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I think most of us must be aware of the feministfrequency videos (which are about video games and movies, not trad games), but just in case any of the participants in the occasionally-recurring conversation about misogyny in trad games missed it... This is completely essential viewing. Watch every single video. I've never read much feminist literature so I'm probably somewhat ignorant of the details of the feminist conversation over the last hundred years or so, but I found this series of videos to be extremely enlightening. It's far more than just "sexy boob girls in videogames are bad," which was an opinion I already held. Anita Sarkeesian exposes and deconstructs a number of video game/comic book/movie tropes which are harmful to women (and to men, because they warp ideas about women) many of which are subtle and insidious. I think the subtle and insidious misogyny in trad games is much more pervasive and perhaps much more harmful than the titty-models, in fact. Neongrey mentioned one aspect: neongrey posted:And it gets very very old to see even dynamic female poses erring far more towards the sexy than the powerful. Women are obviously often portrayed as scantily-clad objects of sexual availability (which is of course pandering to an adolescent male fantasy that's pretty understandable given how sexually frustrated many adolescent males find themselves: I'm sympathetic to boys and young men who wish sexy women threw themselves at them); but I think most boys and men can recognize that that's a fantasy, and not how most real women behave or can be expected to behave. But portraying women as: absent from the scene entirely, weak, passive, or only important to a narrative as victims to be rescued (or sacrificed) is I think more problematic. It's a problem that goes well beyond trad gaming, to infect every facet of popular culture. So much so that a "strong woman" is seen as alternately synonymous with "a bitch," or as unattractive and threatening. Just as an example: Tabletop wargames are of course about war, so it makes even less sense that a large majority of female miniatures - even the ones that aren't especially naked or sexy - are posed more passively than male figures. Look at the artwork in major RPG books in this light, including D&D and Pathfinder, and you'll start to notice how many of the women are guarding themselves, waiting to be attacked, or just striking a sexy pose, while the men charge forward, aggressively hack and stab, or are shown rescuing helpless women. The rarest form of fantasy game artwork is a portrayal of a reasonably-dressed woman aggressively rescuing a helpless man by attacking his captor. That's more damaging, in my mind, than the fact that a lot of the women are showing a lot of cleavage (which I find offputting and objectifying and stupid, even while I may simultaneously experience a pleasurable reaction to the eroticism). Forgive me for this stream-of-thought post, but that takes me to another point that I think we struggle to discuss here. It's very easy for me to type out a rant about misogyny in the games industry, but harder to support that argument while also being a regular consumer of (free) online pornography. I like naked women and sex, and I like looking at it. Even while I'm aware that the pornography industry massively exploits and victimizes women. Maybe the difference is that I don't enjoy porn in public, or as part of a social activity. I'd feel very embarrassed to be seen reading a porn magazine in public... perhaps just as much as I'd feel ashamed if I was caught painting a titty model or fielding a unit of titty models in my wargame in a public place. Or hell, even in my garage, against someone I already consider a friend. But is that because of my typically-American internal conflict between socially-enforced norms that regard nudity and sex as shameful and immoral, vs. the pervasive use of semi- and full nudity and sex in every form of popular media? I'm conditioned by my society to both fetishize and sexualize women, but also to feel shame about doing so. That's obviously unhealthy, and I think by recognizing that that conflict exists, I'm helping myself to resist the socialization I've been subjected to. I think maybe that's the way forward for gamers as well: we need to have this conversation, recognize that we (especially adolescent boys and young men) are subjected to relentless messages in every form of entertainment (and, especially, marketing) that women should ideally be sexually available and sexually attractive, but simultaneously nonthreatening and unobtrusive, up to and including being completely absent when men are doing man things. And then consciously and loudly reject those messages and both demand and create a competing narrative; one where women are empowered, included in any activity they want to be part of (rejecting the cultural categorization of activities as "male" or "female"), accepted as leaders, allies, and colleagues, and not confined to the lazy tropes (as a woman you get to be a victim, a slut, a bitch, a witch, or a mother; those are your only choices). At the same time, it needs to be OK to play the games we love. I think some of the pushback comes from the suggestion that a feminist gamer has to boycott every game (and publisher and store and artist and system) that has been or is problematic in some way. In a vacuum I can say OK, I'm selling all my minis and getting rid of most of my games and from now on, I'm only playing games that get unequivocal stamps of feminist approval... but that may leave you without a game group to play with, or a store to play in. It's very difficult to be that person, the one that announces to his friends that he's now a feminist and, by extension, if