The Problem with Xena

Of course, I’ve never actually watched Xena: Warrior Princess…ever [for many, many reasons, I just didn’t watch very much television at all for most of the 1990s]. So I really have only the most superficial idea of the show and little knowledge of the draw that got people so enthused about it in the first place.

In other words, this post may be coming straight out of my ass…again.

But here’s what I wanted to say: from MY perspective, shows like Xena don’t help the fantasy RPG game-playing environment. At least, not necessarily in the way I'd like to see it helped. I mean, the show was popular (in many countries). It did revolve around a “fantasy adventure” premise. It did feature a strong female protagonist…

Wait! Stop! Let’s talk about that last sentence.

A strong, female protagonist. Xena. Hmm…now to whom exactly did she/does she appeal? What was the target demographic of the program?

From my outsider’s perspective, she seemed to be an ass-kicking, bad-ass hero-type.

Um…is that what young women are looking for in role-models?

For some, sure. For most? I don’t know…to me it seems like it’s more the boys who would like to see an ass-kicking bad-ass protagonist, male or female…and of course many young men are happy to have their hero be an attractive woman clad in a short, leather skirt.

A male might believe that such an image is a pro-feminist one, one that would appeal to women-folk…and possibly even INSPIRE women-folk to want to play fantasy games.

[after all, isn’t that a great appeal of fantasy RPGs? They allow us to play out our heroic fantasies with ourselves as the main characters in the story?]

But is that really the case? Is it inspiring to the average woman to see a “strong” woman wielding a bloody sword and carving a swath through mobs of bad guys?

Sure, it’s a step up from seeing women perpetually portrayed as damsels in distress. It’s a nice change of pace with the whole “role-reversal” thang. But long-term, is that what will draw women-folk to the hobby?

Personally, I don’t think so.

And the point of this post is not to lambast Xena by any means. What I am railing against (if indeed it appears I’m railing) is the IDEA that portrayals of women as “ass-kicking bad-asses” is the way to bring women to the hobby.

And why do I even care? Because it is important to bring more people to the hobby. And more than 50% of the people in this country (the USA) are female. And far less than 50% of the people I see around the gaming table are female.

Do women enjoy fantasy and myth and escapism? They sure do. I don’t know if more women buy figurines of faeries and unicorns and crystalline dragons than men-folk, but they sure take a lot less shit than men-folk for owning ‘em. Same with reading fantasy novels…at least, that’s been MY experience.

Are most RPG designers men? Yeah, I think so. I don’t know. I don’t have statistics, but the names I read as authors on the covers mostly seem to be masculine names. And what do we find in most RPGs?

Combat systems. Skill systems. “Advancement” (achievement) mechanics. Ass-kicking powers.

Hmm…well! Those things sound great to me as a man (well, besides the skill systems, of course). How much do they matter to women?

Actually, I don’t know…I’m musing here and half of this is rhetorical. But let me share some of my role-playing experiences that involved humans of the female persuasion:

- Lilly (a girl of about 12 or 13) was very enthused by the idea of fantasy role-playing. She liked the idea of playing a game where you could be a wizard and spells and have adventures. She had no interest in fighting or kick-assing ANYTHING (she is also a fan of Harry Potter and Twilight…two fantasy series written by female authors, in which the ass-kicking action is definitely secondary to the plot). Oh, yeah, her favorite superpower? Invisibility. About the least ass-kicking power there is.

- My wife (a non-gamer who has nevertheless joined me in games of D&D3, B/X D&D, and Ars Magica). Enjoys character creation. Abhors combat…hates the thought of her characters getting hurt or killed. Does not really “get” why anyone would want to go down into a dungeon. Enjoys interacting with NPCs; likes organizing plans of action. In Ars she played three characters: an owl-themed magus that spent most of his time in research, a female “knight” (a la Joan d'Arc), and a young man with a gift for languages. The linguist was probably her favorite character, but he kept getting hurt because I (as the GM) kept putting him and the knight in combat situations.

