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 Crimson wrote:
(And why the hell can't girls swear in mixed company and why they need to 'pretend to be someone else'?)

I have a female friend, a little tiny girl, that is one of the crudest people I have ever met. She's fantastic. It's not that we don't accept girls that act that way, but she'll need to have tough skin to handle the jeers that are the standard male banter.
We (men) will get told off for acting the way we do with each other in front of girls quite commonly. Things we see as fun and normal all of a sudden create a bad atmosphere. So sometimes I just want to hang with the likeminded. My little asian girl is welcome any day. Most other girls, not so much.

But that's not to say I think 40k should be male dominated. It's more if my "guy's night out" happens to be a 40k evening.

 Ashiraya wrote:

http://topgw2.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/tera-gold-7.png

and

http://25.media.tumblr.com/9bd291f57c3f7cb32a3dd44272a2d6eb/tumblr_mhz3ohFUGc1rcq9lto4_1280.jpg

Oh, I expected someone to bring up TERA armors. As I mentioned, it's an asian way of designing slowed bikini armour. While it does prove that oversexualizing women is bad(which noone denied, though), it should not be used as an argument in my opinion.

What I'd encourage you to do is to draw a clear line between oversexualizing and putting emphasis on physical attractiveness as those are two different things and I only want to discuss the latter, because the former is no doubt wrong, although it's funny how actually many girls like to play as castanic in those oversexualized bikini armours. Some surprisingly enough girls really like to play as very sexy chicks in provocative clothing!

 Ashiraya wrote:
Hell, to use a less extreme example, see Black Widow from the Winter Soldier film. Clearly intended to be very attractive yet not objectified in the slightest (Maybe aside from the boobwindow poster, lols.)

Yes, I agree, it's a great example of non-oversexualized outfit that still works well with the actress' body, but remember that it takes a fit, curvy body such as that of miss Johansson for it to look good, which is my point. Putting emphasis on fit, curvy and sexy women is nothing wrong as in many cases it promotes healthy life style and working out to achieve that(or similar) body shape... just like promoting muscular, big men on the other end.

 Crimson wrote:

But why is this a gender issue? Yes, you can be more relaxed around your buddies, but that has nothing to do with gender. And if you find that you need to censor yourself around specific gender, ethnicity or minority, then you probably should check your attitudes. (And why the hell can't girls swear in mixed company and why they need to 'pretend to be someone else'?)

Now I think I see where the misunderstanding lies. See - I didn't say you can't do that with a girl in the group(although there's a chance that in-group romance between one of the buds and the chick will end up in the group falling apart, been there, done that), I was just saying that if someone brings a girl to a group like that everything will change and those same guys won't be able to act as comfortable until they get used to her and even then there's a chance that she'll never accept those things they did before, eventually resulting in the whole group acting different than it did before, sometimes meaning it'll never again allow them to relax and give in to their more awkward/silly urges like they did before, that's all.


Edit: Purifier kinda nailed it.

 Purifier wrote:

I have a female friend, a little tiny girl, that is one of the crudest people I have ever met. She's fantastic. It's not that we don't accept girls that act that way, but she'll need to have tough skin to handle the jeers that are the standard male banter.
We (men) will get told off for acting the way we do with each other in front of girls quite commonly. Things we see as fun and normal all of a sudden create a bad atmosphere. So sometimes I just want to hang with the likeminded. My little asian girl is welcome any day. Most other girls, not so much.

Right. And that's why it is not a gender issue. People who like crude jokes like to hang around with people who like crude jokes and people who don't like crude jokes like to hang around with people who don't like crude jokes. Why bring gender into it? (And if it is about making jokes about certain groups of people and not being able to do so when people from that group are around, then I have no sympathy. You shouldn't be making such jokes anyway.)

 Crimson wrote:

Right. And that's why it is not a gender issue. People who like crude jokes like to hang around with people who like crude jokes and people who don't like crude jokes like to hang around with people who don't like crude jokes. Why bring gender into it?

Well, it may have something to do with the fact that girls are more likely to not like crude jokes, effectively resulting with the crude men having to hold back in their own group because of the new person. Noone likes to suddenly have to change his relaxed habits because of someone new and while it applies to all genders, girls are just more likely to bring huge changes to the way people act in the group, are they not?

