Gender and Social Roles in Worldbuilding

[Generic-Guy]

Warning! I expect that this Thread will involve a big amount of RAGE!

Spoiler: Disclaimer... or so....

Show

Thread-Title 100% stolen from BladeofObliviom.
This needed its own Thread!

That said, while this topic is extremely interesting, a topic like "Gender and Social Roles in Worldbuilding" is probably big enough and separate enough from "Spins on Fantasy Races" to warrant its own thread. Especially since we're mostly talking about humans here.

We all know that, in the times of the emancipation, this shouldn't be a big deal... But it is!
Cliches are still around and in full use. (At least in television and since it works, it means that at least some people stick to it) _{Some early systems was even having discriminating rules.} I am not even going to start to speak about not equal-society... wait, this is the point of this... so we are going to speak about exactly that.

I am going to separate it here to a bunch of Questions we can debate over.
1. How much impact would gender have on a world/culture whit magic/advanced technology at all?
2. If gender is important, how is it changing roles in this society?
3. Can 'gender' be replaced whit eye-color, religion, etc. to archive the same effect, if a play finds it uncomfortable to play whit such social flaws?

4. Has sex(hetero/homo/bi/a) a big impact at to the world/cultures?
5. Is in such a different world sex something biological(no choice) or social(choice)? _{I know that this is the most controversial question. Please don't even start whit the real world here. For the better of us all. Just don't! It is about a fictional world and since the players can make it up for their chars, it should be debated if the PC was having a choice ingame...}

6. Have you examples how you handled this in-game?

[Jendekit]

Warning! I exspect that this Thread will involve a big amount of RAGE!

Spoiler: Disclaimer... or so....

Show

Therad-Title 100% stolen from BladeofObliviom.
This totaly needed its own Therad!

We all know that, in the times of the emazipation, this shouldn't be a big deal... But it is!
Cliches are still around and in full use. (At least in televison and since it works, it means that at least some people stick to it) _{Some early systems was even haveing discriminateing rules.} I am not even going to start to speak about not equal-societys... wait, this is the point of this... so we are going to speak about exactly that.

I am going to seperate it here to a bunch of Questions we can debate over.
1. How much impact would gender have on a world/cultur whit magic/advanced technologie at all?
2. If gender is important, how is it changeing roles in this societys?
3. Can 'gender' be replaced whit eyecolor, religion, ect. to archive the same effect, if a play finds it uncomfortable to play whit such social flaws?

4. Has sex(hetero/homo/bi/a) a big impact at to the world/culturs?
5. Is in such a difrent world sex something biological(no choice) or sozial(choice)? _{I know that this is the most controversal question. Please don't even start whit the real world here. For the better of us all. Just don't! It is about a fictional world and since the players can make it up for theyr chars, it should be discustet if the PC was haveing a choice ingame...}

6. Have you examples how you handeld this ingame?

...I'm going to assume that English is not your first language. If that is the case, then I would recommend finding someone to proof read your stuff.

If English is your first language, then go through basic English again, because I've read better spelling and grammar in elementary school.

[SilverStud]

@Jendekit: Get out of here with your horrible intolerance. Don't reply to a thread so pointlessly. The English wasn't even that bad.

There are a number of different ways that gender and social roles are accounted for in fantasy. Let's face it: as long as there are humans sentient beings, they will find a way to put down one section of society. In our history, it just so happens that blacks, Jews, and "native savages" that took the brunt of the pain, at least recently. It is a good thing to remember that in different parts of history it was different (i.e. Jews were top dogs for a while way back).

It bears mentioning though that it is very often the direct result of some powerful organization. Some examples follow.

In Brandon Sanderson's "Stormlight Archive," people in general don't care about skin color, but eye color is the big thing. They are split into darkeyes and lighteyes. The lighteyes rule by divine mandate of the Heralds. It is their dominant religion, Vorinism, that pushes this split.

In a game I play in, dragonborn are the chosen of Drachya, mother goddess. Religion again.

Just about every fascist/Nazi-Germany-ish country finds some "lesser" race and hates on them excessively.



Basically I think it doesn't relate directly to technology level or magic level. We could have had this level of social reform hundreds of years ago if someone had really tried. All it take is for people to be comfortable with the status quo.

It may be related to the kinds of jobs that are available, and how many. For most of our history, the majority of jobs have been things males of our species are just more suited to perform, like farming, hunting, quarrying, etc etc. What woman of the times would trade her tough child-rearing duties for her husband's tough stone-breaking duties? She had her place, and he his. But when more and more secretarial/management/tech-support/less-physically-demanding jobs come up, suddenly women are equally qualified to perform a large number of jobs. Suddenly there's a world of jobs that mens' biological muscle-advantage doesn't apply.

