I love 40k, I love the feeling that comes with pouring hours and hours into an army an be able to see a finished result. Thats why I am concerned about this.
The lack of Diversity in this Hobby.
Whenever I go to play a game with others -at a local hobby store etc.- it seems like the only demographic I see are white men in there 30s-50s. There is nothing wrong with this; however, I am wondering why there is a lack of diversity in the hobby. It seems like there are very little people of Color, or the LGBTQ+ community. Much less women.
It sucks because this hobby feels like it should be applicable to all people regardless of race, religion, etc. I wonder why there is such a lack of diversity and what can we do as the community to encourage more people -of all walks of life- to join?
As a youngster with a diverse group of friends, I find that most young people would rather not play in stores.
My trans girlfriend is very socially anxious, and would rather be at home, but I'm not sure how common that is.
My Hispanic friend doesn't see much appeal, but that's because he's more computer oriented, so he prefers playing online.
It's a lot harder to tell if someone is LGBT at a game club, since most wouldn't know I'm gay. I don't really make a habit of telling the store owner.
That leaves my other friend, a white guy, who is willing to go out and play, since we don't have a big enough table at my house.
Does it help that the store owner is also Hispanic?
The only time I've seen women in the game store was when they were with other people, and I don't know if it's them not being interested in the hobby, them thinking game stores are full of weirdos because of mostly made up online stories, or if the place is made up of weirdos, and I just don't see it.
Maybe they show up for D&D nights, but since I don't, that's probably where they are. RPGs are much more appealing for people not willing to invest into Wargames, but still like tabletop. Women do tend to fall into this camp, whether societal reasons or not. If you want to get women into wargaming, your best bet is probably to invite some to play.
It might be that you are in Colorado. I'm in Iowa, and even over 20 years ago we had gay men and a Black guy in the group. I can understand being older, this hobby is crazy expensive.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: As a youngster with a diverse group of friends, I find that most young people would rather not play in stores.
My trans girlfriend is very socially anxious, and would rather be at home, but I'm not sure how common that is.
My Hispanic friend doesn't see much appeal, but that's because he's more computer oriented, so he prefers playing online.
It's a lot harder to tell if someone is LGBT at a game club, since most wouldn't know I'm gay. I don't really make a habit of telling the store owner.
That leaves my other friend, a white guy, who is willing to go out and play, since we don't have a big enough table at my house.
Does it help that the store owner is also Hispanic?
The only time I've seen women in the game store was when they were with other people, and I don't know if it's them not being interested in the hobby, them thinking game stores are full of weirdos because of mostly made up online stories, or if the place is made up of weirdos, and I just don't see it.
Maybe they show up for D&D nights, but since I don't, that's probably where they are. RPGs are much more appealing for people not willing to invest into Wargames, but still like tabletop. Women do tend to fall into this camp, whether societal reasons or not. If you want to get women into wargaming, your best bet is probably to invite some to play.
Thank you so much for your response, it was very well written and your experience was really interesting to hear. I do agree with the fact that it seems like many women do prefer games such as DandD and such like that, Im assuming that part of the reason is the super hyper masculine nature of wargaming in general. Furthermore, the stereotype is that everyone in the hobby is a racist Nazi. As someone who is part of the LGBTQ+ community myself, I personally feel pretty good about playing the hobby -albeit you would not be able to tell im pan- it feels relatively safe for the most part. Ofc, there have been some interesting characters but overall seems open.
I do wish that more people of color and women will play tho. Part of the hobby is socializing with others, and I would love to hear from people who lead different lives and have different experiences for me.
And lets go, a fellow younger person in the hobby.
This is a pretty well worn topic, and there seem to be a wide variety of factors. it also does appear to vary dramatically from store to store and city to city, as I've seen small shops in the rural deep south with a very diverse 40k scene, and big stores in northern or eastern cities that are basically all white dudes.
1) cost. the hobby is simply expensive. That shuts the door on younger people, and people from working class and even a lot of middle class backgrounds.
2) logistics. The hobby requires space, including storage, pain space, spray areas, and obviously places to play
3) Setting. 40k is almost self parodically grim and dark, while focusing on the most violent aspects of the same.
4) inertia. table top hobby games has always been the domain of dorky white guys, and they mostly know other dorky white guys.
5) the community. I think that most gamers are open and enthusiastic about newcomers... but I've certainly seen and heard some racist and sexist stuff from 40k players while at the store.
Finally, I do think that conflating the people you say hanging around the shop with the broader hobby is a mistake we all make. Looking at the 40k youtube scene, i think you see a bit more diversity than in many shops. In general, there are a lot of pockets of gamers who don't game in the stores.
Warhammer and GW intend to be Inclusive. All that means is ensuring representation in the art, models and background.
Whether or not non dis-het white males then come along and get involved, is well beyond anyone’s control.
It’s like going to a Heavy Metal gig or festival. Predominantly white folk. By no means 100%, but a comfortable majority.
Yes some bands are openly racist (Skrewdriver). But everyone else is just making their music and don’t particularly care who does or doesn’t like their music.
The other issue of course would be self-appointed Gate Keepers. But that is a subject of much ridicule from me, and not for Dakka.
Warhammer and GW intend to be Inclusive. All that means is ensuring representation in the art, models and background.
Whether or not non dis-het white males then come along and get involved, is well beyond anyone’s control.
It’s like going to a Heavy Metal gig or festival. Predominantly white folk. By no means 100%, but a comfortable majority.
Yes some bands are openly racist (Skrewdriver). But everyone else is just making their music and don’t particularly care who does or doesn’t like their music.
The other issue of course would be self-appointed Gate Keepers. But that is a subject of much ridicule from me, and not for Dakka.
Lets go. A fellow metal-head. For me personally I see a pretty wide diversity of people at metal concerts, but that just may be my location.
I do agree that GW tries there best and honestly it probably just comes down to the stereotype that everyone is a old white guy that pushes away minorities and diversity.
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Polonius wrote: This is a pretty well worn topic, and there seem to be a wide variety of factors. it also does appear to vary dramatically from store to store and city to city, as I've seen small shops in the rural deep south with a very diverse 40k scene, and big stores in northern or eastern cities that are basically all white dudes.
1) cost. the hobby is simply expensive. That shuts the door on younger people, and people from working class and even a lot of middle class backgrounds.
2) logistics. The hobby requires space, including storage, pain space, spray areas, and obviously places to play
3) Setting. 40k is almost self parodically grim and dark, while focusing on the most violent aspects of the same.
4) inertia. table top hobby games has always been the domain of dorky white guys, and they mostly know other dorky white guys.
5) the community. I think that most gamers are open and enthusiastic about newcomers... but I've certainly seen and heard some racist and sexist stuff from 40k players while at the store.
Finally, I do think that conflating the people you say hanging around the shop with the broader hobby is a mistake we all make. Looking at the 40k youtube scene, i think you see a bit more diversity than in many shops. In general, there are a lot of pockets of gamers who don't game in the stores.
Grimdark is the main turnoff for 40k. Hence why I play Tau. I do feel like having that incredibly dark hyper violent world will definitely push away many of people who think the models look cool and want to paint them, yet dont want to have to deal with this incredibly hyperviolent world.
Sometimes there are unintentional barriers. Any social group that has a dominance of certain types of person can be intimidating to those who are not of that group
This could be anything - genders, colours, religions, backgrounds, ages.
This doesn't mean the group is unfriendly to those not of their kind, just that it is intimidating on a level that is hard to overcome because in a sense you need people to make the step and join to break the appearance of the group being of one type to encourage others in as well.
The trick is to think less of barriers and more of lures. An easy lure is having people of the under-represented groups in key promotional positions so that them being personable; encouraging and showing the fun they have is more likely to draw others of a similar nature into the hobby.
We've seen this happening more and more with women joining various hobby and interest groups that they were not originally well represented in in the past.
Sometimes the "lure" is hard to define and you can be doing everything right and still not get people of certain backgrounds past the door. This can be complicated. Perhaps certain groups come from backgrounds where finances do not allow them the free disposable income to spend on this hobby; perhaps they come from backgrounds where hobbies are less encouraged over other pursuits - especially when they are younger and more influenced by their parents - which is also a key age demographic that draws people into hobbies.
Hobbies also go in waves; sometimes a hobby is all the rage for a generation or two then it goes through a lull and picks up again later if the company is aware enough to market toward new generations. I'd argue GW is pretty good at this in general; but even then there are lulls. Heck when I grew up hardly anyone in my circles was playing - all the gamers were a few years older. And I was right in the target demographic for GW style games.
There's a chunk of people in this hobby who are gatekeepery and bigoted. I would like to think they're a tiny minority, but sometimes they can be pretty loud.
At my local GW, with one exception of a guy who hasn't been there (to my knowledge) in quite a while, everyone is nice, accepting, tolerant... But it's still mostly white guys. Overread put it well, I think.
Another consideration is looking at other things that are attracting those groups.
Eg girls are often still heavily marketed and pushed toward things like dolls, princesses and other such "girly" things. Yes there are changes there; but if one of your "missing" demographic groups is simply missing because other brands and other social elements are marketing more heavily toward them and simply capturing them before your marketing can reach them. Then that is a darn hard situation to change.
Because in a sense you are doing nothing wrong; you are just being out-competed by brands and social elements way outside of your market and influence.
Sometimes you can be crafty - GW has in the UK long connected itself with things like Duke of Edinburgh Award schemes and schools and interests parents through the skills that the hobby brings.
Or how GW isn't too fussy about licencing out for video games; knowing that good games will get people into the setting and that means more chance that they might buy GW models; or books or other merchandise.
Or how GW is slowly getting into video. Again its all about trying ot draw in other crowds from outside of their typical miniature wargaming marketing systems.
Overread wrote: Sometimes there are unintentional barriers. Any social group that has a dominance of certain types of person can be intimidating to those who are not of that group
This could be anything - genders, colours, religions, backgrounds, ages.
This doesn't mean the group is unfriendly to those not of their kind, just that it is intimidating on a level that is hard to overcome because in a sense you need people to make the step and join to break the appearance of the group being of one type to encourage others in as well.
The trick is to think less of barriers and more of lures. An easy lure is having people of the under-represented groups in key promotional positions so that them being personable; encouraging and showing the fun they have is more likely to draw others of a similar nature into the hobby.
We've seen this happening more and more with women joining various hobby and interest groups that they were not originally well represented in in the past.
Sometimes the "lure" is hard to define and you can be doing everything right and still not get people of certain backgrounds past the door. This can be complicated. Perhaps certain groups come from backgrounds where finances do not allow them the free disposable income to spend on this hobby; perhaps they come from backgrounds where hobbies are less encouraged over other pursuits - especially when they are younger and more influenced by their parents - which is also a key age demographic that draws people into hobbies.
Hobbies also go in waves; sometimes a hobby is all the rage for a generation or two then it goes through a lull and picks up again later if the company is aware enough to market toward new generations. I'd argue GW is pretty good at this in general; but even then there are lulls. Heck when I grew up hardly anyone in my circles was playing - all the gamers were a few years older. And I was right in the target demographic for GW style games.
Thank you for this well written and thought out response. I agree with the idea that introducing people whom are a minority into a spotlight in this hobby could bring a great deal of new people into the hobby. For example, in the winter percussion group I am in at my school we have a Hispanic snare drummer who normally hangs around a group of primarily Hispanic people. After he joined, there has been a spike in the amount of Hispanic people joining the music program.
It’s also worth keeping in mind the gaming side is only one aspect of the whole of the hobby.
FLGS and Warhammer Stores can of course offer painting space, but the environment itself isn’t for everyone. Certainly I know when I’m being artsy fartsy I prefer to be at home, Telly on with a near endless supply of tea.
Online you see a decent and rising number of female painters, who are also kitbashing and doing the modelling side of the hobby.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It’s also worth keeping in mind the gaming side is only one aspect of the whole of the hobby.
FLGS and Warhammer Stores can of course offer painting space, but the environment itself isn’t for everyone. Certainly I know when I’m being artsy fartsy I prefer to be at home, Telly on with a near endless supply of tea.
Online you see a decent and rising number of female painters, who are also kitbashing and doing the modelling side of the hobby.
Haha to be fair I am also on the painting side of the hobby -as you can see from my other posts- and yeah its cool to see more females doing painting tutorials. I also love how British "Telly on with a near endless supply of tea" is.
You could probably squeeze me into fit the demographic cited in the OP, but hobby stores do not interest me in the slightest.
Now I wouldn't say these guys are rich, but I'd be willing to bet at their age they're invested and perhaps have even diverted a mid-life crisis which is a positive thing for them.
I do miss those old school games shops though were I used to browse for hours.
But these days if I'm being social it's hanging with close friends and having a beer.
That said I'd like to see Warhammer become more of a household name like D&D. I know far more people I could call up to get a game going than I could with Warhammer.
My local gaming stores are pretty diverse, but that's fitting for southern California. Gotta keep in mind the demographics of your area. Playing at home is more comfortable for me, though it's not ideal for making new friends.
Hell, I've played 40K, WHFB, T:WH, and some other video game adaptations I don't recall perfectly. I think the setting is great. I think the figurines are great. It's obviously not top-tier writing, but it's fun.
I wouldn't encourage anyone to play the tabletop versions ever. The cost sink is fething obscene. The tabletop games are honestly grifts.
If it’s just “Diverse folk in my area aren’t interested in 40k” then it’s not an issue.
If it’s “Diverse folk are interested, but there’s barriers stopping them from joining” then that’s an issue.
My area in California is pretty much like all cis white dudes in terms of 40k stuff. As a trans lady I have been getting some of my trans nerdy friends into it. Definitely way more effective on people who already like stuff like Aliens or dune or hyper violence though.
Anecdotal evidence is just that. The FLGS i have been attending for close to 20 years now has had more players come through the area than i can count thanks to 2 nearby military bases. currently the group of hardcore regulars include people who are old, young, male, female, asian, black, native tribes, jewish, gay, religious, atheists, pagans etc...
And nobody has ever given a GAK because we are there because we are gamers. we are a group of individuals who have a singular niche hobby we all enjoy participating in. we have all become good friends over the years because we have a good inviting community. in all my years gaming this has always been the case.
It sucks because this hobby feels like it should be applicable to all people regardless of race, religion, etc. I wonder why there is such a lack of diversity and what can we do as the community to encourage more people -of all walks of life- to join?
The fact you are looking for this is the problem. gaming has ALWAYS been applicable to all people. gamers are going to game, build a good community and who shows up should not matter based on personal characteristics. different hobbies attract different types of people. generally speaking, which we must do because many of our anecdotal experiences are outliers, only a small number of people in the local population are going to be into our hobby say compared to a local/national sports team etc... and of that it takes a certain mindset or interest to be into war gaming.
Because we have to approach this looking at the general population you are not going to find many women into the hobby for example, because as a general rule it is a hobby that does not interest them. my wife has done some war gaming in the past but she enjoys role playing and online MMORPGS more because she enjoys the story telling and character development sides of those types of games better than combat tactics.
aphyon wrote: Anecdotal evidence is just that. The FLGS i have been attending for close to 20 years now has had more players come through the area than i can count thanks to 2 nearby military bases. currently the group of hardcore regulars include people who are old, young, male, female, asian, black, native tribes, jewish, gay, religious, atheists, pagans etc...
And nobody has ever given a GAK because we are there because we are gamers. we are a group of individuals who have a singular niche hobby we all enjoy participating in. we have all become good friends over the years because we have a good inviting community. in all my years gaming this has always been the case.
It sucks because this hobby feels like it should be applicable to all people regardless of race, religion, etc. I wonder why there is such a lack of diversity and what can we do as the community to encourage more people -of all walks of life- to join?
The fact you are looking for this is the problem. gaming has ALWAYS been applicable to all people. gamers are going to game, build a good community and who shows up should not matter based on personal characteristics. different hobbies attract different types of people. generally speaking, which we must do because many of our anecdotal experiences are outliers, only a small number of people in the local population are going to be into our hobby say compared to a local/national sports team etc... and of that it takes a certain mindset or interest to be into war gaming.
Because we have to approach this looking at the general population you are not going to find many women into the hobby for example, because as a general rule it is a hobby that does not interest them. my wife has done some war gaming in the past but she enjoys role playing and online MMORPGS more because she enjoys the story telling and character development sides of those types of games better than combat tactics.
Speaking of military bases, I'm moving to Washington because my girlfriend is part of the military, and we'll be getting married soon. I'm excited to check out the local gaming scene.
Hell, I've played 40K, WHFB, T:WH, and some other video game adaptations I don't recall perfectly. I think the setting is great. I think the figurines are great. It's obviously not top-tier writing, but it's fun.
I mean you basically said it yourself.
It's Fun
People naturally want to share fun with others; to draw them in, especially when the fun relies upon others. The more people we draw into our hobby the better. More people means more customers, which means more money for the creators who make stuff we like; it means more people for us to chat and interact with; it means more games being played at more varied skill and style levels.
Growth is a good thing, even better if that growth comes from fresh people new to the whole hobby rather than simply leaching new Warhammer fans from the Privateer Press club.
JNAProductions wrote:If it’s just “Diverse folk in my area aren’t interested in 40k” then it’s not an issue.
If it’s “Diverse folk are interested, but there’s barriers stopping them from joining” then that’s an issue.
It's also an issue if "diverse folk in my area aren't being marketed too/reached out too".
Again we come to the barrier and the carrot situation. It's not enough to just have no barriers to entry, you also have to have a reason to draw people in. You also have to understand why people are not being drawn in - perhaps the marketing is wrong; perhaps you're just not reaching out ot them the right way; perhaps cultural or social elements mean that your marketing has to change and adapt or perhaps you've got to wait for social elements to make more major changes (if they will) etc....
Understanding the reasons for things can be important and can help toward then changing a situation for the better.
aphyon wrote:Anecdotal evidence is just that. The FLGS i have been attending for close to 20 years now has had more players come through the area than i can count thanks to 2 nearby military bases. currently the group of hardcore regulars include people who are old, young, male, female, asian, black, native tribes, jewish, gay, religious, atheists, pagans etc...
Very true and already we've had a few mention that the local scene where they are is different.
However you also can't deny that at major events (eg regional and national) we also see a similar patterning of stereotypes present. So we can conclude that there's a likely chance that your situation is perhaps a touch more in the minority than the general scene.
This is neither bad nor good it simply is and understanding why it is can be a big step in improving diversity in other areas.
In the end improving diversity is all about taking down barriers and making something more welcoming at the same time to a broader spectrum of people.
It's also about understanding subtle barriers that you can't really "take down" such as those I identified in my earlier post. You don't "take down" the fact that the club is all 50 year olds; but perhaps you run some organised events with youth groups every so often where you've a few old-guard to run demo games and such; whilst having a lot of younger people all gathered and encouraged to come on the same day. With a view that you'll encourage a group to join up and become regulars all at once (or at least around the same time)
Overread, the broader audience myth.. and especially marketing target groups and experience show a bigger picture that some groups don't want certain hobbies / are not even interested when companies pander to them as f.e. visible in the comic book industry.
What is required is accessability and that has to do with GW providing: Quality affordable product.
The groups themselves are local and will inevitably vary highly in culture and acceptance of outsiders, all gw there can do sensibly is supporting events like you described, but it would do well to not attempt to dictate culture from top down.
Not Online!!! wrote: Overread, the broader audience myth.. and especially marketing target groups and experience show a bigger picture that some groups don't want certain hobbies / are not even interested when companies pander to them as f.e. visible in the comic book industry.
What is required is accessability and that has to do with GW providing: Quality affordable product.
The groups themselves are local and will inevitably vary highly in culture and acceptance of outsiders, all gw there can do sensibly is supporting events like you described, but it would do well to not attempt to dictate culture from top down.
I think we are in agreement in that the view is GW provide a quality product to the market.
My points about marketing aren't about GW changing what they do in terms of the product, but more about what marketing and outreach strategies they can use within what they already create. So I'm not suggesting that they change what they make to market to different groups; but change how they reach out to those groups. With the understanding (as best as possible) as to why those groups might not be currently interested in wargaming or painting or hobbying.
I agree many firms have done this by changing their product to try and appeal to different markets and many times it can come off as insulting, stupid or just totally off-base. It can also not only not attract the new market but also turn those once loyal fans away as well.
My view was more how a person is introduced to wargaming and hobbying without changing what it is.
Where change comes it should be slight. EG GW using coloured plastics and push-fit to create products that can be sold in places like bookstores as regular complete game packs all-in-one. Things that still interest current gamers who lose nothing to very little*; but which might reach out to a new generation or at least get them started
*you can argue pushfit can reduce modularity of kits, but the right push fit design can still have varied parts. Though I agree this is a loss, however dynamic design I think has had far more impact on this.
Like. At all. All gatekeepers manage is to look like petulant children who never learned to share.
That’s it, that’s the sum of gatekeeping efforts.
How do you even gatekeep a hobby that has no real central venue where it takes place? Everybody can buy the products, everybody can form up a club or meet at someones home, and nowadays making your own Social Media presence, Youtube channel or stream takes almost no effort. There isn't really any gate to keep, outside of making any given community so toxic that newcomers are repelled.
ForgedSteel wrote: I love 40k, I love the feeling that comes with pouring hours and hours into an army an be able to see a finished result. Thats why I am concerned about this.
The lack of Diversity in this Hobby.
Whenever I go to play a game with others -at a local hobby store etc.- it seems like the only demographic I see are white men in there 30s-50s. There is nothing wrong with this; however, I am wondering why there is a lack of diversity in the hobby. It seems like there are very little people of Color, or the LGBTQ+ community. Much less women.
It sucks because this hobby feels like it should be applicable to all people regardless of race, religion, etc. I wonder why there is such a lack of diversity and what can we do as the community to encourage more people -of all walks of life- to join?
I won't argue that the demographic is primarily white men, especially age 30-50. However, the past fifteen to twenty years I've seen other demographics enter the hobby. They're still quite a small segment of the hobby, but they are present and growing. And on my part, the more, the merrier.
As far as LGBTQ+ goes, I've never asked because frankly I don't care. I'm there to play WFB, not have an intimate discussion about sexual preference and/or identity. If they present ambiguously I'll ask their pronouns, otherwise I'll assume what they present as is how they want to be identified. There is a time and a place to discuss such VASTLY private and personal issues, and over a pickup game of Warhammer in a game store is generally neither the time nor the place. I really don't care if any, all, or none of the people I meet across the table are LGBTQ. I'm not planning on having.... ahem, 'intimate relations' with them, I'm playing Warhammer with them. Their intimate details are frankly none of my business.
TLDR; I'll play anyone who shows up to play, and I don't care who they are so long as they're not jerks.
Hell, I've played 40K, WHFB, T:WH, and some other video game adaptations I don't recall perfectly. I think the setting is great. I think the figurines are great. It's obviously not top-tier writing, but it's fun.
I wouldn't encourage anyone to play the tabletop versions ever. The cost sink is fething obscene. The tabletop games are honestly grifts.
I'll grant you it's not a cheap hobby to get into, but try comparing it to quality sports gear sometime. My army is not ever going to wear out no matter how often I play; pads and uniforms and balls most definitely will if used regularly.
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JNAProductions wrote: If it’s just “Diverse folk in my area aren’t interested in 40k” then it’s not an issue.
If it’s “Diverse folk are interested, but there’s barriers stopping them from joining” then that’s an issue.
The biggie is economics. We can hate it all we want, but fact is white men earn more money on average. It's unfair, but the complex economic, societal, and political issues that have caused that particular problem go well beyond the scope of this forum. All we can do is welcome the people who DO want to start the hobby, and start slow-grow escalation leagues so people can play while they build up their forces.
Like. At all. All gatekeepers manage is to look like petulant children who never learned to share.
That’s it, that’s the sum of gatekeeping efforts.
I've never actually seen it happen in real life either. It's always people in online communities.
I have, multiple times.
Move for a job, check out a new places to game, walk into a gaming store, briefly watch a game of the L5R miniatures game (this was years ago), hear a conversation about how slavery was a benefit to the slaves, walk out, not go back.
Another, the D&D group had their favorite pejorative for any bad situation or poor dice roll. And they had some very gay dice indeed, if the frequency of the yelling was any indication.
A third, oh, look its the Civil War again, and how things 'weren't so bad'
When that's the background conversation, there's at least some passive gatekeeping going on, if it isn't outright intentional baiting of strangers as litmus test of how they'll react.
Like. At all. All gatekeepers manage is to look like petulant children who never learned to share.
That’s it, that’s the sum of gatekeeping efforts.
I've never actually seen it happen in real life either. It's always people in online communities.
I have, multiple times.
Move for a job, check out a new places to game, walk into a gaming store, briefly watch a game of the L5R miniatures game (this was years ago), hear a conversation about how slavery was a benefit to the slaves, walk out, not go back.
Another, the D&D group had their favorite pejorative for any bad situation or poor dice roll. And they had some very gay dice indeed, if the frequency of the yelling was any indication.
A third, oh, look its the Civil War again, and how things 'weren't so bad'
When that's the background conversation, there's at least some passive gatekeeping going on, if it isn't outright intentional baiting of strangers as litmus test of how they'll react.
Well. That's certainly some atrocious luck. I've been in dozens of game stores, and the only time I've ever heard the American Civil War discussed was among ACW historical players... and they didn't discuss the slavery issue, because it was irrelevant to the game they were playing. Sorta like how the Bolt Action players generally do not discuss the Holocaust.
And I've run into some groups who were very unwelcoming to me, and I'm a cis white male!
It really does boil down to the group. Some groups are bad, most groups are pretty good.
I have removed a bunch of inappropriate content from the thread. This is not the place for pushing conspiracy theories about how being inclusive is going to destroy 'western society'.
Move for a job, check out a new places to game, walk into a gaming store, briefly watch a game of the L5R miniatures game (this was years ago), hear a conversation about how slavery was a benefit to the slaves, walk out, not go back.
Another, the D&D group had their favorite pejorative for any bad situation or poor dice roll. And they had some very gay dice indeed, if the frequency of the yelling was any indication.
A third, oh, look its the Civil War again, and how things 'weren't so bad'
When that's the background conversation, there's at least some passive gatekeeping going on, if it isn't outright intentional baiting of strangers as litmus test of how they'll react.
Regional differences are quite big I think when it comes to certain places. Obviously in the USA, the ACW is a contentious issue, and having wargames based around it is a bit more real for them. You'll rarely have people talk about slavery and Britain's role in it over here unless you stick to very specific social circles.
I have heard of others experiencing exclusion and bigotry, I absolutely don't mean to demean their experiences. I more just meant that from my perspective, a large portion of vitriol and hatred comes from terminally online individuals who need to go outside more often, which is obviously still an issue but a different one.
I guess it helps that I tend to go to places that are pretty well moderated by the staff, the local GW being my first gaming location and others after that make sure to cater to everyone and make them feel welcome.
Like. At all. All gatekeepers manage is to look like petulant children who never learned to share.
That’s it, that’s the sum of gatekeeping efforts.
I've never actually seen it happen in real life either. It's always people in online communities.
I have, multiple times.
Move for a job, check out a new places to game, walk into a gaming store, briefly watch a game of the L5R miniatures game (this was years ago), hear a conversation about how slavery was a benefit to the slaves, walk out, not go back.
Another, the D&D group had their favorite pejorative for any bad situation or poor dice roll. And they had some very gay dice indeed, if the frequency of the yelling was any indication.
A third, oh, look its the Civil War again, and how things 'weren't so bad'
When that's the background conversation, there's at least some passive gatekeeping going on, if it isn't outright intentional baiting of strangers as litmus test of how they'll react.
Well. That's certainly some atrocious luck. I've been in dozens of game stores, and the only time I've ever heard the American Civil War discussed was among ACW historical players... and they didn't discuss the slavery issue, because it was irrelevant to the game they were playing. Sorta like how the Bolt Action players generally do not discuss the Holocaust.
And I've run into some groups who were very unwelcoming to me, and I'm a cis white male!
It really does boil down to the group. Some groups are bad, most groups are pretty good.
I find its the opposite, and not luck at all. Most people in groups gatekeep their little domain, and tend to be awful people. In spirit and 'gossip' if not in action.
Gamer spaces, at least in my experience, tend to be like high school locker rooms. Same kind of crap talk and posturing, but this time, in the safety of their own spaces, they're the cocks of the walk.
Since becoming a Chaos Knight player, I feel VERY discriminated against!
I am quite often referred to as "that guy!" and sometimes even told "there's the door, now go on - sod off!". Whenever I am "allowed" to play, there just isn't enough accessibility on the field of battle - especially in small games - and I can't help it if my Knights accidently tread on other player's units! They just will not stand aside to allow me access to objectives!
Seriously, its like dealing with people who don't hold the door open for others.
And GW only produces extra-large weapons; ITS NOT MY FAULT I ONLY HAVE ACCESS TO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!
Personally I think its jealously, deep down. We have big feet and they just can't stand it. But there's no thought for us Knight players having to purchase taller boxes...
But let us not gloss over elitist attitudes from Imperial Knight players, who disapprove of my Tzeentch Chaos Knights - accusing them of not being "true knights". At least I'm bringing CHANGE to the hobby!
I guess there is some of this "posturing" which I've witnessed with certain types of folk (no mention of color/etc, and no mention of GW or Warhammer in particular) and my lack of interest that I've held onto.
I don't mean to say I don't care for hobby stores as a place I or people can go to have fun. Or that I wouldn't go to one, just today I've got plenty to keep up with on the stead.
Now what I have found in my day (and my anecdotal is just that, not indicative of this community or any other, and even not of my entire experience) ...is the irony that once you change the environment around, the oppressed "nerd" can sometimes turn around to become the tyrant once in their own domain.
This is human nature I'm pretty sure, and more a matter of upbringing and character, and a likely result of being bullied themselves, but having the lack of discipline in their life to know better then what they do.
My gateway into wargaming was through DnD, and then playing Total Warhammer with my roommate. As a person who is a couple of the categories you describe, I really don't have any desire to interact with the wider community and pretty much thought this would be solo or the odd game with my partner.
I have had enough issues with the typical gamer population with ttrpgs. A couple weeks ago I went into two different store that sold wargamming stuff and the atmosphere wasn't exactly kind or welcoming to women. I do not like being treated like I do not know anything, I do not like being asked if I have a boyfriend that plays, I do not like being viewed as a piece of meat.
I have a lower tolerance for this stuff after like a decade and a half of ttrpg dramas, and I'm really not likely to go back to either store (not having what I wanted in stock didn't help lol) or any other.
However, down the road, if someone wants to play a onepagerules game in my local area and seems pretty chill, I would be interested. I just have no interest in interacting with the community at large at this point due to past interactions.
Edit, rereading the thread and seeing the mod note and some of the replies that were here really brings the point into focus that these spaces tend to be hostile.
I have had enough issues with the typical gamer population with ttrpgs. A couple weeks ago I went into two different store that sold wargamming stuff and the atmosphere wasn't exactly kind or welcoming to women. I do not like being treated like I do not know anything, I do not like being asked if I have a boyfriend that plays, I do not like being viewed as a piece of meat.
To be fair, I've seen or heard what you've described everywhere from MMORPGs to dungeon powerlifting/bodybuilding gyms. A lot of men treat women like trash.
I honestly feel like just a good chunk of it is that it takes a very particular blend of interests to be into the miniatures tabletop type of thing and even if you are 40k isn’t a setting everyone is going to enjoy. I think diversity is increasing with the new people getting into the hobby but the hobby I think just generally doesn’t expand at a great pace. I think that we should all just be decent people who don’t yell slurs at the game store but besides that I think it doesn’t really require any intervention.
ForgedSteel wrote: I love 40k, I love the feeling that comes with pouring hours and hours into an army an be able to see a finished result. Thats why I am concerned about this.
The lack of Diversity in this Hobby.
Whenever I go to play a game with others -at a local hobby store etc.- it seems like the only demographic I see are white men in there 30s-50s. There is nothing wrong with this; however, I am wondering why there is a lack of diversity in the hobby. It seems like there are very little people of Color, or the LGBTQ+ community. Much less women.
It sucks because this hobby feels like it should be applicable to all people regardless of race, religion, etc. I wonder why there is such a lack of diversity and what can we do as the community to encourage more people -of all walks of life- to join?
Could also be your local area perhaps? My area is a mixed bag of stuff, yes mostly white males from the 20s to 50s but also a fair few people of Asian descent who are always welcome. In the circles I frequent there are a good of members of the LGBTQ+ including plenty of Trans peeps I know personally even couple of furries to hilariously.
There's also the chance that people keep aspects of them selves hush hush ya know? For fear of being ostracized which is a shame, it's a good hobby to let people express themselves I reckon. You want your hello kitty army? Go for it I won't judge..... much.
Though on the ethnic diversity aspect the area has a solid population of Indians, but I never see them playing or in clubs. Occasionally you'll see a kid or teen be brought in with parent, they seem keen and the clerks are being their usual... slightly too pushy selves. But the parents seem to guide the new folks out when possible. Anecdotal I know, but just something that stuck in my memory.
My wife paints better than I do, but she wouldn't be caught dead in a gaming store for most of the standard reasons - the smell, the creepy vibes coming from some of the gamers. They just aren't (on the whole) appealing places for the fairer sex.
I don't blame her, given that the local gaming club and conventions always have that stale smell going on.
I haven't been in the stores lately, but when I was last it was mostly full of teenage boys, whilst the conventions and clubs were full of middle aged men.
I think the setting itself is a bit of a problem - there are a lot of people who don't seem to appreciate that the game is a parody of fascism and not a tribute to fascism, it's overly complicated and confusing to get into, and a lot of it is just silly.
It also turns out that women generally prefer to play co-operative games than competitive games.
I know GW does what it can do try and deal with bigotry, but I'm not sure what they can actually do about diversity.
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: I honestly feel like just a good chunk of it is that it takes a very particular blend of interests to be into the miniatures tabletop type of thing and even if you are 40k isn’t a setting everyone is going to enjoy. I think diversity is increasing with the new people getting into the hobby but the hobby I think just generally doesn’t expand at a great pace. I think that we should all just be decent people who don’t yell slurs at the game store but besides that I think it doesn’t really require any intervention.
We can also look back at our own childhoods here.
As mentioned many many times, I used to love 2000AD as a kid, and still do. Parents would never buy it for me as it was too mature for Tiny Me. But every haircut at Chainsaw Harry’s, there was the stack of back issues.
From there, Heroquest. The adverts for which were a white sausage fest. Prior to that, Fighting Fantasy. Indeed, 80’s and 90’s Fantasy and SciFi was predominantly white male protagonists for the most part. He-Man for instance didn’t have a single non-white Hero until the release of Clamp Champ, toward the end of the line’s life.
GW itself didn’t really feature non-white models for years and years.
A chunk of that seems to be Marketing Assumptions. That the expected demographic would be young white men and boys. Exclusionary thinking. But not actively exclusionary, just a bad assumption, the sort that “everyone knows that” but few had ever bothered to test. Note I am note casting aspersions about the motivations of companies or individuals, just The Amorphous Whole being a bit daft and self-fulfilling prophecies.
It wasn’t really until the late 90’s that we started to see a wider representation in media, and even then it was quite slow and occasionally ham fisted.
And don’t get me wrong. Money is likely still the driving motivation here. For the sake of some inclusion (art, writing, sculpts, all of which you were going to produce anyway) you can let people see themselves in the setting, which hooks attention. But hey, inclusion is inclusion, even when it’s ultimately Quest For Cash.
Of course whether GW’s efforts to widen their appeal is the root cause of their frankly stellar increase in sales is something we can only speculate on, as we lack the data necessary to dig into. But largely anecdotally, going “woke” has hardly sent GW broke, has it? Coincidence it might be, but it’s had rather the opposite effect.
GW itself didn’t really feature non-white models for years and years.
A chunk of that seems to be Marketing Assumptions. That the expected demographic would be young white men and boys. Exclusionary thinking. But not actively exclusionary, just a bad assumption, the sort that “everyone knows that” but few had ever bothered to test. Note I am note casting aspersions about the motivations of companies or individuals, just The Amorphous Whole being a bit daft and self-fulfilling prophecies.
It wasn’t really until the late 90’s that we started to see a wider representation in media, and even then it was quite slow and occasionally ham fisted.
Speaking for the United Kingdom, much of these assumptions were literally true - going by stats from Wikipedia, in 1981 the demographics was still 96.1% 'White British' by their definition, followed by 94.5% in 1991, 89.7% in 2001, 82.1% in 2011, which is the last year that a census took place. The popluation being anything other than lily-white in any meaningful numbers is a much more recent development than people seem to think.
I mean, if I'm playing a game of 40k and the other guy happens to be gay... like what the hell difference does that make?
Diversity has no inherent value. People have value. Who they are is significantly more important than what they are, and people are far more complex than just their race, sex or sexual orientation.
For those of you who might remember the old, old days of Dakka, mauleed used to have a saying: "Shut up about your fluff and roll your damned armour saves."
If you’re ‘Other’ to the general demographic, to see The Thing is inclusive and, as you say, really doesn’t care about you being Other, nobody is actively or passively putting you off.
Not all things appeal to all people. As I said in my first post, all you can do is make your thing as inviting as possible - you cannot actively recruit people that just aren’t interested. But you can look to ensure anyone who expresses an interest finds the same encouragement and welcome as your core demographic.
GW itself didn’t really feature non-white models for years and years.
A chunk of that seems to be Marketing Assumptions. That the expected demographic would be young white men and boys. Exclusionary thinking. But not actively exclusionary, just a bad assumption, the sort that “everyone knows that” but few had ever bothered to test. Note I am note casting aspersions about the motivations of companies or individuals, just The Amorphous Whole being a bit daft and self-fulfilling prophecies.
It wasn’t really until the late 90’s that we started to see a wider representation in media, and even then it was quite slow and occasionally ham fisted.
Speaking for the United Kingdom, much of these assumptions were literally true - going by stats from Wikipedia, in 1981 the demographics was still 96.1% 'White British' by their definition, followed by 94.5% in 1991, 89.7% in 2001, 82.1% in 2011, which is the last year that a census took place. The popluation being anything other than lily-white in any meaningful numbers is a much more recent development than people seem to think.
You can't blame those people though when you consider the media nowadays.
It wasn’t really until the late 90’s that we started to see a wider representation in media, and even then it was quite slow and occasionally ham fisted.
Speaking for the United Kingdom, much of these assumptions were literally true - going by stats from Wikipedia, in 1981 the demographics was still 96.1% 'White British' by their definition, followed by 94.5% in 1991, 89.7% in 2001, 82.1% in 2011, which is the last year that a census took place. The popluation being anything other than lily-white in any meaningful numbers is a much more recent development than people seem to think.
I think I saw somewhere they polled people in the US about how large a % of the population were black. Lots of people who thought it was about a 50/50 split between black and white and thus there not being 50% of politicians, celebrities, CEOs etc being black was evidence of Racism. In fact it is only about 13% of the US population that is black. They also polled on stuff like LBTG and other minority groups. They vastly overestimated the amount of the population that belonged to those groups by up to hundreds of % wrong.
Western media have for the last few decades actually over represented minority groups many times to the point people have a faulty view of the makeup of their own countries.
A thing to also remember is that looking only on % of a population and then seeing how well that group is represented in society and drawing conclusions on that is stupid most of the time. Perhaps it can work for black people in the US since they have been there for a long time. But for most of Europe non white people in large quantities is a very recent thing. Taking Sweden as an example people look at how now we have about 1/3 of the total population with foreign background but we don't have that distribution among higher classes in society like Politicians or CEOs etc and that must be because of racism. But if you go back 30 years that number is rather 1/10th of the population showing that we have a lot of people coming here over time. To get into higher positions take time and if you are migrating there it is much harder even if there are no racism. Adults migrating here is unlikely to be able to have the time to both integrate/assimilate and also get into those higher positions. That takes time and needing to understand the culture. So that entire generation shouldn't really be counted here. Then it is their kids we should look at who have grown up here and learned the language and culture, these are the ones who should be able to reach the top of society about as well as the native population if there isn't any bigotry in the way. But it takes 20-30 years for these to grow up and finish their educations and then maybe 10-20 more years to make careers to put them in those positions. That is the same time it takes for the native population to get there after all. So if we look at the amount of young kids/newly born with foreign backgrounds 30-40 years ago we see that it is a tiny amount of people and thus it is quite natural there still isn't that many that have succeeded now a few decades earlier. If we in 10 or 20 years do the same thing and see that the group hasn't increased however then it might show there are problems in the system. But you can't try to put population % and try to apply them everywhere without taking a lot of factors into consideration.
We have to do the same thing to a degree here in this hobby. Wargaming in the modern version is a relatively new thing and grew from mostly white people in white countries and it will take a long time for it to seep into other cultures/demographics. It is unlikely older people immigrating to the UK for example will ever try a wargame no matter how inclusive it is but their kids might since it is more a part of the local culture of the country and unlike the adults they haven't been fully "formed" yet and can take in new stuff.
I'm not sure the income argument is valid. We have plenty of games that can be played on the cheap (Kill Team etc) and still much more expensive board games have much higher percentages of female players. Also a lot of women earn more than man commonly partaking in the hobby (hell, I'm a teacher in Poland, surely not someone you'd call "well off" and I started the hobby as an unemployed student) and still they don't play.
I think I saw somewhere they polled people in the US about how large a % of the population were black. Lots of people who thought it was about a 50/50 split between black and white and thus there not being 50% of politicians, celebrities, CEOs etc being black was evidence of Racism. In fact it is only about 13% of the US population that is black. They also polled on stuff like LBTG and other minority groups. They vastly overestimated the amount of the population that belonged to those groups by up to hundreds of % wrong.
Western media have for the last few decades actually over represented minority groups many times to the point people have a faulty view of the makeup of their own countries.
I don't think it's a media representation issue as more of a prominent group being really bad at judging how big a minority is, especially when it with 'replacement' or 'invasion' rhetoric. That's where the whole "white men are a minority now" or "we're all going to be Muslim soon" rhetoric comes from.
Of course it also depends on where you are; I live in a subburb here that's almost entirely white, but I used to live in a subburb that was almost entirely Pakistani. If I wasn't relatively well travelled and aware, I could have been talked into believing the country was mostly brown.
I've seen studies about men/women in college settings, where men over-estimate the percentage of women in a group and especially their contributions. IIRC if women make up as much as 25% of the conversation, men will respond later that the women dominated the conversation.
I mean, if I'm playing a game of 40k and the other guy happens to be gay... like what the hell difference does that make?
Diversity has no inherent value. People have value. Who they are is significantly more important than what they are, and people are far more complex than just their race, sex or sexual orientation.
I largely agree with this, but I think there is a caveat that needs to be applied. I'd rather there were more awesome people involved in the hobby, and if there's some artificial barrier to being more inclusive I'd prefer it wasn't there. That barrier could be to do with marketing focus, or gatekeeping within local communities, or more of a societal issue that isn't directly solvable by the hobby's participants, but if it exists and can be remove as a barrier to entry we should be trying to do that. Identifying why (or even if) various minority groups are less likely to participate in the hobby is the tricky thing.
My points about marketing aren't about GW changing what they do in terms of the product, but more about what marketing and outreach strategies they can use within what they already create. So I'm not suggesting that they change what they make to market to different groups; but change how they reach out to those groups. With the understanding (as best as possible) as to why those groups might not be currently interested in wargaming or painting or hobbying.
I'd question how much marketing they do full stop. Aside from their high-street (or more commonly high-street adjacent) presence, do GW actually do anything to attract interest from new customers that aren't already involved in the hobby scene?
I'd say I can't remember the last time I saw them advertise on TV - but I can: it was the Hero Quest and Space Crusade ads that snared me, and many others of a similar age, back in the day.
Facebook groups and Twitter accounts and so on are all well and good - but they're preaching to the choir. You need to already be aware of Games Workshop to be following them.
I suppose the Hachette magazines are a start at least.
After the previous thread I actually did exactly that. I asked on my go-to boardgaming forum (with a fair representation of women) and there were some answers there - for those of you who can be bothered to use Google Translate from Polish to English here's the link: https://www.gry-planszowe.pl/viewtopic.php?p=1517544#p1517544
Female users there are for example ponika, esspresso, walkingdead. KamradziejTomal asked his wife.
A supporting question from this thread, that may counter the arguments about barriers of entry in games/communities being the issue - how many women, compared to men, are into reading books about military history? There's no income barrier, no gatekeeping so if these make the difference in wargames, there should be a close to equal number of female and male readers of books about historical battles and tank types.
My points about marketing aren't about GW changing what they do in terms of the product, but more about what marketing and outreach strategies they can use within what they already create. So I'm not suggesting that they change what they make to market to different groups; but change how they reach out to those groups. With the understanding (as best as possible) as to why those groups might not be currently interested in wargaming or painting or hobbying.
I'd question how much marketing they do full stop. Aside from their high-street (or more commonly high-street adjacent) presence, do GW actually do anything to attract interest from new customers that aren't already involved in the hobby scene?
I'd say I can't remember the last time I saw them advertise on TV - but I can: it was the Hero Quest and Space Crusade ads that snared me, and many others of a similar age, back in the day.
Facebook groups and Twitter accounts and so on are all well and good - but they're preaching to the choir. You need to already be aware of Games Workshop to be following them.
I suppose the Hachette magazines are a start at least.
Far as I can tell GW's marketing includes
1) Being part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme as a "skill". It's a school focused skills award in 3 stages and doing GW models at a club or such would count toward one of the skill requirements.
2) Outreach programs at schools to help setup clubs. Schools/teachers write to GW and get a pack and some support in setting up and running local clubs.
3) Video games. GW is fairly open with who they will licence with. If you can pay the fee you can get the GW licence. The view here is that any games that are good will rise to the top and market GW products to gamers; whilst any that are bad just fall to the side and are forgotten.
So you've games like Warhammer Total War and Dawn of War and Space Marine - big names that bring in a lot of attention.
4) Animation/TV. This is new and right now its mostly though Warhammer + which I see as a means for GW to help fund their own creations which can then be used to sound out other studios and producers who might then licence the GW licence to make shows of their own within the setting. We've already had confirmation that Amazon picked up the Inquisitor series to work on.
5) Vast numbers of youtube, twitch, twitter and other accounts all generating marketing and advertising from 3rd parties. This includes sending product to content creators earlier than the release date and soforth. Yes this is a big "preaching to the choir" but its important to maintain that too as some of that choir are going to be people invested into other games/model ranges and not GW. Plus it helps reinforce attention on those who are already customers.
6) Investing in opening up local stores.
Basically some of the above are broad appeal (eg video games) whilst others, like the school and award scheme, are more UK focused (though I'd imagine GW has some outreach in other nations for schools). A big focus is clearly that GW looks to market cheaply, they aren't spending insane amounts to appear on TV or billboards or vast amounts of marketing online through things like google. Indeed several of those outreach systems basically can't fail for GW because even if they fail to bring in a single customer, they've already generated income from the licence agreement.
Basically some of the above are broad appeal (eg video games) whilst others, like the school and award scheme, are more UK focused (though I'd imagine GW has some outreach in other nations for schools). A big focus is clearly that GW looks to market cheaply, they aren't spending insane amounts to appear on TV or billboards or vast amounts of marketing online through things like google. Indeed several of those outreach systems basically can't fail for GW because even if they fail to bring in a single customer, they've already generated income from the licence agreement.
I don't think linear TV advertising would cut it with anyone under 30 today anyway, it's more or less an avenue for advertising that is quickly going extinct already. I can't speak for countries other than Germany, but our TV commercials are about evenly split between products aimed at the elderly (like medical stuff or various end-of-life insurance/finance schemes), stuff you'd rather do than watch TV (like Podcasts and Streaming) and trailers for movies or games. At night it's like 100% pornography and ads for pornography.
I still don't see how this can be construed as a problem. You have absolute freedom in the hobby to paint your models how you like, create a diverse background, do whatever the hell you want with them. It seems like a lot more freedom to do as you wish than other hobbies and games.
I would agree that there's a substantial financial obstacle to getting into the hobby but that would be more of a class issue than a race/sex/sexuality issue surely? I've heard other people state similar claims elsewhere "we need more black/women/gay people in the hobby" but I haven't heard a reason as to why. If said people want to get involved, then great, as long as you're not an arsehole then I have no qualms. But this push for diversity? I just don't get it. So what if it's mostly white people?
I would agree that there's a substantial financial obstacle to getting into the hobby but that would be more of a class issue than a race/sex/sexuality issue surely? I've heard other people state similar claims elsewhere "we need more black/women/gay people in the hobby" but I haven't heard a reason as to why. If said people want to get involved, then great, as long as you're not an arsehole then I have no qualms. But this push for diversity? I just don't get it. So what if it's mostly white people?
In many cases i suspect it's 'Agree and Amplify' out of a fear of getting 'cancelled', coupled with a belief that you can easily profess as conviction online what will probably never be tested in real-life. What happens online, and the makeup of the respective communities, is oftentimes really really different from the makeup of actually existing groups in physical spaces.
But consider it’s a business, and the Quest for Cash is eternal.
A little introspection on why your demographic is heavily in one direction can (and seemingly has) highlight relatively cheap and easy fixes.
Putting people of colour in art and book covers. Having a wider variety of characters in your books. Ensuring your own stores have an Open Door Policy, and your own staff aren’t, especially subconsciously, treating folk differently.
It’s like trying to get a fuss off a Cat. Learn your kitty body language, and what might work, but accept at the end of the day, Cat is gonna Cat, and if it doesn’t want to know, there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. But there’s no harm in learning those things.
Encourage a welcoming culture, and anyone not your usual demographic (note not target demographic) at least isn’t going to be avoidably put off.
And for GW Stores? That’s….kind of nothing new. We’re all nerds and geeks. For many younger nerds and geeks, a gaming group might be their first brush with social acceptance. A safe space if you like where you can be just as nerdy and geeky as you wish. If you’re getting out of hand? It’s on the staff to manage that behaviour. In my days as a Till Monkey, I had to send smelly kids home (one seriously effing ronked. Of poo), I had to ban racist/sexist kids, whether or not they were just being sad little edgelords. But none before being given a chance to Buck Up and play nice.
Because on various “isms”, it’s not just the target of vileness that the vileness affects. Consider. Parent brings their wide eyed and enthusiastic kid in for the first time, and hear offensive language (of any stripe). That’s….not at all desirable.
Putting people of colour in art and book covers. Having a wider variety of characters in your books. Ensuring your own stores have an Open Door Policy, and your own staff aren’t, especially subconsciously, treating folk differently.
It’s like trying to get a fuss off a Cat. Learn your kitty body language, and what might work, but accept at the end of the day, Cat is gonna Cat, and if it doesn’t want to know, there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. But there’s no harm in learning those things.
Encourage a welcoming culture, and anyone not your usual demographic (note not target demographic) at least isn’t going to be avoidably put off.
That's exactly this: what you enumerated are all acts of actually being welcoming and providing an accommodating atmosphere. That's the hard(ish) part with actual (not that high) costs. It may not be exactly expensive, but it still takes more effort than cheap (free) corporate statements about how accommodating and welcoming you are. In my opinion, especially online communities tend to go in the direction of formulaic statements and high-vis lip service instead of actually fostering an open community, mostly because the high-vis stuff is more important to staving of shitstorms etc. than the softer, harder to prove actual 'spirit' of the community.
Valkyrie wrote: I would agree that there's a substantial financial obstacle to getting into the hobby but that would be more of a class issue than a race/sex/sexuality issue surely? I've heard other people state similar claims elsewhere "we need more black/women/gay people in the hobby" but I haven't heard a reason as to why. If said people want to get involved, then great, as long as you're not an arsehole then I have no qualms. But this push for diversity? I just don't get it. So what if it's mostly white people?
I think stated purely that way, sure, I mean, what does it matter what the demographics are? But that's not what the statement really means. In an increasingly diverse consumer market, selling only to middle class white dudes limits your ability to grow.
I think a lot of people handwave away that "well, women just aren't interested in 40k" despite every other hobby game making inroads with women. TTRPGs, Magic, board games, and miniature painting in general all have made at least some progress in marketing to women. Why not Warhammer?
I think that some people have the insight to realize that warhammer is a community game (you need people to play with) and those communities aren't always welcoming, even to other white guys. Myself and others in this thread have certainly seen behavior that would be alienating to women, people of color, and LGBT folks, and we know that unconscious bias is a thing. So, yeah, we could probably do a much better job of being inclusive.
I mean, if I'm playing a game of 40k and the other guy happens to be gay... like what the hell difference does that make?
Diversity has no inherent value. People have value. Who they are is significantly more important than what they are, and people are far more complex than just their race, sex or sexual orientation.
For those of you who might remember the old, old days of Dakka, mauleed used to have a saying: "Shut up about your fluff and roll your damned armour saves."
I think some of that can apply here.
I think you are looking at this from the wrong angle, people do have value, and they don't interact with these types of games because the community is incredibly hostile to them, a lot of groups are being purposefully excluded. So while, don't talk about politics and roll some dice sounds nice in theory, in reality a lot of people's existences are heavily politicized. We can't escape who we are because we aren't that default, that normal, we are the Other. So to us, statements like this come across like a dog whistle for "you shouldn't be here", so we're not.
After the previous thread I actually did exactly that. I asked on my go-to boardgaming forum (with a fair representation of women) and there were some answers there - for those of you who can be bothered to use Google Translate from Polish to English here's the link: https://www.gry-planszowe.pl/viewtopic.php?p=1517544#p1517544
Female users there are for example ponika, esspresso, walkingdead. KamradziejTomal asked his wife.
A supporting question from this thread, that may counter the arguments about barriers of entry in games/communities being the issue - how many women, compared to men, are into reading books about military history? There's no income barrier, no gatekeeping so if these make the difference in wargames, there should be a close to equal number of female and male readers of books about historical battles and tank types.
I think it's important to not just look at cost, but how things are marketed, who they are created for, and societal pressure. I know a ton of women in their 30s and 40s who love graphic descriptions of their characters cutting through monsters when they play DnD, who love first person shooter video games, who like the total warhammer series, who are avid real life gun owners and who are just in general into a lot of macabe and gorey things in board games and ttrpgs. It's not like this is a women are from venus sort of thing, military history is exclusively marketed to men, often written as a propaganda about the power of masculinity, and the general marketed demographic can have very radical leanings.
So while the women I know don't read about historical battles or tank types, they tend to know a lot about firearms, the role of women in historical warfare (especially individual women), love reading about medieval weapons and armor, etc. (like seriously, women being into swords and axes is a trope at this point. ) We just hide it 99% of the time because it's shamed in normal environments for them to be into it and they really don't want to be associated with the guy who's bookshelf is just a bunch of gothic fonts and iron crosses.
I guess this is a roundabout way of saying women are into it, but we often have to hide it, and we're not into historical wargaming because of the barriers, biases, and community.
Hell, I've played 40K, WHFB, T:WH, and some other video game adaptations I don't recall perfectly. I think the setting is great. I think the figurines are great. It's obviously not top-tier writing, but it's fun.
I mean you basically said it yourself.
It's Fun
People naturally want to share fun with others; to draw them in, especially when the fun relies upon others. The more people we draw into our hobby the better. More people means more customers, which means more money for the creators who make stuff we like; it means more people for us to chat and interact with; it means more games being played at more varied skill and style levels.
Growth is a good thing, even better if that growth comes from fresh people new to the whole hobby rather than simply leaching new Warhammer fans from the Privateer Press club.
JNAProductions wrote:If it’s just “Diverse folk in my area aren’t interested in 40k” then it’s not an issue.
If it’s “Diverse folk are interested, but there’s barriers stopping them from joining” then that’s an issue.
It's also an issue if "diverse folk in my area aren't being marketed too/reached out too".
Again we come to the barrier and the carrot situation. It's not enough to just have no barriers to entry, you also have to have a reason to draw people in. You also have to understand why people are not being drawn in - perhaps the marketing is wrong; perhaps you're just not reaching out ot them the right way; perhaps cultural or social elements mean that your marketing has to change and adapt or perhaps you've got to wait for social elements to make more major changes (if they will) etc....
Understanding the reasons for things can be important and can help toward then changing a situation for the better.
aphyon wrote:Anecdotal evidence is just that. The FLGS i have been attending for close to 20 years now has had more players come through the area than i can count thanks to 2 nearby military bases. currently the group of hardcore regulars include people who are old, young, male, female, asian, black, native tribes, jewish, gay, religious, atheists, pagans etc...
Very true and already we've had a few mention that the local scene where they are is different.
However you also can't deny that at major events (eg regional and national) we also see a similar patterning of stereotypes present. So we can conclude that there's a likely chance that your situation is perhaps a touch more in the minority than the general scene.
This is neither bad nor good it simply is and understanding why it is can be a big step in improving diversity in other areas.
In the end improving diversity is all about taking down barriers and making something more welcoming at the same time to a broader spectrum of people.
It's also about understanding subtle barriers that you can't really "take down" such as those I identified in my earlier post. You don't "take down" the fact that the club is all 50 year olds; but perhaps you run some organised events with youth groups every so often where you've a few old-guard to run demo games and such; whilst having a lot of younger people all gathered and encouraged to come on the same day. With a view that you'll encourage a group to join up and become regulars all at once (or at least around the same time)
Just wanted to say I appreciate you. Your responses are very well thought out and you make great points.
ForgedSteel wrote: I love 40k, I love the feeling that comes with pouring hours and hours into an army an be able to see a finished result. Thats why I am concerned about this.
The lack of Diversity in this Hobby.
Whenever I go to play a game with others -at a local hobby store etc.- it seems like the only demographic I see are white men in there 30s-50s. There is nothing wrong with this; however, I am wondering why there is a lack of diversity in the hobby. It seems like there are very little people of Color, or the LGBTQ+ community. Much less women.
It sucks because this hobby feels like it should be applicable to all people regardless of race, religion, etc. I wonder why there is such a lack of diversity and what can we do as the community to encourage more people -of all walks of life- to join?
I won't argue that the demographic is primarily white men, especially age 30-50. However, the past fifteen to twenty years I've seen other demographics enter the hobby. They're still quite a small segment of the hobby, but they are present and growing. And on my part, the more, the merrier.
As far as LGBTQ+ goes, I've never asked because frankly I don't care. I'm there to play WFB, not have an intimate discussion about sexual preference and/or identity. If they present ambiguously I'll ask their pronouns, otherwise I'll assume what they present as is how they want to be identified. There is a time and a place to discuss such VASTLY private and personal issues, and over a pickup game of Warhammer in a game store is generally neither the time nor the place. I really don't care if any, all, or none of the people I meet across the table are LGBTQ. I'm not planning on having.... ahem, 'intimate relations' with them, I'm playing Warhammer with them. Their intimate details are frankly none of my business.
TLDR; I'll play anyone who shows up to play, and I don't care who they are so long as they're not jerks.
Hell, I've played 40K, WHFB, T:WH, and some other video game adaptations I don't recall perfectly. I think the setting is great. I think the figurines are great. It's obviously not top-tier writing, but it's fun.
I wouldn't encourage anyone to play the tabletop versions ever. The cost sink is fething obscene. The tabletop games are honestly grifts.
I'll grant you it's not a cheap hobby to get into, but try comparing it to quality sports gear sometime. My army is not ever going to wear out no matter how often I play; pads and uniforms and balls most definitely will if used regularly.
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JNAProductions wrote: If it’s just “Diverse folk in my area aren’t interested in 40k” then it’s not an issue.
If it’s “Diverse folk are interested, but there’s barriers stopping them from joining” then that’s an issue.
The biggie is economics. We can hate it all we want, but fact is white men earn more money on average. It's unfair, but the complex economic, societal, and political issues that have caused that particular problem go well beyond the scope of this forum. All we can do is welcome the people who DO want to start the hobby, and start slow-grow escalation leagues so people can play while they build up their forces.
You are like the perfect person who I would want to play a game with. I just want someone to chill with and forget about all the real world issues in my life while playing with some plastic soliders.
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insaniak wrote: I have removed a bunch of inappropriate content from the thread. This is not the place for pushing conspiracy theories about how being inclusive is going to destroy 'western society'.
I would agree that there's a substantial financial obstacle to getting into the hobby but that would be more of a class issue than a race/sex/sexuality issue surely? I've heard other people state similar claims elsewhere "we need more black/women/gay people in the hobby" but I haven't heard a reason as to why. If said people want to get involved, then great, as long as you're not an arsehole then I have no qualms. But this push for diversity? I just don't get it. So what if it's mostly white people?
In many cases i suspect it's 'Agree and Amplify' out of a fear of getting 'cancelled', coupled with a belief that you can easily profess as conviction online what will probably never be tested in real-life. What happens online, and the makeup of the respective communities, is oftentimes really really different from the makeup of actually existing groups in physical spaces.
I personally just like the idea of all different walks of life engaging in a uniting hobby. I also just like to see people who live differently then me and hear how there lives affect the hobby
Valkyrie wrote: I would agree that there's a substantial financial obstacle to getting into the hobby but that would be more of a class issue than a race/sex/sexuality issue surely? I've heard other people state similar claims elsewhere "we need more black/women/gay people in the hobby" but I haven't heard a reason as to why. If said people want to get involved, then great, as long as you're not an arsehole then I have no qualms. But this push for diversity? I just don't get it. So what if it's mostly white people?
I think stated purely that way, sure, I mean, what does it matter what the demographics are? But that's not what the statement really means. In an increasingly diverse consumer market, selling only to middle class white dudes limits your ability to grow.
I think a lot of people handwave away that "well, women just aren't interested in 40k" despite every other hobby game making inroads with women. TTRPGs, Magic, board games, and miniature painting in general all have made at least some progress in marketing to women. Why not Warhammer?
I think that some people have the insight to realize that warhammer is a community game (you need people to play with) and those communities aren't always welcoming, even to other white guys. Myself and others in this thread have certainly seen behavior that would be alienating to women, people of color, and LGBT folks, and we know that unconscious bias is a thing. So, yeah, we could probably do a much better job of being inclusive.
I totally agree with this, even as a white male I feel uncomfortable in certain groups. Im pretty feminine and amplified so alot of groups who are hardcore masculine tend to scoff at my love for painting and the arts of the hobby.
Girls don't want to play wargames in stores against strangers.
90% of my female friends were just completely not interested in my pitch to spend a few hundred dollars to paint and command an army.
I had a tight circle of six families that played WFB.
Two families the girls had zero interest.
One family the sister got an army but only played it when her family hosted at her own house. She was the first in the larger group to give it up.
One family had a girl who painted but did not participate in any other way.
Two families had no girls.
Girls don't want to play wargames in stores against strangers.
So yeah.
I can agree with this, Hell even I dont want to play in a store, it smells bad and some people there are creepy. Plus its a drive, I cant imagine how women would feel with some lonely old men perving on them
My wife loves painting miniatures and playing games like Space Hulk (as the Genestealers) and Shadows of Brimstone. She will not go into the FLGS at all, not due to smell or lack of interest but because too many guys were creeping on her. So she only games and hobbies at home.
I tend to prefer going to the FLGS when there is a larger, diverse crowd so I don’t hear so many slurs and Qonspiracy theories while browsing. I also prefer to hobby and game at home.
The people we take with also tend to hobby and game at home, for various reasons. Perhaps we would spend more money in the hobby if we felt more comfortable at game stores?
I did not read the thread, as I knew it would make my blood boil.....
The bottom line to me is, if you want more diversity in your game group; you need to not just be open, or outright welcoming to these groups. You need to go out and target these folks for recruitment.
The $65K question is, how are you recruiting and is it effective? I can not answer how effective it is because I am not your target market. There is marketing resources for the target market, you just need to tap into it and find out from them what would be effective.
