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Following this logic, there shouldn't be attribute bonuses or penalties for belonging to a particular race or sex. But there are, because generally speaking some races are stronger, faster, wiser, smarter than others - or less so as the case may be. If we can apply that common sense approach to races, why not sexes?
Three reasons:
#1: Separate species are more likely to have significant divergences in capability than different genders within the same species (barring serious sexual dimorphism...which I'm cool with, but we're talking Lashunta here, not humans).
#2: We (as in our current scientific knowledge base as a culture) don't have a good enough handle on the differences between men and women to properly apply anything except maybe a Strength penalty without coming off as wildly sexist and inaccurate...and if women get a penalty and no bonuses that has a whole different set of unfortunate and sexist implications.
#3: It makes the game less fun to pigeonhole people into certain character builds based on gender (since many people prefer to play their own gender), so why do it? Realism's nice, but in a system where you can swim through lava without magic and not only survive but be fine within days if you're tough enough...realism isn't the primary concern, stat-wise.
Most likely they are trying to use the case of extraordinarily strong women and/or equally weak men as the norm. Sometimes people get so caught up in their corner case they forget that the discussion is on the norm.
I was told (on ENW, a couple years ago now) that the belief men are stronger than women is a false social construct. Also that by saying men were stronger (on average) I was encouraging rape, because this would discourage women from fighting back against an aggressor.
As far as I can tell, the people who said this were being serious. Incidentally my wife in her leisure time is a Rugby Prop Forward, and stronger than at least 95% of women. She is under no doubts that not only is she nowhere near as strong as a typical male Rugby Prop Forward, she is in most respects nowhere near as strong as a typical man (but good luck trying to push her around). :)| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I was told (on ENW, a couple years ago now) that the belief men are stronger than women is a false social construct. Also that by saying men were stronger (on average) I was encouraging rape, because this would discourage women from fighting back against an aggressor.
Most likely they are trying to use the case of extraordinarily strong women and/or equally weak men as the norm. Sometimes people get so caught up in their corner case they forget that the discussion is on the norm.
You will get told a lot of things that are wrong and stupid by wrong and stupid people.
I would like to submit this thread as Exhibit A.
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I like to keep my campaigns somewhat realistic when it comes to sociological behavior. Racism, sexism, inequality, tyrannical government control -- it's all in my campaigns. Of course, only with gaming groups that can handle it. I've found there's nothing more satisfying for a halfing PC than overcoming a human NPC who made remarks about his stature earlier. Same thing for a female PC taking down a barbarian male NPC who sells women into slavery.
Most likely they are trying to use the case of extraordinarily strong women and/or equally weak men as the norm. Sometimes people get so caught up in their corner case they forget that the discussion is on the norm.
I was told (on ENW, a couple years ago now) that the belief men are stronger than women is a false social construct. Also that by saying men were stronger (on average) I was encouraging rape, because this would discourage women from fighting back against an aggressor.
As far as I can tell, the people who said this were being serious. Incidentally my wife in her leisure time is a Rugby Prop Forward, and stronger than at least 95% of women. She is under no doubts that not only is she nowhere near as strong as a typical male Rugby Prop Forward, she is in most respects nowhere near as strong as a typical man (but good luck trying to push her around). :)
I wish I could have been in on that one.
People are silly.
Getting back to gender equality in Golarion, I think a good approach for the Pathfinder designers & editors would be to think about the most gender-equal societies on Earth in 2014, and use those as a model for the baseline (with the influence of technology and ideology replaced by magic and religion). That allows for a high degree of gender equality but with some concern for what might actually exist - you can go beyond that, but think about what you're doing. Kendra Deverin running for election as Mayor of Sandpoint - fine, there are loads of female mayors in various real world countries (Europe more than US & UK though). Cressida Croft as Marshall of the Korvosan Guard - probably ok, female police chiefs are rare but not unheard of. Shackles pirate ships with 40-50% female crew - stop and think a moment. There is no real world analogy there. How might such a thing work in practice? What would the consequences be? Once you realise it would not happen IRL, then sure you can go back and work out some in-world justifications ("Besmara loves female pirates"!), and put those in the AP. But don't just ignore the issue; it can destroy suspension of disbelief.
