Why are all mainline campaign leaders male?

[Velensk]

I'm sure you could change the gender for many characters (not even just minor characters) without causing any problems it's just that in most cases it wouldn't do much for me (though I had on occasion thought that Harper from Liberty might work better as a female).

It's not a matter of how it affects the plot, it's more a matter of character identity. So no, I do not think that making Malin female would change the plot of DiD but it should make how the character acts come out differently. The example you gave is a case of someone else reacting to a character rather than the character itself. Now some minor characters (especially in Wesnoth) have so little in the way of character that it really doesn't matter one way or another but the point there is that they're so minor that they generally arn't really a fleshed out character in any way (and to be honest it's a waste of time to flesh out all the minor characters in wesnoth even in a minor way). I think that it's fairly silly in a military setting to get upset about generic inserts all or mostly all being male. Not that such makes it a problem if you want to do something else it's just that the alternative really doesn't do anything for me either.

[beetlenaut]

FWIW, I am about 80% done with an undead campaign that has a girl as the main character.

[Pentarctagon]

FWIW, I am about 80% done with an undead campaign that has a girl as the main character.

Is it on the add-on server yet?

[Turuk]

FWIW, I am about 80% done with an undead campaign that has a girl as the main character.

Is it on the add-on server yet?

Nice bomb to drop there beetlenaut. Can we steal a copy from you to play?

[beetlenaut]

I didn't realize that would constitute dropping a bomb, but I guess that means I have some fans.

I will plan to post the first chapter (of three) by the end of the weekend. I don't expect to finish the whole thing until the beginning of July when I have a break from work, but I'll release the second chapter when it's done, too.

[Chewan]

For given reason:

Spoiler:

you grossly misrepresented my statements. I am very much in favor of the idea of having a new campaign with a female protagonist. I just disagree with you that doing a gender-swapped ripoff of an existing campaign would be the best way to go about it

Sapient, I apologize: As you put it now, I obviously got you wrong before.
What would have been the point of "misrepresenting" your point of view?
It was not my intention, maybe I should have inserted a "kidding"-smiley.
However, in more or less similar games "gender-selection" is considered
an enriching "option" to meet the players' preferences, not a "ripoff".

On this occasion, I´d like to say that Velensk arguments are convincing:
A gender-swap or picking a character would result in (boring) unisex characters and stereotypical, cliched dialogues
(ideal for a tutorial and players who do not care about story and reading),
a good writing is surely more desirable, and impressive female leaders among ALL races, too.
As to humans, for me it does not matter whether they were skilled combat veterans (like those or those),
or fought with "female weapons" (like Cleopatra of Ancient Egypt, or Asheviere).

[TheCripple]

FWIW, I am about 80% done with an undead campaign that has a girl as the main character.

Excellent. Deadwater was good stuff.

[NoQ]

Yay nice thread, and i was just in the middle of slooooowly making the second level of an umc campaign with two elfgirls as leaders, a lot of rainbows and unicorns and such fluffy stuff, and cool handsome guys on white horses all around them

Not any good for mainline though, just doesn't fit into the history

[beetlenaut]

My campaign with a female protagonist, Secrets of the Ancients, is finished. It's on the development sever, so you need 1.11 to play it.

[johndh]

I know most of the discussion in this thread is a little old, but I too would like to see more female agency in games in general, and I think Wesnoth is a good platform for it. So far, we have a lot of female characters, but they are usually villains or they serve as support to a man. Although we have female (secondary) characters, they're rarely acting to drive the plot. Just look at the main man and supporting lady in UtBS, DW, or TSG. In each of these, there is a male lead and a female sidekick, where the male lead is the one taking action and driving the plot while the female sidekick tags along, provides healing/support, and usually facilitates whatever the men are doing instead of coming up with anything on her own. Granted, these are broad generalizations I'm making and each of these characters have moments where they are more important, but it's the overall trend that I see. Jessene in TRoW probably has the most agency of any female character that I've come across in BfW -- she's still not the protagonist, but she does take initiative, she helps drive the plot, she even goes off to do her own thing for a while, and at times she's the only one with a plan (though she still relies on Haldric to carry out that plan).

A friend of mine wrote a pretty good blog about female agency in films and it's a good read that illustrates the kind of thing I'm talking about: http://tisdelstirades.blogspot.com/2013 ... r-and.html

I don't think we need to necessarily make half of all protagonists female in a game primarily about hand-to-hand combat, I don't think a gender switching option makes sense for most campaigns, and I think that going back through campaigns and rewriting male characters as female characters is a sloppy way to do it, but I'd enjoy seeing and playing as a well-written female protagonist. With that said, I'm not going to make a campaign myself, so I have little room to complain. I do have some little experience writing female characters, so if somebody wants to try making a mainline-quality campaign with a female lead, feel free to drop me a line and I'll contribute what I can. As some of you may have guessed, I am not a woman myself (shocking, I know ), but I do know a few and some of them are writers.