I have always wanted to do Napoleonics, but I have not for one major reason. On the outside looking in, it all seems very impenetrable and daunting. Lots of details, lots of history, and lots of things I do not know about and would need to learn; and lots of people who are more interested in telling me what I am doing wrong than what I am doing right online.
Wargaming looks insular and conservative when you are looking at it from the outside. You need some one to guide you in and hold your hand.
Easy E wrote: I did not read the thread, as I knew it would make my blood boil.....
The bottom line to me is, if you want more diversity in your game group; you need to not just be open, or outright welcoming to these groups. You need to go out and target these folks for recruitment.
The $65K question is, how are you recruiting and is it effective? I can not answer how effective it is because I am not your target market. There is marketing resources for the target market, you just need to tap into it and find out from them what would be effective.
I have always wanted to do Napoleonics, but I have not for one major reason. On the outside looking in, it all seems very impenetrable and daunting. Lots of details, lots of history, and lots of things I do not know about and would need to learn; and lots of people who are more interested in telling me what I am doing wrong than what I am doing right online.
Wargaming looks insular and conservative when you are looking at it from the outside. You need some one to guide you in and hold your hand.
I agree with this 100% I feel it is our job to bring or atleast encourage minorities to join the hobby and to provide a safe space for them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Everyone thank you so much for all your different insights!
I have a general dislike of people as in I just want noting to do with extra people any more. I don't look for pickup games and play exclusively with my friends group. I don't even go to tournaments anymore.
My friends group checks several different demographics blocks but what is important about that is that we enjoy playing games with each other and are fairly likeminded. we can agree or disagree and compromise and that's fine, we're all different people.
So while the hobby should be and very largely is open to everyone I don't feel diversity is as important as making a good connection with other people while enjoying the same hobby.
The only demographics I was ever looking at are, did that person bath, were they cool, were the power gamer, did they paint their models.
Outside of that the "other" demographics could be regional. Taking note of the other anecdotal posts, mine would be similar to a few already posted in this thread. I lived near military bases or collage locations so the gamer crowd was all kinds of people. I liked some of them and dislikes others. This was based on my interactions with them and their personalities and behavior.
I think, again, that your own connections inform who you want to play with more than other factors.
Be you, do your thing and who knows.
Now days I just have no time or interest in meeting new people with out them having a connection to someone I already know. And usually a team game is the best format for that for me.
Most of the younger gamers I have met are just not my kind of people or in their own clicks, usually very competitive or just some weird mutation of cool kid. I just don't dig it.
Some others have ben a bit older and had more in common, anime, comics, movie, different games that no longer exists what have you. I just don't see why people care about the more superficial aspect of other people. and lastly I should add that I don't go to a game shop to talk about to fixate on other people demographics and sex lives. I'm usually only stopping in to buy a model, se if a friend happens to be in or buy some paint now days. There's nothing wrong with not playing in a shop if you can be more comfortable at home or in someone's basement or where ever. Game shops need you more than you need them these days.
Have people forgotten the golden rule? Sometimes it seems like that's the case.
Have people forgotten the golden rule? Sometimes it seems like that's the case.
As someone once put it: "Everybody wants to have a community, but nobody wants to do the community-building"
An actual community is not something you can buy or get ready-made of the rack: a community is made chiefly by doing community activities, in our case modelling, painting and playing. The way people engage with (chiefly) online communities has distorted their perception: since 'Community' in the current marketing sense is fundamentally a consumer relationship oriented towards one or several 'content creators', they imagine themselves as 'people that are part of the e.g. Warhammer community', but not necessary as 'people that do Warhammer things'. As a result of this they wait for 'content' to come as the result of the actions of some outside entity, and that is not going to happen anytime soon. Imho that leads, at least in some cases, to a feeling of 'not being welcomed' because nobody is enabling their passive consumption of commercialized and commodified 'ersatz-community' like their favourite creators do. People have to realize that communities are what you make of them, and the sooner you get to making your own thing the better.
Have people forgotten the golden rule? Sometimes it seems like that's the case.
As someone once put it: "Everybody wants to have a community, but nobody wants to do the community-building"
An actual community is not something you can buy or get ready-made of the rack: a community is made chiefly by doing community activities, in our case modelling, painting and playing. The way people engage with (chiefly) online communities has distorted their perception: since 'Community' in the current marketing sense is fundamentally a consumer relationship oriented towards one or several 'content creators', they imagine themselves as 'people that are part of the e.g. Warhammer community', but not necessary as 'people that do Warhammer things'. As a result of this they wait for 'content' to come as the result of the actions of some outside entity, and that is not going to happen anytime soon. Imho that leads, at least in some cases, to a feeling of 'not being welcomed' because nobody is enabling their passive consumption of commercialized and commodified 'ersatz-community' like their favourite creators do. People have to realize that communities are what you make of them, and the sooner you get to making your own thing the better.
I think its more that many people do not have the time/energy/skills/drive to create and be the cornerstone of a community. To bind it together and make it work.
Such a thing often requires a certain personality, skill set and often money to get things going (even if you're not buying terrain and such you might well need to rent a room/place for the games). IT also requires long term dedication and the ability to draw others in.
Some people have the skills required to keep a group running, but not grow it. Or they tried and they burn out because they don't meet success to a level and at a rate they are content with. Or they burn out because life gets complicated for them. Many a group has fallen apart because the cornerstone organisers had kids/got a new job/ a new partner and such.
Heck sometimes they also need outside motivation. Look how fast a lot of the Privateer Press Gangers steadily gave up when the PG program was shut down. That bit of motivation, support, organising, networking and such helped keep itself running and helped individuals working alone at the local level; connect with others at regional and national levels for support and ideas.
Once you leave the education system, organising and running clubs/groups gets complicated. Education systems are easy as they ensure a diverse group of people operating to almost the same daily schedule at the same place and offer provision of cheap/free rooms and space to hold events in
Diversity is not important and should not be strived for. Quality and enjoyment should be the priority. If diversity happens naturally then so be it, if it doesnt then so be it.
More to come, ive to be in work at 8.
The idea of mandated diversity being pushed in so many hobbies seems both pointless and often a goal that is never fully fleshed out, since it's just something people say and want to aim for since it's in vogue and popular to say that you want it, but often these people never actually delve into what they actually mean by diversity.
Where do you draw the line of what is considered "diverse" enough for a community or group? Does it have to reach a certain percentage for you to be satisfied? Well great, now you're heading towards arbitrary diversity quotas and tokenism. Does reaching that percentage in of itself make the hobby more fun or engaging? I guarantee that 9 times out of 10, it doesn't, and usually when people talk about a gaming community they're very proud to be of, it usually has more to do with the personalities of the individuals that put the effort and time to foster connections between people rather than some vague notion of "Wow, because my gaming group has X amount of Asians, Blacks, Indians and LBGT people, I now feel like I belong." You could easily have a super diverse group and still have it be incredibly toxic for newcomers and hard for people to either join or engage with, so the idea that just changing around the skin colours and sexuality/disability somehow magically solves this problem doesn't address the core part of different personalities and people.
Another big part is that you fundamentally can't force specific people to join the hobby, you can try to make it as open and accessible as reasonably possible, but if certain demographics just aren't into it, you can't do much about it. Just like trying to force more young boys into playing with exclusively Barbies or Baby toys versus playing CoD, Power Rangers, or Roblox, you're fighting a losing battle and you should just let people have fun with what they want rather than obsessing over how "diverse" a game's consumer base is.
Plus, as other people have said, the makeup of the gaming community you're in is largely based on your regional area, I'm in the GTA in Canada, so it's a pretty metropolitan place and we get a pretty wide range of people in my gaming store, so anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much and I don't get how people get surprised when a predominantly white country has mainly white guys playing it? Would you complain that the Games Workshop store in Japan is primarily Japanese and White people in it?
It also feels like a really weird question because I wouldn't go into the game store to explicitly look for other Chinese people to play with, or any other specific minority, I'm there to play warhammer and have fun, anything else is basically window dressing. Even at home when I game with my buds I'm the only Chinese guy and I don't care, because it's not like I live my life being constantly insecure about not having a unimportant facet of my identity being validated by strangers.
I also find it interesting that this diversity push is almost always biased towards Western based games. One example would be communities playing mahjong, it originates from China and it largely played by people in the East, and definitely dominated by the East Asian diaspora in the West. Would you approach one of these communities and say, this hobby isn't diverse enough! We need more black, indigenous and white people in here? I really doubt it and just like you wouldn't do it for them, I wouldn't do it for Warhammer or frankly the vast majority of hobbies.
I am rather busy nowadays. I used to frequent these forums all the time, and now, I visit about once a month just to catch up on whats happening in 40K (if I even remember to).
Similarly, on the hobby side of things, now that I have a family, and many of my friends have also grown families; my hours invested into 40K have now migrated over to hours invested in board games, card games, and ttrpgs.
I still deeply love 40K, even if I'm not able to sit for 4 or 5 hours a day painting, testing different strategies and tactics, and points crunching my army lists.
That being said, my experience is that the wider tabletop gaming community is VERY MUCH more friendly, kind, and understanding towards everyone than the Games Workshop communities are. There ARE individuals; many individuals in the 40K hobby, who are just as kind and understanding as the rest of the tabletop gaming community. But the ones who are not so nice DO leave a strong impression.
I really do wish 40K could grow. Its still got such incredible potential as a franchise, and i'd love to see new idea's new stories, and new games come out of it.
master of ordinance wrote: Diversity is not important and should not be strived for. Quality and enjoyment should be the priority. If diversity happens naturally then so be it, if it doesnt then so be it.
More to come, ive to be in work at 8.
Agreed.
If you walk into a place and say "I don't see anybody that looks like me/X demographic here. I don't like that!" then you are the one with the problem, not the people who are there.
If you are going to participate in a hobby, participate in the hobby. Don't complain or try to force external issues into it that aren't related to the hobby itself. Certainly don't do what WOTC is doing with DnD right now.
master of ordinance wrote: Diversity is not important and should not be strived for. Quality and enjoyment should be the priority. If diversity happens naturally then so be it, if it doesnt then so be it.
More to come, ive to be in work at 8.
Agreed.
If you walk into a place and say "I don't see anybody that looks like me/X demographic here. I don't like that!" then you are the one with the problem, not the people who are there.
If you are going to participate in a hobby, participate in the hobby. Don't complain or try to force external issues into it that aren't related to the hobby itself. Certainly don't do what WOTC is doing with DnD right now.
Is anyone doing that though? Are you thinking about this from other angles?
For instance, music wise I’m a lover of everything rock from 70’s Glam to 90’s Indie. I have no taste or appreciation for hip hop, disposable pop music or dance music (very specifically barring the KLF). If I’m on a night out, and visit a bar or club that’s playing music not my bag? I’m not likely to stick around.
If you walk into any place, and feel uncomfortable, you’re not going to stick around. Because a person is far more than just their cultural background or orientation etc. They’re also the sun of their life experiences, which are not necessarily all going to be positive life experiences. For some, perhaps walking into a shop where all the customers are young white or middle aged white men, a bit of a red flag. A sign that perhaps they’re not going to find that a welcoming environment.
Hence the standard need only be “ensure your venue and product is as inviting as possible”. That’s it. That’s how you encourage, step by step, a wider demographic being involved in the hobby. Contrary to certain folk’s bizarre claims (not in this thread to be clear) that doesn’t mean “we am be the replaced”. Just casting your net as wide as possible.
master of ordinance wrote: Diversity is not important and should not be strived for. Quality and enjoyment should be the priority. If diversity happens naturally then so be it, if it doesnt then so be it.
More to come, ive to be in work at 8.
Agreed.
If you walk into a place and say "I don't see anybody that looks like me/X demographic here. I don't like that!" then you are the one with the problem, not the people who are there.
If you are going to participate in a hobby, participate in the hobby. Don't complain or try to force external issues into it that aren't related to the hobby itself. Certainly don't do what WOTC is doing with DnD right now.
Is anyone doing that though? Are you thinking about this from other angles?
For instance, music wise I’m a lover of everything rock from 70’s Glam to 90’s Indie. I have no taste or appreciation for hip hop, disposable pop music or dance music (very specifically barring the KLF). If I’m on a night out, and visit a bar or club that’s playing music not my bag? I’m not likely to stick around..
That's more like saying 'If I go into a Warhammer store and have no interest in Warhammer, I'm not likely to stick around '.
If you were to go into a bar and say 'Everyone in here is black. I'm out', that's a you problem.
As I’ve maintained all along, you can’t force or trick people into this Hobby. I mean, you could probably try, but it’s just not gonna work.
So if someone visits your store, checks out what’s on offer and declines? There’s nothing you can do about that decision.
But what you [i]can[i] control is whether your store is an inviting, pleasant environment in the first place. So no existing customer using foul or offensive language. The shop is clean and tidy. Staff are friendly and welcoming
This…isn’t a difficult concept. Nobody is saying “make extra special super effort for Other”. Just….remove as many barriers as you reasonably can, so nobody is being put off by the environment.
master of ordinance wrote: Diversity is not important and should not be strived for. Quality and enjoyment should be the priority. If diversity happens naturally then so be it, if it doesnt then so be it.
More to come, ive to be in work at 8.
Agreed.
If you walk into a place and say "I don't see anybody that looks like me/X demographic here. I don't like that!" then you are the one with the problem, not the people who are there.
If you are going to participate in a hobby, participate in the hobby. Don't complain or try to force external issues into it that aren't related to the hobby itself. Certainly don't do what WOTC is doing with DnD right now.
My view is that its not about changing the product, its about understanding why you attract the market you do and why you don't attract markets that you don't. Then taking that understanding and seeing what can be done to broaden the range of people who are attracted to walk in the door and join the hobby.
This is a net gain for pretty much everyone in the hobby - more people means more customers and thus more income for companies. More customers and income means a bigger market and that means more room for more brands, more companies and more product diversity. It means more people of a wider range of skill levels to play with and a wider range of potential play styles as well.
Diversity is simply looking at the issue from the view of different groups of people and improving the diversity of that group.
And yes there will be variation in that, regional, national, international and more. Even at the local level you might get one shop that's all kind kind and another that's very different.
Go back 20-30 years and women in wargaming was exceptionally rare. Fast forward to today and we've way more to the point where its basically considered quite normal in a general sense. Yes many clubs can still be male dominated, but we are seeing that change and we are seeing more women in hobby areas. Perhaps painting or converting or playing or whatever. The point is the diversity in terms of gender disparity is changing and the overall result is a net gain for all.
That's all it means by increasing diversity. You can draw lines along whatever dividing points you like, the point is about understanding different groupings of people and working out why some groups join up and others are not.
Are there firm barriers that stop them and which of those barriers can be taken down.
A barrier might be economies, one social group might simply have less disposable income on average in a certain country/region and thus it might be a barrier that simply is and can't be easily removed. Though it might prompt the idea of developing or supporting cheaper games to get into. Warcry, Underworlds, Killteam.
Another might be gender. Perhaps having more women in the marketing; painters, gamers on youtube videos; writers in White Dwarf even staff in the shops. Perhaps that will steadily encourage other women to join into the hobby and have confidence to join the local groups.
Another might be increasing the importance of painting. Having more competing events; more tutorials; more display events; perhaps having a larger and more overt display of painted models in every store. These might all draw in more custom and attention from those who have no interest in the game, but who can be encouraged to socialise, buy and display what they've painted.
etc.....
It's not about changing the product as groups like Marvel and such have tried; its about trying to broaden how the hobby is presented, advertised and also how different ways to welcome and include people can be added to what's on offer.
As fans of the hobby we too can look at ourselves; how we act, respond to people of different backgrounds; behave in our groups and such to make them more widely welcoming.
Growing the interest has a net gain
And sure not everyone wants more friends or more gamers; sometimes you just want 6 friends who play games and such. That is perfectly fine and good too. However just because you've a friend group that's settled and working, doesn't mean others can't talk about increasing group sizes, broadening the playerbase and expanding in other groups and in the hobby at large.
master of ordinance wrote: Diversity is not important and should not be strived for. Quality and enjoyment should be the priority. If diversity happens naturally then so be it, if it doesnt then so be it.
More to come, ive to be in work at 8.
Agreed.
If you walk into a place and say "I don't see anybody that looks like me/X demographic here. I don't like that!" then you are the one with the problem, not the people who are there.
If you are going to participate in a hobby, participate in the hobby. Don't complain or try to force external issues into it that aren't related to the hobby itself. Certainly don't do what WOTC is doing with DnD right now.
If you walk into any place, and feel uncomfortable, you’re not going to stick around.
Oh I will/have and I will make my own fun within it if need be.
Grimskul wrote:The idea of mandated diversity being pushed in so many hobbies seems both pointless and often a goal that is never fully fleshed out, since it's just something people say and want to aim for since it's in vogue and popular to say that you want it, but often these people never actually delve into what they actually mean by diversity.
I'm not sure who or what is "mandating" diversity, but it's a nebulous goal. I don't think it's vague, because by simple definition it means not homogenous. Diversity means something different in different contexts, but in GW hobbies I think it pretty clearly means broadening beyond white guys.
Where do you draw the line of what is considered "diverse" enough for a community or group? Does it have to reach a certain percentage for you to be satisfied? Well great, now you're heading towards arbitrary diversity quotas and tokenism. Does reaching that percentage in of itself make the hobby more fun or engaging? I guarantee that 9 times out of 10, it doesn't, and usually when people talk about a gaming community they're very proud to be of, it usually has more to do with the personalities of the individuals that put the effort and time to foster connections between people rather than some vague notion of "Wow, because my gaming group has X amount of Asians, Blacks, Indians and LBGT people, I now feel like I belong." You could easily have a super diverse group and still have it be incredibly toxic for newcomers and hard for people to either join or engage with, so the idea that just changing around the skin colours and sexuality/disability somehow magically solves this problem doesn't address the core part of different personalities and people.
Congratulations on beating the stuffing out of that strawman. Just top notch work. You're conflating quotas, which are used when slots (such as hiring, college admissions, etc) are limited with community growth, which has no limits. We want the community to grow, and one way to do so is to reach out to people not represented in the community. How is that idea in any way offensive?
Another big part is that you fundamentally can't force specific people to join the hobby, you can try to make it as open and accessible as reasonably possible, but if certain demographics just aren't into it, you can't do much about it. Just like trying to force more young boys into playing with exclusively Barbies or Baby toys versus playing CoD, Power Rangers, or Roblox, you're fighting a losing battle and you should just let people have fun with what they want rather than obsessing over how "diverse" a game's consumer base is.
Do you even remotely think that the 40k community is making it as open and accessible as possible for women and people of color? I don't think that's the case. You seem very concerned about something happening that nobody is remotely considering.
Plus, as other people have said, the makeup of the gaming community you're in is largely based on your regional area, I'm in the GTA in Canada, so it's a pretty metropolitan place and we get a pretty wide range of people in my gaming store, so anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much and I don't get how people get surprised when a predominantly white country has mainly white guys playing it? Would you complain that the Games Workshop store in Japan is primarily Japanese and White people in it?
I'm not sure I've ever seen a GW community come close to reflecting the metro area it was in, if only because very few cities are 99% dudes. The number of times you can visit a shop where large numbers of people of color are playing CCGs, but none are playing warhammer, is pretty high.
It also feels like a really weird question because I wouldn't go into the game store to explicitly look for other Chinese people to play with, or any other specific minority, I'm there to play warhammer and have fun, anything else is basically window dressing. Even at home when I game with my buds I'm the only Chinese guy and I don't care, because it's not like I live my life being constantly insecure about not having a unimportant facet of my identity being validated by strangers.
I think the fact that different people have different comfort levels being a racial minority isn't controversial. It's great that you feel comfortable. I know a lot of white people that wouldn't be comfortable being the only person in a store, so I can imagine that some people just dont' have the energy for it for a hobby.
also find it interesting that this diversity push is almost always biased towards Western based games. One example would be communities playing mahjong, it originates from China and it largely played by people in the East, and definitely dominated by the East Asian diaspora in the West. Would you approach one of these communities and say, this hobby isn't diverse enough! We need more black, indigenous and white people in here? I really doubt it and just like you wouldn't do it for them, I wouldn't do it for Warhammer or frankly the vast majority of hobbies.
I, um, don't really know how to respond to that. I'm part of the 40k community, so when I say diversity is something I think could be improved, that reflects my values and preferences, as a member of the community. I wouldn't tell Mahjong what to do because I don't really care about Mahjong. I care about Warhammer. I'm not some random Tumblr liberal scolding wahrhammer from outside. I'm a person that likes the hobby, and thinks we could do more to expand it beyond a narrow demographic.
Grey Templar wrote:If you walk into a place and say "I don't see anybody that looks like me/X demographic here. I don't like that!" then you are the one with the problem, not the people who are there.
I would start by saying that part of the problem is the emotional labor required of minorities, and how it's perfectly reasonable that a person who spends their work or school life as a minority might not want that in their free time.
If you are going to participate in a hobby, participate in the hobby. Don't complain or try to force external issues into it that aren't related to the hobby itself. Certainly don't do what WOTC is doing with DnD right now.
I dont' know what WOTC is doing, but I've never been a fan of "don't' try to force external issues" which is virtually always code for "don't ask me to make even the most modest changes."
Grimskul wrote:The idea of mandated diversity being pushed in so many hobbies seems both pointless and often a goal that is never fully fleshed out, since it's just something people say and want to aim for since it's in vogue and popular to say that you want it, but often these people never actually delve into what they actually mean by diversity.
I'm not sure who or what is "mandating" diversity, but it's a nebulous goal. I don't think it's vague, because by simple definition it means not homogenous. Diversity means something different in different contexts, but in GW hobbies I think it pretty clearly means broadening beyond white guys.
Where do you draw the line of what is considered "diverse" enough for a community or group? Does it have to reach a certain percentage for you to be satisfied? Well great, now you're heading towards arbitrary diversity quotas and tokenism. Does reaching that percentage in of itself make the hobby more fun or engaging? I guarantee that 9 times out of 10, it doesn't, and usually when people talk about a gaming community they're very proud to be of, it usually has more to do with the personalities of the individuals that put the effort and time to foster connections between people rather than some vague notion of "Wow, because my gaming group has X amount of Asians, Blacks, Indians and LBGT people, I now feel like I belong." You could easily have a super diverse group and still have it be incredibly toxic for newcomers and hard for people to either join or engage with, so the idea that just changing around the skin colours and sexuality/disability somehow magically solves this problem doesn't address the core part of different personalities and people.
Congratulations on beating the stuffing out of that strawman. Just top notch work. You're conflating quotas, which are used when slots (such as hiring, college admissions, etc) are limited with community growth, which has no limits. We want the community to grow, and one way to do so is to reach out to people not represented in the community. How is that idea in any way offensive?
Another big part is that you fundamentally can't force specific people to join the hobby, you can try to make it as open and accessible as reasonably possible, but if certain demographics just aren't into it, you can't do much about it. Just like trying to force more young boys into playing with exclusively Barbies or Baby toys versus playing CoD, Power Rangers, or Roblox, you're fighting a losing battle and you should just let people have fun with what they want rather than obsessing over how "diverse" a game's consumer base is.
Do you even remotely think that the 40k community is making it as open and accessible as possible for women and people of color? I don't think that's the case. You seem very concerned about something happening that nobody is remotely considering.
Plus, as other people have said, the makeup of the gaming community you're in is largely based on your regional area, I'm in the GTA in Canada, so it's a pretty metropolitan place and we get a pretty wide range of people in my gaming store, so anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much and I don't get how people get surprised when a predominantly white country has mainly white guys playing it? Would you complain that the Games Workshop store in Japan is primarily Japanese and White people in it?
I'm not sure I've ever seen a GW community come close to reflecting the metro area it was in, if only because very few cities are 99% dudes. The number of times you can visit a shop where large numbers of people of color are playing CCGs, but none are playing warhammer, is pretty high.
It also feels like a really weird question because I wouldn't go into the game store to explicitly look for other Chinese people to play with, or any other specific minority, I'm there to play warhammer and have fun, anything else is basically window dressing. Even at home when I game with my buds I'm the only Chinese guy and I don't care, because it's not like I live my life being constantly insecure about not having a unimportant facet of my identity being validated by strangers.
I think the fact that different people have different comfort levels being a racial minority isn't controversial. It's great that you feel comfortable. I know a lot of white people that wouldn't be comfortable being the only person in a store, so I can imagine that some people just dont' have the energy for it for a hobby.
also find it interesting that this diversity push is almost always biased towards Western based games. One example would be communities playing mahjong, it originates from China and it largely played by people in the East, and definitely dominated by the East Asian diaspora in the West. Would you approach one of these communities and say, this hobby isn't diverse enough! We need more black, indigenous and white people in here? I really doubt it and just like you wouldn't do it for them, I wouldn't do it for Warhammer or frankly the vast majority of hobbies.
I, um, don't really know how to respond to that. I'm part of the 40k community, so when I say diversity is something I think could be improved, that reflects my values and preferences, as a member of the community. I wouldn't tell Mahjong what to do because I don't really care about Mahjong. I care about Warhammer. I'm not some random Tumblr liberal scolding wahrhammer from outside. I'm a person that likes the hobby, and thinks we could do more to expand it beyond a narrow demographic.
Grey Templar wrote:If you walk into a place and say "I don't see anybody that looks like me/X demographic here. I don't like that!" then you are the one with the problem, not the people who are there.
I would start by saying that part of the problem is the emotional labor required of minorities, and how it's perfectly reasonable that a person who spends their work or school life as a minority might not want that in their free time.
If you are going to participate in a hobby, participate in the hobby. Don't complain or try to force external issues into it that aren't related to the hobby itself. Certainly don't do what WOTC is doing with DnD right now.
I dont' know what WOTC is doing, but I've never been a fan of "don't' try to force external issues" which is virtually always code for "don't ask me to make even the most modest changes."
HOLY. My man wrote the most eloquent and convincing argument I have seen in a while. I really do enjoy seeing all these different perspectives.
This thread is really interesting and made me think about a lot of my own biases. Thank especially to Makeitorky for giving your insight.
I entered the Hobby with GW with third edition of Warhammer Battle at the time, and when I see the evolution of their miniature's design and painting, way to write the rules and advertise their games, I can't deny they are indeed targeted at a very specific demographic - let's be honest, white young / middle men. There is an evolution for sure : in recent years, there are more inclusive characters than before in their stories or miniatures, they vary more skin color in their painting schemes and they present more mixed people in their units and such.
I think it is also linked to the own background of the makers / writers at that time : they were white men, after all. Their own biases do play a part in how they marketed at that time. They tend to include a bit more diversity in their ranks in recent years, but it's difficult to deny most are still white men.
The most important is to recognize where there is a problem, that's how you can remedy it. I think that saying something like "it doesn't matter / there is no problem for me" is part of the problem itself : you can't aknowledge or hear someone's else own experience if you close the door first on it. And these people would have no reason to open it afterwards if you react that way, that's already a sign they're not welcome indeed.
IMHO, diversity is good because it brings more points of view, and thus more chances to experience something new. If you keep being with the same comforting points of view as yours, you'll end up missing these new opportunities. It's not especially a bad thing for some people for sure and I do see why they can be very protective about it to the point of being hostile to others...but it may tend to have smaller communities as a result that slowly die because of their lack of "new blood" - because they weren't open enough to other points of view.
There's definitely matter to think about, even if it's "just a game". Thanks for that.
I'm not someone who naturally goes towards others, especially as a child. I was already considered a weird boy because I was about in these "child games" as fantasy miniature wargames were seen upon. This helped build myself over the time and also socialize with people who shared the same passions as me, but when I think about it, I do remember we also were mainly white men playing with each other. We had a few girls who never stayed long, and our own awkward behavior may have played a role in it. We had a couple men "of color" as well, but not many. And our armies with humans and such were mainly painted with fair skins as well, I'll admit it. We were not showing iron crosses and gothic fonts, though. But we definitely had our own biases in our local community, even as we grew up (and eventually went our different ways). And I do admit that our behaviour and way to act with certain people may have been not that welcoming to them, in retrospect.
I honestly don't have a miracle solution to solve it here, other than being aware of it, listen and try to be more inclusive in the future.
Maybe I missed this somewhere along the chain, but is anyone here a minority? or if not did anyone ask a minority member they know if they'd join them at the hobby shop?
Adeptekon wrote: did anyone ask a minority member they know if they'd join them at the hobby shop?
If I can speak of myself not being part of a minority, when I was young, it just didn't come to my thoughts. Nowadays, I tend to play with friends only and I'm not actively looking for a new community, so I can't say I'm really inclined to do it as well...even if I believe it's more linked to the fact I'm simply not actively looking for having new friends, I'm "comforted" with the ones I already have.
I know my small group will die with us. What happens next, I don't know.
Sarouan wrote: This thread is really interesting and made me think about a lot of my own biases. Thank especially to Makeitorky for giving your insight.
I entered the Hobby with GW with third edition of Warhammer Battle at the time, and when I see the evolution of their miniature's design and painting, way to write the rules and advertise their games, I can't deny they are indeed targeted at a very specific demographic - let's be honest, white young / middle men. There is an evolution for sure : in recent years, there are more inclusive characters than before in their stories or miniatures, they vary more skin color in their painting schemes and they present more mixed people in their units and such.
I think it is also linked to the own background of the makers / writers at that time : they were white men, after all. Their own biases do play a part in how they marketed at that time. They tend to include a bit more diversity in their ranks in recent years, but it's difficult to deny most are still white men.
The most important is to recognize where there is a problem, that's how you can remedy it. I think that saying something like "it doesn't matter / there is no problem for me" is part of the problem itself : you can't aknowledge or hear someone's else own experience if you close the door first on it. And these people would have no reason to open it afterwards if you react that way, that's already a sign they're not welcome indeed.
IMHO, diversity is good because it brings more points of view, and thus more chances to experience something new. If you keep being with the same comforting points of view as yours, you'll end up missing these new opportunities. It's not especially a bad thing for some people for sure and I do see why they can be very protective about it to the point of being hostile to others...but it may tend to have smaller communities as a result that slowly die because of their lack of "new blood" - because they weren't open enough to other points of view.
There's definitely matter to think about, even if it's "just a game". Thanks for that.
I'm not someone who naturally goes towards others, especially as a child. I was already considered a weird boy because I was about in these "child games" as fantasy miniature wargames were seen upon. This helped build myself over the time and also socialize with people who shared the same passions as me, but when I think about it, I do remember we also were mainly white men playing with each other. We had a few girls who never stayed long, and our own awkward behavior may have played a role in it. We had a couple men "of color" as well, but not many. And our armies with humans and such were mainly painted with fair skins as well, I'll admit it. We were not showing iron crosses and gothic fonts, though. But we definitely had our own biases in our local community, even as we grew up (and eventually went our different ways). And I do admit that our behaviour and way to act with certain people may have been not that welcoming to them, in retrospect.
I honestly don't have a miracle solution to solve it here, other than being aware of it, listen and try to be more inclusive in the future.
This entire post is incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences on this. I feel that for me its less about wanting to say "Look we have lots of minorities" and is instead me wanting to share this hobby with as many people from all different walks of life. This hobby means alot to me and I want everyone to feel like they can be part of it. I also think its alot more fun and interesting to game with people who are different then you. This opens up your horizons and adds richness to the hobby.
I was already considered a weird boy because I was about in these "child games" as fantasy miniature wargames were seen upon.
Yes the stigma. It's still there even when you're older with some people, but I think gaming in general whether they be table top, or video games have become a lot more mainstream than they once were.
I was already considered a weird boy because I was about in these "child games" as fantasy miniature wargames were seen upon.
Yes the stigma. It's still there even when you're older with some people, but I think gaming in general whether they be table top, or video games have become a lot more mainstream than they once were.
Especially video games, most everyone plays them now regardless of race, gender, sexuality etc. Super diverse community where everyone feels accepting. This is what im hoping 40k becomes.
