Gotta go with spacepup there Well other than being a girl but i am a blood claw

If its that much of a problem use the door and come back laters for summat else

On the other hand if youre attempting to entice in the missus as originally suggested theres nothing stopping a little rule tweaking, especially if the player is a good one and has an ossum back story

You folks do realize that some of us play with friends and not trying to work with people to make a game fun and enjoyable for everyone is kind of a **** move, right?

Gender is something that's a pretty heated topic- you can see it in this and the dozen other FSM threads. Picking a race or a class and telling someone they can't play it is one thing, but forcing someone to role play a gender role is something else. I'll never understand why when this topic comes up those that try to come up with creative solutions to a problem get crapped on and told that they're breaking canon in 10,000 ways and should just show their players the door if they disagree with them.

Feel free to stay true to canon or not, but simply telling people "they're playing the game wrong and are dumb because they're bringing their 'real world' views into the 41st Millennium" is just going to fuel the thread into perpetuity.

Most of the topics on this board remain civil and rational, but for some reason not this one.

Charmander said:

Which is why, if you have a female friend who doesn't want to play a Space Marine (all Astartes are, after all, male), then there are plenty of other options from DH/RT for her to play that you could likely justify, or you could just play a game in a different setting that everyone can agree to. You don't need to play Deathwatch.

MILLANDSON said:

If I wanted to have a female SM, I would consider this part of the rules a nasty rumour. That seems to be the shtick to dispose of any part of the background setting that you don't like.

Alex

Charmander said:

The problem that I see is that most people don't seem to realize that Astartes don't have a gender role in 40K society. They are warriors, nothing else. Unless an Astartes is corrupted by chaos they have no real gender in the context of 40K, nor do they need one.

ItsUncertainWho said:

What exactly are the gender roles in 40k? Evidence in the fluff indicating they're gelded or uninterested in women is inconclusive, and the rulebook even leaves chem geld off the list of starting traits. They're fully seducible (if that's not a word consider it made up on the spot!). Astartes embody what are traditional masculine traits and characteristics, taken to an extreme. Super strong, super tough, super protectors, super honorable. I would also argue that not all player or GMs agree that they're nothing but warriors- I'd even suggest that some people prefer it that way, fluff or not.

That combined with the flat fact that gender is a devicive issue in our current society, whether you like it or not, means that some players will be uncomfortable portraying a male character, regardless of whether or not it fits the setting, especially if the table is made up of 90% dudes. Try creating a game where all the characters have to be homosexual, or a given skin color, and play with a mixed table and see if you get any protests or squeamish players. Our society has given us quite a bit of baggage, my point being that it's tiresome to see the 'kick them out and tell them to play something esle' method rather than trying to help the guy (or gal) out that's attempting to accomodate one of their players.

Hats off if you and your group is mixed gender and comfortable enough with themselves, each other, and modern gender roles to not let this type of issue get in the way.

MILLANDSON said:

I don't disagree that there are other options, I'm mainly aiming my spite at comments such as "If its that much of a problem use the door," "theres the door see you next week when we play some light and fluffy," and "Play another game."

And no, you don't NEED to play DW, but getting a woman involved in a gaming group is often tricky business, and for someone wanting to entice their wife/girlfriend/what have you into their hobby can be tough. If your group is in the middle of a DW campaign and someone doesn't want to play a male character for a legit reason (note the emphasis), and the group doesn't mind them playing a 'female solution' why is this such a horrible problem?

MILLANDSON said:

You don't need to repeat over an over your opinion on every thread especailly when you don't contribute to the topic in a repeated unconstructive way. The OP clearly asked for help not your male obsessive SM loving FanBoy opinion!

I mean unless your group is as stuck into their need for big over sized canon to fill up their fan boy sides, just scratch off that sci-fi old minded "lore". I mean this was tipical scifi stile back in the day, it was about man needing an ego boost out of the old fantasy realm.

But the real good classic (For ever War, Starship Troop, Ender's Game), clearly show a more mature plosable evolution of the human warrior.

crisaron said:

Be aware that the Starship Troopers book and movie do not line up. In the book there are no women in the mobile infantry. They are navy crew and pilots only.

The Starship Troopers MI (book) is one of the major influences(where GW took the idea from) for the Space Marines.

As to my comment of the lack of a gender role for Astartes: My view is that within 40K the fact that space marines are all male is irrelevant. They are Astartes, nothing else.

