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Cogs wrote:
As this has developed I am now wondering more why is it that most characters in these games are white males? Where are the minorities and the women?

A mixture of lifting background/culture from places and times in history when only white males were considered important, ie Medeval Europe

(although actually Arab and to a lesser extent Black peoples were also involved, but you only find out about that with more detailed study than many game designers choose to do)

Women have generally had an equally tough time there as well, and certainly were not considered equal to men (except for rare exceptions that were probably more common than the historical record reflects, but still uncommon)

plus a tendancy for companies to go for the 'easy' sell, there are more male than female gamers, so why make the extra effort to cater to them (and in doing so risk upsetting some of the men)

and I guess most game designers are white men as well, and one of the fist things writers are meant to do is 'write about what you know'

 Manchu wrote:
a business person ought to consider taking advantage of that market.

Sure, that's easy to say in theory, but in practice, it frequently doesn't work that way.

I would be more inclined to play a homo character, just to paint it flamboyantly and laugh as it rocks the Fabulicious style

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

Cogs wrote:
As this has developed I am now wondering more why is it that most characters in these games are white males? Where are the minorities and the women?

A mixture of lifting background/culture from places and times in history when only white males were considered important, ie Medeval Europe

(although actually Arab and to a lesser extent Black peoples were also involved, but you only find out about that with more detailed study than many game designers choose to do)

Women have generally had an equally tough time there as well, and certainly were not considered equal to men (except for rare exceptions that were probably more common than the historical record reflects, but still uncommon)

plus a tendancy for companies to go for the 'easy' sell, there are more male than female gamers, so why make the extra effort to cater to them (and in doing so risk upsetting some of the men)

and I guess most game designers are white men as well, and one of the fist things writers are meant to do is 'write about what you know'

Some good points there, but it seems important to add at least one more: women are hard to sculpt. That is to say, it's easy to sculpt a gender neutral figure in heavy armor (which will be presumed to be a male), but very difficult to make a correspondingly armored female miniature.

The simple fact is, in the context of table top games, you might as well call your Space Marines female... because under all that power armor, how could you know?

But then the hue and cry goes out "where are the women?" And the poor model maker cranks out some torsos with ridiculous "boob armor", which prompts another round of complaints, so they make lightly armored females that are more subtle and then the complaint of "why are all the men in plate mail and the women in tee-shirts?" and then the model maker asks themselves "why didn't I just go to truck driving school?"

 Melissia wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
a business person ought to consider taking advantage of that market.

Sure, that's easy to say in theory, but in practice, it frequently doesn't work that way.

I don't think you're right about that. Remember that "consider" does not mean "take action." Plus, none of us really know whether or to what extent taking advantage of these political-identity markets would actually be very profitable. It's a risk that even larger companies (like EA) are taking in a very tentative way even though their demographic seems by and large okay with (the choice of) female and/or gay protagonists. I'm not sure there's any indication that war game companies should even think of taking similar risks.

The simple fact is, in the context of table top games, you might as well call your Space Marines female... because under all that power armor, how could you know?

That would be a valid objection if they were not specifically stated not to be in the lore.

Most wargaming models are gay anyway, they mostly all hang out with othe male models and generally attract submissive need types.

The few girl models tend to e a bit butch and only interested in gunz and sticking it to the male models that have been repressing them for so long.

It's a wonder the can conceive new models at all.

 Manchu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
a business person ought to consider taking advantage of that market.

Sure, that's easy to say in theory, but in practice, it frequently doesn't work that way.

I don't think you're right about that. Remember that "consider" does not mean "take action."

Given the pointlessly misogynistic nature of the overwhelming majority of many attempts to market towards women, I don't even give them that much credit.

 Melissia wrote:

The simple fact is, in the context of table top games, you might as well call your Space Marines female... because under all that power armor, how could you know?

That would be a valid objection if they were not specifically stated not to be in the lore.

You validate by dismissal: it is in fact only because of the lore that anyone can make an inference about the gender of space marines.

Which... is kinda the entire point.

 Melissia wrote:
Given the pointlessly misogynistic nature of the overwhelming majority of many attempts to market towards women, I don't even give them that much credit.

No one determined to find out that they are right every turned out to be wrong in their own eyes.

As long as it isn't just a gimmick.

Todd McCaffrey added lots and lots of gay raping dragons (yes, I'm serious ) to his mother's Pern books when he took over the helm.