Edit: see, if a guy doesn't like the crude jokes he either shuts up or leaves the group. If a girl doesn't like crude jokes it's either the guys having to adjust their behaviour and start censoring themselves or her leaving and then talking about how the community is crude and unwelcoming to girls.

Offensive image removed.

Don't post things like this on Dakka.

Reds8n

 Vash108 wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Women would be more interested in the game if the setting were less ridiculously sexist. Stop writing women out of the setting, stop the ridiculous imbalance in male and female characters, stop sausagefest40k.

I'm not so sure that's the actual impediment here, though. I've met more females who liked the setting but had no interest in the game than those who were interested in the game but put off by the setting.


Not arguing that the setting couldn't be less male-oriented... just that I don't think the setting is what is generally putting off potential female players. From my experience, women just tend to be not as interested in strategy games.

Going to have to say that is a wee bit sexist. Because I know plenty but feel the environment is unwelcoming.

No, it's not sexist at all. Women and men differ by birth and that fact has some solid science behind it as opposed to genders are the same but society bogus. You probably know that for example Nordic Gender Institute was closed exactly because of this. So, while I'm not saying that it's true that majority of women don't like 40k exactly because they're women and ones who play meet specific criteria like for example being early introduced to it or having a certain taste, it's entirely possible and a valid argument.

You are sexist though for your sweeping generalisations about how it's all men wargamers fault because they behave like apes and scare girls off.

 n0t_u wrote:
Nearly half of this thread is the more likely reason really.

Yyyyep.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Most of the miniatures I was thinking about while writing that post (because they are sitting in my paint station right now) are female trolls. That's part of what's so ridiculous about it - you can't even play the "monster" faction without being subjected to metal corsets, boob plate, heels, etc.

Which one are you talking about ? My female sluggers have HUGE boobs, but apart from that, they wear basically the same armor as the male ones. They look badass enough, even though they do have horrible, horrible lips.
For reference :

The arms literally enter the boobs on the model. But the pose means most people do not even realize they are females.
Even though named characters like Janissa, Grissel and Calandra seems doomed to have cleavage armor. Seriously, cleavage armor?

My main concern with female trollbloods is that it seems somehow only trollkin get to have females. Pygmys, fullblood and dire trolls seem to reproduce asexually, or for some reason have a totally different sexual dimorphism where female do not have breasts. I even considered for some time adding breasts to one of my dire, but it would have been too hard to do right. It could also have triggered a lot of “funny” comments too, I guess.

 Klerych wrote:
Tell me, why do women wear make-up and clothing that most often compliments their body shape? Isn't it out of the desire to be pretty and appealing? While I understand that oversexualizing female armours and shapes is an issue nowadays, mostly thanks to eastern(most often japanese) games and their love for oppai, most girls would prefer play as a hot chick with near-perfect body, nice voice and wearing somewhat daring outfits rather than playing as bland, boring girl in casual dress. I mean.. there's a chance they feel like one in real life, even if they might not necessarily be like that. Men also prefer pretty women with pleasant voice, shapely body and clothing that compliments their features.. I mean.. everyone likes to look appealing and likes looking at appealing people, right? That, and as it was mentioned earlier - powerful women in fantasy are often associated with beauty and sex appeal and there's nothing hurting in that because I don't think there is a woman that wouldn't want to be both hot and successful and in case of most video games we're talking about great heroines that save the world. Why pretend to be a casual girl in a video game about world-saving superheroines? And just as mentioned - men don't seem to like playing as fat, sweaty, balding dudes either, and yet women never whine about every male character being muscular, manly, strong and handsome.. why is that?

I disagree with this on several different points. First, the idea that people want to play character in games that they would also like to look like in real life. There are lots of popular games that allows you to play either monsters, “looser” characters,…
Second, the idea that good-looking and sexually attractive are the same is just as wrong. For instance, my character in DCUO, which therefore literally an super-heroin (well, officially a super-villainess but I like to think of her as an anti-hero…) looks like that.

Does she look good? Well, I hope so. I think she looks awesome and super badass. Does she look sexy ? Well, the only skin you can see on her is her head, and she is not wearing any kind of skintight close, so I am going to say no. And, actually, I wanted her to have (relatively) casual clothes rather than some super-hero armor/costume. It was part of the appeal, I thought it actually made her look more badass. I mean, just look at the sexual dimorphism in WoW, it is pretty classic.

