Female Avatars

[krbhi]

Hi, so I suppose the answer to this question will vary depending on the game mode (Multiplayer, Campaign, etc)

But is it possible to select a female avatar?

[EarthCake]

Did you mean on forums? Because there is no way to set any kind of avatar in game.

[krbhi]

I meant in game. I played Westnoth a few years ago and liked it but when I recommended it to a female I realized I couldn't fine any option for a female character. I guess it's not a "deal breaker" for most females to play a male character, but on the other hand it would be less immersive.

[krbhi]

IDK might be something to look into if you want more people to play.
Thanks for the reply.

[EarthCake]

I meant in game. I played Westnoth a few years ago and liked it but when I recommended it to a female I realized I couldn't fine any option for a female character. I guess it's not a "deal breaker" for most females to play a male character, but on the other hand it would be less immersive.

I do not get "female character". Do you mean like hero in the mainline campaigns? If that's the case, I can think of Nym in Under the Burning Suns, Li'sar in Heir to the Throne, lady Jessenne in The Rise of Wesnoth, and I think Elyssa in Northern Rebirth.
Of course, there are female characters in UMC, I can recall only in The Three Sisters Saga one hero.

If you mean characters like leaders in the MP, there are such. In example, Red Mage and White Mage in loyalist/rebels faction, Elvish Ranger in rebels faction, Dark Sorcerer in undead faction, and Rogue in knalgans faction.(did I forget something) (all of the se can vary from male to female, except Elvish Ranger, who is female only)

Why do you think not having female avatars, or avatars in total, will bring more people to play BfW?

[otzenpunk]

I do not get "female character". Do you mean like hero in the mainline campaigns? If that's the case, I can think of Nym in Under the Burning Suns, Li'sar in Heir to the Throne, lady Jessenne in The Rise of Wesnoth, and I think Elyssa in Northern Rebirth.
Of course, there are female characters in UMC, I can recall only in The Three Sisters Saga one hero.

Yes, there are female heroes, but tbf they are mostly sidekicks, and not the leaders, which you would normally identify with when playing a campaign. The only mainline campaign, where *you* play a female character, is afaik Secrets of the Ancients.

[lhybrideur]

There are also the heroins of a Song of Fire and Amaranthine Stone

[octalot]

It would be good to have another female-led campaign into mainline, but at the moment the major races that don't have their own mainline campaign are the Saurians, Nagas and Trolls - none of which seem likely to have the player strongly associating themselves with the character. (This is a personal opinion, please ignore the colour of my name.)

For multiplayer, if you select a specific type of leader, for example a white mage, then you can choose male or female. But if you choose a random type then it's not possible to specify only types that have female art.

[BTIsaac]

Before i comment i just like to remind people ahead of time that I'm a dinosaur, so don't take any of this the wrong way.

First off, if "we need more female representation so more women would play our game" is how you go into making a new campaign, it's not going to end well. You obviously can't just come up with a story that would typically involve a male protagonist and change their gender like it was an afterthought. There's exactly one mainline campaign with a female protagonist, and it just so happens that this particular campaign's story wouldn't work if the protagonist was male.

Plus there's the issue that if you want women to get into playing wesnoth, you will need more than a camoaign with a female protagonist. In my experience, women who are interested in games like wesnoth in the first place, are going to play it regardless of whether there are more female characters in the story. I mean how many gaming companies prioritised making games with female protagonists and made that the game's single biggest selling point? As far as i know, they never managed to get new people to play those games.

Bottom line, if there's going to be a campaign with a female lead, it has to actually mean something, and more importantly, don't make one just to get more women to play the game because that never works.

[beetlenaut]

if there's going to be a campaign with a female lead, it has to actually mean something

But are you okay with campaigns where the gender of the leader isn't very important that have male leaders? If so, how does your argument stop being valid when it's reversed?

[BTIsaac]

But are you okay with campaigns where the gender of the leader isn't very important that have male leaders? If so, how does your argument stop being valid when it's reversed?

Even if it's not important to the story, one's gender reflects on one's character and how they think. If you could switch a character's gender and nothing about them changes, that usually means there's NOTHING TO THEM that could be affected by the change. On the topic of mainline ccampaign protagonists, think of someone like Gweddry or Rugnur. You could actually get away with changing their gender and it won't impact the story at all, but that's because these protagonists are boring and two dimensional (Rugnur in fact doesn't even have an in story reason to exist), and most importantly they're not relatable. Which means making a female character like this is a moot point when the need for more characters for female players to relate to is the whole premise here. Female players aren't going to relate to a character who isn't relatable in the first place, regardless of said character's gender.

At the end of the day, you can make a female leader who's gender is completely incidental, because why the heck not, but calling that female representation is kind of a cop-out.

