In this thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=13774

I said that I thought that the gender issues provided in keywords, such as what occupations were allowed for different characters, are important. And I'll stand by that.

The counter to this argument by Ian was to point out that PCs are often exceptions to the norms. And I totally agree. My response is that one cannot be counter to the norm if there is not a norm.

I'll put this another way. I see the occupation restrictions in the HQ keywords as merely indicative of the norms. As such, they're important because, again, they point out how the culture deals with gender. What occupations one can be in, what cults - it all says volumes about the culture.

But I'm also the guy who wrote the article on Improvising Keywords over at the Issiaries web site: http://www.glorantha.com/support/na_keywords.html

It's my opinion that all keywords are merely suggestions, examples of norms. When a character concept does not fit the keyword, simply alter it. The difference between the original keyword and the new one can say a lot about the character. "I'm not from exactly the same place." "I'm from a different social class." "I'm part of a sub-culture." "I'm not one who conforms to this norm."

My point is that, no, the player should never feel limited by the keywords, but simply be informed by them. Nothing wrong with conforming to a keyword, either - it's just an option.

Now, a slightly separate issue is that of "comfort" with the keyword. But here, again, I think that the solution is for the GM to alter the keyword to suit everyone's comfort level. If, in fact, your Glorantha (or whereever) doesn't have any sexism, because nobody wants to deal with that issue in play, then it's just as easy to alter the keywords to eliminate the telling differences.

All I'm saying is that gender roles can be interesting to investigate (if only, in many cases, to prove that they are a bad idea as constructed), and that to have them "hard coded" into the game, reqires these sorts of notations in the keywords.

Questions to clarify, or debate on the subject welcome.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: The counter to this argument by Ian was to point out that PCs are often exceptions to the norms. And I totally agree. My response is that one cannot be counter to the norm if there is not a norm.

The issues of societal expectation is particularly engaging in HQ because it matters more than it might in a lot of other RPGs. Community support is a big deal. If your clan or league or congregation think you're rocking the boat, it may be harder to get the community support you need for that HeroQuest.

Part of this is that unlike many games (unlike, AFAICT, RuneQuest, for example), a big part of HQ is about grounding the characters within their communities. Which makes it difficult: for me, the fact that social expectations aren't just 21st-century-western ones ported into another setting is one of the key selling points about Glorantha. I know that's true of others; it's part of what Ron's talking about when he talks about looking for the gaps. But it can also narrow the range of available player options because it's hard to gloss over something so important.

Again, I agree with you on this, Ian. It might be an issue. But I'm glad to have the information for my part. And I think that it's generally less of a problem eliminating the offensive parts than they are to build.

Now, if somebody is using these things in a bad way, or using the gender information despite some player's complaint that it's uncomfortable, yeah, that's bad. But it's nothing that the rules can deal with. Any rule is abuseable, in theory. Stopping that abuse can only occur, IMO, at the social level.

Mike

Ian Cooper wrote: But I am aware that some gamers have enough confronting of gender roles to do OOC that they find settings that have those attributes undesirable as entertainment. Glorantha is pretty tough on this issue. In a lot of cases acting outside gender norms is permissable, but it makes you special. And while 'acting out of gender' maybe an interesting story sometimes it is is not always.

Make sense?

Mike Holmes wrote: Now, if somebody is using these things in a bad way, or using the gender information despite some player's complaint that it's uncomfortable, yeah, that's bad. But it's nothing that the rules can deal with. Any rule is abuseable, in theory. Stopping that abuse can only occur, IMO, at the social level.

Mike

I would hope there's another option, namely the one we should strive for in real life:

(4) an appreciation of differences that is non-oppressive.

This would be a state in which general differences are understood to exist, but they are not used to keep people from self-determination, nor are they laden with value judgments. I know that my wife, for example, has a different biology at work than I do. By taking that into account without either holding it against her or dismissing it, we can get along wonderfully. That's a mutual thing, of course. And gender differences are only one level of the diversity that exists among people, none of which should be used to oppress or dismiss others.

So how would you put that into keyword terms? Would you want to limit gender-specifics to how biology works (in which case it would only affect the sex keyword in the biological sense)? Or would you also be in favour of including "general [ cultural ] differences understood to exist" (my insertion)? In which case, do you have more specific suggestions or examples for what such differences in a cultural (ie Homeland) keyword could look like IYO?

