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Jimbozig posted:If I had armor skin I would still wear clothes because, you know, I would have no need for armor to wear over my clothes. But your clothes aren't armoured. Maybe the Ironskinned Women of the Thong tribe do go fully dressed most of the time, but strip down for battle because they're sick of getting their best duds all ripped and bloodstained? Someone should demand skyclad male warriors for the next CMON game. Then nobody can criticise their historical accuracy.
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Sep 16, 2013 10:07
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Yeah, the exact reasoning is largely irrelevant, but clearly bullshit anyway. Thigh-highs aside, if armored skin is good, armor on armored skin is even better! Nor are they the sole faction to have that sort of dress code: Shael Han's "Big Sister" has nearly the exact same outfit.
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Sep 16, 2013 12:06
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Leperflesh posted:e. Christ, I'm not a prude, but I'm really coming off that way! I had a hard time articulating this, but I know how you feel. So much of the 'sexy' stuff is just uncomfortable. It gets in the way of enjoying what I otherwise enjoy about miniatures - Namely, using them in games, displaying and photoblogging them. It's not something I'm in a hurry to associate myself with. Alien Rope Burn posted:Honestly I would probably have a lot more respect if they were like "here are some sculpted tits, we heard you guys like those". American guys (probably men everywhere?) have some weird need to be dishonest with themselves about enjoying tits or anything else perceived as vices. It's why we get stilted justifications involving iron skin, demon blood, or magic whatever. It's the classic "Read it for the articles" argument. And because of it, a guy who would never buy a Hustler might buy Playboy - Hustler is for perverts but Playboy is for classy gentlemen. When I smoked, I never bought cigarettes by the carton - That's what addicted smokers do. If they flat-out said "hey buy some boobs-warriors" I don't think it would fly.
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Sep 16, 2013 12:17
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And there's this weird thing like it's some sort of a contest-- like the fact that one set of skeezy tit miniatures is skeezier than another set of tit minatures means that the one set is okay. I think I wouldn't be bothered half so much by this stuff if they weren't the rule, rather than the exception. One tit miniature in a set, you can even just go 'oh look, it's a tit miniature, ha ha ha', but you can't throw a brick without having it land on a bared brest.
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Sep 16, 2013 12:26
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It gets me that some of the other miniatures in Wrath are so cool, with detailed armor and neat monsters, and yet... really creepy naked ladies for no good reason.
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Sep 16, 2013 16:22
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Kerzoro posted:It gets me that some of the other miniatures in Wrath are so cool, with detailed armor and neat monsters, and yet... really creepy naked ladies for no good reason. There were some really neat, creepy-in-a-cool-way-rather-than-a-weird-sexual-way miniatures in Kingdom Death, too.
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Sep 16, 2013 18:13
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neongrey posted:And there's this weird thing like it's some sort of a contest-- like the fact that one set of skeezy tit miniatures is skeezier than another set of tit minatures means that the one set is okay. For me maybe part of the irritation is that tabletop wargaming has been, historically, very male-dominated. For understandable reasons! This hobby grew out of historical re-enactment, which was all about re-creating actual battles from history. And as we all know, throughout most of human history, most warriors have been male, for a variety of reasons that we don't need to go into in too much detail here. Tabletop wargaming was also largely a hobby pursued by men. When fantasy and science fiction tabletop gaming started showing up especially in the late 1970s, new games were naturally marketed to the existing player base (men) and many of them were creating worlds that extrapolated on real-world historical settings. The fantasy ones also drew heavily on Tolkien, and Tolkien tended to write male-dominated