massey

For the first time in many many years, I have decided to run a game. Our regular GM will need a break soon, since he gets stuck running all the time, and I have decided to help out. But I bore easily and have a tendency to lose interest quickly, and so I have decided to mix things up, and keep it interesting. Therefore I've decided to run a Legion of Superheroes-esque Galactic Champions game. It will be me as GM and then 4 players. I have some ideas and have decided to go wild with it. One of the things I loved about the LSH was the wild power scale between the characters. Sometimes you'd have Duo Damsel, and sometimes you'd have Supergirl. I want to maintain that feeling. But clearly there's nobody who wants to get stuck playing Duo Damsel, least of all me playing characters like that as NPCs. So I have decided on a rather unusual point breakdown for the campaign. Three characters totaling 1500 points. Different game sessions will have you rotate between the three characters. Each character must be playable. You can't have Captain Awesome and his two Incompetent Normal friends. But you could have a 1000 point character followed by two 250s. Or three 500s. Or a 279, a 415, and an 806. Each character will be given free LSH-ripoff equipment. You get a free Flight Belt (20"x8 noncom, and 5" megascale 1"=10 km), a Personal Force Field badge (LS: Space and a 10/10 Force Field that won't raise defenses above 25/25 and 15/15 resistant), and a Telepathic Earpiece (Mind Link and High Range Radio). These are for free, and are designed to benefit the low powered characters who can then focus on their "one big power". High end characters will generally eclipse these abilities anyway. Low powered characters need to be able to do 10-12 dice to be useful (or generally have a really useful noncombat power), high powered are limited to 25 dice unless they are a glass cannon in which case they can go higher. Balancing the game will be totally by the seat of my pants and we'll just see what happens. Characters will have access to a free base and a free ship, though neither will set the world on fire with cool abilities. That would have to be paid for by the group. Background-wise, it is a thousand years in the future, a generic future somewhere in between standard Galactic Champions and a modified future of our own campaign world. I don't like the "superpowers go away for a while" of the standard 5th ed universe, so I won't use it. Instead superheroing just falls out of fashion for a while. Depending on the era people with powers don't necessarily feel the social pressure to put on a costume and save the day. Imagine if Clark Kent decided to keep his powers a secret and just make a billion dollars being LeBron James. During one of these "down times", humanity founds hundreds of colonies, before interstellar war destroys the Earth space fleet. Colonies are left to their own devices, cut off for a century or more while Earth rebuilds. During that time, without Earth's technological support natural hazards on some of the colony worlds force the activation of the meta-gene. Since the colonists all face the same hazards, they all develop the same powers (at least, the 10 to 15% who have the meta-gene). When Earth reconnects 100 to 150 years later, these mutations have bred true, resulting in entire planets that have 40 - 50 point power sets (in keeping with LSH logic). PCs, of course, represent those truly gifted characters who stand out from the norm (and are built on a lot more points). The last 20 years or so have seen a resurgence in the popularity of the old "superhero" phenomenon, when crazy people dressed up in weird costumes. People haven't quite gotten the hang of "cool names" so things like Solar Boy or Tornado Lass are considered perfectly valid code names (and will count as a 25 point disad for "dorky name"). Anyway, I'm looking for people's general thoughts and ideas about this. It probably won't start for at least another month or two, but I just wanted to gauge reactions. The group seems pretty excited so far.

They don't physically go away. They stay there. You just can only use one at a time. I can have an RKA and a Hand Attack, with one described as shooting a gun and the other hitting you in the head with a club. The gun doesn't disappear, I just can't shoot it while I'm using the club.

Hand attack and hand killing attack. That's all you need. Just define them as being made of ice.

Cyclops is absolutely immune to his own blasts, as is Havoc. And they are immune to each other. Back in the 80s and 90s they used to interact more regularly and this was pointed out, every single time.

The other thing to remember about the DC Silver Age is that everybody had crazy stuff. It wasn't just Superman. Batman could have his Bat-Time Portal, and could concoct a formula with a home chemistry set that let him fly and shoot lasers from his hands. Hawkman could use super-science from Thanagar, Green Arrow had trick arrows for literally every occasion, etc. Magic powers, growth rays, shrink gas, all that stuff was available during that time. It's like everyone had a 100 point VPP on an 11- activation for "random plot abilities".

