The Gaming Den

Remember: Sexism, unlike number confusion, has a long and sordid history in the English language where it was used to hold down a large group of people and deny them representation and opportunity they were entitled to.

The objection to using the word "he" as a gender indiscriminate pronoun is exactly the same as the objection to using the word "negroe" to describe people of African descent or the objection to using the word "[EDITED]" to refer to the gays. While it is entirely possible to use any of these words without meaning anything bad by it, the fact is that there is a really long history of people taking time out of their lives to not do that, and now it is impossible for other people to hear those words without being confronted with an ugly past.

You can't call people "Injuns" or "Kykes" or "[EDITED]" or whatever without having a sizable portion of people honestly believe that you are trying to be offensive. Similarly you cannot use the indefinite "he" without having a substantial portion of your audience hearing a gender definite exclusionary term. You can't do it, because there's hundreds of years of people not doing it.

Language collects meanings over time. It is much easier to add meanings to a word than it is to take meaning away. Once a word has been used for evil, you're pretty much fvcked as far as using it for anything else. And the indefinite he was been used for sexist exclusion for way too long for people to seriously be able to use it otherwise. At least for now. And for as far into the future as my crystal ball can see.

-Username17
P.S.: No idea how many of these words are going to get wombatted. Use your imagination.

Weir at [unixtime wrote:1178084086[/unixtime]
If only feminists put their effort into something like, you know, getting equal pay for women for jobs and stuff. Or a female president. Or more male hookers. Or laser eyes. Or something similar.

The truth, it burns!

You're totally right. Feminists like me are *all about* policing language. Feminists definitely have never wasted time on anti-discrimination legislation, reproductive freedom, or economic opportunities, all of which is separate from our true mission, which is to make male D&D players uncomfortable.

.... well, maybe not.

Actually, plenty of feminists are out there doing important and valuable work. Some of them like to hang out on message boards. Even, yes, gaming message boards. Some of *them* get annoyed when the site they use to relax is overrun with patriarchal linguistatrolls.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1178316072[/unixtime]]The objection to using the word "he" as a gender indiscriminate pronoun is exactly the same as the objection to using the word "negroe" to describe people of African descent or the objection to using the word "[EDITED]" to refer to the gays.

Theres an extra level of objection to the last two. Calling something [EDITED] or nigardly is insulting because it implies theres something wrong with those groups even when its someone describing a tip as nigardly. The sexist equivalent is calling a guy a woman as an insult. The gendered pronouns don't get used like that in my experience.

The Count's post actually made me laugh as opposed to lol.

Personally, I don't give a damn what pronoun people use instead of s/h/it.

Actually, people do call guys sissies, girls, women, as insults. Have you never heard a drill sergeant?

And D&D has a long history of actually using alternating gender singular pronouns - it's in the old writing standards - to enforce that the game is played by many and varied players. (Even if historically it hasn't.) Open your first or second edition player's handbook and you'll find players referred to as 'he' and 'she', unless the character is named or statted in the example - and then they use that specific pronoun and name.

Now, what I don't remember is, anyone have a copy of the old rules for manuscript submittal?

-Crissa

PS, as I hammer my point into the ground with the wrong synnonyms, why do I always end up with the last post in these threads?

Draco_Argentum at wrote:
Theres an extra level of objection to the last two. Calling something[EDITED]gy or nigardly is insulting because it implies theres something wrong with those groups even when its someone describing a tip as nigardly. The sexist equivalent is calling a guy a woman as an insult. The gendered pronouns don't get used like that in my experience.

Draco, tjeck your etymology there. Not only is it spelled differently, with an a in place of the e but "niggardly" derives from a totally different root and has a meaning which was not associated with the racial slur and rap lyric. Sadly, the history of oppression Frank speaks of and ignorance of the language's history combined with the word's negative connotations to produce a national scandal in 1999 (google David Howard) and now it's become conflated with the epithet.

And while that's sadly the way common usage works in this crazy language of ours, I'm still going to call you on perpetuating it.

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1178340524[/unixtime]]Actually, people do call guys sissies, girls, women, as insults. Have you never heard a drill sergeant?

I never said they didn't, I was commenting on the use of she as an insult being rare.

Josh: Now that I didn't know, I hadn't heard of David Howard before either since AU dosen't get all of the US news. Just most of it.

