The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

[Eldan]

Satyrs. And Centaurs.

[Red Fel]

Orks.

Warforged.

Atrox.

That's one from mini wargaming, one from tabletop rpgs, and one from videogames off the top of my head.

I don't know Atrox, but Da Orkz are a fungal lifeform; I don't think gender actually has a meaning for them. And Warforged are genderless constructs.

Dwarves, orcs? The females are described as 'nonexistant' or 'very manly, like their male counterparts'. Or just plain ignored.

For a long time I was amused by the idea of Dwarf women with lush beards, but popular media - including more recent TTRPGs - has depicted them as actually existing. Same with Orc females. So while the race is depicted as predominantly male, it's hardly exclusive.

Satyrs. And Centaurs.

I'll give you those. But see: Dryads, Nymphs.

[Milo v3]

And Centaurs.

Dragonlance's 3.5e Setting Book actually has a female centaur as it's "iconic" centaur.

[Segev]

I don't know Atrox, but Da Orkz are a fungal lifeform; I don't think gender actually has a meaning for them. And Warforged are genderless constructs.



For a long time I was amused by the idea of Dwarf women with lush beards, but popular media - including more recent TTRPGs - has depicted them as actually existing. Same with Orc females. So while the race is depicted as predominantly male, it's hardly exclusive.



I'll give you those. But see: Dryads, Nymphs.

You did ask more if there WERE male-only races, not if they outnumbered the female ones or had distaff counterpart races.

Most of the time, I think the reason it's "obvious" that a single-sexed race is "presented as female" while the contrary is dismissed is that we're back to "men are generic; women are special." It's notable if a race is all-girl, because we see girls front-and-center where we may not have expected it. It might take a while to realize, "We've never seen a female [member of race]," and then to be told, indeed, "there are none."

I think a lot of the "girl-only" sexes tend to actually be sexless, as well, but have female morphology because the writers wanted to play with femanine tropes and, if they bothered with justification, because the womb and the child-feeding-glands are things that are needed to raise children (hypothetically for a humanoid race, anyway).


This brings up something else: Remove all sexual primary and secondary characteristics, and you generally wind up with a "male" androgynous form. Give both (for a hermaphrodite, for example), and you usually wind up with something that looks "female." This is, I think, because we identify women and men more by whether or not there are obvious breasts, and otherwise rely on what are really tertiary (i.e. culturally chosen) physical traits, like hair style and clothing.

Put genderless androgynous creature in a dress and give him long hair, and we'll think "that's a girl." Put him in a suit and cut his hair short, and we'll think "that's a boy." He might be a "wiry" or "stringy" or even "pretty" boy, but...


On the other hand, physically, men can have a harder time passing as women just because a lot of men have less consciously obvious but still pronounced secondary traits, in the jaw, the shoulder width, etc. (Body shape isn't always indicative; "round" can disguise a lot of traits, and being dangerously skinny can do likewise.)


Second tangent: Whenever a single character from a race that has a trait that enables them to choose their gender, usually at puberty, as a permanent choice (i.e., not a shapeshifter or the like), it will almost always have a male protagonist and use this "I'm not a girl!" thing to create the tension of "will they/won't they" despite the fact that it's obvious they're going to. The not-yet-chosen-to-be-a-girl toys with being a rival, best friend, etc., but ultimately it's always "chooses to be a girl."

There's never the straight-up gender-flipped version, where the neuter character is paired with a female protagonist and ultimately chooses "boy" to be with her. Certainly, there's not the "I'm not a boy!" declaration that's so pronounced as the "technical truth" used in the going-to-be-a-girl version.

I know there's at least one anime where they're all girls until they "earn" being a boy, which is at least a different take on it (though I can hear all sorts of unfortunate implications cries coming out of that; for the record, I thought the anime was rather squicky and didn't get past the first episode, though that wasn't the reason).

It could be interesting to construct a love triangle around such a character: there's a male and a female love interest from a human or human-like race which has defined sexes from birth, so the neuter character has to make his choice in love interest before he reaches his physical decision-point.

Though to be fair, even the gender-flipped version would be interesting to see. Just try it with UQ Holder by playing my favorite game and a lot of stereotypes we may not even consciously appreciate will turn up.