I never got the indication Supes was a pacifist. Supes is a country boy, and doesn't see too much wrong with a good old fist fight every now and then. But you don't pick on people, or bully them. And for almost everybody on the planet, if Supes got into a real fist fight, he'd be a bully. So instead he holds back.

Players who are more responsible can be trusted with more power. That's pretty simple. The guy who uses every excuse to bring out his biggest attack versus any villain is not the guy to hand an extra 5D6. Of course, a GM has to run the game appropriately as well. You can't screw over Responsible Guy when he holds back, or else he won't just feel justified in using full power all the time, he will BE justified in using full power. Heroes who hold back should generally know when they don't have to anymore. It shouldn't be "no no, you don't know if the guy with the glowing metal body can take your full 14 dice, you have to hold back to 8..." and then the villain shrugs off the attack and blasts you unconscious. A hero who holds back should still be effective almost all of the time. Edit: Ooh, how about this. For every time in which a hero holds back in a roleplay-appropriate scenario, he earns a hero point. If he trades in 3 hero points, he can use a higher-powered version of his character for one encounter. If he trades in 5 hero points, he can use it for the entire session. So Superman (in this game written up as a 14D6 character) holds back to 10D6, and even pulls his punches (at -2 OCV) when fighting a villain who shouldn't be able to take that level of damage (despite probably having more than 14 PD). As long as he does so for at least a few phases (until he realizes that his opponent is more than meets the eye and has a force field or something), then he gets a hero point. At some point in the campaign, the players' team is being smacked around by a villain group and the world hangs in the balance. Bad tactics and bad dice rolls seem to have doomed the group. So Superman trades in 3 of his 7 accumulated hero points. He makes a short soliloquy, "That's it! I'm tired of holding back and I'm tired of all of you!" He trades in his 390 point Superman with 70 Str, 6 Spd, and 35 Def. He pulls out the 700 point Superman with 110 Str, 35 Dex, 8 Spd and 50 Def. He cleans the villains' clocks (no longer holding back at all), foils their plan, and leaves his teammates in awe. He then returns to his normal power level and makes some humble comment about not being comfortable with that level of power. Of course the GM has final say as to whether the One Shining Moment transformation is roleplay-appropriate at the time. Characters who do not hold back, using full dice against Evil Scientist because they know he's got enough defense to not die, do not gain hero points. In fact if the action is egregious, they may lose any hero points they had.

If you are modeling characters, then it is important to set a standard. I put 12D6 at about "average" for damage. I write up most characters so they can generate (and take) about that level of damage, at least. Whether it's Nightcrawler or Hawkman, Batman or the Beast, they'll be able to hit the 12DC range. Exactly how they do it will be different, of course. Hawkman probably has a 35 Str or so and a +5D6 Hand Attack mace. The Beast probably has a 40 Str and 15" of Superleap with Passing Strike, or something like that. Batman would have a 25 Str, 3 damage classes with martial arts, and an Offensive Strike. Likewise the standard superhero defense would be somewhere in the 25 range. If you have powers and put on a costume (or advanced training and put on a costume), you should somehow be able to get to around 25 PD/ED most of the time, with at least 10 points or so resistant. Street level heroes might get it through Combat Luck, so it goes away in many circumstances (such as someone getting the drop on them and successfully using the "cover" maneuver), but if they're running around kicking butt then they've got it active. A handful of characters will skew dramatically above, or dramatically below, this damage range. Superman probably can generate up to twice that amount of dice. He's also likely the most powerful hero in his universe, so everyone scales down from him. Other characters, like Shadow Cat, have little offensive ability (last I read her anyway, who knows what they've done with that character lately). I would have no problem giving Kitty a 10 Str and basic martial art moves. Maybe she can punch for 6D6 or something. She'd have a big NND that does body against machines while she is phased, but primarily she's not a front line fighter. Guys who are portrayed as being "not as good" might throw less dice as well. One crossover comic I read had (I think it was) Bullseye getting punched in the face by Batman. He remarked "you punch even harder than Daredevil". There we go, Daredevil throws 11D6 instead of 12 (and I'd put Night Thrasher at a little below him as well). Individual writeups are going to be dependent upon the individual writing them up. Maybe you think Daredevil deserves to hit for standard superhero damage, and maybe he does. Not every Marvel or DC character should outclass everyone from the Champions universe. In addition to damage, you'd have a similar below average/average/above average/way above average rating with regard to Dex, Speed, and combat skill levels. This is where a character like Batman is going to shine. He's going to be above average in Dex and Speed, and way above average in regards to total OCV/DCV. I'd put an average hero at about a 23 Dex/5 Speed, with maybe a level in their primary attack. Batman would be at about a 30 Dex and a 6 or 7 Speed, with enough levels that he can stay on the field with a character like Superman (the Man of Steel, meanwhile, probably voluntarily runs around at 1/2 DCV to make himself a more attractive target for big attacks, to better help his team). In JLA-level combat Batman will operate by maintaining a DCV significantly higher than most characters can consistently hit. He will then use non-traditional attacks (NND gas pellets from his utility belt, Find Weakness, etc). Slower characters like the Blob or Sandman may be somewhere in the 15-18 Dex/4 Speed range. They are noticeably slower than other characters, though they still would have enough combat levels to allow them to connect with an attack most of the time. In the end, these are general guidelines. Individual character writeups will vary according to taste and writer preference. I'm more likely to give characters I like more ability. I also will adapt my writeups depending on how they are going to be used. A playable Batman can be done much cheaper than a comprehensive Batman that can do everything we've ever seen him do. Batman doesn't need Dimensional Physics 18-, but sometimes he seems to have it. Then you'll also get characters who seem to perform above their apparent power scale. Cyclops, for instance, always seems to be one of the last X-Men standing in major battles. Despite the fact that he is a "normal human" with no apparent super-defenses, when I've read comics he usually has a lot of staying power. Maybe he just never gets hit by writer fiat, but to me this is an important part of the character. He serves an important role in the plot, and so survives longer in a fight. I choose to represent this by buying up his Body and Stun significantly, as well as giving him extra levels of Combat Luck. If a standard street level hero has 2 levels of Combat Luck, then Cyke may have 5 levels (with the limitation that some of it only applies when he's fighting with a team or something). So 12 PD/ED, an 8/8 armored costume, and 15 points of Combat Luck give you a hero that can stay strong on the battlefield even if there are guys who can punch Colossus present. Does this make Cyclops significantly more dangerous? Yes it does, but Cyclops isn't an average hero by any means. He's one of the most powerful X-Men, and my writeups will reflect that. When I write up characters, I balance them and then rebalance them until I am happy. It may involve going back in and giving Spider-Man 2 extra PD, because so-and-so has this much and Spidey needs just a tad more to feel right. I've been accused of overpowering my characters. In a multi-comic crossover, the 350 Champions team would probably be relegated to lesser known characters who you see in the background of big fights. "Hey I think I see Defender there in the background! He's getting his face smashed in by Solomon Grundy..."

You could do it that way too. I'm just curious right now as far as an intellectual exercise.

It's possible to do a Superman Multiform. I think it gets a little tricky but shouldn't be too hard. The problem is by talking about a "Silver Age" Superman you're talking about a 25+ year period of time, when Supes could do just about anything. I like a lot of the silly stuff that they had him do. Get into a fight with a wizard and get changed into a monkey? Sure! I like that a lot more than Iron Age comics where I hate all the characters. The thing about the Silver Age is that Superman actually jumped up and down the power scale a lot, probably due to writers not paying attention or not caring. I've seen him shrug off nuclear weapons without getting his hair messed up and then turn around and get amnesia when he was hit by a lightning bolt. Rather than pull your hair out trying to get some rationalization for those differences, you could explain it away with a Multiform. Multiform in the sense that he's not actually changing into something else, but that his powers fluctuate apparently based on whatever he's paying attention to at the moment. I have previously posted a 250 point Superman in some older threads that made heavy use of multipower. Right now I'm getting a chance to play him in a 350 point 5th ed game and he fits the bill perfectly, and he's basically 100 points cheaper than everybody else but still gives the Superman feel. ​If I were to build Superman with a Multiform, I'd give him certain baseline stats in all his forms. I'd give him at least a 30 Str to represent him when he's not paying a damn bit of attention or actively trying to use any super powers. That still lets him pick up a small car without thinking about it when he drops his keys the same way we would tilt back the couch. This is "bumbling Daily Planet reporter" Superman. In this writeup he'd have his super-ventriloquism and super-hypnotism, superspeed typing, all of his reporter skills, and most of his super powers would have the Invisible Power Effects advantage (using heat vision at a low enough level that people can't see it, etc). He also has super-senses that are good enough to warn him if Metropolis is under attack, etc. He has to be durable enough to survive hits from super-grade attacks, but you don't really have to give him the full invulnerability package here. The Silver Age genre protects him to a certain degree (at most he's going to have to surreptitiously stop street crime, he's not going to get into a full fledged super fight in this mode). At most he'll get knocked back through a wall or something and can then change into a different form. You would have your general "combat" Superman who has high stats and is designed for fights. This guy doesn't need all the Clark Kent skills, the super-hypnotism, most of the enhanced senses, or any of the out-of-combat tricks. He isn't going to be flying around the world to turn back time or pushing a planet. Then you've got out-of-combat Superman. This IS the guy who can fly through time and push planets, repair bridges at superspeed and freeze Lake Superior with his super breath. He isn't gonna need much in the way of Dex or Speed, and probably not defense either. A 10 Dex, 3 Speed, 20 PD/ED character wouldn't be out of the question. He's not paying attention to that sort of thing at the moment. You could have invulnerable Superman. He goes to this when he knows the villain is about to unleash his biggest attack, or when he's going to get hit by a nuclear bomb, or something where he's really got to show how tough he is. When he does this, he probably goes from 30 PD/ED (or so, depending on your campaign) to 100 PD/ED with Damage Reduction. This explains why he can generally soak hits from mega-villains without breaking a sweat, but on occasion some loser with a 12D6 energy blast can shoot him and actually cause damage. The exact execution of this is left to the player who builds it. Generally Superman should be able to switch between forms flawlessly, with no visual difference between the characters. If built right, there should not be many instances where an observer (not knowing the details of Superman's character sheet) says "that's weird, Superman suddenly seemed to fly a lot slower". While the Silver Age wasn't quite as bad as the Superfriends, where Superman would occasionally fall in a pit because he apparently forgot that he could fly, there were occasions where he'd get caught totally flat-footed, or was hurt by an attack that really should have only tickled. He wouldn't hear someone sneaking up behind him, or his reflexes would seem really slow for a guy who can catch bullets and dodge lasers. This could at least explain some of that as Superman being caught in a Spd change or get caught by surprise in the wrong form. It's not that he's actually changing forms, it's that he has so many powers that he doesn't always think about using them all the time. As far as Kryptonite, it's had many different effects in many different appearances. Sometimes his powers go away immediately, sometimes they gradually fade. I think a combination of disadvantages, including Vulnerability, Susceptibility, and Accidental Change ( could work well. Some of his powers could have a -1/4 "not when exposed to kryptonite" could work as well. Again, it's all about execution.

Superman was actually fine. He just wanted her boobs in his face.

Hugo Danner didn't have Kryptonian parents. He had a regular father who gave him some super-treatments. The idea of a guy who is super-strong and invulnerable isn't exactly new. It's true that Superman was probably inspired by Gladiator a bit, but he's not a ripoff.

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please. A 1D6 Entangle? Really? I could break out of that. Me, massey, with my 8 Str.

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please. I can do a lot of things on 250 points. But if I'm the GM I don't have to. Points are for players, silly.

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please. Nah, because the Joker always loses to Batman. Combat-wise, he's kind of a wuss. The Joker is just a themed plot-device-of-the-week character with followers and an evil plan. He's never actually gonna beat Batman. Batman spends loads of points on vehicles, bases, contacts, skills, gadgets, followers, and other stuff like that. But he doesn't really hit that hard and his defenses aren't high.

