How will Games Workshop push diversity in AoS?

[HollowHills]

32 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

I have no idea what BS you're reading but Abby was confirmed as not being trans even before the game released...

I just read a lot of stuff recently about how the game had leaked and featured a muscular transgender or transsexual character. A couple of people have now said that's untrue.

 

15 minutes ago, Sputnik said:

GW have not adopted a 'left wing position', they have adopted an anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic position. 

To me explicitly stating a desire to push for diversity is a left wing position. An anti racist position would just be ensuring no one actively blocks diverse characters. 

Its the difference between equal rights for all versus giving extra rights to minority groups.

[MKsmash]

1 minute ago, HollowHills said:

To me explicitly stating a desire to push for diversity is a left wing position. An anti racist position would just be ensuring no one actively blocks diverse characters. 

Its the difference between equal rights for all versus giving extra rights to minority groups.

While I agree with all this, Games Workshop has not yet given extra rights to minority groups.
In fact, GW said very little in their statement. It was quite vague. They did not associate themselves with BLM. They only said something that I think most humans can agree with for the most part: " We do not condone any form of prejudice."

[amysrevenge]

It is worth noting who feels like they are being slighted or attacked by veeery vague sentiments like this.

[EccentricCircle]

Yeah, its worth stressing that diversity in the model range isn't just to encourage more diversity in the players. It also produces a more interesting, more rounded product. You don't have to only like things which are restricted by your gender or race, but if having those options makes people feel more comfortable then that is an added bonus. It makes it better for all of us. 

I'm involved in various gaming groups so can confirm that in my region at least wargames are lagging behind RPGs when it comes to having a diverse player base.

A typical rpg club is generally around one third female, not great, but not terrible. It's only in the last two to three years, as part of the critcal role boom that we've seen more than a handful of people from non white background. We are a welcoming community, but clearly we could do more. 

 I'm not part of many wargaming groups but those I've seen tend to have only one or two female members, or folks from non-white backgrounds. Representation of both "minority groups" seems more even. It definitely feels like we have fewer voices on this side of the fence.

Edited July 8, 2020 by EccentricCircle

[zilberfrid]

Just now, EccentricCircle said:

Yeah, its worth stressing that diversity in the model range isn't just to encourage more diversity in the players. It also produces a more interesting, more rounded product. You don't have to only like things which are restricted by your gender or race, but if having those options makes people feel more comfortable then that is an added bonus. It makes it better for all of us. 

I'm involved in various gaming groups so can confirm that in my region at least wargames are lagging behind RPGs when it comes to having a diverse player base. and

a typical rpg club is generally around one third female, not great, but not terrible. It's only in the last two to three years, as part of the critcal role boom that we've seen more than a handful of people from non white background. We are a welcoming community, but clearly we could do more. 

 I'm not part of many wargaming groups but those I've seen tend to have only one or two female members, or folks from non-white backgrounds. Representation of both "minority groups" seems more even. It definitely feels like we have fewer voices on this side of the fence.

The women I've spoken to were more interested in Frostgrave than AoS Skirmish (in fact, I've a weekend planned with two tables, three men, two women), but it stradles the line between RPG and wargaming a lot more than Skirmish.

The fact they explicitly could use any models (half of the models are current or previous RPG characters) really helps, and was a more of a deciding factor. We've looked through a few of mine to fill out the warbands, and that didn't feel too well. My Warhammer stuff is crossbowmen/guards to a too great extent, all male, and not that much racial diversity. The Atlantis dwarves are all in play though (not all painted though).

That's not a market research, and it must be noted that I like Frostgrave better than AoS as well.

A long way around to say that getting the models right isn't going to fix everything, but there is a reason my halfling sorceress (from chaos familiar succubus) and her mixed team of soldiers is going to see play, while most of my battlemages and guard stay in the box.

[CommissarRotke]

Also worth stressing that women and people of color  being in the hobby is not a new phenomenon; they may seem like a smaller group of fans within TTRPG or wargaming (especially TTRPGs) because they don't do their gaming in the same places; why would you show up to a GW or LGS, or eve a school club, if you felt uncomfortable or unsafe playing there? You wouldn't, you'd simply find a group and a location you felt comfortable in.

