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  1. - Top - End - #121
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    Segev's Avatar

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Understanding brings acceptance; one cannot really accept without understanding. One can ignore, allow, and tollerate, but one cannot accept without understanding.

    There is a conceit in some late-20th-century fiction exploring alien and higher intelligences that these non-human, oft-portrayed-as-superior minds would be puzzled, troubled, or condescendingly amused by the human obsession with naming things. As if it were both primitive and limiting, and kept us from truly accepting and appreciating what something is due to our requirement to label.

    This is a conceit I have, through no small part in my own scholarly studies as I learned how the brain works in my efforts to create better artificial computational systems inspired by it, come to realize is not just wrong, but exactly opposite of the truth. The ancients who wrote of magic had it right: in names lie power, and knowing a thing's name gives you power over it.

    I don't mean this in a mystical sense, nor am I saying there really are "truenames." But having a word, a label, that encompasses a concept actually crystalizes that concept in the human mind. It enables that concept to be joined to other concepts, relationships to be explored, examined, and discovered, and empowers the human mind to create and understand in ways that were previously impossible. A label, a name, a word makes a thing exist for the human thought process in a way that is useful.

    Never allow yourself to be caught up in the falsely high-minded trap of dismissing understanding as somehow a bad thing. Understanding something is never, under any circumstances, bad. It is always, always useful. To understand allows one to accept or reject; one cannot truly do either without understanding, for lack of understanding means that you don't know what it is you are truly accepting or rejecting. Only by understanding it can you recognize it in all its forms and embrace that which you find praiseworthy and shun that which you find offensive. It is a tool of those who know what they propose is in your worse interests, or against your desires or moral compass, to convince you to accept without understanding (and, though they will further cloak it in pretty words, reject other things without undrestanding).

    In this fashion does "tollerance" become a soft and fuzzy term that is used to form rigid, intollerant attitudes that require acceptance of anything they choose to claim fits something incompletely understood but "accepted," and require rejection as heresy anything which might bring into question the orthodox idea, again without permitting understanding lest, through understanding, minds be engaged to think on something logically, and that which is praiseworthy no longer be rejected and that which should be shunned no longer be accepted.

  2. - Top - End - #122
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    BlueKnightGuy

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Hawkstar View Post
    What do you mean by this?
    Gender is a mess. In discussions about it I have trouble seeing what is presented as fact. I see opinions too much and people sparking conflict when they cannot support their opinion (which I've done in the past and sadly, may do in the future. Hopefully not as often). People argue ethics and morality as all knowing truths when for all we know they are just creations of the human mind. I usually try to avoid bringing my opinion up due to how it brings up religious views and how people feel undermined when told their personal religious beliefs should not be brought up as a fact in the discussion.

    Doing so makes both parties jerks. Putting their personal beliefs as above the other by putting the others below.

    Though that's probably seen mostly as negative extremes on the Internet, ignited by trolls who want to see others get frustrated.

    My point has flaws, ones personal beliefs have great impact on their opinion on something. But we need to know when it is right to judge by our opinion or judge by facts.

    Facts seem to be hard to find.

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Understanding brings acceptance; one cannot really accept without understanding. One can ignore, allow, and tollerate, but one cannot accept without understanding.

    There is a conceit in some late-20th-century fiction exploring alien and higher intelligences that these non-human, oft-portrayed-as-superior minds would be puzzled, troubled, or condescendingly amused by the human obsession with naming things. As if it were both primitive and limiting, and kept us from truly accepting and appreciating what something is due to our requirement to label.

    This is a conceit I have, through no small part in my own scholarly studies as I learned how the brain works in my efforts to create better artificial computational systems inspired by it, come to realize is not just wrong, but exactly opposite of the truth. The ancients who wrote of magic had it right: in names lie power, and knowing a thing's name gives you power over it.