- Jocelyn (my friend from the OLD Old Days) played the fighter Bladehawk for a couple years, generally using her wits as often as her sword…but she got tired of the character and evolved through multiple different characters (the kender-like Halfling Mouse, the bard Tempest, the twin brother and sister pair Orianna and Jolith) into our regular DM. In the role of DM she could introduce plots and intrigues, love triangles and vendettas…adventures based more on the relationships between characters than anything “dungeon-related.” We also played a lot of Marvel Superheroes which turned out much more like the soap opera X-Men of the ‘80s than the “Secret Wars.”

- Crystal (Jocelyn’s friend) only played with us briefly but had a memorable character…a fairly blunt (as opposed to “sharp”) female fighter…who’s claim to fame was the elaborate back-story of being on the run from an ex-husband of the arranged-marriage variety. Hmmm…she also had a Halfling traveling companion with whom she spent most of the time interacting and making mischief.

- Andrea (friend in college) a fellow actor that also role-played; we gamed a lot of White Wolf stuff in the 90s. Regardless of the game she always ALWAYS went for the faerie/fae option. Merinitas, Changelings, merits and flaws that made her half-Sidhe or whatever. Her characters were always more interested in mischief, pranks, and trouble-making/double-crosses than any “ass-kicking.”

- Jen? (ugh! Can’t remember the name of another girl from college) played Vampire with her (she ran a Tremere…again, interest was in intrigue and hierarchy, not ass-kicking). She spent most of her role-playing time playing in a different friend’s Call of Cthulhu game…the “Anti-Ass-Kicking” RPG if ever there was one.

These are direct experiences I can recall…I’ve read plenty of anecdotes posted by women on blogs and forums that seem (to me) to echo in similar vein.

Here’s what I’m saying: sometimes game designers get hung up on this idea that girls aren’t as into RPGs because the games appear to depict the female person in an un-flattering way (this is true) and they then try to RECTIFY this by portraying women as ass-kicking bad-asses…or giving them ass-kicking, bad-ass options. Which may or may not be anything a female gamer actually wants. It's thinking that women think like...well, like how they'd like someone to address inequities done to them (men-folk), the Do Unto Others philosophy.

I'm not sure that's quite right...at least not every time.

What got me thinking about this in the first place? Well, for one thing I’ve been watching a lot of Battlestar Galactica with my wife, who loves the show as much as myself despite the fact that superficially it appears to be a SciFi-Military drama (she’s not big into SciFi OR Military). Oh…and Lucy Lawless (Xena herself!) shows up in the cast.

The other reason I’m thinking of this is that I’m writing an adventure module, and I keep making weird or random-ish choices in its design. I’m not designing it to be a straight ass-kicking venture; that’s not really what high-level D&D play is about…at least not in my experience. I find I’m writing more situations than encounters even if I’m calling them “encounters,” and I’m doing this in part because of my role-playing experiences. INCLUDING my experiences with “the fairer sex.”

[note to interested parties: yes, there are straight encounters in the module as well]

I’ll be interested to see what people thing of the end product.

Hope everyone's having a good Friday! Lent is over, so I'm back at the Four Spoons, blogging over a plate of sausage! Prost!

: )

The Right to Dream

No I am not talking about simulationism…B/X play is all about the “step on up,” anyway.

No, I want to relay an anecdote from my past that has naught to do with role-playing but a bit to do with where my mind has been wandering.

They say it takes a thick skin to be an actor. I consider this to be a half-truth. It takes f’ing BULLET-PROOF skin to be an actor…at least if you plan on making a living at it. Sure luck helps: being in the right place at the right time or being born with the right look or right connections. But mainly, it’s about being bullet-proof.

Now there are other, extenuating reasons why I didn’t pursue my acting after college (I won’t go into ‘em all right now), and I am far from bullet-proof, but I am incredibly thick-skinned. Astrologically, I am a Scorpio, and while I am as sensitive to criticism under my crusty shell as any of the water signs (Cancer and Pisces), I also have a Scorpio’s ego which goes a long way towards reinforcing my psychic defenses. But I’ve known others who weren’t so stubborn, nor care-free.

One guy, call him "Phil," was in my graduating class, and the only other male to graduate that year with a degree in dramatic arts (‘course, there was only four of us total that year). And oh man did he want to be an actor. And oh man was he terrible. Just terrible.

