It's a dark astartes secret but some of those space marines are women, at least originally, that geneseed is pretty invasive.

Ok, flipping the argument, I'm still in the no female marines camp, but. There are some primarchs who have been expunged from the records, we don't know who they are... One may have been a daughter of the emperor, female astartes who now would be considered heretical "purge" on sight. Could be an interesting encounter for the all male group, a warrior woman, obviously loyal to the emperor, but with maybe a more "imperial truth" approach to things, of course in the end the squad would have to burn the heretic.

Inquisitor_VonDible said:

Plus GW would simply force FFG to take the Deathwatch RPG down. In their official background there are no female Marines. And GW isn't known for letting other companies change their background.

I guess in private player groups it is okay as long as everybody agrees. But female Marines won't be official ( as long as GW doesn't change its background ).

UncleArkie said:

Sorry, but no, they were all men. Im not gonna quote it because its already been done twice in this thread. This thread has gone in so many circles. Theres no way to shoehorn it into the fluff as its pretty air-tight that theyre all men. But do whatever makes you happy....even if it is dumb.

Good grief. I now want to get at least the Free RPG day module for Deathwatch and run a game just so I can post a session reports and send a bunch of overly fragile insecure men into hysteric fits when most of the marines are female. (As most of the players I have are female and prefer female characters).

Are there female Space Marines? No. Absolutely not. There are no MALE Space Marines either. They're all made up. Thus, they are whatever the hell you want them to be.

Saying "its not worth the effort" or "it violates fluff" is the height of ridiculousness. It takes no more effort than remembering the correct honorific and pronoun i play. Which, honestly, based on everything I've seen, people will constantly screw up when a player is playing a character of the wrong gender. You're changing the fluff more every time you create a new world to explore, or new alien race, or new species of demon, or have your PCs kill a foe who's going strong in the main fluff.

If there's a single one of you that's posted about how there are no female Space Marines and you ever, ever wonder "why aren't there more female gamers?", guess what. Its YOUR fault.

Wow. I think that we have just seen on of this forum's first female gamer nerd rages.

Kage

StormKnight said:

Srewing around too much with the existing background could take the feeling out of the game. I don't see many people wanting to play a male "Sisters of Battle" Character. And who felt he should create a male Amazone character? In my opinion this simply feels wrong.

I guess I understand what you mean about players complaining about the gender of a certain character. In most RPG's the gender more or less doesn't matter. But in some, it does matter ( and if only because there is a certain background story ). I don't see a reason to complain. Just play a character based on the male gender. Heck, if there would be a Sisters of battle RPG I could imagine lots of male players creating female chars ( without complaining they have to ).

StormKnight said:

Nope, make it GW's fault. On more than one occasion they stated that Space Marines are males, because the transformation into a Space Marine requires the male physics.

Please note that I was stating my senario for the sake of argument, that it might be one way of doing it... If you had to. Don't people actually read other peoples posts, I mean if your posting an answer to another poster would that not be the bare minimum required, that you read his (or her) post?

I'm continue to be so utterly astonished that this is still a topic.

There are no female Marines. What is so hard about that to grasp?

BYE

One thing that doesn't seem to have been touched on much during this discussion are why the Emperor and his Scientists (or indeed any similar Imperial organisation) would even contemplate the concept of female Astrates.

For example, clearly raw physical strength is one of the major distinguishing marks of the Astrates, as witnessed by the fact that there is a specific organ introduced designed to build muscle, the size of their frame, etc.

Now, in the human population, there is a wide variation in terms of physical strength.

In a very rough format, it goes like this

Female [_________________________]

Male [_________________________]

As you can see, while there is indeed overlap between the two, it makes sense if the minds behind the Astrates program, given their design brief of creating the most powerful warriors the universe has ever known, were only interested in designing a process to enhance the attributes of the top five per cent of the entire population, which would be exclusively male. The entire concept is not one of equal opportunity employment. Those that can't make the grade (the highest imaginable) die, and the tiny proportion surviving are inducted. Which brings onto the other aspect. In terms of mantaining a population, men are far less essential then women, especially when you're dealing with a technological base, which allows for artificial insemination. Therefore, if you're going to embark on a program that will kill off substantial numbers of your own people for a long-term payoff, those people logically should be men.

