Leading plot lines.

[gfair]

I have heard much of this phrase, "leading plot lines", but have several questions.

What scale of plot is being talked about where the documents say that trust in players is knowing that they will push/lead plots?  How many people need to be involved for it to be considered a plot?  To what depth must a plot go for it to be considered worthy?  And is leading plots an absolute for IMMs to admire the roleplay, or do all players lead plots, even if they have no idea they are doing so, or is adding a distinguished character or a crucial component of good atmosphere enough?  Is a recognizeable character or unique addition to atmosphere in itself leading a plot?

Thanks.

[witchman]

I dunno.  

I feel that if more than one character is involved, then it's a plot.  I think the idea is to just draw people into the game.  If you hire one other pc and have them do tasks for you ("go north and find a blueberry bush and return here before breakfast tomorrow") that is a plot.  You do that over and over and suddenly you have contact with a lot of players and they come looking for you when they need cash or something to do.  

These little plots will eventually branch out as your own character grows in power and the next thing you know you'll be in a big plot helping push it along and perhaps all of it was arranged IC with no OOC communcation.

I bet if the IMMS see you motivating other players to do things, then their trust in your ability to drive plots will increase.

That's my guess, anyway.

[Tlaloc]

Yeah. At least, for me, when I see someone interacting with alot of other players, and motivating them to do things, or react in certain ways, then that is 'leading a plot'.

The plot can be little: "I need my ring back. Have you seen it?"

The plot can be big: "Hello. I'm trying to take over the world. If you spy for me, I'll give you an extra fifty sid a month..."

The plot can be intimate: "Dammit Sarge, I love you. Because of that, I have to kill you."

The plot could be open: "Hey, everybody! House Fale is having its third annual kitten eating contest! Come see who's the most evil Templar

this year!"
[/list]

Basically, to run a plotline all you need is the following:

1) A goal. - The goal is the whole reason you have a plot in the first place. Are you trying to fulfil your dwarves focus? Are you trying to get your aunts ring back? Are you trying to take over the world?

2) A motivation. - More importantly than the goal, is really the motive. Why are you trying to get your Aunts ring back? Why does your dwarf have her focus? Without a good motive, your goal ends up feeling flat, ambiguous, or even unattractive.

"I think the ring is pretty." is much less engaging as: "This ring has been passed down from Aunt to Neice in my family for fifteen generations. It carries with it the name Flouristaan, and has brought luck to my tribe since the Year of Ruks Anger, in the 76th age."

This doesn't mean that the first example is any less a valid motivation for a plotline. However, the second one is likely to raise the attention of alot more people than the first, and it certainly makes it seem more real, in the gameworld.

3) A means. - Its good to have a good, clear, concise way you plan on getting from the beginning to the end. "Concise" shouldn't be confused with "Uncomplicated", but knowing the steps you're ready to take at the beginning often helps keep your plans together. Step 1) Recruit Spies; Step 2) Recruit Thugs; Step 3) Begin raiding smaller Villages; Step 4) Pull the villages under your control; Step 5) Learn the ways of defiling; Step 6) Become a Sorcerer King, and take over the world.

In my opinion, this is much more entertaining for yourself and the rest of the mud than if you just skipped everything, and went directly to: "Step 5) Learn the ways of defiling and take over the world."

Now, plotlines don't have to involve others. In fact, its very possible to have a solo-plotline, which nobody else knows about, is aware of, or ever sees. Does this make this sort of plotline any less valid? No. On the other hand, though, it isn't as likely to get as noticed as the larger ones, which involve multiple people (though many, many a solo-plotline have been roleplayed out, and many have been very good).

However, even when I have a solo-plotline that I'm running, I always try to involve as many people as I can. Say I have a dwarf who's Focus is to forge the greatest helmet in the world...well, the forging of the helmet is something that I have to do on my own...and so is the learning the skills to forge said helmet. However, on the way, I can hire people to fetch me the most perfect materials for my helmet, and hire half-giants to smash helmets to test out my helmet designs, and hire assassins to kill off all the other helmet-makers who are competing with me.

Finnally, it should be noted that none of this nessecarially requires immortal intervention, nor does it have to revolve around L33t Magick devices or artifacts. I, personally, think the best and most satisfying plots are those that are mundane, and end up with little to no immortal intervention at all. After all, the game is here for the players.

Now as for the following:

And is leading plots an absolute for IMMs to admire the roleplay, or do all players lead plots, even if they have no idea they are doing so, or is adding a distinguished character or a crucial component of good atmosphere enough?

No, leading plots is not absolute for us to admire the roleplay. I would lean towards the 'All players lead plots, even if they have no idea they're doing so' side. As Shakespere said: "All the worlds a stage, and the people in it, only actors." On Armageddon, this wholeheartedly the case (since we are all, in effect, acting). Ergo, any time you log your character into the game, your are in effect, walking onto the stage. Now, are you a bit role, one of the extras in the back? Or are you a Leading Man, or Leading Lady the crux of what the play is about? Are you Hamlet, or are you Rosencrantz or Guildenstern?

Yes, adding a distinguished character or crucial component for atmosphere be enough. A large part, I'd say, is mostly watching to see if you're playing the character well...by this, we mean following documentation, following your background, etc. Does your elf test strangers? Or is he basically a tall human who likes to steal? Does your dwarf think nothing of his Focus?

Playing the stereotype is a great thing to do, as it reinforces what the documentation states, and ultimately provides the backdrop for everyone else. A supporting role is a very nessecary one. Afterall, if everyone plays the exception to the rule, then the exception becomes the rule, and the Rule the Exception (if you follow my meaning). That said, however, I've found that often, the stereotype character can be one of the biggest plot drivers of them all.

Play the outcast Half-elf, trying to work his way into one of his parents cultures. Play the Stupid half-giant who follows anyone who'll stop to talk to him long enough. Play the thieving elf, who's trying to gain noteriety amongst his tribe by pulling off the biggest and best scam.

I think one of the biggest issues is that many players like to sit around and wait for something to happen, and often get bored and start to wonder where these mysterious plotlines are. However, if you are proactive, and make things happen, then the plotlines will always follow you, because you're always starting them (even if they're small).
So, basically what Wichman said, though with alittle extra information thrown in for grins. Again: this is just one staff members point of view.

Does this make sense?

-Tlaloc

[John]

Wow! Thanks a lot for that Tlaloc. I was always under the impression that to start a plot you need to be a leader. I never realised follower, average joe characters could start plots just from their actions. I've made a TON of mistakes in the game (mainly because of OOC reasons, although sometimes it'd be an IC reason), that often could have had devastating effects, and people would get angry with me ICly. It got to the point where I was starting to get worried that their annoyance might become OOC, but maybe it wasn't, maybe they enjoyed my character making screw ups cause it threw a spanner into the works and made life interesting.

[Kronus]

I think one of the biggest issues is that many players like to sit around and wait for something to happen, and often get bored and start to wonder where these mysterious plotlines are.

I think this is probably the bane of the people who play the rank-and-file sorts in the Arm clans. I've been a member of a lot of them at different times, some insanely active, some deader than House Delann.
It's been my observation that, as mere cadets or runners or what have you, the low ranking people don't feel that they have the authority to get something going. It's not really the place for one Byn runner to tell his other Byn friends that he wants scrab shells for making armor, because they're not allowed to go out hunting scrab without a Sergeant along.
It's also been my observation that rank within a clan is inversely proportional to amount of time being spent in the game. In keeping with the Byn example, when I was playing a runner, the runners were all over the place all the time, the troopers showed up for a little while throughout the day, and the sergeants were around maybe once a day, and if they didn't feel like going outside or if the sands were bad, well, off they went again. And lieutenants? Hah. (Bear in mind this is a general example, as I've seen it to some degree in nearly every clan and there were many exceptions that I saw too. The above is simply the case often enough that I've noticed.)

At that same time, there were a few people who were also expending considerable effort to hire the Byn a lot while they went off leading their own plots. In fact, it's my completely unqualified and unresearched opinion that that was one of the more active periods for the Byn ever
However, it was still hard coming up with things to do on a day-to-day basis. Like I said at the top of this, it felt like all the rank-and-file people didn't feel it was their place to initiate any kind of activity. Sergeants were the ones who gave us stuff to do, because that's what sergeants do.

So I think a lot of the 'waiting around for things to happen' is exactly that, but it's motivated just as much by IC considerations as it is player inertia. It would be neat if someone (Imm or not-Imm alike) could offer up a few pointers of the sorts of plots that lower-ranked-and-vastly-more-active-than-their-superiors type characters can initiate, especially of the sort that can include the other people sitting around beside them.

[gfair]

Thanks a bunch for explaining plots in better detail, Tlaloc.  Also, the good breakdown of goal, motive and means is a valuable tool for breaking down our ideas and seeing how they can be accomplished through our characters IC.

[Meep]

Kronus, a couple things to ask yourself when you're in a rank-and-file situation are:

What kinds of things can I do to advance my own goals without breaking role? If your background states that you've wanted to work for Oash since you were a kid, but once you get to be their guard/servant, you always seem to get in trouble (out of boredom) then that isn't really staying in role. Same with the Byn. If your pc generally tends to follow the rules, think about things you can do to advance your own goals without breaking the rules of the clan. Does your pc want to get involved with a noble/merchant house with a cushy job? Hang out in a tavern and make friends with guards and aides... things like that can often drive more plots than getting bored, running out in the desert and getting killed.

What kinds of things can I do to advance the goals of my clan? This one just has you think about your pc, the authority they wield in the clan and what they can do to increase their own authority in the clan while taking the time to advance its goals. This can be as simple as being a runner or trooper in the Byn and being an "example" for the newbies, ICly and OOCly by doing chores with lots of good emotes (i.e. leading bread baking, or taking charge when cleaning the shitter) or as complicated as coming up with a new training exercise or an idea to set one night a week for a Byn talent show at the compound (if the goal is to make things more fun). For things like noble and merchant houses, you can do things like simply talking to people, maybe find out what they really want to buy, and let a superior know (for a merchant house) or spy for them if needed (maybe use part of that paycheck thats sitting around collecting for that house you want to buy to pay some people to spy -for- you, personally, just so you can report it to your superiors). These kinds of things get you noticed, and if they are appreciated (they usually are even if the ideas don't work out) then they will garner your pc more authority/trust in the future to be more autonamous.

Act like a leader and people will follow. This doesn't mean blindly throw out commands and overstep your true authority, but it does mean that taking charge of your IC responsibilities -will- grant you people who are more than willing to take a secondary role as your supporters, hey, even if they are newbies! In the Byn and there are newb runners? During weapons cleaning give them a lesson on how to properly polish their swords. Ask one or two to come with you to clean up the training halls on chore day. Make friends and allies. Make enemies and drive people's hatred toward them (but if staying alive is your goal, make sure that they are of less or equal power to you).

And finally...

If you find a leader, act like a follower. A lot of people don't realize what fun a supportive role to a leadery character is. It doesn't mean you have to support them through thick and thin if your pc's goals don't exactly mesh, but playing second-fiddle, even an inept second fiddle can be as fun as playing in the limelight. Unfortunately this seems to go against the grain of many players who have to be the best at everything! But remember, every good leader has a loyal right-hand that they can count on for support, whether it's fighting by their side or someone to vent their frustrations to (giving you another goal... remove or ease said frustration).

