Ker-triage! And Creatures.

[stubby]

Alternately: for each limb, device, or part grafted, the Biomechanik rolls once on the Ker-Frankenstein table. Same as the Medik, a properly equipped Biomechanik rolls 1d8, an improperply equipped one rolls 1d6, and each assistant increases the die by one size up to 1d12.

1 The creature turns on its creators.
2-4 Something goes wrong. Roll for results.
5+ The part is attached successfully.

[pkbrennan]

I like the latest idea best for a Ker-Frankenstein! table.

As for the "Something goes Awry" subtable, it should only have a handful of options to keep it slim and not slow down the game much at all. I am thinking four or five at most.

1. (critical failure) It runs off and joins the other team (opposing player now takes control of that unit until the end of the game or until it is killed)
2. The brain used was "Abby Normal's". It has a half-mind and is submissive, as per horses...
3. Something went wrong with its dexterity. Skill becomes 1d6-1
4. Something went wrong with its speed. -1 Move (so 4" instead of 5")

K.I.S.S. is the order of the day, here.

[Voin]

Nah, just leave that to Mechaniks with their field construction ability. Useful for reconstructing the parts of multiple fallen creatures and minifigs into something bigger and meaner. For suggestions on how to accomplish this, see dirtycajun in this battle.

That battle was great!

Solution: Steroids. Inject some liquid OT or something into a creature's veins, and it'll be good to go.

You know where I can get some of that for recreational purposes um, a science experiment?

I personally think it seems a little overkill to give a single minifig both powers. If he's a hero with a biomechanical expert cliche or something, then sure. But for a regular minifig to have both would be a little too much, at least in my opinion.

I've noticed a lot of people seem to think that it's OP to give a single fig multiple specialties, but I respectfully disagree. Here's why:
6) For active abilities, unless you also gave the fig multitasking (which may be OP for all but the most exotic of multibrained or esoterikally-trained figs), it can sill only do 1 action in a turn. A separate Mechanik and separate Medik can do both a Construction Action and attempt Ker-Triage within the same round because they're two separate figs. A Med-chanik can only do one.

7) Putting all your eggs in one basket: If I have a team composed of a Medik, a Mechanik, a Scout, a Gunner, a Pilot, and a Heavy, that's 6 different figs that I have out on the battlefield doing stuff. If one of them gets splattered, oh well, that sucks, but I still have 5 more to bring the pain. If I cram all those specialties together into one super-soldier, yes, he's cheaper in terms of CP, and yes, he's more versatile for handling various situations, but he's still a size-1" fig, and if he gets ker-splopded, there goes my 1-man army.

A single fig (even with multitasking) can only be in one place at a time. Even if you were to try to stat out Dr. Manhattan, with a 16" superhero move speed (the upper limit), multitasking, multidexterity (for slipping Silk Spectre II his blue glowy schlong while fixing a particle reactor), and whatever other crap you wanted to cram in his glowing blue ass, he'd still only be able to accomplish less than a bunch of 1-trick penises all separately doing their things.

I believe in memetic Darwinism. Who has more cultural traction in today's audience - the original literary Frankenstein, or the movie version with Igor? For that matter, when you say "Frankenstein," how many people think of the doctor, and how many think of the monster? The solitary version of Doctor Frankenstein was fine for his day, but he is no longer relevant to ours. There's something about mad scientists with assistants that is much more compelling to our modern culture than mad scientists by themselves.

Didn't the monster say something about "taking on his father's name" toward the end? So it would be appropriate to refer to both the creature and the Doctor as "Frankenstein". (Just remember, that one of them went to Mad Medical School, and will appreciate being referred to as "Dr.")

Also, if by memetic Darwinism you mean what I think you mean, then I'd have to raise issue with a lot of the "adaptations" being dummied down or the adapters not even bothering to read the source material. For example, it does nobody any good to portray Watson as a bumbling sidekick. Watson was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was pretty much as smart as Holmes (albeit in different fields), and kicked serious ass alongside Holmes. And the portrayals by Jude Law and Martin Freeman bring back badass Watson, rather than continue slogging along with the lame Watson that was unfortunately ingrained in the public subconscious through decades of half-assed adaptations.

