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[gamerchick]

My latest article at Gamegrene was literally just published: A Tale of Two Characters. More reflections on representations of the genders within games, with a side order of talk about that Mage game you are probably all still sick of hearing about. Enjoy

Comments

[trahari]

Hi! I read your article. I didn't see any way to comment, so I thought I'd post here. Hope you don't mind

[gamerchick]

I had some trouble with the first part, and I'm about to belabor the point. Whenever anyone asks me which is which, I could really see either, and what I think it's most likely to be depends on the context. If you asked me whether that was in a game with one of my friends, I could see either gender. For your average game, though, I would've undoubtedly said A was male and B was female, just based on what I know about most people and gender roles.

I understand what you mean. My fellow gamers are similar. I also understand not wanting to deal with heavy issues in gaming - nobody ever said that you have to think about these things if you don't want to. I just spend so much time thinking about gender in my daily life that it tends to come out in my games as well, so that's what Gamegrene gets to hear about. (c: Thanks for your comments.

One more thing: a confession

[trahari]

I'll admit that in my D&D games I am guilty of disregarding this completely. This is mainly because I don't want to make people feel shitty when they're playing a fantasy game, and that as I said I'm not as big on verisimilitude as I am on everybody being able to play what they want.

Maybe it's that I don't think it's fair that picking "woman" necessarily involves opting into a bunch of implicit plots or assumptions that, in a historical setting, typically limit that person's role or belittle them somehow. You should be able to play a woman without that baggage, at least in the game.

But of course that comes down to player choice and knowing your players, which I think you also mentioned. I imagine if you have a pretty good read on what a player is into, or what they're going for with a character, this is easier to gauge. And you can always start off light and see how they react.

...LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO