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shadowkatVoted, read an article in the pretentious overpriced literary mag The Believer, and did laundry this morning more or less at the exact same time. How is this possible? Simple, the voting poll booth was located in a high school across the street from the laundramat. Yes, I can multi-task. Edgy about interviews tomorrow, so distracting self. Will write up questions soon.
An article in The Believer that I read while doing laundry, clarified a few things. What it clarified was why I never played Dungeons and Dragons as child, teenager, or young adult. Why the game annoys me on a certain level and intrigues me on another one. And why I feel an urge occassionally to rant about it and annoy role-playing experts.
Here's the explanation - presented succinctly by the author of the article [ Destroy All Monsters by Paul Le Farge, in 37th issue of The Believer, dated 9/06/06].
1.D&D is a game for people who like rules: in order to play even the basic game, you had to make sense of roughly twenty pages of instructions. (Everything according to the Le Farge is laid out in precise detail including what the characters look like and how powerful they can be.) It would be a mistake to think of these rules as an impediment to enjoying the game. Rather, the rules are a necessary condition for enjoying the game, and this is true whether you play by them or not.
2. What may you ask, is thedifference between a "brazen strumpet" and a "wanton wench"? I don't know, and it doesn't matter; this is a rule which exists purely for it's own sake. Here you have one reason why D&D appealed more to boys than to girls; it just wasn't written with girls in mind.
And later - Gary Alan Fine, a sociologist who published a book-length study of fantasy role-playing games in 1983, reported that "in theory, female characters can be as powerful as males;in practice, they are often treated as chattles." Indeed, one of the players Fine observed reported that he didn't like playing with women, because they inhibited his friends' natural tendency to rape the (imaginary) women they met in-game. The author comes up with theory on why this happens in a footnote: It's hard to know what to make of this, but the phrase castration anxiety comes to mind.. [While collecting stories for folklore classes in undergrad - I came across quite a few that could be analyzed as "castration anxiety" or the result of castration anxiety. My favorite is the joke about the penis getting eaten by the dark dank cave. LOL! Which was retold in a different form in Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods.]
Women according to the author have created their own version of the game - "I have been a player in an all female game where we spent all session shopping."
Sigh. Am I the only woman on the face of the earth who finds shopping boring? Well not all shopping -books, CD's, DVD's are fun. Clothes? Cringe. Shoes? Hell on wheels. I wonder sometimes.
Let's see five ways I don't fit the female stereotype:
1. I hate to wear skirts or dresses and avoid them like the plague.
2. Think hose and heels are torture devices designed by an idiot
3. Despise nail polish - it peels off and feels heavy
4. Hate to shop for clothing, jewelry, shoes, or fashion accessories for myself.
5. Despise purses, handbags, necklaces, rings, scarves, and anything that gets in my way or I'm likely to forget in a bar, restaurant or somewhere.
Yet, I am heterosexual - love looking at the male body and am turned on by it. Like to look pretty.
Do wear makeup when I exit my domain, just not too much. Enjoy earrings. Also like pretty things such as candles, pottery, stained glass, flowers, pillows, stuff like that. I just don't fit the male stereotype of what a woman should be.
I think my main problem with role-playing games is well the rules. It's the same problem I have with writing science fiction or fantasy stories. It's ironic. Since my chosen career is nothing but rules. Which may actually explain it. When you spend your working hours analyzing rules, ensuring everything complies with procedurals and rules and explaining those rules and procedurals to people - the last thing you want to do in your free time is play with rules and procedurals. Even if it means making up your own. You want to just play with limited boundaries. Trying to remember all these arbitrary and more often than not nonsensical rules on top of the ones I have to remember, cripples my creativity and suffocates it. I do however understand how for someone else, who thrives in a structured environment, who is not *intuitive* but more *thinking* and likes *order* and *boundaries* whether constructed by themselves, friends, or an outside force - would adore this type of game playing.