1 hour ago, HollowHills said:

To me explicitly stating a desire to push for diversity is a left wing position. An anti racist position would just be ensuring no one actively blocks diverse characters. 

Again, having your game/lore reflect the extremely real and inherent diversity in humankind is not "pushing" or "forcing" diversity, it's literally reflecting real life. Thinking that this is in any way giving "extra rights" to minorities or taking a "left wing" position doesn't make it true. They gave a very basic, corporate PR statement. Which is backed up by their models very slowly becoming more diverse, and with the lore and RPG being slightly 'faster' about it.

The second I saw the Soulbound book included a female duardin I went to Cubicle 7 to pre-order it, because it was the first time in a long time that I felt as though GW was actively trying to be better. Whether that translates to model kits or just a story box like Silver Tower if anything at all is something we'll see in the next year or two.

[Mattrulesok]

5 hours ago, HollowHills said:

I strongly doubt that adding more female Stormcast is suddenly going to make an inherently masculine hobby more appealing to women. 

What on earth makes you think pushing around little plastic figures and rolling dice is masculine? 

 

 

Also I'd kill for an all female Stormcast unit as well as a female lord celestant

Edited July 8, 2020 by Mattrulesok

[Dukeus]

1 hour ago, Mattrulesok said:

Also I'd kill for an all female Stormcast unit as well as a female lord celestant

Me too. More options are always welcome. The exclusive models Larissa Shadowstalker and Leena Stormsire look sick. 

[Aeryenn]

4 hours ago, Mattrulesok said:

What on earth makes you think pushing around little plastic figures and rolling dice is masculine?

Can you try to explain why men represent a vast majority of tabletop wargames?

[zilberfrid]

19 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

Can you try to explain why men represent a vast majority of tabletop wargames?

Because this was always so.

Which needs not to be true in the future.

Just like roleplaying games have more women and non-caucasians in it compared to just 20 years ago, so too can wargames. And so to do wargames, as far as I hear from shop owners and, even if it's lagging behind RPG's.

This could be because the big boy on the block in RPG's is D&D, which had about equal representation of women and existing representation of non-caucasian people in 3.0 in the Player's Handbook starting 20 years ago. Before that, it was very much a product of the '80's.

GW wasn't as quick.

It could also be a host of different reasons, like less willingness to commit a lot of time and money if you're not sure the community is welcoming, lore/fluff not hitting the spot, model design, etc.

And there are those in the hobby that do not want women in 'their' hobby. When my ex was trying to enter the hobby, she was sent unsolicited pictures of genitals. After saying she didn't want that, it did not stop. She attributed that to social ineptness, but I suspect it was to make her uncomfortable.

Eventually, after quite a while, she did tell and show the owner of the shop (and manager of the whatsapp group) about the two that would not stop and they got banned.

Edited July 9, 2020 by zilberfrid

[Aeryenn]

23 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

This could be because the big boy on the block in RPG's is D&D, which had about equal representation of women and existing representation of non-caucasian people in 3.0 in the Player's Handbook starting 20 years ago. Before that, it was very much a product of the '80's.

People aren't usually introduced into rpgs by buying a handbook. Most of the time their first contact with this genre happens when somebody else brings the book with him or invites you for a session. That way you are not aware of the handbook's content. 

29 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

It could also be a host of different reasons, like less willingness to commit a lot of time and money if you're not sure the community is welcoming, lore/fluff not hitting the spot, model design, etc.

Or perhaps women are less interested in warfare theme. Like a lot less. And it's ok. We don't have to be identical, right? You can't make somebody happy by force if he doesn't want to. You know, I'm not living under the rock. Neither my wife, nor her or my female friends showed the slightest interest in playing AoS. It happened that those girls praised the miniatures for the painting and asked questions about that part of hobby but never ever they wanted to play it. The attitude of my male friends was completely different. Many of them showed some interest in rules and the actual play.

Things are a bit different when it comes to playing board games. It attracts far more females compared to AoS.

By this I'm trying to say that maybe we should consider that we are sitting in a boys' hobby and be ok with that. Sure, be welcoming to any women that want to enter AoS but don't be surprised if they don't want to.

I'm working in a female dominated industry which is jewelry. 91% of my company's clients are women. I have the actual data from e-shop. A large group of men buying jewelry buy it for their female relatives as well. There's no sense in fighting it by telling men they need to wear earings. We accept it and focus on our female customers.

