Beware Women, for they come from Hell.

[Morithias]

Well new counter monkey is up.

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/11/...ome-from-hell/

Now let's get rid of this right off the bat, I do NOT agree with what he says to a large degree, and this is NOT me asking you to argue on this, this just caused me to think about how I write women in my games as a DM, and how the people think I am doing in terms of writing a gender I biologically am not.

Let's go over my campaigns.

X-crawl.

This campaign kinda died, but the main NPC was a woman who was a sports coach, who in a very dangerous game took a team to the top, and when people started getting jealous and talking about her behind her back, made a new team to try and prove herself.

Path of Evil.

This campaign had a female villain in the backstory. The Demon King Miki, who was a legendary being who nearly took over the world. Other females who have shown up are the merchant Yumi, who is rejected by her piers for being evil, and Maria, the engineer who simply loves to invent things, and her crown invention being a legendary weapon.

Oriental Kingmaker.

So far the only girl who has shown up is the leader of the Kitsune, who is one of the seven commanders who works for Taichi. She has had no real character development yet.

Grimoire of the Rift.

Mana the merchant was in love with the man that one of the PC's replaced. Princess Teru is a noble woman who wishes to run her kingdom. The vampire chick was meant to be kind of an athletic Moka from Rosario Vampire. And the knights Leila and Aisha are powerful warriors who fight for the crown.

I try to write women are realistic, with the obvious exception of the Demon King, who is basically a legend.

So am I doing anything wrong? I'm not using women to kill them, it's just well. I spent a lot of my youth with female friends, so my worlds tend to be full of girls. Many videogames I play are eroges, where your harem is a warrior harem, and I ironically have more experience with writing girls then boys.

So am I doing this wrong? Right? Could I be doing better? Any advice?

[Patsy]

Nice video, but I can't say I've ever really had this problem. It probably helps that 50% of my players are women, so maybe that keeps my lazy writing in check.
As a result, I tend to run fantasy games in a pretty gender-blind way, just as a question of tone- it's a bit more cheerful and 'heroic' to me to have a variety of different characters and types in the world, as opposed to a more 'historical' idea of serious men with beards taking all the positions of authority, with their wives and sisters cowering behind them somewhere.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

Based on what you wrote, I would advise you not to worry as you seem to be doing just fine. It isn't bad thing however to sometimes reflect on what you are doing and see if you're being unintentionally sexist, awareness is usually a good thing.

Based on the video however, I'd recommend that guy to find some more mature people to play with, I'd be willing to bet that at least 80% of the players on this forum have never experienced the 'problems' he is describing.(which is to say, that every woman is untrustworthy, not that there never are trickster woman)


P.S. I like your provocative thread title, I was quite curious what this thread would contain and how fast it would blow up.

[Boci]

What kind of response did you expect? Yes your doing it wrong, three dimensional female characters who aren't there to murder the rightous male heroes? That worse than a dual katana wielding DMPC and DM's girlfriend with a pet unicorn combined?

Not only is counter monkey a humour series, but a lot of it draws from the high school years of someone growing up in the 90s, were an all male group of socially awkward friends played D&D in their free time because they didn't have girlfriends. Yes its a stereotype, but like most it has its origins in truth.

[Morithias]

P.S. I like your provocative thread title, I was quite curious what this thread would contain and how fast it would blow up.

It's kinda what the video is called. Should I change it?

[Craft (Cheese)]

(Unfortunately I can't watch the video because Springboard never wants to work for me. Have to wait for someone to put it on youtube.)

I have to admit I'm pretty sexist... in the opposite way. I almost never give female characters anything but the purest of motives (not to say they never serve as antagonists regardless of this; they're just misguided idealists at worst) and establishing a male character as a wife-beater or a rapist is my most often used method of not-so-subtly saying "Hey you, you're supposed to hate this guy." And if your player character is one of these things, God help you!

Basically my campaigns end up looking like a Lifetime original movie.

[Badgerish]

There are a lot of monsters in D&D that are setup to: 1) seduce target, 2) murder target.

A lot of these where based off of mythology and folklore, and many of those where created to discourage random hook-ups.

As mentioned, Spoony's counter Monkey rants/stories are informed by his teenage gaming in the 90's. It's clear that was a sexist time and he does point that out a number of times.

