OK, here it is. 1st. ed. Fiend Folio, p. 34
Drow abilities are determined as follows: Strength 8 + 1-6 (6 + 1-6 for males); Intelligence 12 + 1-6 (10 + 1-8 for males); Wisdom 8 + 1-10 (8 + 1-4 for males); Dexterity 12 + 2-8; Constitution 4-16; Charisma 10 + 1-8 (8 + 1-8 for males).
So, as one can see, the females were superior to males by an extremely wide margin, on attribute scores alone. They also got better class levels:
Drow males are at least 2nd level fighters -- some are as high as 7th level in fighting ability. Males can also be magic-users, some as high as 12th level. Female drow are also at least 2nd level fighters and some have attained 9th level as fighters. Most drow clerics are female, and no upper limit to their level of ability is know; however, no drow male cleric has been known to be higher than 4th level.
Drow females also got all the spell-like abilities that males got (dancing lights, faerie fire, darkness), and also got some WAY better ones besides (clairvoyance, detect lie, suggestion, dispel magic).
If, on the other hand, you're running a historical or quasi-historical game, that solution is significantly more problematic. That's not indicative of either an overt or covert desire to subordinate women to men physically, but rather instead an acknowledgement of incontrovertible fact.
I wonder if it is not a relatively controvertible fact, when it comes down to it.
Save for the occasional joke, sexual subjects and sexuality in general are not relevant themes in my games.
I think it's time for me to hide this thread; it's just going 'round and 'round.
I think it's time for me to hide this thread; it's just going 'round and 'round.
*sigh* I think we are making third or fourth circle...
There are nine circles of hell, you know? :)
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Save for the occasional joke, sexual subjects and sexuality in general are not relevant themes in my games.Again, no romance? No married couples? No heterosexual relations of any kind? Parents?
Whenever romance, marriage, parental relationships and whathaveyou are at the focus of the story, the take is generally more platonic than sexual, as in more interested in the external effects of the relationship than the internal. They still sometimes take some notoriety, but they are not relevant to the story (as in, the story would develop essentially the same way with or without them).
To use a greek classification, themes of love in the manner of philia ("fraternal love"), agape ("preocupied love"), and storge ("familial love") get the focus, while the eros ("intimate love") is not really relevant.
No particular reason for that, though. That's just the way we play and feel comfortable playing.
I think it's time for me to hide this thread; it's just going 'round and 'round.
I activated a trap card, didn't I?
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That's a strawman, thejeff. No one has said that homosexuality is "all about sex". We've merely represented the idea that the sexuality of the character doesn't really matter. A parent is a parent, regardless of his or her sexual orientation, for example.
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I'll grant you that, but you're implying that there's some sort of quota that must be attained. If you depict heterosexual couples at all in your campaign, you must also include "X" number of homosexual couples--else you're promoting a "heteronormative" worldview, and by doing so, promoting intolerance/biogtry.
I disagree with that assessment.
Now, I like including political and social issues within my campaigns, but I recognize that not every game has to do with those sort of things. Sometimes people play the game not to make a statement or to reinforce their world view, but just for the sake of playing the game (and having fun)!
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I can see that in some campaigns it might not come up -- if it's a pick-up-some-pregens and storm-a-dungeon type of deal, then relationships (other than predator-prey) don't really exist. The PCs and monsters basically spontaneously generate or are created in their current form on the spot, and even in town, "The Bartender" is neither married, nor hitting on a barmaid, nor in love with the stableboy, because the bartender is the only one of those characters who exists, and even then he's just a recorded voice that spews rumors (roll 2d6, false rumors are marked with an "F").
Granted, I'd guess that most campaigns are a little better fleshed out than that, so stuff like "the inn is run by Grumpy McBarkeep and his wife, Dame McBarkeep" might actually come up. In those cases, it seems like it's pretty much a long-established part of the hobby to throw in an occasional non-hetero couple; all the way back to the super-fabulous pink fighter and swishy wizard who lived together, Ernie and Bert-like, in the local tower in the Village of Hommlet in 1979. So I dispute the idea that this is some kind of "newfangled Paizo PC statement" and see it more as being true to the origins of the hobby. D&D Land has pretty much always had non-hetero couples.
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A quick note about the issue of "heteronormative" worldview. Homosexuals only make up an estimated 10% of the population. Heterosexuality IS the norm. I'm sure there will be people who take great offense to that statement, but it's not even my opinion, it's a solid fact.
And to be honest, I'm not sure that the 10% thing isn't fairly inflated. I've known some homosexual people during my life, but nowhere even close to 10% of the people I've known. Sure, some of them were maybe in the closet, but my personal experience is more like about 0.5% or so.
The result being that when I think of a family or a couple, I automatically think of a heterosexual one. Maybe that makes me an evil bigot.
@ Kirth: In a published setting, I can totally agree. The company putting forth the material has a responsibility to do so with thoughtful consideration. In this regard, I think paizo has done a pretty good job of promoting equality. They've been fairly inclusive, for which I commend them.
