Playable female characters

Gameplay
#81

Regarding Joan of Arc, yes, her wounds were mostly from arrows and “[…] she withstood a blow from a stone cannonball to her helmet as she climbed a scaling ladder.”

This is pretty much as close or closer than most leaders of armies got to physical fighting, no? There are not many records of noblemen being in the thick of battle either, as the leader of an army did and, still does today, try to stay alive for the benefit of the army. Famous characters such as Godwin during the war against William the Bastard also fell victim to an arrow in the eye, and I can’t imagine many would regard him as not having an active role in battle.

That being said, there are plenty more examples of women taking up arms other than Eskilsdatter. During the Breton war of succession in the 1340s, Joanna of Flanders took part of combat in person several times, leading charges and rallying men, being described as fighting “with the heart of a lion, and in her hand she wielded a sharp glaive, wherewith she fought fiercely.”

In the BBC article I linked earlier regarding the role of women in the 1381 rebellion (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18373149) we find several accounts of women taking up arms. Apart from the case of Johanna Ferrour leading a large group of the rebels, it speaks also of many other women. “[Dr John Ridgard] found reference to 70 women rebels in Suffolk alone.” A second one: “[…]women were at the heart of the violence and charged with many of the same crimes as men”. They were certainly a minority, as both the article and I will admit, but they did fight, both as leaders and parts of the mob.

And I will say again what I feel like I have been saying a countless times this far; I am not arguing that it was commonplace for women to fight, it was certainly rare, if not as rare as most people seem to think as shown by the numerous examples. But a thing being rare does not make it impossible, inaccurate or unrealistic. If it could happen in reality, it could happen in historical fiction. Reality is by definition realistic.

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#82

the salient point is, if you want to be realistic and historic, you cannot make a game around exceptions. were there female fighters, probably a few, how many were active participants in battle, probably less than .0001%, which is about as good as zero, in terms of representation.

realism in games is about consistency, not representing every single possibility in reality.

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#83

This is your opinion, not fact, and it is an opinion similar to what I have criticised earlier in the thread, and I don’t want to repeat myself.

A very short summary; I say that exceptions make the best stories, and that a blacksmith playing a role in politics is equally rare. Warhorse has also already given their view in this thread on the notion of a female protagonist and said that the problem is resources rather than realism.

#84

In my view there is a huge difference in fighting and being a warrior.

If a person picks up an knife and try to defend him or herself that persons fight.
So surely there are lots and lots of cases where women fought.
Picking up a weapon and going to a battlefield to fight? Yep it happened but not that often. (rebellions is one type of war where it was properly more common)

But females trained from a young age to fight with the weapons of the day and wear armor… I don’t know any cases from the medieval period.(I do know a few from later periods) Iam not saying that they are not there… but I don’t know any.

When we try to find a woman that was very active in actually leading troops I think Joanna of Flanders is one (if not the) best example. Joanna of Flanders was a noblewoman who had support for political reasons and family relations and simply loyalty to her husband… and not because she was a religious fanatic that allowed herself to be used as a religious symbol… like Joan of Arc.

About the war of the roses.
I don’t agree with you conclusion.
The fact that many of the important nobles survived is in my opinion more because of the effectiveness of state of the art armour and the fact that it political was better to capture the enemy leaders than to kill them during the fight. Sure some stayed behind the lines, but many was captured during the battle.

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#85

I already mentioned in another thread that we should all be very aware that this will still be a game at all or at least by definition: A hardcore roleplaying game with some sandboxing which is held into a historical setting and that the developer are wanting to make the game some kind of realistic.

Because if you want 100 % realistic you couldn’t make a game of it because noone would exactly know what happened in the past because noone of us have been there for sure. On the other hand it would means that the chance that you would get killed into the first ten minutes of gameplay would be at 90 % because someone shot an arrow at you in your liver and or lungs and your character would suffer a painfully slow death.

So if it is decided to make a game where a gamer would play an untrained blacksmith in that time that wouldn’t die that easily … from wounds, illnesses … hunger, thirst, debts or whatever then we are already altering the point of realism.

Others have mentioned something like… “but females trained from a young age to fight with weapons of the day and wear armor…” Ehm… the most men also hadn’t much training in anything. When the most men have been called to war they knew barely how to hold a sword when they were young. Only the old veterans of other campaigns had really experience.
Nobles and knights had training in weaponry and armors but even some knights couldn’t afford to pay much for their equipment. Not everyone had the money to ride in shiny armors and had a great horse.

