Gender Prejudice

[TrashMan]

Would make excellent material for a Warhammer Fantasy/40K game. Slaaneshi cultists are not above a bit of ritual virgin sacrifice, but so far we know next to nothing about PE's setting, cultures or "Darkness" levels.

 

That's all they are about..more or less.

[cuteLittleRabbit]

It could be interesting and add depth if done well. It could also ostracize and cause anger and irritation, possibly even IF done well. Facing sexism and having gender roles ostensibly shoved in your face day after day can make this a really touchy subject for some.

 

My vote, for what it's worth: Dabble in it carefully. This is a fantasy world. I would like to escape from whatever unpleasant aspects of the real world I can, when playing in a fantasy one.

 

I agree: after a day at work I want to be able to get even when a guy shoves gender bias in my face, without risking other types of biases "because I lost my cool" .

[Lord Balgeron]

This, should definitely be in. And gender should have bigger impact on game as well, then in other games.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Lord Balgeron

[TrashMan]

 

No. HELL NO, especially if by 'certain actions' you mean the vicious and violent crime that is forced upon approximately 1 in 6 women? Are you honestly so crass as to want them to be reminded of this when they're playing a game, something that should be safe?

 

I'd rather not be reminded. And if you'd 'like to see' this, even within a game... then I worry about your future.

 

 

Wait...you telling me women are so senstive that even mentioning the word r-a-p-e causes them to fall into rage/depression/whatever?

 

Are you serious?

 

It - like murder - is a crime that is very real. Why should the developers avoid it like a plauge? IT's part of the world and human existence.

What's next? Want to demand that all movies or book that feature rape be burned? That the word is forever erased from every disctionary on the planet?

 

Dear Lord, talking about an overreaction.

 

 

Maybe you want a fantasy world full of puppies and rainbows where bad things never happen.. and it's cool. I for one don't.

 

 

Also, where do you get your statistics from?

[metiman]

It's fine if it's done tastefully.

[DreamingVoid]

I disagree on this one.

 

You could argue that they should also put racial prejudice against black people in the game but no game developer is going to do that because its unnecessary and we are past that in the real world. This isn't the real world, this is a video game with its own world created by Obsidian, they can make it different.

 

I do believe that by racial prejudice the OP meant something more along the lines of "Dwarves hating Elves", which is quite common.

[Gorth]

A: How do you save a Gnome from drowning?

 

B: I don't know...

 

A: Good!

 

Something like that? Or that elves steal babies and use them to fuel their sinister, evil rituals. Never ask a Dwarf to hold your wallet if it has any gold in it. Typical racial prejudices. Not sure anything similar could work well with genders though (not without just parroting real world issues and resorting to common stereotypes).

[IchigoRXC]

I would like to see some of the darker aspects of this in the game. People threatening you with...certain actions if playing a female.

 

The only place this would ever have in my game is when my Shar-teel esq character grabs the speaker by the hair and tells him how she is going to cut off his *redacted* and choke him with it.

Edited October 2, 2012 by IchigoRXC

[DeDaL]

A lot of interesting comments. THANK YOU for sharing your thoughts, I really appreciate it. They are interesting to know.

 

But I'd like to address a recurring theme in many opinions. Maybe it's me who was wrong naming the thread 'prejudice' or something, but most of you see this only as an outringt darkening bit. This may very well not be something bad and dark or immoral.

 

I strongly suggest the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson. In these books, most activities are clearly divided into 'masculine' and 'feminine' without it being something bad. For example - being a warrior, an officer, a hunter - are masculine; being a scholar, a healer, a magician - are feminine. Neither are better than the other. Both a male officer and a female scholar are equally respected as they are masters in their occupations. But it is highly disgraceful for a man to be literate, as reading and writing are feminine activities. And it is highly disgraceful for a woman to pursue a military career as it's a masculine activity.

 

--

 

And yes, in different game species it may be different. Forest dwarves, for example might have roles reversed. Elves might have male warriors be on a way lower societal standing than female mystics and such.

[metiman]

I don't see anything wrong with the basic idea of prejudices for adding a bit of flavor to the setting/culture. People are ridiculously oversensitive.

[Wintersong]

You could also limit human female characters to a strength of 16 out of 18 or something like that. I already do that myself for role play purposes. Anything else just doesn't seem realistic to me.

 

Actually, I personally feel that the "female characters have less strength" idea is not correct. True, on average, males are stronger than females. But it doesn't mean a female hero should be average .

But that's just my opinion (and knowing some physically strong women and emotionally wise/intuitive men ).

Physically, men and women in our reality are different. Starting by having different sex!!!

