Games and discrimination

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Actually, that's the Cubans, the Lybians have suicide-trucks.

 

They should include the Polish and give them the Drunken Trooper

 

First, you're taking real-life girls, not FR/Greyhawk girls.

Secondly, (and this is important for the roleplaying freaks, and especially in P&P) female players will naturally want to play female characters. There is no reason their characters should be penalized or perceived as unusual just because they're women. Note that in d20 Modern P&P, there is no statistical difference between the genders.

If Elves existed in the real world, I think it'd be unfair to give them racial penalties/bonuses, since Elven players would want to play Elven characters, and it would be unfair in a game if Elves were naturally good Rogues* but crappy Barbarians**.

* - insert other Dex-based class here.

** - insert other Con-based class here.

 

IMO, the Grayhawk/FR girls should be made to imitate the real life girls. Art should imitate life, as someone stated above. Let us not delude ourselves.

 

Oaz, what you are talking about is not sexism, but political correctness. The topic is about discrimination in games, not political correctness.

No-one is being penalized or percieved as unusual, in fact it is just the opposite, it is the way things are. There is no stopping a female character surpassing a male character in any and every respect. Chevalier has allready stated that females are on average more agile and that he wishes this too to be included, so no-one is singling out females for penalisation here. I'm sure we are all aware (if from nothing else than from Martial-Art Movies) that men can be just as agile, but as a rule, most are not. This is what we are talking about here, rules of thumb. The individual statistics of the character shall define how much better or worse they are than normal.

To say we should pretend that such differences between the genders do not exist because it is nicer to people who may be offended is what over-the-top political correctness is.

More closely related to the topic at hand is mostly within the Command and Conquer games, which do seem sterotypical and enhance all the negative minorities within each nation, but I think that they are done more as a friendly joke than any sort of discrimination, if anything the Amerians have even more exxagerated accents than the other nations.

But I try to avoid any war game that isn't an RTS, as they all seem to portray the other side unfairly, and I think that there is a lot of the home-nation and associated world-views within any game. Play a coupe from Europe and a couple from Asia and a couple from the US and you can see the changes are drastic. I think that the discrimination mostly is perhaps more evident to people outside of the overmind culture that produced the game.

If I can think of any other examples I'll post more, but I think that mostly this sort of thing is a generalisation or cultural interpretation rather than actual discrimination.

(Hey, anyone notice that in ToEE the only black guys were the pirates -who were all black- and a certain NPC who is a traitor. I don't thik it was deliberate, it was just funny is all).

 

*sigh*

It always states that the player characters are not average, yes? So a female with exeptional strength would be comparable to these really bulked up ones you sometimes see on bodybuilding competitions and such. Make any sense?

 

Yes, but if you get your freakish female bodybuilder, and put her up in an arm wrestle against a freakish male bodybuilder who has trained the same way for the same time as the freakish female bodybuilder, logic dictates that the male should win because males are built to be stronger, with more muscle mass.

 

@Greenlion - questioning why we are having this discussion was sarcastic. Perhaps the inclusion of would have made this clear.

It was in response to this:

And we should be able to distinguish between reality and all stereotypes. But that doesn't mean that we can't discuss it.

BTW - I feel somewhat vindicated by both Tal and Equestors (last) post. Whether or not the Drow were intended to portray Africans (I don't believe that they were), it can easily be interpreted as a negative racial stereotype.

 

Then who are they meant to portray? I agree that they don't even closely resemble Africans physically (and that's the only way I think the two could be compared, ie dark=black=brown, which is crazy) So I am at a loss as to who the drow are supposed to be a negative racial sterotype of. Maybe spiders are being discriminated against?

(No offense was meant by that last statement by the way, I'm just having fun.... and I do think spiders are too oft un-necessarily portrayed as evil, ).

 

Spider lover!

 

Don't get me wrong, it's just that in D&D all the other animals are True Neutral, so why not spiders?

It's consistency that's important, it's the principle of the thing; spidrs are no more evil than snakes, bunnies or platupi.

 

Perhaps it is a result of living in America, the home of the brave, the land of the PC.

 

Come on, Manus! Didn't you see Arachnaphobia? We all know what spiders are like. They run around on the floor, biting and killing babies, spreading disease. They're ruthless poisonous predators and have to be stopped. They spread terror! In fact, spiders are terrorists.

You support terrorism. You should be ashamed.

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*tosses grain of salt at Manus, hoping it doesn't hit him in the eye - that would sting*

 

Agreed. That is because the discrimination wailing has gone too far. It no longer serves countering actual discrimination, but it makes people look out to get offended. Some paranoid types read bits few times over, just in case they should feel offended by something and could miss it. Or just looking out for damages

Several reservations:

1. That someone wants something, doesn't mean it's right for him to get it.

2. There's nothing unfair in the truth. Truth is of things that be, fair/unfair is of actions born from choice. Following your logic, you should send a cease and desist note to God

1. Again, the stress in on truth. As elves are fictional, this here truth turns into an abstract concept, but realism is still valid and logic still applies.

