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Talakeal
2021-02-15, 02:59 PM
I am trying to make my game / campaign setting more inclusive for various gender and sexual identities, but I don't really know how to go about it.

My setting is roughly equivalent to nineteenth century Earth, but far more egalitarian, without rigidly defined gender roles. In addition, alchemy makes seamlessly changing one's biological sex something which is, while not easy or commonplace, something that is achievable for most people.

I can't personally really see how many of the modern gender identities would fit into such a setting outside of very specific circumstances.


Likewise, when it comes to writing up specific setting NPCs, I don't generally mention family unless it is important for the setting (for example, a dynastic family) because I want to leave it open for other people to develop as they see fit, and because it would also feel forced / tokenist to simply insert a context less line about someone's sexuality or AGAB into their biography. Likewise, I prefer to leave NPCs sexuality ambiguous in my games in case a player wants to romance them.

So, while I have had trans, gender fluid, intersex, and homo/bi/pan sexual NPCs in games that I have run, very little of it comes across in the official NPC write-ups or setting design.



On a related note, what is the proper ratio of male to female characters in artwork? A common sense answer would obviously be 50/50, I have had several people comment about how there are already too many drawings of women despite them only making up about 40% of the artwork.
To go further down that rabbit hole, do you think male gamers are more or less likely to be interested in a game with lots of female representation in the artwork? And vice versa?
And, a little deeper, does it matter how sexualized the art is? I try and avoid out and out cheesecake (its tough, I have found that a lot of artists want to draw it even if not requested), but most of the illustrations are of conventionally attractive people regardless of gender. Likewise, while I am trying to display a wide array of clothing styles and body types, a large portion of the illustrations do depict people who are scantily clad or with unrealistic physiques.

Thanks!

Batcathat
2021-02-15, 03:37 PM
To go further down that rabbit hole, do you think male gamers are more or less likely to be interested in a game with lots of female representation in the artwork?

Some? Absolutely. Though I would guess/hope that they'd be a loud minority at most.

And if it was me, I'd probably go with the common sense answer about the artwork, if equality is fairly decent in this world it should be reflected in the pictures. (Don't forget the anonymous people in the crowd scenes. Women can be faceless mooks of an evil overlord too. :smallwink: )

Xervous
2021-02-15, 03:39 PM
The biggest things I see you having to work against are the unspoken assumptions of your audience. You have a drastic divergence from the general “19th century” label that needs to be explored in the setting source material in order to properly ground expectations. Just how far back does the discovery of the alchemical gender changing means go? What was life like before then, how have the echoes of that discovery propagated over the years/ages? I’d assume you want it to be deep in the past so few remain who could know a tradition founded in its absence.

If you want to see how things would fit you need to look back to the initial introduction and chart out how the alchemy changed society from the normal common reference point.

Do note that in the absence of high yield farming techniques you’re probably looking at a lot of subsistence level farmers that will be worrying more about their next meal/time the roof leaks than how the neighbors two miles over should be addressing them. The alchemy is probably more readily accessible in urban areas due to higher demand.

Talakeal
2021-02-15, 04:36 PM
The biggest things I see you having to work against are the unspoken assumptions of your audience. You have a drastic divergence from the general “19th century” label that needs to be explored in the setting source material in order to properly ground expectations. Just how far back does the discovery of the alchemical gender changing means go? What was life like before then, how have the echoes of that discovery propagated over the years/ages? I’d assume you want it to be deep in the past so few remain who could know a tradition founded in its absence.

If you want to see how things would fit you need to look back to the initial introduction and chart out how the alchemy changed society from the normal common reference point.

Do note that in the absence of high yield farming techniques you’re probably looking at a lot of subsistence level farmers that will be worrying more about their next meal/time the roof leaks than how the neighbors two miles over should be addressing them. The alchemy is probably more readily accessible in urban areas due to higher demand.

The world was colonized sometime in the iron age by refugees from an ultra advanced society more than a thousand years ago.

Most of their advanced technologies were lost but not all. Most of the world is one or two centuries behind modern earth, giving the world an overall western / victorian feel, but medicine is one or two centuries more advanced than modern earth thanks to surviving alchemical techniques.

Palanan
2021-02-15, 05:09 PM
Originally Posted by Talakeal
Likewise, while I am trying to display a wide array of clothing styles and body types, a large portion of the illustrations do depict people who are scantily clad or with unrealistic physiques.

Which illustrations do you mean? The ones in published fantasy RPGs, or in galleries on ArtStation or DA, or in work you’ve commissioned yourself? Just not clear what you mean here.


Originally Posted by Xervous
The alchemy is probably more readily accessible in urban areas due to higher demand.

This brings to mind vast iron-and-glass greenhouses with crops growing by way of alchemical hydroponics.


Originally Posted by Talakeal
The world was colonized….

This in itself will be a huge red flag for some people.

OldTrees1
2021-02-15, 05:16 PM
The following is a bad answer, but it is better than most answers:

Use neutral pronouns for everyone unless there is a reason to do otherwise. This can help remove the assumption that everyone is a cis male human from terra.

Everyone has an unlabeled sexuality until after they have sex. This can remove assumptions about sexuality until after 2 characters demonstrate chemistry.

Gallowglass
2021-02-15, 05:29 PM
I am trying to make my game / campaign setting more inclusive for various gender and sexual identities, but I don't really know how to go about it.

My setting is roughly equivalent to nineteenth century Earth, but far more egalitarian, without rigidly defined gender roles. In addition, alchemy makes seamlessly changing one's biological sex something which is, while not easy or commonplace, something that is achievable for most people.

I can't personally really see how many of the modern gender identities would fit into such a setting outside of very specific circumstances.



Are you creating this for a set of players or are you trying to make something for theoretically publishing?

Assuming its for the normal group of players you normally post about, why bother? They are not going to care except to possibly belittle your efforts.

So let's assume you are doling it for theoretically publishing.

IME, when I see authors and game creators putting trans, genderfluid, intersex, and so on characters into a setting, they make their sexual identity the sole overwhelming focus of the character and so it becomes self parody at best, preachy holier-than-thou claptrap at worst. I feel that its best when the character can stand on their own identity for reasons other than what their genetalia look like or where they like to put them.

So I prefer to see it more background, subtle and nuanced rather than forced into the narrative loudly and rigorously. Then again, I'm 45 and stopped being titillated by and oversexualizing my roleplaying games twenty odd years ago. In real life, a person's sexual identity is part of who they are, but rarely the overwhelming focus of who they are. Unless they are actively weaponizing their identity or using it as a prop.



On a related note, what is the proper ratio of male to female characters in artwork? A common sense answer would obviously be 50/50, I have had several people comment about how there are already too many drawings of women despite them only making up about 40% of the artwork.
To go further down that rabbit hole, do you think male gamers are more or less likely to be interested in a game with lots of female representation in the artwork? And vice versa?
And, a little deeper, does it matter how sexualized the art is? I try and avoid out and out cheesecake (its tough, I have found that a lot of artists want to draw it even if not requested), but most of the illustrations are of conventionally attractive people regardless of gender. Likewise, while I am trying to display a wide array of clothing styles and body types, a large portion of the illustrations do depict people who are scantily clad or with unrealistic physiques.


I don't think there is a proper ratio. Draw what you want to draw. The people who are complaining about there being too many? I wouldn't put much stock in their feelings because it sounds like they have their own biases.

quinron
2021-02-15, 05:31 PM
My two cents, having had a complicated time recently figuring out how to work a character into my setting whose player told me the character was trans several sessions in:

A major complication that I can see here is trans identity. Flawless and easily accessible gender confirmation process would basically eliminate the concept of "trans people" as they exist in our world - there'd be none of the difficulty of, for example, a trans woman trying to be accepted as female while still retaining a butch sense of self-expression. While some people will definitely be gratified by this, I'd recommend you retain a positive place in the game for people who identify and express as a different gender than their birth, but are unable or choose not to medically transition.

A gender-neutral view on society will also need some serious thinking through if the aesthetics - rather than just the technology - of the world resemble the 19th century. Particularly in terms of fashion and personal conduct, which are how we tend to assume one's identity, Victorian and Western society had a strict masculine/feminine divide.

King of Nowhere
2021-02-15, 05:50 PM
Likewise, when it comes to writing up specific setting NPCs, I don't generally mention family unless it is important for the setting (for example, a dynastic family) because I want to leave it open for other people to develop as they see fit, and because it would also feel forced / tokenist to simply insert a context less line about someone's sexuality or AGAB into their biography. Likewise, I prefer to leave NPCs sexuality ambiguous in my games in case a player wants to romance them.

So, while I have had trans, gender fluid, intersex, and homo/bi/pan sexual NPCs in games that I have run, very little of it comes across in the official NPC write-ups or setting design.

it's normal. after all, you don't inquire about most people's sexuality. granted, at some point it's commonplace to talk about one's family. then again, one may have a partner of the other gender and be bisexual, or pansexual, or some kind of other shades of which i am not expert.
anyway, that kind of small talk is generally lost in roleplaying, unless you are one of those hardcore groups that roleplay in character even those kind of small interactions.




On a related note, what is the proper ratio of male to female characters in artwork? A common sense answer would obviously be 50/50, I have had several people comment about how there are already too many drawings of women despite them only making up about 40% of the artwork.
To go further down that rabbit hole, do you think male gamers are more or less likely to be interested in a game with lots of female representation in the artwork? And vice versa?
And, a little deeper, does it matter how sexualized the art is? I try and avoid out and out cheesecake (its tough, I have found that a lot of artists want to draw it even if not requested), but most of the illustrations are of conventionally attractive people regardless of gender. Likewise, while I am trying to display a wide array of clothing styles and body types, a large portion of the illustrations do depict people who are scantily clad or with unrealistic physiques.

Thanks!
I think worrying about this stuff is only going to result in unintentional flamebaiting, because if people want to get all up and concerned about gender and representation and sexism, they will ALWAYS find something to complain about. ALWAYS.
for example, for anything that i've been invested enough to go read forums, i haven't seen a single female character that someone didn't think was sexualized.
I mean, take the order of the stick. take laurin shattersmith, the psion of the vector legion. she's a middle aged woman. she's always shown robed from neck to feet, even when she was in a sauna. well, somebody wrote that she was sexualized. this means that nobody is safe from being sexualized, ever. one may argue that being heavily robed inside a sauna is so impractical, the comic may be attempting to cover her as a form of slut shaming*. the same character is criticized for dressing too much and for not dressing enough at the same time.

so, my advice in that regard is to tell the stories you want to tell, draw the stuff you want to draw, and don't worry too much about representation unless you are doing something glaringly obvious

* i believe this is one of the cases where it is ok to circumvent the censorship filter

Composer99
2021-02-15, 06:08 PM
Imagine a world where one's gender identity or sexuality, whatever it is, is just a part of who they are, without either a long history of oppression or a vocal and often violent sociopolitical movement trying to redouble that oppression.

Chances are, what you'd get is a world where that element of people's identity just isn't given much thought in day to day life, save for more polite enquiries about one's pronouns and titles than our world usually sees.

Now, we don't live in that world. So if you have players who aren't cishet, or if you want your game to appeal to players who aren't cishet and would like to see representation in the media they consume, you will want to find ways to make your game world's nature more broadly apparent in the text. Maybe read books that are praised for representation and see what they do, or research what authors with a good record on that score do in their works?



Likewise, when it comes to writing up specific setting NPCs, I don't generally mention family unless it is important for the setting (for example, a dynastic family) because I want to leave it open for other people to develop as they see fit, and because it would also feel forced / tokenist to simply insert a context less line about someone's sexuality or AGAB into their biography. Likewise, I prefer to leave NPCs sexuality ambiguous in my games in case a player wants to romance them.

So, while I have had trans, gender fluid, intersex, and homo/bi/pan sexual NPCs in games that I have run, very little of it comes across in the official NPC write-ups or setting design.

In a world where someone's sexuality or gender identity just isn't a big deal, having it as a line item in your notes isn't tokenism: it's like having their eye colour. It's just another thing about them that PCs might or might not care about.



On a related note, what is the proper ratio of male to female characters in artwork? A common sense answer would obviously be 50/50, I have had several people comment about how there are already too many drawings of women despite them only making up about 40% of the artwork.
To go further down that rabbit hole, do you think male gamers are more or less likely to be interested in a game with lots of female representation in the artwork? And vice versa?
And, a little deeper, does it matter how sexualized the art is? I try and avoid out and out cheesecake (its tough, I have found that a lot of artists want to draw it even if not requested), but most of the illustrations are of conventionally attractive people regardless of gender. Likewise, while I am trying to display a wide array of clothing styles and body types, a large portion of the illustrations do depict people who are scantily clad or with unrealistic physiques.

Thanks!

If memory serves, too many (white cishet) men start to complain about overrepresentation of women, people of colour, sexual minorities, etc. in media well before it reaches their actual proportions in societies such as the US, never mind the world at large.

For your project, unfortunately, the degree to which you wish to have accurate representation for your game world might have to be a compromise between your desire for such representation and the makeup of your target market. Accurate representation is, at any rate, the ideal.

D&D and PF both manage to avoid excessive fan service in their official artwork these days, as far as I can tell, so it can be done, although I am sure you have rather more limited budget. I think there is a general expectation that formally published works will avoid oversexualisation.

Duff
2021-02-15, 07:07 PM
Some? Absolutely. Though I would guess/hope that they'd be a loud minority at most.

And if it was me, I'd probably go with the common sense answer about the artwork, if equality is fairly decent in this world it should be reflected in the pictures. (Don't forget the anonymous people in the crowd scenes. Women can be faceless mooks of an evil overlord too. :smallwink: )

This. With addition of "Make the art show your world".
If half the evil overlord's mooks are women, the art needs to show approximately that. Also, try and make sure some art is ambiguous about gender.
Show a wedding where you can't tell the gender of either spouse (or all 3 if you want to show poly as well). Caption it with "Father George officiating the wedding of the heir to the Gunther fortune" Make Father Gunther a regular in the art.

To show gender fluidity and show that it's no big deal within a specific campaign, I suggest a regular contact NPC who is generally respected who simply explains that they preferer to be called (he or she or they - pick one) unless they are specifically appearing otherwise.

"Friends this is Chalie Montgomery, they're the Police Special Services Liaison Office. They contract out jobs which are too weird for the city police. Chalie, these are the adventurers I told you about"
"Thanks Fred. Nice to meet you all. Please, call me Chalie. Pronouns they/them unless I'm unequivocally showing to be male or female at the time. The first job I have for you is..."

Oh, and if the players get pronouns wrong, don't even raise the issue. If the characters accidentally get it wrong, Chalie is good with it - it's no big deal. If the PCs (or other characters) deliberatly get it wrong, it can be treated as neither more nor less than rudeness

They're a person the party meet regularly, They're respected within their community and they're in enough authority to tell the party what they want and expect it not to be an issue.

If your art is going to include a significant amount of "cake" (cheese or beef) maybe have a inworld explanation. Maybe people dress up sexy for specific events? Maybe "Sunday Best" is used to show off?
Also, remember that the features humans generally consider attractive correlate pretty well with "young, fit and healthy". And that correlates reasonably with "Likely to succeed at adventuring" so maybe don't stress too much about pretty adventurers. OTOH, experienced adventurers will still be fit but will be older. Don't forget about older women.

Also, when it comes to NPCs romantic lives, describe how relationships look. Don't talk about "Father George and his husband" unless the husband has been introduced as such. "Father George is holding hands with the man he's talking too."
But also "Lady Elsbeth give the man a quick kiss before she heads in to the meeting"

Grek
2021-02-15, 07:51 PM
So, while I have had trans, gender fluid, intersex, and homo/bi/pan sexual NPCs in games that I have run, very little of it comes across in the official NPC write-ups or setting design.
I mean, why should it? What are the PCs supposed to even do with that information? The PCs are going to pick up the correct pronouns for an NPC based on which ones the GM uses introducing them, and you've already said that you leave the sexuality of most NPCs ambiguous in cases where you expect the players might try to flirt with them. Unless the NPC's preferences come up as a plot point (Count Dunkirk is secretly the Bishop's gay lover and needs you to distract his wife so she doesn't discover the affair!) it seems like the PCs don't really have much of a reason to care one way or another which NPCs are dating one another off screen. It's like asking if an NPC is left-handed: realistically there's a 10% chance or so they are, but even if they were who cares?

Talakeal
2021-02-15, 10:03 PM
Wow, lots of responses.


Which illustrations do you mean? The ones in published fantasy RPGs, or in galleries on ArtStation or DA, or in work you’ve commissioned yourself? Just not clear what you mean here.

Specifically art that I have commissioned myself. Although yeah, that probably applies to modern RPG art in general.


This in itself will be a huge red flag for some people.

True. But exploring that dynamic is one of the central themes of the setting.

Although in this case, I am not sure "colonizing" is really the right term when you are talking about twenty odd refugees whose bloodlines immediately become inexorably mixed with those of the indigenous peoples.


The following is a bad answer, but it is better than most answers:

Use neutral pronouns for everyone unless there is a reason to do otherwise. This can help remove the assumption that everyone is a cis male human from terra.

Everyone has an unlabeled sexuality until after they have sex. This can remove assumptions about sexuality until after 2 characters demonstrate chemistry.

You know, I spent this afternoon writing rules for Lovecraftian abominations without gender, and let me tell you that clear concise writing without using gendered language is freaking hard. I can't imagine trying to do that for an entire book; and as I said earlier I don't know if transgender people really make sense in a world where seamlessly changing sex is possible and nobody is going to look askance at someone who is gender nonconforming.

Now, do keep in mind that I already do use gender neutral language when talking about hypothetical characters rather than specific individuals.


Are you creating this for a set of players or are you trying to make something for theoretically publishing?

Assuming its for the normal group of players you normally post about, why bother? They are not going to care except to possibly belittle your efforts.

So let's assume you are doling it for theoretically publishing.

IME, when I see authors and game creators putting trans, genderfluid, intersex, and so on characters into a setting, they make their sexual identity the sole overwhelming focus of the character and so it becomes self parody at best, preachy holier-than-thou claptrap at worst. I feel that its best when the character can stand on their own identity for reasons other than what their genetalia look like or where they like to put them.

So I prefer to see it more background, subtle and nuanced rather than forced into the narrative loudly and rigorously. Then again, I'm 45 and stopped being titillated by and oversexualizing my roleplaying games twenty odd years ago. In real life, a person's sexual identity is part of who they are, but rarely the overwhelming focus of who they are. Unless they are actively weaponizing their identity or using it as a prop.

Well, yes, I would like to publish someday, and my players aren't ALL jackanapes. Most of my players are fine most of the time, its just that you tend to hear about the ones that aren't...

I totally agree with you, but on the other hand it is nice for people to see representation, and since a lot of people tend to default to "straight white cis-male" unless stated otherwise, absence of evidence starts to look like evidence of absence.


I don't think there is a proper ratio. Draw what you want to draw. The people who are complaining about there being too many? I wouldn't put much stock in their feelings because it sounds like they have their own biases.

Generally, yeah, but I still don't like to offend or alienate people without a damn good reason.

In one case, it was my own father telling me that no girls would ever be interested in playing a game which had "so many pictures of sexy women in it".


A major complication that I can see here is trans identity. Flawless and easily accessible gender confirmation process would basically eliminate the concept of "trans people" as they exist in our world - there'd be none of the difficulty of, for example, a trans woman trying to be accepted as female while still retaining a butch sense of self-expression. While some people will definitely be gratified by this, I'd recommend you retain a positive place in the game for people who identify and express as a different gender than their birth, but are unable or choose not to medically transition.

Yeah, its tough. Currently the best ideas I have are for poor people who can't afford such drastic medical procedures or really religious sects who have tabboos against modifying their body or alchemy in general. Still pretty edge cases that are unlikely to appear as notable NPCs.



A gender-neutral view on society will also need some serious thinking through if the aesthetics - rather than just the technology - of the world resemble the 19th century. Particularly in terms of fashion and personal conduct, which are how we tend to assume one's identity, Victorian and Western society had a strict masculine/feminine divide.

True, but it is often hard to draw the line between fashion that exists because of social roles and fashion that exists because of the natural shape of the body. For example, in a culture where women ride horses you probably wouldn't see a lot of dresses, but I can't imagine a culture where you would see men in corsets.


Now, we don't live in that world. So if you have players who aren't cishet, or if you want your game to appeal to players who aren't cishet and would like to see representation in the media they consume, you will want to find ways to make your game world's nature more broadly apparent in the text. Maybe read books that are praised for representation and see what they do, or research what authors with a good record on that score do in their works?

In fiction or in RPGs?

Honestly I can't think of any RPGs where it doesn't come across as tokenism, heavy handed political message, or an attempt to make a group seem weird and alien.

Got any good recommendations?


In a world where someone's sexuality or gender identity just isn't a big deal, having it as a line item in your notes isn't tokenism: it's like having their eye colour. It's just another thing about them that PCs might or might not care about.

For sexuality, I try and keep it ambiguous so that there are more options for pairings. I don't really see a need to hammer something home.

I don't know, I think putting an AGAB line on NPC writeups feels wrong; like its almost totally irrelevant, and if you had anything like realistic population numbers it would, imo, come across as a lot of wasted ink for one or two token characters.

Still, thanks for putting that out there. I am happy to keep talking about this if you are as its actually something to discuss.



I mean, why should it? What are the PCs supposed to even do with that information? The PCs are going to pick up the correct pronouns for an NPC based on which ones the GM uses introducing them, and you've already said that you leave the sexuality of most NPCs ambiguous in cases where you expect the players might try to flirt with them. Unless the NPC's preferences come up as a plot point (Count Dunkirk is secretly the Bishop's gay lover and needs you to distract his wife so she doesn't discover the affair!) it seems like the PCs don't really have much of a reason to care one way or another which NPCs are dating one another off screen. It's like asking if an NPC is left-handed: realistically there's a 10% chance or so they are, but even if they were who cares?

Its mostly so that people reading the campaign setting don't feel personally underrepresented or like it is a world that has been scrubbed of all its LGBTQ elements, either intentionally or simply for lack of care.

Duff
2021-02-15, 10:35 PM
I mean, why should it? What are the PCs supposed to even do with that information? The PCs are going to pick up the correct pronouns for an NPC based on which ones the GM uses introducing them, and you've already said that you leave the sexuality of most NPCs ambiguous in cases where you expect the players might try to flirt with them. Unless the NPC's preferences come up as a plot point (Count Dunkirk is secretly the Bishop's gay lover and needs you to distract his wife so she doesn't discover the affair!) it seems like the PCs don't really have much of a reason to care one way or another which NPCs are dating one another off screen. It's like asking if an NPC is left-handed: realistically there's a 10% chance or so they are, but even if they were who cares?

Also this. Mostly, it doesn't matter. When it does matter, make it incidental, not focal.

Duff
2021-02-15, 10:51 PM
True, but it is often hard to draw the line between fashion that exists because of social roles and fashion that exists because of the natural shape of the body. For example, in a culture where women ride horses you probably wouldn't see a lot of dresses, but I can't imagine a culture where you would see men in corsets.



https://www.thecut.com/2015/03/yes-men-in-the-18th-century-wore-corsets.html
Also now among the goth crowd
Also, in ancient Crete, young men (and women) bound their waists to appear slimmer

And that's probably not all of the times and places, just the 1st one I googled and 2 I know



Its mostly so that people reading the campaign setting don't feel personally underrepresented or like it is a world that has been scrubbed of all its LGBTQ elements, either intentionally or simply for lack of care.

For this, as in most writing, "show don't tell". Don't say "Same sex marriage is accepted, just include in the "Who's Who" section on NPCs that the queen has a wife or that the young princeling the the only person who calls The Queen "Father"

Composer99
2021-02-15, 11:50 PM
In fiction or in RPGs?

Honestly I can't think of any RPGs where it doesn't come across as tokenism, heavy handed political message, or an attempt to make a group seem weird and alien.

Got any good recommendations?

Fiction, methinks. I also don't know of any RPGs where there is much attempt to seamlessly integrate gender identities, other than the old-school binary, into the text, that one paragraph in the D&D rules notwithstanding. Not to say such games don't exist, but they're rather niche if they do.

I have hardly read any fiction since my son was born, so I don't have any specific recommendations, but a quick Google search suggests some good starting points: here (http://queerbooksforteens.com/best-of-lists/best-books-with-trans-characters/), here (https://www.insider.com/books-starring-trans-non-binary-characters-fantasy-literature-2020-6), or here (https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/hmycal/trans_representation_in_fiction/). (The middle link consists of fantasy & sci-fi books, which is probably a great list for your purposes?)




For sexuality, I try and keep it ambiguous so that there are more options for pairings. I don't really see a need to hammer something home.

I don't know, I think putting an AGAB line on NPC writeups feels wrong; like its almost totally irrelevant, and if you had anything like realistic population numbers it would, imo, come across as a lot of wasted ink for one or two token characters.

Still, thanks for putting that out there. I am happy to keep talking about this if you are as its actually something to discuss.



I wouldn't bother with adding assigned gender at birth, specifically, as a line item to NPCs, unless it's personally important to a particular NPC or for other characters interacting with that NPC.

Instead, since your setting allows for a great deal of gender malleability, it would be worth knowing things like whether an NPC tends to stay in a particular gender lane, for whatever reason, or whether and to what extent an NPC likes to switch things up.

I guess my point is that adding details like that for named or important NPCs, along with details such as their preferred pronouns (whether these are fixed or also vary), helps to "bake" gender diversity into the setting. The point being that you want setting description and game rules to treat gender diversity as something that is normal (in the normative sense and possibly also the statistical sense) to the point of being unremarkable.

By way of example, in the late 1960s, Star Trek was seen as ground-breaking for having a Black woman as part of the "command crew" of the Enterprise. Less than 20 years later, Star Trek media products presented the idea that a Black man or woman might be a starship captain (Captain Terrell in Star Trek II and the unnamed captain of USS Saratoga in Star Trek IV) or even Commander of Starfleet (Admirals Morrow and Cartwright in Star Trek III and IV) as normal, even unremarkable, even though it would be another decade before a Black man became a primary protagonist of a Star Trek TV show.

I wouldn't cite Star Trek as a great example to follow as far as representing gender fluidity goes (not least because I effectively stopped following the franchise about mid-way through Voyager season 5). Heck, given the Klingons of the 1960s show and 1980s movies, I'm not sure I'd cite it as a great example of progressivism on the matter of race. But what I mean by those examples is that pretty early on in the franchise's history, people of colour as plainly-visible, high-level authorities were presented as "yeah, here it is, it's a normal thing, no big deal", which is the kind of feel I imagine you would want to convey about gender diversity, at least as far as NPCs go.

Ravens_cry
2021-02-16, 01:37 AM
Should they be there? Absolutely. How open they are is going to vary wildly though. And, as long as the players are comfortable with it, I'm OK having the societies not lining up 1:1 with modern progressive values, even the 'good guys'.

Batcathat
2021-02-16, 02:06 AM
Should they be there? Absolutely. How open they are is going to vary wildly though. And, as long as the players are comfortable with it, I'm OK having the societies not lining up 1:1 with modern progressive values, even the 'good guys'.

I agree with this and it's also worth keeping in mind that there are a lot of variations besides "accepts X completely" and "rejects X completely". Like how in some ancient cultures it was totally okay for a young man to have intimate relationships with other men, but they were still expected to grow up and marry a woman. A fantasy world without some of the prejudices and arbitrary roles of the real world can certainly be nice but it might be interesting for them to have some of their own instead.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-16, 02:14 AM
Should they be there? Absolutely. How open they are is going to vary wildly though. And, as long as the players are comfortable with it, I'm OK having the societies not lining up 1:1 with modern progressive values, even the 'good guys'.

Yeah thats great and all, just don't expect every player to like those societies, or not destroy them in their own quest to make a better world.

Ravens_cry
2021-02-16, 02:25 AM
I agree with this and it's also worth keeping in mind that there are a lot of variations besides "accepts X completely" and "rejects X completely". Like how in some ancient cultures it was totally okay for a young man to have intimate relationships with other men, but they were still expected to grow up and marry a woman. A fantasy world without some of the prejudices and arbitrary roles of the real world can certainly be nice but it might be interesting for them to have some of their own instead.
Yep. Societies are complex. And it can be a lot of fun to work out all their different values, and that includes prejudices.

Yeah thats great and all, just don't expect every player to like those societies, or not destroy them in their own quest to make a better world.
They can try, potentially, that freedom of potentiality is what makes TT RPG so enjoyable. Of course, succeeding is its own question. Mind, that's also why I prefaced it with 'if the player's are comfortable with it'. I find it enjoyable immersing myself in a different headspace, though I know it could be less than enjoyable for many other players.Really, there's a lot of things you need to tweak to comfort and interest levels for a group.

Segev
2021-02-16, 04:04 AM
I think you need to decide if this society cares about sex/gender as things people treat as more than cosmetics. Either they have gender roles that care what you identify as, or they do not.

If they do, the cheap and accessible alchemical formula means that it is a matter of personal choice what sax you have. There likely will be ideals of appearance for the styles people wear, and those who don't take care to dress appropriately for the role they choose to present as will be commented on for the faux pas (or worse, depending on the social norms they're flauting and the cruelty of those reacting to it). If people are of a mind to feel like a different sex/gender at different times, they likely take the alchemical potion that suits their mood as needed, and treat dress and behavioral quirks appropriately for the way they choose to present. It probably doesn't warrant more comment than a different hair cut or a new "look" they might be trying. No -fashion related aspects likely just flow naturally from there, again unless they're choosing to go against social norms.

Pronouns in such cases will reflect what they present as, though with the de-emphasis of the permanence of it, getting it "wrong" is probably no worse than misremembering which shoes they're wearing at the gala.

If nobody cares what you identify as, people probably use the potion to have the body that is most convenient for the task or occasion. Pronouns are probably unisex, which is hard to do in English: I would pick one set that is natural to use and have it be universal. Again, physical sec is probably more about practicality (where it matters) and personal stile (where it doesn't).

In either case, people's taste in romantic partners probably influences what sex a person chooses to wear when trying to attract their chosen paramore (or be attractive to a date/spouse). Just like people will try to dress to appeal to those they want to attract IRL. It is just that, thanks to alchemy, physical sex is now one more thing they can "try on."

Those who find a particular sex uncomfortable to wear because it is "just not them" will do so rarely, like a rough and tumble type awkwardky wearing a tux or fancy dress, or somebody used to dumpy and baggy clothes feeling out of place in something revealing, or somebody who usually dresses to the nines having to wear something unfashionable and unflattering and feeling very put out about it.

But it is very likely either way that what you choose is no big deal, and you're either treated as what you present as, or there is no different treatment regardless of presentation.

If the society is one where they truly don't care, then the mix of representation in art probably shows the common expression for whatever is convenient for the subject matter. If they do care, it will depend on the roles being depicted. If the roles don't matter, it will be based on the mood of the subject who posed or the artist who made the work. This could be a matter of aesthetics or fashion, or of iconography (a noble who has a standard "look" might maintain it for all official artistic representations, for example).

Yora
2021-02-16, 05:19 AM
I mean, why should it? What are the PCs supposed to even do with that information? The PCs are going to pick up the correct pronouns for an NPC based on which ones the GM uses introducing them, and you've already said that you leave the sexuality of most NPCs ambiguous in cases where you expect the players might try to flirt with them. Unless the NPC's preferences come up as a plot point (Count Dunkirk is secretly the Bishop's gay lover and needs you to distract his wife so she doesn't discover the affair!) it seems like the PCs don't really have much of a reason to care one way or another which NPCs are dating one another off screen. It's like asking if an NPC is left-handed: realistically there's a 10% chance or so they are, but even if they were who cares?

That's been something that bothered me for years with all my fantasy writing until I eventually just gave up.
I don't see putting stories of discrimination into speculative fiction as being inclusive, and I just don't do sex and romance in the kind of stuff that I write or games that I run. Gender identity and sexual orientation just are not topics that are relevant in my works and it doesn't even come up for straight people.

The only way I found to have more inclusion in the stuff I make is to give more attention to female characters in feminine roles. Usually in adventure fiction and RPGs, whatever it is those female background characters and extras are doing is considered irrelevant and uninteresting. But even when the focus of a story is on male lords and generals doing their diplomacy and strategy things, there's always just as many women nearby who are also doing all kinds of things that are just as important to them, and that actually intersect with the things the male "protagonists" are doing all the time.
Even in a setting where the women are not speaking when big declarations are made or treaties are signed, they still were involved significantly in how the male leaders came to decide their own positions. Or unless the setting is a particularly oppressive one where women are not allowed to talk to strangers, when a group of heroes comes to a town and has talks with community leaders, there's not just important information to be gained and useful allies to be made in the lord of the castle and the captain of the guard. By shifting the focus away from battlefields and paying more attention to what happens inside communities, the women in a setting that confines them to feminine roles already become important and relevant.

BisectedBrioche
2021-02-16, 07:15 AM
My setting is roughly equivalent to nineteenth century Earth, but far more egalitarian, without rigidly defined gender roles. In addition, alchemy makes seamlessly changing one's biological sex something which is, while not easy or commonplace, something that is achievable for most people.

FWIW, I've had some very specific thoughts about this. Mainly in regards to how cyberpunk settings handle trans issues (often in this manner, but missing a lot of nuance), but also covering fantasy settings where magically aided transitions are possible.

While just being able to easily medically transition would be a massive boon for any trans person, there's a few things settings overlook:


The general attitude and treatment of trans people in the narrative.
The social aspects of transition.
The availability of transition.


And to go into more detail:

It's very easy for a work just to say "'kay, trans people are basically cis", but make transphobic jokes (like trying to use the fact a character transitioned for shock/humour value), or even just outright create a group that transphobic jokes can be reskinned and aimed at (I'm looking at you, Shadowrun elf/orc posers!). Does the setting treat trans people as a group worthy of respect, or does it just "let them off" because the technology's there? Do cis people use it with no issue, or is it something that only works if someone wants it?

Even if someone can just swallow a potion, they still have to come out. If there's already no stigma to transitioning, that's fine, but how do they work themselves out? Will people take them at their word? Can they be vetoed by parents or a spouse? How easy is it for them to change up their wardrobe? What about trans people who don't feel the need to transition medically, or non-binary people? Is there something other than the all-or-nothing approach straight up magic provides? Are they happy for everyone to know their AGAB, or do they move to a new identity on the other side of the world (as trans people were expected to do by medical professionals for much of the 20th century).

Finally, how easy is it for them to access this? "You can transition for slightly less than a used car" is all well and good...for people who can afford a used car (this is especially grating in cyberpunk works). Consider that even in a society that let's people transition without any stigma, there might be costs (not just financial, but in time taken out of their life, adjusting, etc).

Oddly enough despite its other problems with trans rep, Cyberpunk 2072 has a pretty good trans character in this regard. While she has access to the futurist medical tech, she still had to come out, work to afford it, stay in hospital, etc, and puts a trans pride flag on her most prized possession (because, quite frankly, as nice as it is to be given the same respect a cis person would, for a lot of us, it's still a large part of who we are).

Talakeal
2021-02-16, 12:52 PM
Good answers. Transhumanist fiction might be a good place to look for further research. I understand a lot of transhumansettings also have similar problems with ableism.

Thinking more, I may have overstated things a bit in my OP. My setting isn't totally free of gender roles, it is just much more egalitarian than real life to the point where I don't think they would ever come up with, say, the modern idea of separating gender from physical sex.

Likewise, alchemy isnt so pervasive that one can just freely chang etheir body like a new hairstyle. The costs, risks, difficulty of finding a talented practitioner, and social stigma involved make it more similar to real life cosmetic surgery; a major life decision but not totally out of reach of anyone but those from extremely poor or conservative backgrounds.



https://www.thecut.com/2015/03/yes-men-in-the-18th-century-wore-corsets.html
Also now among the goth crowd
Also, in ancient Crete, young men (and women) bound their waists to appear slimmer

And that's probably not all of the times and places, just the 1st one I googled and 2 I know

I really meant more a full on corset meant to maximize and display cleavage rather than a simple girdle or wist cincher. To put it bluntly, men don’t have breasts and wardrobe needs to take that into account.

Segev
2021-02-16, 01:56 PM
Thinking more, I may have overstated things a bit in my OP. My setting isn't totally free of gender roles, it is just much more egalitarian than real life to the point where I don't think they would ever come up with, say, the modern idea of separating gender from physical sex.

Likewise, alchemy isnt so pervasive that one can just freely chang etheir body like a new hairstyle. The costs, risks, difficulty of finding a talented practitioner, and social stigma involved make it more similar to real life cosmetic surgery; a major life decision but not totally out of reach of anyone but those from extremely poor or conservative backgrounds.

In that case, it will depend on how long the alchemy has been around, and how much alchemy in general is stigmatized.

For most people, they'll treat others as whatever they are, physically. Or as what they're presenting as, if they're "pre-transition" and passing effectively. There will still be some awkwardness if the "passing" is revealed to be deceptive, though if the notion of sex changes with alchemy is normalized, then it will likely be treated, at worst, as "well, it's just a matter of time."

One thing to consider is that, if there ARE gender-based roles such as primogenitor, there would be pressure for families in the nobility to ensure a "proper mix" of sexes in their children. The oldest is male. Period. (Or female, if they inherit.) And if something happens to the oldest, and the next-oldest is female, she's expected to transition, unless she has a younger brother to inherit (and even then, there's some tension to make a choice if she's not yet married). Similarly, younger sons who are problematic for inheritance will be turned into girls (or younger daughters into boys, if girls inherit) so they can be married off. It might be that they don't do the transitioning thing unless and until a marriage decision is made, but they will not let birth biology get in the way of a treaty.