Then, supposing some "stereotypes" as bonus/penalties based on sex for the humans in PE (or any other race that has a biological history of segregrating tasks), we could have (as example):

Males +1 Strength/+1 Constitution and Females +1 Dexterity/+1 Will. The system has some minimum and some maximums, like minimum for each stat is 3 and maximum is 18, having a 10 in each stat being the baseline for the common human (or whatever race).

 

The fact that some women can be stronger than men and some men can be wiser than women is because not everybody is born as a baseline common human. Yeah, the may get the racial bonuses but their stats may not need to be all 10s (being a PC, he could use roll 3d6 for each stat, or use some kind of point buy system...). The "average human" does not really exist (or is extremelly rare) anyways. So those racial bonuses are nothing but a "tendency". If you score a 14 in Strength with a male (after bonus) and I score a 18 in Strength with a female (that has no bonus), the tendency in our cases is not true. But in the general picture of PE, your male may be true to that tendency and be stronger than most of the females of your male's race.

 

One of the groups with issues about having bonuses based on sex are munchkins/powergamers that deny their nature and say that if females have less strength than males, they would feel forced to not play female fighters because they would be at disadvantage. But hey, the one writing played NwN2 as main a female Fighter/NeverwinterNine dual wielding longswords (that require quite the dexterity score) that had like 14 Intelligence and 12 Charisma (and invested in skills like Spot or Tumble). Yeah, I think my character had like Strength 14 at level 1. Any munchkin would kill me for such bad build.

 

I don't care one way or the other about bonuses based on sex though. I think that they are nice in the same way as racial ones but I won't lose sleep about them.

 

 

 

More on topic, I have read many times that people don't want their sex choice to impact the game (lets keep romances out of the equation...) beyond the proper recognition of the PC's sex in the conversations. Hopefully, that doesn't include having social issues in a fantasy world with societies that are not real. So much for "roleplaying" if not.

[DeDaL]

Typical racial prejudices. Not sure anything similar could work well with genders though (not without just parroting real world issues and resorting to common stereotypes).

Easy. Let's think about unusual forest dwarves. Men are fishermen and woodworkers, while women are hunters and warriors. It just historically happened to be so.

 

And now your male character meets them for the first time. Dwarven women laugh you off, since a man carrying a sword is stupid and a farce to them, they are sure that a man simply isn't capable of warfare. And dwarven males outright disrespect you for "lowering yourself to brutish fighting", instead of being a true craftmaster and devoting yourself to creation like all men in their opinion should.

[DreamingVoid]

A: How do you save a Gnome from drowning?

 

B: I don't know...

 

A: Good!

 

Something like that? Or that elves steal babies and use them to fuel their sinister, evil rituals. Never ask a Dwarf to hold your wallet if it has any gold in it. Typical racial prejudices. Not sure anything similar could work well with genders though (not without just parroting real world issues and resorting to common stereotypes).

 

Both. I mean, why not? It has been done plenty of times in video games, books, & movies, old a new alike. It adds flavour to the game.

 

 

Easy. Let's think about unusual forest dwarves. Men are fishermen and woodworkers, while women are hunters and warriors. It just historically happened to be so.

 

And now your male character meets them for the first time. Dwarven women laugh you off, since a man carrying a sword is stupid and a farce to them, they are sure that a man simply isn't capable of warfare. And dwarven males outright disrespect you for "lowering yourself to brutish fighting", instead of being a true craftmaster and devoting yourself to creation like all men in their opinion should.

 

Who are these forest dwarves and where might I find them? they sound like my kind of people.

Edited October 2, 2012 by DreamingVoid

[Gorth]

Typical racial prejudices. Not sure anything similar could work well with genders though (not without just parroting real world issues and resorting to common stereotypes).

Easy. Let's think about unusual forest dwarves. Men are fishermen and woodworkers, while women are hunters and warriors. It just historically happened to be so.

 

And now your male character meets them for the first time. Dwarven women laugh you off, since a man carrying a sword is stupid and a farce to them, they are sure that a man simply isn't capable of warfare. And dwarven males outright disrespect you for "lowering yourself to brutish fighting", instead of being a true craftmaster and devoting yourself to creation like all men in their opinion should.

 

Isn't that just the real world stereotype with gender roles reversed?

 

Many cultures have had gender "typical" roles over the millennia, from Vestal Virgins to male cannon fodder on the fields of battle. Since there are only two genders (in most cases), it sorts of limits the choice of assignment to a binary choice unlike say, races where if you have 10 races and maybe 30 subclasses, you can much better assign various stereotypical biases and prejudices.

 

Personally, I'm in favour of the "Celtic model" where gender mattered way less than individual prowess when it came to roles. But that is just my particular taste/opinion, doesn't make it right or wrong

[Poolp]

If done correctly it could help making the game more immersive, but please don't affect char stats or you will only see female rogues and mal warrior...

