I have not read the whole of the discussion on gender based rules creation, but it seems to me that the point in basing attribute decisions on gender is being missed altogether. I, personally, game with a group that is evenly divided between men and women (something of a rarity, I hear), and whenever the idea of making modifiers to attributes along "gender lines" comes up, the girls tend to be quite in favor of it.

And why shouldn't they be? Both men and women have a lot of strengths that they should be free to explore in-game. To use a strong generalization, women tend to be more flexible than men. Men tend to have more upper body strength. Women tend to have greater lower body strength. Men tend to have faster reflexes. Women tend to have more accurate reflexes (an important distinction, particularly in combat-oriented games)... And that's just the biological trends that can be established easilly. The sociological and anthropological differences are astounding and have been the topic of hundreds of books on how men and women relate with one another and with members of their same sex. To simply blanket men and women under the same sets of mental, physical and social attributes would be a disservice to both.

I don't want to categorize women into the field of "young and pretty and completely helpless in the real world," though I will grant you that there will be certain social understandings in which that will be the norm. I simply think that the differences between men and women have become such an ingrained aspect of our culture that to overlook it in a hobby as personal as role-playing seems a gross oversight. The girls in my group like being girls. I say, let them be the best girls they can be.

Here is how I think it could be done:

First and foremost, it would have to exist primarilly in random character creation systems. This would be to, occasionally, break the stereotypes. After all, as one girl so vehemently pointed out, she is good at math and science, the traditional realm of "male thought." There are guys who are young and pretty and completley helpless in the real world that make great characters just as surely as there are girls who are big and tough and don't shy away from a good fight. Literary examples would be Jaqueline Carey's Alcuin (Kushiel's Dart) and Robert Jordan's Bridgitte (The Wheel of Time), respectively.

The inherent strengths of gender would have to take the form of bonuses to attribute rolls. After the attributes are rolled and set, the bonuses are added. This would be something akin to the racial attribute bonuses in the D20 system.

(Also of possibility would be a "Gender Meter." This would measure a character's leaning towards the traditional aspects of one gender or the other. This would be a measure of Masculinity in girls (I've met some pretty masculine girls), and Femininity in boys (One of my friends was a homosexual so feminine, some would have refered to him as "flaming.") This is merely a toss-in, something you could do in a point-based system like Vampire or Witchcraft.)

And it's that simple. Using D20 as an example:
Girls get a small bonus to Dexterity (+1), Charisma (+1) and Reach (an extra 5 feet; the reach bonus is for the leg-strength, as it is easier to "lunge" into an attack with strong legs). Boys get an equivilent small bonus to their Strength (+1), Constitution (+1) and Initiative (+2 for faster reflexes; for added realism, a -2 to strike would be appropriate, while a girl's first attack may recieve a +2. This could also be added to the Armor Class, blah blah blah blah blah).

It is possible to adjust attributes to accomodate the strengths of both genders. With enough time and some patience, we may even be able to discuss some of those sticky social situations (i.e. gender roles in particular societies in particular times). Really, leaving out differences between the sexes can leave out a whole aspect of the game. Attributes are just the start.

SlurpeeMoney
"Girl's tend to play differently than boys, too. But we'll not get into that..."

Hi, welcome to the Forge! We tend to go by first names around here, I'm Ben, what's your name?

I have not read the whole of the discussion on gender based rules creation, but it seems to me that the point in basing attribute decisions on gender is being missed altogether.

With enough time and some patience, we may even be able to discuss some of those sticky social situations.

Really, leaving out differences between the sexes can leave out a whole aspect of the game. Attributes are just the start.

Hi. I'm Kris.

I read much of the first few pages of the articles mentioned; the tone became quite argumentative, rather than constructive, and the posts were growing exponentially in length, to the point of tediousness. Slogging through what seemed more argument than constructive criticism is, or has been to me, an indication that, while the subject does warrant further discussion, it is time to take a breath and get back to the issues. Hence the New Topic, rather than the reply.

I cannot recall, exactly, where I heard that women have more accurate reflexes than men; it simply struck me as odd that, while men react, on the whole, faster than women, when a woman reacts, it tends to be more accurate. I believe it was one of the many sexual documentaries I watch, many of which focus on the differences between men and women. I believe the reference to stronger lower body strength was made vis a vis an article I read on the topic more moons ago than I care to count. In it, a young lady was championing much the same cause I am: gender bias based, not on the respective weakness of a given sex, but on the comparative strengths of both. As I recall, she had a very interesting bit regarding the favored weapons of women based upon their strengths, and I suddenly find myself wishing I had the article. I believe it was on RPG.net, and should I find it, I will link it here.

Combat is not a gender biased topic. Women are just as capable in combat as men, if not more so. Taking into consideration the greater range of attack a woman has available to her, as per her ability to lunge, it would be quite a simple matter to keep a man at an appreciable distance where weapons designed to make use of his greater upper body strength (which tend to be quite a bit smaller) are of little or no use. Taking the time required to change your weapon to something more suitable produces a unique opportunity for a woman to attack while the man is basically defenseless. There are, of course, maneuvers to get into close range against a pole-arm weilding individual, and certainly those would be used, in which case daggers and swords relying on finess and speed, rather than strength, come into play. Women are warriors of equal versatility and strength as men, given the opportunity.

If a social bias exists, then this can be dealt with and removed if it's basis is merely superficial sexism.

Hey Kris,

Firstly, it is not possible to focus on strengths without also at least implicitly focusing on weaknesses. If you say "men have more upper body strength", then you are saying "women have less upper body strength". There are only two genders, and so any advantage that one might have, is an advantage only over the other.

I believe it was one of the many sexual documentaries I watch, many of which focus on the differences between men and women.

I believe the reference to stronger lower body strength was made vis a vis an article I read on the topic more moons ago than I care to count. In it, a young lady was championing much the same cause I am: gender bias based, not on the respective weakness of a given sex, but on the comparative strengths of both. As I recall, she had a very interesting bit regarding the favored weapons of women based upon their strengths, and I suddenly find myself wishing I had the article. I believe it was on RPG.net, and should I find it, I will link it here.

Combat is not a gender biased topic. Women are just as capable in combat as men, if not more so. Taking into consideration the greater range of attack a woman has available to her, as per her ability to lunge, it would be quite a simple matter to keep a man at an appreciable distance where weapons designed to make use of his greater upper body strength (which tend to be quite a bit smaller) are of little or no use.

I find this statement very difficult to reconcile with the way that the world actually works. You could pass off gender bias in society as superficial sexism, yes, but any attempt at a study of it would require digging into the social contexts in which that sexism is accepted and, more importantly, engendered into the mainstream consciousness. And sexism may not be so nearly as superfiscial as some would give it credit. Men and women are different animals. Were we any different than we are, I might go so far as to say we are Sexocialy Dimorphic. Sexism could be a designed cultural trait meant to maintain sexual drive through competition with our mates. Still, that's a discussion for another day. I digress.

Ravien wrote:
Ah, but there is a problem here. See, you are saying that this doesn't fit with "the way the world actually works...men and women are different animals", but on these two premises, alot of people will disagree (I don't, but alot do).