they keep playing the games they've been playing, they're doing something immoral. So there has to be some kind of middle ground. I can say, OK, I'll play Warhammer Fantasy, but guys maybe GW needs to be told that the way they portray women in the Dark Elf faction is unacceptable, and maybe we should not buy those models. GW can be pushed in the right direction by seeing poor sales numbers for the models that are most problematic. We can avoid entirely the Kingdom Death kickstarters, but maybe it's OK to buy in to Reaper Bones even though they have a mix of very good female minis and quite bad female minis, as long as we make an effort to let Reaper know we'd rather have the former than the latter. Maybe we can collaborate on trope-breaking independent games and game supplements, encourage women to play games and to speak up (and be respected for it) when they are feeling objectified, marginalized, or relegated to a supporting role for the male heroes. Maybe we can just be aware of the problem, make others aware of the problem, and push back when others reject descriptions of the problem as being invalid. I don't think anyone in here is expecting me, or you, to be the next Susan B Anthony of trad games feminism. We just need to have this conversation, more often, more publicly, and more aggressively, and shape our decisions about what to play and what not to play with some attention given to it. e. I realize my user avatar is problematic, by the way; someone bought it for me, with good intentions, and I didn't want to be rude by changing it. But I'm thinking right at the moment that I probably should, huh? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 18:38
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Kai Tave posted:I don't think it's unfair to point out that prepainted miniatures games have a significantly lower barrier to entry than tabletop wargames where you have to clean, assemble, and paint your own units from scratch, though. To make a potentially clumsy analogy, on the one hand you have tabletop roleplaying games which frequently come in large multi-hundred page volumes of not very clearly explained rules, and on the other hand you have Magic: the Gathering where you can buy a simple starter set or two and much more easily learn how to play. Consequently the roleplaying hobby isn't exactly experiencing a lot of growth, while M:tG rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars. So then only creepy guys are willing to overcome the barrier of entry to tabletop wargames? Women and non-neckbeards can't enjoy assembling and painting models? The two examples you used of hobbies that are on the decline are the two hobbies consistently called out for excluding women. If other games can grow and prosper why can't RPGs and Mini Wargames? Complexity and higher barrier of entry might preclued the hobbies from the levels of success of lower entry cost hobbies, it should not dictate that they only appeal to one shrinking demographic. I personally think there's a place for titty models, it just should be a very small place in a much more diverse hobby.
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Apr 20, 2014 18:39
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Comrade Gorbash posted:The saddest part is I'm not even sure that's true. Look at some of the most successful gaming Kickstarters and projects, from Dungeon World to Eclipse Phase to the top video game KickStarters, and they not only aren't presenting oversexualized characters, they're specifically going out of their way to present reasonable, admirable, strong female characters. The elephants in the room are Kingdom Death and its $2,000,000+ Kickstarter, Relic Knight's $900,000 kickstarter, and Toughest Girls in the Galaxy with almost $700,000. Dungeon World and Eclipse Phase combined pulled in just about $200,000 (10x less than Kingdom Death). I'm not arguing that there isn't a market for reasonable, accessible, sane depictions of women - but it's important if you're looking at the community as a whole to recognize that material only currently occupies a fraction of it. And while that might not look like a healthy sign, on the whole the industry is substantially less skeevy than it was ten or twenty years ago. JerryLee posted:Anecdotally, I've talked to at least one WMH-playing woman who straight up said that she played that game because the 40K community was groggy, misogynistic and toxic whereas the WMH one was laid back and not creepy. There isn't necessarily a 1-to-1 relationship between titty art and a regressive culture surrounding a game (not that you said in so many words that there was). WMH is a really interesting case, since they have their share of bikini tops but women are given parity with the other characters at all levels. In the art and figure sculpts, nearly everyone is depicted in strong poses: You'll see a sexy character, but she's sexy and powerful. (The contrast to this is cheesecake posing, where the subject is depicted in some stage of helplessness.) The only glaring WMH exception is the totally pin-up con-exclusive figures, which are tongue-in-cheek and compartmentalized enough that they're clearly meant to be taken as cheesecake apart from the regular setting. (Ie: Privateer Press has already established that WMH female characters have more to do than lean on stuff, tousle their hair, and gaze longingly.) The issue ultimately has more to do with how female characters are depicted rather than how naked they are. Kingdom Death and Warmachine both have inappropriately-dressed-for-combat women figures. In WMH they're powerful badass commanders of mighty armies, and in KD they're literally furniture. Going forward, that distinction will make more of a difference than any kind of cleavage / buttcheek ratio.