To this end, it's quite possible that cross-dressing is common amongst the nobility, especially the children and youths, as they cross-train them in both sets of roles and duties. A proposed marriage between a younger son and an inheriting son might have the younger son not take the potion yet, but still dress in dresses and be expected to act the feminine part up until the betrothal is finalized, at which point the potion is taken and she is a woman. Heck, if a second-born child is already married to a man, but he isn't in line to inherit and she suddenly becomes the heir due to accident befalling her older brother, it might be expected that she and her husband BOTH switch roles and sexes.

So in a sense, this actually could lead to MORE gender dysphoria for socio-political purposes, if the people in question have a personal preference/identity they hold to that clashes with that which their position in society demands.

Batcathat
2021-02-16, 02:38 PM
One thing to consider is that, if there ARE gender-based roles such as primogenitor, there would be pressure for families in the nobility to ensure a "proper mix" of sexes in their children. The oldest is male. Period. (Or female, if they inherit.) And if something happens to the oldest, and the next-oldest is female, she's expected to transition, unless she has a younger brother to inherit (and even then, there's some tension to make a choice if she's not yet married). Similarly, younger sons who are problematic for inheritance will be turned into girls (or younger daughters into boys, if girls inherit) so they can be married off. It might be that they don't do the transitioning thing unless and until a marriage decision is made, but they will not let birth biology get in the way of a treaty.

Ooh, I like this idea. Sort of a magical twist on the unfortunate real life method of aborting/abandoning kids of the "wrong" sex. I do love it when fictional worlds explore both the positive and the negative aspects of their ideas.

Wizard_Lizard
2021-02-16, 02:52 PM
Yeah, just referring to some pcs with gender neutral pronouns, maybe even as a default, and also have some male npcs mention husbands, and female npcs mentioning wives, and I think that's pretty much the basics.. Funnily enough this happened in the published adventure rotfm where an npc mentioned their husband and I hadn't noticed it on my first reading, felt kinda cool and also definetly not forced.
(although it did provoke some surprised reactions from a party whom I thought wouldn't care but oh well.)

Cluedrew
2021-02-16, 10:03 PM
Honestly I can't think of any RPGs where it doesn't come across as tokenism, heavy handed political message, or an attempt to make a group seem weird and alien.I could make some statements about fiction in general but for systems... what is there to say? I mean the difference between male and female isn't worth encoding in a system nor do I think the difference between cis- and trans- really is either. Maybe with a life-path character generation system it could come up but other than that its up to the player to decide if and how it effects the character mechanically. I suppose there is the setting section could say something but unless there is a particular point being made (which gets into the heavy handed message) why spend words on it?


(because, quite frankly, as nice as it is to be given the same respect a cis person would, for a lot of us, it's still a large part of who we are).It always strange to me that the end point of all of so many of these things people seem to always put forward "complete erasure" as the solution. Its not a matter of better or worse its just people aren't the same as each other.

Zhorn
2021-02-17, 12:11 AM
Ooh, I like this idea. Sort of a magical twist on the unfortunate real life method of aborting/abandoning kids of the "wrong" sex. I do love it when fictional worlds explore both the positive and the negative aspects of their ideas.
Makes sense. If you're going to go the extra distance to draw so much attention to both concepts of diverse gender identities and the notion of gender roles, it makes sense to make such attention mean something within the campaign setting.
Otherwise it just hollow lip service;

DM: "<person-name> is <biological-sex> but identifies as <gender expression>"
PC: "Okay. Is that important to the happenings in the world?"
DM: "..."

Where as with Segev's suggestion it could potentially have a whole lot of meaning and implication within the game, and becomes important information. That way even if a player doesn't share the same real world ideologies on that front, they have a gateway within the game to engage on a level that shares importance with others at the table that do hold such real world ideologies.

quinron
2021-02-17, 02:07 AM
Makes sense. If you're going to go the extra distance to draw so much attention to both concepts of diverse gender identities and the notion of gender roles, it makes sense to make such attention mean something within the campaign setting.
Otherwise it just hollow lip service;

DM: "<person-name> is <biological-sex> but identifies as <gender expression>"
PC: "Okay. Is that important to the happenings in the world?"
DM: "..."

Where as with Segev's suggestion it could potentially have a whole lot of meaning and implication within the game, and becomes important information. That way even if a player doesn't share the same real world ideologies on that front, they have a gateway within the game to engage on a level that shares importance with others at the table that do hold such real world ideologies.

I think this has illustrated for me what my issue is with how representation, especially trans representation, is often handled in well-meaning "woke" works.

If a character is trans and being trans is a thing that makes their life complicated in some way, then I understand it being part of their identity; after all, the whole reason there's such attention paid to identity in the real world is that having a marginal identity makes one's life complicated, to put it comically lightly.

But if transition is simple, uncomplicated, and easy to access, and nobody in the setting views trans people as being any different from cis people, then it feels kind of weird to have it called out. Instead of the intended message of, "this character is a woman regardless of what people have thought about her in the past or want to think about her now" - which IME tends to be the desired view that real-life trans women want others to have of them - to feeling more like, "this character is basically a woman, but like... she's not totally a woman, to enough of a degree that I feel it necessary to point out that she's different from cis women."

I dunno, feels iffy to me, but I'm cis; take my views with a whole cellar of salt and ignore them if a trans person says I'm wrong.

BisectedBrioche
2021-02-17, 06:00 AM
I think this has illustrated for me what my issue is with how representation, especially trans representation, is often handled in well-meaning "woke" works.

If a character is trans and being trans is a thing that makes their life complicated in some way, then I understand it being part of their identity; after all, the whole reason there's such attention paid to identity in the real world is that having a marginal identity makes one's life complicated, to put it comically lightly.

But if transition is simple, uncomplicated, and easy to access, and nobody in the setting views trans people as being any different from cis people, then it feels kind of weird to have it called out. Instead of the intended message of, "this character is a woman regardless of what people have thought about her in the past or want to think about her now" - which IME tends to be the desired view that real-life trans women want others to have of them - to feeling more like, "this character is basically a woman, but like... she's not totally a woman, to enough of a degree that I feel it necessary to point out that she's different from cis women."

I dunno, feels iffy to me, but I'm cis; take my views with a whole cellar of salt and ignore them if a trans person says I'm wrong.

Firstly; remember there are nonbinary folk, who can't simply disappear via medical transition either way. ;)

Secondly, being trans is more than a medical procedure. Every trans person has to think carefully about their gender identity and what makes them feel comfortable (far from an end point, medical intervention is just an event in a process that may never end).

Trans women are women, cis women are women. If the status as cis or trans of either group is irrelevant, you'd just say "woman". If a trans woman and a cis woman drove to the supermarket, bought some groceries, and went home, then "the two women went to the store to buy food" is all the info you need. Much in the same way you wouldn't need to throw in any other traits of the two women (you could use cis and trans to distinguish them, I guess, but that wouldn't tell you much).

I've told this story here before, but in a recent D&D game, the DM OK'd a trans character. I mentioned this to a friend, and she said "why wouldn't you just play a cis woman?". On the basis of why I'd want problems from my own life in the game. Thing is (aside from the fact the DM promised not to make transphobia a significant thing), this came from a (well meaning) assumption that the ideal of womanhood is cis womanhood, and that's what I aspire to. Why wouldn't I want to be represented in a literal representation of myself in the campaign setting? While my womanhood will always be different to that of a cis woman, there are many different ways woman are women (and men are men, and ways people twist, bent, or break the gender binary), and mind is just as good as the rest without being invalidated.

The same applies to representation in media. You could certainly create a setting where trans people are moot (whether or not that's realistic), but if your aim is to represent the experiences of trans people positively (that is to say, trans representation), you need to try harder.

Satinavian
2021-02-17, 06:56 AM
Trans women are women, cis women are women. If the status as cis or trans of either group is irrelevant, you'd just say "woman". If a trans woman and a cis woman drove to the supermarket, bought some groceries, and went home, then "the two women went to the store to buy food" is all the info you need. Much in the same way you wouldn't need to throw in any other traits of the two women (you could use cis and trans to distinguish them, I guess, but that wouldn't tell you much).That is probably how i would handle it in any setting with properly advanced (meaning not just cosmetic or short duration) sex change magic. There is just no significant difference between cis-woman and trans-woman left.

Ravens_cry
2021-02-17, 10:00 AM
Eh, as much as I'd like that to be true, I think you underestimate people ability to get into conflict over insignificant differences.
Moreover, not every transwoman wants her genital anatomy altered. There's plenty of other differences in how transwomen transition. Magic would only add greater ease and precision in that.
Trans women and cis women are both women, even IRL, but even in a magic universe, there still would be differences in flavour.

Talakeal
2021-02-17, 03:03 PM
Trans women are women, cis women are women. If the status as cis or trans of either group is irrelevant, you'd just say "woman". If a trans woman and a cis woman drove to the supermarket, bought some groceries, and went home, then "the two women went to the store to buy food" is all the info you need. Much in the same way you wouldn't need to throw in any other traits of the two women (you could use cis and trans to distinguish them, I guess, but that wouldn't tell you much).

Yeah, which is how I feel it would tend to come across.

IMO, transition would simply be an event which occurred in one's past. A very important and life changing event, but still something that is in the past. And if I am writing up an NPC, I am generally not going to include that sort of information unless it is directly relevant to who they are now.

And, coincidentally, as most NPCs who get writeups are villains, trying to do something like that would almost certainly lead to all sorts of transphobic trans=evil associations.


Firstly; remember there are nonbinary folk, who can't simply disappear via medical transition either way. ;)

Secondly, being trans is more than a medical procedure. Every trans person has to think carefully about their gender identity and what makes them feel comfortable (far from an end point, medical intervention is just an event in a process that may never end).

I've told this story here before, but in a recent D&D game, the DM OK'd a trans character. I mentioned this to a friend, and she said "why wouldn't you just play a cis woman?". On the basis of why I'd want problems from my own life in the game. Thing is (aside from the fact the DM promised not to make transphobia a significant thing), this came from a (well meaning) assumption that the ideal of womanhood is cis womanhood, and that's what I aspire to. Why wouldn't I want to be represented in a literal representation of myself in the campaign setting? While my womanhood will always be different to that of a cis woman, there are many different ways woman are women (and men are men, and ways people twist, bent, or break the gender binary), and mind is just as good as the rest without being invalidated.

The same applies to representation in media. You could certainly create a setting where trans people are moot (whether or not that's realistic), but if your aim is to represent the experiences of trans people positively (that is to say, trans representation), you need to try harder.

Yeah, trans covers a wide spectrum, and its full of gatekeeping. Not sure if I want to derail this thread (and potentially risk its closure) by going much deeper than that.

That said, I feel that most identities are cultural constructs which, while they have weight and meaning in our world, wouldn't really apply to a fantasy world, and I feel like trying to explore a lot of these concepts in a fantasy world would be like wanting to, say, play a Frenchman to explore one's French background in a Forgotten Realms campaign set on Toril..


Also, remember that the features humans generally consider attractive correlate pretty well with "young, fit and healthy". And that correlates reasonably with "Likely to succeed at adventuring" so maybe don't stress too much about pretty adventurers. OTOH, experienced adventurers will still be fit but will be older. Don't forget about older women.

Some people would disagree. Youtuber Lindybeige once criticized RPG art by saying something along the lines of (sorry I can't find the original clip) "Ah yes, of course, young attractive people are the most likely people to be out fighting. Oh wait, my mistake, I meant the LEAST likely people. No wait, I got that wrong again, I meant the SECOND least likely people, the least likely people to go into combat would, of course, be babies."

I would agree to an extent, although I would imagine in real life adventurers would be rendered pretty unattractive due to the accumulation of injuries. Of course, magical healing might take care of that, and in a realistic setting where it didn't they would probably be pretty close to crippled due to injury and mental trauma after only a few years of adventuring anyway.


Yeah thats great and all, just don't expect every player to like those societies, or not destroy them in their own quest to make a better world.

Which is a very good thing, as long as the players recognize that they are probably going to have to commit genocide along the way.


In that case, it will depend on how long the alchemy has been around, and how much alchemy in general is stigmatized.

For most people, they'll treat others as whatever they are, physically. Or as what they're presenting as, if they're "pre-transition" and passing effectively. There will still be some awkwardness if the "passing" is revealed to be deceptive, though if the notion of sex changes with alchemy is normalized, then it will likely be treated, at worst, as "well, it's just a matter of time."

One thing to consider is that, if there ARE gender-based roles such as primogenitor, there would be pressure for families in the nobility to ensure a "proper mix" of sexes in their children. The oldest is male. Period. (Or female, if they inherit.) And if something happens to the oldest, and the next-oldest is female, she's expected to transition, unless she has a younger brother to inherit (and even then, there's some tension to make a choice if she's not yet married). Similarly, younger sons who are problematic for inheritance will be turned into girls (or younger daughters into boys, if girls inherit) so they can be married off. It might be that they don't do the transitioning thing unless and until a marriage decision is made, but they will not let birth biology get in the way of a treaty.

To this end, it's quite possible that cross-dressing is common amongst the nobility, especially the children and youths, as they cross-train them in both sets of roles and duties. A proposed marriage between a younger son and an inheriting son might have the younger son not take the potion yet, but still dress in dresses and be expected to act the feminine part up until the betrothal is finalized, at which point the potion is taken and she is a woman. Heck, if a second-born child is already married to a man, but he isn't in line to inherit and she suddenly becomes the heir due to accident befalling her older brother, it might be expected that she and her husband BOTH switch roles and sexes.

So in a sense, this actually could lead to MORE gender dysphoria for socio-political purposes, if the people in question have a personal preference/identity they hold to that clashes with that which their position in society demands.

Yeah, a transhumanist body-horror dystopia is definitely a very real thing. I don't really think it fits well for my game though, at least for society as large.


Yeah, just referring to some pcs with gender neutral pronouns, maybe even as a default, and also have some male npcs mention husbands, and female npcs mentioning wives, and I think that's pretty much the basics.. Funnily enough this happened in the published adventure rotfm where an npc mentioned their husband and I hadn't noticed it on my first reading, felt kinda cool and also definetly not forced.
(although it did provoke some surprised reactions from a party whom I thought wouldn't care but oh well.)

Yeah, that happens all the time in game. Not so much in the setting writeup though.


I could make some statements about fiction in general but for systems... what is there to say? I mean the difference between male and female isn't worth encoding in a system nor do I think the difference between cis- and trans- really is either. Maybe with a life-path character generation system it could come up but other than that its up to the player to decide if and how it effects the character mechanically. I suppose there is the setting section could say something but unless there is a particular point being made (which gets into the heavy handed message) why spend words on it?

It always strange to me that the end point of all of so many of these things people seem to always put forward "complete erasure" as the solution. Its not a matter of better or worse its just people aren't the same as each other.

I am absolutely only talking about the game's fluff, not the crutch.

Not quite sure what you mean about the second paragraph, as "complete erasure" seems to be what you are advocating for; unless you are simply commenting on the fact that people assume that if they don't see something it must not exist.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-17, 03:28 PM
Which is a very good thing, as long as the players recognize that they are probably going to have to commit genocide along the way.


Okay, as long as you recognize the players are probably going to leave the game if you make that the bar to clear, because if your response to "I want to legit change this world for the better beyond just keeping status quo by beating back evil" is "kay, commit genocide or fail", I'm never playing with you.

Satinavian
2021-02-17, 03:46 PM
Moreover, not every transwoman wants her genital anatomy altered. Sure, but i would assume, the more powerful, risk free and available the magical sex swap is, the less accepting the culture would be of transpeople not using it.

Anymage
2021-02-17, 04:16 PM
Trans women and cis women are both women, even IRL, but even in a magic universe, there still would be differences in flavour.

That's kind of the point. If I tell a story about Linda and her friend Stacy going to a ski resort, the fact that I'm using words to tell my story (like a TTRPG, and contrasted with a more visual medium like a TV show or video game) means that a lot of details that aren't narratively relevant get left out and offloaded to the listener to fill in. Stacy's hair color and job and trans status tend to get glossed over that way unless they're narratively relevant. (Which, for the benefit of anyone else who comes along browsing this thread, a trans person's ability to pass is far more germane in how people treat them and thus the narrative relevance than the configuration of their genitals is.)

Which gets to the point of how this affects TTRPG settings. If it's no big deal and some combination of magic making passing trivial and/or society absolutely not caring at all, trans status is rarely if ever brought up. It's offloaded to the players to picture, and most players will rarely assume transness unless it's explicitly mentioned. (Books sometimes have it worse where readers will sometimes ignore a minor tidbit in description and then get upset when that tidbit is revealed on screen.)

Which leaves us with three options. Don't mention it because it isn't narratively relevant, in which case players will just fill in whatever and practically none of them will fill in "trans". You can play up realistic problems that trans people might face, but that has high risks of making escapist fantasy unfun for someone who wants to play a trans character and also stands a very high risk of being read as an endorsement of those problems and getting you called out as transphobic. Or you can make an active point of calling out how it's totally cool and nobody in this world cares about trans status, in which case it can come off as forced and kind of twee.

Practically nobody big enough to publish wants to portray realistic hassles because of the risk that someone somewhere will read it as an endorsement of said hassles and cause a major PR headache. That does, however, leave the remaining options as "practical erasure" and "rather twee".

Talakeal
2021-02-17, 04:18 PM
Okay, as long as you recognize the players are probably going to leave the game if you make that the bar to clear, because if your response to "I want to legit change this world for the better beyond just keeping status quo by beating back evil" is "kay, commit genocide or fail", I'm never playing with you.

You are the one who brought up destroying societies, which is, imo, more or less synonymous with genocide.

Using violence as a means of forcing social change is, in any realistic setting, going to have a lot of collateral damage, at which point it is really a tossup over whether the world is now a "better place".

My objection is not to changing the world, its to the idea that violence can solve all of your problems and doesn't just beget more violence in the long run.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-17, 04:26 PM
You are the one who brought up destroying societies, which is, imo, more or less synonymous with genocide.

Using violence as a means of forcing social change is, in any realistic setting, going to have a lot of collateral damage, at which point it is really a tossup over whether the world is now a "better place".

My objection is not to changing the world, its to the idea that violence can solve all of your problems and doesn't just beget more violence in the long run.

I meant destroying the governments, not the innocent people ruled by them.

quinron
2021-02-17, 04:42 PM
[big post snipped]

Not sure how much this was pointed at me, but my first post in this thread was specifically about trans erasure worries and ensuring that characters who choose not to medically transition are still accepted in Talakeal's setting.

Sorry if I came across as being dismissive of representative media; it's mostly just that, given how much trans issues have become a part of my life, it really irks me when it's done badly (which isn't to say it doesn't irk you more, I just know the extent to which it does me). I've read one too many stories where the writer says, to use your example, "the trans woman and the cis woman went to the store" when neither character really has anything to do with anything.

BRC
2021-02-17, 04:56 PM
So, the question is what are you trying to do
(priviledge check, cis white man here)
Are you trying to create a setting free of prejudice gender and sexuality? (No sexism, no homophobia, ect), or are you trying to explore cultural ideas of gender and sexuality within a fantastical setting.

Assuming the former, and assuming you're mostly interested in making a welcoming setting rather than doing an academic deep-dive into "Well, what aspects of society were influenced by sexism and homophobia, because those would need to be different", it's pretty easy, your biggest danger is going to be accidentally using harmful tropes, even if such tropes are not really a thing in-universe.

( I recall some official D&D Module, where they made an effort to include several characters in same-sex relationships. However, because of the nature of the campaign, most allied NPCs you only interacted with in a professional context, so the 'Representation' was basically "You are storming the hideout of the EVIL CULT LEADER! BTW, She has girlfriend!", this happened a few times with the evil NPCs, such that the 'representation' was limited to villains). Make sure that when you're adding diversity into your setting, your not falling into easy traps or stereotyping without meaning to.

Re: Trans people. Mentioning the ease by which people can transition in the setting fluff is probably enough. If you want some explicit Trans Representation, you can have photographs or documents from when somebody was a child, or have somebody mention changing their name. In the interests of establishing how this works in the setting, you could have the in-universe equivalent of when a modern celebrity comes out as Trans. "The woman formerly known as the Duke of Place would like to announce that she has selected for herself the name Francine Venhouser, Duchess of Place. Please update your address books and invitations accordingly".

Other options for "Times when it's relevant a character is trans" (Once again, Cis White Man here, so, like, don't take these as guaranteed)

1) A character who recently transitioned (Medically or otherwise) is selling their old wardrobe and buying a new one.
2) Paperwork or other bureaucracy that must still be dealt with, even in a world without transphobia.


also, what's your intended audience here? If this is a setting for a personal game, I'd talk to your group about how they want things handled. If you're hoping to publish, I know there are sensitivity editors out there who can probably help better than a bunch of random people on a forum.

BisectedBrioche
2021-02-17, 06:44 PM
Not sure how much this was pointed at me, but my first post in this thread was specifically about trans erasure worries and ensuring that characters who choose not to medically transition are still accepted in Talakeal's setting.

Sorry if I came across as being dismissive of representative media; it's mostly just that, given how much trans issues have become a part of my life, it really irks me when it's done badly (which isn't to say it doesn't irk you more, I just know the extent to which it does me). I've read one too many stories where the writer says, to use your example, "the trans woman and the cis woman went to the store" when neither character really has anything to do with anything.

No callout intended.

I was just talking about how I felt that a setting where trans people are given the same respect as cis people, and can (if they want to) transition flawlessly will still have ways of explicitly portraying trans people.

Saint-Just
2021-02-17, 09:42 PM
I meant destroying the governments, not the innocent people ruled by them.

If there is force involved destroying the "government" without destroying a lot of people is incredibly hard to do. Additionally Ravens_cry's first post (and the next post too) spoke about societies, which is kinda the point - if someone is harmed, if a certain group of people is oppressed there is no guarantee that there is any organized group of people to blame for that (each and every separate incident has individual perpetrators, my position is not that "nobody is guilty"). And you spoke about destroying societies, not governments.

But even when it's specifically government - do you really expect TTRPG players to overthrow each that "is not lining up 1:1 with modern values"? Like there is a very widespread and respected modern value of democracy and power of the people in general. If there is a monarchy or some sort of hereditary oligarchy which is not 100% Platonic perfect form where ruler think only about well-being of the subjects - do you expect the players try to overthrow it even in conditions where there is no danger that some outside enemy will use the temporary disorder to their own goals?

Cluedrew
2021-02-17, 09:50 PM
That said, I feel that most identities are cultural constructs which, while they have weight and meaning in our world, wouldn't really apply to a fantasy world, and I feel like trying to explore a lot of these concepts in a fantasy world would be like wanting to, say, play a Frenchman to explore one's French background in a Forgotten Realms campaign set on Toril.I feel the need to point that there also identities that do have roots in things like biology and are then built-on/amplified/twisted/whatever by culture. The social elements might be different (or less) but they probably would still exist. Unless of course you don't want them too, its your setting.

And of course national pride, and even countries with similar national values, can exist in fantasy settings to.


I am absolutely only talking about the game's fluff, not the crutch.

Not quite sure what you mean about the second paragraph, [...]I think you also misunderstood the first paragraph as well because I think there is a big difference between "doesn't need to be covered mechanically" (you know with numbers and definite options) and "exists in characters" (or even "is important"). And I was more going for the first. Not everything about a person has to go on the character sheet. Some things aren't part of the game, some things can't really be covered by hard rules and others would make too small of a change.

But also going back: You can't find fiction with good gender and sexuality representation? (Double checks.) Oh just role-playing game settings. Honestly I haven't read a lot of setting material that tells me even what school is like for most people so it would seem kind of odd. Mind you I have never dug into Forgotten Realms, Creation or whatever Eclipse Phase's setting is called so maybe its out their and I just haven't read it. Most settings just don't go into cultural details where it could be brought up... which might be a larger issue in some regards. That being said you could probably slip in a paragraph or more about this when you introduce the alchemy.

quinron
2021-02-17, 09:55 PM
No callout intended.

I was just talking about how I felt that a setting where trans people are given the same respect as cis people, and can (if they want to) transition flawlessly will still have ways of explicitly portraying trans people.

Cool - and fully agreed. I just felt a little nervous; I'm very conscious that I'm wading into a topic where I care about it, and I've heard a lot of firsthand accounts, but I don't have firsthand experience.


In one case, it was my own father telling me that no girls would ever be interested in playing a game which had "so many pictures of sexy women in it".

Since your concern is about marketing to women, I'm dubious about the reliability of your dad's opinions.

If you're really concerned about it, you could just whip up a focus group. Show the art to a bunch of women who are already interested in these sorts of games (they shouldn't be too hard to find around here) and tell them you're interested in their feedback without telling them that you're specifically wondering about the gender ratio. You could even just show the art to a bunch of people regardless of gender, but take special note of the women's responses. If they're having trouble articulating responses, maybe have a list of questions about their thoughts on it and stick the gender ratio question in the middle.

My only worry would be that if you're posting that on these boards or any other boards you frequent, people who follow your posts might be coming into the focus group already knowing what you're looking for. I'd recommend either going to a board you don't frequent or using an alt account.

BisectedBrioche
2021-02-18, 06:31 AM
The relevant issue here would be The Male Gaze (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MaleGaze) (warning: TV Tropes link) as a concept.

Do said pictures of women make us feel seen, or are they there for the consumption of a presumed male audience (and in the latter case, is that still a dealbreaker, and is it a dealbreaker for every woman?).


Cool - and fully agreed. I just felt a little nervous; I'm very conscious that I'm wading into a topic where I care about it, and I've heard a lot of firsthand accounts, but I don't have firsthand experience.

Reminds me of a time I was in a discussion about trans rights with someone who kept smugly saying "can we get some primary sources on this?".

I pointed out my personal anecdotes were a primary source. :smallbiggrin:

Satinavian
2021-02-18, 07:14 AM
The relevant issue here would be The Male Gaze (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MaleGaze) (warning: TV Tropes link) as a concept.

Do said pictures of women make us feel seen, or are they there for the consumption of a presumed male audience (and in the latter case, is that still a dealbreaker, and is it a dealbreaker for every woman?).It is more complicated.

There is not a lot of money in RPGs and hardly any of the smaller brand ever pay artists market rate. In return (because the artist does it partly for favor/hobby) artists for smaller RPGs tend to get a lot more freedom than would be expected for commissioned work.

Turns out a lot of artists actually like portraying good looking or even sexy characters. I know of several small RPG publishers trying to avoid sexualisation and ending up having problems finding artists doing so or convincing those they had worked with so far. At least without actually paying proper prices. Surprisingly those problems arose with female artists even more often than with male ones but that might be coincidence. Don't know enough cases for proper statistics on that.


So when Takalael states that his commissioned artwork ends up with far more cheesecake than he asked for, yes, that is utterly to be expected.


Personally i like 50:50 men/women on illustrations if the society depicted is meant to be really equal. But i don't claim to be more than a single data point for this matter.

BisectedBrioche
2021-02-19, 06:39 AM
It is more complicated.

There is not a lot of money in RPGs and hardly any of the smaller brand ever pay artists market rate. In return (because the artist does it partly for favor/hobby) artists for smaller RPGs tend to get a lot more freedom than would be expected for commissioned work.

Turns out a lot of artists actually like portraying good looking or even sexy characters. I know of several small RPG publishers trying to avoid sexualisation and ending up having problems finding artists doing so or convincing those they had worked with so far. At least without actually paying proper prices. Surprisingly those problems arose with female artists even more often than with male ones but that might be coincidence. Don't know enough cases for proper statistics on that.


So when Takalael states that his commissioned artwork ends up with far more cheesecake than he asked for, yes, that is utterly to be expected.


Personally i like 50:50 men/women on illustrations if the society depicted is meant to be really equal. But i don't claim to be more than a single data point for this matter.

An interesting point, but I'm not sure I understand what it has to do with what I just said?

Satinavian
2021-02-19, 08:08 AM
The "Male Gaze" as known from film and TV is associated with producing for a male audience and seen as deliberate decision of producer/director. That is not what can be assumed for pictures of sexualized women in RPG materials.
Furthermore you wrote about whether it is a dealbreaker specifically for women. As if men were generally assumed to like such art and women not. Which is also something that seems to not really be the case. People are far more complicated, both men and women.

BisectedBrioche
2021-02-19, 09:18 AM
The "Male Gaze" as known from film and TV is associated with producing for a male audience and seen as deliberate decision of producer/director. That is not what can be assumed for pictures of sexualized women in RPG materials.
Furthermore you wrote about whether it is a dealbreaker specifically for women. As if men were generally assumed to like such art and women not. Which is also something that seems to not really be the case. People are far more complicated, both men and women.

The point I was responding to was whether or not such images would put women off a given game; how it would affect mens' interest wasn't even something I was talking about, let alone making assumptions of.

My point was that whether or not artwork of attractive women in TTRPGs appeals to women depends on the artwork itself, which I believe is the same point you were trying to make about my post. Which is why I was confused.

Ravens_cry
2021-02-20, 02:20 AM
While a firm and sapphic admirer of the female form, too much T&A can get a wee bit much, especially if it conflicts with the rest of the tone. As an example, let's say you are doing a Conan style setting, where just about everyone is at least athletically toned. There, it totally fits to go pretty bonkers. On the other hand, if in the setting the male and masculine characters dress fairly rationally, dressed approximately for the weather, for example, while the women and feminine characters are depicted like they are on their way to swing on a pole, it can feels gratuitous. Another problem I have is when there's only seemingly one kind of female and feminine figure drawn, while the men are allowed to be much more diverse, like the only reason for women to exist in the 'verse is to be some minor variation on current Western, stereotypical straight male, ideals of sexy.

Liquor Box
2021-02-20, 06:19 AM
A few thoughts:

I am a big believer that you should describe NPCs as they appear to the PC(s) and only mention the things that the PC would likely notice about them (which may appear by character or by setting, particularly if their presented gender doesn't match their sex). In you setting's case, i take it that the alchemy would change the character to their preferred sex so that they are indistinguishable from people who were born that way. That means that the PCs would probably never know if anyone were trans or not (unless they became close to that person and they revealed it), so the world is likely to be indistinguishable from one where there are no tans people.
if you are wanting to include other gender identities into your setting, remember that such people are likely to be small minority of the population (especially since all the trans people are indistinguishable from binary). If you have 100 NPC's, on average one might be have a non-binary gender identity other than trans. Having them around every corner would seem forced and strange. Unless that is you want to make a point that fewer people are gender binary than in the real world, and if that's the case I think it's something you should specify upfront. As to describing them, as I mentioned above, is there something about their gender that the PCs would notice in particular? It may well be as you describe for previous games, none of the characters non-binaryness comes across.
You mention you want your society to be egalitarian. Think about whether this includes women being equally represented in strength based jobs. If you do, how do they manage - is it only the strongest of them, or is biology different in your world so women are just as strong as men on average? I know some people prefer their fantasy to handwave real world differences such as these - perhaps magic?
Family is something lots of people will tend to talk about when getting to know someone. so it is probably something worth including some notes on.
As to sexual preference if you are wanting the DM to make an NPC's sexual preference compatible with whoever shows an interest in them, you should say so somewhere, otherwise some DMs will assume that they are straight.
I don't think there is a proper ratio for female to males in art. I can think of three perspectives though. First you can make it 50/50 as you mention. Second, you can make it reflect the setting you are in - now if your setting is a whole world this will probably be 50/50, but some settings (eg single sex prisons) will skew hard to one gender. Third, and this is what I suggest if you are wanting this to be popular, you can cater to your target market - that is think about who you expect to be interested in your setting, then think about the gender ratio that will appeal to them.
I think you should sexualise some characters but not all. After all, most attractive people tend to sexualise themselves somewhat. Consider some people of both genders though - for every maiden with with chainmail bikini, add a well muscled shirtless guy. Some people will still criticise, but that's unavoidable. Sex sells, that's why most commercial media relies on it.

Talakeal
2021-02-20, 03:05 PM
I meant destroying the governments, not the innocent people ruled by them.

I get what you mean, I just don't think it is that simple on either in IC or OOC level.

On an OOC level, the GM and the players need to work together to develop and change the setting, either side trying to strong arm it is not going to go well. On a fiction level, changing societies through violent means is really hard, in a realistic setting there isn't going to be a clean line between the oppressors and the oppressed and simply killing the heads of state likely won't change the underlying cultural assumptions.


Are you trying to create a setting free of prejudice gender and sexuality? (No sexism, no homophobia, ect), or are you trying to explore cultural ideas of gender and sexuality within a fantastical setting.

Assuming the former, and assuming you're mostly interested in making a welcoming setting rather than doing an academic deep-dive into "Well, what aspects of society were influenced by sexism and homophobia, because those would need to be different", it's pretty easy, your biggest danger is going to be accidentally using harmful tropes, even if such tropes are not really a thing in-universe.

I do want the game to be an examination of psychology and society, yes.

But it is also a fantasy world with strong transhumanism elements.

The problem is trying to keep it somewhat grounded and relatable rather than completely alien to the players.


While a firm and sapphic admirer of the female form, too much T&A can get a wee bit much, especially if it conflicts with the rest of the tone. As an example, let's say you are doing a Conan style setting, where just about everyone is at least athletically toned. There, it totally fits to go pretty bonkers. On the other hand, if in the setting the male and masculine characters dress fairly rationally, dressed approximately for the weather, for example, while the women and feminine characters are depicted like they are on their way to swing on a pole, it can feels gratuitous. Another problem I have is when there's only seemingly one kind of female and feminine figure drawn, while the men are allowed to be much more diverse, like the only reason for women to exist in the 'verse is to be some minor variation on current Western, stereotypical straight male, ideals of sexy.

Yeah, I much prefer the former.

I personally find the elaborate costumes that you see on a lot of RPG covers and, especially, in mobile game advertising, to be really silly and a big turnoff.



You mention you want your society to be egalitarian. Think about whether this includes women being equally represented in strength based jobs. If you do, how do they manage - is it only the strongest of them, or is biology different in your world so women are just as strong as men on average? I know some people prefer their fantasy to handwave real world differences such as these - perhaps magic?

In the distant past, the setting made extensive use of genetic engineering.

One of the results is that women are much closer in size and strength to men, to the point where the average woman has a greater lower body strength and the average man has greater upper body strength, but individual variation is far more important than sex.

The mechanics of carrying a child for nine months and then nursing it for several years, as well as the ability of a single man to impregnate many women in times of catastrophe remain unchanged however, and imo this likely has a far bigger effect on gender roles than strength ever did.



As to sexual preference if you are wanting the DM to make an NPC's sexual preference compatible with whoever shows an interest in them, you should say so somewhere, otherwise some DMs will assume that they are straight.


That's more of a personal preference for how I run a game than something that is baked into the system.



I don't think there is a proper ratio for female to males in art. I can think of three perspectives though. First you can make it 50/50 as you mention. Second, you can make it reflect the setting you are in - now if your setting is a whole world this will probably be 50/50, but some settings (eg single sex prisons) will skew hard to one gender. Third, and this is what I suggest if you are wanting this to be popular, you can cater to your target market - that is think about who you expect to be interested in your setting, then think about the gender ratio that will appeal to them.
I think you should sexualise some characters but not all. After all, most attractive people tend to sexualise themselves somewhat. Consider some people of both genders though - for every maiden with with chainmail bikini, add a well muscled shirtless guy. Some people will still criticize, but that's unavoidable. Sex sells, that's why most commercial media relies on it.
[/LIST]

There is also the issue of how one even goes about sexualizing a male. Amongst game criticism, the standard ultra feminine woman with an hourglass figure is universally seen as a male sex fantasy, while the standard muscular bearded violent super manly guy is seen as a male power fantasy.

I personally prefer roguish men with a swimmers build and tall, full figured, athletic women in dominant positions; and so if I am going for "sexy" that is what I will ask for, usually just in the most revealing clothing that is practical for the role; but I know I am absolutely not the norm.

LibraryOgre
2021-02-20, 03:33 PM
So, while I have had trans, gender fluid, intersex, and homo/bi/pan sexual NPCs in games that I have run, very little of it comes across in the official NPC write-ups or setting design.

TBH, this is about where I'd leave it, though you might think about how inheritance works. If your players want characters who delve into it, that's fine, but I would not stress it as a DM unless its something we, as a table, want to talk about.

As a designer? Think about how society deals with societal things. The acceptance of transgender individuals and same-sex relationships is pretty easy... "Amy was named Bob when she was born, but is Amy now" is the sort of thing that might be noted in a biography or genealogy, but would not be socially noticed if there's no prohibition against it or constricted gender roles. However, the transfer of property (and title) is going to be a big deal.

If Duke Bob is married to Charles, where do Duke Bob's heirs come from? The real-world standard is Bob's kids, but does your society accept that adopted children will be heirs? Is it common to designate other family as an heir? Both were common in the Roman Republic and Empire, but fell out in medieval Europe.



On a related note, what is the proper ratio of male to female characters in artwork? A common sense answer would obviously be 50/50, I have had several people comment about how there are already too many drawings of women despite them only making up about 40% of the artwork.
To go further down that rabbit hole, do you think male gamers are more or less likely to be interested in a game with lots of female representation in the artwork? And vice versa?

I'd say 50/50 is best. There've been studies that show that a lot of folks tend to read "equal representation" as "there are too many women", but I'm in favor of changing that. (I'm reminded of the initial pilot of Star Trek, which had a woman as Number One, and everyone wondered why she was being so bossy).