Hi Kris,

Just for the record,

You wrote: So much of the discussion in your linked posts seems to be dominated by women feeling distressed that men want to degrade them in game terms, and men fighting back with "well that's the way it really is."

Kris, I hate to burst your bubble here with some facts, but (as Ben has pointed out) women do not have greater lower-body strength. That's just a cultural myth unsupported by actual fact. In addition, men do not have faster reflex times. I can't reference any particular studies, since it's been several years since I was in college and I don't have my gender studies texts anymore, but I am drawing these statement from highly reputable studies in gender differences.

From my personal experience and observation, I have to agree with Ben that in the real world women and men are not equal in terms of combat -- for whatever reasons, men are better at it. Now, of course there are exceptions, I'm just talking averages and trends here. I've been involved in martial arts most of my life, and, yes, I've had my ass thoroughly handed to me by men and women alike. Heck, I've got a permanent injury from a particular female martial artist who got pissed that I wouldn't attack her in a sparring match (I thought I was being chivalrous, she thought I was being sexist -- go figure). So, I'm not saying women can't become good at fighting, I'm just saying that given the same amount of training and dedication, a male fighter will (on average) be better than a female fighter. Whether that needs to be represented in a game is the important question, at least to me. In a very detailed game that tried to model reality as thoroughly as possible, I think gender differences make sense. In pretty much any other type of game, I don't think they add anything, unless gender differences are the focus of the game.

Emily makes a good point here -- most of the commenters in these topics are men. That seems kinda funny to me, though it does tend to confirm my personal experiences. Can we get some more opinions on this topic from some Forge women?

Hello,

Kris, welcome! You're raising a feature of the gender issue that I think is long overdue, and it's full of potential for powerful RPG implications. I agree with you entirely about the threads that have been referenced, and I consider most of them to be pretty poor examples of the kind of discourse that goes on here most of the time.

Ben (Ravien), I'm gonna ask you to take a long walk for a while. Bluntly, you are too emotionally close to the issue to discuss it well at the Forge, at least in a hit-the-keys-now sort of way. If you absolutely have to contribute, I want you to focus on role-playing issues alone, and to restrict yourself to one post on the topic per day.

The issue is not what relative strengths men and women actually have. The issue is to recognize that game design and play might focus on their relative strengths, as perceived and believed by the author or role-players, and to use those features as central mechanics or other aspects of the role-playing experience.

I suggest that several games have already forged into this territory very effectively: Orkworld, HeroQuest (most especially the Thunder Rebels supplement), first among them. I suggest furthermore that the general "neutering" effect of most RPG settings and character creation processes has some pretty negative consequences on play itself. I've written about most of these issues as best as I know how in the supplement Sex & Sorcery, and my game Trollbabe essentially seizes the issue and hands it to the role-playing group to eat without salt.

Kris, are you familiar with any of these?

Best,
Ron

Andrew Morris wrote: Emily makes a good point here -- most of the commenters in these topics are men. That seems kinda funny to me, though it does tend to confirm my personal experiences. Can we get some more opinions on this topic from some Forge women?

Ron Edwards wrote: The issue is to recognize that game design and play might focus on their relative strengths, as perceived and believed by the author or role-players, and to use those features as central mechanics or other aspects of the role-playing experience.

Given that a truly androgynous society is a utopian dream, men and women will always play different roles in society. Premises revolving around how we create an equitable society given this fact are very powerful. But often, when game designers try to create mechanics that facilitate the addressing of this premise, they are accused of sexism. These accusations are not accurate, and they silence discussion about a question that should be at the center of thinking about feminism.

Ravien wrote: Ever heard of essentialism and constructivism? These are the core arguments for and against (repectively) the destruction of all gender biases in society. On one hand, people claim differences are real and are biological, which then carries over into social, and on the other hand people claim differences are social only, and thus they exist for no good reason. You may not think it's a controversy, but believe me, it is.

I'm curious about the title you've given to this thread. Are you implying that as long as the attribute differences do not make it sucky to play a female character (ie gender bias), that gender based diffrences can enhance play?

... the suggestion that gender be reflected in attribute modifiers implies an essentialist vision. The constructionist alternative would be to have gender-differentiated classes or packages (i.e. have separate classes for Nobleman and Noblewoman, for example, to reflect that they are raised differently). Now, it is possible to mix both of these, of course...

Kris, are you familiar with any of these?

In a very detailed game that tried to model reality as thoroughly as possible, I think gender differences make sense. In pretty much any other type of game, I don't think they add anything, unless gender differences are the focus of the game.

KingstonC wrote: Given that a truly androgynous society is a utopian dream, men and women will always play different roles in society. Premises revolving around how we create an equitable society given this fact are very powerful.

It'd be interesting for a game to have a list of gender effects, but with no gender associated with each one. Then each player chooses two effects and says ones for male characters and ones for females (or they can even decline the option if they feel none of the effects represents one gender to them). Once you've gone through all the players (I wonder if it'd be good for the GM to choose two as well?), that's it (unless you want a set amount of effects in play which isn't dependent on player numbers).

I think it'd be interesting as gender has various interesting and powerful effects in sentient societies (and even non sentient). As such, its a subtle but very powerful authorship tool put into players hands. It's also sort of intimate, between what one does know about ones own gender (indeed, do you really know?) and what you believe about the other gender.

Might even be a cool party game, somehow, if its presented in a light way.

Sadly, Ron already hinted at an idea like this in his post and beat me too it. But I thought I'd eat bandwidth anyway.

I'm going to go back to one of my previous suggestions and say "Use a scale." Or "Use a few scales." Using a variable scale with the polar ends being Masculine and Feminine would work, allowing you to look at how each character fits along those that scale, and it takes the controversy of having male and female attributes out of the equation. Also having a small group of scales, one for masculine, one for feminine and one for anything else you can think of, in which the middle of the scale defines neuter and the ends of the scale represent different extremes of a mixture of gender-related qualities. I would suggest a grid to give a more even representation of how it could be done (the left would be masculine, the right feminine, the top physical, the bottom emotional), but it would be near impossible to fit on a nice-looking character sheet. ^__^

Just some random thoughts first thing in the morning.

SlurpeeMoney
"I wish I was a neuter. Then I would say 'My alignment is Neuteral.'"

Okay, so I have a whole ton of strong concerns about this thread, but I'll just focus on the major ones:

John's right that you're dealing with essentially the "nature vs. nurture" issue here, as it applies to biological gender, social gender roles, and, at some point or another, sexuality (which is, itself, a wacky combination of biological impulses and social conditioning).

Here's the problem, if you're after that mythical thing called "accuracy" or "realism":

Biology isn't just a male/female thing. If you're going to go that route, you might want to think about the huge variation in the biological makeup of all the men or all the women you know. Some people are built like tanks, some people like twigs. Some people are really tall; some people are really short. Some people have a much easier time gaining (or losing) mass (muscle, fat, etc.). Frex: my ex-girlfriend is built like a wrestler. She has more muscle in her right arm than is in my entire body, and this is largely due to her body type (subclass: tank) and mine (subclass: twig). She also used to be a hardcore rock-climber, so that helps some too. However, the kinds of systems you're talking about would probably give me a strength bonus, because I'm a guy. That's ridiculous. None of the men in my family (at least on my dad's side) deserve a strength bonus. We deserve "Walton genes: STR -2."

