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If I say "Yes they were totally intended dude" will you point out the "internal contradictions" without using an obnoxious multiquote format?

You appear to agree with the belief that women do not participate in wargaming because of the creepy male clientele and then end your post saying you agree with the statement that women do no wargame simply because they have minimal interest in it.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. You present a group with an activity that doesn't engage them and they won't be engaged. You then show that the environment said activity is being engaged in is in many cases, actively repulsive, and you compound the lack of engagement by excluding any fence sitters or people who might have displayed at some point. Engagement from a group at that point will be at best, a fringe minority. You can have multiple reasons to do/not do something, and that's how most people usually operate.

Even though women engage with similarly "gross" males in other activities such as tabletop RPGs, LARPing, video gaming, cosplay, CCGs, etc.

I just don't think it particularly appeals to women and has little to do with the males in the gaming community.

Well my wife plays 40k, Chaos Daemons and Dark Angels, not once has see been treated any differently playing than anyone else in my LGS. If anyone thinks that they are going to go "easy on" her than they are going to lose, just because her chromosomes are different than a males doesn't make her army any less effective at kicking butt. She likes the game, she likes the hobby and most of all she loves it when she wins! Whenever we go out to the LGS to play, I haven't heard of once that she was being oggled at (except by me! ) or that she felt uncomfortable in anyway, maybe it's just because of the people that we play with but it's really no different. There has to be a certain level of maturity in 40k to really enjoy playing with the wide range of people that play, the OP article is just boyish at best.

As far as any online gaming goes, it's easy to act like a complete fool when it's not your real name or face out there. In wargamming you would be asked to leave if you were acting immature or no one would want to play with you because your behavior is socially unacceptable.

 Amaya wrote:

Melissia wrote:Not in my experience. But all of this kind of misses the point-- yes, a group of white men CAN be intimidating, without even intending to be so.

I find it hilarious that people think a group of geeky white guys are intimidating. Especially at a public location (GW/FLGS) where they are absorbed into their games with toy soldiers and dice rolls.

Be fair. Melissia is not speaking of physical intimidation, but likely social intimidation. A hobby like warhammer can be extremely intimidating if you have never played. You have people talking about all kinds of rules, armies, etc.. It could be very easy to be socially intimidated by that.

Imagine your living in a city like Portland OR, or Seattle WA where knitting has become very popular hobby for women in their 30s & 40s. If you were to walk into a knitting shop it would be intimidating to know what kind of yard to buy, what kind needles you would need, how to cast on, cast off, etc. Sure you could ask one of the women sitting at the shop, but they are all chatting with each other and ignoring you. If someone did not explain that to you and try and introduce you to the group of women knitting (which has about as many men who take up that hobby as warhammer has women), it could be very socially intimidating.

 Amaya wrote:
Even though women engage with similarly "gross" males in other activities such as tabletop RPGs, LARPing, video gaming, cosplay, CCGs, etc.

I don't think those are 'gross' male hobbies.
I know more girls into cosplay than men.
LARPs are cosplay where you get to swing boffer swords. (more girls play healers, but that's another story)
Girls dig video games as much as boys do -- the reason they are viewed as 'boy' hobbies is a throwback to the 90s when PCs were not as common or friendly.
CCGs have become incredibly prevasive in high schools. MTG knows where its market is....

 deffskulla wrote:
Well my wife plays 40k, Chaos Daemons and Dark Angels, not once has see been treated any differently playing than anyone else in my LGS. If anyone thinks that they are going to go "easy on" her than they are going to lose, just because her chromosomes are different than a males doesn't make her army any less effective at kicking butt. She likes the game, she likes the hobby and most of all she loves it when she wins! Whenever we go out to the LGS to play, I haven't heard of once that she was being oggled at (except by me! ) or that she felt uncomfortable in anyway, maybe it's just because of the people that we play with but it's really no different.

Going back to the knitting store anology, that's the exact same thing as you going with your wife to a knitting store and finding its actually really fun to sit, knit and chat with people. It does not make you less of a man than it makes your wife less of a woman for playing 40k.
I wish I could get my wife to play 40k. As night I will paint models while she knits

I didn't say those hobbies were gross, I said some of the males in them were gross as in stereotypical unwashed socially awkward neckbeards. Wargaming is not some haven for rejects from the rest of the nerd community.

