Gender in game mechanics

The the best of my knowledge, since I am not a fan, he wears a dress to make a caricature out of women and make fun of stereotypical behavior. Not to celebrate women but to make fun of them. He identifies as male. He also casually throws around the word "tranny" and claims his right to use it, regardless of the harm that word may cause to transgender people who are sensitive to it. When called out on it he makes a fuss and asserts his right as a gay man to use the word over the rights of trans-women to not be made a joke of.

That's my take on it, at least, based on what I've read and heard from other people. Me, I just ignore him. He's not my kind of entertainment and I've never seen Drag Race or whatever that show is he's on, or anything else he's done. As such, I don't know if the above is totally accurate but from the little I've seen of it, that's how I feel.

 

Haha

 

This. One of the big reasons we see some many FPS games is that the development market is still massively dominated by Americans, who are generally obsessed with guns and shooting people (See what I did there? Gun control. Turns out I still have some worms left)

I find the same thing is true of fiction in general. I'm a big fantasy fan. I enjoy the European tropes, with layer upon layer of old civilisations. Ruins on top of ruins on top of ruins. Backstories that last for thousands of years. But occasionally I'll find something decent by an Australian or NZ author. No back story whatsoever. Histories that last less then the lifetime of some of the older characters. Stories about conquering virgin territory, making your own place in the world. Rather then simply cleaning up the mess of previous generations. Some thing when I find something from some other culture.

So exploring different cultures is certainly a good idea for new games. I do wonder how much justice you could do the idea from the outside looking in. A FPS with an African skin is still ultimately an American cultural game. But if the game was produced by Africans within Africa you might get something very unique.

 

I'm sure he's had people insulting him with the word "tranny" enough in his life, but I can see why that would offend you. Just seems odd that people would argue the case that girls should be able to wear trousers and play with action man when they're not also going to argue that boys should be able to wear skirts and play with a barbie doll.

 

Might be true, but it also may be worth a try. Research would definitely be important.

One of my writing assignments in my former job was to create a matriarchal culture. I created their religion, their lifestyle, cultural myths and traditions, etc. I did a lot of research on matriarchal cultures, which was not easy since the ones that did exist did not leave very much information behind. They were nothing at all like the stereotypical "Amazonian" cultures in our western fiction. I ended up with something quite different and I like to think that if someone from a similar culture read my stuff, they would be happy with what I wrote.

I could be totally off the mark though...lol.

 

Maybe our differences would go away if everyone on earth walked around mostly naked for the next year, wearing nothing but Keaton masks.

 

Hah! That's awesome. Very interesting.

Oh, it works. I know quite a few trans-men and yeah, it does go both ways. Ever seen Buck Angel?

Warning: male nipples ahead...

Spoiler

 

Who's making that argument?

 

LOL I saw him on Howard Stern. That was a very interesting episode...

 

Yeah, women leading adventures tend not to go well. The best I've ever made out is mostly because female archetypes trend toward not needing to journey. Essentially going back to something a couple pages ago, the domain of women is society. A woman cutting herself off from society and adventuring would seem destructive. Whereas men are connected to the earth and aren't disconnecting themselves from their source of power when they go adventuring. There's probably a knowledge vs. wisdom angle there too.

Something I've been trying to bounce around in my head is games that are more slice-of-life, games that at least don't need to emphasize the journey.

Hutu exterminator 2015... where's the can marked genocide?

 

Sorry then I misunderstood.

Its ok guys, we can put our dresses back on now.

 

HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAH! I'm crying XD

 

This, this, and this...

 

I take it you're not British? Over here that's a joke that never gets old.

 

@Ony I hadn't realized hormone therapy had come so far along. When the media does point out transgender people, you can always tell in the photos they cherrypick that the transition did not go well / was not complete. I guess it's nice to see that thanks to science and progressive thinking, people can be whatever they want to be. Can I be nothing? I'd really like to live without a label.

I ain't no ancient greek scholar, boy! I am also an egomaniac, thus each leg needs to be individually wrapped in cloth. I'm just that important.

It takes a real man to make other people cry - AND have them like it. Take notes, gentlemen.

It'd just be a crappy Hatred clone, YAWN.

@wetcircuit I enjoy Poe's law though, don't you? Are you sure the man's act isn't just a mockery of what you're suggesting? I hope it's the case that it is.