I aim for about 25% female NPCs, but there is a little/no romance/sexuality in games, so no murderous Succubi/Hags/Lamia disguised as whores or overly-friendly barmaids.
I write all my NPCs as people/classes first, then look at how their gender/race/species/etc effects their personalities. Not many of my female NPCs will actually be that feminine.

In one of the 1st D&D games I can remember, we where playing through a module and had been given a warning of "Don't trust a book by it's cover" at the start. Towards the end, we encountered an attractive woman chained to a rock, with no apparent dangers about; when we approached carefully, keeping watch for traps, ambushes and if the woman did anything strange, the GM acted like we where meta-gaming (the woman was indeed a Hag). It's a standard trope: If you encounter a woman in D&D, it's quite possibly a disguised monster.

[SgtCarnage92]

Interestingly enough, I've only used the "woman from hell" trope once, and it was rather effective because it was less a seduction, and more convincing a group of civilians that she was a vampire who had them charmed (one of the best role-playing encounters i've ever ran, however there was a long argument regarding the use of mind-effecting spells on PCs, which is another topic entirely).

I try to have a variety of NPCs from either gender, but I also try and take the particular culture of origin into account. Not every culture is going to be gender equal and there's going to be a variety of gender roles. I'm not always "traditional" when it comes to my culture's gender roles, but I do keep in mind when designing an NPC.

For example, I tend to run dwarves more or less "men are warrirors, women act as support" but that doesn't mean female dwarves are pushovers in combat as the dwarves teach every citizen how to defend themselves. They just aren't usually on the front lines holding back an orc onslaught.

In contrast, i run elves as being pretty much androgynous when it comes to gender roles. This is playing to the cliche of not being able to tell if the elf is male or female, but it makes a lot of sense for a race that generally values individual freedom above all else. Plus as far as military goes, elf populations tend to be small, so they need every available citizen to defend it if need be.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

It's kinda what the video is called. Should I change it?

Depends on what you want to achieve. If you are afraid that you will insult or unnecessarely provoke anybody, you should change it. If you want to lure people into this thread by provoking them, then obviously you should keep it.

Not only is counter monkey a humour series, but a lot of it draws from the high school years of someone growing up in the 90s, were an all male group of socially awkward friends played D&D in their free time because they didn't have girlfriends. Yes its a stereotype, but like most it has its origins in truth.

I'd have to say that for a 'humours' series, the video wasn't very funny, it might have told a few funny stories, but the tone of the video was very serious. Secondly, he mentions recent experiences in the video, so I have really no reason to assume it's about playing D&D while growing up.
Thirdly, if there is additional context needed to understand a video it should either be included in the video or be linked to/written down below the video.
If you do neither then I'll take it at face value and I won't feel sorry for it.

[Morithias]

Depends on what you want to achieve. If you are afraid that you will insult or unnecessarely provoke anybody, you should change it. If you want to lure people into this thread by provoking them, then obviously you should keep it.

Yeah...the reason I picked this title is that I was too lazy to come up with something for myself....

[erikun]

While I have not seen Counter Monkey before, Spoony has always struck me as more comedy than review and this doesn't change much. The whole Deadly Women trope seems restricted to the killer DM mentality, where everything significant must either be producing GP or XP for the party. I doubt I could run a game that way; I think far too much about making a setting involved and interactive to have every female character a succubus or vampire.

To Morithias, I think your characters are just fine. They are women, but even the evil ones have motivations and reasons for their actions (beyond just being evil-for-evil's-sake). If a PC is going to hit on Demon King Miki on first sight, then they are probably due what's coming to them. Outside that, I think that anyone paying attention to the character would pick up on the obvious warning signs.

For example, I tend to run dwarves more or less "men are warrirors, women act as support" but that doesn't mean female dwarves are pushovers in combat as the dwarves teach every citizen how to defend themselves. They just aren't usually on the front lines holding back an orc onslaught.

In contrast, i run elves as being pretty much androgynous when it comes to gender roles. This is playing to the cliche of not being able to tell if the elf is male or female, but it makes a lot of sense for a race that generally values individual freedom above all else. Plus as far as military goes, elf populations tend to be small, so they need every available citizen to defend it if need be.

I think I run dwarves and elves in much the same way. Of course, "support" from dwarven women might come in the form of growing ten feet tall and stomping everyone flat or just being commander of an army.