I would agree with those saying that the Astrates are not functionally male. If you have essentially retooled a man specifically for war and war alone, then the prostate gland is there only to give them cancer and the testicles in their normal location are a vulnerability that should be removed and replaced with internal organs designed to produce testosterone but not sperm.There is no reason, incidentally, why you couldn't take a tissue biopsy from a pre-implant stage initiate and use that to fertilise some of the female population if he later demonstates tissue compatibility with the geneseed and distinguishes himself in battle as a fully fledged battle-brother.

As for the ideas of creating a stable line of "born space marines", this would run fundamentally counter to Imperial thought, which holds that humanity is the apex of evolution. If Space marines could reproduce, they would essentially be a new species, one superior to Homo Sapiens. Their creation if not stopped would probably result in a conflict to rival that of the Horus Heresy.

Srewing around too much with the existing background could take the feeling out of the game.

This is being used as an excuse over and over, and its a load of spore-fed snotling excrement.

If I wanted to run adventure with the PCs as the Deathwatch team accompanying Inquisitor Kryptmann to capture a genestealer brood to divert the hive fleet into ork territory, nobody would be flipping out about it. But if the PCs fail (entirely possible - a 40K RPG is not a happy high adventure heroes always win kind of game by any means!) that will result in the destruction of countless words and billions of people that didn't die in the "real" background. The Imperial fleet will suffer crushing losses that will destabilize their control elsewhere in the galaxy. The orks will continue to rampage unchecked. The hive fleet will evolve in different ways without the influx of ork DNA. The Imperium is going to change radically and vastly - it might not even survive!

Female marines is nothing compared to that. Its a minor difference on a few thousand people, which doesn't change any of the existing actual backstory or events. If I decide to describe a marine chapter that uses Scout armor exclusively or has bolters with built in lasguns (a result of hundreds of years of extended long distance campaigns without resupply), that's a much bigger change than a female marine chapter, and nobody would be spazzing out about it.

Heck, I didn't see a single person getting upset about a guy's "Hello Kitty" 40K ork army. You're telling me its fine to play a game against a bunch of orks emblazoned with Hello Kitty logos, but when halfway through the battle your opponent goes "Ha! You missed her!" as you target the marine captain, you're suddenly going to throw a hissy fit and stomp out of the game?

I don't see many people wanting to play a male "Sisters of Battle" Character.

I don't see a "Sisters of Battle" RPG. And if we did, the Sisters of Battle would not be the coolest, most capable, most bad-ass organization in the 40K universe.

I do know I've seen guys getting ticked off that their male character couldn't get as good a horse as the Otaku battle maidens in Legend of the Five Rings, that they couldn't play a male Zentradai and get to use the Elite Female Power armor in Macross Robotech, and even players getting upset that they couldn't have a male Slayer in the Buffy RPG. Oh, no, having the same powers as a Slayer isn't good enough; he must be able to BE a Slayer. In the flippin' BUFFY RPG.

And you know what? L5R eventually added an "Otaku Steed" advantage to let anyone get the cool horse, and the Buffy RPG mentioned the possibility of male Slayers in alternate game settings. Can't have the poor guys having their egos threatened.

That's what this comes down to. We're talking about men who are getting their ego threatened by the mere idea that in someone else's game women to get to play characters as good and cool as they do.

One thing that doesn't seem to have been touched on much during this discussion are why the Emperor and his Scientists (or indeed any similar Imperial organisation) would even contemplate the concept of female Astrates.

Because after thousands of years of war in the vast future, facing the imminent destruction of your entire species , you're not going to bog yourself down with notions of traditional gender roles, you're going to pick whatever individuals have the best fighting skill, physical prowess, courage, etc - which in a world shaped by thousands of years of war is probably going to include some women.

There are no female Marines. What is so hard about that to grasp?

You're wrong.

I've run homebrew RPGs with female marines. I've seen them in 40K games, in Space Hulk games, and in Epic 40K games. I've even had a RPG with a female primarch. People have been making female marine armies back to Rogue Trader days. I've even got a magazine with a published scenario that has a female marine chapter in it.