So all these arguments that "guys and girls are different in X way" are baloney. In roleplaying, at least at the level of individual character creation, generalizations about biological gender don't matter because they don't apply to individuals, just to massive groups of people. If I were making my ex-girlfriend and myself in some sort of generic atttribute-based system, she would get the biological bonus for strength and endurance and I would get the penalty, based on our individual body types, not gender at all. If you're talking about individuals, do something that's based on individuals work. If you're talking about groups, do something that's based on how groups work.

I have more concerns, but that's a start.

Jonathan Walton wrote: In roleplaying, at least at the level of individual character creation, generalizations about biological gender don't matter because they don't apply to individuals, just to massive groups of people. If I were making my ex-girlfriend and myself in some sort of generic atttribute-based system, she would get the biological bonus for strength and endurance and I would get the penalty, based on our individual body types, not gender at all.

I'm kinda amused.

Why is it, that within the conversation of gender mechanics, there seems to be a tendency to assume that the result of the mechanics will always favor the male? I don't think anyone actually suggested this but the arguments for and against both seem to make this assumption.

Maybe because it's the type of game that is usually played. (the go out and kill something game) Maybe it's the overuse of the word reality... we're trying to hard to justify everything against a percieved notion of whats "real" which is way to subjective. Anyway reality really doesn't have a lot to do with anything... I prefer my games to be fantasy games.

So if i was going to do this. I would create a world where all the men were brutish, warlike, and not all that smart. The woman were bright, social, and dexterous. To make it interesting I wouldn't bother about the characteristics. I would make the differences apparent in the skills that one is able to learn. Very easy for women to learn things like reading, crafting, bartering, thieving and of course magic.. Since it's my world all women are taught at the age of thirteen a spell to make men do their bidding. The men would find it easy to learn husbandry, smithing, riding, and of course all the slashing, bashing, male bonding stuff.

Now it wouldn't be impossible for one to learn the others skills... it would just be easier for them to do certain things. This would make for an interesting dynamic in the role playing. Especially if you have a male character that goes against the grain and does something radical in the world.. like learning how to read.

just some thoughts

Halzebier wrote:
Let's say men get Str=3d6+1 and women 3d6. If I roll low for a male character, I'll explain that he has a weak physique, possibly due to malnourishment, possibly due to individual genetic predisposition.

Would you consider this problematic?

Why is it, that within the conversation of gender mechanics, there seems to be a tendency to assume that the result of the mechanics will always favor the male?

Halzebier wrote: Let's say men get Str=3d6+1 and women 3d6. If I roll low for a male character, I'll explain that he has a weak physique, possibly due to malnourishment, possibly due to individual genetic predisposition.

Would you consider this problematic?

I would also avoid a statistics-related approach. I think a statistical approach is going to inevitably raise the whole bugaboo about what averages do and do not say about individuals and you're going to be spending your energy teaching Stat 101 instead of explaining your cool game. As the movie quote goes, if you're gonna shoot, shoot, don't talk. Don't just twiddle a dial somewhere, set up the whole system so that play cannot get around the gender differences.

I'm going to go back to one of my previous suggestions and say "Use a scale." Or "Use a few scales." Using a variable scale with the polar ends being Masculine and Feminine would work, allowing you to look at how each character fits along those that scale, and it takes the controversy of having male and female attributes out of the equation.

Insofar as I have seen, gender-based character creation standards have, typically, placed women in an inferior position. And, I feel, this is one of the key reasons we're having this debate.

SlurpeeMoney wrote: First and foremost, it would have to exist primarilly in random character creation systems. This would be to, occasionally, break the stereotypes. After all, as one girl so vehemently pointed out, she is good at math and science, the traditional realm of "male thought." There are guys who are young and pretty and completley helpless in the real world that make great characters just as surely as there are girls who are big and tough and don't shy away from a good fight. Literary examples would be Jaqueline Carey's Alcuin (Kushiel's Dart) and Robert Jordan's Bridgitte (The Wheel of Time), respectively.

The system of "Inclinations" sounds an awful lot like R. Talsorian's Lifepaths, which I suppose would be one of the easiest ways to incorporate gender differences in-game, as the variety of options available in Lifepaths allow both the game designer and the players a change to create systems and characters in ways that best suit their perceived notions of gender difference.

Changing the world, however, to me seems all the more interesting. In the Wheel of Time role-playing game, it makes more sense to be a female channeler than a male channeler, speaking solely from the point of safety. So far as I've been a player, it is the only game I've seen that makes the decision to be male or female an important part of character creation, based almost entirely on the needs of the setting rather than percieved differences in gender. Saddly, though, I felt that the Wheel of Time deserved even more attention to gender differences, given Robert Jordan's tyrranical and impassable gap between men and women in the fiction.

The point of my scale has less to do with attributes and more to do with personality, culture and perception. I personally tend to "think like a girl." I am much more strongly suited to the studies of English and History than to Mathematics and Science, and there are aspects of my emotional makeup that are distinctively female. On the personality scale of Masculine-Feminine, I would lean towards the feminine. The far feminine would be the stereotypical girly-girl (which nearly no one is at), and the opposite end would be a manly-man (which, again, nearly no one is at). Most folks sit somewhere in the middle.

It could also work with physique, though. I weight in at 220 lbs, mostly work-muscle and gut. I have broad shoulders, big arms and a torso as thick as a tree. I have a very distinctively male physique, and would therefore lean very heavily on the male side of the scale. My chest is nowhere near as developed as I would like, though, so I would not be on the body-builder/weight-lifter end of the male physique scale.

It has flaws (rather large gaping ones), but it is an idea.

Setting up the whole system so that one cannot get around the differences in gender is a great idea. Personally, though, I think it is more appropriate to build the setting around the gender differences than the system. People will build house rules to circumvent them, or simply not use the system. If the setting reinforces the system's assumptions of gender-differences, however, even a change of system would mean adjustments would have to be made in order to accomodate those gender differences.

Avoiding statistics is, saddly, impossible; character sheets are just a pile of statistics jumbled together with some rules to make those statistics playable in-game. We make assumptions on race based on statistics (orcs big and strong, humans average, blah blah), so it only follows that gender differences follow the same suit. This is not to say that we look only at real-life statistics; those are too finite for the games I want to play. If everything in a game were realistic, I'd not play them. I'd not have to. I could simply go out and adventure myself. I have all the neccessessary attributes. The statistics tell me so. I prefer to play where the statistics are more internally consistent than externally.

Were the grid truly feasable (and I don't think it is, but I'll talk about it anyway), it couldn't have just one dot to make it work. There would have to be a few points, each representing an attribute. On top of that, I think the grid would need to have more than four quadrents in order to cover the whole of our attributes. Intellectual, Social, Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, would all need to be adressed, in most cases broken down into seperate attributes defining aspects related to the broader categories, as well as gridded masculine to feminine. It's all a matter of degrees and grey areas, and a grid could help define those grey areas into game-friendly statistics. It would, however, be entirely too complicated for any game I would ever play...

