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[Rakonas]

BESM, had some female only special abilities, though there were male counterparts.

This is really the best way to go about it, but crusading to ensure that females are weak is pretty ridiculous.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Ioric, I just want to point out that you're completely ignorant. Did you know that women are able to be fencers?

Herp derp, you hate wommenz.

I'm ignorant because you have no idea what I'm talking about, saw me complaining about a game that's supposedly gritty fantasy making men and women identical with some claim that it was somehow sexist do to otherwise when all it really was was trying to be PC and now think I hate women?  Hm...

That's interesting logic... You can't actually see them so you assume they have supermodel bodies? I can't recall the last time I saw a character whose description was anything like a supermodel.

It's not like there's no artwork for Dark Sun.  It's is D&D

Which edition are you bitching about and please provide examples. My money is on fantasy artwork or artwork by artists that also did D&D stuff.

Basically any edition will have skinny, hot, armed women in silly clothes in it.

Here's a google image search:
http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&biw=1280&bih=831&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=Dark+Sun+D%26D&aq=f&aqi=g3&aql=f&oq=&gs_rfai=

BESM, had some female only special abilities, though there were male counterparts.

This is really the best way to go about it, but crusading to ensure that females are weak is pretty ridiculous.

Oh yes, because pointing out that the fetish of skinny women wielding giant swords and wearing leather Bikinis and BDSM outfits while fighting things isn't "unsexist" is soooo misogynistic...

[IronyOwl]

I see some low-res games, Conan-style women, the advanced D&D book with a Conan-style woman in skimpy leather but a thick build, and the 4e version with an admittedly not especially buff-looking sword-n-board fighter in what I would consider reasonable post-apocalyptic attire.

I consider my wager vindicated.

[Rakonas]

BESM, had some female only special abilities, though there were male counterparts.

This is really the best way to go about it, but crusading to ensure that females are weak is pretty ridiculous.

Oh yes, because pointing out that the fetish of skinny women wielding giant swords and wearing leather Bikinis and BDSM outfits while fighting things isn't "unsexist" is soooo misogynistic...

It's not misogynistic, it's just silly. Any woman wielding a giant sword obviously has manly muscles, and especially since we're talking about a MUD it's not like one of those retarded games of which you speak.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Those "retarded games" are the basis for the MUD.

[AussieGuy]

Could we plese just agree to disagree? The thread has kind of gone into a flame war.


Anyway! I recommend this to anyone who enjoys roleplay. It is a really fantastic game and a great setting.

[GlyphGryph]

Oh yes, because pointing out that the fetish of skinny women wielding giant swords and wearing leather Bikinis and BDSM outfits while fighting things isn't "unsexist" is soooo misogynistic...

Yeah, this game is not your classic sword and sorcery. I don't think I've seen many BSDM outfits. It may have D&D influences, but it isn't D&D. Sexism just isn't the sort of stories they want their world to be geared to, and I think thats ok. They have other stories they want to put in a prominent position.

And Mechanically, I can understand why a person would just ignore sex. I mean, they already completely ignore genetics and individual variation - recognizing sex is more an exception than the rule. If you recognize sex, you really need to start consider individual variation, and I don't think most MUDs, especially those like Armageddon where mechanics are very much not the focus. Because obviously there's an overlap in potential... and unless you've got a potential building system like DarkMud, I can see why you'd want to ignore that.

I would like to see them have at least one race with above normal sexual dimorphism.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

It's kind of funny how my gripe all along was that they were implying that the differentiation of men and women was "sexism" and that sexism being a bad thing was the reason they didn't differentiate between men and women... and somehow the discussion ended up the way it did...  I am way too argumentative.

[lordcooper]

Ioric: I think I finally understand your gripe.

You think Armageddon has claimed that it's sexist to represent men and women as being very different physically.  It hasn't.  In Arm they aren't, and therefore sexism doesnt exist ingame.

It really isn't a political statement regarding the real world in any shape way or form.  It was merely gameplay choice.