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please. My understanding of the OP is that these are intended to be the PCs. He was running a game where the players were the JLA in a different system. Now he is looking to come over to Champions, but thought 350 was too low to accurately represent them.

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please. I double posted because my work computer sucks. But again, look at the 250 point writeups that Cassandra posted. If you build JLAers on that point level, that's what they're going to look like. If that seems wrong to you, you need to put them on higher point totals.

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please. I wrote a great post about how to balance out a JLA level game and the board ate it. Best advice (short version), decide how powerful you want your average superhero to be. Push the JLA characters above that average in areas where they show strengths. Be careful with direct conversions from other sources, because a 115 Str Superman is going to one-shot every single "average" character, so be aware of how those high power levels interact. If your world's average is 12D6, then most heroes (Hawkman, Aquaman, Batman, etc) should probably be in that range. Guys whose schtick is hitting really hard (Martian Manhunter, Supes, Wonder Woman) get more. If you use a (5th edition) 350 point character as the standard for a normal superhuman (Captain Lightning of Sentinel City or something), and he's a 12D6, 20 Dex, 5 Speed, 25 PD/ED with 40 Stun kind of guy, and most of the world's villains are going to be built to fight him, then look and see how combat effective you want your JLA to be against that level of villain. Superman can be quite effective against that level of opponent if he's got 35 or 40 PD and ED and throws 15 or 16 dice. "Average" brick (5th edition, with figured characteristics) Str 60 Dex 18 Con 30 Body 15 Int 10 Ego 15 Pre 20 Com 10 PD 30 ED 25 Spd 4 Rec 18 End 60 Stun 60 15/15 DR 20" superleap +2 levels hand to hand assorted skills Superman (balanced against average brick) Str 75 (he's so strong even bricks are impressed) Dex 26 (way fast) Con 35 (tougher than normal bricks) Body 15 Int 18+ (depending on how smart your Supes is) Ego 20 Pre 30 Com 18 PD 40 (he's even tougher than a normal brick) ED 35 Spd 7 (superspeed baby) Rec 22 End 70 Stun 70 DR 25/25 25" flight plus some megascale superbreath/heat vision in the 12-13D6 range, enough so he's also an effective blaster with his "lesser" powers That will be a functional Superman as long as you keep most heroes down in the average range. Now if you start introducing 30D6 Dr Destroyer, Supes has to get a power boost.

