[Banestorm] Female Adventurers

[LoneWolf23k]

I'd nearly forgotten, but GURPS Arabian Nights' characters chapter does include a section on female characters, pointing out some concepts:

-Bedouin maidens trained in riding and combat, either because they were brought up as boys, or because they seek to emulate old tales of female war-leaders, and are excused out of pragmatism.

-The children of academics and wizards, who were eccentric enough to pass on their knowledge to their daughters. Likewise, "feminine" skills such as singing, medecine and psychology would be valuable anywhere; Scheherazade herself used such skills.

-(One idea I found interesting) a female character escorted by 2 or 3 allies - her brothers, who have good combat skills and the sense to defer to her shrewdness.

...Mind you, I'd imagine the first real adventure a female PC from Al-Haz (and to a lesser extent, from Al-Wazif) would be to pack her things and leave for freer pastures ASAP.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Mehmet

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!

Well, yes, but that criterion can be handled in more than one way. I don't start out with a fixed group of players, choose a campaign to run, and then reshape it to fit the desires of the players. Instead, I come up with a range of campaigns to run, with things like roles for women being handled differently in different campaigns according to my conception of the artistic integrity of the setting. Then I circulate the list among possible players and see which ones attract strong player constituencies. If the players think an Yrth campaign with medieval sex roles (or a relaxed interpretation thereof) doesn't sound like fun, they don't get to ask me to change the campaign setting to gratify them; instead they get to pick a different campaign that doesn't have institutionalized sexism.

My current list of choices has two fantasy campaigns with distinct sex roles, one in GURPS Banestorm and one in King Arthur Pendragon, and one fantasy campaign without, in Exalted. Plus Dying Mars, which is in GURPS, is planetary romance (a close relative of historical fantasy), and does not have to have institutionalized sexism, because it's set on an ancient dying planet with entirely different customs.

[JAW]

Hmh. Would some kind of social stigma or similar disad be appropriate for female warrior/adventurer characters in yrth? Maybe they'd just be labelled "weird" and get reaction penalties from any "conservative" people. Pagan lands might be an expection but anyone coming from there to Megalos, Cardiel, etc..would hawe a "barbarian" social stigma to begin with anyway, right? For fairnes sake if the GM is going to giwe hard time to felame characters in any more than slight annoyance it should eb represented by a disad to giwe the character the CPS to offset it. Maybe ewen a suitably modified enemy disads might work. But currently I don't feel my gurps fu is powerful enough to come up with it.. Anyone want to take a shot?

Also how about widoved women - from what I got form 3rdE G.fantasy widows often hawe more freedom and resources in Yrth than most women.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by JAW

Hmh. Would some kind of social stigma or similar disad be appropriate for female warrior/adventurer characters in yrth? Maybe they'd just be labelled "weird" and get reaction penalties from any "conservative" people. Pagan lands might be an expection but anyone coming from there to Megalos, Cardiel, etc..would hawe a "barbarian" social stigma to begin with anyway, right? For fairnes sake if the GM is going to giwe hard time to felame characters in any more than slight annoyance it should eb represented by a disad to giwe the character the CPS to offset it. Maybe ewen a suitably modified enemy disads might work. But currently I don't feel my gurps fu is powerful enough to come up with it.. Anyone want to take a shot?

I tend to model a lot of premodern, realistically portrayed societies as having a -5 point Social Stigma for women in general. Women who grievously depart from social expectations get a -10 point Social Stigma—for example, "unchaste woman" in many societies is that level of stigma. If the penalties are not from people generally but from the conservative, I'd either make it a Reputation (with Always Recognized) or give the conservative people Intolerance of such women.

[JAW]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I tend to model a lot of premodern, realistically portrayed societies as having a -5 point Social Stigma for women in general. Women who grievously depart from social expectations get a -10 point Social Stigma—for example, "unchaste woman" in many societies is that level of stigma.

Maybe in most countries of Ytarria "independent woman" might be -5 or -10 points SS depending on how sewerely th eindividual breaks the social norm and where. A legitimate wife or widow or caithnessian female knigth migth not hawe any spesific disad. Though when they go trawelling to other countries they might get that by default again..

Originally Posted by whswhs

If the penalties are not from people generally but from the conservative, I'd either make it a Reputation (with Always Recognized) or give the conservative people Intolerance of such women.

Well I'd say the conservatives would hawe intolerance to any individual blatantly deviating from social norm. A male that insisted on wearing dresses and leartning "feminine" skills would receive at least as bad reaction, right?

-10 social stigma and some positive reps to ofset it might work too for a warrior woman with attitude that has prowen she "kicks ass".. (a bit cliched maybe but might be fun to play..)

EDIT: Simply assigning a female character lower status might work. I'ts in the "social ranks in megalos" chapter that commoners wifes are treated as one "rank" lower than their husband. An awerage unmarried maid might not hawe social stigma but simply status -1 (servant) as would hawe a wife of awerage satus 0 "freeman"... yup RAW seems to work fine here. Social stigma would giwe reaction penalties from about eweryone but the status 0 wife of a status 1 craftman should really not get those from teh awerage freeman much les from say the status -1 stable hand.

[NWGamer]

Originally Posted by shawnhcorey

Well, her introduction was impressive, even if the character petered out.
OK, Spice Williams played her part but I can't find a good picture of her on the web. Hints?

http://www.spicewilliams.com/index.htm

[Qoltar]

I could see this woman or one like her being a believable Knight in Caithness :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Everson

- Ed Charlton

[Qoltar]

Or this woman:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_McLish

Could also be a believable Female Adventurer in a place like Yrth.

- Ed Charlton

[David Johnston]

Well whatever gender role limitations a society feels inclined to put on it's people, I doubt they're going to be applied to people who have magic aptitude all that often, in a normal mana area. Magical aptitude is just too valuable. Although I suppose they might decide some fields of magic are the girly ones.

[joelbf]

I guess you could argue that being able to give birth is too valuable ...