New RPG project I'm proud to be a part of...

[Jason L Blair]

Jason mis-quoted the text, anyway -- human characters have no gender bias. Just the half-breeds.

My bad. It should have read "All Ferrants are male" instead of "All Ronin are male."

RANT MODE ON
I DON'T BELIEVE FOR A SECOND THAT "PRETENDING" TO BE SOMEONE IN AN RPG GIVES YOU ANY GREATER INSIGHT INTO THAT CHARACTER.*
RANT MODE OFF

Neither do I. Jesus, man, who the fuck is saying that?


The problem comes from this: If your stance was widely held then male novelists' books would only have male characters and female novelists' books would only have female characters. Is that not a fair extension of not only your personal belief but the metagame mechanic you're considering? To me, that's ridiculous.*

I'm not talking about immersion and I'm not talking about getting an understanding. I'm talking about narration and character options. Being restricted to only having male characters in a story because all the players are male is severely untasty. As is the opposite.

Besides, if the most Hated Man in Roleplaying won't buy my game...I figure that's gotta mean something, right?

Thanks for reminding me. I need to add that to my business cards.


*I just felt like adding a footnote.

[Paul Czege]

Y'know what, scratch that. I regret baiting you.

Paul

[Valamir]

For the record...I like the restriction Jared.
I give bonus points for having the balls to do something heinously politically incorrect regardless of what the rationale is.

Although picturing Jason playing a hot sexy zombie slut is making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...;-)

[Bankuei]

Jared, you just took Wizards and Nausicaa in the same sentence.  I'm writng the check right now, you write the game NOW.  

Chris

PS-Go with the gender thing, I'm tired of folks trying to be all artsy and politically correct with their shit.  I look at it the same way when I watch suburb boy try to play gangsta.

[Jason L Blair]

Both Ralph and Chris mention "political correctness." What does it have to do with political correctness? I certainly hope you're not suggesting that my argument against it is in any way, shape, or form originating from political correctness.

[Valamir]

Nope...not doing it is not necessarily TO be PC.
Nor is doing it necessarily TO be non-PC
But doing it IS, just by being, non-PC...which I applaud.

[Blake Hutchins]

Personally, I don't get the bother about the gender restriction.  If it doesn't work for me or my group, it's piddlingly easy to ignore, as it strikes me as a purely aesthetic rule on Jared's part.  Skipping the game for this one reason is overreacting, especially if the game itself is up to Jared's usual high standards of creative whackosis.

And let's not inject PC/non-PC judgments, please.  Doing so opens a whole other kettle of irrelevance.  The mere fact the game takes a novel spin on player gender doesn't necessarily bring PC into it.  If you object to the depiction of kinky zombie prostitutes as exclusively female, maybe that's another story, but it's also another issue.

Seems like the only real critique here is whether the gender restriction actually adds anything to the game but color.  It strikes me as an experiment.  Maybe the restrictions encourage a certain territorial development by players according to gender, such that the emergent flavor of the game takes a different direction than it otherwise might.  Maybe approaching it as an experimental option will cool some jets.

Best,

Blake

*Edited to clean up a little text.

[joshua neff]

Ah, the train of the thread moves onto different rails...

I also think the "PC" thing should be dropped. Mostly because I think "Politically Correct" is an absolutely meaningless term. "PC", "un-PC"...whatever. They both mean sod all.

And I'm going to agree with Jason--if one were prohibited from creating a certain character because of gender, I'd give the game a big ol' skip*. It would make as much sense to me as someone saying, "Josh, you can't play an elf in our D&D game 'cos you're too short--play a hobbit." Or, "You can't play anything but a human, because that's what you are. You're not an elf, so you can't play one." Or, "You can't play a black character, or a Christian, or paraplegic, or a car mechanic." As Jason said, this isn't about getting "greater insight into a character" or immersion, it's about creating a story with an interesting character. Jared, I know you've said that a male playing a female character in any game you're a part of causes a disconnect for you. Well, it doesn't for me. I've had a muscular, full-beared guy who smoked a pipe play a freshman college girl & I completely bought it. I had absolutely no trouble gaming with him & his character.

So...yeah, the game sounds cool, but I really don't like the gender thing.

EDIT: Then again, it's your (or partially your) game, so do what you want.

* I actually have a footnote here: Yes, I bought Trollbabe. Yes, I'm running Trollbabe (for, admittedly, a woman). Yes, I'd play Trollbabe, given the chance. Trollbabe doesn't limit your character type based on gender, it limits everyone's character type. Just as a male has to play a female character, so would a woman who prefers to play male characters have to play a female. That I like. But saying, "No, you can't play a Zombie hooker because you're a guy" I don't like.

