Are there any female RPG'ers on this forum?
- Thread starter Adept
- Start date
)homerjsinnott said:
I have trouble seeing how the problem could arise. I'm not trying to say that every faset of a character's personality is in the A/F. All it does is allow some of it to have distinct effects on the game, and to prowide of shorthand for character creation (and a memory aide).
No doubt it's not perfect, but it's nice to have the option. As I said, you don't have to use them even in a game system where they are in use.
It seems odd that in a situation where the options are
a) Have a system that encourages you to think and define aspects of the character.
b) Have no such system.
People prefer b, even when the system is such that you don't have to use it if you don't want to. That's just strange to me.
Anyway, the poll tells us something of the sex ratio of those who read (and write) on the this RQ forum. My one person's hunch is that a more character oriented approach would bring in more lady-gamers. I may be wrong. I'm just going with the female gamers I know.
Quire said:
That's somewhat less clever than you propably think Q. I did this for a reason. I really liked RQ back in the day, and I love Glorantha. I want MRQ to succeed, so there will be more Glorantha books.
Heck, I also want it to succeed because anything that gives people an alternative to D&D is a good thing.
The scewed sex-ratio here made me start to think about possible reasons for that, hence my trying to discuss tools for more character oriented roleplaying.
MRQ obviously satisfies a certain breed of roleplayer. Is that the whole target demographic?
It seems to me that anyone who has to have a fixed set of defining characteristics for the PC's personality has seriously missed the point of roleplaying.
Sure, I like the idea of Personality Traits and have used them in one form or another for a long, long time, but they are only a guide and I only really use them when I as a player am undecided about how the PC would react in a particular circumstance.
So, I know how Soltak Stormspear and Shergar Sunhoof will react because I know their personalities inside out.
So, I know that Soltak Stormspear hates Chaos with a vengeance and "Any Chaos is all Chaos" as far as he is concerned. He follows the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law and is ironbound in his inflexibility towards those who break cult restrictions. He is also Illuminated and tends to turn a blind eye when doing things himself. He takes his Orlanth duties very seriously, including making the right challenges and performing certain tasks, but he is also an Uroxi and takes Chaos killing seriously. As an Issaries Associate, he tries to take the middle ground in most things except where Chaos and Traitors are concerned. He admires Trolls, being an Argarn Argar initiate, dislikes elves but respects powerful ones, he doesn't much care for dwarves. He dislikes most Beastmen, except Minotaurs, and hates all things Chaotic. He knows that when he dies, he is going to a Cloud Castle to become part of an Orlanthi Hero's Bodyguard and will be fighting Chaos for Eternity, so he is content in that. He was born a woman, Sabrina Spearsister, but was cursed to be a man on a cult mission. He has tried to change his appearance by taking on magical items and replacing his own body parts, this is partially to remove the image of the man he has become and partially to alienate himself from his fellows. He is married, to an Ulerian slave who he has technically forgotten to free, but he hardly spends any time with her anyway. He has an ambivalent attitude to women, he admires women adventurers as he wishes he was a woman again, but he is jealous of them for the same reason. For this reason, he has taken part in several forcings, both individually and in groups, mainly to show his superiority over the women, something he does not show any guilt over. Apart from that, he will protect the innocent as part of his Orlanth duties, but will not go overboard in doing so. He will kill dragonewts on sight, if possible, because he owns a set of Dragonewt Skin armour and has permanently killed the original owner, but doesn't want other dragonewts to find out. He hates Lunars as a point of principle and will always fight them wherever possible, with no quarter given or received.
