Re: Luir's Whores

[Larrath]

There are, very roughly, two types of commoners in Zalanthas; the Delicate (bards and aides) and the Rough (Bynners and hunters).

The equality of the sexes means that there is no difference between a Delicate-type woman and a Delicate-type man, or a Rough-type man and a Rough-type woman.
A female noble's aide is probably much weaker than a male Bynner, but so would a male aide be weaker than a female Bynner.

And this is it, really.  Can a Delicate-type expect a Rough-type to open doors or vacate chairs for them?  Not really, but the Rough-type could do it if they wanted to be nice or impress the Delicate.

Delicates and Roughs.  And don't think for a moment that Delicates are socially superior to the Roughs -- this is the range:

Code Select Expand


Delicate                       Rough
Street performer         <-->   Miner
Novice bard               <-->   Lone hunter
Indie bard/Novice aide  <  Recruit/Byn Trooper
Aide/employed Bard    <<       Private
Senior Aide/Concubine (approx. 20) <-->       Sergeant  (approx. 50)
Administrator (approx. 4 per House)  >           Lieutenant  (approx. 16 per House)
Very powerful merchant  (approx. 10) <    Captain (approx. 3)
Minor Merchant House head   <<<  General
Great Merchant House Magnate  >  General


So that's that.  Delicates are Delicates and Roughs are Roughs, and the sex makes no difference.  A female Bynner is every bit as competent and filthy as a male Bynner, and a male House Aide is just as slutty.

[Clearsighted]

Yet the majority of 'rough' types will still be male, and the majority of 'delicate' types will be female. Despite both having equal opportunity, most will gravitate to the path of least resistance. I am not going to throw out any numbers for how significant a diversion (I doubt even staff knows), yet I think the NPC and PC populations are correct. Or at least, if the NPC and PC populations are not correct, then staff has deemed it is too insignificant to 'correct' it.

You'll be hard pressed to find any senior male concubines, afterall.  And given that most women gravitate towards the merchantly, aide, bard, prostitute professions, and that men will probably gravitate towards hunting, soldiering, etc (yet with plenty of diffusion) must be expected.

Afterall, an extremely significant biological imperative that makes females of a species more 'settled' than males, is because in order to procreate, they must be pregnant for the better part of a year. A pregnant female Bynner would not keep their child past the 1st trimester. Nor would a pregnant female hunter put much food on the table in the 2nd or 3rd. So you're going to find females, (at least those whom procreate) gravitating towards more stable professions. There is also a much higher chance of survival if a pregnant female has another to provide for it, and that will likely be the father of the child.

No matter how politically correct Zalanthas wants to be (which somehow doesn't apply to murderous rampages) there are still biological imperatives rooted in one's chromesomes, that will cause each half of the population to veer in slightly different directions.

Unless I somehow missed it in the file that men on Zalanthas can and do give birth too.

It just bothers me from several different angles when someone (not you, Larrath) insists on misinterpreting equal as identical.

[Barzalene]

The thing about the npcs achieving stereotypical masculine and feminine ideals is that they weren't born of zalanthan parents, but rather earth raised players. Many of them were written over ten years ago. This is correctable. Let's get writing and submitting.

[Larrath]

The thing about the npcs achieving stereotypical masculine and feminine ideals is that they weren't born of zalanthan parents, but rather earth raised players. Many of them were written over ten years ago. This is correctable. Let's get writing and submitting.

Yeah.

And the same goes for PCs - they're written by players, and unfortunately many players do believe in gender-roles, even though Zalanthas typically doesn't follow that.  And it has nothing to do with In-Game political correctness; there's simply no reason for the discrimination in the first place.  The 'path of least resistance' is defined by the character's abilities, not sex.
A good-looking but frail human with a sharp mind would find it much easier to work as an aide, a merchant or a bard than to work as a professional gladiator.

On an OOC level, sure, it's political correctness.  But that's just part of the game, love it or leave it.

About pregnancy, by the way, an important note: most Zalanthan commoners have large families with multiple spouses, unlike the PCs that live either alone or in pairs (not counting tribes).  A female Bynner that got pregnant would have her family and spouses take care of her, and she would probably find productive work to do while pregnant.  And if the baby proved to be too much of a burden, she'd just take it to a group of slavers and sell it.


I've played and seen many male House Aides and other male Delicates, and it doesn't really seem to be any harder for them than it is for women...except that, due to OOC reasons, female characters are more desired whenever any mudsex is concerned.  But even this is pretty trivial.
I've also seen Rough females, and the ones that didn't look like Delicates (ie, misfits) weren't really given a hard time by any good player, as far as I can tell.

There will always be that one player that gets everything all wrong and tell a female Byn Sergeant that she belongs in the kitchen and call a Kadian Master Agent a wimp, but this is generally the same guy that spits in the templar's face, regularly finds dozens of oases within three leagues of the city gate, and can instantly recover from crippling injuries by sleeping them off for a couple of hours.
Personally, I try not to pay too much attention to that player.