Pretending that every male character is being muscular, manly, strong and awesome is just contradicted by, say, the two most classic video game character ever, Mario and Sonic. What about Rayman, or Raziel, or Link, or Gordon Freeman, or…
Do you want to play a fat dude ? Play Coach in L4D2, or the fat character in any fighting video game (Rufus and Honda in Street Fighters, Bob from Tekken, Chang Koehan from KoF, …), or Gragras in LOL, or Warrio, or Biker in Quake III, or…
If you want to play as a fat female character, you only get Quake III and Loadout, as far as I can tell. But actually, fat is just being an extreme case of the fact that male characters in video game have a lot of different body types, while usually all female shares the very same body type.

 Purifier wrote:
Offensive image removed.

Don't post things like this on Dakka.

Reds8n

What was that? I am curious now .

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Klerych wrote:

Tell me, why do women wear make-up and clothing that most often compliments their body shape? Isn't it out of the desire to be pretty and appealing? While I understand that oversexualizing female armours and shapes is an issue nowadays, mostly thanks to eastern(most often japanese) games and their love for oppai, most girls would prefer play as a hot chick with near-perfect body, nice voice and wearing somewhat daring outfits rather than playing as bland, boring girl in casual dress. I mean.. there's a chance they feel like one in real life, even if they might not necessarily be like that. Men also prefer pretty women with pleasant voice, shapely body and clothing that compliments their features.. I mean.. everyone likes to look appealing and likes looking at appealing people, right? That, and as it was mentioned earlier - powerful women in fantasy are often associated with beauty and sex appeal and there's nothing hurting in that because I don't think there is a woman that wouldn't want to be both hot and successful and in case of most video games we're talking about great heroines that save the world. Why pretend to be a casual girl in a video game about world-saving superheroines? And just as mentioned - men don't seem to like playing as fat, sweaty, balding dudes either, and yet women never whine about every male character being muscular, manly, strong and handsome.. why is that?

False equivalence as said, power fantasies versus objectification. I may be using hyperbole here, but to clarify, there's a difference between this

http://topgw2.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/tera-gold-7.png

and

http://25.media.tumblr.com/9bd291f57c3f7cb32a3dd44272a2d6eb/tumblr_mhz3ohFUGc1rcq9lto4_1280.jpg

The former is an objectification. I would mind wearing the former.

The latter is not. I would not mind wearing the latter.

Hyperbole, yes, but I believe you may catch my drift.

Hell, to use a less extreme example, see Black Widow from the Winter Soldier film. Clearly intended to be very attractive yet not objectified in the slightest (Maybe aside from the boobwindow poster, lols.)

To be fair to Tera, the woman in the top pic is a Castanic. They're an extra-planar race of libertine, hedonistic daemons... and the males of that race, in the game, wear equally-sexualized armor that shows off their impressive pecs, tight butts, washboard stomachs and bulging biceps. They (the Castanic males) are also completely self-absorbed, with such lines as "I get distracted by mirrors... see why?" and "You're really good! You remind me... of me!".

Also, due to a curse from the gods (long story, not important) both genders have metallic scars that start growing out of their bodies at puberty which are agonizingly painful, so they don't wear much clothing because it's debilitatingly painful to do so.

i like your anti - hero myself. she looks ready to ruin a hero's day.

From my experience and i mean just what i have experienced i know some female war gamer's and they have a wide variety of army's. the fact is a lot of girls/women aren't in to war gaming for a number of reason's. from not liking the rules to finding the setting rubbish. and to be perfectly honest i don;t see a problem with there not being a great number of female war gamer's if they don;t want to play 40K that's fine i do and if they do want to play great 2000pts at the local gaming club looser buys the drinks.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

What was that? I am curious now .

It was a "get well photo" some people made for their friend with "friends" marked on the left and one guy listed as "best friend" shown on the right.
The friends hold a banner saying "we miss you" and the best friend holds a scribbled sign saying "DIE!" (and then calls him something on the sign referring to his best friend's sexual alignment that I suppose is why it was frowned upon here) with a big gak-eating grin on his face.
It's been rotating around the web for some years (you'll find it instantly if you google image "friends best friend,") and I suppose the fact that it's not accepted is a pretty good commentary on why my group has to conform to things as soon as someone touchy walks into the room. It's just that I've found that women are more commonly touchy about these things than men are. (Not saying it's always like that. Some men are very touchy and some women have incredibly tough skin.) I wouldn't have known it was offensive if no one told me.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Most of the miniatures I was thinking about while writing that post (because they are sitting in my paint station right now) are female trolls. That's part of what's so ridiculous about it - you can't even play the "monster" faction without being subjected to metal corsets, boob plate, heels, etc.

Which one are you talking about ? My female sluggers have HUGE boobs, but apart from that, they wear basically the same armor as the male ones. They look badass enough, even though they do have horrible, horrible lips.
For reference :

The arms literally enter the boobs on the model. But the pose means most people do not even realize they are females.
Even though named characters like Janissa, Grissel and Calandra seems doomed to have cleavage armor. Seriously, cleavage armor?

My main concern with female trollbloods is that it seems somehow only trollkin get to have females. Pygmys, fullblood and dire trolls seem to reproduce asexually, or for some reason have a totally different sexual dimorphism where female do not have breasts. I even considered for some time adding breasts to one of my dire, but it would have been too hard to do right. It could also have triggered a lot of “funny” comments too, I guess.

The ones I've been painting are Grissel (especially epic, since her prime model is just... bad, more than anything, but her epic model looks really awesome in some regards while being facepalm-worthy in others), Calandra (who is actually really awesome in the art department except for the bizarre boob plate) and Janissa (who has heels, corset and what looks like a bare midriff on the model but actually appears to just have a less armoured disembowelment window). I hadn't actually seen the full Slugger unit before and those look pretty cool! (Thanks, now there's even more risk I will get Sluggers even though they are terrible. )

And yeah, the first ridiculous thing about Grissel that catches the eye is her huge red lips. I would prefer them looking closer to the male trolls. As it is they would look like a different species if they weren't painted blue.

 brochtree wrote:
i like your anti - hero myself. she looks ready to ruin a hero's day.

Thanks.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
The ones I've been painting are Grissel (especially epic, since her prime model is just... bad, more than anything, but her epic model looks really awesome in some regards while being facepalm-worthy in others), Calandra (who is actually really awesome in the art department except for the bizarre boob plate) and Janissa (who has heels, corset and what looks like a bare midriff on the model but actually appears to just have a less armoured disembowelment window).

Can you not just green-stuff it out ? I know I did green-stuff the metal bra of my (count-as DCA) daughters of the flame's metal bra into normal breastplates and it worked perfectly. This might be a bit more tricky though.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I hadn't actually seen the full Slugger unit before and those look pretty cool! (Thanks, now there's even more risk I will get Sluggers even though they are terrible. )

I can confirm that they look pretty cool and are terrible. Most games they do not do anything else than die, and damn they die quickly!

Warhammer 40,000 as a hobby is somewhat stagnant, and is not experiencing the same growth and modernization that some other popular hobbies in the US (where I live) are.

Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and comic book collecting were all relatively male-dominated hobbies back in the day, and they all have a substantial female playerbase now. Last time I went to Friday Night Magic, the organizer was female. Most D&D groups are almost evenly divided between males and females, and there are a great deal of comic book collecting women. Maybe there isn't quite the same number of women as men yet, but given the rapid change in demographics in the last 10 years it's just a matter of time.

The thing is that Warhammer 40k isn't going through this 'Geek renaissance' in the US, at least not as much as many other pieces of media. All the sudden things that were socially pariah are great topics to talk about anywhere, and large bunches of people openly go to conventions. Comic Book collecting is seen as a reputable hobby for mature adults, and rare is the college that doesn't have a large group of people who spend their evenings and weekends that the FLGS.

But Warhammer is still kinda seen as regressive, not really known about, and laughed at a little. This is because the cost has prevented people from really buying into it, especially when there's so much other media available. In a scenario where you can pick from a dizzying array of choices to amuse yourself, why go for the one that costs ten times as much just to get started? If Warhammer could really appeal to the Geek Audience and makes itself affordable, they would have seen a sudden upswing of female players. But as it is, the female geeks are going where all the newcomers are- to games, media, and hobbies that aren't so expensive and hard to get into.

I would point out that 40K, the table-top miniatures war-game, does not seem to be going through quite the Renaissance that other games have, but the RPGs based on it don't seem to be having the same problems.

My local group, involved in a 2-years-running Dark Heresy game, has 3 female players in it, ranging in age from 24 to 40, and all of them are fascinated by the setting, even though none of them had much experience or exposure to it coming into DH.