[zilberfrid]

Oh, I don't think we'll achieve full parity in my lifetime (if ever), but we have to at least try. And GW, finally, is trying.

Edited July 9, 2020 by zilberfrid

[Aeryenn]

1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

Oh, I don't think we'll achieve full parity in my lifetime (if ever), but we have to at least try. And GW, finally, is trying.

Why should we try? Why should social engeering be the right path?

Isn't just natural that different people, different genders, different nations focus on different things? Why would artificial parities be better than natural distribution?

Edited July 9, 2020 by Aeryenn

[Roark]

3 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

Why should we try? Why should social engeering be the right path?

Isn't just natural that different people, different genders, different nations focus on different things? Why would artificial parities be better than natural distribution?

GW is a corporation. Profit is their prime motivation. Opening the hobby to new cohorts of customers is just sensible. I would guess that's actually the main business reason for pushing inclusivity. If there are people there in decision-making roles who genuinely care about how sometimes excluded or marginalised groups of people actually feel about engaging with the hobby, all the better.

That said, do you actually lose anything in the process? Are you concerned about (eventually) becoming part of a minority group yourself? If so, that could be quite revealing in itself...

 

[Chikout]

13 hours ago, HollowHills said:

I mean you could ask, if ethnic minorities and women generally aren't interested in warhammer then why does it matter if the models aren't diverse?

I strongly doubt that adding more female Stormcast is suddenly going to make an inherently masculine hobby more appealing to women.

GW has adopted a left wing position though, so I'm sure we will find out if that works in the next 10 years or so.

If you want a real world example both my sister and my niece got into the hobby recently. I have been in the hobby for 30 years but my sister had no interest until she saw the female Stormcast. I didn't have much influence over this decision as I live in a different continent now. This is very anecdotal of course but it gives the lie to the idea that the hobby is inherently masculine. 

The other side of this debate is the concern have that in striving for increased diversity gw will either break it's own narrative or that this will come at the expanse of the miniatures that some male gamers prefer. 

It is useful then that we have  some very real evidence of the direction that gw is taking with this: namely the Sacrosanct Stormcast. The introduction of female Stormcast was a very deliberate move by gw to increase the diversity of the range. 

So what did they do? They introduced 54 new Stormcast sculpts not counting hounds and warmachines of which 16 were female. That's just under 30%. Gw did not try to make a 50/50 split, like some are suggesting they will do. I think the fears that gw are suddenly going to massively change the way they do things are massively overblown. Yes we will probably see more releases like the stormcast when they make sense but enforced parity is not something we will ever see. 

[Aeryenn]

8 minutes ago, Roark said:

GW is a corporation. Profit is their prime motivation.

This is the obvious answer. But people here are talking about social justice. I think that's not the right path because - read above.

10 minutes ago, Roark said:

That said, do you actually lose anything in the process? Are you concerned about (eventually) becoming part of a minority group yourself? If so, that could be quite revealing in itself...

I'm a person with a physical disability for more than 10 years now. I know how it is to be a minority. Yet I never demand special rights for myself.

[zilberfrid]

8 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

Why should we try? Why should social engeering be the right path?

Isn't just natural that different people, different genders, different nations focus on different things? Why would artificial parities be better than natural distribution?

I am not at all convinced there are natural preferences in race, and the natural preference of genders is highly inflated by "what a girl/boy should be". This previously all-encompassing social engineering is finally getting reduced, but a lot of oldfashioned movies, books, people etc make reducing harder.

We do see an increasing amount of women in historical fencing, which was largely a male endeavor, we see this in roleplaying, which also was quite male dominated, we see this in computer sciences, which used to be female dominated, was taken by males when it gained prestige, and is now getting a lot more equal again (and I always endeavor to have a mixed team when I am a supervisor, it leads to markedly better results).

I've had to deal with customers that would not accept my female (or minority) team members' opinions, because it was a man's job. Both male and female customers, and this was in the Netherlands, which is considered quite progressive. I've listened to those conversations, and I really do understand if too much of that would bully someone out of that job.

Because it's largely white male dominated now, we should work harder to make others feel welcome. We may sometimes not understand something because we miss context, or there's a bit of unspoken context someone else doesn't get and they won't understand something, but we can compensate by just trying harder.

