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LGBT characters?


dannydb

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On 7/11/2017 at 7:22 AM, Da Git said:

In the latest Chronicles, the Death Marshals have killed a pretty, female resser, Lady J asks Judge if she were pretty, he says yes, she tells him to round up all the males for questioning, then I quote:

Pretty much confirms the existence, or at least suspicion of LGBT people in Malifaux.  Not sure if this thread caused the addition of this throw away line, kinda cool if it did.  It would be pretty last minute though.

It also pretty much explicitly says the Judge has a thing for Lady J.

I was wondering if that snippet was written at the level of obviousness that succeeds in making the point to this audience.

(Headcanon: Lady Justice, for all that she has a passion for 'the natural order', actually does not care at all about who likes who and how they express it. Attractions have no place in sorting out Resurrectionists from non-Ressers and so she doesn't even see them. I like to imagine that it's Perdita who is Guild's bigot; I enjoy the irony that someone who knows all the hidden truths didn't get any more understanding from learning them.)

On 7/11/2017 at 8:28 AM, Da Git said:

TBH, I'm very oblivious to most of the hints and even more honestly, don't tend to look very hard (mostly due to lack of exposure, I guess).  I never thought of Tara & Karina as being an item till this thread, for example.  And even now, they could easily be seen as batty old sisters/friends than a batty old couple!  The fact that Tara calls everyone Hun or Darling kinda means it loses its emphasis when she says it to Karina...

Can't remember any hints from the last book off hand...  Other than maybe Nellie seems like she could definitely fancy females.  Anything else?

Aha. Yeah, I have trouble with any dialect that calls everyone 'hun' or 'darlin' ' or 'luv' as a baseline, too.

Nellie seemed to hit the right notes. Good to know we have another Guild master who is incredibly awkward at flirting. (It wasn't in this book but that was a trainwreck akin to getting hit on at the friendly local gaming store. I knew that Malifaux demo was getting hella awkward but simply couldn't put my finger on why...) -_-

Zipp's in love with himself but that's beyond the scope of this thread. ;)

Essie got gooey over slight encouragement from males of an engineering persuasion, just to counterpoint how persuasive Emeline Bellerose could be when charming someone who would normally have no interest in her. However, what cemented Emeline's persuasions for me was the unspoken 'ick' inserted after every time she wrote about a man, which didn't happen in Ripples of Fate since Hoffman is just about the only one who she doesn't disdain.

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14 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

The problem with thia thread is that all of a sudden people need to defend the artistic freedom of the game designers because consumers make horrible "demands" on them. In the fifteen or so othet wishlist threads I've seen no one has ever felt the need to defend the artistic freedom with tooth and nail. That makes it look like it's this particular group you are against and it's going to be hard for me to see it any other way.

To be fair, every time I see a topic titled something something wishlisting, I feel a strong urge to go there and tell everyone they and their ideas are stupid. I just usually don't bother until someone says something about how everyone should agree with him or something equally ridiculous.

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17 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

The problem with thia thread is that all of a sudden people need to defend the artistic freedom of the game designers because consumers make horrible "demands" on them. In the fifteen or so othet wishlist threads I've seen no one has ever felt the need to defend the artistic freedom with tooth and nail. That makes it look like it's this particular group you are against and it's going to be hard for me to see it any other way.

I think the problem with the thread is that there's no one really against it or and we're at the point where no ones adding to the conversation, everything's already been stated. So its just a bunch of people talking in circles for no reason...

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It wouldn't bethe first time you called people stupid ;) I think disagreeing is a fair stance although I refrain from calling people stupid. Most threads get a few comments like that, it just seems like people drop it faster in other threads. That may very well be true for both sides. I may be escalating this and making it way too big myself. 

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2 minutes ago, Kyris said:

I think the problem with the thread is that there's no one really against it or and we're at the point where no ones adding to the conversation, everything's already been stated. So its just a bunch of people talking in circles for no reason...

Haha, I don't think that's unique to this thread but it's a fair point. :D

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7 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

 But it seems that the request put forward has been very *modest* and yet the objections to it base their argument on some kind of an extremely slippery slope where the freedom of artistic expression is severely threatened and Malifaux stops being a game first and foremost(!).

 

Does someone here honestly think that Nathan will buckle under some imaginary pressure and introduce an eighth faction with the theme of celebrating gayness or something?