More Random Thoughts,
SlurpeeMoney
"Gender (Circle One): Male | Female | Mongoose"

Theres a lot to reply to but I'll just hit some key points right now

SlurpeeMoney wrote: Setting up the whole system so that one cannot get around the differences in gender is a great idea. Personally, though, I think it is more appropriate to build the setting around the gender differences than the system. People will build house rules to circumvent them, or simply not use the system. If the setting reinforces the system's assumptions of gender-differences, however, even a change of system would mean adjustments would have to be made in order to accomodate those gender differences.

SlurpeeMoney wrote: Avoiding statistics is, saddly, impossible; character sheets are just a pile of statistics jumbled together with some rules to make those statistics playable in-game. We make assumptions on race based on statistics (orcs big and strong, humans average, blah blah), so it only follows that gender differences follow the same suit...

The differences between humans and orcs (perhaps they're species? I've never bothered to consider it.) may be much more distinct than the differences between men and women, but consider it hyberbole. The differences may not be as distinct, but there is certainly room to compare. If an orc is entirely different from a man, and a woman is less different, but still different, than a man, they are still both different from a man. If one deserves its own set of modifiers in the determination of its attributes, to me, it stands to reason that the other does as well. It is a question, I suppose, of degree. How different something is from the established norm determines the neccessity of seperate modifiers.

On that note, it would make sense to me that most species/races/phili would require their own sets of attributes for both the male and female genders, which could lead to some interesting opportunities in play. What if dwarves got no such differences? It's been stipulated in many a game that female dwarves and male dwarves are much alike, right down to the hair on their chins; you could express that quite well by expressly not seperating them. I can only imagine what an orc female would be like (personally, I like the idea that an orc woman could kick her husbands' asses). What about creatures that are truly sexually dimorphic? There have to be a few of them.

Again, random thoughts when I should be asleep.
SlurpeeMoney
"I'm sexually dimorphic."

But in the end, all you are doing is labelling gender modifiers with "masculine" and "feminine", and that really doesn't do much to disguise the fact that at it's core, the mechanics are based on gender modifiers, which we have already repeatedly established as "a Bad Thing".

Number 2 is that statistics are pretty much the only way to compare any two (or more) things. We can add qualitative layers on top as much as we want, but saying "object X is different in aspect A to object Y" is in all ways a statistic.

This may solve the mathematical problems and actually be able to differentiate between them, but it is making an incredibly strong statement about strong women, ie: claiming that they are masculine. The reverse is also true of weak men. I don't think this gets us any closer to avoiding controversy. In fact, I think it makes any controversy that much more obvious.

On that note, it would make sense to me that most species/races/phili would require their own sets of attributes for both the male and female genders, which could lead to some interesting opportunities in play. What if dwarves got no such differences? It's been stipulated in many a game that female dwarves and male dwarves are much alike, right down to the hair on their chins; you could express that quite well by expressly not seperating them.

Why do you WANT to compare the two? Once you identify the underlying reason, you may be able to come up with alternative methods.

No not really. Examining or discussing the differing quantities of oestrogen and testosterone in a particular system seems to me more reasonable than a blanket modifier.

Now that seems to me a legitimate topic to explore systematically. Yes, if that is the particular point or issue you wish a game to address - and it seems interesting to me - that would be a perfectly apporpriate way of doing it.

Ravien wrote:
This makes absolutely no sense at all. So if I examine the REAL underlying reasons why I want to compare froot loops to corn flakes, then somehow that realisation of my motives will magically open up non-statistical methods of comparison?

The very fact that a difference exists between comparable things warrants investigation into those differences.

It says that a female character cannot become strogner without compromising her femininity and becoming more masculine.

There is a very clear difference in what these things say and how they say it. A female character can escape a blanket modifier for strength and become stronger without having her femininity questioned.

I personally find this amusing. See, if one were to take any system that does not differentiate between the genders, then performed the sort of analysis that Ralph (Valimir) performed on Mongrel, one would determine that in the settings for these games, males and females were identical except for those gender labels and genitalia.

The funny part is that doing otherwise, by making gender important, is somehow less legitimate, despite your ascertions in many of your posts that you agree the genders are different.

Having a species with no gender differences only becomes an interesting play oppurtunity when other races/species have gender differences.

But my own opinion on making both genders the same in a given race is that doing so makes a strong statement about gender conformity. In your dwarves example, I would argue that the "female" dwarves are no such thing... they are males with breasts and vaginas.

In short, I've yet to see any good suggestions for how to address gender in RPGs without pissing people off.

We all seem to be (emphasis on "seem") in agreement that gender issues can provide interesting avenues of play, and can be addressed in non-offensive ways, but I've yet to see any suggestions of exactly how to do this successfully.

Ravien wrote:

Why do you WANT to compare the two? Once you identify the underlying reason, you may be able to come up with alternative methods.

This makes absolutely no sense at all. So if I examine the REAL underlying reasons why I want to compare froot loops to corn flakes, then somehow that realisation of my motives will magically open up non-statistical methods of comparison?

It is human nature to explore and learn. This is a good thing. We explore differences because they exist, not because we have some vested interest in them. Indeed, we cannot have a vested interest in anything that we cannot acknowledge because we haven't yet explored it. The very fact that a difference exists between comparable things warrants investigation into those differences. This is how we advance in science. No amount of internal analysis of our motives will ever help us understand differences better, because the differences do not exist in our internal motives. This is the fundamental reason why ad hominem is a fallacious argument, ie: because our internal states do not represent or reflect objective external reality.

I'm afraid this makes no sense: sex is a fucntion of body chemistry, how can said chemistry 'compromise' one of its own manifestations?

The system has no pretensions of being prescriptive. Gender differences are essentially social in Seventh Sea... but it would be absurd to conclude that because there are no systematic differences in the 7th Sea mechanics, that a survey of inhabitants would find the same degree of musculature in men and women. There simply is no reason to expect that, and likewise with mongrel: you are attributing a function to the system that does not exist.

I note you have not responded to my suggestion that if 3d6+1 can be rationalised, 3d6 can also be rationalised. What is it that you find unsatisfactory about this proposition?

Sure I can buy that. I'm just not sure what it has to do with RPG; RPG is entertainment, not science. Just becuase it warrants investigation in abstract does not imply that that investigation must happen at my gaming table.

iambenlehman wrote: So, give women -50 strength and +10i beauty, and 555 lumens, every one. It doesn't matter. What matters, I would say, is how that interfaces with your creative goals in a significant way, and for that, you will need to look internally at why you are interested in comparing them. Only after this can you understand what mechanics should be used.

Um... Maybe I've misread the last 3 pages but maybe I'm not even identifying the issue.

Are we instituting gender modifiers to make the setting more interesting? Are we on some damned fool idealist crusade to simulate reality?