fantasy stories as well. Yes, there's female characters, but they're not the main characters - the Lord of the Rings movies had to build up the love story part but it's more or less entirely in the background in the actual books. So early tabletop wargames recreating the battle of Helm's Deep had a bunch of male orcs fighting a bunch of male humans, and doing something other than that would have been weird. And you have to also look at Warhammer, the big game from the 1980s that is still dominant today, although less so. The great majority of figures in both Warhammer Fantasy, and Warhammer 40k, are male. But we want to be inclusive and attract women to the hobby and, you know, wake up and recognize the now decades-old feminist revolution. Women are like, allowed to vote and have real jobs and fully participate in public life, so maybe they should also be allowed to fight battles on the tabletop. Warhammer 40k has thrown a pathetic bone to this idea with the Sisters of Battles - literally cloistered space marines with boobs - but it's understandable to a degree why it's been difficult for them to do better, because they have a well-established canonical universe that they do not want to throw out or drastically revise. On the other hand, it's canonical that Imperial Guard can include female warriors, yet as far as I know, there are no female IG figures sold directly by Games Workshop. There are also some female Aspect Warriors in the Eldar faction, and I think maybe some in the Dark Eldar too? Not sure, but these are still just the odd nod here and there to the idea that girls can fight. Warhammer Fantasy is in worse shape. There are a smattering of female characters - my own faction, the Tomb Kings, has exactly one, a mummified queen - but there is no token female faction like the Sisters of Battle. The wood elves have some female dryads or something, the brettonians use females for their magic users, the dark elves have female witches. There's a lot of witches, now I think about it. But anyway, the point is, while I think GW could definitely do better, they are to some degree hamstrung by their own canon, and their existing male-dominated player base. So one can instead look to brand new games. What an opportunity! Here you have the chance to write an entirely new fantasy setting. You could, if you chose, have something close to (or more than!) half the figures across your factions and units be female. And you have an opportunity to not have those females all be pinups or in sexy poses or whatever. The male warriors are usually not sexy pinups or poses... they're battling. Have the women be battling too. So when I see something like Wrath, it's not so much that I'm grossly offended by the naked boobs, as that I'm just sad and disappointed that yet another huge opportunity to be progressive has been wasted. Not every game has to be a model of feminist progressiveness; but man, it'd be nice if we could get one. One well-funded, well-written ruleset for tabletop warfare, with well-sculpted miniatures, in an interesting fantasy setting, with cool monsters and flavorful factions and a well thought-out wargame dynamic, which is also not embarrassingly male-dominated, with a few token women half of whom have their tits hanging out. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Sep 16, 2013 |
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Sep 16, 2013 19:05
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I think the issue often stems from "Oh we should have a girl faction". That is the loving wrong thing to do, you're trying to meet a goal of equality by saying "this one group is made of dude, this one is girls". You don't make an all-girl Imperial Guard regiment, you make a couple female models in the sprue so the army has some women in it. I keep seeing this happen in wargames, and I dont know why the solution is always a girl faction rather than women just you know, in every group. Like how they are actually.
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Sep 16, 2013 19:08
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Jedit posted:But your clothes aren't armoured. Maybe the Ironskinned Women of the Thong tribe do go fully dressed most of the time, but strip down for battle because they're sick of getting their best duds all ripped and bloodstained? I have to say, I would object a lot less if the blatant cheesecake wasn't quite so one-sided. If a company has the balls to do the cheesecake thing entirely gender-equally, more power to them. But because it's always women, and almost always ridiculously-proportioned women, that irritates me.