The most important thing is to figure out, before you start playing, how your character reacts to authority and how much of a leader they are. If they are a good yes-man, they would probably be better playing a supportive role. If they are a take-charge kind of character, then have them do just that. These are things that will help your long-term (hopefully) goals for your pc and help to drive plots in a rank-and-file situation.

Hope that was some help.

:shock:

[John]

This is just a post to say how much I agree with Meep and to offer some anecdotes.

or as complicated as coming up with a new training exercise or an idea to set one night a week for a Byn talent show at the compound

I just have to say this. I knew a Bynner  around the time when I had just first joined (about char 8 or so) and the Bynner would have loved a talent show. She made one particular song up called "The Sewer Whore" and I loved the song both ICly and OOCly. I made a bard with my next char partly cause of the Bynner and my bard heard her singing the tail end of the song, so I asked her to repeat it, and as she was I copied and pasted the lyrics into a txt file and I still have them. I haven't looked at them in ages but I still know most of the words and the tune. You were a _really_ well RP'd char, I had the chance to see you with other characters, and by pure fluke I found out some of the things that happened to you from my first char's time (not on purpose at ALL!! complete accident) and I saw how your char matured over the IC years, and I was very impressed. (fairly certain no-one'll know what I'm talking about except those who knew the char and song ).

If you find a leader, act like a follower.

I cannot emphasise this enough, because some people tend to create leader/perfect types. I have A BALL creating followers. I love making the char's that won't be written about in the history books and won't be remembered long after their death, but the sort of people that make leaders be able to do what they want to do. And it's so much fun. It's not for everyone, but I suggest if your looking for an original char, give it a try. ALSO House Borsail is an EXCELLENT clan. I've only had the chance to be in a couple of clans, but Borsail was the one I enjoyed myself in most. All of the people there are TERRIFIC RPers IMO.

even an idept second-in-hand can be fun

Yes, it can be. What's bad is when you try to make an adapt one but end up making an idept one I did this one time and I was getting in so much trouble, and it was SO much fun. I was just worried the PCs would be getting peeved off with me. :roll:

[WarriorPoet]

The few, minor, itty bitty plotlines I've been involved in were always great stuff.

Most of the time, I'll admit they would start out with a higher ranked or more powerful person. But I noticed that throwing in my little 2 sid, as my smart ass chars most likely would, often pushes things a little my way, a little the other way, whatever. I guess you could say that I play "rank and file" characters:


The bored, half-elven sentry says, in sirihish:
"Drox was tellin' me about this time they was all flat busted and starvin', so's they got togetha and nailed 'em a silt horra. He said those tha' survived, rolled in th' coin..."

Nodding, the other, bored half elven sentry says:
"Shit, we'd need twent' men fer tha' shit, at least..."

The thoughtful, fire-eyed merchant nod his head thoughtfully, eyes suddenly far away.




Simple things like that, a comment here, a hint there, just to get things started. You don't have to take charge, but you can damn sure plant little ideas in other peoples skulls. Those are my favorite characters, not secretive or devious in any way, just not assertive and not a leader...

But, hell, if you need it, work hard. Get money. Make friends and contacts, Start a raider tribe and pillage the world. You just gotta work it right, I guess.

But what would I know. I still have *newb* smared all over my face...

[Kronus]

Thanks, Meep. That was a really good post, and I hope someone has the wisdom to immortalize it as a file on the webpage.

I'm pleased to say that I -think- I already try to do those sorts of things, and I guess I might have not been as clear as I should have in my earlier post. Typically, I can find ways to keep myself entertained when it's a quiet week back at the compound, even in ways that don't include sneaking outside against orders and getting myself killed stupidly.
I guess what I was really trying to ask is how, as a rank-and-file clanmember, someone can go about working to get the other rank-and-file clanmembers involved in something plot-like.

In keeping with the Byn example, I can't even begin to count the number of times that the group would finish sparring, trudge in silence to the mess hall, quickly devour their stew, then trudge to whatever room the chore was being done in and idle until the nighttime horn blew. Even if a few of the other people were emoting and chatting and keeping active, there were always some who just did -nothing-.
And that's not really exclusive to the Byn. I've met that guy in every clan I've been in. And sure, everyone has bad days, and everyone gets pulled away unexpectedly or has to attend to something in another window, but there really do seem to be people on Arm who would prefer to have everything handed to them, and are content to sit there until it comes along.
So my question is, in a clan full of those kinds of people, or even just on a day when everyone in clan is acting like that, what can the lower ranked types do to inject a little activity into things? When attempts at conversation fall on deaf ears, when emotes go unreacted to, what are the options to bring people back to life and encourage them into some roleplay?

[creeper386]

This can be as simple as being a runner or trooper in the Byn and being an "example" for the newbies, ICly and OOCly by doing chores with lots of good emotes (i.e. leading bread baking, or taking charge when cleaning the shitter)

Acctually, some of my FUNNEST times in the Byn, beleive it or not, was cleaning the latrines. A couple months back had some blast in the Byn, and most of it was more sitting around bullshitting then you'd find in a tavern. Well, it was also doing the work, but it was alot of fun. I've found out when even one person really gets into emoting their chores in the Byn or probably anyone else, and also lets their character have a good/bad time, it draws everyone else along. Other wise everyone just sits around just throwing out a few emotes every so often but nothing too fun.

Me personally, think a big thing for alot of small plots, is just simple contraversy. Arguements, fights or just some friendly bickering even. I've also found out, I've said it before too, is letting your character make mistakes. Even simple mistakes can build up into a fun time, even into some bigger plots.

Hmm... I'm sure the crazy rash of agreeing with me has been over so I'll let you people get around to telling me how wrong I am.  :twisted: After saying that... I bet you fellows are going to have some trouble.

Creeper

[Anonymous]

One thing I think is a major prerequisite for leading plotlines is determination on the part of the PC.  This can come from self-assurance or from just plain pig-headedness.

But your PC has to not only be sufficiently long-lived, but be, for the most part, completely convinced that they have the answer to the issue at hand and the world will be a better place when all the rest come to see it their way.  Anyone who disagrees is an idiot at best.

Plotlines do not suffer weak-willed PCs.  Trust me, I'm speaking from experience here as I have trouble playing PCs with the strength of will I've seen other players exhibit.  

LoD's past PCs come to mind first and foremost.  Major props to him or her.

[gfair]

And finally...

If you find a leader, act like a follower. A lot of people don't realize what fun a supportive role to a leadery character is.

This I can attest to personally.  This happens in a lot of groups - there is a leader, and then two more people just behind in experience, and they both have merits.  What differentiates them?  The ones that speak up, do little things.  Designate duties, make reminders, volunteer for tasks, etc.

Personally, some of my chars have done that and it does lead to plots.... usually a lot of people getting pissed off the char is advising them on anything, but isn't of rank.  That's another issue I have that involves good versus bad RP, IMO, but needless to say, Meep's point works extremely well.

[crymerci]

One tip: Don't assume that your harmless chit-chat isn't a plot. People make friends, people make enemies. How can you gain allies or rivals if not through simple everyday chatter? Occasionally someone is really nice to you, but they're just using you for whatever reason. Sometimes a person will snub you, but they're just following orders and secretly respect and admire you.

Also: this is a pet peeve of mine. Don't plot out a scene involving someone else and decide how it's going to go, step-by-step. If someone emotes or speaks something different from what you were expecting, roll with it. You may have the most incredible plan to assassinate Tek, but you've got to expect things to go wrong at every turn.

And that leads me to: Yes, faults can be fun, and can move along plots. I recall a certain half-giant soldier who was always blurting things out when a human would have had more discretion. Don't be afraid to ride your kank the wrong direction, or use the Way knowing you'll pass out, or have such indiscretion in your affairs that your significant other catches you cheating. And make sure to include faults that people can take advantage of, not just hidden ones that never leave you vulnerable.

[Tlaloc]

So I think a lot of the 'waiting around for things to happen' is exactly that, but it's motivated just as much by IC considerations as it is player inertia. It would be neat if someone (Imm or not-Imm alike) could offer up a few pointers of the sorts of plots that lower-ranked-and-vastly-more-active-than-their-superiors type characters can initiate, especially of the sort that can include the other people sitting around beside them.

Well...alot of things. Typically, most characters will have some sort of personal goals...be they to become the greatest warrior, or best assassin in the world, or make a million sid, or try to forge a perfect helmet. Just because your character is new, doesn't mean you can't jump into the pool with both feet from the start.

This sort of thing is really where a well thought out and defined background comes in handy...or if it wasn't as defined and thought out to begin with, where it helps to begin refining and defining it. For example: lets say you have a stock Buff Warrior template, who's family was killed by gith. You're a new character, so you're low on the totem-pole as far as things go. No Leader-types are around (at least, none of your leaders), so things are getting quiet and dull.

Now, take that Buff Warrior, and give him (or her) a chemical dependency. Well...now you've just added a bit of flavor to an otherwise two-dimensional character. Generic Buff Warriors have no motivation, other than to wait to spar (and that can have interesting ideas behind it, too)...but a Buff Warrior with an addiction to Thodeliv....well, he's got motivation out the Wazoo.

Now your Buff Warrior has to:

1) Find a drug dealer.
2) Smuggle the spice into and around the City (assuming the city proscribes Spice-use)
3) Somehow learn to afford said Drug (possibly incurring the wrath of Drug Dealers, Loan Sharks, or his Girlfriend after he pawns all her stuff).
4) Hide his Drug use from both his Supperiors, and the Law (possibly via bribes, and the like).
5) Somehow work to continue his lifestyle as a Buff Warrior, with a Thodeliv Monkey on his back.
6) Deal with possible emotional baggage that comes when he is strung out, in withdrawl, or whatever.
7) Possibly learn to survive combat, in the desert, while blasted out of his mind.
8 At the same time, maintain all his professional business ties.

Simply adding one little quirk adds ALOT of interesting things that could potentially happen.

Alot of ideas simply happen by taking over a "leadership" position, when there are none around. Its also a good way to position yourself for one of those leadership roles down the future. As someone said, this might mean organizing the other Runners/Basic Grunts; organizing the Clans Supply Room, making contacts with people who might be useful to you and your character in the future, maybe paying people off and buying spies. Theres alot of small things that could be done, you just need to find the motives:

For example, lets say you're a Byn Runner. What if you organized a 'Runners Only' Tournament to be held towards the end of your graduating year, to figure out who the Best of the Worst is?

What if your Borsaili Slaver started taking bets on who could bag the biggest scrab?

What if you, for some strange reason, liked to hear tales from around the known world, and paid everyone you met 50 sid to hear a new story from them, regardless of what it was?

In any case, the background and overal concept of your character is highly important. Are you a gambler? Are you a coniving elf? Are you a focused dwarf, or an enigmatic elementalist? Typically I take the race and class combination, and decide quirks based around them and form them into an overal concept that will drive the character. For example, if I picked a Human Warrior, I'd start thinking about what makes this Human Warrior so special. Maybe, in this case, this character has been brainwashed by the forces of Tektolnes, and he's now a devout, fanatical follower of the Jade Cross. Figuring 'Bard' would be a good secondary class for a preacher, I poke go.

