Maybe I’m old and not so active in gaming any more, but it just sunk in — I was a heavy gamer back in the 1970s, before most of you were born. I outrank most of the gibbering basement-dwelling FPS fanatics! I was playing multi-player combat games, pulling all-nighters to hammer the enemy, back when it was all about big sheets of paper and cardboard counters and throwing dice. What brought it back is that I remember Greg Costikyan — I played Costikyan’s games back in the ’80s.
What reminded me of Costikyan is that he recently commented on Gamersgate. He just told the whiners to STFU.
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
What do you think you’re defending? An industry in which greed-head executives make brain-dead games on a yearly basis that show little to no innovation from one title to the next? You fucking -want- Madden? And the next Call of Duty game, same as the last but with new content from hundreds of exploited drones working hours that destroy relationships because the suits think that’s what they want?
I’m absolutely certain that I’d rather play The Creature That Ate Sheboygan or Paranoia than Madden. Although that last name sounds promising, it turns out it’s not about creatively stimulating rage in other players, but about some boring game with a ball.
Considering that they basically repackage most of the same old mechanics over and over again in Halo games with better graphics and new stories, I suspect a lot of gamers are change-paranoid whiners.
I’ll give Madden one thing, though – it’s probably driving innovation in game engines in terms of generating video and graphics with its drive towards photorealism. That could be an immense boon for speculation fiction video content down the line if it lowers the cost of showing that stuff when people repurpose it to make movies.
Ah, Paranoia… Good times. Good times.
Well, I only go back to the 1990s, but I know what you mean.
And the thing is that I think there are a lot of old-school grognards — the people who first defined “gamer” as an identity — who aren’t remotely on the side of the whiners.
Paranoia and Creature that ate Sheboygan? Did em both. And “Bug Eyed Monsters” with the subtitle ……. “they want our women”. Which was actually a piss take, not some MRA secret code.
In the 80s I worked for a computer gamecompany, SSG, made mostly wargames. I met Greg at a couple of conferences in the US. Top bloke.
Computer games have mostly failed to enthuse since those days.
P.Z. I might challenge you for the “Cantankerous Old Game Player” crown. ;)
Paranoia, I have not played that in decades. “The computer is your friend. Trust the computer.” That was the line our GM always used. And this before computers really did take over. Hail the computer overlords.
SSG? I played Reach for the Stars on my Apple II back in the day. And I still have a copy of its board game predecessor, Stellar Conquest, stuffed in a box in the basement. I hope it hasn’t gone moldy and been eaten by mice.
This post was very thoughtful citizen. Too thoughtful. Please report to execution chamber Alpha where we will revoke your Blue Clearance.
Well what are you waiting for? Pre-reg for DunDraCon 39 opened a week ago. You can enjoy pleasant (if potentially rather wet) weather in California over Presidents Day Weekend next (and every) February.
(I remember RftS. Gave a friend I was playing with a severe shock when I showed him that stacking up cheap little ships in a system could beat his modest fleet of top tier ships. He wasn’t expecting 1000+ of *anything*…)
Now for Paranoia players… I have a solid black “name badge”. Can’t read it? Your clearance is too low…citizen.
I played Pac-Man at the laundromat.
I haven’t played Paranoia myself, but I did listen to Kikoskia GM a campaign. So much funny. I do love video games, but that’s the sort of thing a computer can’t generate. [Gets executed by a Troubleshooter for his treasonous doubts about Friend Computer]
Right. I started playing Avalon Hill and SPI war-games in 1973, tried a new game called DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS in 1974 (a demo game run by some guy named Arneson) and managed to run a several-year-long campaign of TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE. And I have a copy of Costikiyan’s (sorry, Unnamed Game Designer’s) VIOLENCE–which shows Costikiyan’s attitude hasn’t changed much (it’s blistering parody of violent role-playing games). Good for him.
Oooooh… I played Creature That Ate Sheboygan once. As I read the rules I noticed it bore a *slight* rules similarity to my favorite board game, Ogre.
Anyway, right now I’m big into Old School RPGs. I’m currently running Moldvay-Cook Basic/Expert D&D (with a few house rules co-opted from the retro-clone, Labyrinth Lord) set in a more recently published mega-dungeon, Barrowmaze. Each year, I make the pilgrimage to Lake Geneva to attend Gary Con to play other games of my youth or to try the titles I never could. I was also involved in a 2nd Ed. game and as well as Empire of the Petal Throne. (“Otulengba” to all the Tsolyáni in the house!)
That’s not to say I don’t like newer titles. I really like Savage Worlds as well as Mongoose’s version of Traveller and got to play a few games of Numenera recently which was a trip. The new D&D has potential and it’s a vast improvement over the abomination that was 4th Ed.
I better stop before I totally geek out.
I still bristle at the notion that people who just play video games… console video games at that, are allowed to even call themselves gamers. Gamers are supposed to own a lot of funny dice!
Ah, Paranoia. I played it only once, at summer camp. And it was one of the most fun role-playing games I’ve ever played.
Good times.
I’ve got a copy of The Creature That Ate Sheboygan in my cupboard. Haven’t played it in many, many years. Got a young nephew who’s getting into board games – have to drag it out.
My gaming must date back to… the late 70s. I used to have a whole bunch of those Metagames with their teeny-tiny dice. And what was that magazine that used to include a complete board game in every issue? There were some great ones before the company went under.
Many was the lecture I skipped in the 80s, playing Nuclear War in the cafe at Uni.