He was so bad, and he was so damn sincere that other folks in the drama department felt well and truly hurt on his behalf. And when he was drunk (as actor-students often are…at the ends of show runs, for example) and he would ask us, “tell me honestly, do you think I can make it?” and we knew, we KNEW he wasn’t bullet-proof, wasn’t even CLOSE…ugh, what the hell were we supposed to say?

Now some of us (like me) were in the department because we truly wanted to be in the theater and performing arts and were serious about our craft. But I don’t think ANY of us besides Phil (including me!) had any delusions that we were bound for fame and fortune. None of us were talking about moving to Los Angeles or New York, and at the time Seattle was the #3 city for theater anyway (and by now, may have passed up Chicago for #2).

But Phil wanted to shoot the moon. In our last show before graduation, he somehow managed to find Tom Skerritt’s phone number. Remember Tom Skerritt? From Top Gun and Growing Pains (or whatever that sitcom was that he was in)? Well, he lives (or did live) in Seattle at the time. And Phil got hold of him and begged and pleaded for him to come to our show and see us perform.

We were actually running TWO shows that quarter…I was starring in A Sleep of Prisoners by Chris Fry, and Phil had a fairly substantial role in a Phoenix Too Frequent. I actually got fairly rave reviews myself, but as my show ran 2nd (right after intermission) and most of the time we’d only be playing to a small handful of people in the audience (the students that were forced to attend for their art classes)…most of the crowd hit the door after Phoenix.

I remember the night Tom Skerritt was supposed to come. Phil was SOOO excited…he talked incessantly about it before hand, and was totally pumped up (I, on the other hand, was listening to Green Day on the headphones to get jazzed). At intermission and after the second show ended, Phil prowled the lobby looking for Skerritt, to no avail. Either he, too, had snuck out at the break, or (more likely) he simply failed to show to a production of college students in a venue that wasn’t even a theater (this was long before Seattle University opened its multi-million dollar dedicated theater in conjunction with Intiman).

Phil was crushed. And at the after-party he got very drunk. And you could see...I could see…that deep in his heart he knew, he KNEW it was all a pipe dream. For him anyway. And it was a crushing, crushing defeat.

And was that even the truth? Who’s to say that if he had simply continued to act…in anything and everything…and continued taking training and lessons that he wouldn’t get somewhere? I certainly don’t know…but the last I hear Phil had long given up the acting dream and was pushing papers around a desk, just like me. The guy wasn’t bullet-proof; hell, he wasn’t even thick-skinned.

Why am I relating all this? ‘Cause working on the B/X Companion, trying to stand on the shoulders of giants (and I don’t just mean the Founding Fathers…I’m talking about ALL the game designers and publishers that have actually created amazing material), sometimes I wonder if I am completely self-delusional myself...just like Phil. Am I fooling myself that anyone is going to like what I’ve written or want to play (let alone purchase) my product? Even if I throw money into this production, am I going to sell five copies that get universally panned and spit on around the internet?

Shit…is MY skin getting thin…like my hair line?!

F That Noise. I ain’t bullet-proof, but I’m familiar with this particular mind game. I AM going to put out the best damn product I can, period. I am in unfamiliar territory, but I’m going to try to be humble and ask others for help, as I can. Hell, I BELIEVE in this product…I AM willing to put some money where my mouth is. These scary shadows flitting around the back of my mind…well, hell, I don’t think ANYone is truly immune to worry and second-guessing. But it’s part of the cross of being an intellectual that I over-think and go down roads of self-doubt.

Folks, I’m going to do the best I can…that’s all I can do. I, too, have a right to dream. Sure it may be big, ambitious, and Lord Knows unrealistic, but it’s my dream and it’s a pretty one. I’m going to enjoy it as much as possible and I really, really hope some of you want to come along for the ride.

Prost.

One Boring Summer of Rifts

I associate many RPGs with various music albums…I listen to a particular song or album, and it reminds me of the RPG I was playing at the time. For example, Def Lepard’s Hysteria always makes me think an awful lot about 1^st edition AD&D and Faith No More’s Epic always conjures to mind Vampire the Masquerade.

And Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti always remind me of Rifts.

I played Rifts throughout high school, but pretty much stopped once I got to college (other friends played Rifts in college, but I was into Vampire my early years and then…well, into my major and things other than role-playing in my later years). This, and lack of funds, probably accounts for why I stopped buying every single world book and supplement Palladium published for the line.

