"Profession: Housewife" ?

[rust]

Working on my Sokotra Colony setting, I ran into another minor problem: The professions and

skills of the colonists' wifes.

While it was no problem to distribute the necessary professions and skills for the creation of the

colony among the male colonists and to make most of them different and interesting by this, it

seems that in a historical setting almost all of the female colonists will have to remain "generic",

without true professions and with only a narrow field of household skills (Cooking, First Aid, Se-

wing ...), plus perhaps some social and artistic skills and the basics of their husbands' professi-

ons - in the end their stats all look very much the same.

I suspect that this is historically more or less correct, but it also makes it rather difficult to play

these non-player characters in a way that turns them into individuals the players will remember,

and I do not want to ignore them and treat them just as background, as for example Pendragon

handles almost all of the knights' wifes.

So, any ideas that could help to give those female colonists a bit more colour and individuality

without changing history too much (= no female musketeers and thelike ...) would be most wel-

come.

Thank you.

[threedeesix]

it seems that in a historical setting almost all of the female colonists will have to remain "generic",

without true professions and with only a narrow field of household skills (Cooking, First Aid, Se-

wing ...), plus perhaps some social and artistic skills and the basics of their husbands' professi-

ons - in the end their stats all look very much the same.

You can use their personal skill points to differentiate them. These can be put into anything the game master allows.

[sdavies2720]

If you're staying historically accurate and have to give most of the women the profession "housewife",then I'd look for subprofessions. I would think it unlikely that everyone has the same skills at everything -- so there is an advantage to trade. So Sally is Housewife(Baker) because everyone knows her bread is the best and if you have something to barter or have to entertain, you get her to make bread for you. Similarly, there will be midwives, gardeners, seamstresses, weavers, embroiderers, etc.

I would think there would be a number of women who are basically running the family business even though their husbands are the 'grocer' or 'butcher'. So I would go through and assign every woman a business, social, or government function. Even though the husband is officially Mayor, everyone may know that his wfe makes the decisions, or she's the one to talk to about farming rghts because she's the one who cares and can influence the mayor.

It's a common belief, which I think is supported by research in aggregate, that women are more social than men, that they spend more time and energy keeping the social fabric of society together. So there should be a wide range of (sub-)professions that deal with social things (everything from envoys to keeper of records to welcoming committees to grief support functions to matchmaking to trading gossip or judging social missteps).

Hopefully that helps somewhat.

Steve

[rust]

Hopefully that helps somewhat.

Thank you very much, it helps a lot - I think this was exactly the advice I needed to see the so-

lution to my little problem.

[seneschal]

Historically "housewife" was 50 professions in one. They were, first and foremost, business managers supervising staffs of servants that sometimes numbered in the hundreds. They oversaw the gathering of foodstuffs, raw materials, and tools necessary to house, feed and clothe that many people, not just their immediate families. No running to Wal-Mart for a loaf of bread. You had to grow the grain, harvest, grind and bake it yourself. Winter clothing? Had to grow and harvest flax or cotton; shear the sheep; clean, comb and spin the fibers into thread, then weave the cloth before you could cut and sew a new robe, tunic or dress. All from-scratch, labor-intensive stuff -- and wifey was in charge of making it all happen on an annual schedule while hubby-dear was out hunting, gambling, wenching, or making war. The man of the house may have claimed to be the boss (when he was actually around), but it was his wife who handled the budget and daily operations and ensured that the homestead/manor house/castle wasn't a smoking ruin when he finally came home.

[rust]

Historically "housewife" was 50 professions in one.

Yep, I am aware of this - but how to handle it in the game ?

At first I tried to give each of the wives a long list of low percentile profession skills, but that

does not really work, because they would fail or fumble too many of their skill rolls, while in

reality they almost certainly succeeded most of the time.

Now I think I will introduce two new skills, Craft (Stewardship) and Knowledge (Stewardship),

to cover all the "sub-professional" tasks of a normal household, and follow SDavies' advice to

give all or most of the wives one or two comparatively high professional skills to individualize

them by showing where they are especially skilled.