And, a little deeper, does it matter how sexualized the art is? I try and avoid out and out cheesecake (its tough, I have found that a lot of artists want to draw it even if not requested), but most of the illustrations are of conventionally attractive people regardless of gender. Likewise, while I am trying to display a wide array of clothing styles and body types, a large portion of the illustrations do depict people who are scantily clad or with unrealistic physiques.


This comes down to art direction... you gotta hire artists who do the style you're looking for, and tell your artists what you want. If I hire Frank Frazetta, I'm gonna get scantily clad, buff people, unless I specifically tell him I want something else... but why, then, am I hiring Frank Frazetta? Why not hire someone else entirely, who is great at depicting black women in Tang-era Chinese costume? And if I tell my artist I want a black woman in Tang-era costume, and they give me "Elle McPherson, colored sorta tan, and in a kimono", they're not giving me what I've asked for, and saying "No, you got specific instructions which you ignored, and I'm not paying for this" is perfectly reasonable.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-20, 04:21 PM
I get what you mean, I just don't think it is that simple on either in IC or OOC level.

On an OOC level, the GM and the players need to work together to develop and change the setting, either side trying to strong arm it is not going to go well. On a fiction level, changing societies through violent means is really hard, in a realistic setting there isn't going to be a clean line between the oppressors and the oppressed and simply killing the heads of state likely won't change the underlying cultural assumptions.


Why does it "need" to be realistic?

this hobby is full of escapism just like a lot of fantasy fiction is. we take shortcuts to make things more fun all the time. I see no difference between my desire and that of those who want to kill orcs for being chaotic evil, yet no one bats an eye at the latter.

also more importantly to this thread, if a transgender person wants to use fantasy to escape to a world where the transition is easy, what is wrong with that? what makes taking shortcuts on this any different from taking shortcuts on any other details we do in roleplaying?

everyone has to decide for themselves what is acceptable escapism vs. an issue that needs to explored through suffering and complexity.

if always realistic all the time was the right answer, fantasy wouldn't even exist.

Talakeal
2021-02-20, 04:29 PM
Why does it "need" to be realistic?

this hobby is full of escapism just like a lot of fantasy fiction is. we take shortcuts to make things more fun all the time. I see no difference between my desire and that of those who want to kill orcs for being chaotic evil, yet no one bats an eye at the latter.

also more importantly to this thread, if a transgender person wants to use fantasy to escape to a world where the transition is easy, what is wrong with that? what makes taking shortcuts on this any different from taking shortcuts on any other details we do in roleplaying?

everyone has to decide for themselves what is acceptable escapism vs. an issue that needs to explored through suffering and complexity.

if always realistic all the time was the right answer, fantasy wouldn't even exist.

It doesn't.

But the idea that the DM is required to allow the PCs an unrealistically easy victory is what I am objecting to.

Also, trying to avoid RL politics, but the fantasy that you live in a world where problems can easily be solved with violence does have some unfortunate implications in the real world; sort of like when someone at Bioware decided that homosexuals didn't exist in Star Wars; it is a fantasy world, but ignoring realism to serve a certain sort of politically charged fantasy can easily be harmful and / or offensive.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-20, 04:40 PM
It doesn't.

But the idea that the DM is required to allow the PCs an unrealistically easy victory is what I am objecting to.

Also, trying to avoid RL politics, but the fantasy that you live in a world where problems can easily be solved with violence does have some unfortunate implications in the real world; sort of like when someone at Bioware decided that homosexuals didn't exist in Star Wars; it is a fantasy world, but ignoring realism to serve a certain sort of politically charged fantasy can easily be harmful and / or offensive.

Look if you want it more detailed, all your going to make shift into is teaching trickster mode where I destroy the society by being a trickster-teacher who destroys their assumptions until they start being good by people by themselves while killing anyone who won't listen otherwise, so I can then humiliate AND kill anyone who stands in my way. possibly having someone I trust make any laws needed for justice to get done. I'll do whatever tiresome hoops needed to jump through.

my main point is if you make things against player values some of them are going to destroy whatever unfairness they want, no matter much you claim its unbreakable or how much you want to drag it out. there is no "just apart of the setting, can't be changed". all your point is "but look at all these hoops I want you to jump through!"

Talakeal
2021-02-20, 05:22 PM
Look if you want it more detailed, all your going to make shift into is teaching trickster mode where I destroy the society by being a trickster-teacher who destroys their assumptions until they start being good by people by themselves while killing anyone who won't listen otherwise, so I can then humiliate AND kill anyone who stands in my way. possibly having someone I trust make any laws needed for justice to get done. I'll do whatever tiresome hoops needed to jump through.

My main point is if you make things against player values some of them are going to destroy whatever unfairness they want, no matter much you claim its unbreakable or how much you want to drag it out. there is no "just apart of the setting, can't be changed". all your point is "but look at all these hoops I want you to jump through!"

No, you can't. Trying to get into a **** measuring contest with the GM will never work out. The *only* thing a player can do without GM buy in is leave the game in a huff.

To use one of my old gaming horror stories, I once had a PC going on about how he could beat any NPC in the setting and literally getting up at the table and singing "Anything you can do I can do better," one session. A few weeks later, he picked a fight with an NPC who was much stronger than him, who literally laughed off his attacks and retaliated. Then the player spent the next few hours pouting and telling me that I had no right to "mock him and kill his character because he doesn't care about the lore of my stupid world."

But yeah, my compulsive need to respond to everything is really starting to derail the thread. At this point this line of discussion is boiling down to "No uh, you are!"

Lord Raziere
2021-02-20, 05:28 PM
No, you can't. Trying to get into a **** measuring contest with the GM will never work out. The *only* thing a player can do without GM buy in is leave the game in a huff.

No, trying the GM trying to shutdown the players at every turn will never work out, the only thing a GM can do without player buy in is wish they had a game at all.

Rater202
2021-02-20, 05:35 PM
If a GM includes oppressive cultures or governments in their setting—especially if they oppress groups that the PCs(or players) belong to—and lets the PCs get to a level of power where the PCs are capable of fighting these governments or cultures and the GM doesn't have plans to either let the PCS do that or explain why they can't beyond just "no, you can't, cna't be done," then the GM has failed utterly in their job.

If my Chaotic Good Barbarian gets to level 20 and can't depose the king of so-called civilization who is pressing and hurting innocent people for reasons my Barbarian finds stupid, not just not having the opportunity but being physically prevented from doing so, even if her level 20 Sorcerer, Druid, and Brd friends agree with her, then the GM has made a mistake.

And that goes double if the oppressive King is intended to be seen as a "good guy."

Talakeal
2021-02-20, 05:45 PM
If a GM includes oppressive cultures or governments in their setting—especially if they oppress groups that the PCs(or players) belong to—and lets the PCs get to a level of power where the PCs are capable of fighting these governments or cultures and the GM doesn't have plans to either let the PCS do that or explain why they can't beyond just "no, you can't, can't be done," then the GM has failed utterly in their job.

If my Chaotic Good Barbarian gets to level 20 and can't depose the king of so-called civilization who is pressing and hurting innocent people for reasons my Barbarian finds stupid, not just not having the opportunity but being physically prevented from doing so, even if her level 20 Sorcerer, Druid, and Bard friends agree with her, then the GM has made a mistake.

And that goes double if the oppressive King is intended to be seen as a "good guy."

Yeah, that's all true.

But then again, a more realistic scenario would be that the king remains in power because he has even higher level allies, or that the oppression is a systemic aspect of their culture developed over generations rather than being the fault of a few evil monarchs, or that rather than being evil the king has slowly compromised their morals to account for the harsh realities of the world.

Heck, it might even be the theme of the game. For example, I am told that Fable 3 has one of the better twists in gaming history when (spoilers for a decade old game) the entire plot of the game revolves around overthrowing a tyrannical king, only to find out that the reason he was being so tyrannical was that he was secretly trying to prepare the nation to fight off an apocalyptic invasion by a hostile foreign power.

Due note that I am in no way arguing against players being able to change the world, that is literally what the core of my setting is about. But at the same time, it is also about exploring the costs and the consequences of doing so and there being no such thing as a free lunch.

Which can, also, cost you players.

For example, in my long running home game, the PCs have conquered or toppled every major government on the planet in over a decade of play. One player, after (without any prompting on my part) made the decision that the best long term course of action in a region was to commit genocide and wipe out a single tribe to the last child, said that they didn't want to play any more because even though they had accomplished all of their goals they had never once felt like a hero.

Anymage
2021-02-20, 07:03 PM
But then again, a more realistic scenario would be that the king remains in power because he has even higher level allies, or that the oppression is a systemic aspect of their culture developed over generations rather than being the fault of a few evil monarchs, or that rather than being evil the king has slowly compromised their morals to account for the harsh realities of the world.

Just be aware that if I wanted to feel depressed about the sheer inertia driving most social problems I'd just go outside. One of the main reasons to play a heroic PC type is to be able to make a significant difference through my actions. In true superhero fashion that does often involve punching one figurehead and doing a bit of speechifying, but that's because other methods of trying to solve major social problems through game mechanics range from poorly implemented to nonexistent.


Due note that I am in no way arguing against players being able to change the world, that is literally what the core of my setting is about. But at the same time, it is also about exploring the costs and the consequences of doing so and there being no such thing as a free lunch.

Skimming your work I see pages and pages of rules for combat and equipment that can be used for combat. Where do you have rules for speechifying, and for the unintended consequences and unforeseen complications that might come of your attempts to fix one problem?

What a game's rules spend more or less attention on will affect what players will see as more or less important. Heart of Darkness doesn't really show me any rules for changing hearts and minds or meaningfully changing the world, outside of the superhero version I mentioned above. Be aware that countless people have tried "we're totally about Deep Roleplaying" while cribbing someone else's rule engine. (Usually some version of D&D, but oWoD was notably based on the Shadowrun ruleset at first.) Intent matters a lot less than what the rules actually support/encourage.

quinron
2021-02-20, 07:32 PM
Just be aware that if I wanted to feel depressed about the sheer inertia driving most social problems I'd just go outside. One of the main reasons to play a heroic PC type is to be able to make a significant difference through my actions. In true superhero fashion that does often involve punching one figurehead and doing a bit of speechifying, but that's because other methods of trying to solve major social problems through game mechanics range from poorly implemented to nonexistent.



Skimming your work I see pages and pages of rules for combat and equipment that can be used for combat. Where do you have rules for speechifying, and for the unintended consequences and unforeseen complications that might come of your attempts to fix one problem?

What a game's rules spend more or less attention on will affect what players will see as more or less important. Heart of Darkness doesn't really show me any rules for changing hearts and minds or meaningfully changing the world, outside of the superhero version I mentioned above. Be aware that countless people have tried "we're totally about Deep Roleplaying" while cribbing someone else's rule engine. (Usually some version of D&D, but oWoD was notably based on the Shadowrun ruleset at first.) Intent matters a lot less than what the rules actually support/encourage.

I haven't read Talakeal's game, so I can't comment on the merit of this critique. But it seems self-contradictory - you say that attempting to solve social problems through game mechanics is usually done poorly, then you ask where Talakeal's game mechanics for solving social problems are.

I'd be all for a game where social interaction mechanics don't exist specifically because they make conversation feel gamified and inorganic - I can't tell you how many times I've had players ask to roll Sense Motive or Insight checks with nothing to go on instead of bothering to do the necessary work to catch a character in a lie. But I actually agree with the gist of your last point - while I don't think you need dense rules to make something seem important, having dense rules implies something is important. If you want a game that's supposed to be about balancing social interaction and combat, and you specifically do not want social interaction rules, you need to keep the combat rules bare-bones.

Talakeal
2021-02-20, 08:30 PM
Just be aware that if I wanted to feel depressed about the sheer inertia driving most social problems I'd just go outside. One of the main reasons to play a heroic PC type is to be able to make a significant difference through my actions. In true superhero fashion that does often involve punching one figurehead and doing a bit of speechifying, but that's because other methods of trying to solve major social problems through game mechanics range from poorly implemented to nonexistent.

You know, Westerns are a good analogy.

Back in the old days, they were typically black and white good guys shoot the bad guys and save the day, and were really popular.

Then, people started to understand just how terrible the wild west really was in a lot of ways, and how the mindset of cowboys in white hats riding into town and shooting the bad guys before riding off into the sunset really wasn't the best way to approach real life problems.

And, westerns became less popular.

But they still make westerns, and a lot of them are very good, but they are often now more nuanced and emotionally complex than the westerns of old.


Skimming your work I see pages and pages of rules for combat and equipment that can be used for combat. Where do you have rules for speechifying, and for the unintended consequences and unforeseen complications that might come of your attempts to fix one problem?

What a game's rules spend more or less attention on will affect what players will see as more or less important. Heart of Darkness doesn't really show me any rules for changing hearts and minds or meaningfully changing the world, outside of the superhero version I mentioned above. Be aware that countless people have tried "we're totally about Deep Roleplaying" while cribbing someone else's rule engine. (Usually some version of D&D, but oWoD was notably based on the Shadowrun ruleset at first.) Intent matters a lot less than what the rules actually support/encourage.

Well, that may be the first time anyone ever told me I had too many combat rules!

To clarify though, I would like to say to things:

First, I didn't mean to give the impression that my game wasn't about violence, it absolutely is. It is not a moralizing tale about the evils of violence, being a pacifist is just as ineffective and likely to get innocents killed as running in and shooting up "the bad guy" with no thought to the consequences. The game is about exploring moral shades of grey and the consequences of violence; but more than that it is about the creation and development of unique and complex human characters. The decisions you make and their effects on the world are important, but much less important than how you came to those decisions and the effects that they had on you.

Second, I am not sure if I agree that the mechanics of a game need to go hand in hand with the storyline. For example, a game like Spec Ops: The Line is a game all about PTSD and the dehumanization of modern military operations, but it plays more or less exactly like any of the various other first person shooters that glorify warfare. Or how in old school CRPGs you are supposed to be the hero who is out saving the world, but you still spend most of your time breaking into people's homes and ransacking them, and the merchant who is asking you to save the town is still charging you an arm and a leg for the weapon you need to do it; because sometimes fun gameplay doesn't care about things like story or theme. Which is not to say that a good game doesn't have mechanics which reinforce the theme, I just think its not essential, and is best when left as subtext.


...but oWoD was notably based on the Shadowrun ruleset at first...

Is this true? I do see a lot of similarities between the two, but as there were only 1-2 years between the books publication, I always assumed it was just more of a convergent development resulting from the state of gaming / pop culture at the time.


I'd be all for a game where social interaction mechanics don't exist specifically because they make conversation feel gamified and inorganic - I can't tell you how many times I've had players ask to roll Sense Motive or Insight checks with nothing to go on instead of bothering to do the necessary work to catch a character in a lie. But I actually agree with the gist of your last point - while I don't think you need dense rules to make something seem important, having dense rules implies something is important. If you want a game that's supposed to be about balancing social interaction and combat, and you specifically do not want social interaction rules, you need to keep the combat rules bare-bones.

Also this.

In my experience the more people tend to right rules about something, the less engaging it becomes. For example, D&D has a lot more ink devoted to its alignment system than damn near any other game, and as a result I feel that it is probably the worst RPG I have ever seen for exploring themes of morality. Likewise, most games that have social combat systems just come across as feeling like shallow mind control simulators.

To use another example, I am currently playing Mage, and I like that Mage tied your sanity and hubris into your humanity; but the idea that I am more likely to become a marauder (an insane mage who has lost their grip on reality and now lives in an artificial reality of their own making) is tied to performing "evil" acts. Which makes no damn sense; in my mind the most grounded Mages would be cynical sociopaths, and the one's most likely to become marauders would be the idealistic ones who attempted to put everything right regardless of the cost.

Edit: Oh, and I really do appreciate any time anyone takes to look at my work and / or give me feedback about it; even if it challenges my intent / execution. Thanks!

Destro2119
2021-02-20, 09:07 PM
I am trying to make my game / campaign setting more inclusive for various gender and sexual identities, but I don't really know how to go about it.

My setting is roughly equivalent to nineteenth century Earth, but far more egalitarian, without rigidly defined gender roles. In addition, alchemy makes seamlessly changing one's biological sex something which is, while not easy or commonplace, something that is achievable for most people.

I can't personally really see how many of the modern gender identities would fit into such a setting outside of very specific circumstances.


Likewise, when it comes to writing up specific setting NPCs, I don't generally mention family unless it is important for the setting (for example, a dynastic family) because I want to leave it open for other people to develop as they see fit, and because it would also feel forced / tokenist to simply insert a context less line about someone's sexuality or AGAB into their biography. Likewise, I prefer to leave NPCs sexuality ambiguous in my games in case a player wants to romance them.

So, while I have had trans, gender fluid, intersex, and homo/bi/pan sexual NPCs in games that I have run, very little of it comes across in the official NPC write-ups or setting design.



On a related note, what is the proper ratio of male to female characters in artwork? A common sense answer would obviously be 50/50, I have had several people comment about how there are already too many drawings of women despite them only making up about 40% of the artwork.
To go further down that rabbit hole, do you think male gamers are more or less likely to be interested in a game with lots of female representation in the artwork? And vice versa?
And, a little deeper, does it matter how sexualized the art is? I try and avoid out and out cheesecake (its tough, I have found that a lot of artists want to draw it even if not requested), but most of the illustrations are of conventionally attractive people regardless of gender. Likewise, while I am trying to display a wide array of clothing styles and body types, a large portion of the illustrations do depict people who are scantily clad or with unrealistic physiques.

Thanks!

On a side note, a interesting thing that relates to this is how Fallen London (set in pseudo gothic 1870s London that was stolen by immensely powerful beings called the Masters of the Bazaar and resides now undergrounds in massive massive cave... long story) deals with sexuality and gender. On the latter, the eldritch ***ery of the place makes it so that while there are guys and gals, there are now people with squids for heads and semi sentient golem workers, to the point where someone identifying as agender or nonbinary wouldn't even be given a passing glance. On the former, one of the Maters portfolios deals with love of all kinds, so lgbt relationships aren't stigmatized as they were in IRL 1870s London because he deals in ALL kinds of love.

Spiel aside, try to make sure everything makes sense according to the lore of your world. I look forwards to seeing the finished product!

Witty Username
2021-02-21, 12:23 AM
On a related note, what is the proper ratio of male to female characters in artwork? A common sense answer would obviously be 50/50, I have had several people comment about how there are already too many drawings of women despite them only making up about 40% of the artwork.
To go further down that rabbit hole, do you think male gamers are more or less likely to be interested in a game with lots of female representation in the artwork? And vice versa?
And, a little deeper, does it matter how sexualized the art is? I try and avoid out and out cheesecake (its tough, I have found that a lot of artists want to draw it even if not requested), but most of the illustrations are of conventionally attractive people regardless of gender. Likewise, while I am trying to display a wide array of clothing styles and body types, a large portion of the illustrations do depict people who are scantily clad or with unrealistic physiques.

Thanks!

As a man, I think if the artwork is entirely female characters I am more likely to buy the book.:smallredface:

If I were making decisions I would probably weight in favor of underrepresented groups, not sure I could say an exact ratio I would be aiming for. I personally think diversity and quality are related, so I would be more focused on the art being high quality.

My personal take on sexualization is consistency is more important than severity. If the men and women are sexualized about the same, I think that is fine and easier for people to accept. if one is more than the other, people will question it. Past that, I think whatever fits the tone best would be the best to aim for. If you are going for high fantasy, conventionally attractive and unrealistic physiques are probably fine. If you are going for something more realism or gritty then the art probably not.

Liquor Box
2021-02-21, 04:24 AM
There is also the issue of how one even goes about sexualizing a male. Amongst game criticism, the standard ultra feminine woman with an hourglass figure is universally seen as a male sex fantasy, while the standard muscular bearded violent super manly guy is seen as a male power fantasy.

I personally prefer roguish men with a swimmers build and tall, full figured, athletic women in dominant positions; and so if I am going for "sexy" that is what I will ask for, usually just in the most revealing clothing that is practical for the role; but I know I am absolutely not the norm.

Yeah, there will always be differences in people's preferences. Some people like skinnier women than curvy ones. I guess you can take a que from how they are usually sexualised in media as to what depiction might be most widely appealing.

Cluedrew
2021-02-21, 01:02 PM
In the distant past, the setting made extensive use of genetic engineering.

One of the results is that women are much closer in size and strength to men, [...]In the one setting where I directly addressed this issue the answer was "only makes a difference before the first plateau", after that when the diminishing returns reverse for a while and you enter what would be superhuman strength in our world it just stops being relevant. Although my indirect solution is usually "all those things are trends and individuals may not follow them".

Anyways I realized I was kind of getting lost so I when back and double checked the opening post. On artwork I agree with Witty Nickname that consistency of sexualization is pretty important. The tone/style should be consistent across characters. For representation I'd say go for about 50/50 or somewhere between that and the ratio for the groups you are portraying in the setting. Everything else I think I have already commented on.

Saint-Just
2021-02-21, 03:22 PM
Talakeal:

How close are the names in your world to IRL ones? If not very much then one thing that can happen (I think almost should happen) is lack of gendered names. So a person transitioning would not normally change their name - they can, of course, like some people change their names for reasons unrelated to sexuality or gender, but that should be significantly rarer. In fact lack of gendered names is practically a default assumption in transhumanist SF I've read. Now with RL names it is somewhat jarring but still possible; with made-up names it's easy.

Lord Raziere, Rater202

I definitely agree that if your character can topple the government by themselves they should be able to topple the government regardless of what player has in mind. That's only fair. However not every game is presuming that such level of power is achievable. I also do not think that non-TO 20lvl party is on that level of power in every official D&D setting.

Now if we go "not quite by themselves" then we have the problem of people supporting your character or party. The party may be able to inflict more damage than a nuclear warhead, and still not able to solve the problems without support of others. And if there is no support readily available then you sometimes can create that support and sometimes you can't. It's not necessary a GM screwing with you. Saying that converting a society of steppe nomads to strict veganism is impossible is not an indication that GM has a low opinion of veganism (not even indication that GM is not vegan themselves). Additional important thing: more things are theoretically possible in long-term, but even if your character can live for another 100 years I think that many players who want changes will not settle for that - nor will GM or other players agree to make that a focus of campaign.

Finally, Raziere: killing those who will not listen? Really?

Grek
2021-02-21, 03:40 PM
Expanding on Saint-Just's idea there and Segev's posts on the last page, I think what would realistically happen with inheritance (and therefore names) is absolute primogeniture. Your eldest child is your heir and gets a "strong" or "primary" name, while everyone else is expected to get married off in order to secure alliances and maintain social ties, regardless of gender. "One of you three needs to marry one of the four Dewmonts, so we're taking you all to a party so we can figure out which pair makes the best match." And if it turns out that two of the young men volunteer, the assumption is probably that they'll work out the question of child rearing between the two of them, possibly with a dowry from the wealthier family's parents to defray the costs. Possibly one of them transitions physically via alchemy, but doesn't switch their pronouns, since he's only going to be female-bodied 'for the sake of the children' and only as a temporary measure.

Talakeal
2021-02-21, 03:45 PM
Talakeal:

How close are the names in your world to IRL ones? If not very much then one thing that can happen (I think almost should happen) is lack of gendered names. So a person transitioning would not normally change their name - they can, of course, like some people change their names for reasons unrelated to sexuality or gender, but that should be significantly rarer. In fact lack of gendered names is practically a default assumption in transhumanist SF I've read. Now with RL names it is somewhat jarring but still possible; with made-up names it's easy.

That's a great suggestion; unfortunately I am terrible about coming up with names or inventing languages.

The setting is a mash-up of Arthurian and Western. As a result, most of the world's historical figures use names taken from real world mythology, while modern names in the setting are typically simple American names.


Edit: For land owners, family names are generally taken from a great hero who founded the dynasty and are tied to the land they live on. Land is typically inherited by the eldest child (and their spouse) regardless of gender, although land that has grown unwieldy might be split between all children. Marrying into a family, regardless of gender, usually means taking on their name, moving to their land, and cutting legal ties with your existing family.

Saint-Just
2021-02-21, 04:03 PM
Edit: For land owners, family names are generally taken from a great hero who founded the dynasty and are tied to the land they live on. Land is typically inherited by the eldest child (and their spouse) regardless of gender, although land that has grown unwieldy might be split between all children. Marrying into a family, regardless of gender, usually means taking on their name, moving to their land, and cutting legal ties with your existing family.

With an absolute primogeniture you will see significantly less situations where dynasties enlarge their holdings by marriage. In fact it probably will only happen when at least participant is a sole child. Marriages between firstborns will be either strongly discouraged, or alternatively result in a "junior" partner in the marriage (one who abandons their family name) disinheriting themselves.

Also if RL history is any indication nobody ever though it is possible to have too much land. So splitting will not be done because the lands are "unwieldy", you just hire stewards. It can be done because parents wanted to give a good life (and possibly political power) to all of their children, but depending on time and place it could be against the law (at least as far as the land and buildings go, giving out gold, animals etc was probably legal everywhere).

Lord Raziere
2021-02-21, 04:04 PM
Finally, Raziere: killing those who will not listen? Really?

Its a last resort if being a trickster-teacher doesn't work out, because just speechifying at them directly doesn't work on people. if were being realistic making big speeches and telling people directly what is moral will just make them more resistant and make your think your just an unreasonable moral crusader/twee and thus defy you anyways. therefore the best way to get people to change without measures is often in ways that require cleverness and changing other factors- things that you might not always have time for in a fantasy game where there might be some other evil lurking about/threatening things, and having the guile and intelligence for such work in the first place is already quite lucky and requires some social focus which my character might not have. leading people to the right answer without directly telling them so that they won't resist those answers is delicate work. and again I don't plan on killing civilians.

whats your alternative?

"Stop enslaving people"
"No, I'm not listening"
"oh well I guess I'm just going let that happen."

"Stop oppressing people for having different religion/physical features/partners than you."
"No, I'm not listening."
"oh well I guess I'm going to let that happen."

"Stop being a corrupt jerk who hoards wealth"
"No, I'm not listening."
"oh well I guess I'm going to let that happen."

"Stop going to war"
"No, I'm not listening"
"oh well I guess I'm going to let that happen."

"Stop abusing your power"
"No, I'm not listening"
"Oh well, I guess I'm going to let that happen."

not all of us view playing in settings as taking a tour of suffering we can look at without being able to change much outside of what the GM's wants us to focus on. and if your putting that stuff into fantasy full of fantastic abilities and classes that capable of combat and being badass over others, don't be surprised when violence is what is resorted to.

you want to play out that social change realistically with player involvement you better make sure up front from the start that its a political intrigue game, make sure that a complete noncombat character with social skills is not only a viable character concept, but one of the more optimal ones and that no greater evil or dungeon-crawling is involved at all, because your asking for something that requires total focus of concept, and if there is anything greater than that politics at work the only choice will be to start taking shortcuts to make sure both evils are defeated, lesser and greater. because there is always the chance the lesser evil will be corrupted by the greater one anyways. there is a universe that has both such greater evils and such politics, its called Wh40k, and the people there take violent shortcuts with the politics within to make sure they can deal with the threats from without which are always more pressing.

its the "Thousand Dooms" problem of Exalted 2e: why care about doing the politics and culture properly if some big supernatural disaster or whatnot is constantly going roflstomp over everyone's lives if you don't deal with that anyways? might as well resort to military rule and force them into it, because that is what will be most efficient to responding to those threats.

Verappo
2021-02-21, 04:24 PM
I am trying to make my game / campaign setting more inclusive for various gender and sexual identities, but I don't really know how to go about it.

My setting is roughly equivalent to nineteenth century Earth, but far more egalitarian, without rigidly defined gender roles. In addition, alchemy makes seamlessly changing one's biological sex something which is, while not easy or commonplace, something that is achievable for most people.

I can't personally really see how many of the modern gender identities would fit into such a setting outside of very specific circumstances.


Likewise, when it comes to writing up specific setting NPCs, I don't generally mention family unless it is important for the setting (for example, a dynastic family) because I want to leave it open for other people to develop as they see fit, and because it would also feel forced / tokenist to simply insert a context less line about someone's sexuality or AGAB into their biography. Likewise, I prefer to leave NPCs sexuality ambiguous in my games in case a player wants to romance them.

So, while I have had trans, gender fluid, intersex, and homo/bi/pan sexual NPCs in games that I have run, very little of it comes across in the official NPC write-ups or setting design.


I hope these things haven't been said better by someone else already, but I don't think that the changes you suggest would necessarily lead to a society where trans or queer identities kind of even out and fade in the background, as there is more to gender and sexual identity than the single issues of transition and discrimination.

I think at this point the question becomes, how does your setting's conception of gender identity and expression change once the means to affirm that identity and the freedom to express it are more easily achieved? Are men and women still tied down to the signifiers of beard, blue, trousers and make up, pink, skirt, or is an amalgam of all those forms of expression more widespread (and are there new ones)? Are different pronouns and inclusive language more widespread? Non binary and gender-fluid people will still exist, and more people will be out probably.

It seems to me if you do want a more inclusive society, then you need to think about the history of that society and work a way for your trans characters' identities to be not only present and tolerated/permitted, but widespread and celebrated in how they differ as well as how they're the same as more rigid conceptions of gender.

Liquor Box
2021-02-21, 05:33 PM
"Stop going to war"
"No, I'm not listening"
"oh well I guess I'm going to let that happen."

"Stop abusing your power"
"No, I'm not listening"
"Oh well, I guess I'm going to let that happen."


A lot of what you are saying misses the mark, but I found these two examples particularly ironic. You are proposing to respond to people going to war or abusing their power, by your PCs abusing their own power to go to war with those people.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-21, 05:43 PM
A lot of what you are saying misses the mark, but I found these two examples particularly ironic. You are proposing to respond to people going to war or abusing their power, by your PCs abusing their own power to go to war with those people.

Yet I still find it a better reason than what most murderhobo PC's attack people for: gold or exp. Whether its ironic or not has no bearing on anything. Imminent disasters require action. If there is no other way to get rid of the problem- which in a fantasy setting with nobility will be the ONLY way given the lack of social mobility- that is the only path forward if they refuse to be persuaded. Do you comment on the irony of killing bandits trying to kill you as well?

Anymage
2021-02-21, 05:48 PM
Two art questions, to spitball ideas.

First, does being active and having agency in a scene help reduce peoples sense of the character just being eye candy? Like tons has already been written about boobplate and chainmail bikinis. If the boobplate wearer is from a culture where the armor also tends towards sculpted abs and is taking charge of the scene, is that okay with people as opposed to her just looking cheesecakey?

Second, how often do gender nonconforming behaviors wind up showing up in art? As noted, being able to change one's physical sex for a moderate cost has some unintended consequences and doesn't show much if the character is indistinguishable from cis at a first glance (since a glance is all we get in an art piece, and someone who passes perfectly will by definition be impossible to tell from a cis person). Someone AFAB who hasn't magically altered their body but still prefers to present masc is not unknown; a suit or tuxedo that's been appropriately tailored is a look I've seen in real life, and a small chested woman going for sculpted abplate could work too. A masculine bodied person wanting to present femme is going to be trickier because there are a lot of cultural landmines re: man-in-a-dress and effeminate men in general, but gendernonconforming people in art and described in the setting book might communicate an openness to exploring genderspace than simply saying that physical transformation is possible and having few to no good ways to show that in play.

Talakeal
2021-02-21, 05:53 PM
Are men and women still tied down to the signifiers of beard, blue, trousers and make up, pink, skirt, or is an amalgam of all those forms of expression more widespread (and are there new ones)? Are different pronouns and inclusive language more widespread?

The language is gender neutral by default but has various optional pronouns, most of which are not based on gender, but rather social class, species, or spiritual aspects.

Most women are incapable of growing a bear biologically, but plenty of men shave. Trousers are typically worn by those who ride horses, skirts by those who don't. Colors are not generally related to gender, but more by what church you belong to. Makeup is, I suppose, more common among women, but nobody is going to comment on guys who look like Jack Sparrow or Louis the XIV.


Non binary and gender-fluid people will still exist, and more people will be out probably.

It seems to me if you do want a more inclusive society, then you need to think about the history of that society and work a way for your trans characters' identities to be not only present and tolerated/permitted, but widespread and celebrated in how they differ as well as how they're the same as more rigid conceptions of gender.

Given the above, what would a non-binary or gender fluid character even look like in this setting?


its the "Thousand Dooms" problem of Exalted 2e: why care about doing the politics and culture properly if some big supernatural disaster or whatnot is constantly going roflstomp over everyone's lives if you don't deal with that anyways? might as well resort to military rule and force them into it, because that is what will be most efficient to responding to those threats.

Ok, that kind of goes back to my point. So you have made that decision and your group of PCs militarize the world. Now, another group of solar Exalted have decided that it is their duty to liberate and enlighten repressive militant societies, so they come in to destroy your society. At that point, which side is the good guys? How does this play out that makes the world a better place?


You want to play out that social change realistically with player involvement you better make sure up front from the start that its a political intrigue game, make sure that a complete noncombat character with social skills is not only a viable character concept, but one of the more optimal ones and that no greater evil or dungeon-crawling is involved at all, because your asking for something that requires total focus of concept, and if there is anything greater than that politics at work the only choice will be to start taking shortcuts to make sure both evils are defeated, lesser and greater. because there is always the chance the lesser evil will be corrupted by the greater one anyways. there is a universe that has both such greater evils and such politics, its called Wh40k, and the people there take violent shortcuts with the politics within to make sure they can deal with the threats from without which are always more pressing.

To clarify, it seems like you are saying that the campaign world can only include darker elements that were put there specifically for the PCs to solve? Is that correct?

So like, if I am running a game about boxers in the real world, are you saying that it would be unfair to mention that one of their fellow boxers got cancer and retired because you can't simply punch out cancer, and therefore cancer is only appropriate in a hospital drama game where someone is playing an oncologist?



With an absolute primogeniture you will see significantly less situations where dynasties enlarge their holdings by marriage. In fact it probably will only happen when at least participant is a sole child. Marriages between firstborns will be either strongly discouraged, or alternatively result in a "junior" partner in the marriage (one who abandons their family name) disinheriting themselves.

Also if RL history is any indication nobody ever though it is possible to have too much land. So splitting will not be done because the lands are "unwieldy", you just hire stewards. It can be done because parents wanted to give a good life (and possibly political power) to all of their children, but depending on time and place it could be against the law (at least as far as the land and buildings go, giving out gold, animals etc was probably legal everywhere).

Most landowners in my setting are going to be part of the nobility in a fairly strict federal system. Trying to hold onto more land than you can successfully manage or manipulating your children's personal relationships or bodilly autonomy is a dangerous game as your superior can simply remove you from power. It is typically far better to simply share the land with a brother or cousin.

Also, IIRC Charles Martel divided his Empire between his three sons, which is why there is such a strong divide between Frankish and Germanic cultures in Europe and why they are always warring over the lands between.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-21, 06:09 PM
Ok, that kind of goes back to my point. So you have made that decision and your group of PCs militarize the world. Now, another group of solar Exalted have decided that it is their duty to liberate and enlighten repressive militant societies, so they come in to destroy your society. At that point, which side is the good guys? How does this play out that makes the world a better place?

No, I have not "made a decision". I have analyzed the circumstances and have determined that such a thing is the only decision that is sane. But not in the situation you have detailed. You have instead have detailed a different situation with your example assuming that I have just decided to militarize societies without any outside threat involved, which is a different case altogether, because I wouldn't do that.


To clarify, it seems like you are saying that the campaign world can only include darker elements that were put there specifically for the PCs to solve? Is that correct?

So like, if I am running a game about boxers in the real world, are you saying that it would be unfair to mention that one of their fellow boxers got cancer and retired because you can't simply punch out cancer, and therefore cancer is only appropriate in a hospital drama game where someone is playing an oncologist?

I don't get what it, are you saying that a boxer should somehow be expected to solve cancer?

Talakeal
2021-02-21, 06:18 PM
No, I have not "made a decision". I have analyzed the circumstances and have determined that such a thing is the only decision that is sane. But not in the situation you have detailed. You have instead have detailed a different situation with your example assuming that I have just decided to militarize societies without any outside threat involved, which is a different case altogether, because I wouldn't do that.

I am saying, what if the PC's circle comes to that decision, and decides to militarize society to save it from outside forces. Then, a different circle of celestial exalted comes to a different decision, and decides to destroy your militarized society for the sake of freeing the people whom they see as victims of an oppressive militaristic society.



I don't get what it, are you saying that a boxer should somehow be expected to solve cancer?

Absolutely not.

I am saying that a boxer shouldn't be expected to solve cancer, just like a random gang or murder hobos shouldn't be expected to solve societal ills.

And I am saying that including "darker" aspects of the campaign should not be forbidden just because the PCs aren't tailor made to solve them.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-21, 06:26 PM
I am saying, what if the PC's circle comes to that decision, and decides to militarize society to save it from outside forces. Then, a different circle of celestial exalted comes to a different decision, and decides to destroy your militarized society for the sake of freeing the people whom they see as victims of an oppressive militaristic society.

Okay so I immediately get punished taking the actions to save that society from repeated supernatural threats of Exalted 2e of the Thousand Dooms which everyone who knows enough about Exalted 2e can attest to. Thus the only sane option is to abandon ruling altogether, let the that other circle free them however they want and become a wandering knight-errant saving only small towns in my lack of agency while letting other places be oppressed. great to know.



Absolutely not.

I am saying that a boxer shouldn't be expected to solve cancer, just like a random gang or murder hobos shouldn't be expected to solve societal ills.