(The * were added by me)

Modest according to whom?  Because we can go in a debate all day about what that definition is to different people.

 As far as the slippery slope is concerned,head it on over to look at some video game developers and journalists.  Heard of Anita "everything is racist, everything is sexist, everything is homophobic, and YOU HAVE TO POINT IT ALL OUT" Sarkessian?  That is an actual quote from her.  Does that seem modest?

  Maybe Marvel comics?  Hows their bottom line looking after jumping on that bandwagon?  Funny; Marvel had  demands that they change characters and add more "diversity", and as soon as they did, it tanked.  Were those asking for the change comic readers?  Or were they more interested in pushing for a social movement?

Hey, how about we resser the thread about the one woman who demanded that Malifaux didn't represent enough female characters (ha) and demanded that she be given the title of "Inclusion Czar" or other such nonsense, and threatened Wyrd with legal action. I'm sure she felt that strong arming Nathan into a paid position at Wyrd HQ or suffer the wrath of bad PR was a modest request.

Yeah, it is a slippery slope, because you get a small group of individuals who are more interested in the "feelz" department than..ya know...the actual gaming part.

And when people say that enough is a enough, make a game and not a social statement, in swoops the "check your privilege" posse to tell them they're nothing but haters and bigots.  

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1 hour ago, Viks_Masamune said:

 Heard of Anita "everything is racist, everything is sexist, everything is homophobic, and YOU HAVE TO POINT IT ALL OUT" Sarkessian?  That is an actual quote from her.

It's an actual quote but the context this quote is in is actually her describing how she felt when she first learnt about institutionalised oppression and she described herself as being incredibly irritating to people around her because that was her attitude. She's speaking as an "obnoxious" parody of herself from the past that she grew out of.

Here's the full context of the quote, it should start at 32:14 and go til about 33:10. https://youtu.be/Jzcs4ti_bdI?t=32m14s

1 hour ago, Viks_Masamune said:

Maybe Marvel comics?  Hows their bottom line looking after jumping on that bandwagon? 

Pretty good I would imagine, having the top selling comic book (in the US) every month since this year started both in unit and dollar sales except in January when it was beaten for the top spot only in dollar sales by DC. As well as the highest grossing film series of all time based on their comics.  And if money don't do it for ya, then how about the widely positive critical reception of Unbeateable Squirrel Girl, or all the awards that Ms Marvel has won?

 

Math was also suggesting that the request for some more LGBT characters as actually made here to Wyrd was pretty modest and I'd agree. No one has threatened violence or been particularly forceful and I'd imagine the thread would not still be open if that were the case. Mostly it seems to consist of people saying wouldn't it be cool if Von Schill kissed a Freikorpsmann?

And at the end of the day, if Malifaux is supposed to be "a game and not a social statement" as you say, then it should surely be easy to ignore the social stuff because you're just here for the game.

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2 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

 

Which is why Anita has stopped lambasting anything and anyone who doesn't agree with her ideas, right?  Parody as it may be, she's hardly gotten more humble in her opinions, simply more articulate.  And I mention her, not to drag this into a feminism debate, or anything like that, but simply to point out that she has made an entire career out of demanding creators and artist to stop making their own ideas, and instead conform to hers.  Just as we have seen with others.

Top selling comic books?  This year, the New York times dropped comics from its best seller list.  Both Marvel and DC have dropped several lines from production because consumers weren't interested in them.  Want to take a guess at which ones they were?  And yes, Marvel is doing the bullion backstroke with movies, but I'd hasten to point out that the movies adhere to the original characters, not the new ones, and that people of all walks of like enjoy action movies, whether they read comics or not.

  Marvels own senior vice president of print, sales, and marketing, David Gabriel went on the record in April of this year as saying 

“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity,” Gabriel told iCv2 after being asked what contributed to changes in customer tastes that led to a drop in sales in October-November. “They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not.”

He also cited economic reasons and Marvel’s release of “too much product” as other possible causes for the downturn in sales.

“We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against,” Gabriel added. “That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked.”  Gabriel later reached out to iCv2 to clarify his comments, stressing that new heroes Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, The Mighty Thor, Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, and Moon Girl are indeed popular and “are not going anywhere.”

 

Again, this is not to say that diversity is "bad", or that I hates me sum minorities, but that people don't like having their intelligence insulted.  We know what shoehorning is.  