    I don't mean this in a mystical sense, nor am I saying there really are "truenames." But having a word, a label, that encompasses a concept actually crystalizes that concept in the human mind. It enables that concept to be joined to other concepts, relationships to be explored, examined, and discovered, and empowers the human mind to create and understand in ways that were previously impossible. A label, a name, a word makes a thing exist for the human thought process in a way that is useful.

    Never allow yourself to be caught up in the falsely high-minded trap of dismissing understanding as somehow a bad thing. Understanding something is never, under any circumstances, bad. It is always, always useful. To understand allows one to accept or reject; one cannot truly do either without understanding, for lack of understanding means that you don't know what it is you are truly accepting or rejecting. Only by understanding it can you recognize it in all its forms and embrace that which you find praiseworthy and shun that which you find offensive. It is a tool of those who know what they propose is in your worse interests, or against your desires or moral compass, to convince you to accept without understanding (and, though they will further cloak it in pretty words, reject other things without undrestanding).

    In this fashion does "tollerance" become a soft and fuzzy term that is used to form rigid, intollerant attitudes that require acceptance of anything they choose to claim fits something incompletely understood but "accepted," and require rejection as heresy anything which might bring into question the orthodox idea, again without permitting understanding lest, through understanding, minds be engaged to think on something logically, and that which is praiseworthy no longer be rejected and that which should be shunned no longer be accepted.
    Understanding does bring acceptance, though I guess I failed to get my view across. I try to just not care about things like gender. What I usually care about is the ability to do what you want as long as it doesn't harm others. I don't think race, gender, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs should have a grand effect on how the world treats you.

    I guess I just try to have my view be, "Do what makes you happy. Unless it affects me, then I'm not bothered." Though that might be an irresponsible worldview.

    Sorry if all of that doesn't make sense or sounds hypocritical. I've been having trouble explaining my points for the past year for some reason.
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    "Just because the DM lets you break the game, doesn't mean the game is broken."
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    "My Patron is Steven Spielberg"
    Quote Originally Posted by CNagy View Post
    For some reason this feels really fitting; I got a mental image of a bunch of psions setting up a LAN party.

  3. - Top - End - #123
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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    "Live and let live" is just fine. I try to do pretty much that. I only get up in (rhetorical) arms when somebody tries to claim that "live and let live" means I must change my life and culture to accommodate with special, new privileges and treatment. "Live and let live" means you also let me live and leave me alone; you don't get to demand that I behave a certain way to make you more comfortable, either.

  4. - Top - End - #124
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    BlueKnightGuy

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    "Live and let live" is just fine. I try to do pretty much that. I only get up in (rhetorical) arms when somebody tries to claim that "live and let live" means I must change my life and culture to accommodate with special, new privileges and treatment. "Live and let live" means you also let me live and leave me alone; you don't get to demand that I behave a certain way to make you more comfortable, either.
    Yes. This. Thank you.
    Quote Originally Posted by Forum Explorer View Post
    "Just because the DM lets you break the game, doesn't mean the game is broken."
    Quote Originally Posted by Steampunkette View Post
    "My Patron is Steven Spielberg"
    Quote Originally Posted by CNagy View Post
    For some reason this feels really fitting; I got a mental image of a bunch of psions setting up a LAN party.

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ralanr View Post
    Gender is a mess. In discussions about it I have trouble seeing what is presented as fact. I see opinions too much and people sparking conflict when they cannot support their opinion (which I've done in the past and sadly, may do in the future. Hopefully not as often).
    Discussions about gender suffer from the fact that it can be used to refer to

    1) grammatical categories,
    2) sex (in the sense of male/female),
    3) a person's own sense of being male/female/neither/both/X,
    4) all of the above
    5) JOKER!

    Once someone takes a step back and decides to establish a convention with regards to which words are used how, problems pertaining to vagueness go away. All this highlights is that the overwhelming majorit of people has never learned to actually think rigorously about arguments and sneak in a number of associations into what they are saying. Another example that highlights that the problem is with expression used and not the content is the word "faith" in the english language, because it is both used as a label for any religious relief and for beliefs that aren't supported. This occurs less frequently in languages where the corresponding expressions differ.