Adeptekon wrote: Maybe I missed this somewhere along the chain, but is anyone here a minority? or if not did anyone ask a minority member they know if they'd join them at the hobby shop?
I think it starts there. Desire and invitation.
Depending on who is looking at me, I am. My first group I got into the hobby with was like 4 European descended dudes and 4 Asian/Mexican/mixed. My current group I am the darkest. My first group was the "toxic" one (a game store owner said if we didn't tell him we were all friends, he would of thought we hated each other), my current group is extremely nice and friendly. While I do prefer my current group mostly (we finish games and in a timely manner, we all have game spaces in our home with terrain, we can resolve rules deputes fairly quickly) I have to say I had the most fun with those other drunk fools.
Adeptekon wrote: Maybe I missed this somewhere along the chain, but is anyone here a minority? or if not did anyone ask a minority member they know if they'd join them at the hobby shop?
I think it starts there. Desire and invitation.
I would be considered a minority in Canada given that I'm ethnically Chinese, and how I got introduced to Warhammer was my highschool friend (and we're still friends to this day) since we initially got to know each other talking about Warcraft 3 in class and then I slowly got introduced to the game through some demo games at his place and then we had some outings to the GW Battle Bunker back when those still existed. I think the key part is that it had nothing to do with me being a guy, Asian or whatever, but rather that we had a friendship built first before I was thrust into the tabletop scene. This is fundamentally a social game, even if you're more in for the painting or modelling side of the hobby, which is why I think the whole diversity angle doesn't change the key focus which is that you need the right personalities and social network first before you can get that invested into getting into or staying within the hobby, and boiling it down to the most superficial aspects as the main draw seems very short-sighted.
Adeptekon wrote: Maybe I missed this somewhere along the chain, but is anyone here a minority? or if not did anyone ask a minority member they know if they'd join them at the hobby shop?
I think it starts there. Desire and invitation.
As a branch off from this question, I think I recall reading that Veterans were considered a minority group but the internet will have all kinds of stuff to say about that. Looking now I did see it mentioned in a article but more I see that veterans re part of a DEI group. So I can't say for sure.
However, if Veterans are considers a minority group then, Yes. And also yes regarding asking other veterans to come try a game and the hobby. If not then also yes because I have friends who, while veterans or active duty, also check other demographic boxes. One guy was a total power gamer at blood bowl too, his Orcs would just wreck the other players team to bits. Which was why he picked Orcs I guess. Good times.
The term minority seems like it's painting with a larger brush than one may expect.
I'm not by nature a collectivist. Being in one group or another may not mean that everyone in that group is the same or even sees the world in the same way. Uncle Ruckus, no relation, for example.
Adeptekon wrote: Maybe I missed this somewhere along the chain, but is anyone here a minority? or if not did anyone ask a minority member they know if they'd join them at the hobby shop?
I think it starts there. Desire and invitation.
My girlfriend is Filipino, and two of my friends that play are Hispanic. They got me into Warhammer, rather than the other way around. One Hispanic friend joins us at the local game store, the other moved somewhere else, and my girlfriend never really gets the opportunity. The game store is, however, run by a Hispanic man. I do have an Asian friend who would probably like Warhammer, but he joined the Marines, so it's a bit harder to know for sure.
Adeptekon wrote: Maybe I missed this somewhere along the chain, but is anyone here a minority? or if not did anyone ask a minority member they know if they'd join them at the hobby shop?
I think it starts there. Desire and invitation.
I am part of the lgbtq+ community (Bisexual) I have invited a Trans Man to play with us, my cousin who is female and some others
I was already considered a weird boy because I was about in these "child games" as fantasy miniature wargames were seen upon.
Yes the stigma. It's still there even when you're older with some people, but I think gaming in general whether they be table top, or video games have become a lot more mainstream than they once were.
Especially video games, most everyone plays them now regardless of race, gender, sexuality etc. Super diverse community where everyone feels accepting. This is what im hoping 40k becomes.
warhead01 wrote: As a branch off from this question, I think I recall reading that Veterans were considered a minority group but the internet will have all kinds of stuff to say about that. Looking now I did see it mentioned in a article but more I see that veterans re part of a DEI group. So I can't say for sure.
However, if Veterans are considers a minority group then, Yes. And also yes regarding asking other veterans to come try a game and the hobby.
If not then also yes because I have friends who, while veterans or active duty, also check other demographic boxes. One guy was a total power gamer at blood bowl too,
his Orcs would just wreck the other players team to bits. Which was why he picked Orcs I guess.
Good times.
Yeah, minority is a tough term, and this is where a lot of overlapping issues comes up. Basically, under a lot of laws, Veteran status is a "protected class," which essentially means that it's illegal to discriminate solely against a person because of their status. Meaning, for example, that a company that refused to hire veterans could be sued, in the same way any race or religious based prohibition.
DEI, at it's broadest, really does try to get people and institutions to look beyond their comfort zone and the populations they generally work with. This can include things like race, religion, and gender, but DEI also encourages organizations to take a second look at people with disabilities, or veterans, or even people from working class backgrounds to strengthen the group.
I think that in warhammer, and wargaming in general, veterans are healthily represented.
The term minority seems like it's painting with a larger brush than one may expect.
I'm not by nature a collectivist. Being in one group or another may not mean that everyone in that group is the same or even sees the world in the same way. Uncle Ruckus, no relation, for example.
yeah, there's always a tension between understanding that all people have their own experiences, but at 30,000 feet different groups tend to have different shared experiences. One example that I found fascinating was simple: summer camp. For many immigrants and working class people, summer camp is an unknown, while many middle class kids, and a huge number of upper middle class kids go to summer camp. Obviously there are rural first generation immigrants who do go to summer camp, and well off kids from Long Island who don't, but there's a big gap.
Maybe women will never play warhammer in significant numbers, or maybe GW and/or the community will find a way to make it appealing to them. It's a little weird that women make up a greater percentage of actual soldiers than people that play with toy soldiers, right? (Maybe it's about a weird Freudian regression?)
You also never know what will cross over from one population to another. If you asked the average white guy in 1978 "do you like super campy disco music?" they'd probably deny it. Yet YMCA becomes a huge hit that year. Electronic dance music went from being the province of queer or POC to a broadly loved genre.
Adeptekon wrote: Maybe I missed this somewhere along the chain, but is anyone here a minority? or if not did anyone ask a minority member they know if they'd join them at the hobby shop?
I think it starts there. Desire and invitation.
Rural - catholic, by law we were discriminated (until 2002 and if your jewish , well let's just say if you don't know an peasant of an certain anti federal state sentiment you are not going to get kosher meat of a local origin) due to kulturkampf and some other things.
Flg's and community is mostly urban protestant and localised there.
And whilest not northern ireland level of nonsense, let's just say resentiments are , alive and well, nowadays mostly though it is a combination of political conflicts and differing cultures translating into ribbing and conflicts about culture and questions of organisation, education and most importantly tangents the realm of clubs and their culture.
Frankly my opinion, if i am establishing a new club/ association than i can put down democratically with my fellow members the rules. If they are exclusive so be it , if they are inclusive so be it either. That is a decision of the club.
If i want to join a club then i have to adapt not vice versa.
Normally I wouldn't bother creating an account just to leave a comment, but this thread was brought to my attention so here we go.
If one looks at internet at large, there's a lot of people with little rainbow flags and pronouns painting, gaming or just talking about lore. To the point where one of the most common jokes among trans people is "I don't play D&D, Magic or Warhammer, am I even trans?".
Obviously it doesn't mean every single queer person is or wants to be into tabletop games,but it's definitely not a case of lack of interest if queer people are not represented in local clubs or at the LGS.
Interesting discussion all around. Thanks to @forgedsteel for bring up the topic. As the discussion reveals, there's alot of factors at play.
I'm primarily a wargamer and that has limited my exposure to the gaming world as a whole. However, I seem to see more diversity over there in the RPG and boardgaming space, and I'd venture to guess that video gaming demographics look far closer to population demographics.
Something about the miniature wargaming niche seems to be lagging. I definitely agree with the issues regarding grognards, entry costs and such. I think also, alot of it is that miniature wargaming as we know it (which is only about 40 years old) is an activity started, perpetuated and largely participated in by white males. Other folks have essentially had to deliberately "step into" that space which can -for reasons others have elaborated on at length- be uncomfortable. Some have made the leap, but the general population of wargamers haven't deliberately made sustained outreach to other groups and -in a largely culturally segregated country like the USA- might not have the knowledge or connections to do so.
I don't have any solutions. I'm not evangelical about the hobby and though I spent most of my adult life primarily living and working among non-white folks, I've honestly not given much thought to drawing more folks (of any variety) into my club if they don't immediately show strong interest when they find out about my hobby. I can't even lean on the "it's expensive" argument as our club has always specialized in cheap indie skirmish games and has strived to be able to always provide miniatures for guests to play with.
I have to ask myself honestly how likely is someone to get involved in a hobby (or any activity) they aren't already familiar with if they aren't invited to do so by someone enthusiastic about that activity? I haven't been putting in the work, so no surprise then that my long-term gaming group is comprised of white males whose history of gaming largely precedes meeting me.
Eilif wrote: Something about the miniature wargaming niche seems to be lagging. I definitely agree with the issues regarding grognards, entry costs and such. I think also, alot of it is that miniature wargaming as we know it (which is only about 40 years old) is an activity started, perpetuated and largely participated in by white males. Other folks have essentially had to deliberately "step into" that space which can -for reasons others have elaborated on at length- be uncomfortable. Some have made the leap, but the general population of wargamers haven't deliberately made sustained outreach to other groups and -in a largely culturally segregated country like the USA- might not have the knowledge or connections to do so.
I think this is true, but pretty much all the great nerd hobbies have their roots in the late 70s/early 80s: TTPGS, video games, and miniatures wargaming. CCGs arrived a full decade later. I do think that wargaming is smaller, simply due to the investment in time, money, and effort, so maybe that's part of the slow growth. Minis never had the major splash that D&D had, first in the 80s and now more recently.
I don't have any solutions. I'm not evangelical about the hobby and though I spent most of my adult life primarily living and working among non-white folks, I've honestly not given much thought to drawing more folks (of any variety) into my club if they don't immediately show strong interest when they find out about my hobby. I can't even lean on the "it's expensive" argument as our club has always specialized in cheap indie skirmish games and has strived to be able to always provide miniatures for guests to play with.
I have to ask myself honestly how likely is someone to get involved in a hobby (or any activity) they aren't already familiar with if they aren't invited to do so by someone enthusiastic about that activity? I haven't been putting in the work, so no surprise then that my long-term gaming group is comprised of white males whose history of gaming largely precedes meeting me.
Maybe it's time for more deliberate outreach?
I think your post is really introspective and well written. I think there's this weird misconception that DEI efforts are like communist struggle sessions. I think we all could do better hobby outreach in general, but most of us are guilty of, at worst, following the path of least resistance.
Just brainstorming, I would make the following suggestions:
1) make sure there isn't any overtly hostile stuff going on. Racist or sexist language, inappropriate staring or "flirting," that kind of stuff. When I walked into a gaming store and saw a guy wearing a "I call it the China virus because it came from China" t-shirt, I did not get the vibe he was welcoming. And when the group there became really diverse, he stopped coming... weird little coincidence, that.
2) do your best to make the place physically welcoming. I think that guys will go into a dank basement to play hams, but women might not be as wild about that. good lighting, clean bathrooms, chairs that don't wobble, I think places that have that are more likely to have women gamers.
3) Have a pitch for your game ready for all passersby. Whether it's a 12 year old black girl or another white dad, give a little pitch about the game, and why you like it. If they seem interested, encourage them to watch.
We're in a golden age of hobby gaming, and even if you're into GW products, you can legitimately sell people on Kill team or Warcry for a $50 buy in. Demos, open gaming nights, paint days, these are all ways to bring people that are into gaming to at least try to engage with minis.
On the time and money front Larping appears to be making big strides and gains. Costumes and travel and actual time Larping are likely very comparable to wargaming, if perhaps sometimes swapping out full Larp for RPG gaming during the week.
So I'd argue its more that wargaming is lagging for some reasons. They are likely also not major reasons, just perhaps a handful of small issues that combine together to create a soft barrier that's just enough that its lagged behind some others.
It might also just be that its got the comparable spread, its just not happening at local stores and is online/at home.
Especially video games, most everyone plays them now regardless of race, gender, sexuality etc. Super diverse community where everyone feels accepting. This is what im hoping 40k becomes.
Videogames are a fascinating case study in general. At their start they were fairly inclusive in nature. Male leaning, but as something predominately in social settings like roller rinks and bars, the first big boom was a lot more gender neutral than what came after the crash. Post crash, you can see the kind of self selecting logic that creates exclusive communities. The home market bent a bit more towards the male focused engineering crowd, which lead to the Nintendo being sold as a toy for boys, which created a market that increasingly rewarded male focused fantasy. The more that fantasy succeeded, the more other demographics avoided getting into the hobby, the more that fantasy succeeded, each generation until by the Xbox 360 era you got Gears of War.
But I didn't reply to a comment about how videogames are a male dominated hobby, so.... what changed? There's no silver bullet, but the answer comes down to the success of competing markets. Cell phone and indie games are probably the big one. An absolutely enormous market full of initially simpler, more gender neutral games that attracted a huge new demographic by being first and foremost accessible. The rise of MMOs can't be discounted either, which really took the burgeoning trend of character customization to a place where it was essentially mandatory and made gaming as much of a social activity as it has ever really been in a very welcoming cooperative environment. Much like the scenario that homogenized the industry, the success of games that appealed to a broad demographic fueled demand for design and features with much broader appeal than the space marine era of videogames.
I think the same is true of tabletop. Right now, the games that are cracking mainstream appeal are the ones where people feel represented. Similar to MMOs that sought to emulate it, DnD's player creation is a big draw, particularly as the marketing (both official and fan made) continues to show off diverse party configurations that give different people a chance to see how they can fit into the adventure. I don't think its that simple but I definitely feel that 40k's current public face doesn't do a lot to draw in anything outside its target demographic.
The bottom line to me is, if you want more diversity in your game group; you need to not just be open, or outright welcoming to these groups. You need to go out and target these folks for recruitment.
Does this mean you would implement 'affirmative action' at GW recruiting? The problem with this is that if you earmark positions for restricted demographics you discriminate against persons of other demographics who would apply for employment. Personally I think that is wrong and am against discrimination of any kind. However it is a commonly enough solution to enforce diversity in companies and even government.
master of ordinance wrote: Diversity is not important and should not be strived for. Quality and enjoyment should be the priority. If diversity happens naturally then so be it, if it doesnt then so be it.
This is I agree with. When diversity is enforced opportunity becomes lob sided. GW is not a bigoted company, there were exceptions, but those were individual. When these individuals appear GW deals with them appropriately.
I knew of a deeply bigoted manager in a store just outside of London. He had cultural issues with women, and took those issues to work. He made it very difficult for girls to enter the hobby, made them unwelcome and belittled their ability to understand the game. He was fired.
Diversity should be natural, the watchword for true inclusivity is equality. Not every demographic is going to be interested in the same entertainment system evenly. Cultural differences are not something to be ashamed of. If a member of demographic that is statistically unlikely to play Warhammer joins the hobby, they should be treated like everyone else. There is no 'underrepresentation', because this is not a state issue, its a hobby not a government department. If a lower proportion of group x have access to dentists, that is a problem to be addressed. If a lower proportion of the same demographic play Warhammer that is not an issue to anyone but them, and should not be tampered with..
GW can reasonably ask, what can we do to increase sales in minority communities. But that is as far as it goes. As far as I can tell GW have done nothing wrong in this regard.
Grimskul wrote: The idea of mandated diversity being pushed in so many hobbies seems both pointless and often a goal that is never fully fleshed out, since it's just something people say and want to aim for since it's in vogue and popular to say that you want it, but often these people never actually delve into what they actually mean by diversity. ......
Another big part is that you fundamentally can't force specific people to join the hobby, you can try to make it as open and accessible as reasonably possible, but if certain demographics just aren't into it, you can't do much about it. Just like trying to force more young boys into playing with exclusively Barbies or Baby toys versus playing CoD, Power Rangers, or Roblox, you're fighting a losing battle and you should just let people have fun with what they want rather than obsessing over how "diverse" a game's consumer base is.
Do you even remotely think that the 40k community is making it as open and accessible as possible for women and people of color? I don't think that's the case. You seem very concerned about something happening that nobody is remotely considering.
What you are missing here Polonius is that if a minority group has a low proportion of Warhammer players there may be a reason why, and that reason may be beyond the ability of hobbyists to manipulate. Different social groups have different social priorities, and different social foci. This applies openly to hobby and social groups far larger than Warhammer. Big money activities like team sports have an inherent social dynamic. The demographics that like cricket are different and clearly distinct from the demographics who like football, or both. These cultural differences remain even though there is a lot of money in these sports and a lot of incentive to broaden appeal for maximum revenue. However society has wisely decided to allow demographic dynamics in sports to remain, because they are hallmarks of cultural differences. Instead the focus is on combating racism and ensuring that members of any demographic are not discriminated against if they choose this enjoy this sport or seek a career playing it.
Something else we need to consider.
Warhammer and related games have a peculiar social dynamic. - It is a 'nerd' hobby and until recently this was deeply stigmatised. Being a fantasy gamer is mainstream now, it was not in the 1980's. Much actual progress against discrimination has been achieved already.
- Warhammer is an expensive hobby. This will disenfranchise poorer sections of the community. This cannot be avoided outside of instilling a full Communist society with equal resource distribution. That might cause other, larger issues. Truth be told the UK is not a society where there is demographic poverty so that any ethnic groups are below the resource requirements to access the game. Even the relatively poor can afford Warhammer, they just afford less. People on low income or JSA (Uk equivalent of food stamps) can afford over time to collect and play Warhammer. Many do. The social dynamics may exist elsewhere, but GW stood on its ability to create a market in the UK, and ha doner so and not been socially exclusive in doing so. This hobbyist culture thus sets the dynamic elsewhere.
- Warhammer is an involved hobby that requires a time commitment and focus prior to play. You can take a football out of a box and kick it, no focus required. You can open a chess set, spend some time learning to play, then play the game. A moderate initial focus required at entry level. Warhammer is deeply focused hobby. Before you can play Warhammer you need to involve yourself in another hobby to collect Warhammer.
It is this last dynamic that marks Warhammer as a socially lobsided game. Focus is the main barrier to entry. Warhammer will not flourish in a demographic with a high proportion of single parent families. Single parent households have less time for focus on hobbies. A culture of involved hobbies of any kind requires dads, if there are fewer fathers around there are fewer opportunities for father-child bonding, a lower intensity of focus in general and a greater tendency towards gravitation towards activities that offer instant gratification. This cultural dynamic goes way beyond Warhammer, and cannot be fixed by Games Workshop.
There is also the opposite phenomena, there are cultural subcommunities, particularly in the US, but also in the UK where there are cultural expectations on focus for the youth on academics and self betterment. Some communities will internally stigmatise a heavy time sink hobby like Warhammer as a 'distraction' and a 'waste of time'. These cultural expectations can be significant. Some cultures with social expectations also have specific gender based expectations and will not be open to a girl playing Warhammer. Is that discrimination, yes it is, but is the internal dynamics of ethnic subcommunities something we should be interfering with as outsiders. In this case it would only cause harm.
Adeptekon wrote: Maybe I missed this somewhere along the chain, but is anyone here a minority?
Yes, I would be considered a minority in the 40K hobby. My parents are immigrants, and I am not of European descent. I HAVE had situations in the past trying to start or finish 40K games, and the other person just mentally walled me off, or walked away from a game citing boredom, or something more interesting. Could be anything really...and most 40k players aren't the very sociable to begin with. Although that's fine, I was also like that in the past. Before I gained some life experience and confidence in my own abilities. The problem is if you have a lot of that going around, it doesn't give the hobby that attractive of a look. What many other tabletop games do is attract people of many different personalities, so that people can play off of one another. There is a name for that type of strategy, but i don't remember what it is. It is an important aspect of tabletop game development.
The part about dads and single parents was a good one. And I'm sure wherever one lives someone's heard the line that goes something like this: "instead of blowing your money on toys you could be helping feed the poor"
Grey Templar wrote:If you walk into a place and say "I don't see anybody that looks like me/X demographic here. I don't like that!" then you are the one with the problem, not the people who are there.
I would start by saying that part of the problem is the emotional labor required of minorities, and how it's perfectly reasonable that a person who spends their work or school life as a minority might not want that in their free time.
Again, if a person walks into a store and has a problem because its just a bunch of white dudes, even though these white dudes have done nothing besides exist to this person, then it is the person walking in that is the issue. Doesn't matter if that person is a minority or not, they're the racist in that situation.
You have the right to self-segregate in your free time of course, but that is your decision and your problem. It is not the responsibility of other people to change their behavior to suit your sensitivities. And you are then the one contributing to the "lack of diversity" in the hobby by refusing to participate. If you are a minority and want more minorities in the local hobby, then be the minority in the hobby. Don't hide away from the LGS because you're scared of people you don't know.
The store owner, be it FLGS or GW chain cannot force anyone to participate. But what they can do is foster an environment where nobody feels unsafe or unwelcome.
As you say, if anyone walks in anywhere, sees a demographic not their own, and walks out because they only want to go places where their own demographic is predomninant, that is their problem entirely.
But whilst I don’t think it’s intentional, you don’t seem to be considering other angles and reasons why someone might feel very uncomfortable or inherently unwelcome in such an environment.
it's almost as if it's a minority hobby that generally only appeals to a thin slice of the population, and that further sub-dividing that into even thinner slices of said populations is going to result in low turnout out, but it can't be simple maths we must all hatebots or phobotrons....
Indeed folk have been advocating pretty straight forward stuff that to be honest, any business interested in growth would do. Ensuring you’re not putting people off unnecessarily.
Indeed folk have been advocating pretty straight forward stuff that to be honest, any business interested in growth would do. Ensuring you’re not putting people off unnecessarily.
I believe the issue is that different people have different ideas of what exactly might be putting people off, and to extrapolate from individual experience/opinion to entire groups of people who happen to share similar features along one dimension, but are quite different along others.
Yeah. All we are doing is looking at many other geek hobbies which have changed over the last 20-30 years and noticed that whilst some, eg video games, have become fully mainstream to the point where its actually abnormal to have never gamed on any game if you're within certain generations; through to ones like LARPing which have seen quite considerable growth and overt diversity.
We are then wondering why Wargames appear to have lagged behind that trend.
You know thinking on it one big difference is that Wargames are led by GW in many respects. Like it or not they are the big name and do the most outreach. However I'd argue one area we could see some blame is that during the Kirby era GW did a few things that worked against growth.
1) They didn't just not use the internet, they went full hostility against the internet. Rumours, news sites they went against them and turned a lot of the net against them during that era. They didn't make use of the new explosion of social media tools (before they were even really called that); nor consumer engagement.
2) They pulled back from supporting many events and even running some of their own. Even though they still had their stores, they were not connecting with tournaments or the professional scene nor growing much outside of the concept of direct sales in the shops
Meanwhile I'd argue that many of the other sectors were 100% tapping into those resources and I think that really helped them grow not just in numbers, but diversity as well. They were doing FAR more out-reach in that regard.
I think its hard to imagine now because GW is firing on all fronts in those areas; though they lack a certain level of maturity in their approaches here and there (eg a rules system that doesn't properly cater to a competitive scene growth; an online media setup that almost seems to be going backwards with their latest change to talking hands for painting tutorials).
But I would put that as part of the issue. GW went through a phase where they were growing, but where they weren't engaging their actual community at the top end nor building structures to support their community from the top end.
I think that hobbled some of their outreach and the fact that since they changed their attitudes they've seen VAST growth, I think supports that.
It could explain why Wargames lagged behind other markets, esp when you consider that, at least for fantasy and sci-fi, a lot of other wargame groups rely on GW customers being converted to them or coming to them.
That honestly could just be all there is too it; that every other geek hobby was outreaching in new ways and connecting and using user feedback and GW, for all their efforts, weren't using those tools and thus didn't see quite the same expansion.
Now that they are using those tools perhaps in 5-10 more years diversity will have naturally grown and broadened to be comparable to others.
Indeed folk have been advocating pretty straight forward stuff that to be honest, any business interested in growth would do. Ensuring you’re not putting people off unnecessarily.
I believe the issue is that different people have different ideas of what exactly might be putting people off, and to extrapolate from individual experience/opinion to entire groups of people who happen to share similar features along one dimension, but are quite different along others.
A huge problem in this is that you often don't hear from those who get put off. Certainly here on Dakka we are very unlikely to hear from people who walked away from GW entirely before joining in. We are more likely to hear from those who were already invested on some level who then found issues later; but those who never got caught are unlikely to ever appear here to give their view. They are also unlikely to fill in company surveys or even talk about their reasons for not engaging. IT can lead to a huge gap in understanding that can be very hard to fill.
We thus have to surmise and guess and sometimes use a handful of examples of those who overcame barriers (that they saw/interpreted as barriers) which can skew results a bit.
Indeed folk have been advocating pretty straight forward stuff that to be honest, any business interested in growth would do. Ensuring you’re not putting people off unnecessarily.
I believe the issue is that different people have different ideas of what exactly might be putting people off, and to extrapolate from individual experience/opinion to entire groups of people who happen to share similar features along one dimension, but are quite different along others.
Kind of. But data sets for that do exist, and many companies make use of them for marketing purposes.
It can be relatively superficial/straight forward. But it starts by hearing Other has to say. Not necessarily about your product and company, but their life experiences in general.
If anyone cares for more info, look into Whoopi Goldberg’s reaction to Lt Uhura in Star Trek, and the Sun-Man line of toys from the 80’s, which have now been folded into the MOTU Classics.
In short? Representation matters to kids. If a kid can see themself in the setting? You’re going to hold their attention for longer, maybe even long enough to turn them into a fan and customer. And yes, representation matters to adults, and parents. Also look at how black Americans were traditionally portrayed in movies. Here’s a hint, it wasn’t terribly positive or empowering.
That doesn’t take a lot for GW to arrange. Have different skin tones on ‘Eavy Metal Models. Have different ethnicities shown on book covers, without them being stereotypes. That’s…that’s about it. Those are statements. Those are simple windows of representation.
You don’t even need to provide sculpts of specific and obvious ethnicity. Indeed that can be shooting your self in the foot, as you risk causing offence if it’s seen as a stereotype or caricature. I’d refer folks to the new Cadian kit. On the box, a variety of skin tones on show. But the faces are…pretty generic. If you paint them all in a certain skin tone, they’re not going to look out of place or odd.
Simple barriers removed to widen your appeal as much as possible. It’s all stuff you were going to do anyway, so it’s not costing you anything. And if an existing customer starts to feel alienated because it’s not a white man sosigfest anymore? Sorry to say, but that sort of person is hardly a great loss.
Another thing is you don't have to change the product, just the presenter.
Have more diversity in your public facing positions. Key staff and such of different groups and backgrounds and such can help promote the game and show how fun and engaging it is without having to change the product at all.
This can extend from those on things like video (eg Warhammer+, art tutorials and soforth); all the way down to, for GW, shop staff.
Overread wrote: Another thing is you don't have to change the product, just the presenter.
Have more diversity in your public facing positions. Key staff and such of different groups and backgrounds and such can help promote the game and show how fun and engaging it is without having to change the product at all.
This can extend from those on things like video (eg Warhammer+, art tutorials and soforth); all the way down to, for GW, shop staff.
It's also a pretty thin line between centering people that you actually employ that are from diverse backgrounds and using people with diverse backgrounds as window-dressing, i.e. 'pinkwashing' or 'rainbow-washing'. In TV and movie productions that is often the case when you have your 'token minority' characters in front of the camera, but the technical and production staff remains as it has always been, i.e. supermajority white, middle-aged, men.
I find it a bit funny that Polonius got all fussed up over what I said about the diversity quota thing not being relevant but somehow we've looped into talking about diversity hires for GW being the next thing they should focus on.
Grimskul wrote: I find it a bit funny that Polonius got all fussed up over what I said about the diversity quota thing not being relevant but somehow we've looped into talking about diversity hires for GW being the next thing they should focus on.
Diverse recruitment and diversity quotas simply aren’t the same thing. Like. At all.
Best person for the job is still the best rule. But, diversity training can help remove unconscious bias from the recruitment process, so no candidate is written off unfairly.
If all your applicants are say, cis-het white males? All your applicants are cis-het white males.
However, if the applicants are a diverse group, but you’re seeing only cis-het white males progressing to interview? You need to ask honest questions why. It could very well be they’re just the folk with the mix of skills and experience you’re looking for. But it can also be bias in play. And unconscious bias is the trickiest one to tackle. Because let’s face it, if your Recruiter (in any business, not GW specifically) is a screaming racist, that problem is pretty easily solved. You, y’know, can sack them or move them to another position. But if it’s unconscious bias? That takes introspection by company and individual, and work to push past it.
Do you even remotely think that the 40k community is making it as open and accessible as possible for women and people of color? I don't think that's the case. You seem very concerned about something happening that nobody is remotely considering.
What you are missing here Polonius is that if a minority group has a low proportion of Warhammer players there may be a reason why, and that reason may be beyond the ability of hobbyists to manipulate.
I cut a whole bunch of stuff out, that honestly has been covered in depth and while I agree with, it doesn't actually answer my question, which is simple: is there more the community could do at low cost/low effort to be more inclusive. The answer is so obviously yes that nobody can really argue it, so instead you have to argue that they need to be more inclusive. Which is both true and besides the point.
I don't live in some fantasy land where I think warhammer would or should have some weird quota system. I just think that so very many events are literally 100% white guys, that there seems to be at least some stuff we could do on the margins to grow the hobby.
Let’s change it up a bit for an example, and consider Oxbridge Universities.
They’re prestigious. They have a high standard of any applicant. And they’ve, in recent years, been called out for discriminatory practices. Essentially, they could have two identical applicants.
Same grades. Same subjects. Same height. Same gender. Same eye colour. Same hair colour and style. In identical clothing.
But one is from the state school system, the other went to Public School.
And without outside pressure? The place went to the Public School Boy from a wealthy background.
That….that can’t be properly justified beyond snobbery, classist prejudice and Old Boy’s Club.
This has significant societal impact, as it forcibly shuts otherwise solid applicants from gaining a more prestigious degree - which in turn, can shut them out of certain jobs.
That’s the sort of bias you need to tackle. That because someone has a hyphenated surname and went to The Right School, they’re somehow More Suitable for your University. And the same with jobs.
Quotas aren’t ideal. And I don’t particularly endorse them myself. But, they can be the first, sometimes necessary, step to societal change. The sort of societal change where in turn, you just won’t need such a Quota, because diverse hiring has become the norm.
Grimskul wrote: I find it a bit funny that Polonius got all fussed up over what I said about the diversity quota thing not being relevant but somehow we've looped into talking about diversity hires for GW being the next thing they should focus on.
I'm not particularly concerned about what GW can do. They're a multi-national corporation, and their hiring practices are their business, and diversity in England looks very different then in the US or Canada. It would be smart to have more diversity on camera, especially if they think they can use their videos to bring in more folks, but that's just solid business sense.
But this doesn't apply to what you or I or your local community can do. There are no quotas or limits on who can join a Crusade or enter a painting contest.
Consider my place of work. As I’ve mentioned in other threads, at my level we’re a proper diverse bunch.
But as you climb the tree? The ranks get whiter and whiter.
Management are currently asking why.
Now the answer isn’t necessarily sexist or racist hiring. It could be that only white folk are applying for those positions in the first place. The “but why?” of that is currently being looked into. Because you want the best people in every role. And if some folk don’t feel the application would be successful the Why is a useful and important question.
It may turn out there’s issues the organisation can’t overcome quickly, because society is a complex and sometimes deeply stupid organism, and it feeds into people’s personal expectations.
