6 minutes ago, Kinzen said:

The problem is, those just don't sell as well. People have a tendency to pick up only the splatbooks for the factions they like best, whereas if you do books that take more of a "something for everybody" approach, everybody sees value in having them.

Do you have the numbers for the various clans books for 1st and 2nd edition? I'd imagine the numbers for the clan books for fine for 1st edition but 2nd edition was the WotC stuff and generally didn't have the same quality so I'd imagine much lower individuals sales. There really wasn't that much fluff in them either. The books were mainly a bunch of ogl content and the ccg at the time stuff but I've only really read through the Scorpion one.

30 minutes ago, Kubernes said:

Do you have the numbers for the various clans books for 1st and 2nd edition? I'd imagine the numbers for the clan books for fine for 1st edition but 2nd edition was the WotC stuff and generally didn't have the same quality so I'd imagine much lower individuals sales. There really wasn't that much fluff in them either. The books were mainly a bunch of ogl content and the ccg at the time stuff but I've only really read through the Scorpion one.

No, but that was what I heard from AEG people, so I believe the numbers back it up. And the logic makes sense: broad appeal will outsell niche pretty much every time.

8 hours ago, SavageTofu said:

They said in the first Facebook live video they want new L5R to represent both genders equally. This is something old L5R didn't do well. It was heavily represented by my male characters & players in the past.

Gaming in the United States is represented primarily by males. I know this has shifted some since L5R first came out. We've got a bit further to go.

I was last at Gen Con in 2015. There certainly were more woman there than back in 2008. Not so much at the AEG tables. They say the biggest difference between European conventions and American conventions is the greater presence of woman & free flowing booze.

I understand changing Hotaru's gender is a bit like Marvel turning Colossus gay in the Marvel ultimate run. However, if it potentially brings new female players into L5R, I'm for it.

Except does it? "Be more accepting to women" is a phrase like "family values", in that the meaning of the words used is something universally unobjectionable, but it's used extensively by malicious liars who just want to hurt other people and be morally praised for doing it. Actions demanded for the Totemic Power of Women rarely, if ever, have a single thing to do with making something welcoming to women, much like actions demanded to Support Family Values seldom had anything to do with actual family values. They are demands made for the sake of making demands, by people who know they are socially powerful enough to force others to give in to their demands.

I don't think Doji Hotaru is a problem or something to be worried about, but this attitude that every action carried out in the name of that goal is good is basically forbidding people from noticing the astonishing regularity with which high-profile attempts to "change something to make it more accepting to women" map to "make it more acceptable to socially-powerful white upper-middle-class Woke people who have no intention of actually supporting it by spending money; make it impossible for unpopular nerds to interact with it and turn its community into a group that punishes unpopular nerds for not yet killing themselves."

Like I said, I don't think that is the case here. But that doesn't mean the only reason to oppose or be wary of it is because someone is Bad And Contemptible and Doesn't Like Women Enough.

7 hours ago, BD Flory said:

There's every chance that professional storytellers thought of another good reason. I know it seems crazy, but people who actually do this for a living are often pretty good at it.

Counterpoint: Blizzard Entertainment, Games Workshop, 50-75% of L5R's story, Marvel Comics, the DC Cinematic Universe, Ridley Scott's 'Alien' Follow-ups, Star Wars, and in general the majority of all franchises that have ever existed.

1 hour ago, Huitzil37 said:

Counterpoint: Blizzard Entertainment, Games Workshop, 50-75% of L5R's story, Marvel Comics, the DC Cinematic Universe, Ridley Scott's 'Alien' Follow-ups, Star Wars, and in general the majority of all franchises that have ever existed.

Counterpoint: Plenty of people are going to disagree with your assertion of subjective opinion as objective fact.

48 minutes ago, Huitzil37 said:

Except does it? "Be more accepting to women" is a phrase like "family values", in that the meaning of the words used is something universally unobjectionable, but it's used extensively by malicious liars...

