So here is what it boils down to: People who don't like the idea of Canon, Female Space Marines object to the "this is how we could make them canon" posts, but as a whole don't care if you do it in the privacy of your own gaming group. The people who want Female Space Marines (henceforth "FeMarines") tend not to come here with the proposal or question "I want to house rule in FeMarines and was hoping for some feedback on an idea" but rather "This is how we can make it a terribly real nightmare for all fans of the setting!!"

So this is what I propose : All future threads on the FeMarine topic begin with a heading to the effect of "HOUSE RULE PROPOSAL" and go from there. Thus there can be no confusion about what people want and those who reply go into the thread knowing that this isn't being suggested as a canon change - merely an idea for someone's game.

Doesn't that sound reasonable?

Not all of the people proposing it are like that, but it does veer in that direction more than a little.

Zamnil Blackaxe said:

I don't see anything that currently prevents Islamic Marines. Just replace "Allah" with "The Emperor" (and other similar changes) and you're done.

Hesporos said:

Hesporos said:

If you don't like the thread, why do you open it ?

Do you feel that a female space marine thread is just incomplete without your input saying how female space marine threads suck ?

Jack of Tears said:

Oh! My god a voice of reason on the interwebs. +1 /signed.

Kage2020 said:

The issue will continue to exist for as long as there are no female space marines. What one can do is to create a FAQ that addresses this issue. And possibly the other big issue - whether you can make real *role*playing game out of a Space Marine RPG.

By creating a FAQ, you dodge *some* amount of the rerun.

Alex

Blood Pact said:

Thank you Blood Pact. I wrote that for a signature a few years ago, when the MMO world was still convinced girls did not play games like Everquest and WoW. Though I have since moved on from my MMO addictions, the little rhyme/poem stayed with me.

On the topic at hand though; as a female gamer who chose to create an alternative for Females playing in my Deathwatch games (read NOT Femme Marines); I do have an opinion on this matter.....

http://loscuatroojos.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/muscle-woman.jpg

This is why we do not have Female Space Marines.... it is not the sexy masturbatory fantasy some gamers wish it were.....assuming they don't get implants they look like skinny Male marines with flattened pancakes on their chests......

Alexis

*smiles*

I guess i am some what of a masochist, i do not know really. just funny i guess. and other witty remarks that come out of it, like HBMCs signature, epic.

If it makes you feel any better a Rank 8 Battle Sister can kick the crap out of a space marine if you do it right.

Cailieg said:

Well you're welcome.

Not to seem like too much of a 'white knight', but I've always been annoyed by the way so many guys act over the internet. It makes us all look bad, and can keep the gaming community from diversifying like it should.

And yeah, yeesh, that is overdoing it quite a lot with the body building imo, and I usually appreciate a woman who's strong and athletic. I don't even comprehend why guys go to such extreme lengths like that. Though having female Marines be a little feminine wouldn't be bad. I'm still a red blooded male at heart.

And a friend of mine is going the female Marine route, we were talking about it earlier today too. Using the angle provided by the two mystery legions. With the explanation that it was the 'beta test' before the all male legions were made. Her idea was a lot more fleshed out, but I wasn't taking notes at the time.

Cailieg said:

HOT!

If we're posting hypothetical pictures now...

I think it'd look better without the twin pony tails, but that's just me..

Wait, I said I was going to contribute AGGGGH

To me that makes a better Sister of Battle than the current Sister of Battle "dominatrix" shtick that they've got going on... Don't know about the pony tails, though. One imagines that the hair would be a bad thing in a confining helmet, but there we go.