    TLDR: People think they can think logically but fail at homonyms.

  6. - Top - End - #126
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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    There is that convention and you sort of allude to it there. Gender is identity while sex is the biological reality. That people don't use conventions when talking or worse still intentionally equivocate them is what makes it hard, but there is a "proper" way to use those terms.
    Me: I'd get the paladin to help, but we might end up with a kid that believes in fairy tales.
    DM: aye, and it's not like she's been saved by a mysterious little girl and a band of real live puppets from a bad man and worse step-sister to go live with the faries in the happy land.
    Me: Yeah, a knight in shining armour might just bring her over the edge.

  7. - Top - End - #127
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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Am I the only person here to have ever played in a game where a male PC was encouraged to go seduce a female NPC? At this point, I'm actually kinda wondering.
    Quote Originally Posted by Oko and Qailee View Post
    Man, I like this tiefling.
    For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Honest Tiefling View Post
    Am I the only person here to have ever played in a game where a male PC was encouraged to go seduce a female NPC? At this point, I'm actually kinda wondering.
    My DMs have my male characters get clubbed in the head and dragged off by Amazonian/Drow/Green skinned space alien princesses, so it's similar but more assertive.

    On gender roles in a more general sense, my male characters have a track record for being the most likely members of the party to end up being damsel in distressed. 9/10 times by something like an Amazonian/Drow/Green skinned space alien princess.
    Last edited by Yukitsu; 2015-07-01 at 12:57 PM.
    Me: I'd get the paladin to help, but we might end up with a kid that believes in fairy tales.
    DM: aye, and it's not like she's been saved by a mysterious little girl and a band of real live puppets from a bad man and worse step-sister to go live with the faries in the happy land.
    Me: Yeah, a knight in shining armour might just bring her over the edge.

  9. - Top - End - #129
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    BlueKnightGuy

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Honest Tiefling View Post
    Am I the only person here to have ever played in a game where a male PC was encouraged to go seduce a female NPC? At this point, I'm actually kinda wondering.
    No. I had such a moment. But I didn't do it because I used to have a crush on my DM, it felt pretty awkward to me.

    Other than that I haven't really done romance or seduction in tabletops.

    Edit: I was being hit on by a fellow pirate who (didn't know at the time) was the daughter of the pirate lord of the dock we just shipped off. He was a cool guy though, one of the more likable ones.
    Last edited by Ralanr; 2015-07-01 at 12:56 PM.

  10. - Top - End - #130
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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    If you want to understand sex and gender, it's useful to divide feminine and masculine traits into following categories:

    Primary sexual characteristics: in short, which kind of gonads you have. Penis and testicles for males, vagina, womb and ovaries for females. Roughly 49.5% of people have the male set, while 49.5% have the female set, with the remaining 1% divided between those who have neither or have a bit of both. Also includes genetic make-up, mostly differences in sex chromosomes.

    Secondary sexual characteristics: results of biological sexual dimorphism which are directly or tangentially related to the primary ones. Examples: wider hips for females, broader shoulders for males. This also encompasses some psychological and behavioral trends, such as sexual preferences: above 90% men prefer females and 95% of females prefer males. Basically anything which can be traced and attributed to differences in sex crhomosomes and hormonal influence falls here. However, secondary traits vary much more than primary traits: for example, males are typically taller than females, but there's enough variance that you can easily find some women who are taller than some men.

    Tertiary sexual characteristics: these are traits culturally assigned to sexes. They have only tangential or no connection to biology. Examples include lenght of hair, clothing, make-up, naming conventions, whether red is manly color or not, whether blue is womanly color or not, those sorts of things. They also include lot of behavioral traits which occur both in males and females, but appear more commonly or more strongly in one than the other. Example: physical aggression and violence. We have no shortage of aggressive and violent women, but since men produce more testosterone which strenghtens their impulses and makes them think less of themselves, we see men acting more overtly aggressive and violent. Hence, aggressiveness and violence come to be seen as domains of men. And, since femininity and masculinity are juxtaposed in our culture, women come to be seen as passive, even though in truth they're merely less aggressive, which is not quite the same thing.

