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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Women in Gaming

  
  

Page: 12(3)

 
 
Evil Scientist
11:15 / 04.12.07
i want to run a game where all the characters are female. the players can be whatever gender they like (within reason) but every character sheet will say 'f'.

Hrm. Have you discussed this with your group? I'm presuming that you are male-identifying here, and I wonder whether it would be entirely appropriate for a male GM to run this kind of campaign. You have already stated that you feel uncomfortable with some of the female members of your group due to, what you percieve as, their sensitivity to sexism (in my view not necessarily a bad thing). Is this game intended to be an olive branch to show that you aren't being (intentionally) sexist?

Assuming that your group is happy to play this game I would seriously consider either letting one of the female members GM it, or at least co-GM with a female player.

In either case it is important to consult your Players and get their agreement before limiting their choices. You say they can be any gender they like but that their sheet will say "F". Which seems to be a paradoxical statement anyway as female is a gender (a male to female transgender person will identify as female will they not?).

I'd personally be a little uncomfortable having to play a female character without consultation. Maybe it says more about me as a person but I'd be worried about slipping into cliche and stereotype (or worse just playing the character as male).
 
 
eye landed
19:41 / 06.12.07
i know im sexist (and male), and i think it comes out particularly during role-playing games. i want to explore that!

thanks for the links, spouse of alistair. the gilbert and gubar article sounds like exactly what im looking for (and i had an anthology edited by them in a literature class once, so i know theyre on the ball, as it were), but are you sure youre referencing the right work? wikipedia claims that its a 700 page tome about the difficulties of women writers in the victorian era...

i only came up with this idea while reading the thread, so i dont have a group. i play with a very rotating cast, and i know that both males and females among them will think this is a terrible idea. my group will depend on which of my friends is up for it.

to clarify for evil scientist, i said the players can be whatever gender they like. the characters will all be female.

but having a woman run it is actually a great idea. as a game master, i would be playing the usual cast of many genders, and it wouldnt be a particularly different experience. i may already know all i can know through detached observation. the thing is though, that ive played a lot of women already. actually the main thing is that its a lot easier to gather a group of players than to convince somebody else to run my experiment. but i havent even fixed on a setting or system yet! im going to have to see if this can come together somehow (after exams).

thanks for the replies!
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:34 / 07.12.07
i said the players can be whatever gender they like. the characters will all be female.

I see.

i may already know all i can know through detached observation. the thing is though, that ive played a lot of women already.

Well, you say that but then I look at the following posts:

im also one of those men who likes to play strong, dangerous (and beautiful) female characters, who can either kick your ass with a sword or seduce you to put you off guard and then kick your ass with a sword. maybe someone will find this idea more interesting to discuss than my attempt below, but i think one reason i like to play women is that i can better justify giving her a weakness, whether physical or mental-- i.e. make her a wuss or a ditz-- and thus really pimp her in her area of specialty.

and

i know im sexist (and male), and i think it comes out particularly during role-playing games. i want to explore that!

Which suggests to me that you aren't playing women, you're playing your interpretation of what a woman is, and that interpretation is layered under a heck of a lot of misconceptions about what that means. Look back at I Will Marry Alistair Appleton's post on the previous page. Read it again.

You, as a man, have been profiting from societies inherent sexism all your life. You have probably, though unintentionally, helped to spread sexist thoughts and done sexist actions. Because our society is geared towards that kind of thinking, very likely you didn't notice.

These characters you are playing sound horribly two-dimensional and, to be frank, rather cliched. The teenage fanboy dream of the beautiful deadly warrior-woman. That isn't playing a woman. It certainly isn't going to help you to understand how women have been oppressed through the ages.

If you are serious about using this game to address your (and maybe your male friends) sexism and misconception about women then I genuinely think that you need to give control of the game to a female GM and have the female PCs aware of what the intention is for the game (after all, they'll be better at playing female characters than you) and to help guide the male players (which'll mean you're going to have to suck up some of that sexist male pride and accept that when a woman says you're being sexist there's a good chance you are).