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Apr 20, 2014 18:55
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Bucnasti posted:So then only creepy guys are willing to overcome the barrier of entry to tabletop wargames? Women and non-neckbeards can't enjoy assembling and painting models? Point the first, nowhere in that post did I say that only creepy guys could get into enjoying RPGs or Warmahordes. The point is that stuff like jerkbait mini sculpts aren't being pitched to a broader audience, they're being pitched to catpiss men who'll cough up money to buy that stuff for various reasons. It's like how anime full of moe upskirt bounce-and-jiggle bullshit isn't aimed at anime-watchers as a whole, it's aimed at the creeplords who'll spend hundreds of dollars on bodypillows and creepy desktop figurines. The only way you're going to get people to stop this kind of thing is if catering to these folks stops being profitable, and while there may be studies about how "sex sells" isn't a hard and fast rule (and I've heard that the anime industry in Japan has suffered a bit of a recession since they've decided to double down on pandering to creeps, though I have no citations to back that up), the success of these various Kickstarters means that all the creators are going to take away from this is "gently caress the haters." As for why these hobbies can't be more inclusive, the answer is they can but the people responsible for making them largely don't care. Look at superhero comics. Why can't superhero comics be more inclusive? They totally could! But the people making them don't give a poo poo. Sometimes they'll make some half-assed attempt at promoting diversity, occasionally by happy accident rather than deliberate intent, but when it doesn't immediately result in an upsurge of millions of devoted female/minority/GLBT readers they almost immediately lose interest and go back to catering to the basement-dwelling shitlord demographic they know they can count on to keep buying their stuff no matter how bad it gets. This turns into a self-perpetuating problem. Women aren't into [HOBBY] because it's got some creepy, offputting attitudes towards women, when [HOBBY] tries to be more inclusive a lot of the time it's clumsily handled and doesn't deliver immediate massive results, so [HOBBY] creators decide to take away the message "well I guess women just aren't interested in this then no matter what" and go right on doing what they were doing in the first place, rinse repeat. The fanbases that accrete around hobbies like this act as an additional barrier to interest because the people who think that cheesecake stripper-figures are dumb and offputting slowly drift away while the people who think that poo poo is awesome and gently caress anyone who says otherwise stick around, and that feeds into the creators' decision to keep doing stuff like that.
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Apr 20, 2014 19:06
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moths posted:The elephants in the room are Kingdom Death and its $2,000,000+ Kickstarter, Relic Knight's $900,000 kickstarter, and Toughest Girls in the Galaxy with almost $700,000. Dungeon World and Eclipse Phase combined pulled in just about $200,000 (10x less than Kingdom Death). Did you account for the fact that the first three are minis products and the latter two aren't? Doesn't that skew the cost upwards? I mean, it's still a problem insofar as there's $2,000,000 worth of interest in Kingdom Death, but if you're trying to get a headcount it's not the best metric. quote:The issue ultimately has more to do with how female characters are depicted rather than how naked they are. Kingdom Death and Warmachine both have inappropriately-dressed-for-combat women figures. In WMH they're powerful badass commanders of mighty armies, and in KD they're literally furniture. Going forward, that distinction will make more of a difference than any kind of cleavage / buttcheek ratio. This is the sort of thinking I do about this subject, but you put it better than I have. This isn't to say that all else being equal, all the men being sensibly dressed and all the women having boob windows isn't a problem, but one always has to look at the entire outcome rather than focusing on any one thing as a progressive shibboleth.
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Apr 20, 2014 19:07
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Seduce mechanics do bother me a bit.
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Apr 20, 2014 19:24
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JerryLee posted:Did you account for the fact that the first three are minis products and the latter two aren't? Doesn't that skew the cost upwards? I mean, it's still a problem insofar as there's $2,000,000 worth of interest in Kingdom Death, but if you're trying to get a headcount it's not the best metric. Perhaps a more heartening comparison would be the two Reaper Bones Kickstarters, that pulled in $3.4mil and $3.1mil, respectively. They have their share of problematic models, but for the most part, they're pretty clean. I do still boggle over Kingdom Death, though. 