    The word "sex" is concerned with biological characteristics - primary and secondary ones. Gender, meanwhile, is concerned with the social and cultural aspects, so mainly focuses on the tertiary ones. Majority of arguments over sex and gender are about whether a trait falls under tertiary or secondary characteristics, or secondary or primary characteristics.

    The variance found in secondary and tertiary traits is the root behind the statements "gender is non-binary" and "gender is a cultural/social construct". Both are true to an extent, though not to the extent the most radical proponents claim. Pretty much all people who don't comfortably fit into male nor female can be described as a mixture of those two (or neither), like the ancient Greeks did (they had manly men, womanly men, neuters, manly women and womanly women).

    The value judgements made of certain traits are the other major source of contention. For example, suppose you're born a woman - you clearly have primary sexual characteristics of a woman - but then grow up to be really tall and muscular and are very assertive by nature. By your secondary and tertiary traits, you are hence less feminine than someone who'd be smaller, slimmer and passive. If you live in a culture where only very feminine women are considered attractive, you might find the notion that you're "less of a woman" to be rather objectionable. Something which could be a trivial statement becomes a matter of identity and self-esteem.

    If you think of the above, you'll also realize that transgenderism and transsexualism, though commonly used interchangeably, are not the same thing. Transgenderism is a choice of social role - choosing to live as a different gender than was assigned to you by society. Transsexualism is a physical condition, requiring actual bodily transformation to treat and achieve properly. For obvious reasons, most transsexual inviduals double as transgender ones, but there's a semantic difference which becomes relevant if you want to discuss, say, transmedicalism (=the belief that being trans is primarily a medical condition and you don't qualify if you don't have gender dysphoria, which is a diagnostic criteria for transsexualism).
    "It's the fate of all things under the sky,
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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    Gender, meanwhile, is concerned with the social and cultural aspects, so mainly focuses on the tertiary ones.

    [...]

    Transgenderism is a choice of social role - choosing to live as a different gender than was assigned to you by society. Transsexualism is a physical condition, requiring actual bodily transformation to treat and achieve properly.
    No.

    Medically speaking, a persons gender is that persons sense of belonging to a certain sex and transgenderism is having a sense of not belonging to the sex one belongs to, that is to say, having a mismatched gender and sex. It's not a choice, but rather a serious mental condition which can in distress and discomfort resulting from this mismatched gender, which is called gender dysphoria, which is a mental disorder that often results in suicide. Bodily transformation through hormone therapy and surgery is "required" in the sense that there is nothing available to modern medicine which has a greater impact in reducing suicide rates. Or maybe not.
    Last edited by SpectralDerp; 2015-07-01 at 02:15 PM.

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by SpectralDerp View Post
    Bodily transformation through hormone therapy and surgery is "required" in the sense that there is nothing available to modern medicine which has a greater impact in reducing suicide rates.
    There is actually no evidence that the physical surgeries and treatments actually reduce suicide rates. Even constructing the experiment pool is hard to do, because of the self-reporting and cultural stigma natures of the condition.

    I would honestly prefer we not continue discussing whether the physical transformation procedures are good or not; it's one of those subject areas where only orthodoxy is tolerated because contrary views are considered "cruel" or "mean" or "bigotry," without worthiness of examination.

    And there is a question which I feel all but compelled to ask which I know would insult people, though I fail to understand why it is insulting while the contrary is "empowering."

    As I do not wish to ask that question, but this conversation cannot actually be anything but a orthodoxy-only echo chamber without it or similar ones being permitted, I strongly suggest that we leave this particular subject alone. Perhaps restricting ourselves to fantasy settings wherein magical means do exist for 100% true and genuine transformations of bodies and minds.


    Heck, in D&D, bestow curse could ironically be considered a blessing if used to "curse" somebody to the opposite physical sex...and they liked it that way. (It's the listed spell used to make the infamous belt of masculinity/femininity.)