Edit: Talking about societies and NPCs. It's important not to conflate PCs with NPCs; PCs are exceptional.
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We have to look realistically at gender roles as having a valid purpose and legitimate reason behind them, especially in less advanced civilization - not just as a fabrication and means of oppression by the evil Male.
We HAVE to? Why? Do you have some compelling evidence for this the rest of us aren't aware of?
Following this logic, there shouldn't be attribute bonuses or penalties for belonging to a particular race or sex. But there are, because generally speaking some races are stronger, faster, wiser, smarter than others - or less so as the case may be. If we can apply that common sense approach to races, why not sexes?
I agree that, on average, real-life-on-Earth human men are stronger than real-life-on-Earth human women, and the strongest men are stronger than the strongest women (Citation). But there are a lot of ways to look at the reasons for not applying a gender difference in the game.
From a standpoint of wanting their game to appeal to as many customers as possible, though, making male and female characters start on an equal basis is a benefit. A lady gamer reading through game systems is probably going to feel more inclined to play a game that doesn't penalize her for playing a character the same gender as her. That's a big part of the market. I don't think that applying a penalty to female characters will make the game more appealing to most men, except maybe a small group of misogynists.
From a standpoint of social responsibility, Paizo is a company where women make up a significant part of the staff and freelancers, and the men who are part of the company are generally committed to the concept of equality as well. Making a game where male and female characters start on the same baseline is in keeping with this philosophy.
From a standpoint of mechanics, this would require at least one additional line in every race's entry, possibly more, and they'd have to consider for every race whether it makes sense to add a strength penalty to the female characters of that race, or not. It would be one more thing to consider when building a character, and unless there was a bonus to some other stat, it would make playing a female character a strictly worse option than a male character, which there isn't really any need for.
Shackles pirate ships with 40-50% female crew - stop and think a moment. There is no real world analogy there.
Sure there is. The Israeli navy is gender-integrated.
How might such a thing work in practice?
I dunno, ask the Israelis. Or the Norwegians.
Or as the US. From one of their reports: "Nonrated men were very positive about the changes that had occurred aboard the ship and about their interactions with women. Junior petty officers were the least positive toward integration of any group, perhaps because of the
21competition the women presented. Chief petty officers seemed to be taking a pragmatic
view. Unlike nonrated men, chiefs liked working in an all-male environment, yet they
approved of integration at sea--even on combatant vessels. From observations noted, it
appears that the chief petty officers have a positive attitude because they now have
enough people to get the job done."
What would the consequences be?
Well, the consequences have been largely minor.
Once you realise it would not happen IRL,
Except that it not only could happen IRL but has happened.
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Naval Stuff
I don't have a dog in this fight, but are you comparing military discipline to pirate crews? Y'know the criminal kind? And expecting them to act the same when you mesh men and women and put them out on a boat in the middle of an ocean where no one is around and there is zero communication to land?
It's certainly possible that there may be a disciplined and cleaner pirate crew out there that may be able to handle having women as a part of the crew, but it certainly wouldn't be the norm. These are pirates. Lawless vandals who raid the coastline pillaging, looting and yeah theres a bit of that extra evil going on too probably.
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Sure, there's sexual dimorphism. But if you put it in game and say that Women are -2 STR, the next thing that happens is "I think women should actually be -2 INT too, because how many female CEOs and politicians are there?" and what follows is pure madness, destruction, deaths and permabans.
Shackles pirate ships with 40-50% female crew - stop and think a moment. There is no real world analogy there.Sure there is. The Israeli navy is gender-integrated.
The Israeli Navy are Pirates?