Which nerd community are you referring to? We are a pretty diverse group, really.

I can't for the life of me understand the fanatical love of Firefly.

All of them.

Edit: Firefly is overrated as is everything by Joss Whedon. I don't know what's worse Browncoats or Buffy lovers. Is there some reason that they are so fanatical? I swear it's like a bloody cult.

 Amaya wrote:
All of them.

Edit: Firefly is overrated as is everything by Joss Whedon. I don't know what's worse Browncoats or Buffy lovers. Is there some reason that they are so fanatical? I swear it's like a bloody cult.

A cult of awesome.

 Amaya wrote:
Firefly is overrated as is everything by Joss Whedon. I don't know what's worse Browncoats or Buffy lovers. Is there some reason that they are so fanatical? I swear it's like a bloody cult.

Hmm well seeing as logic, reason, awesomeness, and, everything means nothing to you. (How can you hate firefly?)

I guess there is no help for you .

Very typical Browncoat response. "If you don't adore it and worship Whedon, you must hate it."

Please show me where I said I hated it.

 Amaya wrote:
Very typical Browncoat response. "If you don't adore it and worship Whedon, you must hate it."

Please show me where I said I hated it.

Typical internet doesn't understand a joke response.

In case you haven't noticed yet, sarcasm is about as effective on the internet as peace protests were in ending WW2.

 captain collius wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Very typical Browncoat response. "If you don't adore it and worship Whedon, you must hate it."

Please show me where I said I hated it.

Typical internet doesn't understand a joke response.

Well this just got awkward.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amaya wrote:
In case you haven't noticed yet, sarcasm is about as effective on the internet as peace protests were in ending WW2.

He said "if logic, reason, and awesomeness mean nothing to you"

Even if you truly don't like logic or reason, I think suggesting you aren't a fan of awesomeness is a pretty clear indicator of some sarcasm.

Insisting on continuing to be insulted even after he pointed out the joke is kinda...excessive.

Actually, I am not a fan of awesomeness for the sake of awesomeness. A great deal of people are fans of awesome and/or cool things simply because they are awesome or cool.

Why would that make it obvious sarcasm? Especially considering that "awesomeness" depends heavily on perspective and context.

 Amaya wrote:
Actually, I am not a fan of awesomeness for the sake of awesomeness. A great deal of people are fans of awesome and/or cool things simply because they are awesome or cool.

Who said anything about unbacked awesomeness? Real awesomeness is what is in question; he made more of a blanket statement.

Why would that make it obvious sarcasm? Especially considering that "awesomeness" depends heavily on perspective and context.

Everyone likes SOME awesomeness. Or rather, most people. The post referred to awesomeness, which is defined by your perspective and context.

What you find awesome and what I find awesome are different, but we both can agree that we like awesome things. He also put in a winkyface. It was pretty clear sarcasm.

 Amaya wrote:
All of them.

Edit: Firefly is overrated as is everything by Joss Whedon. I don't know what's worse Browncoats or Buffy lovers. Is there some reason that they are so fanatical? I swear it's like a bloody cult.

Your welcome to your opinion. The box office disagrees. The Avengers became the third highest-grossing film worldwide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avengers_(2012_film)

You do know that using sales as a measuring stick of something's quality or lack thereof is illogical and meaningless right?

 Amaya wrote:
You do know that using sales as a measuring stick of something's quality or lack thereof is illogical and meaningless right?

Actually, sales are a good indicator of quality when there lacks much substantial, quantitative means of assessing quality.

Put simply: sales are really the only way to tell if a movie is good.

 Amaya wrote:
You do know that using sales as a measuring stick of something's quality or lack thereof is illogical and meaningless right?

Uh....no.

What you view as quality is subjective. What society views as quality is quantitative. The measuring stick for this is sales of a movie / viewers of a TV show / etc. Simply put, the more people go out and see a movie, the better society as a whole views the product.

While you might think that Joss Wheden's works are garbage, society as a whole as liked some of his works greatly.

No, all they do is indicate the film's mass appeal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
You do know that using sales as a measuring stick of something's quality or lack thereof is illogical and meaningless right?