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    The leader of the secret organization is rarely in their elder years and if so, is never female.

    I for one would need a pair of brown pants if an elderly woman was in charge of the resistance group that's been sabotaging my empire or surviving for so long under it. You don't reach that age in that kind of life easy, so whatever she'd done before would worry me.

    And if it turns out she's been a normal person her entire life, I might lock my door. If someone with no experience seems to be making a good effort against you, their is either something wrong or they're unconsciously very good if not lucky.
    Quote Originally Posted by Forum Explorer View Post
    "Just because the DM lets you break the game, doesn't mean the game is broken."
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    "My Patron is Steven Spielberg"
    Quote Originally Posted by CNagy View Post
    For some reason this feels really fitting; I got a mental image of a bunch of psions setting up a LAN party.

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ralanr View Post
    The leader of the secret organization is rarely in their elder years and if so, is never female.
    You mean like Lady Stoneheart, or older than that?

    I can't really think of any other examples though. Old people don't come up much in media outside of wizards who rarely do anything proactive.
    Quote Originally Posted by Inevitability View Post
    Greater
    \ˈgrā-tər \
    comparative adjective
    1. Describing basically the exact same monster but with twice the RHD.
    Quote Originally Posted by Artanis View Post
    I'm going to be honest, "the Welsh became a Great Power and conquered Germany" is almost exactly the opposite of the explanation I was expecting

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    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    There is actually no evidence that the physical surgeries and treatments actually reduce suicide rates. Even constructing the experiment pool is hard to do, because of the self-reporting and cultural stigma natures of the condition.
    It was my belief that statistics had shown that suicide rates were significantly higher among transgender people who had not undergone surgery when compared to those who had, but I had not checked these statistics for rigor myself and I can see the difficulties with getting an accurate picture, so I'll withdraw my earlier statement and change it to

    "Bodily transformation through hormone therapy and surgery is "required" in the sense that there is nothing available to modern medicine which seems to have a greater impact in reducing suicide rates."

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Again, I don't think there is that statistical evidence of reduced suicides. And I still am abjured from asking what seems a painfully obvious question due to it being likely to cause offense despite being honestly meant.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Flickerdart View Post
    You mean like Lady Stoneheart, or older than that?

    I can't really think of any other examples though. Old people don't come up much in media outside of wizards who rarely do anything proactive.
    Who is this old lady and where does she appear?

    Also, Pathfinder has an iconic character that's transgender. There is a campaign that has a story element in helping someone change their gender.

    And there is a half-Orc iconic born from consensual sex. He was kidnapped after he was born...but not a rape baby. (Yeah this is random. I just like that Paizo reworks things. )
    Last edited by Ralanr; 2015-07-01 at 02:30 PM.

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ralanr View Post
    Who is this old lady and where does she appear?
    Spoiler: A Feast for Crows (and possibly next season of Game of Thrones) spoilers
    Show

    Lady Stoneheart is the leader of the Brotherhood Without Banners, a group of rebels who fight against the ruling dynasty and the houses that support them. In the books she is 35, but in the show the character that would become Lady Stoneheart is portrayed by a 51 year old actress.
    Quote Originally Posted by Inevitability View Post
    Greater
    \ˈgrā-tər \
    comparative adjective
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    Quote Originally Posted by Artanis View Post
    I'm going to be honest, "the Welsh became a Great Power and conquered Germany" is almost exactly the opposite of the explanation I was expecting

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    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    I know this is probably besides the point you were trying to make, but you reminded me of one: When you have a "boys-only club" (whether a class, 'school,' society, or whatever), it almost seems inevitable that there will be the tale of the girl who pretends to be a boy in order to get in. And this will almost invariably be portrayed as a positive thing, breaking gender barriers and showing up unwarranted bias. When you have a "girls-only club," however, it is almost unheard-of for there to be a boy-pretending-to-be-a-girl to get in, and if there is, he's portrayed at his most sympathetic as a misguided jerk intruding where he is not wanted, and more often as some sort of nefarious infiltrator.

