All the things you want to soapbox and/or have debate about in Malifaux

[Myyrä]

Perfect. Same goes for women offended by the inclusive "he" right? They should go find a game that doesn't exist.

I think it's stupid to get offended by any personal pronoun.

I also might not fully grasp the gravity of the situation, as Finnish doesn't have gender specific personal pronouns.

[zFiend]

Because instead of he/she we prefer to call everyone it.

[edonil]

Would you really be insisting on this he/she stuff if the rulebook was exclusively "he"? Like the rules from a dozen games I have on my shelf. I find it interesting that these sudden concerns about full inclusivity only come up when someone suggests going countrary to the accepted norm, and it's annoying.

[admiralvorkraft]

That's why in that post there was only that sentence left. But then it was risible...

I am convinced that WE are supposed to stop the people having these bad behaviours. In the real world. Firmly.

Not delegate it to Wyrd on the basis of a theoretical slightly possible slow shift of the extremism over the years to come, and think "OK. Let's wait!"

We are not under the law of the jungle or a dictatorship: the many win over the bully.

If we (and with "we" I intend us peers, not the victims) don't get rid of them on our own, from our confined gaming worlds, where they are serious threats of enormous size, how are we entitled to ask someone else to slightly change details here and there, because that would seriously help?

"Could you please put blue toilet signs instead of the red ones in the local? Because I just got punched in the face and robbed from a bully, and is well known that red enhances people's aggressiveness!"

Absolutely we as individuals need to confront negative behaviors in the real world, but pretending like the cultural baseline set by the games we play, the music we listen to, and the films we watch doesn't matter is frankly ludicrous. We aren't asking Wyrd to "fix" sexism, or prevent threats to any individual by any other individual, that's way beyond the scope of the conversation, and beyond any reasonable expectation of Wyrd's influence.

Wyrd can, however, effect the cultural baseline by including more non-sexualized women, non-white, and/or queer characters on the table and in the world. As I and Edonil (and others) have said, this change can and should be an easy one to make but it can have a profound (positive) effect on the community that the game attracts.

[mythicFOX]

<MOD HAT>

 

I've read the last few pages back and I'm ashamed of several of you.  You've all been asked nicely, so now I'm telling you...

 

This thread is now in zero tolerance mode.  If you cross the line you will be sanctioned.

 

Don't know where the line is?  Don't hit post.

 

</MOD HAT>

[SpectreEliteGaming]

Sigh. Where I see a chance to share and improve, you see a competition.

 

Regardless of my personal reasons, my logic is sound. Go ahead - argue it!

 

 

... and it would be an improvement to boot.

 

 

I think it's stupid to get offended by any personal pronoun.

I also might not fully grasp the gravity of the situation, as Finnish doesn't have gender specific personal pronouns.

 

 

Continuing to trivialize my point, genuine as it is, lends less impact and consideration to any point you make. Add to that, it appears that, rather than being argued against, I am receiving only dismissive comments. Interesting... but I understand. But then I receive dismissive comments when I jump on a topic that I find trivial. Interesting, again.

 

 

... but I understand.

 

Would you really be insisting on this he/she stuff if the rulebook was exclusively "he"? Like the rules from a dozen games I have on my shelf. I find it interesting that these sudden concerns about full inclusivity only come up when someone suggests going countrary to the accepted norm, and it's annoying.

 

 

Pretty sure I states "he/she" and "one" is my goal three times, now. That's four.

[SpectreEliteGaming]

To avoid being sanctioned the post above is my last post in this thread. I think I've displayed my point as well as I can. Peace out.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: The traffic this thread has received is quite impressive, I must say - 11 viewers right this second. Interesting.

 

Also, Mythicfox ninja modhatted my post - I swear this happens every time!

[Tapdancer]

To avoid being sanctioned the post above is my last post in this thread. I think I've displayed my point as well as I can. Peace out.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: The traffic this thread has received is quite impressive, I must say - 11 viewers right this second. Interesting.

 

Also, Mythicfox ninja modhatted my post - I swear this happens every time!

Its like car wrecks you can't help but look, you feel a little ashamed for looking but you can't help yourself .

