Slaunyeh

Better late than never!

Entirely anecdotal, but I know more women who play(ed) WoD than all other RPGs combined. So I guess they struck a better balance. To be fair, I didn't follow them closely since nWoD but I do know CCP has all but shut them down.

I won't get into the whole 3e vs 4e edition war, but suffice it to say that my AD&D, 3e and Pathfinder collections are extensive. I bought the 4e core books gleefully (hey, I'd played the "preview" game Star Wars Saga, 4a was a slam dunk!), went "..the hell?", played a few games just to make sure, then pawned off the books.

The only books in RPG history I didn't want to keep on my shelves.

"It is indeed a wise manufacturer who invests in pleasing both audiences, at the cost of neither" might be a nice goal to aspire to, but it's a lot easier said than done. I guess White Wolf could maybe be a decent example, if they still existed.

That's really too bad. The wings was a nice touch for your outfit!

It's possible they've done something to 'auto correct' costumes... I, for one, have a couple of outfits that are no longer legal, so I hope they haven't!

Is that what they tried? I think they failed at that, then. I find Flamebeaux kinda endearing. And a little sad. I never like the villain tip missions where I'm being told how much I hate her and how much I enjoy putting her in her place. I don't.

Meanwhile, Fusionette might not be designed as an annoying character, but mechanically she is. The number of times she's aggroed two or three other groups before helpfully bringing them back to me... grrr. I would savour a few villain tips to put her in her place.

Well, a spontaneous change in target audience doesn't have to only be a shift towards women. It can be a shift towards teenagers, dumb people or dolphins for all it matters. It was just an example (since any comic book example I bring up is flawed by the fact that I've never really read American comic books).

That said, many of the 3e and especially 4e changes were stated as a deliberate push to appeal more to female games. Which is cool. I just miss the fantasy art of the 90s.

Either way, I don't think their point was that women are dumb. But if your new target audience is "people who've never thought about picking up an RPG" you will probably have to start them off on something light.

I don't know if they were successful. I stopped caring. Sad! *sniff*

I don't know about women, but Master Midnight would certainly approve!

*whispers*
Psst. You should beat up that guy across the street. He looks shifty. Will probably commit a crime sometime in his life. You can prevent it before anyone gets hurt!

*beckons GG to the dark side*

I think the nature vs. nurture debate belongs in its own thread (and very possibly on its own forum).

The short answer is: it's a little bit of both. Completely dismissing biology is as naive as completely dismissing cultural upbringing.

And that's all I care to say on this particular tangent.

Of course it's possible. I'm sure there's no particular male or female bias towards, say, The Da Vinci Code or A Song of Ice and Fire (though actually I know more women who have read and enjoyed ASoIaF than men, which surprised me), or the 'trendy Swedish crime novel of the day'.

But this thread isn't about that. This thread is essentially "guys like this, girls don't. Thus it much change." Which I strongly disagree with. Don't change it. Add to it. If you have the great idea for a comic book that all boys and girls will enjoy equally, then go ahead and write it (or inspire someone else to).

Watchmen is a good example. That series seem to have a pretty broad cross-gender appeal, perhaps because of a more mature in scope. Which might actually be the key.

But that's not the issue I'm reacting to. I simply don't think that the comic book genre mostly appealing to boys is because the comic book industry is evil and actively discouraging girls from reading (Calvin grew up, didn't he ). I think it's because being geeky is more of a masculine trait, and comic books are just a geeky hobby. No offence. (This is actually something of a personal study of mine, that ties into my dad's work on autism... let's not get sidetracked.)

Sure, that's a "risk." I just don't think it's very likely (at least, I can't think of any examples where that has actually happened).

I wouldn't hate more strong lead female characters, but the presence of a strong female lead doesn't mean instant girl appeal. It takes more than a main character to appeal to girls, in my experience. Like an entirely different story focus. I have no statistical data, I just have three very different sisters and I'm pretty confident I wouldn't enjoy a comic book written for any of them as its core audience (such as the Wendy example).

Which is fine. I don't expect to enjoy their comic books. I don't need to enjoy their comic books. And I certainly wouldn't want to campaign for their comic books to be made more enjoyable for me.

Well, this kind of bothers me, to be honest.

Perhaps you're reading a bit too much of yourself into my comment. I don't know. But the basic premises here was that "current comic books don't appeal to girls". I don't think it's that much of a reach to worry, if you're a guy and find current comic books appealing, that changes to current comic books might run the risk of making them less appealing to you than they are today.

It's not so much a 'false dichotomy' (I had to look that up ) as it is an unfortunate market trend in the name of misunderstood equality.