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Sep 16, 2013 19:16
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MisterShine posted:I think the issue often stems from "Oh we should have a girl faction". That is the loving wrong thing to do, you're trying to meet a goal of equality by saying "this one group is made of dude, this one is girls". You don't make an all-girl Imperial Guard regiment, you make a couple female models in the sprue so the army has some women in it. Well, I'm sure part of it is because it is much easier to introduce a new faction, than it is to edit an existing faction. It's also easier to make a new line of models than it is to modify an existing line of models. For example, right now, you can buy an Imperial Guard starter set that includes a bunch of guys. They don't want to just throw out all the investment made in those scuplts; but if they wanted to add female models to the sprue, they'd have to basically make new molds, new sprues, etc; the effort is close to the amount of effort just making brand new sprues and sculpts. And will the existing players who already invested in this faction buy it? Probably not. You're only going to get people who are just starting to buy in to that faction. The sales potential is lower. So why not make a new faction, you can sell a bunch of new sprues and sculpts and recoup your costs plus a profit! Plus then you have a faction for the girls to play that is all-girls because that's what girls want, right? Girls only buy Barbie, not Ken. Stupid girls. Yeah as you can see, I think there's business reasons but I think they're not great and it kind of devolves from there. thespaceinvader posted:I have to say, I would object a lot less if the blatant cheesecake wasn't quite so one-sided. If a company has the balls to do the cheesecake thing entirely gender-equally, more power to them. But because it's always women, and almost always ridiculously-proportioned women, that irritates me. Yeah, that too, although I'd never buy in to such a game. Who am I gonna play it with? Some guy? Hehe yeah let's get together in the garage, me and my male friend, and play sexy naked wargame. Or my wife? Uh... no, I don't think she's interested. We sure as hell can't play in public, either. Is a game store going to set up tables for the creepy guys to play Sex War, right next to the Pokemon tables? No. I actually think this is a problem for Wrath, and to a lesser extent, Kingdom Death. I suspect when KD ships, a lot of the people who bought it are going to find out they don't have anyone who wants to play it with them. Maybe in their living room, but not down at the game store. Wrath, being a tabletop wargame, is harder to play in your apartment, and you probably want a pool of players in your area so you can match up with other factions and have tournaments and stuff. But game stores are (or should) going to think twice about what they want on display in their gaming areas. Are the naked titty models acceptable? I bet some stores will think it's just fine (but some stores are horrible dens of smell and dust and grognards) but the people running good game stores may have to reconsider their policies on Tabletop Night.
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Sep 16, 2013 20:13
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It bears mentioning that CoolMiniOrNot.com (of Wrath of Kings) also fronts for and works with Soda Pop Miniatures, who gave us the embarrassing Relic Knights, Tentacle Bento, and this... ... I'm not saying it means anything, I'm just asking questions. 
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Sep 16, 2013 20:36
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I for sure see the business reason behind it and its one of the things I dont hold against Kingdom Death. Would I have made a bunch of cheesecake minis to support my project? Probably not but you can't argue with the two million it made Poots I backed Kingdom Detah and the base level game isnt even that loving bad, its just some of the expansions and the entirety of the pin up line, but at least its clearly broadcasted as such; these are sexy dolls for middle aged men to oggle.
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Sep 16, 2013 21:59
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It bears mentioning that CoolMiniOrNot.com (of Wrath of Kings) also fronts for and works with Soda Pop Miniatures, who gave us the embarrassing Relic Knights, Tentacle Bento, and this... Might as well link to the source and quote the page, too: quote:This page is dedicated to the hard working Soda Pop Girls that join us at Soda Pop events around the country. Get in on exclusive photos of events, costumes, and all the fun. Yes. Hot ladies! Come pose in sexy outfits at our booth at game conventions. What, pay? No, you volunteer. Must be a "Battle Beauty," ugly girls need not apply. 
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Sep 16, 2013 22:01
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MisterShine posted:I for sure see the business reason behind it and its one of the things I dont hold against Kingdom Death. Would I have made a bunch of cheesecake minis to support my project? Probably not but you can't argue with the two million it made Poots What? Of course you can argue with it. Unless you think capitalist success is a reasonable substitute for ethical behavior? Because if it is, the avatar of moral perfection is Exxon Mobil. You can't argue with the $44.9 Billion in profits it made last year, right? People buy all kinds of terrible poo poo. That doesn't mean we can't criticize it. quote:I backed Kingdom Detah and the base level game isnt even that loving bad, its just some of the expansions and the entirety of the pin up line, but at least its clearly broadcasted as such; these are sexy dolls for middle aged men to oggle. I'm sorry. I don't want to be too harsh on you, because clearly you saw something of value in the base game, and that's something I can at least understand, if not totally agree with. But I hope you can also see why some of us wouldn't agree. Personally, I think it's fine to have disdain for a company that makes a really objectionable product, even if they also make products that I don't object to. e. Oops double-posted, sorry everyone I meant to edit this into the above post.