#86

Yes, Death Daisy is taking it seriously but I do understand.
If only this theme would not have confused words unlikely and unrealistic :wink:

Realistic is quite near to real but it is not exactly the same :slight_smile:
I would like to find so many examples for blacksmith to lead an army as Death Daisy was able to find for women which lead the army or women who changed the history in old times. There are rare circumstances which can turn a woman into a fighter and there are women who are stronger than average man and they were also in 15th century.

In the beginning of Hussite wars there were marching both genders in number of 400 to city Tábor. They fight off an army 700 - 2000 enemies :slight_smile: This is Czech history 15th century. Deal with it :smiley: I don´t know if women in that march were fighting or not but still they participated. I don´t wont to prove that women can fight but that they had important role in Hussite wars even they were not leaders of fight like Jan Žizka. Anyway I am not sure if everyone here is familiar with Czech history but in that time a poor people only with tools for working were able to beat more numbered enemies good armed armies. It is also real and you might not believe it :smile:

#87

That is true, but there is still a notable difference between “could happen theoretically” and “did happen possibly”. As much as this game is a fiction, it pretty much seems that the authors are going a long way towards the possibility and probability rather than the sheer theory.
This game is striving for a certain (high-above-average actually) level of authenticity to its respective historical setting, not just in the Europe-wide scale, but on the local Czech Kindom-wide scale.

The fact that remarkably strong female personas did occur from time to time and left a considerable mark in history is undeniable. So is the fact, that this was still a relatively rare thing to happen, partly due to some notorious in-born universals in behavior, thinking, reasoning a acting of our two human genders and partly also due to the culture people (especially in continental Europe) have been living in (I certainly don’t have to review the ideas about the roles of men and women that the Catholic Church was stuffing into everyones heads for centuries and generations… and how much were people listening is another question altogether, of course :slight_smile: ).

What is most important HERE is that while in other countries there are a few examples here and there, in Czech history alone there is really not that much precedence for something like this. Especially not where this story is taking place. It’s almost certain that if a brave maiden-in-arms showed herself out of nowhere and even played a notable role in returning her king to his throne (which is what this game is gonna be about), that would make a stuff for a regular national legend. Just like it did with Joan of Arc in France a couple of decades later.

But the actual era where the game takes place is almost unrecorded in historical sources. Which probably in a part means that it was somewhat uneventful in the larger scale of events- ergo nothing very outstanding did happen.
There certainly was a civil war (nothing too uncommon by itself) and that means that a great deal of things was happening on what you could call a small, personal level of those people involved directly. But definitely no potential national heroine, Czech “Johanka z Arku” (the way we use to call Joan of Arc here).

The problem is that the game’s story seems to go for the classic concept of “a regular small man on his long and perilous way to some sort of greatness”. If a male character goes such a way, he somewhat gets lost in the crowd. Many been there, many done that. A good recipe for a dramatic personal story that would fit within the place and time where it was supposed to happen, (!) without any major conflict with the actual known course of historical events (!), adding further to the overall effort for period authenticity.
And that is the point here.

But a possible recurring female side character that would help the main protagonist a couple of times and you would be able to control her in these quests yourself for a bit of gameplay variety… hell, what’s the problem?

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#88

yes in fact, what king is a blacksmith going to give the throne back? Somehow this does not sound to me realistic in Czech circumstances :smiley:

#89

Well, if you consider that kings (especially those about to lose their power) tend to pay well and can also give you a knighthood or maybe even a noble status…
I think a lot of sons of blacksmiths could see it as an offer you can’t refuse.
(And their female partners in crime, who might want to marry a nobleman eventually, might think so just as well…) :smiley:

#90

Yeah, if you put it this way :smiley:

#91

You make a reasonable argument, even if some are arguments irrelevant for the subject at hand. I have not done enough research to give you any examples of women trained in weaponry and armour from the period off the top of my head, neither do I know enough about the minutiae of enough specific battles to immediately challenge the last statement. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that until we find more information.

But regarding the rest of it, seeing as it doesn’t go against what I have been saying so far, I feel compelled instead to write a short, clear summary of what I have been trying to convey; this game is not about a nobleman or a warrior. It is about a blacksmith, who would reasonably not have the training of a warrior to begin with either. The fact that you can choose, or so it seems, to not be a warrior, instead being a thief or a bard, strengthens this notion. You are a no one who, I assume, becomes a someone, through a series of unlikely events.