Then again, my gaming group is fairly a-typical, given the norms, because (based on the fact that I live in Seattle), we're open to anyone who wants to play and that we can fit in at the table. Male, female, trans, straight, gay, bi, anything in between, we don't care.

What's more, the more people I talk to in these parts with their own gaming circles, almost all of them have at least 1 if not more female players. Ten or fifteen years ago, this would have been quite the anomaly.

 Psienesis wrote:
Then again, my gaming group is fairly a-typical, given the norms, because (based on the fact that I live in Seattle), we're open to anyone who wants to play and that we can fit in at the table. Male, female, trans, straight, gay, bi, anything in between, we don't care.

So, the norm is to say “Get out of here immediately or we will call the cops” on trans or gay people? Uh, really?

 Crimson wrote:

friendlycommissar wrote:

Because women won't tolerate certain kinds of men, and will label them as creeps and losers and make sure that everyone else joins them in ostracizing those men.

All women do this and no man ever does it?

Men do it to women all the time. There's a reason why Curves is women only -- some women are really uncomfortable working out and getting sweaty with men around, because some men will ogle or make rude comments. Not all men, just some, but enough that we all understand and respect that women feel the need to have women only spaces. Most people understand that a man who demands to be allowed to work out at Curves in the name of gender equality is just being a jerk.

Why this is only a problem in a mixed group? Ever heard of gay people?

I kind of think you're just being argumentative now. Like you're deliberately making an effort to not understand. Homophobia is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Look, here's the only point I really want to make:

In their free time, when they're just relaxing and engaging in leisure, some people prefer to hang out and socialize with members of the same sex and not in mixed company. For the most part this is because these people are not successful in the mating game, and the mating game always rears its head in mixed company. This is an issue that is way, way, way beyond the scope of wargaming. There is hardly any hobby you can name that isn't significantly gendered, and that's because of much larger social forces at work than can be tackled by a bunch of wargamers.

Wargaming is only tangentially related to this because wargaming comes out of gaming clubs, and gaming clubs basically exist because awkward teens can't get dates and because married men need hobbies to keep themselves from driving their wives crazy (and said wives are often uncomfortable with their husbands hanging out with strange women). Wargaming grew out of culture that wasn't rooted in excluding females, but rather in being excluded from mixed company. The guys who invented our hobby were the guys who don't get invited to parties because the hot chicks won't show up if they're there. There's a reason a lot of guys who play Warhammer follow a pattern of playing in high school when they can't get dates, quitting playing while in college because they need the money for dating, getting married, having kids, and then returning to the hobby as grown-ups when they finally have disposable income and free time again.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually just fine if some hobbies are male-dominated and some are female-dominated. They're hobbies. Their literal definition is "things people do to kill time." At the same time, some people really need safe spaces where they can socialize and get human contact and feel appreciated and valued, and some people can't get that in mixed company because they can't play the mating game. And that Warhammer happens to be a thing that many groups of guys glom onto as an excuse to socialize is neither good nor bad. It's meaningless.

If you want that behavior to end, then you're really talking about something that has nothing to do with 40k at all. You're talking about fundamentally altering the way the entire world works, on very deep level. You'd basically have to remove the sex drive from humanity. That's way beyond the scope of any discussions of gaming, and frankly I'm really tired of people using gaming as a soapbox on which to call for radical change to all of society. It's boring.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Then again, my gaming group is fairly a-typical, given the norms, because (based on the fact that I live in Seattle), we're open to anyone who wants to play and that we can fit in at the table. Male, female, trans, straight, gay, bi, anything in between, we don't care.

So, the norm is to say “Get out of here immediately or we will call the cops” on trans or gay people? Uh, really?

Or "we'll call the cops"? No. It tends to be "get out of here, f*ggot, or we'll kick your ass." Or the typical gay-panic reaction that seems inherent in some straight males that, because another male is gay, it automatically means the gay male is going to hit on the straight male, or attempt to rape them. Why this exists? I haven't the foggiest freakin' idea, but it does.

Remember that the people who play 40K are, in many cases, the same people who play video games, the same people who play Modern Warfare, Call of Duty, Madden whatever-the-hell-version-it's-on-now, DotA, LoL, or any one of a thousand other games you care to name.