Hello,

Kerstin, my answer for that issue is pretty simple and doesn't need to break (e.g.) Keyword: Female into abilities like Womb 17 and Breasts 21, etc.

In our Hero Wars game (which frankly had much simpler and more sensible Keyword rules than HeroQuest), we used the Heortling Keywords from Thunder Rebels. Starting Heortling Keywords were slightly different for men and women, in terms of occupation.

That was it. It worked fine. Everyone saw these abilities as emblematic of gender roles in the society, and picked their other abilities relative to those roles. One player even picked an off-gender god to be an initiate of (Andrin the Lawmaker; female character).

The result was a highly gender-relevant set of conflicts during play.

Effectively, we had two versions of the Heortling Cultural Keyword: Heortling Male and Heortling Female. I think that's a very strong and useful way to do it, and if anything involving (e.g.) male or female biological function came up in play, we would use that value for that keyword.

It's also nice because it kicks the stupid Bio/Culture dichotomy out the window. Characters in HeroQuest therefore end up being members of their culture and stinky social primates, in a familiar and understandable way, without needing to get all hung up about it.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Ah! Forgot to link my Thunder Rebels review.

Well, I was thinking in general terms of "world building" -- I must confess to not having enough insight into HQ to tell you how to build keywords around this solution. But Ron's approach seems to work well. I don't know if I would even go so far as to necessitate gender-specific keywords. I would probably make keywords for characters who specifically emphasize differences and make a habit of playing them up, but in general, most differences would be too subtle.

I'm not seeing your objection to number 1. Besides calling it a stereotype, which is sometimes considered a derogatory term.

I've said it before here, and I'll say it again, there's nothing wrong about stereotypes per se. What's wrong is when people assume that all members of a group associated with a stereotype belong to that stereotype, or when the stereotype is incorrect. For example, it's not incorrect to say that women tend to be shorter than men. It's incorrect to then assume that all women are shorter than all men, or that the tallest person must be a man, but that's a missapplication of the stereotype. If one were to say that women were less intelligent than men, that would be an incorrect observation, and so, of course wrong.

But where the stereotype is accurate, and where it's understood to be a generalization, and used properly, it's a potentially effective tool.

In this case, it's not even a statement of the potentiality of women a priori. When a homeland keyword says that women can't be warriors, and yet the next culture over says that they can, the game cannot be saying that females are intrinsically unable to serve as warriors - indeed the notion is laughable. It's simply saying that the culture in question generally does things to prohibit people from crossing it's gender norms.

Again, this means that there can be exceptions. You can still play a warrior, in this culture, you just have to deal with the social ramifications. Just as you might have to deal with their proscription against touching certain sorts of trees if your character does that, too.

There is no option 4 or 5. You either play with gender norms, or you ignore them. Those norms may be typical, or "reversed" as in Esrolia, from what we're familiar with, but they're all just norms. BTW, Esrolia is dead serious from everything that I've seen. How it seems a parody to you is just beyond me (I'm guessing that you're assuming that the authors and people who play have the same notions of gender as those who were sexist in your other games). In my Shadow World game, I have a similar culture called Sarnak, and one of the PCs is from there. A woman warrior from a culture that, in fact, considers males to be second-class citizens to really turn things on their heads. Heck, it goes so far as to reverse the physical dimorphism to explain this in part (not really neccessary, but...) - the women are substantially larger than the men.

It's all dead serious.

So, again, I'm not seeing the problem. Might be that I lack the persepctive, but, if so, you're going to have to explain it better for mooks like me to be able to help.

Anyhow, as Ron points out, you get to significantly modify your character from norms and stereotypes in chargen, even if you don't modify the homeland keywords (which I encourage). So I'm quite sure one can make a character an individual, no matter what.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm not seeing your objection to number 1. Besides calling it a stereotype, which is sometimes considered a derogatory term.

There is no option 4 or 5. You either play with gender norms, or you ignore them. Those norms may be typical, or "reversed" as in Esrolia, from what we're familiar with, but they're all just norms.

BTW, Esrolia is dead serious from everything that I've seen. How it seems a parody to you is just beyond me (I'm guessing that you're assuming that the authors and people who play have the same notions of gender as those who were sexist in your other games).