And yes, I can ignore social stuff, until its  given a megaphone and a soapbox.  Then it becomes impossible.

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4 hours ago, Viks_Masamune said:

Modest according to whom?  Because we can go in a debate all day about what that definition is to different people.

So you're saying that asking for an LGBT character or two isn't a modest request when there's hundreds of characters in Malifaux?

4 hours ago, Viks_Masamune said:

Yeah, it is a slippery slope, because you get a small group of individuals who are more interested in the "feelz" department than..ya know...the actual gaming part.

Who do you mean here? Me? Last I played Malifaux was today. I'm playing in a tournament this month. What do I need to do to prove my gaming credentials to you? Or are you talking about some imaginary people who will suddenly flock here if an LGBT character is released?

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On Marvel. Don't know a thing about comics but if he said anything new was turned down it sounds like it was the novelty in itself and not the diversity that was the problem. In miniature games the latest tends to be very popular since novelty is good for most people in this hobby (and quite possibly because power creep) so it seems like there wouldn't be much to learn from Marvel here. Comics deal solely in stories, half the players of miniature games seem to be completely oblivious about any sort of fluff and just deal in rules and/or miniature looks. We even invented a slightly condescending word to separate "fluff" from actual storytelling. :)

On Sarkeesian. I don't think her actual videos made a lot of people question video games. I've seen all of the tropes vs women ones and she has a few points in that some themes are reused extremely often which is kind of lazy if you want to put it like that. The thing is that every industry has a fundament of cookie cutter stuff and video games aren't worse than other  creative industries like movies or photography (an awful lot of famous photographers do a lot of nude women). Creative induatries exist in a society and reproduce the societal norms so in a lot of respects video games aren't worse than society. If game designers ignore her and keep making the same games they won't suffer legal action or anything, nothing at all will probably happen. Making the same stuff is usually safe but never leads to making the new big thing, in video games that might come through story telling or through gameplay so you can keep reinforcing those tropes and if you have a nice gameplay angle you will win big. I think it's the same for miniature games. Malifaux had a fresh setting that was a lot more inclusive than GWs and also a fresh mechanic. The card mechanic and alternating tuns would not have kept me in the game if it had been played by the same dudes playing GW or warmahordes. I  my area the difference in player diversity between groups is insanely large because Malifaux attracted a lot of nice people. Warmachine had cool mechanics too but the people playing it made it impossible for me to enjoy it. For me the selling point of Malifaux is it's community, both locally and online where we actually respect each other a lot more than in other mini communities. I don't think it's a coincidence that these forums are frendlier than those of other games I've played and that both the game and player base seems more diverse.

To get back to Sarkeesan. What made me really concerned was the backlash in the form of threats of both rape and murder she recieved. That's the kind of stuff that made me seriously question gamers, not her videos on tropes that permeate our society as a whole and therefore also games. I can't say I've even considered not buying a game because she said it used some trope, I actually think I bought a few games because her short description made them seem interesting.

If people not playing games come and make demands with threats of boycot if they aren't met ten it's a zero sum game to ignore them since they weren't buying the game to begin with. If anything the publicity might lead to more sales. Some companies willingly create controversies because it's actully a great way to sell more stuff. If the internet exploded with the "news" that there was a miniature game not including openly gay characters it would probably not hurt Wyrd as long as no on affiliated with the company hadn't made a really idiotic statement. Most gamers would think that was quite normal and a lot of people outraged with it wouldn't even know what a miniature game was before or after the brief hype. 

I haven't been very active this spring but I did go to one tournament and arrange another one since I'm a henchman so I can say that I am a true player and not some random person hired by the worldwide gay agenda to just fuck with your gaming experience. I like that I can play this game with females and openly gay people and this is the only mini game community where I have experienced that. That doesn't have to be because the game is relatively inclusive by having actual female characters and not just sexy fillers without personalitites but I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with it.

@Viks_Masamune I'm kind of into the feels department i guess since I sometimes take models based on fluff or because i feel like playing something even if it isn't optimal. I'm juat really curious: In my mind, making a character gay shouldn't affect the gaming department unless you are really really bad at game design. I would love to hear an example of a possible scenario describing the slippery slope between representing LGBT by having a line saying "he kissed him before leaving" and the rules of the game breaking down, because it's this argument that I'm having trouble grasping. No one is suggesting some self-apointed third party thought police, because that is a weird idea that I've never heard anyone back (although I also remember the mention that such an individual had volunteered). Assume that the game will be run as it has been up until now with the same guys in full control.