If you look at the last two Facebook live videos for L5R, clearly woman were equally represented in both videos. Both as employees of FFG & as characters in the game.

For me, that seems like a welcome shift in the gaming world. If FFG is going to employ equally and make characters equally, than it won't be on FFG's end if female players don't feel welcome. No, the fault will lie with the gaming community.

2 hours ago, Huitzil37 said:

I don't think Doji Hotaru is a problem or something to be worried about, but this attitude that every action carried out in the name of that goal is good is basically forbidding people from noticing the astonishing regularity with which high-profile attempts to "change something to make it more accepting to women" map to "make it more acceptable to socially-powerful white upper-middle-class Woke people who have no intention of actually supporting it by spending money; make it impossible for unpopular nerds to interact with it and turn its community into a group that punishes unpopular nerds for not yet killing themselves."

Martyr complex, much?

(accidentally struck through most of the comment, and couldn't figure out how to fix it because of stupid forum code)

2 hours ago, Huitzil37 said:

I don't think Doji Hotaru is a problem or something to be worried about, but this attitude that every action carried out in the name of that goal is good is basically forbidding people from noticing the astonishing regularity with which high-profile attempts to "change something to make it more accepting to women" map to "make it more acceptable to socially-powerful white upper-middle-class Woke people who have no intention of actually supporting it by spending money; make it impossible for unpopular nerds to interact with it and turn its community into a group that punishes unpopular nerds for not yet killing themselves."

I'm not sure how any such change, even if badly executed, "make{s} it impossible for unpopular nerds to interact with it." Are unpopular nerds incapable of reading stories with more than a token quantity of women in them? Or are you asserting that if more women get involved with an activity, the unpopular nerds will have no choice but to flee in the other direction?

2 hours ago, Huitzil37 said:

Like I said, I don't think that is the case here. But that doesn't mean the only reason to oppose or be wary of it is because someone is Bad And Contemptible and Doesn't Like Women Enough.

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the actual arguments I've seen here have not been "anyone who is wary of the genderswap is Bad and Contemptible and Doesn't Like Women Enough!" Rather, we've seen a bunch of people decrying this as "change for change's sake" or even a "perversion," and a bunch of other people pointing out that actually, it might be "change for gender equality's sake" or the beginning of a great new story, and that maybe the first group ought not to dismiss it out of hand.

Anything that is healthy for growing the gaming community in a positive manner is 100% cool by me. We need more characters to reflect ourselves so everyone can enjoy the game. That means men, women, the spectrum between, straight, gay, and that spectrum too - all within the context of a rigid fantasy caste system and culture that makes it hard for everyone.

2 hours ago, SavageTofu said:

If you look at the last two Facebook live videos for L5R, clearly woman were equally represented in both videos. Both as employees of FFG & as characters in the game.

For me, that seems like a welcome shift in the gaming world. If FFG is going to employ equally and make characters equally, than it won't be on FFG's end if female players don't feel welcome. No, the fault will lie with the gaming community.

Here's a big problem, with the employee situation, of the post: you're reducing those employees to their sex only. It's highly superficial, at best. It says a lot about reducing people to just their gender rather than who they are as an individual.

Hey! There's an underrepresentation of women in the design team! Let's make FFG hire at least three so it is balanced and better represented. If we don't do that women may not want to play a game designed by men only! They wouldn't feel welcome otherwise. Better find that sarcasm tag or emote!

To put it simply, I'm more interested in the content presented in a FFG video or article than who necessarily represents it.

People talked about gender but maybe FFG should also diversify race so everyone feels welcome to the game. Why not?

39 minutes ago, kpsmith said:

Anything that is healthy for growing the gaming community in a positive manner is 100% cool by me. We need more characters to reflect ourselves so everyone can enjoy the game. That means men, women, the spectrum between, straight, gay, and that spectrum too - all within the context of a rigid fantasy caste system and culture that makes it hard for everyone.