So if your tech/magic level results in high numbers of these jobs, you may end up with issues like ours. Otherwise, people will probably fit into whatever slot is best for them.



tl;dr: In most fantasy RPG settings, "job-inequality" for women generally won't be a thing, because most jobs that can be best done by muscle are done with muscle, and women do "traditional woman things," like bake and clean and raise happy kids (because you can't work the farm for 12 hours and raise your kids, guys). Racial inequality will probably ALWAYS be a thing as long as there are different religions though.

[Mechalich]

A lot of this sort of thing depends on how simulationist you want your fantasy to be. Highly simulationist fantasy tends to want to interrogate traditional social mores in a fairly serious way. Game of Thrones is the most obvious current example. Whereas fantasy that couldn't care less about simulating an accurate or even coherent world tend to hew much, much closer to modern Western civilization viewpoints about how these divisions should be approached.

D&D, notably, started out being much more simulationist (it was built on wargame roots) than it later became, and also simply evolved with the changing viewpoints of changing times, so that certain rules that were initially present - like gender dependent ability score limitations - were gradually dropped. Additionally, prejudicial and restrictive limits on 'race' worldviews were gradually moderated, mostly for the sake of player options, so the in present-day PF Goblins and Orcs are considered player races (in 2e they advanced as monsters). This has had some weird consequences and has led to endless interminable debates about alignment - a system that isn't really compatible with 21st liberal moral philosophy, but has generally been a very positive development overall.

TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling games, and therefore maximizing options and eliminating prejudice is beneficial to the experience of players. If a character wants to play as a highly unusual concept and say that they face only minimal prejudice, that's something they should be able to work out with GMs. Throwing up barriers in settings that have long-sense ditched any pretense of medieval simulation is a good thing.

Obviously, writing fantasy is different, and the motives of telling a good story may not be served by maximum inclusiveness. Various authors may have an extremely simulationist approach (GRR Martin absolutely does), or they may desire a worldview that tests traditional gender/ethnic/religious/etc. relations in some specific way. For example, the Wheel of Time creates an explicit gender-based divide in use of magical power, and has consequences that result from that. It all depends on what the author wants to do and how good they are at following through on their worldbuilding. The aforementioned WoT is actually really bad about it and imposes a lot of rather patriarchal moralizing that doesn't fit with the worldbuilding with regard to how major characters interact.

[nomotag]

3.
I have played around with this a twice in almost the same way. Once with demons and once in space. For demons, I combined succubus and incubus into the same sex/gender where the elements humans assumed where gender identifiers were just plain physical characteristics to succubus/incubus. (It's like if you thought that the ear lobes hanged defined gender.) Incubus and succubus were just human words made up to describe the same demon. It actually didn't amount to much in practice. It was more just a background detail.

I played with the same idea again when I wanted to make my own subversion the green skinned space babe. They were a race of blue skinned women. The joke was that they weren't at all like how they looked at first blush. They weren't mono gendered (they actually had 4 with there sexual characteristics being hidden in the tail.). They also didn't look like sexy blue women. Well they could, but not to humans because there sexual characteristics were simply different, so courtship didn't translate well. A lot of their clothing looked plain with form over function (their hat was their space engineering) they also had a lot more diversity in body types and looks. The concept of human femininity didn't exist in their culture. (They just happen to look like human women well not actually being human women.)

[GorinichSerpant]

From reading the Spins on Races thread I noticed that one of the genders mentioned was a gender for magic-users. So it occurs to me that it would be quite interesting to have something like "wizard" being a gender identity. Which I'm going to call magus becomes it seems to fit. This is something that can be used to underline how out of the ordinary magic-users are. Some supernatural entities could also have a gender identity of magus to describe their bizarreness. Like the Beholder which has no humanoid sexual identifiers and I think don't reproduce in a way that makes sense from a conventional model of biology. There would also be creatures that do have male or female genders but are referred to by the magic pronoun because of their alienness.

[Tzi]

A lot of this sort of thing depends on how simulationist you want your fantasy to be. Highly simulationist fantasy tends to want to interrogate traditional social mores in a fairly serious way. Game of Thrones is the most obvious current example. Whereas fantasy that couldn't care less about simulating an accurate or even coherent world tend to hew much, much closer to modern Western civilization viewpoints about how these divisions should be approached.

D&D, notably, started out being much more simulationist (it was built on wargame roots) than it later became, and also simply evolved with the changing viewpoints of changing times, so that certain rules that were initially present - like gender dependent ability score limitations - were gradually dropped. Additionally, prejudicial and restrictive limits on 'race' worldviews were gradually moderated, mostly for the sake of player options, so the in present-day PF Goblins and Orcs are considered player races (in 2e they advanced as monsters). This has had some weird consequences and has led to endless interminable debates about alignment - a system that isn't really compatible with 21st liberal moral philosophy, but has generally been a very positive development overall.

TTRPGs are collaborative storytelling games, and therefore maximizing options and eliminating prejudice is beneficial to the experience of players. If a character wants to play as a highly unusual concept and say that they face only minimal prejudice, that's something they should be able to work out with GMs. Throwing up barriers in settings that have long-sense ditched any pretense of medieval simulation is a good thing.