Crissa wrote:And D&D has a long history of actually using alternating gender singular pronouns - it's in the old writing standards - to enforce that the game is played by many and varied players. (Even if historically it hasn't.) Open your first or second edition player's handbook and you'll find players referred to as 'he' and 'she', unless the character is named or statted in the example - and then they use that specific pronoun and name.

Now, what I don't remember is, anyone have a copy of the old rules for manuscript submittal?

Answer:

D&D Rules Cyclopedia wrote:Pronoun Note
The male pronouns (he, him, his) are used throughout this book. We hope this won't be interpreted by anyone as an attempt to exclude females from the game or to imply their exclusion. Centuries of use have made these pronouns neutral, and we feel their use provides for clear and concise written text.

PHB 2e wrote:A Note About Pronouns
The male pronoun (he, him, his) is used exclusively throughout the second edition of the AD&D game rules. We hope this won't be construed by anyone to be an attempt to exclude females from the game or imply their exclusion. Centuries of use have neutered the male pronoun. In written material it is clear, concise, and familiar. Nothing else is.

- - - - - -

Josh_Kablack wrote:Draco, tjeck your etymology there. Not only is it spelled differently, with an a in place of the e but "niggardly" derives from a totally different root and has a meaning which was not associated with the racial slur and rap lyric. Sadly, the history of oppression Frank speaks of and ignorance of the language's history combined with the word's negative connotations to produce a national scandal in 1999 (google David Howard) and now it's become conflated with the epithet.

There are many things that are misinterpreted in out language. A classic example is history's being interepreted as patriarchal or sexist, subsequently replaced by herstory.

Hmm. Now I can't remember where that writing guide was... It certainly isn't for 3rd, as it's all he in the first two classes. Perhaps it was Dragon? Some other game?

I'd forgotten that older versions had the 'neutered' assholery in them. See, pronouns aren't very important...

...But this really shows that misogynistic pigs like to play this game.

Le sigh.

Remember the hundreds of threads about how to assign lower stats to female characters or players?

-Crissa

wrote:Remember the hundreds of threads about how to assign lower stats to female characters or players?

Before I wandered into this place the thing that finally got me banned from the mentally challenged game design mailing list I'd been frequenting at the time was daring to suggest that doing that as part of designing a totally-uber-realistic-cross-genre-fantasy-role-playing-game was a really really stupid idea.

But no, there still persists a certain group of pricks who believe 1) Women in real life are weaker/dumber/somehow inferior
2) Wish to reflect that in game play
3) Don't think that will piss off anyone who wanted to play a female character.
4) Don't think that will actually piss off real female players

And really they don't understand why you'd see anything wrong with all that, because from their point of view they aren't pricks, they're realism experts with their finger on the pulse of impartial objective reality. They don't make the news (that their personally hand made game hates you) they just report it.

That and my hate for exceptionally poor understanding of exceptionally stupid dice rolling mechanics made me an exile from that little corner of internet stupidity.

Human females are, on average, smaller than males, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that, as long as we also acknowledge that it does not make females inferior. It's a terrible, terrible idea to reflect it in a game, though.

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1178430423[/unixtime]]Hmm. Now I can't remember where that writing guide was... It certainly isn't for 3rd, as it's all he in the first two classes. Perhaps it was Dragon? Some other game?

Maybe World of Darkness? I seem to remember being confused while reading the old (green edition) Masquerade main book, but that may have been because the World of Darkness books are written like shite.

Remember the hundreds of threads about how to assign lower stats to female characters or players?

Ugh. Yeah. Those were painful.

NineInchNall at [unixtime wrote:1178472587[/unixtime]]Human females are, on average, smaller than males, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that, as long as we also acknowledge that it does not make females inferior. It's a terrible, terrible idea to reflect it in a game, though.

Actually, it is reflected in the game. Check out the average height and weight tables in your PHB. More proof that D&D was created by misogynistic pigs!

Oh, true that. I've never actually looked at those tables before. Interesting.


EDIT: I was thinking more of the negatives associated with trying to assign more significant game mechanical differences, such as Strength disparities, though. Those are just a bad idea because they have an actual in game effect. Height and weight figures don't really have an impact on the game, especially when the given figures are only for random generation.