And I am saying that including "darker" aspects of the campaign should not be forbidden just because the PCs aren't tailor made to solve them.

Okay, who said I wanted to play your "just another person" game? I want to play a hero, not replicate my own meaningless in my fantasies.

Saint-Just
2021-02-21, 06:30 PM
Its a last resort if being a trickster-teacher doesn't work out, because just speechifying at them directly doesn't work on people. if were being realistic making big speeches and telling people directly what is moral will just make them more resistant and make your think your just an unreasonable moral crusader/twee and thus defy you anyways. therefore the best way to get people to change without measures is often in ways that require cleverness and changing other factors- things that you might not always have time for in a fantasy game where there might be some other evil lurking about/threatening things, and having the guile and intelligence for such work in the first place is already quite lucky and requires some social focus which my character might not have. leading people to the right answer without directly telling them so that they won't resist those answers is delicate work. and again I don't plan on killing civilians.

....

not all of us view playing in settings as taking a tour of suffering we can look at without being able to change much outside of what the GM's wants us to focus on. and if your putting that stuff into fantasy full of fantastic abilities and classes that capable of combat and being badass over others, don't be surprised when violence is what is resorted to.

you want to play out that social change realistically with player involvement you better make sure up front from the start that its a political intrigue game, make sure that a complete noncombat character with social skills is not only a viable character concept, but one of the more optimal ones and that no greater evil or dungeon-crawling is involved at all, because your asking for something that requires total focus of concept, and if there is anything greater than that politics at work the only choice will be to start taking shortcuts to make sure both evils are defeated, lesser and greater. because there is always the chance the lesser evil will be corrupted by the greater one anyways. there is a universe that has both such greater evils and such politics, its called Wh40k, and the people there take violent shortcuts with the politics within to make sure they can deal with the threats from without which are always more pressing.

I mean the realistic (self-consistent) answer is that you can't cure the society's ills in your off-time. Not even by killing people (though it may be marginally more likely to succeed). As far as not killing civilians it seems that people owning slaves, people oppressing people for having different religion/physical features/partners, and corrupt jerks who hoard wealth are more likely to be civilians.

As far as Wh40k goes I think that violent shortcuts are usually presented in two ways. Either it is a grim necessity ensuring survival, "Men must die so that Man endures", or it is darker option of "you'll learn to love the taste of this boot" (Imperium are not the good guys, after all). Where each individual instance falls is up to debate. This does not help your cause because even theoretically the fact that some means are allowable in extreme circumstances (survival) does not mean they are allowable for each and every good cause. You also can change a lot of things outside of what the GM's wants you to focus on, without being able to change anything you want. There are a lot of things which cannot be done or reliably done.

IMO a character who is focused on creating beauty is nowhere guaranteed to create a most beautiful artwork in history (even if it is a long campaign and player sinks some resources into making the character a good artist). If you would expect for the artist character to do this then maybe a social-oriented character should be able to reform the society; we just hold different ideas about power and effect of "average" PCs. But if you will not say that about the artist character then you are one expecting success of character's schemes to depend on how good or desirable or enlightened their goals are. And with character who is not socially oriented you will likely have either no result at all or aforementioned military dictatorship if they are good at applying their violence (all in the name of freedom from oppression, of course).


I hope these things haven't been said better by someone else already, but I don't think that the changes you suggest would necessarily lead to a society where trans or queer identities kind of even out and fade in the background, as there is more to gender and sexual identity than the single issues of transition and discrimination.

I think at this point the question becomes, how does your setting's conception of gender identity and expression change once the means to affirm that identity and the freedom to express it are more easily achieved? Are men and women still tied down to the signifiers of beard, blue, trousers and make up, pink, skirt, or is an amalgam of all those forms of expression more widespread (and are there new ones)? Are different pronouns and inclusive language more widespread? Non binary and gender-fluid people will still exist, and more people will be out probably.

It seems to me if you do want a more inclusive society, then you need to think about the history of that society and work a way for your trans characters' identities to be not only present and tolerated/permitted, but widespread and celebrated in how they differ as well as how they're the same as more rigid conceptions of gender.

I would love to see more unconventional gender signifiers, especially given how things were different IRL in different times and places (manly man kissing each other on the mouth, societies where openly crying is seen as a sign of sincerity or humility), but in fantasy I think some norms (which need not to be gendered) are expected or it all ends up looking like a ren fair instead of an actual society (ren fair fantasy is acceptable but not my default assumption for a setting).

As far as celebrated vs acknowledged I do not think it universally holds true. In the XIXth century and earlier literature a lot of time was spent on people struggling with class divisions and while class divisions remain the particular elements has disappeared, particularly the importance of (formal) nobility. A lot of those stories will not work if background changes to the late XXth century. Struggles of "commoners" who may have education, manners, money to achieve recognition; struggles of aristos to keep up appearances even if they know it's suicidal in the long term - they doesn't quite translate.


Yet I still find it a better reason than what most murderhobo PC's attack people for: gold or exp. Whether its ironic or not has no bearing on anything. Imminent disasters require action. If there is no other way to get rid of the problem- which in a fantasy setting with nobility will be the ONLY way given the lack of social mobility- that is the only path forward if they refuse to be persuaded. Do you comment on the irony of killing bandits trying to kill you as well?

You view e.g. corrupt jerks hoarding wealth as imminent disaster allowing non-judicial killings? Or because there is an outside disaster waiting to happen you can shape the society by non-judicial killings (and without that threat you'd be more careful with your means)?

Talakeal
2021-02-21, 06:47 PM
Okay, who said I wanted to play your "just another person" game? I want to play a hero, not replicate my own meaningless in my fantasies.

You don't see any middle ground between "meaningless / just another person" and "capable of solving all the world's problems, even if they are outside of my wheelhouse"?

And again, you might like to play omnicompetent characters in black and white worlds, and that is absolutely fine. But the language you have been using seems to imply that the majority of players feel the same way.

Saint-Just
2021-02-21, 06:58 PM
Most landowners in my setting are going to be part of the nobility in a fairly strict federal system. Trying to hold onto more land than you can successfully manage or manipulating your children's personal relationships or bodilly autonomy is a dangerous game as your superior can simply remove you from power. It is typically far better to simply share the land with a brother or cousin.

Also, IIRC Charles Martel divided his Empire between his three sons, which is why there is such a strong divide between Frankish and Germanic cultures in Europe and why they are always warring over the lands between.

I am not sure I'd call a system where ruler can just remove a noble landholder from power without any crime being committed by a nobleman a "feudal" system, but it obviously has precedents aplenty, whatever you call it. In that case it is obviously an option (though going the other way such partition will likely require an approval of aforementioned superior instead of being at-will done).

And it was Charlemagne (Charles the Great, Carolus Magnus), the grandson of Charles Martel. In which case it was mostly because he was a strong king who could do whatever he wanted (and also a little bit earlier than mandatory primogeniture enforced on noble in some places probably starting as late as Renaissance, not sure).

Lord Raziere
2021-02-21, 07:05 PM
You don't see any middle ground between "meaningless / just another person" and "capable of solving all the world's problems, even if they are outside of my wheelhouse"?

And again, you might like to play omnicompetent characters in black and white worlds, and that is absolutely fine. But the language you have been using seems to imply that the majority of players feel the same way.

Making a lot of assumptions there.

Look.

If I see something I don't like, I'm going to do something about it. if I'm resorting to violence I'm probably some Dawn Caste wielding some ridiculous sword with nothing but a bunch of cool fighting skills to her name. what do you want from me?

You punish me for doing something about it, and you punish me for not doing anything about it.....why should I care?

I don't care about these points you raised its not a question of style, my original point stands: players, if they find something they don't like will try to get rid of it, and some players will be real stubborn and adamant about not tolerating injustice. Not everyone can sit by and just let such things happen.

Liquor Box
2021-02-21, 07:19 PM
Yet I still find it a better reason than what most murderhobo PC's attack people for: gold or exp.
Sure, if you want your character to be compared to a murderhobo who kills for wealth, then you are right. The comparison is apt, and maybe your character comes out just ahead.


Whether its ironic or not has no bearing on anything. Imminent disasters require action. If there is no other way to get rid of the problem- which in a fantasy setting with nobility will be the ONLY way given the lack of social mobility- that is the only path forward if they refuse to be persuaded.

I'll explain.

Your character will kill everything he sees as a problem. He sees abuse of power and warfare as problems. But your solution is to effectively declare war on the nobility, which is of course a misuse of your character's power. Therefore another character, who has shares your own character's perspective of killing everything they see as a problem, would be justified in killing your character to punish your character's misuse of power and class warfare.


Do you comment on the irony of killing bandits trying to kill you as well?

No, because that is not ironic. It might be ironic if I were to be so incensed by the bandit's thievery that I stole from them to punish them for it though. The irony is that you are what you are trying to punish. So it was with your character who will go to war with the nobility to punish them for war or who will use their power to kill people who abuse their power

Lord Raziere
2021-02-21, 07:28 PM
I'll explain.

Your character will kill everything he sees as a problem. He sees abuse of power and warfare as problems. But your solution is to effectively declare war on the nobility, which is of course a misuse of your character's power. Therefore another character, who has shares your own character's perspective of killing everything they see as a problem, would be justified in killing your character to punish your character's misuse of power and class warfare.


So your saying is that a corrupt jerk who already kills anyone in his way, having ruling without anyone opposing them has finally met someone able to stop him because they are sane enough to defend themselves in kind to his attempts to kill people?

You have already justified killing the entirety of the nobility for me, if none of them took any action to effectively oppose them in their incompetence.

Rater202
2021-02-21, 07:36 PM
Malakal, you're starting to veer into a strawman argument a bit.

the point is that the PCs are presented with problems.

If the PCs are presented with a problem and want to solve it, they should be allowed to try and solve it.

If the problem is a corrupt, oppressive regime who refuses to be reasoned with, sometimes the only way to solve that is with violence.

You seem to be both exaggerating Raz's claims into one's more simplified than the point I think she's trying to come across with, and coming up with situations that make it more complicated than it needs to be.

If you present an obvious bad guy, the PCs are going to want to fight them. It's as simple as that.

If you don't want the PCs to try and deal with social issues they encounter, either don't present social issues or make it abundantly clear that that's not what the game is about before anyone even makes a character

Liquor Box
2021-02-21, 07:37 PM
So your saying is that a corrupt jerk who already kills anyone in his way, having ruling without anyone opposing them has finally met someone able to stop him because they are sane enough to defend themselves in kind to his attempts to kill people?

I don't quite understand this sentence. Did you miss a word in there somewhere?

Edit: I know you missed the word "what" as your second word, but it seems this sentence was still intended to mean something else.


You have already justified killing the entirety of the nobility for me, if none of them took any action to effectively oppose them in their incompetence.

Well, I haven't justified anything, because I have only pointed out how the code you put forward would also turn back on you. If you think it's ok to kill anyone you see as a problem, then surely its ok for anyone who sees you as a problem to kill you (and lots of people would see you as a problem because you're going around killing everyone).

You've now extended it to not only killing people who are themselves the problem, but also killing those who you see an incompetent. I think you are back to being evens with the murderhobo now.



You seem to be both exaggerating Raz's claims into one's more simplified than the point I think she's trying to come across with, and coming up with situations that make it more complicated than it needs to be.

I think Raziere exagerated their own claims.

Raz may have started off by saying she prefers a game where she is able to take steps to cure what she sees as social problems within the setting, and that she think a DM making that impossible would make the game less enjoyable. Not an unreasonable proposition. Although, also not reasonable to have some stuff baked into a setting, or making effecting social change a huge challenge (both of which are probably more realistic). Probably warrants some pre-game discussion between the group.

But Raz has herself gone on to make more outlandish claims since. She has, it seems to me, created her own strawman. And of course it is human nature to focus on the more outlandish claims rather than the more reasonable ones.

Talakeal
2021-02-21, 07:56 PM
If you don't want the PCs to try and deal with social issues they encounter, either don't present social issues or make it abundantly clear that that's not what the game is about before anyone even makes a character

Speaking of straw men...

I never said that I don't want the PCs to solve societal problems, I said that societal problems are complex and that going in and killing a few obvious scapegoats is not likely to "make the world a better place".

Different problems require different solutions.

For example; say I am running a fairly straightforward sword and sorcery campaign, where the PCs are sell-swords operating out of a frontier city, making their living collecting bounties on outlaws and monsters living in the wilderness. To emphasize the sword and sorcery aesthetic, I decide to make references to slave markets, and opium dens, and brothels, and other unsavory places in the town, maybe I mention people complaining about how taxes are high and the city lord's live in luxury while the poor starve in the street, or that the sheriff is overly zealous in hanging troublemakers.

To me this seems to be a pretty standard game.

Now, if the players decided they wanted to turn the town into an enlightened bastion of modern values, that is totally doable, but it isn't something the players can just do overnight, if they simply attack the town guard, they will likely be killed. Then, if / and or when they do succeed, they better be wiling to spend the time and effort, as well as having masterful skills in economics and sociology, otherwise they are just going to cause chaos and anarchy as people turn on one another in the resultant power vacuum.



Now, the tone I got from Raz, which may or may not have been intentional, seemed to me to be sort of bullying the DM by saying if I don't like every aspect of the setting you worked so hard on, I am going to smash it out of spite, and if you don't let me smash it, I am going to take my ball and go home. Which is an attitude I have seen a lot at the table over the years, and not one I have a whole late of patience with anymore.

Lord Raziere
2021-02-21, 08:19 PM
Speaking of straw men...

I never said that I don't want the PCs to solve societal problems, I said that societal problems are complex and that going in and killing a few obvious scapegoats is not likely to "make the world a better place".

Different problems require different solutions.

For example; say I am running a fairly straightforward sword and sorcery campaign, where the PCs are sell-swords operating out of a frontier city, making their living collecting bounties on outlaws and monsters living in the wilderness. To emphasize the sword and sorcery aesthetic, I decide to make references to slave markets, and opium dens, and brothels, and other unsavory places in the town, maybe I mention people complaining about how taxes are high and the city lord's live in luxury while the poor starve in the street, or that the sheriff is overly zealous in hanging troublemakers.

To me this seems to be a pretty standard game.

Now, if the players decided they wanted to turn the town into an enlightened bastion of modern values, that is totally doable, but it isn't something the players can just do overnight, if they simply attack the town guard, they will likely be killed. Then, if / and or when they do succeed, they better be wiling to spend the time and effort, as well as having masterful skills in economics and sociology, otherwise they are just going to cause chaos and anarchy as people turn on one another in the resultant power vacuum.

Now, the tone I got from Raz, which may or may not have been intentional, seemed to me to be sort of bullying the DM by saying if I don't like every aspect of the setting you worked so hard on, I am going to smash it out of spite, and if you don't let me smash it, I am going to take my ball and go home. Which is an attitude I have seen a lot at the table over the years, and not one I have a whole late of patience with anymore.

So what if its standard? Whats your point? Its unjust. If your justification for ignoring it is that its normal, then I'm sorry, normality is overrated and often not the best thing to judge anything by. If we let normality be what determines what should be done about anything, nothing good would be done at all.

Spite? no. your mistake is not expecting the players to smash whatever plans you have as apart of the normal course of play. This includes societies. Its not that anyone sets out to specifically screw over what you have planned, its that you'll never be able to anticipate what they will or won't care about and what they are willing to do to make it happen. you can't excuse your lack of flexibility by guilt tripping players over things they don't like or care about no matter how hard you work on them. You want players to appreciate what you have done and not destroy the societies you made, that something you must work out beforehand, preferably by finding the players who like that sort of thing. your clearly talking about a different genre than I am anyways, so I don't see why your continuing this discussion when I'm talking about something more superheroic than you.

Saint-Just
2021-02-21, 08:27 PM
If you present an obvious bad guy, the PCs are going to want to fight them. It's as simple as that.

If you don't want the PCs to try and deal with social issues they encounter, either don't present social issues or make it abundantly clear that that's not what the game is about before anyone even makes a character

Please look at the page one. It's not even Talakeal's (not Malakal. How do you get Malakal? Phone autocorrect?) position that Lord Raziere's initially answering, it's Ravens_cry. And that position is "as long as the players are comfortable with it, I'm OK having the societies not lining up 1:1 with modern progressive values, even the 'good guys'.". Unless you are taking issue with one particular word in it (and if you are taking issue with it you are projecting modern politics, so we cannot discuss it here) it is the only possible position I would expect to be taken by a sensible person. Fictional societies do not have to have modern (and in fact a particular subset of modern, not just modern as anything people IRL subscribe to at this moment) values to be tolerated by the players.

Following post by the Lord Raziere goes straight to destroying such societies. Which is somewhat surprising because while by the page 3 everyone (including Talakeal) seems to have upped their game to enslaving and waging war (hm, waging war; not something that you usually see as warranting a destruction of society even when the war is an unprovoked aggression, especially in fantasy drawing on pre-modern ideas) initially it all started as "not lining up 1:1 with modern values". Not a hallmark of an "obvious bad guy".


So what if its standard? Whats your point? Its unjust. If your justification for ignoring it is that its normal, then I'm sorry, normality is overrated and often not the best thing to judge anything by. If we let normality be what determines what should be done about anything, nothing good would be done at all.

Spite? no. your mistake is not expecting the players to smash whatever plans you have as apart of the normal course of play. This includes societies. Its not that anyone sets out to specifically screw over what you have planned, its that you'll never be able to anticipate what they will or won't care about and what they are willing to do to make it happen. you can't excuse your lack of flexibility by guilt tripping players over things they don't like or care about no matter how hard you work on them. You want players to appreciate what you have done and not destroy the societies you made, that something you must work out beforehand, preferably by finding the players who like that sort of thing. your clearly talking about a different genre than I am anyways, so I don't see why your continuing this discussion when I'm talking about something more superheroic than you.

That thread started as discussion of how to better express certain ideas while writing up a setting, how to achieve representation etc. You enter and say that you do not like certain ideas (which I am not sure even exist in the setting Talakeal is talking about), and phrase it specifically as "destroying the society" which implies you (or one with ideas similar to yours) comes to play but with intention of disrupting the setting (which is not always but often results in disrupting the play). And when people say to you that it should not b a default assumption that the player gets enough power to destroy the society then you still propose new options to destroy the society by different application of power (still a bit too heavy on the killing; also going from "no civilians harmed" to "execute all nobles") and you still don't understand that it'syour mistake to assume that every player, or party gets the ability to destroy the society, and they can be only held back from it by the GM making arbitrary decisions or by the players restraining themselves.

And note: it's a thread which Talakeal started to solicit feedback. If you now think that you and Talakeal about different genres maybe it's you who should stop with recommendations for a different genre?

Lord Raziere
2021-02-21, 08:30 PM
Following post by the Lord Raziere goes straight to destroying such societies. Which is somewhat surprising because while by the page 3 everyone (including Talakeal) seems to have upped their game to enslaving and waging war (hm, waging war; not something that you usually see as warranting a destruction of society even when the war is an unprovoked aggression, especially in fantasy drawing on pre-modern ideas) initially it all started as "not lining up 1:1 with modern values". Not a hallmark of an "obvious bad guy".

In my experience, the difference between "doesn't line up with modern values" and "obvious bad guy" is thinner than it seems and no NPC trying to be "complex" and "grey" is immune to a PC deciding they are completely villainous anyways and not caring what justifications you trying to give them.

Segev
2021-02-21, 08:58 PM
Most landowners in my setting are going to be part of the nobility in a fairly strict federal system. Trying to hold onto more land than you can successfully manage or manipulating your children's personal relationships or bodilly autonomy is a dangerous game as your superior can simply remove you from power. It is typically far better to simply share the land with a brother or cousin.

I don't follow why "messing with your children's bodily autonomy" would make your liege-lord upset with you. Children of nobility were always pawns in politics, especially re: marriage. If anything, it's the family that loves their children that is the one that feels the most pressures, because that love might conflict with what's best for their political futures. In a culture where it's perfectly acceptable to switch your sex for personal reasons, it would be even more acceptable for noble children to adopt the sex that makes them the most useful marriages for their families. To the point that refusing would be similar to the young noblewoman who refused an arranged marriage on grounds of not loving him or something equally "frivolous" to the political ambitions of the nobility.

Am I misunderstanding your post's meaning or missing your mark, here?

Saint-Just
2021-02-21, 09:00 PM
In my experience, the difference between "doesn't line up with modern values" and "obvious bad guy" is thinner than it seems and no NPC trying to be "complex" and "grey" is immune to a PC deciding they are completely villainous anyways and not caring what justifications you trying to give them.

Have you heard about people RPing in historical settings? Even in situations where players have enough power to make a change, shouldn't like 99%+ of populations start as "obvious bad guys" by your definitions?

And I am not sure what do you mean by "not immune". Unless there are some very strict controls on the PCs behaviour (and that is usually deemed bad) no NPC is immune to PC (or rather players - it's an important distinction to remember) deciding anything. Players can decide they want the NPC's gold, players can decide they do not trust the NPC despite having absolutely zero reason to etc. It's not something preventable. Now for PC's doing something (e.g. killing an NPC because they want his gold, or because they think he's going to betray them, or because he's an incompetent noble who passively enabled an oppression of someone somewhere) there can be countermeasures, sometimes actively preventing them from doing something (a noble has a high-powered bodyguard and wears magical protection) but more commonly a threat of punishment. And if society is stable and not teetering on the verge of collapse a vast majority of population is sorta-supporting the lawful (or customary, or whatever you call it) punishment, especially of killers.

P.S. Please also read the addendum to my precious post, I edited it before I've seen your message.


I don't follow why "messing with your children's bodily autonomy" would make your liege-lord upset with you. Children of nobility were always pawns in politics, especially re: marriage. If anything, it's the family that loves their children that is the one that feels the most pressures, because that love might conflict with what's best for their political futures. In a culture where it's perfectly acceptable to switch your sex for personal reasons, it would be even more acceptable for noble children to adopt the sex that makes them the most useful marriages for their families. To the point that refusing would be similar to the young noblewoman who refused an arranged marriage on grounds of not loving him or something equally "frivolous" to the political ambitions of the nobility.


Almost 100% sure that Talakeal's setting has significantly greater emphasis on the modern values including bodily autonomy and personal choice in general. I do not think it's incompatible with (pseudo-)feudalism. I can even bet a few quatloos that women are not forced into marriages (ability to persistently persuade in private is one thing, but no "I order you and you will do it").

Liquor Box
2021-02-21, 10:30 PM
In my experience, the difference between "doesn't line up with modern values" and "obvious bad guy" is thinner than it seems and no NPC trying to be "complex" and "grey" is immune to a PC deciding they are completely villainous anyways and not caring what justifications you trying to give them.

I think this is a key disconnect between you and those arguing with you. Others have perhaps assumed you were saying your character would be justified in killing everyone they have a problem with. You don't care if your character is justified or not, you just want to ill those who annoy you as you see fit. Effectively, you want to run an evil PC.

Anymage
2021-02-21, 10:55 PM
Have you heard about people RPing in historical settings? Even in situations where players have enough power to make a change, shouldn't like 99%+ of populations start as "obvious bad guys" by your definitions?

I will say that if the gm has an npc casually use the n word, that is one modern player saying things to try to communicate things to the other modern people who are sitting around the table. Maybe it's just that the society at large has a nasty racism problem. (E.G: 1920s Call of Cthulhu, although the gm should still be very judicious lest the players decide that maybe letting cthulhu eat everyone might not be the worst thing.) More likely, though, it's that the specific npc is a nasty piece of work, that you should dislike them, and that they're being set up as an antagonist. Immediate stabbing might not be a practical solution, but they're still going to cause problems. Whether stabbing is likely down the line depends on genre, but most heroic fantasy tends towards "yes".

Other things that offend modern sensibilities do tend to similarly be used as shorthand to communicate that something is deeply unpleasant. Often you can't do anything about it right now. And in most settings there are a lot of problems so you can't fix everything. Your Shadowrun group may very well dislike human supremacist groups, but figure that the guys trying to poison everybody with magical toxic sludge are a higher priority. Even if the main enemies are the toxics, though, player expectations mean that the human supremacists are a lot more likely to be obstacles than allies. And that it's very likely for the pcs to push back if they do find themselves dealing with human supremacists for a side arc.

Satinavian
2021-02-22, 02:16 AM
I am with T on this.

Traditionally D&D was more a game where the PCs are paid by the gnomes to go to the kobold dwellings, kill everyone there and loot the place and not a game where the PCs make gnomes and kobold perfect neighbours that not just forsake violence but forget all past grievances and all prejudices and acceüt each others religions.

I won't say PCs can't change things. But it is really really hard and most PCs never reach a powerlevel where they can completely remodel societies. Or make the new ones work for that matter.



And all of that only matters when people actually want to change societies. But quite a lot of dedicated roleplayers tend to make characters that mostly share their societies beliefs, as outdated as those may be. That is part of "not just playing yourself".


And to use the Shadowrun example before :

Player : I want to fight the Megacons
GM : Sure. Will consider this for your job opportunities and contacts if the rest of the group is on board.

Player : I will end corporatism.
GM : No.

Verappo
2021-02-22, 03:59 AM
I would love to see more unconventional gender signifiers, especially given how things were different IRL in different times and places (manly man kissing each other on the mouth, societies where openly crying is seen as a sign of sincerity or humility), but in fantasy I think some norms (which need not to be gendered) are expected or it all ends up looking like a ren fair instead of an actual society (ren fair fantasy is acceptable but not my default assumption for a setting).

It's true that fantasy and especially D&D comes with some expected norms of "well, most knights would wear leather and a sword and most nobility will wear frills and puffy wigs", and I love that stuff too, but the way I interpreted OP's question was on how to create a setting that kind of bypasses the more gender locked aspects of that espected setting, and I'm not sure you can do that by erasing or evening out everything that composes a trans or non-binary identity into a digestible package. If OP is going into this questioning assumptions of representation, than h0e has to question those norms too and think of what it means to make a game welcoming to trans and non-binary people.


As far as celebrated vs acknowledged I do not think it universally holds true. In the XIXth century and earlier literature a lot of time was spent on people struggling with class divisions and while class divisions remain the particular elements has disappeared, particularly the importance of (formal) nobility. A lot of those stories will not work if background changes to the late XXth century. Struggles of "commoners" who may have education, manners, money to achieve recognition; struggles of aristos to keep up appearances even if they know it's suicidal in the long term - they doesn't quite translate.


I don't think that realism is necessarily the intent in this specific case, rather inclusivity is. It's true that our queer culture has developed the way it has partially based on discrimination and division (both transphobia and class discrimination and the others all entrenched with each other in a way that is hard to separate), so I understand why it's hard to think of a made up world where that wasn't the case and we still ended up with a queer culture as rich and wonderful as we have now, it's hard for me as well. But I do think it's a worthy goal to explore the freedom that such a society would provide for gender expression. I mean, a lot of queer people I played with (including myself) love playing multicolored and flamboyant tieflings because it gives them an outlet for exaggerate expression, so I think maybe the world should reflect that wish for a more inclusive and accepting world.

Other than that I would make sure to ask the players themselves what they're comfortable with. I personally don't mind a setting where social issues are present because then I get to be the one to work to make that world better, but it's definitely not something everyone's comfortable with.



Given the above, what would a non-binary or gender fluid character even look like in this setting?


Well, you could have a gender fluid shopkeep that presents themselves with different clothes, make up and expression alternatively based on when the party comes to buy stuff from them, or an otherwise recurring character that can be presented with a fluid expression of their gender. For non binary people you could play with the ideas you presented above. Maybe inside a certain sect of the church the same person wouldn't want to sport the same hairdo as everyone else and decides to change it. Maybe they have short hair and a beard but decide to wear skirts. Maybe they just simply go by They instead of those other optional pronouns. If skirts are a default for those who do not ride horses, then a character who does not ride could choose to wear trousers anyway (I'm picking out an example from what you showed me, but it does not need to be so specific)

To me the crux of the issue is that by flattening out all expression of gender that exist in our world, it risks feeling like the setting you're making inadvertently creates a space where the trans indentities of players that may be at your table are flattened out by proxy. If the church or crown or your job requires their people to wear certain clothes that's fine, but are the individual characters inside them then allowed to wear clothes or present themselves in ways that do not conform to those occupations? Part of the deal with gender identity is expressing oneself based on personal identity, rather than the one imposed by outside forces, so I'm wondering if the setting's conception of faith and institutions would change to be more inclusive as well, or whether new types of expression outside the norm would develop.

I hope this doesn't sound judgemental, I am thinking about the issue as I'm writing so things may read a little disconnected :smallbiggrin:, it's an interesting topic. I hope your campaign goes well!

Talakeal
2021-02-22, 12:44 PM
I don't follow why "messing with your children's bodily autonomy" would make your liege-lord upset with you. Children of nobility were always pawns in politics, especially re: marriage. If anything, it's the family that loves their children that is the one that feels the most pressures, because that love might conflict with what's best for their political futures. In a culture where it's perfectly acceptable to switch your sex for personal reasons, it would be even more acceptable for noble children to adopt the sex that makes them the most useful marriages for their families. To the point that refusing would be similar to the young noblewoman who refused an arranged marriage on grounds of not loving him or something equally "frivolous" to the political ambitions of the nobility.

Am I misunderstanding your post's meaning or missing your mark, here?

It is particular to my setting.

Basically, the nobility is holding onto the illusion that they are still the knights of Camelot and operate under an unrealistic code of honor.

They are explicitly forbidden from consorting with witches and forcing people into marriages, and also have their own ideals of chastity and courtly love. Forcing someone to magically change their gender is something that ta frontier warlord would do, and manipulating dynasties and holdings for personal or familial power over the good of the empire as a whole is something greedy capitalist merchants would do, and the nobility needs to believe they are superior to either of them.

Breaches of honor are typically overlooked, but this is the sort of thing that would probably draw unwanted attention.


Your clearly talking about a different genre than I am anyways, so I don't see why your continuing this discussion when I'm talking about something more superheroic than you.

I don't know man, the super hero genre tends to be even worse about changing the world in an effort to maintain a "just like real life" setting. Reed Richards is useless is a trope for a reason.

But yeah, I agree we should just let this lie. I am sorry I got onto you in the first place, I really need to work on my compulsion to argue ever point even if it is off topic and obviously non productive.


Almost 100% sure that Talakeal's setting has significantly greater emphasis on the modern values including bodily autonomy and personal choice in general. I do not think it's incompatible with (pseudo-)feudalism. I can even bet a few quatloos that women are not forced into marriages (ability to persistently persuade in private is one thing, but no "I order you and you will do it").

The difference between a feudal system and a federal system has always been elusive to me.

In my setting you have a landed nobility that are (nominally) descended from the ancient knights of the round table, each sworn to obey they king in all things. As the empire grew through conquest, territory within each territory was divided up between sons, creating a town, county, barony, duchy, province noble hierarchy where every level was honor bound to obey everyone above it.


To me the crux of the issue is that by flattening out all expression of gender that exist in our world, it risks feeling like the setting you're making inadvertently creates a space where the trans indentities of players that may be at your table are flattened out by proxy. If the church or crown or your job requires their people to wear certain clothes that's fine, but are the individual characters inside them then allowed to wear clothes or present themselves in ways that do not conform to those occupations? Part of the deal with gender identity is expressing oneself based on personal identity, rather than the one imposed by outside forces, so I'm wondering if the setting's conception of faith and institutions would change to be more inclusive as well, or whether new types of expression outside the norm would develop.

I hope this doesn't sound judgemental, I am thinking about the issue as I'm writing so things may read a little disconnected :smallbiggrin:, it's an interesting topic. I hope your campaign goes well!

Yeah, that is exactly what I am afraid of as well.

I have intentionally created a setting to be more open to gender expression, but as a result I think I have accidentally erased people who base a large part of their identity in non conventional gender expression.

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-22, 01:14 PM
The difference between a feudal system and a federal system has always been elusive to me.

In my setting you have a landed nobility that are (nominally) descended from the ancient knights of the round table, each sworn to obey they king in all things. As the empire grew through conquest, territory within each territory was divided up between sons, creating a town, county, barony, duchy, province noble hierarchy where every level was honor bound to obey everyone above it.


In a feudal system, the ties are far more personal -- ties of blood, fealty, oath, etc.

Segev
2021-02-22, 01:23 PM
It is particular to my setting.

Basically, the nobility is holding onto the illusion that they are still the knights of Camelot and operate under an unrealistic code of honor.

They are explicitly forbidden from consorting with witches and forcing people into marriages, and also have their own ideals of chastity and courtly love. Forcing someone to magically change their gender is something that ta frontier warlord would do, and manipulating dynasties and holdings for personal or familial power over the good of the empire as a whole is something greedy capitalist merchants would do, and the nobility needs to believe they are superior to either of them.

Breaches of honor are typically overlooked, but this is the sort of thing that would probably draw unwanted attention.

That makes sense. How...skilled...are the guilt-tripping parents at not-forcing-kids-at-all into doing things? That is, "Well, I would NEVER compel you to do this, but it's for the good of the family, and a GOOD son/daughter would do it," sort of manipulation. It's definitely not dishonorably forcing anything, but rather the definitely noble willingness of the totally-not-manipulated-nor-bullied scion of the family to do things for the good of the family. Honest.

Anymage
2021-02-22, 01:34 PM
Yeah, that is exactly what I am afraid of as well.

I have intentionally created a setting to be more open to gender expression, but as a result I think I have accidentally erased people who base a large part of their identity in non conventional gender expression.

If it's any consolation, most settings either ignore the issue or fumble their handling. Like D&D tried to make elves post-gender with their Blessing of Corellon, and wound up feeling like only certain special elves got to color outside the lines.

Say that people care more about presentation than your body type. Have a few NPCs who lean into this, whether trans or genderfluid. (With "do they prefer one presentation, or will they change it up day-to-day?" being the key determinant.) With all the stuff being said about nobles and lineage, you might even have an AFAB prince who will retain his womb and assorted secondary sexual characteristics if that's what it takes to continue his family line, but otherwise presents as, behaves as, and expects to be treated as a man. Add in some artwork of these characters, get some test reads/views from trans board members, and you should be ahead of the game.

(There are a lot of piftalls you can fall into without even realizing it. But just going ahead with your writing helps keep you from overthinking yourself into paralysis, and test readers/viewers let you check your work in a controlled setting before you put it out somewhere that it might cause accidental offense.)

Berenger
2021-02-22, 02:19 PM
The difference between a feudal system and a federal system has always been elusive to me.

I don't think those concepts are mutually exclusive. Feudalism is marked by a) the relationship between a polities sovereign and the noble warrior caste and b) by the relationship between that noble warrior caste and their non-noble subjects. A federation is an association of several (more or less independent) polities for some kind of mutual benefit. So, you can, in theory, have a federation consisting of a duchy ruled by a lord (feudalism), a city ruled by an archbishop and his clergymen (theocracy) and two free merchant republics (democracy and meritocracy).

Yora
2021-02-22, 05:21 PM
Generally speaking, federalism is a term used only for democratic republics (authoritarian ruling parties and corruption nonwithstanding). Many of the world's largest countries have federal systems. The US, Russia, Mexico, India, Brazil, and Germany being the major ones that come to my mind immediately. The USSR might also have been one.
When you have something like a nation, states, and counties, that's a federal system.

Feudalism also a structure in which each territorial unit on each level is divided into various smaller units on the level below, but that's where the similarities end. In feudalism, the territory is property of a person. The king owns the land and basically rents it out to his counts, who rent it out to their tennants. And the liege can legally take the rented out land away again. There is nothing of that kind in federalism. The chancelor of Germany can not just decide to fire the state government of Brandenburg and hand the government power over to other people. The national government does not simply delegate the handling of local matters to the state governments because it's busy with other stuff. The governing of the states is the sole power of the states, excluding only matters that the states have given to the federal government. The national-federal parliament decides which matters are federal or state issues, and the members of parliament are selected by the people of the states as representatives of the states. Those matters that don't fall under federal law can be governed by different state laws in each state. (Like sales tax in the US, or the eeucation system in Germany.)

quinron
2021-02-22, 05:58 PM
That makes sense. How...skilled...are the guilt-tripping parents at not-forcing-kids-at-all into doing things? That is, "Well, I would NEVER compel you to do this, but it's for the good of the family, and a GOOD son/daughter would do it," sort of manipulation. It's definitely not dishonorably forcing anything, but rather the definitely noble willingness of the totally-not-manipulated-nor-bullied scion of the family to do things for the good of the family. Honest.

Also seems pretty ripe for the, "Oh dang, while I was negotiating with that nasty warlord to get them to leave, I accidentally signed a contract without reading the fine print that says I'll marry off my child to theirs! And now it turns out if I don't, they'll kill me! Gosh, I sure hope the family can survive when I do the noble thing and go to my death to protect my children's honor..."

Saint-Just
2021-02-22, 06:21 PM
Feudalism also a structure in which each territorial unit on each level is divided into various smaller units on the level below, but that's where the similarities end. In feudalism, the territory is property of a person. The king owns the land and basically rents it out to his counts, who rent it out to their tennants. And the liege can legally take the rented out land away again. There is nothing of that kind in federalism. The chancelor of Germany can not just decide to fire the state government of Brandenburg and hand the government power over to other people. The national government does not simply delegate the handling of local matters to the state governments because it's busy with other stuff. The governing of the states is the sole power of the states, excluding only matters that the states have given to the federal government. The national-federal parliament decides which matters are federal or state issues, and the members of parliament are selected by the people of the states as representatives of the states. Those matters that don't fall under federal law can be governed by different state laws in each state. (Like sales tax in the US, or the eeucation system in Germany.)