There ARE female Space Marines, whether you want to stick your head in the sand try to protect your ego by pretending they don't exist or not.

There's a basic, simple answer to the original question.

"The current official canon does not have female Space Marines. But you can do whatever you want with your game, and no rules changes are needed to include them".

That should have been the simple, end of the subject answer. But apparently its too threatening to some people. Or they get too much of a thrill out of regressing to being 5 and saying "You can play with us, but only if you pretend to be a boy".

StormKnight I want to kiss you.

Beautifully written and worded post addressing the crux of the issue and really getting to the heart of the matter.

Loved every word.

Alexis

*smiles*

Wow, of all of the things to get your panties in a ruffle about…

There are no female Space Marines..period. I think that topic has been thoroughly explained however. FFG couldn’t add female Space marines even if 90% of their player base was female. They do not own the IP for Space Marines (or the rest of the 40K canon for that matter), that falls to Games Workshop. Does that mean that a GM is not allowed to include them in his or her universe? Certainly not. A GM and the players that he runs for are the ones responsible to create/alter the correct setting in which everyone is comfortable with. Whether this is having Brothers of Battle, female Space Marines or some other change, FFG has given you/us the tools to create heroic adventures within the 41st Millenium, or whatever setting you choose for it. You can complain how the “fluff” doesn’t need to be applied to the game, in part you are correct, it doesn’t need to be included by the player base however, it does need to be heeded for the developers. I am sure that Ross Watson would be able to come up with a very compelling and enjoyable solution to the “no chicks in chapters”, but do you think that Games Workshop would let something like that slide?

As someone had mentioned Kryptman earlier and his exploits, there is nothing preventing someone from writing up a story in which the universe is devoured by the Tyrannids due to his failure, just like there is nothing preventing another person to use the Deathwatch rules in the Calixis Sector as opposed to Jericho Reach. Don’t belittle the designers for limitations that they have no control over, just as you should not begrudge a player to want to stick as closely to the theme and feel for the universe, if that means they do not like the idea of female Space Marines, so be it. It is their prerogative, just as you should not be criticized for wanting female Space marines.

The long and short of it is folks, don’t let yourself or others force you to play in a way contrary to how you want to play. This is an RPG not the Ten Commandants. Its’ written on paper with ink, not stone. If something that is “not canon” fits in with your campaign and creates an enjoyable experience for your players and yourself, go for it. You don’t need the communities’ permission to spin a good yarn. You don’t need a paragraph in some rulebook to green light every decision you make or encounter you put your players through. You certainly don’t need 20+ pages of something a silly as this.

On a similar note, isn’t anyone a bit miffed that Barbie and Skipper have an entire wardrobe that would make Imelda Marcos envious, yet all Ken has are a few shirts, shorts and lack of genitalia? Talk about sexist…

The Emperor Protects…(men and women)

StormKnight said:

No I'm not.

There are and have never been female Space Marines in 40K. The closest thing to a female space Marine were the two (I think) female Marine models that existed back in the early days of Rogue Trader before the concept of what a Space Marine was had even been finalised (y'know, back when 'Lord Macragge' was a man, Leman Russ wasn't a Primarch, and the Horus Heresy wasn't even a fully formed idea).

Sure, you can add in homebrew/house-rule/made-up female Marines if you want, but as it stands, female Marines do not exist in 40K. Period. End of story.

There's no discussion here.

BYE

Reminds me of this:

Judith: Any Anti-Imperialist group like ours must *reflect* such a
divergence of interests within its power-base.
Reg: Agreed.
(General nodding.)
Francis?
Francis: I think Judith's point of view is valid here, Reg, provided the
Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every
man
Stan: Or woman.
Francis: Or woman...to rid himself
Stan: Or herself.
Reg: Or herself. Agreed. Thank you, brother.
Stan: Or sister.
Francis: Thank you, brother. Or sister. Where was I?
Reg: I thought you'd finished.
Francis: Oh, did I? Right.
Reg: Furthermore, it is the birthright of every man ...
Stan: Or woman.
Reg: Why don't you shut up about women, Stan, you're putting us off.
Stan: Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Reg.
Francis: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
Stan: (pause) I want to be one.