[The Grue]

And a related note, a hypothesis: When a race is presented as a single gender (not counting genderless races), that gender is almost exclusively female. I can't think of anything to disprove this, off the top of my head. Anybody?

Hutts, perhaps?

[Cristo Meyers]

Hutts, perhaps?

I think Star Trek: TNG had a race of mono-gendered people... unfortunately the episode centered around Riker essentially teaching one to be a woman (identifying as one or the other was a massive cultural taboo).

I mean, the unfortunate implications didn't seem intentional (at least at the time), but look at it now and... yeah.

Oooh, there's one! Has anyone ever seen a male Twi'Lek in a Star Wars tabletop RPG, other than Bib Fortuna?

Did the two male Twi'leks that served in Rogue Squadron ever get statted up? Nawara Ven and... the one that only appeared in Bacta War and Krytos Trap to be a Proud Warrior Twi'lek?

Seems like Ven might've at least shown up in the old West End Games version in a sourcebook somewhere.

[The Grue]

I think Star Trek: TNG had a race of mono-gendered people... unfortunately the episode centered around Riker essentially teaching one to be a woman (identifying as one or the other was a massive cultural taboo).

I mean, the unfortunate implications didn't seem intentional (at least at the time), but look at it now and... yeah.

I recall well that episode; the character in question self-identified as female despite the cultural taboo and her own physiology.

I don't see the unfortunate implications you allude to. At worst it's a heavy-handed allegory.

[Steampunkette]

Yeah, Segev's got it right, more or less. We assume the default is male because of our societal expectations, even though the biologically default human body is "female".

Also worth noting: Gender is inherently separate from anatomy. Which, in the case of warforged, means there are only physically identified as masculine warforged while warforged of a variety of genders exist.

Atrox are part of Anarchy Online. Genegineered laborers and warriors. Big, strong, and not too bright.

Orks are biologically engineered warrior beings who do reproduce through spores. That doesn't make any member of the population anything but male, though.

I played Anarchy Online for about 2 weeks (not a great game) while Warhammer Online got about 2 hours before I got angry at the gender-locking of different races and classes. There are literally no female Ork characters: You can only make clearly identified male characters.

However I'll go ahead and point to the Smurfs. Gargamel -created- Smurfette as a construct. The other Smurfs are all invariably male. If you look around you'll see even more examples like these above, they just don't stick out as much...

Because they're the standard. The norm. It's female-specific races that stand out as different, unique, or odd enough to be remembered, specifically.

[Red Fel]

However I'll go ahead and point to the Smurfs. Gargamel -created- Smurfette as a construct. The other Smurfs are all invariably male. If you look around you'll see even more examples like these above, they just don't stick out as much...

Because they're the standard. The norm. It's female-specific races that stand out as different, unique, or odd enough to be remembered, specifically.

Once they introduced the kid-Smurfs, though, wasn't one of them female? Would that make her the only naturally-occurring female in the species? Also, how did the Smurfs reproduce prior to the introduction of Smurfette into their population? (Their toadstool homes suggest something akin to Da Orkz.) What does it mean to have a biological female in a race of creatures who, while biologically male, have had that physiology serve no function?

And why did James Cameron pick them as his model for science fiction?

[Shining Wrath]

Whenever I make an NPC I flip a coin to determine sex, so none of this is even a possibility of being an issue for my group.

I do this, too. Patron is a Baroness, her guard captain is male, first dungeon boss was male, first important NPC they met was female.

I also use the PHB tables to determine height and weight of all NPCs and encouraged the players to use them for their players. As it turned out, my DMPC is a 6' tall female wood elf who weighs 126 pounds and has low charisma. I'm playing her as looking like a model but being so sullen and withdrawn as to be almost uncommunicative (as the DMPC shouldn't talk much). The aforementioned Baroness wound up 5'5", 165 pounds, and I describe her as athletic, not fat. The guard captain wound up perfectly normal - for a dragonborn.

[Cristo Meyers]

I recall well that episode; the character in question self-identified as female despite the cultural taboo and her own physiology.

I don't see the unfortunate implications you allude to. At worst it's a heavy-handed allegory.