I am one of those people who looks at the directions to the VCR, reads them. Gets annoyed, and tries to figure the thing out on my own. Or gets a new computer, and then loses the handbook. Oh I know the rules, I follow them, but they annoy me if they don't make logical sense. And I hate to be told how to live my life or enjoy something. It's why me and organized religions are unmixy things. Why I prefer BSG to the Star Trek shows. And why arguments about canon vs. noncanon annoy me.
Anyhow, if you don't like *rules* yet tolerate them because you know living in a world without them would be complete and utter chaos, then you aren't going to like most games. As a child I made up my own games. Created my own sense of play. We used the woods, tunnels, and neighborhood as our make-believe world and had all sorts of absurd adventures. They weren't rules from a book, a board game, or some outside source - they were rules we created for the situation - democratically. And yes, we did play "role-playing" games, but we created them ourselves - often from fantasy books we read, not game manuals but real books - such as Watership Down, All Things Great and Small, The Borrowers, The Perilious Guard, CS Lewis's novels, etc or TV shows such as Star Trek, Space 1999, Black Sheep Squadron, Little House on The Prarie, Laverne and Shirly, or Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman or films such as Star Wars. In my games, male/female did not matter. You could play anything and be anyone. D&D was a male world created by a man like many games produced by adults where children were told what roles they had to perform based on their genitilia and physical bodies and gender. The writer of the article says in D&D you could be anyone. But that doesn't appear to be true. You had to abide by rules created by someone you'd never met. Be sort of like writing a story based on rules created by a writer you've never spoken to, that you had no role in the development of. Or painting one of those paintings in which all the figures and characters have already been drawn. I was one of those kids who was always doodling in the margins, coloring outside of the lines. And when it comes to rules - I have a tendency to improve upon them, suggest changes, I do not believe anything should be locked in stone.
The only thing that attracted me to D&D and why I considered playing it in college, assuming they'd let me - I was female, so it was hard to get admittance, was the words and the sense that there are no winners or losers - a game without a clear beginning, middle or end. In some ways, even with all the rules, D&D is unstructured play - or non-competitive play - about exploring a world as opposed to fighting an opposing team. D&D could be like entering a book - discovering the world within it. But I found reading and creating my own fantasies and versions of play off of what I read far more interesting. There's an online lj role-playing game going on right now that sort of fits what I'm talking about - in it people play the roles of dead novelists who are attending some sort of odd college with supernatural occurrences. They write their experiences in lj entries. It's what the author of the believer calls an outgrowth of the original D&D role-playing game, where people act out the roles. Yet there's still boundaries and rules.
An article in The Believer that I read while doing laundry, clarified a few things. What it clarified was why I never played Dungeons and Dragons as child, teenager, or young adult. Why the game annoys me on a certain level and intrigues me on another one. And why I feel an urge occassionally to rant about it and annoy role-playing experts.
Here's the explanation - presented succinctly by the author of the article [ Destroy All Monsters by Paul Le Farge, in 37th issue of The Believer, dated 9/06/06].
1.D&D is a game for people who like rules: in order to play even the basic game, you had to make sense of roughly twenty pages of instructions. (Everything according to the Le Farge is laid out in precise detail including what the characters look like and how powerful they can be.) It would be a mistake to think of these rules as an impediment to enjoying the game. Rather, the rules are a necessary condition for enjoying the game, and this is true whether you play by them or not.
2. What may you ask, is thedifference between a "brazen strumpet" and a "wanton wench"? I don't know, and it doesn't matter; this is a rule which exists purely for it's own sake. Here you have one reason why D&D appealed more to boys than to girls; it just wasn't written with girls in mind.