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2 hours ago, Ludvig said:

What made me really concerned was the backlash in the form of threats of both rape and murder she recieved. That's the kind of stuff that made me seriously question gamers

the problem with this is gamers are a hugely diverse group of people with billions of people who identity themselves as "gamers". You can't judge a group based off the actions of....by my rough estimation....0.0000000000000000001%.. and that's not even getting into the argument about 4chan false flags or the more rabid anti-feminists who may have gone after her not because she went after video games, but because she's a notable feminist.

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7 hours ago, Viks_Masamune said:

“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity,” Gabriel told iCv2 after being asked what contributed to changes in customer tastes that led to a drop in sales in October-November. “They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not.”

The page you linked literally has a quotation where Gabriel retracts his statement. It is immediately after the statement you quoted.

 

idk though, like I'm not sure what to tell you. It seems like you have a problem with the idea of art criticism in general. That's not something that's really within my scope to argue against other than to point out that art criticism is arguably a more influential and important part of art than the artists are.

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2 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

The page you linked literally has a quotation where Gabriel retracts his statement. It is immediately after the statement you quoted.

I'm in a hurry, so I'll respond to your first, although I hope I can respond to @Ludvig soon.  (If you're reading this Ludvig, I do want to answer your questions, and give you an answer.  Duty calls unfortunately.  Please be patient)

The article I referenced made no mention of him retracting his statement, granted it could have been an earlier press release.  I do not doubt what you said is true, but I'll have to go look myself and get the context.

Regardless on if he walked back the comment at a later date or not, he still made the original statement, so obviously some  people at Marvel connected the two.

And this isn't some junior level writer, or the guy who brings the coffee, nor was this an "off the record" comment where he was just nonchalantly conversing with a fellow worker .  Its a Senior Vice President...at a press conference.  This guy has the sales figures in front of him on a daily basis, and probably prepared talking points prior to holding a conference.  Did he walk it back because he was wrong, or due to fallout?  That ultimately remains the question?

The art criticism argument is a false equivilence.  I never said it was wrong to criticize an artist or their work.  Your'e attempting to make the argument that the following are intrinsically linked. The following is purely as an example

Art criticism-Dogmantra, I don't find your art style to really speak to me.  Not saying its kitsch, but its not my thing.  

Making demands of the artist-Dogmantra, your art work doesn't fit my style, so I want you to utilize your creativity to target my tastes, instead of what you originally intended. 

I refer back to my original post on here-If Wyrd wants to include X type of character because they have a pivotal role in a story and X characters race/religion/sexual preferences/creed is central to the plot, then go wild, because it will probably be awesome.  But if its just a token character, meant to avoid bad press, or cash in on good press,  then it would come across to some folks as pandering.  

And nice job with the dismissive and patronizing attitude at the end, that takes real talent.

 

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4 hours ago, Kyris said:

the problem with this is gamers are a hugely diverse group of people with billions of people who identity themselves as "gamers". You can't judge a group based off the actions of....by my rough estimation....0.0000000000000000001%.. and that's not even getting into the argument about 4chan false flags or the more rabid anti-feminists who may have gone after her not because she went after video games, but because she's a notable feminist.

True. As with saying anything about any group it is never true about the whole group.

What I meant was more along the lines of that backlash lowered people's view on gamers and made me ashamed to call myself one. I have previoualy had the silly idea that gamers were somehow smarter and more respectful than your average idiot. In hindsight that is of course also a false generalisation  but towards the other way. I'm still baffled that no one is ever punished for threats online, you would think it would be easy to track them down and the threats stay there in writing so you have proof.

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Maybe you can't blame gamers as a whole, but how the community responds is definitely telling. I think as good people we have an obligation to call out harassment whenever we see it; and not just dismiss at a "they're just trolls, etc..." that just makes gaming feel an unsafe space, especially for more vulnerable people.