Kage

well how about this have an inquisitor with some sisters of battle as his or her acolytes and everyone can be happy lol there problem solved

I don't think that would satisfy either the "yay" or the "nay" sayers in that one, brother maven wolf, especially since it has been suggested numerous times. As above, I find that last image remarkably inspiring, and have long since decided that my Sisters of Battle (in my interpretation of 40k RPG) are going to have access to "Powers of Faith," much akin to what Phil was proposing in the last thread that got into the typical nerd-rage on the topic. Couple that with borrowing some premises from Space Marines themselves, specifically what is entitled "Glorious Past, Heroic Lineage" (IIRC) in my own "fan supplement" on the topic, and the differences between the two begin to disappear (except for the interesting 'fluff,' of course). Then again, I also don't buff Marines as much as the fanboys seem to so... with the sweets come the sorrows.

As to that "other" issue mentioned earlier? The question is not whether you can, but whether they did...

Kage

well my players are fine with having sisters of battle along side space marines so im ok with it to,and it does not help that ive drilled 40k into all there heads,but in terms of brute force the sisters of battle have more faith(and faith can and always will best strengh) and the space marines have brute force

I want to play a male sister of battle!!! Stupid right? No stupider than a femal Space Marine.

For starters, to find a female able to meet the strict requirements to become a marine in the first place would be virtually impossible...less than one in a million men can pass muster...and women are simply physically incapable of being as strong as they would need to be. hy this needs to bother some people is beyond me...its just a simple fact of biology. Even if we accept that a woman could theoretically be strong enough, they would be so rare that any all femal marine legion would uickly pass into extinction from lack of capable supplicants...or would have to reduce their requirements to the point that they would be inferior to the marine standard...assuming it is even a matter of choice and not about whether the implants could take in a weaker specimen. Of course given that women are typically more robust than men where healing and accepting physical stress is concerned, an argument could be made that a "weaker" woman could indeed survive the implant procedure than could a similarly endowed man.

Bottom line...if the idea of female space marines is something you want to explore, then fine..but you aren't playing 40k anymore if you do...any more than if you decide to play in Middle Earth and allow goblin playes to ally with the free people...its simply too bizarre to do anything but totally derail the canon.

another thread of I WHINE a LOT!!

crisaron said:

This forum needs a FAQ.

Alex

About the most common thing about FAQs is that they frequently tend not to be read, and even when they are people will often end up posting the question anyway because they feel that they've got a new angle to the topic (whether they do or not is another matter). In this case, I'm not sure that it is going to help since the thread turns up with remarkably frequency on other boards and even those that do have a FAQ that covers the topic (with links to numerous examples). It's just that on a forum dealing exclusively with Space Marines, you're just going to get them coming up more and more.

Still surprised that if people don't want to read the thread, or feel that contributing to it is annoying, why they'll by just to say as much. Sure, it's a contribution, but then again so is popping on to every thread and saying "FFG sucks!" or something equally trollish. Where does your personal line at defining trolling start?

One a more personal note, if there was anything that I would rather not see again it is the suggestion that "...you're just not playing 40k any more." I wince every time that I see it, and was horrified when Dave Allen said as much. The idea that there is a defined idea of what 40k is, rather than a hazily accepted "thing," tends to beggar belief. It's almost as if there is a "Canon Divergence Police" out there who will prosecute people for having non-standard ideas to this sacrosanct setting when, really, the pure setting is little more than a bastardised mongrel in the first place. Shift a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and you may no longer be dealing with bus-long daiklaves with spinning teeth of doom wielded by Marine Captain Awesome McJockStrap. Is it 40k? Depends on the individual, it would seem, rather than some notional concept of a 40k aesthetic.

Ah well, old soap box.

Back to writing about 19th-century landscapes. Oh so fascinating...

Kage

FAQ!!

How to write answers to the simple questions, not the one we need the real answer on for those Doom of Munchkin powers!

The OP as a good point, I just laugh at the other flamer/hater when the thread was clearly labelled as a flame thread towards them and probably not needing their invalid input on the subject of how to make it as Canon as possible, etc...