Memetic Darwinism is fine if it makes us picture Batman as the dark, kickass Nolan version, rather than the campy old 60s TV one (or worse yet, Schumaker's Bat-nipples version), but if it takes a character or concept that was originally awesome (like vampires) and waters it down to some unrecognizable sparkly-fairy, effeminite-goth, wants-to-have-sex-with-you-but-cannot-becuase-teenage-angst bullshit, then it's a load of crap and need to be culturally rejected.

[stubby]

Also, if by memetic Darwinism you mean what I think you mean, then I'd have to raise issue with a lot of the "adaptations" being dummied down or the adapters not even bothering to read the source material. For example, it does nobody any good to portray Watson as a bumbling sidekick. Watson was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was pretty much as smart as Holmes (albeit in different fields), and kicked serious ass alongside Holmes. And the portrayals by Jude Law and Martin Freeman bring back badass Watson, rather than continue slogging along with the lame Watson that was unfortunately ingrained in the public subconscious through decades of half-assed adaptations.

Memetic Darwinism is fine if it makes us picture Batman as the dark, kickass Nolan version, rather than the campy old 60s TV one (or worse yet, Schumaker's Bat-nipples version), but if it takes a character or concept that was originally awesome (like vampires) and waters it down to some unrecognizable sparkly-fairy, effeminite-goth, wants-to-have-sex-with-you-but-cannot-becuase-teenage-angst bullshit, then it's a load of crap and need to be culturally rejected.

Survival of the fittest. If the lame version wins over the awesome version, then the lame version must have been more compelling somehow.

But it seems unlikely that the lame versions will win in the long run. Bumbling Watson came into prominence during the 20th century when the western world needed to reassure itself in the primacy of messianic experts and geniuses in the face of world-wide political and economic collapses and the advent of the nuclear bomb. (This is the same schema that brought us Doctor Who.) Think about which producers benefit from selling that view of reality, and which populations of consumers are comforted by buying into it, and then you see why "a normal guy like me does not need to fear seemingly unsolvable problems because a super expert is able to solve everything" was briefly much more attractive and successful than "two super-competent bros fight crime together."

Nowadays nobody believes they're helpless; our problem instead is what's called the super-empowered individual. The terrorist bringing Boston to its knees isn't some criminal mastermind with a secret island volcano hideout, it's a kid with a pressure-cooker in a backpack and a connection to the internet. Thanks the advance of consumer technology, every one of us has powers and resources that were reserved only for nation-states only a couple of decades ago. So our fantasies aren't the fantasies of helpless people wishing for someone to protect helpless people anymore. Now we fantasize about being badasses, and the modern memetic environment has no room for a bumbling Watson. His meme shrivels and dies in a culture like ours.

(Now make your helpless character a woman, on the other hand, and people will still eat that shit up. Western culture still loves treating women like helpless props for male adventures.)

[Voin]

Bumbling Watson came into prominence during the 20th century when the western world needed to reassure itself in the primacy of messianic experts and geniuses in the face of world-wide political and economic collapses and the advent of the nuclear bomb. (This is the same schema that brought us Doctor Who.)

I never really thought of it that way, but I suppose you have a good point.

The terrorist bringing Boston to its knees isn't some criminal mastermind with a secret island volcano hideout, it's a kid with a pressure-cooker in a backpack and a connection to the internet.

And training from Chechen terrorists. Russian authorities warned the US gov't about that, but the American authorities chose to ignore it and let those two back into the country anyway, figuring "there wasn't enough to go on". A similar "oops" occurred with the terrorist attack perpetrated by that stripped-of-his-former-rank traitor Hassan Nidal with the Ft. Hood shooting - he had been in contact with extremist groups, but the higher-ups decided "eh, it's probably not serious enough to bother looking into". Those cowardly acts weren't perpetrated in a vacuum - and in both cases the authorities had advance intel on the impending situation but chose to ignore it - and then innocent people died. And yet when some dumb teenager tweets "DiZ concert is gonna be DA BOMB, dudebros!" the government reacts with



...AND ARREST THAT LITTLE SHITHEAD!!!

Because scoring political points for the neverending war on the vague concept of terror in easy mode is still scoring points.

Thanks the advance of consumer technology, every one of us has powers and resources that were reserved only for nation-states only a couple of decades ago. So our fantasies aren't the fantasies of helpless people wishing for someone to protect helpless people anymore. Now we fantasize about being badasses, and the modern memetic environment has no room for a bumbling Watson. His meme shrivels and dies in a culture like ours.

And so now it seems like nearly every character is made into a super-genius/badass, and when everyone is a super-genius/badass, no one is.

(Now make your helpless character a woman, on the other hand, and people will still eat that shit up. Western culture still loves treating women like helpless props for male adventures.)

So where are all the women standing up for depictions of their gender in media? If they say nothing, don't make any waves, and don't make their own films/tv/whatever, then that's taken as a sign by those in the industry that the audience is content with the male-centric content being put out. In America, your silence is your consent. I know Hollywood isn't exactly a democracy, but we still vote with our dollars - that's how a free market works. So if women are still buying tickets to go see "The Adventures of Chad Penis-haver: The one where he drives fast cars while shooting at things and banging supermodels, part VI", then they're saying they still want that kind of media being made, and they're ultimately fine with women being quest rewards.

And it's not like back in the old days where your only entertainment options were 3 TV channels, a couple radio stations, the local dime-theater, and watching the village mule kick your cousin in the head. We are saturated beyond all measure with entertainment options. There's too much of even the good, prominent stuff that your friends and co-workers talk about to keep up with - and that's the new stuff. We can read classics from all of history while sitting on the toilet. I can can get media from nearly all the cultures of the world, in almost any language. It's never been easier for upstart, indie content to get seen - everyone with so much as access to a public library can be self-published and gain fan following. A random street performer in some town you never heard of can have a video of them (even recorded by someone else) go viral before the end of the day.

Western society has reached the point where all genders are about equal in their consumption of media - interactive media like games included. So if we want more depictions of strong, independent female characters in media (and not just fap-fodder like Lara Croft), then women need to step up their game and make such characters happen. A great example is Lost Girl, starring Anna Silk. The titular character is an phenomenal female protagonist, and the series explores such deep-seated themes as coming to terms with one's identity and sexuality, supernatural shenanigans, dealing with long-standing family grudges, smashing zombies, standing up against hide-bound oppressive regimes, stabbing demons, what to do if the man you love is a werewolf and the woman you love is a mortal, sacrifices we make for friendship, and just how far can you trust faerie-tale creatures that feed off various aspects of human existence. And it does it all without insulting the audiences intelligence, trying to make us feel ashamed of our penises, or smacking us in the face with a militant feminism anvil.

This reminds me of the pilot episode of Boston Legal, where a major case revolved around a black girl wanting to play Little Orphan Annie in a theatre (doesn't seem so out of the ordinary now, does it?). And at the end of that episode, someone slimier than a typical lawyer shows up in the courtroom - Al Sharpton bursts in (apropos of nothing) and exclaims "Let her, play the part, give us a black Spider-Man too while you're at it! Yaddah, yadda, etc"

Now I have no problem with Little Orphan Annie or Nick Fury or whoever being portrayed by black actors. Samuel L. Muthafuckin' Jackson plays a kick-ass Nick Fury. His version is the one that says "Bad Mutha-Fucker" on it. But would people like Sharpton be as supportive if Storm, Luke Cage (Power Man), or the Falcon were suddenly portrayed by an Asian or Hispanic actor? Sure, Storm is African, but what if the next version reboots her as the Egyptian kind of African? We already had plenty of characters' backgrounds lost in the current X-Men (Colossus being Russian, Nightcrawler being Mystique's son, Prof. X & Juggernaut being brothers, Magneto being the father of incestuous siblings Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, etc). Anyway, point is, if somebody wants more black actors playing cool roles, they should make more original awesome black characters. Wouldn't that be so much more dignified than trying to piggyback off of the legacy of characters that had been white for over 50 years?

The world does not hand you fairness on a silver platter. You have to reach in to the mess, get your hands dirty, and claw it out out for yourself.


Good cultural discussion, but we are way off topic.

[stubby]

So where are all the women standing up for depictions of their gender in media?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L_Wmeg7OTU

So if we want more depictions of strong, independent female characters in media (and not just fap-fodder like Lara Croft), then women need to step up their game and make such characters happen.

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/2 ... y-her-job/


This is something I could go on about for weeks (and have, in the past). Women have been stepping up since the very dawn of gaming, and a virulent segment of the population rises up to destroy them. I've been in the conference rooms when female game heroes get changed to male ones because the execs don't want to rock the boat, and I've been in companies where female-led games got axed by the publishers because the developers refused to make that gender swap.

This recent thing with Gamergate isn't something new. If you've spent any time working in video games and entertainment, you've seen women get harrassed and hounded out until they're forced to leave the industry, over and over and over again. It's not a once-in-awhile thing, I've seen it at literally every video game company I've ever worked at, and at every (non-indie) video game company anyone I've known has ever worked at. The weird thing would be to see a woman in video games not being abused.

I don't know if you have any women friends in the game industry; I have probably around a hundred. Ask them to tell you about the industry abuse sometime. Every one of them will have a story.

In America, your silence is your consent. I know Hollywood isn't exactly a democracy, but we still vote with our dollars - that's how a free market works.

That's part of what I was saying about memetic Darwinism. But, also like American democracy, we only get to "vote" on the options that the richest top tier allow - politicians who are on the side of anyone with less than a billion dollars in the corporate account are not picked up by the major parties. Instead, 99% of the time, we're stuck choosing between either a Republican or a Democrat, rather than someone who isn't going to fuck us bloody and then send us a bill for the dry-cleaning.

So yeah, we're stuck holding out hope for the indies to take over and get us all out from under the thumbs of the corporate interests who are vested in propagating the male-hero-female-object schema (because market segmentation makes marketing a hell of a lot easier and more profitable). If you could see my online friendslists, you'd see a couple hundred of their names; they're out there plugging away, although they're never going to get the millions of dollars of corporate marketing support like Chad Penis-Haver would.

I guess even I count as an indie game maker, sort of, although being limited to Lego means that I tend to hit the gender thing from a screwy angle.

And at the end of that episode, someone slimier than a typical lawyer shows up in the courtroom - Al Sharpton bursts in (apropos of nothing) and exclaims "Let her, play the part, give us a black Spider-Man too while you're at it! Yaddah, yadda, etc"

Oh my god, have you ever been involved in something that got surprise co-opted by Al Sharpton? It happened to me once back in the nineties in New York. It's completely accurate, he really does burst in apropos of nothing exactly as depicted. You end up just standing around with your jaw hanging open wondering what the hell just happened.

But would people like Sharpton be as supportive if Storm, Luke Cage (Power Man), or the Falcon were suddenly portrayed by an Asian or Hispanic actor?

I'm going to have to object on the grounds that there are no other people like Sharpton. He is a species to himself.

Good cultural discussion, but we are way off topic.

Memetic Darwinism in action.

[stubby]

I don't know if you have any women friends in the game industry; I have probably around a hundred. Ask them to tell you about the industry abuse sometime. Every one of them will have a story.

Actually some of them are on this forum, now that I think of it. I just asked one of them "hey, why don't you make games with female leads?" and she said, and I quote, "Because someone would blow up my house and rape my dog. We tried it, and that's what happens."

So there you go. There are more forces at play than just whether people are voting with their dollars.

[loafofcheese]

I don't know if you have any women friends in the game industry; I have probably around a hundred. Ask them to tell you about the industry abuse sometime. Every one of them will have a story.

Actually some of them are on this forum, now that I think of it. I just asked one of them "hey, why don't you make games with female leads?" and she said, and I quote, "Because someone would blow up my house and rape my dog. We tried it, and that's what happens."

So there you go. There are more forces at play than just whether people are voting with their dollars.

That Chris Kluwe blog post you tweeted a few weeks ago really needs more people to see it.
https://medium.com/the-cauldron/why-gamergaters-piss-me-the-f-off-a7e4c7f6d8a6

[Voin]

Any sort of societal change is a complex process, I understand that. And yes, I am aware of the struggles women developers face, and I respect their efforts. But what about women consumers? Those market shares only exist because the consumers choose to throw their money at one thing over another. The rich and powerful are that way because those around them allowed them to be.

This is similar to the argument I use on the issue of "do fans have the right to complain when their favorite game/fandom takes a turn they don't like" (i.e. Star Wars, Mass Effect, Fallout). While I do acknowledge that the intellectual property belongs to the creators and they can do whatever they want with their works, they also need to respect the fans that made them rich in the first place (because we loved their work) and not ruin Star Wars by giving us a cartoon rabbit that steps in the poopy. Bethesda understood this concept and fixed Fallout 3 at the request of fans. Sure, a creator is in their right to say "screw the fans, I do what I want", but there are plenty of starving artists out there smearing shit on the walls that no one wants to pay them for. When you make money off your art, it's not just art anymore, it's a business transaction, and your income relies on giving your customers something they want to give you money for.

Yes, there are plenty of popular things that us thinking people tend to agree is objectively shit - Smiley Virus, the Transformers movies, Congress, etc. And yet, these trashheaps remain in their place because the masses - not just tbe power elite - allow them to. Congress' approval rating has been at an all-time low, and yet 2012 was a year when the majority of incumbents got re-elected.

People say their dissatisfied with the status quo, but when it comes time to decide, they seem to not give a damn. I'm not even talking about cleansing the corruption from the halls of power with bullet, blade, and flame, I'm talking about something as simple and civilised as casting a vote or choosing what you spend your entertainment money on like Bonn-o-Tron.

And what about gender/race-neutral games like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, etc? Those are some very popular games, they made a lot of money, and you can choose for the protagonist to be something other than " white, dark-haired, 30-something male". And that's not even counting MMOs like WoW, thatalso have a plethora of character choices.

[stubby]

Any sort of societal change is a complex process, I understand that. And yes, I am aware of the struggles women developers face, and I respect their efforts. But what about women consumers? Those market shares only exist because the consumers choose to throw their money at one thing over another. The rich and powerful are that way because those around them allowed them to be.

To that I say (a) choosing one thing over another isn't a choice when both the one things and the others are all the same thing. Walmart doesn't stock the non-Chad-Penishaver products, and less than 10% of the U.S. / 5% of Europe is on Steam. And (b), women consumers get hounded out the same as women creators. Ask your friends what happens to them in online games when the other players find out they're women.

Yes, there are plenty of popular things that us thinking people tend to agree is objectively shit - Smiley Virus, the Transformers movies, Congress, etc. And yet, these trashheaps remain in their place because the masses - not just tbe power elite - allow them to. Congress' approval rating has been at an all-time low, and yet 2012 was a year when the majority of incumbents got re-elected.

What does that tell you about the options on the table? If you hate the guy in office, but you're stuck with him because the only other option on the ballot is even worse, the problem isn't that the voting public is stupid. It's that the political duopoly prevents us from having real options.

And what about gender/race-neutral games like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, etc? Those are some very popular games, they made a lot of money, and you can choose for the protagonist to be something other than " white, dark-haired, 30-something male". And that's not even counting MMOs like WoW, thatalso have a plethora of character choices.

Yeah, BioWare games are my favorites, but even I would never claim that any of them were games about female protagonists. They're games about generic protagonists. You might as well be playing as a rectangle with options for different colored polka dots.

[Zupponn]

less than 10% of the U.S. / 5% of Europe is on Steam.

Where did you get these numbers?

I did some research and found that there have been roughly 7.4 million WiiU, 6.1 million XBOX One, and 12.4 million PS4 systems sold globally since they've been released. Source

There were 9,611,717 unique users on DOTA 2 last month. Source

Doing the math and assuming that both the DOTA 2 users make up all of the Steam users, which they don't, and that people only have one of these 4 options, which they don't, that 9.6 million would be 27%* of the market. Since both of those assumptions are not true, that percentage only goes up.

*I'll note that I'm both not including older systems and handheld systems in this percentage. I figure that people who only own older systems don't count in this issue because they cannot buy new titles, so they are not in the current market. The handheld systems become much more difficult because I assume that a very large portion of those users also have a home system as well. I'm also not sure if handheld systems really can compare directly to Steam because they share few to no games.

[Voin]

To that I say (a) choosing one thing over another isn't a choice when both the one things and the others are all the same thing. Walmart doesn't stock the non-Chad-Penishaver products, and less than 10% of the U.S. / 5% of Europe is on Steam. And (b), women consumers get hounded out the same as women creators.