[beetlenaut]

Female players aren't going to relate to a character who isn't relatable in the first place, regardless of said character's gender.

That seems to be a straw-man argument. Let my try to be clearer. In NR, for example, the slave that decides to revolt could have been a woman. I never said nothing would change in that case--of course it would: Many lines would be a little different, their relationship with Zlex and others would be different, the love story subplot would take on a different dimension, and so on. But, the story could have been written that way, and that's what I meant by, "The gender of the leader isn't very important." That may have helped satisfy the OP in this and other threads where they asked for the same thing. I was thinking about that when I wrote SotA. The protagonist could have been male, but then I did, in fact, ask myself, "Why the heck not?"

But even where nothing changes, it still matters to the players. I have taught teenagers how to make Wesnoth campaigns a couple times. In those classes, I have the students play through the tutorial first, and the girls always choose Li'sar instead of Konrad. Sure, those girls would have signed up for the class and played the game anyway, but apparently, they did see a difference.

So I still want to know, why aren't you arguing that we should default to all female characters and only make a few male ones that are well thought out and three dimensional? Would that be a cop-out too? Would you care? What's the difference?

[BTIsaac]

In NR, for example, the slave that decides to revolt could have been a woman. I never said nothing would change in that case--of course it would: Many lines would be a little different, their relationship with Zlex and others would be different, the love story subplot would take on a different dimension, and so on. But, the story could have been written that way, and that's what I meant by, "The gender of the leader isn't very important."

It COULD have been written that way, but the real question is, would it work? Tallin's personality is a major driving force behind the story. If the main character of NR was a woman, her personality could be different enough to make the story go in a completely different direction. Either that or it would feel off. Like the story was written with a male character in mind, and once it was done, the main character was changed at the last moment for arbitrary reasons.

I was thinking about that when I wrote SotA. The protagonist could have been male, but then I did, in fact, ask myself, "Why the heck not?"

You know the funny part? That may have been the correct decision because i can't imagine SotA working with a male protagonist.

But even where nothing changes, it still matters to the players. I have taught teenagers how to make Wesnoth campaigns a couple times. In those classes, I have the students play through the tutorial first, and the girls always choose Li'sar instead of Konrad.

Actually that's a completely different situation, as i was talking about campaign stories. What you're describing relates to how male and female players perceive their avatars in a videogame. Women are more inclined to see a representation of themselves, while men are more inclined to see a character in a story that they are playing out (Incidentally, i tend to shake my head when people say Doomguy, Link or Gordon Freeman lack personality because they're supposed to be the player - it feels like an excuse to skip out on developing the main character).
Now of course if we're talking about just picking a player avatar for RPGs or plain non story-driven scenarios, that's a whole other issue, because the story is left entirely up to the player's imagination.

So I still want to know, why aren't you arguing that we should default to all female characters and only make a few male ones that are well thought out and three dimensional? Would that be a cop-out too? Would you care? What's the difference?

In a strategy game, with war stories? Don't take this the wrong way but there's a reason why that isn't the case. Nobody is going to care much about a male character in a role that men are are expected to be in anyway, but when a woman is put into the same situation people instinctively feel like there's a story here that isn't being told, and "this is just how it is" tends to put a massive strain on one's willing suspension of disbelief.

[octalot]

I can't imagine SotA working with a male protagonist.

Please would you give an explanation of why it wouldn't?

[BTIsaac]

Please would you give an explanation of why it wouldn't?

It's in Ardonna's end goals and how she approaches the problems she's faced with. Her goal is to overcome death, just for the sake of overcoming it. This means what she ultimately wants is stability. A secure existence fith the uncertainty factor that is death completely eliminated from it. And once her goal is achieved and she makes sure that her research eventually ends up in reliable hands, she simply goes back to her regular life studying other forms of magic, albeit on her own - provided the epilogue wasn't changed. Plus almost every single time she ends up in a conflict, her primary concern is self preservation, and she fights back as a last resort. She also appears to treat her minions a lot more like people, at least for as long as she believes they can retain their identity.

This contrasts with her foil Ras'Taban who wants to establish his own empire. His goal is conquest, and immortality is simply a way of minimizing the risks he's taking with this endeavor. It also contrasts with Mal'Keshar who's motivated by his desire to protect his hometown and his hatred of the orcs. What he wants is an army that can carry out his campaign and his transformation was something he undertook only to save himself from a life threatening injury. Both of them have set an inhumanely challenging task before themselves and resorted to dark magic as a tool to achieve that. When they end up in a conflict, it's always one they themselves sought out, either because fighting achieves them what they want, or at least brings them closer to it.

This may just be nothing, but this distinction seems to line up with what evolutionary psychologists are saying about gender differences. Of course this could just be my imagination.