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Apr 20, 2014 19:30
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I don't think the existence of sexy women minis is necessarily a bad thing. The fact that it's the default is a problem (as is the general lack of sexy men in sexy poses). Like someone said in the room, the existence of counter-examples doesn't help when there's one of those for every ten women pushing out their tits or waiting to be rescued. Reaper isn't as bad about this as some companies, but they have their share of sexism. I'm reminded of the giants in the first Kickstarter. They started with existing frost and fire giant pairs. The men were both in very active poses, getting ready to swing a sword or shaking a fist. The women were both in very passive poses, with their weapons either behind their backs or held at their sides. They weren't bad, otherwise, but the contrast with their male counterparts was striking. The men are acting. The females aren't. They introduced another pair of giants, a storm and a cloud giant. The male storm giant is in the middle of charging. The female is... leaning forward, her club held behind her. Taken as an individual model, it wouldn't be bad (it would even make sense for her to be leaning forward, since adventurers would be about half her height), but when compared to how the male was posed, it kept up the idea that women are not supposed to be active participants in the action. In the next Kickstarter, they decided to "test" people's reactions with a pair of barbarians. The woman was partly topless, but the man was wearing even less. They wanted to see if people complained. Which they did, but I don't think Reaper ever understood why. People complained because again, the male is in a very active pose, giant axe held in front of him, while the female has hers at her side. Reaper took the complaints as, "Well, we tried, and they still complained. No point in trying, since they'll complain no matter what." The folks at Reaper aren't bad people. I don't think it's their intention to perpetuate the stereotypes. But they're not terribly aware that they are. They are better than they used to be. Part of this comes from when they do listen to people about things that bother them. You get minis like Deenah, Female Barbarian, which is in a very active pose (and they've started listing her counterparts as male barbarians instead of just barbarians). I'm not sure they'd make something like Brigitte, Naughty Maid these days. Their mascot remains a succubus, but the models they've made of her are getting better. I guess my point is that things can get better, but only if people keep getting on companies about it. Reward the ones who do well with your money, and steer other people who might be interested in that direction. Highlight problematic poo poo when you can. Understand that it won't get better right away, but don't stop pressing.
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Apr 20, 2014 19:46
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Look again. (Playtest doc is out.) He had a conversation with the writer of Go Make Me a Sandwich (blog about sexism in gaming), and he acknowledged the negative effects that it could have. Hopefully he'll take this into account the next update. Edit: Already discussed. This is what I get for quoting without reading several posts down! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 20:12
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moths posted:The elephants in the room are Kingdom Death and its $2,000,000+ Kickstarter, Relic Knight's $900,000 kickstarter, and Toughest Girls in the Galaxy with almost $700,000. Dungeon World and Eclipse Phase combined pulled in just about $200,000 (10x less than Kingdom Death). Three of those kickstarters are for miniatures. Two are for role-playing games. They are not at all the same market, even if there's overlap, and so this comparison is not good. It's hard to point to miniatures kickstarters that don't feature something dumb, but it's not hard to find ones that aren't selling themselves based on sex. Reaper Bones 1 and 2 hauled in over six million dollars total, over three million each. They are much more of a generic and general market than the three you mentioned, and the company behind them earned about twice as much as the other three combined. They almost earned more total than they did with just the first kickstarter. So did sex sell? Maybe, but it didn't outsell making minis for a much wider and more general market, miniatures which by most account satisfy the customers quite well! As for ten or twenty years ago, I was there ten years ago and close to twenty. And honestly? It's not much better, and in some ways worse.
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Apr 20, 2014 20:13
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I think another aspect of Reaper Bones is that they have several sculptors. Julie Guthrie has occasionally sculpted a female with cleavage or not much on, but she's just as likely to sculpt a female warrior with full body armor in an active pose. I can't say the same thing about Werner Clocke or Gene Van Horne or Derek Schubert or Bobby Jackson or Dennis Mize. All of these sculptors are usually working from someone else's concept art, so full blame shouldn't be laid at their feet either; ultimately it's Reaper commissioning the minis and making editorial-like decisions about what to produce and what it should look like. But, perhaps somewhat sadly, at least Reaper employs women sculptors, including Julie Guthrie and Sandra Garrity. Guthrie's been a sculptor since at least 1978, Garrity's been doing miniatures since 1989, and both are very well known and prolific, so it might not be fair to praise Reaper greatly for using them; but I think one way we'll be likely to see better representations of women in our games is by getting more women involved in making our games. It's a catch-22, obviously, but still worth thinking about. e. Here's something Sandra Garrity said on the subject: quote:Q: The market for miniatures is filled with stereotypical renderings of "sexy women". Often you are thanked by painters for supplying more natural looking female miniatures. What do you think about the whole topic ? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 21:03
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Yeah, I mean-- like I am honestly 100% okay with the default for a model having it be of an attractive person. I mean I like when people who aren't attractive are represented, but frankly, when I am painting metal dollies I want to be painting pretty ones so that by itself is okay. By the same token: I am okay with sexy models. There are actually sexy minis out there that I personally like quite a lot, aesthetically. But sexy is the default position for a female mini. When considering ones that aren't depicted in titilating outfits, poses, or situations, you're picking them out individually, you can't say 'this line's women are mostly not depicted sex objects' (I can think of one exception-- Stonehaven miniatures, who do make a fair bit of money on KS). And like that's sad. That's depressing. And like-- I like tits too but if I want to look at them I start flipping through tumblr, I don't go 'think I'll go get my wargame on'. Ugh.