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@Astrella 

With how the rest of society looks I'm not sure gaming is less safe than society as a whole. You're probably less likely to have violence inflicted on you at a gaming club compared to your average night club or maybe even in the streets. Women in the public spotlight seem to recieve an awful lot of threats and straight up shit no matter the issue they talk abput so I'm not sure gaming communitites are worse than any other communitites. That being said I agree that it shouldn't be accepted in any area of society since it's a real threat to democracy. I would welcome online threats actually being investigated and culprits recieving punishment in accordance to the law. At least where I'm from police just ignore these crimes which is really weird since they should be easy to process and take to court. 

Not in any way condoning harassment in gaming. It needs to stop no matter where it's happening. And it's always a tiny minority doing bad shit, it's the same with crime, that doesn't mean we ignore it. What kind of reaction the rest of society has to the behavior also means a lot.

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9 hours ago, Kyris said:

the problem with this is gamers are a hugely diverse group of people with billions of people who identity themselves as "gamers". You can't judge a group based off the actions of....by my rough estimation....0.0000000000000000001%.. and that's not even getting into the argument about 4chan false flags or the more rabid anti-feminists who may have gone after her not because she went after video games, but because she's a notable feminist.

You have at least 12 too many zeroes there.

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7 hours ago, Viks_Masamune said:

Making demands of the artist-Dogmantra, your art work doesn't fit my style, so I want you to utilize your creativity to target my tastes, instead of what you originally intended. 

So just to make sure I understand this correctly and to draw it out of the realm of the hypothetical - I've read the Gremlins forum quite a bit. Quite a few people have expressed various hopes and wishes on what they would like to get for Gremlins. One of the most common wishes has been an expansion of the Voodoo sub-theme of the Faction. Now we're getting the Gatreaux Bokor. Is this a bad thing? People asked for something and Wyrd gave that - did fans and/or Wyrd do wrong here, in your opinion?

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1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

So just to make sure I understand this correctly and to draw it out of the realm of the hypothetical - I've read the Gremlins forum quite a bit. Quite a few people have expressed various hopes and wishes on what they would like to get for Gremlins. One of the most common wishes has been an expansion of the Voodoo sub-theme of the Faction. Now we're getting the Gatreaux Bokor. Is this a bad thing? People asked for something and Wyrd gave that - did fans and/or Wyrd do wrong here, in your opinion?

In my personal opinion, eh kinda.

I believe that the artist holds carte blanche on the final outcome of his or her work.  They created it to reflect what they felt at the moment of its inception, and I personally feel that its "wrong" per se, to demand that they change what they do to better fit my particular taste or way of thinking.  I personally find the Gremlins faction to be a little too humorous for a gritty, and dark world.  To me, it takes away the overall serious tone of the game, and it comes off to me as a comic relief faction.  But I have never said to change it, or anything else they have made for that matter.

Someone at Wyrd felt that it fit, and added an extra layer to the game.  They worked incredibly hard to come up with characters and plot lines for them, and really put their all into making them.  Who am I to demand that they replace them?  What if they decided, due to my complaints, to not have the Gremlin faction; would it alter the final product that we are looking at here and now?  Would a character I love from the Outcasts not have been created or be radically different since they had some over-arch into the Gremlin story, and I asked for them to ditch it?  All cheesey movie jokes aside, I am a firm believer in the 'Butterfly effect'.

I've always felt that if you force creators to make changes on  something that didn't intend to, then it starts to become a vicious cycle where they have to start taking away from what they want to create, in order to make room for the other.  And when that creator isn't in the natural flow of personal creativity because we're making demands, then shit gets shoe horned in, and the overall quality starts to slip.

I readily accept that I will never love everything that a actor, musician, or creator does.  Its a fact.  But they're the creative genius, and I am not.  They have an overall plan on how their art will come together in the end, how it relates to one another, and a way to make it happen.  I do not.  

I love Wyrd and their products.  I love this community.  I think we can all agree that Wyrd does an awesome job at doing what they do.  So with that being said, I want Wyrd to have complete artistic freedom to carry out their vision of the game, when they feel they're ready to do it, and not because they were forced to.

Btw, that was an awesome question.  Thanks for asking it, and for giving me a chance to better explain my position.

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7 hours ago, Myyrä said:

You have at least 12 too many zeroes there.

most best-selling game titles sell around 50 million copies; no, it's not the be-all, end-all way to tell how many "gamers" there are, but it's a good enough baseline, yeah? GTA V, for instance, has sold over 75 million copies, as of February.

 

How many people do you think are sending death threats on twitter? Because I can guarantee you it's not a significant percentage of the gaming community.