This has so far lead to anonymised applications, at least at the early stage. You sing your own praises, set out your stall, and wait to hear if you’ve progressed. Is that working? I’ve….genuinely no idea, because I’m not party to that process. But the anonymisation of initial application is intended to encourage anyone to have a stab at it.
That’s the sort of bias you need to tackle. That because someone has a hyphenated surname and went to The Right School, they’re somehow More Suitable for your University. And the same with jobs.
Quotas aren’t ideal. And I don’t particularly endorse them myself. But, they can be the first, sometimes necessary, step to societal change. The sort of societal change where in turn, you just won’t need such a Quota, because diverse hiring has become the norm.
Invariably in threads like this, somebody will simply say "well, let the best person get the job" which is a really quick way to letting everybody know that you haven't done much hiring, or if you have, you're really crappy at it.
Here's the thing with a lot of hiring: you have a person's resume, their interview, and references. Guess how often the same person is top in all three? What about a person with a higher level degree, vs. a person who went to a more prestigious university? What if an interview was bad because the person is bad at interviewing, but they seem to have the skills? What if the interview was bad because they didn't listen to questions and have limited experience? How confident are you that you can tell them apart?
I do a lot of hiring, both external and internal to my government agency. Our stuff has to be documented thoroughly, and we have go to great lengths to avoid bias... and let me tell you, hiring officials still get to decide what's important to them when making a choice. Being aware of biases, and looking at unorthodox candidates is actually a good approach when hiring.
I'm just wondering how the dynamics of the former ages of 40K history ended up with Anglo demographics in the far future with our world setting up for a shift of powers already.
Maybe in the far future the Primarchs should be African or Asian?
*psst, I know why, and it's merely that GW is located where it is, but probably never expected to reach the global audience it has now.
Grimskul wrote: I find it a bit funny that Polonius got all fussed up over what I said about the diversity quota thing not being relevant but somehow we've looped into talking about diversity hires for GW being the next thing they should focus on.
Diverse recruitment and diversity quotas simply aren’t the same thing. Like. At all.
Best person for the job is still the best rule. But, diversity training can help remove unconscious bias from the recruitment process, so no candidate is written off unfairly.
If all your applicants are say, cis-het white males? All your applicants are cis-het white males.
However, if the applicants are a diverse group, but you’re seeing only cis-het white males progressing to interview? You need to ask honest questions why. It could very well be they’re just the folk with the mix of skills and experience you’re looking for. But it can also be bias in play. And unconscious bias is the trickiest one to tackle. Because let’s face it, if your Recruiter (in any business, not GW specifically) is a screaming racist, that problem is pretty easily solved. You, y’know, can sack them or move them to another position. But if it’s unconscious bias? That takes introspection by company and individual, and work to push past it.
I mean, the location of where they work matters a lot. It's one thing if there was more remote work opportunities, but from what I remember, most of the corporate jobs require you to move into Nottingham, where I'm sure is fairly expensive to live in, which limits the number of candidates that can actually or want to move there, meaning you're more likely to hire people more locally in the UK, which again is a predominantly white country, and it's a brand that is mostly known and built among that demographic, (it's not a universal brand like Harry Potter or Star Wars), so it's unsurprising you'd mainly get white guys. But I doubt you would tell GWHQ to uproot and move to a more "diverse" place to address that.
A bit funny, because research shows otherwise, even as far back in 2016 by Harvard Business Review. The idea that you can consciously control something that is unconscious is patently absurd, and is the equivalent of saying you can train yourself to control automotive functions in your body, like mentally choosing not to clot your blood when you get a paper cut.
Adeptekon wrote: I'm just wondering how the dynamics of the former ages of 40K history ended up with Anglo demographics in the far future with our world setting up for a shift of powers already.
Maybe in the far future the Primarchs should be African or Asian?
*psst, I know why, and it's merely that GW is located where it is, but probably never expected to reach the global audience it has now.
The Emperor is said to have been born in Ancient Turkey (Anatolia, if memory serves?)
Adeptekon wrote: I'm just wondering how the dynamics of the former ages of 40K history ended up with Anglo demographics in the far future with our world setting up for a shift of powers already.
Maybe in the far future the Primarchs should be African or Asian?
*psst, I know why, and it's merely that GW is located where it is, but probably never expected to reach the global audience it has now.
The Emperor is said to have been born in Ancient Turkey (Anatolia, if memory serves?)
Anatolia indeed. I always imagined that that's a nice little easter-egg for the fans of OG 'Ancient Aliens' dude Erich von Däniken (who was a big star in the late 60s to the mid-80s) and his weird theories about ancient spacefarers influencing humanity, because Anatolia is where Göbelki Tepe is situated, which held the record for things like the oldest known megaliths, oldest known human settlement, and oldest known place of worship until very recently and features in von Dänikens writing prominently
Adeptekon wrote: I'm just wondering how the dynamics of the former ages of 40K history ended up with Anglo demographics in the far future with our world setting up for a shift of powers already.
Maybe in the far future the Primarchs should be African or Asian?
*psst, I know why, and it's merely that GW is located where it is, but probably never expected to reach the global audience it has now.
You're using the term "Anglo" in the American sense to refer to non-Hispanic white people, which covers about half of Europe. On this side of the pond, Anglo-Saxons were a very specific cultural group that settled in the Southeast of England before the Norman invasions and were largely made up of Germanic migrants. Calling someone from Scotland or Ireland an Anglo would be a good way of getting stabbed as well.
From a cultural perspective, we have multiple Nordic tribal cultures, ancient Roman/Greek-inspired cultures, post-apocalyptic gang cultures, Eastern Steppe cultures, and medieval European cultures, the list is long. The only ones we could really view as "Anglo" would be the Victorian Britain "Workshop of the World" idea on worlds that are heavily industrialised.
If you a referring to GW painting a lot of their miniatures as white, yes that is an issue of representation. However, the company has been a lot better at not having full white armies anymore.
Wow, good job Dakka for not getting this topic locked in 3 pages! Legitimately.
Anyways, as a white male in my 30s I like seeing diversity in my miniature lines because it is more interesting than not. Put differently, in my experience more diverse model lineups are simply better.
As for diversity of gaming peers I have plenty of racial diversity at my FLGS, but being on the south end of California a good bit of that is likely just population demographics. Lack of women is rather glaring, though better than 10+ years ago.
I haven't gone and looked at the WarhammerTV YouTube channel, as this was more of a passing thought, but have GW done much in the way of "how to" painting videos to achieve different skin tones?
Angronsrosycheeks wrote: Normally I wouldn't bother creating an account just to leave a comment, but this thread was brought to my attention so here we go.
If one looks at internet at large, there's a lot of people with little rainbow flags and pronouns painting, gaming or just talking about lore. To the point where one of the most common jokes among trans people is "I don't play D&D, Magic or Warhammer, am I even trans?".
Obviously it doesn't mean every single queer person is or wants to be into tabletop games,but it's definitely not a case of lack of interest if queer people are not represented in local clubs or at the LGS.
True, but... well, if I don't ask, how would I know? It's not like LGBTQ people look different than straight people.
And isn't asking a little inappropriate in a gaming venue?
Adeptekon wrote: And I'm sure wherever one lives someone's heard the line that goes something like this: "instead of blowing your money on toys you could be helping feed the poor"
Or "Why are you wasting your time on those toys when you should be studying!"
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: If anyone cares for more info, look into Whoopi Goldberg’s reaction to Lt Uhura in Star Trek...
Yes, and it's worth noting some younger people call Gene Roddenberry a racist [censored] because he didn't allow Lt. Uhura do actually do anything, and they and want Star Trek cancelled over it.
They just cannot comprehend how different society was back then and just how breathtaking progressive actually having a black woman in a position of ANY authority on a TV show was at the time. Even if she never really got to do anything.
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Overread wrote: Another thing is you don't have to change the product, just the presenter.
Have more diversity in your public facing positions. Key staff and such of different groups and backgrounds and such can help promote the game and show how fun and engaging it is without having to change the product at all.
This can extend from those on things like video (eg Warhammer+, art tutorials and soforth); all the way down to, for GW, shop staff.
True, but if the minorities don't apply for the position... what then?
Overread wrote: Another thing is you don't have to change the product, just the presenter.
Have more diversity in your public facing positions. Key staff and such of different groups and backgrounds and such can help promote the game and show how fun and engaging it is without having to change the product at all.
This can extend from those on things like video (eg Warhammer+, art tutorials and soforth); all the way down to, for GW, shop staff.
True, but if the minorities don't apply for the position... what then?
Honestly? Go hire someone.
Ergo shift from passive ads where you wait for responders or promoting up from within the company*; to going and hiring someone specifically for that role.
If the person you find is more a presenter or such then train them up in hobby stuff. As long as they are motivated, energetic (without being childishly so) and engage well with their audiences then you can do a heck of a lot even if the person really isn't into Warhammer or Wargaming at all.
Yes ideally they'd find someone to employ who would have an undrestanding and would be invested enough to learn and all.
Sure there are going to be demographics that will be easier to fill. There's a huge range of, for example, women they could hire on. Heck GW could even do short term contracts for social media personalities and such. Find those who already have channels, hire them for 6 months or 10 articles/videos or such and then move on. Allowing them a diverse range of people with talent and such.
*GW already does this so we might assume that the company might not have people they can promote up who fit the criteria
Lord Damocles wrote: Well, we've progressed from 'hire the best person for the job' to 'hire based on race', so that's... progress..?
Well not really.
We identified that one method to improve diversity is to have presenters/community engagers who come from the same background as identified different diverse groups.
Therefore to improve diversity of a target group the "best person for the job" IS a person from that background.
As an example. If you identify that you want more women to join the hobby; then having at least one or more women in your video displays (tutorials, battle reports, painting etc...) is one means to help encourage others to join up. Thus a woman is 100% the best person for that role.
True, but... well, if I don't ask, how would I know? It's not like LGBTQ people look different than straight people.
And isn't asking a little inappropriate in a gaming venue?
I was also thinking that. For all I know most of my regular opponents from the club or tournaments could be gay. When we meet we ask questions about threat ranges or armour saves not who we have been sleeping with recently.
Lord Damocles wrote: Well, we've progressed from 'hire the best person for the job' to 'hire based on race', so that's... progress..?
Well not really.
We identified that one method to improve diversity is to have presenters/community engagers who come from the same background as identified different diverse groups.
Therefore to improve diversity of a target group the "best person for the job" IS a person from that background.
As an example. If you identify that you want more women to join the hobby; then having at least one or more women in your video displays (tutorials, battle reports, painting etc...) is one means to help encourage others to join up. Thus a woman is 100% the best person for that role.
Not going into this too much, but given the current online climate, even defining what a woman nowadays is somehow contentious, so good luck with that.
Lord Damocles wrote: Well, we've progressed from 'hire the best person for the job' to 'hire based on race', so that's... progress..?
Well not really.
We identified that one method to improve diversity is to have presenters/community engagers who come from the same background as identified different diverse groups.
Therefore to improve diversity of a target group the "best person for the job" IS a person from that background.
As an example. If you identify that you want more women to join the hobby; then having at least one or more women in your video displays (tutorials, battle reports, painting etc...) is one means to help encourage others to join up. Thus a woman is 100% the best person for that role.
Not going into this too much, but given the current online climate, even defining what a woman nowadays is somehow contentious, so good luck with that.
It's not, unless you're looking to exclude people.
Lord Damocles wrote: Well, we've progressed from 'hire the best person for the job' to 'hire based on race', so that's... progress..?
Well not really.
We identified that one method to improve diversity is to have presenters/community engagers who come from the same background as identified different diverse groups.
Therefore to improve diversity of a target group the "best person for the job" IS a person from that background.
As an example. If you identify that you want more women to join the hobby; then having at least one or more women in your video displays (tutorials, battle reports, painting etc...) is one means to help encourage others to join up. Thus a woman is 100% the best person for that role.
Not going into this too much, but given the current online climate, even defining what a woman nowadays is somehow contentious, so good luck with that.
It's not, unless you're looking to exclude people.
Agreed, it shouldn't be contentious, but some people like to avoid explaining some of the clear biological aspects since it's controversial somehow. Though if you're hiring specifically for women, wouldn't you have to exclude people (i.e. men) by definition?
I phrased that poorly.
It's easy to define women, unless you're trying to exclude women. Adult human female.
If you try to exclude trans women, such as by saying it has to relate to childbirth, you also exclude older women, women with some health conditions, etc. etc.
True, but... well, if I don't ask, how would I know? It's not like LGBTQ people look different than straight people.
And isn't asking a little inappropriate in a gaming venue?
I was also thinking that. For all I know most of my regular opponents from the club or tournaments could be gay. When we meet we ask questions about threat ranges or armour saves not who we have been sleeping with recently.
I'm asexual, from my observation, both gay and straight people don't realize how much they mention their relationships basically constantly, with the exception that non-hetero people only do it when they feel comfortable. It's like background radiation. Unless you really only meet random people and don't small-talk with them at all at random venues only, which is the opposite of what gaming clubs/communities are, you can't really avoid learning that your opponent is going on a trip with his girlfriend next week.
True, but... well, if I don't ask, how would I know? It's not like LGBTQ people look different than straight people.
And isn't asking a little inappropriate in a gaming venue?
I was also thinking that. For all I know most of my regular opponents from the club or tournaments could be gay. When we meet we ask questions about threat ranges or armour saves not who we have been sleeping with recently.
They don’t have to “out” themselves. But think of words and phrases which may be upsetting or offensive to them, let alone conversations they might overhear.
Cutting that language out at a shop or club harms no-one.
Easy E wrote: I did not read the thread, as I knew it would make my blood boil.....
You should ask yourself why. Moral and social dilemmas require debate.
^This
Im really happy we are able to have this conversation on this site. It is an extremely important topic which should be discussed in a respectful manner.
That doesn’t take a lot for GW to arrange. Have different skin tones on ‘Eavy Metal Models. Have different ethnicities shown on book covers, without them being stereotypes. That’s…that’s about it. Those are statements. Those are simple windows of representation.
You don’t even need to provide sculpts of specific and obvious ethnicity. Indeed that can be shooting your self in the foot, as you risk causing offence if it’s seen as a stereotype or caricature. I’d refer folks to the new Cadian kit. On the box, a variety of skin tones on show. But the faces are…pretty generic. If you paint them all in a certain skin tone, they’re not going to look out of place or odd.
Simple barriers removed to widen your appeal as much as possible. It’s all stuff you were going to do anyway, so it’s not costing you anything. And if an existing customer starts to feel alienated because it’s not a white man sosigfest anymore? Sorry to say, but that sort of person is hardly a great loss.
I think the book covers would be a massive thing. Having a Commander or such be a main character and be a minority would be massive. Make it subtle and do not make a big deal about it but instead just introduce it as normal. Have a Eavy' Metal painting tutorial where the AM character they paint is black and dont make it a big deal the character is black, just have it as a tutorial for painting a cadian soilder.
That doesn’t take a lot for GW to arrange. Have different skin tones on ‘Eavy Metal Models. Have different ethnicities shown on book covers, without them being stereotypes. That’s…that’s about it. Those are statements. Those are simple windows of representation.
You don’t even need to provide sculpts of specific and obvious ethnicity. Indeed that can be shooting your self in the foot, as you risk causing offence if it’s seen as a stereotype or caricature. I’d refer folks to the new Cadian kit. On the box, a variety of skin tones on show. But the faces are…pretty generic. If you paint them all in a certain skin tone, they’re not going to look out of place or odd.
Simple barriers removed to widen your appeal as much as possible. It’s all stuff you were going to do anyway, so it’s not costing you anything. And if an existing customer starts to feel alienated because it’s not a white man sosigfest anymore? Sorry to say, but that sort of person is hardly a great loss.
I think the book covers would be a massive thing. Having a Commander or such be a main character and be a minority would be massive. Make it subtle and do not make a big deal about it but instead just introduce it as normal. Have a Eavy' Metal painting tutorial where the AM character they paint is black and dont make it a big deal the character is black, just have it as a tutorial for painting a cadian soilder.
Normalizing minorities is the first step
They're actually not that bad about this, Vulkan is a black man after all, and represented as such consistently over all sorts of artwork. All human factions in both 40k and AoS have different skin tones present for a couple of years now, again without making much of a deal of it. I think one of the Stormcast heroes in AoS that's represented on covers etc. is also canonically black, but i don't know his name.
Im really happy we are able to have this conversation on this site. It is an extremely important topic which should be discussed in a respectful manner.
I agree that it is an important topic but I disagree that it has been conducted respectfully by all parties.
Those who oppose the notion of diversity in TTWG space always bring up the same points about forced inclusion and diversity while bringing up the worst parts of the pro-diversity side of the debate but never take responsibility for those who seek to exclude people based on ethnicity/sex/gender/sexual orientation. They get to preach about the diversity-crazies who accuse people of racism/sexism/homphobia+ for doing things like converting the above-mentioned Stormcast into a different race (one based on a Mongol warrior aesthetic using White Scars parts btw) but when the pro-diversity side brings up the many incidents of actual racism/sexism/homphobia+, it gets hushed away as not real or not a legitimate problem.
The anti-diversity side also baits with loaded questions or absurd examples.
How is that engaging in a respectful manner?
Adeptekon wrote: I'm just wondering how the dynamics of the former ages of 40K history ended up with Anglo demographics in the far future with our world setting up for a shift of powers already.
Maybe in the far future the Primarchs should be African or Asian?
*psst, I know why, and it's merely that GW is located where it is, but probably never expected to reach the global audience it has now.
The Emperor is said to have been born in Ancient Turkey (Anatolia, if memory serves?)
Adeptekon wrote: I'm just wondering how the dynamics of the former ages of 40K history ended up with Anglo demographics in the far future with our world setting up for a shift of powers already.
Maybe in the far future the Primarchs should be African or Asian?
*psst, I know why, and it's merely that GW is located where it is, but probably never expected to reach the global audience it has now.
The Emperor is said to have been born in Ancient Turkey (Anatolia, if memory serves?)
Anatolia indeed. I always imagined that that's a nice little easter-egg for the fans of OG 'Ancient Aliens' dude Erich von Däniken (who was a big star in the late 60s to the mid-80s) and his weird theories about ancient spacefarers influencing humanity, because Anatolia is where Göbelki Tepe is situated, which held the record for things like the oldest known megaliths, oldest known human settlement, and oldest known place of worship until very recently and features in von Dänikens writing prominently
Yes, perhaps Big E is an AA, but as to whether he looks Turkish, Greek, Persian, Armenian, Caucasian, Romantically Romano-British, or whatever else is anyone's interpretation.
Gert wrote:
Adeptekon wrote: I'm just wondering how the dynamics of the former ages of 40K history ended up with Anglo demographics in the far future with our world setting up for a shift of powers already.
Maybe in the far future the Primarchs should be African or Asian?
*psst, I know why, and it's merely that GW is located where it is, but probably never expected to reach the global audience it has now.
You're using the term "Anglo" in the American sense to refer to non-Hispanic white people, which covers about half of Europe. On this side of the pond, Anglo-Saxons were a very specific cultural group that settled in the Southeast of England before the Norman invasions and were largely made up of Germanic migrants. Calling someone from Scotland or Ireland an Anglo would be a good way of getting stabbed as well.
Sad isn't it? and yes havin' some Irish relations I'm fully aware of that noise. In fact it was quite clear to me growing up where I did in the states that I was a Catholic myself. I knew someone was going to say something as soon as I hit "send"
Gert wrote:From a cultural perspective, we have multiple Nordic tribal cultures, ancient Roman/Greek-inspired cultures, post-apocalyptic gang cultures, Eastern Steppe cultures, and medieval European cultures, the list is long. The only ones we could really view as "Anglo" would be the Victorian Britain "Workshop of the World" idea on worlds that are heavily industrialised.
If you a referring to GW painting a lot of their miniatures as white, yes that is an issue of representation. However, the company has been a lot better at not having full white armies anymore.
It's kind of a moot point, since as you've helped me learn here before, it's not really the British empire, but broadly speaking European representation is clear.
Vulcan wrote:
Adeptekon wrote: And I'm sure wherever one lives someone's heard the line that goes something like this: "instead of blowing your money on toys you could be helping feed the poor"
Or "Why are you wasting your time on those toys when you should be studying!"
Yes I could have left the part after --when you could be-- and let everyone fill in their own blanks.
Now I'm not Black myself, but I would like to see an African Primarch, there's already Jagatai so maybe the two lost place holders could support that and Big E's lost daughter.
As for "What Is A Woman?" as mentioned earlier, I just don't have the energy to touch that right now. I'm still highly disappointed in the sad exchange on the documentary of the same name between Matt Walsh and Professor Dave who decidedly prefer to talk past each other.
Credit to everyone here, pat yourselves on the back.
Lord Damocles wrote: Well, we've progressed from 'hire the best person for the job' to 'hire based on race', so that's... progress..?
Well not really.
We identified that one method to improve diversity is to have presenters/community engagers who come from the same background as identified different diverse groups.
Therefore to improve diversity of a target group the "best person for the job" IS a person from that background.
As an example. If you identify that you want more women to join the hobby; then having at least one or more women in your video displays (tutorials, battle reports, painting etc...) is one means to help encourage others to join up. Thus a woman is 100% the best person for that role.
Not going into this too much, but given the current online climate, even defining what a woman nowadays is somehow contentious, so good luck with that.
A women is someone who identifies as a women. Sex is different then gender, but alas this is not the place to have this discussion.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Mods, thank you for allowing this important -and frankly crucial- discussion to take place. It is our job as some of the most involved members of the community to have this conversation and improve the hobby for the next generation.
If anyone has access to a GW rep this forum topic should be sent to them. It addresses many important issues which is plaguing the hobby.
Lord Damocles wrote: Well, we've progressed from 'hire the best person for the job' to 'hire based on race', so that's... progress..?
Well not really.
We identified that one method to improve diversity is to have presenters/community engagers who come from the same background as identified different diverse groups.
Therefore to improve diversity of a target group the "best person for the job" IS a person from that background.
As an example. If you identify that you want more women to join the hobby; then having at least one or more women in your video displays (tutorials, battle reports, painting etc...) is one means to help encourage others to join up. Thus a woman is 100% the best person for that role.
Not going into this too much, but given the current online climate, even defining what a woman nowadays is somehow contentious, so good luck with that.
A women is someone who identifies as a women. Sex is different then gender, but alas this is not the place to have this discussion.
I'm quite informed, and I'll be happy to leave that where it lay, sex is most certainly different than gender. I'm of the third school of thought that rarely gets a sound byte, that is gender is non-existent and irrelevant from a idealistic view point, but alas humans are categorical creatures, and that's where I'll digress or this will likely get shutdown consider the heat that topic brings.
True, but... well, if I don't ask, how would I know? It's not like LGBTQ people look different than straight people.
And isn't asking a little inappropriate in a gaming venue?
I know we want to be PC here, but I have literally never met a transwoman or transman in person that I didn't clock immediately.
There are also specific styles of haircuts, clothing, mannerisms, etc that are fairly distinct to both lesbians and gays. Granted, I've known gay men and women weren't remotely stereotypical, but the general idea that you would never be able to tell if someone is LGBTQ+ is frankly wrong.
Lord Damocles wrote: Well, we've progressed from 'hire the best person for the job' to 'hire based on race', so that's... progress..?
Well not really.
We identified that one method to improve diversity is to have presenters/community engagers who come from the same background as identified different diverse groups.
Therefore to improve diversity of a target group the "best person for the job" IS a person from that background.
As an example. If you identify that you want more women to join the hobby; then having at least one or more women in your video displays (tutorials, battle reports, painting etc...) is one means to help encourage others to join up. Thus a woman is 100% the best person for that role.
Not going into this too much, but given the current online climate, even defining what a woman nowadays is somehow contentious, so good luck with that.
A women is someone who identifies as a women. Sex is different then gender, but alas this is not the place to have this discussion.
I'm quite informed, and I'll be happy to leave that where it lay, sex is most certainly different than gender. I'm of the third school of thought that rarely gets a sound byte, that is gender is non-existent and irrelevant from a idealistic view point, but alas humans are categorical creatures, and that's where I'll digress or this will likely get shutdown consider the heat that topic brings.
I totally agree with this. Gender is a social construct and is not real, we humans just wanted to place people in boxes because it is easier for us
Adeptekon wrote: Sad isn't it? and yes havin' some Irish relations I'm fully aware of that noise. In fact it was quite clear to me growing up where I did in the states that I was a Catholic myself. I knew someone was going to say something as soon as I hit "send"
Not sure why it's sad, it's a term that some Americans use to differentiate between Whites and Latinos. It's incorrect sure but that's a lack of education, not racism or anything.
It's kind of a moot point, since as you've helped me learn here before, it's not really the British empire, but broadly speaking European representation is clear.
The thing is, HH isn't really the place where that sort of thing shines. The Legions all have their own cultures and they are varied but there are only 18 of them.
When you hit 40k and start getting to Marine Chapters and Guard Regiments there are far more cultural and historical influences that reach beyond Europe. For example, for Space Marines the Carcharadons and Obsidian Jaguars are inspired by the Polynesians and Aztects respectively, while the Imperial Guard Tallarn Desert Raiders are inspired by the Arab forces in the desert campaigns of WW1.
This brilliant image from one of the old Guard books that shows pretty well the range of inspirations 40k armies can go for.
As I noted before, if the intention is to increase the diversity of a group by attracting a population segment that is under-represented then the "BEST PERSON" for a media role to help introduce and draw those people in IS a person of that particular group.
This isn't diversity hiring, this is hiring a person of a specific group for a specific role and part of that role (not all) is to attract those of a similar background to themselves into your hobby/company.
White athletes are a minority in the NBA and certain positions in the NFL. I don't see how you could say they were anything other than a minority despite being the majority of the population in the US.
Adeptekon wrote: Sad isn't it? and yes havin' some Irish relations I'm fully aware of that noise. In fact it was quite clear to me growing up where I did in the states that I was a Catholic myself. I knew someone was going to say something as soon as I hit "send"
Not sure why it's sad, it's a term that some Americans use to differentiate between Whites and Latinos. It's incorrect sure but that's a lack of education, not racism or anything.
I meant it's sad that people are still getting stabbed about it. The current generation doesn't use it, currently the US government just has White and White Non-Hispanic (real scientific there) I still use it because I'm old school. That said we're all engaging each other within the Anglo-world cultural paradigm. We might be from different places, but we share English, history, some foods, values, ideals, religion, tradition, social expectations etc, on a much broader level. On the micro-level I still rep my block.
The thing is, HH isn't really the place where that sort of thing shines. The Legions all have their own cultures and they are varied but there are only 18 of them.
When you hit 40k and start getting to Marine Chapters and Guard Regiments there are far more cultural and historical influences that reach beyond Europe. For example, for Space Marines the Carcharadons and Obsidian Jaguars are inspired by the Polynesians and Aztects respectively, while the Imperial Guard Tallarn Desert Raiders are inspired by the Arab forces in the desert campaigns of WW1.
This brilliant image from one of the old Guard books that shows pretty well the range of inspirations 40k armies can go for.
Spoiler:
Thanks for that graphic, I don't really know much about the 40k cultures, I really need to learn more about Old Night and the whatever bits of lore that existed prior.
Okay, a hammer has been swung, the offending posts have been removed, posts quoting said offending posts have also been removed, apologies if there was anything else in there that was not dealing with.. that person.
In any case, we're going to give this topic another try. To the folks who kept things civil and on topic, many thanks, love you lots!
True, but... well, if I don't ask, how would I know? It's not like LGBTQ people look different than straight people.
And isn't asking a little inappropriate in a gaming venue?
I was also thinking that. For all I know most of my regular opponents from the club or tournaments could be gay. When we meet we ask questions about threat ranges or armour saves not who we have been sleeping with recently.
They don’t have to “out” themselves. But think of words and phrases which may be upsetting or offensive to them, let alone conversations they might overhear.
Cutting that language out at a shop or club harms no-one.
I think perhaps you shouldn't insinuate I regularly make such offensive statements, or that I tolerate them in my presence. One less even-tempered than I might take it as an insult.
True, but... well, if I don't ask, how would I know? It's not like LGBTQ people look different than straight people.
And isn't asking a little inappropriate in a gaming venue?
I know we want to be PC here, but I have literally never met a transwoman or transman in person that I didn't clock immediately.
There are also specific styles of haircuts, clothing, mannerisms, etc that are fairly distinct to both lesbians and gays. Granted, I've known gay men and women weren't remotely stereotypical, but the general idea that you would never be able to tell if someone is LGBTQ+ is frankly wrong.
Fair point, I suppose. I can be pretty oblivious, to the point where I've not noticed a woman I was talking to was flirting with me.
Yeah, SOMETIMES I can tell someone is LGBT. Generally when they're being very flamboyant about it. Like, acting so stereotypical that less flamboyant LGBT people get offended by it. Subtle generally flies right by me.
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JNAProductions wrote: Why is automatically assumed that the best candidate is a cishet white male, and not a minority?
Well, if everyone who applied was cishet white male, there's not a lot of choice in the matter.
Now I suppose this indicates a problem with how the business in question is PERCIEVED by minorities that needs addressing... but let's face it. We all know how things are perceived does not always reflect the situation that actually exists. If the business has gone out of their way to remove discrimination in hiring, but minorities remember a time where that wasn't true and no longer apply, how does one address that? If the minorities come in to apply but see there's only cishet white males and don't bother to apply no matter how friendly one is, how does one address that?
Those are not rhetorical questions. A lot of HR people would really like to know the answer to those questions so they can stop resorting to quota hiring and get enough diverse applicants that they can hire the best person, period.
I'm not seeing any insinuation there, I'm pretty sure Doc is just talking generally about behaviour in a shop or club - not seeing any suggestion that you personally might do anything like that.
You guys all know that there is plenty of stuff written about the talent pipeline, and how a lot of homogenous work forces are shaped less by biased hiring practices than by larger scale institutional biases that form the candidate pool?
Are nurses mostly women because men are baised against by hiring managers? No, most people know that an overwhelming majority of nursing students are women. For software engineers is reversed. (For doctors its ickier, because many of the more lucrative specialties have training programs that eat up a lot of women's prime child bearing years, so many female doctors choose career paths that better suit being a working mother).
Organizations act like they are powerless to expand their applicant pool. There are some clever ways to do that. You can offer internships, you can partner with schools, you can have a competitive scholarship, whatever. Hell, just post your job in publications or sites that cater to different markets. you'll get different applicants!
This conversations seem to always boil down to "diversity hiring is racist" which is just a thought terminating cliche. It assumes that there are literally two options: the status quo (which we know for a fact is biased) or quotas/affirmative action/reverse racism. It would make a casual observer wonder if maybe, just maybe, some people really prefer the current scheme.
True, but... well, if I don't ask, how would I know? It's not like LGBTQ people look different than straight people.
And isn't asking a little inappropriate in a gaming venue?
I was also thinking that. For all I know most of my regular opponents from the club or tournaments could be gay. When we meet we ask questions about threat ranges or armour saves not who we have been sleeping with recently.
They don’t have to “out” themselves. But think of words and phrases which may be upsetting or offensive to them, let alone conversations they might overhear.
Cutting that language out at a shop or club harms no-one.
I think perhaps you shouldn't insinuate I regularly make such offensive statements, or that I tolerate them in my presence. One less even-tempered than I might take it as an insult.
No such insinuation was intended. I was simply illustrating that if a venue allows racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic “banter”, it’s not exactly going to be a surprise those affected - or offended - by such language will at best give their patronage elsewhere, at worst decide that venue is representative of the whole, and want nothing to do with that whole.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JNAProductions wrote: Why is automatically assumed that the best candidate is a cishet white male, and not a minority?
That’s a really significant sociopolitical question.
Super short version? People are daft. Or at least, don’t necessarily think about things too hard. If you see Career Paths A, B, and C are dominated by cishet white male, the societal impression is “therefore cishet white males are best suited to that role”.
