Rollplaying defended, gender examined, REAL MEN ROLL PLAY! RAARRHHH! Options

[Wounded Ronin]

So, the whole gender influencing roleplaying and gameplay styles is a painful cliche exemplified by Sara Felton from Knights of the Dinner Table. (Although, supposedly Sara is based on Jolly's wife, who from her photo *looks* like she might be one of those character-interested players...) There's probably been a thread about it before. But, I wanna tell a story in which the cliches were totally exemplified by me (the male player) and two females who were playing. Don't worry, I'll tie it into Shadowrun.

So, first, The Story:
===================================
A friend of mine, knowing my love for 1st edition D&D and the orientalist cheesefest known as Oriental Adventures, ran a one-shot 1st edition D&D game for me. I was using an overpowered Oriental Adventures sohei, and we were all using 1st level characters. Because it was 1st edition D&D we actually rolled up 6 characters apiece, a la a Paranoia 6 pack, because we accepted that there might be PC blood flowing tonight.

Anyway, we start the adventure and the GM, in the spirit of 1st edition, is letting the dice fall where they may regarding weather conditions and encounters and so forth. But, like a good GM, he dosen't just name the monsters, but rather describes them without naming them.

So me, the male player, is classifying each monster in my mind as its entry in the D&D rulebooks and as a first level character my uniform response to most encounters is, "I run away." The women, however, are getting all interested in the creatures based on their description and are trying to see how they react and all this kind of flavorful character based stuff.

The GM, to his immense credit, didn't just make the monsters eat everyone, but rather had them react to the characters in interesting ways, which actually made for a more interesting game. But my character was running away the whooooole time.

The kicker was when in a dungeon setting the party encountered some zombies. He described the walking corpses so vividly that the women's characters were, like, shying away in revulsion. (He was really a terrific GM.) Of course, I thought, "FINALLY! Something I can kill!", and my character leapt forward like a hungry toddler to a plate of spaghetti.

So, the moral of this story: REAL MEN ROLL PLAY! RAAAHHHH!!!
============================

The Shadowrun connection:

I've noticed that in Shadowrun novels, generally speaking, novels about downtrodden Barrens kids becoming shamans or diffident teenage deckers becoming involved in something dangerous with a group of pros and manages to make it seem to be written more by female authors. On the other hand, high-powered troll fests with vampires and lesbian physads and dual wielded SMGs seem to be written more often by male authors. The same trend, see, but in even more comical contrast.

As a result, I've decided to write a short story representing what would happen if a female writer ever collaborated with a male writer.

Barrens kid: Man, my life is hard. I'm sure suffering. But I'm plucky.
*a team of shadowrunners erupt from the ground, wailing on guitars. Miniguns are slung on their backs and belts of ammo criss cross across their torsos in a stylish Vietnam War fashion*
Sammie: All my delta grade cyberware made it easier for me to erupt from the ground. I, uh, know kung fu, also. For when I shoot so many ninjas with my minigun that I run out of ammo.
Physad: I'm a lesbian elf!
Decker: I actually suck at combat, but I take advantage of the minigun's high rate of fire and the Cannon Companion suppressive fire rules to help the team. And to compensate for my lack of action hero-ness, I automatically win in the matrix.
Barrens kid: I also want to care for my baby brother, who is the last memory of my dear passed away mother. Oh my, what's this? I've been chosen by Cat. Yay, I'm a shaman! How comforting! I draw strength and faith from my totem.
Sammie: GEEK THE MAGE!
Physad: Hey cutie, I'm a lesbian!
Decker: I'LL NEVER GET WOMEN IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE BECAUSE I USE COMPUTERS! RAAH, FIRE MINIGUN IN RAGE!
Barrens kid: Nooo, I don't know how to cast invisibility or Physical Barrier or any of that crap because according to storyline I wouldn't have any reason to have any of these tools yet. But I can't die now, I have so much character development to undergo. Quick, I must appeal to the storyline!
Shadowrunners, in unison: WE HAVE A BIG KARMA POOL! REROLL FAILURES! REROLL FAILURES!
Barrens kid: Hmm, multiple hits for D damage, and I have Body 2 and Karma 1. *explodes into an unappetizing blend of Cat shaman goulash and swordfish mustardball*
====================================


Gender examined:

More generally, when reading fiction, I feel like in many cases I can sort of guess whether the author was male or female. It's hard to put my finger on it, and it's more of a gut feeling, but I'll try to characterize it. The female authors tend to have characters who are, well, nicer. You read about them, and you like them more. You feel more like if they were your friends you'd feel good having lunch with them.

I guess a good example of this would be the Ellis Peters character Brother Cadfael. Brother Cadfael is a medieval benedictine monk in England who solves mysteries using forensics. He's supposed to be this rugged badass veteran of the Crusades who has pwned countless people in battle before having his fill of violence and becoming a monk.

So, he could have been written in a number of ways. He could have been emotionally distant from everyone due to trauma. He could have been a juggernaut of visceral desperation, kind of like Howard's Conan. But instead he's at peace with himself, nice to people, helps young lovers escape, benevolent, and only clever and badass when he needs to be. So, like, if he were your neighbor, you'd feel warm and fuzzy about him, which wouldn't be the case with someone like Howard's Conan. A lot of times, when reading about male characters created by female authors, I find them to be ever so slighly on the effeminite side.

On the other hand, I think that male writers are more likely to be "turned on" by rugged badassery. Just look at the portrayal of Conan by John Milius in the film "Conan The Barbarian"; Milius was inspired by Zen-inspired ideals of rugged and individualistic martial strength. Conan, Rambo, and Dirty Harry appeal strongly to the imagination because of their combination of physical dangerousness but also mental fortitude in the face of danger or adversity. These are the characteristics that are articulated for these characters by the storyline the most. At the same time, there's nothing warm and fuzzy about any of these characters. They don't help young lovers escape, and if they were your neighbor they probably wouldn't be very comfortable dinner guests.

If you think about it, it's absolutely roll playing versus role playing. Cadfael presumably has really big stats because of the heaps of people he pwned during the crusades but he dosen't spend that time actually rolling his combat skills. Instead, he spends most of his time on inter-character interactions that largely wouldn't require dice rolls. In contrast, Dirty Harry spends a huge amount of time making Intimidate and Pistols (signature .44 magnum) checks.

This, of course, begs a question. Perhaps "roll playing" is not correctly conceptualized as an absence of character development. Perhaps "roll playing" is rather the representation of a certain masculine aspect of our collective cultural mythology, as portrayed in popular films and novels. Many people look down on straight up "roll playing", but is it really right to look down upon a certain archetypal cultural construct? Do we look down on the myths of Hercules because they're basically about him being big and strong, and say that the myth about Persephone is better and more correct because it has a lot of emotion but not a whole lot of combat rolls?

Perhaps "roll playing", which I define as munchkinization and systematic statistical analysis of in-game possibilities to chose the character's action, can be seen as the persuit of the perfect representation of a rugged masculine character. It's easy to *say* that your character is being rugged and tough, but how can your character truly be rugged and tough compared to all the other characters who were created with the same amount of resources? Perhaps you refine the rugged toughness of your character to a higher level of perfection through careful management of statistics, so as to portray the archetypal Clint Eastwood style hero better than the other people at the table are doing. And so, perhaps "roll playing" is not the absence of character development, but rather the refinement and perfection in the portrayal of one character type.

Here is an example. Suppose that in a role playing game I want to portray the hero of the Illiad, Odysseus. Odysseus was supposed to be a pretty powerful hero, but he was also supposed to be cunning, sly, and ruthless towards his enemies. So, in order to portray Odysseus, I first munch out in chargen to make him as powerful as possible. Next, any time my character makes an in-game decision, I have Odysseus make the best possible choice at any given time because I statistically analyze all possible outcomes. Am I not portraying Odysseus better than if he were only of average strength and made typical (but not optimal) decisions?

I maintain that roll-playing, done to a systematic and painstaking extreme, is anything but the absence of a developed character. Rather, it is the path to the refinement of the perfect portrayal of one part of our archetypal popular culture mythology.