Anyhow, as Ron points out, you get to significantly modify your character from norms and stereotypes in chargen, even if you don't modify the homeland keywords (which I encourage). So I'm quite sure one can make a character an individual, no matter what.

Ron Edwards wrote: Effectively, we had two versions of the Heortling Cultural Keyword: Heortling Male and Heortling Female. I think that's a very strong and useful way to do it, and if anything involving (e.g.) male or female biological function came up in play, we would use that value for that keyword.

Mike Holmes wrote: So, again, I'm not seeing the problem. Might be that I lack the persepctive, but, if so, you're going to have to explain it better for mooks like me to be able to help.

Anyhow, as Ron points out, you get to significantly modify your character from norms and stereotypes in chargen, even if you don't modify the homeland keywords (which I encourage). So I'm quite sure one can make a character an individual, no matter what.

StalkingBlue wrote: However, _if_ you choose to play with norms, why can't there be options in addition to either "typical" or "reversed"? Once more, I have nothing against either of these two, both can be fine if people are interested in playing them. But in addition to them I'd like to see other options.

I've tried to start going a more "open" route with my Dorn keyword, did that one make any sense to you or did it feel all wrong?

Maybe the way it's summarised in the book ("... and then men took control and everything went wrong...") makes me feel that way. I have a bit of a problem getting into anything written about Glorantha in the rulebook because the writing style doesn't work too well for me (that's not true for most of the material on the Issaries website btw), and for Esrolia that half-aloof, possibly ironic style simply goes over the top for me. But that's just me.

So, sorry if I rubbed you up the wrong way, not sure what happened there. I genuinely wasn't sure whether Esrolia is meant to be serious or not, but if you say it is, then ok, I have no problem believing you.

My question above, which I tried to illustrate with my Dorns (that doesn't look like it worked too well) was: what about keywords that invite creativity about gender norms? (Or other norms for that matter.) Does that approach make sense to you at all or doesn't it? Or am I off topic from what you wanted in this thread?

Mike Holmes wrote: In my Shadow World game, I have a similar culture called Sarnak, and one of the PCs is from there. A woman warrior from a culture that, in fact, considers males to be second-class citizens to really turn things on their heads. Heck, it goes so far as to reverse the physical dimorphism to explain this in part (not really neccessary, but...) - the women are substantially larger than the men.

Yeah, Sarnk Amazons who actually fall in love with men are generally ridiculed in thier culture as weak. So having 6' 3" Alitia fall in love with 5' 10" Thomas the knight (I assume, given that he didn't have tall at all), was fun to deal with. Right, no sweeping this damsel off her feet, it's more like trying to keep up as she runs throught the city looking to avenge herself on her former captors.

As complicated as ya wanna be.

I am saddened that we never resolved all of this - Brand had to drop out of the game. You realize, Brand, that Alitia was taken captive and sent to the White Wood in the new phase of play by the same demonic forces that caused the fall of the city, and that Serama's new Amazon sidekick, Elle, is her sister, and that they're looking for her? Didya? I can't wait for her to get loose again, and wreck some more hearts both with her looks and with cold steel. (Y'know she woulda kicked Fahja's butt if it hadn't been for his Hero Points).

Sure you don't wanna play again? Thomas could be coming upriver as we speak...

Back OT. The point is that in making up the characters, one can easily mess with the gender norms to make whatever issues one wants. At least that's been my experience.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Even the differences between the "reversed" Esrolia, and my "reversed" Sarnak, are telling, I think.

If you mean "reversed" only to mean a direct role reversal, and you want to look at unfamiliar structures that are other than this, I think that can be done, and is done in games.

Looking at cultures where males and females spend more or less time with each other? I've read of fantasy cultures where the men and women live separately, but otherwise equally, only coming into contact with each other ritually. Or cultures where every man is always in physical contact, or as close as possible, with one woman.

I mean, the possibilities are endless. But I sense that I'm still somehow missing your question, as these are individual ideas, and not categories (which is what 4 and 5 seem to imply).

Actually, I don't understand what you mean by this at all. From your example, it looks precisely like any other typical gender norm. Men fight, women cheer them on. How very American Football. :-)

Ah. Consider that this style is how actual myths are told, and indicative of a "primitive" (meaning actually something most like non-industrial) mindset. It's not ironic, it's quite literal. When the woman says "and then the men" she's being dead serious.