[EccentricCircle]

Where gender is concerned there are definitely cultural factors at work. Toy soldiers were always traditionally considered a "boys toy" and we still have the ghost of that hanging around today. Heck, HG Wells put sexism right in the title of Little Wars saying it was for boy's and "more intelligent girls who like boy's games and books" . Now  the industry has come a long way since 1913. I'd even hazard a guess that the emergence of fantasy games from the pure historical field has helped. However if that is the sentiment which serves as your starting point for the hobby, then later generations have a lot of work to tear down those barriers.

Maybe women are, in general or on average, more fond of people he artistic side of the hobby than the wargame side. If so, that's fine. That is a legitimate part of the hobby, and for a lot of people, myself included, is the more important part. Just because your not playing often or at all doesn't stop you being engaged in the hobby. And that is the great strength of this hobby. You can relate to it in so many different ways. Through the art, the lore, the novels, by building scenery and dioramas, you could even do so by knitting stuff if you wanted too. I know RPG players who have crocheted their own cuddly cthulhus so why not make plushy grpyh hounds?

The ways in which you can relate to warhammer are endless, and don't all have to do with fighting, so really we've got no excuse for not making this community as welcoming, and receptive to new approaches as possible.

Edit: damn, now I want a cuddly gryph hound!

Edited July 9, 2020 by EccentricCircle

[Aeryenn]

23 minutes ago, Chikout said:

So what did they do? They introduced 54 new Stormcast sculpts not counting hounds and warmachines of which 16 were female. That's just under 30%. Gw did not try to make a 50/50 split, like some are suggesting they will do. I think the fears that gw are suddenly going to massively change the way they do things are massively overblown.

They've announced their new diversification policy just recently. We have to wait with the judgment on how does it really affect our hobby.

@zilberfrid Great post. I, however, am (guess what) of conservative beliefs and in my opinion our biological differences (of men and women) determine our interests in this respect (to some pint of course). I can't call raising up boys and girls differently social engineering if it is not forced. I have two kids, two boys  actually. I didn't have to convince them to play with toy cars and transformers. They wanted them for themselves. If I had girl I wouldn't forbid her to play with the same toys of course if she really wanted two.

I'm saying that we might want to attract gropups of people into the hobby that don't want to be attracted. And that's wrong. We have to be welcoming for anyone but can't be changing the natural groups of interest. And absolutely we shouldn't expect any company to soocial engineer thair employees group by parities.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Aeryenn

[Chikout]

3 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

They've announced their new diversification policy just recently. We have to wait with the judgment on how does it really affect our hobby.

The recent announcement is certainly more high profile but they have said at seminar Q&As for a while that they intended to diversify their ranges. I think the first I heard of it was when Pete Foley said it was their plan at Adepticon the year they announced 8th edition. 

[zilberfrid]

6 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

They've announced their new diversification policy just recently. We have to wait with the judgment on how does it really affect our hobby.

They stated they'd continue to diversify, and with female Stormcast, the later Underworlds warbands and Warcry warbands, we see they were already on that track. As well as the recently deceased Warpriest that has been reanimated into sigmarite.

[Souleater]

I think it's worth pointing out that GW isn't just in this for the money.

They gave back the furlough money they had been given by the Government.  They didn't have to do that.

And the albeit slow increase in diversity has been going on for a while. Female SCE, more female models in 40k.

The newer DoK we have seen are more covered up than the current incarnation. Is that to make them less sexual?  Does it take away from them being religiously fervent berserker? Is it just taking them back to the original armoured Witch Elves? Or maybe giving the sculptors more to work with?

 

I don't think they are going for a 50/50 split,  just more of the various folks we haven't tended to see.

 

Edit: I wonder if the change to marine background with Primaris will see female Space Marines.

 

GW may also decide that one of the ways they could give Adeptus Custodes more variety is simply to allow women in their ranks. Armoured as they are, that could just be a headswap  but it still allows more variety in a unit for those of us who don't want an army of clones.

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by Souleater

[dekay]

14 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

This is the obvious answer. But people here are talking about social justice. I think that's not the right path because - read above.

You'll notice that most people writing about social justice here are its opponents.

