Maybe, maybe not. She could be some sort of imposter.
An imposter in what? The Rangers? That's funny, that is.
It's not just historians who underestimate the power women have had in Western societies for a long time - see Byron Hall, the antithesis of historians. There were some non-Western cultures where women had just as much power or more as women in Western society. I think it's a male issue, not a historian issue, to see women as perpetually weak and powerless.
My problems with historical games mostly come down to so many gamers not knowing anything about history apart from what they saw in the movies, and there being a few gamer re-enactors who actually know what they're talking about. The first group frequently rolls its collective eyes when history is something other than dickswinging power fantasies, while the second group frequently rolls its collective eyes because I don't spend 23 hours a week studying 18th century British and American infantry tactics, though fortunately most of the re-enactors I was around didn't aggravate the Hell out of me at all times. The clash between ignorance and knowledge is what gets me, since I don't really fit in either of those categories.
This is ass-backward in my opinion. The GM has absolutely no primary responsibility to the game world. Real human beings are always more important than the GM's fantasy world, in my opinion.
Fucking oath, mate! I never expected you to turn out to be a Cheetoist, but there we go.
I find it very interesting the responses we're getting in this thread. Lots of GMs are popping in to say what kind of game worlds they find interesting, lots of players are popping in to say what kind of game worlds they enjoy (usually non-sexist), but very few people are putting two and two together to say, "well, it depends what the players want."
What it comes down to is that even if you're not a very social person, but you enjoy roleplaying, well players will vote with their feet. So you have to play or GM in such a way that people want to play with you and be GMed by you again. That means that you have to take account of their wishes, and if their wishes are different to yours, compromise.
There was one poster who said that they'd create a game world with different societies, each with different kinds of structures, some sexist, some not, and then give the players the choice where to start. That was very wise. Or you can do it the way I do, ask the players what they want in general terms, then create a society in accordance with their wishes. This can be very general - I didn't ask people if they wanted Saxons or Rus or Arab or Yue, they just got Saxons, but they got a special area of the Saxon world, where women did not begin equal, but had the potential to be so in many ways. Or it can be very specific, "we want to play in a historically-accurate England in the year 1210."
But whatever you do, ask the rest of the group what they want. Nine times out of ten they mumble and scratch their heads, or shrug and say, "whatever." So then you start listing some options, and you'll get more clear and specific responses then.
Sexism is like any other part of a game's setting, like magic or how cinematic the campaign is, or whether to use crunchy detailed rules or light and loose rules - ask the players. A lot of us, players and GMs, have in this thread described just our personal preferences. Remember that you can't roleplay on your own, these preferences have to fit with those of at least one other person.
My personal preferences? I don't want historically accurate games. Or rather, I want them to be historically accurate in the interesting parts, but not in the depressing parts. Sexism can be interesting, but to many people it won't be, it'll just be depressing. Things like disease and malnutrition are rarely interesting in a story. A lord who brutally butchers civilians is interesting as a villain, or as someone who was a hero, but the PCs are now ambivalent about. And so on.
Presentation matters a lot. Sexism doesn't sit alone, but has interactions with racism, classism, social structure and so on. For example, polygamy is obviously sexist, and tends to exist alongside slavery in societies. And with slavery, you'll have at least classism, and often racism, or classism to such an extreme extent that it's effectively racism, as in for example the traditional Hindu caste system. The sexism of 3rd century BC Republican Roman society is a different thing to the sexism of the 18th century Hindus. Whether it interests or just depresses the players depends on their personal preferences.
Any gamer, if they are a Cheetoist and say "players come first", will acknowledge that it's better to interest people than to depress them. And even a non-Cheetoist might say that, since depressed people mightn't come back for another session. Even if you're interested in say "perfect historical accuracy," isn't it better to have "imperfect historical accuracy", and a game group for it, than "perfect historical accuracy," and no game group? Better an imperfect game actually played than a perfect game sitting on the shelf.
Well, gosh, that's true of all aspects of historical gaming, isn't it?
So, when I next run a Victorian-era game, I should....
...Well, actually, I shouldn't try to reflect any of the realities of the period at all. Because I don't have enough of a background in history to run any of the aspects of it realistically.
Golly.
*Ahem*
Sorry, not seeing your point here.
