Sexism in games

I’m very aware of gender roles and stereotypes, and when I find one it irritates me. I think this is a problem that plagues the video game industry a lot more than it does role playing. There are very few main female characters in video games, and slightly more secondary female characters. A lot of the games with secondary female characters suffer from “white male syndrome” as my girlfriend puts it. AKA, the other female/minority characters need you, the white male to come and save them in some capacity. (This irritates the hell out of me too)

When a game does have a main female character, the majority of the time she is simply a sex object. Here are a few examples:

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll admit, being a white male, I enjoy these characters aesthetically, but come on, can’t we have a few normal female main characters? What about Faith from Mirror’s Edge?

See, now that’s better. It’s like my girlfriend if I skip on following the directions when making her Mac & Cheese. That’s a character I can relate to! (The guard that is ~_^)

Admittedly, I’ve never played Mirror’s edge, so I don’t know what Faith is like as a character, but aesthetically she’s nice. The other problem a lot of video games have is that the women in them are either incompetent, or cold hostile bitches.

Alyx Vance from Half-life is an exception.

She’s competent, able to handle her self, intelligent, and emotionally mature. I wish more female characters were like her. Unfortunately, she’s a secondary character to Gordon Freeman, a white male (albeit, one of my favorite characters)

So what brought all this on? Well currently I’m having a lot of fun playing “Overlord”. You play as this huge well…..overlord:

Obviously a white male. The problem is, one of the missions was for me to find a “mistress” for the tower. (Come to think of it, that sounds dirty) Anyways, I had to rescue this one sorceress woman, Rose.

Ok, obviously she is supposed to be a sex symbol, but what REALLY got to me was when I “rescued” her and brought her back to my destroyed tower, she said that she would clean up a bit and put a kettle on. No! You take that huge fucking axe (the overlord has a huge axe btw) and you go out and kick ass! Tell him to fucking go to the grocery store and cook dinner for once!

I know I might sound crazy, but shit like this drives me mad! A woman should damn well be able to go out and lead a horde of minions pillaging through the country side while her husband stays home and cooks! Gah!

Why I will never vote Republican

I saw a bumper sticker earlier today that really pissed me off. It said “RIP USA 1776-2009”. Give me a break. Just because the democrats won an election does not mean that the United States died. This got me thinking about this post.

There are a few reasons why I’ll never vote republican. While I am a white middle class male, I seldom identify with them. I’m not afraid of other races, and I have this radical idea that women are people too. I’m also not anti-intellectual, which is the most dumbfounding movement I’ve ever heard of, but that’s another post.

But it would be horrible naive and wrong of me to say that all republicans were angry white skinheads. Many people are republican for non social reasons, be it economic philosophy or their philosophy on government, which brings me to the main point of this post.

One of the biggest reasons I’ll never vote republican is that my philosophy on government disagrees with them. While I’m definitely not a statist I do think bigger government tends to be better than smaller government. Let me explain:

People’s rights are better protected in a nation with a wide diversity of constituents than they are in a nation with less diversity. If the government’s base is sufficiently large enough to cover a wide swath of people, then it is much harder for one group to completely oppress another. In essence, a tyranny of the majority is much harder to achieve.

In smaller governments, the opposite is true. With less diversity in the voting populace, a single block can gain power and oppress the minority. This concept works on all levels.

Now, it depends on person to person, but I feel a lot of republicans would like to abolish the constitution and the bill of rights, and go back to the articles of confederacy. They’d love it if individual states had complete power over their citizens, and only banded together in time of war. I guess it’s the mentality of “I don’t want somebody in Washington telling us how to run our state, what we can and can’t do in our own back yards!”

(I think the great irony is how conservatives rail against big government meddling in people’s lives, while at the same time they try and use it to impose their narrow ideas of sexual morality on the rest of the populace)

The problem is that if we went back to “states have all the power” the diversity of the voting populace would be greatly scaled back in every state. For example, while there might be a large population of Jews in New York, there might not be in Alabama. Thus the Jews in Alabama would have less voting power than the numerically superior Jews in NY. The principle is the same  for a variety of different groups.

If left to their own devices, many states have, and will continue to discriminate against particular groups. Just look at all the federal legislation that had to be written up to protect minorities in other states. The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a prime example. There are majorities in certain states that have a history of oppressing minorities. Without the federal government keeping them fair, these groups would continue to infringe upon minority rights.