Oh, that explains a lot. Here in America, everyone's trigger happy both emotionally and with guns. You can't just SAY the things you say without triggering someone. I guess it's the same for other nations too. We are truly in the era of feels.

 

Skyrim has some good examples of women and men in the game.

 

...and shooting people.

 

Could you give me a few references for those remarks or did they come out of your head!

Oops, hit reply to soon.

More to come.

 

It's called "Political Correctness" It's dumb has poo

 

Wizard of Oz?

 

I think you're missing the chicken and egg scenario here that wetcircuit is trying to point out. You're saying that the industry needs to put men in most of the leading roles because most of the leading roles rely on lifting heavy objects. However, most of the leading roles rely on lifting heavy objects because the industry loves making games that cater to male power fantasies.

And if I may delve into the hellish pit of racism and eugenics, I think we all know that if in some alternate universe, the industry only ever had black men as leads because on average, their upper body strength is greater than white men's, you can bet that white men would be pitching a fit about how racist that is and demanding that white men be included as leads in games. Yet strangely, almost all leads are white, so one might question whether statistical analysis of upper body strength actually determines who the devs create as a lead, or if perhaps it's something else.

 

Women were the first farmers, did you know that? While men were out hunting wild animals, women gathered, collected, and farmed. They were extremely connected to the earth. Many ancient cultures revered women as closer to god because they could create life.

Women do not journey? Do you mean this in a game sense...or in a real life sense? There are tons of historical evidence of journeying women, who often left behind their own lives to go against the cultural norms and "journey" or rather explore.

A journey can mean so many things, from going off on foot to save the princess, to exploring new regions of the world or to breaking new ground in science. We journey, and we journey successfully.

You may understand archetypes, but you really don't understand stereotypes very well. I would love to see you go out and journey yourself and maybe find some new found knowledge that can help you shed these preconceived notions.

I say that as the Mother archetype. I worry.

 

Alice in Wonderland? Did that not go well? Not sure the journey's of men have gone well all the time either. lol I can think of a number of journeying men who ended up dead.

 

wait, that's such a good example I'm going to expand it a little:

WIZARD OF OZ

Female protagonist, wants to go home but thrust on an accidental adventure
All the bosses are women (witches)
Final boss (male) turns out to be a twist with no power at all
Protagonist kills only by accident (house not really her fault)
her "power" is making friends
males are supporting characters

 

Alice in Wonderland did not go well for Alice.... She is miserable the whole time and the book about the cards she basically dies at the end when the cards attack her (wakes up from a dream)... I don't remember how the chess book ends....

 

Whats the point on having real life genders anyway?

 

What the... ?

Skyrim sucks at portraying gender. The only differences between men and women are the graphics and the voice acting.

Playing a female I could accidently sell my armour and walk through a set of barracks in my underwear. The only comment I get is "you look cold".

Pretty much every human dungeon has an equal mix of genders. Pretty much every guard station has a equal mix. There is no stats difference between them whatsoever.

Skirym is an example of ignoring gender. It does equality by saying gender does not exist, and is of no significance. While this is slightly better then making every women in the game hyper sexualised, its still a long way from dealing with gender effectively.

 

My older brother plays it an its quite good. In the fact of this thread also there might be other geners in the game as well.

 

Do you want the essay on the evolutionary and biological advantages of sexual dimorphism? I can give it if you like.

The game itself is great. On of my favourites. But in the context of gender portrayal it falls down by simply ignoring the issue.

 

I remember the looking glass and the hole. lol I will take your word for it though as I haven't read them in years and I doubt the Disney version counts.

Although...as a journey, maybe it was successful. The author did not tell us how little Alice was affected. Maybe she grew in knowledge? Of course, the story is all about drugs, right? So maybe it couldn't end well no matter what.

 

Oh... okay

 

Ah, yes, can't forget that. I read too much news about this. I'm almost worried that I'm not going to move before it's too late. Hatred is going to thrive in America because everyone is going to want to vent on some police officers.

That movie is quite shocking from a political standpoint regarding foreign policy. Dorothy came to a foreign land and executed its dictator.

So do a majority of fps games where the protagonist is a nameless floating head

 

For you, "dealing with gender effectively" might mean that no woman can be in their underwear without being catcalled/assaulted/whatever by all men in the area, but for women, that is not at all an important part of gender, and in fact, most of them are trying to eliminate that fun little slice of "reality". It seems weird to be ok with magical elves killing dragons by shouting force words at them, but then get annoyed that the game's not realistic because the men aren't abusive enough to women.