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Heterosexuality IS the norm. I'm sure there will be people who take great offense to that statement, but it's not even my opinion, it's a solid fact.
It's the mode (most common value for a given variable in the given population set); "norm" is undefined (or, rather, defined differently by whomever is using it), so anything referencing that goes back to being opinion.
And to be honest, I'm not sure that the 10% thing isn't fairly inflated. I've known some homosexual people during my life, but nowhere even close to 10% of the people I've known. Sure, some of them were maybe in the closet, but my personal experience is more like about 0.5% or so.
If you know 200 people, and 10-20 aren't hetero, and half those are in the closet, and almost all of the rest are discounted by automatic confirmation bias, then 0.5% (maybe the one guy who's in-your-face enough that you can't ignore it) is all you'll notice.
...super-fabulous pink fighter and swishy wizard...
As an aside, that's one buff wizard. It must be true what the say about the gays, they sure keep themselves fit!
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Yes, but my point is that for some people, when they are populating a world, inserting the token homosexuals (because let's face it, that's what some of you are asking for) may simply not occur to them.
When I hear the word "couple" I automatically think of a man and a woman.
When I hear the word "family" I automatically think of a father, a mother, and a kid or two.
Are there couples and families out there that don't conform to those mental images? Of course. But it's what comes to MY mind. I know some of you out there think that makes me evil, and that 1 out of every 10 times I think of a couple they should be a same sex couple. But that just ain't how it is. Sorry.
One of the things I've noticed is that many of the goddesses in Golarion are bisexual, but I haven't noticed a single gay or bisexual god. That kind of irks me, but it's a minor gripe. Also, I might be mistaken. I'm not too learned about the Pathfinder/Golarion setting. I just know tid-bits. That said, Paizo is pretty good about depicting non-hetero characters. I'm just surprised that of the deities I'm familiar with, all the non-hetero ones are female. Seems a bit... well, sexist :P
But that's the point. No one is saying you have to focus on the sexual part.
At least I'm assuming the romances and marriages are not actually platonic, you just don't focus on the sexual part. That the marriages (and certainly the parental relations) imply sexual activity and the romances imply at least sexual interest, even if it's not acted on.Homosexuals form those kinds of relationships too. It's not all about the sex. :)
All I'm saying is that not dealing with sex is not the same as not dealing with sexuality. Merely by having romances and couples, even as NPCs, you're dealing with sexuality. Having all of those be heterosexual means you're saying something about the place of homosexuality in the game world, whether you intend to or not.
I understand where you're comming from, but I'm not entirely sure I agree. Primarily, because I don't think there is necessarily proactivity and concious decision to use a particular sexual orientation in my games.
If sexual orientation happened to be a subject relevant to the story, I would give further thought to it. But that's not a compelling matter in my games, so I don't build stories around it. Thus, I don't really give particular processing time to deciding one way or another, which means I will default to the standard when describing the gender of some NPC's parents.
It's the same with column design in my games: Unless for some reason I have to give special thought to the matter, I'll most likely default to doric-style columns, but that doesn't mean I've determined the place of corinthian or ionic columns in the game world.
I don't believe that says anything about the place of homosexuals or corinthian architecture in my game worlds. If anything, it speaks about my particular thought structure and social background: I'm heterosexual, and while I have a couple of homosexual friends and a homosexual cousin, the matter is not really a significant element in my life and is also not something I'm interested in writing stories about, just like I'm not interested in writing stories about the 1960's or racecars. And since it is not relevant to my stories, I don't make a choice or take a stand about the issue, instead defaulting to the standard when for some reason it is necessary to determine the sexual orientation of characters.
One of the things I've noticed is that many of the goddesses in Golarion are bisexual, but I haven't noticed a single gay or bisexual god. That kind of irks me, but it's a minor gripe. Also, I might be mistaken. I'm not too learned about the Pathfinder/Golarion setting. I just know tid-bits. That said, Paizo is pretty good about depicting non-hetero characters. I'm just surprised that of the deities I'm familiar with, all the non-hetero ones are female. Seems a bit... well, sexist :P
I'd expect Zon-Kuthon to be bisexual. Gozreh probably be omnisexual in either gender.
Zon-Kuthon might be, but it's never explicitly stated (at least insofar as I've been able to tell).
I don't think Gozreh really counts. Is he/she ever described as a sexual being? If not, he/she might be asexual.
Again, I don't know much about the deities, but this is my surface understanding of them.
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That's the whole point. You don't have to be interested in writing stories about gay people to have gay people in your stories. Just like you don't have to be interested in writing stories about black people to have black people in your stories. They don't have to be the focus. Even if they are, the focus doesn't have to be on their sexuality.
They can just be Frank and Bob, that cool couple that run the bar. No more important to the story than if they were Frank and Sue.
The idea that everyone in the story, or the game, is straight unless there is some specific story reason for them to be gay, is exactly what I'm talking about.
I disagree. As I've mentioned, homosexuals are not part of my "default to" set of elements. Therefore, if I were to put homosexuals in the game, I would have to consciously and purposefully add them.