I can imagine a disciplined Chelish or Andoran naval vessel with a part- female crew, by analogy to the real world. The Shackles pirates are not an organised and disciplined national navy (which have had considerable difficulty integrating crews, but that's bye-the-bye). Think about real world pirates and other criminals. How do they behave? How do they operate? Even most real world merchant marine are all-male; the occasional exceptions tend to be family-run boats such as some of the Alaskan fishers. A typical merchant ship IRL will not have any women among the crew - really the Man's Promise (in S&S 1) is just as implausible as the Wormwood (likewise).
This is NOT saying you can't have female pirates - there WERE female pirates IRL! It would be very easy to justify their presence in an adventure. It's the attitude that it doesn't need justification or explanation at all that is problematic. It leaves both players and GM at sea.
>;)
Naval Stuff
I don't have a dog in this fight, but are you comparing military discipline to pirate crews? Y'know the criminal kind? And expecting them to act the same when you mesh men and women and put them out on a boat in the middle of an ocean where no one is around and there is zero communication to land?
It's certainly possible that there may be a disciplined and cleaner pirate crew out there that may be able to handle having women as a part of the crew, but it certainly wouldn't be the norm. These are pirates. Lawless vandals who raid the coastline pillaging, looting and yeah theres a bit of that extra evil going on too probably.
Well what happened when women were, in real life, on criminal killer cutthroat pirate ships? Well in the case of Mary Read...
During her tour aboard Rackham's ship, Mary managed to fall in love once more, this time with a young sailor from a vessel captured by Rackham's crew. The sailor soon had trouble on his hands, however, in the shape of a large, burly pirate of longstanding. Mary feared for her lover's life when he was challenged to a duel by the strapping seaman, and so she took matters into her own hands. She challenged the big pirate to a duel herself, demanding satisfaction immediately. Pirate law was clear on this matter, and the quartermaster promptly rowed the two combatants ashore. Mary and the other pirate, armed with both cutlass and pistol, discharged their pistols first thing, both missing the other, then proceeded with an ambitious clash of blades. The larger pirate was the stronger of the two, but Mary was a quick girl, and brilliantly cunning. She studiously avoided the other pirate's attacks, all the while waiting for him to make a mistake. It came when the pirate stumbled while lunging at her, and Mary immediately seized the opportunity. She ripped her shirt open, exposing her breasts to the man's incredulous gaze. While he stood gaping, Mary swung her own cutlass and nearly decapitated him, killing him instantly.
Bigger and stronger doesn't always mean survival, and real world female pirates didn't do too badly for themselves.
Sure, there's sexual dimorphism. But if you put it in game and say that Women are -2 STR, the next thing that happens is "I think women should actually be -2 INT too, because how many female CEOs and politicians are there?" and what follows is pure madness, destruction, deaths and permabans.
Moreover, and I have seen this in a number of threads, people are not looking to exactly replicate reality. You can play reality every day of the week if you'd like.
This is not "a wizard did it" or blaming it on magic. Again, this is not Earth. It does not have to replicate what happened on Earth unless that is what you and your players happen to enjoy. For many others, they're happy to have a world that developed in different ways, where certain bits of racism or sexism or whateverism didn't develop, were stomped out two thousand years ago, or went in a totally different direction.
This is NOT saying you can't have female pirates - there WERE female pirates IRL! It would be very easy to justify their presence in an adventure. It's the attitude that it doesn't need justification or explanation at all that is problematic. It leaves both players and GM at sea.
Why does it need justification or explanation anymore than anything else in the game?
I do think more sexism and/or strict gender roles would be more accurate, but hey, this is the game where I throw mythic-fireballs to kill fire demons. Realism is my main squeeze for sure, but we have a very open relationship. Less cat-girls die this way.
That being said, I do think men and women being presented as physically equal is weird, though this is more an issue with tv/movies that are going for realistic. For D&D, I'm not so concerned. As someone upthread mentioned, in a world where you can breed with dragons, demons, and a dozen plus other species, biology is definitely not in the driver's seat.
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I don't have a dog in this fight, but are you comparing military discipline to pirate crews? Y'know the criminal kind? And expecting them to act the same when you mesh men and women and put them out on a boat in the middle of an ocean where no one is around and there is zero communication to land?
