Playing females as EZ Mode

[Case]

I'm sorry you read into my words that way.  I'm a bit disappointed that Case would take it in a similar light, too, as her and I are/were friends.  I'm fairly confident that the subject matter of this thread occurs minimally in the game, and is easily correctable using the proper tools.

What on earth are you talking about? I'm totally your friend! I have nothing against you, don't take this thread personally.

Yet, when it comes to this problem, preferential treatment of women or the perception of it, it becomes a spoken fact, an unwritten rule and something we cannot change because: straight man likes girls and lesbians are hot. Are we that simple?

Ugh, yes.  Yes, we are.

Sucks

[lordcooper]

Yet, when it comes to this problem, preferential treatment of women or the perception of it, it becomes a spoken fact, an unwritten rule and something we cannot change because: straight man likes girls and lesbians are hot. Are we that simple?

The solution to whichever problem actually exists (female characters being easy mode or being falsely thought of as easy mode) is exactly the same: the playerbase achieving a greater degree of IC/OOC separation.

Lesbians are hot though.  Four boobs is a good amount of boobs, y'know?

[Bogre]

I agree that the suggestion to 'play a female aide' because it was easy was asinine.

Now- is it actually easier ? I think it's a issue with a lot of confounding factors. I have a feeling that a greater female players are more likely to play purely social roles, or crafting roles. This isn't wrong or sexist by any stretch of the imagination- whatever makes people happy they should play. But I have played many RPI's and indeed, a higher percentage of female PC's are shop owners, aides, healers, and nobles. I think those roles, in and of themselves, have a greater deal of safety associated with them. I think males are just more likely to make fightery go-out-and-die stupidly PCs.

Do PC's look out for female PCs? I think there could be, yes. I'm not sure at all on this point. I myself have headsmashed a posh female aide PC for doing something she should not have done to my giant a few years ago. I felt bad about it, but I usually feel bad about most PKs, not because it was a female char.

I think most of this phenomenon, Case, is the -roles- the PCs are taking being less constantly endangered, rather than them being protected by some mystic female-shield.

Something interesting might be to determine character death vs. storage by sex on the ongoing character # thread. I have a hypothesis the females will have more storages/total characters rather than deaths/total characters.

[Morrolan]

I'm fairly confident that the subject matter of this thread occurs minimally in the game, and is easily correctable using the proper tools.

I am completely certain that it occurs more than minimally. I am also fairly certain that if it were easily correctable, we wouldn't be on page five already.

EDIT: "More than minimally" here means that it is common enough that it is easily find-able in game, and has spawned both a trope and a 5-page thread. If that's minimal for you, then we have found the root of our disagreement.

[Bogre]

Also, I'll speak a little bit to my personal style.

I tend to ignore generic looking female PCs, and especially those who are more heavily F-Me. Sorry, gals. I am much more likely to try and play with your short-shorn militia Corporal or beaten-down rinthi hooker or wild-eyed rogue Whiran than your ginka-baking aide. This may be a bit of a clump from when I played ARPI and SoI, the so-and-so eyed, x-haired women all kind of ran together. This -ALSO- goes for all the guys who play random-hunter X, they kind of dissolve together for me.

I will go to great lengths to save a gritty female character, because I think those kind of chars are really cool, so at least for me this phenomenon is reversed. (And I'll go to great lengths to save gritty ass guys, too, for the same reasons.)

[Morrolan]

This -ALSO- goes for all the guys who play random-hunter X, they kind of dissolve together for me.

The tattooed, scarred halfbreed endorses this. (No offense to anyone who's played the scarred, tattooed dude. One of my most beloved characters was this.)

[Kismetic]

Give me an example.  Obviously, it doesn't have to be recent.

[catchall]

Yet, when it comes to this problem, preferential treatment of women or the perception of it, it becomes a spoken fact, an unwritten rule and something we cannot change because: straight man likes girls and lesbians are hot. Are we that simple?

Ugh, yes.  Yes, we are.

Sucks
[/quote]

It's only "that simple" if you're lazy.  It's actually not that hard, IRL or IG, for a reasonably self-aware straight man to not turn into a drooling sycophant in the presence of a pretty girl or OMG lesbians.  To suggest otherwise only reflects on the speaker.  When someone comes along to say "This is an absolute truth about people of category X," just mentally replace that with "Here are my cherished personal hangups about category X," because that is inevitably the truth in all but the most trivial cases.  You can see it in the "world without sexism" thread where people parade their confused ideas about what masculinity and feminity "just ARE," completely oblivious to the actual range of variation just on little old earth, to say nothing about an imaginary fantasy world.