    The only time the boy-as-girl pretense to be in a "girls-only club" is played positively is when the boy is forced into it by external circumstances, is highly uncomfortable with it, and it is played still as a joke on him and with the understanding that the girls-only organization is within its rights to be upset at him if they find out. (The boys-only organization is usually portrayed as in the wrong if it is upset with the girl faking masculinity to get in.)

    In addition, the reveal of the girl-in-the-boys'-club will usually lead to the boys'-club realizing the error of their segregationist ways and allowing women in from then on. The reveal of the boy-in-the-girls'-club will almost never result in that. He'll be ousted, sometimes with a "but we like you so you're welcome as a guest" sop should the boy's reasons be reasonable enough and it have been sufficiently forced upon him.
    Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamara Pierce is an example of this. Alana must disguise herself as "Alan" to enter training to become a knight, but her brother Thom, does not need to disguise himself as a girl to take her place at a monastery (where he learns magic). And after The Reveal, Knighthood is again opened up to both men and women.

    Later on in the timeline (Protector of the Small Quartet, about the first openly-female knight-in-training since The Reveal) the queen has a personal guard that is entirely female (noble ladies who can ride, shoot, and dance). The King's Own is a 300-strong force made up entirely of single young noblemen. But no-one attempts to "infiltrate" either group that I'm aware of.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ralanr View Post
    The leader of the secret organization is rarely in their elder years and if so, is never female.

    I for one would need a pair of brown pants if an elderly woman was in charge of the resistance group that's been sabotaging my empire or surviving for so long under it. You don't reach that age in that kind of life easy, so whatever she'd done before would worry me.

    And if it turns out she's been a normal person her entire life, I might lock my door. If someone with no experience seems to be making a good effort against you, their is either something wrong or they're unconsciously very good if not lucky.
    Counter-example: The assassins' guild on the Air world in the Death Gate Cycle (Hugh the Hand is a member of) is lead by an old (one might say ancient - 100+ years old, which is OLD for elves in the series) elf woman.

    Edit: I had a female halfling thief as a PC. She's in the "Here Lies _____" thread.
    Last edited by Lord Torath; 2015-07-01 at 02:53 PM.
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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Steampunkette View Post
    Agreed on Eberron! Changelings are pretty much my favorite race, ever.

    and yeah. The girdle is super helpful. But then you get into individuals who aren't male or female, are some blending of the two, or whose gender doesn't lie on the imagined male-female spectrum...

    And that's where you're gonna need more than a 2nd level spell slot to make things fit what lies inside.
    I see no reason someone couldn't invent an upgraded version of the girdle capable of doing all of the above.

    Quote Originally Posted by Honest Tiefling View Post
    Am I the only person here to have ever played in a game where a male PC was encouraged to go seduce a female NPC? At this point, I'm actually kinda wondering.
    Been there, done that.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cirrylius View Post
    That's how wizards beta test their new animals. If it survives Australia, it's a go. Which in hindsight explains a LOT about Australia.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SpectralDerp View Post
    No.

    Medically speaking, a persons gender is that persons sense of belonging to a certain sex and transgenderism is having a sense of not belonging to the sex one belongs to, that is to say, having a mismatched gender and sex. It's not a choice, but rather a serious mental condition which can in distress and discomfort resulting from this mismatched gender, which is called gender dysphoria, which is a mental disorder that often results in suicide. Bodily transformation through hormone therapy and surgery is "required" in the sense that there is nothing available to modern medicine which has a greater impact in reducing suicide rates. Or maybe not.
    You are not arguing against anything I said, you are just tripping yourself up by using transgender synonymously with transsexual. Do you know why I recommend separating the two? Because there are people who identify as transgender but do not suffer from gender dysphoria. Since gender is supposed to be about social constructs and roles anyway, the logical way is to use the word "transgender" for those people, and use the word "transsexual" for those with the medical condition.
    "It's the fate of all things under the sky,
    to grow old and wither and die."