Ron has often said (as James points out above) that it's actually important that we as players have different opinions about things than the cultures in which we play do. Because it's through those differences that we can really create theme best.

Brand_Robins wrote: It can, quite frankly, get really old really fast. One does not want to confront the same issues every time one plays, just because the assumptions around the issue never change.

If the players have a voice in the setup of the game, in which cultures they’re going to be and in what context their characters will interact with that world, then they get to choose the conflicts they want by the characters they choose. Because we’re looking at the conflicts the game is going to bring ahead of time (in a lose sense, at least) we get to decide which conflicts we want and how much we want them.

StalkingBlue wrote: Sure, assuming the group has a consensus on what culture they'd like to play in that should work fine.

StalkingBlue wrote: I wasn't looking for categories as such - merely struggling to explain that I think there could and should be options other than "traditional" and "reversed" in the sense that I understood those terms (which it now turns out you didn't, so we didn't have a disagreement there).

Actually, I don't understand what you mean by this at all. From your example, it looks precisely like any other typical gender norm. Men fight, women cheer them on. How very American Football. :-)

Ouch. :-)

Ok, I kinda get you for "men fight, women huddle around the children". It's a "traditional norm" interpretation and it works with these abilities - but it's not supposed to be the only way to interpret these abilities.

What about men being craftsmen and women chieftains? How's that American Football?

Ah ok. It being mixed in with all that weird 1970s-psychedelic/humour stuff (or whatever it is, such as ducks, floating eggs etc.) I simply didn't get that. If I put it in a mythological context it starts making a lot more sense.

Sorry, you have the advantage over me, you've known this setting from other texts. (I'm beginning to see more specifically why people complain that the HQ book doesn't do Glorantha justice.)

Great point - and one that might argue against the approach I was taking above, with an "interpretable" culture. If you make a culture clearly "American Football" (or whatever other norm you choose, as long as it's drastically clear), you are sure to get a strong reaction either in favour or against, so you have a strong theme. If you have an interpretable culture keyword, you don't have a theme at all unless and until the group agrees to put one in.

Mike Holmes wrote: Well, my point is that I can't see how you can miss all the "other" that's already out there everywhere. It's like you're standing on a beach, and saying, "But what does the sand look like?"

Kerstin;

Reading through this thread, I *think* what I heard you saying is: "Is there a way of playing it so that while gender roles exist, playing around with those rolls does NOT require that this be the primary conflict that the character is about.

Or to try and say it another way, that going against cultural norms does not mean you want your bangs to mostly be about the conflict between gender norms and your chosen occupation.

So that for example, you could play a female warrior, who's main conflicts are about say, the cold detachment from humanity that she needs in order to kill, versus the human passion that she needs to help free the slaves.

Is this close to what you were trying to get at?

Regards;

-Bryan

StalkingBlue wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: Well, my point is that I can't see how you can miss all the "other" that's already out there everywhere. It's like you're standing on a beach, and saying, "But what does the sand look like?"

This may well be true. My apologies for cluttering up your thread.

Bryan, Mike - That was part of what I was trying to say, yes. Brand has already expressed that in his post about how it gets old to be forced into the very same set of conflicts every time.

The other part (related to the above) was that I'd like to see more cultures with non-standard gender conflicts. Mike says I'm standing on a beach not seeing the sand, fair enough. I'll give that a think.

Well, I think the reason that you tend to see the built in conflict that you do is an artifact of creating the cultures to be resonant. Not that the only gender conflicts that can resonate are the standard ones. But that we usually build cultures as amalgams of ones that we know. So, in a fantasy game, we use our knowledge of ancient cultures so that they match the technological level of the game. If I want a violent culture, I pick the Vikings to model off of. If I want an empire building culture, I pick the Romans. Democracy? Greeks. Esoteric religion? Egyptians.

What happens then, is that the norms of those cultures get converted in by default. As it happens, the vast majority of cultures that you can name for these purposes ranged from treating women as slaves to high levels of sexism at best.

So it's no surprise that you get these cultures. Why do we get the "reverse" culture? Well, because of the Amazon legend, and because it's simple "sci-fi" logic to look at something by turning it completely upside down. I think Plato was simply a sci-fi writer before his time when he came up with the Amazons.