(pregnant pause)

Reg: What?
Stan: I want to be a woman. From now on I want you all to call me Loretta.
Reg: What!?
Stan: It's my right as a man.
Judith: Why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
Stan: I want to have babies.
Reg: You want to have babies?!?!?!
Stan: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
Reg: But you can't have babies.
Stan: Don't you oppress me.
Reg: I'm not oppressing you, Stan you haven't got a womb. Where's the
fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?
(Stan starts crying.)
Judith: Here! I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually
have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the
Romans', but that he can have the *right* to have babies.
Francis: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to
have babies, brother. Sister, sorry.
Reg: (pissed) What's the *point*?
Francis: What?
Reg: What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies, when he
can't have babies?
Francis: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
Reg: It's symbolic of his struggle against reality.

@Stormknight I contend that it's EGO that prevents people just playing with a setting, accepting it for what it is, warts and all. It's EGO that makes you change it, rather than aceepting how it works. I like things logical and consistent, ego has no place in my arguments. The setting says the emperor created only male space marines. If you can't live with that then change it, but don't try to defend those changes as being the setting, because they aren't. Any more than playing Battlestar Galactica as a green Vulkan Jedi is 'still' BSG.

Make your own setting, play whatever you want, but don't try to argue that it's actually 40k any more than playing Bobby the Vampire Slayer is actually how the Slayer series happened.

Why bother with any constraints at all? Constraints play as much a part in describing and flavouring a setting as advantages do. Otherwise everything is everything and there is no distinctness at all.

You end up with a the Borg of PC and snowflake syndrome consuming everything until there is no distinctiveness. Because if you can argue that there are female space marines, one of the most definitive parts of the setting, then you can really argue for anything. Good guy Slannesh worshippers, hippie orks and whathaveyou. And suddenly the 40k setting is no longer the 40k setting.

I can just image how interesting settings would be if they conformed to every bias and/or political correctness that exists in order to satisfy egos. We can't have persecution of mutants, because that's racist (which, from a biological perspective, it is), we can't have class bias because that's unfair on the poor, so no imperial nobles. Because in order to accept such a fundamental change you'd have to allow any you want, or come up with a rather convoluted reason why THIS particular part of the background can be changed but THAT one can't.

For my part I'm happy 40k isn't fair. Makes it more interesting than the shallow and fake settings where everything bends over backwards to be fair.

Hellebore

Because if you can argue that there are female space marines, one of the most definitive parts of the setting, then you can really argue for anything.

Tell me, honestly, that in your first exposure to 40K you looked at a table filled with awesomely painted models depicting swarms of aliens overrunning the valiant armored and fearsome marines, and thought "Meh, that's dumb" up until a guy walked up to you and said "Hey, all the people in armor are MEN!" at which point you said "Wow, that's totally cool!"

Honestly.

Oddly enough, this "definitive" part of the setting seems to have been overlooked in numerous iterations of the rulebook and even in marine codexi. Strange, given that its apparently such a fundamental part of the game.

Its not a fundamental part of the game. Space Marines are Space Marines by virtue of being near-unstoppable superhuman holy crusaders, fearless, resolute and merciless, with deadly tactics and ancient and powerful armor.

Not by virtue of the body waste disposal systems on their armor being a slightly different build than those on the Adeptas Sororitas.

"Its no longer 40K" is a pathetic argument. How much can you change a system before its "no longer ..."? If you add one character to the game is it no longer 40K? If you add a world? If you allow a marine to carry a shuriken catapult (the player has an old 40K model armed with one...)? Everyone is going to change RPGs to their own taste. That's the nature of RPGs. Your characters will change what the RPG is by their very actions within the game world.

To you, female Space Marines crosses the line into "no longer 40K". Given that, its honestly hard for me to imagine ANY change that wouldn't cross the line. Bolt pistols carry an extra round? No longer 40K! A new type of daemon? No longer 40K! To travel that distance in that time, the Land Raider would have had to go 20 kph over the top speed of a Land Raider? No longer 40K!

The utter determination which people in here say "There are no female Space Marines. Period" is a bit...scary. I've never seen that kind of response in an RPG forum before. If someone said "Hey, I think Fimir would make cool foes in a Deathwatch game", would people be saying "There are no Fimir. Period"? I doubt it, though Fimir don't appear in the 40K universe.