I feel that you could develop an extremely good game here which might actually teach you something. From what you say the female members of your group appear to be switched on about feminism (at least to the extent that they call sexism when they percieve it).

I don't know what kind of setting you use but perhaps some of the Barbeloids with a bit more familiarity with the history of female oppression could suggest ways to bring home the reality of it in an rpg setting?
 
 
Princess
07:54 / 07.12.07
Oops. Yep. You're right. I'm actually refferencing part of that book that has appeared in an anthology. Oddly, it's the only piece in the anthology that doesn't reference it's origin in it's source book. Sorry about that.

If it helps, the big book is called "Literary Theory: An Anthology" and it's by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. (A useful book, it mean I didn't have to do any real research during my degree.)

Essentially, it argues that female characters in literature are forced either to be perfect, angelic types. Or else they are demons or witches. Theres something of a third option in making the woman mad, hence the title.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:25 / 07.12.07
maybe someone will find this idea more interesting to discuss than my attempt below, but i think one reason i like to play women is that i can better justify giving her a weakness, whether physical or mental-- i.e. make her a wuss or a ditz-- and thus really pimp her in her area of specialty.

I'm afraid that I either do not understand that or I do understand that. Are you sayting that it is more credible for you for a woman to be physically weak or stupid, which thus allows you to assign moire character points to her particular field of specialism, whereas a male character is always going to be at least average, both physically and mentally, and so offers less potential for development?
 
 
This Sunday
11:19 / 07.12.07
I'm trying not to be horrified by certain implications covered by others better at communicating that sort of thing than I, but I have to ask: What's the point of this proposed RPG session?

It's not going to teach the male players what it's like to be, or live as, a woman. At best, it's what it's like to be a transvestite or approaching some form of gender dysphoria, or, more likely, what it's like to pretend to be a woman for a bit in the comfort of a small room where you haven't got to do it in your body, with your voice or your rep on the line, but you do get to interact with magicky elves and things. No one's going to become a woman; they are narrativising a female character, and in an environment that presumably cannot simulate many of the constant factors of real womens' lives in the same town where this game's being played, leaving the players with what gain? What relevance?

And what's the benefit for women who may be playing (since you say the players can be any gender, I assume it's a possibility), other than a potential proof that women may well make better women than men do (even if the woman (was) identified as a man at some point previous)? What are the male players supposed to learn, exactly?
 
 
*
18:36 / 07.12.07
it's what it's like to be a transvestite or approaching some form of gender dysphoria

Oh no you don't.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:57 / 07.12.07
It must be said, DD - are you familiar with what role-playing games are? We seem to have taken a bit of a step back to questioning the possibility of a male person portraying a female character - which is a possible argument, but I don't think one which can be raised without contention.

I'm also not wild about the performative nature of gender as described by Butler being mapped onto the kind of "performance of gender" that one creates when portraying a female character in a role-playing game, or indeed in a play, but that's another issue, and one more suited to the thread on role-playing and transgender that's kicking around here somewhere.
 
 
*
23:21 / 07.12.07
One thing that bugs me is that 311 is taking gender as the defining attribute of the characters in this proposed adventure, just as many people take gender as the defining attribute of the people they interact with in day-to-day life—if those people are women or transgender people or others whose gender is marked, as opposed to cisgender men, whose gender is default. This makes me FRICKIN ANGRY because it means they interact with everyone but cisgender men as caricatures of their gender. (This is what you mean by "female archetypes," 311.)

The way to play a female character well, even if you are not female, is to create a character who is a well-rounded person like any other character, and then consider realistically how being raised and treated as female in that society would impact their development, if at all. The ability to accomplish this feat requires only three things: the fundamental understanding that women are people, and that being women is but one of their many attributes (like being funny, loving, self-centered, able-bodied, hopeful, strong, stubborn, or religious); the ability to take in information about how women are treated in society—through observation or experience, or by listening to women if observation and experience is out of reach; and enough empathy to put yourself in the position of a person raised and treated as a woman. These are things I can expect of any human being who really wants to do it right.