My initial objection to the word "feudal" was from the other direction - that a system where the king can just take away land because they think it is too much for one noble to handle is too centralized to be properly feudal, it's closer to absolutism. The idea that the whole country is a property of monarch and nobles are just managers which can be fired just because is definitely not representative of the majority of feudal realms IRL. English writs of attainder had to be passed through the Parliament and still were supposed to be based on crimes or at least disloyalty (whatever the real reasons were). And English king's powers was far from the weakest in Europe.

So yes, the land is property of persons, but it is a property proper if you forgive the pun. Also even in Europe things were never the same in England, Italy, and Hungary, so speaking about feudalism as "rented out land" is misleading.

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-22, 08:18 PM
My initial objection to the word "feudal" was from the other direction - that a system where the king can just take away land because they think it is too much for one noble to handle is too centralized to be properly feudal, it's closer to absolutism. The idea that the whole country is a property of monarch and nobles are just managers which can be fired just because is definitely not representative of the majority of feudal realms IRL. English writs of attainder had to be passed through the Parliament and still were supposed to be based on crimes or at least disloyalty (whatever the real reasons were). And English king's powers was far from the weakest in Europe.

So yes, the land is property of persons, but it is a property proper if you forgive the pun. Also even in Europe things were never the same in England, Italy, and Hungary, so speaking about feudalism as "rented out land" is misleading.

In general a lot of "feudalism" is misunderstood through the lens of claims made "by" post-medieval absolute monarchy.

Segev
2021-02-23, 11:58 AM
My initial objection to the word "feudal" was from the other direction - that a system where the king can just take away land because they think it is too much for one noble to handle is too centralized to be properly feudal, it's closer to absolutism. The idea that the whole country is a property of monarch and nobles are just managers which can be fired just because is definitely not representative of the majority of feudal realms IRL. English writs of attainder had to be passed through the Parliament and still were supposed to be based on crimes or at least disloyalty (whatever the real reasons were). And English king's powers was far from the weakest in Europe.

So yes, the land is property of persons, but it is a property proper if you forgive the pun. Also even in Europe things were never the same in England, Italy, and Hungary, so speaking about feudalism as "rented out land" is misleading.

I believe that this is a case of de facto power vs. what the rules say on paper. King Poten of the Tate family may, on paper, own all the land in the kingdom of Tate, but Duke Roolor de Facto of the Facto Duchy has the personal loyalty of his retainers and soldiers, and has more money in his coffers than King Poten Tate (by hook, crook, or management skill). If King Poten Tate tells Roolor de Factor that he's divesting him of his titles and land, de Facto could tell his retainers that the King is a tyrant and needs to be deposed, and go to war with the King. Sure, it's technically treason, but given that the King doesn't expect he could win that war, he won't press the issue, most likely.

Rater202
2021-02-23, 12:05 PM
Basically, it's a pyramid scheme.

On paper, and for most people in practice, if you're not in the top couple of layers of the pyramid you're gonna get screwed, but if you're smart, charismatic, and ruthless you can come away with a killing and screw over the people above you while he people below you don't even realize they're being screwed over.

Segev
2021-02-23, 12:10 PM
Basically, it's a pyramid scheme.

On paper, and for most people in practice, if you're not in the top couple of layers of the pyramid you're gonna get screwed, but if you're smart, charismatic, and ruthless you can come away with a killing and screw over the people above you while he people below you don't even realize they're being screwed over.

You're not wrong for most of your point, but other than potential for "screwing people over" and a hierarchical structure, there's really not much in common with a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes rely on the theory that having the right to sell "shares" downwards has value. The scam/deception (intentional or not) is that this value persists all the way down. Feudalism is based on subdividing landholdings, which has blatantly obvious value limits. The titles in the hierarchy made it clear there was an understanding of the limits.

Satinavian
2021-02-23, 12:13 PM
It is more than that. "The King owns all land" was not even true de jure in most medieval countries. Especially principalities and dukedoms let alone prince-bishoprics tended to not belong to a king/emporer even on paper. The kings had land that they owned but it tended to be only a small part of what they reigned over. Well, at least for most kingdoms, it is easier to establish such a special privilege if you found a new kingdom after a conquest.

Saint-Just
2021-02-23, 04:38 PM
I believe that this is a case of de facto power vs. what the rules say on paper. King Poten of the Tate family may, on paper, own all the land in the kingdom of Tate, but Duke Roolor de Facto of the Facto Duchy has the personal loyalty of his retainers and soldiers, and has more money in his coffers than King Poten Tate (by hook, crook, or management skill). If King Poten Tate tells Roolor de Factor that he's divesting him of his titles and land, de Facto could tell his retainers that the King is a tyrant and needs to be deposed, and go to war with the King. Sure, it's technically treason, but given that the King doesn't expect he could win that war, he won't press the issue, most likely.

No, I think that even rules on paper never said it in many places. And that is important because people are not utility maximizers so what rules on paper said was influencing how many of the dukes and count will support the Facto and how many will support Tate - unless it's an obvious curbstomp in which case almost everybody will try to get on the winner's good side, but in many situations it was not an obvious curbstomp. And because both Facto and Tate know that it will influence their decisions whether to press the issue.

Duke may owe the king his loyalty and service, but even such thing as withholding taxes is more likely to result in a sort of civil prosecution for money instead of removal; even fighting a losing war against the king was far from guaranteed to result in striping the powers from the current duke (because others may see it as a disproportionate punishment, and so you risk further rebellions). Finally, analogous to the more common ownership of wealth and lands even a death sentence often did not result in estate being appropriated by the king; instead after paying reparations and fines estate was turned to the heir of an executed man (sometimes even the son). So while it's not absolutely equivalent to ownership of property it was closer to ownership of property then to the position of steward/CEO.


Basically, it's a pyramid scheme.

On paper, and for most people in practice, if you're not in the top couple of layers of the pyramid you're gonna get screwed, but if you're smart, charismatic, and ruthless you can come away with a killing and screw over the people above you while he people below you don't even realize they're being screwed over.

First as others has said above it's not a pyramid scheme, it's effects of hierarchy, and it does not necessitate "screwing" anyone (abuses are obvious and prevalent but not necessary). And in your example "screwing" seems to imply deceiving which is not quite the case - whatever you think about distribution of wealth, including taxes, the fact that nobility lived a better life was not even remotely hidden; it was justified as something deserved.

And a "feudal pyramid" is an especially bad simile. It either puts forward something not specific to the feudalism (like classes, or chain of command, or formal titles - note that one pyramid cannot represent even two of those at the same time, because how directly you answer to the king has nothing to do with how wealthy you are, nor a Baron is necessary weaker than a Duke) or it just tries to represent something that cannot be represented as a pyramid: a noblemen can have obligations to two different kings or have two unrelated positions under the same king.

RegalKain
2021-02-24, 10:20 PM
Mmm, so. If this is specifically for a campaign you are running for a group of your normal friends/players, I doubt our answers will be super helpful, as we can only look at something from a broad perspective, and your personal party may have wildly different feelings about them. A decent example of this, is most of my players, have a deep-seated hatred for Kobolds. (We had a player who played one, and the character itself rubbed the party the wrong way, in a bad way.) So anytime we see kobolds we sort of off-handling refer to them as vermin, less beings etc. Just because of our own prejudice from previous campaigns. I mention this anecdote because if you have players who have strong feelings (Negative, or positive.) towards sexuality, and gender fluidity, understand you're going to make some of those people angry.

To my personal opinion on the matter, one of the biggest issues I have with the LGBT+ Community and Gender Fluidity (As a bi man myself.) is that so often, people who cling to those groups, make their sexuality, or their gender the forefront of their persona. If you ask many of them what their defining qualities are, many of them reference their sexuality, or their gender. Now, in every day conversation, you can see this as someone who is proud of who they are, and understand the struggles it took them to be able to say that aloud, and not be worried for whatever reason. However, in a setting, where in there is minimal ground work laid, it comes across as forced. "The Captain of the guard who is gay" is forced, it doesn't add anything at all, and it's going to be poorly received by a wide audience, (I am going to just reference a wide audience, not your group in particular.) however, as the party gets to know the Captain, understands he's a man of virtue, and toils endlessly for the good of his city, they grow to love the character, if after a particularly hard mission the Captain says. "You all look troubled and weary, why don't you come by my estate this evening, let my Husband and I cook you a nice meal and you can regale us with tales of your victory?" In my experience (Some 15 years of DMing.) the majority of players aren't even going to bat an eye that the Captain is gay, they don't care (Not in a bad way either.) the Captain is well...the Captain, damn what he does with his genitals, or who he fell in love with, the Captain takes care of us, he's a good person, and he's gone to bat for us several times, THOSE are his defining characteristics. At least, as the players see him.

The point I am making, perhaps poorly. If your characters are defined entirely by their sexuality and gender (Especially in a society that can swap genders with relative ease, and as such there will never be gender norms.) they are going to feel flat, and forced. They aren't "trans" per say, because the world has alchemy that simply swaps gender over, meaning the society as a whole, wouldn't see gender as we do now. (For many, something that is rooted in biology and genetics.) I'd say that most people probably wouldn't really need, want, or care about the gender of anyone else in a given society, we have gender norms, as such genders and "mislabelling" of them, is a problem. This society's language has probably evolved (Dependent on how long the alchemy has been around.) to simply do away with gender, as people are inherently fluid in their genders. If the biology and genetics of the person are also "swapped" they would be masculine for soldiers due to increased muscle density, weight etc, most spies, or cuttpurses would be feminine, due to being far lighter, compact and agile. (As a very, very rough outline, I understand keenly that there are outliers in any scenario.)

I suppose the other question I'd pose is....why? Gender is already a non-issue in the majority of pen and paper systems, it has no bearing on mechanical situations, except what the DM and player impose. A Male orc has no benefits, or negatives over a female Orc, both can be carbon copies of one another mechanically. (I guess there are a few Prestige classes that may have gender locks? I don't honestly know, as we just sort of ignored them in our games, much like multi-class penalties.) If you're just trying to make a statement with your game, think of the audience you're making that statement to, and understand that if something feels forced for the sake of diversity, it's not going to sit well with most people. (In my experience, not the "straight" people or the LGBT people.) I'll just re-iterate the Captain analogy. Don't make gender/sexuality the defining trait of a character, and instead just write a good character that happens to have a non-"normal" (For our world, as I've already expressed your world will be different from what I've read and you've said thus far.) gender/sexuality, and the character will land far, far better.

Calthropstu
2021-02-26, 05:51 PM
I don't buy games for artwork. I'd honestly prefer if game rulebooks didn't have any. Monster entries being an exception, and there are few monsters where I care whether they have a penis or not.
So honestly, I'd rather the ratio be 0:0

Talakeal
2021-02-26, 07:29 PM
So, basically, in my setting you have a system where the Emperor rules the Empire, Paladins each control a nation within the empire, Dukes control provinces within the nations, barons control counties within the provinces, and lords control towns within the counties. Nobles can boss about commoners within their territories, but are honor bound to obey all superiors and can be stripped over their position at any time by a superior or a council of their peers.

Is this federal, feudal, both, or neither?


I don't buy games for artwork. I'd honestly prefer if game rulebooks didn't have any. Monster entries being an exception, and there are few monsters where I care whether they have a penis or not.
So honestly, I'd rather the ratio be 0:0

I have trouble thinking of a reference book that doesn't include illustrations.

So do you prefer to have a lot of blank space or impenetrable walls of text?


To my personal opinion on the matter, one of the biggest issues I have with the LGBT+ Community and Gender Fluidity (As a bi man myself.) is that so often, people who cling to those groups, make their sexuality, or their gender the forefront of their persona. If you ask many of them what their defining qualities are, many of them reference their sexuality, or their gender. Now, in every day conversation, you can see this as someone who is proud of who they are, and understand the struggles it took them to be able to say that aloud, and not be worried for whatever reason. However, in a setting, where in there is minimal ground work laid, it comes across as forced. "The Captain of the guard who is gay" is forced, it doesn't add anything at all, and it's going to be poorly received by a wide audience, (I am going to just reference a wide audience, not your group in particular.) however, as the party gets to know the Captain, understands he's a man of virtue, and toils endlessly for the good of his city, they grow to love the character, if after a particularly hard mission the Captain says. "You all look troubled and weary, why don't you come by my estate this evening, let my Husband and I cook you a nice meal and you can regale us with tales of your victory?" In my experience (Some 15 years of DMing.) the majority of players aren't even going to bat an eye that the Captain is gay, they don't care (Not in a bad way either.) the Captain is well...the Captain, damn what he does with his genitals, or who he fell in love with, the Captain takes care of us, he's a good person, and he's gone to bat for us several times, THOSE are his defining characteristics. At least, as the players see him.

I agree with you, but the concern is that the setting might be unwelcoming to players who do define themselves by their gender / sexuality or wish to play characters who do.



The point I am making, perhaps poorly. If your characters are defined entirely by their sexuality and gender (Especially in a society that can swap genders with relative ease, and as such there will never be gender norms.) they are going to feel flat, and forced. They aren't "trans" per say, because the world has alchemy that simply swaps gender over, meaning the society as a whole, wouldn't see gender as we do now. (For many, something that is rooted in biology and genetics.) I'd say that most people probably wouldn't really need, want, or care about the gender of anyone else in a given society, we have gender norms, as such genders and "mislabelling" of them, is a problem. This society's language has probably evolved (Dependent on how long the alchemy has been around.) to simply do away with gender, as people are inherently fluid in their genders. If the biology and genetics of the person are also "swapped" they would be masculine for soldiers due to increased muscle density, weight etc, most spies, or cuttpurses would be feminine, due to being far lighter, compact and agile. (As a very, very rough outline, I understand keenly that there are outliers in any scenario.)

Yep, that is pretty much my concern.



I suppose the other question I'd pose is....why? Gender is already a non-issue in the majority of pen and paper systems, it has no bearing on mechanical situations, except what the DM and player impose. A Male orc has no benefits, or negatives over a female Orc, both can be carbon copies of one another mechanically. (I guess there are a few Prestige classes that may have gender locks? I don't honestly know, as we just sort of ignored them in our games, much like multi-class penalties.) If you're just trying to make a statement with your game, think of the audience you're making that statement to, and understand that if something feels forced for the sake of diversity, it's not going to sit well with most people. (In my experience, not the "straight" people or the LGBT people.) I'll just re-iterate the Captain analogy. Don't make gender/sexuality the defining trait of a character, and instead just write a good character that happens to have a non-"normal" (For our world, as I've already expressed your world will be different from what I've read and you've said thus far.) gender/sexuality, and the character will land far, far better.

Mechanically, it doesn't matter. This is all about setting stuff.

I know not everyone feels this way, but I am personally a "fiction first" sort of gamer and the setting is generally more important to me than the rules.

Saint-Just
2021-02-26, 08:32 PM
So, basically, in my setting you have a system where the Emperor rules the Empire, Paladins each control a nation within the empire, Dukes control provinces within the nations, barons control counties within the provinces, and lords control towns within the counties. Nobles can boss about commoners within their territories, but are honor bound to obey all superiors and can be stripped over their position at any time by a superior or a council of their peers.

Is this federal, feudal, both, or neither?


Disclaimer: I am NOT a professional historian.

System of delegation sounds a bit like idealized-feudal which never existed IRL. Usually you'll have both great nobles and small nobles answerable directly to the King/sovereign, down to Knights who had no overlord other than King. Depending on time and place you can have weak and poor Dukes who may had have no Barons or Count under them; Counts and Barons wealthier and more powerful than Dukes; sometimes both. Even if Duke were afforded a higher place in formal ceremonies it did not count for much.

I also recommend to change your nomenclature : Barons governing counties? Seriously? Call those noblemen Counts; or call the land unit baronies; or invent original name for one or both (like you did with Paladins), but do not do that. Is that because sub units of England and the US are called counties despite having no counts? Also: generic Lord may be fine, but unless you want to invoke something at least superficially similar to the post-industrial society you may not have enough towns to have Lords in each "county".

I also think that even if you imagine something stricter regulated, like the Roman Empire (at times) you still have too many layers. It's not like 6-layered chain of vassalage cannot exist but it cannot be typical. Neither in Europe nor in the Middle East you'll find such strict organization (I cannot speak about China). So reduce the number of superiors above an average town (unless the Empire is world-spanning AND highly bureaucratic; but in this case why the feudal titles?).

A note about towns: even towns which "belonged" to a noblemen usually had some degree of autonomy compared to villages. So I really, really not sure that having a tier of noblemen which is expected to be about governing towns is a good idea.

Now about removal from power: if they have the possibilty of "stripped of their position at any time" (going by your previous examples not necessary because of treason or even gross incompetence) is definitely not feudal at all; especially if you say that a direct superior can do it (instead of the matter going straight to the top and decision being made by the sovereign). Also: council of their peers - what exactly that implies - all their colleagues under the same superior or some separate board (whether created for each separate case like a jury or acting like some sort of committee on a semi-permanent basis)? And do you need that council and superior to agree or each one has the power of removal independently?

Finally I'd say that a possibility of being removed from power that easily doesn't leave much place for federalism either. Oh, difference in laws and organization can still exists but if Powers That Be can remove at any time (for example by firing subordinates until they agree to change the laws to what the superior says) then federalism is not enshrined in the law.

All in all: despite the titles and possibility of inheriting them sounds like a strongly centralized state, not a feudal realm. Nor the pyramidal structure sounds like absolutist state retaining the trappings of feudalism; rather it's a monarchy in which everything was organized from the centre.

Hm, how much do you know about Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire? Maybe that may work better as a prototype (and you don't need to match eastern aesthetics with that model).

Segev
2021-02-27, 02:21 AM
It is worth noting that a number of ancient empires were collections of mostly-autonomous city-states who all bowed to and paid regular tribute to the ruler of the capitol city, who was the emperor. Other city-states were ruled by kings who acknowledged the emperor as their superior.

They often had limited Imperial laws (though there were exceptions), and within their city-states, kings were still sovereign, aside from whatever Imperial laws required of them.

If your emperor does not have a personal fief, but rules the land by delegating to the Paladins, it's pretty iconically Feudal. If he has his own dominion and the Paladins are more federated under him while being feudal kings of their territories in their own rights, it sounds like an empire of kingdoms rather than city-states.

Satinavian
2021-02-27, 02:49 AM
So, basically, in my setting you have a system where the Emperor rules the Empire, Paladins each control a nation within the empire, Dukes control provinces within the nations, barons control counties within the provinces, and lords control towns within the counties. Nobles can boss about commoners within their territories, but are honor bound to obey all superiors and can be stripped over their position at any time by a superior or a council of their peers.

Is this federal, feudal, both, or neither?
I agree wit Saint-Just that those are too many levels. You might replace "lords controlling towns" with "knights controlling knightdoms" which might be smaller than a single village. Also yes, counts for counties and barons for baronies.

I know that there are a lot more feudal titles and nobly hierarchies show them. But many of those were basically on a similar level, just more/less important. A duke of a dukedom is ranked higher than a prince of a principality and he ranked higher than a margrave of a march (ok, the latter is not that clear cut), but none of those would usually have any of the others under them. They would all answer directly to king/emporer and have at best count-level nobles under them. Agai, idealized because real world is complicated.


As for your system, it sound like superiors have too much power for that system to really be counted as feudal or as federal. It is without a question a monarchy with a nobility but it seems to veer into absolutism. Which is not surprising, since many historical absolute regimes still had the whole nobly pyramid, just stripped of much of their power.

Calthropstu
2021-02-27, 12:20 PM
So, basically, in my setting you have a system where the Emperor rules the Empire, Paladins each control a nation within the empire, Dukes control provinces within the nations, barons control counties within the provinces, and lords control towns within the counties. Nobles can boss about commoners within their territories, but are honor bound to obey all superiors and can be stripped over their position at any time by a superior or a council of their peers.

Is this federal, feudal, both, or neither?



I have trouble thinking of a reference book that doesn't include illustrations.

So do you prefer to have a lot of blank space or impenetrable walls of text?



I agree with you, but the concern is that the setting might be unwelcoming to players who do define themselves by their gender / sexuality or wish to play characters who do.




Yep, that is pretty much my concern.




Mechanically, it doesn't matter. This is all about setting stuff.

I know not everyone feels this way, but I am personally a "fiction first" sort of gamer and the setting is generally more important to me than the rules.

Charts, text, blurbs...
I have seen some reference books without art. It isso much easier because I don't have to read around images. Artwork , barring monster images in their entries, has zero purpose. And the art is always so bad too. Especially modern artists who want to depict "feminine empowerment." The cleric iconic, the rogue iconic and the sorceress iconic in pathfinder for example are all absolutely ugly to me.

I want rules, not art. I can fish for art on many websites. I buy a game for rules. Take your ****ty art and put it somewhere it will be helpful, or at least somewhere I am not forced to buy and look at it as I peruse the rules.

JNAProductions
2021-02-27, 12:28 PM
Charts, text, blurbs...
I have seen some reference books without art. It isso much easier because I don't have to read around images. Artwork , barring monster images in their entries, has zero purpose. And the art is always so bad too. Especially modern artists who want to depict "feminine empowerment." The cleric iconic, the rogue iconic and the sorceress iconic in pathfinder for example are all absolutely ugly to me.

I want rules, not art. I can fish for art on many websites. I buy a game for rules. Take your ****ty art and put it somewhere it will be helpful, or at least somewhere I am not forced to buy and look at it as I peruse the rules.

Other people feel differently. Talakeal wants to include art, so let him include art. Especially since art is very much a subjective thing-the PFSRD pictures for the Cleric, Rogue, and Sorcerer all look pretty cool to me!

I also question what you mean by putting feminine empowerment in quotes. The pictures I saw (again off the PFSRD, so it might be different in the hardcopy books) were a man who should probably have sleeves (Cleric), a woman who has flaming hands (Sorcerer), and a woman atop a gargoyle ready to snipe someone (Rogue). I could certainly critique the armor choices (Sorceress's pants look pretty impractical for adventuring!) but it just shows adventurers ready to do adventuring things.

To Talakeal-good on you for working towards making something inclusive and welcoming! There's a place for gritty, bigoted, and all-around nasty settings, but equally, there's a place for good and bright settings, where people are treated fairly by one another, and it's on the outskirts of the world that adventure lies, not working against the system. Even if you include more grim and gritty elements, given my friend group, I really like you making the effort to have equality.

Talakeal
2021-02-27, 01:57 PM
To Talakeal-good on you for working towards making something inclusive and welcoming! There's a place for gritty, bigoted, and all-around nasty settings, but equally, there's a place for good and bright settings, where people are treated fairly by one another, and it's on the outskirts of the world that adventure lies, not working against the system. Even if you include more grim and gritty elements, given my friend group, I really like you making the effort to have equality.

Thanks! But, honestly, my setting is pretty dark, so your praise might be misplaced, it just happens to be one which is not patriarchal and has access to alchemical transfigurations.


Charts, text, blurbs...
I have seen some reference books without art. It is so much easier because I don't have to read around images. Artwork , barring monster images in their entries, has zero purpose. And the art is always so bad too. Especially modern artists who want to depict "feminine empowerment." The cleric iconic, the rogue iconic and the sorceress iconic in pathfinder for example are all absolutely ugly to me.

I want rules, not art. I can fish for art on many websites. I buy a game for rules. Take your ****ty art and put it somewhere it will be helpful, or at least somewhere I am not forced to buy and look at it as I peruse the rules.

That's certainly an unusual take.

Quality of RPG art obviously varies, but I can't think of any book where it is consistently crappy or actively detrimental, although I am sure I could find one if I looked.

But I do agree that the appeal of looking at pretty artwork should not be a selling point of an RPG. In my experience it serves to primary purposes, to break up the text and to serve as an illustration.

I also agree that monsters are where illustration is most important (and for my book the bestiary has more art than the rest of the book combined as a result) but I don't see why illustrations aren't also helpful for equipment, landscapes, notable NPCs, player classes and races, etc. Of course, if you are buying a game purely for the rules and don't care about the setting either I could also see how that would be unimportant.

But a lot of time artwork is just there to make the page flow and to avoid having to deal with having blank spaces on pages or, even worse, walls of text with no clear delineation.



It is worth noting that a number of ancient empires were collections of mostly-autonomous city-states who all bowed to and paid regular tribute to the ruler of the capitol city, who was the emperor. Other city-states were ruled by kings who acknowledged the emperor as their superior.

They often had limited Imperial laws (though there were exceptions), and within their city-states, kings were still sovereign, aside from whatever Imperial laws required of them.

If your emperor does not have a personal fief, but rules the land by delegating to the Paladins, it's pretty iconically Feudal. If he has his own dominion and the Paladins are more federated under him while being feudal kings of their territories in their own rights, it sounds like an empire of kingdoms rather than city-states.

The Empress does not have a personal fief (well, aside from a small island at the heart of the Empire which pays no taxes), but in theory the entire continent is her property.

The idea of autonomous city states which send tribute to a central power is much more like how the Warlord's rule the frontier in my setting.


Disclaimer: I am NOT a professional historian.

System of delegation sounds a bit like idealized-feudal which never existed IRL. Usually you'll have both great nobles and small nobles answerable directly to the King/sovereign, down to Knights who had no overlord other than King. Depending on time and place you can have weak and poor Dukes who may had have no Barons or Count under them; Counts and Barons wealthier and more powerful than Dukes; sometimes both. Even if Duke were afforded a higher place in formal ceremonies it did not count for much.

I also recommend to change your nomenclature : Barons governing counties? Seriously? Call those noblemen Counts; or call the land unit baronies; or invent original name for one or both (like you did with Paladins), but do not do that. Is that because sub units of England and the US are called counties despite having no counts? Also: generic Lord may be fine, but unless you want to invoke something at least superficially similar to the post-industrial society you may not have enough towns to have Lords in each "county".

I was trying to give the cliff notes version.

Yes, counts rule counties in my setting; that was an artifact in my post of starting to type out the separate systems for rural and urban areas and then deciding it was irrelevant to the post and deleting half of it.

And yeah, there are probably places where the system breaks down and links in the chain are missing.



I also think that even if you imagine something stricter regulated, like the Roman Empire (at times) you still have too many layers. It's not like 6-layered chain of vassalage cannot exist but it cannot be typical. Neither in Europe nor in the Middle East you'll find such strict organization (I cannot speak about China). So reduce the number of superiors above an average town (unless the Empire is world-spanning AND highly bureaucratic; but in this case why the feudal titles?).

It seems to match what we have in real life; most countries have 3-5 levels of government (town, county, state, federal for us in the US), and then you lock the nations together into an Empire.

The Empire is world spanning and somewhat bureaucratic, the reason they hold on to the trappings of feudalism is that they claim their authority from their descent from King Arthur's court and use their superior breeding and code of honor as justifications for why a hereditary nobility is superior to a democratically elected government.



Now about removal from power: if they have the possibility of "stripped of their position at any time" (going by your previous examples not necessary because of treason or even gross incompetence) is definitely not feudal at all; especially if you say that a direct superior can do it (instead of the matter going straight to the top and decision being made by the sovereign). Also: council of their peers - what exactly that implies - all their colleagues under the same superior or some separate board (whether created for each separate case like a jury or acting like some sort of committee on a semi-permanent basis)? And do you need that council and superior to agree or each one has the power of removal independently?

Finally I'd say that a possibility of being removed from power that easily doesn't leave much place for federalism either. Oh, difference in laws and organization can still exists but if Powers That Be can remove at any time (for example by firing subordinates until they agree to change the laws to what the superior says) then federalism is not enshrined in the law.

Nobles are above the law, but follow a code of honor and a series of oaths, one of which is to obey their superior. Others include not taking bribes and not comfiting what we would consider war crimes.

Nobles who are found to have violated their code can be stripped of their title either by their superior or a vote taken by their fellows. So, for example, if a Duke has 20 barons under him, one of the barons could be stripped of nobility by the Duke or by a vote of the other 19 barons. The Duke can overturn the vote of the barons. Likewise, the Duke's ruling can be overturned by the Paladin above him or a vote of his fellow duke's in the paladin's domain.

Note that being stripped of one's title is not necessarily permanent, they are often given a quest which they can complete to restore their honor; sometimes this is merely a formality similar to modern community service, usually it is an arduous or dangerous mission for the good of the Empire, and in severe cases it is suicide mission giving them the chance to die in combat, and in the most extreme violations they will be required to take their own life to regain their honor posthumously. If they fail their quest or simply abandon it, they are free to live their life normally as a commoner.


All in all: despite the titles and possibility of inheriting them sounds like a strongly centralized state, not a feudal realm. Nor the pyramidal structure sounds like absolutist state retaining the trappings of feudalism; rather it's a monarchy in which everything was organized from the centre.

Is there a typo somewhere in there? I am having trouble parsing this section.



Hm, how much do you know about Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire? Maybe that may work better as a prototype (and you don't need to match eastern aesthetics with that model).

I broadly know their history, but not a whole lot about their politics except that the word Byzantine has come to mean unnecessarily complicated. I could look into it, anything specific?

In my mind the setting is more like Genghis Khan's empire where you had a supremely gifted individual conquer a huge territory in a short time, only to see the whole thing crumble after his death. In this case you have a fantasy version of King Arthur* establishing a continent spanning Empire which has been slowly dying for a thousand years and desperately clinging to the memory of the good old days as a sort of fascist propaganda model.


*As opposed to England's absolutely real and historical King Arthur.

Calthropstu
2021-02-27, 01:57 PM
Other people feel differently. Talakeal wants to include art, so let him include art. Especially since art is very much a subjective thing-the PFSRD pictures for the Cleric, Rogue, and Sorcerer all look pretty cool to me!

I also question what you mean by putting feminine empowerment in quotes. The pictures I saw (again off the PFSRD, so it might be different in the hardcopy books) were a man who should probably have sleeves (Cleric), a woman who has flaming hands (Sorcerer), and a woman atop a gargoyle ready to snipe someone (Rogue). I could certainly critique the armor choices (Sorceress's pants look pretty impractical for adventuring!) but it just shows adventurers ready to do adventuring things.

To Talakeal-good on you for working towards making something inclusive and welcoming! There's a place for gritty, bigoted, and all-around nasty settings, but equally, there's a place for good and bright settings, where people are treated fairly by one another, and it's on the outskirts of the world that adventure lies, not working against the system. Even if you include more grim and gritty elements, given my friend group, I really like you making the effort to have equality.

Not pfsrd.
look up seoni, kyra and merisiel. Their faces look like they're all squeezing out turds. The armor for the rogue looks about as useful as that turd. The cleric at least looks functional, but that face combined with the expression just makes me hear "I want to see your manager." And I don't think they could have possibly made a less functional or more slutty outfit for the sorceress.

But to note your statement: Yes, it's the prerogative of the op to put art in the publication. But the op asked for opinions. I gave mine.

Witty Username
2021-02-27, 05:33 PM
So what if its standard? Whats your point? Its unjust. If your justification for ignoring it is that its normal, then I'm sorry, normality is overrated and often not the best thing to judge anything by. If we let normality be what determines what should be done about anything, nothing good would be done at all.

Spite? no. your mistake is not expecting the players to smash whatever plans you have as apart of the normal course of play. This includes societies. Its not that anyone sets out to specifically screw over what you have planned, its that you'll never be able to anticipate what they will or won't care about and what they are willing to do to make it happen. you can't excuse your lack of flexibility by guilt tripping players over things they don't like or care about no matter how hard you work on them. You want players to appreciate what you have done and not destroy the societies you made, that something you must work out beforehand, preferably by finding the players who like that sort of thing. your clearly talking about a different genre than I am anyways, so I don't see why your continuing this discussion when I'm talking about something more superheroic than you.

This is why when I make settings I like some amount of pre-smashed, that way it is less about shattering what I created and more about the players building what they envision.

I am a "yes but ..." kind of DM so smashing a corrupt society would require cunning, power and skill, but I don't mind world changing events.

Saint-Just
2021-02-27, 07:49 PM
Yes, counts rule counties in my setting; that was an artifact in my post of starting to type out the separate systems for rural and urban areas and then deciding it was irrelevant to the post and deleting half of it.

And yeah, there are probably places where the system breaks down and links in the chain are missing.

...

Is there a typo somewhere in there? I am having trouble parsing this section.

...

In my mind the setting is more like Genghis Khan's empire where you had a supremely gifted individual conquer a huge territory in a short time, only to see the whole thing crumble after his death. In this case you have a fantasy version of King Arthur* establishing a continent spanning Empire which has been slowly dying for a thousand years and desperately clinging to the memory of the good old days as a sort of fascist propaganda model.


The section was intended to say: in my opinion it's not feudal in function (feudal is not strongly centralized), nor would I expect a centralized state which was feudal in the past to look like that. Your mention of Genghis Khan seems to confirm it for me: even if you ignore a reputation for bloodthirstiness Genghis was notable to breaking old institutions and traditions and rebuilding them to suit his purposes. Except if your Empire still maintains the aforementioned rigid structure it probably didn't crumble that much. So not feudal; rather a centralized bureaucracy in service of an absolutist (?) monarch with a large proportion of posts being heritable (de-facto it happened all the time IRL; some times it was even enshrined in law).

And about "there are probably places where the system breaks down" it also says about great centralization - normally you'd find exceptions outnumbering rules (especially if you consider such rules as "Baron is a vassal of a Count who is a vassal of a Duke" - it never was intended to function that way; pretty much like in modern military colonel usually doesn't command lieutenant-colonels and lieutenant-colonel doesn't command only majors).



It seems to match what we have in real life; most countries have 3-5 levels of government (town, county, state, federal for us in the US), and then you lock the nations together into an Empire.


In pre-modern times (especially with feudalism) you'd expect to see less levels. Three for a nation and fourth (Empress) above them would be more probable; though I wouldn't say that six are impossible - just not in a feudal realm.



The Empire is world spanning and somewhat bureaucratic, the reason they hold on to the trappings of feudalism is that they claim their authority from their descent from King Arthur's court and use their superior breeding and code of honor as justifications for why a hereditary nobility is superior to a democratically elected government.


Again, having nobility (aristocracy) does not necessarily implies feudalism.



Nobles are above the law, but follow a code of honor and a series of oaths, one of which is to obey their superior. Others include not taking bribes and not comfiting what we would consider war crimes.

Nobles who are found to have violated their code can be stripped of their title either by their superior or a vote taken by their fellows. So, for example, if a Duke has 20 barons under him, one of the barons could be stripped of nobility by the Duke or by a vote of the other 19 barons. The Duke can overturn the vote of the barons. Likewise, the Duke's ruling can be overturned by the Paladin above him or a vote of his fellow duke's in the paladin's domain.


In effect that means that it's superior's decision that matters and decision of peers is advisory (same goes for appealing to your superior's peers vs appealing to your superiors' superior).

I again will try to convey my impression (hopefully better phrased this time): It seems to me that it is a strongly centralized state, not a feudal one. I see nothing wrong with it on it's own merits, though (attaching the term "feudal" is surely out-of-setting decision). There are a plenty of examples IRL where you had to be a noblemen to take a position of power or trust but where rule of a king was absolute. And there are examples where governors, or deputies theoretically served at pleasure of the sovereign but in practice positions quickly became heritable. I am not sure why such not-feudal state would evolve trappings of feudal one but it doesn't matter all that much for me. Maybe just make sure that players understand that all lords have no real option to disobey because everyone are still big on (at least formal) obedience to superior - so they are powerful as long as state apparatus is satisfied with them but can lose their power otherwise.

Talakeal
2021-02-28, 12:36 PM
@Saint-Just

Makes sense, thank you!

The ruling by a council of peers is supposed to occur when the superior is not available to make a judgement, for example if a baron back home goes rogue and needs to be removed from power asap but the duke is off leading a crusade a thousand miles away on the frontier.

Yanagi
2021-03-01, 11:16 AM
On a related note, what is the proper ratio of male to female characters in artwork? A common sense answer would obviously be 50/50, I have had several people comment about how there are already too many drawings of women despite them only making up about 40% of the artwork.
To go further down that rabbit hole, do you think male gamers are more or less likely to be interested in a game with lots of female representation in the artwork? And vice versa?

Generally what I want from art in a guidebook is some visual cues about the material culture: what do people wear, how do people adorn themselves, how do these things vary by region, culture, class. A lot of times written descriptions don't really delve into this and it's easier to grok just looking at a picture. As a side effect this generally means I want about 50/50 representation.

Second part--I think for most guys I know female-representation-as-a-rate would be orthogonal to their interest: the larger setting's historical/cultural meta is more important than the art unto itself...but I have definitely been at tables with people who not like it and get very loud about it. But honestly I think the latter just aren't an audience worth trying to anticipate the market needs for, because in thirty years of gaming (1) they've always been upset about something, (2) what they uncritically consume is frequently bad...not morally bad, trite and cliched.


And, a little deeper, does it matter how sexualized the art is? I try and avoid out and out cheesecake (its tough, I have found that a lot of artists want to draw it even if not requested), but most of the illustrations are of conventionally attractive people regardless of gender. Likewise, while I am trying to display a wide array of clothing styles and body types, a large portion of the illustrations do depict people who are scantily clad or with unrealistic physiques.

Thanks!

...context matters?

Like, when you have figural art where the emphasis centers the person and their physicality, the result is poses and perspectives that can read as erotic even if they're not intended to be, and that's normal and fine and kind of unavoidable given the subjective reading of what sexualized is. Photographs of weightlifters are a pretty good example of what I mean: they can convey raw strength but also be read as erotic because of the partialism and the way gaze is applied to the body.

