March 25, 2010

Grrr, Gender-Based Game Mechanics

We had another night of Munchkin on Monday, and it was mostly good times. We played the original, which I picked up (which apparently made Shauna playfully angry, since she had suggested getting the game for me and Jonathan said that it wasn’t my kind of game) and I’m sure you’ll see a review of that tomorrow. Because it’s apparently Munchkin Week here at the bloeg. But for now I’m going to talk about something pointless, stupid, and depressing related to Munchkin. Ready? Okay.

I hate gender-based mechanics in casual games.

Okay, that description really doesn’t describe the phenomenon I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is casual games where game mechanics are based upon the player’s actual gender. This is normally done for funny joke time, to break the ice, or to give female players an advantage because the designers are assuming their boyfriends tricked them into playing or some shit.

Obviously, I’m a bit sensitive to such things. They put me in awkward situations.

Example from Monday. We were playing Cthulhu Munchkin again. I draw an early game Chibithulhu. I can easily beat it at the “male” difficulty, but at the “female” difficulty, I don’t have enough equipment. Everyone knows I have this card in my hand, due to a weird drawing snafu. If I am male, the right thing to do is to look for trouble, play Chibithulhu, take the extra treasure from being an Investigator, and level up. Everyone knows I have the card, and everyone knows I can kill it if this is the case. If I hold onto the card and don’t play it, I am, in their eyes, making an obvious play mistake.
This really, really, really bothers me for some reason. I try to learn rules and master them. I find that fun. I also don’t believe in playing at anything less than the best of your ability, as I find throwing the game only insults the people you’re playing with. (There are exceptions for humor value, of course, but in general, I feel this way.) I tried holding onto the card in reality. I didn’t play it for two turns. It drove me crazy. I didn’t want to seem like I was handicapping myself.
At the same time, I could have insisted I was female, I suppose. All but one person at the table I had had the talk with. That, however, seemed like I would be intentionally disrupting and ruining a fun night. We were all having a good time. Why should I be ruining it with my stupid bullshit?

I ended up playing the card, and asking for help to kill the monster. Everyone at the table complained. “What are you doing? You don’t need help to kill that.” I gave in, took my treasure, swallowed my feelings on the matter, and kept playing.

But it obviously bothered me enough to write a bloeg about it.

And that is why gender-based mechanics suck. The end.
Okay, I guess I didn’t actually prove that. Just that I hate them. I understand why they exist, and I think that’s a fine thing. Nothing wrong with breaking the ice in such games. But dammit, it’s stupidly hard. Annoying. Yes.

And that’s it for that rant. Stay tuned for more stupidity.

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