Shergar Sunhoof is a Yelmalian Centaur Light Son, who originally talked of "My Uncle Ironhoof" before gaining the Geas "Speak only Truth to Everyone", so now he is silent about his uncle. He has the geas "Celibate During Fireseason" and makes up for it in the other seasons, being a bone fide sex maniac, seducer and rapist, he has no particular preference sexually, but draws the line at most chaos things and most undead, but sometimes the need overcomes such petty restrictions. His Bossman is Appollo, another Yelmalian Light Son, who he obeys pretty much without question. His crowning achievement was seducing Appollo on a HeroQuest, while he was under a Forget Enchantment, then casting a good Heal Body and Forget spell on him to cover things up, because he knew Appollo wouldn't really understand. Shergar hates Darkness Cultists, because Yelmalio has told him to, he challenges trolls to combat, not to chess or draughts or a nice game of cards like some Yelmalians, and normally tries to kill them. He has taken on the form of a demon in order to strike fear into his foes, so he has 5 legs, a Minotaur's Skull, wears a spider mask and has four golden hooves. He despises Dara Happans and fights them whenever possible. He thinks that Praxian Sun County types are wimps and has joined Appollo on several expeditions to kill them. He admires trolls, although he has to hate them, he quite likes elves and humans, but centaurs are the master race, especially easily caught mares. He has a herd of centaurs as a personal Heroband, of which he is the Stallion King and he takes his duties very seriously indeed. They form the basis of the congregation for Appollo's Temple. He's not keen on Chaos as Chaos has tried to kill him before. He particularly hates Vampires and Thanatari.
Clearly there is a lot about them that I haven't described, but none of those came from Personality Traits. In fact, I designed their Personality Traits based around their characters and life experience, just so I could explain them to others. But, I could play them now almost as well as I played them 15 years ago when I stopped playing RQ and started GMing.
So, character traits etc are useful tools in describing a PC to others, but should not be the be all and end all of things. If you need the Character Traits to play a PC then you are really missing the point.
All in My Opinion, of course.
Sure, I like the idea of Personality Traits and have used them in one form or another for a long, long time, but they are only a guide and I only really use them when I as a player am undecided about how the PC would react in a particular circumstance.
So, I know how Soltak Stormspear and Shergar Sunhoof will react because I know their personalities inside out.
So, I know that Soltak Stormspear hates Chaos with a vengeance and "Any Chaos is all Chaos" as far as he is concerned. He follows the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law and is ironbound in his inflexibility towards those who break cult restrictions. He is also Illuminated and tends to turn a blind eye when doing things himself. He takes his Orlanth duties very seriously, including making the right challenges and performing certain tasks, but he is also an Uroxi and takes Chaos killing seriously. As an Issaries Associate, he tries to take the middle ground in most things except where Chaos and Traitors are concerned. He admires Trolls, being an Argarn Argar initiate, dislikes elves but respects powerful ones, he doesn't much care for dwarves. He dislikes most Beastmen, except Minotaurs, and hates all things Chaotic. He knows that when he dies, he is going to a Cloud Castle to become part of an Orlanthi Hero's Bodyguard and will be fighting Chaos for Eternity, so he is content in that. He was born a woman, Sabrina Spearsister, but was cursed to be a man on a cult mission. He has tried to change his appearance by taking on magical items and replacing his own body parts, this is partially to remove the image of the man he has become and partially to alienate himself from his fellows. He is married, to an Ulerian slave who he has technically forgotten to free, but he hardly spends any time with her anyway. He has an ambivalent attitude to women, he admires women adventurers as he wishes he was a woman again, but he is jealous of them for the same reason. For this reason, he has taken part in several forcings, both individually and in groups, mainly to show his superiority over the women, something he does not show any guilt over. Apart from that, he will protect the innocent as part of his Orlanth duties, but will not go overboard in doing so. He will kill dragonewts on sight, if possible, because he owns a set of Dragonewt Skin armour and has permanently killed the original owner, but doesn't want other dragonewts to find out. He hates Lunars as a point of principle and will always fight them wherever possible, with no quarter given or received.