But this become cringey when there's a large scene--a battle, for example--where the poses should be naturalistic, conveying action and motion within the frozen moment, but instead the armatures still have poses.

That said...it seems like you've got players who do think about flirting and romancing NPCs, and if that's the case then absolutely there's a place for presenting those NPCs in a manner that conveys sexiness. Maybe that's unconventional compared to the very square portraiture (much of which utterly fails to convey character) of most splatbooks, but it ain't wrong.

137beth
2021-03-03, 02:23 PM
Even though it isn't about TTRPGs, I'd seriously recommend reading the webcomic Never Satisfied (https://www.neversatisfiedcomic.com/) by Taylor Robin. The world of the comic has pre-20th century levels of technology and a rigid class structure. But it also has no sexism of any sort. The main character is nonbinary (as are two of the major supporting characters) and that is never made into an issue even by the villains. Many of the cast are male or female, but we never find out their AGABs: for those with access to shapeshifting magic someone's AGAB is totally meaningless, and for everyone else it's a private matter that society doesn't care about.

Talakeal
2021-03-05, 05:28 PM
So I have added the following to paragraphs to my setting description:

The first is from the section on family dynamics:


Atlantis was a wholly egalitarian society, and the Imperium and most of the lands that it once controlled are relatively free of enforced gender roles, and as such few people recognize a distinction between gender and biological sex.
Likewise, alchemy and transmutation magic mean that changing one’s sex is an achievable goal for any save those from the poorest or most conservative backgrounds. As a result, intersex or gender nonconforming people are far more likely to be met with confusion or religious awe than hostility or prejudice.

And this one in the section on medicine:


One skilled in the Atlantean sciences can also seamlessly change a character’s cosmetic details, including gender, although the rarity of such practitioners and the associated costs, risks, and social stigma mean it is not often undertaken lightly.

I know its not a lot, but its something. Any suggestions for improvement?


Even though it isn't about TTRPGs, I'd seriously recommend reading the webcomic Never Satisfied (https://www.neversatisfiedcomic.com/) by Taylor Robin. The world of the comic has pre-20th century levels of technology and a rigid class structure. But it also has no sexism of any sort. The main character is nonbinary (as are two of the major supporting characters) and that is never made into an issue even by the villains. Many of the cast are male or female, but we never find out their AGABs: for those with access to shapeshifting magic someone's AGAB is totally meaningless, and for everyone else it's a private matter that society doesn't care about.

Thanks for the info!

I started to read through Never Satisfied, but I don't really have time to read the entire comic right now. Any chance you could give me a summary of how it handles gender (or link me to one?)

Cluedrew
2021-03-05, 09:40 PM
I started to read through Never Satisfied, but I don't really have time to read the entire comic right now. Any chance you could give me a summary of how it handles gender (or link me to one?)I haven't read it in a while but as I recall: Homosexual and non-binary people walk across screen and... there is no and it just happens. I think longest exchange about it is roughly: "What's her name?" "Their." "What's their name?" "You have no chance give up." Then it moves onto one friend teasing another friend about being transparent. Also one of the few stories that actually made me wonder if there are too many queer people. I decided no.


[...]as such few people recognize a distinction between gender and biological sex.Maybe its just me but this kind of reads as "people don't recognize their can be a difference" which I don't think is what you were going for.

Also can alchemists change hormone balance? I would quite call that cosmetic. Unless cosmetic just means "not represented in a stat line".

Talakeal
2021-03-05, 10:11 PM
I haven't read it in a while but as I recall: Homosexual and non-binary people walk across screen and... there is no and it just happens. I think longest exchange about it is roughly: "What's her name?" "Their." "What's their name?" "You have no chance give up." Then it moves onto one friend teasing another friend about being transparent. Also one of the few stories that actually made me wonder if there are too many queer people. I decided no.

That's nice, but not really what I am looking for then. I was more wondering what it would mean to be non-binary would take in a world without strict gender roles and exploring why someone would identify that way in such a setting.


You might want to change that wording."]Maybe its just me but this kind of reads as "people don't recognize their can be a difference" which I don't think is what you were going for.

I think that is what I meant.

The dictionary defines gender as "either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones," but when the society does not have a culture which enforces gender differences, I am not sure how the second half of that definition would apply.



Also can alchemists change hormone balance? I would quite call that cosmetic. Unless cosmetic just means "not represented in a stat line".[/SPOILER]

Yes to both. Alchemists can change hormones and I mean cosmetic as in not affecting the crunch.

Cluedrew
2021-03-06, 04:06 PM
That's nice, but not really what I am looking for then. I was more wondering what it would mean to be non-binary would take in a world without strict gender roles and exploring why someone would identify that way in such a setting.I imagine like a red-head would feel in a world were there are no strict hair colour roles. Just because something is unimportant doesn't mean people will stop noticing it.

Talakeal
2021-03-06, 04:09 PM
I imagine like a red-head would feel in a world were there are no strict hair colour roles. Just because something is unimportant doesn't mean people will stop noticing it.

But my question is, what is there to notice?

A better analogy would be a redhead in a world where everyone was bald. How could you even tell?

Calthropstu
2021-03-06, 06:50 PM
In the real world, human reproduction tequires a sperm cell and an egg cell. That is an irrefutable, currently unalterable fact.

But in a fantasy game? If you want a world where reproduction consists of touching psuedopods, a kiss or tentacle battles to see who impregnates the other? Go for it.

But I advise against making whatever vision you have for "what society should be" as base game material. It GREATLY limits your ability to sell the actual product. Many will avoid such material because of it, and in some countries it could even cross into illegal territory.

Instead, build a base game that is as vanilla as possible in this regard to appeal to as wide an audience as possible and introduce such material in an optional supplement.

Segev
2021-03-06, 07:13 PM
But my question is, what is there to notice?

A better analogy would be a redhead in a world where everyone was bald. How could you even tell?

Er, are you actually saying that all physical sexual characteristics are actively missing? Or at least 100% concealed by clothing at all times, and in such a way as to make it taboo to even hint at their presence?

Because otherwise, I don't think this analogy to "everyone is bald" works.

Cluedrew
2021-03-06, 07:31 PM
Joke Answer: Body hair.

Serious Answer: I couldn't tell you. I read this message right after it came out and I'm still working it out. I can project at "without strict gender roles" but this situation you are trying to describe is much harder to figure out. First because it is definitely further away from today and secondly I don't quite know what you are going for. I am unsure of many of the details (like do all trends across gender that exist today not exist or do people just not notice them) and also it is much further from my life experience. Now I can't actually tell you the answer to the nature/nurture thing so maybe most of those are from society... but there are so many ingrained in my brain I don't think I can get rid of all of them.

Also how does any of this survive contact with players or a GM who has no more idea of how this works than I do now?

Talakeal
2021-03-07, 11:49 AM
Serious Answer: I couldn't tell you. I read this message right after it came out and I'm still working it out. I can project at "without strict gender roles" but this situation you are trying to describe is much harder to figure out. First because it is definitely further away from today and secondly I don't quite know what you are going for. I am unsure of many of the details (like do all trends across gender that exist today not exist or do people just not notice them) and also it is much further from my life experience. Now I can't actually tell you the answer to the nature/nurture thing so maybe most of those are from society... but there are so many ingrained in my brain I don't think I can get rid of all of them.

Ok, so to reiterate my initial point (both for you and myself as I am getting a better idea of it):

IRL the idea that biological sex and gender as a social construct were two separate things was not recognized until the 1950s, and didn't reach mainstream acceptance for several decades later. My campaign world has a 19th century feel, and thought it is anachronistic in several ways, I don't think this would be one of them as my setting is far more egalitarian than real life in regards to gender roles.

Now, that's not saying that there are no gender roles at all, the mechanics of child rearing and the shape of the body will obviously impact fashion and family dynamics, but a man who acts especially feminine will just be seen as a "soft" man rather than as any sort of gender rebel, and vice versa.

I can't see how someone who is non-binary would present in this world, and I imagine someone claiming they are non-binary would be met with confusion and a suggestion that they simply drop their drawers in front of a mirror.

Then, also, since sex can be changed alchemically, I don't see why a transperson of any means wouldn't simply change their gender and be done with it. If they choose to tell people (or maintain contact with people they new pre-transition) they might face the same stigma that anyone who gets cosmetic surgery would, but other than that I can't see them sharing any of the struggles that transpeople face IRL, as for the most part trans people would just become cis people of a different gender, which may not be the character people want to play.

Likewise, mentioning a trans npc in the setting description would seem to come across as othering or tokenism as it is just a background detail that is not necessarily relevant to their current life.


Also how does any of this survive contact with players or a GM who has no more idea of how this works than I do now?

Good question. But I think I need to figure it out first for myself before worrying about how to present it to other people.


Er, are you actually saying that all physical sexual characteristics are actively missing? Or at least 100% concealed by clothing at all times, and in such a way as to make it taboo to even hint at their presence?

Because otherwise, I don't think this analogy to "everyone is bald" works.

Its not about physical sex characteristics, its about social gender rolls.

In my setting, afaict, a person who has a penis and the potential to grow a beard is going to be seen as a man even if they are gentle, wear makeup, jewelry, and dresses, stay home with the children, and like to talk about their feelings. Or a person with breasts and a vagina is going to be seen as a woman even if they are a macho soldier who wears utilitarian clothes and combat boots, shave their head, and and shows disdain for emotional relationships.




But I advise against making whatever vision you have for "what society should be" as base game material. It GREATLY limits your ability to sell the actual product. Many will avoid such material because of it, and in some countries it could even cross into illegal territory.

Its not about what society should be, my setting is pretty dark and every civilization has what I consider major flaws. The presence of a caste system at all makes a civilization pretty dystopian imo.

What it is about is allowing people to be free to play real life groups that they identify with.

Worrying about whether a game is legal in foreign country might be something WoTC or Paizo has to deal with, but not something I think my small indy game will need to be concerned with.

Cluedrew
2021-03-07, 08:44 PM
Now, that's not saying that there are no gender roles at all, the mechanics of child rearing and the shape of the body will obviously impact fashion and family dynamics, but a man who acts especially feminine will just be seen as a "soft" man rather than as any sort of gender rebel, and vice versa.Oh, I guess it would be exactly the same as our world then. Just someone who doesn't want to be viewed as a feminine man or masculine woman.

Talakeal
2021-03-08, 12:46 PM
Oh, I guess it would be exactly the same as our world then. Just someone who doesn't want to be viewed as a feminine man or masculine woman.

Perhaps.

Maybe I am overthinking this, or maybe I just don't understand modern trans-theory well enough, but it seems to me that there are a lot of people who, despite having no intention of medically transitioning, are unhappy with being gender non-conforming and actively reject their AGAB, and I wanted the setting to feel more welcoming to those people.

Segev
2021-03-08, 12:57 PM
Perhaps.

Maybe I am overthinking this, or maybe I just don't understand modern trans-theory well enough, but it seems to me that there are a lot of people who, despite having no intention of medically transitioning, are unhappy with being gender non-conforming and actively reject their AGAB, and I wanted the setting to feel more welcoming to those people.

I cannot speak for RL trans-gender people, as I am not one and don't know any very well, but my understanding is that it's based on a dysphoria where "my body is wrong," and that they want to look like their mental images of themselves. I imagine, therefore, that they likely at least TRY to "pass."

Therefore, assuming I'm not way off-base here, I would assume a welcoming fantasy society would accept people as the sex they present as. And people would generally try to present themselves in a way that makes them feel like who they see themselves as. The trans-man who binds his breasts and wears a tailored suit designed to emphasize a masculine set of lines is going to be treated as the man he acts like. The trans-woman who takes pains to wear flattering clothing and do up her makeup appropriately will be treated as the woman she acts like. The cis-man who wears a dress and tries to pass as a woman likely gets the benefit of a doubt and treated like a woman, but may get some private beauty tips on the assumption that (s)he just isn't very good at it, same as a cis-woman who very badly applies her makeup and picks dresses that just aren't flattering to her figure. The cis woman who tries to dress up as a man but winds up with her chest puffing out the blazer will get people either asking what her preferred sex is, or assuming she's a man and treating her like one, but again offering tips on how to better dress the part, same as a cis-man who has no fashion sense and maybe wears a very ill-fitting suit.

Of course, if your society doesn't associate an hourglass figure with "female" and a ripped, vaguely triangular torso with "male," then the way they differentiate based on appearance will affect this analysis.

In short, though, if the society doesn't care about the underlying biology in terms of how it treats people, but does care about how you present, it will treat you - generally - how you present yourself. Some people likely will be more polite about this, others more rude, and if it's a welcoming society the rude people will be looked down upon for their rudeness and social faux pas.

Anymage
2021-03-08, 01:22 PM
I'd be tempted to scrub the whole thing where you can alchemically change your sex, since you're just asking for people to ask what other changes they can make to their bodies. Some of them mechanical (if you can give a AMAB person a female reproductive tract, what about grafting on extra muscle mass for increased strength or extra arms for extra attacks), some of them tonal (I don't think you're intentionally trying to introduce cyberpunk level transhumanism into your setting), and as was noted it doesn't really give the options you expected it to.

Instead, and any trans person can tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think you might be better served by looking at neckties. They came into fashion because of Louis XIV, and have become an essential part of male dress. Rulers and a little bit of luck can set fashion precedent that lasts for a long time. All you need is to have had one powerful ruler who happened to be trans, and expressing your gender atypically can become no big deal. People might do a double take if that dainty person in a dress also happens to have a beard, but you're unlikely to see anything more than that. If you ask to be treated or addressed in a certain way, people will go with that unless they intentionally want to cause offense.

Your goal is not to create an ideal gender/sexuality utopia. The ideal is to have people from all across the spectrum presented positively, and to provide a space where people feel safe exploring various concepts. A great king who happened to be AFAB, creating fashion trends that allow people to explore their presentation without too much blowback, gives more than enough room for gender nonconforming characters all on its own.

Satinavian
2021-03-08, 04:11 PM
In short, though, if the society doesn't care about the underlying biology in terms of how it treats people, but does care about how you present, it will treat you - generally - how you present yourself. Some people likely will be more polite about this, others more rude, and if it's a welcoming society the rude people will be looked down upon for their rudeness and social faux pas.I think the idea was that the society does care about the underlying biology but this biology can be changed. Not just the optics, everything.

Calthropstu
2021-03-08, 08:05 PM
Ok, so to reiterate my initial point (both for you and myself as I am getting a better idea of it):

IRL the idea that biological sex and gender as a social construct were two separate things was not recognized until the 1950s, and didn't reach mainstream acceptance for several decades later. My campaign world has a 19th century feel, and thought it is anachronistic in several ways, I don't think this would be one of them as my setting is far more egalitarian than real life in regards to gender roles.

Now, that's not saying that there are no gender roles at all, the mechanics of child rearing and the shape of the body will obviously impact fashion and family dynamics, but a man who acts especially feminine will just be seen as a "soft" man rather than as any sort of gender rebel, and vice versa.

I can't see how someone who is non-binary would present in this world, and I imagine someone claiming they are non-binary would be met with confusion and a suggestion that they simply drop their drawers in front of a mirror.

Then, also, since sex can be changed alchemically, I don't see why a transperson of any means wouldn't simply change their gender and be done with it. If they choose to tell people (or maintain contact with people they new pre-transition) they might face the same stigma that anyone who gets cosmetic surgery would, but other than that I can't see them sharing any of the struggles that transpeople face IRL, as for the most part trans people would just become cis people of a different gender, which may not be the character people want to play.

Likewise, mentioning a trans npc in the setting description would seem to come across as othering or tokenism as it is just a background detail that is not necessarily relevant to their current life.



Good question. But I think I need to figure it out first for myself before worrying about how to present it to other people.



Its not about physical sex characteristics, its about social gender rolls.

In my setting, afaict, a person who has a penis and the potential to grow a beard is going to be seen as a man even if they are gentle, wear makeup, jewelry, and dresses, stay home with the children, and like to talk about their feelings. Or a person with breasts and a vagina is going to be seen as a woman even if they are a macho soldier who wears utilitarian clothes and combat boots, shave their head, and and shows disdain for emotional relationships.





Its not about what society should be, my setting is pretty dark and every civilization has what I consider major flaws. The presence of a caste system at all makes a civilization pretty dystopian imo.

What it is about is allowing people to be free to play real life groups that they identify with.

Worrying about whether a game is legal in foreign country might be something WoTC or Paizo has to deal with, but not something I think my small indy game will need to be concerned with.

If all you want to be is a small indy game company that caters to a select few, then be my guest.

Satinavian
2021-03-09, 03:45 AM
If all you want to be is a small indy game company that caters to a select few, then be my guest.
Do you actually know any countries where such a product would be illegal ? How many of those would be a proper market anyway without doing translation ?

Afaik as RPG product exports go, the most problems are about illustrations and how much nudity is allowed there while hardly any censor cares about pure fictional societies. (And the US market is one of the more restrictive ones already). You would have to write outright propaganda for forbidden organisations or use forbidden symbols to really run into legal problems. At least as long as you don't want to sell in Saudi Arabia or China or similar countries.

Talakeal
2021-03-09, 11:50 AM
If all you want to be is a small indy game company that caters to a select few, then be my guest.

Eh, I am a small indy game designer whether I want to be or not.

If I ever make it to the point where I am trying to break into markets outside the free world, I am sure I can worry about changing such things for foreign translations, its not exactly a huge part of the setting as it.



I think the idea was that the society does care about the underlying biology but this biology can be changed. Not just the optics, everything.

This is correct.

The setting is 19th century while a theory that separates biological sex from social gender is a late 20th century development IRL, and due to the far more egalitarian nature of the world I would think it would be less likely to develop earlier, if at all.


I'd be tempted to scrub the whole thing where you can alchemically change your sex, since you're just asking for people to ask what other changes they can make to their bodies. Some of them mechanical (if you can give a AMAB person a female reproductive tract, what about grafting on extra muscle mass for increased strength or extra arms for extra attacks), some of them tonal (I don't think you're intentionally trying to introduce cyberpunk level transhumanism into your setting), and as was noted it doesn't really give the options you expected it to.

Actually, I kind of am going for cyber-punk levels of transhumanism, just without the cyber.

The setting is the apocalyptic ruins of a world where genetic modification was the norm, and though they are no longer common, flesh-crafters are a supported player archetype in the game.

So yeah, the easily changing gender thing was not added for the sake of representation or political correctness, and imo actually kind of interferes with it.


Instead, and any trans person can tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think you might be better served by looking at neckties. They came into fashion because of Louis XIV, and have become an essential part of male dress. Rulers and a little bit of luck can set fashion precedent that lasts for a long time. All you need is to have had one powerful ruler who happened to be trans, and expressing your gender atypically can become no big deal. People might do a double take if that dainty person in a dress also happens to have a beard, but you're unlikely to see anything more than that. If you ask to be treated or addressed in a certain way, people will go with that unless they intentionally want to cause offense.

Your goal is not to create an ideal gender/sexuality utopia. The ideal is to have people from all across the spectrum presented positively, and to provide a space where people feel safe exploring various concepts. A great king who happened to be AFAB, creating fashion trends that allow people to explore their presentation without too much blowback, gives more than enough room for gender nonconforming characters all on its own.

Good ideas! I will explore them.



I cannot speak for RL trans-gender people, as I am not one and don't know any very well, but my understanding is that it's based on a dysphoria where "my body is wrong," and that they want to look like their mental images of themselves. I imagine, therefore, that they likely at least TRY to "pass."

That is a hotly debated topic. AFAICT some, but not all, transpeople suffer from dysphoria. The idea that the two were one in the same was, iirc, part of a push in the 70s and 80s to grant gender reassignment surgery legitimacy in the eyes of the medical community.



Therefore, assuming I'm not way off-base here, I would assume a welcoming fantasy society would accept people as the sex they present as. And people would generally try to present themselves in a way that makes them feel like who they see themselves as. The trans-man who binds his breasts and wears a tailored suit designed to emphasize a masculine set of lines is going to be treated as the man he acts like. The trans-woman who takes pains to wear flattering clothing and do up her makeup appropriately will be treated as the woman she acts like. The cis-man who wears a dress and tries to pass as a woman likely gets the benefit of a doubt and treated like a woman, but may get some private beauty tips on the assumption that (s)he just isn't very good at it, same as a cis-woman who very badly applies her makeup and picks dresses that just aren't flattering to her figure. The cis woman who tries to dress up as a man but winds up with her chest puffing out the blazer will get people either asking what her preferred sex is, or assuming she's a man and treating her like one, but again offering tips on how to better dress the part, same as a cis-man who has no fashion sense and maybe wears a very ill-fitting suit.

Of course, if your society doesn't associate an hourglass figure with "female" and a ripped, vaguely triangular torso with "male," then the way they differentiate based on appearance will affect this analysis.

In short, though, if the society doesn't care about the underlying biology in terms of how it treats people, but does care about how you present, it will treat you - generally - how you present yourself. Some people likely will be more polite about this, others more rude, and if it's a welcoming society the rude people will be looked down upon for their rudeness and social faux pas.

The male and female form are associated with their genders, but I imagine if people wear clothes that aren't cut for their body, they would just be assumed to have bad fashion sense.

The bigger question would be why someone who was going to that much effort to look like the opposite sex wouldn't just change though.

Satinavian
2021-03-09, 12:12 PM
It just occurred to me that this might lead to interesting family relations when someoe can be the father of one person and the mother of someone else.

Also a pair who wants to have a child might decide every time who gets to do the whole pregnancy procedure.

Calthropstu
2021-03-09, 12:28 PM
It just occurred to me that this might lead to interesting family relations when someoe can be the father of one person and the mother of someone else.

Also a pair who wants to have a child might decide every time who gets to do the whole pregnancy procedure.

Honestly, I doubt it will get very far into that. Ultra few people actually care about that sort of thing. Most just wanna goof off. The very few times I have seen pregnancy mentioned, it's been a complete disaster. Most tables avoid it.

Hence why I encourage the op to gloss over this as much as possible. The more squicky it gets, the more envelopes it pushes, the narrower his audience gets, the less the focus will be be on the game itself and the worse off he will be.

Even if he later abandons that sort of thing for an entirely new game later on, his first attempt will haunt him and no one will want to touch his second attempt.

This will fail spectacularly if it goes this route.

JNAProductions
2021-03-09, 12:33 PM
Honestly, I doubt it will get very far into that. Ultra few people actually care about that sort of thing. Most just wanna goof off. The very few times I have seen pregnancy mentioned, it's been a complete disaster. Most tables avoid it.

Hence why I encourage the op to gloss over this as much as possible. The more squicky it gets, the more envelopes it pushes, the narrower his audience gets, the less the focus will be be on the game itself and the worse off he will be.

Even if he later abandons that sort of thing for an entirely new game later on, his first attempt will haunt him and no one will want to touch his second attempt.

This will fail spectacularly if it goes this route.

Gender and sexuality isn't squicky. I can see avoiding pregnancy, because that involves a very real risk of fictional baby death, but it's about being appropriate to the table. At some tables, you shouldn't even "Fade-to-black" for sex, you just shouldn't have it at all. At many tables, fading to black is perfectly appropriate. Pregnancy is an extension of that-is your table the kind that is both mature enough to handle it, and the type of table where the complications of it would increase the fun, rather than decrease? I believe many tables are mature enough to handle it, it'd just be something that wouldn't actually increase the fun.

Cluedrew
2021-03-09, 07:29 PM
The setting is 19th century while a theory that separates biological sex from social gender is a late 20th century development IRL, and due to the far more egalitarian nature of the world I would think it would be less likely to develop earlier, if at all.I think it could easily develop earlier with a more egalitarian backdrop. Now trying to logic out people's motives is always a bit shaky but here me out. Although equality between the binary genders (female and male) does not necessitate accepting/understanding people outside of that binary I think if you reject equality between the binary genders that does encourage rejecting people who are outside of that. Simply because that blurs the line between them. If you can have people between the two (or to a lesser extent off to the side) then that implies there is this continuum between the two, which implies there is no fundamental difference between the two and if there is no fundamental difference between the two then why are they being treated fundamentally different and before you know it they are asking for the vote and this sentence is long enough. Any also getting kind of silly but still through that chain non-binary people can weaken the case for gender inequality so an egalitarian society has less reason to reject it.

Of course people are complicated and masses of them are even more so and they arrive at weird conclusions sometimes but if you want to push that forward a bit, that might be all you need.

Calthropstu
2021-03-09, 07:37 PM
Gender and sexuality isn't squicky. I can see avoiding pregnancy, because that involves a very real risk of fictional baby death, but it's about being appropriate to the table. At some tables, you shouldn't even "Fade-to-black" for sex, you just shouldn't have it at all. At many tables, fading to black is perfectly appropriate. Pregnancy is an extension of that-is your table the kind that is both mature enough to handle it, and the type of table where the complications of it would increase the fun, rather than decrease? I believe many tables are mature enough to handle it, it'd just be something that wouldn't actually increase the fun.

You might believe such.
But try it at a table. It almost universally ends badly. Especially at mixed gender tables where it can end the adventure faster than a tpk. It's not about "maturity." I've seen it cause a table of 40+ year olds to end. The BEST I've seen is 2 characters insta retire and bring in new ones. The worst resulted in a literal fight and an eaten character sheet.

JNAProductions
2021-03-09, 07:39 PM
You might believe such.
But try it at a table. It almost universally ends badly. Especially at mixed gender tables where it can end the adventure faster than a tpk. It's not about "maturity." I've seen it cause a table of 40+ year olds to end. The BEST I've seen is 2 characters insta retire and bring in new ones. The worst resulted in a literal fight and an eaten character sheet.

Which part of that?

Pregnancy? Because, as I said above, at most tables, it'd be counterproductive to fun and therefore not included.
But having a character be gay? Or trans? Why would that cause a massive issue?

The Glyphstone
2021-03-10, 12:57 AM
IRL the idea that biological sex and gender as a social construct were two separate things was not recognized until the 1950s, and didn't reach mainstream acceptance for several decades later.

For what little it's worth, this is only true as far as Western European/American culture goes. A number of other cultures across history have recognized various identities that we would classify today as non-binary. Your setting does sound Euronormal though, so it might not be useful or relevant with your thematics.

BisectedBrioche
2021-03-10, 06:07 AM
For what little it's worth, this is only true as far as Western European/American culture goes. A number of other cultures across history have recognized various identities that we would classify today as non-binary. Your setting does sound Euronormal though, so it might not be useful or relevant with your thematics.

More specifically, the idea of a very firm binary which necessitates gender segregated areas is a Victorian invention. Prior to that there's evidence of stuff like gendered fashions and what we might call gender roles now which lead up to it, but a lot less emphasis on, say gendering someone from birth.

Or even more specifically, there's always been a lot of back and fourth (just look at what some Greek philosophers had to say about women) on gender equality, and ideas of everything from gender to how many named colours there are in the visible spectrum are in flux ("What do you mean it's light green? Just call it cool or warm and be done with it!").

Rater202
2021-03-10, 06:18 AM
More specifically, the idea of a very firm binary which necessitates gender segregated areas is a Victorian invention. Prior to that there's evidence of stuff like gendered fashions and what we might call gender roles now which lead up to it, but a lot less emphasis on, say gendering someone from birth.

Or even more specifically, there's always been a lot of back and fourth (just look at what some Greek philosophers had to say about women) on gender equality, and ideas of everything from gender to how many named colours there are in the visible spectrum are in flux ("What do you mean it's light green? Just call it cool or warm and be done with it!").

I believe there's a passage in the Illiad... or maybe The Odyssy? That describes the ocean as "wine-colored" because at the time Ancient Greek as a language didn't have words that referred directly to colors and the intent was that the ocean had the same shade and hue(rather than pigmentation) as wine.

Calthropstu
2021-03-10, 10:59 AM
Which part of that?

Pregnancy? Because, as I said above, at most tables, it'd be counterproductive to fun and therefore not included.
But having a character be gay? Or trans? Why would that cause a massive issue?

Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

Xervous
2021-03-10, 11:15 AM
Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

As stated before it’s a fantasy game, you’re playing whatever you want. I may think a drizzt expy doesn’t fit a given theme, setting or whatever but that doesn’t mean the person is wrong for wanting to play the drizzt expy in a vacuum.

Batcathat
2021-03-10, 11:20 AM
Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

Wouldn't that be more of the "hitting on people at the table" being an issue rather than "gay" being an issue though?


And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

I would imagine it being an interesting character concept for the same reason that a character really wanting to be a knight (but not being able to) might be a more interesting character concept than someone who just is a knight. A struggling character, whatever form those struggles take, is more fun to some people.

There are other reasons for playing a trans character too, I'm sure, but "why play a character who wants to be something instead of playing a character who just is that" seems like an odd argument.

Segev
2021-03-10, 11:27 AM
Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

To be fair, the cursed belt that sex-swaps your character goes back to 1e AD&D, at the least, and I could see a PC who was motivated to find another of those belts to undo the curse. Given that, I could see a PC who was cursed by one in his backstory and was motivated to adventure to find another or some other way to lift the curse. Finally, I could see somebody who wasn't cursed by a magic item but heard about one and wanted to BE "cursed" that way as a motivation.

If somebody is living out their own fantasies through their PC (which is fairly common, I imagine), they may want to live out the fantasy of finding the way to gain what they want, rather than "just having it." Some people might want to play out the fantasy of being a prince by building a prince PC. Others might want to play out the fantasy of winning their way from commoner status to being a prince by their own achievements. (Via conquest, standard hero reward, adoption, mercantile success and accepting "merchant prince" as close enough, or any other means they can think of to tell such a story.)

BisectedBrioche
2021-03-10, 11:39 AM
Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

I've touched on this earlier in the thread:


Firstly; remember there are nonbinary folk, who can't simply disappear via medical transition either way. ;)

Secondly, being trans is more than a medical procedure. Every trans person has to think carefully about their gender identity and what makes them feel comfortable (far from an end point, medical intervention is just an event in a process that may never end).

Trans women are women, cis women are women. If the status as cis or trans of either group is irrelevant, you'd just say "woman". If a trans woman and a cis woman drove to the supermarket, bought some groceries, and went home, then "the two women went to the store to buy food" is all the info you need. Much in the same way you wouldn't need to throw in any other traits of the two women (you could use cis and trans to distinguish them, I guess, but that wouldn't tell you much).

I've told this story here before, but in a recent D&D game, the DM OK'd a trans character. I mentioned this to a friend, and she said "why wouldn't you just play a cis woman?". On the basis of why I'd want problems from my own life in the game. Thing is (aside from the fact the DM promised not to make transphobia a significant thing), this came from a (well meaning) assumption that the ideal of womanhood is cis womanhood, and that's what I aspire to. Why wouldn't I want to be represented in a literal representation of myself in the campaign setting? While my womanhood will always be different to that of a cis woman, there are many different ways woman are women (and men are men, and ways people twist, bent, or break the gender binary), and mind is just as good as the rest without being invalidated.

The same applies to representation in media. You could certainly create a setting where trans people are moot (whether or not that's realistic), but if your aim is to represent the experiences of trans people positively (that is to say, trans representation), you need to try harder.

Xervous
2021-03-10, 11:39 AM
Wouldn't that be more of the "hitting on people at the table" being an issue rather than "gay" being an issue though?


It feels more like inviting a vegan to a steakhouse while fully aware of their vegan status. Nobody present expects a positive reciprocation, at best it’s a joke among friends, otherwise it appears to be harassment.

Segev
2021-03-10, 11:55 AM
It feels more like inviting a vegan to a steakhouse while fully aware of their vegan status. Nobody present expects a positive reciprocation, at best it’s a joke among friends, otherwise it appears to be harassment.

Letting Victor von Vegan know that he is invited to join the group when they go to Sizzling Sam's Smoking Steakhouse is not being rude to Victor. It is letting him know that the group is going to a steakhouse, and that he's not disinvited. Victor can either go for the commaraderie and the parts of it that are enjoyable to him (knowing he's missing out on the main course), or he can pass on it.

I have been invited to join people going to Mexican restaurants in the past, and sometimes I go, sometimes I do not. I can't stand most Mexican food (there's a spice that is almost universally present), and some of them will only serve quesadillas with stuff piled on them. They charge outrageous amounts for a (to me) moderately acceptable meal of which I'll eat only part. So if I go, it's for the friendship; I won't be ordering anything but water, maybe a drink. This is not my friends being cruel to me. They wanted Mexican. That's fine.

But I think this analogy breaks down even further: unless the game is focused on romance, it's more like getting together to go to a carnival with a vegan in the group. The carnival may not have anything vegan available to eat, so he doesn't participate in the food part of it, but the rides, games, and shows are what the group is primarily there for, and he can participate in those just fine. If two of the PCs are involved romantically in a 4-man group, but that's just a background thing and something they RP, it's hardly denying the gay guy anything by not having the fourth PC decide to be gay so they can hook up. The game isn't about that. He isn't a vegan at a steakhouse. He's a vegan at a theater that isn't specifically catering to his veganism. He's not there for the romance, in theory, even if it's a figurative side dish on which he passes because the other PCs aren't of interest to him.

(And if he really wants to pursue it, he can always hit on an NPC. Up to the DM and him whether that goes anywhere.)

BisectedBrioche
2021-03-10, 12:17 PM
It feels more like inviting a vegan to a steakhouse while fully aware of their vegan status. Nobody present expects a positive reciprocation, at best it’s a joke among friends, otherwise it appears to be harassment.

That sounds exactly like what Batcathat said, but as an analogy instead of a clear statement.

Having one's character make unwanted romantic advances to other players' characters is bad behaviour, and the sexuality involved is moot.

KaussH
2021-03-10, 01:47 PM
Yes, the pregnancy.

Gay usually only causes an issue when the gay person uses it as an excuse to try to hit on the straight people at the table.

And in a fantasy game trans is well... kinda silly. You can be whatever gender you want. Why try to play someone who wants to be the opposite gender when you can BE the opposite gender? At that point you are literally just trying too hard.

Becouse...

That's really all the answer needed. If bob wants to play a elvish barbarian who drinks the souls of people they slay for power, and also wants to be trans, heck why not.

Gay charicters should never be a problem. Players who misuse a character to break the social contracts that's a different matter, but is handled a whole different way.

Right now, in a game I am running I have.. hum.. 2 bi, 2 non binary, one gay, and one st8 player. They are playing one non binary, 2 bi, one asexual, one undeclared ,and one gay charicter . With 2 of them having cross gendered their charicters. And the 2nd non binary player playing a male pc. None of this is an issue at all. Heck works just fine, and isnt that diff of other tables I run.

Ratter
2021-03-11, 09:02 AM
If this setting is willing to get a bit... problematic, it would be interesting if the nobility was all women as some kind of way to express their nobility while the peasantry are all turned into men upon being born. It would make gender an actual important part of character creation, which would be pretty chill, ngl.

Xervous
2021-03-11, 09:42 AM
If this setting is willing to get a bit... problematic, it would be interesting if the nobility was all women as some kind of way to express their nobility while the peasantry are all turned into men upon being born. It would make gender an actual important part of character creation, which would be pretty chill, ngl.

Such things are probably better reserved for novels that are willing to explore, comment on and/or parody the real world state of things.

Max_Killjoy
2021-03-11, 09:50 AM
If this setting is willing to get a bit... problematic, it would be interesting if the nobility was all women as some kind of way to express their nobility while the peasantry are all turned into men upon being born. It would make gender an actual important part of character creation, which would be pretty chill, ngl.

Trying to make the reproductive realities of that arrangement work would be a challenge.

Xervous
2021-03-11, 10:07 AM
Oh wait, that’s just drow society with extra steps.

KaussH
2021-03-11, 10:09 AM
Trying to make the reproductive realities of that arrangement work would be a challenge.

Eh, not really. Much like fire breathing, dark vision, ect it's easy enough to change any/all the reproductive rules if you want.

Max_Killjoy
2021-03-11, 10:13 AM
Eh, not really. Much like fire breathing, dark vision, ect it's easy enough to change any/all the reproductive rules if you want.

The only way to resolve this is to somehow alleviate or bypass the key bottleneck of human reproduction -- and the society in question has actually tightened that bottleneck, making the issue more critical.

KaussH
2021-03-11, 10:23 AM
The only way to resolve this is to somehow alleviate or bypass the key bottleneck of human reproduction -- and the society in question has actually tightened that bottleneck, making the issue more critical.

Nah.
All children are made by the nobility selecting a mate from the peasantry and elevating them to royalty for a year and a day. At the end of that time the bud is removed from the man, and raised in the noble houses or send back down to pensentry depending on its perceived gender"

Bamn, done. :)

Heck you can also use kids delivered by storks, having them on the wings of fairies, a stable of breeding men, ect. As long as it's a whole set up of the writer and or gm, almost anything works, as long as it stays consistent inside the setting.
I have a number if npc races that I have messed with reproduction wise, and some pc ones in a throwback 2nd ed game I run right now. No problem at all so far even with the odder stuff.

Max_Killjoy
2021-03-11, 11:04 AM
Nah.
All children are made by the nobility selecting a mate from the peasantry and elevating them to royalty for a year and a day. At the end of that time the bud is removed from the man, and raised in the noble houses or send back down to pensentry depending on its perceived gender"

Bamn, done. :)

Heck you can also use kids delivered by storks, having them on the wings of fairies, a stable of breeding men, ect. As long as it's a whole set up of the writer and or gm, almost anything works, as long as it stays consistent inside the setting.
I have a number if npc races that I have messed with reproduction wise, and some pc ones in a throwback 2nd ed game I run right now. No problem at all so far even with the odder stuff.