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Apr 20, 2014 22:19
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I think this is a good moment to let y'all know Victoria Lamb's taking preorders on her cool female sci-fi soldiers.
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Apr 20, 2014 22:43
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Leperflesh posted:At the same time, it needs to be OK to play the games we love. I think some of the pushback comes from the suggestion that a feminist gamer has to boycott every game (and publisher and store and artist and system) that has been or is problematic in some way. In a vacuum I can say OK, I'm selling all my minis and getting rid of most of my games and from now on, I'm only playing games that get unequivocal stamps of feminist approval... but that may leave you without a game group to play with, or a store to play in. It's very difficult to be that person, the one that announces to his friends that he's now a feminist and, by extension, if they keep playing the games they've been playing, they're doing something immoral. Right but now imagine that it's you in those figures. And you're being told, "deal with being casually disrespected or gtfo" because that's basically the message that staying quiet about this stuff sends. And maybe all the people you play wargames with are decent and recognize the sexism and see it as an unfortunate secondary aspect of something they otherwise love. Is that context going to come through when I tell you I want to show you my collection of sexy warchicks and hey maybe I could show you how to play with them? And no one is really arguing for the nuclear stance you're describing. Yeah it's ok to buy your games from a store that also sells lovely sexist stuff. But you can also be on the lookout for places that aren't pushing that. Or talk to the owners about the message that they're sending. You don't have to vet every single person and organization involved in the stuff you play, but that mean you can't still be selective about it. And finally, there are worse things than not having a game group, like perpetuating sexism or associating with lovely people who are doing the same. I don't think it will really come to that for anyone anyway. But think through what it means if we keep having this discussion and better options start to become available and people aren't jumping on those. What does that really say about them?
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Apr 20, 2014 22:58
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Yeah I am a firm believer that exclusion is a terrible way to cause cultural change. It's better to be someone's friend and just nudge them in the right direction repeatedly, but in a manner that isn't off-putting. To really get some change you have to engage the people you disagree with. Anyway I am curious to see what people think of this mini is the context of this conversation:  Is this ok?
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Apr 20, 2014 23:33
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signalnoise posted:Yeah I am a firm believer that exclusion is a terrible way to cause cultural change. It's better to be someone's friend and just nudge them in the right direction repeatedly, but in a manner that isn't off-putting. To really get some change you have to engage the people you disagree with. Boob armour is stupid in general, but I think this is okay as a figure and not in any way exploitative. The entire female Dreadball team seems that way to me-- boobplate is dumb, but I get that it's about the only way to make your female figures look different. I rather like those Victoria Lamb not-IG female troopers. They really show off the with somewhat realistic armour, the only difference between male and female characters should be the heads. Realistically proportioned, not in any way sexy, but very solid and nice looking figures. GW and lots of other miniatures companies could learn a lot from this. EDIT: On your main issue, I agree that engaging with the people saying stuff usually is incredibly effective. I've been calling out people on the whole gay/fag/homo thing at the new shop I've been going to, and it's been effective in getting it not said in my presence at least. People are a lot more willing to be cool with the scenario when they're dealing with a real person who treats them with respect and not some paper-thin stereotype. rkajdi fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 23:43
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Heavy Zed posted:Right but now imagine that it's you in those figures. And you're being told, "deal with being casually disrespected or gtfo" because that's basically the message that staying quiet about this stuff sends. Right, I hope I've explained that I think there's a middle ground between your "nuclear option" and just "staying quiet," which I've specifically not advocated. I think we agree completely here.
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Apr 20, 2014 23:51
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rkajdi posted:Boob armour is stupid in general, but I think this is okay as a figure and not in any way exploitative. The entire female Dreadball team seems that way to me-- boobplate is dumb, but I get that it's about the only way to make your female figures look different. Yeah I'm more or less in this camp. I object to boobplate in pictures but on a mini of wargaming scale, I consider it if not a necessary evil then at least one that isn't inherently bad by itself. Really though, even in pictures, if the only issue is boobplate, then I'm not gonna get bent out of shape. In a mini, I don't personally think it's a problem.
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Apr 21, 2014 01:50
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Boobplate armor, while unrealistic and not all that protective, etc, is very effective at letting someone know the character is female at some of the smaller scales. For example, Look at this mini: http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/warcasters/captain-haley If we replaced the boob plate with a more practical breastplate, what could identify this as Victoria Haley, as opposed to, say, Victor Haley? I think this point was made earlier, but I wanted to show a concrete example where one's gender could be confusing at Heroic 28mm. If I had to choose between people assuming my Warcaster was a dude over impractical armor in my game about magical steam robots, I think I'll choose more communicative one in regards to their sex. Privateer rarely has "helpless" or "victim" models, so even the female Manhunter from Khador: http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/khador/solos/manhunter-variant Still looks somewhat empowered, despite the midriff.
