Female Avatars

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sergey
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by sergey »

octalot wrote: September 3rd, 2019, 12:24 pm 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.)
Dunefolk? I can also imagine elvish or human female who is allied with other races for some reason.
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BTIsaac
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by BTIsaac »

sergey wrote: September 5th, 2019, 8:33 pm Dunefolk? I can also imagine elvish or human female who is allied with other races for some reason.
You're describing oath of allegiance. Of cours that one has so many characters the female lead blends in the background at times.
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MathBrush
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by MathBrush »

If it matters, I'm making a campaign that uses all of the Knalgan units (so, outlaws + dwarves), and the main lead is a female footpad. Why? Because the portrait art for the male footpad is pasty and full of zits, and because the name I came up (Florel) sounds better for a woman.

It doesn't have to be so hard. Half of the world are women, so it's just normal to make female characters. You'd have to go out of your way to make everyone a man, almost (not that any campaigns I know of are 100% men).

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, I think I've written a campaign before with all men. So I guess it is hard! :oops:
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sergey
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by sergey »

MathBrush wrote: September 6th, 2019, 1:27 pm Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, I think I've written a campaign before with all men. So I guess it is hard! :oops:
For me it is much easier to create a male character simply because I am a male.
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BTIsaac
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by BTIsaac »

MathBrush wrote: September 6th, 2019, 1:27 pm Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, I think I've written a campaign before with all men. So I guess it is hard! :oops:
See, this is what i mean. We're talking about war stories here. People instinctively expect men to be the focus of such stories as well as it's heroes, just as they expect men to be the ones doing any other high risk jobs, because these are expectations men are expected to live up to. It's how we developed and it's how we survived. The same was never expected of women, which is why the 50/50 ratio is not indicative of anything. Virtually all men are naturally expected to be agents, risk takers, protectors, workers and/or leaders. With women, there is no such expectation. Instead, societies like our own, gives men and women the same options, so when we see a woman in this role it's seen as out of the ordinary and when something is out of the ordinary, it means there's some kind of story behind it.

Now of course with outlaws, local militias or the like, the situation is different because these people live under what we'd consider extraordinary circumstances, which is why your idea makes perfect sense.
sergey wrote: September 6th, 2019, 6:24 pm [For me it is much easier to create a male character simply because I am a male.
That too can be an issue, but it's what a skilled writer would consider a challenge.
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Tom_Of_Wesnoth
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

BTIsaac wrote: September 6th, 2019, 6:36 pm Instead, societies like our own, gives men and women the same options, so when we see a woman in this role it's seen as out of the ordinary and when something is out of the ordinary, it means there's some kind of story behind it.
The thing is though, the societies in Wesnoth actually do put women onto the frontlines fairly often. Among the elves, for instance, women fight on the frontlines as archers and as shamans. We even see female elves acting as leaders - Chantal, Elthiel, etcetera - but we never get the chance to have a female elf as our leader.

We see the same with outlaws. There's a lot of female outlaw leaders throughout the Wesnoth campaigns - Jessene, Relana, etcetera - but again, we never get to have one of them as our leader.

Then there's the curious case of the Wesnothian mage - half of all recruited mages are female, but almost all of the named mages that I can think of are male. Seriously, think about it. Delfador, Leollyn, Methor, Moremirmu, Minister Hylas, Minister Edren, the Red Mage Twins, Elrian, Ratheln, Seimus. Compare that to the named female mages - just Linaera.

I'm not saying that half of all characters should be female. Ultimately, most leaders are warriors and generals, and even among the societies of Wesnoth and its neighbours, those tend to be men. But female characters do play a fairly significant role in the Wesnoth universe - just never, it seems, as the main character of a campaign.
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BTIsaac
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by BTIsaac »

Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: September 6th, 2019, 8:39 pm Then there's the curious case of the Wesnothian mage - half of all recruited mages are female, but almost all of the named mages that I can think of are male. Seriously, think about it. Delfador, Leollyn, Methor, Moremirmu, Minister Hylas, Minister Edren, the Red Mage Twins, Elrian, Ratheln, Seimus. Compare that to the named female mages - just Linaera.
This one actually does make sense as mage characters are typically associated with the sage archetype and for as long as memory serves, that has been associated with male characters.
I'm not saying that half of all characters should be female. Ultimately, most leaders are warriors and generals, and even among the societies of Wesnoth and its neighbours, those tend to be men. But female characters do play a fairly significant role in the Wesnoth universe - just never, it seems, as the main character of a campaign.
Well, i did say it's doable in theory. I also mentioned it's not as simple as thinking up a protagonist like any other and changing their gender.
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Tom_Of_Wesnoth
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