That scenario would be very rare through history and not gender exclusive, as earlier posts has shown, and that is what I base my opinion on and why I find the arguments that a woman couldn’t possibly do this so hard to accept. Surely that scenario is no less historical because the protagonist is female, especially as there is historical precedent for both. I try and back up all my claims with facts and examples, because a pure opinion screaming match is not constructive to anyone. I am not expecting to sway the opinion of those who have already made up their mind, such as 213, but I do think it is important to not leave such ideas unchallenged for people who are reading the thread and maybe has not made up their mind yet.

#92

lack of evidence is evidence in itself. if there were female warriors in a number great enough to warrant representation in this time frame and locale, they would feature prominently in folk legend and contemporary accounts. but the rarity and disparity of such accounts does not reinforce the narrative you subscribe to.

either most historians, past and present were wrong, or perhaps you’re mistaken.

as for your point about the story being implausible, not really. from what i’ve gleaned from various quotes, visual cues in videos, screenshots, it seems you barely rise to the position of man at arms in a time when conscription was commonplace and a war was going on. not so inconceivable as a bohemian joan of arc.

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#93

The story…well the kidnapping of the King of Bohemia most certainly happened, and he was freed. You are going to be one of those that frees him. I very much suspect, or hope at least, that the highest position you can earn is some advisor/lackey for some high noble.

As for a female protagonist. No it wouldn’t work, regardless what some people might think, women very rarely fought during Medieval Times and those few that did were stuff of song and legends, and I most certainly wish that this game steps the fuck away from having a Chosen One protagonist.

Finally with regards to the ridiculous claims that 40% of all games are women, that’s a load of bilge on a great deal of levels. For starters it’s a SURVEY that includes a lot of facebook/mobile “gamers”, which can hardly be called gamers in my eyes. Secondly it’s only based off what they gathered in the United States. Not Canada, Europe or the rest of the world. Gaming is international, not merely a western thing.

Finally why is it assumed that all female gamers want to play a female character? They most assuredly don’t want that. In fact I’d wager there are more men then women who like to play female characters. Warhorse’s own statistics on this subject are far better: 20% of gamers care about playing a female character, not a trivial number but keep in mind it does include male gamers.

( For the record I’ve played a female character in pretty much every single MMO and RPG where I have been given the choice, but I feel in general it’s something poorly handled. )

#94

Script is for male character. And that’s it. Nobody complains about Tomb Raider or AC being just about a women/man.

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#95

It might be possible for a female character to be available but maybe they should have to disguise themselves as male at the beginning to get involved in the story and battles/combat.

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#96

@statistics

I can agree that most statistics are a little bit weird but it is really true that the amount of female gamers are increasing from year to year. German statistics says that in the year 2011 about 28 % of the gamers have been female while in the year 2012 33 % and in future years it will be very equal. I have been playing games for more than 20 years by now and I call myself a hardcore gamer and as far as I could say is that the gaming community has changed and will change in the future. If you wait several years there will be more woman playing games then men because it isn’t a taboo anymore to play computer games and having children.
Even here in the forum in a genre which isn’t that popular like some shooter games are a good amount of woman who are here with their husband for example. In other genres you will meet many many more female gamers especially in Call of Duty or Battlefield or in high fantasy mmorpgs.

@ topic: I still think that playing a female character in a middle age world can be quite interesting and possible. Beside of that point that you can’t make a game which would be 100 % realistic. In many many other threads it has been already pointed out that if you would go that way you couldn’t make a game of it because you would die every ten minutes cause of wounds, bleeding, illness, hunger, thirst and so on.
I hope that in further acts there will be a more important role in the shadows for female characters to manipulate their surroundings. Maybe even a cooperative game mode to play with your family and enjoy this game together not just sitting next to your loved one.
And I think it has been already mentioned that the developer just have a ressource problem and that the story has already been written about a male protagonist which doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be possible to do that in other acts for the female character as well. Especially if there is the demand for it.

Also the idea from Theman is a good one. The other possibility would be that the you have to be very very careful with whom you are talking. But if you are living two lives… one live as an adventurer and the other live as a tailor… who would ever find out in the most cases when you are traveling from village to village where noones knows you? As long as you can pay your bills in taverns noone would ask too many questions I guess.

#97

@213 @Costin Most of both your arguments have already been discussed at great length earlier in the thread. Costin’s post is pretty much a repost of the beginning of earlier discussions, and 213’s claim that lack of evidence is evidence has also already been said, and I have answered that argument. Again, I reiterate; that you have a preconception about history does not make it true. I have already shown that most women through history are not “stuff of legend”, and why.

Seeing as the discussion is going to turn into an endurance match in repeating your opinions and that Warhorse has already given their thoughts on the matter, I won’t be writing up a new response that would pretty much be a word for word repeat of earlier. Read the thread this far, you can find most of your arguments and the discussion about them there.