Obviously, writing fantasy is different, and the motives of telling a good story may not be served by maximum inclusiveness. Various authors may have an extremely simulationist approach (GRR Martin absolutely does), or they may desire a worldview that tests traditional gender/ethnic/religious/etc. relations in some specific way. For example, the Wheel of Time creates an explicit gender-based divide in use of magical power, and has consequences that result from that. It all depends on what the author wants to do and how good they are at following through on their worldbuilding. The aforementioned WoT is actually really bad about it and imposes a lot of rather patriarchal moralizing that doesn't fit with the worldbuilding with regard to how major characters interact.

I try my absolute best to give players what they want but within the internal context of the world. I am a bit obsessive about Aesthetic integrity of the settings I make.

When it comes to gender it is a balancing act to me between the fact that some players want to play a female character but at the same time I don't want to have my world be unusually ideological progressive OR fall into the cliche that gender roles and/or sexism is just a "evil bad guy people," thing. Like how in traditional D&D all the Orc's you usually encounter are male.

All in all I find this to be an area I just hand wave a bit. Players already chaff under the fact that my world is a Humans-Only low fantasy, I can't take TOO much from them.

[Clockwork333]

1. How much impact would gender have on a world/culture whit magic/advanced technology at all?
2. If gender is important, how is it changing roles in this society?
3. Can 'gender' be replaced whit eye-color, religion, etc. to archive the same effect, if a play finds it uncomfortable to play whit such social flaws?

4. Has sex(hetero/homo/bi/a) a big impact at to the world/cultures?
5. Is in such a different world sex something biological(no choice) or social(choice)? _{I know that this is the most controversial question. Please don't even start whit the real world here. For the better of us all. Just don't! It is about a fictional world and since the players can make it up for their chars, it should be debated if the PC was having a choice ingame...}

6. Have you examples how you handled this in-game?

As others have said, how much impact gender has would vary by setting.

In my "Drowning Darkness" setting, various societies used to have gender distinctions to varying degrees but they've become much more relaxed due to much of the world being submerged by the aboleth, the initial mix of population glut or shortage in various areas dissolved or altered most of the cultural and social mores involving gender roles.

[Mechalich]

I try my absolute best to give players what they want but within the internal context of the world. I am a bit obsessive about Aesthetic integrity of the settings I make.

When it comes to gender it is a balancing act to me between the fact that some players want to play a female character but at the same time I don't want to have my world be unusually ideological progressive OR fall into the cliche that gender roles and/or sexism is just a "evil bad guy people," thing. Like how in traditional D&D all the Orc's you usually encounter are male.

All in all I find this to be an area I just hand wave a bit. Players already chaff under the fact that my world is a Humans-Only low fantasy, I can't take TOO much from them.

I generally find that, the lower in magic you go the more gender role variation and ethnic prejudice is justified. In high magic worlds, gender-based prejudice is generally pointless - unless for some reason one of the genders is better at magic than the other, in which case the setting may have sexist underpinnings, which is very frustrating. otherwise, both genders are going to be equally good at magic and at some point in history somebody is going to train the girls in order to make up for a numerical disparity and then the cat's out of the bag. In D&D, notably, the supremacy of spellcasters is so great that making female martials take some sort of mechanical penalty just seems like poor sportsmanship.

I do find the argument for a lessening of intra-species conflict in the face of inter-species competition to be reasonably compelling many settings though. It's perfectly reasonable to say that the humans developed internal solidarity in the face of staring elves, dwarves, and goblins in the face all the time if one wants. However, it is also perfectly fair to go the other way. Heck, it's even possible to have multi-species cultures that are prejudiced against other multi-species cultures (D&D did this in Planescape, with Planars vs. Primes).

Low-fantasy is obviously a bit trickier. Most low fantasy societies have appropriately simulationist limits on female attainment and are equally skeptical of female warriors save as very rare oddities. There are workarounds though. The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne (which is fairly low magic, especially in the first book) has a number of female warriors, but they are all members of various highly exclusive societies that train all entrants super-hard and these groups represent extremely outliers from the military norm. It reads off the page without any real trouble.

[Tzi]

I generally find that, the lower in magic you go the more gender role variation and ethnic prejudice is justified. In high magic worlds, gender-based prejudice is generally pointless - unless for some reason one of the genders is better at magic than the other, in which case the setting may have sexist underpinnings, which is very frustrating. otherwise, both genders are going to be equally good at magic and at some point in history somebody is going to train the girls in order to make up for a numerical disparity and then the cat's out of the bag. In D&D, notably, the supremacy of spellcasters is so great that making female martials take some sort of mechanical penalty just seems like poor sportsmanship.