Computer RPG – snort. I’m still playing 2 pen and paper games per week (the GM of one is a player in mine).
No love for Talisman?
How is it that I never even HEARD of Creature That Ate Sheboygan? That’s terrible. It was probably on a shelf in some gaming store when I first went to buy my own games in the 80s, and I just walked by.
I played Car Wars (the Poor-Crip-Dyke’s Battletech…and also the innovator of the new! handbook! every! month! strategy that made TSR so loathsome in the 2E era) and Paranoia.
I also, when I was like 8 years old or something, played a text-based, turn-based strategy game called “Empire” that ran on a Trash80’s cassette drive. Watching older students at my school play the game in the computer lab was my first direct experience with any kind of computer ever. Got special permission to use the lab, even though I was under the age-limit the school had arbitrarily drawn. Wrote my first code at the older kids’ insistence before they would allow me to borrow a copy of an Empire cassette [though it was laughably, pathetically simple stuff – BASIC for “print this shit to the screen” and other 1-4 line programs] from the program library. Using the “break” button and restarting the game either after the step that generated weather (if you were on the edge of Empire viability and afraid of storms) or back earlier in the loop to get a double dose of funds for that turn, if you were in need of gold, was the earliest version of “cheat codes” I ever knew. But back then it was “cheat coding</em". You wanted to cheat the game, you read the damn program and figured out how it worked, then made changes in the code or otherwise messed with its processes.
yep, I'm the kind of gamer who thinks that cheat codes that you didn't write yourself by sniffing through the source code is, well, cheating.
Take that, all you post-Castle Wolfenstein n00bs.
#12: You beat me. I first played D&D in 1975.
It’s obvious I’m not the oldest codger on the blog.
My got my first ” hobby game” when I was 12-years-old. I had gotten a $20 Toys R Us gift certificate from my uncle for X-mas and a few days later, my Dad turned my sister and loose at the Brookfield, Wisconsin store. I was able to get a toy gyroscope and some prepared insect slides for my new microscope, but I needed something else to fill out the certificate.
That’s when I saw it. Lying in the “Clearance” bin, with a crushed in box corner, was a copy of Star Frontiers, TSRs entry into the scifi RPG market. Even with the damaged cover, the Larry Elmore cover art was too enticing, so I decided to give the game a good home.
Thus, much to my parent’s chagrin, started my journey done the dark path of role-playing games. A path I will follow until I drop dead.
I kind of suspect this was taken down for more than “excessive profanity”, with stuff in it like “Who cares who Zoe Quinn fucked, or didn’t fuck? It’s none of your fucking business, unless you were one of the people involved, and most of you would give your left kidney to fuck her, if you had any brains.” which is like, either an incredibly creepy side-swipe public proposition, or sounds enough like one to pass as one. He also refers to models as “bimbos” and does that weird “appeal to hyper-masculinity in defense of women” thing (“real men don’t let other men rape” and the like) with “Men, good men, defend women. They do not attack them.” then he makes an open challenge to duel to “defend the honor” of women.
This is (maybe) well-intentioned, but either a) Costikyan is a creep or b) he isn’t a very good self-editor, or both.
Another day, another dungeon.
That said. I, too, am an ’80s gamer.
D&D (basic and ecpert)
AD&D (first and second edition)
CarWars
GURPS
Heroes
Most Pre-Rifts Palladium games (especially Robotech)
RoleMaster
Call of Cthulhu
Shadowrun (1st edition)
Paranoia
‘Toon
Teenagers from Outerspace
Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic
Fringeworthy
probably others…
You know I really wouldn’t be proclaiming yourself a member of an hobby that is just as proactive in chasing women and minorities out of it by vicious harassment.
Adam Yakaboski @24:
Why wouldn’t someone claim the mantle of ‘gamer’? The misogynists aren’t the only people who play games, and they don’t get to define gaming for everyone. If people were to refuse to be gamers bc some people are assholes, then assholes will have succeeded in driving everyone else away.
Do you apply the same thinking to people who read comic books? I’ve been an avid reader for more than half my life, and while I’ve only become aware of the problems of sexual harassment and misogyny in the industry in the last few years, I’m not going to stop being a comic book fan because there’s a problem in the industry. Nor will I reject the label ‘comic book fan’ because of the assholes in the industry.
Why should I concede to them? Why can’t I, and others, work to define something we love as being open, inclusive, and inviting to all?
@Adam Yakaboski #24: There’s been a recurring “No True Scotsman” argument among the misogynist gamer crowd, over the issue of female gamers, going something like:
“Feminists like Anita Sarkeesian are outsiders who want to ruin games. Games are made for straight white men because that’s who the majority of gamers are!”
“Actually, studies show that gamers are split almost 50-50 male/female.”
“Psshh, those girls aren’t real gamers! They don’t play the right games/spend enough money/have a long enough history with games.”
Were I to guess, I would suspect that PZ’s post here is, at least partly, a counter to that obvious bit of fallacious reasoning. The misogynists think they’re the “true” gamers, that they were here first, that gaming “belongs” to them and evil SJWs are trying to change it or take it away from them. They aren’t, it doesn’t, and even if they were, the misogynists clearly deserve to have their toys taken away until they’ve had a good long time to think about what they’ve done.
Adam Yakaboski @ 24
On the contrary, I think that progressives, non-rascists, and non-sexist gamers need to be twice as loud in their proclaiming their membership to the hobby.