[Mike Holmes]

From a practical standpoint I find that such rules are, effectively, just a statement by the designer. For example, in many of the German Abstract games, the rule is that the youngest player goes first. This is simply to highlight the potential family nature of such games. In a couple other such games, the rule is that the owner of the game goes first. Which is a blatant and silly attempt to get more than one player in a group to buy the game.

Do these rules ever get used? No, they are easy to replace if they are found to be distasteful in any way. Since the only thing it will take to change this rule is simply to ignore it, that's exactly what players will do. And as such all it can be is a statement on the designers part.

Perhaps a small statement in the text about how you feel would be more informative and effective, Jared. If you give your reasoning, perhaps others of like mind will go along with it. As it stands it seems to me like people may reject it as simple rebellion against what looks to be an attempt to control actual player behavior.

Mike

[joshua neff]

Yeah, it would be an easily ignored rule. So, let me amend my statement. It wouldn't keep me from buying the game, but I'd throw that particular rule out the window.

[Jürgen Mayer]

I gotta say that I like the gender rule, but as some people seem to have some problems with it, I already proposed to Jared that we could include the metagame gender restriction, but only as a strong suggestion.

That would still keep the statement of the author, but the individual groups could easily ignore it. And Jason would buy one. I want Jason to buy our game.

-----
we are the wanderers
dreaming in a dead world
leaving change in our wake

[Seth L. Blumberg]

IMO a rule that says "You may not play this way because I am the author and it squicks me" is pure masturbation.

[Spooky Fanboy]

Anyway, "What do ya do?"... You change the world. And I'm not talking about "you do X and then because of this the world changes a bit..." I mean, you change the world. People live or die because you wished it so.

That's the short version.

Essentially, the characters are wanderers in the classic Mad Max/Shane mold (not surprising as the game's vibe is very post-apocalyptic/western/weird fantasy -- Dust Devils and Sorcerer & Sword will be mentioned, natch). When you encounter stuff, you deal with it...or not. But the Narrativist Premise of the game is, "Do you follow the dream or do you sink into decay?"

Ah, but tell us more about the setting...What I'm gathering is a sort of LSD-lubricated post-apocalypse morality play plus or minus the morality. Which is cool and all, but still doesn't tell me a damn thing!

In octaNe, the setting was mostly America's trash kulture stuffed into a blender set to frappe...with the lid left off. What parts of the real world are we going to see dribble in to Decay's setting? Is it comedy, horror, sci-fi in general? Is it like Chi-Chian, with worms and insects and weirdness?

Will this game make all of my "women-in-prison" fantasies come true? Is earwax a commodity in the setting? Will owning this game encourage George Bush to label me a terrorist? Do people get to mutate, or have kewl powerz? Do those zombie prostitutes use turpentine to get rid of that "not-quite-fresh" feeling?

I'll keep pestering you with questions until I get some answers...

[Jürgen Mayer]

What I'm gathering is a sort of LSD-lubricated post-apocalypse morality play plus or minus the morality.

Well, that's a pretty nice description =)

Is it comedy, horror, sci-fi in general? Is it like Chi-Chian, with worms and insects and weirdness?

It will have worms and weirdness. Let me just tell you that Christopher sent us a pic with a creature that is a cross between a dune worm and a tit. Yeah you read that right.
The genre is post-apocalypse, but with a sword-and-sorcery/western feel.

Welcome in the Time of the Great Decay

The world is dead. The ruins of the cities of human civilization are graveyards filled with the skeletons of skyscrapes that are occupied by strange creatures and only a few brittle plants grow in the barren lands, where long lost mythic and mysterious places can be found by the daring wanderer. The animals of old that filled the country with life are long forgotten and the chances of survival of any living thing in the wilds are slim at best. The Necros, once humans, now trapped in decaying bodies between life and death, are now the dominant species, and run or crawl in packs and devour everything that moves they can get hold of. The sea is the only place full of life, as the oceans were the sole remaining shelter when the earth began to die. On its shores, the last remnants of humanity try to get by in keeps and fortified towns where they vegetate in a simple existance of religious fervor, rejecting and battling crusades against the Necros. On the borders of the land, an old, unseen menace awakens again. It is a world in stasis, and humankind is without hopes and dreams, lost in decay.

[reptile2k1]

I AIMed with Jürgen a few days ago and he told me that it will take some time until DECAY will be released... And that drives me nuttttttttts!

So this is for all those involved: Hurry up! Quit your daytime jobs, stop sleeping/eating/watching tv, send your girlfriends/wives/pets to Sibiria... I don't care... But I can't stand waiting for this nicely looking piece of mental and visual entertainement!

Now get going!

;-)