BTIsaac wrote: September 6th, 2019, 9:10 pm
Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: September 6th, 2019, 8:39 pm Then there's the curious case of the Wesnothian mage - half of all recruited mages are female, but almost all of the named mages that I can think of are male. Seriously, think about it. Delfador, Leollyn, Methor, Moremirmu, Minister Hylas, Minister Edren, the Red Mage Twins, Elrian, Ratheln, Seimus. Compare that to the named female mages - just Linaera.
This one actually does make sense as mage characters are typically associated with the sage archetype and for as long as memory serves, that has been associated with male characters.
I'd argue that's just one of many archetypes for mages. There's so many famous female magi in folklore and mythology - Circe, Medea, Morgana Le Fay, Baby Yaga, I could go on. It's just a shame that we don't have many characters who look to those myths for inspiration, but so many of the 'Sage' archetype.
BTIsaac wrote: September 6th, 2019, 9:10 pm
Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: September 6th, 2019, 8:39 pm I'm not saying that half of all characters should be female. Ultimately, most leaders are warriors and generals, and even among the societies of Wesnoth and its neighbours, those tend to be men. But female characters do play a fairly significant role in the Wesnoth universe - just never, it seems, as the main character of a campaign.
Well, i did say it's doable in theory. I also mentioned it's not as simple as thinking up a protagonist like any other and changing their gender.
Of course it's not that simple. But it's also important that we don't fall into the trap of just making every character 'male-by-deafult', when in many cases, it makes just as much sense for the character to be female.
If presented with the opportunity, I would take great pleasure in becoming a world ruler.
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BTIsaac
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by BTIsaac »

Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: September 7th, 2019, 1:23 pm I'd argue that's just one of many archetypes for mages. There's so many famous female magi in folklore and mythology - Circe, Medea, Morgana Le Fay, Baby Yaga, I could go on. It's just a shame that we don't have many characters who look to those myths for inspiration, but so many of the 'Sage' archetype.
True, but that's not exactly the archetype you want associated with the good guys.
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

BTIsaac wrote: September 7th, 2019, 5:15 pm
Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: September 7th, 2019, 1:23 pm I'd argue that's just one of many archetypes for mages. There's so many famous female magi in folklore and mythology - Circe, Medea, Morgana Le Fay, Baby Yaga, I could go on. It's just a shame that we don't have many characters who look to those myths for inspiration, but so many of the 'Sage' archetype.
True, but that's not exactly the archetype you want associated with the good guys.
I don't know about that. Having a 'kind of evil' character forced to work alongside the good guys by circumstances is a pretty cool idea, IMO. And it's one we see a few times in Wesnoth - most notably in The South Guard, when you can ally with the bandits, and in Liberty, when you ally with the Shadow Mages.
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Destructinator
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by Destructinator »

Hi, new to the conversation, you could 100% change Tallin to a female and change nothing else and it wouldn't be weird. Speaking of which, in Northern Rebirth you can only recruit males in the first scenario but I find it pretty farfetched that only the male slaves would be willing to take up arms against the orcs, someone who is good at art should make female versions of the peasant and woodsman level trees so that the female slaves can help fight against the orcs. Also there's no way Tallin would stop recruiting women if they're willing to fight so female recruits should be available throughout the campaign.
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by beetlenaut »

Destructinator wrote: February 23rd, 2020, 4:06 amsomeone who is good at art should make female versions of the peasant and woodsman level trees
This is always the problem. We only have two or three people who are good at art who are active at the moment, and only one of them does portraits. Two whole unit trees with portraits and animations is a lot of work.

That said, if we had the sprites already done, the portraits would probably get made eventually. The sprites/animations would not be too hard to modify into female versions, just tedious. If you feel strongly about it, you could take it on.
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Yomar
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by Yomar »

Yeah, workforce, if there was not for that, we could create a faction based mostly or even completely on females, an example could be an Amazons tribe, so ppl would not care so much of why girls fight, considering that they are a war based matriarchal society.
Then campaigns could spawn starting from this faction
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EarthCake
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by EarthCake »

Destructinator wrote: February 23rd, 2020, 4:06 am ...you could 100% change Tallin to a female and change nothing else and it wouldn't be weird.
Actually,
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BTIsaac
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Re: Female Avatars

Post by BTIsaac »

Destructinator wrote: February 23rd, 2020, 4:06 am Hi, new to the conversation, you could 100% change Tallin to a female and change nothing else and it wouldn't be weird.
It would be, and not for story reasons, but because it will be painfully obvious that this is a male character who was gender-flipped at the last moment. Men and women are not interchangeable, at least as far as humans in real life are concerned.
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