I own a 360. You I don’t think I’ve used it to play video games more than a few times in the 4 years I had the thing. Now it sits under the TV, gathering dust.
Oh many of the games look awesome. I wanted to enjoy Mass Effect and the Destiny looks absolutely epic, but I just can’t work up the enthusiasm to play them as video games. (That, and FPSs make me nauseous.)
Now, if they were tabletop, pen-and-paper RPGS, were I had greater control over my character or campaign than Bungie or Bioware, I’d dive right in.
Oh, forgive the poor copy editing of the last posts. I’m posting via phone during my very brief breaks ( or when I can sneak a post in when the boss man isn’t looking).
Been a gamer pretty much my entire life, the video sort in 80s. video games and D&D / Vampire / Star Wars / etc in the 90s. Fell out of it and mostly went on the video game route, but recently got back into tabletop with a group of other people in their 30s and 40s, playing Pathfinder. Amazing both how little its changed, as a fun experience, but how much we’ve changed as players. There’s something fun about it as an adult.
Though, I’ll be honest, sometimes I do want to play Call of Duty, but that has a lot more to do with the people I play it with and not so much the game. It’s been a ritual of ours for years. But we also play some other, non-video game stuff because of the friendships we formed playing those games.
I also believe that the nerdverse is big enough to give us all things we want to do and can enjoy doing. Just need to clean it up a bit and get more of people to realize it.
@25 Tony
The label does have some negative connotations that the broader gamer community has, sadly, done a pretty good job of earning. Not wanting to deal with that and avoiding the label is reasonable. I’d consider it laudable to actively combat that by claiming the label while not a giant fucking asshole, but the “fuck it, I’m out” approach is entirely reasonable.
Personally, I took the latter method. I play enough games to be able to legitimately claim the gamer title. I’ve got more practice than I’d like to admit with dice probabilities, plenty of exposure to board games, card games, RPGs, even some video games. I am currently the GM in an RPG group*. I’m also male (or at least sufficiently male seeming), so it’s not like it would be a contested title. I’m generally a proponent of useful labeling systems, shorthand, etc.
By all rights, I should be grabbing at the title. The community is so toxic that I don’t. Costikyan’s piece here is a bit of a mess that should be ripe for criticism itself (as qymaen @21 demonstrated), but the norm is so fucking bad that it’s cause for celebration. There’s a raging shitstorm over the pretty mild criticisms from Anita Sarkesiaan**, the whole “fake geek girls” bullshit**, the general acceptance of racial slurs, the rampant homophobia, and so much else. I don’t want that associated with me. Plenty of other people don’t want that associated with them. That is why we “wouldn’t claim the mantle of gamer”.
*Though by “women aren’t real gamers” standards, I’m pretty sure that actual RPG wouldn’t even count for much of the hobby were the members of the group known.
**Hell, these two get merged. Anita Sarkesiaan put up a picture of the library of games she’s been working with, routinely cites dozens of different games generally accepted as real in her videos, and generally demonstrates an incredibly thorough knowledge of video games. She still gets half baked attempts to discredit her based on not being a gamer.
I see that, so far, no one has mentioned Villains & Vigilantes. I once ran a scenario based on Sesame Street, with some admixture from the Muppet Show. It had the party returning the SF Bay Area by train from a Westercon, with a layover in Smidler’s Gulch. The party was tasked with stopping Cowboy X from stamping Xs on *everything* in town, including the good citizens thereof.
They never did figure out that all you had to do was ask him to stop…
this is exactly why consoles are terrible as a gaming platform: NO CONTROL
you can’t update easily, you can’t swap out elements, you’re stuck with crappy controllers…
but them MAIN reason, is that you can’t MOD the games on a console.
hell, I think I have actually spent at least as much time modifying the games I have played on PCs as I have playing them!
Imagine being able to rewrite your favorite TV show on the fly, or add new characters to your favorite book. Change the story, change nearly everything about how it works.
it’s powerfully addictive.
…basically, the rpgs have gotten to the point where they have nearly the same flexibility of the PnP games, but with graphics and an AI to battle against.
Knabb@31:
I don’t deny that some people have made gaming toxic, and I agree that it is reasonable to take the approach of “fuck it, I’m out”. I just don’t think Adam’s argument* “don’t be a gamer b/c some gamers are assholes” was argued effectively. It was an argument made without consideration for that fact that some people don’t want to give up the mantle of gaming and leave it to the assholes. Some people may want to define themselves as gamers, and have every right to. The argument also had a whiff of “guilt by association”. Being a gamer does not make one a misogynistic scumbag.
*It wasn’t much of an argument either.
qymaen @21:
Where was Costikyan’s post ‘taken down’ from?
It was taken down from the Gamasutra, a major video game industry insider-type media outlet, but I’m not clear on if the site’s editors took it down, or if Costikyan deleted it himself (I’m not totally sure how posts at Gamasutra work, but I suspect it was posted without an editor going over it in the first place, not least because of the obvious misspellings: “mutimillionaire”, “mysoginistic”, Anita “Sirkeesian”).
Also, something I didn’t note in my previous post: the article contains a really disgusting paragraph about trans “friend”, where Costikyan says that they “decided he was a woman”, and “after extensive surgery”, “became [a woman]”, and Costikyan uses this person’s current name, as well as their birth name, which is just really, really wrong, not just ’cause it’s impolite, but also because it potentially outs this person without their knowledge or consent, and even if they’re already out as trans, publicizing a transperson’s birth name is still dangerous and rude (which is why I’m refraining from using their name here). Ironically the paragraph ends by noting that this person was “shabbily treated”.