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Sep 16, 2013 22:18
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I find the cheesecake in Kingdom Death objectionable enough but then you get into poo poo like the Wet Nurse and it veers from 'okay, you did cheesecake to make money' territory to 'this is loving sick, wrong and misogynistic as hell' territory. I can't really respect the thought pattern behind creating a miniature like that.
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Sep 16, 2013 22:26
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The lack of female space marines in WH40k seems really strange to me because from what I understand, their lore states that the Imperium of Man is big enough to lose planets due to administrative errors and/or time/space problems, space marine chapters can occasionally get really weird mutations and there's a history of genetic tinkering that skirts around their whole "no mutants" rules, so it doesn't seem to me as though it would be that much of a stretch to have some segments out in the boonies who wound up resorting turning women into angry asexual refrigerators due to some combination of isolation and wacky circumstances. I don't think it would be that hard to add one instance to the lore, which could then be expanded or extrapolated more into existing lore.
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Sep 16, 2013 22:32
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Basically space marines are "warrior monks" and there's some baggage that comes along with that. My guess is the owners of the IP are reluctant to interfere with it. Really though I think it'd be as easy as putting some female heads on the marines that have their heads exposed. I definitely don't want to see boobs sculpted on their armor, which would be really dumb considering the armor is like 8 inches thick. So it'd be pretty low effort to manage that one.
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Sep 16, 2013 22:42
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You totally know that if they did make female space marines that they'd have huge boobplate power armor though, there's virtually no way that they'd make female miniatures that didn't have huge stonking tits or "people wouldn't be able to identify them at a glance" which I believe is the usual excuse.
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Sep 16, 2013 22:46
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"Lore" is the dumbest reason not to do something. Partly because game settings are generally derivative and not that great so it's not like you're really harming anything, but also because it's the most mutable thing in the world. As a creator, you have complete freedom to change the details of the setting. The only reason misogyny or racism or other objectionable elements exist in a game is because someone put them in there, not because they are pulling from some immutable reality. The only thing keeping games from being better about these things is because the creators choose not to do anything about it. You can go on about the sanctity of the setting or the playerbase or the finances or whatever else but those are all just excuses.
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Sep 16, 2013 22:50
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LightWarden posted:The lack of female space marines in WH40k seems really strange to me because from what I understand, their lore states that the Imperium of Man is big enough to lose planets due to administrative errors and/or time/space problems, space marine chapters can occasionally get really weird mutations and there's a history of genetic tinkering that skirts around their whole "no mutants" rules, so it doesn't seem to me as though it would be that much of a stretch to have some segments out in the boonies who wound up resorting turning women into angry asexual refrigerators due to some combination of isolation and wacky circumstances. I don't think it would be that hard to add one instance to the lore, which could then be expanded or extrapolated more into existing lore. Hell poo poo, I'll even allow that it can make a certain kind of sense that there'd be no female space marines, because why would they have a gender at all? No men. No women. Just space marines.
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Sep 16, 2013 22:54
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Kai Tave posted:You totally know that if they did make female space marines that they'd have huge boobplate power armor though, there's virtually no way that they'd make female miniatures that didn't have huge stonking tits or "people wouldn't be able to identify them at a glance" which I believe is the usual excuse. Well, yes, like I said, Sisters of Battle are a thing.  They have armor-tits. e. On the miniatures too of course, not just the artwork: 
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Sep 16, 2013 23:02
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Leperflesh posted:Might as well link to the source and quote the page, too: Yeah, I just figured Soda Pop's doings were well-known enough at this point that I didn't need to belabor them. But maybe some folks don't know! It's the whole "it's okay to be regressive as hell, because we're just Leperflesh posted:Yes. Hot ladies! Come pose in sexy outfits at our booth at game conventions. What, pay? No, you volunteer. Must be a "Battle Beauty," ugly girls need not apply. Yeah, they had a cosplayer at Gencon... Rin Farrah ("Marie-Claude Bourbonnais"), the same woman seen in the adverts above (and below). Presumably she actually gets paid, if she's being used in ads, at their Gencon booth, and as a model for some of their minis? At least, I hope.  