I do find the argument for a lessening of intra-species conflict in the face of inter-species competition to be reasonably compelling many settings though. It's perfectly reasonable to say that the humans developed internal solidarity in the face of staring elves, dwarves, and goblins in the face all the time if one wants. However, it is also perfectly fair to go the other way. Heck, it's even possible to have multi-species cultures that are prejudiced against other multi-species cultures (D&D did this in Planescape, with Planars vs. Primes).

Low-fantasy is obviously a bit trickier. Most low fantasy societies have appropriately simulationist limits on female attainment and are equally skeptical of female warriors save as very rare oddities. There are workarounds though. The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne (which is fairly low magic, especially in the first book) has a number of female warriors, but they are all members of various highly exclusive societies that train all entrants super-hard and these groups represent extremely outliers from the military norm. It reads off the page without any real trouble.

I've found in High Fantasy, whatever gender roles appear are usually the DM's own bias'. I had one DM whom if there was a religious order it was always headed by some great priestess, probably because he was raised by two neo-pagan women, so his idea of "Spiritual leader," was always a Priestess.

In my Low Fantasy worlds, there is for sure an inequality in various societies. One city-state of Arkech does not train female spellcasters, some may appear but they are never granted formal education as its seen as a waste. For away from there on the actual location I use for game playing is an Island inhabited by more egalitarian societies including one that at one point was a functional Matriarchy. Mostly because the players of the characters are of course modern people in the Euro-American world were that is pretty default. So I tend to make sure there is either cultural diversity on the matter of Gender roles AND the players are in a time of crisis' so the societies that are are more desperate and willing to violate their conventions.

[soldersbushwack]

70% of homeless in North America are men.
89% of convicts in North America are men.
70% of homicide victims in North America are men.
The most dangerous jobs are most occupied by men.
Most workplace accidents happen to men.
In general men indulge in more risky behaviour than women.
Men are physically stronger than women, have larger lung capacity and more endurance.
Men can afford to spread their seed freely and are not burdened by pregnancy.

These attributes strongly select for certain gender roles in human societies. However, I see no strong reason that nonhuman races should be bound by the same gender roles.

I think an interesting unexplored compromise between the "-4 Str" rule and player freedom is that the human race is traditionally sexually dimorphic but that other races have their own biologies (an obvious fantasy cliche is the Amazon warrior women tribe.) Also, effective martial character strength is very strongly tied to the strength stat in traditional games. Your strength does not necessarily matter if you can sneak up on an enemy in the dark and then crush their windpipe with a garrote. So, a stronger martial combat system that allows for more styles of play would also be important.

[Max_Killjoy]

I generally find that, the lower in magic you go the more gender role variation and ethnic prejudice is justified. In high magic worlds, gender-based prejudice is generally pointless - unless for some reason one of the genders is better at magic than the other, in which case the setting may have sexist underpinnings, which is very frustrating. otherwise, both genders are going to be equally good at magic and at some point in history somebody is going to train the girls in order to make up for a numerical disparity and then the cat's out of the bag. In D&D, notably, the supremacy of spellcasters is so great that making female martials take some sort of mechanical penalty just seems like poor sportsmanship.

----

Low-fantasy is obviously a bit trickier. Most low fantasy societies have appropriately simulationist limits on female attainment and are equally skeptical of female warriors save as very rare oddities. There are workarounds though. The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne (which is fairly low magic, especially in the first book) has a number of female warriors, but they are all members of various highly exclusive societies that train all entrants super-hard and these groups represent extremely outliers from the military norm. It reads off the page without any real trouble.

The setting I'm working on right now is fairly low-magic, deeply researched, and is at least grounded in simulationist worldbuilding, but frankly, this is one area where I'm just going to fudge a little and dig up every reason I can -- from history, from real-world in-period myths and beliefs, from in-setting factors, etc -- to loosen up the opportunity restrictions on female characters.

[soldersbushwack]

The setting I'm working on right now is fairly low-magic, deeply researched, and is at least grounded in simulationist worldbuilding, but frankly, this is one area where I'm just going to fudge a little and dig up every reason I can -- from history, from real-world in-period myths and beliefs, from in-setting factors, etc -- to loosen up the opportunity restrictions on female characters.

And why would you do this?

[Max_Killjoy]

And why would you do this?

Why wouldn't I?

Perhaps I'd like something other than gender-disparity issues to take center stage in my stories, and have little interest in Martinesque "rape as drama fodder" storytelling.

[Tzi]

And why would you do this?

At the end of the day you have to set your urge as a worldbuilder for consistency to one side for the sake of player enjoyment. Some players want to play female characters and don't want to have like so little to do.

Sometimes you just have to fudge things because most players actually don't like rigidly simulationist games In my experience.

[Max_Killjoy]

At the end of the day you have to set your urge as a worldbuilder for consistency to one side for the sake of player enjoyment. Some players want to play female characters and don't want to have like so little to do.

Sometimes you just have to fudge things because most players actually don't like rigidly simulationist games In my experience.