There ARE female space marines. Do I need to show you the old magazine scenario? 40K armies that are tournament legal ? Transcripts of 40K RPGs played with other systems?

Do you really not believe those exist. But that's what you're saying (unless you really mean "there are no REAL female Space Marines", which is true - as there are no REAL male Space Marines). You (I refer to several of you) are absolutely determined to use that language. Its not enough that "officially" there are no female marines - there must not be any, in anyone else's game either.

Now, people are throwing up arguments like "we can't have mutants...". Have you ever played a game with a mutant? Did the tentacles present problems for rolling dice? Poverty? Are characters who started poor prevented from becoming Space Marines? Nope - heck, poverty that any of us know probably looks like riches to some of the deathworlds they recruit from. Can they become Inquisitors, Gaurd commanders, Assassins? Sure. Can they become a wealthy Imperial Noble? Yep. Heck, wouldn't be much point to the "profit" values in Rogue Trader if you started rich, would there?

Quite a lot of us have never been in a position, in real life, where we are told, in a way that matters , "who you ARE is not good enough". Many of us have. Straight white males are going to fall overwhelmingly into the first half of that equation.

If you've never been told that, you probably have no idea what its like. You have no idea how it is to be told "you are not good enough. The very nature of what you are is flawed and wrong, and you are wrong for trying to deny it. You are not allowed to be who you are".

If a woman shows up to a Deathwatch game and you say "you're not allowed to be a female marine", that's what your saying. "YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO PLAY A MARINE". "I can imagine a world with eight foot humans that spit acid, ships that travel through realms made of fear incarnate and living gods that destroy tanks the size of skyscrapers, but I CANNOT imagine a person like YOU being a cool character in that world".

For the sake of a tiny bit of flavor text that in practical play would come down to using a pronoun that half of you would probably get wrong anyway, are you really enough of a jerk to tell someone that?

I just wandered into this forum out of minor curiosity. I'd say its been satisfied, and I doubt this will go anywhere but in circles from here, so I'm done with this. I doubt most of you will really bother to actually think about this. If anyone does, that's great.

And yeah, my games will continue to have female Space Marines, as they have for the last decade or more, whether you like it or not!

StormKnight said:

Please do not make this a women vs. men issue. Just don't. Because its not.

I've played for near 20 years now and my regular gaming groups have a mix of male and female players with a mix of male and female characters. I've ran and played campaigns ranging from everythings-allowed-uber-fantasy to extremely realistic historical middle-age or 15th century games. Never has playing a female character been a problem. Never has no-one even suggested that they want to play a female catholic priest in 15th century game. Why? Because, in my players mind , this would break the immersion and the mood of the game.

So a player wants to play a female character in Deathwatch. Why make it into a problem? I'll allow her or him to play a female character. Just not a marine. And this is not some "Oh now you are oppressing women, because you can't play a 8 feet tall female demi-god spacemarine" scenario. If the player wants to play a combat-monster female charater, sure, I'll allow her or him to play a combat-monster female character. There are plenty of other character-possibilities in the fluff all ripe for exploiting if you want to have a female that can kick space marines ass. The only thing that matters is how well a player can play his or her character . It hardly matters what the players or characters gender is. Having a testosterone-filled teenanger go powertripping with a hastily written excuse of a space marine character isn't going to give him any more playtime in my group. Only thing he gets is nice, long talks with recident GM on what he could do to improve his roleplaying .

I really don't get why you make such a raging equality-of-sexes-issue when its not. Changing word "history" into "herstory" won't change the past. Calling a female "fireman" a "firewoman" won't change the fact that at some point our society didn't allow females to hold such jobs. Come to think of it, a pretty large of our society (majority of churches) is still refusing to allow females to hold certain vacancies. Calling them priestesses wouln't likely solve the problem.

If I wanted to run adventure with the PCs as the Deathwatch team accompanying Inquisitor Kryptmann to capture a genestealer brood to divert the hive fleet into ork territory, nobody would be flipping out about it. But if the PCs fail (entirely possible - a 40K RPG is not a happy high adventure heroes always win kind of game by any means!) that will result in the destruction of countless words .............. - it might not even survive!