That’s the tricky part about expanding understanding. Initially, you are kind of saying to the person labouring under that impression “you are wrong”. And they kind of are. But through ignorance, rather than malice. Ignorance is of course a strong word, but isn’t necessarily a condemning observation. And it needs a careful non-accusatory explanation - and for the person to be willing to learn.
Rather than mostly rehashing of the "why" (not that there's anything wrong with that), I would be interested to hear the "how" from anyone who has been successful in deliberately cultivating a diverse wargaming group.
A society isn't past its diversity issues until it normalizes seeking diversity not because it is good but because it is better. Which is to say, rather than seeking diversity because it is the 'right thing to do' society would be seeking diversity because diverse groups are more effective.
Put differently, people need to transition from seeing their differences as flaws to seeing their differences as assets.
NinthMusketeer wrote: A society isn't past its diversity issues until it normalizes seeking diversity not because it is good but because it is better. Which is to say, rather than seeking diversity because it is the 'right thing to do' society would be seeking diversity because diverse groups are more effective.
Put differently, people need to transition from seeing their differences as flaws to seeing their differences as assets.
I'd argue that thinking of 'differences as assets' is part of the problem, that the differences are a commodity that lead to an advantage or disadvantage. I'd rather than people think of differences as unimportant, at the same level as wearing a grey shirt or having a buffalo wings rather than honey glazed. Unremarkable and unimportant, and so not something kick people down for.
Yeah, differences are not inherently good. They're just differences. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Blindly asserting that diversity is always good is an immediate turnoff and usually shows that the person is not going to argue in good faith.
NinthMusketeer wrote: A society isn't past its diversity issues until it normalizes seeking diversity not because it is good but because it is better. Which is to say, rather than seeking diversity because it is the 'right thing to do' society would be seeking diversity because diverse groups are more effective.
Put differently, people need to transition from seeing their differences as flaws to seeing their differences as assets.
I'd argue that thinking of 'differences as assets' is part of the problem, that the differences are a commodity that lead to an advantage or disadvantage. I'd rather than people think of differences as unimportant, at the same level as wearing a grey shirt or having a buffalo wings rather than honey glazed. Unremarkable and unimportant, and so not something kick people down for.
Which would be good, except there's a very large portion of society that DOES see differences as a thing to kick people for. Recognizing differences not only helps in that diverse perspectives provide new and creative ways to approach problems that you might otherwise not know are there, but lets society better serve groups that are disadvantaged by structural (and plain ol') racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.. "Race blindness" does nothing but advantage racists.
Differences of thought can be good when you need to come up with solutions to problems. Then you have a higher chance of finding a solution if not everyone has the same view on things. Here the important part is that people have different views and life experiences so they actually view things from different angles. You are more likely to have these differences in view and thought if you have a group with diverse background, not all one sex and also differences in age and sexuality. But it isn't a guarantee. A group of 20 people that are all upper class and went to the same university and studied the same thing and now are hired at the same company can look very diverse on the outside but actually be much less different on the inside when it comes to thought than a group of what at a first glance just looks like 20 straight white dudes. If those guys were from different countries and they were anything between dirt poor and rich and had various different jobs before ending up at the same company they might only look alike but be very different in where it matters for the creative aspect of the job.
But outside of that differences are mostly neutral at best and can often be a negative. When all you need is cohesion and not creative thought then differences usually just divides people. Especially when it comes to culture. Most people can and do come to accept or ignore things as different skin color, gender or sexuality so it isn't a problem in society. But it is much harder if there are vastly different cultures. Like most workplaces aren't really multicultural even if there are a lot of different cultures presented among the people working there. It is usually just one work culture that everyone follows. It wouldn't really work if the southern europeans came to work at 9. Took a couple of hours break at the middle of the day and then worked in the evening while the north europeans show up at 7 or 8 and went home when the others came back to work. Or some just refuses to show up without using their vacation days cause they have a special holiday in their home country. Or some people smoke indoors cause that is what they grew up with. Not to mention more political topics on how different cultures may view minorities and such or just actual politics. Open authoritarian communists and fascists might not get a long well in the workplace with anyone. The more alike people are the easier it usually is to keep things going. White flight and willingness to pay taxes for social programs for example show that diversity isn't really helping a population stay together.
We shouldn't exclude people just because they might be different than us but the motto "diversity is our strength" is total bs and isn't really true anywhere in the world and the opposite is more what the reality is like. We should take pride though in that we as humans in the west have come far enough that we can work around the problems with diversity and accept others. Everyone is an individual after all and should be treated as such. We should be careful so we dont look too much at what groups or identity people have that we end up going too far and get more divided by focusing in on it. If the differences matters we give it weight and it can divide. If we don't care about those differences, in a negative or positive way, then those differences cant be used to divide us.
Some work ofc needs to be done to help minorities and groups that have had various kinds of oppression against them but as soon as they are starting to get solved and are getting accepted we need to tone it down and let it go. There are a lot of people that dont want the things to be "solved" since their identity or living hinges on there being an injustice they can work to fix. Like some of the race hoaxes in the US (just look at Jussie smolett and the BLM funders). They want to keep us divided to use it for their own goals.
For fantasy games and models, diversity can also open up new myths and legends to mine.
Not calling anyone out here, but genuinely how many of us can name 6 mythical creatures from Africa? Or non-deity mythical creatures from the Indian Sub-continent?
Understandably in the west, we have a good understanding of European Myths. And that’s reflected in the geek games (Vampires, Werewolves, Fae etc). But other than Ancient Egypt (Mummies, and even then that’s a 1900’s type mythos from movies)? It’s…basically Japanese stuff like Kitsune, thanks to how well anime was received in the West.
There are many, many other cultural mythos to be mined for inspiration.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: For fantasy games and models, diversity can also open up new myths and legends to mine.
Not calling anyone out here, but genuinely how many of us can name 6 mythical creatures from Africa? Or non-deity mythical creatures from the Indian Sub-continent?
Understandably in the west, we have a good understanding of European Myths. And that’s reflected in the geek games (Vampires, Werewolves, Fae etc). But other than Ancient Egypt (Mummies, and even then that’s a 1900’s type mythos from movies)? It’s…basically Japanese stuff like Kitsune, thanks to how well anime was received in the West.
There are many, many other cultural mythos to be mined for inspiration.
For sure. In creativity aspects I think its a good idea with more diversity. So much more interesting myths and legends that could be taken for inspiration. But I think it is still important to clarify we need those thoughts and ideas, not necessarily people from those areas. Someone born there but haven't engaged with it isn't more likely to help diversifying in this aspect than someone not from there but who got interested and traveled there to learn more.
I am reading mostly Japanese, Korean or Chinese fantasy stuff the last few years just because how different they are from modern western media in almost all aspects. Wouldn't mind have a wealth of novels available from other parts of the world in the fantasy genre that in turn is as different but in another direction.
I’d disagree that having a Creative of those countries/cultures isn’t a boon.
Whilst far from a buff, being a Scot, I’m going to have more of a passing knowledge of Scottish Folklore than someone born and raised in England, provided neither of us have formally studied it, or made a particular effort to delve into it.
So yes, you’re right. You don’t need someone from Nigeria to translate Nigerian folklore into Your Thing.
But, I would argue (sadly without evidence) that a Nigerian Creative, having grown up with that folklore as part of their cultural background may have interesting and unique takes on how to translate it.
That Fantasy and SciFi is kind of lacking in non-Western folklore is kind of evidence for that. Well I say evidence. Let’s be honest Anecdote is probably the correct term for it.
I’d love to learn more about lesser known folklore from anywhere. I’m utterly indiscriminate when I’m indulging in my Fortean Passions. But the fact remains the lesser known is predominantly non-European.
For clarity, this isn’t an attempt to paint anyone as racist here. It is what it is, and I’m not ascribing motive to it.
Someone who grew up in it and is interested/knowledgeable about the subject is probably preferable to someone who is from outside the culture but have otherwise the same interest/knowledge since they should understand more of the nuances and their importance just from being steeped in to it. More likely but not a guarantee since sometimes being in a culture makes you blind to some of its particularities that an outsider might be able to more easily notice and describe,
I am just saying that someone born in the culture isn't necessarily better than someone not born in it just based on birth place. Many other factors are more important but if all the others are close to equal than the place of birth(or more like place of growing up) can matter and be the deciding factor. But even then it is a huge difference if they grew up in a more traditional family that actually shared those stories or if they instead grew up in an upper class family/culture/area that instead focused on trying to be more western and "successful" in that way and thus had forsaken parts of their own culture on the way. Then that person might not be more capable than someone from an entirely different culture.
It can matter and it can not. We should be careful to put too much thought in to some of these characteristics since assuming stuff depending on them is an easy way to stop treating people as individuals and instead like groups or stereotypes.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’d disagree that having a Creative of those countries/cultures isn’t a boon.
Whilst far from a buff, being a Scot, I’m going to have more of a passing knowledge of Scottish Folklore than someone born and raised in England, provided neither of us have formally studied it, or made a particular effort to delve into it.
So yes, you’re right. You don’t need someone from Nigeria to translate Nigerian folklore into Your Thing.
But, I would argue (sadly without evidence) that a Nigerian Creative, having grown up with that folklore as part of their cultural background may have interesting and unique takes on how to translate it.
That Fantasy and SciFi is kind of lacking in non-Western folklore is kind of evidence for that. Well I say evidence. Let’s be honest Anecdote is probably the correct term for it.
I’d love to learn more about lesser known folklore from anywhere. I’m utterly indiscriminate when I’m indulging in my Fortean Passions. But the fact remains the lesser known is predominantly non-European.
For clarity, this isn’t an attempt to paint anyone as racist here. It is what it is, and I’m not ascribing motive to it.
Its interesting that you bring up non-European folklore. One of the big appeals to me when reading a lot of fantasy and science fiction is recognizing the familiar tropes from folklore I've grown up with. I'm quite familiar with Scottish, Greek, Roman and Egyptian folklore and I have often found myself missing that familiarity when I've read something drawing on a different mythical source.
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman and The Burning City by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle come to mind mind discussing non-European folklore in modern fantasy as the only ones I've gotten along well with, and both have a decidedly Western bent.
It is a bit harder at first but if you read enough about it and perhaps also do some wiki reading about certain topics you will after a while become familiar with it as well.
I missed a lot of hints and apparently obvious troupes the first time I read wuxia/xianxia novels. (chinese martial art fantasy)
I didn't understand motivations, humor or culturally significant things but after having read enough the things slowly just becomes a part of your knowledge and you don't even need to think about why anymore, you just know it. But it could easily turn someone off from the entire thing. I was luckily bored with western fantasy at the time and even though I didn't have a good grasp about things it was still intriguing enough for me to continue.
I can now read wuxia novels that subvert troupes and stereotypes without getting lost since I recognize them all and understand why it is funny or clever. My favorite novel is that way and if I had started my journey with it I would have thought it was complete trash without having learned the myths and culture. Having read japanese and korean manga/novels before did help a bit though since a lot of their culture and mythology has roots in the chinese counterpart so some of it you can get for free that way.
Adeptekon wrote: True, it would be great if things didn't have to be made up. I liken this latest discussion akin to the origins lore of the Dark Angels.
On one hand I'd love to other less represented cultures, but not if it means they're going to be misrepresented somehow.
Like how Space Wolves pretty badly misrepresents "Viking" culture?
Oh, yes, Caucasian cultures also get misrepresented in games. Anyone remember the recent manufactured outrage over Oriental Adventures for D&D? It was all stereotypes and distortion of medieval Oriental culture? Does anyone think the base game was an accurate representation of medieval European culture? Of course not! It was played with and altered and generally distorted... for more dramatic gameplay. Just like Oriental Adventures did for far Eastern cultures.
That's what fantasy gaming IS. It may draw inspiration from reality, but it is NOT reality and should not be mistaken for such.
But when you get that sort of manufactured outrage when a game company TRIES to include elements of a different, rarely explored culture, you actively discourage OTHERS from including different, rarely explored cultures.
In other words, if you want more inclusion, you've got to play fair with those who actually try to do it.
It’s a valid point of course. And indeed amply demonstrates, and supports my argument.
As someone born and raised in the U.K., and a Nerd, I have a surface level of knowledge of Norse Mythology.
I can name various Norse Gods, just as I can name various Greek Gods. I can even roughly describe certain of the associated myths. But not because I’ve ever studied or particularly read up on them. Rather, it’s more Cultural Osmosis. Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, Gladiator, Spartacus (TV Series), Vikings, Thor etc etc.
All sources, however fast and loose, which at least expose me to historical pantheons and give me something to key to. Stargate SG1 did something for non-western pantheons, but outside of Lord Yu they were pretty much one and done cameos.
It’s a valid point of course. And indeed amply demonstrates, and supports my argument.
As someone born and raised in the U.K., and a Nerd, I have a surface level of knowledge of Norse Mythology.
I can name various Norse Gods, just as I can name various Greek Gods. I can even roughly describe certain of the associated myths. But not because I’ve ever studied or particularly read up on them. Rather, it’s more Cultural Osmosis. Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, Gladiator, Spartacus (TV Series), Vikings, Thor etc etc.
All sources, however fast and loose, which at least expose me to historical pantheons and give me something to key to. Stargate SG1 did something for non-western pantheons, but outside of Lord Yu they were pretty much one and done cameos.
Maybe try to focus less on being melodramatic looking for straw men that don’t exist and more on points being made.
Adeptekon stated that more representation of different cultures in 40k would be a good thing but not if they were “misrepresented.” Adeptekon also alluded to the Deathwing origin story that incorporated Native American/indefinite people’s culture into the iconography and color scheme of the Deathwing and how some objected to how it wasn’t an accurate depiction of any actual indigenous culture.
Vulcan responded by making the point that none of the setting is an accurate depiction of any real life culture. It’s all fictional, none of it is real nobody is supposed to believe it’s real. Space Wolves aren an accurate portrayal of Norse culture. In WFB Kislev wasn’t an accurate depiction of Poland or Rus or Mongolia. Ghazghkull isn’t an accurate depiction of the Thatcher government. GW makes fictitious games containing plenty of parody and satire but none of it is real nor should it be taken as such. If people want GW games to have more diversity in its models, factions, etc then good faith efforts made by GW (or any other game company) should be welcomed and not held to accuracy standards that shouldn’t be applied. 40k, AOS and the rest aren’t historical games it’s all make believe.
Vulcan wrote: Anyone remember the recent manufactured outrage over Oriental Adventures for D&D?
But when you get that sort of manufactured outrage when a game company TRIES to include elements of a different, rarely explored culture, you actively discourage OTHERS from including different, rarely explored cultures.
You, uh, used the term "manufactured outrage" twice there, which is at least once too many, probably twice.
I actually didn't remember the controversy, but a little bit of digging seems to be that Daniel Kwan, a games designer and diversity consultant, objected to WOTC selling the pdf of the original 1980s Oriental Adventures. His comment "Assuming positive intent, Oriental Adventures and similar products aren’t written with racist or malicious intent, but rather through the misguided appreciation of cultural tropes,” Kwan says. “The resulting content lacks nuance, context, and can be harmful when used to create an ‘other’ in a product that was originally designed to serve as an escapist fantasy for white people.” He later said that he didn't want the book banned, just felt that continuing to sell it unannotated was inappropriate.
So, yes, there are people who think selling (checks notes) 30+ year old source books written with all of the sophistication you'd expect from the mid 80s is cringey. And they (checks notes again) made a nuanced and rational argument.
It’s a valid point of course. And indeed amply demonstrates, and supports my argument.
As someone born and raised in the U.K., and a Nerd, I have a surface level of knowledge of Norse Mythology.
I can name various Norse Gods, just as I can name various Greek Gods. I can even roughly describe certain of the associated myths. But not because I’ve ever studied or particularly read up on them. Rather, it’s more Cultural Osmosis. Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, Gladiator, Spartacus (TV Series), Vikings, Thor etc etc.
All sources, however fast and loose, which at least expose me to historical pantheons and give me something to key to. Stargate SG1 did something for non-western pantheons, but outside of Lord Yu they were pretty much one and done cameos.
Maybe try to focus less on being melodramatic looking for straw men that don’t exist and more on points being made.
Adeptekon stated that more representation of different cultures in 40k would be a good thing but not if they were “misrepresented.” Adeptekon also alluded to the Deathwing origin story that incorporated Native American/indefinite people’s culture into the iconography and color scheme of the Deathwing and how some objected to how it wasn’t an accurate depiction of any actual indigenous culture.
Vulcan responded by making the point that none of the setting is an accurate depiction of any real life culture. It’s all fictional, none of it is real nobody is supposed to believe it’s real. Space Wolves aren an accurate portrayal of Norse culture. In WFB Kislev wasn’t an accurate depiction of Poland or Rus or Mongolia. Ghazghkull isn’t an accurate depiction of the Thatcher government. GW makes fictitious games containing plenty of parody and satire but none of it is real nor should it be taken as such. If people want GW games to have more diversity in its models, factions, etc then good faith efforts made by GW (or any other game company) should be welcomed and not held to accuracy standards that shouldn’t be applied. 40k, AOS and the rest aren’t historical games it’s all make believe.
You make good points.
But I’ll counter with “one man’s satire is another man’s racism”.
No. I’m not going to define, or even attempt to define where such borders may or may not exist. Outside of my own life and life experiences. Which so far haven’t been touched upon, so let’s not let that detain us further.
Prestor Jon wrote: Vulcan responded by making the point that none of the setting is an accurate depiction of any real life culture. It’s all fictional, none of it is real nobody is supposed to believe it’s real. Space Wolves aren an accurate portrayal of Norse culture. In WFB Kislev wasn’t an accurate depiction of Poland or Rus or Mongolia. Ghazghkull isn’t an accurate depiction of the Thatcher government. GW makes fictitious games containing plenty of parody and satire but none of it is real nor should it be taken as such. If people want GW games to have more diversity in its models, factions, etc then good faith efforts made by GW (or any other game company) should be welcomed and not held to accuracy standards that shouldn’t be applied. 40k, AOS and the rest aren’t historical games it’s all make believe.
Well.... it's telling when some of the cultures are a little more accurate than others, though, right?
The ultramarines use of greco-roman themes is pretty consistnet and accurate, with legit roman numerals being used. They're also literally the guys on the poster, their territory is widely known as the best place to live, and
The Space Wolves viking/nordic elements are pretty rich, in that Fenris could more or less pass for a nordic myth. The Space Wolves themselves obviously are not a carbon copy of their homeworld, but their names and stories indicate a pretty solid understanding of nordic culture.
White scars... have moustaches, ride horses/bikes, and call their captains "khan." So, a little less in depth there. I will say the modern Khan is a more interesting model
Deathwing literally just had some feathers. That's about it.
On the flip side, Salamanders have black skin (for reasons) but their culture is not terribly based on any one historical culture.
Blood Angels have a vampiric curse that they actively work against, and their culture is not really classic eastern european. they're just space dudes that have a blood cult that sometimes results in becoming a vampire.
When it's really clear that some cultural inspirations are based on deeper and more involved study, and others are based on stereotypes or superficial facts, you can kind of pick that apart.
Prestor Jon wrote: Vulcan responded by making the point that none of the setting is an accurate depiction of any real life culture. It’s all fictional, none of it is real nobody is supposed to believe it’s real. Space Wolves aren an accurate portrayal of Norse culture. In WFB Kislev wasn’t an accurate depiction of Poland or Rus or Mongolia. Ghazghkull isn’t an accurate depiction of the Thatcher government. GW makes fictitious games containing plenty of parody and satire but none of it is real nor should it be taken as such. If people want GW games to have more diversity in its models, factions, etc then good faith efforts made by GW (or any other game company) should be welcomed and not held to accuracy standards that shouldn’t be applied. 40k, AOS and the rest aren’t historical games it’s all make believe.
Well.... it's telling when some of the cultures are a little more accurate than others, though, right?
The ultramarines use of greco-roman themes is pretty consistnet and accurate, with legit roman numerals being used. They're also literally the guys on the poster, their territory is widely known as the best place to live, and
The Space Wolves viking/nordic elements are pretty rich, in that Fenris could more or less pass for a nordic myth. The Space Wolves themselves obviously are not a carbon copy of their homeworld, but their names and stories indicate a pretty solid understanding of nordic culture.
White scars... have moustaches, ride horses/bikes, and call their captains "khan." So, a little less in depth there. I will say the modern Khan is a more interesting model
Deathwing literally just had some feathers. That's about it.
On the flip side, Salamanders have black skin (for reasons) but their culture is not terribly based on any one historical culture.
Blood Angels have a vampiric curse that they actively work against, and their culture is not really classic eastern european. they're just space dudes that have a blood cult that sometimes results in becoming a vampire.
When it's really clear that some cultural inspirations are based on deeper and more involved study, and others are based on stereotypes or superficial facts, you can kind of pick that apart.
Blood Angels are 'Interview with a Vampire' emo vampires.
Deathwing actually had a lot more background, including cultural stuff, holy symbols etc., much has been stripped / not repeated over the years, probably out of (imho misplaced) sensibilities - 'a bunch of feathers' is all that remains, but there has been more.
As for the Greco-Roman fetishism: that's something that comes more or less naturally to people that graduated from the british school system before ca. the 1990s - the british system had a huge hard-on for Rome and Ancient Greece, and only dropped compulsory education in Latin&Greek in favour of modern secondary languages in the 1980s. Tests in Latin&Greek were an entry requirement for many university degrees until the mid-1960s, when that started to gradually change.
“I can write a slur about my people, and Those Other people can write a slur about themselves. So, when I write a slur about Those Other people, how am I suddenly the bad guy?”
“I can write a slur about my people, and Those Other people can write a slur about themselves. So, when I write a slur about Those Other people, how am I suddenly the bad guy?”
It get's a bit more complicated once it becomes a corporation making jokes about people - if you want to avoid all possibility for controversy and all possible controversies little opportunity for satire remains, and what remains possible quickly becomes stale and formulaic. Ultimately, it's best (again, for a 'faceless corporation' type of actor, not necessary for individual, identifiable artists) to refrain from it in general and pursue other avenues of comedy.
Francois Truffeut allegedly said that “There’s no such thing as an anti-war film.” Essentially, that no matter how one tries to show that war is terrible, some people will watch it and decide that it looks fun.
The same can be said of a lot of racial satire. Some people watched "all in the family" and related to Archie, in the same way they laughed along with the racist townfolk in Blazing Saddles. There is actually research (well, Malcolm Gladwell said there was research, so who knows) that even when people are the target of the satire, rather than change their behavior, they can laugh and move on.
“I can write a slur about my people, and Those Other people can write a slur about themselves. So, when I write a slur about Those Other people, how am I suddenly the bad guy?”
I think that, broadly speaking, people can play with stereotypes of groups they belong to because the context is usually much more positive. Every group has a pretty rich history of self satire, and most groups makes jokes about themselves that they would often be offended by if an outsider made. And this goes beyond race or even religion. Think of your career, or even your hobby. I have a buddy who posts his painted warhammer stuff on facebook with a joke about "virginity confirmed." However, it would be pretty offensive if somebody who didn't play Warhammer said "that's only for virgins."
Likewise, a movie like Friday, if written and directed by people who were not black, would be scrutinized for it's portrayal of drug use and crime in a way that it's not since it's based on the writers experience. If Curb your enthusiasm was warped just a tiny bit, it could read as deeply antisemetic. So, context matters!
NinthMusketeer wrote: A society isn't past its diversity issues until it normalizes seeking diversity not because it is good but because it is better. Which is to say, rather than seeking diversity because it is the 'right thing to do' society would be seeking diversity because diverse groups are more effective.
Put differently, people need to transition from seeing their differences as flaws to seeing their differences as assets.
I'd argue that thinking of 'differences as assets' is part of the problem, that the differences are a commodity that lead to an advantage or disadvantage. I'd rather than people think of differences as unimportant, at the same level as wearing a grey shirt or having a buffalo wings rather than honey glazed. Unremarkable and unimportant, and so not something kick people down for.
Which would be good, except there's a very large portion of society that DOES see differences as a thing to kick people for. Recognizing differences not only helps in that diverse perspectives provide new and creative ways to approach problems that you might otherwise not know are there, but lets society better serve groups that are disadvantaged by structural (and plain ol') racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.. "Race blindness" does nothing but advantage racists.
I'm well aware of the former. I'm objecting to 'difference as assets' because I've had real life interactions with people who described their admiration for farm equipment in terms of how many people with darker skin it could replace. Except it wasn't phrased that kindly (you can probably fill in the word that was actually used).
With that context, does it explain why 'differences as assets' and 'effectiveness' squicks me the hell out?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: For fantasy games and models, diversity can also open up new myths and legends to mine.
Not calling anyone out here, but genuinely how many of us can name 6 mythical creatures from Africa? Or non-deity mythical creatures from the Indian Sub-continent?
Understandably in the west, we have a good understanding of European Myths. And that’s reflected in the geek games (Vampires, Werewolves, Fae etc). But other than Ancient Egypt (Mummies, and even then that’s a 1900’s type mythos from movies)? It’s…basically Japanese stuff like Kitsune, thanks to how well anime was received in the West.
There are many, many other cultural mythos to be mined for inspiration.
For sure. In creativity aspects I think its a good idea with more diversity. So much more interesting myths and legends that could be taken for inspiration. But I think it is still important to clarify we need those thoughts and ideas, not necessarily people from those areas. Someone born there but haven't engaged with it isn't more likely to help diversifying in this aspect than someone not from there but who got interested and traveled there to learn more.
I am reading mostly Japanese, Korean or Chinese fantasy stuff the last few years just because how different they are from modern western media in almost all aspects. Wouldn't mind have a wealth of novels available from other parts of the world in the fantasy genre that in turn is as different but in another direction.
40k has always touched the surface of other cultures yet has never really dived in fully. T'au for example are inspired by the Japanese yet it never seems to fully lean into the Heian period look or culture. It needs to start doing this to prevent the style of the game from getting stale
“I can write a slur about my people, and Those Other people can write a slur about themselves. So, when I write a slur about Those Other people, how am I suddenly the bad guy?”
It get's a bit more complicated once it becomes a corporation making jokes about people - if you want to avoid all possibility for controversy and all possible controversies little opportunity for satire remains, and what remains possible quickly becomes stale and formulaic. Ultimately, it's best (again, for a 'faceless corporation' type of actor, not necessary for individual, identifiable artists) to refrain from it in general and pursue other avenues of comedy.
On that? I urge serious caution. Because the line between source, inspiration and caution is a fine one.
That is not to say it can’t be done. But it needs to be done right. If you’re lifting/borrowing/however you want to phrase it? You need to make sure you’re not doing said source a disservice.
Hence it loops back to “At least hire a relevant cultural consultant, so you don’t end up being a dick despite best intentions”
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: On that? I urge serious caution. Because the line between source, inspiration and caution is a fine one.
That is not to say it can’t be done. But it needs to be done right. If you’re lifting/borrowing/however you want to phrase it? You need to make sure you’re not doing said source a disservice.
Hence it loops back to “At least hire a relevant cultural consultant, so you don’t end up being a dick despite best intentions”
I refer the Doc to Chakotay (whose only redeeming features was not being Harry or Tom and taking one for the team whatever Tyrant Janeway was in heat)
On I'm all for a bit of research into any culture being portrayed but its best to get some one with proper creditably rather than bs peddlers or those funts from Cracked else you get the Chakotay isse or worse jarring modern ideals in historical shows
But to spiral back to the point, well sort of anyhoo, one of my constant bugbears is the apparent lack of google fu amongst the squeak wheels, as most things can be easily traced back to sources, heck I recall someone claiming how original the IOM;'s Inquistoin was, with nay a clue about Nemesis or the lads nobody expects
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: On that? I urge serious caution. Because the line between source, inspiration and caution is a fine one.
This speaks alot to what GW needs to focus on. Not only will having a more culturally grounded and historically based army make the game more interesting -as well as increasing world building- it will also bring lots of new players into the hobby, whether they are history buffs of other cultures or people who just appreciate the look of these cultures.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I wouldn’t guarantee lots of new players as such. But it wouldn’t hurt recruitment any.
Because whilst diversity is a good thing, it’s not in itself going to guarantee an expanded player base - only encourage it.
I'm not talking just about representation but also talking about how having many different cultures increases aesthetic as well as allows for history buffs to get more into the hobby, it could also increase the amount of people who get into the hobby for painting the models.
Now this is an honest question, I'm totally ignorant here, but why do I think "Turkic" inspired Ghazghkull, and Uruk (same with Tolkien) for Uruk the Sumerian city?
I apologize for having fond memories of my Oriental Adventures.
Ah, that's interesting and it seems to be a play on her with Tolkien's baddies. I assumed it was purely Tolkien inspired return to Ghazghkull and Nazgul.
Gert wrote: The Thatcher thing is a Warhammer myth according to Andy Chambers.
I’ll need to check me books. And be sober. But he first showed up as a Warboss in a sample army. Might’ve been by Andy Chambers.
But, super politely, and not calling you out, don’t suppose you have a source for the counter claim? Now worries if not, but always happy to expand and correct my own knowledge
An interview at some point in the last few years, not sure of the exact one and there are a fair whack kicking around. But it is real and has been referenced in a few places (sadly without links to said interview).
I don't recall having ever seen an official source for it. It's just one of those things, like the 2 missing Legions supposedly being based on missing Roman legions, that everyone 'knows' because it's been repeated so many times over the years.
“I can write a slur about my people, and Those Other people can write a slur about themselves. So, when I write a slur about Those Other people, how am I suddenly the bad guy?”
Who's writing slurs? We're talking about fantasy/sci fi factions not being 100% accurate representations of modern or ancient cultures, and how some representations are somewhat more accurate than others. Not about deliberately writing - or saying - slurs about other cultures.
Adeptekon wrote: Now this is an honest question, I'm totally ignorant here, but why do I think "Turkic" inspired Ghazghkull, and Uruk (same with Tolkien) for Uruk the Sumerian city?
I apologize for having fond memories of my Oriental Adventures.
Much of the ork-stuff is taken from Tolkien, especially stuff like names and words, and there are indeed hints and arguments that Tolkien constructed the Black Tongue modelled on the then-recently decyphered Hurrian language, which is from Mesopotamia and related to modern-day Turkish, and shares important grammatic structures with it.
Adeptekon wrote: Now this is an honest question, I'm totally ignorant here, but why do I think "Turkic" inspired Ghazghkull, and Uruk (same with Tolkien) for Uruk the Sumerian city?
I apologize for having fond memories of my Oriental Adventures.
Much of the ork-stuff is taken from Tolkien, especially stuff like names and words, and there are indeed hints and arguments that Tolkien constructed the Black Tongue modelled on the then-recently decyphered Hurrian language, which is from Mesopotamia and related to modern-day Turkish, and shares important grammatic structures with it.
I've only browsed this thread, so sorry if I come off as either repetitive or condescending.
One thing I fear about diversity is having it become "diversity". A near parody of the original intent with near cult like followers that swear it's still serious.
Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.
cuda1179 wrote: I've only browsed this thread, so sorry if I come off as either repetitive or condescending.
One thing I fear about diversity is having it become "diversity". A near parody of the original intent with near cult like followers that swear it's still serious.
Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.
Not to sound condescending, but consider the source. I'd say GW on the other hand has been very generous towards age, just look at the space marines.
my locals are very diverse, we have socialists, libertarians, conservatives, trans, gay, Nigerians, Ugandans, English, Welsh, Scots, Japanese, Malaysians, though English people are the majority of course as one would expect being in England, black English, white English, mixed English.
one could just say they are "white" "black" "asian" or whatever but that is very reductive and anti inclusive.
Very diverse, of course I mean the real meaning of word Diverse and not the "we all think and look the same and anyone that does not look and think the same as me is not diverse"
I mean diversity of character and thought, the thing that actually matters.
cuda1179 wrote: I've only browsed this thread, so sorry if I come off as either repetitive or condescending.
