So this weekend I attended an interesting conference on the future of feminism. I’d like to present some of the most insightful papers from it.
Clarification: When I said I “attended a conference” I meant I “took a look at the Men’s Rights subreddit.” By “interesting” I meant “tedious” and by “insightful” I meant “ridiculous.” And by “papers” of course I meant “comments.”
So here, without further ado, are some of the pearls of wisdom I found in a thread asking the twin questions “What, in your opinion, is Feminism’s ultimate goal? When do you think they’ll consider their job ‘done?’” (Each yellow comment is a direct answer to one or both of the questions.)
Boy, these “feminists” sound like terrible people!
Or there was originally an entirely different bunch of people and *they* were poofed out of existence and we took their places.
*slow clap*
Returning to the subject of X-COM!
My friend has it, and he says it’s good. In some ways better than the original, in fact. And the fact that they don’t seem to have fallen in the same traps as the original did makes me want to get it even more.
Like armour actually doing something, and plasma weapons not being OP (oh the times I raged at a kitted out, well armoured dude getting instantly owned by a lowly Sectoid with a pistol). Apparently it’s also less just send-in-waves-and-waves-of-faceless-mooks and more that your people actually matter, which is awesome.
So far I haven’t gotten much more creative than inflict severe wounds, but I’m thinking maybe I should branch out.
Would healing spells work? Weapons that heal someone when you hit them with it are always hilarious. 😛
@whataboutthemoonz:
Got a link? For some reason, I love Wikipedia wank.
@Everyone: Spirit of the Century is awesome. It’s easily my favorite RPG (of the handful I’ve played). And I really, really want to play a Venture Bros game in that system, but I don’t have enough friends who are into both 🙁
You know, against undead, that would actually be a valid target.
They’d have to have more HD than half my level and to have resisted my turning attempt, otherwise they’d be dust or cowering in the corner.
But yeah, I should totally do that. “Feel the blessings of St. Cuthbert!” *WHAP* “OW!” *cure spell* “What is wrong with you!?“
Valid *tactic.
@emilygoddess
I am so into FATE System that I am borrowing from it to create a homebrew Disney Princess game.
@Karalora I’m intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter (/oldmeme). Would they be action heroes, like in Jim Hines’ books? ‘Cause I’d play the shit out of that game.
They could be, if you decided to play them that way. I am statting out the existing Disney Princesses, but creating your own Princess would also be an option. My goal here is to create a very simple, story-driven game suitable for little girls to play. I’ve seen a few people stat the Princesses as D&D characters, with classes suitable to their respective schticks in the movies, but to the best of my knowledge no one has attempted to invent a game where they would be played as themselves, whether that meant defeating wicked witches or making clothes for the ball.
Which Jim Hines books are these? The name isn’t ringing a bell.
I’ve totally done that.
Jim Hines writes a series (starting with The Stepsister Scheme) in which Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are spies/action heroes working for the Queen of…whatever their pseudo-medieval-European fantasy land is called. They’re not great literature, but they’re entertaining, and Hines is a pretty avid pro-feminist and anti-rape blogger when he’s not writing novels (that’s how I first heard of him, anyway).
But I love your idea of making an RPG for younger girls. Hook ’em while they’re young 😉
I think “Play as your favorite Disney Princess or make up your own!” should be enough to get them interested.
I’m wondering if I can use my nieces as a playtest group. They are aaaalllllll about princesses. I already mentioned the one who pulled the sword out of the stone earlier.
I’m already bouncing around in my seat about this game. My daughter already loves logic games and puzzles (IRL and on the computer). She’d eat this up. The only downside would be trying to convince her to stop for baths, sleep, food, school…
You should look at the comments on youtube videos. I got into a debate with some dude about feminism and it has escalated quickly. I’ve been called all sorts of names and told all the ways I was the downfall of my gender. And also told how women aren’t creative, women are mooches upon society, women should have to sign up for the draft (that is a popular one) and all sorts of other things that had no relevance to anything I said. And no matter what source I have: peer reviewed journals, us census, world health organization ect they have blogs that disprove whatever I say.
The internet is a frustrating and scary place.
Re: The discussion about the Disney Princess RPG.
I think that’s a great idea, with the obvious corollaries about gender norms et al. because I’m a white guy and it could look like I was enforcing gender norms by encouraging a princess RPG for girls.
The problem with D&D and parenting is that D&D is awfully violent, no matter the edition. It has themes of standing up between the strong and the weak, between evil and good, but at its core it’s all about swinging a bigger sword than you had five levels ago.