Now I've transformed this potentially passive Human Warrior into something much more exciting. He has motivation: convert the Heathens to worship Tektolnes, and slay all those who don't convert. You can start doing this from the moment you enter into the game...it doesn't even really matter where you start (though your starting location will have drastic effects on weather or not you survive very long). The first things you can do are start preaching, and trying to get a following going.

"Its so easy!", you say...but Lo...it becomes even more exciting (the plot thickens, so to speak). What if your character knew he'd been brainwashed, and secretly hated Tektolnes and his cronies for doing such a thing to you. Now you have taken that character who was once just a Zalanthan Bible Banger, and turned him into an embittered, broken person, who might be subconsciously trying to start a revolt in Allanak. Now you'd start the same way: begin preaching and try to get a following going, but you now have more legs: Now you can slowly begin to try to break the conditioning you're under.

A final way is simply to make something up, and do it. I would email the Mud and/or your Clan Imm with your plans ahead if time (so they know whats going on, and  maybe might double-check it for consitency with the larger game-plan). I know I'm very open to PC's making up plots or quests to run in/with/around my clan. In fact, the Byn is largely almost completely player Driven.

Theres some more thoughts...do those help for ideas on plot-generation?

-Tlaloc

[deviant storm]

Tlaloc wrote:

Or are you a Leading Man, or Leading Lady the crux of what the play is about? Are you Hamlet, or are you Rosencrantz or Guildenstern?

Heh, teach me not to read the GDB first thing in the morning. You meant the ones from Hamlet. But for some reason it made me think of Gilbert and Sullivan. So I'm picturing:

In a rapid spurt of song, the stern-faced, exact man sings in sirihish, "I am the very model of a proper naki militiaman. I have the information of Templar, noble and criminal...."

Ok, so I'm being silly. But Tlaloc is right. Half the fun is character development, which leads to the plots that often involve others. I think it would be fun for someone to make a Gilbert and Sullivan type character on arm.


Deviant Storm

Who's hardly ever sick at sea.

[gfair]

This notion of playing an addict brings to mind the challenges associated with it - how do you stay fiscally afloat?  I can think of some ideas - become a beggar, sell your belongings, etc.  But should you have to pick a thief class/sub just to have the coded skills to be able to steal items?  Can you play a full-time addict without being a part of any group (because addicts would likely be kicked out, due to missing their professional obligations)?

Playing these seedy addict/habit types faces challenges - can you play one without having a crafting or thieving class/sub?  Any thoughts, folks?

[Angela Christine]

This notion of playing an addict brings to mind the challenges associated with it - how do you stay fiscally afloat?  I can think of some ideas - become a beggar, sell your belongings, etc.  But should you have to pick a thief class/sub just to have the coded skills to be able to steal items?  Can you play a full-time addict without being a part of any group (because addicts would likely be kicked out, due to missing their professional obligations)?

Playing these seedy addict/habit types faces challenges - can you play one without having a crafting or thieving class/sub?  Any thoughts, folks?

You could always try to sift out your own spice.  That may mean sneaking out of town, but you don't need a thieving class to do that.  The trouble with sifting is the weather, and that you don't necessarily find any of your favorite kind of spice.  Oh, and you might get eaten.

Most drug addicts don't start out as criminals, so there is no reason to start with a "criminal" guild.  Once you get deep into the habit you may turn to criminal activities to finance your habit, but this doesn't necessarily mean the "steal" skill.  You could skim money from your organization, steal from your  clan storeroom and then stage it to look like a regular burglary (leading your clannies to curse those twink burglars).  You could steal from or kill your friends when they are sleeping, you'll feel bad about it later, but that monkey on your back needs to be fed NOW.  Sell your baby to slavers, that's always a good one, although the baby's other parent may want an explanation: I recomend: "she was kidnapped by elves, gypsies, magickers, etc."  If you hang with a guild or around any important people, chances are there are other people (from templars to raiders to criminals) who will pay you to spy for them.  You will do anything to get that next hit, which makes you prey to the type of people that can supply you with that hit.

The underhanded ways of making money are endless, and very few of them rely on any skills at all.

AC

[John]

This is just a "these are my thoughts on what people have said" post, doesn't really offer anything new to the convo.

Most drug addicts don't start out as criminals, so there is no reason to start with a "criminal" guild.

That's very true. However on a regularish basis with my past few char's, I'll pick a guild and/or subguild where they'll be given starting skills that they don't neccessarily have. I'll plan out a VERY rough timeline for certain events to happen to my char that would cause these skills to become useful and then I can RP learning them with either VNPCs/PCs. So if you wanted to become a thief, you could start out with the thief guild, and just not use a lot of those skills, use your subguild as your main source of income, or get a job that doesn't require many coded skills at all. Just thought I'd suggest that.

Sell your baby to slavers, that's always a good one, although the baby's other parent may want an explanation

Sure that's a possibility, but the other parent doesn't neccessarily have to care about the child. Many fathers don't give a rats toss about their children. I was going to say "It would be easier for females to do this then males" until I realised I was letting an OOC bias affect my ideas for the game again. There is absolutely NO reason why females must be the predominant sex that cares about children. It could be 50-50 or males could be the predominant one.

Also, prostitutes in olden times (and even among modern times) would often be tricked into taking drugs by drug-dealers selling them for a cheap price, and then when they're hooked completely withdrawing any source of the drug from them. By doing this they were/are able to get the person to do whatever they want because they crave the drug, so they then became prostitutes. You could create a prim and proper PC, she then gets into a position of high influence, can't handle the stress, starts taking drugs to relieve the pressure, the addiction get's so bad she can't afford it anymore, so she starts to prostitute herself, and she could loathe herself for doing it, but not be able to stop. No reasons why males can't do the exact same thing either.

Just some thoughts I had.

[gfair]

You could skim money from your organization, steal from your  clan storeroom and then stage it to look like a regular burglary (leading your clannies to curse those twink burglars).  You could steal from or kill your friends when they are sleeping, you'll feel bad about it later, but that monkey on your back needs to be fed NOW.  Sell your baby to slavers

These are all potential ideas, but how realistic are they in Arm?  How easy is it to get away with stealing from the House, selling children?  There is the IC world, and then there is the thin line between forgetting that what you are doing is using OOC knowledge IC.  You do hunt in the storage room, see tracks to a Dwarf, you have only one dwarf you've seen round - boom.  Right away you can point the finger at the thief.  Stealing in a House can be incredibly hard unless you do it at odd hours, which is itself highly unrealistic.  Killing in house, as well, is also almost impossible to do - even in the Byn, I can recall times where the suspects were narrowed down to two or one persons with almost no knowledge whatsoever.

All it takes is one person to get some evidence on such crimes, either attained realistically or not, and to then make the accusation.  That's why it is so hard - you don't get a house of 10 PCs with no strict RP-based admission procedure, and not run the risk of some character with Hunt or just pure observation being able to point you out.

And selling babies - most PCs I've seen with babies never let them out of their sight.  How on earth are you going to get one, find a group to sell it to, and not have some visible evidence?  First, the parent knows who they have given it to - if the baby disappears, they come to you and point the finger.  Second, the person you sell the baby to may sell you out, one way or another.


So your ideas are all clearly workable ideas, but unless you are certain of the integrity of the players, not the characters but the players, then you run great risk of your character dying after the first few incidents, and having any hope at seeing a plot to maturity run short.

[gfair]

I was going to say "It would be easier for females to do this then males" until I realised I was letting an OOC bias affect my ideas for the game again. There is absolutely NO reason why females must be the predominant sex that cares about children. It could be 50-50 or males could be the predominant one.

Well... in real life I am far from being biased towards the roles of the sexes, but Arm is not the world in which you should be using any OOC beliefs IC.

Firstly, I think it is equally difficult for any char, of any gender or race, to steal and sell a child.  The issues have nothing to do with gender, they have to do with being able to trust the people you deal with.

And yet, while those statements bear an implicit sentiment of equality for both sexes and all races, Zalanthas is not a gender-equal place.  At least, not if we conclude that Zalanthas, being a backward society, would share all the inequalities of our own backwards societies.

That is to say, racism and sexism abound in Arm, IMHO.  Now, because Arm is fiction, the IMMs may have a different viewpoint, choosing to declare one of the universal values of all characters to be giving both men and women equal consideration and capability, and there is no systematic sexism in any of the societal constructs.  I'm not sure about that - again, Tlaloc's opinion and insight into this would be most valuable.  My own opinion is that sexism and all sorts of bias is rampant - after all, if people from North/South hate each other and are willing to attack or extort, and if there is all sorts of racism, then why is sexism somehow omitted?

[Kronus]

then why is sexism somehow omitted?

To be blunt, sexism was omitted to allow female characters the opportunity to still be playable and capable of going just as far in society and in ability as males. Essentially, the game world was tweaked in a somewhat unrealistic way in order to make it more fun for everyone and not penalize people who want to play certain kinds of characters (ie, female ones ).

That's my take.

[John]

I was going to say "It would be easier for females to do this then males" until I realised I was letting an OOC bias affect my ideas for the game again.

Well... in real life I am far from being biased towards the roles of the sexes

I'm not saying you thought I meant this gfair, but I'm going to clarify in case anyone misunderstood me (your post made me realise how out of context what I said can be taken).

I thought AC meant women would be having children and then selling them. Or selling their own children. Which is why I was going to say "it'd be easier for females then males" cause males generally do have the stereotype of not caring about their own kids (not saying all males do or that it's even the norm, just saying it's the stereotype, especially among young males).

[Delirium]

Keep in mind, the Houses aren't purely staffed by PCs. Those tracks could belong to a number of VNPC's as well. They could also be the tracks of someone that was depositing supplies or armor.. just because, OOCly, those tracks could have only been one PC, doesn't mean that ICly, the evidence is solid.

[crymerci]

then why is sexism somehow omitted?

To be blunt, sexism was omitted to allow female characters the opportunity to still be playable and capable of going just as far in society and in ability as males. Essentially, the game world was tweaked in a somewhat unrealistic way in order to make it more fun for everyone and not penalize people who want to play certain kinds of characters (ie, female ones ).

That's my take.

Well, here's my take.

In a society where food, shelter, and water are prevalent enough, women of childbearing age can choose to be excused from other duties in order to see to the bearing and raising of children. They rely on men, and women without small children, within their family/community to do their share of providing for the group. Now, with a more proscribed role, i.e. less hunting or hard labor, these women with children become softer and weaker.

Now, if the family/community/village is even more prosperous, then women can all be excused from hard labor, unless they really want to do it... because men like sex and they get kinda stupid around a sexy, curvy female, and they're easily persuaded to do just about anything if they want to keep getting some. So it's really the stupidity of men, and not the weakness of women, which has led to the societal differentiation between the sexes that exists in out culture.

The fun part about Zalanthas is, you can both be butch and control weak men with your beauty.