Re: Justice League-type DC/Champions campaign. Advice, please. Sammael, I think I need to put a few things in perspective. There is a bit of a divide in the HERO community as to the best way to represent established characters like the Justice League. What we have in this thread are some of the champions of the "low powered" side of the debate. If you search for "how do I build Superman" or other similar threads, you'll see quite a bit of disagreement on the subject. It's a shame these guys got to you first. I'm not that familiar with 6th edition, 5th has served me well and our group saw no reason to change. So some of the point totals I talk about will be a bit off. But if you know MEGS and have been using the Mutants and Masterminds system, you're already good as far as the basic concepts that drive HERO. Like MEGS and M&M, strength is exponential. So the Supeman writeup in the basic DC game would translate to a STR of 115 or so in Hero. So forget all this "Superman has a 60 STR" stuff. The problem is that differences in attacks in HERO are probably more noticeable than in M&M. A PL16 Superman vs a standard PL10 villain, Superman is going to stomp the guy most of the time. Unless he gets some really bad rolls or the other guy catches him by surprise, Superman doesn't break a sweat. But in HERO, a STR 115 Superman with 50 PD and ED and an 8 SPD simply will not lose, ever, to the standard 350 point villain. Like, they can't even scratch him. Now, the differences in Champions aren't as extreme as they are in MEGS, where Superman has 25 APs of Strength and 18 APs of Body. But it will still play differently than Mutants and Masterminds. My suggestion would be to start out a standard power level game (and yes, you can't play a decent JLA on standard points unless you're playing the adventures of Hawkman, Booster Gold, and Vibe), and then work your way up to the big boys. To get a good translation of Superman, ported over from M&M, you're gonna need like a thousand points. But that is not the place to start with your first Champions game. It's harder to scale and won't work as smoothly as M&M if you try to do it right out of the box.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities I don't think I'm saying what you think I'm saying. Sexism exists. It especially exists in places where people dislike the other gender. As I said, if I go to the Angry Divorced Women's Book Club, I don't expect I'll be greeted with open arms. What you have, in many geek circles, is the Angry Rejected Men's Game Club. So I say it should come as no surprise to you that you aren't getting nice treatment there. I'm not saying the sexism doesn't exist, it's very real. It's also from a minority of gamers. But they are a vocal minority. I do have a problem with some of the articles posted, however. In those articles we have women who are upset over what I believe to be either 1) incredibly easily foreseeable consequences of her own actions, or 2) perfectly logical reactions of men. The first example we see is a woman who posts a Kickstarter request, asking for money to study how video games discriminate against women. Now perhaps I'm just an old guy who is out of touch with the young kids these days, but most of the things I've seen on Kickstarter are kind of nerd-related. So she goes to nerd-land and requests money for something guaranteed to piss off nerds. This generates the expected response. She decries it as sexism. And it IS sexism. But her initial request is ABOUT sexism. So what you have are responses, offensive and tasteless though they may be, that directly correlate to her chosen topic of conversation. If you walked into a Republican convention and started a conversation about how white men have discriminated against lesbians for decades, would you expect positive responses? If I walked into a Democratic convention and talked about how social programs are killing our economy, I would not expect to make friends. She basically went in and used her superpower Detect A$$h*le: 15- and it worked. The second example I want to focus on (there were others but that's been several days ago and I forgot some of them) involved a woman at a comic convention. She attended several and had a great time. She was talking to someone who she considered some sort of friend, and after a long conversation, he asked her which guy she was with. She becomes offended that he would say such a thing. He says "oh well you were always with guys before" and she points down the long row of tables to show him that she was always with guys before because there are no women on this side of the building. See isn't she vindicated? No. She's not vindicated because she just pointed out that she is the only woman in the entire place. Presumably previous conventions were equally sausage fests. It is reasonable for Unnamed Guy to assume she was there with a guy friend because apart from her, women apparently don't go there. It's like being the one black dude at a Merle Haggard concert. People are going to assume you came with someone or wandered in and got lost. The problem with this story is that in her specific example she points out how she is literally the only woman in sight. She is then offended that this person would not automatically know her to be the one shining exception. That is what I mean by women over-reacting. We don't see people with realistic proportions in most video games. Now I am going to be hampered in this part of the discussion because I don't play any video games that don't come on an iPhone or involve someone carrying a football. I don't judge all women for the actions of some. I even say that in the last paragraph or so of my long post. As far as me? I don't have a problem with women. I do think there are a number of women eager to blame things on sexism when it suits them. Just like there are black people who say they got fired because of racism, when really it's because they showed up late for two weeks straight. Just like there are white people who say they didn't get a job because of affirmative action, when really it's because the black dude was way more qualified. And I feel many of the examples given in this discussion were these types of situations. There's real sexism out there, but these examples aren't them. Again, you will get sexism in the geek community because there are a lot of old wounds that have never healed. There are a lot of 30-50 year old men who have never married and never got a girlfriend. You are not gonna fix that, and if you choose to hang out with them, well, you better pull some Blazing Saddles stuff to earn acceptance. To quote Gene Wilder: "What did you expect? 