But it went down, "again", to a thread of my WD says, my personal feeling of fear, my SM is bigger then yours, chicks in power armor are lames, I don't hate girls just the idea of them in metal where we can't see anything, DUDE look at the size of those bolts!!...

crisaron said:

You are oversimplifying and adding no more to the discussion than the people you deride. Nobody is saying they have a problem with women in power armor - not one single person I have seen. What people have a problem with is trying to shoehorn in a blatant disregard for one of the fundamental truths of the setting to please, what really comes down to the smallest percentage of customers. (vastly so, I would hazard to guess)

Almost no one is saying "you can't do this in your game", they are merely saying "don't try to make it canon".

I, too, disagree with those people who scream "If you do this you aren't playing 40k!!". That is a ridiculous statement. They can say you aren't playing "canon" 40k, but these are the same people who complain if you change *anything* about the setting in your own game. No one detail defines the entire setting, which is a hundred influences all meshed together in some rather cool ways. If the majority of the details are correct, then you are still playing 40k - just a homebrewed variant on the commonly accepted standard. You could go so far as to say "there are no space marines in my game universe" and still make it 40k in dozens of other ways - though I personally think it would be a silly change, that doesn't give me the right to say "I don't care if you're maintaining the theme, atmosphere, concepts, characters, organizations, races, etc. in your game ... if you've changed one detail it is no longer 40k!"

I have no doubt the many books contradict themselves at times - because that is what happens when a setting grows as large as this - so unless you're going to pick through each instance and declare that novel, or that rpg line no longer 40k, you can't do the same for each person's game. (in fact, even if you went all obsessive and did go through that work you still wouldn't have the right - though I'd at least respect your opinion a little more for having wasted so many hours on it)

And honestly, I am getting as sick of seeing the people who come in and declare "this conversation is stupid!" as I am of those screaming "it can't ever be done, no matter what!".

If you are sick of these threads: don't comment. If you feel this argument is pointless and have nothing to add but that: don't comment. If you hate the Yays or Nays but have nothing to add but voicing your hatred: don't comment.

Here's a general rule of thumb: If you can't add anything that is either harmless or helpful, don't comment, you'll only be wasting you're time and ours.

Jack of Tears said:

Solid post. I like the addition of "harmless" in there.

Incidentally, Artmesia, where did you get that image?

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Well, I post to unmoderated newsgroup so my trolling definition is very lax. Besides I avoid adopting this kind of new terminology, depicting people's as trolls and all. I'd rather spell things out, such as telling someone into their face that they only want to provoke a fight and all.

As for it being 40K or not, I couldn't care less. Some people seek to adorn themselves with the feathers of playing 40K and being proud of that, I have no use for such and they better don't do such a thing in my face or they'll get the right reply. Everything is merely an interpretation of a fictional setting, even their running of the game. Me, I prefer not being a literalist.

Now as for the FAQ - even if someone did not read it, one could at least direct people to it and bring them up to speed about the status quo of debate. No, officially there are no female space marines and there won't be. Yes, there are probably loopholes which could be exploited for house rule female SM without directly contradicting the background. Plus there are other opportunities for female PCs, etc.

And a general reminder of being clear what you are arguing for or against might be helpful too. Pointing out that what someone else plays isn't 40K is probably not the most worthy of goals. Since all is one interpretation of a fictional setting. When even Canon interpretation is incoherent to a degree (how powerful are SM?) and evolving.

Alex

mjprogue said:

I agree with the people who keep asking for a FAQ for these threads. If you're playing a game set during the Age of Apostacy, there are Frateris Templars (NOT to be confused with the frateris militia, which seems to happen a lot) who, for all intents and purposes, were basically male sisters of battle, and the original armed force of the Ministorum. The Daughters of the Emperor were an elite unit within the same army, assigned to protect Gogue Vandire. After his demise, they became the sisters of battle.

It's sort of like how the French allowed members of the Liebstandart Adolf Hitler to join the Foreign Legion after the War, as long as you were not too infamous, and packed them off to the French colonies in Asia.