@37, qymaen:
Wow, the tone trolling is strong in this one. It’s not enough for Costikyan to come out with an extremely strong statement in support of a position we like, it has to be couched in exactly the terms we — the people who aren’t the target audience — consider appropriate, or else it’s utterly worthless. Never mind that Costikyan seems to be sex-positive, supportive of women in gaming, supportive of trans people; he’s a little foul-mouthed when yelling at people who are used to profanity and uses a term you don’t like, plus he suggests that the (heterosexual white male) people he’s speaking to should find intelligent women attractive, and then he even goes so far as to suggest that men should stand up for women, so he should obviously be rejected as the unregenerate sexist horror he obviously is. [facepalm]
Seriously, your sanctimonious attempt to look down your nose at Costikyan is nearly as offputting in its own way as the “true gamers” who are all upset that there are women playing games now.
And, of course, you didn’t bother to look up the name of the trans woman mentioned in the post (Danielle Bunten) or you would have noticed that:
1. It’s way too late to worry about “outing” her; she published at least one blog post about being trans, under her own name, which is referenced in the Wikipedia article about her (which also talks about it)
and more importantly, from the perspective of damaging her career by outing her as trans:
2. She has been dead for 16 years (lung cancer in 1998).
Google is open to all; you don’t have to be shy about taking just a few seconds to learn a little more about the topic before getting all huffy.
Ichthyic @ 33
If funny, but one of my gamer buddies in Madison just relayed an amusing anecdote: He was at his FLGS talking with two fellows working behind the counter about the new edition of D&D. They thought it was great, but were a little put off by the fact they couldn’t play the new Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure until their PC reached an appropriate level (probably one where they wouldn’t die a horrible death in their first encounter). My friend, an old school gaming grognard asked them “Well, why don’t you just level up your characters or create new ones at that level?”
They hadn’t thought of that! Indeed, they were slightly offended by the idea! They acted as if he had asked them to cheat! You aren’t supposed to do that! You’re supposed to start at level 1 and earn XP! That’s how you play!
Personally, I suspect that most younger gamers view tabletop games the same way they see video games: as software. You don’t re-write it, not that you could anyway. You play it as it comes out of the package.
hymanrosen @38:
Unfortunately, there are many people who seem to think it is unreasonable to advocate for women to be treated better in video games. Such a change is apparently seen by some as the sign of the apocalypse. The end times for video games. Fucking asswipes, all of them.
I’m not trying to tone troll, and I agree with the general gist of Costikyan’s argument- specifically, that the video game industry is stacked against women, and attacking women in the game industry is counterproductive and stupid, and I agree that maybe sometimes you need to tell people to fuck off when they’re being sexist asses. But also, I think it’s incredibly gross to say things like “decided he was a woman” (implying that being trans is a conscious decision) or “after extensive surgery, became a woman” (implying that a transwoman without surgery is somehow “not a woman”), and I don’t think it’s fair to let transphobia slide just because someone is right about other things- it should be called out wherever it happens, especially in cases where it’s someone who ought to know better, and who is probably willing to acknowledge their mistake and improve in the future (as I’m assuming Costikyan is).
I’ll admit that I probably should’ve looked up Bunten, and it sucks that she’s dead. That said, even though she’s deceased, it’s still insulting and in poor taste to use her birth name and refer to her as a man who “decided he was a woman”.
I also still think it’s gross to, in an article intended to defend someone, sexualize them in passing (“you’d want to fuck her too if you had any brains”), and I still think it’s gross to offer a duel to “defend the honor” of a woman- it contains a bunch of assumptions about women’s capability to defend themselves, men’s superior ability at “defense”, and the demands of “chivalry” or “duty” for a man to defend a woman, along with the implication that any man who doesn’t “defend the honor” of a woman is not a “real man”.
I don’t doubt that Costikyan’s intentions were good in writing the piece, and I agree with his intent fully- but I also think that in writing it so furiously, he maybe revealed more of his own unconscious prejudices than he intended to.
qymaen @37: You’re lacking some important context. Danielle Bunten Berry died of lung cancer in 1998, and was completely out when she was alive.
There’s a reason why Costikyan chose to mention Dani Berry. He’s a big fan, and I believe was a close friend as well: http://wiki.igda.org/Memorials/Dani_Bunten_Berry
The “decided he was a woman” phrase is unfortunate. It may have been a clumsy and ill-considered attempt at expressing Dani’s gender identity, which was complex. Sadly, she came to regret having gender reassignment surgery, though I think in an ideal world (better surgical technique, no social stigma) she would have been happy with the outcome.
@43 That really sucks. Apparently The Sims is dedicated to her though, which is kind of touching in light of what a massive media phenomenon The Sims has been.
Also, with regards to @39, “it has to be couched in exactly the terms we — the people who aren’t the target audience — consider appropriate, or else it’s utterly worthless.”
I don’t think it’s worthless, but I think it’s wrong, or at least clumsy and tasteless, to try to appeal to the worst aspects of an audience in order to make a point. In this case, I think it’s trying to appeal to the “gamer” audience’s sexism and hypermasculinity (“you aren’t a “real man” if you don’t defend women”), and also their sex drive (“you’d want to fuck her too if you had brains”).