It's certainly possible that there may be a disciplined and cleaner pirate crew out there that may be able to handle having women as a part of the crew, but it certainly wouldn't be the norm. These are pirates. Lawless vandals who raid the coastline pillaging, looting and yeah theres a bit of that extra evil going on too probably.
Why wouldn't women be included in this sort of thing? They were in real pirate crews and there's a lot less sexism (like, basically none) in Golarion. They're every bit as capable of all the tasks required, and the Pirate Goddess is, well, a Goddess
As for the implication of rape...you don't rape people you sleep in the same room with who own knives and have little compunction about killing people (ie: pirate crew mates). Especially not ones who they have to trust at their back in a fight. Or if you do, you sure as hell don't last very long...
And before someone brings up prison...there's nothing keeping you on a pirate ship except your own will, and nobody to punish you for killing someone who rapes you, and nobody who's making weapons hard to get, and a pirate ship is a much smaller group which changes the interpersonal dynamics quite a lot. The two are very different situations.
In short, male pirates mostly don't rape each other, even in an all-male crew, why would they be more inclined to rape the female ones?
Sure, why not? You don't need any more strict discipline to keep from raping your crewmates than to keep from murdering them or stealing from them.
Whether that's true or not (and I don't envy the cabin boy on pre-modern sailing vessels) replace "raping" with "attempting to have sex with" and maybe you can see the problem. Or not, *sigh*.
I think it can be worked around. Charismatic leadership, harsh discipline, religious taboo are just three possibilities I've thought of, trying to work out how to run S&S. It's the attitude that there is nothing to work around, nothing that needs thinking about or justifying, that is problematic.
Why does it need justification or explanation anymore than anything else in the game?
Why does it need less justification than anything else in the game? Usually we at least get "a wizard did it".
I don't have a dog in this fight, but are you comparing military discipline to pirate crews?
Naval Stuff
If you look at the actual "pirate crews" of the Skull and Shackles AP, it's actually a pretty fair comparison.
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Whether that's true or not (and I don't envy the cabin boy on pre-modern sailing vessels) replace "raping" with "attempting to have sex with" and maybe you can see the problem. Or not, *sigh*.
With even numbers...how is having sex a problem? Rape still is, but I address that above. With radical gender disparity sexual jealousy becomes a big deal, with even numbers not nearly so much.
I think it can be worked around. Charismatic leadership, harsh discipline, religious taboo are just three possibilities I've thought of, trying to work out how to run S&S. It's the attitude that there is nothing to work around, nothing that needs thinking about or justifying, that is problematic.
It really doesn't need to be worked around. 20 men and 18 women living in a village together don't have unworkable problems due to the fact some of them want to have sex, why do they suddenly have them when they get on a ship?
It's the attitude that it doesn't need justification or explanation at all that is problematic.
No, it's the attitude that it does need justification of explanation that is problematic.
It leaves both players and GM at sea.
If you look at the actual published material,.... it does nothing of the sort.
It apparently only challenges your personal biases.
Sure, why not? You don't need any more strict discipline to keep from raping your crewmates than to keep from murdering them or stealing from them.Whether that's true or not (and I don't envy the cabin boy on pre-modern sailing vessels) replace "raping" with "attempting to have sex with" and maybe you can see the problem. Or not, *sigh*.
I think it can be worked around. Charismatic leadership, harsh discipline, religious taboo are just three possibilities I've thought of, trying to work out how to run S&S. It's the attitude that there is nothing to work around, nothing that needs thinking about or justifying, that is problematic.
If by 'attempting to have sex with' you mean 'consensually', then, no, I don't see the problem. If you don't mean consensually, than you haven't actually changed the meaning of what you said. So I'm not sure what your point is there.
Nor do I see why any explanation is needed beyond "they're on the same side", or "The female pirates are every bit as badass as the men", or "Why piss off someone who carries weapons and knows where I sleep, when I can target our raiding victims who I won't be around after the fact?"