'Welcome sonny?' 'Make yourself at home?' 'Marry my daughter?'" If you find a group of people who react to you poorly, get a different group. They aren't worth being upset over. My own personal issues? I've been on the receiving end of bad treatment from women. And good treatment from women. Good is definitely better. It's not good to be the 15 year old kid who hasn't gone through puberty yet and is still 5' tall and weighs like 85 lbs. Especially when you're the one of the youngest kids in your class (I was never Stinky Mortimer, I was the kid Stinky Mortimer could push around -- and our Stinky Mortimer was actually a girl). It's a situation many guys here can probably relate to. But then something really cool happened. I got hot. I don't mean that to brag, but I grew up real good. 2-3 years of not getting the girl is countered quite easily by some cute 19 year olds. It's really nice to have girls hit on you at the bar. Whatever anger issues I had are long gone. I have seen things from both perspectives, and trust me, women are frequently just as shallow and superficial as men. I was once working a summer job in grad school and got sexually harassed by a bunch of ugly middle aged women. Gross! One girl who was dating my best friend made him call me up, had him hand her the phone, and he was still in the room with her when she asked me out on a date. I deal with women whose eyes bug out and their tongues drop on the ground when they hear what I do for a living. I can actually see the dollar signs appear in their eyes. So yes, sometimes hearing women talk about how men mistreat them and only care about their boobs feels like listening to an African warlord who just slaughtered a village talk about how horrible slavery was.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities Back to this thread after a brief break. It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sitting on the porch with my family... Oh wait, that was a different guy. I've never played an MMO. My attention span is far too short and I can't sit still for that long. I did download one once on my iPhone and got killed by a rabbit or something after like a minute and a half. I couldn't figure out how to do anything except run around in circles and I quit. That was three bucks down the drain. So I guess I've got about 90 seconds of MMO experience. My first point in all of my responses in this thread has been relatively straightforward. We've got environments that have traditionally been inhabited solely by males. Not just any males, but frequently males who are poorly adjusted socially. Not only are they rude to women, they are frequently rude to each other. They may be rude in a different manner to women, but they are no less rude to men. We are talking about a group of people who, as I understand it, "teabag" defeated opponents by repeatedly crouching over their face, representing placing their balls upon the opponent's mouth. You have the Omega Male (though honestly I think that term should represent someone much cooler, I'm imagining Darkseid with the glowing eyes) who is desperate to lose his omega status. They look for weakness. If something bothers you, they will do it more. They smell blood in the water and react accordingly. If you are easily offended, you deserve what you get by going into a place like this, be it game store or online roleplaying. You don't go into a Steelers bar and wear a Philadelphia Eagles jersey and expect no one to react. I am not saying that women shouldn't go into these environments. You can go wherever you want, I don't care. But I don't go to the Angry Divorced Women's Book Club and expect to be welcomed with open arms. The Young Democrat doesn't go to the Mitt Romney watch party and expect everybody to be nice. There is a certain percentage of the nerd crowd who have real problems with women. This is where they go. You couldn't find them more easily if you were Batman and found their shoeprints at the scene of a crime. Second, I think claims of sexism have gone overboard. Yes, I'm sure it still exists in many places. In fact I have said that it absolutely exists in this particular environment. But we're now talking about complaints that you can't play a fat chick in a video game. This is the equivalent of the complaint that people on TV are too good looking. "Why are all the successful lawyer and doctor women on TV very attractive?" Because it's TV, that's why. It is not real. These complaints become boring. They also begin to feel incredibly hypocritical, and many men, including and especially me, are tired of it. Why are they hypocritical? Because of the actions of many (though not all) women. When a woman complains about men treating women as sex objects, and then runs out with her friends and sees Magic Mike three times, or openly drools over that kid who takes his shirt off in the Twilight movies who is half her age, she is a hypocrit. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. When a woman wears a shirt designed to show off her cleavage, and then gets mad when a guy looks, she's a hypocrit. All too often Hot Guy stares at a woman with his smoky gaze, and she melts. Then Stinky Mortimer does the exact same thing, weak eyes straining to focus through the inch thick lenses of his glasses, and the same woman calls him a creep. Clearly the difference between a creep and a stud is whether he makes her horny. That's hypocritical. And it happens all the time. I do not blame all women for the actions of some. I do not deny that sexism exists and in some cases is a real problem. But those who whine about every perceived transgression have had their arguments muted by the skank patrol. Tasha, please realize just as there are women you don't like to be judged by, the ones who act like complete sluts and are viscious little bitches, the men you complain about are their counterparts on our side. So when you judge "nerd society" because of the guy who can't talk to you but will stare at your boobs, that's no better than me judging women by a girl who decided I didn't make enough money for her.