[Dirial]

Regardless of my personal reasons, my logic is sound. Go ahead - argue it!

 

Myyrä did:

 

It's not about equality and I believe no one has claimed that it is. It is a small way of extending a hand towards women gamers.

 

And THIS is the reason I agree with him. There really isn't more to argue. It's just my opinion that we have to give first before the worst issues can be handled. Once that happens we can swing back towards total equality. My opinion which you can certainly disagree with. I just don't want an "You can't get something without us getting something"-debate. As long as we have more, no fairness will ever come of that.

[edonil]

Myyrä did:

 

 

And THIS is the reason I agree with him. There really isn't more to argue. It's just my opinion that we have to give first before the worst issues can be handled. Once that happens we can swing back towards total equality. My opinion which you can certainly disagree with. I just don't want an "You can't get something without us getting something"-debate. As long as we have more, no fairness will ever come of that.

This is it precisely.

[Ausplosions]

few seconds on the soapbox (well, what's a soapbox??? anyway...)

first: there are no australians, but i do think (joking) that in the early 1900 australians were not a population, but some kind of penal colony (anybody said Mr. McTavish Dundee??). But stop, no Italians? since 1800 italians were a population of migrant, so now-a-day you can find italian bloo almost everywhere!!

second: now i will try to use my internet-kung-fu to post a link to a movie... a silly tenn-comedy called "100 girls" with one of the greatest take about "-ism"( racism, sexism and so on..) ...let's see if my fu works:

ok, i can not do that, but wow, that speech in the class about feminism, racism, everything-ism is just something i think everyone must watch at least once.

with a big loving smile, my two cent from tha land of pizza & mandolino

It's not even a very good joke. By 1901 Australia was an independent nation, not a penal colony.

[admiralvorkraft]

I don't know that Wyrd will get much more useful input from this thread. I feel like most of us on various sides of the issue have had our say, and I don't think any minds are being changed at this point.

 

We can all agree on a few things at least; sexism is a problem in some parts of the gaming community, Wyrd is probably the best in the industry when it comes to issues of representation, Wyrd is not perfect, and most importantly Wyrd is a business that we love that has created a game that we love.

 

Wyrd could go about business exactly the way it has been and it would continue to be the best game in the business as far as representation is concerned, that's a low bar to clear but to some people that's enough - I've used Wyrd's equalish representation to attract people to Malifaux, and it's a huge part of what got me into the game after swearing off mini's gaming forever. 

However Wyrd has an opportunity to pull in more people like me. Wyrd has an opportunity to sell to my sister, who had never considered playing a miniatures game before Malifaux. Wyrd has an opportunity to win over my fiance who has now played the game a couple times, enjoyed it, and is almost hooked on the world enough to consider investing in her first miniatures game. We might just be a few individuals, but the way my sister's eyes lit up when she saw Ironsides? All Wyrd has to do to attract thousands of female players is to give them more opportunities to see themselves in the game.

And here's the thing; it costs you nothing to be more inclusive. Don't re-cast any existing sculpts, don't rewrite any existing fluff. Just release female Pistolero's, that wonderful picture of the woman with the axe will make a great Sergeant. The next time you release male and female versions of the same model give them the same clothes, or at least the same coverage, and don't sculpt the female model leaning over for maximum cleavage. We don't want you to make a big deal about how men and women are equal in Malifaux, just give us a female Union Miner who is heavily muscled from swinging a pickax and has a broken nose from brawling with Guild Guard. 

Sexy women are great, don't get me wrong, and they're a part of life and a part of Malifaux. But so are sexy men, and I don't see too many of them on the table. And so are not-sexy women, and so are not-sexy men.

 

So here's my plea to Wyrd, and my final word on the matter. Let us objectify without prejudice, let us play out our power fantasies no matter who we are, and let us field all-female crews without having to give other (lesser) gaming companies our money.

[Ausplosions]

You have a new customer post to explain how the sexualised models give the player base license to make sexualised comments about women.

The statement itself is ridiculous. The models don't give a scum bag license to do a god damn thing.

Blaming tiny plastic models for the attitude of an asshole is disingenuous.

