Sex/Gender Roles in D&D

[Gamebird]

My husband (who may well be full of it) says that the career of Tim Curry was greatly damaged by his role of the very perverse Frank-n-furter on the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And that in the 70s at least, playing a deviant character pigeon-holed a major actor into only those sorts of roles, since it was thought the public couldn't look at them with fresh eyes. Similar to how some people get typecast into playing villains.

I don't know much about the acting world though. Nor about Patrick Stewart's sexuality. Though it's amusing to think that the public in the early 90s was prepared to accept an android male (Data) expressing himself sexually more than a gay male (if Patrick Stewart was gay) expressing himself sexually. I just took Brokeback Mountain back to the post office this morning for Netflix. My husband never did watch it, though I didn't expect him to. I got it for my own curiosity, even though romances aren't my thing (in which respect, the movie was unsurprising - the first half up on the mountain roughing it was cool to me, but the second half of moody pining after each other in dead-end lives got stale fast).

[Turcano]

I think that if saying that certain physical traits are attractive in the opposite sex, then everybody in the world is a "chauvinist" to the point of the word having no true meaning.

I think some people are in need of a certain spell, so I will reproduce it here:

Detect Sarcasm

Divination

{table]Level:|Brd 1, Clr 1, Drd 1, Rng 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components:|V, S, DF
Casting Time:|1 standard action
Range:|60 ft.
Area:|Cone-shaped emanation
Duration:|Concentration, up to 10 min/level (D)
Saving Throw:|None
Spell Resistance:|No[/table]

You can sense the presence of sarcasm. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject.

1st Round

Presence or absence of sarcasm.

2nd Round

Number of sarcastic auras (creatures, objects, or spells) in the area and the power of the most potent sarcastic aura present.
If you are of non-sarcastic alignment, and the strongest sarcastic aura’s power is overwhelming (see below), and the HD or level of the aura’s source is at least twice your character level, you are stunned for 1 round and the spell ends.

3rd Round

The power and location of each aura. If an aura is outside your line of sight, then you discern its direction but not its exact location.

Aura Power

A sarcastic aura’s power depends on the type of sarcastic creature or object that you’re detecting and its HD, caster level, or (in the case of a cleric) class level; see the accompanying table. If an aura falls into more than one strength category, the spell indicates the stronger of the two.

{table=head]Creature/Object|Faint|Moderate|Strong|Overwhelming

Sarcastic creature¹ (HD)|10 or lower|11-25|26-50|51 or higher
Undead (HD)|2 or lower|3-8|9-20|21 or higher
Sarcastic outsider (HD)|1 or lower|2-4|5-10|11 or higher
Cleric of a sarcastic deity² (class levels)|1|2-4|5-10|11 or higher
Sarcastic magic item or spell (caster level)|2nd or lower|3rd-8th|9th-20th|21st or higher[/table]
¹Except for undead and outsiders, which have their own entries on the table.
²Some characters who are not clerics may radiate an aura of equivalent power. The class description will indicate whether this applies.

Lingering Aura

A sarcastic aura lingers after its original source dissipates (in the case of a spell) or is destroyed (in the case of a creature or magic item). If detect sarcasm is cast and directed at such a location, the spell indicates an aura strength of dim (even weaker than a faint aura). How long the aura lingers at this dim level depends on its original power:

{table=head]Original Strength|Duration of Lingering Aura

Faint|1d6 rounds

Moderate|1d6 minutes

Strong|1d6 x10 minutes

Overwhelming|1d6 days[/table]

Each round, you can turn to detect sarcasm in a new area. The spell can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it.

[Gamebird]

Wait, undead are automatically sarcastic?!? ::claps hand to forehead::

[Turcano]

Not automatically, but if they are sarcastic, their aura is twice as strong. (see: Xykon.)

[Dark]

{table] Range:|60 ft.[/table]
There's your problem. It doesn't work over the net.

[Jayabalard]

Patrick Stewart is gay? Huh. I'll bet if that had been known by the general public before he began Star Trek: The Next Generation, that he would not have been selected.

