Why Women? And Politics?

As I said in a previous post, after reading “Goddesses, Whores, Wives, & Slaves” by Sarah B. Pomeroy, I was struck with a great interest in this, as it is a fascinating look at the live and labels of women in the ancient world. As a game developer, I saw potential here for a different type of game too – a game where agency is not always 100% in control of the players, and they need to act through agents by using politics and subtle social skills to achieve their goals.

Agency

Ultimately, the nature of politics is that we give away our agency or have an agent who is supposed to act on our behalf. In modern democracies, this is our representative in government. The interests of these agents is not always aligned with our own, that’s the rub.

Even before Rome evolved away from a monarchy and into a democratic system this problem has plagued civilisations the world over – those in charge simply find it difficult to put aside self-interest and act truly in the interests of ‘the people’.

Oppian Wives examines this concept as a major part of play – as people must balance their duty to the Republic against their self-interest and desire for power (even if the ends of such power is ‘altruistic’ in their view). Moreso, they must balance the perceptions of others, who may judge some actions harshly and make unjust statements and demands about the characters of those in power – which if taken too far can lead to revolt, rebellion, and an overthrowing of government.

So…here we are with an understanding that most forms of politics comes with a requirement for representation – ignore the modern ‘elected’ part of representation. Kings and Queens and Emperors and Sultans of the past all had this same conundrum – take what you can, balanced with providing for the people – lest you suffer a turn of fortunes (overthrow!).

Agency of women in Rome

In the Roman republic, women were not considered citizens, except by virtue of their association with men who were citizens. They were given citizenship based on familial ties to fathers, brothers, husbands, uncles, and sons. This made women entirely dependent on the men in their lives – even so much as to be protected by laws governing ‘Roman citizens’ – if they lost this through some means, they lost their citizenship and even legal rights.

The authority over a woman in many aspects of her life was initially given to her father, but upon marriage transitioned to her husband. Marriage was a key (but not the only) way for women to connect themselves with powerful men who were citizens. The same applied for any minor children borne by the woman – her progeny ‘belonged’ to male relatives. Usually, the legal responsibility and authority for a woman reverted to her father in the event of divorce or the death of her husband, but could also pass to other male relatives (particularly if the father was also dead).

Female children were often named using their father’s name, and in some cases this led to multiple girl-children being named the same – for example, a man named Lucius with two daughters, they might be named Lucia Minor and Lucia Major.

Women were certainly not allowed to appear in the senate, and also generally not allowed to act in any legal capacity before the courts. It did happen though, as with Maesia Sentinas and Gaia Afrania, who both prosecuted their own cases, but the evidence shows that this was rare and could often be met with new curtailment on women’s rights as a result. Again, as with other aspects of their life, women needed an advocate (agent) to act on their behalf in legal matters before the courts, which were male dominated.

Aside from social and interpersonal influence, a key part of women’s power in Rome came from their mercantile and commercial activities. Among the Patrician (noble) classes, it was considered vulgar to deal in trade and commerce – for the men anyway. They ‘belonged’ in politics and public service. This left their female relations to manage the finances of not only the immediate household, but often sprawling estates and holdings across the Republic. 

In game terms – Agency, Agents, Acting, Arbitrating

Back to our mechanical discussion previously – I wanted to have ‘Non-Random Choice’ be at the centre of how women exercise their individual power – so again looking at the Drama System (from Hillfolk RPG) as a template for this.

(You can find the drama system via Pelgrane Press here: https://pelgranepress.com/2013/09/19/dramasystem-srd/ with much thanks to Robin D. Laws for making this available under a CC and OGL license.)

But that non-random choice has to be balanced with a lack or loss of agency, making women in Rome dependent on others for action. In Drama System, this works a lot like the ‘procedural’ scene -  a scene where the outcome is risky / unknown and relies on a randomisation element. It seems there is a bit of online discussion about the ‘clunky’ nature of the Drama System ‘procedural’ scene (which I personally don’t find, I think it is a really elegant way to do scene resolution) so I’ll consider that as a base point but will keep my eyes open for alternatives. One that I have found and bought is Malandros - https://porcupinepublishing.itch.io/malandros - which seems to merge PbtA style ‘procedural resolution’ with the Drama System ‘dramatic scenes’.

I love the back and forth between ‘Drama’ scene (women acting in Rome using their subtle power), and the ‘Procedural’ scene (their agents acting). I think it does what I want for the game, but there is something missing. I think there needs to be a macro ‘balancing’ scene – where the results of a session or round of play are assessed and the impacts and story movements generated. At present, I’m considering this to be ‘Public Perception’ – i.e. what the Roman mob thinks of the actions of the families in play. I’ll explore that concept in detail in a later post. 

I think the social background which we develop also needs to be managed, in what I’m terming the ‘milieu’ for now. I’ll explore that concept soon too.