In the former, why can't we just change the rules for rolling up stats for the pleabs and get on with it (how many times has anyone ever used stats from 'average townspeople' except for hitpoints or something to see if they die from the raining fire or that aarow? I mean, come on.

In the latter you should also insitute lots of other stuff. Give men their +7 strength bonus and some special skills. They get +10 to dirty politicians and when they have enough money they have to make resistance checks to make sure they don't go out and buy that sports car. Let's give them a +20 into mathematics but they have make a non-absent minded check to put the seat down. Then they both have special properties... Men know how to fix cars and women are always right.

I'm sorry, but instrumental philosophys versus Aristotilian have little to do with this. What's the point in complicating the system like that? If you want to make a system for it, do it. Arguing generalities like this seems kindof pointless.

I'm just not seeing a viable reason. If you give them gender modifiers you change character identity. People might play a gender for the bonuses instead of having viable reasons. That would seem to be the only implication because both genders could ulitmatelley be used for the same things.

This actually becomes an issue with things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I've never watched it or played it so I may be wrong).

I'm not sure what this thread is talking about at all. If I have an issue I can try to do something here.

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyron

<Taking a step back>

Again, the tone has reached one of an argumentative pitch, and that was one that I would have prefered to have avoided. In all of the previous threads on the topic of gender, there was argument (not discussion, or debate, argument, which carries with it a much more agressive tone). Saddly, I'm seeing that on this post as well. Let's all take a step back for a minute and look at what is being presented.

I'm not a great game designer. I come up with rules-tweaks on the fly to fit my game, and that's pretty well what I am doing here too. I'm comming up with stuff on the fly to address the issues that are being brought up. Some of them are pretty flawed. Others have, I believe, some merit. None of my tweaks have a very realistic feel to them; I'm not a very realistic gamer. Much more a dramatist, me.

This does not sit well with more realistic gamers/designers in the group, who are looking to differentiate male and female characters along lines that reflect the statistics without getting people's backs up. They are looking for a way to scientifically seperate the genders without having to worry about people thinking them sexist for that design choice, or finding a way to circumvent that assumption.

Saddly, I don't think you can. There are too many factors to take into consideration, and any time a person states an assumption about one of those factors, people are bound to get up-in-arms. And so far, here, they have. So perhaps it is time to put science and drama away and try to look at this from other angles.

Take a step back. Think. Breathe really slowly three times. Then come back to the computer and see if we can't find a way to tackle gender differentiation in an unbiased, strengths-rather-than-flaws, calm sort of way. We all play one of the world's only non-competitive group games. Let's try to get along. Saying "This makes no sense" and "That makes no sense" in this debate is as useful as saying "Let's make buscuits" in the middle of surgury. Let's try to make sense of it.

SlurpeeMoney
"The voice of Vodka."

SlurpeeMoney
"Apparently Vodka isn't all..."

SlurpeeMoney wrote: In all of the previous threads on the topic of
gender, there was argument (not discussion, or debate, argument, which
carries with it a much more agressive tone).

I'm not trying discount anything that's being said. I'm not trying to be volitile towards anyone. I'm just looking for a focus.

I'm aware that discussing the differences in male and female society averages can be controversial or irritating.

I'm just looking for a focus. So far I haven't seen any of it as far as it has to do with game design. We have "It would be interesting if we had a society that..." and "Males and females...<place study here>" and maybe how it could be related to play. I think that we could make it more constructive if we made this topic more specific.

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?

In my last post I explained my stance on the subject of simulating reality. It's pointless on most levels. It restricts player freedom. People are fragile individuals. Movies are unrealistic. People don't act anything like they do in roleplaying games. At least not the ones I play.

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

May the wind be always at your back,
-Pyron

SlurpeeMoney wrote: Again, the tone has reached one of an argumentative pitch, and that was one that I would have prefered to have avoided. In all of the previous threads on the topic of gender, there was argument (not discussion, or debate, argument, which carries with it a much more agressive tone). Saddly, I'm seeing that on this post as well.

SlurpeeMoney wrote: Then come back to the computer and see if we can't find a way to tackle gender differentiation in an unbiased, strengths-rather-than-flaws, calm sort of way. We all play one of the world's only non-competitive group games. Let's try to get along. Saying "This makes no sense" and "That makes no sense" in this debate is as useful as saying "Let's make buscuits" in the middle of surgury. Let's try to make sense of it.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing what you are saying John, but it looks to me like you are saying "let's forget this whole 'nature vs nurture' deal, and just accept that nurture is the way to go".

Doctor Xero wrote this over in that topic John linked to:

By focusing on social more than physical, it also neatly bypasses essentialist-vs-constructivist arguments over the origins of gender roles.

Actually, this particular topic hasn't had that much problems, so don't be discouraged. Just be aware that even those of us who have studied gender rigorously find this topic to be a volatile one at best.

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

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?

Ravien wrote:
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]

This makes no sense; why should constructing a game mechanic on a particular basis NECESSARILY say something about reality or be taken as such? If you constructed a SYSTEM on this basis, all you will have constructed is a system - why does this imply you necessarily had to adopt the constructionist position in order to do so?

I've never met a single person who denied the effect of society on development (not that they don't exist, but I've never seen one), but I've seen plenty of people on the opposite end of the scale.

So you keep saying, although you never seem able to identify these instances.

My position? Some things are entirely socially constructed, some things are entirely genetically constructed, but the vast majority are a combination of both, and gender falls in here. Does my position matter? Not one iota.

Then we agree, fundamentally, about the nature of reality. What we are disagreeing about is game systems.

So my question is, why do mechanics that hint at a nature side (even in the presence of a social side) encounter such strong opposition as this?

Because I regard your mechanism as unrealistic, and there not for realism purposes but something else.

Why don't purely social mechanics encounter any opposition?

The nearest I can think of to a "purely social" mechanism would be HeroQuest... do you have an actual particular example you would like to present to us for analysis?

And, how do you know they encounter "no opposition"?

Why can't someone make a game that explores gender in a way they think is suitable without running into a wall of opposition?

I would contend that several people have. Take a look at Nicotine Girls for a very specific example of focus. This does not "explore differences", as it were, but that is only one topic among many to explore.

But can we look at a painting and decide that the artist should have chosen a different medium simply because we don't like guache? I think to do so is rather pretentious. Can we say "they should have chosen a different subject? Do we have any ground to stand on in a debate with them about what they choose to paint and how they choose to paint it?

Regardless of our opinions of Leni Reifenstahl as a person or a film-maker, she neverthless was a Nazi propagandist. Her work, some argue, has not received the credit it deserves due to the surrounding politics. Is that too surprising, though?

Art cannot become a stalking horse behind which bigotry and prejudice hide; so yes I am entitled to advance such criticisms. Or more accurately, I can suggest a piece contains a political agenda without impugning its artistic virtues or the skill with which it was executed.

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.

Oh it is. Thats why you have been repeatedly pressed to explain why you are particularly interested in this aspect of the world and in this particular way of representing it. So far you have not chosen to explain this to us.