[creeper386]

SEE... Sexism should be placed in Arm... Without Sexism things get overbalanced into females favor... It's kind of like the equal rights movement in America, that never ended in equal rights. Woman are still treated way differently, but now they only get the benefits of the different treatment without the penelties...

It's unfair! Absolutely incredibly unfair, both on Zalanthas and on Earth, they should get one or the other can't have both.



Creeper

[Meep]

Woman are still treated way differently, but now they only get the benefits of the different treatment without the penelties...

Do you have any idea of what you are talking about or are you just talking rhetoric you pulled off of some conservative talk show?

I'm sorry to flame but I don't know if you are joking or what. Women, while outnumbering men, population-wise are still considered minorities. A few years ago they were still earning 77 cents to every dollar men made. And, they still have the glass ceiling and education-wise, it is still very common for women/females to get less attention in the classrooms.

Also, there was a survey done of registered nurses comparing the pay of skill-equatable nurses, male and female. The males earned an average of $40 more per hour than the females for doing the SAME job. Not to mention there is still a lot of unspoken sexism and harassment that goes on in the workplace.

One of my friends who worked in the same company I used to work with was sexually harassed by the same group of males over and over, where they made sexually suggestive remarks toward her, and also some extremely sexist remarks. She confronted each one, one by one, and asked them to desist as their behavior was not appropriate in the work place. It did not. Finally, one of them slapped her ass without her permission to even touch her. She went to HR who supposedly had a zero tolerance attitude toward discrimination and harassment. They did nothing and told her to forget that it happened.

So yes, people can say women have equal rights and lead men around by their noses but in the real world it isn't like that at all.

In essence, let's not bring over generalized sexism (personal sexism, either way is fine by me). In a world where there are elves and mindbenders and filthy magickers, men have other threats to discriminate against than... oooh! She's a woman!

[Angela Christine]

Well, here's my take.

In a society where food, shelter, and water are prevalent enough, women of childbearing age can choose to be excused from other duties in order to see to the bearing and raising of children. They rely on men, and women without small children, within their family/community to do their share of providing for the group. Now, with a more proscribed role, i.e. less hunting or hard labor, these women with children become softer and weaker.

Now, if the family/community/village is even more prosperous, then women can all be excused from hard labor, unless they really want to do it... because men like sex and they get kinda stupid around a sexy, curvy female, and they're easily persuaded to do just about anything if they want to keep getting some. So it's really the stupidity of men, and not the weakness of women, which has led to the societal differentiation between the sexes that exists in out culture.

It's a good theory, but I don't think it has ever worked out that way on Earth much less on Zalanthas.  Women produce 54% of the world's food.  Need water hauled?  That's usually woman's work despite the fact that water is heavy so logically the stronger males should do the hauling.  In american history the men may have been out tilling the soil while the woman took care of the house, but that isn't universal.  In some societies the traditional roles for men are hunting and warring, while women to all the cultivating of soil, care for the chickens and other domestic animals and do all the housework and cooking.  The interesting thing is that in many cases the hunting and warring has died off in the last few decades, but carring for the house, animals and farm is still woman's work, so the men go hang out in the taverns all day while the women do basically all the work that supports the family, assuming that her man hasn't sold their land to some conglomerate to grow coffee or chocolate on.    It isn't unusuall for women to go back to work, hard labor, within days of giving birth.  They invented backboards and such so that she could carry the baby around with her while she works.  

The non-working, taking it easy woman is fairly rare.  Some rich women manage it, becoming heir-producing machines with no function in society beyond looking pretty and having babies, but that is and always has been rare.  The stay-at-home mother and homemaker popularized by sitcoms in the '50s and '60s was an effect of transitions in society.  People replaced gardens with lawns, lawns and flower gardens were traditionally a way of showing you were rich enough to "waste" land on useless things.  So mom's job contracted to just taking care of the inside of the house.  At the same time things like electric and gas stoves (as apposed to tricky wood stoves) widespread refrigeration, indoor plumbing (as opposed to hand pumping or hauling water) and processed foods made housekeeping quite a bit easier than it had been a few decades earlier.  This gave women time to sculpt elaborate hair-dos.  I'm not dissing the modern stay-at-home-mom, but it obviously isn't as physically intensive as being a pioneer woman.

On Zalanthas, I doubt childbearing women get to take much time-off from their regular work.  They Highlord doesn't seem like the type that enact paid maternaty leave.     My guess would be that most tribes would have something like a creche system, where a few of the new nursing mothers oldsters and those with injuries would care for, train and organize all the children during the day while most of the healthy adults (both women and men) are off working.  There just isn't time for the womb-bearers to become soft and pampered.

AC

[Boggis]

In american history the men may have been out tilling the soil while the woman took care of the house, but that isn't universal.  In some societies the traditional roles for men are hunting and warring, while women to all the cultivating of soil, care for the chickens and other domestic animals and do all the housework and cooking.  The interesting thing is that in many cases the hunting and warring has died off in the last few decades, but carring for the house, animals and farm is still woman's work, so the men go hang out in the taverns all day while the women do basically all the work that supports the family, assuming that her man hasn't sold their land to some conglomerate to grow coffee or chocolate on.  

Hehe, that is so true. I've been travelling through SE Asia with some friends for the past few months and saw many, many examples of this. As far as we could see the man's job was to sit in a hammock in a shady area with his mates and some hard liqour while his wife slaved out in the fields under the roasting sun. Didn't get to see how the domestic scene was but I don't think it would take a genius to make a stab at how it's set up. Oh, and then the man takes some of that hard-earned money and gets one of the local hookers. I saw this kind of behaviour way too often to be just a coincidence. And that's all I have to say about that.

Boggis

[creeper386]

If someone took my post seriously, I'm sorry for you way of thinking. If it was meant as serious, it probably would have been written out in a clear and concise manner such as this post, and would have alot less '...' probably wouldn't have ANY words all in caps, and wouldn't be written in a child-having-a-fit type of style.

Again I'll appoligize, this time not for your way of thinking, but for me not putting any of  :shock: 's or  :lol: 's or  :twisted: 's or even any of   's,   's or  :wink: 's. Next time I'll be sure to include LOTS of them so you can be sure it's written in a joking manner.



Creeper who hopefully well never make a post similar to this one again and is still wondering what this post was named and what was the original idea in it, and also is wondering why more and more he's seeing the direction of posts dramatically changing after one of his posts.

[John]

Thanks for the explanation creeper, I too, took you seriously (what was I thinking? ) and couldn't think of anything to say in rebuttal except "I'd rather not see sexism in Arm".

If it was meant as serious, it probably would have been written out in a clear and concise

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And does that mean the explanation post should be taken as a joke? Cause it had all of those emotes.

I'm just shit stirrin' ya now.

Arm's really clever. It has A TON of prejudices and "isms" without incorporating any from real life (with the possible exception of a classism). Sure it has racism as in the kind where you hate people from another country (or city). But whose going to take offence being prejudiced against cause they're a filthy northerner? It doesn't have racism (the kind where you hate someone because they're a different color) it has specism, and magickerism. This let's people enjoy Arm yet not get hung up over all of the RL prejudices.

As for the sexism within Arm. It exists, but it's the subtle kind. Males will protect women (not all, but a significant portion) and it's difficult for males to break. Reason is, my PCs will find nearly ANY women sexually attractive (and no I don't mud-sex). They could have a million scars, be dirty and reek to high heaven, and I'll find them attractive (cause that's the norm in Zalanthas), and because I find them attractive my PCs tend to want to show-off or protect them

I think women should start doing the same. Be protective of men in dangerous situations. Rescue them from a fight, stop them from fighting because they're just too weak. <--- a half-serious suggestion.

[crymerci]

It's a good theory, but I don't think it has ever worked out that way on Earth much less on Zalanthas.

Oh, it was a joke. I took umbrage against the implication that females were naturally inferior. Instead of getting on my high horse I thought I would use a little humor.

What I really should have said was this:
Women are not inferior to men, nor men to women. Each gender has strengths and weaknesses inherent, but I believe they balance out. With the exception of tasks involving differing sexual organs (giving birth, peeing standing up) women can do anything men can do and vice versa, if they apply themselves. Men and women are different, yes. But neither is necessarily better or worse. And it is my opinion that most of the differences between the sexes are societally imposed, or IOW "nurture" rather than "nature".

[gfair]

Keep in mind, the Houses aren't purely staffed by PCs. Those tracks could belong to a number of VNPC's as well. They could also be the tracks of someone that was depositing supplies or armor.. just because, OOCly, those tracks could have only been one PC, doesn't mean that ICly, the evidence is solid.

Exactly - this is a good example of what I mean.  There are plenty of people in Arm who don't always think of VNPCs.  So if someone points the finger at you, and you say "Wait, no, that was Maka, that painted Dwarf with the missing finger on one hand." and you try to refer to a VNPC that the other player has never heard of, he will call BS on you.  And if one of those players happens to be a Serjeant, well... the Serjeant's opinion is usually good enough.  So they all ignore any VNPCs and point the finger at you still, because they don't think the RP or the world through.

[John]

Also, who says it has to be someone from within the clan? As long as you don't act suspicious and if you act EXTREMELY loyal, you'll be the least suspected.

[gfair]

Well, here's my take.

So it's really the stupidity of men, and not the weakness of women, which has led to the societal differentiation between the sexes that exists in out culture.

This is a load of rubbish.

There is no doubt why the original roles of men and women were established - the men were always stronger and suited to the hunter/gatherer role, while the women were never as strong, and thus the men became the dominant gender.  That has been in existence since the very first humans on this planet.  And it isn't merely a high-level intelligence issue - it is pure, basic genetics that dictated this deliniation of roles between the sexes.

THAT is why much of this sentiment still exists today.  Over 90% of the world, barring our supposedly enlightened western society, still shows that this basic genetic determination is as strong as ever.  That said, there are also plenty of examples of knowledge and intelligence delivering greater equality, which women seem to possess on a marginally higher curve (taken directly from statistical surveys of high-school and University performance in Canada) of intelligence and learning.

But Arm is so entirely different from this wonderful reality we live in, and I have never read anything about a specific recommendation to ignore gender equality from the IMMs, that I believe Arm would be one of these highly inequal, backwards societies, with Women being rung #2 and men being rung #1, which is why I seek clarification on this from an IMM.

[John]

This is a load of rubbish.

Oh, it was a joke. I took umbrage against the implication that females were naturally inferior. Instead of getting on my high horse I thought I would use a little humor.

I seek clarification on this from an IMM.

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1824&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Now, according to ArmageddonMud documentation, men in Zalanthas do NOT have any physical/mental advantages over women in Zalanthas. Regardless of race. So, men in Zalanthas would never get the idea that they can 'lord it over the ladies' and subjugate them to second class social status (or worse) through the virtue of 'Power Over' any moreso than they would get the same idea about other men.

[gfair]

Women, while outnumbering men, population-wise are still considered minorities.

You're using the wrong terminology here.  The fact that women are disadvantaged in most societies has nothing to do with them being a minority - minority refers to a population, not being the subject of systematic bias.

A few years ago they were still earning 77 cents to every dollar men made. And, they still have the glass ceiling and education-wise, it is still very common for women/females to get less attention in the classrooms.