I just think that her education basically consisting of a romantic relationship with Riker (in other words, her femininity is fully realized in response to someone else's masculinity) causing more than a few people to cry foul, is all. Other than that it's pretty standard for it's time.

But it's neither here nor there.

[The Grue]

Also worth noting: Gender is inherently separate from anatomy.

This is an important point that is often lost in such discussions. If only for the sake of clarity we must be careful not to conflate "gender" with "sex"; gender is a matter of social convention, whereas sex is one of biology.

[Segev]

This is an important point that is often lost in such discussions. If only for the sake of clarity we must be careful not to conflate "gender" with "sex"; gender is a matter of social convention, whereas sex is one of biology.

I strongly suggest we shy away from this particular aspect of the topic, as it's one which can and likely will become...frought...if pursued. It is too much a sacred cow and otherwise uncomfortable subject for some people, to the point that it becomes impossible to discuss without offending somebody. Who is allowed to be offended and who is not varies from board to board, but it will inevitably lead to places we probably don't want to go.

Fortunately, the topic of the thread need not delve into that particular divide; "gender conventions" are about tropes rather than about how any particular person self-identifies or how they feel about it.

If we really want to discuss it, I propose as a "safe" area to discuss gender as projected onto physically sexless beings, such as warforged, and we shy away from it being separate from human(oid) phyical sex as a general topic.

[Steampunkette]

The aggressive disdain you show for the subject and anyone on the other side of it may have something to do with that.

[LogosDragon]

The aggressive disdain you show for the subject and anyone on the other side of it may have something to do with that.

I'm not sure that's fair. Even if he does have some disdain/bias or another, I think he's right; if it has the potential to start rule-skirting arguments, it should probably be avoided or, at most, taken up over PM.

[goto124]

No need to discuss at length, the distinction between 'gender' and 'sex' anyway, but I feel we shouldn't conflate them either. It helps for this discussion, such as the case of the neuter character. I won't argue this bit further.

I usually choose gender of my PCs based on how it relates to their personalities (I have a female barbarian and an effeminate male elf, their genders are part of their characterization), or if they're based off pre-existing characters (where I keep the genders because I see no reason to change it, and it keeps my pronouns in order).

For NPCs, it's either the pre-existing thing, or I look at how many genders are already in the game. For example, if there is 1 male PC and I'm throwing an NPC at him, the NPC will be female. Just so that male pronouns (he, his, him) refers exclusively to the PC, while the female pronouns (she, her, hers) refer to the NPC without ambiguity.

I ran a setting with a heterosexual couple. The female was described as young and innocent, while the male was described as burly and uncaring. I took my spin on them, by making the male abusive. The PCs got really angry at the male :D

Next time, I'll swap the roles and make the female abusive. I'll have to wait for the 'next time' though. Do you think I should change the male's and females's appearances to better fit their new personalities?

[Steampunkette]

I'm not sure that's fair. Even if he does have some disdain/bias or another, I think he's right; if it has the potential to start rule-skirting arguments, it should probably be avoided or, at most, taken up over PM.

It definitely does have that potential. I'm just saying that his disdain has been evident for a while. Specifically using loaded terms and phrases like orthodoxy, sacred cows, who is allowed to be offended, etc. It's all aggressively disdainful without being directly insulting to any specific poster. I'm surprised it didn't shut down the conversation several pages back. Very flamebaity.

[Amphetryon]

It definitely does have that potential. I'm just saying that his disdain has been evident for a while. Specifically using loaded terms and phrases like orthodoxy, sacred cows, who is allowed to be offended, etc. It's all aggressively disdainful without being directly insulting to any specific poster. I'm surprised it didn't shut down the conversation several pages back. Very flamebaity.

I have had many offline discussions where 'gender' was considered a loaded term; I'm not sure that your belief that some of a particular poster's phrases are loaded terms should be the deciding vote for what is, or is not, 'aggressively disdainful.'

[Hawkstar]

I don't know Atrox, but Da Orkz are a fungal lifeform; I don't think gender actually has a meaning for them. And Warforged are genderless constructs.

