Have you even PLAYED the game? The moment a female PC puts on an armor, it suddenly loses half it's plating and gets ... curvy :D I really like how TES games handle this, male and female armor are usually pretty similar, except female version -sometimes- gets plating adjusted for breasts.

I think the degree to which a gap in stereotyping exists or does not exist makes the question important (or unimportant). If that gap is small, maybe it isn't important. If that gap is quite large, I think it is fair to ask.

In my experience, male characters may or may not be interesting, while female characters are generally two dimensional, and the gap is large. But, again, this may be due to the games I've chosen to play (or their lack of diversity). That's why I asked Hedwards to shoot me some examples. If that's too hot-under-the-collar a request, then that's unfortunate.

You aren't seeing what people like hedwards sees. You're focusing on visual presentation only. What about that male lives in video games are far more expendable? What about men basically committing suicide to protect someone for no other story reason than that she is a she? What about hoodlum characters overwhelmingly being portrayed as men? What about any non-hetero male being basically a useless and expendable character?

You're baiting the question essentially because you're only focused on one type of stereotyping. I don't know why, I don't care. I honestly don't think you should either, but that's up to you. You're certainly not going to persuade anyone because you and anyone debating you aren't even debating the same subject.

I'll just end by saying: Stereotyping: it's not just chainmail bikinis.

I guess since the topic's shifted.....

Yes, men can be stereotyped. Yes, women can be stereotyped. Females are designed to be over sexed, men made to be overly buffed. Perfect example, Resident Evil 5. Chris goes from an average guy to looking like he bench presses Duke Nukem, his partner Shiva is constantly under-dressed with bare legs, bare arms, ultra-light clothing, and has an alternate outfit that makes you wonder why she didn't bother just going zombie hunting in a bikini. At the same time, you can have the all too common stereotype that women are emotionally and physically weaker, men are intellectually weaker and sex crazed. How much flak you want to give to each is going to be different for each person.

Regardless, there's always going to be something that somewhere out there some place won't agree with. Someone will say too little clothes, someone will say too much, others will say unrealistically buff or smart or whatever. Sometimes though, people just don't want to be bothered by it. Movies, books, music, so on, everything is going to do the same thing, and some people will enjoy it for what it is regardless. The Elder Scrolls 3, there's a club in the game you can go to featuring a handful of female characters with the bra model removed, and the cat/lizard race don't have them to begin with. I didn't give it much thought first time I played. Diablo 2, I mentioned before, jiggly character selection screen, didn't give it much thought. In the same selection screen you have a Barbarian character and Paladin, both big muscled and one of them low need for intelligence. Ceville, a game I learned about recently through youtube let's plays, every male character is an absolute moron, and there's only 3 female characters to speak of in the game I believe. The only non-moron male is your protagonist/antagonist, and he still winds up captured and arrested and harassed by the many other characters in the game...... and he takes the place of the Fairy Queen on a counsel chamber.

Fable, everyone's an idiot except for 5 people. Fable 2, same thing. Fable 3, same thing. Can play as both genders in the latter games, and you're free to cross-dress, grow beards or run around wearing nothing more than the Union Jack on your nethers. And if you're aiming for historical accuracy, women meant nearly nothing in any society with the exception of a few famed people such as Cleopatra, and Joan of Ark, even up to Madame Curie and after, it gets worse depending on the country you look at.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's wrong. Obviously, humanity has screwed up in many ways between several hundred billion lives up to now, we can try to be better about it today, successful or not. But as far as media, and that is, something that is completely fabricated in every way except for the product used to create it, is sometimes not worth getting upset about because inequality is going to swing two ways, it's only as big a deal as what you make of it, and you're still going to find games that do it absolutely right with respect to everyone, regardless of the sexism you find in common.

Exactly, my point. :P

I get what you were aiming at, I just think it's an oversimplification. Just because we have naked women in our newspapers doesn't mean we don't have horny boys.

