, rather than trying to figure out the mechanical benefit of being a female character, would be to address what the positive (or negative, for that matter) aspects of being female are to them.  I've been doing just that in the modern-day occult game I run.

In my current campaign:
- For one female player with a female character, being female is about being an object of desire and having carte blanche to be capricious because she's so desired.

- For a male player with a female character, being female is about being stylish and smooth, always having the proper bon mot for a situation. A career woman, if you will, who feels the need to always be "together" to go against stereotype. (It's also an open question as to whether the character, an amnesiac, was originally born in her current body, and gender, at all.)

- Finally, for our new player, female with a female character, it's about how being a mother and wife brings into center stage the conflict between personal fulfillment and providing for those you love.

Each of those characters addresses being female, but it's all about what it means to them. If I were to introduce objective mechanical modifiers that applied to them all equally, they'd express total disinterest.

But then again, you can replace "being female" with "being human" and it still means the same thing, so it may be this isn't the kind of thing you're looking for. (But it's why I skip most of these discussions -- I want the statements about character (including gender) to come from my players, and to be tailored to their interests.)

[wicked_knight]

Each of them has, at different times, indicated that they feel stifled in a neuter game in which the benefits of being a woman are not represented by the system.

In and of itself that really isn't helpful. The reason it isn't is that we could sit here all day coming up with "solutions" and they still won't feel satisfied because we don't know what they had in mind. But the way you phrase can be taken in several different ways. Are they stiffled because the game is gender neutral, or are they stiffled because the game doesn't give them advantages that they normally expect from being female?

And are you asking this in the right place? I mean, the majority of people who are responding are males.  A males concept of what is equal or advantageous could be drastically different from what a females view is.

What you might consider doing is getting answers from your players.. questioning other woman roleplayers and then when you have an idea of what they want... then ask how you can implement their ideas.

What things should men be incredibly good at in a game? How would you make the rules and the setting reflect on those strengths? At the same time, what should they be really bad at? What can men do that women can't do?

Without context there isn't an answer here.  I don't think this really about  gender basing. I think it's making the game more appealing to your female players, and I believe theres a distinction between the two.

[SlurpeeMoney]

Okay. My last post was written in the five minutes I had before I had to rush myself to work. So I'm quite sure it was disatisfactory for all involved; I just wanted to ensure you all knew I was still listening. ^__^

So it's gone from "Where do you want to go?" to "Why do you want to go there?" And the specifics of my answer were, in my previous post, because my female players feel stifled in a neuter game, not being able to benefit from womanhood as distinct from other neuter characters. To them, a neuter system denotes "male" more often than female in the spirit of the rules. Even in systems like Vampire, where pronoun use is switched per topic, or in some of Steve Jackson's games in which female pronouns are used throughout, the lack of distinctive femininity, to them and to myself, seems prevailent.

What were their problems? Honestly, should I ask them, I doubt they could give me a straight answer. Perhaps they do simply want the rules to favor women instead of men, though they've said as often that they want the rules to reflect male strength as well; some of the girls play guys a lot, and find that neutering the characters often has the effect of non-differentiation. It's no different playing a neuter man than it is a neuter woman, so they always feel like they're playing castratos.

Still, this doesn't affectively address the issue. Let's look at some specifics and see what we can do. Keep in mind, this is all conjecture and opinion; no facts back up anything said from here on in, so let's not talk about what is realistic; let's talk about what we can do with it, how we can play with it, and different ways we can look at it.

Strengths:

Sexuality: In western culture, at least, women dominate sexuality in culture. If ad companies want to sell something to men, the put hot chicks in the comercial. If they want to sell something to women, they have hot chicks use their product in the comercial. This isn't always true of every culture; there are, I'm sure, cultures in which men are the objects of lust and attraction. I've no experience with those cultures, though, and so I stick to what I know. Women should be sexier than men. That's their thought. What's yours?

Strength: Again, this goes down more to perception than to actual scientific fact, but the girls think that they should benefit from leg strength in combat. Perhaps we should not even be comparing this to men. Women are, typically much stronger in their legs than in their upper body, and would learn to fight to make best use of this, would they not? Also, this new style of fighting, one would think, would have most men (who would be fighting other men more often than women) off guard.

Socialization: Women tend to be more outwardly social than men. Perhaps this is some throwback to our caveman days when two men would stare eachother down and wait for one to back off, or maybe it's something we're raised to accept ("Dad... Why don't you just ask for directions?") but women simply don't seem to have the problems men do in working their ways around social circles. Do women get a bonus to social activities? Do men deserve a penalty? On the flipside, women are more likely to act in maternal, 'Mother Hen'-style ways, and annoy the living hell out of people while doing it. Should the bonus/penalty go the other way?

Intuition: Women rely much more heavilly on their intuition and their gut than men do. Men like to reason things out, think them through, and while we'll usually have a good idea of what's going to happen before we do something, our wives have usually beaten us to the punch. Then again, women can be wrong just as often as they can be right. In fact, are there any good "Intuition" rules written up anywhere? I have yet to see any...

Pain Tolerance: I read somewhere (more than likely a very unreliable source; you guys know everything, you can tell me whether or not it's true), that the amount of pain that a woman endures during childbirth would be more than enough to cause a man to go into severe shock, or even kill him. The girls have taken this to mean that they are capable of shaking off more pain than men can, though in practice those same girls nearly die when pinched really hard. *shrug* Maybe they just mean serious, life-threatening pain. Men, on the other hand, are harder to beat to death, so we'd get more hit points.

Reflexes: Again, no scientific proof whatsoever, but the girls are quite keen on the idea that, while men react more quickly to a given situation, women are more likely to react with precision equal to what they would have normally.

