This whole topic just tells me that the so-called "modern feminism" has nothing to tell - no interesting stories, no real agenda.

Let's be honest: A female fighter is no "feminist" character - it's just a fighter that happens to be female. A female well-written character is just a well-written character. Both are in this time and place not very special.

Original feminism was about fighting for rights women did not have: to vote, to drive a car, to do business and to wear a bra if they want to - or not if they don't want to. It was about to break women out of their traditional roles as child-bearers, housekeepers and trophies - properties of the males - and not much else (although this always has been the in the upper classes only - working class and peasantry had - and have - entirely different gender roles - that's why feminism didn't have much resonance there). This work, this fight has been very important and tremendously successful. In today's Western society what a woman can become is entirely dependent on her abilities and ambition. The big divider is social status - not sex or gender. If you're born in poor circumstances chances are you stay poor, while if you're a rich kid you almost can't fail.

So the old feminism managed to do what all revolutionaries should dream about: to make itself superfluous. At least in the West - if you look at the rest of the world there's actually still a lot of work to do for real feminists. But somehow the "modern" feminists don't show much interest in the situation of women i.e. in Saudi Arabia or even India.

As for feminism in games - like I wrote in the introduction - "modern" feminism has no interesting stories to tell. But why not make a game about a woman trying to make her way in the 19th century or even the 1950's? A way that is about being strong and independent in a world that is really dominated by men? Or a girl that grows up in a retrogressive Christian sect where the father or brother is the master and the females are seen as "half-animals" (could be easily wrapped into a fantasy setting...)?

*should

Oh hey, I've got a fan.

1. A "world setting reasoning" to exclude women is still fucking terrible. It's a fictional world. (More generally, every game's setting is a fictional world. Realism isn't fun or playable.)

2. The actual reason is female big and small races were considered too much work to implement for too little payoff.

@ dtgreene:

Arcanum is an awesome game, however, most of its awesomeness is in the story (I don't mean backstory, I mean the things that are happening to the characters in the game). From past threads, I remember you hate the shit out of everything in RPGs that doesn't have to do with numbers going up or down. Arcanum isn't that good with numbers; it has a couple of blindingly obvious power options that make fights extremely easy.

If you're actually interested in the story and want to play it for the story, the game is awesome and you will get more than your money's worth if you stick to playing female characters. It has at least 4 playthroughs worth of content and you'll find new things to do and discover even if you decide each of your characters has to be a different race.

The game has broad social justice themes but little in the way of specifically feminism, because sex for the most part doesn't matter (and where it does, the offender is extremely sleazy and your reaction can be, uh, commensurate -- but it's one scene). The main NPCs are unfortunately all dudes.

I treat that question similarly like "why not make a game of <insert your ideology here>? The ideology could be e.g. marxism, communism, scientology, biorhytms, biodynamic agriculture, or whatever.

I am unsure how that would make the game more interesting, but whatever. I play games in order to have fun, not to be preached upon over some ideology.

Well if "ideology" is shoved into your face in an obnoxious way it's certainly no fun. But if you treat them as ideas, a way to look at life... you will find that they are already there, and often - I would guess - without thinking. Just think of the myriad of "American hero saves the world from evil nazis/Russians/Muslims/other enemy of the day..." games or movies. It's a way to look at the world, and it's ideology.

Final Fantasy 7 has a strong ecological undercurrent. Outcast may maybe cure xenophobia. Stasis/Cayne offer a very pessimistic view on genetics (and what humans will do with it).

Or thinking of games like Alpha Centauri which wage different ideologies against each other and show the strengths and shortcomings.

So I wouldn't say ideology in games is always bad. It really depends how it's implemented. Why not use games to open our minds to different ways of thinking - an interactive medium is ideal to explore the manifold ways of life.

it was really hard to resist myself and not make a joke of it.

But, speaking seriously - nothing aside of Life is Strange comes to my mind

Iconoclasts has a fantasy/sci-fi theme and modern feminist message. The men are all horribly incompetent and only the women can get anything done.

IMHO, all games preach some kind of ideology. If the game describes some kind of world, it has to have some basic foundation in reality. For instance, all RPG's have a currency system, so they "preach" capitalism. Not that I say this is bad, but it sounds like you're saying that some game doesn't preach when I believe it's more like "some game preaches status quo, so the preaching isn't that noticeable, not even for the people who created the game".

https://media0.giphy.com/media/qmfpjpAT2fJRK/giphy.gif

Counter-example: Quest 64
(There are probably other counter-examples as well, especially if you use a more permissive definition of RPG)

Careful Breja, no reaction posts allowed. This is a serious thread for serious people.

Breja is allowed to react/troll/tell me to fuck off.

Oh, I know.