Ferossa

To whomever decided to respond by hunting down my personal e-mail and mailing me a bunch of illegal porn, I reported you to the authorities and I hope they SWAT you. I'm now 3/3 wargame communities where I have experienced direct, targeted harassment aimed at driving women out of the hobby. Are we going to accept that there's a problem?

I find it interesting that all the people complaining about the joke were quick to erase the context: a woman discussing sexual assault and reminding men that sexualising women without their consent is not okay. I don't think separating the word "manbaby" into its component parts functionally changed the meaning, but I refuse to apologise for not speaking of men who enjoy violating women's sexual and bodily integrity in more glowing terms. Why do you think it was acceptable to ignore the content of the post (speaking up, telling men how I want them to treat women), which was specifically directed at doing what you asked me to do earlier? I am also opposed to hypocrisy from men who want to keep their sexist jokes, but insist on shutting it down when a woman makes a joke at the expense of sexual predators.

I made the joke because I wanted to see if anyone would refute the statement when a woman said it instead of a man. I think you should think about why and how you responded. (And I think the context from the quote made it pretty clear it was a joke between two women who have experienced sexual harassment.)

Not all men. I know tons of men who know to treat women with respect. The ones who don't are merely worse than mewling, puking babies. You have plenty of men in the thread arguing that all men want to sexualise women. Your quarrel is with the men making your gender look bad, not with the woman mocking them.

I'm insulting the men who think a woman's breasts exist for their sexual satisfaction. Was that unclear?

Breasts aren't sexual unless a woman has given you consent to sexualise her. Breasts are not consent for sexualisation. S'why you can't call men babies. Babies know what breasts are actually for.

You are correct. Last Blossoms just have the best mobility and I am biased in this scenario.

NIMBLE. She can walk up to 12" per turn. Smoke & Shadows drops Last Blossoms 6" from any Last Blossom model. Do you like to place models 18" from where they started? Every Vanished Last Blossom adds 6" (closer to 7" if you take base size into account) to the chain. And at the end of the chain is giant spider.

Is there a happy medium? I'm interested in story encounters and thematic re-fluffs of models, and I think it would be interesting to have a community spotlight for variant crews and "What If" rules scenarios. It wouldn't be tournament legal, but it's company acknowledgement of fannish passion, and I think there would be less incentive to complain about post-Beta models if people were given parameters for tweaking and playing with them. I think the open beta is one of the reason Malifaux is so balanced and plays so smoothly. I'd be disappointed to lose it.

As a point of interest, "they/their" became singular neuter around the time of the printing press. The thorn which marked the "th" sound in English couldn't be reproduced on German printing presses, so they replaced it with a Y. "Thou" turns into "you" and the formal plural form of address becomes the second personal singular and plural. When you combine the printing press with the Renaissance and the surge of enthusiasm for Latin grammar, you get the adoption of the Neuter Singular, but backwards because Germanic and Latin grammar don't mesh that well. And so, when you want to use the neuter singular pronoun, you use the neuter plural. The singular "they" has been in recorded use since the 1790s. If you've ever hated the English language, now you know why.

Dgraz, at which point after I was roofied was I able to "make it clear that's not okay"? That exact attitude is why the man who raped me is a welcome presence in the wargaming scene and I am not. Nobody else saw it, so I must be lying, right?

It's not a blanket statement when it happens in every city, in every community when I try to wargame. I have never participated in wargaming without receiving harassment and abuse, and other women and men have posted with their experiences. Wargaming, and nerd culture overall, has a problem with women. That problem is evidenced by the player attitudes towards sexualised female models, and the more sexualised female models there are in the game, the more sexual harassment female players receive. When you don't make women a part of your everyday setting (minion boxes), you send the message that women are not part of everyday Malifaux. Malifaux already sends the message that POC are strange anomalies, which is what happens when you have four black characters and two of them are "mystical". Wyrd has a responsibility to pay attention to the themes and subtext they include in the game. You don't get to make a game based around narrative dynamics and then complain when players examine that narrative. Finally, if you find yourself in the position of having to ban or fire a henchman for harassment, that's something I would like to know about. It doesn't make Wyrd look bad because they had an issue, it makes them look like a responsible company who cares about their community. The only people who will be scared off by that knowledge that the community ousts people are people likely to be ousted. Knowing that players have some recourse for bad henchmen or toxic groups is relieving and shows Wyrd cares about the community. Adding a feedback option for local play would be really cool.

It's discouraging to see an owner of the company repeatedly dismiss reports of harassment and sexism within the Malifaux community, especially when they come from someone who is trying to start the game. You have a new customer post to explain how the sexualised models give the player base license to make sexualised comments about women, which makes the poster uncomfortable participating in the hobby or inviting their friends. How many customers (and sales!) do you need to dismiss before you accept that this is a problem? I don't think I've seen anyone dismiss a new player as quickly as Nathan did. "Just be tougher" is not real advice. I think other posters have done a very good job of explaining how the appearance of the characters sets the standard for fandom behaviour. Malifaux is a well-written setting with deep, representative characters. The longer the owners fight against expanding it, the more they make those deep and enriching themes look accidental.

I sued the guy and am still getting death threats from the store owner, the guy, and all his friends. This dude? Attacked a woman and then pressed charges when she defended herself. "Be stronger" is not the answer. Changing the community is. I worked in a game stores for years and I watched hundreds of women and poc enter excited and leave defeated because they couldn't find anything that targeted them. Wyrd stands to lose nothing by expanding the diversity of their models and is poised to gain a lot if they commit to it. I can't convince women to game when the hobby is so hostile. So I hypothetically get MMA training and punch everyone who harasses me. Okay, why I should have to? Why is there the expectation that women get combat training to deal with harassment from men in the hobby, instead of the expectation that men not harass women in the hobby? I've broken men's arms when they've grabbed me. It doesn't make you feel good; it makes you feel like you're part of the problem.

Don't think about what Lust can do for your master, think about what Lust can do for you. Hit a model for one damage and scoot it into position to drop a scheme when it activates. Lure your own models out of position so your sniper has a clean shot. Lure Baby Kade out of melee pits. What are your schemes? Would Lust's mobility shenanigans help your accomplish them? Take Lust.

/cracks knuckles As has been previously mentioned, Angel Eyes was once a human. It has been stated the Asylum is run by Pandora. Is Dr. Grimwell related to Angel Eyes and Tuco? Will the fluff uncover the conspiracy? With the extra info, it looks like a perfect introduction to the game. This is exactly what I need for my newbie friends. The smallermodel count and ensuing shorter game length make learning much easier and it layers in rules organically. I hope we see at least two more, or one for every faction. Four model henchman starter kits + cards would be a really cool way to expand.

One of the things that I keep trying to point out is that wargaming has huge mass market appeal (it's like three-dimensional chess only BETTER) and the racist, sexist behaviour of the community (which they justify based on the depictions of the models as seen above) drives those people off before they can truly participate. Look at the massive buckets of harassment I've had to wade through in real life just for expressing and interest in the hobby. I have a curated list of what I consider "middle of the road offences" that includes a man roofieing me. That should tell you how toxic the wargaming community is for women. The Tumblr tag has representation matters has hundreds of thousands of people speaking about what it's like to live within a marginalised identity. I think that's relevant to discussion we've been having. Here's a post with 400 notes about spending your SDCC money on companies that support representation. I think 400 people is the entire Canadian Malifaux player base. Here's a post with over 20,000 notes about how a 12 year old girl has so internalised racism that if a company doesn't explicitly target her, she is assumes she is unwanted. This is what it's like being a marginalised fan. You need to fight for every inch, and if you don't have the company telling you that you're welcome, you have no reason to feel welcomed in the hobby. Those are small posts. Women are incredibly nerdy. Within my local area, I know about 200 women who have left the gaming community due to the harassment and sexism. Speaking locally, it's an issue with a player who keeps threatening to rape all the women and the stores refusing to remove or discipline him. It's quiet. Never when other people are around. Usually after sneaking up behind you and rubbing a bit. But he never bothers the male players, so give him the benefit of the doubt, right? Or you could nope right out of the hobby and salt and burn the ground, since you're not getting those friends back after you call Handsy Joe a creep. Women want to game. I don't know why the hobby eats its own.

I wanted to address this point specifically, because starting with Barbie girls are taught to expect sexualisation. Read this Reddit thread about girls noticing when men first looked at them sexually. Of course the Victorias box sold out, because my expectations for miniatures games and decency from men is so very low, that I will buy a box of all-female sexualised minis, because if nothing else, I am sending the message that people will buy all-female boxes. Was I sending the wrong message in buying the Victorias? (And I know some of you are parents. Assuming you want your children to share your hobby, do you want your daughters to grow up with experiences like mine? Do you want your sons to think treating women that way is acceptable? Miniatures games don't need to be insular—that's the attitude killing AAA gaming. Malifaux has a huge amount of external appeal and I don't understand the desire to compete in a saturated market instead of targeting enthusiastic, undersaturated demographics who have spent years vocalising a desire to spend money on games that represent them. Wargaming is a fulfilling, enriching hobby that can be so much broader than it is. There are people who want to wargame, but haven't started because they haven't found a system or setting that represents them. Wyrd is already halfway there. I would love to see them go the whole way and show what a deep, representative experience wargaming can be for everybody.)

A henchman/enforcer that's a chaotic board presence and blows up scheme markers? I want this.