2. There already are players who would rather play elves without the CON hit, dwarves without the CHA hit etc.

3. News: in real world not everyone is an intellectual, a sportsman, an artist or a leader figure as he pleases. Some people are not meant for astrophysics, some shouldn't really speak
in public, some had better not try doing two things at one time. Want an elf with high CON? Sure, you can get him a 16 (17 in 2E), which is already skyhigh.

4. If by fair you mean equally-powerful-no-matter-what, there should be no bonuses or penalties whatsoever.

5. Just a general impression, but what you say looks like removing the black/white/Asian from arrest warrants

What is the magic that makes FR/Greyhawk girls need less body mass than man do for the same strength and toughness? To me it seems Political Correctness domain spells

Or perhaps FR & Greyhawk humans are different and women are exactly as tall and heavy as men are?

Hmmm... what's next? Perhaps we should make all characters have the same size, height, hair colour. Or maybe just 10 all across the board for all characters? Hmmm... well, and some people want to play good characters but they don't really feel like helping people out, saving the world etc and they don't see why they shouldn't use poison or vampiric weapons. Why not let them play as they want and make it part of the rules?

In short: Everyone already can play whatever and however he wishes, so long as he finds a willing DM and perhaps other players.

And a remainder: There are no gender adjustments present in D&D apart from drow favoured class. I don't insist they be included - they could, but I don't bother all that much. I only say that meeting a certain quota of kickass female warriors is silly and hypocritical. Still, there are people who would deceive themselves for the sake of being PC.

Ultimately: in the name of playing-what-everyone-likes, why don't we make all skills class skills and allow free multiclassing of specialty priests, paladins and monks? Damn, I always wanted a paladin/bard, too. What about a barbarian/monk? I'm sure some people would appreciate it Perhaps we just remove the rules and pay Wizards for the logo

Edit: Psss... I wonder when they will come up with a certain given percentage of homosexuals in D&D settings and games.

 

Women do not have as much upper-body strength as men. They DO have higher pain tolerance, better immunity, recover more quickly from injury and illness, and live longer. So if you want a game to be realistc for some reason, the men should have higher "strength" and the women higher "constitution". Women also have better manual dexterity.

Saying that complaining about discrimination is "whining" is... interesting. How much personal discrimination have you experienced? Try putting yourself in the place of a woman playing, say, BGDA. The only woman in that game is pure eye candy; she runs around in fishnet stockings with a leotard up her butt. That's hardly realistic, and it's sexist.

 

I think you will find that disease recovery and longevity is more based on the higher female propensity to live healthier lifestyles than physical constitution.

As to pain tolerance, I am not sure. Seems to me a willpower rather than coinstitution- and the main basis is childbirth, which is unable to be compared to any male biologocal system. You may be correct, I may have heard something like this, but in any case this is indeed a nervous system difference, pain tolerance does not equate to damage tolerance.

Constitution is about hit points, not nerves. Inflict injuries with swords against a male and female and I'm sure the average female would recieve more damage as a percentage of her total, or even more absolutely due to less muscle mass.

In any case, we have allready discussed agility which the average female holds in excess of the average man. I am not sure if you are saying dexterity is the same thing, but I use the terms differently. Both measure different aspects of speed, and agility is speed and flexibility, while dexterity is speed and co-ordination (and co-ordination includes lightness of touch so to speak).

In my experience men usually have better co-ordination (to-hit so to speak) than women, so it is fair to rate this higher I think. So the fact that it is equal for both is allready in favour of women.

No-one here is saying that discrimination is whining, we are saying that ususally it is not discrimination at all (which I guess would make it whining so you may be correct there, I may have mis-interpreted you).

Also, if all the women in the game were like you described, then it may be interpreted as discrimination - I would not say this however, as it is still only one type of woman you are encountering, and it would be expected that people in similar situations are similar- not like creating a PC which can be anything, and therefore should be a good representative of an average person, or a game-world which encompasses many different types of situations and should represent them equally- but with just one girl that girl could be anything based on her character, you can't equate one person to an all-encompassing general statement, that's like me saying that becase there are prostitutes, that all women are whores, which I am sure you would immediately disagree with, as would I.

Also, many women do choose to dress like that themselves, are you calling them sexist? How has this been discrimination against you personally? A particular story-line is just that, a story, when all the characters are individual personas (unlike an RTS where there are many spawns of a similar occupation, and none has an individual persona unless uniquely designed) then you cannot fault one of those characters flaws as being representtitve of a portrayal of all people of a similar race or sex. That's nonsense, and no harm has come to you becuase of it. Discrimination is when you are harmed due to race or sex or similar. Reading a book or playing a game which has a single character you do not like is not discrimination, it is not liking the character, that is all. Perhaps you are yourself biased against the type of women who you have encountered in these games.

 

This maybe way off topic... but anyway

i have been studying genetics recently. What i came across is uncomfortable to say the least. At this moment, as behavioral genetics uncovered more linkage between genetic makeup and personalities, i am losing more free will of my own.