 

Creepy stuff...

 

It's a style. It would be a "post-gender" world. It allows a writer to explore aspects where "neutrality" or non-reaction is the norm.... I would say it is a part of the answer..., but I understand how you say it is simply a "pink razor" with absolutely nothing substantial that would address real life gender roles. People had some of the same praise/doubts about Star Trek's use of a multi-racial crew. They just made it de facto, and in its day that was revolutionary.

Rabbit hole was the cards. Looking glass was the chessboard.... I think the humor was rooted in Victorian values and the horrors of traveling on the continent amongst confusing and rude people....

 

Okay, maybe this was a bad example. I'm not promoting abuse of women or anything like that. But for must of us, our gender is an integral part of who we are. It has an effect on how we think about ourselves, how we think about others, and how society reacts to us. This aspect is completely missed in Skyrim.

 

Yep. At least in unity projects, the default provided character controller has a body. It may not have arms or legs, but it is not a floating head!

Time period accurate male-female interactions in skyrim might go as poorly as it does in game of thrones. In this case, I am ok with it being kind of left out. Skyrim is a society of people like me who really don't give a fluff. Maybe there's no catcalling because in skyrim, the only gender is "human" and they are context aware of the meanings of gender and sex.

 

I'm a big fan of Skyrim and I actually think it dealt with gender pretty well. As wetcircuit says, it was going for a "post-gender" society, which makes a lot of sense if you lived in a world where there were 12 different species of humanoid with wildly different appearances, multiple non-humanoid sentient beings, various agendered or multigendered godlike demons, etc. In our real world we focus on minor differences like race and gender because those are the major differences we have to separate our sentient beings into tribes, but in a world where you could be arguing on the internet with a fifty foot tall undead talking lizard, suddenly the fact that men can on average lift a few more pounds than women doesn't seem all that important.

All that said, Skyrim's lore does include some interesting thoughts on gender. The Deadric Princes are one, where they all refer to themselves as Princes regardless of their preferred gender, and where their preferred gender is mostly just a matter of how they choose to present themselves, since they can change form. There are the witch's covens and the Forsaken covens where women have some special standing with the darkness and can transform into hagravens. There are instances of classic sexism and stereotyping; for example, Aela in the Companions whose whole backstory is basically her trying to prove that she can fight as well as the men, or Jarl Elisef who has the whole court turn against her and see her as weak compared to her husband, more concerned with dresses and jewelry than war. It's true that there's no constant overwhelming reinforcement of gender stereotypes, but there are many, many people who see that as a good thing.

 

Drugs.... definitely about drugs....

Spoiler: re: end of Looking Glass

Alice and the White Knight walk and talk together, and Alice finds a friend in the eccentric chessman. He promises to bring her safely to the last square where she will become a queen. As they walk, he tells her about all of his inventions before sending her off with a song. She crosses the final brook and finds herself sitting on the bank with a crown on her head.

Alice finds herself in the company of the Red Queen and the White Queen, who question her relentlessly before falling asleep in her lap. The sound of their snoring resembles music. The sound is so distracting that Alice doesn’t notice when the two queens disappear. Alice discovers a castle with a huge door marked “QUEEN ALICE.” Alice goes through the door and finds a huge banquet in her honor. She sits and begins eating, but the party quickly devolves into total chaos. Overwhelmed, Alice pulls away the tablecloth and grabs the Red Queen.

Alice wakes up from her dream to find herself holding Kitty.

I guess Alice "wins" because she becomes queen?

 

I did notice that kids don't seem to age. Maybe people in the Skyrim universe reproduce by some different means to us. That would certainly explain the lack of understanding about sex.

I accepted the "post-gender" society in a place like Star Trek. In a society that's managed to traverse the stars, come up with things like the prime directive, and establish peaceful relations with several alien species its plausible to say they could move past gender differences. In a world like Skyrim where if you wander more then fifty feet off the main road you are in bandit controlled territory? I don't buy it.

That said it was probably a good marketing decision not to have gender effect stats.

 

Seems like a win to me! How many journeys with men end with the man becoming the ruler/leader/king or just getting the girl. lol

 

But you're thinking of it as if it started out with Earth's history and patriarchal culture and then would have had to evolve. This is a world where there are literal gods and demons. Boethiah destroyed a legion of ten thousand men by sighing once in their direction. Are you really going to catcall her? Meridia can literally bend the sun. Are you really going to tell her that women are too weak to play sports? I just don't think the idea of patriarchy would have ever really caught on in a world where there are plenty of women who are immortal and nearly omnipotent.