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5 hours ago, Viks_Masamune said:

I've always felt that if you force creators to make changes on  something that didn't intend to, then it starts to become a vicious cycle where they have to start taking away from what they want to create, in order to make room for the other.  And when that creator isn't in the natural flow of personal creativity because we're making demands, then shit gets shoe horned in, and the overall quality starts to slip.

I readily accept that I will never love everything that a actor, musician, or creator does.  Its a fact.  But they're the creative genius, and I am not.  They have an overall plan on how their art will come together in the end, how it relates to one another, and a way to make it happen.  I do not.

I agree that forcing a creator to do something is a bad thing and will ultimately hurt the end product, but I don't think that is what is happening here this is an attempt to change a creators mind. No one here is threatening some sort of punishment or reprisal if LGBT characters aren't included they are just saying hey guys have you considered representing this group of people? We really like your work and the world you have created and would like to see how LGBT people live in this environment. Or they are saying we think what you are doing is great but we think it would be better if it included a well written gay character.

There is a big difference between forcing someone to change their creation under the threat of punishment where they make something they don't want to under the kosh, and making a someone  change their creation by showing them a viewpoint they haven't considered or putting forward some criticism which changes their mind and makes them want to make something different.

To the people who argue that homosexuality wasn't accepted in that time period asside from the counter argument that there already a lot of discrepancies between real history and Malifuax history particularly in regards to gender roles. There is an argument to say keep the socail attiude historically accurate so most people find it distasteful or even make it illegal as it was in many countries during the time period. A character who is struggling with how their sexuality is perceived buy their society can be a good and interesting character. For example  a Guild official is being blackmailed by the Ten Thunders who are threatening to out him costing him his job and his freedom or a mercenary who can't join any official force because of his open homosexuality but is still begrudgingly hired due to his skill, showing how he interacts with people he knows hate him for what he is but need him for his talent. In a world where there is sytematic oppression and exploitation, nightmare horrors, and barely contolled magic as issues faced by the characters  you can definitely have homophobia as a foil to a gay character 

The main issue I think a lot of straight writers have with writing gay characters is not so much that they don't think gay people should be represented, and more they are concerned they will get it wrong and offend people in the LGBT community. By making their characters too camp or too butch or any number of other faux pas that could unintentionally upset someone and they don't write homophobes for fear that their characters views be accredited to them, so they tend to play it safe and write what they know or something that is so fantastical it can't represent and therefore offend anyone.

Also if you want an interesting and historical example of a skilled soldier who had to face discrimination due to his sexuality but ultimately became very influential and instrumental to a historically significant war effort I suggest you check out Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben even if he is about 100 years too early to be in Malifaux.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the artistic process of the stories consist of Wyrd making a wishlist to their freelance writers and providing the feel they want reflected for a character they already have a concept for and then giving that writer notes on what they want changed through a few drafts so it's not like the artistic process is completely pure and the free flowing fantasy of a single great mind working without boundaries. It's a collaboration and there are actual demands as well as those imagined by the writer. Just something to consider when you say that a player asking for something would hinder the creative process.

I'd just like to say that I'm liking the tone of this discussion despite it being page eight of discussion on a pretty volatile topic for some.

I sort of get the not wanting to mess up while trying to depict something that others might feel offended about if you get it wrong. There have been a few writers getting extreme backlash for depicting something in what was percieved as a tactless manner and if you get burned by that it's safer to stick to depicting what you can't be judged for.

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5 hours ago, Kyris said:

most best-selling game titles sell around 50 million copies; no, it's not the be-all, end-all way to tell how many "gamers" there are, but it's a good enough baseline, yeah? GTA V, for instance, has sold over 75 million copies, as of February.

 

How many people do you think are sending death threats on twitter? Because I can guarantee you it's not a significant percentage of the gaming community.

Even if there were 100 million gamers and only one of them sent death threaths, that's still 12 zeroes too many. 

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23 hours ago, Viks_Masamune said:

The art criticism argument is a false equivilence.  I never said it was wrong to criticize an artist or their work.  Your'e attempting to make the argument that the following are intrinsically linked. The following is purely as an example

Art criticism-Dogmantra, I don't find your art style to really speak to me.  Not saying its kitsch, but its not my thing.  