Why does it need less justification than anything else in the game? Usually we at least get "a wizard did it".
Why does it need justification or explanation anymore than anything else in the game?
Not really an answer there. Why does this particular bit of the world need a justification at all? Are there hordes of players and GMs that are curious why women are not weaker or kept out of major positions or allowed to take certain classes? Is there a call for it?
If so, each table has the ability to change the default world and material for their own purposes. I'm just not seeing a pressing need for the staff to explain something that seems pretty obvious at first glance: This isn't Earth and doesn't follow the notion that on X day women were allowed to vote and on y date we let dwarves drink in bars and on z day we let elves take a certain class.
Those seem personal choices of the individual groups and is up to them to explain for themselves.
Editted to add: This seems to fall into the same category/questioning cycle we saw with homosexuality on Golarion or the other threads wondering why the default world doesn't follow lockstep with Earth. Because it isn't Earth.
As for 1) and 2) I fully expect some sexism in some if not most Golarion societies, but on average there would be a fair bit less than how I envision, say, medieval Europe, India, Mali or Japan. Magic and active deities are more than a match for sexual dimorphism. That doesn´t necessarily mean there won´t social mores that we would find distasteful or oppressive.
3) I don´t see a big need for a change. I haven´t seen that much written on gender equality for the common people of Golarion - and adventurers by are very much NOT regular people, so they are seldom treated the same way, but what I have seen is possible within the cultural framework I know. Maybe not the standard situation, but possible nonetheless.
@ Deadmanwalking - I'm not saying it is the typical situation, but I can imagine the situation on a pirate ship being quite abusive, and not just towards females. It might be more of a "veterans do what they will, rookies suffer what they must" mentality where the old sailors (who incidentally tend to have more levels) can do anything to the newbies as long as it leaves them able to do their job. It´s not something that is likely to happen in a game, just part of how the setting can be a harsh place and not always roses and white stallions.
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Sure, there's sexual dimorphism. But if you put it in game and say that Women are -2 STR, the next thing that happens is "I think women should actually be -2 INT too, because how many female CEOs and politicians are there?" and what follows is pure madness, destruction, deaths and permabans.
Bah. We all know Int isn't the relevant stat when talking about politicians.
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Most likely they are trying to use the case of extraordinarily strong women and/or equally weak men as the norm. Sometimes people get so caught up in their corner case they forget that the discussion is on the norm.
I was told (on ENW, a couple years ago now) that the belief men are stronger than women is a false social construct. Also that by saying men were stronger (on average) I was encouraging rape, because this would discourage women from fighting back against an aggressor.
As far as I can tell, the people who said this were being serious. Incidentally my wife in her leisure time is a Rugby Prop Forward, and stronger than at least 95% of women. She is under no doubts that not only is she nowhere near as strong as a typical male Rugby Prop Forward, she is in most respects nowhere near as strong as a typical man (but good luck trying to push her around). :)Yeah, I've run into it here too.
Sorry. Sexual dimorphism is a real thing. I've got no problems ignoring it in the game, but it definitely matters in the real world.
Of course it does. All one has to do is look at professional athletes. The fastest women in the world are much faster than most men, but no where near as fast as the fastest men. The strongest women in the world are much stronger than most men, but no where near as fast as the strongest men. Female endurance runners will run me into the ground, but when's the last time one of them won the Boston Marathon? Or came in 2nd? Its neither oppression nor sexism to recognize simple facts, nor must there be some sort of discriminatory agenda to state those facts openly. One wonders why it is that we are so 'sexist' that we divide sports, especially individual sports, into women's and men's events - well not really, the truth is that if we did such a thing and only allowed the best, most deserving athletes to participate, there would be a sudden lack of female athletes at every level. During my time in the military, I noted that women used a separate, easier scale for scoring on identical physical fitness tests, and those tests were a factor in determining advancement - wouldn't that be the very definition of sexual discrimination?
