I bet the remains of the man who told the female dwarf she wasn't as strong as the males would attest that she is indeed equal in physical prowess... if she hadn't you know... crushed his windpipe...

"LMAO" Thanks to Gina and Kriea for a good evenings laugh.

Laughing at dwarf women crushing windpipes sounds like dangerous business, Tann.

Hello, my name is Saki, and I am the Texas Manager of a gaming community and modeling group called The D20 Girls Project. I was sent an email by Tann’Talas to check out the forums, with a copy of the opening post for this thread!

I hope you don't mind me posting my personal two-cents:

The gender roles issue in tabletop, I can see where females can tend to have two different character types relating to either Sailor Moon or She-Hulk.

Interestingly enough, when I have played female characters, I tend to play as characters that are either reminiscent of River Tam from Firefly or Mulan (due to personal gender identity confusion throughout life). Now, River Tam can be argued as a socially reclusive yet powerful female character, but it is arguable whether you can truly consider her a "Strong Woman Fighter." Though I will say, it may be a tad different when you're playing Jedi class in a Star Wars campaign than, say, a warrior class in 3.5.

Currently I'm playing a character in Dead Reign that is a professional skater (think Jet Set Radio) with a heavy amount of training in motorcycle drive skills, acrobatics, and martial arts. That said, in a post-apocalyptic zombie campaign, this character may be at a disadvantage because she does not have any guns she is skilled in, and has to borrow them from the Humvee that the party uses to store a load of weapons. She has to get in close to zombies to fight them, and use an action point to create some distance after attacking. So if the attack misses, she can be pretty useless in some battles. (Note: the DM made everyone's characters for this campaign, and I was originally not made a character due to my usually busy schedule.)

I do also have the problem that my boyfriend will sometimes make decisions for me regarding my character and her traits, one time almost completely changing my class from rouge to cleric without my consent. Granted, that fits the female stereotype of playing more rouges than warriors as posed by the OP, but the idea that a male player, let alone my boyfriend, and not the DM, tried to have a say in what MY character should be... is that a problem for other DnD players than me?

Then there's the problem where the DnD group and I work on my character LAST, because somehow everyone elses character in the group has already been decided upon, and I have to choose the leftover classes to keep a well-rounded party. If I were not the newest member of our DnD circle and had a more open schedule to come to every campaigning session, I would see this as a gender divide.

The good thing about my DnD group is that some of the men in our group DO play female characters - powerful AND feminine characters - and typically have the decency to keep them from becoming a joke or some male character's trophy. It brings me some piece of mind, which may also denote why I don't always feel I have to play a female character as a biological woman.

I actually love to play genderbenders the most, regardless of class.

First of all welcome to the Inn. Awesome that Tann thought my little rant was interesting enough to send on to you and you agreed enough to come give your opinion.

I've played a pretty rich variety of women in my time, from a trigger happy bounty hunter in Star Wars to a streetwise prostitute in World of Darkness to a dainty Elf Sorceress (Kriea Sinclair, my namesake on here.)


As for the male making decisions for you... I'd flay him. I actually recently dumped a guy because he kept getting all huffy when my characters didn't have active romances with his when we were in a freeform writing group. No matter what the storyline he kept putting traits to my character that didn't like and trying to insinuate that she had to be engaged in a romance with his character. It ended pretty badly.


I think it is important for people to just play who they want to and screw gender roles, and racial norms "well they can't do that they're a *insert race*" has always been one of my pet peeves.

I guess it's because D&D is a game about larger than life characters (yes even dwarf, gnome and halfling ones) and saying that you can't do something with a character is about like telling a little kid they can't be a doctor when they grow up. It's rude, sad and you look like an arse for telling someone they can't reach their potential.

Ahem, sorry had a little rant there again.

Totally agreeing with Kriea here re: the boyfriend. If he's overstepping his bounds and deciding stuff for you without your consent, then clearly he is not worth keeping as a boyfriend; first it's characters, then could be finances, names for the children, where the house is... not saying it always goes that far but it can just spiral.

"To love one another is to walk through life together and to choose the path that is most beneficial to the both of you." To elaborate on that, it requires understanding between both sides. If he wants a semi-submissive girlfriend that he can decide things for, and you don't want that role, then that's not your fault and the relationship shouldn't be pushed forward.

Of course, the best thing is to just talk about it. If you don't like something, tell them if you haven't already.

That aside, to me, the most important thing is to play characters I can be comfortable with. That's why I tend not to play male characters myself; I usually don't feel comfortable about it, and that's my own reason.

I'm totally agreeing with Kriea's point about how race/gender are more like guidelines in D&D. The game is making a book or movie. Books and movies are more interesting with a variety of characters that don't necessarily follow externally placed expectations.

There's a reason why 'outcast' character's aren't out of the question, as long as they're done well

When he tried to change my character from Rogue to Cleric, I not only called him out on it, the two of us spent a good two hours hashing out just what boundaries needed to be set regarding our characters. That was rather early in our relationship, and we have a lot of heart to hearts to stay on a common ground.

Occassionally he still wants to add traits to my characters, but for the most part he asks before doing so. I think the improvement he's made since then is good for our relationship, but when he forgets to ask it does still bother me.

I am glad he doesn't try to have his character in a relationship with any of my characters in-game. That would annoy the underworld out of me.

Improvement is always a good thing.

So long as it's only your character that he's shown signs of being controlling about then it isn't so bad as if it stars leaking over into other things. If he starts becoming a controlling jerk, kick him to the curb.

On a totally different note, did you say something about a steampunk RPG? O_O