Making demands of the artist-Dogmantra, your art work doesn't fit my style, so I want you to utilize your creativity to target my tastes, instead of what you originally intended. 

It's only a false equivalence if the person making the demands has the power to enforce them. Otherwise they are two approaches to criticism.

"I don't find your art style to really speak to me.  Not saying its kitsch, but its not my thing. " (subtext: if it was different I would like it more; if you were more specific e.g. said you didn't like the colours, then the subtext is that if the artist wants to improve their work then they should change thr colours) and if you are not saying this because of the subtext then I wonder what motivation you could have for telling an artist you don't like their work.

Your example of making demands of an artist is imo just a rephrasing of the subtext into the actual text which, while it may come off as a bit more impolite, and definitely comes off as more blunt, is probably more helpful because it doesn't obscure the (perceived) problems with the text. Now I will agree that a TV executive saying something like your second example is making demands and can be bad for the art because they have the means to stop the art from happening entirely if they don't get their way, but then whether it is ultimately good or bad depends on whether their ideas have merit or not - a lot of people say that George Lucas was too free in making the Star Wars prequels for example.

 

I would also like to reiterate that audiences are just one of the many aspects that influence a piece of art, and that thinking of art as being the creation of just the author oversimplifies the reality. Once you begin to think of art as a cycle in which the author is just one part, then criticism and even demands change from being a corruption of the artistic process to a natural and even necessary part of it. Darnton's concept of the Communications Circuit is a good starting place for thinking about it in this way if you were interested.

23 hours ago, Viks_Masamune said:

The article I referenced made no mention of him retracting his statement, granted it could have been an earlier press release.

Not to belabour this particular point too much but it's the part in italics following his answer given about diversity that begins:

"[Note:  Marvel’s David Gabriel reached out to correct the statement above:  "Discussed candidly by some of the retailers at the summit, we heard that some were not happy with the false abandonment of the core Marvel heroes and, contrary to what some said about characters “not working,” the sticking factor and popularity for a majority of these new titles and characters like Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, The Mighty Thor, Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, and Moon Girl, continue to prove that our fans and retailers ARE excited about these new heroes. "

It also wasn't a press release - it was an interview.

FAKE EDIT: I think I know where the problem is. I thought you were quoting from the iCv2 article you linked because that was the source of the statement and you linked it, but you were copypasting from somewhere else and the link just got sorta pulled along. I would always recommend going back and checking the original interviews out because summary articles have a habit of selective quotation.

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I'd like to agree that overall I'm pretty impressed over how this hasn't devolved into, well, what I kind of expected it to.  Go us, eh?

 

I think at this point it's safe to say that nobody is really making demands of Wyrd to include more non-straight characters (important to point out the word more, as canonically we already have a few confirmed and a bunch more with a fair few hints towards it, as noted earlier in this thread).  When people begin making demands that someone change their art based on personal taste, yeah that would be kind of a rude move (unless they're paying / employing them, in which case yeah sure).

However, the argument that discussion is a slippery slope which leads to demands is where I'm in fairly firm disagreement.  Having a community which is willing to get on here and make suggestions to things that we might see in the world we all love here (like how Gremlins could have a voodoo theme without too much difficulty, or as @Voodoo Specter noted above have a non-straight character's backstory involve it as the reason they're in Malifaux / working as X job and not Y job / whatever else) is absolutely fair and reasonable.  That's especially true when we have events where the community can coordinate and actively affect character's stories like Ferdinand, Marlena, and Serena.  I just don't see a fairly tight knit community like the lovely one we have here going from "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we got more X?" to "We need more of X or the Hoarcat gets it!"

Not going to lie, speaking of Serena, I was pretty bummed that we didn't get to see her little wind magic learning / date night with The Captain, just because what I really love about this game (and a lot of other stories, really) is the interactions between characters.  Seriously though, if anyone still has the files just read the little detail blurb and tell me you don't want to read more about that :P

Back on topic though, having some non-straight characters interact with characters in Malifaux in ways that we aren't already seeing means seeing new and old characters from a new light, and I'm all about that depth of character.  We know fairly confidently from the fluff that Cassie's not into the gentlemen who visit her, it might be nice to find out if she has been seeing anyone on the years she's been in Malifaux.  Heck, if I wasn't confident in my writing skills I'd throw something together, but maybe someone who's better at that whole wording thing can do that, lol.

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