I don't have any problem ignoring or hand-waving such realities in my games either, any more than I do any other physics-defying ephemera, but it bothers me when people get upset at having the subject even broached, or the insinuation that someone who does so has any more of an agenda than someone who doesn't like the idea of muskets being loaded and fired four times in six seconds.
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Editted to add: This seems to fall into the same category/questioning cycle we saw with homosexuality on Golarion or the other threads wondering why the default world doesn't follow lockstep with Earth. Because it isn't Earth.
I have to ask - and this is just playing devil's advocate a little - if there were absolutely no homosexual people on Golarion, and when asked why, the answer offered was 'because this isn't Earth', would you find that to be an acceptable or even believable answer?
Editted to add: This seems to fall into the same category/questioning cycle we saw with homosexuality on Golarion or the other threads wondering why the default world doesn't follow lockstep with Earth. Because it isn't Earth.I have to ask - and this is just playing devil's advocate a little - if there were absolutely no homosexual people on Golarion, and when asked why, the answer offered was 'because this isn't Earth', would you find that to be an acceptable or even believable answer?
I would expect the answer would be "we didn't want to offend anyone and/or hurt sales." It's a pretty common answer across a wide swath of merchandise and services.
For Paizo to come out and say that would be an interesting stance that, given the remarks from other threads, really alienate some of their player base.
As for Golarion not being Earth, yes, I consider that an acceptable and believable answer to why there is less or more or different battles with equality, race, and so on. It grew differently than we did and isn't made to replicate the way things went here -- unless that is what you and your group (the universal you, that is) are looking for. In which case, that's as up to you as any other changes you want to make.
I am of the opinion that male and female (and transgender, transsexual, hermaphroditic, etc.) characters should have the same starting stats within the same race (i.e. male elves are equivalent to female elves).
That said, I do not hold the opinion that this is irrelevant because of fireballs and trolls. Good Fantasy asks me to believe the impossible, not the improbable. This means that fireballs existing because of a vague arcane force in the universe that some people can tap into is perfectly fine. People acting dumb or mundane details being changed generally requires a real explanation. I'm fine with the Ihys, the god most directly responsible for creating mortals, wanting people to be on equal footing so he used his divine magic to do so.
I accept this is headcanon and it is certainly not necessary to enjoy the game. Personally, I don't mind that men and women are statistically equal because otherwise it would limit character classes. Say, for balance, women were given a -2 to STR and a +2 to CHA because women are historically more prized for their beauty or +2 to WIS because women are stereotypically considered wiser. This would limit female barbarians and male sorcerers or clerics/druids because it gimps their primary stat. Or it wouldn't mean a g@*%$%n thing in a point-buy system when my female fighter can just subtract two points of CHA or WIS and put it into STR which would make the whole thing moot anyway. Adding this kind of crap into the system would either do nothing besides piss people off or it would unbalance things and piss people off. It's a lose/lose situation for Paizo and they were wise (maybe because of all the women at the top of their company *rimshot*) to keep the system that D&D had in place.
Either way, I don't think, as was previously mentioned in the thread, that the equality is to cater to male players' "fetishes." Just because I (a male) want to occasionally play a female character for the roleplaying opportunities and challenges does not mean that I get sexual satisfaction out of it. (Note this also applies to a girl wanting to play a male character for the same reason.) I really don't see anything wrong with wanting to play a female because I don't see anything wrong with women or traits that are considered feminine. Seeing anything wrong with crossplay seems a little sexist to me. Furthermore, while there may exist men who do want to play female characters for sexual reasons, I don't think it's enough to design the system around it. I think the much simpler explanation is that of not wanting to piss off at least half the human race and a fair amount of the other half. you want gender differences in your tabletop RPG? Play FATAL and tell me how much better it is.
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When you have Gods who can empirically be proven to be real, whose alignment can be empirically can be proven to be good, and who actively promulgate their views via their clergy, It shouldn't a surprise that Golarion has less a history of gender/sex/racial discrimination.
Forgive my naievete, but why is a pirate crew with a significant number of women unrealistic?