The models could all be round cylinders and a sexist, rapist asshole would still be a sexist, rapist asshole.

Trying to make out like it's the models themselves that are a contributing factor is a fairly long bow to draw.

Should the models change? Maybe. Should they be blamed? Fuck no. The asshole should be blamed, not his excuses.

[thebarbalag]

Once again, the models aren't the cause. Nobody is saying the models are the cause. Deep breaths. We have deeply sexist roots in gaming culture. We are, among other things, having a discussion about pulling them up, how to, and whose responsibility it is.

 

Poor representation, sexualization, depictions of rape/abuse, etc. are born out of a culture that is full of those things, accepts those things, and even promotes those things. It goes both ways. Malifaux wasn't created in a vacuum, rather, in this culture. We were all brought up in it, and we are all impacted by it. As was mentioned earlier in this thread, both men and women seem to really love the Viks box (myself and my wife included), which is full of very sexualized women. The box isn't evil, but it, and our love of it, is born out of a culture that sexualizes women. If the Viks and their Ronin were men, would they be wearing thongs, or short-shorts, or otherwise revealing clothing? Would anyone go into battle dressed like that? That doesn't mean it isn't cool looking. Like I said, I'm quite fond of those models, but I can also see how they're a problem. They're not quite like Trixie, which if she weren't a Gremlin, would give me enough pause not to buy Mah's box, but a woman looking at the game and seeing that box is likely to have one of two responses, 1) That looks cool, and it's a box of all women! (based on responses I've seen, probably more common, but see my above comment as to why I suspect that is), or 2) Why is the box with all women hyper-sexualized? I don't think this game is for me.

 

"I don't think this game is for me," is a common response from women in gaming. I worked at a game store for years and saw it over and over again. Either there's hardly any representation, or what there is is highly sexualized. Women are geeks just as often as men, and always have been, they just haven't always been invited to the table.

 

What Wyrd can do, and has been doing, and it seems like is trying to do more of, is make sure there are plenty of seats. It's on the rest of us to make the table appealing to all people, women, LGBTQ persons, people of color, people with disabilities, etc. It's not about blame. It's about improving our community.

[zFiend]

The statement itself is ridiculous. The models don't give a scum bag license to do a god damn thing.

Blaming tiny plastic models for the attitude of an asshole is disingenuous.

The models could all be round cylinders and a sexist, rapist asshole would still be a sexist, rapist asshole.

Trying to make out like it's the models themselves that are a contributing factor is a fairly long bow to draw.

Should the models change? Maybe. Should they be blamed? Fuck no. The asshole should be blamed, not his excuses.

 

Even though this post might be as subtle as a shotgun, I agree with this and respect your complete straight forward honesty good sir. 

[Ausplosions]

I quoted a post where someone specifically stated that they felt the models gave someone license to make sexualising comments to women.

So as it turns out,people ARE blaming the models. As opposed to blaming the raging sex offender.

[Armour]

A great example of another arena in gaming that was heavily reshaped for the better by one company is role-playing games.

 

When Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition was being developed, many people were unhappy, and a small company called Paizo released an alternate product, the Pathfinder RPG.  Pathfinder is notable for having much better inclusion than previous version of D&D had in the "default" character classes.  There are more female characters, there are multiple non-white characters, and for the most part the artwork shows everyone being a badass.  They made mistakes, there are examples of sexualized art in the books, but they made a solid effort.

 

I can't say whether or not their inclusivity helped them; the game is excellent mechanically and Paizo's support of the game is continuous.  In any case, Pathfinder is now one of the market leaders in role-playing games.  It is stocked everywhere and literally millions of people play it.  

 

What is important about this is that it has hugely normalized women and non-white characters, and therefore players, in RPGs.  Smaller companies are more inclusive, and new games and supporting products cater for more people.  Now, years after Pathfinder, D&D has released a new version (5th edition, or NEXT, it has no official title) and guess what?  It has better representation too.  It has people of colour and women killing monsters and being awesome in its art.  Hasbro, the largest gaming company in the world, has looked at the current landscape of RPGs and tailored their product to align with what gamers want, and it turns out that inclusivity sells.