Without big government blacks wouldn’t be able to vote in many states, Atheists would be banned from holding public office in many states, and women wouldn’t have the right to vote in several  states. Basically, if you aren’t a WASP (white, anglo-saxon, protestant) male you’d be shit out of luck. It will be interesting to see if republican change their views in 2050 when white people will become the minority. I wonder if they’ll become hypocrites in an attempt to use big government to secure their rights.

An Atheist’s take on Angels and Demons

*Spoiler Warning*

So I must admit up front that I didn’t read either of the books, just watched the movies. I went with some friends to see it this morning at midnight. It was kind of spur of the moment really, I was going to go see Star Trek with them, but we missed the movie time and decided to see this instead. I was really kind of nervous to see it with them considering how one of the friends I was with is EXTREMELY religious (albeit protestant).

I had a few fears entering the movie, namely that A) the movie would demonize Atheists and scientists (which looking back on it was a completely silly fear) and B) that Tom Hanks would “find god” by the end of the movie and stop being an Atheist, because we all know Atheists eventually come to their senses /sarcasm.

As the movie progressed, I started to think fear A was coming true. The “evil” illuminati Atheists were kidnapping and killing cardinals, and threatening to blow up Rome. I was really distraught, I kept thinking to myself “No! Humanists like the illuminati don’t do this shit! We don’t do the crap the religious do to eachother!” Needless to say, I was very happy at the end of the movie when it was revealed that the whole “scientists are trying to kill us and blow up the city” thing was really an inside job by Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor)

I was also happy that Tom Hanks didn’t “come to god” at the end of the movie. I can’t tell you how much shit like that irratates me. Atheists and skeptics are always villified in movies. In horror movies, the skeptic is usually killed off first, as punishment for not believing in the supernatural thing out to kill him, or eventually comes to believe in the ridiculous just like all the other characters. In none horror movies, they usually are “shown the light” and abandon their Atheists views by the end of the movie. (Like “I am Legend”)

Republicans want to secede? Let em

So just this last April the good old governor of Texas, Rick Perry, suggested that his state could secede and leave the United States. Also, just recently DailyKos commissioned a poll that found nearly half of Georgian republicans favor seceding from the country.  Another 31% of Texas republicans want to leave this the country. South Carolina and Oklahoma also recently adopted sovereignty resolutions.

These people make me sick. After a little over a hundred DAYS of not getting their way they are ready to destroy the country and secede. 100 DAYS!!!! Liberals had to put up with the republicans ruling the country for 8 YEARS!!! Whatever happened to “Country First”? These people accuse liberals of being un-patriotic for years, and after 100 days of not being in power they have no problem with ripping the country apart. But come to think of it, let the traitors secede.

Let them go. The US would be much better off without them. Ever hear of “Red State Welfare“? Yeah, that’s right, the red states take more money out of the federal government than they pay in. The Blue states end up paying in more than they take out, subsidizing the red states. Ironic considering conservatives accuse liberals of wanting to create a welfare state.

What also gets me is how these republicans complain that we are taking their liberties. Taking their liberties? WTF! This coming from the party that just spent the last 8 YEARS trying to destroy the constitution and bill of rights at every turn. This is the party that brought you such hits as warrant-less wiretapping, torture, and the patriot act.

No, the only liberty they want is the liberty to sit on their front porch and shoot black people and homosexuals with their guns while not paying taxes and sending their kids to churches instead of schools. I say let them go and cut off all federal welfare propping those states up.

D&D Armor and Weapon Weights

Like I said in my earlier post on my ship dungeon, I’m new to this whole table-top gaming thing, so forgive any ignorance. (My DM girlfriend loves lecturing me about roleplaying at the drop of a hat  ~_^)

When I first flipped through her game books well over a year ago, one of the things that drove me crazy was the armor and weapons section. Having done medieval living history for almost a decade, studied Western martial arts for 5 years in ARMA, and owning a full suit of armor (the real stuff, not bullshit leather, plastic, or stainless steel) I think I can pretty well say that I know weapon and armor weights, and what you can do with both.

For example, the buckler is a small shield that can be used defensively and offensively. It has a small hand grip and is in no way “strapped” to your arm.