 

I'd rather see some dialog options changing and depending on the cultur and society where the player is to have a slight dialogue advantage / disadvantage .

[NOK222]

I'd rather not be reminded. And if you'd 'like to see' this, even within a game... then I worry about your future.

 

Hold your horses white knight, and leave the petty insults to BSN. First off Don Quixote, I meant threathened not the actual action. Maybe the...no, actually I'm not going to say anything else since this makes people go ****ing crazy

[DreamingVoid]

Personally, I'm in favour of the "Celtic model" where gender mattered way less than individual prowess when it came to roles. But that is just my particular taste/opinion, doesn't make it right or wrong

 

I like that, believe me, I do. But I just feel it would be a little bit.. too much "rainbow" if all these races, cultures, religions, & politics found a way to coexist peacefully with eachother. I want it to be some strife in the world, one the the player can influence and hopefully change, for better or worse.

 

I can tell you now I would go straight for the "Celtic model".

Edited October 2, 2012 by DreamingVoid

[Jarmo]

Then, supposing some "stereotypes" as bonus/penalties based on sex for the humans in PE (or any other race that has a biological history of segregrating tasks), we could have (as example):

Males +1 Strength/+1 Constitution and Females +1 Dexterity/+1 Will. The system has some minimum and some maximums, like minimum for each stat is 3 and maximum is 18, having a 10 in each stat being the baseline for the common human (or whatever race).

 

Nah, that's just being PC.

If you wanted to be realistic, it'd be something like: Males +2 strength. And nothing else.

If you want to be PC, it's better to use the old "no difference" than to start fabricating stuff.

 

It's obvious men are bigger and stronger, but with gameplay features that's about it. Completely unfair, but women are not

more intelligent or dextrous, or anything, (unless by a tiny percentage) while men are significantly larger and stronger.

 

One could argue women have higher charisma, but even that disregards lots of stuff, and is based on cultural bias.

(the same bias that causes men to seem to have better leadership skills, ie charisma)

[cuteLittleRabbit]

Then, supposing some "stereotypes" as bonus/penalties based on sex for the humans in PE (or any other race that has a biological history of segregrating tasks), we could have (as example):

Males +1 Strength/+1 Constitution and Females +1 Dexterity/+1 Will. The system has some minimum and some maximums, like minimum for each stat is 3 and maximum is 18, having a 10 in each stat being the baseline for the common human (or whatever race).

 

Nah, that's just being PC.

If you wanted to be realistic, it'd be something like: Males +2 strength. And nothing else.

If you want to be PC, it's better to use the old "no difference" than to start fabricating stuff.

 

It's obvious men are bigger and stronger, but with gameplay features that's about it. Completely unfair, but women are not

more intelligent or dextrous, or anything, (unless by a tiny percentage) while men are significantly larger and stronger.

 

One could argue women have higher charisma, but even that disregards lots of stuff, and is based on cultural bias.

(the same bias that causes men to seem to have better leadership skills, ie charisma)

 

See, this kind of bias is something I would really like to see in the game: then I could give the one saying it some "butt-kicking for goodness!" .

 

Thanks for giving the example. I really hope for your sake you were just trolling .

[Shaz]

Wait...you telling me women are so senstive that even mentioning the word r-a-p-e causes them to fall into rage/depression/whatever?

 

Are you serious?

It's called a 'trigger', common in psychological traumas. Different things will be triggers to different people. And I never said anything about simply mentioning it, I have no idea where you got that idea from. But having an NPC in the game that might make moves towards threatening or attempting it, now that's something else entirely, and is the entire reason I posted my 'This? No. HELL NO.' response.

 

It - like murder - is a crime that is very real. Why should the developers avoid it like a plauge? IT's part of the world and human existence.

What's next? Want to demand that all movies or book that feature rape be burned? That the word is forever erased from every disctionary on the planet?

 

Dear Lord, talking about an overreaction.

 

 

Maybe you want a fantasy world full of puppies and rainbows where bad things never happen.. and it's cool. I for one don't.

I think you're the one over-reacting. All I said was to dabble carefully in gender issues... meaning particularly the volatile ones, which I assume Obsidian was going to do anyway. I never said to avoid them completely, nor did I make any demands even remotely like you're insinuating whatsoever. I just would like to not be potentially assaulted by a rapist again, even if it's pixelated one, as the person I quoted was alluding to, which is why I said 'HELL NO'. Is that seriously asking too much?

 

Also, where do you get your statistics from?