 

It doesn't hurt anyone to represent more people in your game.  As it turns out, doing so can change the entire industry you work in.  It only requires that somebody tries.

[Palooka]

I ran a GW store for two years - and despite my customer base genuinely being a group of very nice people, the one word I could never push out of their lexicon was 'rape' - like "those Devestators RAPED that Land Raider" - it made my wife VERY uncomfortable, and not surprisingly the customer base was largely male. Now, they were nice people, and would never pull anything nasty - but I had to constantly kick their asses and politely and VERY firmly remind them that I could cope with a bit of bad language but that was where I drew the line. People rarely made a big deal out of it and I respected them for it - however it was made very clear that the word was so entrenched in the local gaming community that it would be very, very hard to remove. People just didn't see it as as the big deal I did. This is more a societal thing I think - and had no real bearing on the sort of customer base I had. But still. Troubling.

But the thing I really wanted to pipe up on - I LOVE that they use the female pronoun in Malifaux. It's a wonderful change that I honestly had to double take to notice.

 

Al.

[moxypoo]

This thread really exploded while I was asleep, so I have to go back through and read about 4 pages.

 

However, it seems that there's an important business/marketing/practical factor that people are overlooking (at least they were at the time I went to bed).  Most of the people participating in this thread have hundreds or thousands of posts, which means we're already hooked on Wyrd.  As long as we continue to give them money, what incentive do they have to change the demographic distribution of Malifaux?  Us giving them money implies that they're doing exactly what they should be doing. I'm no businessologist, but when Nathan says the Viktoria's box is constantly sold out, suggesting that it's a popular product, why would Wyrd change that box to cater to the relatively small number of people who think it's sexist? 

 

Now, one can argue that making all race and gender demographics equal in Malifaux would draw in lots of new non-white male gamers, and that's a perfectly valid argument.  However, outside of market research, it's impossible to know whether that would have the desired effect; there are three possibilities: demographic equality in Malifaux could increase profits, decrease profits, or not change profits.  So far, I haven't seen anyone present any polls of people outside of these boards that would constitute the research necessary to make an accurate conclusion.  It's all been presumption.

 

****I want to make it perfectly clear that the above post was written through a lens of profit maximization.  I'm not trying to make any ethical or moral statements for Wyrd, and if they decide to alter the Malifaux demographic distribution over moral or ethical grounds, that's perfectly fine.****

[zeeblee]

Again I think that Malifaux has some great representation, and many of their boxes do a good job of containing at least one non-white non-male sculpt (well... honestly they are better at the non-male part), so I thought I'd list a few of them.

 

Depleted

Oxfordian Mages

Guild Guard (though I honestly think the female sculpt could have been less... Hawkeye Initiative)

Mindless Zombies

December Acolytes

Torakage

Crooligans

 

Now, these are actually only examples of boxes with a mix of males and females, and I actually couldn't find any that were a mix of ethnicities, but these boxes also show where Wyrd's strengths of diversity have areas to grow.  Personally, I love that Wyrd is breaking away the gaming mold of "only white dudes do anything" and has made great strides in producing a wide variety of characters.  Let's just push to make it even wider.

[zeeblee]

This thread really exploded while I was asleep, so I have to go back through and read about 4 pages.

 

However, it seems that there's an important business/marketing/practical factor that people are overlooking (at least they were at the time I went to bed).  Most of the people participating in this thread have hundreds or thousands of posts, which means we're already hooked on Wyrd.  As long as we continue to give them money, what incentive do they have to change the demographic distribution of Malifaux?  Us giving them money implies that they're doing exactly what they should be doing. I'm no businessologist, but when Nathan says the Viktoria's box is constantly sold out, suggesting that it's a popular product, why would Wyrd change that box to cater to the relatively small number of people who think it's sexist? 

 

Now, one can argue that making all race and gender demographics equal in Malifaux would draw in lots of new non-white male gamers, and that's a perfectly valid argument.  However, outside of market research, it's impossible to know whether that would have the desired effect; there are three possibilities: demographic equality in Malifaux could increase profits, decrease profits, or not change profits.  So far, I haven't seen anyone present any polls of people outside of these boards that would constitute the research necessary to make an accurate conclusion.  It's all been presumption.