In comparison, I think it’s like calling someone an f-word in front of a homophobic audience in order to get them to dislike someone, or hailing someone as having fought against the nasty feminists/”social justice warriors” in front of a socially conservative audience in order to get them to like someone, or trying to make the point that Stalin was evil by calling him an atheist in front of a fundamentalist Christian audience- in all these cases, it’s using an appeal to ideals that I find repugnant in order to make a rhetorical point, and I don’t think “you aren’t in the intended audience” is a very strong defense, because it still serves to reinforce and validate those ideals, and it still shows a willingness to exploit them to make a point.
Even in a case where I agree with the overall point- like this one, or trying to convey that Stalin was a bad person- I can’t really endorse the message in a form where it uses appeals to disgusting ideas in order to make a point, whether the ideas are the sexualization of women, or that someone is a bad person for not being straight or Christian, or that feminism is evil.
@whheydt, and, generally, everyone:
IMNSHO the greatest role playing game ever written – and one of the coauthors is The Atheist Experience’s own Jeff Dee!
Simply a smashing success. I bought the rulebook and was surprised at how simple they made it. 64 pages, I think it is, and it’s all you need. You can, of course, buy modules, and I have almost all of them, several spread across my bedroom right this second. But the rulebook is all you need. Even better, with the outlines provided by the existing power + the flexibility of “mutant power”, “special weapon,” “vehicle,” “psionics” and the like, you can create special powers for individual heroes (or villains)…and then generalize them and add them to the creation tables.
If anyone who actually owns a copy of the rulebook sends me a pic or something to prove it, I’ll send you a copy of my hand-typed rulebook that loses the art, but adds a ton of powers – about 1/2 created by me, about 1/2 culled from the internet or from (mostly) villains in the non-module books of villains (such as the “Most Wanted” supplements, “Opponents Unlimited,” etc.)
The only powers that they really missed out on when first creating the game were Density Increase and Psionic Offensive Thingy That Does Damage. Other than that, specific implementations of, psay, mental powers were too numerous and too minor to worry too much about listing.
But when I and my friends got creative, we did quite a bit – including with spells. Add the villain specific powers that I added in to the book, and you have the simplicity of the original rule system, the same flexibility of “wild card powers”, and the accumulated wisdom of 30 years of playing the game.
Prove to me you’re not trying rob FGU & Jeff Dee & Jack Herman of funds, and you can have my content integrated into an e-file of the V&V rulebook.
Of course, if you are in SW BC, on the Islands or in the lower mainland, we can just get together and play.
Seriously. Best RPG ever.
Dani Bunten Berry created M.U.L.E., an essential game for anyone who wants to understand multiplayer balance in video games. It’s a standard that nearly every dudebro game you care to mention fails to emulate.
My first introduction into gaming was an Atari 2600 I got for Christmas in 1978. The next year, again for Christmas, I got the D&D Basic Boxed Set. My first LARP wasn’t until 1988, though. I have been a hardcore (pretty much by any metric) gamer and nerd ever since. “Gamer” used to be a way for us to identify one another and know that we would have something in common; a bond, if you will. Given the grief we (I speak for myself and my friends over the years that shared their experiences with me) received and sometime continue to receive at the hands and mouths of non-gamers/non-nerds, having that bond was something special. Of course, it is only through retrospection that I have realized that was what was happening.
Over the last few years, being a gamer and/or nerd does not carry the stigma that it once did. For some, I think, enduring that stigma and being a part of some “elite” group became a source of pride. As the stigma falls away, these people are losing their “special-ness”. Now anyone can be a gamer. Even girls. Especially girls. *shudder*
My nephew (12yo) considers himself a hardcore gamer. His idea of gamer is “one who plays a lot of FPS video games well”. When I asked him if he played any table top games, he stared at me blankly. “You mean like Sorry? no way! Those are for little kids.” He did not think that his sister (10yo) who played as many hours as he did, but she played “Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue” instead of “Call of Duty”, as being a “real” gamer. Apparently, my daughter (10yo), who can spends hours a day playing “Angry Birds” or “Where’s My Water” is not a “real” gamer either.
Since my niece and nephew have moved in with me, I began expanding their notions of what a “game” is and what constitutes a “gamer”. We have had (and will continue to have) many conversations regarding game content, appropriateness, gender treatment, design and whatever else I can think of. We’ve started a D&D campaign tailored to their likes and dislikes. We play Munchkin and MTG. Most importantly, we go to the open gaming nights at our local game shop and play with others. It is my hope that they will be the kind of gamers that will embrace players regardless of anything except asshole behavior. I want them to love gaming as much as I do. I want them to see gaming as a way to express themselves, enjoy themselves, make new friends, experience new things. Be open to criticism both good and bad. I will call out and confront bigotry, in any form I recognize (which I hope I will always be getting better at) in whatever venue I find it. I will teach my kids to do the same, as much as they can.
I am a gamer. My daughter is a gamer. My nephew is a gamer. My niece is a gamer.
The assholes will not take that away from us.
Ditto, except on Commodore 64, which means I probably obtained my copy around 1985; I read an enthusiastic review of it in about 1983 or 1984, and then had to wait until I actually had access to a computer to play it on! Awesome game.
I am among my people! I started playing wargames around 1973 and picked up roleplaying games a few years later. I never liked Paranoia – it reminded me too much of real-life emotional abuse situations – but I’ve still got Costikyan’s work on the Star Wars RPG from West End Games.
