Kage2020 said:

Still, regardless of context, I doubt such an insult was actually needed.

Kagra said it best.

Also, I would agree with the "phrasing" not being necessary. So far on these forums we have all done an admirable job of keeping things here civil... I would hate to see this forum turn into a World of Warcraft wasteland.

Also, I would agree that AK's arguments aren't quite that spot on. He does contradict himself; perhaps it's due to a language barrier?

Regardless of the reasoning, I find that when discussing things in-depth over a forum, it may become difficult to convey "what you are truly trying to say".

Most arguments could have been avoided if what the poster actually meant was clearly spelled out.

Kagra said:

I am discriminating against men and women? At the same time? Thank you. These accusations seem neutralize themselves.

Kagra said:

I'm saying that there's a number of posters around who apparently have trouble reading what has been written properly. And there are a number of posters around who can't debate a touchy issue in a rational, composed and adult manner.

Kagra said:

Against which generalization though? That most women will be quite at ease with playing the agile or intelligent or charming or <enter attribute of your choice that doesn't relate to raw physical strength> most of the time?

Kagra said:

Lol, that is just the funniest statements of all. I said: let the guys be the brutes and the females specially differently, if necessary. You're calling me sexist for that. And now you are stating to me that women can, where their physique proves to keep them doing sth a guy could, resort rather to intelligent play rather than go straight for the dunk ("being a brute" equivalent).

Kagra said:

So you would females to become more like men? I can tell you that a lot of men would be a lot less interested in girls if they became more muscular and physically man-like.

@Kage: urbandictionary offers for a lot of terms a lot of alternate definitions/interpretations if one is thus inclined. Perhaps it also offers an interpretation so that the term stupid can somehow not be considered an insult; or perhaps there is a third dictionary according to which it isn't, who knows? :-)

@Spwano: It's not just the problem of proper spelling out, it's at times also the problem of not properly reading and not properly understanding what is being said. If I say that 'Let the guys play the brutes, the gals play the agile or intelligent or charming characters', this is going to be immediately interpreted by some folks as 'He wants to dictate that no girl can ever play physically strong female PCs'. Untrue. Or when I say that 'Deathwatch is a man's game', they overlook that there are no female SMs according to the setting (which I didn't make) and act as if there were female SMs and I was trying to push females out of the game. No fair.

That's sth I won't let stand. There seem to be some guys around who are keen to jump on someone else and call them sexist as soon as they dare to step out onto the ice. I suppose they are the type of people who try to make themselves look good in the eyes of females by turning another guy into being a sexist and then coming to womanhoods aid against the enemy they defined in the same post. Thank you very much for trying to make me a villain. :-)

Alex

ak-73 said:

Actually they don't. What he means is that your comments on both men and women are offensive and bigoted.

MILLANDSON said:

True, true. My point, somewhat opaque as it might have been, was merely that trying to avoid the use of terms that might rely solely upon each person understanding the specific context might be best avoided and, where possible, "low gothic" (a tongue-in-cheek reference to English) should be engaged. So, I was agreeing with you. Next time, however, I shall follow my own advice...

Kage

Kyorou said:

I don't see that. And since you're not willing to explain how this is so, personally I'll have to dismiss your claims without giving argument as baseless.

Furthermore I'd like to formally ask you to refrain from anything that could be considered an attack on my person without stating good reason (as in: not supported claims) in the future.

Thank you.

Alex

*sigh*

*Pulls out fluff*

Actually, there were male SoB, they were called the Frateris Templars, and were disbanded following the demise of Gogue Vandire.

I just got done pouring over 'Creation of a Space marine" for the fifth time, and I still cannot find a single, valid, biological reason that it would not work. None of these implants, with the exception of the occulobe, do anything with genetics at all. At no point does the subject undergo genetic alteration. Many of them do alter hormone levels, none of them seem dependent on testosterone, and, despite a whole lot of statments that one must be male, no reasons are ever given, other then a vague assertation that the Emperor was male and some of his DNA was used when the primarchs were bioengineered. (If both your parents were male, you must be male! However, since males possess both X and Y, this is not a valid argument, since a female child could be engineered from two male parents, but two females could only ever give rise to female offspring.)