My point is that when I'm running a Victorian game, I might not know enough about the history to run it accurately, but I'm never claiming otherwise, and certainly never playing the "realism" card in a debate against people that want to run it some other way. On the other hand, some gamers who argue that sexism should be included in all medieval settings on the grounds of "realism" are playing that card, and I think it's a bit silly.
It's fine to put sexism in games because you think it would be a fun subject to explore. I'm just saying that people shouldn't claim to be the sole defenders of "realism" just because they do so.
EDIT: Also, in more heated discussions that occur when a mysogynistic amateur game designer brags that his game heavily penalizes women and then everyone else flames the hell out of him, the frequent counter is "Well, it's realistic!" and that's never true. EDIT2: Well, women definitely have a disadvantage in many eras and places, but my point is that the advantages they also have are rarely represented in these "realistic" RPGs.
Oh, and I think, as someone else said, that both modern men and women tend to marginalize the roles women played in previous societies. Women's liberation movements had to overcome the "this is your sphere and you stay here while the men do all the jobs that have the best perks" thing. In the process of fighting against being stuck at home, they naturally got a bit frustrated and some came to see women who didn't participate in formal, modern politics as backwards or passive victims of oppression. A more complex study of women of the past tends to reveal that while they certainly were oppressed, and they didn't always exercise power in a modern sense, they did have some sources of power that are overlooked now. For example, in the 1800s in the United States, women were often believed to be morally superior to men, which gave them a great deal of authority in certain powerful movements, such as the Second Great Awakening.
Put me on the "It depends on the players interests" camp. And, as far as game design/realism/genre fidelity goes, I'm gonna join Kasumi and say "Do it as WotG does": if your setting calls for sexism due to any reason, offer the GM and the players a way to completly ignore it if they want to. The important thing here is that player enjoyment (which might include exploring those issues, or might not) completly overrides any concerns for "realism", IMO.
My point is that when I'm running a Victorian game, I might not know enough about the history to run it accurately, but I'm never claiming otherwise, and certainly never playing the "realism" card in a debate against people that want to run it some other way.
Ah! Okay, now I see it. And yes, generally true all around.
There are two problems I have with gamers who advocate "realistic" sexism (i.e. stereotypical mysogyny).
1) Most of these gamers don't have enough background in history to run anything even remotely realistic. Women have traditionally had a lot more power and influence than many people realize, but it has been a type of influence that has been largely ignored by historians (and thus movie-makers and the general public) until fairly recently. Oppressed groups are never powerless, and large oppressed groups will generally find some way to gain power in an area that is ignored by oppressors who don't realize the significance.
I've played in a number of games with people who knew quite a bit about the background of the time period. I think that this point is a bit silly and narrow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Belac
2) "Realistic" sexism doesn't really make sense in a setting where people can be 20th level fighters or wizards. One 20th level female fighter in D&D can slaughter ten thousand normal people without suffering any real injury. You think she's going to accept any sort of persecution? Odds are, she'll probably also insist that no other woman be oppressed either, especially if she grew up in such a situation before that fateful day that she picked up a big stick, killed a few monsters, found some money, and instantly became a powerful and wealthy 2nd level badass.
In every D&D game in which I have ever played, the PCs and the occassional big-bad villain were the only 20th level anythings around. I know that the game can certainly be played other ways, but given these circumstances, having only twenty women in the world of level 8+ in any class won't really erase sexism.
To answer the original question: if (1) the game has a strong historical flavour, (2) my character is not going to be automatically hosed for being female (since I'm not very good at playing cross-gender), and (3) I know the GM is up to the task and not just play-acting personal biases, then I I'm OK with sexism, preferably applied mostly to NPCs. Other than that, I'm with Michelle and Willow: I deal with enough real-life samples to want a change in game.
If I'm comfortable with the GM's attitude, however, e.g., when my husband is running the game, I do tend to make characters that are of the in-game society's underdog race and gender. I do like WotG's approach, where you can choose how "isms" and various social challenges get applied to your character.
GMs should never decide to throw in a bias that will systematically act against certain player characters without first being certain that the players also want to explore this theme. Sexism is an obvious one -- at least for women! -- but there are many more.
People are answering differently because they read the question differently. It doesn't mean that they don't talk to their players.
Actually, I think it means exactly that.
Look at the examples given here - someone wanting to play a female character in a WWII campaign, and only after character generation being told they'll not be able to do much.
Or look beyond this thread, and at many other threads by players and GMs outlining problems that come down to, "we expected a game like so-and-so, and got a game like such-and-such."
