From: batemanc@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Mad Chris)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Sexism in Gaming
Date: 7 Oct 92 12:09:50 GMT

cn0n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Cynthia K. Neelan) writes:

>As a relatively new gamer I have read with interest your comments on
>Sexism in
>the wording of GM's and Players Guides.  I personally have no
>objection whatsoever to using male pronouns as generic terms.

Fair enough. But it's not neccessary. It is possible to word any rule
set so that you don't use the terms 'he', 'his' everywhere. I use
'they', 'their' and so forth in general cases, and it does not make the
rules unreadable. 

e.g.

"If a player wishes his character to do <action> he must <action>."

becomes

"If a player wishes to do <action>, they must <action>."

I also tend to alternate between male and female characters in examples 
of play.

>However sexism in roleplay games very much DOES exist.  I currently
>play in three ongoing campaings that meet once a week in rotation.  I
>play a female charachters.  I am a female.  :)  The problems that I
>have experienced are two fold:

>I)  Obvious lack of Female NPC's

This may well be peculiar to your game, because it is not what I have
experienced (of course, I might jsut be lucky :> ). Certainly in the 
games I run the female NPC's are absolutely vital. In my Cyberpunk game
alone, two major enemies, one major ally and two major (neutral) characters
are female. This is compared to one major enemy, two minor enemies, one 
major ally and one major neutral character being male. This is not something
I plan: that's just how things are at the moment.

Also, I can't think of any game I've played in where less than 20% of the 
PC's have been female (that's the characters, not the people playing them).
Usually, the ratio rises to about 50-50. And the female characters (rarely)
come out as female-stereotypes.

>II)  Male answer syndrome, or No *YOU* can't do that... but *I*
>can.....

I have never encountered this. Female players are always treated 
equitably in my groups, although it does sometimes arise that the 
female player doesn't know the rules, and hence resorts to another
player for advise. I don't think this really qualifies as sexism.

>IN DEFENCE OF MY MALE COUNTERPARTS:
> Two men in separate campaigns decided to play women characters.
>Cool.  I was surprised.

It's not that uncommon, in fact. There are a lot of heroine addicts
out there. You have to watch, however, because many people tend to 
play "man-in-a-woman's-body".

>I love RPG's, and hope to continue playing them whenever I can.

Good for you. I reckon much of your problems with regards to 
lack of female NPC's is your GM's fault. What fantasy novels
does he read? Moorcock very frequently uses good female characters
and even the (dreadful) To(ta)l(ly un)keen has very powerful
female characters. It's one of the few things I can respect about
his work.

On a related note, does anyone know of any other game (apart from
'Outlands') in which player characters and NPC's are not expressed
as sex and age but as Sex, Sexuality (hetro, homo, bi, none), Race
(Origin), Ethnicity (Caucasion, Negroid, Oriental... ) and age?

Keep smiling.

Mad Chris.
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy