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Irony?One thing I’d like to see less of is the random ‘his/her “ in Class write ups, a bad remainder from earlier editions, where they (wrongly) thought this was being politically correct. It’s just bad English.No, bad English is using "they" as a singular pronoun. Our style guide is informed primarily by The Chicago Manual of Style, and they say:
The Chicago Manual of Style is neither male nor female, and therefore saying "he" or "she" is not appropriate. I'd go with "it," but "they" works, too.
Perhaps the OP would be better off playing The Smurfs RPG, smurfs seem to have a gender balance more akin to his taste.
Personally I think neutral gendered non-plural-specific 'they' is a great grammatical usage, and has been used by many great English writers. There's plenty of other grammatical terms that derive from some other specific meaning including shifts in plurality, but have found broader usage. Perhaps it may not always be totally clear whether the usage is singular or plural, but other English words suffer similar issues, and lacking plural he/she the plural 'they' suffers similar vagary re: the gender of the group being referred to... so it's not really any divergence from clarity standards of English.
Regardless, that doesn't really matter for the class write-up's, they're all written as if talking about the iconic of that class, and so all are written with the specific gender inflections appropriate to that character. If there is no rules impediment to female NPC/PCs adopting any and all classes, why should there be surprise when there are in fact female iconics?
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Fact: Most gamers are male, and most of those play male characters.You're confused about what "fact" means.
And also wrong.
You seriously need to attend GenCon at least once before you make such contradictory statements. It's a fact.
No, it's not a fact. Con attendance is not representative of who actually plays games, any more than posting demographics on a forum are an accurate microcosm of who actually reads a forum. In both cases, you're looking at a highly self-selecting group that is choosing to be visible.
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No, it's not a fact. Con attendance is not representative of who actually plays games, any more than posting demographics on a forum are an accurate microcosm of who actually reads a forum. In both cases, you're looking at a highly self-selecting group that is choosing to be visible.
Fact: Most gamers are male, and most of those play male characters.You're confused about what "fact" means.
And also wrong.
You seriously need to attend GenCon at least once before you make such contradictory statements. It's a fact.
Also some of us females can't afford to attend cons/don't have the time to attend cons...
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Also some of us females can't afford to attend cons/don't have the time to attend cons...
And all males can and do?
I removed some off-topic posts.
Contributor
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Fact: Most gamers are male, and most of those play male characters.You're confused about what "fact" means.
And also wrong.
You seriously need to attend GenCon at least once before you make such contradictory statements. It's a fact.
There are plenty of women who play and run games. There are plenty of men who play female characters. I'll save everyone's time by refraining from listing all of the supporting examples I've seen (at Gen Con and other cons) and read of these two statements ... I'll just say that I didn't think it was even an issue anymore whether or not there is significant female representation in games and gaming.
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Today I learned I don't qualify as a gamer because I don't go to cons, apparently.
I've really come to hate the word "twee" in recent years.
I know. It's very "irksome." Don't like that one either.
This thread seems poorly thought out. Sorry OP, but the ramifications of saying that males do not have enough variation or representation in tabletop figures is just flat-out wrong.
In fact, 50% representation of genders should be a general rule across all media. You know, like how the population of the planet actually is. Heck, I think there may even be more women than men on Earth in the current age.
Heck, when you get right down to it switching things up and producing around 55% female minis for the next five years or so might be a good idea. Heck, it would make the gender gap in representation slightly more even. I mean heck, there's enough male miniatures out there already to satisfy everybody. Heck, you just gotta look.
Heck, heck, heck.
Also some of us females can't afford to attend cons/don't have the time to attend cons...And all males can and do?
Don't remember saying that. Interesting.
I've really come to hate the word "twee" in recent years.
This is the first time I'd ever heard it. Had to google it in fact, but your point it taken.
I've really come to hate the word "twee" in recent years.I know. It's very "irksome." Don't like that one either.
This thread seems poorly thought out. Sorry OP, but the ramifications of saying that males do not have enough variation or representation in tabletop figures is just flat-out wrong.
In fact, 50% representation of genders should be a general rule across all media. You know, like how the population of the planet actually is. Heck, I think there may even be more women than men on Earth in the current age.
Heck, when you get right down to it switching things up and producing around 55% female minis for the next five years or so might be a good idea. Heck, it would make the gender gap in representation slightly more even. I mean heck, there's enough male miniatures out there already to satisfy everybody. Heck, you just gotta look.
Heck, heck, heck.
In fairness to the OP, he was specifically speaking of the Pathfinder line. Now I haven't checked his numbers on that line specifically, but he may be right. I don't know his reasons for focusing on only the pathfinder line (at style, feels it supports Paizo more, doesn't really matter), but the responses that there are a VERY large number of male minis when one considers all sources with lots of variety is also true. Reapers other metal minis are good and I have found there to be a large variety of figures both male and female. The assertion the the majority of gamers are male was more than a little loaded. Thats as much as I want to put in on the whole gender gap discussion.
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I know it has been mentioned before but seriously take a look at Privateer Press there are a lot (probably in the area of 70%) of female fighter types that are in functional armour and the more spellcaster types generally are fully clothed. They also do a lot of paladin type models just look for the Menoth models
Examples
Full clothed sorcerer/wizard female elf link
link
link
Fighter types
link
For others look at the warcasters from Khador, Menoth, Cygnar and the Retribution.
Personally I use PP model as they all look close to what I envision and they look functional both in battle and walking around.
As for comments about male/female gamers, I know quite a few female gamers most who have not only gone to cons but have been there as GMs and really I enjoy seeing them there as it shows how much we have come as a gaming community that they are not biased against. Paizo has done a lot of great work in showing balance in both race and gender compared to the how things were a decade ago.
Now that I have made these points, I shall get off the soapbox and leave you to think about it.
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To the OP:
The miniatures sculpted by Reaper are almost always from an illustration published by Paizo. They look through lots of illustrations and make what they like.
Essentially, you are never going to get a "male" version of a female illustration or a male version of a female illustration.
I don't know if WizKids do the same, but it seems to be that way.
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One thing I’d like to see less of is the random ‘his/her “ in Class write ups, a bad remainder from earlier editions, where they (wrongly) thought this was being politically correct. It’s just bad English.They use his or her based on the gender of the iconic. It is not random at all. If you notice, you will not see a "he" in the Barbarian (Amiri) or Cleric (Kyra) sections. That's one purpose of having an iconic.
WoTC's old D&D survey had 18% of respondents say they were female, AIR. The demographics at my Meetup, which has a few hundred members, match that pretty closely.
IME Male players often play female characters, female players often play male characters, so I'm not sure that the demographics of players is very relevant to the demographics of minis.
Paizo certainly have a lot of female characters. I think they have a decent number of male characters too; though it would be nice to have male representatives of every class, it's pretty easy to substitute.
Companies like Reaper that sell minis individually say the female ones sell better than the male ones, btw. It may be that painters (of both sexes?) like painting female minis. >:)
Ral Partha used to produce miniatures in pairs, one male, one female....[/i]
I really, really loved those pairs of miniatures, but couldn't afford to buy more than a couple back in the day. Still have the human paladin pair, the human rogue pair, dwarf fighter pair, and gnome(?) rogue pair around, somewhere, in a box of old metal miniatures.
When I got back into miniatures again a couple years ago, I was very disappointed that I couldn't find those Ral Partha sets anymore!
I think some similar pairs of PC types, at least for the more popular race/class combinations (of course it would be counter-productive and impossible to cover every possible PC race/class combination), bundled up into "Encounter Pack" packages, might work with some success.
I mean, picture a Druid-themed Encounter Pack, with a matching male and female Druid, and a couple great animal companions: they're great for Druid players, who could put at least a couple of the miniatures in place. And, they're useful for DMs, who could still find a use for the Druids as NPCs, and the animal companions as monsters. Fighters, packaged with some squire-type NPCs. Rogues, with shifty characters from the local Thieves' Guild of various races (who could double as PCs in their own right, or serve as NPC townsfolk both dishonest or honest).
With many NPC, familiar, and animal sculpts already out there in existing Pathfinder Battles sets and others likely to appear in future sets, a lot of such packs could re-use existing miniatures sculpts, with only a couple new additions each.
I don't mind it. I play both male and female PCs. So I need male and female minis. Plus two of the people in my group are girls and they need them badly. So I actually think it should be more scewed toward 50/50 rather than 45/55.
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That sounds...weird. 30 seconds is way too short for something to not have been going on before hand. Did they get the word out about the plan? That's so fast.
I'm sure they had a pre-announcement about the kickstarter, and people were counting down to it. It's fairly common to build up anticipation that way.
I originally found Raging Heroes through Coolminiornot
I wonder if word got out through there because I certainly did not hear about this from anywhere else
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Just an observation and probably mentioned before that many of the character classes I would like to see from reaper for pathfinder are female character based when I would prefer a male version of them as well. Since a majority of gamers are male who don't tend to play female characters, can we get a male paladin, cleric, etc to buy instead of the female version I won't be playing and won't need to buy?
That goes for the metal reaper as well as the new painted plastic minis.Thanks!
Your experience is not universal. Quit acting like it is, and quit dismissing women's involvement in gaming.
Thanks!
He is not dismissing women's involvement in gaming. He is simply asking for more variety in the minis so he can more easily find a mini that represents his male characters instead of resorting using Amiri to represent his male barbarian. That isn't unreasonable or sexist at all. If I am playing a hulking, male barbarian, it's perfectly reasonable for me to want a mini that accuarately represents him instead of using the iconic female barbarian and pretend it doesn't have breasts.
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DSXMachina's numbers sound about right... that 30% of gamers at a public convention will be female.
But this is also in line with the conversation we were having in the Jessica Price thread, which is that a large number of women do not attend public gaming events because they are afraid of/do not want to have to deal with mistreatment by the men who tell them that they're only less than 1% of the population do everything to make them feel like they don't belong in the community, and encouraging that they are marginalized representationally, such as asking that they be portrayed even less often than they are in artwork, adventures, and miniatures (I include artwork and adventures in this because Paizo's miniatures and tokens are based on NPCs in their adventures. Asking for fewer female miniatures effectively is asking for fewer notable female NPCs and iconics).
The actual number of women who game is probably much higher (my personal guesstimate that 40% of tabletop gamers are women), but getting them to attend public events to "get counted" is a big hurdle to overcome. Telling us we don't exist doesn't help.
And as it is, I think I'm done with the Paizo community for awhile. I'm tired of being told I don't count or that I'm nonexistent or that my opinion isn't valuable. I'll stick with my PBPs and that's it. I'm tired of feeling angry every day because of a message board, and more to the point, I know I'm getting shrill because of the frustration I feel, and that doesn't help provide effective or productive discourse on the matter.
I find it hard to believe that females make up 40% of the player base. There are certainly more than there used to be, and the number is climbing, but I don't think that, realistically, it is anywhere near that. I think that saying they are 10% of the player base is being generous. Seeing table of all males playing Pathfidner, D&D, etc, isn't just common. It is the norm. This doesn't mean I am being sexist or trying to marginalize female gamers. It's just true that there are much fewer female gamers than male games most likely because killing dragons with swords and explosions appeals to males more than it does females. It's not necessarily bad. It's just the way it is.
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To be honest I don't care what the ratio of women to men gamers is, I want there to be a realistic ration because that what life has. I have never based any figure demand on the people around my table. I want Orcs. Half-Elves, Elves, Dwarves, and yes, a nice selection of female figures in realistic looking outfits.
Yeah, it's really "twee" to try to be more inclusive of female gamers by (1) having half the iconics be female, and (2) actually refer to "she" and "her" more than once in a blue moon.
Sorry, missed this one first time round; no one was questioning the use of the iconics, just the gender serendipity of the write ups. Make the class descriptors gender neutral if you are really feel that there is a need to balance things up.
I'd say this could be seen as a pretty resounding response to the original question.
These are pretty epic - If we played SCI-FI games my daughter would be getting a set for sure.
Wonder if they'll do a fantasy one?
Ah... I had to look so hard to find fem minis pre pathfinder. Thanks, PF, for making female minis... :)
Sorry, missed this one first time round; no one was questioning the use of the iconics, just the gender serendipity of the write ups. Make the class descriptors gender neutral if you are really feel that there is a need to balance things up.
So use "it" in the class writeups?
(Personally, I prefer "you," but I wasn't consulted on it at the time. :))
I'd say this could be seen as a pretty resounding response to the original question.These are pretty epic - If we played SCI-FI games my daughter would be getting a set for sure.
Wonder if they'll do a fantasy one?
No kidding on these being epic. I also would just all over a fantasy one if they do it...
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I'd say this could be seen as a pretty resounding response to the original question.