 

****I want to make it perfectly clear that the above post was written through a lens of profit maximization.  I'm not trying to make any ethical or moral statements for Wyrd, and if they decide to alter the Malifaux demographic distribution over moral or ethical grounds, that's perfectly fine.****

Apologies if this ends up being a double-post, as this showed up when I finished composing my last one.

 

The profit research has effectively already been done on the video game side of things and the cartoon side of things.  Cartoon Network canceled Young Justice because they had "too many" female fans and claimed they had no idea how to make merchandise for them (hint:  they didn't realize little girls would buy action figures just like little boys).  Hasbro refuses to put Black Widow into any of their toys.  There is an awesome photo of an Imperator Furiosa Barbie that a little girl made herself because she loved the movie and character so much, and was desperate for a toy to match.  The market is out there, hungry, and waiting.  "If you build it, they will come." has never been truer.

[paradoxstorm]

I see that we lack anyone who spends a substantial amount of time on the "A Wyrd Place" Facebook group.  (a fan site not licensed or endorsed by Wyrd, but which seems to have a few Wyrd corporate members)

 

While the number of female members is proportionately small a couple of those members have commented on how refreshing the Wyrd community has been for them in the acceptance of female players.  A large part of that is the intolerance among group members for bad behavior towards women.  

 

 

And here's the thing; it costs you nothing to be more inclusive. Don't re-cast any existing sculpts, don't rewrite any existing fluff. Just release female Pistolero's,

 

The blister of metal Pistolero's that I bought includes a woman--which is one of the issues I am having in this thread.  While folks are looking at the Ronin and criticizing, they seem to be completely unaware that there is a female Pistolero, well covered.  Granted not all of the Pistoleros are women, but let's not speak as if they are all men.

 

No one seems to notice that the female Silent Ones and December Acolytes are fully dressed, and in 2e so is Rasputina.  From the art work it appears that Colette is getting more clothing in her plastic sculpt than she had in her metal sculpt.   That the Guild Guard are one male, one female--both fully dressed.  Why, oh why, is no one pointing out the existence of such models?  

 

<sniped by Zeeblee>

 

The models are not the problem, asshole gamers are the problem.  If the store/rest of the group tolerates/encourages poor behavior that is the source of the problem and that MUST be addressed.  

 

There are plenty of strong, fully dressed, women in Malifaux and I assume that there will continue to be.  

[moxypoo]

Apologies if this ends up being a double-post, as this showed up when I finished composing my last one.

 

The profit research has effectively already been done on the video game side of things and the cartoon side of things.  Cartoon Network canceled Young Justice because they had "too many" female fans and claimed they had no idea how to make merchandise for them (hint:  they didn't realize little girls would buy action figures just like little boys).  Hasbro refuses to put Black Widow into any of their toys.  There is an awesome photo of an Imperator Furiosa Barbie that a little girl made herself because she loved the movie and character so much, and was desperate for a toy to match.  The market is out there, hungry, and waiting.  "If you build it, they will come." has never been truer.

 

This is all true.  However, I think the question is: is the presence of strong female characters in the most prominent model type (masters) enough to entice women to play?  Will the inclusion of more women in the rank and file troops bring more women into Malifaux?  I don't think these questions are sufficiently answered by your examples, because your examples are of the inclusion of a single woman in a sea of men.  The Malifaux masters are pretty much 50:50, so it's important to know whether women look only at the masters or also at the ration of men to women in the minion boxes as well when deciding whether or not to play Malifaux.

 

Anecdotally, I can say that I only looked for masters that I found interesting when initially looking into Malifaux.  Also Teddy.  Because Teddy is awesome.

 

P.S. Who's Imperator Furiosa?  I'm not familiar with that name.

[zFiend]

Imperator Furiosa is from Mad Max Fury Road.

[thebarbalag]

Yes, Malifaux has pretty great inclusion, comparatively, but what does increasing it cost Wyrd? Are male gamers not going to buy a box because it only has female models? Are white people not going to buy a box because it's full of black models?