OK, but that's perhaps a far more radical change to the society than the one that originally causes the conundrum.

KaussH
2021-03-11, 11:13 AM
Love how you dismiss the core problem by offering up fantastical solutions to the core problem and then treating it that means there was never a problem.

It's like the Rule Zero Fallacy is has grown beyond RPG rulesets.

In this case (and a lot of this thread) the "core problems" seem to be carry overs from the real world. The thing is, we dont have to do that. We have people with impossible abilities and powers and the like, there is no reason at all we cant change anything else that we want to. If a gm wants to craft a setting that has x premises and needs to make y change to support it, go for it.
Add some genders, swap reproduction rules, mix and match cultural details, ect. Heck, do it all if you want to play around a little. This is not a case of "working in the rules" most of those stuff isn't in any mechanical rules and so the gm can have a pretty freehand.

KaussH
2021-03-11, 11:17 AM
OK, but that's perhaps a far more radical change to the society than the one that originally causes the conundrum.

Does it have to be? I mean how many games focus on sex and reproduction and child birth in how the setting is written up? As gm it's easy to make the changes, smooth over issues with a "that is how it works here" and then run game.

Beleve me, a whole bunch of changes can be handled with "that's how it works here" . I mean heck, people buy elves right?

warty goblin
2021-03-11, 11:33 AM
Nah.
All children are made by the nobility selecting a mate from the peasantry and elevating them to royalty for a year and a day. At the end of that time the bud is removed from the man, and raised in the noble houses or send back down to pensentry depending on its perceived gender"

Bamn, done. :)

Generally speaking the commoners vastly outnumber the nobility. As a practical matter they have to, since nobility exists by extracting wealth from the people working the noble's lands. Absent fossil fuels, a single family cannot produce enough food to feed two families reliably, so you need better than twice as many peasant households as non-peasant households. For most of the history of agriculture, a decent back-of-the envelope estimate is a tax rate of about 10% on peasants, i.e. 10 peasant households can support 1 non-peasant household. But most of these won't be nobles, since you still need to produce and transport basically every non-food good used by society, and nobles live off rents without producing squat, pretty much by definition.

So let's guesstimate about a 1:99 noble:commoner ratio, which is still probably pretty top heavy. If the nobility is all female, as and the only females are noble, a stable population requires each noble to have 100 children, 1 new noble female and 99 non-noble males to support her.

Needless to say, human women cannot produce 100 children. 20 children is possible for some women, but even if every single woman could manage that, that's 1/5 of replacement rate, and the society would die out extremely fast.

And that's assuming you could set that society up at all in the first place. The women would need to be pregnant virtually constantly, which is unlikely to go over well. Being pregnant is not exactly comfortable, and I suspect very few women would choose to be pregnant basically constantly, let alone orchestrate society so that they had to be. And since they're the nobles, they'd be the ones choosing this arrangement in the first place.

I can't see the non-noble male population signing up willingly either. Most men want to have sex sometime in their lives, generally with women. But even if every noble women chooses a new "husband" for every pregnancy, at the still unachievable 20 children per women, fully 80% of men will never be chosen. Even the lucky 20% get a heterosexual sex life for a very brief period before getting shunted back into the commoner sausagefest. Its probably pretty ok if you're gay or bi, but the other 95% of the male population is, well, not screwed. Still probably better than being ground down by constant pregnancy though.

This isn't even one of those situations where everyone is miserable in some stable configuration, the society would collapse in like two generations and everyone is wretched. So I guess congrats, its actually a social order that's somehow less practical ac and more miserable than Sparta!

KaussH
2021-03-11, 11:43 AM
Generally speaking the commoners vastly outnumber the nobility. As a practical matter they have to, since nobility exists by extracting wealth from the people working the noble's lands. Absent fossil fuels, a single family cannot produce enough food to feed two families reliably, so you need better than twice as many peasant households as non-peasant households. For most of the history of agriculture, a decent back-of-the envelope estimate is a tax rate of about 10% on peasants, i.e. 10 peasant households can support 1 non-peasant household. But most of these won't be nobles, since you still need to produce and transport basically every non-food good used by society, and nobles live off rents without producing squat, pretty much by definition.

So let's guesstimate about a 1:99 noble:commoner ratio, which is still probably pretty top heavy. If the nobility is all female, as and the only females are noble, a stable population requires each noble to have 100 children, 1 new noble female and 99 non-noble males to support her.

Needless to say, human women cannot produce 100 children. 20 children is possible for some women, but even if every single woman could manage that, that's 1/5 of replacement rate, and the society would die out extremely fast.

And that's assuming you could set that society up at all in the first place. The women would need to be pregnant virtually constantly, which is unlikely to go over well. Being pregnant is not exactly comfortable, and I suspect very few women would choose to be pregnant basically constantly, let alone orchestrate society so that they had to be. And since they're the nobles, they'd be the ones choosing this arrangement in the first place.

I can't see the non-noble male population signing up willingly either. Most men want to have sex sometime in their lives, generally with women. But even if every noble women chooses a new "husband" for every pregnancy, at the still unachievable 20 children per women, fully 80% of men will never be chosen. Even the lucky 20% get a heterosexual sex life for a very brief period before getting shunted back into the commoner sausagefest. Its probably pretty ok if you're gay or bi, but the other 95% of the male population is, well, not screwed. Still probably better than being ground down by constant pregnancy though.

This isn't even one of those situations where everyone is miserable in some stable configuration, the society would collapse in like two generations and everyone is wretched. So I guess congrats, its actually a social order that's somehow less practical ac and more miserable than Sparta!

And this is exactly what I was talking about. Your post takes a fantastic premise, and then puts all sorts of real world restrictions. Pretty much nothing you said has to be true in the setting. My example had men bearing the children for example. But the could have multiple births be common. A much higher ratio of bi men.. a division of level of nobility so while all nobles are women, for some the title includes a lot more work than others, ect.

You are using logic from our world on a situation that cant exsist here, and of course it isnt going to work. You only changed half the rules .

Allowing for magic and weird powers and ect allows you to apply it to other things than just super powers like spell casting.

Talakeal
2021-03-11, 12:34 PM
I think it could easily develop earlier with a more egalitarian backdrop. Now trying to logic out people's motives is always a bit shaky but here me out. Although equality between the binary genders (female and male) does not necessitate accepting/understanding people outside of that binary I think if you reject equality between the binary genders that does encourage rejecting people who are outside of that. Simply because that blurs the line between them. If you can have people between the two (or to a lesser extent off to the side) then that implies there is this continuum between the two, which implies there is no fundamental difference between the two and if there is no fundamental difference between the two then why are they being treated fundamentally different and before you know it they are asking for the vote and this sentence is long enough. Any also getting kind of silly but still through that chain non-binary people can weaken the case for gender inequality so an egalitarian society has less reason to reject it.

Of course people are complicated and masses of them are even more so and they arrive at weird conclusions sometimes but if you want to push that forward a bit, that might be all you need.


The worst resulted in a literal fight and an eaten character sheet.

I would LOVE to hear that story.


For what little it's worth, this is only true as far as Western European/American culture goes. A number of other cultures across history have recognized various identities that we would classify today as non-binary. Your setting does sound Euronormal though, so it might not be useful or relevant with your thematics.

I am not sure about though, I have done some reading, and mostly what I find is just behavior that we would call homosexual, trans, intersex, or asexual.

I suppose euronomral is a fair way to put it, although as someone who grey up in San Francisco in the late 80s and mostly consumed media that were Asian retellings of European folklore, I am not sure how far I would say that goes.



More specifically, the idea of a very firm binary which necessitates gender segregated areas is a Victorian invention. Prior to that there's evidence of stuff like gendered fashions and what we might call gender roles now which lead up to it, but a lot less emphasis on, say gendering someone from birth..

Which is kind of more what I was thinking.


If this setting is willing to get a bit... problematic, it would be interesting if the nobility was all women as some kind of way to express their nobility while the peasantry are all turned into men upon being born. It would make gender an actual important part of character creation, which would be pretty chill, ngl.

I have thought about stuff like that, but honestly it was hard enough finding players for an amazon campaign that I can't imagine a game setting like that finding any sort of an audience.

Satinavian
2021-03-11, 12:43 PM
And this is exactly what I was talking about. Your post takes a fantastic premise, and then puts all sorts of real world restrictions. Pretty much nothing you said has to be true in the setting. My example had men bearing the children for example. But the could have multiple births be common. A much higher ratio of bi men.. a division of level of nobility so while all nobles are women, for some the title includes a lot more work than others, ect.

You are using logic from our world on a situation that cant exsist here, and of course it isnt going to work. You only changed half the rules .

Allowing for magic and weird powers and ect allows you to apply it to other things than just super powers like spell casting.

Why would you call them "human ", "men", "women" if they work completely differently ? Your setup is surprisingly similar to many of the lazy attemts to have bug-like aliens with queens controlling the swarm and having high numbers of offspring which are working drones. Sure, you could run that, but you should not present it as just a different human culture with some magic.

137beth
2021-03-11, 01:53 PM
That's nice, but not really what I am looking for then. I was more wondering what it would mean to be non-binary would take in a world without strict gender roles and exploring why someone would identify that way in such a setting.

(This was in response to Never Satisfied):
I'm still somewhat on sure of what exactly you are asking. Are you confused about the distinction between gender (a neurological phenomenon present in most humans) and gender roles? In the world of Never Satisfied, other characters know that Lucy (the main character) is nonbinary because they told other people they are nonbinary, presumably since they are most comfortable being thought of that way. Their typical outfit and hairstyle looks like what current U.S. culture would say was a feminine appearance, although in the NSATverse it wouldn't be considered a "feminine attire" because they don't have gender roles.


In my setting, afaict, a person who has a penis and the potential to grow a beard is going to be seen as a man even if they are gentle, wear makeup, jewelry, and dresses, stay home with the children, and like to talk about their feelings.
Okay, I'm with Segev on this one: do people in your world walk around naked? How do you typically know if someone else has a penis otherwise?

Knowing if someone can grow a beard is easier, since you might be able to see a stubble unless their hair folicles are close to the same color as their skin. Does that mean that in your setting, people with PCOS would be considered men (at least by people who haven't seen them naked)? Or does PCOS simply not exist in your world?

Bear in mind that, in the real world, PCOS affects about 10% of people with ovaries, so they are more common than trans women. So, if you really want all sorts of players to be able to "see themselves" in the settings, eliminating PCOS might be a bad idea. And, there are plenty of other reasons AFAB people grow beards. It's moderately common among post-menopausal women due to decreased estrogen. Would they be considered men in your setting? Or does menopause not exist either (which, again, see my previous comment)?

warty goblin
2021-03-11, 01:56 PM
And this is exactly what I was talking about. Your post takes a fantastic premise, and then puts all sorts of real world restrictions. Pretty much nothing you said has to be true in the setting. My example had men bearing the children for example. But the could have multiple births be common. A much higher ratio of bi men.. a division of level of nobility so while all nobles are women, for some the title includes a lot more work than others, ect.

You are using logic from our world on a situation that cant exsist here, and of course it isnt going to work. You only changed half the rules .

Allowing for magic and weird powers and ect allows you to apply it to other things than just super powers like spell casting.

At the end of the day a stable population of sexually reproducing organisms needs to produce, on average, one fertile adult female per fertile adult female. More than this and the population grows, less and it shrinks. Technically you can add males to the model, but they usually just make some numbers bigger without altering the population's longterm behavior. Very, very few populations are strongly influenced by male availability.

Note that I'm using male and female here in an entirely biological sense. You can socially code all the peasants as "men" and maybe that's interesting, but if half have uteruses, they impact population dynamics as female.

With that in mind, you can skew the population more male if you want, but the one female per female requirement then mandates more total offspring per female. That's only a real world assumption in the sense that 2+2=4 is an assumption. With the horrific infant mortality of premodern societies, very large sex ratio discrepancies in favor of more males will simply be unsustainable. With modern survival rates, it simply makes life worse for everybody, to the point where I'd expect that for a lot of nobles marrying into or otherwise moving to a society with less demands on their uteruses would be a very high priority, and the pressure of the male underclass trying to emigrate would be simply enormous.

Segev
2021-03-11, 02:47 PM
At the end of the day a stable population of sexually reproducing organisms needs to produce, on average, one fertile adult female per fertile adult female. More than this and the population grows, less and it shrinks. Technically you can add males to the model, but they usually just make some numbers bigger without altering the population's longterm behavior. Very, very few populations are strongly influenced by male availability.

Note that I'm using male and female here in an entirely biological sense. You can socially code all the peasants as "men" and maybe that's interesting, but if half have uteruses, they impact population dynamics as female.

With that in mind, you can skew the population more male if you want, but the one female per female requirement then mandates more total offspring per female. That's only a real world assumption in the sense that 2+2=4 is an assumption. With the horrific infant mortality of premodern societies, very large sex ratio discrepancies in favor of more males will simply be unsustainable. With modern survival rates, it simply makes life worse for everybody, to the point where I'd expect that for a lot of nobles marrying into or otherwise moving to a society with less demands on their uteruses would be a very high priority, and the pressure of the male underclass trying to emigrate would be simply enormous.

Put another way, one man and 10 women can produce about 10 offspring in about a year. One woman and 10 men can produce about 1 offspring in about one year.

(There are, of course, other considerations in just how viable raising those offspring will be, but from the pure von Neuman biomechanical perspective....)

Talakeal
2021-03-11, 02:51 PM
(This was in response to Never Satisfied):
I'm still somewhat on sure of what exactly you are asking. Are you confused about the distinction between gender (a neurological phenomenon present in most humans) and gender roles? In the world of Never Satisfied, other characters know that Lucy (the main character) is nonbinary because they told other people they are nonbinary, presumably since they are most comfortable being thought of that way. Their typical outfit and hairstyle looks like what current U.S. culture would say was a feminine appearance, although in the NSATverse it wouldn't be considered a "feminine attire" because they don't have gender roles.

Yes, I am very confused about the concept of neurological gender, to the point where I am skeptical about its existence and curious about what it would even mean on a conceptual level.

As a gender non-conforming person, I have trouble wrapping my head around why someone would choose to be NB, although I can understand it in broad strokes, simply wanting to opt out of the whole convoluted gender role system. But in a world without such a system, its harder to understand.

Likewise, claiming to be neither a man or a woman when you are physically one or the other in a world where that is merely a physical descriptor is extremely odd, like claiming to be a blonde when your hair is black. Now, I could see it is the person actually suffered from dysphoria, but then that raises the question (in my world, probably not in the web comic) about why they haven't used alchemy to either cure the mental condition directly or transition into an androgynous form.



Okay, I'm with Segev on this one: do people in your world walk around naked? How do you typically know if someone else has a penis otherwise?

Knowing if someone can grow a beard is easier, since you might be able to see a stubble unless their hair follicles are close to the same color as their skin. Does that mean that in your setting, people with PCOS would be considered men (at least by people who haven't seen them naked)? Or does PCOS simply not exist in your world?

Bear in mind that, in the real world, PCOS affects about 10% of people with ovaries, so they are more common than trans women. So, if you really want all sorts of players to be able to "see themselves" in the settings, eliminating PCOS might be a bad idea. And, there are plenty of other reasons AFAB people grow beards. It's moderately common among post-menopausal women due to decreased estrogen. Would they be considered men in your setting? Or does menopause not exist either (which, again, see my previous comment)?

Whether someone walks around naked depends on where they are and what they are doing. Typically no, but unless they are super rich or super poor they are going to be bathing in a communal bath house. Not that you wouldn't see your friends, coworkers, and family members changing on occasion, and obviously your doctor and your tailor know what's beneath your clothes, and few garments completely conceal the genitals at all times.

PCOS and similar disorders certainly exist, although they are likely rarer do to extensive gene editing done in the setting's history, and are fully curable with modern alchemy. Note however, that I am not saying that gender isn't a spectrum, or that intersex people don't exist, or that anyone is 100% masculine or feminine, either in my setting or in real life.

KaussH
2021-03-11, 02:53 PM
Put another way, one man and 10 women can produce about 10 offspring in about a year. One woman and 10 men can produce about 1 offspring in about one year.

(There are, of course, other considerations in just how viable raising those offspring will be, but from the pure von Neuman biomechanical perspective....)

Yet again, that's pure real world limitations to a fantastic setting. This is really "guy at the gym" for world building.

Make some men able to give birth, allow clerics to make multi births a thing, reverse fertility and make it so one woman can impregnate a bunch of men, ect.

The point I am getting at, if you have a world where you can fly unassisted, have dragons, teleport, raise the dead, ect, then you can apply this to the world building to, at the social level. If you have an issue, you can also just make the solution.

But much like guy at the gym, people seem to view social and sexual issues as "has to have reflections in real world limits" but are ok with spellcasters that can break all the rules.

Segev
2021-03-11, 02:56 PM
Yet again, that's pure real world limitations to a fantastic setting. This is really "guy at the gym" for world building.

Make some men able to give birth, allow clerics to make multi births a thing, reverse fertility and make it so one woman can impregnate a bunch of men, ect.

The point I am getting at, if you have a world where you can fly unassisted, have dragons, teleport, raise the dead, ect, then you can apply this to the world building to, at the social level. If you have an issue, you can also just make the solution.

But much like guy at the gym, people seem to view social and sexual issues as "has to have reflections in real world limits" but are ok with spellcasters that can break all the rules.

The point being raised against your position is one of whether the beings you describe are still human.

I'm all for coming up with alien reproductive structures and looking at the societies that come about as part of this. And there's a long way you can go to create alien-ish cultures while retaining functional human traits (see: A Brother's Price, wherein the male/female ratio is skewed heavily such that men are rare and are married off to entire generations of sisters in a family). But when you start making it so that "male" and "female" don't mean the same thing they do in the real world, biologically and reproductively, you're verging into transhuman or nonhuman territory.

KaussH
2021-03-11, 03:05 PM
The point being raised against your position is one of whether the beings you describe are still human.

I'm all for coming up with alien reproductive structures and looking at the societies that come about as part of this. And there's a long way you can go to create alien-ish cultures while retaining functional human traits (see: A Brother's Price, wherein the male/female ratio is skewed heavily such that men are rare and are married off to entire generations of sisters in a family). But when you start making it so that "male" and "female" don't mean the same thing they do in the real world, biologically and reproductively, you're verging into transhuman or nonhuman territory.

Well see... male and female do not mean the same thing to different groups in the real world so... makes it kinda open game.
And there have been a number of story's were we have mono gender fantasy cultures that seem to still work (Amazons come to mind. Ethan of athos by Bujold all male on a planet, ect)
So while I may be dancing in transhuman territory a little, it may not be as much as you think.

I mean in the "real world" I know a woman who impregnated her wife the "old fashioned way" everyone involved has documents with f on them and all that:)

Segev
2021-03-11, 03:53 PM
Well see... male and female do not mean the same thing to different groups in the real world so... makes it kinda open game.
And there have been a number of story's were we have mono gender fantasy cultures that seem to still work (Amazons come to mind. Ethan of athos by Bujold all male on a planet, ect)
So while I may be dancing in transhuman territory a little, it may not be as much as you think.

I mean in the "real world" I know a woman who impregnated her wife the "old fashioned way" everyone involved has documents with f on them and all that:)

I very deliberately specified biology and reproduction. The terms have specific meanings in that context. "The one who carries the child to term" and "the one who donates the sperm," if needs be, can be substituted for "female" and "male."

"Amazons" as a fantasy culture usually fall into one of a few categories. Themescyra, of DC-verse, handles it by making them immortal and grow their population by being entirely exiles rescued by Hera or Athena or the like from "man's world." It is most definitely not a "human" culture anymore, even if the people who make it up are ex-humans. The most prominent stories about it are, in fact, about how alien it is and how nevertheless the one member of it who was created from divine clay sculpting is exploring the human concepts of "Man's World," with no small amount of attention given, in a number of the stories, to her learning about "Man's world's" romance.

I don't know enough about this all-male planet you bring up to comment. I have suspicions, but they're just that and thus not something to base a discussion on. An "all-male planet" that uses sci-fi cloning or the like would definitely be transhumanist, and if instead it uses some weird biology that is definitely not human, we're back to "alien by more than just cultural norms." Both can be fine, but they're not quite the same thing that has been discussed prior to bringing them into this. And saying "you're just ignoring magic and its possibilities!" is not a strong argument in their favor because you could say the same thing about any fantasy culture. If the story isn't about a culture utterly different from any human society by magic, then bringing in magic to utterly change it from the requirements that shape human societies it is not helping the story.

KaussH
2021-03-11, 04:05 PM
I very deliberately specified biology and reproduction. The terms have specific meanings in that context. "The one who carries the child to term" and "the one who donates the sperm," if needs be, can be substituted for "female" and "male."

"Amazons" as a fantasy culture usually fall into one of a few categories. Themescyra, of DC-verse, handles it by making them immortal and grow their population by being entirely exiles rescued by Hera or Athena or the like from "man's world." It is most definitely not a "human" culture anymore, even if the people who make it up are ex-humans. The most prominent stories about it are, in fact, about how alien it is and how nevertheless the one member of it who was created from divine clay sculpting is exploring the human concepts of "Man's World," with no small amount of attention given, in a number of the stories, to her learning about "Man's world's" romance.

I don't know enough about this all-male planet you bring up to comment. I have suspicions, but they're just that and thus not something to base a discussion on. An "all-male planet" that uses sci-fi cloning or the like would definitely be transhumanist, and if instead it uses some weird biology that is definitely not human, we're back to "alien by more than just cultural norms." Both can be fine, but they're not quite the same thing that has been discussed prior to bringing them into this. And saying "you're just ignoring magic and its possibilities!" is not a strong argument in their favor because you could say the same thing about any fantasy culture. If the story isn't about a culture utterly different from any human society by magic, then bringing in magic to utterly change it from the requirements that shape human societies it is not helping the story.

It seems like you and I may have widely different definitions on what is human, and how much of a change can be presented and still be human. By your definition it would seem that humans who have magic powers should not be counted as humans as well, so priests and magi and warlocks and the like are ex humans as well, having surpassed our basic biological limitations.

Segev
2021-03-11, 07:38 PM
It seems like you and I may have widely different definitions on what is human, and how much of a change can be presented and still be human. By your definition it would seem that humans who have magic powers should not be counted as humans as well, so priests and magi and warlocks and the like are ex humans as well, having surpassed our basic biological limitations.

No, humans who have technology and knowledge are still human.

Humans who have altered away their fundamental drives, or changed their biology such that those drives are no longer mappable to human needs, no longer qualify (though they may be post-human or transhuman). A society based on clones-only or all-vat-grown-children is going to be so fundamentally different that it won't really be recognizable. At best, it's on the verge of becoming not-human, societally.

But where you specified you were going from the get-go was well beyond that point, to the point where you simply fiat away a major part of the human experience. It's perfectly fine for a fantasy civilization, don't get me wrong; it does not, however, explore any of the concepts of human gender roles, because it fundamentally rejects their possibility. (I suppose it could be written as an examination of how they evolve anyway, but that'll come off fairly strongly as an author tract, I fear. Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't get the impression that was the direction you were going, anyway.)

Saint-Just
2021-03-12, 09:58 AM
I believe there's a passage in the Illiad... or maybe The Odyssy? That describes the ocean as "wine-colored" because at the time Ancient Greek as a language didn't have words that referred directly to colors and the intent was that the ocean had the same shade and hue(rather than pigmentation) as wine.

A lot of colors in a lot of different languages describe shade and hue rather than pigmentation, especially if you go into colors more specific than "white for light, black for night, red for blood". It's just that Ancient Greek color system is very different from modern English or French or Russian, so it's not easy to understand.

This (https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/01/colours-in-homer-2-wine-dark-sea.html) is a short post by an actual scholar of Ancient Greek dealing specifically with a "wine-dark sea", this (https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/search/label/colours) is a link to all three posts on colours in general.

Cluedrew
2021-03-12, 09:13 PM
As a gender con-conforming person, I have trouble wrapping my head around why someone would choose to be NB, although I can understand it in broad strokes, simply wanting to opt out of the whole convoluted gender role system. But in a world without such a system, its harder to understand.Here are two things I can see from the outside:

If you are a... binary person (I'm not sure if that is how you are supposed to say it but not non-binary person sounds silly so I cancelled the negatives) your view has a bias in you don't have that push away from the binary genders in the first place. How many non-binary people have you talked about this?

Your setting has gender biases in it*, rather it will the moment it enters play with people who can't erase their gender biases completely. Speaking of hard to understand I have trouble understand how non-binary works in this setting, I don't understand how the setting works. There are still some differences right? Do people not notice those? Plus even if I could obtain a theoretical understanding of it on a practical level I don't think I could run a game and make NPCs up on the fly without some biases seeping in. I don't think I'm particularly steeped in biases (I'm not sure how to measure) but they aren't gone. Point is; have you thought about that at all?

* Also if the concept of gender was completely gone why would anyone use the sex change potions except for pregnancy. Or on the other end of the scale: fashion. On the other hand maybe this is evidence that some of these … categories can exist without the framework we currently use to describe them. Except its all fiction and isn't evidence for anything but it does create a precedent you may want to consider for reasons of- I was going to say internal consistency but I'm not sure that is quite right either. Just food for thought I guess.

Talakeal
2021-03-12, 10:56 PM
Your setting has gender biases in it*, rather it will the moment it enters play with people who can't erase their gender biases completely. Speaking of hard to understand I have trouble understand how non-binary works in this setting, I don't understand how the setting works. There are still some differences right? Do people not notice those? Plus even if I could obtain a theoretical understanding of it on a practical level I don't think I could run a game and make NPCs up on the fly without some biases seeping in. I don't think I'm particularly steeped in biases (I'm not sure how to measure) but they aren't gone. Point is; have you thought about that at all?

* Also if the concept of gender was completely gone why would anyone use the sex change potions except for pregnancy. Or on the other end of the scale: fashion. On the other hand maybe this is evidence that some of these … categories can exist without the framework we currently use to describe them. Except its all fiction and isn't evidence for anything but it does create a precedent you may want to consider for reasons of- I was going to say internal consistency but I'm not sure that is quite right either. Just food for thought I guess.

To clarify, my setting has obviously has gender, and it has some idea of gender stereotypes, although they are very mild compared to real life. What it lacks is a theory of gender as a social construct separate from physical sex.

A good analogy might be hair color. It exists, but is primarily mentioned only as a physical descriptor. There are some stereotypes about it (blondes are dumb, redheads a quirky, etc.), but nobody really takes them that seriously. Some people choose to change their hair color, but it is almost entirely for cosmetic reasons.


I honestly don't think players bringing biases to the table is a big deal, very few TTRPGs actually model any sort of sexism or gender divide, and I don't think I have ever seen someone have an issue accepting it.

Cluedrew
2021-03-13, 08:10 AM
What it lacks is a theory of gender as a social construct separate from physical sex.Oh, well that's simple. Non-binary people will still continue to exist they just will not have the language we use today to describe themselves. The whole reason we (people in this world) have language to describe it is because it is a thing that happens and that thing will not stop happening if there is no language to describe it.

The Glyphstone
2021-03-13, 11:23 PM
I am not sure about though, I have done some reading, and mostly what I find is just behavior that we would call homosexual, trans, intersex, or asexual.

I suppose euronomral is a fair way to put it, although as someone who grey up in San Francisco in the late 80s and mostly consumed media that were Asian retellings of European folklore, I am not sure how far I would say that goes.



That's sorta my point though - what we would call them, being Euronormal ourselves in our approach to such things. But I was also making a second point that didn't appear to have been communicated completely, in that those cultural attitudes are spread out across many points in history, in contrast to your statement that it was only in the mid-19th century that beliefs about sex and gender started to diverge. That is only true when you are viewing things from inside a Euronormal cultural point of view.

To use one example, you could attempt to argue that the Faʻafafine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa%27afafine) of the Samoan culture are just 'masculine transwomen', though that would still be forcing something Polynesians consider a genuine third gender/non-binary identity into a comfortable Western thought-box. But either way, faʻafafine have been a part of their culture for hundreds if not thousands of years, long enough to be rooted in their ancient mythology and far enough back that every other Polynesian cultural group has their own social equivalent.

So if your setting maps to European history in that it, too, did not diverge this way until its equivalent of the 19th century, that is fine. But it's not the only option you have with historical fact behind it.

neceros
2021-03-27, 01:45 AM
I don't even bring it up unless a player wants to talk about it. I don't think most people display their sexuality, because it's private.

Frankbit
2021-04-11, 10:15 PM
The main objective of roleplaying games is to have fun and one of the dungeon master‘s many roles (and probably the most important one) is to make sure every one at the table has fun. This means that we need to take things like gender and sexuality into account. It’s easy to dismiss as a non-trivial thing, but the fact is, if we pay this no heed, we´ll probably end up playing by ourselves.

RegalKain
2021-04-13, 11:25 PM
To clarify, my setting has obviously has gender, and it has some idea of gender stereotypes, although they are very mild compared to real life. What it lacks is a theory of gender as a social construct separate from physical sex.

A good analogy might be hair color. It exists, but is primarily mentioned only as a physical descriptor. There are some stereotypes about it (blondes are dumb, redheads a quirky, etc.), but nobody really takes them that seriously. Some people choose to change their hair color, but it is almost entirely for cosmetic reasons.


I honestly don't think players bringing biases to the table is a big deal, very few TTRPGs actually model any sort of sexism or gender divide, and I don't think I have ever seen someone have an issue accepting it.


So I mentioned this previously but, most TTRPGs don't have mechanical draw backs to gender, even if in the real world, there are very, very different "statistic" differences between gender (Especially when viewed through the lens of average strength) some TTRPGs also don't actually describe the genders as different in any way, they just give an overly broad physical description, for instance. "Half-orcs stand between 6 and 7 feet tall, and usually weigh between 180 and 250 pounds." Because we apply our own biases to everything, some people might think female orcs are closer to 6 feet, and male orcs are closer to 7 feet (Because IRL the average male, is taller then the average female across every ethnicity.) but the game doesn't touch on this because it's non-important.

So, I guess what I'm getting at, is if it has no mechanical change, why are you putting such a strong emphasis on it in particular? Very few people read drow lore/hierarchy and think (Well how does that work, women run everything?) They just say "Okie dokie, fantasy says this is right, so this is right." Why is it that you seem to be going out of your way to make it more than that?

I've read through the thread and I'm just not understanding, if the majority of this will never come up, why are you putting so much time and effort into it? That's not to say people can't RP it, or RP heavy tables don't exist, it's just that in my experience DMing, and writing, the more you try to flesh something out,t he less freedom you give players and the DM. You can have overall, a really simply setup, that works fine for what you're after, the more you try to flesh it out, and answer every question, the more RP freedom, and creative freedom you actively take from players and DMs who utilize your world, it may also come across as a bit preachy and even "tokenism" at that point. ( "Wow look at my TTRPG system it doesn't care about gender, and let's you be trans!" ) that may attract some people, but I personally think a lot of TTRPG players will just look at the other dozen+ systems that already let you do those things, and already doesn't care about gender. (In fact, caring about gender is almost entirely left up to the players and the DM) So, what exactly are you after with the setting and the insistence on this I guess I'm asking.

Edit: Upon reading this, I realize it may come across as confrontational, that's not the intent of the post, I'm just genuinely curious what the purpose of dialing it in so, so hard is.

Yora
2021-04-14, 03:45 AM
That post does not seem to respond to the post you quoted.

I learned yesterday, that apparently middle stone age skeletons from men and women show the same signs of injury associated with hunting large animals. Didn't know that. Implying that gender roles developed alongside agriculture, when division of labor became a relevant thing.

Batcathat
2021-04-14, 03:47 AM
I learned yesterday, that apparently middle stone age skeletons from men and women show the same signs of injury associated with hunting large animals. Didn't know that. Implying that gender roles developed alongside agriculture, when division of labor became a relevant thing.

That's interesting, considering how established the whole "men hunt, women gather" idea is, but it wouldn't exactly be the first time something like that turned out incorrect. Considering female predators often hunt (at least in some cases more than the male animals), I suppose it makes sense that early human hunters would've been the same way.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-14, 09:44 AM
There are surviving hunter-gatherer or semi-hunter-gatherer societies with stronger divisions of labor along gender lines, plus ages of assumptions about gender roles, so I think it has been simply assumed that there was a strong division all the way back.

But it doesn't surprise me that people living on the daily edge in the original hunter-gatherer groups way back couldn't afford to tell a good hunter "sorry, wrong stuff under loincloth" or "half of group stay away from hunt, numbers not important when running down and cornering big animals".

(And no, I don't buy the notion that hunter-gatherers had it better or easier than anyone since... it's eyeroll-worthy.)

Yora
2021-04-14, 09:58 AM
Modern tribal societies with mesolithic cultures (even "uncontacted ones") don't exist in complete isolation. Even the most remote ones at least have contact with neighboring tribes, which in turn might have contact with settled communities, and would have done so for thousands of years. There's also a belief (though I don't know if it's a proven theory) that many extremely remote people chose to migrate deeper into the mountains and forest specifically to get away from states and governments as a rejection of that way of life.

While isolated tribes can give us some clues about mesolithic societies, they are very much not perfectly preserved relics from 50,000 years ago. (In the same way that 50 million year old crocodiles or 400 million year old sharks would only have been very similar to modern animals, but didn't remain unaffected by transformations of the ecosystems they exist in.)

Cluedrew
2021-04-14, 06:50 PM
I would not say it is safe to assume every hunter-gatherer or semi-hunter-gatherer society was the same as well. I'm not sure how widely humans had spread by the end of the mesolithic period but considering you had to walk through the forest to get anywhere back then, you could be pretty "close" and still never come into contact with another group.

Liquor Box
2021-04-19, 05:26 PM
I learned yesterday, that apparently middle stone age skeletons from men and women show the same signs of injury associated with hunting large animals. Didn't know that. Implying that gender roles developed alongside agriculture, when division of labor became a relevant thing.

I think that inference you make is a very long bow to draw.

Putting aside the aside the issue of how you determine what skeletal injuries are associated with hunting, as oppose to potentially being attacked by an animal while gathering, I don't think you can make that generalisation even if the premise is true.

There's good reason to think that hunter gatherer societies were even more diverse than today's society, because different geographic areas were not connected so there was no (or less) convergence. As such it is very probable that practices, including gender roles, differed greatly between groups. So while there may be some tribes where women did hunt, that wouldn't dispel the idea that it was usually men who hunted.

I should acknowledge that I am not overly familiar with the evidence for the popular belief that men usually hunted and women usually gathered. I just don't think that some female skeletons with signs of animal related injuries is a good reason to doubt it.

Do you have a link to the study of skeletons? I'd be interested to see how widespread it was, or whether it showed the sorts of injuries to men and women in the same proportion.

Cluedrew
2021-04-20, 07:10 AM
I can think of several ways you could tell them apart:
Frequency: If the gatherers are getting attacked by animals as often as the hunters... why have gatherers, just have the hunters gather some stuff while they are out.
Location: A wound from an ambush or while attempting to flee is probably different then while you were facing it off with a spear. Also, subpoint Scale, if you are attacked and eaten that probably looks very different then a quick malling to escape.
Cross-Reference: Combine with other information you can get from the skeleton and burial site. If they were buried with their lucky spearhead they were probably a hunter.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-20, 08:56 AM
I can think of several ways you could tell them apart:

Frequency: If the gatherers are getting attacked by animals as often as the hunters... why have gatherers, just have the hunters gather some stuff while they are out.
Location: A wound from an ambush or while attempting to flee is probably different then while you were facing it off with a spear. Also, subpoint Scale, if you are attacked and eaten that probably looks very different then a quick malling to escape.
Cross-Reference: Combine with other information you can get from the skeleton and burial site. If they were buried with their lucky spearhead they were probably a hunter.



It's amazing how far some out there, both professional archaeologists and amateur commenters, will go to dismiss evidence of women involved in warfare, hunting, or leadership roles.

For a long time, any grave with weapons was immediately assumed to be a male grave, because "weapons = war and hunting = male".

After someone bothered to use bone and DNA examination to show that some of these graves held the remains of women, not men, all of a sudden, grave goods related to warfare or hunting became "possibly ceremonial or symbolic", almost overnight on the time scale of changes to academic fields and their accompanying pop-science.

I'm sure, when it comes to bone evidence showing women engaged in hunting, there will be all sorts of re-interpretations of what the bone evidence "really" means such that it doesn't require acknowledging that at least some women in some groups were heavily engaged in hunting activity.

Yora
2021-04-20, 09:11 AM
Hunters having the same chance of animal attacks as everyone else seems very much unlikely.

Most animals really don't want to fight if they can avoid it. They rarely attack immediately, and mostly will be quite happy if they can chase potential enemies away.
Trying to get close to dangerous animals and trying to get away from them should lead to very different frequency of injuries caused by animals.


There's good reason to think that hunter gatherer societies were even more diverse than today's society, because different geographic areas were not connected so there was no (or less) convergence. As such it is very probable that practices, including gender roles, differed greatly between groups. So while there may be some tribes where women did hunt, that wouldn't dispel the idea that it was usually men who hunted.
It did came up in something about mesolithic central Europe, so it might not really have been meant as a blanket statement.

Berenger
2021-04-20, 12:17 PM
@Cluedrew: I imagine that hunting wild beasts with slings and spears isn't an activity that lends itself particularly well to multitasking.

@Max_Killjoy: I really appreciate your point about moving goalposts, but at the same time you make it sound like an entire academic field was involved in some kind of misogynistic cover-up operation and there were no reasonable arguments for caution in interpreting those grave goods. I think that takes just criticism too far.