  22. - Top - End - #142
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    Steampunkette's Avatar

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    It seems logical, but it's really a bad idea...

    Transsexual has a lot of heavily negative connotations to it that have made it a bad word within the community, for the most part.

    For that reason, within the community we generally don't differentiate between operative and nonoperative trans individuals. If it's something you want to do, great. If it isn't, awesome.

    And then you get into stuff like Demigender, Genderfluid, and more. All of which are perfectly valid expressions of a person's being, but are generally maligned outside of the community (and in it within certain circles like the Truscum) as being "Illogical" or "Made Up".

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Steampunkette View Post
    It seems logical, but it's really a bad idea...

    Transsexual has a lot of heavily negative connotations to it that have made it a bad word within the community, for the most part.

    For that reason, within the community we generally don't differentiate between operative and nonoperative trans individuals. If it's something you want to do, great. If it isn't, awesome.

    And then you get into stuff like Demigender, Genderfluid, and more. All of which are perfectly valid expressions of a person's being, but are generally maligned outside of the community (and in it within certain circles like the Truscum) as being "Illogical" or "Made Up".
    Words only have the power you give them. Turning words of hatred to words that belong to the community is a good step.

    Example: the N-word.

    Course I could be misremembering my communication studies.
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    "Just because the DM lets you break the game, doesn't mean the game is broken."
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    For some reason this feels really fitting; I got a mental image of a bunch of psions setting up a LAN party.

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    It's a pretty thought. It doesn't always reflect reality. For example you used the phrase N word, which shows you clearly acknowledge the power it still has. Using the Word to describe a specific subset of black folks for distinctive language purposes would probably not fly well.

    Kinda in the early part of that for most trans people. Especially to have people outside the community casually dropping it.

    Time and distance are required to defang that kind of thing.

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    RangerGuy

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Actually, I think the N word is not allowed on these forums.

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Allow me to rephrase. A large enough portion of the trans community that it is more or less accepted as something most people don't use unless they're applying it to themself. Like Tranny. Which a painful amount of gay men feel is appropriate to use to describe their trans friends or acquaintances.

    I'm also not really surprised that one isn't filtered...
    Last edited by Steampunkette; 2015-07-01 at 09:36 PM.

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    Griffon

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yukitsu View Post
    My DMs have my male characters get clubbed in the head and dragged off by Amazonian/Drow/Green skinned space alien princesses, so it's similar but more assertive.
    Now, let's flip the genders on THIS situation!

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    Zombie

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    Quote Originally Posted by Hawkstar View Post
    Now, let's flip the genders on THIS situation!
    My female characters all get attacked by tentacle monsters from just about every published random encounter table AND all my female characters will only (but chronically) suffer clothes based damage from crit fumble/success charts even when that's only a 2% chance and even when it's always out in open rolls.

    Basically it's pretty awful no matter which way you slice it. Worse part is, for dudes it's typically because I usually roll appearance as a stat (mostly for fun) and haven't had below a 16 on a 4d6 best of 3 in like, ever, and when prompted to make appearance stat checks, I usually roll multiple 20s.
    Me: I'd get the paladin to help, but we might end up with a kid that believes in fairy tales.
    DM: aye, and it's not like she's been saved by a mysterious little girl and a band of real live puppets from a bad man and worse step-sister to go live with the faries in the happy land.
    Me: Yeah, a knight in shining armour might just bring her over the edge.

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    RangerGuy

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    The real question is why were they clubbed and dragged off (presumbly prisoned)?

    Though it does happen regularly to PCs of all sexes and genders.
    Last edited by goto124; 2015-07-01 at 10:03 PM.

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    Default Re: The most resilient gender conventions in roleplaying games?

    The Princess who needs to get rescued by the party can be a 10th level character when it comes to bluffing the party about her true goals, but Goblins and Orcs can take her out instantaneously when it is time to get kidnapped.

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