One thing, though, as you know how much I love to use facts:

Not true. Wenceslaus was imprisoned by his brother, the Hungarian king Sigismund. So far so good. But he was not rescued at all, he was released by his captor when he was called back to Hungary. Again, that you think something happened does not make it true.

@Dekssan The discussion isn’t about them changing the character, they have already stated they won’t and why in this thread. This is about the feasibility of having one, which they have stated would be both possible and interesting, but they won’t tell that story this time.

@PhanTom_CZ Almost missed your post! Thank you for bringing something fresh to this discussion! Firstly, I think that narrowing down the acceptable geographic area from which to use sources to prove your point is clever, if faulty, but I’ll indulge you!

You say “But the actual era where the game takes place is almost unrecorded in historical sources.” This is simply not true, there is a wealth of information about 15th century Bohemia available. If it were true, it would counter your own argument that we can not use sources from other places, as that would leave us with a game with pretty much no sources to draw from. If you lack sources, you extrapolate.

But it just so serendipitously happens that John M. Klassen has written a study about women in 15th century Bohemia, where he talks about, among other things, the tradition of “strong, “dissident” women”, both in fiction and history. Turns out Bohemia had a tradition of Amazons in folklore that was put down in writing as early as the 12th century, which was expanded, again in writing, in the 14th century. This does not mean that there was equality in any way, but it does mean that, as I have said before, the church doctrine was not the sole cultural influence on people at the time. There may not have been a historical Joan of Arc in 15th century Bohemia, but women definitely played a prominent role in the very Hussite movement the game seems to be about. Now, and this is my opinion based on the information above; this is precedent enough for a potential, realistic heroine to not be an impossibility, as Warhorse has also noted earlier in the thread.

This brings us to the statement that [quote=“PhanTom_CZ, post:87, topic:6222”]
There certainly was a civil war (nothing too uncommon by itself) and that means that a great deal of things was happening on what you could call a small, personal level of those people involved directly. But definitely no potential national heroine, Czech “Johanka z Arku” (the way we use to call Joan of Arc here).
[/quote]

There seems to be two clashing trains of thought here; you are not the first to have had them, but thank you for brining my attention to them. Joan of Arc is probably among the most famous of heroines or heroes through history. There is no potential James of Arc in Bohemia, or pretty much anywhere else, either. Joan of Arc is quite unique in both how famous she is for being a non-fictional character, and in how well-documented her life is, both among men and women. There is pretty much no other heroes or heroines that can match her credentials in international fame or documentation especially of someone not of noble birth.

If the story is not something that would go down in legend, as you suggest, then the tale could get lost in history just as easily if it starred a female, such as Johanna Ferrour’s story has done.

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#98

By this logic they can actually resign for any realism at all and make another Skyrim… If there is no way to make it completely realistic, don’t bother even to try to get close to it… I don’t think anyone sane expect it to be 100% realistic, it’s a game afterall and it’s supposed to be fun. The point is to make it as realistic and believable as possible. And btw, by using this argument you actually admit it is unrealistic…

#99

The only thing I wanted to say is that making a game more realistic the less enjoyable/playable it will be because you couldn’t save your game at every step, your decisions would be crucial with no chance to survive about a long time especially when you are fighting in large scale battles.

Being a female in that time and capable to fight (I doesn’t mean a well trained knight which most men weren’t either) is extremely realistic. Everytime the men has been called to arms who was left to protect the home and do the whole work? The very old ones, the very young ones and the woman which knew how to use a pitchfork.
And from that point you can also decide to live the life of an merchant or adventurer and train yourself. Even being accepted by a group of bandits wouldn’t be that much of a problem to be realistic. Every human being is capable of holding a weapon and using it when they have to and the more often you are using it the better you get.

So I can’t see any point which would say that it would be unrealistic or impossible to be a woman who decided to live the living of a adventurer… Yes… a very difficult and dangerous life (but for men too) but still possible.

And because of that way and the discussion above there is no real reason beside of ressources of the developer and the story that there would not be a “real” playable female character. While one would only have a short role in act I there might be more gameplay in further acts.

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#100

You didn’t have conscription. During this period most soldiers where professionals.
Sure sometimes the peasants was called up to fight, but they had a very low “combat value” and they still need to eat.
And after the black death it was not a good idea to loose a lot of peasants. So armies got a lot smaller and generally more professional. So using fewer professional was simply better than using large numbers of untrained peasants.

And yes, everyone can pick op a sword and swing it. But unless you train often and do this with a competent teacher you will newer become good at it.

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