That's why I prefer "verisimilitude" over "realism" as my watch-word. Settings and stories don't need to slavishly adhere to what's true or possible in our real world -- they just need feel like they could be real.

[Tzi]

That's why I prefer "verisimilitude" over "realism" as my watch-word. Settings and stories don't need to slavishly adhere to what's true or possible in our real world -- they just need feel like they could be real.

Exactly, Like I am not about to say that if pressed my societies are all egalitarian utopias or have their own active feminism movements but when it comes to say gender and social roles I prefer to find ways to skirt it, especially in that part of the world that is my main setting. Sometimes just having them start play in areas that are more egalitarian then others and just hand wave it unless it becomes a convenient plot hook.

[YossarianLives]

As my setting doesn't come close to simulating history, I don't see any reason to introduce traditional gender roles.

Yeah, certain genders get discriminated against in certain cultures, but at the end of the day, I play fantasy games to experience worlds different from our own. That doesn't mean more socially progressive, it means different. I don't see any point to shoving real life sexism stock, lock, and barrel into my imaginary universe. Besides, I arbitrarily decided that human men and women are physical equals because that's a better fit for the kind of stories I want to tell.

It's also a method of coddling myself - I have to deal with sexism and bigotry on a daily basis, but not soul-eating demons and child sacrifice, so those things are less likely to affect me, even though I know that they're much worse.

[Sergeantbrother]

I virtually always include gender roles in society, often (but not always) traditional gender roles in the case of humans or some different sort of variation in the case of other races. I find that egalitarianism doesn't only break my suspension of disbelief but is also boring. I have done a few gender egalitarian societies, but only in settings in which they are unusual in the context of other cultures.

Creating a fantasy setting is almost like a thought experiment where I can create different sorts of cultures and imagine what they would be like with certain values, traditions, and roles and to even take that one step further by changing biology to allow cultures to arise that wouldn't with humans.

For player characters I tend to be pretty relaxed about gender norms. So, for example, if someone wants to play a warrior woman from a patriarchal culture, not every game session needs to be about dealing with shock or disapproval. PC's are meant to be exceptional anyway.

[nrg89]

I'm torn.

On the one hand, sexism and racism are sources of conflict and conflict is good. Partaking in conflicts are what your players are supposed to do.

However, this might be conflicts that are not what the players signed up for. They wanted to find the dragon and stab it with a sword, not sit there and debate with a bigot.

I deal with it the same way I deal with plagues or other natural disasters. I can have them in the background as a way to explain why the world is what it is but I don't want the issues to personally challenge the PCs because that's not fun, their agency is taken.
But, if I ever do introduce it, I try to invert or subvert them to make the world more interesting.

[Tzi]

I'm torn.

On the one hand, sexism and racism are sources of conflict and conflict is good. Partaking in conflicts are what your players are supposed to do.

However, this might be conflicts that are not what the players signed up for. They wanted to find the dragon and stab it with a sword, not sit there and debate with a bigot.

I deal with it the same way I deal with plagues or other natural disasters. I can have them in the background as a way to explain why the world is what it is but I don't want the issues to personally challenge the PCs because that's not fun, their agency is taken.
But, if I ever do introduce it, I try to invert or subvert them to make the world more interesting.

I think the problem of using Sexism or Racism in game is that it over all just becomes an Aesop's Fable.

Who are the bad guys? The Racists obviously! Your faction or actions are for UnRacism. Who are the bad guys? Usually the sexists! I mean look at races like Orcs, or Ogres whom usually are just male warriors, their universally just bad in most settings. Or even the Drow are always bad. One underlying reason seems to be that "Those societies are sexist!"

Basically I think you also want to avoid just rehashing an After School Special level of morality tale on players who get enough of that IRL.

[Mechalich]

I think the problem of using Sexism or Racism in game is that it over all just becomes an Aesop's Fable.

Who are the bad guys? The Racists obviously! Your faction or actions are for UnRacism. Who are the bad guys? Usually the sexists! I mean look at races like Orcs, or Ogres whom usually are just male warriors, their universally just bad in most settings. Or even the Drow are always bad. One underlying reason seems to be that "Those societies are sexist!"

Basically I think you also want to avoid just rehashing an After School Special level of morality tale on players who get enough of that IRL.

Yeah, this can be a problem, especially since, historically, being the more tolerant society didn't inherently make you the good guys. Simple example: the Mongols. Vastly more racially and religiously tolerant than their Chinese and later Japanese opponents, but they were horrible aggressors who operated at a level of violence that was really extreme. Making the 'good' faction in a setting be the one that hews the closest to modern western liberal values is a troubling trope, especially when it's used in tabletop as a justification for murderhoboing through societies that don't share those values.

