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Comics about RPGs and the One Girl
Lesson of RPG comics: There is One Girl in the gaming group, and there's One Girl in the party. At max.
Case studies:
Knights of the Dinner Table. Sarah is the One Girl. She's an ass-kicker who can out-do any of the guys at their own game but is also less crazy than them.
Order of the Stick. Halley is the One Girl. She is the thief, wears skimpy clothing (despite being a stick figure) and is saucy.
Dumnestor's Heroes. Sue is the One Girl. She is practical, capable, and kinda fulfills the same role as Sarah from KotDT. In the real life portions, her player does as well.
Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic has many different girls and women with different goals and personalities (briefly: Arachne, Charlotte, Maura, Jone, Clover, etc.) However, and this is worth noting, the comic is explicitly about the "bad guys." Among the "good guys" in the comic, there's really only two female characters of any agency, one of whom is a plucky thief and one of whom is a bad-ass fighter chick.
This is just the comics that I read, natch. You will be able to come up with examples and counter-examples on your own.
(The first two comics are written by men, the third by a woman, and the last by a husband and wife team.)
So what do you make of this? Is female agency aligned Evil in D&D fantasy? Is the single girl in the gaming group, and how she acts, a realistic portrayal of the reality of a male dominated hobby or is it the inability of authors to write decent female characters?
Case studies:
Knights of the Dinner Table. Sarah is the One Girl. She's an ass-kicker who can out-do any of the guys at their own game but is also less crazy than them.
Order of the Stick. Halley is the One Girl. She is the thief, wears skimpy clothing (despite being a stick figure) and is saucy.
Dumnestor's Heroes. Sue is the One Girl. She is practical, capable, and kinda fulfills the same role as Sarah from KotDT. In the real life portions, her player does as well.
Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic has many different girls and women with different goals and personalities (briefly: Arachne, Charlotte, Maura, Jone, Clover, etc.) However, and this is worth noting, the comic is explicitly about the "bad guys." Among the "good guys" in the comic, there's really only two female characters of any agency, one of whom is a plucky thief and one of whom is a bad-ass fighter chick.
This is just the comics that I read, natch. You will be able to come up with examples and counter-examples on your own.
(The first two comics are written by men, the third by a woman, and the last by a husband and wife team.)
So what do you make of this? Is female agency aligned Evil in D&D fantasy? Is the single girl in the gaming group, and how she acts, a realistic portrayal of the reality of a male dominated hobby or is it the inability of authors to write decent female characters?
Thanks for pointing out YAFGC
Keychain of Creation (http://keychain.patternspider.net/) is like Order of the Stick but for Exalted, and has 2 females and 2 males in the party. Everyone has tons of agency, and all wear skimpy clothing (it's Exalted, after all). The major female opponent has even more agency, but isn't presented as evil, she just wants different things than the party.
I'm still mulling over the notion of Evil female agency in D&D, but got sidetracked by thinking about the notion that maybe only good characters are considered to have Experience (not XP, but roughly, the capacity to feel things). That could explain why it's OK to slaughter evil creatures, because they don't feel pain like good characters do. But that's probably a different discussion.