That's what I'm saying though - Walmart and lamestream media isn't the only choice in 21st-century America. I can get all sorts of exotic, indie content without ever leaving the house. It's like how when people say "there's no good music being made anymore", it's code for "I haven't figured out how to use Pandora". We as a society have an unprecedented level of access to content-custom-fitted to our desires, communities comprised of all the fellow eccentrics that share our weird hobbies (like this site), and ability to on-the-cheap create and both content and communities centered around our interests. Nobody is pointing a gun to our heads and making us watch Michael Bay flicks, play CoD, or listen to Beiber. Following the lamestream isn't even required to have something to talk to with friends. Sure, you may miss out on the nuances of the water-cooler convo about last night's thrilling game of sportsball, but so many of us are into nerdy hobbies these days, and if you can't find a real-life person with whom to discuss your retro-spacepunk-RPG-fanfic, you can certainly find such friends online.

Ask your friends what happens to them in online games when the other players find out they're women.

What happened to women when they stood up for the right to vote? Those suffragists faced real physical violence from the institution, not "internet tough-guys" jerking off in their mom's basements. Those heroines weathered the storm, and made their voices be head louder than those of the haters.

The fight for what's rightfully yours doesn't come easy. I'm of Jewish descent, and nearly every holiday of my people revolves around narrowly escaping genocide. The Holocaust threatened drive us to extinction, and that was the last straw. In response, Israel reformed as a nation of warriors that take shit from no-one, and bigots mess with it at their own peril.

Just because I'm a white, male, heterosexual, etc doesn't mean I never faced persecution for being different. For the first several years after I came to this country, I lived in a rural area, where the local xenophobic rednecks didn't appreciate a foreigner, an immigrant in their midst, starting fights and saying things like "go back to Russia!". Those that voiced this nationalistic opinion to my face got my fist in theirs. I refused to be the victim, refused to allow the bigots to feel strong in their hateful position. I paid for that righteous retribution with many entanglement with the authorities, but I don't regret it - I gave those foolish enough to look down on me exactly what they had coming.

What does that tell you about the options on the table? If you hate the guy in office, but you're stuck with him because the only other option on the ballot is even worse, the problem isn't that the voting public is stupid. It's that the political duopoly prevents us from having real options.

Or perhaps that a 3rd option doesn't get chosen because people get lulled into thinking "well, I don't like this party, but I really hate the other one, and if I vote independent, then my vote will be wasted." So they end up voting not for who they like, but against the one they hate. And then if enough people think that, then of course, the 3rd option never gets chosen, and the public enforces the dualism by not daring to be different.

Real-life 1st-hand example: I'm an anarchist libertarian. After seeing the evils that unchecked government power wrought in my native Russia, I never much had a need for pompous fools in suits telling people what to do. I supported Ron Paul back when he was still in politics. Even though I didn't completely agree with all his ideas, I felt that overall he was on the right track, and as a fellow USAF veteran, I had a great deal of personal and professional respect for the man. I made no secret of voting for him in the last election (this was the fist one I could vote in after I had become a naturalized US citizen). I have no confidence in Obama, and I didn't think that Romney could do a better job.

Anyway, so a former acquaintance of mine on facebook (back when I had a fb), was all like "but if you vote for RP, then you'll have thrown your vote away - you need to vote for Romney, even if you don't much like him, because you don't want Obama to win, do you?" I replied "no, but I don't care for Romney either. Why don't you vote for RP?" His idiotic reply "Uh, why would I do that?" And then he rage-quit the discussion. Our acquaintanceship ended shortly thereafter.

And then there are all the people who say "well, the system is broken beyond repair, so I'm not gonna bother with voting". These perpetuate the problem too, through inaction. Coming from a country that was choked in the tyrannical grip of communism for over half a century, where my kin still have not had a proper election, I am appalled at this American apathy and taking your precious democracy that you claim to so dearly value for granted, even as there's so much support to export it everywhere else.

"Here you go, needy people of the world - we got tired of playing with this old toy, so we're handing it down to you. It may be a little broken."/sarcasm

Yeah, BioWare games are my favorites, but even I would never claim that any of them were games about female protagonists. They're games about generic protagonists. You might as well be playing as a rectangle with options for different colored polka dots.