Most of the rest writes either that it's good for GW's profit or, mostly, that we just want more varied and interesting models, while entire representation thing is a welcome side effect. There aren't many folks anywhere wanting diversity for diversity's sake.

There are however a lot of those who a) want diversity because it's interesting, b) want diversity because they'd like themselves to be represented (not many of them in this thread, but I see that in, say, IG community ; )) and c) those who protest diversity for diversity's for variety of reason, even though it's not really as prevalent issue as they seem to think. most of the, d) group, "i want diversity for sake of others", while seemingly similar to this boogeymen parts of community are scared of, are actually "..because now I can't get my wife/friends/whatever interested in the game".

People do things for reasons. "I want that thing I don't care about to be different because now its not progressive enough and I can't stand it" isn't a common motivation ; )

And there's no new diversification policy. What they did recently is reminded people that they've started one a long time ago and it's progressing as they intended.

[HollowHills]

11 minutes ago, Souleater said:

The newer DoK we have seen are more covered up than the current incarnation. Is that to make them less sexual?  Does it take away from them being religiously fervent berserker? Is it just taking them back to the original armoured Witch Elves? Or maybe giving the sculptors more to work with?

That's part of what I worry about. For me part of fantasy, and warhammer,  is having female characters who show a lot of flesh. Have GW now decided that it isn't PC? 

Another thing I don't really buy is that we need female stormcast to get women into the hobby. In my view high elf princesses would have been far more successful at getting women and girls into the hobby than butch stormcast. 

My partner has never had an interest in warhammer despite me painting models and playing for years. Yet, her favourite video games are the witcher and rdr2. Two games where you have to play as a gruff bearded masculine character. In fact she likes the fact the sorceresses in the witcher are both sexy and powerful. Both she and I much prefer Yennefer to a butch character like Abby.

It's probably because 1) the game of warhammer and all the heavy duty nerd stuff doesn't interest her and 2) the video games are fun and interesting in themselves regardless. Note that neither game is trying to push a left wing agenda, they are just trying to be good games.

[Scurvydog]

GW designers should just focus on making cool stuff. Keep agendas and politics out of it, don't want to have GW become the next Wizards of the Coast with their recent Orc debacle. Everywhere you look in media these days it is pushing this and that agenda, the fantasy universes should be some escapism for all that. The great thing about fantasy is in the name, people are free to come up with their own as well.

Nobody wants chubby balding men in a DoK army in chainmail bikinis, or at least the market for that will be somewhat niche I am sure, sisters of battle is just that, Greenskins are not improved by being blue.

The second we start to limit designers, force agendas and political views, we end up with Marvel comics, they have not dared release their "snowflake" and "safespace" characters, you just can't even make up stuff like that. The negative feedback was massive from the fans, but sure the twitter crowd loved it, even though they only read about comics, but do not actually buy them.

I do not want every sprue in a new 40k guardsman box to be with 500 head options to represent everything or having 1 of each of every real world race/culture represented in the fantasy world. If The Old World ends up doing Nippon, I want to see those with asian features and not a mix of all kinds of things, then in the end everything will be watered down, no culture, no distinctives features or differences, all just one big androgynous blob.

Let fantasy worlds be fantasy worlds, let the designers keep their freedom to create, allow factions to be distinct, both racially and culturally, but make as many cool factions as possible! If some faction design could have all kinds of mixed peoples fighting under their banner, sure mix it up if it fits! 

It is quite obvious GW is already mixing it up far more where it makes sense, like Warcry and Underworlds warbands got a lot of varied warbands, many with female leaders and mixed looks, just look at Godsworn hunt, how should GW have even made it more diverse? There is even a dog in there!  Spire Tyrants got a goat man, a dwarf, a couple of really cool looking female sculpts. The upcoming Scions of the flame are also as diverse as it gets. 

It is very clear to anyone taking a look at new GW kits they care, they are so far taking reasonable steps, trying out things and so far I think everything is being done in a tasteful way. If they do a new marauder kit like the spire tyrants in style, I will buy that in a heartbeat for my StD army. The second I suspect things are done for only political reasons at the cost of the fantasy though, I will take my money elsewhere. Looking at TLoU2 perhaps as to how sacrificing the universe and lore for agendas completely divides people instead of brinding people together.