Your data is extremely out of date - the gap in many market segments has narrowed considerably.  As for education, what you claim is almost entirely wrong - women consistently show lower populations in technical and scientific disciplines, but that has not been proven to be systematic bias - there is some consideration given to whether or not they WANT to be there, so the evidence may be showing other correlations, and not strictly pointing to any disadvantage.

Also, there was a survey done of registered nurses comparing the pay of skill-equatable nurses, male and female. The males earned an average of $40 more per hour than the females for doing the SAME job. Not to mention there is still a lot of unspoken sexism and harassment that goes on in the workplace.

This is almost certainly wrong - $40/hour is grossly excessive and would incite a riot, not just be a grievance.

One of my friends who worked in the same company I used to work with was sexually harassed by the same group of males over and over, [...] She went to HR who supposedly had a zero tolerance attitude toward discrimination and harassment. They did nothing and told her to forget that it happened.

There are all sorts of individual horror stories that do happen.  However, unless your friend won millions of dollars in a lawsuit, I would think your effort would be much better off being put towards finding a good lawyer, rather than chatting about the incident in a video game forum.  There is probably a pretty good parallel between advancing womens' rights, and the number of stories like this that actually went to court.

In essence, let's not bring over generalized sexism (personal sexism, either way is fine by me). In a world where there are elves and mindbenders and filthy magickers, men have other threats to discriminate against than... oooh! She's a woman!

Sorry, I don't buy this logic.  I asked about sexism because I want to find out how much sexism there is in Arm - is there any, or are we to specifically ensure we omit any sexist comments due to the game policy set by the IMMs?  If Arm were real, there would be rampant sexism - there is no threshold for prejudice and bias, it is usually done wherever a visible boundary between peoples exist.  And there is sexism in Arm, but what I want to know is how prevalent it is - I'm not looking for any justification for why we should all OOC force our characters to ignore the IC reality of Arm.

[gfair]

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1824&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Now, according to ArmageddonMud documentation, men in Zalanthas do NOT have any physical/mental advantages over women in Zalanthas. Regardless of race. So, men in Zalanthas would never get the idea that they can 'lord it over the ladies' and subjugate them to second class social status (or worse) through the virtue of 'Power Over' any moreso than they would get the same idea about other men.

Finally, thankyou.  So since the code makes both men and women equal, there is no sexism.  Now we have our answer.

Thanks for looking this up, I'll be sure to adjust RP accordingly.

[John]

It's fine. I was going to say "err...you must have missed my post up above..."

is there any

Yes. Of course there is. But in tribes, not the main cities. And not all tribes either, and the sexism in the tribes that have it don't neccessarily have women as the "inferior" sex, because as Naatok said, men are neither physically nor mentally stronger then women In Zalanthas.

If Arm were real, there would be rampant sexism - there is no threshold for prejudice and bias, it is usually done wherever a visible boundary between peoples exist.

But how would it have been resolved? Women are just as strong as men, so it would have been done with numbers. Perhaps there was sexism, with females as the superior sex because there were more females around, but then the Dragon came along (who was male) and changed all that. Any evidence suggesting otherwise could have been tampered with by Tektolnes and Muk Utep.

[gfair]

But how would it have been resolved? Women are just as strong as men, so it would have been done with numbers. Perhaps there was sexism, with females as the superior sex because there were more females around, but then the Dragon came along (who was male) and changed all that. Any evidence suggesting otherwise could have been tampered with by Tektolnes and Muk Utep.

There are a number of issues - would Zalanthan females be associated with being more emotional than men?  Would Zalanthan fathers tell their sons "Big boys don't cry"?  Would it generally be believed that boys, being more emotionally repressed, are more capable of taking harsh punishment than girls?

As much as the code may make characters equal, it does not go far enough to put an end to sexism, or perhaps sexism is not the term - gender preference?  Would fathers in House guards or other military groups give women the same chance or same rigorous training as men?  They may be tougher physically, but is the perception that they may cry more, being allowed to do so by gender perception, going to cause them to be given easier treatment?

So many issues.

[flurry]

If Arm were real, there would be rampant sexism ....

And if Arm were real, there wouldn't be giant insects devouring humans..

[John]

So many issues.

As has been said there is sexism in the game, but that's us PCs bringing biases into the game. And we should all do our best not to allow OOC biases be entered into the game (although that's easier said then done).

[John]

Sorry for the doublepost, but the answer to one of gfair's questions just popped into my head (I was singing "Big Girls Don't Cry" without realising it ).

Would Zalanthan fathers tell their sons "Big boys don't cry"?

Yes, and girls would be told "Big girls don't cry". The reason is it's a sign of weakness and IMO children would be taught not to display weaknesses, cause of the level of harshness and cruelty.

All IMO.

[Supreme Allah]

How are women as strong as men?

Biologically, I mean. It's hard for me to just accept that women are as strong as men - there has to be a legitimate reason behind it. The only one I can think of is testosterone and their relative hormones, which are precisely what makes men stronger than women, but carry a lot of seemingly unpleasant weight. Women might typically have beards or chest hair!

I'll take this a step further. Is abuse of one's partner (see: real-world spousal abuse) as interchangable with each sex, too? How about rape? If women are the same as men, they rape, raid, and pillage every bit as much as we do. Not to attack anyone, but petite, curvaceous little sweethearts would be extremely, EXTREMELY rare, if this is the case.

Simply put, I don't think this equivalency of the sexes completely adds up. If we're trying to be "PC", then I'll just say that I think that's rather silly in a game as strongly based around realism as this, as well as one that contains such powerful class distinctions, slavery, and whatever else I can't think of at the moment.

Also, please keep in mind that I'm not trying to attack this game or its creators, AT ALL. I have no problem with, code-wise, keeping women as strong as men. But the world as a whole, I think, -would- have sexism and in general, I believe men -would- be physically stronger than women. That, or women should need to start shaving their faces as much as their legs.

[John]

It's hard for me to just accept that women are as strong as men

So you find it easy to believe in elves, dwarves, half-giants, giant psychic mantis', magick, Immortal Sorceror Kings and all humans being psychic, yet you can't believe women are as strong as men?

there has to be a legitimate reason behind it.

Why? Why does there have to be a legitimate reason behind that but none of the other things I mentioned?

Is abuse of one's partner (see: real-world spousal abuse) as interchangable with each sex, too? How about rape?

Yes. IMO getting rid of ALL biases towards sexes and sexual activity and marriage makes the game more interesting. And the Imms encourage all 3 of these things.

[Supreme Allah]

So you find it easy to believe in elves, dwarves, half-giants, giant psychic mantis', magick, Immortal Sorceror Kings and all humans being psychic, yet you can't believe women are as strong as men?

Correct. None of your examples have real-world equivalents to relate to a game which is STRONGLY based on realism (as is constantly emphasized in both the documentation and these boards), which, as I have said before in countless posts in the past, really makes this terribly overused and fairly baseless point moot.

[Addition]

Humans are based on real-world humans, are they not? If humans on Zalanthas biologically aren't the same breed of humans we rub shoulders with in real life, then what's to keep everyone from making something ridiculous up and just dismissing it as normal?

For example, my diminutive 13 year-old human warrior/hunter boy, who, by appearance, is the same as any other, weighs 20 ten-stone and has strength approximately equivalent to that of a braxat. I want this coded.

Hey! You can't deny me! You have God-Kings in this game, so legitimate realism doesn't exist!

Also: http://www.narth.com/docs/york.html

An interesting read, and parts of it are quite relevant to my points.

[gfair]

Would Zalanthan fathers tell their sons "Big boys don't cry"?

Yes, and girls would be told "Big girls don't cry". The reason is it's a sign of weakness and IMO children would be taught not to display weaknesses, cause of the level of harshness and cruelty.

All IMO.

I could see this - it hints of the Chinese value system, where large, strong families are the great hope, and riches and wealth acquired through marriages.  Fathers tell all children to be strong and don't cry, seeing crying as weakness, the opposite of strength.

[John]

what's to keep everyone from making something ridiculous up and just dismissing it as normal?

I was waiting for something like this to be posted by someone (I knew SOMEONE would post it ). I use common sense (sexism isn't common sense for me, might be for other people *shrug*). Remember, in the docs it says physical mutations are often passed unnoticed in zalanthas amongst all the other freaks. So for females to be as powerful as men is believable for me.

I don't have any additional arguments to make so I'll probably be quiet in this argument now.

Not an attack against anyone

[gfair]

Correct. None of your examples have real-world equivalents to relate to a game which is STRONGLY based on realism (as is constantly emphasized in both the documentation and these boards), which, as I have said before in countless posts in the past, really makes this terribly overused and fairly baseless point moot.

SA - the game is strongly based on realism, but that being said it is not 100% absolutely realistic.  Just look at all the day-to-day tasks that are usually completely ignored in arm - dressing, bathing, shaving, maintaining that hair length and colour in your desc.

Arm should be as realistic as possible, but if you were to be 100% realistic, Arm would be real life.  For all its realism, Arm is fiction, and has a value system completely different from our own, so promoting those values so much or targeting certain groups IC can be felt OOC as though crossing their comfort level.  This is why the IMMs have documents on sexual harassment and consent.

So, if the IMMs say there is to be no racism in the game, it may be highly unrealistic, but we must accept the IMM viewpoint in order for everyone to enjoy the game and not have to put up with undue sexual harassment.  Of all the prejudices, sexual harassment has the greatest potential to make players uncomfortable - some may have been harassed or assaulted themselves.  We will never know that, but we must be aware of it, so that such people can enjoy this game, and never have those bad memories brought back, possibly threatening the very existence of the game.

Humans are based on real-world humans, are they not? If humans on Zalanthas biologically aren't the same breed of humans we rub shoulders with in real life, then what's to keep everyone from making something ridiculous up and just dismissing it as normal?

Humans are not based on our real-world selves.  They are more rugged due to genetic and physical adaptation to the harsh Zalanthas environment.  That comes directly from the IMM docs - sure, when we read human we automatically think US, but that cannot be the case in Arm, or else everything has to change.  One single hit from a sword could kill, in Arm most fighters can take dozens of hits to the body.

[Supreme Allah]

First, John:

I use common sense (sexism isn't common sense for me, might be for other people *shrug*).

I'm not sure if you're calling me a sexist here, but I most certainly am not - but realistically, I do see this sort of thing being prevailant on Zalanthas. In more primitive times - say, anywhere from the beginning of documented history to sixty or seventy years ago - "common sense" would likely be that women were the inferior sex. Fortunately, we know these days that this was basically just based around the thoughtless logic of, "We're stronger and pushier, so we're better", which is absolutely ludicrous.

And now, gfair:

Reading your explanation regarding sexual harassment and the like, I agree completely. Realism needed to be sacrificed at this point to avoid making players feel uncomfortable. Thanks.

Humans are not based on our real-world selves. They are more rugged due to genetic and physical adaptation to the harsh Zalanthas environment. That comes directly from the IMM docs - sure, when we read human we automatically think US, but that cannot be the case in Arm, or else everything has to change. One single hit from a sword could kill, in Arm most fighters can take dozens of hits to the body.