And that's the beauty of it - your character can be whoever you want them to be - nobody has to feel alienated.

[ikensall]

The fight for what's rightfully yours doesn't come easy. I'm of <insert 'MURICAN> descent, and nearly every holiday of my people revolves around narrowly escaping genocide. The <insert COMMIES> threatened drive us to extinction, and that was the last straw. In response, <insert 'MURICA> reformed as a nation of warriors that take shit from no-one, and bigots mess with it at their own peril.
...
Those that voiced this nationalistic opinion to my face got my fist in theirs. I refused to be the victim, refused to allow the bigots to feel strong in their hateful position. I paid for that righteous retribution with many entanglement with the authorities, but I don't regret it - I gave those foolish enough to look down on me exactly what they had coming.

I'm not calling anyone in the wrong here, (if anything I am) but this would make a superb prologue to a Chad-Penis-Haver film.

[Voin]

I'm not calling anyone in the wrong here, (if anything I am) but this would make a superb prologue to a Chad-Penis-Haver film.

Star-Spangled 'Splosions (Or "How I flew to North Korea on a jetpack shaped like a bald eagle, shotgunned Kim-Jong Un's head clean off, and then rebounded from the force of awesomeness onto a baseball field filled with tits".)

[stubby]

less than 10% of the U.S. / 5% of Europe is on Steam.

Where did you get these numbers?

Steam has a little over 75 million users; 40% in Europe, 41% in North America (so I'm lumping in the Canadians and Mexicans, I guess). That's 30 million each. The U.S. has a population of > 300 million, Europe > 700 million. So, 5% to 10% market penetration. 90% of people will never be aware that indie games even exist apart from Minecraft. Meanwhile, the Penishaver games have their billboards and Super Bowl ads and 24/7 marketing campaigns.

Same is true for third party candidates and even major-party candidates that don't fit the party narrative. The system is rigged so that if you don't fit the major party mold, you don't get news coverage, you don't get campaign funds from either federal matching or party coffers, you don't get invited to debates, you're erased from the mainstream narrative. Remember all the news coverage of Ron Paul in the last election cycle? No you don't, because the political machine decided he wasn't going to be part of the story, and so the option was removed. Diehards tried to spread the word on the internet, but they had no chance of reaching the bread-and-butter Wal-mart shoppers that make up the base of the American electorate. They never even knew there was an option they were missing out on like Bonn-o-Tron.

What happened to women when they stood up for the right to vote? Those suffragists faced real physical violence from the institution, not "internet tough-guys" jerking off in their mom's basements. Those heroines weathered the storm, and made their voices be head louder than those of the haters.

Getting swatted and doxxed and losing your bank account and job and your nude photos sent to your family and friends are still pretty bad, even if nobody's gotten murdered yet. Tracking down your kids and threatening them and sending their photos to child pornographers to distribute isn't the same as getting beaten up, but I think I'd rather get beat up. These "internet tough guys" are ruining lives.

I'm of Jewish descent, and nearly every holiday of my people revolves around narrowly escaping genocide. The Holocaust threatened drive us to extinction, and that was the last straw.

I'm of Gypsy descent; ask me how many Rayhawks were left in the world after the Holocaust. We got cut down to a population of 2. (And ironically the two weren't speaking to each other. We didn't get to reconcile the two remaining halves of the line until after they died.)

And then there are all the people who say "well, the system is broken beyond repair, so I'm not gonna bother with voting". These perpetuate the problem too, through inaction.

Nah, it's just like indie games rejecting the traditional publishers. You still vote, but you don't expect that to fix anything on its own, and you work to find other ways to force solutions through while the established power structures continue their long slow grinding failure.

Yeah, BioWare games are my favorites, but even I would never claim that any of them were games about female protagonists. They're games about generic protagonists. You might as well be playing as a rectangle with options for different colored polka dots.

And that's the beauty of it - your character can be whoever you want them to be - nobody has to feel alienated.

As long as you can ignore the slavering hordes of troglodyte gamers attacking you the moment you drop even the barest hint that you might be a girl, sure. Or attacking any game that carries suspicious odors of girlism, or the insufficiently masculine players who play them. "Not alienated" isn't the same as "included."