To these behavioral genetics researchers, all are pre-determined. Through studies of seperated identical twins, it seems that environmental effects have little to do with your ability (not funny at all). Raised in different environments, identical twins still showed similiar personalities later. Your IQ score is not determined by what kind of education you went through, it is a series of genes marked as IGF2R. You are that intelligent the moment your parents sperm and egg met each other. Seperated identical twins raised in different environment shared similiar IQ score.

Think about it, we breed horses and dogs. We call the information of breeding as knowledge. If both the parents of a horse once won a big race title, tell me you wouldn't spend big money to buy this gifted horse? How about dogs? Why retriever are called so? Why shepherd are called so? Because they are natuarally good at so. They had been bred to be good at so. The same knowledge is crime, sinful and immoral if we use it on human. Why?

Passed down by mother, Xq28 is a series of genes that determine males' sexual orientation. 75% homosexual shared the one version of Xq28; 75% heterosexual shared the other version.

D4DR codes for Dopamine receptors. The longer the D4DR, the lower responsiveness of you Dopamine receptors, the more advantureous you are.

The sad fact is, we cannot readily decide who we are. Your genes own you and tell you what to do, how to react, what to decide. These in turn determine what you are.

We can go around and say all are created equal, trying our best to believe it is true. But it is not, actually. Our genes not only determine our physical appearance (black, yellow and white), it also determine our ability and personality. It is wrong to say Chinese are good at math but for behavirol genetics scientists, this is a possibility.

Sorry to tell you that with the advancement in behavirol genetics, stereotyping is justified.

 

Indeed. So it makes me laugh how quotas are being met and at the same time all those female fighters together wear less metal than one male armour takes Not to mention they behave like does in breeding time. Speak... let them better not speak, pretty please

Other issues:

Women pain tolerance being exceptional and higher than that of men: I have no idea where you get it
from. It seems a, so called, compensatory myth. Longevity has nothing to do with constitution increase. See elves. Illness recovery faster? Doesn't seem correct to me, but I'm no expert here.

@teekc:

Because for some people it's easier to call truth discrimination and get rid of it. Some people will still use the genetic excuse for their shortcommings, though.

Hmmm... so, it seems that feudalism has some scientific base

Anyway, intelligence seems hereditary even from life experience. Not only the overall potential, but also the type of intelligence you possess. For instance: on both sides there's no mathematician, physican, chemist or similar in my family. The closest thing you get is a medical practitioner, or some sort of lawyer/economist/general manager. Nonetheless, everyone's got considerable power with IQ tests, brainteasers, etc - in fact even maths, although it feels they're not made for it. It's just not something they like. Nonetheless again, they tend to end up in such jobs that day-to-day maths follows them closely (banks rule here), they can't get rid of it. Which wasn't a great surprise, I ended up another visual mathematician type for whom formal maths means sea sickness and black despair, and a humane arts guy with a strange fascination in PCs and coding plus a total lack of patience for illogical, vastly demented humanists (the immense depth of Poet X's message to humanity, reflecting how so universal a truth in this how so outsanding a piece of art as this very poem is bweeeh, someone give me a plastic bag). You don't really get that from just a certain configuration of educational facilities and other development, do you?

I could see wisdom and charisma largely hereditary too, but what about physical attributes? Predispositions, sure. Or such things as coordination, balance, locomotive sickness or lack of it. But then, much depends on working out, practice, lifestyle, illnesses etc.

Another question: Could you elaborate a bit more on how dopamine relates to adventurousness? I see some basic relation: from what I know, dopamine is, let's say, a cognate of amphetamine that is released when it comes to a relationship, after a succesful seduction, and later in or after the romance stage, but before people get overly used to each other. It enhances mental and intellectual powers, provides some additional willpower and resolve, improves memory etc etc. Therefore, a lower responsiveness of dopamine receptors would necessitate more input for the same output. Therefore, the person would be more adventurous. Sort of in constant search for various excitement. Am I right?


Ah, and we weren't created equal. To one God gave one talent, to another five, to yet another ten

 

First of all the idea that Drow are based on black people is just ridiculous.


Here's a quote from the forgotten realms campaign setting: Descended from the original dark-skinned subrace called the Illythiiri, the Drow were cursed into their present appearance by the good elven deities for following the goddes Lolth down the path to evil and corruption.


They were basically made black to forever remind them that it is their own fault that they were driven into the Underdark.


I also think that males should be a bit stronger than females.
typical male heroes should have 14-15 str, females should have 13-14 in my opinion.

18 is just unrealistic for a PC that has lived in a library fortress for all his life(Baldur's Gate) Wulfgar has got 18 str, he is a giant barbarian living in perhaps the harshest region on Toril, AND he worked in the dwarven mines for 5 years.

 

GREAT JOB CHEV!!!

I agree completly with this just giv all the races and sexes the same stat totals and then everyone has the freedom to role/powerplay how they see fit to their hearts content, and the devs of the game don't hae to worry about been sued for been sexist.

Well done!