[Boci]

Thirdly, if there is additional context needed to understand a video it should either be included in the video or be linked to/written down below the video.
If you do neither then I'll take it at face value and I won't feel sorry for it.

How about just assuming the creator of the video is a decent human being who does not infact hate just over 50% of the world's population because they have matching 23rd (?) chromosomes?

You seem to be taken undue offence at a joke (however unfunny) at a trend that as previous poster pointed out stems back to folklore. He could have said "Beware Children, for they come from Hell." and no one would have been offended, and its no different with women: fiends taking on forms that will make their targets more receptive to them.

[Sith_Happens]

Yeah...the reason I picked this title is that I was too lazy to come up with something for myself....

Personally I thought it was going to be some sort of crazy campaign setting idea.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

How about just assuming the creator of the video is a decent human being who does not infact hate just over 50% of the world's population because they have matching 23rd (?) chromosomes?

I never said anything about the videos creator aside from mentioning that he has playing with immature players.

[Boci]

I never said anything about the videos creator aside from mentioning that he has playing with immature players.

I was just saying you seemed to be taking the whole joke about an old gaming trope awefully seriously.

And assuming them to be immature is a tad judgemental for people you have never met. There is a difference between immature people and people who are immature doing their gameing sessions.

[Themrys]

I aim for about 25% female NPCs

Why 25%?

50% I would understand, but 25%?

[Boci]

Why 25%?

50% I would understand, but 25%?

Presumably because the power structure is modelled after midevil Europe, and since most of the NPCs players meet are in somewhat important places it makes sense that males would be overrepresented.

[Morithias]

If a PC is going to hit on Demon King Miki on first sight, then they are probably due what's coming to them.

I'd question how she came back to life. But this is D&D. True resurrecting the most vile being to have ever been born is something that is totally in character for an evil party...and if miss-worse-than-insert-dictator-from-real-life-here-cause-I-can't-state-real-world-politics-on-the-forum, is a woman, might as well try to woo her, hey it could work.

Of course knowing my Dm style I'd probably let it work. XD

[Craft (Cheese)]

How about just assuming the creator of the video is a decent human being who does not infact hate just over 50% of the world's population because they have matching 23rd (?) chromosomes?

I dunno, I'm not exactly Spoony's biggest fan but the more of his material I watch the more I suspect he really is a misogynist creep. I'm not exactly ready to call him out as a horrible human being yet, but this video has not helped.

[Cikomyr]

I like that you cite a number of villainous female characters in various RPG settings or modules..

Should we compare the number of male villains?


I do not think female are usually more villainous. It's just the sad fact that very often, a DM will only mention a detail if he feels its important to the plot (Chekov's gun?), and if he specifies that a certain character is female, it's because he wants to exploit feminine attributes for the plot.

If it happens that the villain is a female, he probably planned to have something of a seductive plot of the male NPC or PC. Otherwise, why would the GM have made her a villain in the first place? It's a very common problem is modern storytelling, where scriptwriter might go out of their way to make female character "female" by their behavior, whereas genuinely strong female character are simply characters who happens to be female.

Do I make sense...?

[Cikomyr]

I dunno, I'm not exactly Spoony's biggest fan but the more of his material I watch the more I suspect he really is a misogynist creep. I'm not exactly ready to call him out as a horrible human being yet, but this video has not helped.

As far as Spoony goes, the whole point of this video was simply to talk about his personal RPG experience. So I do not think you can use this as evidence of actual hatred or fear of women. Simply that it's kind of the easy way to capture socially-insecure nerds who simply would never easily get women. It's part of the escapism experience of the whole RPG paradigm.

Now, I'm a big Spoony fan (but stay away from his forum), and I'd get why you could get the idea that he is somewhat of a mysogynist. But I do not think he means bad; he merely is awkward and clumsy at many things, and sadly for him, one of these things happens to be "women".

For what I've heard, his previous relationship with the legendary Scarlet probably didn't helped his attitude. But I doubt I know enough about him to make a proper judgment call there.

[Grimsage Matt]

Vampire game I'm running (And no, they do not sparkle), the players have three leaders in charge of the base.

One is a drow Vampire. Why? To be honest, thought a Drow Widow Queen would make sense, and sure, I'm planing on her being slightly seductive.... but only because shes great at grapples and the Widow Queen PrC offers great spawn making abillities.