It's really not that hard.  A shred of self-reflection and open-mindedness, applied regularly, can work wonders.  Don't just give up because thinking about it is too hard and you already know everything there is to know about the sexes.  Give a little breath to the idea that "hey, maybe my beloved personal hangups about what men and women have to be aren't necessarily true, least of all in a fantasy world."  Put aside the cultural bullshit, like the heaps of Cosmo and Men's Health articles pushing boring old stereotypes about men and women, and actually give that idea a fair shake.

It's my opinion that the game would be just as good if gender didn't exist at all.  You could make all the characters intersex, with a penis and a vagina both, and the best parts of the game would be completely unaffected. Of course, we can't do that, because many people have a hard time even humanizing others that don't fit into predefined gender categories, and we'd just become "that weird game with the hermaphrodites." Pronouns would be tough too.  But I think it's a useful thought exercise in game.  Imagine all the characters around you are gender neutral. Would it drastically change your responses to them?

[MeTekillot]

Goddamn, catchall. You go.

[Jingo]

Actually its pretty much a sociological fact that we're all sexist (and racist). Probably at an unconscious level.

In my mind, the only cure is constant introspection. I've made jokes about and ignored *cough* played *cough* F-me pc's before. And each instance likely had some inkling of regressive bias within it. Probably the only solution at this point is self introspection and to ask yourself, why you did or said or posted the things you did.

Except for kismet.
Misogynistic db.

[Kismetic]

I think that gender individuality is a decent source of conflict, so long as it doesn't break the rule of gender equality.  We've all managed to play that into our collective sandbox, and I thought we were doing fine.

Instead of the sexism some are seeing, instead, I see a lot of past successful female characters and leaders.  Furthermore, staff seem to be on the ball with nipping things in the bud, you may want to take official response with your disagreements.

Anyway, good luck finding your answers, Case.

[Fredd]

Now, I do want to ask.


Do ya'll have a promblem with men playing a womanizer? In the way that the Man thinks he's hot shit in chalice, so just expects every woman should want to fuck him.

[MeTekillot]

Does your man see women as inherently inferior or in some way exceptionally talented or talentless in some aspect due to sex or gender?

No?

Then I don't, personally.

[Kismetic]

Probably the only solution at this point is self introspection and to ask yourself, why you did or said or posted the things you did.

I guess it is sort of funny that I've always supported women's and homosexual's equality, and I get ripped in a gender equality discussion.  Sensitivity training:  FAIL

I can't post in this thread anymore.  It's like when Samoa and Kronibas went psycho dating on the Arm Dating thread.  I'm outtie

[Fredd]

Probably the only solution at this point is self introspection and to ask yourself, why you did or said or posted the things you did.

I guess it is sort of funny that I've always supported women's and homosexual's equality, and I get ripped in a gender equality discussion.  Sensitivity training:  FAIL

Hey, we're going to need a bigger skimmer if any more of us get in it.

[Jingo]

Probably the only solution at this point is self introspection and to ask yourself, why you did or said or posted the things you did.

I guess it is sort of funny that I've always supported women's and homosexual's equality, and I get ripped in a gender equality discussion.  Sensitivity training:  FAIL

I can't post in this thread anymore.  It's like when Samoa and Kronibas went psycho dating on the Arm Dating thread.  I'm outtie

Actually wasn't targeting you there kismet, you as in general you. <3

Still a db though.

[Case]

It's only "that simple" if you're lazy.  It's actually not that hard, IRL or IG, for a reasonably self-aware straight man to not turn into a drooling sycophant in the presence of a pretty girl or OMG lesbians.  To suggest otherwise only reflects on the speaker.  When someone comes along to say "This is an absolute truth about people of category X," just mentally replace that with "Here are my cherished personal hangups about category X," because that is inevitably the truth in all but the most trivial cases.  You can see it in the "world without sexism" thread where people parade their confused ideas about what masculinity and feminity "just ARE," completely oblivious to the actual range of variation just on little old earth, to say nothing about an imaginary fantasy world.

It's really not that hard.  A shred of self-reflection and open-mindedness, applied regularly, can work wonders.  Don't just give up because thinking about it is too hard and you already know everything there is to know about the sexes.  Give a little breath to the idea that "hey, maybe my beloved personal hangups about what men and women have to be aren't necessarily true, least of all in a fantasy world."  Put aside the cultural bullshit, like the heaps of Cosmo and Men's Health articles pushing boring old stereotypes about men and women, and actually give that idea a fair shake.