I'd thought we'd gotten over talking about me Gareth, I suggest we stick to Kris' topic from now on, or the broader topic of RPGs in general. In case you haven't noticed, I am pointedly avoiding any comments made by you addressing me or my opinions specifically. That's what PM's are for.

-Ben

Ravien wrote: See, the controversy only really exists in the nature side of things. Despite John's claims that extremist essentialists and constructionists are rare, I'm seeing a hell of a lot more extremist constructionists... in fact, I've never met a single person who denied the effect of society on development (not that they don't exist, but I've never seen one), but I've seen plenty of people on the opposite end of the scale.

From observing the recent threads about this topic, I would say that there are at least two higher-level issues that would have to be resolved before we have common ground to stand on and have a good conversation.

1. As John Kim has pointed out, there is the issue of essentialism vs constructionism and especially how someone's position on that issue can influence their perception of a game design. You could try to skirt the issue by modeling effects only and leaving the cause to the players' opinion, but, as has already been proven by demonstration, such a design could easily be misconstrued as supporting nurture over nature.

I think any game that wants to enter this arena will have a stand on this issue (If the game cannot afford a stand, a stand will be gleefully assigned to it by its audience.)

So, what take do we make here, and why? Several people have stated their real-world opinion, but the question I want to ask is, what position will we take for the purpose of designing a game? (Note that `My real-world stance, of course' is a perfectly valid answer, I just think it should be explicit.)

2. What design philosophy do we use? Are we attempting to simulate reality as well as we can (meanings of `reality', `well' and `as we can' to be defined!) or are we pursuing a specific kind of play (what kind?).

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
--

Ravien wrote: I'd thought we'd gotten over talking about me Gareth, I suggest we stick to Kris' topic from now on, or the broader topic of RPGs in general. In case you haven't noticed, I am pointedly avoiding any comments made by you addressing me or my opinions specifically. That's what PM's are for.

Cuple of quick thoughts, slightly off topic...

I've read a couple of these types of threads now, and I think there are a couple of things things that need to be noted when creating mechanics for gender recognized differences. In their own way, they also may apply to other differences, such as ethnicity/culture/race.

1) Accentuate the positive:
One possible easy fix is to only give positive modifiers for each gender, without counterbalancing negatives.

If you were to give males a +1 strength and females -1, their really two points apart on average. In a small range of possible stats, like in old D&D, that's fairly large. If, instead, you give males a +1 but simply fail to modify that stat for females, you have a lesser difference in range. The same then holds true for whatever stat or stats you give bonuses to females for.

Note, I personally don't think this is the best solution, but I do think it smoothes some of the rough edges off the controversy.

2) Make modifiers optional by PC.

If you have male/female modifiers, allow each player to choose to take or not take the mods. Basically, make it an optional sub system. Perhaps it always applies to NPCs, but not PCs. Why? PCs are almost certainly special cases, somewhat different from your run-of-the-mill inhabitants, regardless of the NPCs social class.

3) Watch out for mods that wash each other out.

If you say that women tend to be physically weaker (-1), but working class milkmaids tend to be stronger (+1), for a net result of +/-0, you may be creating controversy to no good end. Do you really need the headache?

4) Expect people to use the bonuses you give them.

Males strong (+1)= expect them to fight.
Females socially wily(+1)...um, uh-oh.

Have you considered what a female character played by a really competetive player might do with those bonuses? I can. It's scary.

5) PCs are a cut above the rest.

In fiction pieces, and occasionally in real life, you are likely to find characters that simply do not meet your expectations for the general public in a given setting. It is very likely that your player will want to play these remarkable individuals, and for good reason: People that go against the grain abit tend to be at the center of interesting events. Are you sure that applying modifiers will make these characters more or less likely to want to go against the grain?

6) Focus on what is relevant.

This can be hard to do depending on your game system.

What I mean is this: If everyone in a given setting has about an average strength (say 9-12 under old D&D rules), do you even need to know that? For that matter, do you really even need to know, beyond some background color, whether they are only slightly above (13) or slightly below (8) average, since minor modifiers will tend to be irrelevant anyway? For gaming purposes, don't you really just need to know the areas where someone is particularly strong or weak, and to what extent? After all, only the really extreme cases on either end are going to have much impact.

7) Exceptions are important.

Especially in RPGs. Watch out for cases that, even though statistically small, do blow your numbers all to hell. As mentioned above, players are likely to want to play those exceptions as PCs. For that matter, a GM probably wants major antagonists to break the mold as well.

Just some thoughts. Thanks for listening,
Robert

Ravien wrote:

By focusing on social more than physical, it also neatly bypasses essentialist-vs-constructivist arguments over the origins of gender roles.

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]

I've never met a single person who denied the effect of society on development (not that they don't exist, but I've never seen one), but I've seen plenty of people on the opposite end of the scale.

Well eprsonaly I don't consider nature vs nurture or constructionalist vs essentialist ideas to be at all relevent to my possition. 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.

Why can't someone make a game that explores gender in a way they think is suitable without running into a wall of opposition?

They can, but in the case of your game it's not obviously about gender issues. the section on characetr concept says pretty explicitly tat people can make up whatever they like, and doesn't mention gender issues at all so far as I can recall.

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.

That's fine and dandy. Where in your game does it say that it's about exploring the consequences of the statistical physical dimorphism in the poulation due to gender? Are you intending to state this prominently on the back cover or something? makign a game about a topic is one thing, slipping it in under the audience's radar as a personal designer's quirk is quite another. Also RPGs are a very interactive art frm. You're not just creatign a work of art, but also creating a toolkit with which your audience create their own art and so the relationship between author and audience is quire different form, say, painting.

Simon Hibbs

simon_hibbs wrote:

Ravien wrote: 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.

simon_hibbs wrote: 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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."

SlurpeeMoney wrote:
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?

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.

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

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.

Eric J. wrote: 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.

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."

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".

Ok contracycle, consider combat.

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.

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

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."

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)

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'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.

SlurpeeMoney wrote: 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.

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

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.)

SlurpeeMoney wrote: 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.

SlurpeeMoney wrote:
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?

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."

John Kim wrote:

simon_hibbs wrote: 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.

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).

SlurpeeMoney wrote: 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?

In suggestion a solution, Komrade Bob wrote: 1) Accentuate the positive:
One possible easy fix is to only give positive modifiers for each gender, without counterbalancing negatives.

If you were to give males a +1 strength and females -1, their really two points apart on average. In a small range of possible stats, like in old D&D, that's fairly large. If, instead, you give males a +1 but simply fail to modify that stat for females, you have a lesser difference in range. The same then holds true for whatever stat or stats you give bonuses to females for.

There may be abnother angle to exploit though. Taking the lower body strength claim for example, you could set up something like:
+1 Strength to men when using upper body musculature
+1 Strength to women when using lower body musculature
Base strength used for any combined or other circumstances

That would allow differentiation without establishing one sex as a baseline from which the other 'deviates'. Also, this allows greater definition than blanket penalties and bonusses.


Slurpeemoney wrote:

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?

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.

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?

Kris (aka SlurpeeMoney),

I am restricting my comments to your last post where you describe the interests of your gaming group.