More plausable than using the genetics of an immortal godlike human to create 20 cartoonishly stereotypical perfect warriors ? Surely not?

All the cited novels are sci-fi. Sci-fi by very definition requires some adherance to reality. 40k is not sci-fi.

Siranui said:

Well it's space opera with a dark scifi twist!

Charmander said:

Charm, show me where I said anyone was dumb. I don't mind a good argument, and I can stick to the topic at hand, but don't ever try to attribute things to me which I haven't said. Not only did I address the issue mentioned, I also gave a work-around for it (which you thoughtfully ignored).

Illithidelderbrain said:

I'd love to if I had actually been quoting you. Apologies if it came across that I was targeting you and thoughtfully ignoring the section of your post suggesting how to make a SoB.

You are not the first, nor likely will you be the last, to bring up an argument or point that one of the problems with a 40k system is that people bring their real world views into the game. I was, for better or worse, using the " " marks to refer to the 'royal' argument that contiually comes up whenever this issue is ressurected. That argument tends to be part of the core rationale for the arguments that I truly took issue with, which were the ones presented by SpacePup and SithFitz.

My core point being that GMs (and players) should be sensitive to this real world issue and how it impacts their players. Not that Kid Kyoto steped on the landmine of 'why do people get so excited about this,' and not particularly that you accused him of trying to inflame the forums- by accident or otherwise (though I actually disagree in part with you on that for 40k and 21st century reasons).

I'm still waiting to hear an explanation as to why a female player would object to playing a male character in a combat-heavy rpg. I have a male player in my Dark Heresy campaign who chase to play a female assassin, just because he liked the miniature...

Adeptus-B said:

I would ask if there are any women in your group (I'd go up and check the forums to see if you've mentioned it but I'm notoriously lazy)? The question ties into the explanation below:

Some women (and men) aren't particularly comfortable with acting out the opposite gender, flat out. Considering I've met gamers that have trouble acting out their character's rousing speech or the like, this seems to be just another one of 'those things.' The issue can be exaggerated when the folks across the table happen to be members of that gender. I've also seen this with race (not the elf type race, the black/white/asian/middle eastern type race) and sexual orientation. It's hard to try and portray something that you have only an academic knowldge of when that something is starting at you across the table and has actual, personal, knowledge of what you're trying to act out.

In my own experience I see it less with a group of people that are comfortable with each other, but certain social taboos seem to hold sway, especially when a new member of the group joins, and especially if that new group member is new to the hobby at large.

Again, some may say 'well Astartes are just warriors, nothing more, nothing less,' but again to that I say that this isn't the case in all games. Regardless of their sexual organs and/or ability to impregnate people, astartes encompass many traditionally male traits; you're RPing a male archtype of sorts. That fact can make people uncomfortable.

Charmander said:

My sister plays a marine in the game I'm playing, and has no difficulties... since, you know, the hole thing about gender really doesn't come up.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/01/22/cardboard-children-deathwatch-rpg/ <- A good write up about the game...

Hiromoon said:

Which is fantastic, not everyone gets hung up on this issue.

Hiromoon said:

It's an interesting perspective, and a fair way to go about the game. He's got some good points in there, but overall I personally find the simplistic view and way this guy talks about RPing marines a little uninteresting. Playing a group of characters whose course of action is essentially predictable and pre-scripted with 'for the emperor' really turns the marines back into cookie cutter robot killing machines. Fun for a night or two of blowing the crap out of some xenos, and primarily becaues they're so much more powerful than many other characters in the 40k RP setting, but for my taste 2D characters rarely make for a compelling campaign, and rarely experience the 'bonding like soldiers' available in DW.

But different strokes and all that...

Hiromoon said:

great article.

3 of 9 of my current DW players are female.

as GM i would never allow such thing in my games as female Space marine even if someone would cry. First of all most of my players would feel strange about it, as almost everyone knows very much about wh40k universe (4 players play wh40k table with me), second nobody asked for it. For me if u dont like to play Space marine in game about space marines DW isnt for u. Such person could destroy fun experience of rest of players, and RPG should be fun.

Besides female space marines and eldar wanting to join Black Templars is same story for me.