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Sep 16, 2013 23:10
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It bears mentioning that CoolMiniOrNot.com (of Wrath of Kings) also fronts for and works with Soda Pop Miniatures, who gave us the embarrassing Relic Knights, Tentacle Bento, and this...  Oh.
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Sep 16, 2013 23:31
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I want to see Ork Grrlz, because there would have to be one named Rozzie da Rivettah.
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Sep 16, 2013 23:36
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Let's have a look at the most popular tags from their mini store: The fact that "nude" is even on that list is pretty despicable. On the other hand, CMON also did Guilds of Cadwallon, which is perfectly acceptable.
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Sep 16, 2013 23:38
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Yea, that's all on the people who use their store and not meant to be a strike against CMON. I thought the giant font female was hilarious.
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Sep 16, 2013 23:49
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You know who makes some good minis? These guys. Look at that stuff. Tons of women, and they're all perfectly sensibly dressed-- a couple cases of boobplate, but you know, that is some reasonable-rear end boobplate. Looks like they're doing elves next per a hidden message in one of their updates. I am so drat excited by that-- a lot of female elves, all dressed reasonably? That's unheard-of. And look at the results on their KSes, even. They're making a good pile of money doing this, too. I am stupid happy about it.
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Sep 16, 2013 23:50
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Leperflesh posted:I'm sorry. I don't want to be too harsh on you, because clearly you saw something of value in the base game, and that's something I can at least understand, if not totally agree with. But I hope you can also see why some of us wouldn't agree. Personally, I think it's fine to have disdain for a company that makes a really objectionable product, even if they also make products that I don't object to. No absolutely not questioning anybody's right to criticize the company. The wet nurse.... the wet nurse is loving gross and not gross in the interesting way. But its not part of the Monster game, and if it was I wouldnt buy it. But the flower knight?  Thats an awesome model. I wanted that fucker. Its a hard line with Kingdom Death as a whole, I really disagree with a fair amount of the poo poo they put out, but they are also some of the only people making original horror models (that I know of). Im getting a bit sick of Dragon/Devil/Cthulhu for every monster. I'm probably a bad person for backing it knowing all this poo poo, but I eat bananas and know about Chiquita banana's history too, so here's hoping just not buying the unacceptable poo poo is enough.
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Sep 17, 2013 00:21
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Hey, who wants to hear about some money stuff? I experimented with DrivethruRPG's new Pay What You Want feature for a few months. Customers can purchase the content for any price, or even download it for free and pay what they'd like later. All of the Dungeon World content, the small games I've written, they went to the PWYW model. It is the absolute worst thing. I'd wake up every morning with 60+ "sales" notification emails letting me know a bunch of people chose not to pay anything for the project. Over the course of the PWYW experiment, three people chose to download something and then return later to pay for it. Profits from those products were 1/2 or worse of what they had been before the PWYW change. PWYW sucks, don't do it. edit: the supposed benefit of the PWYW model, increased quantity of sales, has been useless too. It's not resulted in more people talking about the games, it hasn't given me any extra exposure and I haven't had a single person tell me about their experience playing the games. Nobody leaves reviews. It's terrible all around. Mikan fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Sep 17, 2013 |
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Sep 17, 2013 00:42
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That doesn't seem tremendously surprising to me, at least on first glance. If people can get something for free with the same ease and convenience of a legit storefront that seems to just be asking to have everybody exploit it.
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Sep 17, 2013 01:07
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neongrey posted:You know who makes some good minis? These guys. Look at that stuff. Tons of women, and they're all perfectly sensibly dressed-- a couple cases of boobplate, but you know, that is some reasonable-rear end boobplate. I've gotten my Dwarves from these guys and backed the Gnomes and will continue to back anything they put out. I don't even know what to do with $120 worth of Gnomes, but god drat their sculpts are so cool and I really do love their reasonable females. What I find especially great is that this Gnome set shows a clear improvement over the Dwarves in adding more women in various roles (which was one complaint people had with Dwarves) so they're clearly listening to their customers too. I could rant about how good these guys are forever. On a related note, while not quite as good, Warmachine actually does a decent job of gender balance. There's still a bit of boob plate floating around, but I like that my unit of elf ninjas just has females mixed in with the males. (Top right one, for example) 
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Sep 17, 2013 01:08
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Mikan posted:Hey, who wants to hear about some money stuff? That loving sucks. I remember bands doing PWYW after Radiohead released In Rainbows and getting nothing from it, even buzz. Has anyone in the TG business had any success with the model? I don't know if the industry is big enough to support the kind of word of mouth to recoup costs with games, even games as cool as your Council games.