[Tzi]

Yeah, this can be a problem, especially since, historically, being the more tolerant society didn't inherently make you the good guys. Simple example: the Mongols. Vastly more racially and religiously tolerant than their Chinese and later Japanese opponents, but they were horrible aggressors who operated at a level of violence that was really extreme. Making the 'good' faction in a setting be the one that hews the closest to modern western liberal values is a troubling trope, especially when it's used in tabletop as a justification for murderhoboing through societies that don't share those values.

I had not even considered that sort of implication for adventuring, but yes that too.

Personally I am a little uneasy about using a campaign setting as a vehicle for moralizing or trying to teach a moral lesson is my first objection. Not because I think it is wrong or that those morals are wrong, but mainly because I think people get enough of that in their regularly lives. I personally would burn every copy of Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul, after the many years of Middle School of being forced to read passages because some teacher thought it clever to force tweens to read it to hammer in moral lessons we all have yelled at us anyway.

While I am okay with maybe these issues as subtext or background set pieces, for the most part I recognize that players want to be Odysseus and Sack Troy and then piss off a God and end up at Sea for a long time fighting monsters ect. They want to found a Kingdom, find lost swords, defeat terrifying monsters, they aren't out to play through a complex simulation morality tale in which the DM beats into them their particular political soap box.

It would be IMHO akin to a devoutly Christian DM, or any religion, whose worldbuild happened to have this one ultimately good religion whose theology and ideas are opaquely just whatever brand of religion the DM believes in and all the bad religions have the qualities the DM doesn't believe in.

[Ur-Than]

When I try to change gender and social roles in a fantasy setting, I mostly try to play with sexual dimorphism and physiological differences. For instance, in my main personal setting, the main race (non-humans) have their females largely taller and stronger than their males (at least on average), with more formidable natural weapons (horns and more massive claws at their feet, mainly). Even then, Matriarchy and a more dominant role for females is not common among the whole races. One of its main branches is a civilization where females are dominants (when it came to leadership, that is, with still a relative equality, mainly because of their patron deity wishes), but it isn't the most common, for various reasons (the environment, religious fervor, etc.). Plus, the setting is during a Bronze Age (its very end), and it was the era where the worship of female great deities was mostly replaced by male deities, so it felt fitting.

[Xuc Xac]

6. Have you examples how you handled this in-game?

From reading the Spins on Races thread I noticed that one of the genders mentioned was a gender for magic-users. So it occurs to me that it would be quite interesting to have something like "wizard" being a gender identity.

I'm slowly piecing together a fantasy setting on Google+ (https://plus.google.com/collection/wRbubB). I just posted the five main races and some of them have unusual gendering by human standards. One of them does have a sort of "wizard gender".

Jedoch (the Cockatrices) have little sexual dimorphism and strong biological incentives to evenly divide child rearing between the sexes so they don't really need different genders. Some religious sects try to artificially create sexual dimorphism by enforcing strict dress codes and more obvious gender roles.

Pavuk (the Spiders) have two sexes but three genders: masculine (for males), feminine (for females), and mystical (for either). They only need a male and a female for reproduction, but they need all three for a socially acceptable relationship. They have a three way division of labor by gender but it's not equal. Each gender has its share of cool jobs and crap work, so it's easier for them to pretend it's fair, but outsiders can easily see that males are on the bottom and mystics are on the top.

[LudicSavant]

1. How much impact would gender have on a world/culture whit magic/advanced technology at all?

About as much impact as it has on a world/culture without magic/advanced technology.

2. If gender is important, how is it changing roles in this society?

Way too broad of a question. Would need to know more about the society in question than the magic/technology level in order to give a useful answer.

4. Has sex(hetero/homo/bi/a) a big impact at to the world/cultures?

The answer could just as easily be yes or no, because the availability of technology and magic is not the determining factor here.

You could have anything from a society where gender norms are oppressive and rigidly defined to a society like the human empire in Ancillary Justice where gender isn't even considered a sensible, civilized concept (to the point that they don't have words for it and it's actually really hard to tell the different sexes apart just by looking at them, even for an AI. It makes modern western sensibilities tend to look positively Victorian by comparison).

5. Is in such a different world sex something biological(no choice) or social(choice)?

In the English language, the word "sex" refers to something biological, while the word "gender" often refers to something cultural (rather than just biological). I note this just because the OP has said that they are not a native speaker.

[NothingButCake]

The only thing I hard delete from the world is sexual violence. I just do not feel the need to have that in the world at all, and so it just does not happen.

Otherwise, whether or not gender roles exist and to what extent just varies from culture to culture, but I never make it overly binding or oppressive. I feel that 1. it's not an interesting story to me to have the PCs fight against sexism, 2. I want players to be able to play a variety of genders from different backgrounds without it feeling restrictive, and 3. having no gender roles at all removes the ability to explore gender and sexual diversity. For example, I use 4e's version of deva as a race, but I have degendered them because they are eternally reincarnating beings of (alleged) divine origin. They lack all sexual characteristics as beings that do not reproduce and do not use gendered pronouns...except the immigrants to the main setting city. While some are still gender neutral, some have taken on gendered pronouns and affectations from assimilating into human culture. In a matriarchal city-state, I only change some language around, like presuming femininity and slipping in condescending or infantilizing language; anything more and it becomes a self-parody.