That means I'd be including the equivalent of a "token gay" in the game for some odd and misplaced sense of forced diversity, something which seems rather counterproductive to me. I've always though true tolerance and diversity is when it doesn't matter whether you include someone of a particular group or not, because the descriptor is no longer relevant as a method of social classification.
For the reccord, black people very rarely appear in my games, and when they do it is often conscious, never as something automatic. Does this mean that I've purposely predefined the place of black people in my game world? No. I think this is the result of my social background, as I live in a country where black people represent less than 0.1% of the population and thus the concept of black-skinned people is not what my brain automatically defaults to when I ask it to quickly make up 20 NPCs.
Same with homosexuals.
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Granted, I'd guess that most campaigns are a little better fleshed out than that, so stuff like "the inn is run by Grumpy McBarkeep and his wife, Dame McBarkeep" might actually come up. In those cases, it seems like it's pretty much a long-established part of the hobby to throw in an occasional non-hetero couple; all the way back to the super-fabulous pink fighter and swishy wizard who lived together, Ernie and Bert-like, in the local tower in the Village of Hommlet in 1979. So I dispute the idea that this is some kind of "newfangled Paizo PC statement" and see it more as being true to the origins of the hobby. D&D Land has pretty much always had non-hetero couples.
Ahahah! I only ever played the PC game version of this, but it never occurred to me to wonder why they lived together in that big keep over there...
(Of course, I wound up getting my burly dwarf fighter in a relationship with the gay pirate in Nulb, so that game was surprisingly progressive anyway.)
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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super-fabulous pink fighter and swishy wizardOoh! That's frickin' hilarious. To think, Temple of Elemental Evil has been in my consciousness since prepubescence and I never made that connection....That totally justifies another round of this thread.
Also, the Crimson Masque approves!
It wasn't until I was much older that I realized Misters Went and Kidd were more than eccentric assassins in Diamonds Are Forever.
Answering the thread question: I don't. In all the years I've been playing, the need for inclusion of any sexual behavior has never really come up or been needed, beyond defining a character or NPC's personality. To the groups I've played in, the roleplaying never required a sexual component, so it wasn't pursued. Anything implied has always occured off camera. Also, its only been in recent years that I've gamed with anyone who wasn't a heterosexual (To my knowledge. What one does in the privacy of their own bedroom is their business, and I don't pry), and he's never brought it up in gaming aspects.
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RE: "defaults"
There's no inherent problem with you as an individual assuming a character is a Straight White Cis Male unless otherwise stated, but it is both unfortunate and a symptom of a number of issues that persist in our world (sexism, racism, heteronormativity).
I won't lie: I do it myself. An on-the-fly NPC is most certainly a Straight White Cis Male (and probably Middle-Class as well) despite me being an advocate for diversity in all forms. But I do try to make a conscious effort to diverge from that. Recently, I made the captain of the guard in my town Keleshite (Arabic) specifically because I realised that everyone in town so far was a Straight White Cis Male. None of my players even blinked. I'm also mentally making sure that 1/4 - 1/2 of his guards are female (the players are planning on hiring them to help clear out some bandits soon). I also realised that all of the bandits I'd shown so far were men - so I made one random encounter have a female lieutenant to fix that a little, and intend on making sure at least a couple of the rest are women as well. I'm certainly going to make sure at least 1-2 people in town that they meet will fall into the LGBT spectrum as well, if it ever comes up.
Little things like that aren't "token gays" or "token PoC" or whatever. It's me consciously taking a stand against those societal norms in order to make a better game. The Captain wasn't defined by his different ethnicity--it was simply part of his character description when the PCs met him. The female lieutenant wasn't defined by her gender--she simply happened to be a woman. None of these characters become "token". They simply become "the captain of the guard", "the bandit lieutenant", "the mercenary for hire", "the serving boy at the tavern" that exist with a little more verisimilitude than having Yet Another Straight White Cis Male.
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See here is the thing...I include more different types of relationships in my game than most. I don't do this to push a political agenda down my players' throat. I do so because it adds depth. My life is not consumed by politics that it has to be reflected in everything I do. I played characters diametricaly oppose to more personal beliefs all the time...because it is interesting to me.
Now I applaud Pazio...and any other company that takes a more open approach to these issues. One of things that really bothered me about 4th ed FR was the removal of all homosexual relaionships(they might have added them in later).
But I am not going to condem anybody for not doing so in their private game. This is still a free country...you have the right to believe whatever you want. As long as you don't physicaly harm anybody I have no problems with it. Personaly if I feel a GM is running his game to force his beliefs down my throat...I am leaving the game...even if I agree with them.
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Referring to straight white males as the "default" is a bit dehumanizing.
It wasn't until I was much older that I realized Misters Went and Kidd were more than eccentric assassins in Diamonds Are Forever.
IIRC, in the novel Fleming was unmistakably clear about Wint & Kidd.
P.S. Don't forget Omar in The Wire! The baddest assassin in the entire 5-season series is both African-American and homosexual. And the second-baddest dude looks like Urkel. You gotta love it.
"They were trying to scare you off."
"Omar don't scare!"