I’m wondering about gender representation in roleplaying.

I’m wondering about gender representation in roleplaying.

I’m wondering about gender representation in roleplaying. Specifically, I’m creating an AW hack and I’m trying to work out the best way of presenting gender options in playbooks without being exclusionary or binary. Gender doesn’t particularly play a big role in the game, so it could be removed entirely, but I worry that not presenting an option will cause people to assume a default. I’ve thought of a few options – let me know what you think!

1) Standard –  don’t worry about it.

Looks section has Male, Female, Ambiguous, Concealed

2) Less binary but maybe too wordy?

Looks section has Masculine, Feminine, Ambiguous, Concealed

3) Not relevant

Looks section doesn’t say anything about gender

9 thoughts on “I’m wondering about gender representation in roleplaying.”

  2. In designing AW, we were specifically looking at sex and gender, consent and inclusivity. That’s why there are so many options for what a person seeing your character from across the room would see – woman, man, concealed, androgynous, etc. I can see extending that to masculine and feminine (and/or more), but those can also be qualifiers: a feminine-looking woman, a masculine-looking androgyne, a person concealed but with feminine elements. That makes it more fiddly, which may be exactly what your hack needs!

  3. It’s certainly an option. I can see a few issues – first, that line would need a label, and ‘gender presentation’ wouldn’t leave much room! Second, having it be the one category formatted that way may give it undue emphasis? I’ll think it over…

  4. Going the adjective-noun route that Meguey is suggesting seems like it would cover the most range while letting people fine tune the details.

    Edit: oops. Skimmed that line. [Is this a thing your game is about or something you’re intentionally including because it’s something you’re about?] If you’re only putting it there for completeness, I’d suggest presenting a few combinations (concealed male, masculine female) to emphasize “be who you want,” but not full lists of options.

  6. Thanks for the insight Meguey Baker! I think I might take a middle path – having the options on the playbook be entirely about gender presentation (i.e. masculine/feminine/concealed/ambiguous) and emphasising in the game’s text that players should also think about their character’s sex, but that I don’t want to place any limits or assumptions on this.

  7. It says something about AW’s implied setting that gender is a part of “look”, specifically that society has collapsed and all the things that had meaning in the old society, such as gender, have only the meanings that the characters give them. If gender is not different in your setting, from how it is in the world of the players, it doesn’t need to be in a list, as the purpose of the lists, in AW at least, is to get all of the players on the same page for the aesthetics of the Apocalypse World.

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