 

It's a terribly easy to find, fairly well-known statistic. If you're actually interested, you can try a NYTimes column reporting on a study by the National Institute of Justice & the Department of Defense, or look into more in-depth information on RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network).

Edited October 2, 2012 by Shaz

[Jarmo]

Thanks for giving the example. I really hope for your sake you were just trolling .

 

No. Seriously. Men have bigger bodies and that's about it.

Is that really such a horribly sexist thing to claim that I'm all broken up misogynist for it?

[cuteLittleRabbit]

Typical racial prejudices. Not sure anything similar could work well with genders though (not without just parroting real world issues and resorting to common stereotypes).

Easy. Let's think about unusual forest dwarves. Men are fishermen and woodworkers, while women are hunters and warriors. It just historically happened to be so.

 

And now your male character meets them for the first time. Dwarven women laugh you off, since a man carrying a sword is stupid and a farce to them, they are sure that a man simply isn't capable of warfare. And dwarven males outright disrespect you for "lowering yourself to brutish fighting", instead of being a true craftmaster and devoting yourself to creation like all men in their opinion should.

 

Isn't that just the real world stereotype with gender roles reversed?

 

Many cultures have had gender "typical" roles over the millennia, from Vestal Virgins to male cannon fodder on the fields of battle. Since there are only two genders (in most cases), it sorts of limits the choice of assignment to a binary choice unlike say, races where if you have 10 races and maybe 30 subclasses, you can much better assign various stereotypical biases and prejudices.

 

Personally, I'm in favour of the "Celtic model" where gender mattered way less than individual prowess when it came to roles. But that is just my particular taste/opinion, doesn't make it right or wrong

 

I like Sanderson's take on it too. Maybe best to sum it up like this:

* Roles are linked to genders, based on your culture/heritage

* There is no bias against genders, but there is bias against going outside the roles the society links to your gender

* The bias doesn't show itself in what you are allowed to do, but shows itself mostly in how people react to you doing it

 

Think of a Drow going against "his nature" and going to the surface to do "good deeds"...

Think of a woman getting judged by an amazon-like tribe because she doesn't carry weapons...

Think of a man getting judged by dwarves because he uses magic, while such a thing should be done only by women...

Think of an elven woman thrown in jail in a human town because she took an apple from a marketing stall, "and aren't women allowed to do exactly that here? They should have told me that I would be treated as a male, before I left my hometown!"...

 

 

Think of the possibilities

[Shaz]

I'd rather not be reminded. And if you'd 'like to see' this, even within a game... then I worry about your future.

 

Hold your horses white knight, and leave the petty insults to BSN. First off Don Quixote, I meant threathened not the actual action. Maybe the...no, actually I'm not going to say anything else since this makes people go ****ing crazy

 

Thanks for coming back and clarifying. While I still dislike even the idea of being threatened with it (you likely would to, had you suffered from it), it does lower my hackles having you explain yourself more. I also wasn't meaning to be insulting, just that - if you meant the phrase the way I took it to mean - I was honestly worried about your interests.

 

I know the response you quoted got your hackles raised as much as your first one got mine, but I want to re-iterate my appreciation for your clarification here. I mean it: thanks.

[utgardloki]

See, this kind of bias is something I would really like to see in the game: then I could give the one saying it some "butt-kicking for goodness!" .

 

Thanks for giving the example. I really hope for your sake you were just trolling .

are you seriously denying that men are stronger than women? for real?

[Meshugger]

Then, supposing some "stereotypes" as bonus/penalties based on sex for the humans in PE (or any other race that has a biological history of segregrating tasks), we could have (as example):

Males +1 Strength/+1 Constitution and Females +1 Dexterity/+1 Will. The system has some minimum and some maximums, like minimum for each stat is 3 and maximum is 18, having a 10 in each stat being the baseline for the common human (or whatever race).

 

Nah, that's just being PC.

If you wanted to be realistic, it'd be something like: Males +2 strength. And nothing else.

If you want to be PC, it's better to use the old "no difference" than to start fabricating stuff.

 

It's obvious men are bigger and stronger, but with gameplay features that's about it. Completely unfair, but women are not

more intelligent or dextrous, or anything, (unless by a tiny percentage) while men are significantly larger and stronger.

 

One could argue women have higher charisma, but even that disregards lots of stuff, and is based on cultural bias.

(the same bias that causes men to seem to have better leadership skills, ie charisma)

 

See, this kind of bias is something I would really like to see in the game: then I could give the one saying it some "butt-kicking for goodness!" .

 

Thanks for giving the example. I really hope for your sake you were just trolling .

 

Uh, so you want a fantasy setting where men, in general, are not bigger and stronger and females? You do realize that the physiology have to change as well to accommodate this, right?