One thing I fear about diversity is having it become "diversity". A near parody of the original intent with near cult like followers that swear it's still serious.
Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.
It’s all relative.
My place of work is currently looking at why the upper management structure is predominantly white male.
At other levels, the only thing holding you back is your own ability. Applications for advancement are anonymised, so provided you can sell yourself, nobody is actively holding you back.
The realisation seems to be “minority folk don’t seem to be applying”. Now the ins and outs of that are largely unknown to me, but Societal Expectation may play into it.
And that’s what they’re trying to work around or eliminate. Because we want everyone to feel valued, and take their careers as far as their ability will carry them. Anonymising applications feels like a simple, straight forward step to that.
Is it perfect? No. Is it guaranteed to work? Nope. But there’s little harm in trying, and removing as many unnecessary barriers to progression as possible.
There are other quite major issues. We had a temporary High Heedyin in for around 2 years, and nothing got done. Around 9 months ago they cancelled the current Career Progression Model. And….we’re still waiting for details on what is replacing it. I feel sorry for our current, permanent High Heedyin as whilst they’ve been left an awful mess by their predecessor(s), and they get flak for it, they have at least got things moving again.
Oh, and last year? To help with retention, the two levels below me received a 10% pay rise. My level and the level above? 2%. So they essentially devalued us. Before, there was a roughly £3,500 salary difference between each level. Now? Between Level 1 and Level 2 (my level) it’s around…£700. My duties are no less. My know-how and experience are no less. But it is what it is. Thankfully for them, I’m now of an age where I really can’t be arsed to update my CV, and Pension wise I know which way my bread is buttered. But yeah. They solved one retention problem and caused entirely another.
cuda1179 wrote: I've only browsed this thread, so sorry if I come off as either repetitive or condescending.
One thing I fear about diversity is having it become "diversity". A near parody of the original intent with near cult like followers that swear it's still serious.
Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.
The problem with 'diversity' like anything that is pushed and doesn't evolve naturally, is that it inevitably becomes the imperative end rather than the means it usually starts as.
But if there are active forces pushing against diversity as a natural evolution, then why shouldn't those who are pro-diversity push back? Should we just let those who want to exclude nonstraight whites do what they want because fighting them would be "forcing" diversity?
The concept of "forced diversity" is always just a dog whistle for people not wanting to have minorities represented in media. It never comes up unless a black Space Marine is on a book cover or a female character gets a novel series.
Gert wrote: But if there are active forces pushing against diversity as a natural evolution, then why shouldn't those who are pro-diversity push back? Should we just let those who want to exclude nonstraight whites do what they want because fighting them would be "forcing" diversity?
The concept of "forced diversity" is always just a dog whistle for people not wanting to have minorities represented in media. It never comes up unless a black Space Marine is on a book cover or a female character gets a novel series.
No, just like black cleopatra?
I am sure the egyptians and greeks and macedons are very happy about that documentary.
Many major social shifts also took some pressure to change. Women had to fight to get the vote; gays had to fight in court and still are for acceptance and equal rights.
There is always a degree of force to change because chance can often be new ways of thinking that needs pushing to be accepted by the masses. This pushing doesn't have to be outright fighting or hostility; but it does require active action to make the change happen, not simply sitting back and hoping it might change.
Heck I noted that women had to fight for the vote, and yet one of the major contributing factors of them gaining the vote wasn't them fighting against men nor fasting in protest, but their efforts in manufacture, medical and many other fields during WW2.
I think it helps to highlight that action and movements to promote change don't have to be hostile or offensive or aggressive, there are many ways that they can be promoted in neutral and positive angles for all.
But they DO need action.
Which is where we got to with this thread, the concept of understanding the barriers (real, imagined, visible, invisible etc..); understanding what we could do to take them down and also how we could encourage and promote others joining the hobby from a wider variety of backgrounds.
The vast majority of which are already accepted by the majority of society in general.
This isn't a massive social change to the nation, its more about getting the social changes that already have taken place to be seen within a niche of the population.
As ever, not aiming this at anyone in this thread?
“Forced Diversity” is such a loaded phrase, because it’s so poorly defined. And sadly, deliberately so.
Consider Rings of Power, which in the run up revealed the casting of a black woman as a Dwarf. Well before anyone knew anything of the plot and the acting talents etc, the usual Weird Internet Man Babies were making ever more bizarre claims.
Now the show turned out distinctly average, sure. But the cast were….perfectly fine.
Funniest thing to me is when someone claims “Go Woke, Go Broke”, as they’re so selective with their evidence, and indeed even go so far as to claim evidence against it (SW sequels being comfortable box office successes, GW making record profits despite going for greater diversity) must be lies and a conspiracy etc etc.
It’s almost as if pushback against diversity is being driven by bad-faith actors.
Princess Disa lacked a beard... that was the biggest complaint by far and she was pretty one of the few good things about that series.
As for "forced diversity" being a vague term, sure, so define diversity in clear terms, what does it actually mean, as others have stated a 100% female, Anglo American writers room is considered diverse but a 100% Anglo American male writers room is not, why is that ?
Case in point, does anyone remember a few years back when the Huffington Post showed a picture of its "ultra diverse" group of senior editors. All one gender, 90% one race, all the same political affiliation, all in the same age group, all from the same area of education.
They shared a picture of the women on their editorial team. It wasn't the entire editorial team, and it was a post celebrating having so many women on the team, not diversity in general.
I’d argue it relates to the historical status quo.
Traditionally, white men have run the western world, with others actively kept out.
Whilst that is now changing, it’s still predominantly white men running the show and calling the shots. Not just in government, but in industry.
An all white female writing room is still noteworthy, because it remains rare/unusual.
Black Panther having a predominantly black cast and crew is still noteworthy, because it remains rare/unusual.
Where does it end? Well, I’d argue when nobody bats an eyelid at a woman or minority in any given role, anymore than they bat an eyelid at a white man in said role.
Given how long the current status quo has stood, the change has been deceptively rapid. To use an extreme example without intending to be provocative, America went from segregation to a black President in just 55 years.
Homosexuality was illegal in the U.K. until 1967, a fleeting 13 years before I was born. Same Sex marriage was legalised fully on 13 March 2014, a piffling 9 and a bit years ago.
More and more senseless taboos are being left by the wayside.
Again relying on my own life experience, I live in a still predominantly white town. Whilst seeing someone not white isn’t exactly remarkable here, it is more noticeable than London. In my place of work, I have gay, lesbian, trans, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist etc colleagues, and nobody seems to care, provided, y’know, nobody is bad at their job, or making my day to day gubbins any harder than they have to be. Like setting things up wrong, shooting me in the foot on progression by allowing X to refuse to send stuff then giving them 5 week response time etc.
Yet in the 21st Century, we still experience racist/sexist/homophobic/generally unpleasant customers. For me being a white bloke, it is of course super rare. But it still happens.
Two examples spring to mind. Being called, if memory serves “a short arsed ginger Fifer poof”. Which is hilarious, because I’m actually 6’2”, grey hair but dyed black because I’m not ageing without a fight, from Edinburgh, and straight. That comment came around the same time as the Last Jedi, so you can imagine which film quote sprung to mind. The other was helpline call, where the guy was proper going off about the Scots. I explained whilst happy to help, if he could knock that off and explain the actual problem, that’d be great. He didn’t. So I hung up on him. Which we’re not only allowed, but encouraged to do.
So clearly, societal work remains to be done. Despite rising far right sentiment in the West, I think we’re on an inexorable path to being closer to egalitarian ideals.
Formosa wrote: Princess Disa lacked a beard... that was the biggest complaint by far and she was pretty one of the few good things about that series.
As for "forced diversity" being a vague term, sure, so define diversity in clear terms, what does it actually mean, as others have stated a 100% female, Anglo American writers room is considered diverse but a 100% Anglo American male writers room is not, why is that ?
Tolkiens lore has the additional problem of being considered 'serious' in that it has been analyzed and re-analyzed by a couple of generations of scholars. Of course because Tolkien himself had been a serious scholar and did years of research and development for things like the various languages he invented, the different cultures and so on with a diligence and determination that was only possible in that very time period due to riding the last ebbing waves of the great british empire and never really having to worry about worldly pursuits.
Thus, it opens up all sorts of avenues for scholarly-adjacent critique from superfans, about not getting things 'right' because somewhere in the extensive body of work there's a line or two about the color of the garments that some second-tier character favoured when he dwelt in whatever city in the second age - ultimately, it does not matter, but it's easy to rile up the sticklers with accusations of 'not respecting the source material' and such. And that's before we get into the themes about skin colour etc. pretty much determining if you're good, evil, or even just 'lesser' all around that are unfortunately present in the works, and understandably make people uncomfortable - it's a body of literature that was composed by a man that was probably less racist than average for his time, but 'his time' is pre-great war British Empire. Born before the beginning of the last century and socialised and educated before the first World War, the standards by which you could fairly judge him still make a faithful-to-the-letter adaptation of the more epic of his works (that unlike the Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit do not consider bands of outcasts and reluctant adventurers) practically impossible. It was imho the right decision to try and depart so much from his descriptions that it was clear that adhering to them was not even attempted, instead of doing a half-assed job you could defend to either side. Ultimately, the show still was bad, but it was not due to this specific decision, at least in my opinion.
It’s almost as if pushback against diversity is being driven by bad-faith actors.
The issue is the people trying to force diversity are also all too often acting in bad faith.
Rings of Power's diversity wasn't a problem, except for the fact they were pushing it as the main selling point rather than trying to make a good story. Because there was no attempt to actually write a good story or faithfully bring Tolkein's Middle Earth to life. It was a horrible fan-fic with the strongest selling point being "We have black elves, dwarves, and hobbits". Nothing was wrong with the actors chosen, they did a good job with what they had, but the marketing around the show made such a big deal about it to cover up the fact that everything else about the show sucked.
Same with people casting black actors as Anne Bolyn, the little Mermaid, rewriting history so Cleopatra is black(she was not), etc... Its false virtue signaling and tokenism.
If you want to have more actors of color, then write original stories where you can do whatever you want OR use stories that originally have people of color in them. Adapt the wealth of African folk tales into movies. I really like a lot of African folk tales, they're really good. Stop forcing black people into shows and movies set in places and times where it either doesn't make sense or is outright incorrect. Use actual African stories and legends instead of black-washing western and European stories.
If you want to have more actors of color, then write original stories where you can do whatever you want OR use stories that originally have people of color in them. Adapt the wealth of African folk tales into movies. I really like a lot of African folk tales, they're really good. Stop forcing black people into shows and movies set in places and times where it either doesn't make sense or is outright incorrect. Use actual African stories and legends instead of black-washing western and European stories.
I mean, I'm all for adapting more stories from non-European backgrounds... but the modern pushback against adapting existing stories is just weird. For as long as people have been writing stories, other people have been adapting them - taking the basic premise and switching it into a different setting, gender-swapping characters, altering key details to see how that changes the overall story. When I was growing up, that was considered creative. In recent years, we're suddenly being told it's 'forced diversity'...
There is no modern pushback against adapting existing stories, see all the money Marvel has made. There are people screaming about it in Twitter, but that isn't particularly important.
Tyran wrote: There is no modern pushback against adapting existing stories, see all the money Marvel has made. There are people screaming about it in Twitter, but that isn't particularly important.
Tyran wins the internets for todays, not helped by Lazy Lying Journalist Scum skimming Twatter and Reddit for the most un-medicated rants and reporting it as "news" despite it may represents single digit, maybe less, percent of the world
If you want to have more actors of color, then write original stories where you can do whatever you want OR use stories that originally have people of color in them. Adapt the wealth of African folk tales into movies. I really like a lot of African folk tales, they're really good. Stop forcing black people into shows and movies set in places and times where it either doesn't make sense or is outright incorrect. Use actual African stories and legends instead of black-washing western and European stories.
I mean, I'm all for adapting more stories from non-European backgrounds... but the modern pushback against adapting existing stories is just weird. For as long as people have been writing stories, other people have been adapting them - taking the basic premise and switching it into a different setting, gender-swapping characters, altering key details to see how that changes the overall story. When I was growing up, that was considered creative. In recent years, we're suddenly being told it's 'forced diversity'...
Intent matters. The vast majority of recent swaps are agenda driven, not out of genuine creativity resulting in something interesting. If you make something interesting you can be forgiven. But most recent stuff sucks, largely because it exists because of an agenda not creative talent.
I also consider swapping the race/gender of historical/historical adjacent(folk tales, legends, or religion) people to be wrong. You wouldn't make a movie about Rosa Parks and cast a white actress to play her, don't do the opposite either. If its wrong to cast white actors to play ancient Egyptian gods then its also wrong to cast a black women to play a Norse Jarl.
Intent matters. The vast majority of recent swaps are agenda driven, not out of genuine creativity resulting in something interesting. If you make something interesting you can be forgiven. But most recent stuff sucks, largely because it exists because of an agenda not creative talent.
The vast majority of fiction output is sub-par in any time period you care to examine. Blaming that on casting someone with the 'wrong' skin colour seems more than a little short sighted, frankly.
To return to a previous example - the reason Rings of Power didn't set the world on fire wasn't that it had black people in it, but that it was boring.
If its wrong to cast white actors to play ancient Egyptian gods then its also wrong to cast a black women to play a Norse Jarl.
Poor example... there were dark skinned Vikings, and there is growing evidence that there were female chieftains.
Although that probably actually makes it also a really good example of how a lot of the complaints about 'forced diversity' come from a poor understanding of the source material.
Intent matters. The vast majority of recent swaps are agenda driven, not out of genuine creativity resulting in something interesting. If you make something interesting you can be forgiven. But most recent stuff sucks, largely because it exists because of an agenda not creative talent.
The vast majority of fiction output is sub-par in any time period you care to examine. Blaming that on casting someone with the 'wrong' skin colour seems more than a little short sighted, frankly.
To return to a previous example - the reason Rings of Power didn't set the world on fire wasn't that it had black people in it, but that it was boring.
Its not that casting the wrong skin color is the problem. Its that if the producers of a show are making it a focus of their show to cast based on skin color it inevitably follows that the show will be crap, it is correlation not causation. IE: People that focus on the superficiality of "diversity" are terrible writers. So anytime I see a show where the producers or promoters are blabbing about their cast's diversity it is an immediate redflag.
If its wrong to cast white actors to play ancient Egyptian gods then its also wrong to cast a black women to play a Norse Jarl.
Poor example... there were dark skinned Vikings, and there is growing evidence that there were female chieftains.
Although that probably actually makes it also a really good example of how a lot of the complaints about 'forced diversity' come from a poor understanding of the source material.
There were Norse who had darkish skin, for Norse. They were not of African ancestry, nor was their darkish skin anywhere near the color of people of African descent. We would call them very tan, but still white. Its still a crap casting.
I think he was referring to the agenda driven diversification. All this talk about black and white is really missing the point, that's being made on both sides. It's really about the solution to a problem that exists outside the media.
Will media right wrongs? Will it give some hope? Maybe, but it sure won't be the solution to anyone's white guilt, which they'd prefer to pass onto people they disagree (or so it seems).
It won't solve issues with the underserved and disenfranchised communities who aren't even taking in the media because they can't afford, or don't have the time for highbrow entertainment.
I’d argue it relates to the historical status quo.
A Euro centric status quo, from the perspective of Euro centric people.
Traditionally, white men have run the western world, with others actively kept out.
No, English men have run England, French men have run France, lets not use the low resolution "white men" because each nations majority ethnic group can be expected to run their own nation with the exception to conquest from a foreign ethnic group, the Turks in Anatolia for example, the Macedonians in Egypt, the Mors in north Africa all the way to Spain. Each ethnic group has an in group bias with exception to culturally Americanised "liberals" which have an out group bias, a good example of this is the recent election in Chicago, the European Americans voted for the European American, the African Americans voted for the African American but the areas self identified as Americanised "liberals" voted for the African American, these were usually middle class and college campus areas, this also is shown by the hidden tribes report around 2018 iirc.
Whilst that is now changing, it’s still predominantly white men running the show and calling the shots. Not just in government, but in industry.
Nigeria's entire government is Nigerian, would you be ok if say, 200,000 English people moved their and voted as a single block to put an English Leader in charge then started to change things to match English culture?
An all white female writing room is still noteworthy, because it remains rare/unusual.
Anglo American "liberal" female writing room, how is this diverse, they all look the same, think the same act the same, where exactly is the diversity in this?
Black Panther having a predominantly black cast and crew is still noteworthy, because it remains rare/unusual.
No, no its not, its actually one of the most common ways to make movies, Nollywood produces more movies than Hollywood, Bollywood also does, you mean it is rare in the US, this is a American centric view and ignores the rest of the world existing.
Where does it end? Well, I’d argue when nobody bats an eyelid at a woman or minority in any given role, anymore than they bat an eyelid at a white man in said role.
There is no end, there is no limit, as shown at the recent Oxford debate on "has wokism gone too far" the advocate for progressivism outright stated there are no limits, there are no barriers, there is only the constant push, this is the out group bias at play, no consideration is made to what is lost, any damage that is done, so called progress is the goal and is pursuit is the only thing that matters, even if said progress is in fact regressive in its results.
Given how long the current status quo has stood, the change has been deceptively rapid. To use an extreme example without intending to be provocative, America went from segregation to a black President in just 55 years.
Again with the American centric world view, why does this only matter in western nations, where is the push for more diversity in China for example, lets have an Anglo Chinese leader there, lets have large migrations of Europeans to Turkey and diversify that nation, oh, no that would be colonialism would it not?
I do agree that giving minorities a voice is good though.
Homosexuality was illegal in the U.K. until 1967, a fleeting 13 years before I was born. Same Sex marriage was legalised fully on 13 March 2014, a piffling 9 and a bit years ago.
Just being gay, being a lesbian was not for some strange reason, glad it was legalised but it never should have had to be, the state should mind its own damn business when it comes to adults doing adult things with adults in private.
More and more senseless taboos are being left by the wayside.
and more and more sensible ones are being eroded too, the push for progress recognises no barriers... none.
Again relying on my own life experience, I live in a still predominantly white town. Whilst seeing someone not white isn’t exactly remarkable here, it is more noticeable than London. In my place of work, I have gay, lesbian, trans, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist etc colleagues, and nobody seems to care, provided, y’know, nobody is bad at their job, or making my day to day gubbins any harder than they have to be. Like setting things up wrong, shooting me in the foot on progression by allowing X to refuse to send stuff then giving them 5 week response time etc.
Because you live in a European nation, move to Uganda and you will be the minority, london is a totally different story with the recent census showing the 49% of the children in schools are foreign born, 49%, that is not Anglo African, Anglo saxon etc. foreign born, cockneys no longer exist as a people due to being pushed out from immigration, social and economic factors and of the areas of london native peoples are a minority in near all but 2, all due to a radical change in the last 3 decades, so if diversity and equality is the requirement that has been achieved and in fact needs to be reversed until 50% of London is native English, but we both know that is not what will happen.
Yet in the 21st Century, we still experience racist/sexist/homophobic/generally unpleasant customers. For me being a white bloke, it is of course super rare. But it still happens.
You will never achieve absolute zero and it would be a terrible thing to try, the amount of oppression required to get to absolute zero across all disparate peoples and groups would be astounding, are you going to force the Chinese to stop being racist towards Africans? are you going to force the Pakastanis to stop hating the Indians? the progressives to stop hating their own ethnic groups? Scots to stop being racist towards the English as shown in recent reports for anti discrimination laws in Scotland which were designed to prevent racism towards Islamic Scots, then will you expand this to the rest of the world, imposing your views on other nations and their peoples?
So clearly, societal work remains to be done. Despite rising far right sentiment in the West, I think we’re on an inexorable path to being closer to egalitarian ideals.
Yes there is a rise in the far right but this is also a vague term that is ill defined, far right includes Islamists, fundemental christians, orthadox jews, libertarians, liberals, free speech advocates, anti abortionists etc. etc. its such a broad swath of people labelled far right its totally lost its original meaning. Also it is very clear that the modern right is simply a mirror to the modern left, a near completely reactionary force at this point and not the Communist meaning of the word reactionary, it is a reaction to the actions of the modern intersectional left and its no holds barred drive for removing all societal barriers without thought of consequence.
I am not interested nor want eqalitarianism, I think it is a destructive path that has proven time and again to be a detriment to individuals lives, I am not a social constructionist nor a statist, I believe the individual is the smallest minority and individual rights are inherent and intrinsic, not given by the state, they can only be recognised or suppressed, not given, though I am self aware enough to understand compromise is needed, a middle ground.
And after all that is said... you still did not define what Diversity is but it was a nice talk anyway Grotsnik, even though we disagree in some key areas due to our particular personal world views, to the Admins[u] if this crosses the line of the no politics rule please delete as appropriate as I am unsure due to the thread and its context if this is just being allowed for the time being so long as we all remain civil.
What is "adequate" when it comes to diversity in casting? Many have openly stated the goal of "as few White men as possible", and no I'm not kidding. While I loved the Quantum Leap reboot, it did make me do a doubletake when I learned that the producers openly admitted they had a "no cis White man" policy when it came to casting for the sake of diversity. That seems really odd to me in this series.
I understand that people like seeing characters they can relate to on the screen and think the evolution of old tropes is a good thing. I do think that sometimes they not only risk disillusioning some people they revel in it, sometimes at the expense of a better quality product.
Well, again for me it’s about challenging the status quo.
All I ask is that people don’t confuse any particular casting process as “therefore show will be great or crap”.
As discussed with Rings of Power? The problems with that show aren’t in the casting. Everyone on screen was perfectly competent. Indeed, the “Sauron” I saw a couple of friends get their knickers in a twist over wasn’t in fact, Sauron. At all.
If a character’s ethnicity isn’t part of their overall personality, should it matter in casting?
If a casting call is open? Let it be truly open. And yes, announce that, because you never know who might audition.
The only stuff I’d say has a valid argument to keep a `true’ casting would be the lead in a biopic/docu-drama type thing, where perhaps someone’s ethnicity is indivisible from their life and experiences. Example? Martin Luther King, Queen Elizabeth.
People also need to give collective heads a wobble and toot the wrong horn. Gods of Egypt for example. Sure, it had a predominantly white cast portraying Egyptian Gods - but that’s not why the film sucked. The film sucked because it’s bloody awful. Crap SFX, crap dialogue, bobbins plot and so on and so forth.
Princess Disa? Her skin colour has eff all to do with her character. Like…at all. It’s not even referenced in the show. And as another poster noted above? The actress was a genuine highlight of that first season. So the agenda peddlers will just have to accept that the best actress got the role, in the absence of any and all evidence to the contrary.
@Formosa. I have read your reply, but given your counter points are all to do with my wording not being as tight as it could’ve been, I see no particular reason to return the compliment. It’s clear my post is referring to western stuff. Indeed, having lived my entire life in the U.K., I’d be a liar and worse, possibly a hypocrite, if I claimed knowledge of other areas of the world where I simply don’t.
You’ve also mentioned counter points, but not provided examples. For instance, I mentioned senseless taboos being left by the wayside. You said “sensible ones are being eroded too”.
Well. What are those sensible ones you’re referring to? I can neither agree nor disagree when I don’t know what your claim relates to.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I wonder, what people's opinions would be were a media adaptation to be made of some stories of African folklore, and white characters were just placed into it, seemingly at random.
I also wonder if people complained about the lack of Norwegian, Arab or African tribesman on the Polynesian islands in the fantastic Disney film; Moana.
So is ethnicity/cultural homogeneity important in some stories? It would appear so, barring when it comes to works created by northern Europeans it seems.
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If its wrong to cast white actors to play ancient Egyptian gods then its also wrong to cast a black women to play a Norse Jarl.
Poor example... there were dark skinned Vikings, and there is growing evidence that there were female chieftains.
Although that probably actually makes it also a really good example of how a lot of the complaints about 'forced diversity' come from a poor understanding of the source material.
There were Norse who had darkish skin, for Norse. They were not of African ancestry, nor was their darkish skin anywhere near the color of people of African descent. We would call them very tan, but still white. Its still a crap casting.
A favourite of modern progressivism is to take 'darker/tanned skin' as either meaning sub Saharan African, or as a flimsy excuse to cast someone of that ethnic background in media. The quotes given for casting lenny Henry as a harfoot for example.
Funny that, disney makes a live -action lilo and stitch Adaption, the usual people complain that the person is too white.
Main actress is actually from Hawaii, has mixed ancestry.
Meanwhile, the Moana Adaption featured also a lighter skinned actress compared to the animation, nobody complained because she isn't
off mixed parentage recently. Also from Hawaii.
Both actresses share their skintone.
Like wtf, at that point you reached basically wotc logic.
Not Online!!! wrote: Funny that, disney makes a live -action lilo and stitch Adaption, the usual people complain that the person is too white.
Main actress is actually from Hawaii, has mixed ancestry.
Meanwhile, the Moana Adaption featured also a lighter skinned actress compared to the animation, nobody complained because she isn't
off mixed parentage recently. Also from Hawaii.
Both actresses share their skintone.
Like wtf, at that point you reached basically wotc logic.
It’s almost as if there are idiots on both sides! Crazy, I know.
And that is ultimately the root cause of “culture wars”. Bad faith actors making bad faith arguments.
The U.K. gutter press seem to have folk trawling the like of Twitter for the silliest, most demented take on a given subject from the opposite side they can. Which they’ll then publish, claiming it’s a widespread talking point. When it’s not. It’s just some loony with a poor grip on..well…anything. Doesn’t matter that it’s not a majority view. Once published and the readership’s blood pressure is once again spiking through a combination of outright lies and fear mongering, that’s all that matters.
See also the constant confusion between freedom of speech (good thing) and freedom from consequence (bad thing).
If you’re Jeremy Clarkson, and you, I dunno, punch a member of production staff, or say something awful in your newspaper column, being called out and/or sacked for that is not your freedom of speech being impinged or eroded. Indeed, you’ve said your piece. That’s why you’re in trouble. Again.
The same Pearl clutching when universities deny a platform to some motormouth or other. That’s…that’s not eroding their freedom of speech. They’ve not been imprisoned over it. They’ve just been denied a platform - a platform nobody has an inalienable right to in the first place.
It’s almost as if there are idiots on both sides! Crazy, I know.
And that is ultimately the root cause of “culture wars”. Bad faith actors making bad faith arguments.
The U.K. gutter press seem to have folk trawling the like of Twitter for the silliest, most demented take on a given subject from the opposite side they can. Which they’ll then publish, claiming it’s a widespread talking point. When it’s not. It’s just some loony with a poor grip on..well…anything. Doesn’t matter that it’s not a majority view. Once published and the readership’s blood pressure is once again spiking through a combination of outright lies and fear mongering, that’s all that matters.
Opinion presented as fact, is now the unfortunate rage in the Press. Producing media with the intent of generating an emotional response is not straight reporting, fair or balanced. When a news outlet is able to make up your mind before you have, you are controlled.
In the states, I miss the former media that wasn't so terribly polarized where, WFB Senior could sit down with a "Liberal" guest and have a civilized discussion on public TV. Those days are gone, now our media is under direct influence of the majority political parties. Which cry anything contrary to the opinion pieces they portray as "reporting", are a "threat to democracy"
The press is no longer free. It demands controversy where there would otherwise be compromise. Should they lose an enemy, their respective parties fears erosion of the base by defection or simply freedom of thought.
Tyran wrote: There is no modern pushback against adapting existing stories, see all the money Marvel has made. There are people screaming about it in Twitter, but that isn't particularly important.
Tyran wins the internets for todays, not helped by Lazy Lying Journalist Scum skimming Twatter and Reddit for the most un-medicated rants and reporting it as "news" despite it may represents single digit, maybe less, percent of the world
It’s almost as if there are idiots on both sides! Crazy, I know.
And that is ultimately the root cause of “culture wars”. Bad faith actors making bad faith arguments.
The U.K. gutter press seem to have folk trawling the like of Twitter for the silliest, most demented take on a given subject from the opposite side they can. Which they’ll then publish, claiming it’s a widespread talking point. When it’s not. It’s just some loony with a poor grip on..well…anything. Doesn’t matter that it’s not a majority view. Once published and the readership’s blood pressure is once again spiking through a combination of outright lies and fear mongering, that’s all that matters.
Opinion presented as fact, is now the unfortunate rage in the Press. Producing media with the intent of generating an emotional response is not straight reporting, fair or balanced. When a news outlet is able to make up your mind before you have, you are controlled.
In the states, I miss the former media that wasn't so terribly polarized where, WFB Senior could sit down with a "Liberal" guest and have a civilized discussion on public TV. Those days are gone, now our media is under direct influence of the majority political parties. Which cry anything contrary to the opinion pieces they portray as "reporting", are a "threat to democracy"
The press is no longer free. It demands controversy where there would otherwise be compromise. Should they lose an enemy, their respective parties fears erosion of the base by defection or simply freedom of thought.
A claim I’ve seen is the trigger was the advent of 24 hour news. Rather than scheduled bulletins across the day (in the U.K. it was Breakfast, 1 o’clock, 6 ‘clock and 9 o’clock for the BBC) you now had to fill the entire schedule.
Not only did this lead to mindless drivel like “celebrity culture”, but hosted shows and ever more pointless guff being broadcast. In time people tuned in for the personality rather than the topic and down and down and down went the quality.
The recent settlement between Fox News and Dominion following the promotion of Trump’s Lies may, perhaps, be the beginning of the end of the spiral of journalistic lack of integrity. But somehow, I doubt it.
Of course there’s a near identical case yet to come, so who knows.
But some kind of journalistic integrity across the board would be delightful.
@ Doc, of course, I still think watching Telly with a Sunday hangover somehow burns in into the grey matter very effectively, and whilst I know Rich and Stew aren't everyones cuppa I'm still baffled how much they got away with for the timeslot, although I think both of them have said it was cos nobody higher up even noticed and they would get witch-hunted this days (this weeks hobbys is burning old ladies...)
Formosa wrote: my locals are very diverse, we have socialists, libertarians, conservatives, trans, gay, Nigerians, Ugandans, English, Welsh, Scots, Japanese, Malaysians, though English people are the majority of course as one would expect being in England, black English, white English, mixed English.
one could just say they are "white" "black" "asian" or whatever but that is very reductive and anti inclusive.
Very diverse, of course I mean the real meaning of word Diverse and not the "we all think and look the same and anyone that does not look and think the same as me is not diverse"
I mean diversity of character and thought, the thing that actually matters.
Man you are lucky, I would love to have a group with that diverse of ideas, mindsets, characters, cultures and races.
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Gert wrote: But if there are active forces pushing against diversity as a natural evolution, then why shouldn't those who are pro-diversity push back? Should we just let those who want to exclude nonstraight whites do what they want because fighting them would be "forcing" diversity?
The concept of "forced diversity" is always just a dog whistle for people not wanting to have minorities represented in media. It never comes up unless a black Space Marine is on a book cover or a female character gets a novel series.
This. Forcing diversity would be removing characters who are already pre existing or replacing characters. Adding new diverse characters is not forcing diversity, it is adding a new character. People wouldn't get their panties in a bunch if it was a new white character.
Intent matters. The vast majority of recent swaps are agenda driven, not out of genuine creativity resulting in something interesting. If you make something interesting you can be forgiven. But most recent stuff sucks, largely because it exists because of an agenda not creative talent.
The vast majority of fiction output is sub-par in any time period you care to examine. Blaming that on casting someone with the 'wrong' skin colour seems more than a little short sighted, frankly.
You are mistaking the complaint. Yes, a lot of garbage media has been produced over the decades. Some of that has featured minorities prominently.
What has been different the past decade is that the producers of the garbage media has brandished the casting of minorities as somehow changing garbage media into good media, and attacking those who criticize the bad writing and production by turning it into an attack on the minority actors. Which it generally is not.
Let's consider Kelly Marie Tran. I think we can all agree her role in TLJ was pretty atrociously written, yes?