However, many human beings do not WANT to do this, or want to twist this process so the results fit some sort of agenda. The ethical thing to do there is not to attempt to play a woman character. In other words, if you're not going to do it right, please just play characters that match the gender you experience yourself in the world as, and have a good time. What it seems to me 311 wants to do is prove that his impressions of women are correct or valid by having a bunch of gamers play "female archetypes" in a world that he totally controls. How anyone can see this as a step toward gender equality in gaming or whatever is beyond my ken.

(Incidentally, DD, what made me irritated about your comment is that it sounded like you were saying that transvestites and gender dysphoric people are caricatures the way 311's setup proposes that his players portray caricatures. I know that's not what you intended. Obviously, playing a female caricature while living in the real world as male doesn't teach one about being transgender anymore than it teaches one about being a woman, because transgender people are not female caricatures either. Even transvestites—which where I come from is often a word people use to justify their view of particular trans women as caricatures of women rather than real people.)
 
 
This Sunday
23:23 / 07.12.07
Oh no you don't.

'At best, it's what it's like to be a transvestite' still being in that closed world with elves and no real people or real threats, confusions, and concerns, thing, so, true, no you don't really. I should have parsed that better.

Haus, I'm not intending to question the notion of a male-IDing person roleplaying a female-IDing character. (People should feel free to fictionalize all manner of human being, or non human beings, obviously. I enjoy working with diverse casts, but I'm disinclined to ethnographic or sex/gender-based characterization as a matter, primarily, of taste.) I am questioning what's supposed to be gained by making it the rule of a game, though, especially in light of the closed, artificial environment and possible lack of anyone with real familiarity with being a woman (i.e., a woman). In terms of learning about character development, or how society - history, technology, and fashion - affect individuals, but it seems more likely destined to self-congratulatory ends (for many players - based on my opinions on most human beings and many RPG-playing ones) and less likely to establish any awareness or connection to women. Unless they're a wuss or a ditz with a big sword or GURPSed-in Leopard 1 tank.

And I wish this didn't sound as antagonistic as it probably does. I would genuinely like to know how this is meant to affect the players and, significantly, how seeing the players through this fiat will affect the GM. It just seems to come from a position of access and privilege unafforded actual women to the detriment of the experiment's initial impetus as I understand it. Let's play pretend almost always comes off as let's play pretend from a position of safety, enclosure, and privilege though, and, again, I have that weird distaste for gender-motivated narrativising or characterization, that may be clouding the potency of this experiment from me.

Perhaps, just having them build the characters with whatever gender they please, and then come in with the fiat of them all being women, would leave everyone with more dramatic working material? I guess you can't really do that, because it requires control you don't cop to ahead of time.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
00:33 / 09.12.07
I am questioning what's supposed to be gained by making it the rule of a game, though, especially in light of the closed, artificial environment and possible lack of anyone with real familiarity with being a woman (i.e., a woman). In terms of learning about character development, or how society - history, technology, and fashion - affect individuals, but it seems more likely destined to self-congratulatory ends (for many players - based on my opinions on most human beings and many RPG-playing ones) and less likely to establish any awareness or connection to women.

Quite possibly. Having said which, there are perfectly good situations where it makes perfect role-playing sense to have an all-female party - they might all be members of an all-female religious order, for example. However, if by "woman" we are reading "character who can be dumber or clumsier than a male character, and thus can be further specialised"... well, that's a bit trickier, and raises the question of how successful such a game might be as a role-playing experience. Having said which, it's my understanding that many of the young people these days don't really play "in character" at all.
 
 
Evil Scientist
10:40 / 10.12.07
Having said which, it's my understanding that many of the young people these days don't really play "in character" at all.