Ya know?

There is a subtle irony to all of this, but the irony is that we can't use it. I remember from reading style guides to manual wirting that the way to avoid gender problems in manuals is to understand who you were writing the manual for ... the person reading the manual. Thus all manuals should be written to the second person (you) because the person reading the manual is most likely the person who needs to do the things that the manual is suggesting.

The problem in game design is that "you" is the player and the character is always in the third person.

Weight and height differences are a result of "roll" playing that was encouraged in 1st edition and was expanded ad nauseum in third party suplements like Arduim Grimore. By "roll" playing I mean the creation of a character (along with background) via a series of rolls. (As opposed to endless nit picking and personal selection.) In the AG and other supplements, you had rolls to see how many brothers/sisters you had, your level of nobility, and so forth. The tallest player character race ironically were the all female "amazon" race in the AG which iirc averaged at 6' 6".

I've had my share of spirited debates on gender differences and arguments to include stat adjustments. At one time I managed to agree that if you make extreeme assumptions and you really try hard enough you might justify a plus or minus one to the stat, but of course 3E+ has always insisted that the primiary adjustment should not be the stat but the adjustment factor and that an odd level adjustment only encourages trying to tweak the stat system to get borderline effects.

Yes if stats were d% I could and would argue all over for a plus or minus 2 percentage points. But a plus or minus 11 percent is a flat no way!

Especially since that 11% is seriously the difference between a 6 foot human and a 3 foot halfling.

So, did The Bard ever use "they" to refer to singular non-royalty?

wrote:Yes if stats were d% I could and would argue all over for a plus or minus 2 percentage points. But a plus or minus 11 percent is a flat no way!

Ah, so it doesn't matter if your preferred RPG system hates women.

It matters only in the DEGREE to which it hates women.

Thats fine then.

I just think that it's a bad idea to have a mechanical disincentive to playing one half of the human race.

Oh, gender related stat penalties are just fine if you want to dissuade females from playing in your games.

Personally, I'm leanign towards that. My experience with female gamers is that they don't know the rules and they whine too much when things aren't going their way.

Count_Arioch_the_28th at [unixtime wrote:1178629762[/unixtime]]Oh, gender related stat penalties are just fine if you want to dissuade females from playing in your games.

Personally, I'm leanign towards that. My experience with female gamers is that they don't know the rules and they whine too much when things aren't going their way.

This is satire, right?

Count_Arioch_the_28th at [unixtime wrote:1178629762[/unixtime]]Oh, gender related stat penalties are just fine if you want to dissuade females from playing in your games.

Personally, I'm leanign towards that. My experience with female gamers is that they don't know the rules and they whine too much when things aren't going their way.

I don't think that it was suggesting penalties. I think the idea was more like Fallout, where the chicks get -1 Str, +1 Con.

[Edit]Or is it less sexist if the boys get +1 Str, -1 Con? That works too.[/Edit]

PhoneLobster at [unixtime wrote:1178590957[/unixtime]]

wrote:Yes if stats were d% I could and would argue all over for a plus or minus 2 percentage points. But a plus or minus 11 percent is a flat no way!

Ah, so it doesn't matter if your preferred RPG system hates women.

It matters only in the DEGREE to which it hates women.

Thats fine then.

I never said I hated women nor do I prefer systems that hate women. Gee, give a lady a +2% and you are accused of hating them.

You might be justified in "hating women" if the total sum of all the deltas was negative adjusting for any possible inequality in the stats themselves. If it is positive, on the other hand you might be accused of "liking women."

Perhaps we should concentrate on hair color instead? Yea, let's give a int penalty to blondes and a int bonus to red heads.

Since we're moving away from rolling stats to point buy its the range that matters more than the average anyway. I don't think anyone can show a serious difference between the ranges of ability in any stat.

AFAIK, the best male halterofilist is quite stronger than the best woman, and I've seen numerous comparations between athletes that showed qualities associated with Dexterity (flexibility and balance, for example) were higher in women; so, odd-numbered modifier problems aside, maybe one could make a case for women being halflings-lite.

More women apparently succeed in the investing courses my mom just enrolled us in.

Women already have a higher retention rate in secondary schooling in the US.

...But those are probably social conditions.

-Crissa