I do recall in fluff someplace (no, I don't remember where at this point) that the AdMech, when growing new organs to found a space marine chapter, do not seem distinguish between men and women in the people they load with this and then use as living incubators to produce more gene seed.

All this said: a way around this is simple: Cursed Founding Mutation. The recruits start out as man, and then 'The Curse' manifests and they become women. (Amusingly enough, this is biologically MORE likely then some of the other mutations)

Further: as far as SM> SoB in fluff it entirely depends on if the book is about Space Marines or Sisters of Battle. If it's a space marine book, the space marines are automatically badasses who are invincible and shoot lightening from their eyes and thunderbolts from their asses. A single marine will storm the chaos fortress, mow down a thousand heretics and traitors, who will have all neatly lined up to be taken out with a quick blast of full auto bolter fire, or will charge willy-nilly, unarmored with sticks at a dug in position where the heroes have a heavy bolter and infinite ammo.

So far the only books with SoB's in them (without space marines to be the Mary Sues) have generally been about hunting down one dangerous man, or being over run when outnumbered 100,000 to one by the tyranids. Personally, I think that the latter showed that SoB could be just as badassed, if it wasn't for the fact that fanatism>tactics as far as most of them seem to be concerned.

ak-73 said:

Actually, I wasn't making any claim. I was stating my belief one can be prejudiced against both men and women. I'm sorry my argument may have seen unsupported to you but, judging by your recent behaviour on these forums, I have absolute certainty that any 'proof' I or anyone else could have provided would have only led to more arguing on your part and I have no desire to partake in yet another fruitless internet debate. Kage2020, however, seems happy to be your sparring partner so I'll let you in his capable hands.

Kyorou said:

As long as everyone is aware that I wouldn't be willing to stand disparaging remarks about my person on a lasting basis, it's fine with me. You said my remarks were offensive and bigoted without elaborating how so; as such I have to say that all talk is cheap. And I'd like to see your reaction if some stranger made similar remarks about you in public without sth to back it up.

Btw, stating one's believes without backing it up is making claims.

As for Kage, I don't see me and him as sparring, just two fairly experienced gamers exchanging their different outlooks, that's all.

@BaronIveagh: Some good points. There won't be female marines according to the Deathwatch rulebook though, I guess. As for who is greater, one thing is for sure that wrt support with game material Deathwatch > SoB for the foreseeable future. The Deathwatch get their own game, the girls just get a female only Career in DH (and even that only in a supplement). Perhaps FFG will at least bring out a Sororita only campaign for DH? (Don't know if there's a large enough market for it though.) To make up for there not being female Deathwatch?

Alex

ak-73 said:

They have (seemingly) a sororitas oriented book in the works for DH, but I doubt it's really going to cover much for higher end campeigns.

After all, FFG will give non-space marine male Inquisitors Terminator armor, (Fluff? We don't need no steenking fluff!) but not, you know, GIRLS! They might get cooties on it!

40K -

Good:

BAD

WTF?

BaronIveagh said:

Find some other female players and pursue the idea I and Quicksilver had: an unauthorized female chapter. To be "realistic", you'd need to make some genetic upgrades a bit wonky (otherwise there would probably be officially female SMs in the Imperium). Work out the chapter with some girls and put it online, then demand from GW that they make it part of the official world.

Or create some other way for female Space Marines to exist without breaking existing background. If you really want female SMs get like-minded players and create facts. Don't wait for GW or FFG to come along. ;-) If you're doing it skillfully and there's enough female support for it on the net, they might come along eventually. And if they don't, there's at least a broad consensus solution for female players out there.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Actually, I'll admit that my plan was more along the lines of engineering a situation where GW had to either create female space marines or risk losing the 40k IP, or at least Space Marines, to being generic. It's the one thing I can think of that would really motivate them.

The problem with creating a group of like minded individuals is how rapidly the idea generates venom on 40k fan sites (after all, look around this board). By the time you find more then one, they've been driven away from the hobby by asshats screaming about male only space marines. Not only does this reduce the number of players, but it damages the hobby overall, as this means that less sales will be generated.