Shergar Sunhoof is a Yelmalian Centaur Light Son, who originally talked of "My Uncle Ironhoof" before gaining the Geas "Speak only Truth to Everyone", so now he is silent about his uncle. He has the geas "Celibate During Fireseason" and makes up for it in the other seasons, being a bone fide sex maniac, seducer and rapist, he has no particular preference sexually, but draws the line at most chaos things and most undead, but sometimes the need overcomes such petty restrictions. His Bossman is Appollo, another Yelmalian Light Son, who he obeys pretty much without question. His crowning achievement was seducing Appollo on a HeroQuest, while he was under a Forget Enchantment, then casting a good Heal Body and Forget spell on him to cover things up, because he knew Appollo wouldn't really understand. Shergar hates Darkness Cultists, because Yelmalio has told him to, he challenges trolls to combat, not to chess or draughts or a nice game of cards like some Yelmalians, and normally tries to kill them. He has taken on the form of a demon in order to strike fear into his foes, so he has 5 legs, a Minotaur's Skull, wears a spider mask and has four golden hooves. He despises Dara Happans and fights them whenever possible. He thinks that Praxian Sun County types are wimps and has joined Appollo on several expeditions to kill them. He admires trolls, although he has to hate them, he quite likes elves and humans, but centaurs are the master race, especially easily caught mares. He has a herd of centaurs as a personal Heroband, of which he is the Stallion King and he takes his duties very seriously indeed. They form the basis of the congregation for Appollo's Temple. He's not keen on Chaos as Chaos has tried to kill him before. He particularly hates Vampires and Thanatari.
Clearly there is a lot about them that I haven't described, but none of those came from Personality Traits. In fact, I designed their Personality Traits based around their characters and life experience, just so I could explain them to others. But, I could play them now almost as well as I played them 15 years ago when I stopped playing RQ and started GMing.
So, character traits etc are useful tools in describing a PC to others, but should not be the be all and end all of things. If you need the Character Traits to play a PC then you are really missing the point.
All in My Opinion, of course.
In fact, if you rely solely on Character/Personality Traits to roleplay a character then you are basically admitting that you need to have the character rigidly defined before you can play it. That seems to me to be a very masculine attitude - of stats over personality.
Perhaps that's one reason why there aren't many women roleplayers.
I'd ask my wife, but she'd complain about my "Crazy Hobby" again.
Perhaps that's one reason why there aren't many women roleplayers.
I'd ask my wife, but she'd complain about my "Crazy Hobby" again.
soltakss said:
Huh? When did I ever say anything about "relying solely on traits..." In fact if you are talking about pendragon style traits, then I don't like them. Just like the RQ-skills. Everybody has the same set, and you are supposed to roll against them to see how your character acts. Useful for Pendragon of a certain flavour, but definitely not a generally useful approach.
As for the rest, the comment about "masculine attitude" is really bizarre. You don't much roleplay with women, do you? I actually have no idea what you are trying to say there, aside from the fact that there is a distinct feeling of merrily burning strawmen in that argument.
soltakss said:
Indeed. I roleplay in mixed company, but you people seem to regard the female sex as some sort of alien who thinks and acts differently (and doesn't roleplay). Weird.
Adept said:
I don't know, I wasn't directing at anyone, otherwise I'd have quoted you.
Adept said:
If I do anything, I try to do it merrily.
But, yes, I haven't roleplayed much with women, there was a husband and wife team during University, one woman immediately afterwards and that's about it. Not my fault, though, but all the roleplayers I know are male. I don't go out of my way to find roleplayers, either, being happy with my own little group. Clubs tend to scare me off, being a bit too nerdy for my tastes (me not being nerdy at all, of course, not one little bit) so I don't experience the full spectrum of roleplaying. I have roleplayed with women at conventions, but people at conventions tend to be nerdier than most (myself again excluded, obviously) so I can't say if they are representative of women in general.
But, when I have roleplayed with women in a gaming sense, most of the men were more comfortable playing a character for which they had defined a short backstory with a framework for the character, but most of the women were happy to take a basic character and play with it straight away, seeing what came out at the end.
soltakss said:
Adept said:
Most of the women I know don't roleplay, that is a fact.
Most of the men I know don't roleplay either, but I know a lot more men who roleplay than women. Another fact.
Perhaps men have downtrodden lives which they can only escape through roleplaying. Since women have better, uplifting lives, they don't need to roleplay to escape. They just need Mills & Boon and chocolate.
gamesmeister
Banded Mongoose
soltakss said:
Not really.
I find Advantages/Flaws can be very good when defining a character, as it cements the current attitude/outlook/features of the character as he stands when you first start playing him or her.
Role playing flaws well can in itself be a challenge, and can lead to many interesting situations within the game. Sure, you can role play in the same way without the a/f, but I think they are very useful when first playing the character. It means you don't necessarily have to decide on the fly whether your character is brave, foolhardy, cautious, or cowardly.