The hypertext 3E SRD describes a buckler as: This small metal shield is worn strapped to your forearm.” Another thing that drove me crazy was the idea of a “locked gauntlet.” Again, the SRD describes this as: “This armored gauntlet has small chains and braces that allow the wearer to attach a weapon to the gauntlet so that it cannot be dropped easily. It provides a +10 bonus on any roll made to keep from being disarmed in combat.”

Small chains? You know why real knights never wore horns on their armor? Because horns, just like chains, give the enemy something perfect to grab at and hook you on to let them pull you down. That’s why real armor is always smooth and flowing, so there is nothing that can be caught. Chains defeats the whole point. But that’s not my biggest objection. My biggest problem with this idea is that very often in real combat you want to be able to drop your weapon.

Look at this video, at around 1:30 they start to do some techniques that are part of what is called “half-swording.” Many times, when your opponent starts to “wind” his blade the only thing you can do if you can’t out wind him is to drop your blade and grapple him.

Lastly, the other thing that drove me up the wall was the weights. Let me start with shield weights.  Again, the buckler, the 3E SRD says a buckler weighs 5lbs. I’m holding mine in my hand right now and it only weighs about a pound. Here’s a picture of me with my buckler:

But perhaps the most ridiculous shield weight has to be that of a tower shield. 3E SRD says it is 45lbs. Now something like that would unpractical to carry into battle. Even these huge judicial shields weren’t that heavy, the guys can still swing them around easily.

I also know Roman re-enactors and their tower Shields aren’t that heavy either, and they have to sometimes form a testudo:

Now on to armor:

I must say, the 3E SRD does a good job when it comes to armor weights. They have padded armor at 10lbs, which is accurate.  A padded jack like this one:

is pretty darn heavy for just a bunch of cloth. Mine has 25 layer of linen and weighs about that much dry. I don’t ever want to see how heavy it is if wet.

3E SRD has full plate at 50lbs,  Swords and Wizardry core rules has it at 70, 4E player’s handbook has it also at 50. I must say that I am surprised how close to accurate they came.  The true weights are somewhere between 60lbs and 80lbs. It depends on the time period really. Here, look at this picture:

My friend is the guy on the left, I’m the guy on the right. My suit of armor is 1370’s ish, his is 1470’s ish. His weighs about 60lbs, mine weighs about 75lbs. The difference is the chainmaile. As you can see, I have a LOT more maile than him. As the armor got better and stronger, the knights started to ditch the maile, hence why his is lighter.

Weapons:

This is the part of roleplaying that I think is most egregious and epitomised by this clip from the 13th Warrior:

Lets take my favorite weapon, the longsword:

This particular sword happens to be called “The Agincourt“, made by Albion Swords (one of the finest places to buy a real sword, period) and weighs 3lbs 7oz. Swords and Wizardry has the longsword at 10lbs! 4E is closer with a weight of 4lbs, but then gives a greatsword a weight of 8lbs!

Ask any re-enactors in Das TeufelsAlpdrücken Fähnlein how heavy their two-handers are, and they’ll tell you not more than 4-5lbs.

All these horrible weights make me think D&D is trying to tell you all swords handle like this:

D&D Glaive weight: 10lbs, real weight, 3-4lbs, D&D Halberd weight 12lbs, real weight 5lbs. D&D dagger weight 1lbs, real weight .7 (Ok, so now I’m getting picky :-p)

My DM girlfriend tries to tell me that these weights are an attempt to signify weight + volume, or how difficult it is to carry something. I don’t know if I buy that. Maybe. But it then leaves people with this horrible idea that the real weapons weigh that much, which as a re-enactor, is my duty to dispel.

To win we must take blows

This might be one of my more controversial posts. The last post I made was on the subject of discrimination against Atheists in the United States.  Atheists are in a sort of limbo right now. (Pun not intended) The discrimination is there, it just is at a level that is still acceptable to the majority of the population.

This is the horrible part: In order for the discrimination of Atheists to gain public attention, and to be deemed unacceptable, we need to suffer a series of hate crimes, just like blacks and homosexuals. These hate crimes need to be clear and well publicised.

Trust me, I’m disgusted by the thought of my felllow Atheists being attacked in this way, but nobody is going to take discrimination against us seriously until the religious start persecuting us more forcefully in this country.

Just some food for thought. (Even though the idea makes me sick)

Atheist Civil Rights movement?