I disagree. Yes, humans on Zalanthas have adapted to the environment - but they're still humans, and they were certainly created from the standard we have of humans today or in the past.

In your example, you're either comparing apples and oranges or you're simply wrong.

Yes, the single stroke of a sword to a vital, unprotected section of the body could kill, but Arm's code does reflect this sort of situation. Have you ever used a skilled and armed character to fight an unskilled, unarmed and unarmored one? A subdued one? It usually only takes one to three hits to kill, in most cases.

On the other hand, if there are two men decked out in studded leather or heavy chitinous armors, both of which are ready and capable of fighting one another, it would most certainly take more than the single stroke of a sword to kill one another. What would otherwise be a killing blow, with the right armor on, is nothing more than a bruise. I think people forget this sometimes.

[John]

I'm not sure if you're calling me a sexist here, but I most certainly am not

I DEFINITELY wasn't calling you sexist, I doubt anyone here is sexist (everyone from their posts seems like great people). My "it might be common sense for someone else" comment was to try to avoid someone saying "sexism is natural due to men's superior strength. Otherwise we wouldn't have been sexist for all those centuries". This is a very touchy subject for me, which is why I didn't say a word in my first reply to gfair. I knew he wasn't sexist, but I was still offended by his post and didn't trust myself not to sound mean (and he didn't deserve to be abused cause he didn't say anything wrong). So sorry for giving you the impression I thought you were sexist.

Yes, humans on Zalanthas have adapted to the environment - but they're still humans, and they were certainly created from the standard we have of humans today or in the past.

This is a purely academic issue and I'd been thinking about it the other day in fact so I'll post up my thoughts. I use to assume that there had been a homosapien that all humanoids evolved from. But perhaps there wasn't. Perhaps one of the existing races were the only humanoids and something happened during the Dragon's reign to cause mutations. The reason there aren't any archaelogical evidence is because Tek and Muk Utep went about purposefully tampering and destroying the evidence for some reason. Whatever the case is I don't know.

Have you ever used a skilled and armed character to fight an unskilled, unarmed and unarmored one? A subdued one? It usually only takes one to three hits to kill, in most cases.

This seems to me to be another issue altogether and I agree it might be a bit out of whack. Although it is possible to kill people barehanded, if not as fast as it tends to happen in the game. Perhaps it could be tweaked, but I don't think it's pressing.

[creeper386]

Well, I'm out to just attack everyone! Gahh! Boo! Rah! And personally, just because I'm male, I throw the whole balance way in favor of guys, but it's just because of me, and my superiority to EVERYONE.  :twisted: Mwahahahaha.

Well... I don't see sexism as being prevelant... Or even existance... Does that mean people don't insult, or think themselves better then people of the opposite sex, no, but it does mean there is a GOOD chance it isn't going to be you hate them JUST because they are a female or a male, it's going to be more a case by case thing. A petite female out with normal commoner people probably would get alot of crap, but a scrawny little bastard of some low ranking noble, would also be getting alot of crap.

I think acctually appearence would be more important then gender, specially considering alot of female look alot like males. And I think groups of similar people putting down other people because they look different would probably be more rampart and more severe then any sexism.

But then again, I'm sure there are some places where certain people are made to think they are inferiorer and everyone else things that. Like the noble-commoner aspect. Perhaps in some societies women could be in that setting, but it wouldn't be wide spread or even common, and could cause you more trouble in the civilized places.


Creeper who has no clue on the whole idea, and thinks he's completely wrong, don't listen to him.

[John]

A petite female out with normal commoner people probably would get alot of crap

Now who'd get the crap? The female or the male?

I say fat = wealth and comfort so therefore fat = attractive.

Fat people are also rare so they'd be considered exotic. Freaks could also be considered exotics instead of.....well freaks

John, whose being dead serious despite the tongue in cheek nature of this post.

[creeper386]

I'm saying, both would be getting crap. That being female or male would less matter as to how the person works and the persons reputation... Now if that same scrawny bastard of some lowly noble, commonly makes enemies, and those enemies tend to come up hanging from the doorways of popular taverns without anyone "seeing" what happened, most likely he wouldnt' get the crap except from people who don't know him.

And same with that petite little female. Maybe she's infamous for her skill with the blades strapped to her inner thighs. Maybe she's one of the 'rinthi's best thief, and the head of a well run organization who would certainly hear and do something about someone screwy with their founder if she didn't deal with it herself.

Sex of the person is less important then what they look like, who their friends are, and their personal reputation. SHRUG... Thats just how I see it. Just the same that everyone is a potential friend, ally, or enemy, and friends are more likely enemies, while trust is more likely to be giving to paid allies... SHRUG AGAIN.

Creeper

[John]

I'm saying, both would be getting crap.

Oh okay, I thought you were saying the male would get crap. Why would the male get crap? Well for being seen with such a weak and useless person. I imagine the petite one would often have to prove herself. Mainly cause she's small and weak (assuming petite means small and weak of course), but also because small and skinniness would be signs of undernourishment. Undernourishment is a sign of being poor and the 'rinth.

Now of course if the petite one was working for Lord Fancypants or Merchant Kadius then that's another story.

[Kronus]

realistically, I do see this sort of thing being prevailant on Zalanthas. In more primitive times - say, anywhere from the beginning of documented history to sixty or seventy years ago - "common sense" would likely be that women were the inferior sex. Fortunately, we know these days that this was basically just based around the thoughtless logic of, "We're stronger and pushier, so we're better", which is absolutely ludicrous.

Here's the thing, though...
On Zalanthas, for as long as anyone can remember, anyway, women have been just as pushy and just as strong as men. That means that the kind of superiority ideals that you're describing wouldn't come up. Males can't go telling themselves they're better because they're stronger if it's plainly obvious to everyone that women are just as strong.

As has been said before in this thread (when all I wanted was some tips on how to motivate some slugs in my clans :twisted: ), you have to be careful not to let real world sensibilities leak into your view of Zalanthas. On Zalanthas, women can hunt perfectly well on their own, thanks. They can run just as fast as men, they can wear the same heavy armor and kill people with the same heavy swords. Outside of having the equipment to make babies in (which, in a lot of ways, would ultimately give them the power, once all else is made equal), Zalanthian women are in all ways equal to Zalanthian men, with all the same strengths and weakness and more importantly, potential strengths and weakness.

As the basic gist, if Zalanthas had Olympics like we have on Earth, there wouldn't be a men's and a women's mile run. There would just be a mile run, with men and women competing equally in that single event.
On Earth, men and women are not equal, physically. The world's strongest man could crush the world's strongest woman quite easily, and the world's fastest man will leave the world's fastest woman in the dust. This basic fact is what led to thousands and thousands of years of male dominance in everything, from family to business to society.
On Zalanthas, given that women have a great deal more potential (than they do on Earth) to be physically superior to their mates, it seems quite likely that just as often the men are the ones who get left home with the babies while the women go out and bring home food.
Without the same kind of nearly universal "Men hunt, women cook" situations at home, those kinds of attitudes would not make it far through society as a whole.

And since gender roles has been brought up, I have to confess that I'm a little curious about the Zalanthian views on sexuality.
We've all seen the catamite flitting around the bazaar, so clearly someone out there is engaging in a little buggery. But I'm curious if the existence of catamites are seen merely as a form of sexual gratification for the occasional decadent noble, or if homosexual relationships actually do exist.
Moreover, what's the views of the general population on this? Clearly, to one extent, two women bedding down together means two fewer women who could be bearing children, which could be seen by some as a threat to the continuance of the species, but on the other hand, there are already so many people with regards to available resources, that it seems possible that there wouldn't be quite the same emphasis on procreation on Zalanthas that we have on Earth. If that was the case, then homosexual relationships would be accepted for everyone, not just Lord Kinkypants.

Thoughts?

[Meep]

You're using the wrong terminology here.  The fact that women are disadvantaged in most societies has nothing to do with them being a minority - minority refers to a population, not being the subject of systematic bias.

Actually, I'm not. Here's a couple definitions:

Minority group - any group who is singled out in society based on physical or cultural characteristics and is treated differentially and unequally.  A minority group may or may not be a numerical majority, but the defining features are a lack of social, political, and economic power, which is determined by the dominant, majority group.

Majority group - any group that holds the social, economic, and political power to influence and determine who will have access to the benefits, privileges, and opportunities of the society.

There is no one definition for minority, but the above states what is a sociological definition of minority. And according to the above definition, women are, indeed, a minority group.

Your data is extremely out of date - the gap in many market segments has narrowed considerably.  As for education, what you claim is almost entirely wrong - women consistently show lower populations in technical and scientific disciplines, but that has not been proven to be systematic bias - there is some consideration given to whether or not they WANT to be there, so the evidence may be showing other correlations, and not strictly pointing to any disadvantage.

Unless data from the year 2000 is out of date, then I'm not. Here's just one site I found discussing the wage gap, which is still at 73% (or 73 cents to the male dollar): http://www.feminist.com/fairpay/f_change.htm although it has narrowed considerably... from 59 cents to the dollar in 1963 to the above.

This is almost certainly wrong - $40/hour is grossly excessive and would incite a riot, not just be a grievance.

It's not incorrect, and these numbers weren't taken off the top of my head. I'll need to find the study that was done on this, but right now, I need to go eat.

There are all sorts of individual horror stories that do happen.  However, unless your friend won millions of dollars in a lawsuit, I would think your effort would be much better off being put towards finding a good lawyer, rather than chatting about the incident in a video game forum.  There is probably a pretty good parallel between advancing womens' rights, and the number of stories like this that actually went to court.

This is an anecdote. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior is more widespread than you would think and going to court costs money. A lot of times these kinds of accusations often boil down to one person's word against another's. A woman risks losing her job if she takes it to court and makes a big stink about it. Since one of the people who harassed my friend was one of her direct managers, this made it doubly uncomfortable and she decided to let it drop instead of causing a ruckus. See above on what people are willing to tolerate because it means keeping a source of income. Especially now in the job slump.

Sorry, I don't buy this logic.  I asked about sexism because I want to find out how much sexism there is in Arm - is there any, or are we to specifically ensure we omit any sexist comments due to the game policy set by the IMMs?  If Arm were real, there would be rampant sexism - there is no threshold for prejudice and bias, it is usually done wherever a visible boundary between peoples exist.  And there is sexism in Arm, but what I want to know is how prevalent it is - I'm not looking for any justification for why we should all OOC force our characters to ignore the IC reality of Arm.

Is there sexism on Arm in the game world? According to what I've seen NPC-wise in a few clans and documentation... no. I've seen PLENTY of women in leadership positions in clans npc-wise. However, there is distinct sexism brought in from OOC influences. However, since the pc population only makes up a fraction of Zalanthan population, I would say that there is very little sexism overall.

[Supreme Allah]

Not to be rude, Kronus, but please refer to my first posting in this thread rather than the last. My -last- post was in response to someone in particular, and thus, lacked my initial reasoning.

Thanks, and again, no offense is meant.

[EDIT] I've decided to post it here, for easy reference.

How are women as strong as men?