For me, "the last few years" is the last decade. Coming Out in the early 90s was still a risky proposition. In the 80s it was career suicide. In the 70s people were still sometimes assaulted or killed for things like that. (Edit: Actually they're still assaulted or killed today, but it's much rarer.)
The piece I was responding to wasn't talking about coming out, just a straight male playing a gay one (ie, his character in Jeffrey, 1995). Patrick Stewart is quite straight as far as I know, aside from tabloid nonsense that appears about all celebrities from time to time. I did read one bit that claimed
If anyone will accept London Theatre gossip as a cite, then not only is Patrick Stewart not gay, but he is what we in the milieu call a dawg. Pretty much every pretty girl in the theatre in London has some sort of 'Patrick Stewart cracked on to me' story.

For me 12 years would be a stretch for "in the last few years"

[Gamebird]

For me 12 years would be a stretch for "in the last few years"

If I was talking about changes in D&D, then the last 12 years wouldn't be "in the last few years". But if talking about changes in modern thought, which I think of as spanning from about 1900 to present, then the last 12 years seems pretty recent to me. If we were talking about something really ancient, like theology, I might skip the "last few years" bit and say "now" or "current thought is...".

It's all a matter of scale and context.

[Turcano]

There's your problem. It doesn't work over the net.

Yeah, but it works on your computer, which is in range (assuming you're within 60 feet of your computer when you use the internet, which is a fairly save assumption).

[Dhavaer]

Yeah, but it works on your computer, which is in range (assuming you're within 60 feet of your computer when you use the internet, which is a fairly save assumption).

You need 8 levels of Technomage to get Online Casting to do that, though.

[Norsesmithy]

There's my point. You're not telling me about the sexual attractiveness of male characters. Someone who designs and plays a male character who is not sexually attractive need fear no particular repercussions in most D&D games. A person who designs and plays a female character who is not sexually attractive will have a pretty good chance of dealing with commentary. Well, actually even if their character IS sexually attractive, there will still be commentary.
The little comments about how the various types of female characters could be attractive regardless of stat block was largely tongue in cheek, although, as far as I can recall, most of the characters in the campaigns of all sorts were at least "Home-y", if not stunning model types. Perhaps they had scars or flat dull hair, or big teeth, but they were all at least average.

Though the "Valkyrie" that I referred to was described as attractive and had a habit of binding herself and cross-dressing, at least in big cities, (though most the campaign was in the deep wilderness, so that wasn't often) and even ended up dancing the night away with a princess at a feast (mainly because she had here eyes on the Paladin, same as the PC fighter, and the PC fighter decided that the best way to avert direct conflict was to pull the princess's eyes elsewhere, while the chief constable helped her by arranging for the Paladin to be "needed" by the City Watch). The Paladin kept chaste throughout the campaign proper (much to the chagrin of the Fighter, she had a distinct sense of her own mortality and didn't want to die a virgin), but did eventually marry the Fighter (NPCs for whenever we use that campaign setting again).

Sidetracked there, What my point is, is that I have only once gone adventuring with someone deliberately described as unattractive, and I still don't know the gender of that PC (grossly anorexic wizard, like 65 lbs, and a human). S/He kept getting mistaken for a Lich.

[Zincorium]

Yeah, but it works on your computer, which is in range (assuming you're within 60 feet of your computer when you use the internet, which is a fairly save assumption).

Yeah, but the problem is that it's not the computer being sarcastic, or the web page. It's the person typing, who is probably not within range.

[Turcano]

You need 8 levels of Technomage to get Online Casting to do that, though.

I thought you could get it as a metamagic feat too, though. Also, would round 2 detect auras on the entire internet or just the open page? The former would probably make the caster's head explode.

Okay, I think I've derailed this thread for long enough.

[Dhavaer]

I thought you could get it as a metamagic feat too, though. Also, would round 2 detect auras on the entire internet or just the open page? The former would probably make the caster's head explode.

Okay, I think I've derailed this thread for long enough.

You need to choose a particular device for the effect to emanate from. So you could only detect one person at once, unless that computer was being used by more than one person.

[AtomicKitKat]

Would you consider her (http://ggxlol.highervoltage.net/baiken/index.html) unattractive? She's missing an eye, and an arm. :)

In all seriousness though. I remember making a statement about the tradition of socially inept(low Charisma) geeks playing D&D, and resenting the Charismatic types. At the same time, they also play the guy that they were not, the muscular, dashing swordsman. Ok. New resolution. Next game, I'll play the big hausfrau half-orc, who goes around bashing people with a cast-iron skillet. :D

[Indon]

There's your problem. It doesn't work over the net.