I think we can also all agree she did the best job ACTING that atrocious writing that she could have done, yes?
So the blame does not apply to Kelly Marie Tran (despite a highly vocal minority doing just that). It applies to the people who did the atrociously bad writing.
AND YET, whenever someone criticized how badly her role was written, the reaction from the writers was to divert the criticism of the WRITING into calling it criticism of the ACTRESS, which it mostly was NOT.
Look at the piss, vinegar and vitriol she received online from Weird Internet Man Babies. Because without that, you’re not seeing the full picture.
Yep. And it just happened again with the Resident Evil remake. Mobbed the actress on twitter to the point that she left. The studio's statement about harassment was met with screeds about why they should and why they were justified in harassing the actress.
I recall when Last of Us 2 came out, the actress playing the antagonist received death threats revolving around her newborn. Because the harassment mob didn't like the plot, the actress was somehow to blame.
Blade and Ep 1 both predate modern internet. Yes it was around (my dial up took 4 or 5 hours to download the Ep 1 trailer. Talk about a waste of time) but social media wasn’t. And it simply wasn’t as part of every day life as it is now.
How about Idris Elba as Heimdall? Boy did that greatly upset Weird Internet Man Babies.
Now, as I said? Bad Faith Actors on both sides. Yes it can be easy to simply deflect criticism with “well you’re just being racist”. But look at which came first. And realise the same bad faith actors will portray any counter criticism as “they’re just calling any criticism racist”.
People were claiming white genocide because John Boyega was a Stormtrooper. And it got worse when the hero turned out to be a woman.
The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: "Workers of the world, unite!" Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given more than a moment's thought to how such a unification might occur and what it would mean?
I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions. That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life "in harmony with society," as they say.
Obviously the greengrocer is indifferent to the semantic content of the slogan on exhibit; he does not put the slogan in his window from any personal desire to acquaint the public with the ideal it expresses. This, of course, does not mean that his action has no motive or significance at all, or that the slogan communicates nothing to anyone. The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message. Verbally, it might be expressed this way: "I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace." This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above, to the greengrocer's superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers. The slogan's real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer's existence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?
Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan "I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient;' he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth. The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say, "What's wrong with the workers of the world uniting?" Thus the sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power. It hides them behind the facade of something high. And that something is ideology.
I also wonder if people complained about the lack of Norwegian, Arab or African tribesman on the Polynesian islands in the fantastic Disney film; Moana.
So is ethnicity/cultural homogeneity important in some stories? It would appear so, barring when it comes to works created by northern Europeans it seems.
Man you are really beating the stuffing out of this strawman.
One is based off of a real culture where race and culture are incredibly important to the plot. Where a story like 40k - which is supposed to be all of humanity- has predominantly white characters is an issue. 40k should be a blend of many different cultures and races, not just a cis white man posterboy.
In terms of Space Marines, it’s worth noting that outside of the Ravenguard and Salamanders? Their skin is able to rapidly produce melanin. Like Reactolite sunglasses.
So strictly speaking, a given Marine might have different skin tones from battlefield to battlefield, if fighting without a helmet on, depending on ambient UV.
Good characters should be written as good characters first, then cast them as such. Sometimes it's a bit suspicious that they wanted a (insert person of this variety), now make it work no matter how convoluted.
I will readily admit that there are many characters out there where race is a non issue. Want to recast Jesus as Black, no problems from me. Now if you recast Storm from the X-Men as japanese, that wouldn't work. There are some strong character archs where being African is paramount.
Someone like Blade however? There is nothing in his background that would necessitate him being Black. Recast him with Jet Li and theoretically it works, but it would still piss a few people off.
A few thoughts, based on what I've experienced, or witnessed.
Firstly, and I know its been discussed, but disposable income is something that is lacking, statistically speaking, in some groups more than others. And GW is an expensive hobby. Perhaps more expensive than most gaming hobbies out there.
I'd also bring up a few other elements (I read the first 3 pages, then jumped to the end so, apologies if its been beaten to death).
One issue, I can't seem to put words on, so I'll give an example: My friend was one of the few female managers of a game shop in my current area of living. We were discussing starting up a DnD group and, wanting a proper mini for her bard, I knew which game shop to bring her to. Only thing was, I knew before even entering, she'd be pestered the whole time by the dude working there. Like, creepy stalker vibes bad. Mind you, she's "used" to that sort of thing, running a shop herself, but seriously. . . being creepy with customers, or potential customers is a really fething good way to get people OUT of the hobby.
Another issue is weirdness. . . Now, again, to illustrate what I mean, I need to dig up an example from my time gaming. Look at my past posting history, and you'll see that I used to be in the military. At one point I was living in not-the-US. I, along with a friend, would frequent the local GW. The weirdness I'm referring to in this case is this: on two separate occasions, the store manager was forced to ask gamers to finish their game, and never bring that army back into the shop. Ever. One army that I personally witnessed, was an IG army all painted khaki, with "nice" little red arm bands and funny square-like icons on them (They were painted as fething Nazis. . . in Germany). The other army was a pure Slaaneshi Daemon army, very artfully, and graphically detailed, like X rated stuff. Now, sure you can find that sort of inappropriate loving weirdness in most any setting somewhere, but there does seem to be a larger number within the gaming community.
Another issue is stereotypes. Specifically, those nerds out there who don't seem to know what bathing, or deodorant is. I shouldn't really need to expound on that idea.
Finally, the last thing I can think to bring up, is an element that resides in game theory and game design. I've read a few articles fairly recently about various studies and trends around the board game business. What board game makers are finding is that, in a statistically significant way, women tend to gravitate toward far different games than men do. Basically, what the research shows is that while men do like games where you can crush your opponent mercilessly in a turn or two, women prefer games that are described as more cooperative. Basically, games like Settlers of Catan where, even if its competitive, the rules and game design is such that a poor early turn does not ruin a game for an individual and put them out early. Women statistically prefer games where a "winner" can be determined as late as the final round, or the game is cooperative (ie, a group of players beating "the house" or a game with subterfuge where one player is the "it" but has to pretend they arent)
Presumably the 1930s-German-Enthusiasts themed army was the first time visiting the particular GW in question - otherwise the player would have been asked to not bring it previously.
So if the GW store asked someone to not bring their [potentially] problematic army at the earliest opportunity. I don't see what more GW could have done there.
Also, isn't the depiction of backwards swastikas illegal in Germany?
Lord Damocles wrote: Presumably the 1930s-German-Enthusiasts themed army was the first time visiting the particular GW in question - otherwise the player would have been asked to not bring it previously.
So if the GW store asked someone to not bring their [potentially] problematic army at the earliest opportunity. I don't see what more GW could have done there.
Also, isn't the depiction of backwards swastikas illegal in Germany?
There's a huge list of symbols, paroles, codes etc. related to Nazism, Neo-Nazism, nazi-adjacent groups and so on that are forbidden in Germany, but there are exemptions for a few things, and historical representation is among them - obviously, it is not forbidden to display swastikas on e.g. period costumes, including replicas, or other representations like a model army. Still, most people opt for removing or covering them because it's a rather thin line to thread and it's not worth the bother, and it's of course also socially frowned upon to insist on 'accuracy' outside of scientific/educational settings, movie productions etc. There are also, in theory, exemption for things like clearly devotional/religious displays of swastikas, i.e. in the context of Asian religions mostly, but that is also a very muddled affair and carries a very real risk of coming into confrotation with the law if you're not of asian descent yourself, especially if it involves any kind of commercial activity, like e.g. selling bracelets and such with swastikas on them.
cuda1179 wrote: Good characters should be written as good characters first, then cast them as such. Sometimes it's a bit suspicious that they wanted a (insert person of this variety), now make it work no matter how convoluted.
I will readily admit that there are many characters out there where race is a non issue. Want to recast Jesus as Black, no problems from me. Now if you recast Storm from the X-Men as japanese, that wouldn't work. There are some strong character archs where being African is paramount.
Someone like Blade however? There is nothing in his background that would necessitate him being Black. Recast him with Jet Li and theoretically it works, but it would still piss a few people off.
White washing is a concern because, traditionally, there just haven’t been a great many roles for minorities in Hollywood.
One example of this would be the career of Ke Huy Quan. Starred in two pretty big movies (Temple of Doom, The Goonies). Then? The roles dried up, because nobody was casting young Asian men.
Just pop yourself in his shoes. You’re clearly a talented actor, with a promising career. Not only are roles you’re (and I feel icky typing this, but seemingly I cannot word good this morning) “ethnically suitable for” thin on the ground, but some are casting white dudes instead, further reducing opportunity. And at that time, if the role wasn’t written as “young Asian man” you’ve no chance.
Things are improving. But we can’t deny the past, or that more works remains to be done.
As I’ve bought up before in other threads, I’m noticeably sensitive about my accent. And it pisses me right off when someone butchers the Scots accent in a role. As such things go, and in the grand scheme of things, that is a relatively petty complaint of course. But it’s still my brush with the subject matter. Indeed, one of the things I enjoyed about Rings of Power was the Scots accents on display were really really good. To the point I didn’t know the actors weren’t Scottish until I looked them up on Wikipedia.
cuda1179 wrote: Good characters should be written as good characters first, then cast them as such. Sometimes it's a bit suspicious that they wanted a (insert person of this variety), now make it work no matter how convoluted.
I will readily admit that there are many characters out there where race is a non issue. Want to recast Jesus as Black, no problems from me. Now if you recast Storm from the X-Men as japanese, that wouldn't work. There are some strong character archs where being African is paramount.
Someone like Blade however? There is nothing in his background that would necessitate him being Black. Recast him with Jet Li and theoretically it works, but it would still piss a few people off.
White washing is a concern because, traditionally, there just haven’t been a great many roles for minorities in Hollywood.
One example of this would be the career of Ke Huy Quan. Starred in two pretty big movies (Temple of Doom, The Goonies). Then? The roles dried up, because nobody was casting young Asian men.
Just pop yourself in his shoes. You’re clearly a talented actor, with a promising career. Not only are roles you’re (and I feel icky typing this, but seemingly I cannot word good this morning) “ethnically suitable for” thin on the ground, but some are casting white dudes instead, further reducing opportunity. And at that time, if the role wasn’t written as “young Asian man” you’ve no chance.
Things are improving. But we can’t deny the past, or that more works remains to be done.
As I’ve bought up before in other threads, I’m noticeably sensitive about my accent. And it pisses me right off when someone butchers the Scots accent in a role. As such things go, and in the grand scheme of things, that is a relatively petty complaint of course. But it’s still my brush with the subject matter. Indeed, one of the things I enjoyed about Rings of Power was the Scots accents on display were really really good. To the point I didn’t know the actors weren’t Scottish until I looked them up on Wikipedia.
This raises a question from before: What would you consider perfect "diversity". If people from group A make up 20% of the population, should they make up 20% of any given group? If they don't, is that necessarily bad? What if, in the case of equity, you find out that Group A isn't underrepresented, they are overrepresented. You'll have a situation like with what happened at Google, where they did an internal audit for gender equity, got the reverse results they anticipated, and ended up giving a good portion of their male staff raises. They briefly caught some flak for it. And does diversity work both ways, or only one way? Should traditionally minority/female activities that have served as a haven for them feel pressure to be more inclusive?
I've been on the receiving end of the "you're ruing our group by being here" mentality. Men volunteering for a traditionally female roles with children face particularly harsh backlash from women. Not to mention a book club/wine tasting group I tried to join. Apparently they thought it was unnecessary to put on the fliers that it was women-only.
In general? I just want as close as we can get to Equality Of Opportunity in all things.
Do away with bigotry and prejudice which can unfairly keep people down. Do away with Old Boys Networks, which can unfairly and unjustifiably raised people up.
It is desirable, and in society’s own interests, to make the most of its population and said population’s existing skills and overall potential.
There’s a quote from Moving Pictures, a Discworld novel which I can partially apply here.
You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?... It's all the people who never find out what it is they really want to do or what it is they're really good at. It's all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It's all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become bad ploughmen instead. It's all the people with talents who never even find out. Maybe they are never even born in a time when its even possible to find out. It's all the people who never get to know what it is they can really be. It’s all the wasted chances.
We need society to grow and develop beyond prejudice, both negative (Wimmins can’t be X) and positive (Ah the old school tie, welcome aboard!) and let folk stand on their own merits. To be arranged in a way that encourages people to realise their full potential.
No, it’s not a magic bullet. Some folk will still be dealt a relatively losing hand, or play their cards poorly. But we don’t need some people being given decks stacked against or in favour of them by dint of birth.
Now, an author is of course free to write their characters as they see fit. I make no demands that the cast of a novel must be diverse.
But, unless a cultural aspect is essential to a given character? What does the ethnic or cultural background of an actor truly matter, provided they convince in the role.
Now, the cultural aspect is the tricky one. Ultimately, I’ve only ever lived my life. Yes I was born in Scotland, but I’ve lived around 3/4 of my life in South East England. So my definition of Scot’s culture and English culture is going to be different by default from someone who was born and lived their entire life in either country. Even someone with the same background as me may have had very different experiences and influences. So when it comes to say, Scarlett Johansson being cast in Ghost in the Shell’s lead role? Don’t ask me. My opinion is irrelevant. But do listen to those who will have a genuine, personal perspective on the matter.
Yeah, I can get on board with the "let people do what they want, don't be a d-bag" mentality.
About the whole Scarlette Johansson thing and others like it, a friend of mine was totally down with the whole "strait people should not play gay people in movies" that was popular right after Scarlette's "Rub and Tug" fiasco where she was going to play a trans-woman. I just looked at my friend and casually asked, "So, do you think gay people should banned form playing strait people?" Well, no, because that would be silly.
On that, I’d argue there are significant grey areas.
If gay people received equal or indifferent treatment in society, then I could probably agree. But, the simple fact is? They don’t.
Now “give them roles” isn’t a fix as such. But the basic concept of “hmm, maybe a better choice of actor for the role of a minority might….someone of that minority” isn’t a terribly difficult one.
Of course, all we the public tend to see is the end result of the casting process. What we don’t see is who else read for the part. So we can never truly rule out “it went to the best audition”. But if the character is gay, trans or an ethnic minority? Maybe put in extra effort with your casting call to reach that relevant part of society. Don’t just sign up a Big Name for the sake of having a Big Name.
OK, this is moving slightly away from talking about diversity in Warhammer. And I do agree with you to an extent. Certainly on the ethnicity front - casting should be done with the correct ethnicity when it is relevant, and with diversity in mind when it is not specified.
But also - acting is acting. The whole point of it is pretending to be someone else. If a straight guy can convincingly portray a gay guy, that's fine. And vice versa - look at Neil Patrick Harris in How I Met Your Mother for instance...
Also - my brother is a reformed thespian, went through a degree in theatre studies at university and a masters in performing arts at a drama school. It was very much his experience that gay people were not under-represented...
Gay roles and gay actors aren’t the same thing though.
The aim of diversity in the arts is as much about visibility as it is inclusion.
Same with Warhammer. Going right back to my original posts in this thread? GW including different ethnicities and orientations in their art, models and books harms no-one, comes at no additional investment cost, and broadens your appeal.
Whether that then leads to more gamers/hobbyists is kind of beside the point. All GW can do is make their offerings as inviting, welcoming and enticing as possible.
Even if those efforts only result in a handful of Weird Internet Man Babies burning their models? I for one don’t count that as a loss of any consequence. But, anecdotally at least, we’ve seen a rising number of lady painters cropping up online. Perhaps they were there all along, and algorithms just didn’t push them. Perhaps from GW’s efforts they feel more comfortable putting themselves forward. Maybe seeing the rising number of lady Stormcast, Eldar, Imperial Guard caused them to give the hobby a second look then take the plunge. As ever, you’ll have to ask the individual!
The aim of diversity in the arts is as much about visibility as it is inclusion.
Same with Warhammer. Going right back to my original posts in this thread? GW including different ethnicities and orientations in their art, models and books harms no-one, comes at no additional investment cost, and broadens your appeal.
I think it bears repeating that excluding/including actual living people based on their race, sexual orientation etc. is a whole different ballgame than having mere fictional representations of people with diverse identities among other fictional people. Conflating the two is usually at least ill-informed or only superficially thought through, if not outright disingenious.
Actors are, by definition, people that perform The Thing Which Is Not True, and i struggle to think why a gay person should not be allowed to play a straight one, and vice versa. Portraying people of a different race is more complicated, mostly because it (usually, or most of the time for the examples we are talking about) a very visually apparent thing, and depicting people of other races in a 'comical' fashion has enormeous historical baggage (i.e. blackfacing, ministrel shows etc.) that renders the whole thing a very bad idea.
One could argue that even the thing about it being visually apparent is yet again loaded with bias and prejudice, or a predominantly western gaze - is it okay if a person that reads 'Asian' plays e.g. a Mongol for a historical drama? People from Mongolia, or Tadjikistan etc., could probably easily tell the difference, even if the typical western consumer could not if the actor was actually a Japanese person. Once you start engaging these questions in earnest you run the risk of doing that which you actually set out to subvert, i.e. rigidly categorizing people by their race, heritage and origin.
On the subject of where does it "end" in a sense I don't think it does really. Groups that are healthy and doing well should always look to be expanding and growing; be that at the local level just to have more gamers or perhaps raise enough in member subs for better facilities and such; to the company level where its very much more customers and more income.
I think the key point is reached when you aren't considering specific marketing for different markets as an exception to normal thinking/practice
I think then it comes down to looking at the larger picture and seeing the diversity at things like conventions, shows, larger competitive events and such. Ergo situations where local populations have less impact and you should see greater diversity at a national level.
It is important to remember that advances have been made in terms of equality but by no means is it enough.
Take Salute over the weekend in London. The event had a Women in Wargaming pannel specifically to allow a voice to women within the hobby while at the same a notable hobbyist was derided and degraded by someone working the event when she entered her models into a competition. They didn't call for this staff member to be shamed or blacklisted but chose to talk about the incident to prove that even if the wider event was promoting inclusivity and diversity, the ground-level attitudes were still there.
That's the sort of thing diversity and inclusivity are there to fight against. Nobody is forcing people to refuse straight white people in favour of minorities in their hobby groups or forcing them to go to Pride or activist rallies. The fight is against bigots who are making efforts to wrongly exclude people from participating.
This raises a question from before: What would you consider perfect "diversity". If people from group A make up 20% of the population, should they make up 20% of any given group? If they don't, is that necessarily bad? What if, in the case of equity, you find out that Group A isn't underrepresented, they are overrepresented. You'll have a situation like with what happened at Google, where they did an internal audit for gender equity, got the reverse results they anticipated, and ended up giving a good portion of their male staff raises. They briefly caught some flak for it. And does diversity work both ways, or only one way? Should traditionally minority/female activities that have served as a haven for them feel pressure to be more inclusive?
Lot of questions here. I'll start from the top:
1) "perfect" diversity is the rare thing that isn't a result, it's a process. You can't, and shouldn't, force people into roles or deny people roles bases on their demographics. So diversity is about the process of how groups are selected, from childhood on to adulthood. Diversity isn't about making sure half of both truck drivers or nurses are male/female, but in making sure that young women that want to drive a truck, or young men that want to go into nursing, are equally as supported and welcomed as the opposite.
2) In practice, I would say that comparing any group to it's most common "feeder" group is a good proxy for the diversity of any given group. So, if about 20% of computer science degrees are awarded to women, and your company's programmers are only 5% women, you might want to look at your processes. I doubt, given gender and cultural impacts on personality, that jobs or roles would break strictly on demographic lines. More women will want to be kindergarten teachers, and more men will want to be Oil workers. OTOH, it's worth noting if the jobs or groups that disproportionately attract women or minorities are seen as less prestigious or are lower paying.
3) the google thing is interesting, because the top line is deeply, deeply misleading. Google found that women were generally paid more than men in certain jobs, but that's within a pay band. "Company officials acknowledged that it did not address whether women were hired at a lower pay grade than men with similar qualifications." this is my point from above: if women are paid slightly more, but consistently steered into lower pay bands... that's really bad.
4) as for havens, are they havens by choice, or be necessity? Male nurses have increased from 7% in 2008 to 13% in 2021, so in a way it's already happening. Of course, male nurses make more than female nurses....
I've been on the receiving end of the "you're ruing our group by being here" mentality. Men volunteering for a traditionally female roles with children face particularly harsh backlash from women. Not to mention a book club/wine tasting group I tried to join. Apparently they thought it was unnecessary to put on the fliers that it was women-only.
This is all true and well documented. A college buddy is a stay at home dad, and he catches a ton of stink eye. the Girl Scouts are (or were) notorious for refusing male help. And a woman's wine tasting/book club is probably more invested in staying single sex than a fantasy football league!
There's this weird thought in our culture that finds these issues of exclusion of the majority to be problematic. a lot of liberals want to ignore racism by racial minorities, while a lot of conservatives take great glee in pointing it out. the reality is that women and people of color are people, just like white dudes, and a lot of people prefer to socialize with groups with which they share gender, sexual, racial, religious, or ethnic bonds. I actually have no problem with purely social groups that are single sex. I was in a fraternity in college, and I've attended men only support group meetings.
If you're arguing that some people want their warhammer club to be "no girls allowed," I'm not bothered by that. I'm married and I want my time with the boys. You can play with whoever you want to play with. I just think the community in general should be more inclusive.
Another issue is stereotypes. Specifically, those nerds out there who don't seem to know what bathing, or deodorant is. I shouldn't really need to expound on that idea.
That is definitely a type.
Maybe there should be a little delineation of age groups for one. A cover fee, were adults over 25 (no offense youngins) can get together and have a beverage or two with their games. I mean it's not like this isn't a thing when it comes to pool, cards, LAN centers, and even bookstores.
Another issue is stereotypes. Specifically, those nerds out there who don't seem to know what bathing, or deodorant is. I shouldn't really need to expound on that idea.
That is definitely a type.
Maybe there should be a little delineation of age groups for one. A cover fee, were adults over 25 (no offense youngins) can get together and have a beverage or two with their games. I mean it's not like this isn't a thing when it comes to pool, cards, LAN centers, and even bookstores.
I think food and drink provision is slowly becoming more essential if purely to help generate revenue to keep the lights on.
Alcohol can complicate matters because you have to pay for a licence, get inspected and it very much is adults only. Which is fine if you're a really popular place already, but many stores likely want to keep things as open as they can to get maximum player numbers up. Plus they might not want the hassle of the alcoholic drink provision.
That said if they pair up with a restaurant or similar chain it might come bundled in with that.
Another issue is stereotypes. Specifically, those nerds out there who don't seem to know what bathing, or deodorant is. I shouldn't really need to expound on that idea.
That is definitely a type.
Maybe there should be a little delineation of age groups for one. A cover fee, were adults over 25 (no offense youngins) can get together and have a beverage or two with their games. I mean it's not like this isn't a thing when it comes to pool, cards, LAN centers, and even bookstores.
I mean, there's nothing stopping you or anybody else from setting up a group specifically for old non-stinkies...
If you're arguing that some people want their warhammer club to be "no girls allowed," I'm not bothered by that. I'm married and I want my time with the boys. You can play with whoever you want to play with. I just think the community in general should be more inclusive.
I think it depends on how you mean this. A group of friends playing together is one thing, but a group open to new members creating an arbitrary boys only filter creates an unnecessary barrier to entry for already underrepresented demographics. Like a girl who wants to play Warhammer is free to do so if she can find enough girls who also want to play Warhammer? There's no reason to make it harder than it already is to get involved in the hobby. If you play the game, you're one of the boys regardless of whether or not you're a boy. When someone brings their girlfriend, they are one of the boys and if that relationship doesn't work out and they still want to play, their friendship is just as welcome as anyone else.
NinthMusketeer wrote: A society isn't past its diversity issues until it normalizes seeking diversity not because it is good but because it is better. Which is to say, rather than seeking diversity because it is the 'right thing to do' society would be seeking diversity because diverse groups are more effective.
Put differently, people need to transition from seeing their differences as flaws to seeing their differences as assets.
I'd argue that thinking of 'differences as assets' is part of the problem, that the differences are a commodity that lead to an advantage or disadvantage. I'd rather than people think of differences as unimportant, at the same level as wearing a grey shirt or having a buffalo wings rather than honey glazed. Unremarkable and unimportant, and so not something kick people down for.
Which would be good, except there's a very large portion of society that DOES see differences as a thing to kick people for. Recognizing differences not only helps in that diverse perspectives provide new and creative ways to approach problems that you might otherwise not know are there, but lets society better serve groups that are disadvantaged by structural (and plain ol') racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.. "Race blindness" does nothing but advantage racists.
I'm well aware of the former. I'm objecting to 'difference as assets' because I've had real life interactions with people who described their admiration for farm equipment in terms of how many people with darker skin it could replace. Except it wasn't phrased that kindly (you can probably fill in the word that was actually used).
With that context, does it explain why 'differences as assets' and 'effectiveness' squicks me the hell out?
So I'm a few pages late, but just wanted to chime in here and further explain my position (in hindsight I obviously did not communicate well). I do not mean to immediately assume every difference is inherently good, nor do I advocate for actively 'noticing' differences which are more or less meaningless. What I mean is flipping the paradigm from where people have an inherent negative reaction towards differences as a bad thing for no other reason than because they are different, and need to be overwhelmingly proven otherwise to accept such.
If you're arguing that some people want their warhammer club to be "no girls allowed," I'm not bothered by that. I'm married and I want my time with the boys. You can play with whoever you want to play with. I just think the community in general should be more inclusive.
I think it depends on how you mean this. A group of friends playing together is one thing, but a group open to new members creating an arbitrary boys only filter creates an unnecessary barrier to entry for already underrepresented demographics. Like a girl who wants to play Warhammer is free to do so if she can find enough girls who also want to play Warhammer? There's no reason to make it harder than it already is to get involved in the hobby. If you play the game, you're one of the boys regardless of whether or not you're a boy. When someone brings their girlfriend, they are one of the boys and if that relationship doesn't work out and they still want to play, their friendship is just as welcome as anyone else.
I think its a complicated issue.
On the one hand no one generally has issue with clubs having age restrictions. Even if the hobby or event has no legal barriers (eg you are not making an alcoholic drinking club for 8 year olds) there are still age boundaries setup. Many major sports and events even build this into escalating age tiers and structures that often build into adult restricted groups later on. No one starts shouting "agism" or "agist" around and in general any well supported activity can support such a grouping.
Gender is another common one though a bit more complex because historically it was used to fully exclude certain genders from certain hobbies/groups/activities outright.
And yet as noted above, sometimes you do just want a "guys night out" and such. Heck no one really complains about Stag and Hen nights as a concept and modern takes are free to be taken or left - you don't have to have such parties and you don't have to stick to fixed gender groups if you don't want too; but its there as a socially accepted option.
Like likes like at times and there are valid reasons why people might want to be part of a group that has a common variable between them - be that age, gender, religion etc...
Now it gets more tricky because when you deal with hobbies/interests with very restricted uptake; where many towns might only have one or maybe two groups. Then such niche groupings can be harmful. If the only group in your area is adults only that's causing exclusion; if its guys only then its causing exclusion. Even if those who attend have no problem with those excluded groups being part of the activity in general.
It's here such niche division can be harmful and damaging.
So its tricky and scale and size of support for an activity 100% factors into this.
It's also easier to argue for greater group diversity in general, there are a lot of pros to it. Furthermore, many times those pros can outweigh the benefits of like-seeking-like
Finally sometimes the barriers are hazy and might simply be extensions of a lack of cultural diverse awareness. Thus breaking down and opening up to more diverse backgrounds results in breaking those barriers and reaching a point where like-seeking-like broadens what they define and see as a "like" kind.
So we've had a few LAN centers over the years, and they tend to be the closest thing I can think of where there would be a mix of ages, other than pool halls with arcades. Where you still have to be an adult (21 or older) to sit at the bar and/or order drinks.
I imagine something like GameWorks or Dave&Busters, yet toned down a bit for tabletop and LAN tourneys or at least providing a separate area that wouldn't be distracted by the arcades.
It was something I used wish for, less so now, but if one came to town, I would definitely check it out.
Lord Damocles wrote: Presumably the 1930s-German-Enthusiasts themed army was the first time visiting the particular GW in question - otherwise the player would have been asked to not bring it previously.
So if the GW store asked someone to not bring their [potentially] problematic army at the earliest opportunity. I don't see what more GW could have done there.
Also, isn't the depiction of backwards swastikas illegal in Germany?
Apologies, that original comment was made late at night and the proverbial "train had left the station" before all passengers were aboard (as in, I forgot where I was going with why I brought up those examples).
Basically, I brought up the 1930s German enthusiast, and the hyper-realistic modeller as examples because of the way they stood out to me. It isn't so much that they made those armies. One was of dubious content, and the other was, while exceedingly well executed (I took a good look at the army before the game finished. It was amazingly well sculpted and painted. Like, I would not be surprised in the least if that person had won a Golden Daemon or two).
It was that those individuals thought that this public game store was a great place to bring their army in. And obviously a good store manager would do what that store manager did: properly ensure that the customer is informed that that specific army will not be tolerated in the store. I've been to other game shops where such an action may or may not have taken place. And it's those shops, IMHO, that hinder diversity within the hobby.
That said, I think every fandom across all walks of life get those kinds of fans. Whether its football fans with a creepy intense fan worship of Leo Messi, an overly attentive anime weeb, the car badge guys (ya know, die hard ford or chevy guys), you'll invariably run into some fans who take things to very uncomfortable levels. The important thing for GW, and various store owners, is to ensure that THEY are not the ones creating or fostering that. YA know, its that sort of view that meant that the last GW shop I was a regular at, we had hard and fast rules of what could and could not be discussed at the hobby table, because certain topics in the wrong setting will kill a community.
On age restrictions for clubs? There can be good reason for that.
For instance, my former local club (I moved away) used to meet in first a Pub, then a Working Men’s Club. Hence they had an 18+ membership requirement by necessity.
They latterly moved to a church hall type place. There, less reason to need 18+. Except…..Safeguarding. Even GW Staff need a background check, just in case. Because I think we can all agree that’s very much a realm of Better Safe Than Sorry.
There’s also the not entirely unreasonable argument that many of us play to relax and unwind. A bit of camaraderie and escape from reality. I for one would prefer not to have kids knocking about.
But gender segregation there feels archaic and unnecessary. Sure a Boys Night Out/Weekend Away isn’t a problem. Indeed such events can be very good for you, especially as you age and may want to recapture a bit of the glory days. But a Boys Only Club just feels….dated, and based on no solid argument.
But gender segregation there feels archaic and unnecessary. Sure a Boys Night Out/Weekend Away isn’t a problem. Indeed such events can be very good for you, But a Boys Only Club just feels….dated, and based on no solid argument.
Yeah, that's how I felt about the book/wine club I wasn't allowed to join.
Adeptekon wrote: Now this is an honest question, I'm totally ignorant here, but why do I think "Turkic" inspired Ghazghkull, and Uruk (same with Tolkien) for Uruk the Sumerian city?
I apologize for having fond memories of my Oriental Adventures.
Much of the ork-stuff is taken from Tolkien, especially stuff like names and words, and there are indeed hints and arguments that Tolkien constructed the Black Tongue modelled on the then-recently decyphered Hurrian language, which is from Mesopotamia and related to modern-day Turkish, and shares important grammatic structures with it.
But gender segregation there feels archaic and unnecessary. Sure a Boys Night Out/Weekend Away isn’t a problem. Indeed such events can be very good for you, But a Boys Only Club just feels….dated, and based on no solid argument.
Yeah, that's how I felt about the book/wine club I wasn't allowed to join.
let me tell you, if you think making people hire people they don't want to hire is tough, try making people hang out with people they don't want to.
But we definitely had our own biases in our local community, even as we grew up (and eventually went our different ways). And I do admit that our behaviour and way to act with certain people may have been not that welcoming to them, in retrospect.