However, one lonely summer during college Rifts was my sole form of entertainment for a couple weeks as I ran a solo “mini-campaign” for myself.

I don’t remember exactly what the circumstances were that summer. I was working a lot, and (if I remember correctly) I was working off-campus that summer…probably fast food. Between girl friends at the time (they only ever seemed to last from March to June back in those days) and my gaming friends were out of town…I think that was the year Michael was in Prague, Ben and Mike were in Missouri, and probably BEFORE I met Joel, Andrea, etc.

In fact, I think it must have been the summer AFTER my Freshmen year in college, ‘cause I met all my college gamer friends around Sophomore year…and I spent a lot of summers partying with them after that…I also usually had better summer jobs.

Anyway, I ran a whole war campaign against the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Rifts World Book 4: Africa. Ha! A lot of people say that’s one of the worst of the Rifts World Books, but I sure got MY money’s worth out of it.

I created a whole plethora of characters using the Rifts books I had at the time (and there were many). An Apok and a Worm Speaker from Wormwood, a Knight and a Druid from England, a Tattoo Master from Atlantis, a minor Godling from Rifts Pantheons, an Elementalist from the Conversion Book 1. There must have been at least 15 or more characters in the party, armored up and loaded for bear, driving around in a Coalition APC (or its equivalent).

And I didn’t just stick to my own characters…I used NPCs from the various books as well. I know for sure Erin Tarn and her cyber-knight boyfriend were along for the ride (though Sir Eaglefeather or whatever his name was didn’t make it back alive), and probably a few of Reed’s Rangers from the Vampire Kingdoms. All-in-all, a pretty beefy bunch.

So in between late night shifts at the fast food place (Burger King, I believe), even later night-early morning card play with co-workers at the 24 hour greasy spoon Beth’s Café, and the sleeping in till early afternoon, I would hang out in my room fiddling with dozens of papers, notes, dice, and Rifts books, all the while listening to Led Zeppelin...over and over again.

Pretty sad really.

But what can I say…then as now I had a longing to play games and no one around to game with. This was before the internet, and there were no gaming shops in my neighborhood (and I was saving my money for school anyway)…hell, I didn’t even have a car back in those days! I was one broke joke. But I had music and I had RPGs and they provided me with many hours of entertainment.

Playing solo, one creates all sorts of rules to best meet one’s own “needs in play.” Over-hauling the XP system is the main thing I remember, but I know I had to tweak and house-rule things that came up “in play.” With no competing visions (i.e. other players) I was able to shape the action to my own liking…in essence I was using Rifts in a “drifted” fashion to facilitate a narrative creative agenda. I was writing/telling a story in play…one that I didn’t actually know the ending of until the dice fell from my hands to the desktop.

Actually, I believe it was the last game of Rifts I ever played. Later in college, I had friends that played Rifts to death, and I even loaned them some of my books for their games, but I had no interest in playing. I don’t know if that lonely summer “cured me” of Palladium, if it had been a high point that I felt (subconsciously) could never be equaled, or if I’d simply moved past it to other entertainments. Honestly, I don’t know. Hell, maybe it was just that I was super-focused on my acting and romantic relationship(s) of the time. Certainly the gamers were many of the same people with whom I continued to drink and party.

With regard to my African war campaign, I’m pretty sure that I finished it, soundly defeating (i.e. slaying) all four Horsemen. I seem to recall the Big Baddies got weaker with each death and so the final battles may have been anti-climactic compared to the earlier ones. In the end, many of the gathered “host of heroes” fell in battle against the Horsemen, and the Apok was the main hero (of course!) of the expeditionary force, killing the last one with a blow of Sir Featherhead’s flaming “rune flail” (Sir CyberKnight having been killed earlier by one of the Horsemen).

Ha! Yes, Supernatural Intelligences CAN be killed with enough firepower and twink magic. I will say this: the nice thing about having played it through, I have absolutely no urge to re-purchase/re-visit Rifts Africa…though I wonder if I still have my notes from that game? Maybe somewhere….

; )

[one quick note: my copy of Rifts Africa had the original cover, not the revised one pictured in this post. I couldn't find a good clipping of the original, and besides I have to admit I prefer the revised version]