Da Orkz, while fungal, are completely masculine (Demonstrating overwhelming and exaggerated male secondary sexual characteristics: Broad shoulders, flat muscular chests, narrow waists and hips, square jawlines, facial hair and coarse facial features, very little excess fascia deposits, masculine muscle development, and deep voices). Even grotz, while pathetic, are still masculine.

I think most warforged tend to demonstrate masculine social traits (especially Expendability)

[Frozen_Feet]

Generally, when it comes to non-dimorphic and asexual species, we humans tend to think of them as being whatever gender their traits most resemble. Hence, my occasional answer to "where are all the female orcs/dwarves/whatever?" is "how'd you tell them apart in the first place?" We humans are used to sexual dimorphism and tend to exaggarate in our fiction.

Speaking of which, this has an interesting effect: quite often in case of sexually dimorphic fantasy creatures, the male creatures can be notably inhuman and ugly, yet the females are still designed to be attractive. Shades of this also appear every time "satyrs are all males" and "nymphs are all females" (etc.) gets explained by "the former is really the male of the species, and the latter is female". I'm hard-pressed to think of a single fantastic species where the male is conventionally attractive while the female is genuinely monstrous.

[goto124]

Next time I use a monstrous race, I'll say 'there's an equal mix of both males and female. Just that they look identical to the naked eye, and rely on sound/smell/etc to distinguish between the sexes'.

Like penguins, except penguins are really cute.

* Biological sexes, not genders.

[Ralanr]

A race based on a real world animal that is matriarchal in nature will be showcased as patriarchal in game.

I'm looking at you, Gnolls. While they could be based off stripped hyenas, I don't see stripes often. I may have made this point earlier.

Also, can I say that I don't like the concept of a love triangle simply because I don't see a triangle? B and C love A looks more like an arrow to me. A love triangle sounds more like A loves B, B loves C, and C loves A.

[goto124]

A race based on a real world animal that is matriarchal in nature will be showcased as patriarchal in game.

I'll hazard a guess and say it's research failure, or 'just didn't care'.

Reinforced by the writers living in a patriarchal society.

[Lord Torath]

Antman did this too. Ant workers are almost universally female, but the movie refers to them all as male.

[SpectralDerp]

So this thread is both still going and still not about games in particular?

A race based on a real world animal that is matriarchal in nature will be showcased as patriarchal in game.

Drow?

I'm looking at you, Gnolls.

Hyena social structures are far from well known to the majority of people, not sure I would make much of this.

[Ralanr]

Hyena social structures are far from well known to the majority of people, not sure I would make much of this.

As true as that may be, information is not as difficult to obtain as it once was (depending on the subject obviously, but hyena facts aren't very difficult).

It most likely is due to lack of research or little care to research. Which I get, there are times where I just don't bother to research things, sometimes because they're distracting from writing, not easy to type up (I'm ashamed how I have trouble describing what I mean through text sometimes) or I think I know enough.

Still kinda annoys me though.

I also have no idea what the Drow are based off of from real life if anything.

[Red Fel]

I also have no idea what the Drow are based off of from real life if anything.

It's likely that they were based in part on the Norse concept of Svartalfar, the Black Elves. The problem is that these were basically Dwarves, in that they were subterranean craftsmen.

Really, I think they just wanted some Evil Elves, and they figured everyone's scared of spiders, and slavery and murdering your family are all pretty Evil, and then they just threw it all into a pot one night after I assume they got super drunk...

... and the result was the Drow.

[goto124]

Antman did this too. Ant workers are almost universally female, but the movie refers to them all as male.

Did they? I watched the movie. I know there's one fly/ant called Anthony, which is a gender neutral name IIRC.

[Lord Torath]

I confess I have not watched the movie, but they did a science review of it on public radio (Science Friday, I think), and the gender of the ants was something they specifically brought up.

[Ralanr]

It's likely that they were based in part on the Norse concept of Svartalfar, the Black Elves. The problem is that these were basically Dwarves, in that they were subterranean craftsmen.

Really, I think they just wanted some Evil Elves, and they figured everyone's scared of spiders, and slavery and murdering your family are all pretty Evil, and then they just threw it all into a pot one night after I assume they got super drunk...

... and the result was the Drow.

And they decided black because it's the color most associated with evil?

Have they ever been sued over this? Or called racist?