The other one is a Angel called Nyx. To be honest, was going Acrane/Martial/Divine for leaders, and I thought a Undead Angel would be cool. And since most of the fallen were guys....

Can write them up a bit more, but ya, not trying to go for sexist here.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I do not think female are usually more villainous. It's just the sad fact that very often, a DM will only mention a detail if he feels its important to the plot (Chekov's gun?), and if he specifies that a certain character is female, it's because he wants to exploit feminine attributes for the plot.

A generalization of the smurfette principle: Characters are male by default. Females only appear when the presence of a vagina is necessary for the plot the writer has in mind to work. Thus, female characters frequently get reduced to their vaginas, because if the story doesn't involve it the writer would use a male character for her role instead.

[Cikomyr]

A generalization of the smurfette principle: Characters are male by default. Females only appear when the presence of a vagina is necessary for the plot the writer has in mind to work. Thus, female characters frequently get reduced to their vaginas, because if the story doesn't involve it the writer would use a male character for her role instead.

Very well put! Just we put this on the table: I do not condone this practice. But would you agree it is sadly common in generic storytelling?

It is one rational wariness to hold in roleplaying game; beware of women, for their vagina is a plot point.

[Greyfeld85]

Watching the video, when he mentioned subverting your players' expectations, it reminded me of a female NPC I wrote in the last game I ran.

She was a tibbit psychic rogue, so the first meeting between her and the players was when she was in cat form. Since I drew attention to the cat, they players automatically zoomed in on that aspect and were like, "Ok, something's up with the cat." When she padded off down the nearest alleyway, the ranger PC and a couple other players tried to track her down, but eventually lost her trail.

Later on, she introduced herself to the group by transforming into her humanoid form right in front of them. Many questions ensued, but one of the major questions was, "If you're not hiding anything, and you don't mean us any harm, why did you run away from us earlier??"

The answer to the question was very simple. "You were chasing me, what did you expect me to do?"

By subverting their suspicions into completely reasonable actions, considering their behavior at the earlier point in the game, I completely threw them for a loop, and created a female character that was helpful and blatantly not-evil, but still had her own values and her own agenda.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

I was just saying you seemed to be taking the whole joke about an old gaming trope awefully seriously.

And assuming them to be immature is a tad judgemental for people you have never met. There is a difference between immature people and people who are immature doing their gameing sessions.

1. Again, serious tone, I see absolutely no reason to assume that he's isn't speaking the truth. And while his goal is to amuse and he obviously picks the most exaggerated examples to help build his case, the fact that he felt this topic was worth addressing, suggests to me that this is about his real experiences.

Come to think of it, the reason I'm not offended at all by the title, is because right of the bat it's an obvious hyperbole.

2. It's obvious from the context of my reply that I'm talking about his gaming habits and not about him as a person, who are you to make assumptions about my assumptions?just in case it's not obvious that last bit is a joke

[Yora]

The entire argument is that every time an NPC is remotely seductive or the GM reacts in any ways to players attempts to hit on an NPC, that NPC will be some kind of succubus.

Which from every RPG experience and account known to me, is the case.

It doesn't get in any way into female NPCs that don't make any advances to the PCs. They don't have any part in any of this.

[Boci]

1. Again, serious tone, I see absolutely no reason to assume that he's isn't speaking the truth.

That's not Spoony's fault. He a breed of online entertainer who uses a limited bag of tricks + relatability to satisfy an audience. One of those tricks is to say slightly outlandish things with a serious face.

Come to think of it, the reason I'm not offended at all by the title, is because right of the bat it's an obvious hyperbole.

Ofcourse its hyperbole. What else would it be?

[erikun]

The entire argument is that every time an NPC is remotely seductive or the GM reacts in any ways to players attempts to hit on an NPC, that NPC will be some kind of succubus.

Which from every RPG experience and account known to me, is the case.

It doesn't get in any way into female NPCs that don't make any advances to the PCs. They don't have any part in any of this.

But situations like these in games are times where success is sometimes more amusing than failure.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

That's not Spoony's fault. He a breed of online entertainer who uses a limited bag of tricks + relatability to satisfy an audience. One of those tricks is to say slightly outlandish things with a serious face.

I'll just have to take your word for it then.

Ofcourse its hyperbole. What else would it be?

Are you directing this question at me? Because I honestly have no idea what you want with this question.