Then there's the question of "realism." That is, given that the societies in fantasy are generally portrayed as less than enlightened in general, the question becomes why would they do any better than the real world human cultures who were in the same place.

Of course this is fantasy, and we can do anything we want. So these arguments for why fantasy cultures are the way they are, isn't a good one. But it is why these things exist as they do.

Again, all in all, Glorantha does a better than usual job of giving you a range of options in terms of gender issues as relates to societal control. It also, BTW, does a lot in terms of adding other interesting issues of gender. Consider, for a moment, Nandan. I'm not too familiar with him, as he's not in the HQ book, or in any text that I've read, but I've been given to understand that he's the god of men acting as women or somesuch. There are hints that it's about sexual orientation somehow, but the most commonly cited ritual is one in which a man can become pregnant. (Somebody joked that the ritual involved the man's wife going into the hut with him, and then having to stay there with him the whole nine months to tend to him in this arduous ritual, whereupon the man comes out of the hut carrying the newborn child, but I think it's meant to be serious).

Again, just looking at what is in the book, Vinga is interesting in that it's not precisely role reversal. As I understand it (and I could be wrong here), the Vingans are thought to become men more or less. Sorta the opposite of Nandan, then. It's not the normal role reversal issue, it's more of a transgendering issue.

To get back to that "sand" that I think is everywhere, I think that, in fact, the best way to come up with "other" gender issues is to ignore the cultural power split, and focus on more universal issues as they impact gender for this culture. For example, there's the issue of mating ritual. Who calls on who in this culture? What are the sexual norms? I think that one issue we see all the time in games like this is that of the sort of puritanical timeframes of these rituals. That is, in many cultures men and women are only allowed to come into contact under certain controlled circumstances, and then these circumstances may continue to be controlled for a very long time. One culture might only allow the males to come and stand outside of the windows of the women who they woo, and sing to them, until several months have passed (or even longer). Wherupon, perhaps the male has to compose a poem that is either acccepted or rejected by the female.

A lot of this stuff is actually based off of the romanticization of the medieval period by Victorian writers that has stuck since that time. That is, in fact, these sorts of rituals were rare to non-existant in many of the emulated cultures that we see in fantasy. But they're fun to contemplate, again, in a sorta sci-fi way. "What if" such rituals existed?

Another gender trope that gets abused somewhat in fantasy, but can be interesting, is that of the prostitute. Un ugly issue by our modern standards, there are some ways to look at this without abuse, and in ways that can be interesting to play out. Yes, I mean to say that a female player could find it interesting to play a prostitute in certain circumstances, but also male prostitution can be examined, and there are a plethora of ways to look at it. For example, in some real world cultures, prostitutes were respected or even revered. Take the Sumerians - each year the king had to ritually copulate with the prostitutes of certain temples to ensure the flow of the river. It's generally thought that these women were held in high regard by the community as a whole.

Sex as power, generally, is a cultural issue that can go a lot of different ways. From both male and female perspectives. Consider the Don Juan male type. He's held in esteem by some, and considered immoral by others in the typical culture in which such a character is set. Put him in another culture, and things can get very weird. I have such a character in my current game, but in a society in which lying is punishable by death. So he's constantly being found out, and chased off - interestingly, in the society, infidelity isn't as bad as lying about your infidelity. So he's had to become nomadic from tribe to tribe in order to keep up his favorite passtime of seducing other men's wives.

Note that in all of these cases, what's inescapable, is that they're all about cultual norms. That is, the way that culture and gender interact is by norms (it could be said that culture is nothing but norms). So when we're talking the two here, there really is only one question with regard to any norm - does the character conform to the norm, or does the character break the norm? So, from that POV, you can't escape the "normal/Reverse" dichotomy.

What you can escape, however, is what the "normal/reverse" issue is about. No, it doesn't have to be directly about gender roles. Again, the female character who breaks with mating tradition to be with the man she loves is breaking a norm. The one prostitute may be caught up in issues or morality or power as the norms they might be tempted to break. The Don Juan type is caught between a set of double-standard norms in his society, and is breaking one, to avoid breaking the other (but, often thematically ends up changing back to the other norm when he/she falls in love for life).

