Criticism: Accepted

I think this is a great post, JB. I completely agree that homogenizing everything so that there is no difference is far less interesting than trying to make meaningful and workable differences between genders.

Of course, while we want to avoid making gender distinction meaningless, we also want to avoid cliche -- the standard JRPG setup of the strong male sword-wielder with the weak female healer/mage is just as boring, in my opinion.

The problem with gender differentiation in the MMO space is that many males like to play as female characters but aren't willing to allow for this choice to make any meaningful choice in how they play -- the appearance change is desired to be completely cosmetic if possible. Obviously the role-playing types will enjoy it either way, but you'd definitely have to be careful to not pigeon-hole any gender in the MMO space -- it wouldn't be fun if every male character was a tank and every female was a magic user because the stats said that's the most efficient combination.

I'd love to see some experimentation in gender with some upcoming games, and I'm planning on incorporating it into my thesis. Hopefully it will prompt some thoughtful discussion like your post.

Yeah, this is a tricky issue. When you design any rules for MMO spaces, you are implicitly saying "this reflects something potentially real" or even "this is a world as best we could make it".

When one starts making rules like "women are physically weaker than men but they can seduce those brawny bastards", you're in trouble with a a lot of people, even if statistics back you up on both counts. You're in trouble because the numbers you picked to signify those difference are an arbitrary prescriptive assessment of a large and very real-world issue, the gender differential.

Of course I don't expect you to shy away from getting in this sort of trouble, nor should you. But it seems like there are (at least) two alternative ideas which would get more interesting results:

1) Make the differences cultural instead of stat-based, and you create two different gendered experiences. Women can't go here legally, certain NPC's won't attack women, will only trade certain items with women, will only give certain info to men, etc. etc. The differences in the way women and men are treated seems like a larger part of our experience than the inherent difference in abilities. You could really go crazy with this notion of gender, since you're inventing your own cultures for most MMO's, and model all sorts of interesting situations.

2) Make physical traits that you choose for your character affect their stats. You CAN have a powerful female character, but she'll look like the tank she is. No slender-armed, busty elves without weak physical attacks and back problems. Let people negotiate between their ideal of beauty and the role they want to play in the game.

I guess what I'm saying is, you're talking about letting gender play a meaningful role, and stat buffs based on your binary choice o' chromosome don't seem like they'd do the job. I think a flippant treatment of the issue, such as the bug described in Conan that makes women an inferior choice, is probably worse than no treatment at all.

Such gibber and drool. Haven't either of you played pencil and paper RPGs? CGs fail us. Why play with cartoon dolls?

Haha... "Yabu"'s point (sorry, don't know who you are...) was somewhat crude, but it was something that came to my mind, too. In D&D, neither gender suffers any sort of statistical penalty and any restrictions are dreamed up and enforced by the Dungeon Master itself. Of course, I guess it is totally unfair to compare to D&D, since it's not a visually-dependent game and we really do have complete freedom there.

This also reminded me of a semi-interesting WoW factoid... that originally, the loremasters wanted to make it so that only female Night Elves could be warriors and male elves could be druids (which are capable of taking on healing/spellcasting roles). They ended up scrapping the idea due to "equality"... but one has to wonder about what might have happened if they had gone through with that course of action.

I really like Jamie's idea of embedding the differences in the experience, though. It seems like you could get a great deal of replay value for a game if you had a cast of characters of different genders and/or races, each with their own unique path through a massive storyline...

Thanks for a very thought provoking post John. I think the point about the aesthetic considerations vs. the instrumental ones is fascinating. Anyone interested in this topic should read: T.L. Taylor's writings on games and gender; Castronova's Paper "the price of man and woman" in which he discusses the auction value on the black market between male and female game characters (female characters with equivalent skills have a lower auction value), and Ludic'article from The Philosophy of Computer games about costume play.

I love the breast reduction story. That made me rofl.

What is interesting is when you "look between the lines" you find out interesting things, like that even though it appears that only 10-20% of mmog players are female, they hold a disproportionately high percentage of "middle management" positions such as raid leaders. The gender role situation in mmog's is truly strange and contradictory: on the one hand, female characters are objectified to a high degree both by their players (men saying they "like to watch a woman's ass" when they are playing) and by other players who frequently hit on female characters, even though they are aware that many such characters are played by males. At the same time, it is a well-known fact that female characters get "twinked" more than male characters. So we have a whole plethora of contradictions that cut across "real" and "imagined" gender in these contexts. Its a very rich and complex domain! Great to hear you flagging...and flogging it!

Actually, Cynthia (whoever you are), D&D and similar RPGs are heavily visually dependent...just not so much along the optic nerves and tracts. If players and game masters can't cathect with and visualize what's going on, an RPG doesn't happen.

This is a smidgeon of a basis for arguing against the immersiveness of most computerized RPGs.

And speaking of game-mastering: nobody participating such games can do whatever they want. There isn't complete freedom. Conventions need to be established to the agreement of all parties involved, or death, abandonment, and ennui ensue (not to mention insipidness).

@Yabu: when I said D&D isn't "visually dependent", I meant the superfluous details. Obviously your DM (if s/he's worth their salt) will hopefully produce maps, diagrams, use miniatures, etc... whatever is necessary for getting across the hard lines of where the party is to the party itself, so they can react accordingly.

But neither DM nor player is going to detail a character's cup size, which is something that DOES have to be taken into consideration (sort of) when you're developing a 3D model that all your players are going to look at. Because D&D doesn't have hardcoded representations of everything, everyone can and pretty much does come up with their own interpretation of what someone looks like.

And, yes, I guess I said it a little hastily when I said there was "absolute freedom"... there do seem to be rules governing almost all kinds of encounters. At the same time, D&D's strength is in your ability to invent new and more elaborate encounters that are based off of the core mechanics... so while there is no "jump on the chandelier and swing across the gap" skill, you'd break it down into a jump check, a strength check, etc.

If only visual games could be so flexible! NWN doesn't even come close, dammit.

Actually, Cynthia, a GM worth his/her salt doesn't need to resort much to diagrams,figurines, and such to reveal what's going on...except occasionally. That doesn't mean that some of such media don't enhance the experience.

Figurines and the hex maps echo the days of dungeon crawling motifs (which computer RPG's rife with). Good GM's avoid them.

Someone might detail a cup size (especially if it was a blessing or a curse).

Nope, the jump-check thing just gets in the way...unless it adds to the play. Saving throws are a pain in the ass. A good GM cheats in favor of the vision of the game anyway.

And yes, not just NWN, but no 'puter game comes close to a real GM's dream. The technophiles have failed us.

Tx for the banter, whoever you are.

Yabu, I'm sure that different players have different expectations regarding GMs, and some would like more visuals to help flesh out their experience. Or are you making a claim on what a "good DnD player" should be like too?

And to fill you in, Cynthia is a member of the IMD. "Whoever you are" comments should be directed at you, Mr. Pseudonym.

I think the need for visuals in RPGs is overplayed. Imagination is what's needed and used, which makes them, with a few audiovisual cues, more immersive than their computerized analogs.

"RJ" sounds like a pseudonym to me.

This is fun.