Judy Bauer's page

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Minnesota has joined the fold!

The Ballard Locks..hmmm. a boat passage channel. That may have some interest but I do live by the ocean.

Beer is a great suggestion but I don't drink. I do like the idea of seeing the salmon. Does anyone know if they swim upstream during July? That sounds really cool!

June–July is the Sockeye run—you might want to contact the Locks as it gets closer to the date to see if they have an idea how dense the run will be around PaizoCon.

If you're excited about Paseo, I've heard it's better to get there early in the day, since they sometimes run out of the most popular items. But if you know about when you'll arrive, you can also phone in orders ahead of time to avoid some of the wait.

Ballard Locks are very interesting. I've never seen anything quite like it.

If you like beer than the NW is an awesome place to live. We have a ton of microbreweries and there is always the tap house that has over 100 brews on tap. But as a gamer I'd recomend the Elysian Brewing Company, where you can down a mug of Dragonstooth Stout.

If you visit the locks, be sure to see the fish ladder, where you can watch salmon returning from the ocean and moving upstream!

And while you're in the area, you can do a pub crawl of Ballard's many microbreweries.

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It's nice when one of my students gets an A.

I hear you! I taught mandatory expository writing and research paper writing classes in my checkered past, and the A papers, like shining jewels, were one of the biggest rewards—along with the fact that everyone who stuck with it improved markedly over the semester.

And now, back to polishing...

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Switching to Dragon's Demand!

ALSO! When project managers order pizza for a group, there are surveys and spreadsheets and intersecting of preferences, and the outcome is unexpected wonders like Canadian bacon/sun-dried tomato/jalapeño/BACON pizza! My mind is blown.

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Fighting! (That's totally what crusaders do to psych themselves up before heading into the Worldwound. It's canon!)

Pathfinder Adventure Path #73! Dragonslayer's Handbook! Pancakes! (THANKS, LIZ!) And exclamation points!

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Thanks for fueling our labors, Liz! The sugar and deliciousness is excellent mental insulation against the horrors of the demonic invasion!

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Adam: Yay, I'm a rock AND a person!

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Could be doable, though, if you take the light rail up to Seattle and then hop on a 26 bus to 40th & Wallingford, which is just uphill from Gas Works Park. The park itself gets crowded fast, but all streets below 40th are closed, so you can always stake out a spot on the middle of Wallingford Ave. among the locals. :-)

Just make sure you don't head back so late you miss the last train—watch the Metro and Sound Transit sites closer to the date, as there are mutters about extending service later that night to get the crowds home.

What wonderful news, congratulations!

That's happened in the past, and has so far always gotten funded at the last minute—we'll try to keep you posted about that if you remind us! But in the meanwhile, here's a roundup of more fireworks shows in the area, with parking details etc., in addition to the ones Kyle mentioned. (Aviso: Fireworks shows south of Seattle are likely to be easier to get to and from; traffic on all of the bridges gets pretty horrendous.)

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All the Mythic Adventures, all the time! I'm listening to Beowulf to get into an appropriately epic mood.

There's already an argument going on in the developer pit about something to do with Demon Lords and gestation periods, so it should be an interesting day.

As the sole squeamish person on the Editorial team, I anticipate being grossed out with great regularity for the next N months. :P

Odraude wrote:

And, adding to that list for those that complete the AP, Ameiko Kaijitsu :)

I'd also add:

Lady Satarai-Gongen the ruler of Kwanlai (half-celestial tengu Cleric 14)

Also the leaders of the following nations:

Amanandar: General Audrya Vannisar
Goka: Lady Nai Yan Fei
Hwanggot: Queen Hyun Eun-suk and her daughter/heir Hyun Geon-ji (presumably—we haven't statted Geon-ji up yet)
Xidao: High Matriarch Urakadussi

There's also the cultural heroes Hao Jin (may or may not still be alive) and Sulunai.

When you're making a right turn on red, check to see whether there are any pedestrians and cyclists about to enter/already in the cross walk! We are so very fragile compared to your murder machine. :(

Stebehil, in the Midwest, we don't have a rhyme (though I remember my grandpa saying that one), but "hat driver" is a term of scorn for that sort of driver.

Also alot of the 'mechanics' people at Pazio can and have written in the past lore for Golarion...if they have less mechanics to write than they can write more lore.

