Enforced sexism?
 

Strange question - but I was wondering if anyone knew of any games with thematic sexism/racism/not being very nice/whatever.

The only one I know of is Firan, but I figure there must be more, right?

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

In Armageddon, there's enforced racism and prejudice against magick users as well as those of the opposite city-state (if you're from a main city), those in tribes (if you're a city dweller) most times, and if you're in a tribe, against those in cities. It's the absolute opposite on sexism however. There is no sexism whatsoever, but plenty of hate via the other faction type hatreds, there's also the tagline of the game: "murder, corruption, betrayal", so it definitely fits the not being very nice element as well.

In Dark Isles there was a bit of sexism, though I'm not sure it was intentional. It seemed more like a side effect of the setting itself. They were also werewolfish vs vampirish (they have setting unique names for them) type races that were at strife with each other, though that was more the special races at odds than anything else, though pretty much everyone is prejudiced against the vampirish types.

In Southlands, there's a prejudice against the use of certain types of magick as well as certain races, but again, no sexism. It tends to be nicer, on the whole (player to player interactions, that is) than Armageddon from my experience, but there's definitely a level of tension and strife, though you may want to start in Shae rather than Tow if you want to see that.

Other than the now-defunct mud WOTL, those are the only games I've really played around with enough to understand a great deal of the tensions. Hope that helped, though.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Avendar: the Crucible of Legends has racism of various sorts, most overtly directed toward a race that is responsible for major wars in the world's recent history, as well as the enslavement of another race.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Not so strange a question considering most games are fantasy based or at least not based in our modern ideas of community. The idea of such proclivities should not be suprising.

On New Worlds Ateraan some of the races are by nature opposed (you can see this from the descriptions at and )

The Kingdom and Southland have some severe dyametric antagonism between them. In the south, if you are bold enough to start there (not recommended for new players to the game), there are slaves, servants, and conscripts who have no rights whatsoever and are often punished, even killed for behavior.

So while NWA has good enjoyable roleplay with comraderie and unionism, there is a side of it that also has the most dangerous and diabolicle behavior you can find.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

has a very elaborate system of allegiances and animosities.

One of the stronger ones is between two races: Canis and Catfolk.

Their animosity is more than just a version of "cats vs. dogs." There is a religious element to it as well. From the in game help file, help catfolk:

Another part of the religious lore is that Silvanus may have created the canis race.

All of this together results in a lot of in character conflict between the races.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Don't know about sexism but Shadowgate about a year ago launched human ethnicity. With some built in racism between them. In addition to your standard D&D racism between the varying fantasy races.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Unfortunately, I tried to play a character who was mistrustful towards other races and close to outright racist on Threshold, and he constantly got characters of all sorts who used 'kick' and 'punch' socials on him and were quite outraged at such sentiments, like I was rocking the boat or something.

I think the most realistic way this is played out is in the RPI's.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

It might help the OP if you explained what RPI is especially good at this.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Wow, thanks for sharing that.

No matter how often it happens, I still love hearing stories where the community reacts really well IC and embraces and engages a new player.

Sounds like your IC racism struck a nerve. Kudos to you and to the people who reacted appropriately. :)

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

It actually wasn't a positive experience of the game's RP, nor did I feel people reacted appropriately on the whole as they spammed kick and punch socials. It was one of the things which quite frankly turned me off from the game, but then again, perhaps the character I created was a tad too gritty for the environment there.

To Newworlds, I specifically mentioned the RPI's as a genre because most have racism secondary to the world's culture in some form or another.

Obviously the leading example would be Armageddon, where there is racism/class-ism/city-state-ism, however no sexism. Shadows of Isildur also had this to some extent between the good and evil sides. Black Sands, Southlands, and Harshlands also contain it to some extent. Atonement did whilst it existed, too, between humans and mutants.

As far as the RPPXP games go, Dark Isles, Inquisition, etc, I can't totally say as I've had less experience.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Sexism is a little hard to enforce when nearly all sexism is based on the assumption that men are physically stronger then women, thus women should just make babies and sandwiches or get a beat down.

And in a MUD, the only way to mimic this would be to give females a stat penalty. And since no Muds, especially RP Muds want a non-stop sausagefest. So, Other then non-enforced people calling certain sluts and whores type sexism, you won't find much sexism.

Otherwise whenever a male says, "Men or the protectors, women are the protected!" Any Female can prove him wrong with a beat down.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Sounds like it was great RP on the part of the people who responded. I guess it can be hard to play the antisocial outcast. But I'm glad the people didn't cheese out and embrace you for it. That would have been poor RP on their part.