These are the same "12-year-old racists/sexists" (even though they're not all 12, or even close to it) that I mentioned previously up-thread. These are the same people who are posting threats to female game designers for the decisions they make with regards to video game IPs. These are the same people who think that a girl dressed in a costume at a convention are there to be groped uninvited. Who are flipping their fethin' lids about a gay player being in the NFL. Who's idea of a "funny" event in a D&D game is to have a character (especially if the character is female) raped by minotaurs or something... because that's sophomoric "humor" to these types of gamers (which I've seen in enough games and heard about in enough anecdotes to indicate that these are not particularly isolated events), or have a hetero male character raped by minotaurs because, again, gay-panic joke.

friendlycommissar wrote:

There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually just fine if some hobbies are male-dominated and some are female-dominated. They're hobbies. Their literal definition is "things people do to kill time." At the same time, some people really need safe spaces where they can socialize and get human contact and feel appreciated and valued, and some people can't get that in mixed company because they can't play the mating game. And that Warhammer happens to be a thing that many groups of guys glom onto as an excuse to socialize is neither good nor bad. It's meaningless.

No, it is not okay to exclude people based on your absurd insecurities.

I never met anyone that horrible irl, and I suspect this is more due to the fact on the internet, a very few proportion of bad people can make a lot of noise. Or maybe I am either pretty luck or pretty blind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

friendlycommissar wrote:
There is hardly any hobby you can name that isn't significantly gendered, and that's because of much larger social forces at work than can be tackled by a bunch of wargamers.

I am not convinced. I mean, if they count as hobby, I would mention climbing and (classical) music, because I know those, and I am sure a lot of other could be mentioned.

friendlycommissar wrote:
At the same time, some people really need safe spaces where they can socialize and get human contact and feel appreciated and valued, and some people can't get that in mixed company because they can't play the mating game.

I am pretty bad at “the mating game” (read it as “27, never had a girlfriend, never kissed a girl”), and I would not mind more women playing. I mean, either they are not interested in me as a romantic partner, in which case things stay pretty much the same except with more potential game partners, or they are, in which case it is even better. What do I have to loose, really?

 Crimson wrote:

friendlycommissar wrote:

There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually just fine if some hobbies are male-dominated and some are female-dominated. They're hobbies. Their literal definition is "things people do to kill time." At the same time, some people really need safe spaces where they can socialize and get human contact and feel appreciated and valued, and some people can't get that in mixed company because they can't play the mating game. And that Warhammer happens to be a thing that many groups of guys glom onto as an excuse to socialize is neither good nor bad. It's meaningless.

No, it is not okay to exclude people based on your absurd insecurities.

I don't really see any evidence of that happening. The only people I ever seeing being actively excluded from gaming are people who want to invade gaming and drive off all the people who are currently gaming. The kind of jerks that dismiss other people's real feelings as "absurd insecurities" without even attempting a moment of compassion or understanding. You're basically being cruel and insensitive and very dismissive of people who aren't like you, and I don't know if you get this, but acting smug, self-righteous and intolerant doesn't make anyone want to agree with you.

friendlycommissar wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

friendlycommissar wrote:

There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually just fine if some hobbies are male-dominated and some are female-dominated. They're hobbies. Their literal definition is "things people do to kill time." At the same time, some people really need safe spaces where they can socialize and get human contact and feel appreciated and valued, and some people can't get that in mixed company because they can't play the mating game. And that Warhammer happens to be a thing that many groups of guys glom onto as an excuse to socialize is neither good nor bad. It's meaningless.

No, it is not okay to exclude people based on your absurd insecurities.

I don't really see any evidence of that happening. The only people I ever seeing being actively excluded from gaming are people who want to invade gaming and drive off all the people who are currently gaming. The kind of jerks that dismiss other people's real feelings as "absurd insecurities" without even attempting a moment of compassion or understanding. You're basically being cruel and insensitive and very dismissive of people who aren't like you, and I don't know if you get this, but acting smug, self-righteous and intolerant doesn't make anyone want to agree with you.

I don't... I... what?

friendlycommissar wrote:
The kind of jerks that dismiss other people's real feelings as "absurd insecurities" without even attempting a moment of compassion or understanding. You're basically being cruel and insensitive and very dismissive of people who aren't like you, and I don't know if you get this, but acting smug, self-righteous and intolerant doesn't make anyone want to agree with you.