To clarify a point, the bottleneck isn't the writing, since that would all be freelance and off the clock. The main bottleneck is development, since a hardcover campaign setting book would have to be developed by the campaign setting devs, not the rules designers. (That's assuming we swap out products to produce this—otherwise development, layout, AND editing become bottlenecks.)

I thought it was only a few hours long. How long does it go on? Is it acceptable to bring my own games?

I hear it lasts until midnight, though I haven't stayed that late. And yep, totally kosher (and often helpful) to bring your own games!

Fridays are hard for me because of work but I understand that there are other meetups there as well so I'll keep working on it. I see that it is only a few hours long. What kind of games do you play?

Normally at Ladies Gaming Night people play boardgames and Magic. I've played Dominion, Dixit, and... I think Pandemic there my last couple of times—I usually roll in relatively late, (close to 8pm since I bus) and turn into a pumpkin early, so I don't pack in as many games as one could if determined. :P

I think this may be the first time where the focus is on RPGs—hopefully with pre-gens there'll be enough time to get through one-shot adventures!

I keep trying to go but life keeps interfering. It either ends up on a night I have to work or I have medical issues pop up. I swear I'm going to go. I even have a posse that's going to make sure I don't chicken out. I just need life to line up with it.

Whenever you can make it, we'll be glad to have you with us! (We're working on getting a regular Pathfinder night started there, which would also give you more options.)

Seattle greater metro region-ites! The next Ladies Gaming Night at Raygun Lounge (Friday, Apr. 12) is a Pathfinder night, with a mix of PFS and Paizonian GMs, and we'd love you to join us!

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Don't forget that Arcadian deities could correspond to Tien deities, too—Sun Wukong (Animal, Chaos, Liberation, Travel, Trickery), might be a good match for Coyote, and Hei Feng (Domains: Air, Chaos, Destruction, Water, Weather) could correspond to Guabancex (same domains but different gender, which may matter for some deities more than others).

Other cultural practices we could consider as sources of inspiration: many coastal tribes in the Pacific Northwest have strong traditions of travel and hospitality; potlatch culture and canoe culture are two aspects of that (banned for decades but now being revived!). The details vary between tribes, but here are a few common threads that could be taken up as flavor or to motivate adventures:

• Wealth and prestige are measured by how much you give away, not how much you have, and reciprocity is expected of recipients (intangibles like ceremonies, songs, and dances may count, so bards and other magic users would be useful if the PCs have little material wealth to spare; alternatively, the PCs might need to adventure to gain enough wealth to properly reciprocate).
• Long journeys for diplomacy or trade (these days people canoe down from Alaska, so... could be 1,000 miles or more; means of transportation could vary wildly, and might be magical/monstrous).
• Elaborate landing protocol to indicate peaceful intent when you approach another tribe's shores/lands. (A similar custom called "Stranger Greeting" is described in the fourth installment of "Plague of Light" (Pathfinder Adventure Path #40: The Vaults of Madness.)

For those planning to use public transportation to get to and from the airport or downtown Seattle, I really recommend getting an Orca card. There's a $5 one-time fee, but that quickly evens out because it allows you to transfer between systems (like light rail and Metro bus, or Metro bus and Sound Transit) without paying again—2 transfers and it has paid for itself. And you never need exact change!

Finished Huntress (end got a bit muddled, but a fun read overall—and a queer love story where the same-sexness of the couple isn't the obstacle to the relationship!); just started A Natural History of Dragons, which reads like a memoir of Jane Goodall if she were Victorian and funnier, and had a slightly different set of interests. :P

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Rob: "Most people don't have their tails in front of them."
Adam: "Most people don't have a tail with a snake-head!"

Picked up Huntress by Malinda Lo and am racing through it. Non-Western setting with normalized LGBT relationships—very refreshing!

(Also, rhe "supernatural winter" theme here at work has apparently succeeded in spilling over into my home reading. Hmph.)

Irontruth wrote:

Are you claiming that the women in this thread are just making these incidents up?

Though it's not directed at me, I am a litle skeptical just how often this sort of thing happens...

While I'm not saying that makes me an expert, I've never seen that sort of thing. Guys, well we are just not into rape, despite the picture some women want to paint. It is not a turn on, it is not something we think would be fun, and it is not something we would ever want to think or pretend to do to someone else.