Weaknesses:

Pregnancy and Children: Quite a few of my players' characters have gotten pregnant and had children. I know that there is a netbook on the topic already, but it is really quite a bit more difficult than the Book of Unlawful Carnal Knowledge makes it out. How does one continue to adventure with children? Taking them along is so bothersome she might leave the kid in the ditch after breaking camp, but staying home to watch the kids while your buddies go off and vanquish evil seems like an awful way to retire a character, particularly when the pregnancy was unexpected.

The Menstrual Cycle: How does one deal with this in-game? I mean, the girls are all psyched because their characters are PMSing (they feel this entitles them to bonuses a la carte), but when they have to deal with the penalties incurred from cramps, discomfort and the other fiddly bits of one's period, they'd rather just pass over it. Again, *shrug.*

Feminine Concepts:

I know this sounds rather sexist, but I have noticed that the girls in my group game differently from the guys in my group. When I first started gaming, my group was all guys, and there were established personal goals that were cool to go for: get enough money for that nifty Hackmaster +9, kill Mr. Wizard, get revenge for the death of your sister, blah blah. So I start gaming with women (it started with a girlfriend, way back when), and suddenly there is a whole new slough of goals that we're looking at. Romance with NPCs. Marriage. Children. Establishing the world's greatest whore-house (actually a goal). And I had no idea how to deal with them as a Game Master. The girls invest a lot more emotion into their playing, and expect a lot more back. They want long relationships to develop and stay true (not without complications; they just don't want their favorite NPC beaux to suddenly become a jerk). They want plots that not only have the opportunity for integration of those topics, but that actually revolve around them. Systematically, they are difficult concepts to deal with. Even working without a system, I've had difficulty with it.

Interestingly, the game in which this is most prevailent is in The Wheel of Time. While the gender-differentiation is much less accented in the game than it is in the books, there is still something that makes women obviously special. They can Channel safely, men cannot. For my girl players, this is something that makes playing a woman, even a girly-girl, enjoyable. And so they play up feminine topics and make me whip the D20 System until it screams for mercy in order to deal with some of them. And then, I'm sure I've done it all wrong. It's a difficult thing to do, make up systems for things you've not thought about on the fly, especially in a system so well-defined as that of Dungeons and Dragons.  Wheel of Time has been a great game for us, though, and I'm quite happy that I spent $50 to get it (Before you gasp at the price, I'm Canadian). My only problem with it is the lack of suplimental material. The Wheel of Time world is huge and it seems to have been painted in huge broad strokes with little attention to detail. The only supliment for it was an adventure book that really wasn't that good. I would have liked worldbooks.

Just so everyone knows, I'm not sure talking about my group in specific is going to be as direction-setting as everyone would like it to be. My group is one small, specific group of people interested in doing small, specific things; I was rather hoping we could brainstorm ideas that could help everyone, not just me. I'm sure many a female gamer has lamented the same as my players, but just as many would just like to see a fair system for differentiating men and women in-game. Personally, that's what I'm most after. Ideas on how to impliment fair differentiation.

SlurpeeMoney
"All generalizations stated in this post are inherently false. Including this one."

[simon_hibbs]

Not at all. In a game without gender modifiers I could quite happily create a character and say 'She inherited his great strength from her mother who was a defencted Russian Shot-Putter' or 'She spent 4 hours a dauy in the gym to develop her great strength'. It's perfectly possible for the game system to take a neutral stance.

Actually, Simon, I agree with Ben here.  Having no gender modifiers is itself a statement just as strong as having gender modifiers.

I completely fail to see why. You guys remind me of the criticism of Joseph Campbell, that even randomly generated or arbitrary stories can be deconstructed in terms of mythic archetypes - Supposedly one of his critics convincingly deconstructed Campbel's life as a Solar Myth. Just because you can choose to read a constructionist/essentialist agenda into te decision to not have gender modifiers doesn't mean that any such agenda is in fact present.

To be fair, gender-based attribute modifiers don't eliminate strong women from the game.  They may make them more costly, and they may cap women's strength at a lower level than a man's strength -- but proponents would say that is realistic (i.e. in the real world there are a number of men who are stronger than the world's strongest woman).

And again, I must ask why that's at all relevent to _these_ characters in _this_ in-game situation? Suppose that Scottish people are on average stronger than English people, or Cumbrians tend to be stronger that Londoners, or Caucasians tend to be stronger than Chinese, or Stock Brokers tend to be more athletic than Acountants (statisticaly more of them go to the Gym at luch breaks, perhaps).

I've yet to see a modern RPG that included modifiers based on these kinds of ethnic or demographic trends becaue frankly even if these are true, who cares? It doesn't make any difference to the fact that if a random assortment of people from around the world get stuck in an adventuresome situation it's quite possible tha the strongest person tere will happen to be Chinese, or an Accountant from London because we're only actualy interested in these people in this situation. Given that, do we want to penalise the player of the Accountant Londoner? If so, why? What aspect of the game designer's creative agenda is being challenged? Is it realy apropriate to punish such deviation from the designer's concept?

Well, if the game concept is about typicaly representative people in unusual situations then there's a reason. You want a game in which the characters are representative and weight the character generation system because you want to make sure the players don't generate screwy, odball, overly 'interesting' characters. You want 'ordinary' averaged out kinds of people as the starting point for your creative agenda for the game. However if you want to give the players freedom to generate odballs and come up with whatever character concept they want it seems to me to be a bit contrary to then turn around and impose penalties or set caps to make that harder or in some cases impossible to do.


Simon Hibbs