Okay, I think I have to ask. Are you yourself bad at “ the mating game”? Seriously, you can tell: I just did, and nothing horrible happened. Because you seem to take the issue very personally and very passionately.

friendlycommissar wrote:
The kind of jerks that dismiss other people's real feelings as "absurd insecurities" without even attempting a moment of compassion or understanding. You're basically being cruel and insensitive and very dismissive of people who aren't like you, and I don't know if you get this, but acting smug, self-righteous and intolerant doesn't make anyone want to agree with you.

Quite right. It is almost as if wargaming should be a way to bring people together to share enjoyment of a passion regardless of who or what they are...

friendlycommissar wrote:
If some girls feel excluded...well, why should anyone care?

Oh, unless they are girls of course...

Edit: typo

[Ah screw it, I'm not getting myself involved if there's gonna be a fight. ]

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: I never met anyone that horrible irl, and I suspect this is more due to the fact on the internet, a very few proportion of bad people can make a lot of noise. Or maybe I am either pretty luck or pretty blind.

Consider yourself fortunate! I have run into them in all sorts of places, whether that's forums for various web-comics or video game sites, or at places like PAX (to which I will no longer go) or ECCC (Emerald City Comic Con).

Hell, I ran a D&D game for some people in the customer-support department where I work. These are people all over the age of 21. In this D&D game, there were two NPCs. One was an Asian man (from the D&D version of Japan), the other was his daughter, who's mother was a woman of the standard European-flavor that is the bog-standard for D&D.

Mind you, the daughter-NPC was a minor, being 16. *Immediately* began the ooc-jokes about these characters, between the racial slurs, the racist jokes ("So, is she round-eyed or a slope?"), and the incessant in-character attempts to either inappropriately grope the character, (Me: "She's perfectly capable of climbing a rope...", Player: "I don't care, I put my hand on her ass anyway") or work themselves into situations where they could watch her bathe or some freakin' pervy thing.

That character's father (several, several levels above the rest of the party combined), ended up killing the lot of them, because I'd had it.

Sadly, though, this was not a particularly unusual event in that game, which I'd run for PUG groups at ECCC, PAX, RustyCon and SakuraCon in preceding years. I had (naively, as it turns out) expected better from the people I work with.

 Melissia wrote:
[Ah screw it, I'm not getting myself involved if there's gonna be a fight. ]

Rumble rumble rumble rumble!

On a humorous note, I laughed my ass off when sex was brought in. Hell even in a group things can go wrong coughmagicalrealmcough

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

friendlycommissar wrote:
There is hardly any hobby you can name that isn't significantly gendered, and that's because of much larger social forces at work than can be tackled by a bunch of wargamers.

I am not convinced. I mean, if they count as hobby, I would mention climbing and (classical) music, because I know those, and I am sure a lot of other could be mentioned.

I have no idea what the numbers are on climbing, but my sister is a climber and it does seem to be a very gender equitable hobby. A lot of the outdoor hobbies are pretty gender equitable, probably because they're something couples can do together without being competitive and everybody likes being outside. I know with classical music there is a really strong tendency towards gender segregation by instrument. But there's a reason I said "There is hardly any" and not "There is no."

friendlycommissar wrote:
At the same time, some people really need safe spaces where they can socialize and get human contact and feel appreciated and valued, and some people can't get that in mixed company because they can't play the mating game.

I am pretty bad at “the mating game” (read it as “27, never had a girlfriend, never kissed a girl”), and I would not mind more women playing. I mean, either they are not interested in me as a romantic partner, in which case things stay pretty much the same except with more potential game partners, or they are, in which case it is even better. What do I have to loose, really?

 StarTrotter wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
[Ah screw it, I'm not getting myself involved if there's gonna be a fight. ]

Rumble rumble rumble rumble!

On a humorous note, I laughed my ass off when sex was brought in. Hell even in a group things can go wrong coughmagicalrealmcough

Group sex tends to be pretty messy. Though I am sure even FC can agree it is generally better when both sexes are represented

Well, I do not do much RPG, but my current group of Cthulhu players (where most players are over 30) has a woman for GM, and currently two women playing female characters. One of them is flirting with the character with the higher charisma stat, but here flirting means “I will try to learn French from him”, not “I will grope him in public” or “let us feth all night”…
My previous group was long ago, it was with family, D&D. I was playing the only female character IIRC. I was a dwarf. I did not flirt with anything. I was mostly either fighting stuff or looking for traps. I think it only lasted for one or two sessions.