On the one hand, some of the poses and costume designs bug me. That damn "knees bent inwards" thing on hardened warriors/soldiers...
On the other hand, I really want that Cruz miniature. Bad. Ass.
So use "it" in the class writeups?(Personally, I prefer "you," but I wasn't consulted on it at the time. :))
The Elf, An Elf, Elvish, Elven...
The could also be used, however it sounds a little dry, I agree that 'you' is also a great choice.
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Interesting seeing all the posts here on fanservice-ish models. I got a randomised pack of Wizards of the Coast minis for the D&D battle game years ago, before I got into role-playing seriously. Female models were chronically under-represented in proportion to the rest of the box, true...but the three female models there (Alusair Obarskyr, Sharn Cutthroat and Champion of Yondalla) were all wearing proper armour, nothing remotely fanservice-y about them. Heck, I use the Obarskyr for my female Paladin. So maybe this is a case where Wizards got something right :-)
On the main topic, I think it's cool that Paizo is so inclusive. Plus some of the best gamers I know are women, so...
I'd say this could be seen as a pretty resounding response to the original question.On the one hand, some of the poses and costume designs bug me. That damn "knees bent inwards" thing on hardened warriors/soldiers...
On the other hand, I really want that Cruz miniature. Bad. Ass.
When a dame's gotta go, she really gotta go.
I originally found Raging Heroes through Coolminiornot
I wonder if word got out through there because I certainly did not hear about this from anywhere else
Anticipation has been building on 40K boards for a while. People have been looking for female IG for quite some time. Their previously released models have been great for things like Commissars.
Anticipation has been building on 40K boards for a while. People have been looking for female IG for quite some time. Their previously released models have been great for things like Commissars.I originally found Raging Heroes through Coolminiornot
I wonder if word got out through there because I certainly did not hear about this from anywhere else
oh okay probably why I missed it since I tend to avoid GW stuff
not because I do not like it but mostly because I would be too tempted to buy it all and wind up living in a cardboard box
but yeah that was the first thing I thought is that these would be a great Imperial Guard army
My wife also has her eye on a couple Raging Heroes releases for her upcoming PF gunslinger
The Elf, An Elf, Elvish, Elven...
So use "it" in the class writeups?(Personally, I prefer "you," but I wasn't consulted on it at the time. :))
That would be horribly awkward to read, and you can't assume what race the player's character is, so you can't call out specific races in class writeups.
Anyway, you not liking using the iconics' genders is your personal pet peeve. Using the gender pronouns is a perfectly valid choice. It's not as reader-friendly as using "you," but it avoids having to slap an indefinite article or race name whenever you want to use a pronoun.
That would be horribly awkward to read, and you can't assume what race the player's character is, so you can't call out specific races in class writeups.
The cavalier, a cavalier, your cavalier...
Relevant pronoun in the relevant context.
Yes the use of the Iconics is a peeve of mine, however this is firstly because they could just as easily shape peoples belief that there was only one doctrinal way to play said class and stifle creativity. Off the back of that falls the strange she/he conversation which I don't see as really aiding the representation issue any more than simply colouring in one of the Power Rangers bright pink. We just end up gender stereotyping classes instead - "Sorcerers are for girls, Wizards are for boys".
I'd happily bet you that if you took a bunch of young players just exposed to the game aside, let them read the gender loaded class write ups and then asked "Which one is for boys, which one is for girls" you would get an answer you really didn't want as they categorised them 1 for 1 with the iconics.
At the end of the day, I don't write the books so I can only sit at the sideline throwing my 2 cents at it. Do I like it? No, I don't think the style is particularly good and is a 90's blowback, but that's whats written so I have to generally ignore it.
The only time I find gender pronouns a bit off is in books like Ultimate Combat, where the archetype's art might not mesh with the class's original iconic. Off of the top of my head, the illustration for the Dervish Dancer in Ultimate Combat is an elven woman, but the text constantly refers to the character as "he" because Lem, the iconic bard, is male.
But anyway, miniatures! Why don't we all agree that every company needs to make more miniatures of every class in every race imaginable, both male, female, and and celebrate the closing of this thread with drinks? Sean's treat. ;-)
Nothing wrong with moar minis! I've been tasked with elven female archers as the 'must get', preferably ones that look a bit tough. Hard call for an Elf.