Well, to loop back around to the title of this thread: assuming that the group wants to stay true to canon, I'm not sure Sisters of Battle are necessarily the best choice. They may seem logical, since they also wear power armour and wield bolt guns, but that can be true of almost any Ascention-level character (and DH boltguns are woefully underpowered compared to their DW counterparts, so you would probably need to use a special/heavy weapon to avoid embarassing yourself in front of the Big Boys). If you are trying to stay true to canon, you would have to come up with a good reason to unite the Chambers Militant of the Ordo Hereticus (the Sisters) and the Ordo Xenos (the Deathwatch). Chaos-worshiping aliens are a possibility (maybe the campaign revolves around the Yu'Vath...), but that can be limiting to the types of scenarios you can engage in. If you want to play a "generic" kill-the-xeno-type campaign, I would recommend having the female player play an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (or Interrogator if you don't want her to be seen as having authority over the Astartes), kitted out appropriately: power armour supplemented by a refractor field to offset the lack of Unnatural Toughness, etc. This character could logically be attached to a Kill Team to act as an advisor, the way CIA opperatives sometimes accompanied Special Forces teams during the Vietnam War. If you need two female characters, make the other on her bodyguard, a Death Cult Assassin with enough stealth skills that her lack of damage soak isn't an issue- she simply won't get hit! Of course, neither of these characters will be able to match Space Marines in terms of sheer horde-killing ability, but they will dwarf the Astartes in terms of number and variety of skills, making them valuable members of the team.

Charmander said:

Remember they are also playing the game with friends and for them to put their wants in front of everyone elses wants is also a **** move.

Adeptus-B said:

I think these are some good points - any time the ordos collide you've got to have some sort of a reason for it unless you're just hand waving (which I, to some folks' suprise I imagine, don't particularly like). I do think that some of the other ascended careers with some proper kit would be a path of less resistance, and require less campaign arc alterations. The trick I see when not just going for a build that closely mimics that of the astartes (unnatural traits, etc.) is the GM must make sure to take the skill differences into consideration and plan adventures so that no one is left on the sidelines- which is no small feat in some cases.

Though I've not read the new SoB stats/background, it does seem possible that an SoB acting as an acolyte or as part of an Inquisitors cadre they could more easily get roped into the ordo xenos operations than if they were part of the standard operating wing of the ordo militant. The fact that they allow it as a playable class outside of the militant wing itself (which they haven't yet done for GKs or DW marines) this seems on first blush to be slighly less of a sticky situation.

Peacekeeper_b said:

You're missing the point. One of the main goals of a GM is to make the game as fun for as many people as possible, right? So when a group wants to get a person involved in a game (as the op says, wives and girlfriends), and that person has some legit resons for disliking a piece of the setting (the fact that all of the main characters in the core book have dongs), and the GM tries to come up with a way to get that person involved, why is this a bad thing? When someone tries to get advice from people on a forum (which has been presented by some of the people on the thread) why is it so terrible?

Sure, if the group at large things it's a horrible idea to either bend a piece of fluff or tweak a campaign arc to allow a non-astartes in the room the GM should think twice about it, aboslutely. The goal is to make the group happy. But the gut reaction from people that I have such a huge stick up my ass about is the 'my game my rules' response that spills out without considering alternatives - and there are plenty of alternatives. Gender and race are a far bigger deal in our society and culture than how much damage a boltgun does or how many times a character can dodge in a turn.

Charmander said:

No you are missing the point. Every player has the right to play what they want that makes them feel comfortable and want to play the game. ESPECIALLY THE PLAYERS WHO ARE PLAYING FOR THE SETTING!

Altering the game for one player so they feel more compelled to play the game may make another player feel less compelled to play your game or even feel that you are rewriting the game to make them feel less like they are playing the intended setting and are favoring another player.

The fact is, and its been this way for a long time, there are no female space marines and the OP was talking about using other 40K systems to get the "ladies" involved.

The argument of "I let female space marines exist because my female players wont play men" is one step away from "I let female space mariens exist because I have a male player who would rather play a female" and eventually opens the door for "my deathwatch team is a female space marine, a rank 9 Dark Heresy Hive Mutant Guardsmen, a rank 6 Rogue Trader Kroot, a rank 6 Rogue Trader Ork, a Rank 9 Dark Heresy Psyker Primaris using WFRP 2E Elf starting Stats and Joe who is playing a Rank 1 Death Watch marine!"

Peacekeeper_b said:

Dont forget that i want to play female eldar Black templar.