There are four basic ways a GM can design a campaign. It's all about whether there can be player input into the structure of the campaign (setting + rules = campaign) before play, and during play.
Write-up with no player input, game with no player input. "Here's my campaign, let's play, the world is as it is, and that's that."
Write-up with no player input, game with some input. "Here's my campaign, let's play, but you get to choose where your characters will start, and those places are all different, and if you want some small changes that's okay."
Write-up with player input, game with no player input. "What do you want for a campaign? You can have whatever you want, but once we've chosen, you're stuck with it, I can't change stuff every five minutes for your whim."
Write-up with player input, game with player input. "What do you want for a campaign? Give me some ideas, but anyway once we're gaming we can change bits and pieces for it all to work better for us."
It seems that a lot of the campaigns which fizzle out or flame out are ones which are of types (1) or (2); those of type (2) are those where the individual player's input was overruled by others, so that it was for that individual player effectively type (1).
Now, I wouldn't try to guess what are the majority of the game groups out there. My instinct is that many of them will be effectively type (2). The GM gets some published setting, or writes up their own, then presents it to players, and if the group lasts beyond a few sessions, the players end up having some input into the structure of the campaign, suggesting new ideas and house rules. Of course, every campaign has the chance to reach some kind of stable state, where the game world and the house rules don't change much. So if you're a new player to this established campaign, it'll look to you like a type (1).
But a lot of the people responding have quite plainly run or been in type (1) campaigns, or type (2)s where their input wasn't taken on. Most GMs do talk to their players, and the players certainly talk to each-other. But many GMs and players don't begin by talking to each-other.
See, I approach this from a completely different perspective. [And please know that his is not meant personally] To say that GM should have informed Ms. Lyons that she needed "to run a male in that game world to have anything to do" suggests that the GM has some responsibility towards the game world *first* (i.e. in the form of maintaining his rigid sense of its internal "credibility" or "realism" or some such thing) and that the GMs responsibility to the *real flesh and blood human beings* at the table is somehow secondary.
[snippage]
Since you responded to me I'll present a different point of view. FYI, no I didn't take it personally and hopefully you won't take this one personally either. Also, I know nothing about the campaign world being discussed so I have no idea if a female character was appropriate in the world or not. I assume it was and that it wasn't clear until they'd started playing that it was some sort of military game where a civilian female was out of place. Those all are assumptions, though. It sounds like we both agree it was bad GMing...just disagree on why it was.
I do disagree with your basic premise, which appears to be that the GM should modify the world to fit whatever the players want to run. When I'm running a game, part of my enjoyment is running a world that is cohesive and coherent (whether the players can see that or not! ). That's part of the fun from my end, and to take that away takes away my motivation to run a game.
I expect players entering my game to make up characters that are appropriate for the setting, and not to attempt to bring in characters that don't work in the setting. As mentioned earlier, it's part of my job to work with the player so they create a character that is appropriate and that I feel will get reasonable screen time for the player. If the player doesn't want to participate in the game because they don't like the world I'm going to run, that's fine too, but I'd prefer to handle it up front vs. having them leave after a couple of sessions in irritation. As I read your post, I think this is where the differences in our point of view lies. You appear to be saying that the GM should be willing to completely remold his world to fit what the players want. I don't even know how you could do this and keep everyone happy, to be honest. I prefer to present a specific world and then allow people to decide if they are interested in participating in it. If they aren't, for whatever reason, that's fine with me and I'd rather have them not play than be unhappy in the game or have me drastically change what I want to run.
(Side note: I have had players who've had characters that clearly weren't getting good time, for whatever reason, and I will bring it up with them and see if there's something we can adjust in the character or even create a new one to let the player participate. Admittedly, sometimes the basic makeup of the other characters unexpectedly marginalizes a character.)
Someone pointed to a WWII game as a good example. There's no way around the basic fact that if you're going to run a squad out of the 101st Airborne in 1944 France, there will be no female characters. (Just to stir the pot, there also will be no Black characters. ) I should mention that female characters aren't a problem in any of the worlds I regularly run. However, I do run Glorantha a lot and many of the religious affiliations there are very specific about gender requirements for membership. (The diety that a character worships determines their access to magic, amongst other things in the world.) I won't break those for a player where they're applicable. If a player wants a character that follows a specific diety and has access to the associated magic, they have to meet the gender requirements.
). That's part of the fun from my end, and to take that away takes away my motivation to run a game.
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