Lord knows my parents tried to bring me up to be patient and loving and not violent, and I want to bring up any of my children the same way.
So I think FATE is a great thing for the pretty young: it has nonviolent problem solving, it’s flexible, it encourages creativity rather than pigeonholing characters.
Interactive storytelling and roleplaying in general, I think, would be great for teaching how to deal with obstacles and setbacks without throwing tantrums (because that’s a set of skills most people need to learn).
And if it means Aurora can be a kickass spy, all the better.
I always love that one, too, Melody. Most of the time because it seems to come from guys who sooner or later will start bitching about how women take all the good jobs from men and warehouse their kids in daycare. Were we less moochy back in the day, when we stayed home and only produced childcare and delicious baked goods? Or when our paid labor was of the laundress/wet nurse/maidservant/low-wage factory girl variety? It’s a mystery.
I’m actually less bothered by the angry ones than I am by the “poor little lamb, we’re so concerned about you!” types. The worried guys believe that wanting autonomy is some kind of whim I’ll overcome once a kind, rational man points out the errors of my way. This if probably a prejudice on my part, though. I’ve only had three serious boyfriends in my life (including the hubs) and one of them was an Evangelical type who was about knee-deep in the Christian patriarchy movement. He started explaining my role as a woman once we’d been together a few months. Men were spiritual leaders of the family, he told me, and as such he’d guide me through God’s will for us both once we got married. My own sinful womanly nature led me to want leadership and independence, but God demands submission. Oh, he knew I’d had an upbringing that had encouraged feminine vanities, that my church was less clear on the role of the husband/father, and that we lived in a culture that encouraged women to try to be men. But he’d help me! He’d be the man I needed to help walk in Christ! And since I loved him, I’d allow myself to be guided; after all, as spiritual head of the family, he’d have to answer for my sins as well as his at the final judgement!
Just thinking about it all now still makes me gag. I didn’t give up on organized religion until a few years ago, but I think those lectures about how equality was hurting me planted the seeds of “WTF?”. Wanting a fair shake in life is not a vice.
Ooo, I’m glad there are gamers here! Thanks for the FATE recommendation, Falconer. I’m pretty sure my daughter will really like gaming in a few years, but as I don’t play (and my husband travels too much to get a chance anymore) I don’t know what’s good. I’ll have to look into that when she gets older. Or have my brother tell her about it; what’s lame from Mom will probably be awesome from Cool Uncle.
Also, I meant to say it further up the thread but forgot – thanks for the Borderlands 2 review, Shade. My husband loved the first one, and I was wondering if he might like the second as a welcome home present. I’ll have to hit GameStop on payday.
Falconer: I think it depends who you have as a DM, and how flexible they are to adapting rules for things that aren’t specifically spelled out in the books. Then again, if I thought D&D was perfectly fine and the only problem was bad DMs, I wouldn’t have started a total redesign like I did, so there’s that. 😛
I’ve done D&D stuff where i’ve had characters that prefer non-violent solutions, or non-kill solutions (one of my favourite characters eventually “evolved” to the point where she only really killed fiends, anything mortal she tried to take down non-lethally or talk down with diplomacy, which she was also really good at). It’s certainly possible, it just requires a bit more work to fix the issues in the system (which if you’re looking for a system you can just pick up and play, it isn’t ideal).
Like my character above would never work in base D&D because she was a fighter with like a million diplomacy (exaggerationz 😛 ).. And the designers thought fighters didn’t need diplomacy for some reason. D: Maybe i’m biased because i’ve always played with people who didn’t mind just changing stuff we didn’t like, but i’ve never seen D&D as that bad when it comes to stifling creativity.
Violence and kids is a really complex thing too. I think I tend to take it for granted that as an adult, i’ve had lots of time to work on compartmentalising non/anti-violence in real life and enjoying violent entertainment in separate little mental boxes.
Fitzy: No problem. 😀 Hope he enjoys it, I certainly did (at least as much, if not more than the first one, in fact).
I’m glad my princess game is getting so much interest. So far it’s been more of a creative exercise than anything else, but this is prompting to think harder about it and put more work into it. Should I go start a thread over in the forums to track my progress and get advice? I’ve never actually designed a tabletop game before and even this one isn’t going to include much original design.
@Karalora: Sure, go ahead! I’m not around the fora much but I’ll look in. I’ve been meaning to hang out there more.
Started a thread in the Whatever forum. Be prepared–the first post is long!