Playing a female

[Goodknight]

This is a fantastic mod. I really appreciate most every aspect of it. There is one thing that puts me off of it though, and I have seen this in quite a few mods, why is there no way a female can be played? Perhaps an option to play the wife to fight while the husband is busy doing paperwork or somthing? I hate to say that anything about this wonderful mod bothers me, but this does. I prefer playing female warriors.

[BlackSamurai]

why?

[Selvhan]

Well female were not leading army in medieval time... so this might be the reason why.

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Not quite that -- it's just not possible in the storyline. For women to command armies or serve as palace attendants and guards is not at all unheard of, and glaive-guisarme training has the cultural role among well-to-do Honseli even in this setting as naginata training in modern Japan, but the story that I hope I'm going to write one of these days is about Arcos ara-Chanurin, who's male. So you're stuck.

I thought about this a good bit myself, but I think giving the player the possibility of a female character -- which would probably require completely different parallel storylines -- would just be too much effort, and wouldn't work out very well. But if I can do it at some point in development -- if it looks practical without too much extra work -- I just might...

And Goodknight, I'm delighted that you (and a lot of other people ) think so highly of the mod in this early state -- I really need to get cracking on the weaponry and siege-system revisions, not to mention further-reaching stuff...

[Alec{zacool}]

Well female were not leading army in medieval time... so this might be the reason why.

Have you ever heard of Joan of arc? Obviously not! That was in medieval times...

[Vivianai]

The fact that you can name the one and only Medieval Female General is the exception that proves the rule. 

I also enjoy playing female warriors, but if the story line is specifically written for a male then that is the way it is.  Possibly you could allow just to put the option of a female model in, and when ever we run across masculine pronouns we can just mentally substitute Female ones.  Could be a easy solution?

P.S.  And really Joan of Arc was more a religious leader then a general.

[Ron Losey]

The problem is not just the pronouns, but the whole storyline.  The volume of what would have to be changed would be overpowering.

And Joan of Arc was certainly an inspirational figure more than a military leader.  They pretended like she was the general, but everybody pretty much knew that the military decisions were coming from somewhere else.

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Remember, Alec {zacool} -- just because the setting doesn't have assault rifles doesn't mean that medieval European cultural mores apply to it. Joan of Arc is almost completely irrelevant to arguments pro or con for playing a female character in ASLOW -- basically, my previous statements stand.

That said, perhaps I should say that to Selvhan more than to Alec...

And yes, Ron Losey is very right -- possibly more right than he realizes -- that the game would require heavy modification along the lines of a whole different track of the storyline to allow the player to have a female character. I'm not inclined to even attempt that -- the writing of ASLOW is going to be a tall enough order as it is...

[Sink King]

Well female were not leading army in medieval time... so this might be the reason why.

Have you ever heard of Joan of arc? Obviously not! That was in medieval times...

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake...

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Well female were not leading army in medieval time... so this might be the reason why.

Have you ever heard of Joan of arc? Obviously not! That was in medieval times...

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake...

By Englishmen, so it didn't count.

(More seriously, the case was reopened at the request of her family about 10-20 years after she was executed, and the Pope declared that the verdict was as spurious as an ecclesiastical verdict could get, and of no validity or meaning whatsoever... Regardless, I think her dressing in men's clothing -- for security, though the English represented it as "cross-dressing" -- was an argument the English used, but I don't know how much they said about her leading an army. She didn't actually fight, of course.

Also, see my "current status" post for details on where the mod currently is...)