I'm a guy. I feel threatened/alienated when, say, D&D 'cleans up' to appeal to a broader audience. If I wanted to belong to a "broad audience" I'd be into cars or soccer or something. Not roleplaying games. Markets don't have to change to 'expand', but they do. As a fan of a current implementation, changes designed to appeal to other people are worrisome because we're afraid to lose what we liked about the implementation in the first place (Dominators, I'm looking at you!).

That's why I react to calls for "comic books should appeal more to girls". I don't think 'comic books' should be 'forced' to 'appeal to girls'. If girls, in general, don't like existing comic books, then by all means, write new comic books that appeal more to girls. I'm sure there's a market for that (and I'm also sure it already exist. I distinctly remember my sisters reading Wendy Magazine when they were kids).

In the end, different things appeal to different people. And that's fine.

(Also, I kinda forgot what point I was trying to make. But I think I was working up to a Tzeentch joke.)

Welcome to the red side. We're glad to have ya.

Which comes first though? Do girls not like superhero comics because there are not a lot of prominent, admirable girl superheroes? Or are there not a lot of prominent admirable girl superheroes because, girls, in general don't like superhero comics?

I think that's a really dangerous path to start down on, and it's not something unique to comic books either. Basically, you have the question: "Genre X appeals more to men than women. How do we change X to appeal more to women?"

Which completely ignores the fact that 1) Changing X to appeal to women might destroy what makes it appeal to men (with the subtext that anything that appeal to men is bad/wrong and we should feel guilty about not appreciating more feminine influences) and 2) There are also genres that appeal more to women than to men, yet no one seems bothered about changing those (presumably because what appeals to women isn't bad/wrong).

I mean, statistically, more women than men knit. How do we change knitting to appeal more to men? Answer: Please don't try.

Flip that. Miss Liberty died. Ms. Liberty is the trainer in Atlas.

Hey! Don't be a misobinist!

But more seriously, I agree that the binary choice might be unfair. However, that is what your criteria #2 comes down to. It essentially asks: "If something, other than what happened, had happened, had it happened in another (more heroic) way?" To repeat myself, there is no way to know. So you are, in effect, left to decide for yourself. Do you think/hope/want that the writers would fall for #2? Or don't you? It's an assumption either way. So yeah, as a completely subjective criteria it's pretty useless.


PS. As others have mentioned, being stuffed in a fridge isn't necessarily a bad thing. It could save your life if you ever find yourself on a nuclear test site!

1) Has this actually happened? Has there been a 'reaction from a male character' at this point, or are we assuming there will be one later? And would everyone be happier if Miss Liberty was murdered and Statesman/Manticore/whomever just went "meh, whatever" from fear of "WiR syndrome"?

2) This is, at best, wild conjecture. Personally, I think it would have been exactly the same if Miss Liberty had been 'Mr Liberty' instead. I also think they would still have picked that character to off to make whatever plot point they are going for. You may assume it would have been all different, but the fact remains: We can never know (short of going to Portal Corp and find the alternate earth where Jack decided Statesman should have a son instead of a daughter). It basically comes down to "I think the writers are jerks" vs. "I don't think the writers are jerks." Whichever assumption you pick say more about you than the writers.

If this was a level 1-10 arc, you might have a point. However, this is a level 30+ arc. The villain that attacks her is 30+. Well past the 'goon' stage (you get the global threat badge at level 5). Meanwhile, Miss Liberty might be all sorts of great at martial arts, but she has no powers. She's a civilian. She cons gray to us.

We can argue about whether she should have an escape plan. Whether she should be decked out in Ballista bodyguards. Why her mediporter doesn't work (which I think is well established, those only work when the plot wants them to - read: when the writer remembers to take them into account). All those may be plot holes, inconsistencies or bad writing. But taking her down without a fight? That I can absolutely live with (in fact, as a primarily red-side player, I find it oddly refreshing).

I'm just surprised Blue Steel didn't show up at the end to undo everything you've accomplished. But I guess there's still time. The arc isn't over yet.

As a side note, I can vaguely recall a couple of other examples of ex-heroes that are taken out without a fight in CoH. But the ones I remember are all male, so I guess it doesn't matter.

So, if it's not out of character for the person in question to get, say, ambushed and/or outclassed (for instance, an ex-heroine who passed the mantle - literally - years ago being mugged by an exceptionally powerful villain) it's not fridging?

Haha. Mac Interface indeed.

Heey. That's really disrespectful.

Villains like myself provide an important service. If it wasn't for us, heroes would have no mad schemes to foil on a weekly basis. Without us, you'd be nothing but glorified mall cops in spandex.

So you're welcome heroes. Now, is a little appreciation really too much to ask?

As someone who has always used the -cov flag, I'd very much like to see this option returned.