I'm not an asshat, and I think there should only be Male Space Marines. I'd appreciate not being insulted just because I like to follow the canon. You can do what you want in your game, just don't start judging those of us who like the setting as it is as sexist or asshats. It's just a difference of opinion, and the tone of your post possibly explains why you get the reactions you have in the past.

BaronIveagh said:

One could imagine all kinds of things that can go wrong but unless someone actually tries, it's all speculation. I take it that such a thing would need a small group of female hardcore SM fans. In general such things take lasting dedication. And as for venom, that's sth that one must stand; if a guy or gal can't take venom, how can they even dare to thing of role-playing the elite fighters of Mankind. ;-)

Well, in this thread I have been called stupid, a sexist and a bigot. And there was this thing about faggotry too. People use hostility to try to make one veer off the course; but I believe if reasonable people who are willing to compromise work together for a common goal anything's possible. ;-)

Alex

I would dispute the original poster's interpretations of the Rogue Trader fluff.

Based on your explanation on your website, you dismiss page after page of description about space marines and their chemical, psychic, and surgical modification into the supreme fighting force in the imperium as simply no big deal. At the same time you take a single paragraph at the back of the book that makes no mention of sisters being modified humans and interpret that to mean they are just as modified and super human as a space marine.

The only facts mentioned in that paragraph are: they are organized like space marine chapters, they are heavily trained and subjected to hardship, and they police all parts of the imperium including marine legions.

The picture that accompanies this fluff shows a sister hitting what appears to be a space marine with her bolter. I don't see how this would cause you to come to your conlusions that sisters were equivalent to space marines. That scene could be changed to anyone with a bolter blasting a space marine.

It seams to be a pretty long stretch of imagination to draw the original conclusion based on what is actually in the Rogue trader book. I personnally think that female marines would be interesting, but it just doesn't exist in the published fluff. The digression into sexism vs. political correctness revisionism is, while entertaining, ultimately sad and typical.

If you are the GM and want to use the story from your website to explain the existance of a female "marine equivalent" the more power to you.

MILLANDSON said:

Um, thank you for volunteering, MIllandson, but I was actually thinking of people like Shumagorath over on dakka, or the people on whineseer, who's posts on the subject have occasionally had to be purged by the mods for being slightly too incendiary.

Though, in all honesty, Milandson, I could say 'the sun is up' to someone else entirely, you would freak about how I said it. I can understand you being defensive about the product, since your name appears in the credits, but for the love of the God Emperor, take a chill pill. Not everything I say is directed at you or in reference to soemthing you have said.

However, millandson instantly pouncing on me about it does illuminate my point wonderfully about the subject is treated. I can recall one thread where I posited the question of 'would there be a market for female space marine bits?' and the mods closed the thread because it was instantly flooded by people posting that such a thing was an abomination against fluff. Not, "would people buy it?" (which I belive they would sell in small numbers, more for a novelty then anything serious) but 'I would sooner DIE then pit my army against greenstuff boobs!". I mean, seriously, most of the posts were the written equiv of someone throwing themselves on the floor and screaming. I particularly enjoyed the person who insisted that such "4chan faggotry has no place at the gaming table".

Edit: @Grobog - If their job is to police them, it would be really, really hard to do that if they were not at least their equals. But I digress...

BaronIveagh said:

The problem is that it's not part of the original setting; changing the setting now would cause a number of guys including me to go eye-rolling. I understand the sentiment to want to play a female space marine. But changing the official setting *now* (as opposed to the original design) would be like bringing a girl with you into a boy's club.

How much respect would a number of guys have if GW changed the setting because there was a strong female market? GW would be accused of being sell-outs or caving in to political correctness (both might be the actual reasons). Would it be a net gain or net loss? Don't know.

Alex

Grobog said:

Well, as much as I tend not to agree with Phil's stuff, it's just the meanderings of someone that likes the 40k universe. There's nothing that you can really do about it, and to be honest would you want to? I personally laud his approach (if not the results) since it interjects an approach to the universe whose loss has, I feel, lessened that universe. YMMV, of course, and I expect the majority of people here to vary from that but... still...