Anyway, I'm just thrilled to read another great story of awesome RP on the part of the community. 17 years and counting and they keep making me proud. :)

Thanks for sharing the story,

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Not Nesscarily. Pc's aren't your average people - having the theme dictate that woman are ~typically~ smaller and weaker without making changes to the code is enough. Having the occassional woman that can bitch slap men like it's nothing is fine. It's cool to have some sort of social stigma to try and rebel against. From that point you'd have to cross your fingers and hope that not too many people try to play the exception.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Well, it would have to be one of those sandbox MUDS where people are roleplaying just going about their lives.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

That doesn't really work. It's no fun to walk into your local bar and proclaim, "Boy! I just finished denigrating some inferior invisible female peasants five minutes ago. Now for a relaxing drink as I ignore the beings that actually appear on my screen and keep my mouth shut so the higher level female PCs don't get mad at me." Unless a mud is set up so female characters really can't (or really struggle) to attain power and respect, where women don't receive sword and magic training by virtue of being women, and everybody throughout the hierarchy, from the bar janitor to the king of the world laugh at people who try to roleplay strong-willed, fierce, independent thinking women, it's only a matter of days or weeks before some powerful female PC is leveled up and out there setting the standard. Then, who cares if all of the invisible female peasants are weak? But who wants to play an inferior character in a mud where inferiority is enforced anyway?

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Why would a MUD want to penalize women any further than they already are? They suck at PK, their innate drive for achievement is lower so they suck at that aspect of the game as well, so what rests is getting into the pants of the administrator to get ahead, a position that more often than not is already taken.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Yeah, it might be great, if that's what he said. Except, you edited out the point. You see what I did there?

Here's what he posted:
It actually wasn't a positive experience of the game's RP, nor did I feel people reacted appropriately on the whole as they spammed kick and punch socials.It was one of the things which quite frankly turned me off from the game, but then again, perhaps the character I created was a tad too gritty for the environment there.

The bold part was WHY he felt it wasn't a positive experience. If that's what makes you proud, then I won't waste my time even reading the threshhold website.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

To be fair to Threshold, I edited that bit you bolded in because I didn't want to make it an issue by adding it as a follow-up post. But your assumption about the whitewashing is nevertheless correct.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

The last two posts are awesome because they show the difference between folks like Jazuella and folks like Bogre.

I don't even have to explain further because its so obvious.

/handshake Bogre

And yes, when I hear a story that I feel shows good RP on the part of our players, I am happy about it. Even if it wasn't the kind of RP someone expected or anticipated.

There are a handful of really top notch RP environments out there. has been one of them for ~20 years. The creative brilliance I've observed over the years is one of the main things that makes me love my job.

So yes, I'm both a fan and a cheerleader for our awesome players. I owe them that and much more. :)

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

The players really make up the world. Really - there's nothing wrong with having badass women in this theme we'd be discussing. Only if the exceptions began to outnumber the mundanes, would it be a problem. Idealy it'd work like this. Badass female is known for being a badass and because of that people keep their opinions to themselves around her, but otherwise snicker at her behind her back. Discrimination does not have to be overt. She's largely isolated aside from one or two others who sympathize and/or in the same position. Manly men do their best to avoid having to fight alongside her because it'd be an insult to their masculinity to be saved by a mere woman. Womanly women avoid her because she's "not normal" and they don't want to be associating with those who seem to be flaunting social norms.

Just how I'd see it working, anyway.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

If you have 100 players, 50 of whom are female (or males playing female characters), 26 or more of which enjoy playing an inferior character, and 50 of whom are male, at least 45 of which ascribe to the discriminatory system and tow the party line, that system works. If you're a normal mud with 20 players, 7 of which are female, all of which are badass, nobody cares if the setting is supposed to involve women being inferior.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

I mean I've seen female characters RPed as extra womanly but generally the only people who tell them to get the prostotutish sex having bum in the kitchen to make them a sandwich are the people playing a jerk character. And I think that may be a bigger issue there.

Its easy to RP racial discrimation, because there are generally easy built in reasons for it. extra life length, tendencies towards evil, competition for resources ect.

But where sexism is concerned, first off I'm not even sure what discrimination would be like. Unless you assume that the culture is a place where women are supposed to be married off as soon as they are old enough to do it. In which case immediately making every player woman an outcast regardless of how they are RPed.

If you just want women to be enforced as the weaker sex then, well actual discrimination will still be seen by the players as a jerkish or lawful stupid act. So still pretty much limited to those two types actually discriminating beyond the rest of the players having like two seconds of RP where they act pleasantly surprised at how strong the woman is, or just try to continue acting the part of the manly protector anyway.

Lets just face, Sexism is considered a bad thing, because it honestly is. Players will have a hard time making a sexist character who isn't a jerk or generally bad. And will have a really hard time making their otherwise good, decent save the baby from the burning house character sexist.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

It's not so much inferior more than it is a gender role. I don't think this sort of setting could be enforced unless there were many more skills outside of just combat. Say, cooking/tailoring/crafting whatever and it's codedly impossible to be great at everything. A male who wanted to be a great cook would likely suffer the same social stigma as a warrior woman. But aside from that - I don't disagree with you. The theme is as prominent as the players choose to portray to be.