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Apr 21, 2014 04:18
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A good compromise might be to have a cuirass that's sculpted with some noticeable additional room in the chest, but without each "cup" or the cleavage being lovingly, individually sculpted. I saw an article once where the point was made that having sculpted cleavage on a breastplate would actually channel the force of blows inwards to a point and break your sternum, and I think that's a decent guiding principle to keep in mind.
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Apr 21, 2014 04:37
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Feeple posted:If we replaced the boob plate with a more practical breastplate, what could identify this as Victoria Haley, as opposed to, say, Victor Haley? I think this point was made earlier, but I wanted to show a concrete example where one's gender could be confusing at Heroic 28mm. Unless there are separate stats for Victor and Victoria, or equally goofy, sweeping rules based on a mini's gender, there really isn't any point to sculpting a pair of 28mm scale L'eggs containers onto a mini's chest.
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Apr 21, 2014 05:45
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JerryLee posted:I saw an article once where the point was made that having sculpted cleavage on a breastplate would actually channel the force of blows inwards to a point and break your sternum, and I think that's a decent guiding principle to keep in mind. The thing is the impracticality of boobplate as actual armor has been pointed out and re-pointed out, and not once have I ever seen someone go "oh man, I didn't know that, now I have to go back and redo all my art so it makes more sense, thanks." I'm not saying "it's hopeless so shut up," I'm just saying that in the case of boobplate I don't think the people sculpting and/or drawing it think it's feasible or practical, they're doing it because they think it looks cool or sexy. Arguments about practicality are just going to make them shrug or reach for "it's fantasy/sci-fi so whatever" as an excuse and go right on with it.
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Apr 21, 2014 06:09
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Bieeardo posted:Unless there are separate stats for Victor and Victoria, or equally goofy, sweeping rules based on a mini's gender, there really isn't any point to sculpting a pair of 28mm scale L'eggs containers onto a mini's chest. Well, they need to give their lady models something to make them obviously feminine, because people are almost always going to assume a model with no clear gender traits is masculine. Boobplate is still the laziest way to show femininity, but I'd rather have a character with relatively tactful boobplate like Captain Haley than an army that just doesn't have any obvious ladies in it. (And I'd rather have feminine minis that don't rely on breasts to be feminine, but you get my point.)
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Apr 21, 2014 06:13
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Kai Tave posted:The thing is the impracticality of boobplate as actual armor has been pointed out and re-pointed out, and not once have I ever seen someone go "oh man, I didn't know that, now I have to go back and redo all my art so it makes more sense, thanks." Well, the specific implied question was 'how do we signal the physical sex of the model without boobplate or midriff' and my answer was to make extra room in the chest but without deathtrap cups/cleavage. As you say, it's a somewhat academic question if we assume that no one wants to move away from exploitative armor in the first place. As another answer to the question, if you look at something like Victoria's new "Arcadian" squads (which are amazing and I'm going to search my couch cushions over the next few months until I have $50 for a female squad) you can see that there are differences in the proportions of the males vs. the females. It's not that obvious unless you have two models from the same line right next to each other, but maybe that's all right? JerryLee fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 06:23
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JerryLee posted:Did you account for the fact that the first three are minis products and the latter two aren't? Doesn't that skew the cost upwards? I mean, it's still a problem insofar as there's $2,000,000 worth of interest in Kingdom Death, but if you're trying to get a headcount it's not the best metric. It's obviously not 1:1 between RPGs and minis products, but there's enough overlap that it's essentially the same community. That is to say we could split hairs until it's as micro-compartmentalized as the metal community, but outside of a game store nobody differentiates between a TCG, RPG, or miniatures game. The danger is the message that those numbers send producers about that community. Someone in a big office will eventually notice that the same nerds who bitch about a $7 PDF are eager to throw $2MILLION at an untested game festooned with tits and strange cocks. It doesn't matter if they're not actually the same people. The message is how deep the easy pile of money is, and exactly where to dig. (I'd totally forgotten about Reaper Bones I & II. Their massive success makes me feel a lot better about things.)