Peacekeeper_b said:

WOW!!!! I am half white on the right side and he si half white on the left side! We have to go to war can't you see?

If In my group I have one total lawyer fan boy and one noob trans playing unintersted girl what do I do then??????

Commit self purgatus? Tell them all to do SoB? So you guys don't want to break Canon? NP every one as a huge bolt pistol!!!

I laugh at your argumentation skills...

I have one other easy solution for you, if you have someone in your group unwilling to compromise and the little things in life, them from your entire life circle.

If you have a girl that insists on playing a female marine and a guy who absolutely refuses to accept the idea of playing with a FSM, how about uninviting both of them and gaming on? Just a thought.

Alex

Peacekeeper_b said:

Okay, you're still not getting what I'm saying, perhaps I'm phrasing things poorly. I will now attempt to do it again, and hope that I'm understood. I'm pretty sure I get your point. You hate the idea of altering the setting and breaking canon for anyone, for any reason, and view that making changes for one player, regardless of the group opinion, is a bad idea. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

If your group is a bunch of fluff nazis and the idea of a woman, of whatever background or class, makes them cringe or dislike the game, then I said you probably shouldn't break the rules for one player. To quote myself: "Sure, if the group at large things it's a horrible idea to either bend a piece of fluff or tweak a campaign arc to allow a non-astartes in the room the GM should think twice about it, aboslutely." Please take note of the non-astartes point, as it contributes to my points below.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Here is where I think we start to diverge, but I'm actually still on your side for the most part. I'm more of a democratic mind here, and if the majority of my players don't have a problem with <possible work around here> but a single player does, I'm probably going to tell that lone player to stuff it simply because I know that people have a tougher time dealing with certain of our culture's baggage than whether or not there are girls in a DW KT. That said, if most of the players think <work around X> would ruin the setting and the game, then so be it.

I'm not even talking about setting breaking things, I'm talking about trying to come up with ideas to allow a player who has real world hang ups entry into a group in a way that breaks the setting the least. Get her in once, and she may grow to like the setting as it stands, and who knows, the next time around she be more willing to play a dude.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Wait. Wow, how did we get here? I don't think I ever said you had to let FSMs in, especially in the context of this thread. Perhaps I've said something and forgotten it, if that's the case can you please quote me here so I can properly explain what I was thinking? Maybe I made a poor argument at some point that's being taken a way I didn't intend.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Ah, the slipper slope. Pretty soon we'll all be playing Chaos Worshiping Hermaphroditic Xenos that are part of the United Federation of Planets that attack the bad guys with Singularity Devices and are fighting an undergound war against the machines, right? Give them an inch and they'll take a mile. Make an exception for one player one time and eventually 40k will cease to exist.

Look, seriously, I'm not saying allow FSMs. AlI I'm saying is don't boot people out of your group because they want to be something that isn't a man as your reflex response. I'm saying when people post to the forum looking for ideas on how to integrate this or how to get someone who may not be naturally inclined to join a game, help them rather than crapping on their parade and telling them to tell them to come back in two years when you're playing in a different setting.

And if you want FSMs in your group, and the group doesn't mind, then ******* do it. Personally I wouldn't- but not for the same reasons as you- for me it goes so far against the grain of what is accepted in the 40k backstory the existance of a FSM would potentially be a campaign in and of itself, and that's not the campaign I want to create.

If it were my game, I'd look for a way to allow for her to play a Xenos Inquisitor, or come up with a couple of early adventures that would give a reason for Ordo Hereticus to be hanging out with a KT and let her play a SoB. After the first few missions they find that they're SuperEffective together and becuse she's high enough rank she is allowed to hang about for a while- or perhaps the missions the KT goes on has enough overbleed into hereticus to justify this behavior. Or let her play an assassin of some kind, and hope that the super dodges keep her alive. Or let her play a RT of some sort and have her ship be the one that the KT putters around the Reach in.

I would NOT allow someone who doesn't have some sort of hang up do this. I wouldn't allow someone who just watned to be special to play something not from DW as it's not my primary goal to run a crossover campaign. I'd ask them to make their specialty in DW what sets them apart, make them RP their 'specialness.' Though I also tend to make more exceptions for new players, because I find that new players tend to need either a ton of direction or a ton of freedom to get into the swing of things. Once they're in, in my experience, they tend to settle down into the mainstream.