I am going to have to disagree with you here. There's many reasons why a character might have those views beyond FOR THE EVULZ. Maybe the species is nearing extinction. Maybe tribe x is in constant competition with tribe y and wants to keep as many women alive as possible to basically just pump out as many babies as humanly possible. Maybe he just believes it because it's what has always been taught and he's never given a thought to it otherwise.

And I'll have to say Sexist=/=Evil. It's good when characters have flaws. My character might be a aristocratic, brainwashed fanatic of a tyrant leader - but he could still genuinely care for the well being of those within his community. Same is true with sexism. My 'manly man' might feel pity for warrior woman x for being so confused. The character can still be sympathetic. He might have been bullied as child for not being man enough. He might just not know any better.

A good article for that would be .

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Do you have an example that won't require designing the mud around making sexism feasible?

Also I just thought of another thing making enforced sexism impractical. Imagine if say a guy made a a MUD that enforced real world racism. Whites were the dominant color, blacks second rate citizens at best, it was legal to kill jews and homosexals at will. And Asians were only expected to work on railroads.

Is there anyone who wouldn't think the guy wasn't a racist in real life and made the MUD just so he could live out his racist fantasies?

I think the same thing applies to MUDs. A MUD with enforced sexism will make the MUD owner look bad, and people could likely assume he just wants to live out his sexist fantasies.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

You don't have to design the mud around making sexism feasible. Just making it thematic and hoping players stay in theme is all I had been suggesting. I wasn't trying to persuade any one into trying to make one more than I wondered if such a game currently existed.

My thoughts on that mud example you gave are this: as long as it remains in a game, a fantasy, IC when the players themselves obviously know what their characters are doing is wrong, then I don't particularly care. Most roleplaying is wish fulfillment. I pretend to chop mother****ers up on several muds because it makes me feel powerful. I've seen people play serial killers. I have RL to be dull and unintresting in.

The way Firanmux justifies it is that it highlights why these sorts of things aren't acceptable IRL. Especially since the game has thematic rape. Fluffy bunnies and rainbow themed muds don't particularly intrest me. If the mud owner was obviously portraying the racists as being in the right in an OOC sort of way, then I'd be concerned.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

The short answer is: No, a mud like this does not currently exist.

Frankly, I don't think one would be very successful. The amount of people looking for that type of RP is, I'm sure, very, very minimal.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

Armageddon is a great MUD for enforced nastiness and racism between humanoid species, although there are no prejudices taken from the real world (skin-color, sexism, homophobia). There are some dimwits now and then that try to take some kind of "harsh world reproductive imperative" as a logical axiom and derive sexism and homophobia from it and claim that it must be part of the world. Unfortunately, the RPI type of gameworld lends itself to people thinking that "realistic" or "logical" by itself is reason to argue to include a feature in a game. Adding homophobia to the violent and unforgiving world of Armageddon would make gay-bashing a game theme. I don't care what half-baked evo-psych argument someone wants to come up with, I'm not interested in playing a game where gay-bashing is a theme.

The relevant factor is as always "What makes the game better?" Do tired sexist cliches imported directly from real life make a roleplay game better? Who would want to play that game? Would you want to play with the kind of players that would want to play that game? Bogre is right on the money. Yeah, I'm sure there are some creepy Gor MUDs out there or something, but at that point we're basically talking interactive text porn. Personally I just don't see how real-life bigotry adds anything to a fantasy game. If you want tiresome real-life prejudices, go outside or turn on your TV or something. There is no shortage. You can get all the same compelling "struggle against adversity" storylines and roleplay with prejudices that are native to the fantasy world.

Re: Enforced sexism?
 

That's an interesting point right there. If people really wanted to be logical, a mud where people hate Dwarves (for example) is stupid and poorly thought out. Dwarves are strong, hardy, hard-working, skilled, healthy, butt-kicking badasses. Everybody wants Dwarf-forged weaponry. A mud where people hate homosexuality IC is pretty darn logical and realistic by comparison. People who engage in sexual practices that don't lead to procreation, just physical gratification -- essentially a waste of time. That's an easy hate to justify in a harsh world where time and resources are limited, even without getting into religion, nature, people being uncomfortable, or whatever other real world factors influence real world bigots. Dwarves mine metal and make swords. Elves are magical geniuses. Even Hobbits bake a mean loaf of bread.

It would be really easy to justify a fantasy world where people don't like the clearly weaker gender, or don't like homosexuality, or don't like a race that's actually inferior and not good for anything. Not that anybody would actually want to play a mud like that. That would be an aggravating mud to play. But it's a hard sell to justify a fantasy world where race A doesn't like race B because the help documentation says so. "You're awesome at all the things I'm not and if we ever teamed up, we'd be the perfect complement for each other and the world would tremble beneath the might of our combined empires, but when I type help Elf, I'm told that I'm supposed to dislike your culture and try to kill you."