The Good

Kudos to you for engaging your players based on their interests and goals for their characters. I am not surprised that your group is more interested in game play that revolves around meaningful relationships. I cannot say that is a gender specific issue, but it certainly reflects my gaming interests. I am not familiar with The Wheel of Time or D20 so I cannot speak to this particular system or setting and how it may contribute to this type of game play. If you are interested in looking at other systems, you may want to check out HeroQuest and its use of relationships to augment skill rolls, or the use of spiritual attributes in The Riddle of Steel. Also, Ron mentioned, back on page 1 of this topic, his Sorcerer supplement Sex & Sorcery, in which he describes distinct male and female stories. A synopsis is at [Sex & Sorcery] Male and female story types

The Bad

Based solely on the description in your recent post, it seems to me that "gender" is being used by your players as a superficial excuse to be more effective in the game. The specific female strengths that you mention--lower body strength, socialization, intuition, reflexes, pain toleration--are all debatable and as has been pointed out multiple times creating attribute modifiers based on assumptions in these areas will not necessarily generate a fairer gender differentiated system. A blanket, my character is automatically better at this because she/he is female/male, is bogus. I suggest the application of class and gender to skill sets, rather than physical and mental attributes. If a player wants a character to be effective using lower body strength, have them take a skill in leg sweeps and throws. If you must, have gender define the experience and opportunity to learn and advance in such a skill. I also want to add that I particularly appreciate M. J. Young's recent comments about this issue.

And, a bonus for PMS? What--the gamers claim that this makes them more ferocious in combat? Please. I call bull-shit on that. If a group insists on including it in play; I would make certain that bear, shark, vampire, and Audrey attacks target the menstruating character. Jeez, that is one element of real life that I have absolutely no interest in modeling in a game system.

The Ugly

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?

Kris,
Two suggestions:

1) Switch from a skill and stat based system like D20, which makes the players fit their character concepts to the game mechanics, to a trait based system in which the players themselves define their characters abilites, such as HeroQuest, or Over the Edge. That way, instead of you, the GM, defining what feminine advantage means to the player, the player defines what it means to themselves. Also, because bolth of those systems have a fixed number of points to be alloted to traits, you won't be shortchanging male players by giving all sorts of special female centered powers to the female players.

2) Read the GNS essays over in the articles section. It sounds as though the addition of female players may have created Creative Agenda conflicts that you are merely perceving as gender based. Are your female players Naritivists trying to get their agendas met in a Gamist/Simulationist game, and you are merely perceving this as a gender/sex issue?

I second most of what Julie said concerning your post.

I disagree with Gareth's (contracycle's) points about men dominating sexuality. The "market" is mostly women. Consider playboy. Until fairly recently, playboy marketed solely to men, because that's where they thought the market was. Then the internet came along, and sales plummeted. But now they are on a (slow) comeback, for one reason: they began marketing to girls. The playboy "bunny" symbol now appears on a huge range of female products, from bumper stickers, to underwear and everyday casual clothing. It is now "cool" to be a playboy bunny. Additionally, women's magazines, which are arguably targeted solely at women, have on their covers pictures of women. One magazine (Cleo I think), once ran an issue with Brad Pitt on the cover, and it was one of their poorest selling issues that year (they've tried men on covers before, with the same results). These magazines are run by companies which are run and edited by women. In short, advertising "objectifies" women, because it sells to women. Men are now a fairly small slice in most consumer goods markets, and advertisers know that the best way to sell to either gender, is through females.

And that pain thing is urban myth, I've had this discussion before, but I couldn't be bothered diggin up anything right now. In short, pain experience is entirely incomparable and socially mediated, making any objective analysis meaningless.



I'm not a big fan of trait based games. It just seems odd to me that two players can be playing the same game where one's character sheet looks entirely different to the others'. Like that age old "who would win: superman or batman?", where the question is meaningless because they are really incomparable (the answer is both kriptonite and superman).

So here's my alternative suggestion, which may work for all groups. Get each of your players to write down all the bonuses they want their gender to have, and then all the bonuses they think the other gender should get. Then get all these things together and either a) keep only the bonuses that are duplicated between players, or b) average them all out, then tweak to make sure that neither gender is overall more mechanically advantaged over the other. Get everyone's agreement, then proceed to play. I guess it should take about 10 minutes before your first session.

If they try to do anything stupid, like giving ridiculously high bonuses (like +10 in a d20 system) to pull up the average, then reduce it to the lowest possible bonus (+1 in d20) before averaging it all.

At least in this way, I think, there should be no problems with any member of the group feeling "cheated", regardless of gender.

One more thing, if your female (or male?) players want a way to "use their sexual prowess" or whatever, and perhaps feel frustrated that few systems out there accomodate the plethora of social interactions between people, then may I point you to a module that I made a little while ago for a game I've since scrapped. It is pretty much entirely self contained, and I have a version that has been scaled to work perfectly with d20 systems (and has also been re-written to be easier to follow). If you'd like, I can email you the .pdf and you can incorporate it into your games, thus allowing your PCs to actually have mechanical input into non-combat that isn't a crude brushtroke. Once you are familiar with it, it shouldn't take long to work out aspects that can be "genderised", like bonuses to the skills Charm and Coerce for girls and bonuses to Affront and Discipline for guys (or, to be more interesting, allowing more than one attribute to contribute, like letting strength and intelligence boost Affront for guys, and intelligence and charisma boost Charm for girls). I've found that in my play-tests my players loved waging social war with each other perhaps a bit too much, because they often spent long periods of time trying to manipulate, insult, and charm each other to the detriment of pursuing the adventure, but as a GM, it's pretty easy to stop that (I just let it go to see how it worked, being that I was testing it and all).



-Ben

Ravien wrote: Doctor Xero wrote this over in that topic John linked to:

By focusing on social more than physical, it also neatly bypasses essentialist-vs-constructivist arguments over the origins of gender roles.

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]

Ravien wrote: Whilst a PhD does not an expert make, I would agree that Doctor Xero has expertise in the constructionist side of the gender debate, and it really is a shame that he chooses not to benefit us with his knowledge.

Eric J. wrote: So far I haven't seen any of it as far as it has to do with game design.

Ravien wrote: I've never met a single person who denied the effect of society on development

Rob Carriere wrote: Several people have stated their real-world opinion, but the question I want to ask is, what position will we take for the purpose of designing a game? (Note that `My real-world stance, of course' is a perfectly valid answer, I just think it should be explicit.)

SlurpeeMoney wrote: 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.

( editted out computer hiccough )

( editted out computer hiccough )

SlurpeeMoney wrote: 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?

SlurpeeMoney wrote: 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.

SlurpeeMoney wrote: Socialization: Women tend to be more outwardly social than men. Perhaps this is some throwback to our caveman days
---snip!--
Intuition: Women rely much more heavilly on their intuition and their gut than men do. Men like to reason things out

SlurpeeMoney wrote: 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.

SlurpeeMoney wrote: The Menstrual Cycle

SlurpeeMoney wrote: I know this sounds rather sexist, but I have noticed that the girls in my group game differently from the guys in my group.