Calthropstu
2021-04-20, 12:28 PM
I think that inference you make is a very long bow to draw.

Putting aside the aside the issue of how you determine what skeletal injuries are associated with hunting, as oppose to potentially being attacked by an animal while gathering, I don't think you can make that generalisation even if the premise is true.

There's good reason to think that hunter gatherer societies were even more diverse than today's society, because different geographic areas were not connected so there was no (or less) convergence. As such it is very probable that practices, including gender roles, differed greatly between groups. So while there may be some tribes where women did hunt, that wouldn't dispel the idea that it was usually men who hunted.

I should acknowledge that I am not overly familiar with the evidence for the popular belief that men usually hunted and women usually gathered. I just don't think that some female skeletons with signs of animal related injuries is a good reason to doubt it.

Do you have a link to the study of skeletons? I'd be interested to see how widespread it was, or whether it showed the sorts of injuries to men and women in the same proportion.

Logically, it is a really really dumb idea to put women in harms way. Even at the most basic level, I'd like to think that people would understand this. Just as male deer will allow themselves to starve to death in lean times, females are simply more important for special survival.

Hunting is both dangerous and time consuming. So I can't imagine many tribes were dumb enough to put women on the front like that.

Batcathat
2021-04-20, 12:31 PM
Logically, it is a really really dumb idea to put women in harms way. Even at the most basic level, I'd like to think that people would understand this. Just as male deer will allow themselves to starve to death in lean times, females are simply more important for special survival.

Hunting is both dangerous and time consuming. So I can't imagine many tribes were dumb enough to put women on the front like that.

There are quite a few animal species where the females hunt, though. While it's an open question whether or not animals can be "dumb", the ones with behavior counter to species survival tend to not be around in the long run.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-20, 01:46 PM
There are quite a few animal species where the females hunt, though. While it's an open question whether or not animals can be "dumb", the ones with behavior counter to species survival tend to not be around in the long run.

I can't think of a single vertebrate predatory species in which the females don't hunt. Most species aren't social enough for that role divide to even be a hypothetical possibility.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-20, 01:49 PM
@Max_Killjoy: I really appreciate your point about moving goalposts, but at the same time you make it sound like an entire academic field was involved in some kind of misogynistic cover-up operation and there were no reasonable arguments for caution in interpreting those grave goods. I think that takes just criticism too far.


Sorry, it wasn't intended to broad-brush the entire field, just some rather loud voices in it, and the resulting science-media coverage.

Satinavian
2021-04-20, 02:04 PM
Hunting is both dangerous and time consuming. So I can't imagine many tribes were dumb enough to put women on the front like that.Considering that one of the hunting methods believed to have been used would be drive hunting, higher numbers would have been quite welcome.

ideasmith
2021-04-20, 10:10 PM
Logically, it is a really really dumb idea to put women in harms way.

A lot of cultures did things you consider really dumb. This definitely includes putting women in harms way. That this has mostly been less flashy forms of harms way which did not involve weaponry is irrelevant. Dead is dead.

Yora
2021-04-21, 04:07 AM
Would be really dumb of a population to not make use of any available resources that can contribute to the support and defense of the group.
What good is the chance to maybe have some additional working members of the group in 10-15 years when you all starved before that?

Satinavian
2021-04-21, 05:46 AM
We also do know that women switched from band to band far more often then men which makes this whole "hard to replace and needed for the next generation" even more questionable.

Theoboldi
2021-04-21, 06:29 AM
We also do know that women switched from band to band far more often then men which makes this whole "hard to replace and needed for the next generation" even more questionable.
So, not saying that I disagree with your conclusions because I don't, but you should really provide some evidence or at least state where you got the information for claims like these.

Not everyone has read deeply on every topic, nor are they aware of all sources or developments on all fields. And expecting them to do the research on your claim is counterintuitive when you're trying to convince them.

Satinavian
2021-04-21, 07:09 AM
Don't really feel like looking for the articles again, but the ghist is that after they investigated mitochondrial DNA which is purely matrilineal and compared with samples of regular one they noticed very different speeds of mutation spread which sparked that as hypothesis and it was later confirmed by investigation mutation spread on Y chromosomes.

Of course there was also evaluation of relationships of corpses found together but finds like that are a bit too rare for that period to give a complete picture.

Friv
2021-04-21, 10:16 AM
@Max_Killjoy: I really appreciate your point about moving goalposts, but at the same time you make it sound like an entire academic field was involved in some kind of misogynistic cover-up operation and there were no reasonable arguments for caution in interpreting those grave goods. I think that takes just criticism too far.

It's less about a vast conspiracy, and more that no academic field is immune to the perils of being human.

More precisely, when people have already developed a theory, we have a really bad habit of altering evidence to fit the theory instead of altering theories to fit the evidence. It's very common, and the more you know about a field, the more common it gets. There's a reason that shifts in how we think about things are often generational.

The original theories were built in part on how the societies building those theories operated. Men fought, so graves with weapons belonged to men. Then historical models of societies were built around that idea. Then someone discovers that one of these graves didn't belong to a man. While it would certainly be rational to say, "Oh, wait, that was a foundation of the original theory, maybe we need to go back and revisit" it's much more human to say, "Oh, how does this evidence fit our existing historical model? Ceremonial weapons, of course, makes perfect sense."

You'll see this with a lot of things - archaeology, anthropology, sociology, biology - hell, it happened to mathematics and physics more than once. It's happened to me when I play mystery video games, in which I should literally be trying to build new models with each piece of evidence. It's very natural for people to get hung up on the theories they already believe, and it doesn't take a vast or deliberate conspiracy to do it.

Calthropstu
2021-04-21, 07:46 PM
Would be really dumb of a population to not make use of any available resources that can contribute to the support and defense of the group.
What good is the chance to maybe have some additional working members of the group in 10-15 years when you all starved before that?

Fair. However, consider wolves and other predatory and omnivorous primates, who act closer to us than say cats or bears.

In a pack, females do, in fact, hunt. But they are given far less dangerous roles. For instance, a female wolf will run on the sides and front, herding and preventing escape while the males give chase and go in for attacks. It is always males that go in for kills, usually after a long harrowing run to force the prey to exhaustion. This isn't malicious, but self preservation. It is much easier, and far less dangerous, to kill an exhausted elk. Males then go in to finish it, and during that time the elk will thrash about. Females stay away to avoid being injured.

Whereas a group of primates, participating females will throw rocks and other objects from afar. Once again, it is males that deliver killing blows, while females avoid danger. Early hunting parties likely followed similar strategies. As households and population grew, it was no longer needed for women to be on the front and it likely eventually stopped altogether.

It's not that women couldn't hunt, it was just better not to. Nowadays, humanity is pretty much invulnerable to anything except humanity, natural disasters and possibly aliens. Animals can't attack in meaningful numbers. And hunting with guns makes the danger negligible. So there's no reason for women not to.

Cluedrew
2021-04-21, 08:45 PM
I did some poking around and found: male chimpanzees don't use weapons but females do? That's weird you'd think that after someone figured out weapons it would spread around but apparently the menfolk are to macho for that or something? I don't know, haven't looked far enough to determine for sure its actually true.

Anyways, this is all very interesting but unless you are playing a really realistic game where the PCs are also chimpanzees I don't see how this relates to "Gender and sexuality diversity in RPG settings".

Calthropstu
2021-04-21, 10:57 PM
I did some poking around and found: male chimpanzees don't use weapons but females do? That's weird you'd think that after someone figured out weapons it would spread around but apparently the menfolk are to macho for that or something? I don't know, haven't looked far enough to determine for sure its actually true.

Anyways, this is all very interesting but unless you are playing a really realistic game where the PCs are also chimpanzees I don't see how this relates to "Gender and sexuality diversity in RPG settings".

The argument diverged from statements regarding ancient hunting methodology. Which invited other stuff. It looks like it got way off target, but it's kinda connected.

{scrubbed}

Yora
2021-04-22, 07:23 AM
Well, you're free to not engage in this discussion if you find it superfluous.

The creator of this thread wisely put "RPG settings" into the title. The cultures of a game are a part of the setting, generally not the rules. Unless you have a rules system tailored specifically to enforce one specific setting, like Saga of the Icelanders. A pretty fascinating game that has several social mechanics unique to men and women, which are intended to make players engage with the gender roles of 10th century Iceland.

Calthropstu
2021-04-22, 08:54 AM
Well, you're free to not engage in this discussion if you find it superfluous.

The creator of this thread wisely put "RPG settings" into the title. The cultures of a game are a part of the setting, generally not the rules. Unless you have a rules system tailored specifically to enforce one specific setting, like Saga of the Icelanders. A pretty fascinating game that has several social mechanics unique to men and women, which are intended to make players engage with the gender roles of 10th century Iceland.

True enough. If you specifically tailor a game setting to such, it's reasonable enough. My point was more towards trying to build rules, and I stated such previously, suggesting that this kind of thing be done in a supplement. An optional setting supplement sounds like a reasonable way to explore this kind of thing. But bogging down the core rulebook with it when it's really not what most people playing a game are looking for will hurt overall siales.

KaussH
2021-04-22, 09:40 AM
True enough. If you specifically tailor a game setting to such, it's reasonable enough. My point was more towards trying to build rules, and I stated such previously, suggesting that this kind of thing be done in a supplement. An optional setting supplement sounds like a reasonable way to explore this kind of thing. But bogging down the core rulebook with it when it's really not what most people playing a game are looking for will hurt overall siales.

Gender and sexuality issues are pretty important to a setting. The reason why it seems so uncommon is a LOT of games just present all races and cultures as heteronormative with mono as the default relationship structure. So they dont have to do the "extra" work. I think more games should have this kind of stuff in the core rules. If your game does food and dress and the like for races and the like, it should have some gender details as well.

Calthropstu
2021-04-22, 04:12 PM
Gender and sexuality issues are pretty important to a setting. The reason why it seems so uncommon is a LOT of games just present all races and cultures as heteronormative with mono as the default relationship structure. So they dont have to do the "extra" work. I think more games should have this kind of stuff in the core rules. If your game does food and dress and the like for races and the like, it should have some gender details as well.

Actually, I don't really see much of "how to dress" in most core rulebooks. I mean, pf and d&d just have peasant clothes, robes and armor and that's pretty much it. Most clothing is mentioned in setting supplements. Same for gurps iirc. Some are even so generic they can be completely different from person to person and give the same benefits. For example "cold weather gear" can be bundles of wolf pelts or a parka. These are completely different things.

Similarly, races need stats and basic elements, but having them vary from setting to setting is better kept for setting supplements. In gender and sexuality, elves in world a can be "extremely promiscuous and very open minded, these elves often take lovers of multiple races and genders" while on world b "these elves are quite reserved and standoffish. They close their borders to all except dignitaries from nations of ostensible allies. As such, half rlves are exceedingly rare and are often outcast." Again, this kind of information is best left to supplements, and those wanting such information or incorporate it into gheir games can.

The "extra" work is quite literally just that. There really is zeroneed for it in most games.

KaussH
2021-04-22, 05:14 PM
Actually, I don't really see much of "how to dress" in most core rulebooks. I mean, pf and d&d just have peasant clothes, robes and armor and that's pretty much it. Most clothing is mentioned in setting supplements. Same for gurps iirc. Some are even so generic they can be completely different from person to person and give the same benefits. For example "cold weather gear" can be bundles of wolf pelts or a parka. These are completely different things.

Similarly, races need stats and basic elements, but having them vary from setting to setting is better kept for setting supplements. In gender and sexuality, elves in world a can be "extremely promiscuous and very open minded, these elves often take lovers of multiple races and genders" while on world b "these elves are quite reserved and standoffish. They close their borders to all except dignitaries from nations of ostensible allies. As such, half rlves are exceedingly rare and are often outcast." Again, this kind of information is best left to supplements, and those wanting such information or incorporate it into gheir games can.

The "extra" work is quite literally just that. There really is zeroneed for it in most games.

If the core rules are setting less like gurps or fate, that's fine. However a lot of game have a default setting, and sometimes (often) the default has a lot of presumptions built into it, that could and should be fixed with a few words.

Cluedrew
2021-04-22, 08:44 PM
A pretty fascinating game that has several social mechanics unique to men and women, which are intended to make players engage with the gender roles of 10th century Iceland.I am suddenly very interested in this game. I think that is something that is really undervalued in systems is to pitch something unique. Before I read Blades in the Dark I never would have said "I want to play a game about thieves set in a haunted city." but now I want to.


Actually, I don't really see much of "how to dress" in most core rulebooks. I mean, pf and d&d just have peasant clothes, robes and armor and that's pretty much it.What other systems have you played? I mean GURPS (along with such systems as Fudge) isn't really a system so much as a system toolbox (a toolbox system if you will) so yes, they don't have a lot of setting info in them. D&D's world building is... on the generic side, except for the meta-settings for some reason. The last two systems I've read were Lancer (not much about civilian clothing but lots of pictures with a consistent theme for combat gear) and Blades in the Dark (explicitly talks about clothing and accessories on several occasions) so systems that talk about it do exist.

For me that space between a specialty system and a toolbox system - the generic system - is very hard to make work. They don't have the hook of a specialty system nor the flexibility of a toolbox system. The half way space doesn't work for me. Maybe a particular pitch will not click with me and I won't play it. But you know what is definitely not going to grab my attention: A generic space I've seen countless times before. And of course I can easily make an adjustment or two to lore if I have to.

So what I'm saying is: I think there is a place for systems that do talk about gender, sexuality, clothing, food, daily-habits and holidays. Don't just build a rules-system, build a world for me.

Calthropstu
2021-04-22, 11:20 PM
I am suddenly very interested in this game. I think that is something that is really undervalued in systems is to pitch something unique. Before I read Blades in the Dark I never would have said "I want to play a game about thieves set in a haunted city." but now I want to.

What other systems have you played? I mean GURPS (along with such systems as Fudge) isn't really a system so much as a system toolbox (a toolbox system if you will) so yes, they don't have a lot of setting info in them. D&D's world building is... on the generic side, except for the meta-settings for some reason. The last two systems I've read were Lancer (not much about civilian clothing but lots of pictures with a consistent theme for combat gear) and Blades in the Dark (explicitly talks about clothing and accessories on several occasions) so systems that talk about it do exist.

For me that space between a specialty system and a toolbox system - the generic system - is very hard to make work. They don't have the hook of a specialty system nor the flexibility of a toolbox system. The half way space doesn't work for me. Maybe a particular pitch will not click with me and I won't play it. But you know what is definitely not going to grab my attention: A generic space I've seen countless times before. And of course I can easily make an adjustment or two to lore if I have to.

So what I'm saying is: I think there is a place for systems that do talk about gender, sexuality, clothing, food, daily-habits and holidays. Don't just build a rules-system, build a world for me.

I've played quite a few. Gurps, AD&D, AD&D2e, 3, 3.5, 4e, pathfinder, Men in Black, 3 different editions of Shadowrun, d20 modern, Star wars, BESM, Superhero games, Mage: the ascension, Vampire and werewolf, changeling, some pirate game that I forget thename to...

You want world building that needs to be done via stories, maps, and other setting specific stuff... NONE OF WHICH needs to be detailed in the rules. And since it doesn't need to be, and since they can make more money selling setting supplements, they sell setting supplements. And it's better that way for publishers. And since very few people care one way or another, particularly on this subject, and since doing it the way you suggest does not seem to generate much revenue (indeed eould generate less) you are stuck with doing it yourself or being at the mercy of the publishers.

KaussH
2021-04-23, 12:00 AM
I've played quite a few. Gurps, AD&D, AD&D2e, 3, 3.5, 4e, pathfinder, Men in Black, 3 different editions of Shadowrun, d20 modern, Star wars, BESM, Superhero games, Mage: the ascension, Vampire and werewolf, changeling, some pirate game that I forget thename to...

You want world building that needs to be done via stories, maps, and other setting specific stuff... NONE OF WHICH needs to be detailed in the rules. And since it doesn't need to be, and since they can make more money selling setting supplements, they sell setting supplements. And it's better that way for publishers. And since very few people care one way or another, particularly on this subject, and since doing it the way you suggest does not seem to generate much revenue (indeed eould generate less) you are stuck with doing it yourself or being at the mercy of the publishers.

A Lot of the games you noted have built in world details and charicter details in the core books. Dnd has a little ( page or so per) shadowrun has bunches. White wolf stuff is full of it, as are most versions of star wars. Some are better and more detailed than others, and could stand a few lines on gender and relationships, but they do have cultural details.

Yora
2021-04-23, 03:49 AM
I am suddenly very interested in this game. I think that is something that is really undervalued in systems is to pitch something unique. Before I read Blades in the Dark I never would have said "I want to play a game about thieves set in a haunted city." but now I want to.

In Saga of the Icelanders, the players play a family of farmers on Iceland (10th century or so), and most likely will get into some kind of feud with their neighbors. There are several roles in the family that players can choose, that all have their own social status and special abilities that reflect that status.
From what I remember, women can't go into battle (with one exception, I believe), but all female PCs have an ability to force their fathers, brothers, or sons to go fight for the family. (Which is somewhat of a theme in stories from that time, and not just Iceland.) It's a fascinating perspective on the role women played in violence and feuds, and the influence they held in society, even when limited by certain restrictions.

Cluedrew
2021-04-23, 07:04 AM
You want world building that needs to be done via stories, maps, and other setting specific stuff... NONE OF WHICH needs to be detailed in the rules.Define "the rules". Its not part of the core resolution system sure, but is the equipment section part of the rules because that definitely has setting specific information. How about the magic system; I think that is both, how many fictional (non-RPG) settings can you name that have the same magic system?

The rules and setting will always feed back into each other and I like it when they do so a lot as its the entire package that does it.

Calthropstu
2021-04-23, 02:19 PM
Define "the rules". Its not part of the core resolution system sure, but is the equipment section part of the rules because that definitely has setting specific information. How about the magic system; I think that is both, how many fictional (non-RPG) settings can you name that have the same magic system?

The rules and setting will always feed back into each other and I like it when they do so a lot as its the entire package that does it.

I can name quite a few fictional settings that have the same or similar magic systems.

Dragonlance, greyhawk, ravenloft, forgotten realms, eberron, overlord, slayers and several others use similar magic systems outside of their rpg supplement books.

There are several more that borrow WOW style magic systems such as sword art online.

Many fictional settings borrow concepts of magic from frames of reference available based on popular themes currently available.

Satinavian
2021-04-23, 03:07 PM
There are several more that borrow WOW style magic systems such as sword art online.
Just because it is an MMO-Isekai does not mean that it borrows WoW magic. In fact, the original SAO doesn't have any magic at all and the later ones do their own (ill defined) thing.

And the first is just a list of D&D settings. Of course if i build a setting with a magic system in mind, it will work with that magic system.

Cluedrew
2021-04-23, 06:43 PM
To Satinavian: Funny story, no the D&D settings don't use the D&D magic system. I've read dozens of D&D books (Forgotten Realms, Dragon Lance and Dark Sun) and in all of those stories I have found one explicit reference to spell slots or spell memorisation or any of the things D&D spell casters are supposed to use all the time. There was one instance of a pair of wizards running out of spells. Not a single instance of someone reaching a new spell level (unless you count "gets stronger), memorising a spell, not having the right spell prepared or even learning a spell from another spell caster's notes. That last one might be my memory failing me because its feels like it might of happened as a plot point just because its its own idea separate from D&D's rules. I can't say it never happened but I read the story of Elminster - if any story would make the magic system apparent it would be that - and I am drawing a blank. And I can think of different situations that would be... weird if it was using same rules as the game.

To Calthropstu: Let me clarify what I meant by RPG setting, roughly any of the following:
A setting made to be used in an role-playing game/RPG (pen-and-paper, table-top or computer).
The setting of a story set in an RPG, even if that RPG does not otherwise exist. This includes VR and many Isekai stories and "completely on the inside" stories like Order of the Stick.
A setting that parodies either of the above two.
In addition they must actually define their magic systems so we can examine them and - for bonus points - if you can find stories/settings that are significantly different in other ways those would make for stronger examples.

Now I'm not saying there are no examples of this anywhere, but you might find that one magic system doesn't cover a lot of settings when you get down to it.

Calthropstu
2021-04-23, 06:53 PM
Just because it is an MMO-Isekai does not mean that it borrows WoW magic. In fact, the original SAO doesn't have any magic at all and the later ones do their own (ill defined) thing.

And the first is just a list of D&D settings. Of course if i build a setting with a magic system in mind, it will work with that magic system.

Yes, but you asked for multiple settings using yhe same magic system outside of an rpg. So I gave you such settings. Overlord borrowed heavily from d&d to create its setting, as did slayers and goblin slayer. Several other settings did so as well. And it specifically mentioned wow-style cooldown periods in sao and mana iirc. And infinite dendrogram as well as log horizon also mention wow style magic systems.

However, most fantasy authors of published books do make magic work differently. Eddings had 3 different settings each with different magic. And don't get me started on the compleat enchanter. And piers anthony likewise had 2 different systems.

But consider this: even on a "this is the wotld" game with only 1 world, that wotld has multiple continents, multiple countries and setting details vary from continent and country no? Most of the rpgs I mentioned take place on earth so inherit the customs of the earth. It doesn't need mrntioning of gender foles because we know the gender roles... it's earth.

If you want to write an alternate version of future earth with amazon style wonen taking over the wotld government with men relegated to labor only roles and abandoned technology to save the world from climate change ghen by all means. I woildn't play that, but go for it.

Most rulebooks don't need to spell out gender roles. Setting books sometimes needs to. But I'll be honest... this won't go over very well anywhere.

Friv
2021-04-23, 07:06 PM
How about the magic system; I think that is both, how many fictional (non-RPG) settings can you name that have the same magic system?

I can name quite a few fictional settings that have the same or similar magic systems.

Dragonlance, greyhawk, ravenloft, forgotten realms, eberron, overlord, slayers and several others use similar magic systems outside of their rpg supplement books.

There are several more that borrow WOW style magic systems such as sword art online.

At the risk of being pedantic, I'd point out that when asked to name non-RPG settings that have the same magic system, you named five D&D settings, one Japanese parody of a D&D setting, and one Japanese parody of online games inspired by D&D settings.

And even then, magic in Slayers is very different from magic in D&D. It requires calling upon spirits who have innate magical abilities, borrowing their power, and manifesting it in the world. As a result, it is very easy to learn to cast simple spells, so much so that non-mages can and routinely do learn simple spells, and powerful spells are marked primarily by being hard to control, rather than by being limited in how many can be cast per day. The categorizations of magic are based around what kind of spirit you summon, and there are no material components or foci required to invoke them.

I can't speak for magic in Overlord, but I suspect it's more different from D&D magic as well.

Calthropstu
2021-04-23, 08:35 PM
At the risk of being pedantic, I'd point out that when asked to name non-RPG settings that have the same magic system, you named five D&D settings, one Japanese parody of a D&D setting, and one Japanese parody of online games inspired by D&D settings.

And even then, magic in Slayers is very different from magic in D&D. It requires calling upon spirits who have innate magical abilities, borrowing their power, and manifesting it in the world. As a result, it is very easy to learn to cast simple spells, so much so that non-mages can and routinely do learn simple spells, and powerful spells are marked primarily by being hard to control, rather than by being limited in how many can be cast per day. The categorizations of magic are based around what kind of spirit you summon, and there are no material components or foci required to invoke them.

I can't speak for magic in Overlord, but I suspect it's more different from D&D magic as well.

D&D inspired dozens of settings, some even got incorporated into it. If you want one that's surefire not an rpg, look no further than this very website. And yes, the source of magic is different in slayers, but the basic casting is very similar.

I could be pedantic and point out that dragonlance et al are not themselves rpgs, and are thus "sources of settings with similar magic systems that are not rpgs." But let me reiterate: it doesn't matter. Magic is very much needed to perform functions in the game. How does magic work? What does it allow me to do? Since each game and setting can have different variations, that is absolutely needed.

{scrubbed}

JNAProductions
2021-04-23, 08:51 PM
D&D inspired dozens of settings, some even got incorporated into it. If you want one that's surefire not an rpg, look no further than this very website. And yes, the source of magic is different in slayers, but the basic casting is very similar.

I could be pedantic and point out that dragonlance et al are not themselves rpgs, and are thus "sources of settings with similar magic systems that are not rpgs." But let me reiterate: it doesn't matter. Magic is very much needed to perform functions in the game. How does magic work? What does it allow me to do? Since each game and setting can have different variations, that is absolutely needed.

{scrubbed the post, scrub the quote}

There's a lot more to gender than genitals.

And I'm perfectly willing to say that a setting and/or RPG that explores gender and sexuality isn't for everyone. Not everyone is mature enough to handle it well, and even for those who are, they might not want to explore those themes. But from what you posted, you don't come off as mature enough to handle it-exploring how, for instance, trans people would be like in a world with sex-changing magic isn't something teenagers laugh at.

Also, why can't children handle gender diversity? What's wrong with, for instance, playing a PC who's next in line to be the king, but is a transgender woman who would therefore be ineligible for the throne (in her home kingdom) without some changes being made? That PC has an interesting backstory with a built-in adventure hook.

Cluedrew
2021-04-23, 09:00 PM
To Calthropstu: You do realize we are* talking about putting a few lines in the culture section about confirming queer people exist and their current status in society? No completely redefining what the genders are.

I think the most explicit information I've ever seen about it is - in Eclipse Phase where you swap bodies/cases like clothing - there is a note in one of the biological agender cases is used by some people to raise their children to avoid biasing them. That's all I've found, its adding colour to the world and not getting in the way of the crunchy rules.

* I am, I realise other people might be shooting higher.

Also Order of the Stick is an role-playing game setting, its set inside a world that operates by Dungeons and Dragons rules. I think we have mostly moved past that by now.

Calthropstu
2021-04-23, 09:37 PM
To Calthropstu: You do realize we are* talking about putting a few lines in the culture section about confirming queer people exist and their current status in society? No completely redefining what the genders are.

I think the most explicit information I've ever seen about it is - in Eclipse Phase where you swap bodies/cases like clothing - there is a note in one of the biological agender cases is used by some people to raise their children to avoid biasing them. That's all I've found, its adding colour to the world and not getting in the way of the crunchy rules.

* I am, I realise other people might be shooting higher.

Also Order of the Stick is an role-playing game setting, its set inside a world that operates by Dungeons and Dragons rules. I think we have mostly moved past that by now.

Those lines already exist. It goes something along the lines of this: You can make be either male or female and can act in any manner you so choose.

So if you want to be a woman who feels she's actually a man? You can! You want to be robot with gender YOU CAN. I can't think of ANY game that puts a restriction on this. But that's not what you're looking for is it. Yeah, think I'm done talking this over with you guys. Your idea serves no purpose, and we're going in circles.

So whatevs.

Talakeal
2021-04-23, 10:41 PM
The same cannot be said for gender. Do we really need to ask "Do I have a penis? How does it work? What does it allow me to do?" I think not. And seeing how children play rpgs, any rpg that goes into that kind of detail will be quickly put on the "nope" shelf.

The more I look at this thread, the more convinced I am that this is a really really dumb idea except as a joke game. I can see a group of teenagers playing a few sessions laughing horrendously at the game and then never touching it again. This is the kind of game idea that is a novelty, gets a few hundred published and is forgotten. Probably end up costing more money than it makes.

How does D&D measure up to these standards?


You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture’s expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.
You don’t need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon’s image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character’s sexual orientation is for you to decide.

Friv
2021-04-23, 11:42 PM
{Scrubbed}

Calthropstu
2021-04-24, 12:14 AM
How does D&D measure up to these standards?

Seeing as how I literally just referred to that already existing, I fail to see your point. The op very much wanted a much more in depth statement. It is that which I am referring to.

I can't think of many people who would have an issue with that. I can't think of many who would have an issue with a couple such characters. I can think of MANYwho would have problems with the original thesis of having in depth sexual content of any kind in their core rulebooks. It is to that I refer.

So "you can play any gender in any way you want" is fine. "The females of Goridorth 7 have a complex social structure and wear different garb for different occasions. The ceremonial robe depicted here is worn to different major social functions. When meeting a member of the nobility, the female ceremonial garb is red. The sash is decorated with the emblem of the visited lord, unless the visiter is of equal or higher rank in which case her own emblem will adorn the sash. Other major events include..." is best left for a setting supplement because we really don't need it.

Zombimode
2021-04-24, 12:44 AM
To Satinavian: Funny story, no the D&D settings don't use the D&D magic system.

Hm, are D&D novels really meant to be setting source material?

I see the relationship more along the lines of novelizations of video games or fanfiction: works inspired by the sources, but not sources themselves.

Dragonlance was a novel series before it was a game setting.

For Eberron I remember a quote from Keith Baker, the creator of Eberron, that his novels should not be considered canon. Edit: here's the article in question: /eberron-continued-what-is-canon/ (http://keith-baker.com/eberron-continued-what-is-canon/)

As for the Forgotten Realms: well, yeah. The failure of accurately representing the settings magic is just that: a failure.


My usual recommendation for a Forgotten Realms novel that actually feels true to the source material is Murder in Cormyr. It's a neat fantasy crime story so it's worth checking out anyway :smallsmile:

KaussH
2021-04-24, 01:18 AM
Most of the rpgs I mentioned take place on earth so inherit the customs of the earth. It doesn't need mrntioning of gender foles because we know the gender roles... it's earth.

If you want to write an alternate version of future earth with amazon style wonen taking over the wotld government with men relegated to labor only roles and abandoned technology to save the world from climate change ghen by all means. I woildn't play that, but go for it.

Most rulebooks don't need to spell out gender roles. Setting books sometimes needs to. But I'll be honest... this won't go over very well anywhere.

Um.. earth in fact does have some complex gender roles depending on time and place, and thats before adding elves, dwarves, trolls, ect ( the list goes on)

So why exactly wont it go over well anywhere?

Satinavian
2021-04-24, 02:15 AM
But consider this: even on a "this is the wotld" game with only 1 world, that wotld has multiple continents, multiple countries and setting details vary from continent and country no? Most of the rpgs I mentioned take place on earth so inherit the customs of the earth. It doesn't need mrntioning of gender foles because we know the gender roles... it's earth.
OK, in Germany, aside from D&D, the somewhat larger fantasy systems are TDE and Splittermond. Both written for one world each with rules and setting intertwined. Both have several continents and many nations, one has even subsettings for other time period or some closed of miniplanes.
Do all those different people, cultures and countries get described gender roles ? Yes, they do. Do i find a portion of that in the rulebooks instead of dedicated setting supplements ? Sure, i do. Because the core rulebooks are never meant to be for a universal RPG.

For example, if your setting has amazons and you provide an amazon class and amazon abilities, you would usually have a small blurb about what an amazon is directly in your character creation rules. Because, why not ? That is stuff that the player contemplating to play an amazon needs. And if your system has lizard people that switch from female to male with age and are playable you would likely include that in the character creation blurb about them as well.

And it is not particularly uncommon for core rule books of systems with a fixed setting to have a setting overview part so new players have a rough idea what they are getting into and can properly roleplay their characters accordingly. And you likely will find gender stuff there as well. Usually some default most common thing and then all the important variations for all the larger regions. It won't go into detail, but if the biggest neighbor of the most common starter area is a matriarchy, it will likely get mentioned in the core rulebook.

Cluedrew
2021-04-24, 07:51 AM
Those lines already exist. It goes something along the lines of this: You can make be either male or female and can act in any manner you so choose. Yeah that's kind of the point, you missed non-binary. (Although apparently its not in the one you were quoting so maybe they missed it?)

I also feel you haven't quite understood they type of information I'm looking for. To switch to the dress example "Fancy clothing exists" is not enough information. The exact stylings and stitching patterns of fancy clothing is excessive. But I wouldn't mind seeing a picture of some people in fancy clothing so I roughly know what it is and maybe how much fancy clothing costs.


I see the relationship more along the lines of novelizations of video games or fanfiction: works inspired by the sources, but not sources themselves.Sure, but in the adaptation process they changed the magic system. I'm not even getting to the why here (or whether that was a good idea or not) just simply pointing out that they did. So not all D&D settings use the same magic system. If you want to go deeper than that maybe we should break off into a different thread.

Calthropstu
2021-04-24, 09:46 AM
OK, in Germany, aside from D&D, the somewhat larger fantasy systems are TDE and Splittermond. Both written for one world each with rules and setting intertwined. Both have several continents and many nations, one has even subsettings for other time period or some closed of miniplanes.
Do all those different people, cultures and countries get described gender roles ? Yes, they do. Do i find a portion of that in the rulebooks instead of dedicated setting supplements ? Sure, i do. Because the core rulebooks are never meant to be for a universal RPG.

For example, if your setting has amazons and you provide an amazon class and amazon abilities, you would usually have a small blurb about what an amazon is directly in your character creation rules. Because, why not ? That is stuff that the player contemplating to play an amazon needs. And if your system has lizard people that switch from female to male with age and are playable you would likely include that in the character creation blurb about them as well.

And it is not particularly uncommon for core rule books of systems with a fixed setting to have a setting overview part so new players have a rough idea what they are getting into and can properly roleplay their characters accordingly. And you likely will find gender stuff there as well. Usually some default most common thing and then all the important variations for all the larger regions. It won't go into detail, but if the biggest neighbor of the most common starter area is a matriarchy, it will likely get mentioned in the core rulebook.


It's entirely possible you and I are envisioning very different things. The op seemed to imply he wanted far larger amounts than what you are stating. Small blurbs denoting what a class or race is and why it may be restricted to a particular gender is one thing. But that's not the impression I get from others as to what they are looking for.

It seems to me they want serious, in depth gender discussion and layout inside the core rules, at least that is how it appears. And, particularly on this topic especially on an international scale is something game producers will avoid at all costs.

Yeah that's kind of the point, you missed non-binary. (Although apparently its not in the one you were quoting so maybe they missed it?)

I also feel you haven't quite understood they type of information I'm looking for. To switch to the dress example "Fancy clothing exists" is not enough information. The exact stylings and stitching patterns of fancy clothing is excessive. But I wouldn't mind seeing a picture of some people in fancy clothing so I roughly know what it is and maybe how much fancy clothing costs.

Sure, but in the adaptation process they changed the magic system. I'm not even getting to the why here (or whether that was a good idea or not) just simply pointing out that they did. So not all D&D settings use the same magic system. If you want to go deeper than that maybe we should break off into a different thread.

Define "non-binary" because I mentioned earlier a tentacle monster who reproduces using discarded shark teeth. D&D has plant creatures you can play as which are both male and female and reproduce with themselves. They have slime monsters which reproduce by splitting. They have warforged which don't reproduce at all. Pathfinder has a race which states no one literaly knows how they come into being.

So how much more non-binary do you need?

JNAProductions
2021-04-24, 09:48 AM
So how much more non-binary do you need?

An ordinary humanoid that's not on the gender binary.

Some people want to play tentacle monsters or plant people or weird stuff.
Other people want to play someone like themselves.

Calthropstu
2021-04-24, 10:04 AM
An ordinary humanoid that's not on the gender binary.

Some people want to play tentacle monsters or plant people or weird stuff.
Other people want to play someone like themselves.

Which is covered in "you can play male or female however you want." This covers "gender confused teenager," it covers "tran," it covers gay. It covers anything you want.

If you were after that, this thread wouldn't exist, because it literally already exists. And that is why I am sure I am correct in you wanting far more than the industry is willing, or can possibly, give.

If you want full, in depth review of every world setting with special attention given to the lgbtq community in each world, that is what you are going to have to do yourself. It is counter-productive for any major publisher to take on as it alienates nearly 75% of the world's population.

JNAProductions
2021-04-24, 10:09 AM
Which is covered in "you can play male or female however you want." This covers "gender confused teenager," it covers "tran," it covers gay. It covers anything you want.

If you were after that, this thread wouldn't exist, because it literally already exists. And that is why I am sure I am correct in you wanting far more than the industry is willing, or can possibly, give.

If you want full, in depth review of every world setting with special attention given to the lgbtq community in each world, that is what you are going to have to do yourself. It is counter-productive for any major publisher to take on as it alienates nearly 75% of the world's population.

Why would giving notice to LGBTQ+ communities alienate 75% of the world? Speaking as a straight, cisgender individual myself, I'm glad to see queerness in RPGs, because more representation and diversity is a good thing.

And no, male or female however you want is NOT non-binary. Non-binary is non-binary, and yes, there's nothing stopping you from playing a non-binary individual, it'd be nice to have them mentioned in the books.

What's wrong with adding more representation? What's wrong with diversity? What's wrong with accepting people?

Cluedrew
2021-04-24, 10:10 AM
The op seemed to imply he wanted far larger amounts than what you are stating. Small blurbs denoting what a class or race is and why it may be restricted to a particular gender is one thing. But that's not the impression I get from others as to what they are looking for.Different people want different things and that's OK. For that matter I want different things from different systems, the world is a wonderful varied place and so is gaming. So why limit myself.


Define "non-binary"A member of a species whose members can usually* be described as being of one of two genders but does not fit into one of those two. So no-one from a non-binary species (one whose members cannot be described as usually being one of two genders) is non-binary themselves. They might be non-trinary or something.

Intersex is sort of the same thing for the sexes, but there is the added wrinkle you can just have different chromosomal patterns and I don't know that fits into the model. If I ever meet someone like that I'll ask them.

* I'm not entirely sure what the rate on "usually" is but real-life humans definitely fall within it. In fact they kind of define it.