I can't wait for the first non-binary "I am tree-leaf-sexually-oriented" Shugenja that wants to cast water spells with Fire Kami, Isawa Redditu...

3 hours ago, Huitzil37 said:

Counterpoint: Blizzard Entertainment, Games Workshop, 50-75% of L5R's story, Marvel Comics, the DC Cinematic Universe, Ridley Scott's 'Alien' Follow-ups, Star Wars, and in general the majority of all franchises that have ever existed.

Until you've worked under the conditions under which those things were created, you have no idea what it's like. Out here on the internet, we can argue you should do x or y, and it seems easy.

The fact that as many things turn out as well as they do is a minor miracle.

22 minutes ago, Kubernes said:

People talked about gender but maybe FFG should also diversify race so everyone feels welcome to the game. Why not?

When appropriate, they should. We can presume women make up a larger portion of Rokugan's population than people who appear to be of African or Middle-Eastern descent (in the same way Rokugan's citizens appear to be of various Asian ethnicities). If they develop Burning Sands (or some other foreign land) it's an opportunity to do that.

On the other hand, Arkham Horror, set in 1920s America, does include two African-American investigators, with an African investigator in the next box, and quite probably other investigators of non-white heritage who haven't been announced yet, because FFG has made this a priority, and multiple peoppe at the company have said as much. Arkham also maintains gender balance among the investigators. As of box 2, each of the 5 classes has one male and one female investigator.

37 minutes ago, Kubernes said:

Here's a big problem, with the employee situation, of the post: you're reducing those employees to their sex only. It's highly superficial, at best. It says a lot about reducing people to just their gender rather than who they are as an individual.

I wanted to break this out separately, because it's really important.

You are reducing people (and characters) to their gender by demanding their presence be justified.

If we were really in the habit of treating people as individuals, no one would have to answer, "why a woman?"

The question wouldn't be asked. Just like no one asks, "why is this character a man? Why did you hire a man?"

26 minutes ago, BD Flory said:

I wanted to break this out separately, because it's really important.

You are reducing people (and characters) to their gender by demanding their presence be justified.

If we were really in the habit of treating people as individuals, no one would have to answer, "why a woman?"

The question wouldn't be asked. Just like no one asks, "why is this character a man? Why did you hire a man?"

To be fair, the "why did you hire a man" question does actually get asked, but generally only in jobs that are traditionally held more by women. It's definitely not to the same extent, but it's not nonexistent.

As to the original question that started the thread, I think "infinite" is a pretty good answer to how much retcon the game can bear.

People seem to be overlooking the best part about genderflipping Hoturi: her name isn't "Hoturi" anymore.

I, for one, wish for something similar to happen to every character with nonsensical names.

2 hours ago, Vlad3theImpaler said:

To be fair, the "why did you hire a man" question does actually get asked, but generally only in jobs that are traditionally held more by women. It's definitely not to the same extent, but it's not nonexistent.

Fair. It's also true that men hired in these cases (teachers, nurses, etc.) tend to be tracked into administrative positions, among other advantages. There's a categorical term for these jobs in sociology, but I forget what it is. They're generally low pay, low status.

Which is not to say it's not something that should also be addressed, but like many forms of gender discrimination, solving one means solving both, and both the problems and the various attempts at fixes -- good or bad -- are more visible in the larger category of "normal" jobs.

7 hours ago, Kinzen said:

I'm not sure how any such change, even if badly executed, "make{s} it impossible for unpopular nerds to interact with it." Are unpopular nerds incapable of reading stories with more than a token quantity of women in them? Or are you asserting that if more women get involved with an activity, the unpopular nerds will have no choice but to flee in the other direction?