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Apr 21, 2014 06:26
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moths posted:It's obviously not 1:1 between RPGs and minis products, but there's enough overlap that it's essentially the same community. That is to say we could split hairs until it's as micro-compartmentalized as the metal community, but outside of a game store nobody differentiates between a TCG, RPG, or miniatures game. Well, the point isn't that they're spheres of interest utterly alien to each other, the point is that people might spend vastly different amounts of money in one stroke for miniatures (especially high-end miniatures like Kingdom Death) than for roleplaying systems and supplements, so a miniatures kickstarter making 10 times as much as an RPG doesn't necessarily indicate that it enjoys 10 times the audience. It seemed like that might be a misconception that was at work. If your point is that idiot game company presidents are going to look at the $2M figure independently of context and think that that raw amount of money is because of tits rather than because of the price points of exquisitely sculpted resin statues, then fair enough.
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Apr 21, 2014 06:32
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Trust me, big businesses have made the mistake of assuming that they might as well be the same community and have paid for it in the past. The same has happened with CCGs and RPGs. And there are some quite legitimate reasons as to why WotC doesn't mix its properties to release D&D-themed Magic cards or Magic setting material for D&D. They're related, they have overlap, and yet they are very different industries. For example, do you think more than a fraction of GW's fanbase cares about the 40k or Fantasy RPG material that's been released? A lot of them wouldn't even know it existed if asked. The same goes for any cross-platform stuff they do; there legitimately exists a consumer base that buys 40k novels without playing any GW game at all, just as there exists a base which only played the RTS games, only plays the RPGs and so on. Cross comparisons are misleading at best. It's better to stick strictly within the same industry, especially when the numbers there give us a little sunshine.
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Apr 21, 2014 06:40
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Trust me, big businesses have made the mistake of assuming that they might as well be the same community and have paid for it in the past. The same has happened with CCGs and RPGs. Do you have any good articles about incompatibility of Rpg and CCG markets? That sounds interesting subject & seems like AEG hasn't learned that lesson. The L5R (still) dabbles on both & they're re-booting the Doomtown CCG on autumn.
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Apr 21, 2014 06:59
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Leperflesh posted:Anita Sarkeesian exposes and deconstructs a number of video game/comic book/movie tropes which are harmful to women (and to men, because they warp ideas about women) many of which are subtle and insidious. I think the subtle and insidious misogyny in trad games is much more pervasive and perhaps much more harmful than the titty-models, in fact. Well, I'm running my group through the Double Cross adventures myself at the moment, and - of the adventures designed for the first five pregenerated characters, all four feature a damsel in distress, generally connected to Wild Card (aka "PC1"). Naturally, a lot of it is genre emulation. But that emulation is of a genre that's historically had a lot of problems with women. Granted, there are a lot of strong female NPCs in Double Cross... and a few problematic ones. It's no Maid, certainly, but just something to consider.
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Apr 21, 2014 11:52
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Bieeardo posted:Unless there are separate stats for Victor and Victoria, or equally goofy, sweeping rules based on a mini's gender, there really isn't any point to sculpting a pair of 28mm scale L'eggs containers onto a mini's chest. Agree completely. Awhile ago (before I took a careful look at the new book and saw it was poo poo) I had an idea about doing a Sisters of Battle army using conversions. No boobplates, just space marine armour cut down to fit a small frame (they aren't genetically engineered supermen like marines) and female heads with a green stuffed bowl cut. I thought it would look nice and more realistically female, but the number of dumb comment some people gave about that pretty much showed it would be an uphill fight to use them most places.
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Apr 21, 2014 12:16
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Trust me, big businesses have made the mistake of assuming that they might as well be the same community and have paid for it in the past. The same has happened with CCGs and RPGs. That link could have gone to: -Dragon Dice, Spellfire, D&D miniatures battle game, D&D Clue, Boardgames, AD&D Woodburning Kit -Battletech TCG, RPG, Choose-your-own-Mech-Duel picture book, dozens of video games -Warhammer 40k novels, videogames, RPG, two(?) failed TCGs, 54mm miniatures RPG hybrid, boardgames -Bolt Action Card the card game  , Warmachine / Hordes deckbuilding game, Bloodbowl Team Manager card gameBusiness at large is in a weird place where franchises are emphasized more than individual products. Gaming has been trying really super hard to get here forever. The games industry has consistently pushed (without much success) for decades, but there is zero reason to think that won't continue.