The trick is to understand that they're not rigid rules to follow, nor are they a crutch to support poor role-playing. Ok, so your character was originally foolhardy when he first came to the table, but since he got his ass kicked by a bunch of trolls he's learned to be a lot more cautious. If you play him as someone who's torn between charging in headfirst (just like the good old days) and treading very carefully, then I'd say you're doing ok.
I think Adept is right in that they're often useful to kick start characters. It's what you do with those characters afterwards that defines your role-playing.
homerjsinnott
Mongoose
gamesmeister said:
Sitting down with the player when they first start and actually asking them to talk about their character and asking them a few questions about it works even better.
And isn't half as messy.
Just as important is setting some boundaries on what the character can and can't be, for example:
Yes you can be a warrior
yes you can worship Heler.
yes you can be 31.
These are the two tribes you can be from.
No you can't be a thief or a shaman:roll:
No you can't be a troll, not even if you were adopted.
no you can't worship 7 mothers, at lease not yet.
Actually putting some boundaries in place can give rise to more creativeness (gasp!)
gamesmeister
Banded Mongoose
homerjsinnott said:
That's another way. There is no "better" here - it comes down to what works best for the players and GM.
Besides, if nothing else, A/Fs can be useful just to generate ideas for yor character you might not have otherwise considered.
weasel_fierce
Mongoose
Well, you should always talk to hte players about their characters, period. Regardless of system.
Nothing worse than everyone sitting down to play, and realizing that the GM figured it'd be one kind of game, and each player thinking it'd be a completely different kind of game.
Nothing worse than everyone sitting down to play, and realizing that the GM figured it'd be one kind of game, and each player thinking it'd be a completely different kind of game.
homerjsinnott
Mongoose
gamesmeister said:
You aren't clear on whether you advocate actually using merits and flaws or just looking at them for ideas.
I would like to refer you to points I and others have made in previous posts on this thread, as you seem to be saying that they can be good, without being aware of the downsides or the actual view I hold on them.
Adept said:
Adept said:
Adept, cut out the solipsism. Unless someone is quoting you, they are not addressing you. The argument flows and develops regardless of your opinions. You are a part of it, not the whole of it.
Furthermore, quit with the broad attacks. The 'you people' thing hasn't just got tired, it's becoming offensive, you've done it so often. If you disagree with an opinion, say so - and quote it - but stop playing the martyr and blaming the entire board.
- Q
Just trying to reflect the broad lines and attitudes displayed here Q.
Besides what's with the obsession about attacks? I'd think this is (or was) about game tools, and not about people identifying themselves with one way of roleplaying or another.
The "I've never tried it, but I'm sure I hate it" argumentation in particular is not terribly credible. Furthermore, it's really bizarre.
Besides what's with the obsession about attacks? I'd think this is (or was) about game tools, and not about people identifying themselves with one way of roleplaying or another.
The "I've never tried it, but I'm sure I hate it" argumentation in particular is not terribly credible. Furthermore, it's really bizarre.
soltakss said:<snip>
Perhaps men have downtrodden lives which they can only escape through roleplaying. Since women have better, uplifting lives, they don't need to roleplay to escape. They just need Mills & Boon and chocolate.
*sigh*
It wasn't funny the first time. Furthermore it's starting to sound obsessive and misogynistic.
Trifletraxor
Mongoose
Adept said:
Why is that? I haven't played with the new Skybolt or Crush, haven't played by the rules that practically say you can continue to fight without a head if your resilience is high enough either, but I still feel entitled to say I don't like it and won't play with it.
SGL.
gamesmeister
Banded Mongoose
homerjsinnott said:
You mean you want me to actually get down off this fence??
All I'm disputing is Soltkass's assertion that anyone who uses advantages/disadvantages doesn't know how to roleplay, or must have their character rigidly defined before they can do so. I don't accept that, I think it's perfectly possible to roleplay with them, as long as you don't insist on using them to replace role playing.
In the games where I've used them (primarily V:tDA and Deadlands), I've liked them, and used them, and don't think any less of myself because I did