It's happened to me and roughly half the other gamer women i know. And has been repeatedly attested in this thread (and elsewhere on the messageboards). So yes, while the percentage of guys pulling this bs is low, it's something that a LOT of women have to deal with.

And it's very frustrating when despite all those data points, people don't believe that because it hasn't happened to them.

ANYWAY. Any more constructive suggestions, targeting any of the levels of address? We've had some great ones so far!

there could be an ammendment to that of showing a game with a female GM ...

Also done!

That's a good summary Judy. However, you might add the idea for the videos of games being played showing women playing alongside the guys.

Added.

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Recap of suggestions so far, broken down by level at which they should be addressed
There's some overlap between categories; also, after 950-ish posts, I'm surely missing some suggestions—let me know if that's the case!

Paizo (and other publishers):
• Mentoring seminars for women (game design, GMing).
• Art: Less cheesecake (or at least less inappropriate, bikini into combat/bikini on a glacier cheesecake), more normal stances for women.
• Writing: More awesome, plot-relevant, powerful women.
• Cultivate female writers and artists.
• Market research to try to figure out how better to draw in more women/improve the image of the game and the surrounding culture.
• "Key rules" sheet for new players.
• Promotional videos showing both men and women playing.
• Promotional videos showing a female GM.

Gaming events (cons, store games, etc.):
• Have a harassment policy, make everyone aware of it, and ENFORCE IT.
• Make sure there's always someone available who's empowered to deal with harassment, and willing to do so.
• Mentoring seminars for women (game design, GMing).
• Women's only tables
• Encourage women to GM.

GMs
• When gaming with new players, state your expectations about player behavior.
• Enforce courteous behavior. No one gets a free pass.
• Check with players before running adult content (particularly themes of rape and sexism).
• No special rules for a character/player because she's female, unless you've discussed it with the player and the player is cool with it (e.g., female characters shouldn't have to roll for their measurements, no strength penalties for playing a female character, etc.).
• Rein in players who talk over women or barrage them with unsolicited advice ("Excuse me, X was saying something./Give X space—ok, X, your turn!").
• Mix up the kinds of adventures you run to appeal to a wider range of players.
• Mentor women who show interest in GMing.
• "Key rules" sheet for new players.

All players
• Recruit, recruit, recruit! (Accompany to first game as an ally.)
• Listen to female gamers, and take their concerns seriously.
• Rein in players who talk over women or barrage them with unsolicited advice.
• Pay attention to your own speech—don't talk over women or barrage them with unsolicited advice.
• Think about the language you're using to talk to and about women and whether it's different/more derogatory than language used about men (e.g., slut-shaming of sexually active/sexy female characters or players).
• Act as allies to women (and other new players) at the table.
• Don't tolerate harassment.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought there was a woman possessing "at least the powers of a 20th level witch/wizard" who sometimes shows up in the Dancing Hut.

According to Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Artifacts & Legends:

For those who cook with beer, have you tried using homebrew? And if so, would you pour it in dregs and all (mmm, pre-vegemite!) or chuck the dregs like if you were drinking it?

Yes,important issue!

I'm french and,at last,we're in the last part of the legislative process for same-sex marriage,What french politics called "marriage for everyone" which opens at the same time the rights for adoption,it's been a harsh battle between the conservatives and the socialist party those last month but by june I think it will be done.
It's strange cause we've been one of the first countries in europe to authorize same-sex partnership,yet we're one of the last to accept marriage,as if being innovative 14 years ago had made us reluctant then(the fact that the conservatives ruled the country did'nt help,either!).
The battle has been marked by the raise of homophobics and overreligious behaviours but,hey,we knew that was going to happen like 14 years ago!
It's both strange and great to be part of this,cause we hoped it would happen for such a long time but now,it's no longer a pious dream,in a few months the law will be here,the first unions will be taking place and it will be really difficult for the conservatives to unmake,in fact almost impossible,except if the nationalist party wins the next elections(pretty unlikely,imo,but with the actual financial and social crisis you never know),but then it's not the only thing we'll have to worry about!

Welcome, and good luck, good luck! A good friend of mine is visiting Paris now, and has been joining the manifestations in support. (She may also have ulterior motives, like meeting the queer women of France, but still!)

thejeff wrote:

Because we've been doing just what you suggest for those 30 years and the percentage of women is still small. That suggests it hasn't worked for bringing more women into the game.