That's why most official campaigns won't touch the general background at all. And if they do and the final outcome isn't as GW desired ( f.e. the CSM attacking Cadia. If CSM win the campaign Cadia would fall. But from out of nowhere there is a mighty battlefleet driving the CSM back ).


Female marines is nothing compared to that. Its a minor difference on a few thousand people, which doesn't change any of the existing actual backstory or ..................Scout armor exclusively or has bolters with built in lasguns ..............."Hello Kitty" 40K ork army. ............ You missed her!"

Are you member in a Tabletop forum? Not just the female Marines subject, but also the Scout armour Bolter/Lasgun Chapter would bring you tons of rants. How did you put it? It is against the current official canon....
Mentioning femlae Marines would be the same. Against the official canon.
A Hello Kitty army would cause two kinds of answers, I guess: 1.The official canon argument and that this army is wrong because of it. 2. Laughing because it is a funny ( but old ) idea if executed well.
Personally I lack a vast group of players, so I'd have no problems battling a Hello Kitty army. But when it is against Space Marines and the opponent says "You missed her", I think I'd ask if it is a camo Slaanesh or SoB army.


And if we did, the Sisters of Battle would not be the coolest, most capable, most bad-ass organization in the 40K universe.

Ah, so that's it. You WANT to play a Space Marine, but the current official canon says it's a male only organisation. But the most bad-ass organisation are the Adeptus Custodes, in my opinion. Lacking opportunity to play them, I'd say Grey Knights. But again, just males ( in the current official canon).


.... male character couldn't get as good a horse in Legend of the Five Rings.......... male Slayer in the Buffy RPG....
L5R eventually added an "Otaku Steed" .............Buffy RPG mentioned the possibility of male Slayers....

Different companies so I don't really care. And I guess in L5R and Buffy there was never mentioned ( in the official canon ), that there are no male Slayers and that a male char can't get a certain Horse.


That's what this comes down to. We're talking about men who are getting their ego threatened by the mere idea that in someone else's game women to get to play characters as good and cool as they do.

Doesn't it more or less come down to female players that ridiculoussly feel some sort of supressed because the have to create a male Character in a GAME? Again: The current official canon says there are no female Marines.


...................why the Emperor and his Scientists (or indeed any similar Imperial organisation) would even contemplate the concept of female Astrates.
..............going to include some women.

First of all, I'd like to quote myself:

On more than one occasion they stated that Space Marines are males, because the transformation onto a Space Marines requires the male physics.

Second of all: The Emperor hasn't said that much in the past 10.000 Years ( at least not a slong as he is embedded in his golden Throne).
Thrid of all: There is no progress in Science or whatever. Much is lost man more will be lost. Best etimates are, the progress is stagnant.

And why all this: The current official canon says so!



..... homebrew RPGs with female marines.........RPG with a female primarch.
There ARE female Space Marines,......

That's okay. You do know that GW stated very often ( so it is the current official canon ), that the primarchs were all males? But the main complainig was about the rules not allowing a female Char. And again your own answer pulverizes your argument: The current official background/ canon says there are no female Space Marines.


There's a basic, simple answer to the original question.
"The current official canon does not have female Space Marines. But you can do whatever you want with your game, and no rules changes are needed to include them".
That should have been the simple, end of the subject answer. But apparently its too threatening to some people. Or they get too much of a thrill out of regressing to being 5 and saying "You can play with us, but only if you pretend to be a boy".


I'm sorry, but does everyone have to say it with your words? Most people saying "There are no female Marines" simply don't add "because that is the official background".
And the "Do what you like" part: Sure, do it. But you shouldn't complain when some Players mention the current official canon.

I'm going to play my half-Ork, half-Eldar Inquisitor Lord who's undergone Marine Training and has a pet half-Termagant, half-Necron armed with a Splinter Cannon.

What? Can't I do that? Why not?

I'll actually reiterate what I said on the first page of this thread - if there was an RPG that was all about Sisters, would this conversation exist? I'd have just as much of an issue with someone attempting to play a male Sister of Battle (even saying that sounds stupid) as I do someone trying to play a female Space Marine. And this isn't about the gender of the person playing the character either. And really, anyone turning this into a ' it's about equality ' argument simply doesn't get it. Chick shows up to the table wanting to play a Marine, she plays a Marine as a male. That's not sexist. That's not oppressive. No different to a guy showing up at a table with a Sister all generated - that sister better ****-well be a girl.