It goes without saying that I prefer to pretend the series ended with Anne McCaffrey's last book.

In one fell stroke, an awesome series of literature was reduced to the level of the most horrible internet fanfic.

 Manchu wrote:
No one determined to find out that they are right every turned out to be wrong in their own eyes.

Amusing that you would say that; I would say the same about you.

But more importantly, marketing as a practice has a long history of making people out to be idiots, especially women. History is absolutely rife with it.

 scarletsquig wrote:
As long as it isn't just a gimmick.

Todd McCaffrey added lots and lots of gay raping dragons (yes, I'm serious unfortunately) to his mother's Pern books when he took over the helm.

It goes without saying that I prefer to pretend the series ended with the death of Anne.

Damn, really? Glad I stopped reading them last century...

By the by, there was a mention of EA, and I've been developing the suspicion that periodically EA/Bioware likes to beat the gay drum (so to speak) to divert attention away from their execrable behavior... well, in a lot of other areas. This actually rather supports Manchu's point: the fact appears that there is actually a lucrative gay market, but not yet so lucrative that a AAA title will be exclusively devoted to satisfying that demo. Including? It very much appear so.

AAA titles are rarely noted for their quality writing.

 Melissia wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
No one determined to find out that they are right every turned out to be wrong in their own eyes.

Amusing that you would say that; I would say the same about you.

I didn't mean you. :(

I actually was referring to the possibility that businesses reinforce their own viewpoints by self-selecting strategies.

 Manchu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
No one determined to find out that they are right every turned out to be wrong in their own eyes.

Amusing that you would say that; I would say the same about you.

I didn't mean you. :(

I actually was referring to the possibility that businesses reinforce their own viewpoints by self-selecting strategies.

Sorry. I got too defensive. A siege mentality is never good...

 DukeBadham wrote:
I would be more inclined to play a homo character, just to paint it flamboyantly and laugh as it rocks the Fabulicious style

Stay classy.....

To be honest I probably won't even notice if a character was gay, Its not something that I take more than a passing notice of in the real world, after all its hardly important. I have never understood why people are so fixated on peripheral differences.

 Melissia wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I didn't mean you. :(

I actually was referring to the possibility that businesses reinforce their own viewpoints by self-selecting strategies.

Sorry. I got too defensive. A siege mentality is never good...

No prob, I should have been more clear.

 Meade wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
Which actually leads to the point that it's frequently forgotten that, while homosexual acts have been around as long as sexual acts have been, the idea of a "gay identity" is a fairly recent development. Several people in the thread have mentioned things like the homosexuality of ancient Spartans, Greeks and so on, but referring to such people as "gay" in the current context is anachronistic. Spartan men who... "initiated youths into manhood" would have had wives as well, and generally held to the ancient historical adage "a woman for children, a boy for pleasure."

But the ancient Greeks also had beliefs that what we would refer to as 'love', could only be had between men. They had wives, but they were more like animals that were there to be used for procreation, that was my point, and also 'battle-brothers' in a way were encouraged to have relationships with one another in Sparta particularly. The Man-boy love is a separate thing entirely. Symposium by Plato makes for an interesting read.

I would say this rather supports the point: viewing ancient persons, or indeed persons of cultures very different from our own, who engaged in homosexual relationships as being "gay" as we understand such a thing in a contemporary context, is simply anachronistic/inaccurate.

The relation between a Spartan man and his ephebos (youth) bears some familiar elements, but also many elements modern sentiments would find intensely distasteful (as most hopefully regard bacha bazi).

 Buzzsaw wrote:
I would say this rather supports the point: viewing ancient persons, or indeed persons of cultures very different from our own, who engaged in homosexual relationships as being "gay" as we understand such a thing in a contemporary context, is simply anachronistic/inaccurate.

As an aside, people who can grasp this insight are often themselves unable to grasp how difficult an insight it is to grasp.

LordOfTheSloths wrote:
Playing: absolutely not.

Reading: Not if I can avoid it. For example, I found it a gratuitous intrusion into A Thousand Sons, which I otherwise enjoyed. And I can't think of a situation I'd be interested in reading in which it would be other than gratuitous.

I only remember one gay relationship in there and it was never a focal point, in fact it was only brought up in, like, two scenes if I recall correctly.

 Manchu wrote:
No prob, I should have been more clear.

And I've been insulted far too much in the past few weeks for my own good (mostly outside of this forum), heh.