It’s been really funny to see the responses from hater guys who have no idea who Costikyan is and just assume he’s some sort of Zoe Quinn fanboy or something.
His way of writing about Bunten makes me cringe, but it’s also true that he really did back her up at a time few colleagues did. I remember hearing at the time how publishing executives would stake out positions like “this contract commits us to pay royalties to a man named X; you claim to be a woman named Y, so we don’t owe you anything anymore”. Costikyan was one of the few people in the industry to really consistently call that shit what it was and use the leverage at hand to press for sensible treatment. Those of us transitioned later and have done any kind of contracting work owe him some thanks for the risky effort, along with the cringe his usage earned.
@qymaen #21
It’s odd you’d put it like that. Gender roles and stereotypes are socially constructed, but surely if “Men, good men” is to mean anything it’s to mean: “moral member of the privileged class ‘men'”. Saying the overprivileged should not attach the underprivileged is surely positive, it’s what a “moral” man does.
Personally I try to redefine what “being a man” means to me to include a pro-feminist, tolerant, open and generally positive message. If I’m just spewing ignorance and hate, and harming people, then I’ve failed as a human being which surely includes having failed as “a man” (as a member of the privileged gendered class).
Roger Keating wrote the Reach for the Stars for commodore 64. Because I had Stellar Conquest amd could read Roger’s really terse machine code I got the job of converting it to the Mac in C and changed the rules somewhat. The true geek in me was revealed when the Mac II came out and I could reveal that Reach for the Stars worked in colour!!! That’s also when I met my wife, over a networked game of Maze Wars.
Comparing notes, I was playing Avalon Hill’s war games starting back in 1964, when I was a kid. Afrika Korps was our favorite because it was relatively quick, but we also played others. I didn’t find out about role-playing games until I was introduced to D&D in 1977, and my first computer game I ever played was a text-based Star Trek game (written in BASIC) on an HP 2000 mini-computer that year as well, often while I was waiting at the computer center for a program to run and pick up the printout. I did dabble writing a game on a friend’s TRS-80, but I was a piker compared to my to-be wife, who worked for Coleco doing graphics for Zaxxon and other games ported from arcade games.
Colin J @16, You’re probably talking about Strategy & Tactics. There were some other magazines that attempted to repeat the formula of a wargame in every issue, but I think S&T was the first.
I just want to parachute in and announce that I’ve played The Creature That Ate Sheboygan too.
With such a title for the OP, I’m surprised Call of Cthulhu was not listed as your #1 game, PZ. Seems natural for such a fan of the Older Gods. I was introduced to it as an offshoot(/distraction from) AD&D, that we were totally addicted to and would completely over-indulge in frequently. (back in the “paper and (polyhedral) dice” days, before computers got involved). For computer games, got seriously addicted to ID games (Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake) Became more isolated so group sessions of D&D became infeasable; thus the descent into computer games.
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[sorry to interrupt the feministic discussions here…just wanted to throw in my little experience in the “gaming world”. ] ^_^
PZ @ 19–Well, I had an unfair advantage. I lived in Minneapolis–as did Dave Arneson. At that, I I was always looking up to the REAL Old-Tymers (Fred Funk, Richard Tatge, and Dave Arneson) in town…I think it’s the winters that make Mpls. such a gaming hotbed.
Speaking of Richard Tatge:
The Game Meister of Kingfield
Going in Richard’s basement for the first time is, shall we say, a unique experience.
I had an S&T subscription for a couple of years, until the whole enterprise folded. I think my favorite game to come out of that was Panzergruppe Guderian — small elite force pitted against a massive war machine of highly variable quality. You never knew whether the Russians would collapse as you discovered feeble units at critical places in their line, or whether they’d totally surprise you with a monster unit at a key point. So much chance and unpredictability!
It doesn’t though because quite honestly companies like Wizards of the Coast have given that exact toxic element of the hobby far more legitimacy than even the gaming industry by hiring them to work on the latest edition of D&D.
No but using it as debate tool when you have no clue what the hell is going on in the industry to score kudos is in fact a pretty scummy and terrible thing when you really aren’t correcting the problem at all.
I’ve got an old “Unreal Tournament” that my brother installed it for me.
If I play it properly I usually get killed in about 23 seconds.
If I use the cheats (eg: god mode) I usually get bored in about 23 seconds.
I appreciate the sentiment expressed by Costikyan, but, while I think his intent is undoubtedly good, I do agree with qymaen that Costikyan’s wording in places is problematic, such as calling models ‘bimbos’ and referring to a trans woman as ‘he’.
I’m not attempting to defend his usage, by the way, so much as hoping to provide a context so that people know who they’re dealing with when they object, as they should: this is someone who has in a very practical way been a damn good ally in a time when they were very thin on the ground. Set him straight with respect, because he’s not trying to be part of the problem. I’m going to be sending a note myself this week.
Adam Yakaboski @59:
No clue? We know that a lot of people have sent hateful, misogynistic, threatening letters to Sarkeesian and Quinn (and many other women too). We know that’s wrong and horrible and needs to stop. PZ continues to call that out, while still claiming the label ‘gamer’, as is his right since not all gamers are like that. So what is your problem? How is bringing attention to the problem in the gaming industry not trying to help correct the problem? What about other people that still label themselves gamers, while opposing the misogynists? And why do you make the assumption that PZ is doing this to “score kudos”?