BYE

The main issue, I think, is that everybody takes a hard stance on the issue and refuses to budge. There are those who are okay with it and those who are not and neither side seems to be willing to just listen to the other when they say "it's your game, your table, your rules, you do what you want."

It's like playing a game based on the freedom of choice and creative expression differently than someone else is somehow wrong.

StormKnight said:

I'm not going to weigh on this debate since it boils down to two sides yelling at each other. I just wanted to point out that a player is not their character. People getting upset about what they can or cannot play, or how others treat their character, is not something you want to encourage.

H.B.M.C. said:

Funnily enough there *is* a thread on DH forums about male Sister of Battle... Reception to the idea was pretty much as blunt as here on Space Marine question: Sister are female. Period. For some reason no-one there turned it into an equality issue (yet?).

Also, I am afraid I'm repeating myself to the point of boredom, but there is plenty of equally powerfull, versatile and appropriate female characters in 40K which can be put into use in Deathwatch without ever delving into "female marines". Also, I'd like to point out that original Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (where the foundations of the Space Marine canon were established) wasn't misogynist by the standards of the time it was published in (1987). Instead, it was quite opposite, since it featured several characters which were equally (or more) powerfull than their Space Marine counterparts. Actually the single most powefull human character (by far, I might add) of the original 1987 issue WH40K: RT was a female imperial assassin. The original concept of the Space Marines drew particularly strongly from "fighting monks" and there was equally powerfull (less featured) counterpart of "fighting nuns" (Adepta Sororitas) introduced in the same book. If we look at the origins of the WH40K lore female Space Marines or male Adepta Sororitas don't exist. Badass, combat-machine women do.

It was the later novel adaptations that pushed Adepta Sororitas to the sidelines as "just-another-girl-with-power-armor" and created the fanboy mythology of all-powerfull Space Gods (ehm, Marines).

Artemesia said:

So to destill the essence of this thread into a few lines so we can move on.

In the official cannon there is no mention of female marines or primarchs. However there was back in the day (when the game was rogue trader, a different game) a few female models shodded about and the original RT book had an illustration of a female in a power armour, that later became the sisters. The aformentioned female marines where retconned out of the setting when the primarchs where invented, using them as an argument is silly since back then space marines where just guys in power armour, no genetic enhancement yet so by the same argument "rolling back" to this would mean that your marines are just guys and gals in fancy armour, not astartes.

Now if it's your game you can do with it what you want, we are not saying that you can't have what ever your game master allows or what ever you allow in YOUR game, its all fun and GAMES (until someone says you can't have boobs). Roleplaying is never set in a cannon universe, things will diverge, you will change things or remember something wrong, its ok. Now if you wan't to have a game that is a close to cannon as possible then no, you can't have a girl marine.

So how do you solve this conundrum... Well first off you can just say to hell with cannon, I'm retconning MY game ha! Fine, done, debate over.

Secondly you can go, hey ladies you know what, this is a kill team and its assembled from the most badass post human super soldiers mankind have ever met, sorry you will have to play a guy.

Third, you have a girl in your group (I have 2 so this is going to be an issue), none of them would feel comfortable playing a guy (except one of them who started out genetically as a male, actually I think she would be more uncomfortable *ponders*), any way how to solve this. Well let them create characters from the same template as the marines, remove their chapter based special abilities (and maybe the unnatural characteristics) and add the faith of the SoB's from the IH. Now my game has 2 or 3 heroines of the Sisters holy order of the Black Rose sent to oversee what they see as abhuman mutants who should be closely monitored by the local inquisitor lord, sent in to battle with the brothers. This gives the game tension, internal conflict and roleplaying opportunities that will eventually forge them into a unit. There you go, I haven't made a difference between them, sure the boys have some raw strength, but the girls have faith, they do different things well. Diversity YAY!

I think StormKnight is my hero(ine).

The number of people in this thread willing to stomp on other's (badwrong)fun because it's against fluff is just startling.