[Gimfalisette]

It just bothers me from several different angles when someone (not you, Larrath) insists on misinterpreting equal as identical.

Being the "someone" you're referring to in an oh-so-veiled fashion, let me restate what I've said, since you clearly didn't get it. I did not say that males and females are physically identical. Obviously they're not, because there are the reproductive systems to take into account. However, I -did- say that males and females are equally strong, smart, fast, enduring, etc. And yes, I would contend that they are equally horny, too. Larrath pretty much said everything else I would have said to you. I think you need to deal with the fact that the game world is different than -you- think it should be.

Personally, I've played physically weak females, and I've played completely-ready-and-able-to-kick-your-ass-across-the-room females. I've played females who were genteel and some with no manners at all. I've played smart and I've played dumb, I've played pretty and I've played gritty. I've played lusty and I've played uninterested. I wish more players would play kick-ass females, but as Barzalene mentioned, the real-world sexism of the players too often leaks into the game.

[LoD]

Clearsighted, I think you're falling into the same trap that I did in the thread from which both of these statements were pulled.  My arguement was, simply, "The fact that women are the only gender capable of giving birth would have a profound effect upon the gender roles created in a given society, regardless of whether the genders were equal."  

However, that's not the point and has no bearing on the policy.

The point is that the basis of this policy concerns playability and requires the suspension of disbelief with regards to the equality of men and women , no matter what biological or social challenges might realistically exist in the current model.

Two good points from a previous thread:

The reason for this policy is because of playabililty. No player should be required to play a male character in order to have fun. No player should be required to play a male character to gain entrance to a certain clan (unfortunately this is not entirely the case) or to rise in rank within a clan. No player should see their character disrespected, disregarded, or ignored just because they are not playing a male character.

It's not a matter of men and women being constructed differently. It's not a matter of who bears the children. It's not a matter of who is stronger, or smarter, or more nurturing. It's that men and women are valued equally in the game. They can both rise to positions of leadership, they can inherit property, and on and on.

What does that mean in theory? Things like the following:
Being as ready to assume a male leader slept his way to power as a female one.
Knowing that a female Byn sergeant has as strong a chance of kicking your butt as that male one.
Not marking women as outside the norm linguistically.

If you notice places where you think this needs to be addressed, feel free to post something in the submissions forum. I'd be glad to see more female soldiers, or half giants, or whatever. When I'm building, I try to keep a 50/50 ratio, but there's over a decade's worth of building here and I'm sure we're skewed.

-LoD

[Bebop]

Those last two quotes are good ones.  I didn't intend to initiate a discuss really on sexism or biology or anything like that.

Really the core issue with me in my question was the balance in NPC gender and the roles that the NPCs themselves express.  I find that there are some - like a said real life gender specific roles implemented through many of the NPCs like the lacking of male whores in a place renowned for their whores, which is now being fixed it seems.  But that is not the only place we see this.

[manonfire]

I find myself wondering where magickers fit into the rough/delicate theme.

[Larrath]

I find myself wondering where magickers fit into the rough/delicate theme.

They don't; magickers aren't people.
More seriously, magickers are on a completely different tier, since most people don't view them as 'delicate' or 'rough', but rather as 'soul-eating monsters of ass destruction'.

I also didn't include Crafters, most Merchant House ranks and Nobility; it's just not really related to the point.  It's a demonstration, anyway, and not an accurate explanation of what Zalanthan society is like.

[Rindan]

I find myself wondering where magickers fit into the rough/delicate theme.

It fits any way the magiker wants it to fit.  A magiker could be the very picture of a dirty vulgar bastard who loves to drink the blood of his enemies, or he could be a dainty fellow who suffers a fit if one of the unclean masses spills a drink on his nice new shirt.  Further, there is nothing wrong with a noble aid that can break a few necks.  I am sure some nobles would love to have an aid that can get his way by threatening or enacting violence when subtly fails.  Don't pen yourself into stereotypes.  Zalanthas is a harsh world with room for plenty of personalities.

[Clearsighted]

I agree 100% with Sanvean's quote on the matter, which is what I was trying to get across. That there can still be traditional masculine and feminine roles, but that each would be equally valued. Women don't have to have the same biological imperatives that men have or vice versa. Afterall, in Zalanthas, the true determiner of value is survival. Something that we have not had in our cultural consciousness for thousands of years. In fact, Earth is so incredibly supportive of life, especially human life, that one could argue it has made us culturally lazy. There are many wierd technicalities of human culture only possible from how easy it is to survive, and this goes back...a dozen millenia.

[spawnloser]

Actually, Earth isn't supportive of human life...we work to conquer the Earth so that it is supportive of human life.  What I mean by this is that we don't live off the land, but make the land support us by force.

I still maintain that while the code says that males and females are 'statistically' equal, even though they have differing biological roles to play...does NOT mean that there are stereotypical roles for males or females, but there are practical roles that certain people must play due to the biology of their gender and nothing more.