Quote from: tenbones;956741But when you have people obsessed about those discrepancies and politicize it to soothe their own sense of self-worth, this is what you get.

/thread

Quote from: Black Vulmea;956732I didn't reply to anyone.

Which was strange, because passive-aggressive doesn't usually suit you.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;956732If the jackboot fits, wear it.

Use this one next time...

...you're welcome.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;956732Ask Carolyn Janice Cherryh or Donna J Barr, who hid their identities as women behind initials to gain acceptance in sci fi and comics.

So you honestly consider the role-playing hobby today to be in the same place that the Science Fiction Literature industry was in over FORTY YEARS ago?

Bullshit me all you want for whatever your reason is, but you can't lie to Indy.

Quote from: cranebump;956733You're being facetious, of course, but this really misses the point concerning slavery in America. The United States preached "all are created equal," but then allowed slavery to exist, even so. If anything, it should be charged with miss representing their product.

"Sins of our ancestors" you said.

My position is no more insane than yours. Mine is simply more logical.

There's no way to know what could have been and you can't fix the past. So don't selectively apply your principle. Go all the way, right to the beginning.

Obviously white people who got to the US after the civil war don't owe anything to blacks. And Eastern Europeans - where do you think the word "slave" comes from - are certainly owed some reparations from middle eastern Muslims. And if youve got ancestors that fought on the civil war on the Union side, that should take off some of reparations you owe to blacks. Now, do Hispanics owe anything to European Americans for the Alamo, or does that land belong to them. And do we count inter Hispanic oppression? And.does that land go back to the Commanche? And do we really know if the Commanche were the first people in that land? Who's got the time machine.

And let's fire up the old time machine and see exactly what was going in in West Africa in the 1500's. Maybe the people that came here as slaves were slavers themselves. Maybe their ancestors were displacing pigmis during the Bantu expansion.

A lot of unanswerable questions, but I'm sure we can do it. Precisely. The first time. Without mistakes.

The process seems to punish people who keep written records I should add. Maybe we need to apply some kind of formula to adjust to people who committed those atrocities before they developed writing? Who gets to write that formula? No room for error, right?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;956739Feels aren't reals.

I'd think there's a preferred space where we can acknowledge feelings without letting them overrule all rational concerns. It's not all or nothing.

QuoteIt implies that there is a barrier.

Some friends call before they come over, some knock on the door before they come in, some just waltz right without warning. Some people seem to need permission that others do not. Is being bold, in itself, a sign of talent?

QuoteNever attribute malice when simple human stupidity is the answer.

It's been my experience that cruelty often goes hand-in-hand with willful ignorance.

Quote from: Simlasa;956749Some friends call before they come over, some knock on the door before they come in, some just waltz right without warning. Some people seem to need permission that others do not. Is being bold, in itself, a sign of talent?

I'm not going to try and parse your metaphor, but I can't see in this day and age what barriers could possibly exist for anyone who wants to write and publish an RPG product regardless of gender or race. Assuming an economic status slightly above absolute poverty, it seems to me anyone can develop and write an rpg and market it online.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;956764I'm not going to try and parse your metaphor, but I can't see in this day and age what barriers could possibly exist for anyone who wants to write and publish an RPG product regardless of gender or race.

I'm just going on about perceived barriers, about some people wanting a written invitation... that a person might who might enter an essay contest might otherwise NOT be writing essays and sending them out to potential publishers.

Offhand, this seems like something of a PR move, but companies need PR. Conservative-aligned companies can do conservative PR and I don't complain about it, and liberal-aligned companies can do liberal PR.

Quote from: tenbones;956701But they're only asking for women and "non-binary" gendered people. Is this sufficient for the criteria that you're citing to make that difference? I personally can't name any game I've ever purchased based on the gender of the author of that game. I, personally, own quite a bit of stuff from Nicole Lindroos herself - I didn't buy it because she wrote from a specifically female perspective. I bought it because it was good for what I was running.

Seems like a pretty broad brush they're painting these assumptions with.

That's a business decision of theirs - which is aimed at people different than you. I don't know what their assumptions are, since as far as I see, it isn't state in the release. An all-male dance troupe doesn't have to prove that male dancers can objectively dance better than female dancers, or that people will be necessarily more interested in them because they are male. It's their own angle to take, and as long as there are plenty of opportunities for both male and female dancers, then I don't have a problem with it.

Quote from: tenbones;956701And it's Green Ronin to make the call and succeed/fail on it. The promotion of it seems counter-intuitive to being an optimal business decision. But hey - it's their call to make. /shrug. I just want good games.

Yup, that's my take. This particular move might prove profitable to Green Ronin (GR) in the long run. On a cynical level, it might work as PR for social-justice-motivated customers. Conversely, it might be true that there really are talented writers out there who aren't submitting and/or being noticed by other RPG companies, who would be motivated to put in good work for this.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;956764I'm not going to try and parse your metaphor, but I can't see in this day and age what barriers could possibly exist for anyone who wants to write and publish an RPG product regardless of gender or race. Assuming an economic status slightly above absolute poverty, it seems to me anyone can develop and write an rpg and market it online.