And later - Gary Alan Fine, a sociologist who published a book-length study of fantasy role-playing games in 1983, reported that "in theory, female characters can be as powerful as males;in practice, they are often treated as chattles." Indeed, one of the players Fine observed reported that he didn't like playing with women, because they inhibited his friends' natural tendency to rape the (imaginary) women they met in-game. The author comes up with theory on why this happens in a footnote: It's hard to know what to make of this, but the phrase castration anxiety comes to mind.. [While collecting stories for folklore classes in undergrad - I came across quite a few that could be analyzed as "castration anxiety" or the result of castration anxiety. My favorite is the joke about the penis getting eaten by the dark dank cave. LOL! Which was retold in a different form in Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods.]
Women according to the author have created their own version of the game - "I have been a player in an all female game where we spent all session shopping."
Sigh. Am I the only woman on the face of the earth who finds shopping boring? Well not all shopping -books, CD's, DVD's are fun. Clothes? Cringe. Shoes? Hell on wheels. I wonder sometimes.
Let's see five ways I don't fit the female stereotype:
1. I hate to wear skirts or dresses and avoid them like the plague.
2. Think hose and heels are torture devices designed by an idiot
3. Despise nail polish - it peels off and feels heavy
4. Hate to shop for clothing, jewelry, shoes, or fashion accessories for myself.
5. Despise purses, handbags, necklaces, rings, scarves, and anything that gets in my way or I'm likely to forget in a bar, restaurant or somewhere.
Yet, I am heterosexual - love looking at the male body and am turned on by it. Like to look pretty.
Do wear makeup when I exit my domain, just not too much. Enjoy earrings. Also like pretty things such as candles, pottery, stained glass, flowers, pillows, stuff like that. I just don't fit the male stereotype of what a woman should be.
I think my main problem with role-playing games is well the rules. It's the same problem I have with writing science fiction or fantasy stories. It's ironic. Since my chosen career is nothing but rules. Which may actually explain it. When you spend your working hours analyzing rules, ensuring everything complies with procedurals and rules and explaining those rules and procedurals to people - the last thing you want to do in your free time is play with rules and procedurals. Even if it means making up your own. You want to just play with limited boundaries. Trying to remember all these arbitrary and more often than not nonsensical rules on top of the ones I have to remember, cripples my creativity and suffocates it. I do however understand how for someone else, who thrives in a structured environment, who is not *intuitive* but more *thinking* and likes *order* and *boundaries* whether constructed by themselves, friends, or an outside force - would adore this type of game playing.
I am one of those people who looks at the directions to the VCR, reads them. Gets annoyed, and tries to figure the thing out on my own. Or gets a new computer, and then loses the handbook. Oh I know the rules, I follow them, but they annoy me if they don't make logical sense. And I hate to be told how to live my life or enjoy something. It's why me and organized religions are unmixy things. Why I prefer BSG to the Star Trek shows. And why arguments about canon vs. noncanon annoy me.
Anyhow, if you don't like *rules* yet tolerate them because you know living in a world without them would be complete and utter chaos, then you aren't going to like most games. As a child I made up my own games. Created my own sense of play. We used the woods, tunnels, and neighborhood as our make-believe world and had all sorts of absurd adventures. They weren't rules from a book, a board game, or some outside source - they were rules we created for the situation - democratically. And yes, we did play "role-playing" games, but we created them ourselves - often from fantasy books we read, not game manuals but real books - such as Watership Down, All Things Great and Small, The Borrowers, The Perilious Guard, CS Lewis's novels, etc or TV shows such as Star Trek, Space 1999, Black Sheep Squadron, Little House on The Prarie, Laverne and Shirly, or Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman or films such as Star Wars. In my games, male/female did not matter. You could play anything and be anyone. D&D was a male world created by a man like many games produced by adults where children were told what roles they had to perform based on their genitilia and physical bodies and gender. The writer of the article says in D&D you could be anyone. But that doesn't appear to be true. You had to abide by rules created by someone you'd never met. Be sort of like writing a story based on rules created by a writer you've never spoken to, that you had no role in the development of. Or painting one of those paintings in which all the figures and characters have already been drawn. I was one of those kids who was always doodling in the margins, coloring outside of the lines. And when it comes to rules - I have a tendency to improve upon them, suggest changes, I do not believe anything should be locked in stone.