Ok, maybe not “civil rights” but definitely social. There has been a steady shift in the last hundred years in America towards greater acceptance of particular groups of previously marginalized people. It started with women, then blacks, and now gays. Is it Atheists’ turn next?

While Atheists don’t face the same type of disenfranchisement that women and blacks faced, there are still 6 states that actively discriminate against Atheists wishing to engage in public service, despite a 1961 Supreme Court ruling on the illegality of this.

Many Atheists also feel discriminated against by things like having “In God We Trust” on our money, “one nation under God” in our pledge, and the opening of many government meetings with prayer, all in a country that is supposed to have a separation of church and state. All we want is equality. We want the state to be neutral like the law demands.

As for social persecution, where to start? I mean, our very language is used against us. “Atheist” and “godless” both have horrible negative connotations associated with them. So much so that many Atheists shy away from the label because of how it is used in everyday speech. The religious work very hard to define themselves as the very embodiment of goodness, and the Atheists the very embodiment of evil.

A good example of this negative stigma attached to Atheists is Elizabeth Dole‘s disgusting campaign ad where she accused her opponent Kay Hagan of being an Atheist in the 2008 run for the North Carolina senate seat:

Another horrible politician is Monique Davis (D) of Illinois.  On April 3, 2008 she attacked Atheist Robert Sherman during his testimony to theHouse State Government Administration Committee in Springfield saying:

“I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings… I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois… This is the land of Lincoln where people believe in God… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous… It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists… Get out of that seat! You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.”

The video of her saying this is here. This is the same Sherman that president Bush Sr. had the following conversation with in 1987:

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?

Bush: I guess I’m pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in god is important to me.

Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?

Bush: No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?

Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I’m just not very high on atheists.

Can you imagine a person who is openly Atheist trying to get elected? It would be political suicide! The mere fact that it would be political suicide should show to you how Atheists are discriminated against. There is currently 1 openly Atheist person in congress. Fortney “Pete” Stark Jr. (D) of California is the only openly Atheist person in congress.  ONE for 16% of the population, about 48,000,000 people! (According to CIA world factbook)

The University of Minnesota’s department of sociology did a(n) (in)famous study in 2006 that found that Atheists were the least trusted minority in the United States. Least trusted! Below Muslims and Gays! What have Atheists done?

I think it centers around this bullshit idea of “well, without god you have no morals and are dangerous.” Funny, considering in 2001 Atheists made up a whopping 0.4% of the US prison population, where as “moral” christians made up a minuscule 76.6%. Oh, and divorce rates? God loving christians account for 51% of divorces, horrible Atheists, 21%, the lowest divorce rate in the country.

People often wonder why a lot of Atheists are angry. Is it any wonder why when politicians able to make such bigoted statements without fear of consequences, the religious push to keep their god on the money, and in the pledge, their monuments on public property, when Atheists are the least trusted group in the country for no good reason? Atheists are second class citizens in this country. A country that is supposed to have a separation of church and state.

The ironic thing is, the religious often claim that they are the ones who are persecuted. To them, the mere existence of Atheists is insulting. They see Atheists’ attempts to gain equality and government neutrality as persecution of them! It makes me sick.

Why do I attract the crazies?

This really doesn’t have anything to do with my blog, but it was so weird that I just had to post it. Some guy in Austin TX posted this on my blog but my spam filter caught it.
I have to make it public. It’s suppose to be secret, however most people in Austin, Tx knows about it. The police department has machine that can read your mind. A machine that can read someone’s mind will be used to violate EVERYONE’S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS!!! It can also change the way you feel. Sexual impulses, anger, and paranoia are all feelings they can induce to you at their fingertips. This means it can cause a girl or boy to feel sexual, and get raped thinking they wanted to. Its like a drug. This is just one of the many crimes they commit with this machine RIGHT NOW!!!! They are using it right now to spy on their citizens RIGHT NOW!!! People will be spied on in there homes, without a warrant. (this means someone will be able to watch you during sex without your knowledge.) There are a lot of people all over the United States knowing about this machine. The police department is able to use it to spy on people in their own home. During interrogation they keep a person dazed, confused and not sound of mind to cohersed them into making certain statements. This is a violation of these people’s constitutional rights. Start thinking about how the government has given the police department a weapon to commit not only one of the biggest civil and constitutional rights violations of all time, but to commit war crimes such as rape, brainwashing, and toturing people without the victim’s knowledge. I know it is hard to believe, however if you happen to know someone in the police department who cares for you enough, just ask if they have a machine that can read and control people’s mind. After that, I would also like people to think about how we are able to get the government to stop letting the police department violate the people’s civil and constitutional rights, and committing war crimes against there own citizens. Major media companies have knowledge of this, but are not willing to broadcast it. People need to find out and talk about this issue.