 

I have been struggling with that in our game. Because our setting is realistic without being "of this world" we have had big discussions on what to do with gender roles in-game. The game is for role players and role players like to be exact, precise, and just annoying about such stuff.

Our game has a variety of human cultures, each with their own values and traditions. So in some, women were equal or even set higher than men while in some, women were considered if not inferior, then at the very least in need of protection and admiration (chivalry).

I am not fond of using stats to define gender roles because as I said, we have different cultures. In our world, a woman could fight as well as a man but may choose not to do so or due to cultural pressures, may find it easier to challenge the norms. I don't want to limit women who want to play a fighting women or limit men either who wish to play a different sort of role. So instead, I think we will use other means to encourage players to role play within the cultural bounds or if they do not, they will deal with consequences, not always bad ones, sometimes actually good ones. Our lore does address most gender issues in some way or another and would be used as a the guide.

The easiest thing to do would be to emulate Skyrim but that seems rather bland. As a role playing game, it seems maybe some of the in-game issues might be great rp fodder. Or maybe they will cause real-life issues among the players. I guess we will see.

 

I read RockoDyne more neutrally. He is observing that there are not these great historical female explorers.... Traditionally men went out in the world to make their fortune, women got sold into marriage as part of the estate.... I think his first language is not English.... I don't think he intended to say women are not earthy, I think there was some spirit-animal kind of ideas there that appeal as an adventure story.... Where as women (traditional narrative) are more often the "prize".... Were talking arche/stereotypes, and he is talking about game motivation.

There are some opposite examples, but I never thought of them as "adventurers". Marie Antoinette might be re-cast as an adventurer, in a foreign land, essentially an outsider who has to rise to the top of the snootiest society ever....

Helen of Troy is my dream game - to do it from her point of view, as a conqueror (both of Troy, and of the Gods). At the end of the Trojan War Helen is basically "ya ya, nice you could finally get here but you see how I just walked through the door and it took you 10 years.... So let's go conquer Egypt on the way home!"

But we just don't read these characters as adventure heroes... You could do Marie Antoinette's early life as an adventure... maybe. LOL Helen though, it's court intrigue, it's a fighting game, it's gambling with Gods, it's got cougar sex... That game would have everything.

 

Okay, I see that.

Actually, there were a lot of female adventurers in the late 18th century, mostly European women who went to Africa to explore. They were sometimes with men but sometimes a couple of women would take off as well.

My great grandmother bought a car in the 1920's and set off from Wisconsin to California with a lady friend. From what I have heard, she was quite adventurous. I would consider that a journey for a woman during that time.

 

That's offensive to southern states and Alaska.

You could start with skyrim's model and have gender roles arise naturally from what the citizens are best at.

 

Women being farmers does still imply that women ended up tied in place, or rather tending the home. Then there is also Artemis who exemplifies the exact opposite relationship, where women were the hunters.

WHAT? Women can leave the kitchen? THIS CAN'T BE!!!!

The point I was trying to make is that the hero's journey offers less to female protagonists. There is still the boon to be had, but the analogues for character development don't really hold up. Pretty sure you can find Campbell saying something similar, probably better articulated.

Take a boy and send him on a quest and he comes back as a matured man. Send a girl off and she comes back more or less the same, which is also to say she was fairly mature from the beginning. Most female character growth tends to be either normalizing negative traits (which usually are completely cultural, although spoiled bitch seems to be universal) or about overcoming a trauma. Seriously, if you've got anything with decent female character growth I'll love you for ever and ever until the sun goes supernova.

 

Funny you should say that. We had a lot of role players who would create stories on our forums. One was about a huge uprising in one of the large cities of women fighting for the right to vote. I was surprised by this, to be honest. It had quite a large number of participants.

I had no idea women didn't have the right to vote since we had not addressed this in our lore...lol. More likely it would be the peasants that couldn't vote and they just missed that subtle difference.

That city will be one of the more "modern" of our cities now thanks to the input of the perspective players.

 

Relevant thoughts. So maybe my problem was they didn't sell the reasons gender was a non issue hard enough to cause suspension of disbelief. After all, I swallowed plenty of bigger things that were part of the mythos without blinking.

 

Just not articulate on that point. Trying to tie something from a couple pages ago was probably not the best idea.