The only thing that attracted me to D&D and why I considered playing it in college, assuming they'd let me - I was female, so it was hard to get admittance, was the words and the sense that there are no winners or losers - a game without a clear beginning, middle or end. In some ways, even with all the rules, D&D is unstructured play - or non-competitive play - about exploring a world as opposed to fighting an opposing team. D&D could be like entering a book - discovering the world within it. But I found reading and creating my own fantasies and versions of play off of what I read far more interesting. There's an online lj role-playing game going on right now that sort of fits what I'm talking about - in it people play the roles of dead novelists who are attending some sort of odd college with supernatural occurrences. They write their experiences in lj entries. It's what the author of the believer calls an outgrowth of the original D&D role-playing game, where people act out the roles. Yet there's still boundaries and rules.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 01:03 am (UTC)You had to abide by rules created by someone you'd never met.
Yes, but that ignores "Rule 0" -- you don't actually have to abide by the rules. Every playing group is free to set their own "house rules" based upon whatever they feel like. And given the nebulous and contradictory nature of many of the rules - you can't really play the game without each group making judgements. Which of course, leads to rules lawyering and sometimes as much thinking about rules as playing the game itself. Which, I think, may not necessarily be a bad thing. It can be a useful learning excercise - structure and creativity both get used.
Whether it's because the mechanics just don't make sense to them, or because they don't want rules to get in the way of storytelling...
While Paul LeFarge's comments might reflect a broad D&D playing experience (and having never done any studies, and never beening part of more than a small neighborhood RPG community) it doesn't reflect my experience at all.
Most of us were looking to have some fun, and inhabit a bunch of different characters - male/female/human/non - and the rules mostly existed as a shared language.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 01:35 am (UTC)I did play RPG as a child, we created our own rules though. They weren't from a store bought game or product. And I've seen people online create their own RPG games - there's an interesting piece of software that apparently helps you create one, which I can't remember the name of. The author also states that in today's world of RPG - there's less interaction with people, it's all online, although there are a few "neighborhood" game players.
The main point of the article is an interview with the creator of D&D , Gary Gygax, and playing the game with the creator.
My difficulty with it is as I stated above, my career is understanding, analyzing, and enforcing rules. While I understand the necessity of rules in play, and certainly abide by them, less is more from my way of thinking. This frustrated a detail-oriented pottery teacher once. I just wanted to play with clay on a wheel, I honestly did not care to "plan" it out. I require the balance - I can't be detail-oriented twenty-four seven without going crazy. Some people can. I've been friends with and worked with them - past boss was like that, usually A type personalities.
Personally? I think everything in moderation. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 03:11 am (UTC)Now, that really intrigues me, but I've never run across it that I can recall. What is it?
no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 04:45 am (UTC)And it's called negability. The rules, playing field, characters, description should all be at that link.
Very interesting game someone set up. I think you can still join. Far too time consumning from my perspective, but that's always been my problem with RPG - I have to commit large segments of my time to something that someone else is controlling and in charge of or a group is and that just sounds like "work". LOL! I really do prefer "unstructured" play to "structured" play or "spontaneous".
no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 04:48 am (UTC);o)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 03:23 am (UTC)I never played Dungeons and Dragons per se; the only role-playing game I ever liked (and I liked it A LOT, in all its versions, was Wizardry.
I can tell you horror stories about trying to write computer games that women would enjoy. I had that job once, for a while. It was pointless. Will tell you if you're interested.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 04:53 am (UTC)D&D according to the article was the birth of the RPG. But I'm skeptical. I'm pretty certain you could find RPG games prior to that. It was probably just the first one registered for copyright and sold to people on mass market. Made huge sums of money apparently. There's quite a market in games, but like everything else can be frustrating. (But you probably already know that from attempting to write computer games.)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 07:42 pm (UTC)