I blame D20 myself.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:55 / 10.12.07
I don't know what that means. d20 is a gaming system, yes? Does it discourage in-character roleplaying in favour of... set-piece fighting?
 
 
eye landed
09:16 / 16.12.07
d20 (which usually means dungeons and dragons) favours 'mathematical finagling that would constipate einstein' over the zen of acting. it also favours buying more books over using your imagination. its that archetypes thing i just caught some flak over. you can certainly play a great game of d&d, but you pretty much have to throw out all your game books first.

now thank you all again for your attention, but i dont want to hear 'dont bother, youre a man and you will only do it all wrong'. guessing at my perverse secret motivation or telling me to ask a woman to do it for me is not only horribly sexist in itself, but also useless. either i will run this game or not, but im not going to quit out of fear that i will offend people by not doing it properly.

on the points-for-you side, you have convinced me that if i dont have any real women on board, this is going to turn into a homo-erotic nightmare. which might be fun in its own time, but not the same game at all. i think i took it as a given that the real issue in this game would be the difference in how men and women play their characters. thank you all for bringing this to light.

in any case, playing a female group would throw a wrench into the usual dynamics-- of the interaction between players and of their individual minds. maybe its not much different from playing a group of tropes like orcs or half-angels or what-have-you. but the difference is that women really exist. they are not fantastical creatures, so a man cant play a woman with as free reign as he would play a non-human. he has to think about gender issues in order to play the game.

suggesting that a man cant portray a women properly implies that there is a right and wrong way to portray a women, which implies that women have to act a certain way. if someone in my game had a character who was woman on paper only, and acted like a man right down to squeezing barmaids behinds, that would be fine. that can be dealt with in-character. i want the players to think 'would my character do this?' and have femaleness as part of that consideration. im not going to invite anyone who cant do that, as i wouldnt want them in any game of mine.

i deleted a couple of awful rants in the process of writing this. basically, i felt personally attacked, just like i usually do when my male privilege is questioned. in fact, i wrote this post a lot of times and i still feel like im ignoring some of your good points in my rush to defend myself. but i stand by my deleted rant that violence is the wrong way to question sexism. making me feel bad for being a man is not helpful. showing me, or even telling me, how to act might work. but i think the best way to change peoples minds is with fictional stories. thats why i think i have a good idea here. thank you everyone for suggestions so far, even the hostile ones. you are all making my good idea better. i feel like im being broken down just a little, and once i start researching for this game, i might even learn something.

i will ask for further discussion on one of these, from zippy.

One thing that bugs me is that 311 is taking gender as the defining attribute of the characters in this proposed adventure, just as many people take gender as the defining attribute of the people they interact with in day-to-day life—if those people are women or transgender people or others whose gender is marked, as opposed to cisgender men, whose gender is default. This makes me FRICKIN ANGRY because it means they interact with everyone but cisgender men as caricatures of their gender. (This is what you mean by "female archetypes," 311.)

i think i was misleading with my mention of archetypes. i didnt mean to encourage archetypal or flat (heh) characters. the female characters ive encountered so far (played by men or by women) often fall into certain archetypal roles: the cute and innocent virgin, the seductress, the invincible sword-princess, the creepy witch. i think they can do this because they always have a cast of males to provide a social structure for them-- because the groups are usually predominantly male characters. maybe if the group were all women, they would have no choice but to define themselves in new ways. maybe i would need to throw in one or two male characters who would then be stereotyped. but maybe this whole archetype thing is all in my head, and im ignoring examples of unique, compelling, brilliantly-played females (typical, eh?). maybe ive even unwittingly played one myself. or maybe all male characters are equally archetypal, and i see right through it because im a man.

characters in a role-playing game are usually defined by something shallow, whether it be dwarf or wizard or 18 charisma or brujah. why does femaleness strike you as more offensive than these? would you suggest maybe that i run a game where i force everyone to play men? this happens all the time by itself, but maybe the very idea of the rule would bring out the gender card. or maybe i should mask my plan a little better, and make everyone play black female elves who all worship at the same temple and enjoy cricket and rhubarb pie. now that would really make us all think, wouldnt it!

i did consider, instead of all women, having everyone play their opposite gender. im not sure why i think this idea is pointless while the all-women idea is gold. i will reconsider.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:35 / 16.12.07
i didnt mean to encourage archetypal or flat (heh) characters.

I don't get the joke?
 
 
Spatula Clarke
11:29 / 16.12.07
Unfortunately, I think I do.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:37 / 16.12.07
I'd like to hear 3110700101 explain it before anyone else does.
 
 
*
16:34 / 16.12.07
I wouldn't. But have fun with that.
 
  

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