How it starts is by exactly and specifically the thing you are doing right now . Someone does something and waves around the Totemic Power Of Women as justification. "Totemic Power of Women" is not the only attribute this action has, or even the most salient. When people object to or even attempt to notice the attributes this action has other than "Totemic Power Of Women", they are told "You must just not like women! You must hate and be afraid of women! The only reason to notice any attribute of this action other than the Totemic Power Of Women is that you hate and are afraid of women!"

So exactly this thing you did. Exactly. You have performed the prototypical example of the thing you are trying to claim doesn't exist.

Because this lie is so rewarding to tell and so fun to tell and so much more important than the truth, it reaches fixation in the community. Anyone who is not telling the lie about how unpopular nerds must hate and fear women becomes a target for the lie about how unpopular nerds hate and fear women, and thus deserve punishment and deserve to be driven away. The lie is so overwhelmingly powerful that the people telling the lie are incapable of even imagining as a hypothetical scenario that someone does not believe the lie and so, exactly like you have done here exactly in every way , constantly respond to people saying "This lie is a lie and is not true!" with "You must be saying the lie is true about you and you do hate and fear women!" The lie, because it is so much more important than the truth, utterly overwhelms the possibility of not telling the lie. The community transforms from a group of mostly-unpopular people who like a thing and talk about a thing, to a group of mostly-popular people who repeat the lie about how unpopular people hate and fear women. It drives out the unpopular nerds based on the lies they tell about them, turning the community into a thing that punishes the unpopular for not yet killing themselves. Once the lie has reached fixation, all is lost, there can be no turning back, the high-entropy state is irreversible.

Female Thor was awful for reasons that had nothing to do with her gender, but every single person who noticed this had "You must just hate and fear women!" screamed in their faces until they went away, and then they were held up to the public as figures of shame. Paul Fieg's Ghostbusters was awful for reasons that had nothing to do with the genders of the cast, but every single person who noticed this had "You must just hate and fear women!" screamed in their faces until they went away, and then they were held up to the public as figures of shame. The Force Awakens was worthless for reasons that had nothing to do with the genders or race of the cast, but a very large proportion of the people who noticed this had "You must just hate and fear women and/or black people!" screamed in their faces until they went away, and then they were held up to the public as figures of shame. The most popular form of viral marketing at the moment is to target unpopular people and wave the Totemic Power Of Women in their direction, find a troll on Twitter saying something they don't believe because it makes you upset, and then scream to the world "Look at how bad and terrible and women-hating unpopular nerds are! We should all shame and punish them by seeing this movie / reading this comic / playing this game!"

And it's never going to stop. You're going to read all of this, which outlines in detail why "they just hate and fear women" is a lie told by liars that has no truth in it and is just told to enable their abuse of those with less social power, and you're going to say "So what you're saying is you just hate and fear women." They will not stop, and they will not be stopped. Entropy is irreversible. All is lost.

Wait, for those of us only joining in this thread after a short hiatus (2 days), what has this to do with L5R?

3 minutes ago, Ser Nakata said:

Wait, for those of us only joining in this thread after a short hiatus (2 days), what has this to do with L5R?

Everything! EVERYTHING! EVERY SINGLE DARN THING! L5R is love! L5R is life! L5R is all! Praise be thy name!

Joke aside, it is the evolution of the thread and of its original question, and it is not even so far off of it.

However, it may have evolved past the point where it is still relevant to this thread and reached the point where a new thread will better serve thos discussion.

10 minutes ago, Ser Nakata said:

Wait, for those of us only joining in this thread after a short hiatus (2 days), what has this to do with L5R?

It's about whether it is permissible to dislike or be wary of FFG changing Doji Hoturi to Doji Hotaru, and what patterns one might notice that would make one wary of it.

24 minutes ago, Huitzil37 said:

How it starts is by exactly and specifically the thing you are doing right now . Someone does something and waves around the Totemic Power Of Women as justification. "Totemic Power of Women" is not the only attribute this action has, or even the most salient. When people object to or even attempt to notice the attributes this action has other than "Totemic Power Of Women", they are told "You must just not like women! You must hate and be afraid of women! The only reason to notice any attribute of this action other than the Totemic Power Of Women is that you hate and are afraid of women!"