I use the metamagic feat "Tube Spell" with it, which removes its' range requirement on the internet.

[Dervag]

Bleat might be more appropriate. Goat's milk is the most chemically similar to human's.True. On the other hand, cows tend to give more milk and do so more readily; which is why there have been plenty of societies that used both.


Testosterone is a painkiller.Well there you go, then.


You make that sound like a bad thing.Well, I could equally well say that I live in an industrial society dominated concepts in which having huge families is a bad idea and tends to lower one's status. I meant it as a basically neutral sociological observation.

[LotharBot]

Would you consider her (http://ggxlol.highervoltage.net/baiken/index.html) unattractive?

Physically, she's attractive. But pretty much all women are attractive. What sets her apart is she's dressed in such a way that she invites pursuit indiscriminantly.

IMO that distinction is important. The issue not so much the characters being described as "physically attractive", but the associated behavior -- the invitation or even initiation of pursuit from all directions. I don't think I've ever played with anyone who's made an "attractive" character who was also, say, devoted to their wife/husband back home. It's always "I'm attractive, by which I mean, I want at least 2 other PC's to fight over my companionship."

You simply don't have a lot of characters whose concept is "I'm attractive and happily married", and you don't have a lot of groups that would take that at face value; the most likely response is "she's playing hard-to-get."

I have a feeling this would be quite a bit different if you played D&D with, say, grandma jane and aunt maggie. But when your main demographic is teens and twenty-somethings, and 90% male, there's just not a lot of room for people to play a "normal" woman who's not looking for attention. In a room full of 8 male D&D players, nobody is interested in talking about how their male character is attractive, but a lot of guys who play a female character are going to imagine her as attractive (I think we're wired that way) and a lot of women in a room full of male geeks are going to be conscious of attractiveness and therefore mention it in their character concept. Change the demographics of who's playing and you change the character concepts.

(Just as a simple example: when I play D&D with my wife, 2 of my brothers playing male characters, and 2 of my sisters playing female characters, nobody bothers talking about character attractiveness. It's just not on anybody's mind.)

[Dhavaer]

I don't think I've ever played with anyone who's made an "attractive" character who was also, say, devoted to their wife/husband back home.

That might be at least partly because someone devoted to their spouse probably won't be doing much adventuring, unless they're adventuring with said spouse.

[AtomicKitKat]

That might be at least partly because someone devoted to their spouse probably won't be doing much adventuring, unless they're adventuring with said spouse.

Seconded. If you get married to someone who likes D&D, make it work. I'd hate to see the inheritance fights though.:smallbiggrin:

[Zincorium]

Seconded. If you get married to someone who likes D&D, make it work. I'd hate to see the inheritance fights though.:smallbiggrin:

Erm, I thought we were talking about in-game marriages, not out of game ones?

I have seen the latter, although both people played, and since they were an older couple we had very little to worry about as far as favoritism.

[Tengu]

Would you consider her (http://ggxlol.highervoltage.net/baiken/index.html) unattractive?
Well, from Baiken's generally coarse behaviour, I wouldn't consider her a character who has a lot of charisma - she's not the type that could make others do what she wants to, one way or another, and usually prefers not to anyway, going for the "let me leave or I'll fight you" option instead. Though I still like her.

[Em]

In reply to Dhavaer - if a random guy complimented me on my eyes, I would just stare at him like he'd grown another head. It's not OK - it's so badly cheesy that I'd cringe. I'd far rather someone said I had a nice arse, at least that would be amusing - and more honest!
I mean, I bet my fiance has no idea even what colour my eyes are.

BACK on topic... this thread is extremely long. To put it simply, I'd far rather GMs took more responsibility for gender roles in their worlds - if the rules started enforcing too much stuff, immature groups full of 13-year-old boys would have a field day... and because the crunchy stuff would change depending on gender roles in the world, anyway.

[EvilElitest]

One more reason why WOTC does not have rules for human's gender is
When people say men get a +2 strengh and women get a +Wisdom, well that is kinda insulting. In real life, yeah the vast majority of men are stronger and the vast majory of women can multi task better, mature younger ect.
I can't speak for the ladies, but as a man it is insulting to say that my gender has less common sense. I've met dumb guys and dumb girls. Does not work out.
from,
EE