I do, however, agree with the idea that the "Sister" in that image could have been replaced by practical anyone, hence my earlier comments to the thread. Unfortunately, not many people seem to like this idea for whatever reason, I would like to think that it is because of the tendency to automatically make the Marines the best at everything, but that is not necessarily the case.)

Kage

ak-73 said:

I dunno if you've noticed this, but the setting get's changed constantly for those exact reasons. Pick up Inquisition War or the original Space Marine novel and you'll see what I'm talking about. Or how the Eldar have been warped and altered between editions because GW was trying to cash in somehow. Do you think that with all this twilight crap going on that it was a coincidence that GW re-released Blood Angels?

The simple fact though is I doubt we'll ever see GW produce something like that not because they don't think they'll make money, but because they have generally shown they either arn't able, or don't want to, produce quality female minis. Think about all the money they'ed make with female IG, which is very much in keeping with fluff. But so far there have been three female IG, counting the two in the Last Chancers. SoB they generally cheated by using half masks and helmets, since the exposed heads arn't that great, particularly compared to current minis in the same scale from other companies.

Eventually they'll realize that it's because they have everyone weaing the same, screaming, expression, and that the proportions they use in the minis make females look weird.

I think I'll leave off my meandering rant there,

BaronIveagh said:

To be fair, though, if any of the marketing department at all spends time on the forums (which I can think of arguments for both why they would and they wouldn't), one might understand a certain scepticism. Nerdrage is, after all, a terrible thing.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Well, remember, GW is a really strange place to work for. They have, after all, stated that a shrinking customer base that pays more is preferable to a growing customer base that pays less. If this is the kind of philosophy that runs a company, given how their stock has been doing, i'm surprised we havn't seen a hostile takeover by one of the investors.

BaronIveagh said:

For great female minis, I've found the wargames foundry (not 40K though) very good. We've even written our own tabletop rules based on a number of other tabletops, rogs, video games, etc.

As for changing the background, I stick more or less to 40K Rogue Trader setting. And rules, btw. When they switched in the mid-90s to trying to attract a younger crowd, that's when I personally stopped moving along. Not to mention the raising of prices. GW finally died for me I tried to place a fiarly large order (okay not by other people's standards) and they refused to give any discount. As a result I acquired almost all of the minis I had wanted over ebay, second hand, not a penny for GW. No nerd rage, just a personal decision.

In short: I couldn't care less about some of the changes that GW has made. The only thing that I care about is that the FFG products fit to my idea of the 40K universe closely enough to be usable.

And nerd rage... game companies won't mind if the nerds buy the product in the end nonetheless. Only if sales are dropping, there'll be some brain-storming as to the causes.

Alex

Jeesh - what a lot of fuss over absolutely nothing.

Phil creates a lot of good stuff, something there is far too little of online imo, and he himself freely admits his stuff varies on occasion to canon, so arguments that his stuff is not in line with canon are entirely missing the point and utterly irrelevent.

He knows, I'm sure, it's not canonical that there are female space marines. However, it doesn't seem absolutely impossible there could be conceivably (for use in one's own campaign) some kind of genetically engineered female warriors that approximate some space marine like strengths and abilities. That is not the most out of this world suggestion imo. The setting is pretty out there, there have been tens of thousands of years of science and technology (wayyyy beyond the levels known to the Imperium of the 40th millenia), and the mere possibility genetic engineering secrets could exist that could uplift women is far from the most outrageous idea in the setting.

It's not canonical, as Phil I'm sure would be the first to concede, it's a idea he's playing with and wishing to discuss how such a thing might work.

It's funny, the most vocal canon-nazis seem to actually produce and share very little of their own work. Unlike Phil. I don't agree with all his stuff, some of it though is fantastic (notably I love his Ad Mech stuff and his stuff on the Men of Iron etc), but **** ... I wish more people were like him and less were concerned about the minutiae of what is or isn't canon.

I would use the 2 missing Primarchs and their legions to allow for this notion. Pretty much allows full autonomy on the possible creation of female space marines.

Adam France said:

Hence one of the reasons that I don't agree with his conclusions, but I like the way that he thinks and I believe that more of this is needed. The 40k has lost too much of this, IMO, but there we go.

Work can be inspirational even if you don't agree with it!

Kage