Biologically, I mean. It's hard for me to just accept that women are as strong as men - there has to be a legitimate reason behind it. The only one I can think of is testosterone and their relative hormones, which are precisely what makes men stronger than women, but carry a lot of seemingly unpleasant weight. Women might typically have beards or chest hair!

I'll take this a step further. Is abuse of one's partner (see: real-world spousal abuse) as interchangable with each sex, too? How about rape? If women are the same as men, they rape, raid, and pillage every bit as much as we do. Not to attack anyone, but petite, curvaceous little sweethearts would be extremely, EXTREMELY rare, if this is the case.

Simply put, I don't think this equivalency of the sexes completely adds up. If we're trying to be "PC", then I'll just say that I think that's rather silly in a game as strongly based around realism as this, as well as one that contains such powerful class distinctions, slavery, and whatever else I can't think of at the moment.

Also, please keep in mind that I'm not trying to attack this game or its creators, AT ALL. I have no problem with, code-wise, keeping women as strong as men. But the world as a whole, I think, -would- have sexism and in general, I believe men -would- be physically stronger than women. That, or women should need to start shaving their faces as much as their legs.

I'd be much more interested in seeing a good response to that.

[John]

And since gender roles has been brought up, I have to confess that I'm a little curious about the Zalanthian views on sexuality.

Sanvean in particular has encouraged people A LOT to be as strange (not that homosexuality is strange.....oh you know what I mean!) as possible when it comes to sex and marriage. If you want I can go link to the discussion it happened

She's said that she doesn't think that there would be any of the following:
* homosexuality as a minority
* bisexuality as a minority
* monogomy as a majority
* marriage as a majority
* marriage to one person as a majority

So yeah. The answer would be "there's no widespread discrimination against any of the above issues"

As for the whole women = child bearing. I think y'all a bit too obsessed with this idea I'll just say one thing. If there WAS such a high emphasis on childbearing, mulmix would be outlawed.

[Kronus]

How are women as strong as men?

Biologically, I mean. It's hard for me to just accept that women are as strong as men - there has to be a legitimate reason behind it. The only one I can think of is testosterone and their relative hormones, which are precisely what makes men stronger than women, but carry a lot of seemingly unpleasant weight. Women might typically have beards or chest hair!

Women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas, biologically, for all the same reasons that short elves are biologically capable of running farther than tall humans. Or that dwarves have no body hair (I remember a thread a while ago where me and AC discussed the risks of dry and chapped skin if someone had NO hair). It falls under the same principle that allows you to smack someone wearing a breastplate made from some mekkilot's shoulderblade with a shard of obsidian (a brittle stone, irl) not more than one inch thick and not have it break. Or the thing where you get run through by one of these magic obsidian swords five or six times, and then sit down and take the morning off to heal the wounds up.
At some point, you have to set absolute adherence to realism aside and just accept that its a game. Women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas because women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas. There doesn't really need to be a reason for it, except for those people who don't want it to be that way

I'll take this a step further. Is abuse of one's partner (see: real-world spousal abuse) as interchangable with each sex, too? How about rape? If women are the same as men, they rape, raid, and pillage every bit as much as we do. Not to attack anyone, but petite, curvaceous little sweethearts would be extremely, EXTREMELY rare, if this is the case.

No more or less rare than the youthful, pretty-boy catamite-potentiates who work as Tor advisors. Armageddon is neat because its social structures allow for both the beer-swilling belching types, and the petite, curvaceous little sweethearts.
EDIT: To answer the main point of this quote, yes, I think that women abusing their husbands probably happens on Zalanthas as often as the other way around. Rape is a trickier thing only in that you can't really force a man to get an erection, but it's pretty easy, so I suspect that, yes, women on Zalanthas are raping men (and other women).

But the world as a whole, I think, -would- have sexism and in general, I believe men -would- be physically stronger than women. That, or women should need to start shaving their faces as much as their legs.

Your welcome to your beliefs and opinions, and they even do have some merit. Seriously
However, everything that's been put down by the creators and maintainers of this game has pointed to there being an absence of sexism on the whole.
You're not required to agree, but for as long as you're going to be playing in their world, you have to play by their version of it. That applies to everything, from thoughts about sexism to arrows not killing people in one shot like they do in real life.

[Supreme Allah]

I've read the documentation just as thoroughly as the next guy - you don't need to tell me to play by the rules. I already do.

Regardless, my "beliefs and opinions" lie with what little knowledge I have of biology, genetics, and human history - at this point of which there simply doesn't seem to be a valid arguement against. That, I guess, is was what I was really looking for. An explanation for what seems a deviation from realism that simply doesn't add up.

I'll again reference an above post, where I said the one arguing against me was correct - realism needed to be sacrificed for the comfortability of the player base.

The arguement, however, that "you're wrong because a document says so!" holds little ground with me. Perhaps this explains why I'm an atheist as well, eh? I was just trying to find the reasoning behind it.

[creeper386]

Well SA, How about the idea that, Your wrong, not because the documents say so, but your wrong because it is a fact that Zalanthan women are just as physically and mentally strong, as well as morally weak as any guy.

The only problem is... Some people may not like women because they are WOMEN. Because they have no penis or testicles between there legs... Just because they are just as strong as men doesn't mean their isn't any sexism, it just mean that sexism flows both ways, and for the most part there isn't a "weaker sex" asides from any dislikes of the potential viewer.

I'm going to have to say, that there probably still would be sexism, but it wouldnt' be because women/men are weaker then the other, stupider, or more emotional or what have you, it'll be JUST because one is a man or one is a women. And although I don't really think I'd ever have a character that would dislike the opposite sex, I think it could quite well happen. BUT it isn't a wide spread common theory, it's more of a rare thing.

Like if someone gets overly abused as a child, they may hate the sex that did it, they might be a female that hates all other females JUST because they are female(Which to me is poorly the basis of any sexism, it doesn't have to deal with one being inferior or not even though it's commonly seen that way) or maybe it was a boy who was raised in a house full of females and being outnumbered he was forced to do everything or something... He might grow up to hate females just because they are females(And like the last little paranthesis thing, if this isn't sexism I don't see really how you can say anything else is)


Creeper

[Kronus]

The arguement, however, that "you're wrong because a document says so!" holds no ground with me.

That really wasn't my argument, though. Your argument basically read, "On Earth, men are stronger than women and there's sexism, so there should be sexism on Zalanthas too, because men are stronger than women."
My counter arguement was, "Men aren't stronger than women on Zalanthas."

Quite correctly, you asked why this was. I don't really have an answer for this, not while there's an assumption that Zalanthas humans are the same as Earth humans, just in better shape. There's no reason why Zalanthian women are just as strong as their male counterparts, just as there's no reason why we on Earth have five fingers instead of four, or six. It's just the way evolution on this particular planet happened to turn out.
In fact, there's no reason to assume that humans on Zalanthas don't have six fingers on each hand, except that it makes it easier to RP our characters if their gross anatomical qualities are at least approximately similar to our own. Everything that we OOC'ly know about our real world, be it physics or cultural or economics or genetics... it has to get thrown right out the window as soon as something on Zalanthas (as stated in the docs, yes) contradicts it. Why? Because Zalanthas isn't Earth. It might approximate Earth in a lot of ways, but it's not Earth.
For all we know, the color Zalanthians consider 'yellow' is what we'd call 'red' on Earth. "Why do they call it yellow, then? It's clearly red and humans on Earth have always called it red." That's fallacious logic. They call it yellow because to them, it's yellow.

Zalanthian women are just as strong as Zalanthian men for no reason other than that they are. Zalanthas is not Earth. That's my argument. Being that I don't live there, I draw my information from the documentation, yes. Maybe Zalanthian humans have more teeth than we do too, or maybe their hair isn't what we'd consider hair, but flexible quills.  Whatever their differences and similarities, they are not Earth humans, nor are they bound by the same laws of genetics and biology that we are.
Sirihish isn't english either, agreed? Yet it looks a lot like english when it rolls across our screens, even to the point of mimicing english sentence structure and grammatical rules. No one has ever asked what "real" sirihish sounds like, but it quite possibly is a language like nothing that exists on Earth.
Could you ask, "Why does sirihish never use a proper subject noun when the sentence is a question?"? You could, but the answer would be, "It just doesn't. Language develops differently in different areas, so imagine how it develops on different planets."

So, again, why are women just as strong as men on Zalanthas?
ICly? Because they are. That's the way the chips fell in the course of that planet's development, which was completely different in some ways and completely identical in others to Earth's own development.
OOCly? Because people felt it would be better for players who wanted to play female characters to not get screwed over by virtue of their gender, much like how magical armor in D&D resizes itself so that the halfling doesn't get shafted out of every chainmail +1 the party comes across just because it's too big for him.

Hopefully that answer will suffice, because I'm running out of arguements.

[Angela Christine]

I've read the documentation just as thoroughly as the next guy - you don't need to tell me to play by the rules. I already do.

Regardless, my "beliefs and opinions" lie with what little knowledge I have of biology, genetics, and human history - at this point of which there simply doesn't seem to be a valid arguement against. That, I guess, is was what I was really looking for.

One easy explanation is that during the chaos of the time of the Dragon and afterwords, all the weak people (male or female) died.  You couldn't have even the tiniest village then, because and stable concentration of people was seen as a potential power base and destroyed by the Dragon's servants.  From the Ptarken Village helpfile "Especially in the latter days of the Dragon's reign, all societies were highly nomadic, for to stay in one place very long could be interpreted as a base of power, which would in turn draw the attention of one of the Dragon's dread servants."   That kind of living doesn't have any room for the sick or the weak.  The women that survived were mostly bitchy Amazon types.

Another explanation that goes a little farther back, is that human evolution/creation on Zalanthas was a little different than it was here on Earth, and whatever caused the secondary sex characteristics to devolp in Earth humans didn't occur in Zalanthas.  On Earth, in all primates the males are larger and stronger than the females.  In Zalanthas the situation is quite different, as all the known primates are intelligent, sentient beings, there seem to be no animal primates (no monkeys, apes, chimpanzees).  What does it mean?  I have no idea, but it looks like humanoids developed differently there.  In many speicies it is difficult for us to tell the difference between males and females at a glance, presumably the animals themselves have someway to tell.   :wink:  In some other species, the females are larger and stronger than the males.  My point being that it isn't universal for the male to be larger and stronger than the female in all species, despite the fact that it is that way for all Earth primates.  It is possible for a species to evolve where the males and females are physically equal and possibly indistinguishable except during the breeding season, where the males are larger and stronger, and where females are larger and stronger.  Earth humans and earth primates took one path, but a small difference 10000+ years ago might have lead to different development.

Are Earth Humans equivilent to Zalanthas Humans?  I doubt it.  Elves and humans are able to mate and produce offspring that are fertile, fertile elves, humans or other half-elves.  That indicates that in Zalanthas Elves and Humans are in fact the same spiecies, just different varieties, breeds, or races within that species; like Lasso Apsos and pit bulls are both dogs.  Obviously Zalanthas Elves are not equivilent to Earth Humans, so I doubt Zalanthas Humans are equivlent to Earth Humans either.  They are similar, sure, but not the same -- like some low-budget science fiction where the "aliens" look like humans with forehead ridges, green skin or pointy ears rather than beinging really alien looking.  :mrgreen:

An explanation for what seems a deviation from realism that simply doesn't add up.