@61, pentatomid:
Get over it. Costikyan doesn’t have to prove anything to you — he already earned his chops by, well, being in the gaming industry for decades and actually proving by his actions that he isn’t sexist or trans-phobic. If the rest of the industry was like him, we wouldn’t have this problem in the first place. You and qymaen are trying very hard to illustrate the phrase “the perfect is the enemy of the good”.
PZ, did you ever play Ogre? It’s kind of at the far end of the “ants vs giants” asymmetric sort of gaming. Like Hnefetafl times a hundred.
ot: hey Coyote, my email’s the same, or ask in the Lounge.
I don’t think there’s a game listed above that I haven’t played and/or owned at some point. Haven’t seen Snit’s Revenge mentioned yet, nor my own money sinkholes from the 90s, ASL (Advanced Squad Leader) and SFB (Star Fleet Battles), or as I like to think of them both, “rules lawyer fanservice”. :D
I’ve got a nice little pile of SPI, AH, and VG games still, including Pacific War, The Next War (the only one in which I can fairly say I’m represented, as the game includes the 2nd Canadian Combat Group, of which I was a part in West Germany in 1984), and various Napoleonic-era games. Also haven’t seen anyone mention historical miniatures – I never got into DBA, but I do have a small army of Russians (15mm 1812 TOE, Empire basing).
I’m hoping to start my own game review site shortly – have a couple of reviews of new board games already, just need to get some graphics sorted out from the related Youtube channel – but I’ll admit the experiences of Ms. Sarkeesian and Ms. Quinn are not making me want to rush out and start that.
I’ve also long thought that an online progressive-oriented/feminist games club would be a Wondrous Thing. Something that would allow us to find other gamers who play the same games we do, and who are happy to do so while leaving the bigotry out of it. If I could find a small group of people who aren’t depressed, to help make it happen, I’d love that.
I do have a copy of Ogre somewhere in the basement. Unless the mold or mice got it.
Beware of mice wielding Mark IVs, PZ.
The Vicar @64:
I don’t think they should ‘get over it’. Even with the best of intentions, one can still step on toes or say something insensitive. One can agree with Costikyan’s overall point while calling him out for some of the things he says. Being an ally doesn’t mean one gets a free pass.
The Vicar @64:
Seriously? Look, I agree with Costikyan’s overall point, and, again, I think it’s great that he spoke out about this. I also think it’s great that he’s been such an ally to Danielle Bunten Berry. Honestly, overall, I think Costikyan sounds like a great guy… But that doesn’t mean we can’t point out problematic stuff. I think it’s especially important we do this in the case of people who are already on the right track, as they’re the people who are likely to take this sort of criticism (and, honestly, what I said was merely intended as very mild criticism of his wording, nothing more) and do something with it. I don’t really see what I (or qymaen for that matter) am doing wrong here. It’s not like I’m bashing Costikyan, or dismissing what he said as horrible or useless. Honestly, I’m not. I’m not lumping him in with team misogynist. And I’m not even saying that what he said was somehow ‘not good enough’. I don’t need perfection (heaven knows I screw up often enough myself), but I don’t see anything wrong with pointing out the imperfections either. And again, I know Costikyan’s intentions were good. But, what Costikyan said, GREAT THOUGH IT IS (and honestly, I wish more well known people in the game industry would speak out like this, I honestly do), also contained some bits that were problematic. Is it somehow wrong or forbidden to even mention this? To offer a bit of (very mild) criticism of what he said, just because he’s an ally? Really?
Tony! @70
Thanks!
@71, pentatomid (and 70, Tony! The Queer Shoop)
He’s not a Real Gamer. Real Gamers don’t play phone games. Real Gamers only play games on consoles and/or PCs. Only FPS and sports games count.
Oh, excuse me:
He’s not a Real Feminist. Real Feminists never use the word “bimbo”. Real Feminists only show support for the transgendered by vocabulary. Only words count.
Let me quote what qymean originally said, which you explicitly supported in your post:
That isn’t “mild criticism” on any scale I’m familiar with.
Sure, and the people who say Sirkeesian is a liar wish there were more female gamers, they honestly do. Frankly, the reaction qymaen had, which you and Tony have endorsed, is more than enough reason for people in the industry who feel as Costikyan does to keep quiet — he’s going to get pushback from all the misogynists, and probably get stinkeye from the industry people he has to please to get funding, and on top of that the people who theoretically agree with him hem and haw and issue corrections.
The Vicar:
Ok I understand. You want to give a free pass to the guy because his message is a good one (and one I, btw, agree with).
@73, Tony! The Queer Shoop:
I think I understand your point, too: gotta keep that circle small — why, what good is it to claim principles if just anyone can have the same distinction merely by acting on those principles for a few decades? The shibboleths must be preserved, or where’s the cachet for the truly pure of tongue? You, after all, were an ally on the Internet before it was popular. You’ve got a philosophy, but it’s really obscure. Cotikyan has probably never heard of it.
The Vicar:
No, you don’t get my point.
Cotikyan said a few problematic things while making an important point. It’s worthwhile calling out people, even allies, when they slip up. Congratulate them when they get it right, and criticize them when they slip up. Even when they do both at the same time. Would you prefer no one be critical of Cotikyan, just because you approve of his message?
The fuck? Pentomid’s criticism in particular is extremely even-handed. You have a stupidly low bar for both “enemy” and “good” here.