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Sep 17, 2013 02:13
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Is there room for a PWYW+ where if you pay more than X you get some kind of prestige ... thing? It's how the Humble Bundles work, and they seem to do allright. But I wonder how many cheap nerds just wouldn't bother with the extra mission or whatever.
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Sep 17, 2013 02:26
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Bieeardo posted:I want to see Ork Grrlz, because there would have to be one named Rozzie da Rivettah.  
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Sep 17, 2013 02:29
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Mikan posted:PWYW sucks, don't do it. This is good to know, if rather saddening. I had been entertaining the thought of PWYW for Base Circumstance (the generic and more customizable version of the dice mechanics that Treasure Hunters uses), but I don't think I'll be entertaining it any further.
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Sep 17, 2013 02:58
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Mr. Maltose posted:That loving sucks. I remember bands doing PWYW after Radiohead released In Rainbows and getting nothing from it, even buzz. Has anyone in the TG business had any success with the model? I don't know if the industry is big enough to support the kind of word of mouth to recoup costs with games, even games as cool as your Council games. quote:At $0 you are giving me the joy of sharing this game with you. For better or for worse, people just seem to take games that they paid for more seriously. I know when I get a game for free (or for really cheap) I often don't give it more than a cursory skim, even if sitting down and reading it is something that I'd theoretically like to do. If I spend $20 on a book I'm probably going to at least read it, and if I spend $30 or more I've pretty much already decided to try to rope some friends into playing.
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Sep 17, 2013 03:01
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I think Malifaux is a wargame that handles the strong female characters pretty well. They had some awful models early on, but they seem to be taking a definite change in direction with second edition. Here's Rasputina, the Witch of Winter.  A couple years ago, they gave everyone powered-up forms, which... Well, here:  Now, second edition is coming out, and she's got a resculpt. I couldn't find any photos of her, so I had to take my own. She isn't done yet, but here she is:  I like it. I miss her sweet top hat, but she isn't wearing stockings in the snow or being some piece of cheesecake. There are still other cheesecakey models, but it's all been toned down from first edition. That said, it isn't entirely gender equal. A lot of the models are definitely still sculpted with the male gaze. One of the Masters (the people who lead your forces) is basically Jack the Ripper, and most of his underlings are prostitutes he's raised as zombies. Still, outside of that, women don't occupy particularly troublesome spots in the fluff, and there's an unprecedented amount of female representation in the models and factions. The first edition had 25 Masters, and of these, 12 are women. The second edition added two new confirmed Masters so far, and one of these is a woman.
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Sep 17, 2013 03:01
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Mikan posted:Hey, who wants to hear about some money stuff? Wow. I know that giving people something for free makes them take it for granted, but I still find that surprising. I thought it would work in a way since there's plenty of methods to pirate RPGs and Kickstarter has shown that people don't mind spending a lot on the hobby, even for stuff they never actually played before, but this is just horrible.
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Sep 17, 2013 03:05
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Well, I can die... what's the opposite of happy again? I can die like that now. That pay-what-you-want mess stinks.  I think prose-- poo poo, text in general is really undervalued on-line, especially when it's in in forms that seem simple. There's a lot of lazy, pervasive entitlement out there.
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Sep 17, 2013 04:02
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Thanks, Mikan, for sharing your experience. I've got a small project I was thinking of releasing PWYW. Now I think I'll either charge normally or put it out totally free depending on how much work I put in. I'm only a few hours in so far.
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Sep 17, 2013 06:09
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