Even discounting magick, Zalanthas is obviously biologically distinct from Earth.  Earth doesn't have any 800 pound insects, and my highschool science indicated that insects that large would be impossible on Earth; but they exist quite successfully on Zalanthas.  There are both mammals and snakes with feathers on Zalanthas, last I checked, Earth mammals didn't have feathers.  I admit I've never taken a real close look at Mekillots or Bahamets, I usually find it prudent to run the other way as soon as I see them in the distance, but my impression is that they are considerably larger than elephants, which are currently the largest land animals on Earth.  On Earth, most severe mutations cause miscarriage or early death, while on Zalanthas severe mutations are survivable.  Something like blue or green skin may not seem like a huge difference, but it is, because you'd need very different body chemistry to get naturally green skin.  There are many paralels between the two worlds, but also many differances in biology, genetics, history and perhaps even physics.

I'll again reference an above post, where I said the one arguing against me was correct - realism needed to be sacrificed for the comfortability of the player base.

I really doubt it is merely for comfort.  Part of the premise of a game is that you need play balance, so if you make females less strong you would have to give them something to compensate.  Personally I think females having slightly lower strength with slightly higher endurance or wisdom would be easier to justify than equal strength, but nobody asked me.  Many DIKU games have an all female "dryad" race that has poor strenth but more than makes up for it in the other attributes, and they are a popular race.  Giving female humans dryad characteristics would probably be popular and comfortable for many players.  I doubt any of the staff from the birth of the mud are still around, so we may never no what reason they had for setting things up the way they did.  There are plenty of plausible reasons, but no way to tell which is the "right" explanation.

In summary:  In Zalanthas men and women have exactly the same physical and mental potential, regardless of if they are PCs or not.  Because of this physical and mental equality, the socio-cultural history of Zalanthas is different, and universal institutional sexism never developed.

Angela Christine

[Supreme Allah]

Well SA, How about the idea that, Your wrong, not because the documents say so, but your wrong because it is a fact that Zalanthan women are just as physically and mentally strong, as well as morally weak as any guy.

I was never arguing this, Creeper. The documentation states that women are as strong as men, so they are. I was not fighting the documentation. I was asking why.

Back to the point, and your response, Kronus...

The question was, "How are women as strong as men?" Testosterone/hormonal differences are the only answers I could come up with, but they didn't fall in line very correctly, due to the fact that a great many women on Zalanthas, physically, appear every much the same as humans you see walking around on Earth today.

Women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas because women are just as strong as men on Zalanthas.

All I was saying was that that wasn't much of an answer to what I was asking. Your last post certainly summed it up better, and I appreciate your taking the time in doing that.

Conclusion? The true answer simply doesn't exist or cannot be determined due to the aforementioned difference that Zalanthas is not Earth, so I've stopped looking for one. Obviously scientific studies cannot be performed on Zalanthas or its people by Earth's scientists.

So what do we have to work with? The end result (women are as strong as men), if not the reasoning behind it, and speculation. My speculation's that, given what I've seen of trends with PCs and NPCs, though admittedly not VNPCs (an impossibility of sorts), much of what holds true on Earth regarding feminine women and masculine men holds true on Zalanthas. Based on this, I think sexism would exist. It doesn't, and that cannot be argued, as this is not my game to place it in, but I think it would.

But, of course, there is a definite X factor: we players are here on Earth, and it may be hard for us to picture or play out a world where women are physically as strong as men (or sexism exists). My problem is that I cannot see women as strong as men when they, for the most part, still look exactly the same - except, in most cases, with darker skin.

[EDIT]
This is a conclusion I came to just now. I was not, and am not, trying to attack anyone's PC, roleplay, or anything else.

Also, great post, AC. I'd write out a reply just to you, but I think I covered most of my points to their fullest extent here. I'm already getting somewhat redundant.

[Meep]

I don't know about that, I've seen a few feminine men (not as many as I'd like to see) and quite a few masculinized (that is, bearing "masculine" traits of aggressiveness and raw strength) about.

[Kronus]

My problem is that I cannot see women as strong as men when they, for the most part, still look exactly the same - except, in most cases, with darker skin.

This is another very good point. All I can offer in explanation is that we, as players, as far as I know, aren't required to maintain a solid cross-section of what the Zalanthasian populace looks like as whole.
What I mean by that is, no one's sitting there going "Oh no no no, we have way too many silken-haired women right now. We need more with dreadlocks and short hair, because more women on Zalanthas have those kinds of hair."
I guess what it boils down to is that PCs are allowed to be as much the stereotype or as much the exception as they want to be, so long as they recognize that they are either the stereotype or the exception. Lots of PC women, yes, are slight of frame and graceful in bearing and beautiful in mien. Lots aren't, and plenty fall somewhere in the middle too.
That doesn't make any of them representative of Zalanthas as a whole. You're right, it is very hard for us to gauge what the VNPC population looks like. It mostly has to be inferred and extrapolated from the NPCs wandering around, as well as information written in the docs, as well as a healthy dose of (yes, I realize the contradiction here) common sense of what it would be like were it Earth.

[John]

Testosterone/hormonal differences are the only answers I could come up with, but they didn't fall in line very correctly, due to the fact that a great many women on Zalanthas, physically, appear every much the same as humans you see walking around on Earth today.

Okay, but here's a possibility. Who says that the internal functionings is exactly like us humans? A theory to explain why men and women are equally strong is that chemicals don't work exactly the same. Our bodies react to testosterone by growing facial hair. AFAIK (which is nothing ) this is because of how the testosterone chemicals react a certain way to our body. It's quite possible that in our bodies that causes testosterone to make people strong and (temporary memory blank) the female version causes them to be weaker doesn't happen in Zalanthan bodies. It's impossible for us to know which part of our DNA is that does this (with our current technology) however it's quite possible that that one bit of DNA could be changed to produce the same effect in females and them still look much like us humans. Impossible to prove but fun to think about.

It doesn't, and that cannot be argued, as this is not my game to place it in, but I think it would.

I didn't get the impression you were, I got the impression you were seeking an IC answer. I had assumed you knew the OOC one (otherwise I would have said it in my first reply), and there's nothing wrong for looking for an IC answer with this type of thing. (I think some people (me included) got a bit worked up over an academic debate. It was just a theoretical debate IMO).

[Angela Christine]

The question was, "How are women as strong as men?" Testosterone/hormonal differences are the only answers I could come up with, but they didn't fall in line very correctly, due to the fact that a great many women on Zalanthas, physically, appear every much the same as humans you see walking around on Earth today.

That is easier to explain:  Not many people want to play big ol' clunky-looking amazon women.  Once you set their physical stats to be equal, sure, they should be about the same size, similar fat percentage and similar in build as well.  But roleplaying has an element of wish fulfillment, like dressing up for halloween.  Last halloween a local tv station did a human interest story from a costume shop, at this costume shop there was a strong tendancy for men to want Superhero costumes, while women choose "sexy" costumes.  Both are ways of creating a powerful persona, and wish fulfillment.

There is nothing that forces men to choose taller and heavier characters while forcing women to take shorter and lighter characters.  You can have 6 foot tall women that weigh 9 ten-stones, but most female characters are smaller than that.  There is nothing that prevents males from being 6 or 7 ten-stone, but few choose to be that light.  But if you create a character that is 7 or 8 ten-stone and then assess -v everyone you see, most women will be lighter than you and most men will be heavier than you.  Not because that is necessarily what is most normal in Zalanthas, but because that is what Terran players are most comfortable with.

Sex doesn't affect stats, but I think size does.  It may have just been coincidence, but I've found that most of my short and light characters have better agility and lower strength and endurance than my tall and heavy characters.  If so, then those who choose the smallest or largest sizes may be introducing a sex-biased difference, if most tiny characters are female and most huge characters are male.  Meanwhile, that 6', 9 ten-stone female will be (on average) as brawny as her 6', 9 ten-stone brothers.

AC

[John]

That is easier to explain

But the easy explanation is never as fun!

But roleplaying has an element of wish fulfillment

*thinks about all his char's* DEAR GOD I hope not! Or else I'm REALLY screwed up.

Not because that is necessarily what is most normal in Zalanthas, but because that is what Terran players are most comfortable with.

Okay, I have a serious question. Where on earth did this term "terran" come from? It's used in a TON of sci fi, but I have no idea where it's come from.

[Kronus]

Okay, I have a serious question. Where on earth did this term "terran" come from? It's used in a TON of sci fi, but I have no idea where it's come from.

While we like to call Earth 'Earth', its more proper name is Terra (I think!). Kinda like how we call the sun 'The Sun', but it's really been titled as Sol. So, it was assumed some 40 years ago among sci-fi writers that aliens would either call us 'Earthlings' or 'Terrans'. Terrans has been gaining more and more popularity lately, since Earthlings sounds so... well, 1950's.

[John]

I will forever be an Earthling (I think it's cooler).

Wow, thanks for that. I never knew that about the sun or even our planet. I just assumed the Sun was officially called the Sun. Sure it might be confusing for aliens when trying to learn our language, but I didn't think we'd really go and give the Sun an official name.

Thanks for that.

[Lazloth]

While we like to call Earth 'Earth', its more proper name is Terra (I think!). Kinda like how we call the sun 'The Sun', but it's really been titled as Sol. So, it was assumed some 40 years ago among sci-fi writers that aliens would either call us 'Earthlings' or 'Terrans'. Terrans has been gaining more and more popularity lately, since Earthlings sounds so... well, 1950's.

Arrogant english speakers with your latin cognates.  Where's luna?

[flurry]

On top of the possible evolutionary and biochemical differences between Earth and Zalanthas that AC pointed out, I think one factor that can't be overlooked is social gender expectations.  The way boys and girls are raised on Earth, what gender roles they are expected to fit, the types of activities they are encouraged to pursue - all influence this disparity in physical strength too.   On Zalanthas I presume it would be rare to hear things like "Oh, girls don't grow up to be warriors" or "You shouldn't roughhouse with your sister, she's going to get hurt", etc. etc.

[Supreme Allah]

Funny that you'd bring this point up. I'll repost my link from earlier.

http://www.narth.com/docs/york.html

Under the heading: "Hormones Trigger Aggression or Nurture"

At the University of Wisconsin, researchers injected testosterone into unborn female monkeys. Monkeys engage in very sex-stereotyped behavior, according to Stossel; the males are aggressive and fight, while the female monkeys typically groom and nurture the young. When the testosterone- injected females were born, they didn't groom or nurture their children. They fought and behaved like males.

[crymerci]

Rape is a trickier thing only in that you can't really force a man to get an erection, but it's pretty easy, so I suspect that, yes, women on Zalanthas are raping men (and other women).

If I were going to create a female rapist character, vaginal intercourse wouldn't be the way I'd go. I'd get myself a polished wooden codpiece or some other phallic object and rape men the way they rape women. It actually makes more sense that way, because rape isn't about sex, it's about power, and there's no better way to disempower someone than to violate the sanctity of their bodies.