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Apr 21, 2014 12:39
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moths posted:That link could have gone to: Some of those things were actually successful, though, like the Mechwarrior or Dawn of War videogames. Mechwarrior (the RPG) wasn't exactly a failure with a litany of sourcebooks, but subsequent Battletech publishers haven't picked it up for whatever reason. Some, like Dragon Dice or Spellfire, were spectacularly wrongheaded, but also bear in mind some things, like CCGs, run their course. For example, Vampire: the Eternal Struggle was successful, but it ran its sales course and petered out eventually, but it still lasted over 15 years. D&D Miniatures had 20 sets and lasted for 8 years. Man, I wish I could have a "failure" like that. There are probably more failures than successes, but there are crossover successes. Any game that continues on ad infinitum like Magic or Warhammer 40K is extreme rarity in the industry, and we put undue weight on them being the norm because they're so such forces in the industry. Just because a game doesn't still have content coming out tomorrow doesn't necessarily make it a failure, however. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 13:33
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Some of those things were actually successful, though, like the Mechwarrior or Dawn of War videogames. Mechwarrior (the RPG) wasn't exactly a failure with a litany of sourcebooks, but subsequent Battletech publishers haven't picked it up for whatever reason. EDIT: Also, D&D Clue is still a thing.
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Apr 21, 2014 14:28
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, I'm running my group through the Double Cross adventures myself at the moment, and - of the adventures designed for the first five pregenerated characters, all four feature a damsel in distress, generally connected to Wild Card (aka "PC1"). Naturally, a lot of it is genre emulation. But that emulation is of a genre that's historically had a lot of problems with women. I'm not familiar with that adventure line, but maybe it'd be easy - and not especially distracting - to modify one or two adventures so that the PC in question is going off to rescue a male relative rather than a female. (Having the victim rescue herself might be a bit more of a deviation from the written plot than you want to bother with, since you're running premade adventures in the first place.)
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Apr 21, 2014 16:24
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moths posted:Business at large is in a weird place where franchises are emphasized more than individual products. Gaming has been trying really super hard to get here forever. The games industry has consistently pushed (without much success) for decades, but there is zero reason to think that won't continue. There have been some areas where a cross-medium product seems to have found success. The one foremost in my mind is probably the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. I don't know their sales numbers, but BGG seems to adore them, and their Amazon rankings look pretty solid. I know several of the folks working on it, and they're all pretty legitimately good designers, so that probably doesn't hurt. 
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Apr 21, 2014 18:35
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I think it makes a lot of sense for a company with a popular IP that is selling a game system to look at diversifying into other game markets. That lowers the business risk substantially compared to having all your eggs in a single game genre basket. It also makes sense if you're trying to diversify into another market, but you already own and have put a lot of development money into an IP, to make use of that IP in the new market. Sure maybe it will be attractive to some of your existing customers, there are people (like me) who will play an RPG and also do tabletop wargaming for example, but even if it isn't, it's still less effort than creating a brand new fictional setting for your new game line. And even if your additional markets are much less successful and/or profitable, they're still worth it due to the diversification/business risk factor. It makes your annual earnings less volatile, and gets your foot in the door if the new market happens to take off in a year or five. So maybe your LCG is only the eighth-most-popular LCG, and profits from it are only 1/10 of your overall profits, but if LCGs take off in 2015, you're not playing catch-up... and if your main business (PnP RPGs, say) suddenly goes down the tubes, your LCG profits help offset that. Obviously that's not the same as half-assed attempts at diversification that wind up failing badly enough that you lose money. But I suspect most or all of the things moths listed (not the woodburning kit, maybe) were at least marginally profitable, even if they didn't go bigtime. The Warhammer 40k novels, computer games (especially Space Marine in 2012), and board games have all made actual profits for GW, for example, and the total investment in stuff that failed like the TCGs was probably fairly low compared to their other ongoing business costs.
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Apr 21, 2014 19:05
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Iris of Ether posted:There have been some areas where a cross-medium product seems to have found success. The one foremost in my mind is probably the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. I don't know their sales numbers, but BGG seems to adore them, and their Amazon rankings look pretty solid. It's popular enough that they're apparently going to be starting an organized play variant of it soon.
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Apr 21, 2014 20:01
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Lurks With Wolves posted:Well, they need to give their lady models something to make them obviously feminine, because people are almost always going to assume a model with no clear gender traits is masculine. Boobplate is still the laziest way to show femininity, but I'd rather have a character with relatively tactful boobplate like Captain Haley than an army that just doesn't have any obvious ladies in it. Sorry, I simply don't buy that that's necessary in any way, shape or form. Especially not when the subject in question is being rendered as an inch-tall lump of material. It's silly.
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Apr 21, 2014 23:42
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A lot of women like playing as women characters in games. I think making female units sexy as the status quo is stupid as hell, but saying "look, you can play as someone who looks like you" is like, not regressive in the slightest.
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Apr 21, 2014 23:47
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Yeah I didn't mean that all those games were stinkers - just that gaming lends itself to cross-genre exploitation (or whatever buzzword soup means marketing a game universe in different channels.) I walked the long way to say that an apple-to-orange comparison between brands is fine, provided that the discussion is about fruit sales.
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Apr 21, 2014 23:52
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