I could go on and on. There's really very little that happens in life that's not impacted by our gender in some way. Culturally there are rules implicit as well as explicit about how the genders are supposed to behave as they go through life. The question of whether or not one adheres to a particular norm does not have to be about a rejection of their gender, as is implied with the standard role-reversal situation. That is, it could be just as "female" to fall in love with somebody and break a dating norm as it would be to follow that norm.

So all you have to do is to identify those norms, and you're off and running using gender as one way to create issues that the character has to deal with.

And this is only looking at culture, too. As I've said elsewhere, if you want other issues, just look at places other than culture. I mean, the easiest way to get away from gender as a cultural issue, is to deal with it on a more primal level (that Gender Keyword again). That is, simply put a male and female character together alone somewhere, and there's are suddenly potential issues. Not ones that have to be explored, these, too can be ignored. But as soon as one of the characters says to the other, "Hey, you look pretty good tonight" we have an issue that has to be dealt with. Again, this is bang with the most fidelity of all (no pun intended). As soon as one character indicates a sexual interest in another, no matter how benignly stated or innocent, the other character's response is instantly interesting. In our example, perhaps the compliment is returned, and we see a new relationship forming. Or the character is rejected, which is thematically interesting as well.

And this is just the simplest of male-female interactions. Once they have a relationship, then, as they say, things get complicated. The obvious thing to do then, is to introduce a third party, creating the most used conflict delivery system known, the love triangle. Most used because it's so damn consistent at providing an interesting result. Again, I could go on and on, but there's absolutely no reason that the only gender issue to hit play has to be "comformity to role/nonconformity" or role-reversal. Because there's more to cultural gender identity than that, and there are also considerations of gender that are culture-universal if you will. There are also probably other sorts that I'm missing here - occupational gender issues perhaps, or belief-based issues. I mean, what if your god tells your character to remove their gender associated body parts to become "genderless" for them? How much do you value your gender (and eschew pain), and how much do you love your diety?

To say nothing of the basic phyiological issues of gender. Yes, I think that getting pregnant, or getting a sexually transmitted disease, or getting a sex organ damaged in a fight (The Sun Also Rises), are all potentially very interesting issues to deal with.

Note that, to some extent every gender issue is cultural in one way. That is, the characters ideas about gender have to have been formed somewhere, and I think that almost always, you can trace this back to the culture in some way. But, then, I'd say that this is true of every sort of issue. That is, a character can't have any opinion that's not in some way informed by his cultural upbringing. Even if the character runs counter to his culture. So I think this isn't important to point out, really.

Now, all I've said in this thread is that gender roles are still interesting to point out, and can still be interesting to play about as an issue. Further, I think that pointing out gender roles can be a good first step to informing the players about what the other norms might be like - they can be inspirational there. But, again, if in fact one finds that somehow the gender roles end up playing too big a part in informing what play is to be like, then axe them. Fine. But that doesn't mean that the culture doesn't have norms at all, or ignores gender. Just keep on making up norms as you go. Even if they're of the "everyone is equal" sort (which can, interestingly, be played off as an issue by characters who want to make themselves subservient to others - See the movie The Secretary).

And play those issues as they show up.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Again, all in all, Glorantha does a better than usual job of giving you a range of options in terms of gender issues as relates to societal control. It also, BTW, does a lot in terms of adding other interesting issues of gender. Consider, for a moment, Nandan. I'm not too familiar with him, as he's not in the HQ book, or in any text that I've read, but I've been given to understand that he's the god of men acting as women or somesuch. There are hints that it's about sexual orientation somehow, but the most commonly cited ritual is one in which a man can become pregnant. (Somebody joked that the ritual involved the man's wife going into the hut with him, and then having to stay there with him the whole nine months to tend to him in this arduous ritual, whereupon the man comes out of the hut carrying the newborn child, but I think it's meant to be serious).

Again, just looking at what is in the book, Vinga is interesting in that it's not precisely role reversal. As I understand it (and I could be wrong here), the Vingans are thought to become men more or less. Sorta the opposite of Nandan, then. It's not the normal role reversal issue, it's more of a transgendering issue.

Excellent way to put it Donald, it's a social transformation. Not physical (didn't mean to imply that, if I did), but that the culture considers their gender to be changed in terms of how they deal with such people. IOW, they are accepted into the new role. As opposed to role-reversal where the character acts in a role that normally isn't allowed for that gender. So a Vingan warrior is socially a man acting as a warrior. Whereas a woman not in the Vinga cult who is a warrior is a woman acting in a role normally reserved for men.