So exactly this thing you did. Exactly. You have performed the prototypical example of the thing you are trying to claim doesn't exist.

Because this lie is so rewarding to tell and so fun to tell and so much more important than the truth, it reaches fixation in the community. Anyone who is not telling the lie about how unpopular nerds must hate and fear women becomes a target for the lie about how unpopular nerds hate and fear women, and thus deserve punishment and deserve to be driven away. The lie is so overwhelmingly powerful that the people telling the lie are incapable of even imagining as a hypothetical scenario that someone does not believe the lie and so, exactly like you have done here exactly in every way , constantly respond to people saying "This lie is a lie and is not true!" with "You must be saying the lie is true about you and you do hate and fear women!" The lie, because it is so much more important than the truth, utterly overwhelms the possibility of not telling the lie. The community transforms from a group of mostly-unpopular people who like a thing and talk about a thing, to a group of mostly-popular people who repeat the lie about how unpopular people hate and fear women. It drives out the unpopular nerds based on the lies they tell about them, turning the community into a thing that punishes the unpopular for not yet killing themselves. Once the lie has reached fixation, all is lost, there can be no turning back, the high-entropy state is irreversible.

Female Thor was awful for reasons that had nothing to do with her gender, but every single person who noticed this had "You must just hate and fear women!" screamed in their faces until they went away, and then they were held up to the public as figures of shame. Paul Fieg's Ghostbusters was awful for reasons that had nothing to do with the genders of the cast, but every single person who noticed this had "You must just hate and fear women!" screamed in their faces until they went away, and then they were held up to the public as figures of shame. The Force Awakens was worthless for reasons that had nothing to do with the genders or race of the cast, but a very large proportion of the people who noticed this had "You must just hate and fear women and/or black people!" screamed in their faces until they went away, and then they were held up to the public as figures of shame. The most popular form of viral marketing at the moment is to target unpopular people and wave the Totemic Power Of Women in their direction, find a troll on Twitter saying something they don't believe because it makes you upset, and then scream to the world "Look at how bad and terrible and women-hating unpopular nerds are! We should all shame and punish them by seeing this movie / reading this comic / playing this game!"

And it's never going to stop. You're going to read all of this, which outlines in detail why "they just hate and fear women" is a lie told by liars that has no truth in it and is just told to enable their abuse of those with less social power, and you're going to say "So what you're saying is you just hate and fear women." They will not stop, and they will not be stopped. Entropy is irreversible. All is lost.

Question: Why do you hate women so much?

(P.S. If you're point is it's a lie, perhaps you should explain what the truth is, instead of asserting "It's a lie" for 700 words)

Since the thread has shifted its dynamic (not necessarly a bad thing), I would urge everyone involved to go back and read this thread:

Gender and identity issues are important and debating them is healthy as a community. How it is debated, however, is what makes us better than trolls. I'm not trying to be smug, I just hope this thread doesn't derail into name-calling and fallacies.

I for one think that The Force Awakening was great.

Regarding the rest of your point : what's that "unpopular nerds" / "popular people" about ? I could see how it was somewhat a thing 30 or so years ago when LotR wasn't huge or there wasn't multiples marvel / dc movies every years but even when I was still a kid (let's say 20y ago) no-one ever bothered me or made me feel inferior for liking nerdy stuff. I never even witeness such behavior.

In which special level of Hell do you live man ?

Personnally, I like the fact that Hoturi became Hotaru. And before thinking that the sky is falling, I'm willing to wait for other fictions from FFG to see where they will go with their story.

They've only released one fiction so far, and I see a bunch of people complaining about how FFG has destroyed L5R as we know it and the story will never be the same, and thus it'll never be as good as what we know and why did they change anything and hell, why did they even reboot the story it was unnecessary...

It gets tiring.