I admit, I have absolutely zero respect for marketing as a social science (which it basically is, being applied psychology/sociology).

It has far too much baggage.

I've met quite a lot of LGBT D&D players and some mtg players, but not much in he way of wahammer players. I'm aware of some on this forum, but I don't know any personally. Mtg and especially D&D have female players, something else a rarity in warhammer circles.

I wonder why that is, and why of many SF/fantasy fan bases and games systems, Warhammer seems one of the least inclusive. Perhaps it's reflected in some of the views in this thread, an aversion to homosexuality in literature, or a knee jerk reaction leading to the assumption that if a gay character is included it will devolve into gay porn. This is one of the issues with gay characters, while an author can mishandle them, there will always be some people more concerned with focusing with what they do in the bedroom than what is on the page. Take the reaction of some people to Dumbledore being revealed as being gay, the contents of the books haven't changed and now they, or the character, are less enjoyable? Sure authors can soapbox with a character, but that's possible with many topics. Also it's interesting that we're only talking hypothetical situations but some object flat out to gay characters because of a worst case scenario, usually only seen in the crudest slash fiction but which would end up in their space marine novel or somehow transposed onto the tabletop.

Some of the lack of inclusivity within Warhammer is down to the immaturity of some of the player base, still in that adolescent 'but it's icky' view of homosexuality. There's a distinct defensiveness against anything resembling a gay character appearing lest it embarrass or discomfort, unless its a sexy lesbian of course (hurr hurr) - that's neither inclusive nor mature. Maybe that's why other sections of the hobby and SF/fantasy appear to attract a greater diversity of people of gender and sexuality etc, while Warhammer is mostly young white men.

 Melissia wrote:

 verterdegete wrote:
Yes, gay people in WH40k would be a problem for me. Actually, any of that liberal/politically correct crap would be a problem for me.

So I take it that O'Shaserra offends you?

Seriously, dismissing something as "politically correct"? This isn't the '90s.

Given the low level of tolerance lots of toy soldier fanatics have, we would only be so lucky if they entered the 90's...

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I wonder why that is, and why of many SF/fantasy fan bases and games systems, Warhammer seems one of the least inclusive.

My guess is that it's a combination of factors:

1) GW's blatant marketing to young boys. Where other authors/companies acknowledge a wide customer base GW seems to be obsessively focused on their "target market", and pretty much ignores any concept of diversity (whether in competitive vs. casual, including heroes that aren't straight white men, etc). If you aren't particularly determined to get into a large-scale scifi wargame (of which 40k is the only real option) then it's easy to think that GW doesn't care about you.

2) The absence of character development. In, say, D&D it's easy to create a character you can identify with even if the official material doesn't include one. In fact you're encouraged to use the official material as nothing more than a starting point, and imagine your own characters/adventures/etc. And when you have that flexibility to modify the game it's easy to include a more diverse range of players, and easy for people who might otherwise be excluded to find a group that is interested in making those changes. On the other hand, in GW games character development is ignored entirely, all you have is models on the table and no real support for making your own world to play in.

3) The lack of established playing groups. Again, to use D&D as an example: most people tend to play with a few specific people over long periods of time, so it's easier to find a group that welcomes people like you and is interested in having your character/including setting and story elements you want to see/etc. But these groups also tend to post public invitations so a new potential player can actually find out about them. With GW games that's not really the case, some people play their own personal campaigns, but those are often private groups that you'll never hear about unless you're already a friend of someone who is in one. Meanwhile the majority of GW gaming is done in stores against random people, so you're stuck with whoever happens to show up that day.

4) The community. Let's be honest, just read the "eww gross" responses here, and the "FEMINAZIS!!!!" responses in the discussion on sexism, and it's not really surprising that many people would take one look at the community and decide to go elsewhere. If you're anything but a straight (preferably white) man you have to be pretty determined to play the game to put up with the community, and anyone who isn't extremely dedicated to the idea one of GW's games is probably going to find an acceptable substitute with a better community.

 Peregrine wrote:
But you said you have a harder time identifying with a gay character, which is completely different from this. I brought up the 40k stuff because those things are a MUCH bigger difference than simply being attracted to different people, so if you have a hard time identifying with a gay character then it must be impossible for you to identify with a space marine.