@76, Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :)
Once again, I refer you to qymaed’s original post, the one Tony and pentatomid are ultimately agreeing with, which said:
Tony and pentatomid are trying to dance around the fact that they’re agreeing with that, and qymaed is trying to pretend it was never said, but it is a hostile comment no matter how you look at it. Or do you think calling someone a creep isn’t hostile? For a group who pretend to be so sensitive about words, you four seem willing enough to gloss over that one. This isn’t being constructive, it’s just parsing and parsing and parsing to look for a reason to be dismissive and superior.
Ha, I still have all my “Toon” sourcebooks, designed by Greg Costikyan and Warren Spector.
I even created a cleric module for the “Dungeons and Toons” setting. Key feature? Massive sectarian violence, of course.
I suppose one can make an experience as inflexible as one wants to, regardless of the settings, medium, or what’s even offered by the game itself!
Can’t tell you how many times I have seen people talk about mods as if they were “cheating”, even though the game itself comes with a modding kit…
I can *almost* wrap my head around it sometimes… why people think it “ruins” the “intended” experience by modding a game.
then I recall all the times a game that otherwise would be a really good experience is ruined by a really poor choice of inventory management, or a bug the devs missed.
and it escapes me again.
The Vicar:
I’m not dancing around it. I agree with the post, but I also think some of what he said is problematic. Why is this so hard to grasp for you?
Since when is it hostile to call someone a creep?
The Vicar, @77
Ok, if this is about qymaen calling Costikyan a creep, then I’ll agree with you: that was probably unnecessarily harsh on Costikyan. Perhaps I should have been more careful in expressing what in qymaen’s comments I agreed with exactly and to what degree. Fair enough. If that was where you’re problem is with what I said, then I apologize. I do not think Costikyan is a creep. Far from it in fact. I do think, however, that the objections originally raised by qymaen re. some of Costikyan’s wording have some validity to them and that these things deserve to be pointed out. I think Costikyan is probably a great guy and a wonderfull ally, but he messed up in a very minor way, the same way anyone with any amount of privilege, no matter how well intentioned they are, will mess up sooner or later. That’s all. I’m certainly not being dismissive of Costikyan or his efforts as an ally (honestly, how many qualifiers do I have to use to get the point across that yes, I do value Costikyan as an ally, and that yes, I do agree with what he said?)
I checked my game library. I still have Snit Smashing from an issue of Strategy and Tactics. P.Z. an evolution and natural selection game!!! Bored bolotumi trying smash Snits as they run up the beach to plant their snotches in a Snandergrab!!! No sexism there either, all the lifeforms appear to be asexual.
that’s an excellent strawman of an argument that nobody made.
Re: PZ Meyers, D&D and Ogre. D&D in ’75, eh? That’s earlier than I played it…but I first played Risk in the 6th grade. circa 1969…I played most of the Avalon Hill titles and a bunch of S&T titles through the 70’s, and have yet to look back.
Steve Jackson recently released a new version of “Ogre.” It’s completely epic.
From a design perspective, we are currently in a Golden Age of boardgaming. One of the things that would make it better, a “Platinum Age?” would be for more women to be designing boardgames. I for one am not going to let a bunch of misogynistic assholes co-opt the term “Gamer.”
And speaking of gamers , Felicia Day is a hero of mine…go here for a more satisfying view of the world of “gamers:”
https://www.youtube.com/user/geekandsundry
Tim
Paranoia! Yes, that and Car Wars were my favorite games around the time that GURPS promised (and abysmally failed) to overthrow the tedious corporate driven world of desktop gaming.
DanDare@82: SNIT SMASHING was actually published in TSR’s DRAGON magazine (issue #10, according to Wiki). There was also a boxed sequel, SNIT’S REVENGE (I used to have a copy) also by TSR. Both were later reprinted by Steve Jackson Games–although they’re currently out of print. /grognard
Unless you’re able to demonstrate equality between pointing out imperfection and exclusion from a set, this analogy fails, hard.
Since a moderate size group of men decided that “creep shaming” was an utterly terrible thing.*
*Insulting people willy-nilly can be pretty shitty, and spurious accusations of “being a creep” do not but harm, but the furore over the term is wildly disproportionate.
@gymaen, Dani died in 1998, was completely open about her transgendered status, and spoke at industry conferences in her female identity, without every denying her past. I may be guilty of many things, but not of this. I also wrote a tribute to her for Happy Puppy, but it no longer seems to be extant on the web.
Oh, and it’s okay to slap at me a bit… The piece was written hastily an in rage, and there are some infelicities. But I’ve never minded courting controversy, and I do have a fairly thick skin. Just wanted to set the record right on that one matter. Re-reading it, the bit about Zoe Quinn does come off as a bit creepy, and I should probably have worded it differently. I refuse to apologize for characterizing booth babes as bimbos, however; they have always pissed me off. Women who hire themselves out as eye-candy for degraded man-boys are complicit in their own degradation. At one point, I pitched one of the game news sites on a story called “The Real Women of E3,” and planned to interview people like Sheri Graner Ray and Brenda Brathwaite… but couldn’t get buy-in.
good on ya, Greg.
Greg, thanks for stopping by.
I’ve said it before here, and I’ll say it many times more, being able to admit fault or error when the spotlight is on is one of the most difficult things humans do…and one of the most necessary.
So thanks for that too.
Thank you for stopping by and commenting. Oh, and keep up the good work!
Hey, I know there’s a pretty ugly turd of a comment written by me in one of the other FTB blogs. I never apologized for it because I forgot about the thread.