Quite right, and it was oversimplification. Consider it an personal testimony from a poor soul who once had to sit through a high school lecture for 3 hours being told about how his rampant urges were evil and watching with dismay as all the girls in whom he had interest agreed.

The real flamebaiting here is provided by yourself. You totally blow things out of proportion and act all defensively for no apparant reason that a reader of the thread could understand. The OP just wanted some recommendations on games she would like. She told us what she didn't like in other RPGs, explicitly stating that it was just her own opinion and preference and explaining it with her personal feelings.

What's wrong with that? What gives anyone the right to call that "dribble"? Did she rant about men? Did she rant about video games in general? Did she try to persuade us that we should boycott Divine Divinity? Or that Divine Divinity should even be outlawed? I don't think so, I don't read that anywhere in her post. She didn't complain about the male characters in the game? So what? She wanted to play a female character and she is a woman, why should she be interested in how the male PCs are portrayed?

I get that you have issues with American feminism, you probably have your reasons for that and I can't judge if they're justified, but all of that has nothing to do with the OP and her request (and neither has the lack of male therapists in the US ...).

Oh sure... when I object to the trading cards in The Witcher, everyone's all like "OMGWTF!" But when a girl has a problem with them, you're all eager to side with her.

;)

No, you're right... it's totally normal to have biceps the size of tree trunks, and the voice of a sexually dominant grizzly bear. Also, in real life, female squad members really are more competent and in-charge than their male underlings.

To be fair, though, women are generally more objectified in videogames than men. But both genders get stereotyped and "fantasized" to a pretty severe degree.


To the OP: I think others have already answered your question... but here's to a future that portrays both videogame men and women with more maturity *raises glass*

I really enjoyed AdwR, and my wife found it too disturbing to play. The world the mod takes place in is very cruel towards women, but I don't think the game is sexist towards women in the least. The protagonist is given a lot of choice in how she emotionally responds to the situations she is forced into.

You can develop the playable character in most D&D games. I didn't play through them, but I don't think there is any of the D&D games where female characters are portrayed more unfavorable than male ones.

Also, if it ever comes to GOG, I'd recommend Hexplore (although the female characters are optional and have different stats than male ones) but it's pretty hard to get and harder to get running (although there is a patch that works fine now but that one is based on a crack to begin with). Though, Hexplore is not a typical RPG.

Of course I've played it, why would I comment otherwise?

I don't deny the starting outfits are over the top brazen, but the two times I played female characters I went straight to the shop and bought some pants. A bare midriff is about the worst of it from then on. Most are quite modest.

Doesn't the orc armor in Skyrim have a vanity panel on females to display cleavage? The Fur and Forsworn armors are pure pulp fantasy attire. The salient point is, none of its compulsory or in any way limiting. If breast cones are even an issue, well theres a quite popular mod (on the skyrimnexus of all places), that replaces most of the female armors with sized male models to remove even breastplate changes.

I just wanted to second Porkdish here and say that DD is a wonderful game that has basically zero objectionable stuff other than the un-armored model. Once you put clothes on, your character looks fine. The starting screen has a half-naked guy on it too, remember. Once the game actually starts the game is basically identical regardless of sex. It's also by far my favorite of the diablo-clones.

Well YOU are one ugly bastard, why would anyone agree with you?

Nah, if anything it's sexist towards men because all of them are portrayed as lecherous predatory bastards, even the nice ones. ;)

I know it's just a sexual fantasy and quite obviously not a protrayal of real life gender, but it still made me wonder to what extent women have to deal with these sort of things, getting ogled and hit on all the time just because they're female. It hardly ever happens to me as a man and I can't say that I liked it very much, at least not the way it happened in ADWR.

I didn't mean to criticize the module though, quite the opposite. It's an interesting experience and it's not too common that games make you think about real life and make you more attentive to your surroundings, regardless of how different the odd reality in ADWR may be from our world and regardless of whether that was the intention of the author or not.