Well, things aren't quite that cut-and-dried. There's things you can read about and think "That would be cool" like, being a psyker, or being a roman centurion, or being a famous wizard. There's things you can read about and think "That might be cool" like being a gladiator or being a space marine, and then there's things you read about and think "That will never be cool" like being a conservative right-wing character, or being gay. I mean, any character has to be the product of his in-universe history, but we also need to be able to relate to him (or her).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can accept certain aspects of a character that are necessarily products of their history. But then there's aspects of any given character, their personality, that will always grate with certain readers. Sometimes that's fine, because the character is supposed to be an unlikable. But for the main protagonist, it's not fine. You don't want them to be a perfectly wonderful person with no issues at all, but if they are diametrically opposed to many of my fundamental world views, it's very hard to become invested in them.

 Peregrine wrote:
And thank you for convincing me to ignore the 40k novels. If they're really so shallow that the only thing that matters is constant battle with no time spent on character development, personal lives, etc, then I really don't see why anyone (well, anyone over 15) would ever want to read them.

You're really not missing much.

to be fair I play slaaneshi armies so most of my characters bend in all the directions (yes....even that one)

outside of slaanesh's fluff though I can't see why it would be a problem :?

 Melissia wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
the idea of argument through moral superiority

Funny, most of the people trying to claim homosexuals are evil are trying to use that.

I'm not, however, condemning people. I am expressing the desire that writing becomes more inclusive so that more people can enjoy it.

Two things here;

First) You seem to be misconstruing my use of "argument through moral superiority", by which I mean argument that proceeds from "I am a victim, ergo my position cannot be attacked because to attack my position is to attack me, thus the only moral choice is to agree with me or stay silent".

It seems that you are confusing this with an appeal to a moral standard, perhaps? That is, when an observant individual will condemn homosexual conduct as being out of sync with religious norms.

Second) a very important point is this notion that "writing becomes more inclusive so that more people can enjoy it" is very much a matter of debate.

While including homosexual characters makes works of fiction more inclusive in the sense of appeal to more demographics, does that actually translate into more people? That is, we must recognize that some people will be turned off by such characters, even as some people enjoy them. As a purely commercial proposition, we must accept that it's entirely possible that the number of people that are interested in homosexual characters (thus inclined to purchase) may simply be smaller then the people that would be disinclined to buy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaldor wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
But you said you have a harder time identifying with a gay character, which is completely different from this. I brought up the 40k stuff because those things are a MUCH bigger difference than simply being attracted to different people, so if you have a hard time identifying with a gay character then it must be impossible for you to identify with a space marine.

Well, things aren't quite that cut-and-dried. There's things you can read about and think "That would be cool" like, being a psyker, or being a roman centurion, or being a famous wizard. There's things you can read about and think "That might be cool" like being a gladiator or being a space marine, and then there's things you read about and think "That will never be cool" like being a conservative right-wing character, or being gay. I mean, any character has to be the product of his in-universe history, but we also need to be able to relate to him (or her).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can accept certain aspects of a character that are necessarily products of their history. But then there's aspects of any given character, their personality, that will always grate with certain readers. Sometimes that's fine, because the character is supposed to be an unlikable. But for the main protagonist, it's not fine. You don't want them to be a perfectly wonderful person with no issues at all, but if they are diametrically opposed to many of my fundamental world views, it's very hard to become invested in them.

First, Hey! I'm a conservative right-winger (which is redundant) and I'm cool... eh, probably not, oh well. An excellent illustration of my above point: some people have moral reasons to be uncomfortable, some people... it's just not their bag.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Gay characters in 40k , the imperium is like the middle ages on steroids, homosexuality would be seen as a mark of chaos (or slaneesh?)

No, that's just lazy garbage. The Imperium is oppressive, yes, but there tends to be an obvious cause-and-effect that actually makes some goddamn sense. Psykers nearly destroyed humanity when daemons started popping out of their skulls, so it makes sense that the Imperium would want to control this threat. Nonsense like hating gays or black people does not have this legitimate source to draw from. It's like the Discworld quote about black and white living in perfect harmony and ganging up on green.

 Kaldor wrote:
You don't want them to be a perfectly wonderful person with no issues at all, but if they are diametrically opposed to many of my fundamental world views, it's very hard to become invested in them.

So, just to clarify: is a gay character "opposed to your fundamental worldviews" because you believe that being gay is morally wrong and you can't support such a character, or is it "opposed" in that you can't possibly identify with anyone who has different sexual preferences than you do?