Despite the claim that "it's only to start with", most players join a group and stick with it, seeing their character grow and level up, they don't jump from game to game like you might with cards or board games.

The approach I've seen has been to explicitly have one-shot games to introduce new players, or players who want to try a new game—play through an adventure and get a sense for the rules, setting, and expectations, just testing the waters. And if there's time for a quick break, you can see what other people are playing, and get a sense of what other games you might be interested in. So there's no commitment to ongoing attendance, which might be another draw for people who are reluctant to commit to a potentially years-long campaign when they're not even sure they LIKE gaming yet.

Alternatively, with Pathfinder Society, there is often less expectation that you'll playing with the same people all the time anyway, so if there were PFS tables at a women's gaming event, you could potentially move from there to any other PFS event with the same character.

Re: the calls for women's game nights from several people, Raygun Lounge here in Seattle has a monthly one, and it's great—at once enthusiastic and low-pressure, plus you get exposure to a ton of new games. If you're in the area, I recommend it!

PFS needs more female GMs. Paizo should put together a mentoring program and Pilot it. The best place to start the Pilot would be PaizoCon. You have awesome resources available at PaizoCon... Lisa, Lillith, Judy, and yourself. Make it more than a panel, get hands on. You want to make women feel comfortable in a big hall situation with lots of tables being run by men change the ratio to 50/50. More female GMs = More male GMs learning from female GMs, sharing experience and culture.

The best way to make a change is top down.

Intriguing! Pinged Jessica to make sure she sees this.

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-It is mens duty to change tis (in a gaming group or in an industry), if

a) the gaming group up to this point is male only and a new player is a woman. It is mens duty then, because it is the 'duty' of the established players to help the new one fit in.
b) the problem is the behavior of men. Women can ask them to change the behavior or leave, but only the men in question can change that behavior.

None of these is misogynistic...

THIS. It's so frustrating, so tiring to always have to ask people to treat you decently with no one to back you up*. And without allies, all you can do is ask, while the harassers can do whatever they want. We're not asking you to start a crusade on our behalf; we're asking you to listen respectfully when we speak up about a problem**, and say something when you see people behaving like jerks.

For those who espouse "You can always leave" as an answer, I recommend this article from Gaming As Women for another perspective.

* I'm grateful to work in a very supportive workplace, especially after all the horror stories I've heard from friends in the tech industry—like being told by HR that harassment doesn't count if it's not in English, and that guys who physically corner and trap you in a confined spare are "just being friendly and you're too sensitive."

** And if it sounds trivial, consider that it might be trivial bs that we're having to deal with ALL THE TIME, and are totally sick of it.

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Lord Fyre wrote:

Alright, can points #2 and #3 be better adapted to the gaming table?

1. Does the adventure have at least two named, reasonably important female NPCs? (i.e. someone with as much a presence as Sheila Heidmarch, Ameiko Kaijitsu...)

2. Would the two female NPCs have reason to talk to each other (potentially off-screen)?
3. Is that reason unrelated to a man (including the PCs)?

I really like the idea of NPCs having offscreen lives! A slightly different approach, however, could be to ask whether there are

1) at least 2 named female NPCs
2) for whom interacting with them advances the plot in a meaningful way
3) and who are neither romantic interests nor people in need of rescue.

IceniQueen wrote:

now one complaint I had with Dragon Age is being a female character you where basically cut off from 1 of the possible choices on how the game ended (3 instead of 4 if memory is correct) This I had a problem with but for some reason I cannot speak what it is now as that was a few years ago.

I don't know why you had a problem with it because that particular ending required you to impregnate Morrigan, which if my memory of biology serves, females can't do.

The problem there is that the creators chose to create a possible ending that only male characters could participate in, when they could easily have come up with an alternative that wasn't gender-dependent.

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Fey Revisited, when it comes out, should provide another fun source of fodder for exploring gender and sexuality on Golarion.

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I'd write something supporting/exploring flumph/humanoid romantic relationships but I honestly can't get past the battery acid smell.

Sorry team.

Don't worry, you already did!

Going back to paladins in Pathfinder, we do have a section in Ultimate Magic on paladin oaths—optional vows paladins can swear to increase their power. About half are oaths to fight specific threats (aberrations, fiends, undead, etc.), and half are oaths to pursue specific virtues: charity, chastity, loyalty, and vengeance.