Gender can get unbelievably complex. There's the question of physical gender, personal gender identification, societal gender identification, gender appearance, gender roles, sexual orientation (which doesn't have to coincide with any of the others in any specific way particularly), transgendered state (very common in anime), transexual state (surprisingly common in fantasy, remember Tomb of Horrors), etc.

Mike

Speaking of gender-bending in Glorantha....

The Hsunchen are a widely scattered set of peoples. Each has an animal that it is associated with, like the Rathori (spelling?) being "bear Hsunchen." They view themselves and their totem animals to be essentially the same, all one people, just some in animal form and some in human form. Their magic allows the more dedicated to transform partially or fully into the animal form.

Anyway, where gender enters into it is that I recall reading that while generally these tribes have very strong gender roles, *all* of their shamans undergo some degree of gender change when they become shamans. In some Hsunchen people it is very symbolic, like changing the style of clothes they wear. In others it is literal.

Besides keeping the classic adolescent male power gamer from wanting to be a hsunchen shaman, I always thought that could make for interesting role player territory, if a close relation became a shaman and comes back with a different take on gender roles. What do you do if your mother now acts like a man, or your father like a woman? If your one time shield brother is now a frankly attractive woman? If the little sister you protected now is not quite female, but not taking on a man's role either--what is your role as protector now?

Of course, there are other, possibly deeper, changes involved in becoming a shaman which may tend to swamp the gender issues.

--Bryan

Still on gender roles in Glorantha....

Amongst the Heortlings, aside from Vinga and Nandan who socially transform gender, there is also Heler. Heler is originally from the water tribe, and water is mutable. Not every helering plays this up, but they just don't have the same clear cut views on gender than most Heortlings have. Their god has one sub-cult in which he is a goddess, and likewise many helerings seem ambiguous about gender.

There are more ways to play around with gender expectations than just reversal....in fact I suspect that many people actually have a harder time with ambiguity than with reversal. At least with reversal they know what the role is.....

--Bryan

Just to say I'm still reading, just not saying much here currently. Am reorienting. (Or to go back to Mike's analogy, experimenting with wriggling toes in grainy white stuff.) :-)

Bryan_T wrote: What do you do if your mother now acts like a man, or your father like a woman? If your one time shield brother is now a frankly attractive woman? If the little sister you protected now is not quite female, but not taking on a man's role either--what is your role as protector now?

Of course, there are other, possibly deeper, changes involved in becoming a shaman which may tend to swamp the gender issues.

Well, I think the interesting thing with these gender benders is then looking again at the norms. That is, I'm sure that when a Hsunchen shaman returns home that there's a norm about how you're supposed to deal with them. It might be to ignore the gender change, or to accept it, or even to shun the shaman - creating an "untouchable" class in so doing.

As always, the question then becomes given the change, and the norm, how does my character react? If shunning is the norm does my character participate, or do they break the line to care for their old friend? If you're supposed to ignore it, does the character do so, or is it just so weird to him that he has to say something? If they're supposed to support the change, does he do so, or just see it as too unnatural, and reject his friend?

All good stuff.

Cool notes on Heler, and the Hsunchen, Bryan. I think it's an interesting observation about the transexual nature of the Hsunchen and it being potentially there to prevent powergaming. Because an actual true powergamer wouldn't worry about their character's sex, unless there was some problem in empowerment being female. I don't see this as inherent in the shaman thing, so it sounds like the sexism tradition at work again. :-)

Mike

I think it's an interesting observation about the transexual nature of the Hsunchen and it being potentially there to prevent powergaming. Because an actual true powergamer wouldn't worry about their character's sex, unless there was some problem in empowerment being female. I don't see this as inherent in the shaman thing, so it sounds like the sexism tradition at work again. :-)

Mike Holmes wrote: Excellent way to put it Donald, it's a social transformation. Not physical (didn't mean to imply that, if I did), but that the culture considers their gender to be changed in terms of how they deal with such people.

IOW, they are accepted into the new role. As opposed to role-reversal where the character acts in a role that normally isn't allowed for that gender. So a Vingan warrior is socially a man acting as a warrior. Whereas a woman not in the Vinga cult who is a warrior is a woman acting in a role normally reserved for men.