I also try to write in lgbtq characters in a wide variety of roles. It's especially important to me because having a diversity of lgbtq characters means I free myself to tell different stories with them and not need to have them all be ideal people. I don't want to create a world where lgbtq characters are all just suffering and struggling against oppression, but I want there to be a diversity of experiences, which include negative. I have trans women who are fully embraced and happy (including the legendary unifier of the orcs' first empire), and I have a gang led by four 'sisters' who are a neutral-to-evil adventuring party who are helping each other achieve their dreams and the wizard is a deva illusionist who maintains 1. the illusion that they are all human sisters and 2. the illusion on the rogue trans sister who is a runaway scion of a noble family. I'd feel ****ty that one of my gay characters is in love with a guy who doesn't return the feelings (though he's more asexual than straight), but there are many other gay characters who don't fall into clichés.

[Frozen_Feet]

1. How much impact would gender have on a world/culture whit magic/advanced technology at all?

You are asking the question the wrong way around. Biological sex, gender identity and social gender come before magic or technology. Gender has to be established first before it can be said how magic or technology would alter that. You can use humans as a baseline, but in realm of fantasy or sci-fi, don't really need to. You might as well craft a society based on mating habits of spotted hyenas and then start asking how other elements of the setting affect that.

2. If gender is important, how is it changing roles in this society?

In any shape or form you as a setting author want to explore. In case of a fictional society, the nature and importance of gender roles is largely arbitrary.

3. Can 'gender' be replaced whit eye-color, religion, etc. to archive the same effect, if a play finds it uncomfortable to play whit such social flaws?

To a degree, if you simplify "gender roles" to mean prejudice and oppression. Once there are actual physical differences between sexes and they make an impact for childbirth & continuation of species under the conditions of the setting, then you cannot ignore the differences. Gender roles have an entirely different function to marriage than, say, eye-color, so you cannot address all the relevant questions about a society without touching gender roles.

4. Has sex(hetero/homo/bi/a) a big impact at to the world/cultures?

Same answer as to question 2. The answer is largely arbitrary based on what a setting author wishes to explore.

5. Is in such a different world sex something biological(no choice) or social(choice)?

This, too, is an arbitrary choice.

6. Have you examples how you handled this in-game?

Plenty.

Praedor, a Finnish fantasy franchise, has various different cultures in it and does not shy away from showing prejudice and inequality, even when Praedor RPG places no special mechanical restrictions on a character's sex and gender. For example, it contains an examle of a macho warrior culture where women are accessories and real love is considered to only exist between men. The comics have a story of such macho barbarian falling in love with an effeminate gay poet belonging to local peasantry - the locals proceed to hang the poet due to influence of a dogmatically heterosexual cult, causing the barbarian to swear revenge on them.

The biggest mortal culture in Jaconia has a female Empress-Dowager, but it's made clear by her backstory that this is a recent development in a strongly patriarchal culture and the Empress-Dowager herself had her life shaped by some truly villainous sexism from the part of her own father (whom she murdered to get on the throne. Hence "dowager".). Overall, things may or may not be getting better, but the average level of sexism is still of the quality and quantity you'd expect from early modern Europe. And then there's bizarre outliers like the secluded city-state of immortal Wizards.

Another example from Finnish RPG field: Noitahovi. The setting draws heavily from Fennic, Slavic and Mongol myths, but is explicitly and strongly matriarchal. This isn't a simple role flip - men are explicitly acknowledged as being physically stronger, but women are seen as moral, social, intellectual and magical superiors, meaning that the upper echelons of society are filled with women, including in the military. Maternity is held in great respect, paternity less so, and men are seen as disposable and subservient to their mothers, wives and sisters. There is one outlying male (or possibly male-to-female transsexual. It's left to interpretation) of great mystical importance, but they do everything to suppress their masculinity and present as a woman to avoid being ridiculed. Attitudes towards sexuality are likewise left up to interpretation - obviously, women hold sexual power, but whether homosexuality is frowned upon, and which kind of homosexuality, is up in the air. It's suggested female homosexuality is accepted (though steeped in intrasex powerplay), where as male homosexuality is seen as an affront and insult towards women.

Noitahovi also includes trolls, whl don't give many craps about this "gender" thing and just mate with whoever they feel like while in the heat.

In my own settings, as pertains to traditional fantasy, I use Drow and Gnolls as examples of matriarchal cultures inspired by really-existing animals (namely, black widows & spotted hyenas). I also make heavy use of explicitly asexual and genderless fantastic creatures. These non-human entities serve to contrast human cultures, where roles and attitudes cover a wide spectrum.

In a setting I've been working on for a while now, I've decided to pay special attention to gender roles, especially as pertains to marriage, family and inheritance, inspired by a mangs called Brides.