SlurpeeMoney wrote: To them, a neuter system denotes "male" more often than female in the spirit of the rules.

SlurpeeMoney wrote: the lack of distinctive femininity, to them and to myself, seems prevailent.

simon_hibbs wrote: 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?

M. J. Young wrote: Also, I don't know that there is anything one gender can do that the other absolutely cannot.

Holy wow. Doctor Xero has been busy on a post I had thought of as long dead. And now he has so much information down I feel rather intimidated even trying to reply to his points.

And so, instead, I'll simply thank him for his insight and his deep look at social gender issues. I think he's covered, rather fully, any of the issues I would have liked to have brought up.

Kris
"Holy wow."

Actually, you take my comment out of context and thereby misrepresent it.

Understood within the context of the discussion from which you snipped my words, it becomes obvious that I was suggesting that if we focus more on the extant differences between conventionally-socialized American men and American women, we neatly bypass arguments over whether those differences have their origin strictly in nature (essentialist arguments), strictly in nurture (constructivist arguments), or somewhere in-between.

By quoting me out of context, you are able to misconstrue my words as advocating a totalitarianism of thought in favor of constructivism.

Doctor Xero wrote:

Ravien wrote: Whilst a PhD does not an expert make, I would agree that Doctor Xero has expertise in the constructionist side of the gender debate, and it really is a shame that he chooses not to benefit us with his knowledge.

Since I cite a number of researchers in that thread (and was blasted by a few Forge posters for it), I assume this was also sarcasm?

I have met many and read even more who do just that.

Take a look at some of the angrier writings of essentialist feminists.

Also, look at some of the writings of later acolytes of John Gray's interpretations of gender differences.

Take a look at gender as understood within the field of sociobiology.

Read some of the anti-feminist conservative evangelical fundamentalist Christian writings in which various writers declare that gender roles were ordained by God and are hardwired into the soul.

If I want to challenge the idea that women are incapable of matching men in terms of strength, I would design a game in which male and female characters roll the same dice to determine strength value. (Compare Villains & Vigilantes in which women have fewer dice to roll up for a certain attribute which controls muscular prowess with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in which male and female fighters both used three six-sided dice for rolling up the Strength attribute).

I have read some marvelous nutritionist/bio-chemist papers proving that PMS is a purely social entity which results entirely from the nutritionally messed-up modern urban diet.

I honestly think you would be better off running these women in games which challenge their reification of gender roles rather than in games which humor them. Either that, or accept the idea that you will be running games which marginalize and dismiss men who are intuitive, socially adroit, and otherwise tread upon the territory these women would set aside for women only.

Ravien wrote: Surely even within the confines of gender such people can see that stating "all females are biologically/theologically predestined to be feminine" is instantly disproven by the existence of females who are not feminine. Without a substantial social component, such occurances would be impossible. They may be arguing for "should be", rather than "are", but this acknowledges the effect of society in defying the "should", and thus they cannot be construed as arguing in favour of extreme existentialism.

Maybe these people you suggest are that stupid, but I doubt it. Instead, because of your inclusion of "sociobiology" within that context, I think you are interpreting "extreme existenialism" as suggesting "a strong biological component", which is not how John Kim explained it nor how I see it. Indeed, looking at sociobiology, one can instantly see the importance of both social and biological factors to that field, hence "socio" and "biology".

I remember someone posted a while ago about an article they read on rpg.net about women and men's differences as the related to fighting and such. I stumbled across it today. The address is below.

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/vecna19jun01.html

Just FYI.

Ravien wrote: your arguments stemming from your PhD background in Women's Studies (which I personally feel is a biased course itself, considering for all your arguments on gender equality, I can't seem to find a course entitled "Men's Studies", though I may have found the ideal middle ground of "People Studies", otherwise known as "Psychology")

Ravien wrote: I felt it prudent to state that when even the "experts" disagree about something, then the "commoners" have every right to form an opinion without first consulting such experts, a thing which doesn't make sense when all experts agree.

Ravien wrote: Surely even within the confines of gender such people can see that stating "all females are biologically/theologically predestined to be feminine" is instantly disproven by the existence of females who are not feminine.

Ravien wrote: (read: I may be wrong) from pm's with you that you hold the extreme constructivist side, by stating that any and all differences are purely social.

Ravien wrote: I would suggest otherwise. Instead of you, the GM, deciding to "challenge your players", you should humor them. Two reasons. ---snip!-- If I can't take advantage of things which I feel my character should have as strengths, I get annoyed, and I think, Kris, that this is what your players may be feeling. It doesn't matter why I feel they should be strengths, only that I can't use them. ---snip!-- If they say "I wanna be cooler because I'm a girl/ I'm an elf/ I'm rich/ I'm blonde/ whatever" then let them

Ravien wrote: why would you want to deny them that?.

SlurpeeMoney wrote: Holy wow. Doctor Xero has been busy on a post I had thought of as long dead. And now he has so much information down I feel rather intimidated even trying to reply to his points.

Ravien, your decision to reword my statement about my Ph.D. in Gender Studies as a statement about a Ph.D. in Women's Studies is yet one more of the many examples of your choosing to misinterpret my words.

Not all experts agree on how weather occurs, the nature of gravity, implicate order theory, quantum theory, how bees fly, the proper interpretation of various Holy Writ, and the exact birthdate of Alexander the Great, for example -- but this does not mean that I will assume a 20 year old slacker stoned out on the sidewalk automatically has an opinion equal in validity to that of a meteorologist, physicist, mathematician, entomologist, theologian, or historian.

an expert is someone who is more learned in a particular field, not some ridiculous elite figure.

Not really. Rather than explain it in detail, I suggest you read up on the concepts of the statistical outlier and of the history of the concept of deviation.

If they were Private Mailings, why bring them up in public? Bad form, Ravien.

Either way, however, you will notice that we no longer mail one another ; it became obvious to me that I was failing to communicate effectively with you, so I saw no reason to further annoy either of us. I wasn't cutting you off, just trying to keep from annoying you needlessly.

I have no interest in humoring them.

There may be those who would enjoy playing RPGs titled Sexwolf: The Joys of Rape or Gaybashers and Other Role Models, but I see every reason to deny them that enjoyment. I have had too much experience in the Real World academically and interpersonally with those sorts of people to lionize or celebrate them -- or indulge them.

I have no ethical qualms with annoying racists, anti-semites, or homophobes

Ravien wrote:

SlurpeeMoney wrote: Slogging through what seemed more argument than constructive criticism is, or has been to me, an indication that, while the subject does warrant further discussion, it is time to take a breath and get back to the issues.

Ravien wrote:
Unfortunately, the two are seldom seperate. If an expert is standing next to a stoner, and is putting forward an argument for a false conclusion, whilst the stoner puts forward an argument for the truth, the "expert" will be believed simply because he is seen as superior (ie: elite). And to think that there is no elitism within science or any other field is preposterous.

I have no ethical qualms with annoying racists, anti-semites, or homophobes

Why? Are they not people too? So, because they discriminate against other people based on race/religion/gender/sexuality, then it's ok for you to discriminate against them based on their discrimination?