GodDAMMIT, stop giving away my tech! That's what I get for evil cackling for the last two days...

But by deciding to include misogyny and oppressive patriarchy, you're including them as forces in the setting. With the sexualised female boxes (Oiran, Ronin) Wyrd makes a strong point that women are only allowed in Malifaux if they are sexually useful. That's a gross point, and rather than being offended that people are pointing out the subtext of their narrative, Wyrd should work to bring the subtext into alignment with their stated goals. Because right now, multiple women and several men have told them that they are unhappy with the status quo because it reflects real-life inequalities that we need to face every day, and we come to Malifaux for a power fantasy that lets us face them on an even footing. In the previous thread, you had people arguing that the lack of female models is good because it keeps women out of the hobby. That is the side you cater to when you defend your female model deficit. I've posted examples in this thread and others of the sexism and danger I face when I try to participate in the hobby due to the overwhelming misogyny of some of the participants. "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." - Desmond Tutu

Well, yeah, but it's a fantasy game. It's power fantasies for everyone. It's not supposed to be realistic. I'm trying to be generous in reading this, but you don't get to make a game about zombies and wizards and gremlins and then say that you have fewer women because that's realistic for the setting. Wyrd made the setting. Wyrd sets the politics. Malifaux did not spring fully-formed into the world and it's disingenuous to pretend it did. The current scholarship on women at war is right here and it's a great read. That's all I'll say about the historical argument.

Quickly jumping on this, because I was in the Lizzy fight. The problem was a bunch of dudes making jokes about a woman who had her sexual assault filmed and distributed. It may be a porn classic, but it's about as consensual as the Steubenville videos. It's not an appropriate thing to joke about, especially when that forum is a stranger's first look into the Malifaux community. I'm still in favour of the name "Lizzy Lovelace" because I think it's a good homage, alliterative, and anyone who wants to be sexist about it is advertising that they're a terrible human and making themselves easy to avoid.

I'm out of likes for the day, so to everyone and this thread in general. The representation divide can't be fixed by more female masters. Don't get me wrong: Malifaux has a pretty even divide and that's a good thing. The issue arises when you look at the world of Malifaux and the 80 average men for every 20 average women. We see more men doing things than women, and when we see a woman on the tabletop, we know that she is exceptional: a master, henchman, enforcer. If the only women we see are women in exceptional positions, then that means that most women simply aren't exceptional enough. Women can come to Malifaux, but only if they can play like one of the boys. That's the attitude we saw in the last thread. That's the attitude Math talked about in this thread. It is present in the community and it is a problem for those who care about the community. (I always recommend Doctor Nerdlove. If you're struggling with your privilege, Nerds and Male Privilege is a great 101 that unpacks what it means in a sociological sense and how having privilege doesn't make you a bad person.)

Sure! (I might make a separate thread for this, since I have one for all the masters.) Seamus is Jack the Ripper, but Seamus is also a critique of the Victorian values that created Jack the Ripper (cf. "Run and Hyde" and the eponymous novel). Seamus is the misogyny that drives men to believe they can possess women, and he exacts that desire literally. His role in the narrative is one of unquestioned antagonist: he is abusive to Molly (his "girlfiend" for 1e), creates and ignores hundreds of Belles (cf. Red Pill "love 'em/leave 'em" ideology), and, importantly for the narrative, it is those acts that show him as monstrous, because (as other players have mentioned) violence in the game is taken for granted. Malifaux is a narrative game, which means some of the models are going to be villains. Wyrd doesn't shy away from the cruelty and horror, but they don't capitalise on it for titillation either. Perhaps most importantly, Seamus is, as far as we know, a virgin. Seamus is completely asexual. He wants to possess women because they are pretty. Seamus is a man who has completely dismissed the reality of women's humanity and desires only to keep them around as decorations. Wait! But didn't he cover a bunch of ruins in dirty limericks about him and Molly? Yes, but so did the boys in my grade seven science class and I was not a particularly promiscuous eleven year old. Seamus wants attention. He wants to shock and he wants to exploit people's vulnerabilities to shock them the most. That he chooses to taunt Sonnia with dirty limericks shows just how inept he is at achieving any goals that aren't murder. Sex workers are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Rather than being "sexy" and inflicting body-violation horror on demographics who already deal with that constant threat, Seamus is a master of psychological horror. He is boyfriend who stalks you and kills you when you break up. Like Humbert Humbert, Seamus is just an awful, terrible human being. He is entirely self-centred, focuses on his own infamy over practical concerns, and if he were alive today, he'd probably be calling women "whores" on the internet. In many ways, Seamus' explosion of violence echoes the motivations of male spree-killers like Brevik, Lépine, and Rodger. TL;DR: Seamus isn't a good person. Wyrd knows that and has created one of the most satisfying villains to smear off the table.