To give an example: Empire, the mainstream culture of the setting, is egalitarian towards sexes in the sense that women are allowed same oppurtunities and rights as men, but it is very strict about legal gender and what it entails. For example, men and women both have to cut their hair short and wear the same sort of uniform in service. Sexual relations between soldiers are strictly prohibited. There is strong pressure to adhere to (from our perspective) masculine, militant values and behaviour while in service.

Civilian homosexuality is not persecuted, but legalized same-sex marriage is only possible in special cases. A woman can marry another woman if at least one of them has kids, but it is expected that one of the women then adopts traditionally masculine role of the family head, which entails dressing appropriately etc.. Two men cannot marry. Polygynous marriage is allowed in some special circumstances, but polyandrous is not. An independent, unmarried woman past a certain age can hold multiple lovers, but "independent woman" is basically considered an euphenism for "a whore" in these cases. For contrast, a man past certain age with lovers instead of a wife or wives is synonymous for "poor", because it's traditionally the man's role to pay dowries. (This occasionally gets flipped in really poor areas of the Empire where there is surplus of girls.) Both labels carry connotations of irresponsibility. The Empire wants you to get settled and get kids so it will have new taxpayers and cannon fodder in the future.

So on and so forth.

Then at the fringes of Empire there are two minority cultures which are matriarchal but very different. In the first, women routinely grow larger and more muscular than men and there tends to be a surplus of women, so many (from our perspective) traditionally masculine physical roles are transferred to women. However, men are prized for their rarity and enjoy elevated status. Yet, despite men's nominally high rank, most institutions and endeavors are headed by women due to their abundance. The second matriarchy appears much more traditional on the face of it. Strength and courage are male virtues and men occupy physical and military positions. Wisdom is key female virtues and women are mostly seen as homemakers. However, the royalty and aristocracy are both matrilinear, as their culture sees itself descending from a goddess; and hence men are expected to be subservient to women. Violence from the part of men towards woman is a taboo, and any man is expected to run to defense of any woman if such is suspected. Men work, so their mothers, sisters and wives won't have to.

Then there's steppe people outside the reach of the Empire, who have their own equal-but-different thing going on, where men and women pretty much do all the same jobs (whether that be hunting, herding, farming, building or fighting), but it's the men who get together to make Big Decisions (which tribe is the enemy, who to invade next, laws of the land etc.) where as women make decisions within the sphere of family (provisioning food, clothing & money, ordering children, mediating conflicts etc.). Women consider the men's councils to be "funny man stuff" and just think it's better to leave them tl their scheming. Then there's marriage business like a man being forced to marry (and pay dowries to) a woman if he so much as touches her without permission, lest he have to explain himself before the counsil. Women are fully aware of this and use it to ensnare good husband candidates. A small but notable number of marriages start with a woman crying "that evil man touched me! Make him pay for his crimes!"

Okay, maybe I've rambled enough for tonight.

[TheYell]

Interesting.

I suppose in my world I generally have two genders cooperating to have children and build the social structure around that framework. ( I am going to try to introduce an aberrant hive race with one fertile queen and lots of drones).

Since my orcs organize in clans, I will have the half-orcs organize into line marriages like Robert A. Heinlein described in The Moon is A Harsh Mistress. Males and females will marry each other in a group polygamy that lasts generations.

It's interesting because I have no interest in romance between characters. Probably says something about my own life. But I am not trying to create love stories whether heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual. I'd probably be fine if somebody took my political social framework and added a great love story of some sort, but I'm not interested in creating one.

[Yabvi]

1. How much impact would gender have on a world/culture whit magic/advanced technology at all?

Usually for my worlds, I have it so women are still seen as they would be in the days of medieval times, but it entirely changes on their position of power within that world. I usually delete the horrible sexual violence because no one wants to see that stuff. Gender would have scarcely impacted the world, magic advances and stuff would have happened with either male/female, but culture changes depending on how the sexes/gender are seen.



2. If gender is important, how is it changing roles in this society?

It would simply mean how harder it is for someone to get something they want, so if they want to be a great wizard then all they will need is someone to teach them, but if they want to be a doctor then they're going to have to work harder. Noblewomen would be restricted in their activities while poveraged women would be free to do whatever, within limits.


3. Can 'gender' be replaced whit eye-color, religion, etc. to archive the same effect, if a play finds it uncomfortable to play whit such social flaws?

It can be changed easily, but I wouldn't change it only for the sake of one person.

4. Has sex(hetero/homo/bi/a) a big impact at to the world/cultures?

I usually say nah, mainly because I take more a greecian stand on it but for an extremely religious place then yes, the culture would be massively different, but as a general whole, I don't see sexuality ever having a massive impact on it.

5. Is in such a different world sex something biological(no choice) or social(choice)

Biological. People then probably wouldn't question it, but depends on the culture.