[Bochi]

[QUOTE=BethDragon]I've thought a while on this

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Does everything _need_ to be spelled out in black and white? Okay, we didn't see any female officers in the Alliance military. Doesn't mean there weren't any there. We didn't see a lot of Chinese folks in the series or the movie and yet the background is that the current times are a result of an eventual merger of Chinese and American.

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Agree with much of what Beth says. Staight stuff, full of goodness.

I thought it worth pointing out some obvious things, I apologize if they are too obvious or if some of them have been said before with more pith.

Firstly, Zoe is military on the Rebel side, which is where we'd expect to see most PCs. And she's first mate on Serenity. Nobody is going around saying "what business has that purty girl got pretendin' to be an officer." Kaylee is the engineer, another traditionally male occupation. As for the Alliance, The RPG tells us about "men and women who serve in the military..." (p202) I see nothing here requiring gender-differentiated rules. I do see plenty of evidence that Joss Whedon enjoys subverting gender stereotypes in his writing - and Firefly/Serenity is no exception.

Secondly, I think it is missing the point to try to match up the rules to the social conservatism of the 1870s "Wild West", if indeed it was markedly conservative. Joss is riffing on the conventions of the Western movie tradition, not on real world history, just as in Buffy he was riffing on teen soap opera conventions, not a realistic portrayal of modern US high schools.

The Western genre does not generally emphasize the religiosity of frontier life but uses it as a theme from time to time. Likewise it is not emphasized in the TV series except as an occasional plot device. I find it telling that Mal, who wears a crucifix, also prays to Buddha. (Dear Buddha, please bring me a pony and a little plastic rocket... ) The RPG tells us Buddhism is the dominant religion of the 'verse overall, Christianity 2nd, although the latter is more common on the Rim than in the Core. It doesn't suggest that Xtianity is the norm on the rim, though, just that most folks anywhere believes in somethin'.

Thirdly, on the stat mechanics, while falling in the same strength band (which might or might not be appropriate for the characters as we see them in the movie or series) Jayne has the ability to cause real damage with his bare hands from his Asset (Mean Left Hook) which Zoe lacks - she can only do stun damage with her bare hands. Strength is not the end of the story here.

Fourthly, on the slut/whore thing, Inara adds value to Serenity because her profession of Companion makes the ship *more acceptable socially* rather than less acceptable. Mal may call Inara a whore but it is clear in the series that people even on rim worlds typically regard her with great respect, and that Mal is being unusually boneheaded in his attitude. This fits a Western genre convention about the arrival of the exotic courtesan from a sophisticated big city whorehouse, but has nothing to do with portraying social conservatism in 19th Century America.

Finally, I have never seen the benefit of applying gender differences to character creation, where the differences are based on statistics derived from the larger population. In the game, we are in the business of creating characters we want to play, not average characters. There is no reason at all why the strongest person in a game with only a few dozen fleshed-out characters and NPCs should not be a woman, even if that might be a statistical absurdity when applied to a whole population.

With only six ranks to choose from - d2, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 - even with a normal (bell curve) distribution you are still going to get women in the top ranking, even if there are more men there than women. The system isn't grainy enough to justify an elite percentile at the far end of the spectrum labelled "Men Only". It could be argued that Jayne ought to have d12 Strength instead of d10, because he looks stronger than Zoe, but not on the grounds of mere gender.

In any case I would never dream of telling my players that it's unacceptable for all the female characters to be big tough fighters and all the male characters wimpy medics or companions, because this would not reflect some assumed global demographic. It would be just plain silly. I never imposed the gender limits in 1st Edition AD&D on my players back in them days of innocence and wonder, and I wouldn't do it now.

Bochi