It's my opinion that the game would be just as good if gender didn't exist at all.  You could make all the characters intersex, with a penis and a vagina both, and the best parts of the game would be completely unaffected. Of course, we can't do that, because many people have a hard time even humanizing others that don't fit into predefined gender categories, and we'd just become "that weird game with the hermaphrodites." Pronouns would be tough too.  But I think it's a useful thought exercise in game.  Imagine all the characters around you are gender neutral. Would it drastically change your responses to them?

I love this post. Barring the intersex part, don't think that's necessary

[Fathi]

I tend to play mostly female characters because prior to discovering Armageddon I played almost exclusively males.

Why? Because I found that if I rolled up female characters on other games or free-form message board RPGs or whatever the hell, the experience was always awkwardly oversexed and creepy. People would see a brand new female PC played by somebody who could spell properly and they would flock toward my characters like some sort of bizarre and uncomfortable feeing frenzy, except replace the piranhas with horny internet dudes. It was awful.

Even if my characters were unattractive, boring, asexual, mutated, bald, diseased, you name it. On another game I once played a tattooed, stubble-headed female gang leader who was eventually killed by zombies and turned into one--complete with grotesque bite marks and decomposition--and people still drew her as hot in the art thread. WTF.

So I turned to playing men, because then I could play the personalities I wanted without having to deal with the over-the-top flirtatious weirdness. If I wanted to play a tattooed gang leader or a burnt-out soldier or a nervous scientist or a dodgy pilot who chain-smoked, that was all okay to do as long as my characters were male. Otherwise, if I made the exact same PC but gender-swapped them to female, other players would initiate a whole bunch of sexytime romantic bullshit or knight in shining armour bullshit that got in the way of how I wanted to play my characters.

I embraced playing females on Armageddon because we have cultivated a game culture that makes it possible to play a woman who isn't expected to conform to Western ideals about women and sex. If people choose to play that way, it's a-okay by me, as long as I have the option not to. If you want to play a f-me Bynner who braids her runners' hair and sews pretty cloaks in her off time, that is fine! So long as I have the option to play a muscular beefcake aide who talks in monosyllables and dresses in drag.

This seems like a lot of wind-up toward something that's only tangentially related to females being easy-mode, but I wanted to express where I was coming from prior to Armageddon to help emphasize that as far as sexism and gender disparity goes, our game already blows others out of the water and we should be fucking proud of it.

I have experienced some instances of "female easy mode" on some of my female PCs, but looking back, I am not sure that could be tied so much to their feminine gender as to the fact that the PCs of mine who were treated better by others were more sociable, nicer, and more outgoing. For every female PC I've played who was treated nicely, I've had at least one or two who were beaten up in the Gaj, stolen from, spit on, mugged, accused of being criminals/magickers/whatever, that sort of thing.

In my anecdotal experience I would tie the "easy mode" symptoms more to how your PC acts than to its gender. Of course, if more people are playing females who are sociable, outgoing, flirtatious, and sexually available than male PCs of the same personality, then it would look like a "male vs. female" problem when I see it as more a consequence of how certain personalities are treated in the game.

I'm not going to pretend we don't have some issues when it comes to sex and gender, but overall we are doing much, much better than the competition.

[Fredd]

In my anecdotal experience I would tie the "easy mode" symptoms more to how your PC acts than to its gender. Of course, if more people are playing females who are sociable, outgoing, flirtatious, and sexually available than male PCs of the same personality, then it would look like a "male vs. female" problem when I see it as more a consequence of how certain personalities are treated in the game.

I'm not going to pretend we don't have some issues when it comes to sex and gender, but overall we are doing much, much better than the competition.

Thank you Fathi. I was to stupid to get that point out as well as you just did.

[Zerero]

I'm outtie

+1

[musashi]

Aaaaaannnnd Fathi wins.

[BleakOne]

Aaaaaannnnd Fathi wins.

[evil_erdlu]

Aaaaaannnnd Fathi wins.

*fat lady singing* [/thread]

[spicemustflow]

...wat?



Sorry, I do not mean offense, but I'm baffled and amused by the notion that a virtual dong is what's keeping you from playing a male character.

I was also gonna comment on that. Makes me wonder how people could play mantis back in the day. Or maybe it's a more common problem than we think and girl gamers have troubles playing dead space or GTA? But I never heard of a guy who can't play tomb raider because of the tits.

[Fujikoma]

...wat?



Sorry, I do not mean offense, but I'm baffled and amused by the notion that a virtual dong is what's keeping you from playing a male character.

I was also gonna comment on that. Makes me wonder how people could play mantis back in the day. Or maybe it's a more common problem than we think and girl gamers have troubles playing dead space or GTA? But I never heard of a guy who can't play tomb raider because of the tits.

I kept falling to my doom because I couldn't keep my balance with such large breasts. I've never been good at tomb raider, enjoyed watching other people play it, though.