[Apollyon]

Arm just like Harshlands and Shadows of Isildur is a elitist no-one gives a flying fuck about you game. God bless Harshlands for having a help channel where anyone can answer and a ooc-say command. But this isn't a conversation about HL, it's about Arm.

Arm is the worst piece of shit RPI of them all. I'd swear that it's full of assholes who had a tough childhood (Bay12 Forumers excluded) who just like to see a new person, make vague remarks to something or other just so you can ask OOCly, and than yell at you and embarass you. (I actually killed one of those motherfuckers. But no one asked me any questions, so I was satisfied. No, I am not a sadist.)

.. But somehow I like it. RPI always struck a special spot for me. Sure, it's elitist, it's this and that. But the sheer level of detail is amazing.

Will I play it? My answer right now is HELL NO. I may change my mind one day, perhaps just to make up some reason to kill the elitist bastards who want to feel special. This place also reminded me of Aetolia, another MUD which is similar but bad in it's own way.

RPI's are designed so that you are extremely limited at what you want to play. No, don't give me the fantasy-freedom bullshit. Harshlands because of a stinking war won't let you app a nation. WHAT THE FUCK!? Some people like to start that way or die. SoI won't let you play an assassin cause you lack RPI to take a guild that doesn't exist. Arm? Arm? Well, Arm is a special case, but eh, alright, Arm gets all the points here.

Frustrations aside, Arm is a good game I suppose. I'd however play Cybersphere over Arm anyday. Cybersphere is not surprisingly a even more elitist place... ICly. Not OOCly. Anyway, that's about all the RPI MUDs I know, and how I compare them to Arm.

[Sappho]

I have no opinion regarding the state of gender or sexism in Armageddon, and I've never tried playing the game, but reading this argument is reminding me of the game book I wrote for the QAGS pen-and-paper rpg system which played heavily on the differences between men and women.  Most of it was intended as satire and I was taking the issue lightly, and I even put in a little prologue pointing out that it was all in good fun and not to take it too seriously.  The book was reviewed only once, by a female reviewer I believe, and she made a big deal about how sexist I, the *female* author, was being.

You can have a look at the book and the review here if you're interested: http://www.hexgames.com/qags/component/virtuemart/details/15/12/pdfs/herland--perfect-genetic-utopia-pdf

And the review is here: http://www.rpg-resource.org.uk/index.php?article=4473&visual=4

Anyway, my point is that there are so many oversensitive people who either think everything is sexism or nothing is sexism and will argue to the death over it that it's probably easier to just disregard gender overall in games.  People take it too seriously.  (The reviewer also criticized me for making a setting which was "too serious" for a game.)

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

So it wasn't enough for her to attack your work, she had to attack games in general.

[Grakelin]

It's funny that this individual feels extremely uncomfortable with males playing female characters, even though she professes that she sometimes plays male characters herself.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Because only men can be sexist.

[Muz]

Lol, Apollyon. Sort of my feelings with Arm. There are a lot of people who hate the game because everyone is unrealistically harsh. I've even seen a few complaints in the forums about people who didn't like that others were being too nice and that it wasn't in character.

All RPIs are elitist, though. Arm is a special kind of elitist. They actually, like... no, love newbies. Many of them would show a noob around the place, coddle them for a bit, be extra nice to them. So much so that there are some people who like to go around in the "newbie gear" to get nice treatment.

Eventually, you'll step a bit outside the bounds of newbie-ism and you'll get slammed around, very hard. That's where the elitism kicks in. There's a hell lot of "find out IC". Does a weapon crafter subclass start off with "sword making"? FOIC. How do I make a basic wooden club when my character's been making wooden club for years? FOIC. It's really frustrating. The permadeath of the game makes some elitists feel that their OOC IC knowledge is the only thing that makes them better players, and they hide it. I've tried hard to get the game to be more... logical to learn, but the player base just rejects it. You can thank me for getting three basic crafting recipes in the manual for every crafting skill. Before that, you'd just have to guess how to craft things, and hide all that knowledge in some notepad somewhere.