Here's the description for chastity, the most relevant of these (emphasis mine):

A chaste paladin proves her purity by way of her actions and her abstinence from romantic activities. Many believe that this oath is only about sex, but it is really an oath about the romantic notion that a single person could be more important than all the evils facing the world—it is this perceived selfishness that the bearer of the Oath of Chastity strives to reject. In doing so, she gains purifying power.

I was pondering whether evidentials (markers of whether you have direct evidence for a statement, or it's reported by others, or it's guessed to be true, etc., like in Cheyenne and Kalaallisut) might be a characteristic of Infernal. (In such languages, it is... not false, but ungrammatical—like using the wrong pronoun or tense—to say "It is said that X" when you actually know X to be a fact.)

But that flavor of kind of precision feels like honesty to me; it might be more LG than LE, since it leaves less room for ambiguity-as-traps. I can't decide!

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As a straight guy I find it understandable, but mildly offensive. I have nothing against my gay brethren. I have been rooming with people of all sexual orientations since 09 at a wide variety of cons - to me it would be weird if everyone in the room was straight.

Or viewed from another way, you should be offended—but by the gay-bashers (or sexual predators, from the other example) who make it unsafe to trust random roommates, not by their victims. Those jerks are totally ruining random roommates' reputations!

(I don't mean to pile on you, Freehold GM, I know you're an ally—it just really sucks to get blamed regardless of whether you're a victim (gay panic defense, "she asked for it") or trying to avoid being victimized. It's a lose-lose situation!)

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Tore through Kage Baker's The Women of Nell Gwynne's, and am now diving into Tent Life in Siberia, which turns out to be unexpectedly hilarious in the manner of a Mark Twain travelogue. I am particularly looking forward to CHAPTER XXII: FIRST ATTEMPT AT DOG-DRIVING—UNPREMEDITATED PROFANITY...

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I do, however, disagree with your analogy of a girl post versus a sexual orientation post. Both are definitely discrimination yet both are not equal - one is physical.

Actually, both situations involve physical risks—gay-bashing is still all too common in the US.

@OP, I second Drejk's recommendation. :-)

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Would I feel violated? If those are the rules of the game ("social" rolls and loser must comply, etc), then no.

But then, I'm wise enough to make sure I know what type of game I'm getting into beforehand, so I can avoid creepy rule systems like the one above (misinterpreted rules or otherwise - if the rules are that vague, then forget it).

Victim-blaming.

The fault isn't the game system or that the player in question was "foolish" enough to play that game. The fault is squarely with the GM, for using the rules to break real-world boundaries.

In most gaming groups there's a social contract where regardless of the rule system used, there are lines you don't cross—either you work them out in advance or, if you're friends, you may already have a good sense of each other's limits. Example (trigger warnings!):

No. RAW aside, you just don't spring upsetting things on people without discussion beforehand.

From experience, creepy GMs and players like this will find ways to be creepy regardless of the system. And even if their actions are deemed illegal, they can't unsay them, so it still sucks to be on the receiving end. Sorry you're having to deal with this, Nepherti, and hope you can resolve matters with your other group, too!

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The Inner Sea Primer is a good quickstart guide.

If I remember correctly, there even was a small colony* of Roman traders in southern India.

There've been Jewish communities in India since BCE, too!

Just finished Stay by Nicola Griffith, who has a horrifying habit of writing pastoral scenes with brief asides of the protagonist pondering how best to kill people, and conversations where she thinks, as she's listening, about how easy it would be to kill the person she's talking to. Recommended!

Also Diggers by Terry Pratchett, which I wanted to like, but found disappointingly gender-norm enforcing, and had the angry feminist character being taught the lesson that if she just asks politely, she'll achieve her goals. Uh, sure. Good luck with that.

Now reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson; very soothing. Kage Baker's The House of the Stag is waiting in the wings.

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Adam: You took something I used to f$%~ with you about, and made it annoyingly complicated.
Wes: That's... kind of like winning.

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The best rule is to see what the items in the books do for similar numbers - for example bonus to damage dice is invariable always numerals I.e. 1d12 + 24

This is a good bet, and a great idea in general when creating and formatting items! Our basic rule for stat blocks is that measurements are always presented as numerals (6 minutes, 2 rounds, 4d6 points of damage, 5 levels,...), but for miscellaneous countable items, numbers under 10 are spelled out (two shuriken, three creatures, and nine targets, but 10 arrows).