This is ridiculous. I don’t think I need to say more.

So who wins? Religion or Atheism?

So in the great debate who wins? Religion or Atheism? Which makes a stronger case? Well obviously I side with Atheism, but why, when many more people side with religion.

Religion has no evidence to back up its claim that god(s) exist. The religious argue that surely we must have come from somewhere (see Unmoved Mover), but then make a completely unwarranted exception for god when someone asks where he/she/it came from, thus making the logic ad hoc. (The above link has a list of just about every argument for the existence of god(s) and rebuttals)

The religious also argue that things look designed, and therefore they are designed, presumably by their choice god who then takes a keen interest in his creation’s daily lives. Yet science has consistently debunked this idea:

(The “Made Easy” series has a LOT of really great educational videos that explain all types of scientific things on youtube.com, just search for them)

Religion also relies on its position of authority. Many of the religious were raised by religious parents, who in turn were raised by their religious parents. To them belief in god(s) is just natural, something they were raised with, and few ever think to question it. This position of authority is reinforced with elaborate costumes and large, imposing structures:

The whole point of these structures is to overwhelm the visitor with their grandeur, to make them think “Surely, the people who reside in this place cannot be wrong!” Yet they can be, for they are exactly that, people. The believers are also comforted in their belief by the existence of a great many like believers. (See ad populum fallacy)

So, what about Atheism? Well personally, I feel Atheism is strengthened through the weakness of the religious arguments, their total lack of evidence. The thing that really does it for me is the fact that science has a steady track record of discoveries and breakthroughs, religion has a steady track record of being proved wrong. Science has consistently provided natural explanations that are testable, repeatable, and thus proveable, whereas religion just makes claims based off of authority.

For some people, religion’s weak arguments and heavy reliance on arbitrary authority are enough, but for me and a growing number of people they aren’t.

Ship Dungeon

So lately I’ve taken the plunge into role-playing. I’ve role-played in only three very short games before and never DMed. I’m mainly a computer gamer (if I can be called that, I only play when I have the time, which is rarely), yet with a girlfriend who has been a life long DM, I guess it was only a matter of time.

While I’m still clueless on the mechanics of playing (she’s helping me out with that) I have been really into trying to come up with cool settings. The first dungeon I made (which she is currently playing through) was set in a Jules Verne “Journey to the Center of the Earth” style Aztec village with a band of stranded un-dead conquistadors.

It’s only a page big, but has turned out to be mapping hell for her. For instance, I’m sure I gave her a major headache when I tried to describe this  diamond shaped room that had two more smaller diamond shaped rooms in it. Here is the lower half of the map (which she has explored):

She also recently told me of some contest (I forget the name of it) where I have to create a dungeon that fits on one page. I wanted to do something other than the mundane generic medieval dungeon, so got the idea to use a shipwreck. It’s an enclosed space, that can have rooms, and dangers, and treasures. Then for setting, I tried to blend two things together, Egypt and Napoleonic France. So in short, it’s a sunken French ship coming back from French Occupied Egypt with something mysterious aboard!

Here is the map with just the ship’s outline filled out:

For the ship layout, I modified the design of a (Russian?) brig:

It was the only free ship layout I could find at the time, and it seemed to work nicely. For scaling, I decided to make each square 1 meter, instead of the normal 5 feet. I measured the brig schematics and the ship is roughly 40 meters long. I was able to fit four decks onto the piece of page.

I’m planning on having one deck be the top deck with the captain’s quarters, and then the lower decks will be anything from crew’s quarters, to kitchen, to gun deck, to cargo hold. Perhaps I’ll throw in a dash of Event Horizon. ~_^

As for creating individual rooms, I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do. I was thinking that a sunken ship has a lot of debris, and that things move around inside of the ship as it sinks. This could then create barriers that would form make-shift corridors.

I think it’ll be a lot of fun, and hopefully I can come up with some neat things to put in there.