Edit: Oh, and I'm checking out Beetlenaut's new campaign right now.

[Chewan]

johndh, I just read your friend's post about female agency.
It IS a good read and Mr. Tisdel will find good reasoning in this thread,
although he got the answer to his wonderment himself:
Fiction is about guys for guys – from guys. That's it.
In fiction we don't want reality (unless it is about male courage, audacity, knightliness,
bellicosity and muscles because that´s how we REEEAAALY would like to be).
Reality is a tough story to sell, no fun to write, no fun to watch, no fun to play.
And fun is what we all want, isn't it?
A helpless princess to be saved (there are so few in reality, a disturbing number of women
have this absurd agency thing), a supporting female follower (political correctness has to
be taken into account), some fairy godmother to work a minor miracle once in a while
and cure battle wounds (yeah, mommy is always the best) – What more do you want?
Men DO drive the plot because they've ALWAYS been the movers and the shakers... No?
As said earlier in this thread: Girls are free to write about girls for girls.
No one can do anything about the lack of female writers in the Wesnoth community, right?
So, Mr. Tisdel is looking for females with agency that do not depend on males for everything...
It just crossed my mind... that tomb raider Lara, a change in video games, several Guinness entries,
most successful... blah blah blah… a heroine created by males. Looks like beetlenaut is after that, too.
Hey, she was supposed to be a male! Self-evidently, I did NOT play this girlie video game, but as far as
I know Lara's inventor considered it inappropriate to equip a male lead with the acrobatic skills necessary …
I say no more. Fortunately, there are no such problems with the agile heroes of Wesnoth, not even on a map
with mushroom groves only.

[beetlenaut]

@Chewan: People wanting agency should not be considered "absurd" or "disturbing". If there is a lack of females in this community, your dismissive post may explain why.

[Sapient]

I noticed no one responded yet to Velensk's offhand remark that Harper would have worked better as female protagonist. I'm curious if anyone else agreed with that.

I'm not sure I entirely understood the point of Chewan's post, but I agree there is a certain irony with all these males trying to swoop in and create examples of female agency when, what would surely be more empowering is demonstrating that women themselves can do it.

[iceiceice]

beetlenaut: I think the humor might just not have carried across for you, at least for me

A helpless princess to be saved (there are so few in reality, a disturbing number of women
have this absurd agency thing),
...

reads as approximately, "... (In reality, a disturbing number of women (i.e. all of them) are not plastic dolls) ...". Sadly, deadpan humor doesn't always internet very well, assuming I am reading it correctly that is...

---

So at least as far as I can tell, surely most players and contributors are men but there are certainly women who have contributed a ton of art, or have played regularly on the mp ladder for a long time, etc. But even if there are regular female contributors, one possibility (that occurs to me) is that they still might not make a campaign "aimed at women or girls" if they don't think there is a large audience for it. Or even, such might exist in umc but simply be obscure. So it might be self-perpetuating, to some extent? This might not be a particularly constructive point to raise though.

Another question I might have is whether we could reasonably expect campaigns to not be gender-oriented. I never read much fantasy literature growing up, but I did read quite a bit of "teen" literature, and I remember many such books were decidedly female or male-oriented. There are many exceptions of course though, I'm not sure if Tolkien's work would be considered "male-oriented"? I guess the most popular fantasy work to some extent has to appeal to everyone, but I wonder also if there's not an age aspect to it, if young-adults end up preferring stories oriented towards their gender but past some slightly higher age range this stops.

Apologies to anyone whose words I may have trampled upon.

[Chewan]

iceiceice, thanks for interpreting my ulterior motive CORRECTLY.
Sorry for any confusion, in case of doubt, it is preferable
to not weigh my words and take me with a pinch of salt.
To make it absolutely clear once and for all:
I am in favor of female leads in BfW or elsewhere, I welcome and cherish female agency.
The point of my post was supposed to be an ironic answer to the sad fact: Fiction is about guys for guys.
I have not finished your campaign, beetlenaut, but it would be great if it ran for Guinness, too,
for being a successfully launched 'bomb' in Wesnoth.
Maybe one more point I forgot to mention: I didn't play Tomb Raider, but I've seen the movies. Twice.