Uh....no.

What you view as quality is subjective. What society views as quality is quantitative. The measuring stick for this is sales of a movie / viewers of a TV show / etc. Simply put, the more people go out and see a movie, the better society as a whole views the product.

While you might think that Joss Wheden's works are garbage, society as a whole as liked some of his works greatly.

Where have I said Whedon's work is garbage?

 Amaya wrote:
No, all they do is indicate the film's mass appeal.

And the goal of films is to appeal to the masses.

A good film is one that accomplishes this goal.

"Article on why women don't play 40k"

What does Wheden have to do with this?

But if we're going completely off topic here.

I hate Buffy, liked Firefly, enjoyed Serenity and loved The Avengers.

the article talks about women not playing 40k, because all 40k players are the stereotypical 40k players...

no one sees the irony in this?

I see none of the mentioned behaviors at my 40 shop, GW or in tournies, and have only met 3 female players in 14 years.
I only met 4 "neckbeards" in the same time period.


I could equally say women dont play 40 k as much because they stereotype the gamers as "smelly all male neckbeards who dont know how to deal with women in the same room as them"

in fact, women stereotyping gamers as "smelly neck beards" is likely more the reason why women dont play 40k,

as opposed to 40k players actually BEING smelly neck beard types.

maybe its just my group, but 99% of us smell ok, look well to do with good jobs and living outside our parents basement.

all of the women I ask to describe war gamers describe the neck beard stereotype, without exception, and of course want nothing to do with that crowd

 TheCaptain wrote:


And the goal of films is to appeal to the masses.

A good film is one that accomplishes this goal.

That's false. A goal of some films is to make money by appealing to the masses.
Some are to portray a narrative in a certain style, or to convey a message.

I can't accept your definition of "good" because it means "Transformers" is better than "The Seventh Seal." Mass appeal is only a measure of mass appeal, not cinematography.

Hey, I'm a bit of a film nerd, so I suppose I judge things in a different way to how many times I said "yeah!" while watching the movie, and concentrate on things like editing and narrative. If you were to ask me about music, I'm sure my definition of "good" would be in the mass appeal section...

After rambling, I guess I'm just trying to say that it's not entirely subjective, just like food, music and video games. However mass appeal isn't a good measure of the skill put into creating these things. Man I'm bad at explaining what I think, I'll just leave this conversation now.

 Amaya wrote:
I find it hilarious that people think a group of geeky white guys are intimidating. Especially at a public location (GW/FLGS) where they are absorbed into their games with toy soldiers and dice rolls.

Yes, you would. You do not have the same experiences.

This is not physical intimidation that is being talked about, but social. It is VERY easy for a group to give off a vibe of "you're not a part of the group and you're not welcome here", intentionally or otherwise. This attitude, again intentional or otherwise, attempts to push people away and keep them from integrating in to the culture.

Amaya wrote:Actually, I am not a fan of awesomeness for the sake of awesomeness. A great deal of people are fans of awesome and/or cool things simply because they are awesome or cool.

Usually I don't see things that I'd quite like to put on my sig, but this sentence is just awe-.. err, I mean... special?

Melissia wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
I find it hilarious that people think a group of geeky white guys are intimidating. Especially at a public location (GW/FLGS) where they are absorbed into their games with toy soldiers and dice rolls.

Yes, you would. You do not have the same experiences.

This is not physical intimidation that is being talked about, but social. It is VERY easy for a group to give off a vibe of "you're not a part of the group and you're not welcome here", intentionally or otherwise. This attitude, again intentional or otherwise, attempts to push people away and keep them from integrating in to the culture.

Doesn't seem like this stopped you from doing video games, wargames, or RPGs...

LadyCassandra wrote:

Amaya wrote:Actually, I am not a fan of awesomeness for the sake of awesomeness. A great deal of people are fans of awesome and/or cool things simply because they are awesome or cool.

Usually I don't see things that I'd quite like to put on my sig, but this sentence is just awe-.. err, I mean... special?

My mommy always told me I was special.

 Amaya wrote:
Doesn't seem like this stopped you from doing video games, wargames, or RPGs...

I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not, personally, a very timid person online.

Understatement of the day here.