I'm not an industry insider, and don't claim to know about barriers in RPG publishing. However, even in this day and age, there are plenty of industries which do have clear gender bias in them. For example, in hiring for academic science positions, studies have shown that the resume with a female name is rated lower than the exact same resume with a male name. cf.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/

There are claims that the same is true in literary publishing, although I haven't seen as controlled a study of it. Here is one claim, for example.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/catherine-nichols-female-author-male-pseudonym

It could be that RPG publishing is a field where there is no gender bias - but I don't think that it should be assumed.

Quote from: jhkim;956769I'm not an industry insider, and don't claim to know about barriers in RPG publishing. However, even in this day and age, there are plenty of industries which do have clear gender bias in them. For example, in hiring for academic science positions, studies have shown that the resume with a female name is rated lower than the exact same resume with a male name. cf.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/

There are claims that the same is true in literary publishing, although I haven't seen as controlled a study of it. Here is one claim, for example.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/catherine-nichols-female-author-male-pseudonym

It could be that RPG publishing is a field where there is no gender bias - but I don't think that it should be assumed.

Except my point was that an RPG doesn't need a publishing house, and no one needs to be "hired."

And those examples are kind of cherrypicking, aren't they? There are numerous occupations that have a gender bias in favour of women. Generally the lines are drawn along societal gender role assumptions, but that cuts both ways.

Quote from: Ashakyre;956694I agree, believe it or not. We can't ignore the sins of our ancestors .

I wonder which of my ancestors I should admit the sins of.  The African?  Or maybe the Polish or the Irish?  Maybe the Native Canadians.  I realize you were jesting (I think), but usually when this comes up, I usually reply with "Mine weren't here or were on the receiving end, so fuck off.  Don't care."

Quote from: jhkim;956769I'm not an industry insider, and don't claim to know about barriers in RPG publishing. However, even in this day and age, there are plenty of industries which do have clear gender bias in them. For example, in hiring for academic science positions, studies have shown that the resume with a female name is rated lower than the exact same resume with a male name. cf.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.full.pdf

"National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track"

Quote from: Ratman_tf;956782http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.full.pdf

"National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track"

I never hear anyone crowing to get women into high steel work or sanitation. Wonder why.

Quote from: Simlasa;956766I'm just going on about perceived barriers, about some people wanting a written invitation... that a person might who might enter an essay contest might otherwise NOT be writing essays and sending them out to potential publishers.

I don't disagree with that reasoning, I guess, though it perplexes me a bit what the advantage would be to court creators who dont have the personal motivation or drive to create on their own. Note I am not one of those opposed to this talent search by Green Ronin, but I do think its about Green Ronin and nothing to do with women  in the hobby at large.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;956776Except my point was that an RPG doesn't need a publishing house, and no one needs to be "hired."

And those examples are kind of cherrypicking, aren't they? There are numerous occupations that have a gender bias in favour of women in numerous occupations. Generally the lines are drawn along societal gender role assumptions, but that cuts both ways.

I agree, that self-publishing is a viable route -and it may be a better avenue for many female authors than traditional publishing. However, the same discrimination that is in many publishers may also exist in some backers and readers.

As for cherry picking, I don't think it is. Those are only two examples, of course, but I think they are representative of most gender gap studies that I've seen. For example, nursing is a female dominated profession in some senses, but the studies that I've seen are that male nurses are still paid better than their female counterparts. cf.

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2015/03/124266/male-registered-nurses-make-thousands-more-salary-female-counterparts

I agree that there are some professions where women make more. I've seen studies that female models generally make more than male models, for example. However, those are far from the norm.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;956784I never hear anyone crowing to get women into high steel work or sanitation. Wonder why.

Not to mention short order cooks.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;956742Did you know that the West, in fact, pioneered by America, is the first group of nations that have outlawed slavery?  And that it's still practiced in places like Asia and Africa?

There's a lot of misinformation flying about, and what's even worse is that we have people who believe it, no proof necessary.  But then, that would require doing research and thinking for ourselves, wouldn't it?

I think slavery was outlawed in Britain before it was outlawed in the U.S. (pretty sure? I'll have to dig around to verify) And saying "Well, we don't do it anymore, but others do" is like saying, "Hey, I may be a serial abuser, but I'm still nicer than your incarcerated, serial-killer boyfriend." Any of us can look good standing next to Murder Von Baby-Killer man.  But, you're right--it pays to look into things, including entertaining opposing views. I 'preciate ya, even if I don't see eye to eye.

BIG ASS TANGENT: We can't drive a single sin back to the creation, because we are metaphorically born in sin, and flawed. We trust in the better angels of our nature, but verify through laws and codes. We have warts and scars. No one has all the answers, and that's good. I think back to Jacob Bronowski, writing about what happens when people become certain about anything.* I just know that we made a promise, and haven't always done right by it. Maybe some folks seem a bit overzealous to compensate for those failed promises, sometimes in ways that seem small, or even ridiculous to others. But I cannot fault someone who wants to take action, without real malice, based on what they perceive is true and just, and in line with their beliefs. Certainly, they're doing more than I am when it comes to these things. I don't know how all this will end up, but I have assurance in the substance of things hoped for, trust in evidence of things not yet seen.

We live in crazy times, man. You stick around long enough, though, you find out shit works out. Best comment here, I think, is the one that more or less says, "Bravo for trying, GR. If the product is great, I'll be sure to tune in. It it ain't, no bigs."

*"The Ascent of Man," chapter=Knowledge or Certainty.