[Banestorm] Female Adventurers

[Qoltar]

NOPE...bad writring on that character. I should know - one of my Californian Klingon friends , a woman warrior talked to Moore via e-mail about that one.

Vixis in STV:The Final Frontier was more to my liking.
OR even better a couple of the Klingon women that served on the Rotarran


or for that matter "Sir Rocky" from the movie Knightriders was really hot , she would fit right in as a Knight in the land of Caithness.


- Ed Charlton

[shawnhcorey]

Originally Posted by Qoltar

NOPE...bad writring on that character. I should know - one of my Californian Klingon friends , a woman warrior talked to Moore via e-mail about that one.

Well, her introduction was impressive, even if the character petered out.

Vixis in STV:The Final Frontier was more to my liking.
OR even better a couple of the Klingon women that served on the Rotarran

OK, Spice Williams played her part but I can't find a good picture of her on the web. Hints?

or for that matter "Sir Rocky" from the movie Knightriders was really hot , she would fit right in as a Knight in the land of Caithness.

Again, web references?

[Qoltar]

Knightriders info : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knightriders


Spice Williams as Vixis : http://www.imdb.com/gallery/hh/08184...tml?hint=group


- Ed Charlton

[DrTemp]

Originally Posted by Kromm

[...]
And if magic existed to ease childbirth, feed kids, and so forth, even the shaky biological arguments for chauvinism would erode rather quickly.
[...]

Not to mention the usefulness of the spells "Strike Barren" combined with "Restoration" or "Remove Curse". I believe birth control should influence women's rights more than anything else.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

You are the GM. Just say, "It shall be so." Banestorm is a guideline; nothing more, nothing less. Or should I point out, that in our (real world) history that there were plenty of women who disobeyed the "rules" and lived and fought as men?

"'Take what you like,' said God. 'Take it—and pay for it.'"

As GM, I'm free to say that the entire world where I am setting a campaign has few or no institutionalized sex roles that would interfere with women becoming adventurers. But the resulting society won't look much like the Middle Ages. And if I go beyond a partial equilibrium treatment, looking only at the direct impact of equal rights, to a general equilibrium treatment, looking at everything else that will have to change if women are on equal footing with men, it will be radically different from the Middle Ages, even if women's rights are only as advanced as, say, in England in 1935. At that point I'm not running medieval fantasy, but invented-world fantasy, and the point of using Yrth to do so is much less visible.

Or I can abandon any concern with larger social structure, and treat the society purely as a stage set on which the PCs can act. But that takes away one of the major sources of value I can provide as a GM.

Or, on the third hand, I can portray a society that more resembles the historical original, but has both exceptional individual women who've made their own way, and institutions that give larger numbers of women access to the adventuring professions, without overthrowing the entire Medieval paradigm. Which is what Banestorm does, as I read it. A fictional work that offers a plausible model for this is Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Shattered Chain, with its Guild of Free Amazons (before Bradley went all mystically feminist and renamed them the Guild of Renunciates).

[Mehmet]

It's all about the tone the people (your people, your players) like. We sometimes have lots of fun playing a pseudo-historical Vampire game where being a female has some very limiting consequences which dissolve through insane powers (well, I may be a woman but I am your Goddess!! (read, the one with Presence 5) So on your knees maggot!). But I'd never try to portray a world with male dominance when there are 18th level Black Robe mages with very feministic urges and a Goddess with very destructive urges (Dragon Lance). The real issue here is, games are supposed to be fun. If the female players like to have some form of pseudo Social Stigma for being a female AND then proving the chauvinist antagonists very, very wrong, go with it! If they find any mention of general prejudice offensive (individual antagonists may be ok but if the old lady on the street glances at you and mutters disgustedly about home/husband's side being the place of women... well, some find it very offensive) then you shouldn't go that way, it won't be fun! :) What I mean is, what's cannon for Yrth should be irrelevant here - or the case may be, very relevant as Phil Masters explained :)

Cheerio!

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

No, men do not. Men can grow muscles faster than women. If a man and a woman
started a weightlifting program, the man would plateau long before she did. At
which point he would get a new program and increase his muscles even more. But
his limit comes when he runs out of hours in the days. He has to spend certain
hours sleeping, eating, defecating. Eventually, the woman would catch up. Women
would be as strong as men if they were stupid enough to dedicate relentless
hours to building their muscles as men do.

But to tell you the truth, I like them strong and just a little soft and
squishable.

Men certainly do have more bodily strength on average, and the advantage remains with training unless effort is quite disproportionate. That in turn tends to cause problems (eg. body fat levels getting too low can cause some physiological problems). This is an unpleasant truth, but alas nature is amoral. Fortunately GMs and game rules don't have to be.

See this link for a discussion with excellent sources for how this could be modeled in GURPS.

[Phil Masters]

Bill, as usual, has it right.

Originally Posted by whswhs

Or, on the third hand, I can portray a society that more resembles the historical original, but has both exceptional individual women who've made their own way, and institutions that give larger numbers of women access to the adventuring professions, without overthrowing the entire Medieval paradigm. Which is what Banestorm does, as I read it.

That was certainly my general intention.

[Qoltar]

GURPS has always had an impied assumption that the Player Characters are "Big Damn Heroes" of some kind or at least unusual or above average in some way .

SO, women choosing to Adventure(!!) in a fantasy/Middle Ages-style world makes perfect sense for the GURPS game.

Still trying to find that web-page that real world examples of women fighting in the Middle Ages ...in the meantime I found THIS :

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olym.../wmnarmor.html

This page also has some interesting mini-biographies of Women Warriors from History : http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/essays/warrior.html

Oh, and Phil Masters? I like what you did in your updating of Yrth . Thank you! (Pass that along to Jonathan too. )

- Edmund Charlton

[Qoltar]

Found MORE examples..... Looks like Caithness is just catching up in some ways .

The 11th Century :
http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women11.html

The 12th Century :
http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women12.html

The 13th Century :
http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women13.html

And this page is a good article about Women Knights in the Middle Ages :
http://www.heraldica.org/topics/orders/wom-kn.htm


Hope those links are informative and useful for many of you.

- Edmund Charlton