SotM .... Positive female representation

I saw this article on top 10 board games with positive female representation online yesterday, and I thought I'd share it here. 

Spoiler alert: Sentinels of the Multiverse makes the list. My wife says she probably would've ranked it higher because they're original characters with rich backstories. I'd probably agree, but it's great to see it on the list. We have often played with an "all-lady" team and we kick butt.

Great job, Greater Than Games!

http://www.boardgamequest.com/top-ten-games-with-positive-female-representations/

That is cool. And being in the top the is nothing to sneeze at.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

One of my favorite things about the story.

Agreed! I think it's pretty cool the range of representation in SotM. There's people from lots of different races, nationalities, classes, genders, orientations, etc. It's great!

At a GenCon panel I went to on diversity in games, there was a big call-out to Sentinels for its diversity. Not just for the obvious thing like the number of women on the cast, but the wide variety of other features that are well fleshed-out. In particular, one of the panelists had Ex-Patriette as a personal hero, because she was missing an eye, the same that the panelist was blind in. (It also helped that both the panelist and Ex-Patriette were female.)

The diversity is one of the things I love about Sentinels.

I love the little things that add to the diversity like the fact that Unity is Israeli ,Parse is the only Aboriginal Superhero I've ever seen,Tachyon and Dr Medico are gay etcetera.It's the narrative filigree that turns characters from mere copies of the more famous ones into their own thing which makes the game better to play

Clearly he needs a promo with a festive sombrero.

We also have non-human and non-gender-binary people, as well as a decent age range. I'd like a little more diversity in body types, but mostly it's pretty good.

And disabilities - Fixer is blind, Expat has one eye, AZ needs to be in his suit or cryo chamber which is seriously restricting, Visionary essentially has brain damage that might kill her, Parse has Asperger's (arguably not a disability but it does cause problems in everyday life).

I'm beyond bored of the fact that so many other games out there stick to the old "straight white male as default" pattern. Those of us who aren't straight white males should be represented too!

I guess people need to be pretty fit to fight crime which, restricts body types available to the artist

Not if your powers are predominantly non-physical - you can be any body shape you like if you can melt people's brains or call down lightning or turn the ground underneath the enemy into lava.

And even within the description of "fit human", there are different shapes depending on the type of fitness. Take athletes - there's a huge difference between an Olympic long-distance runner and a sprinter and a weight-lifter. And my old aerobics instructor would probably have been categorised as obese, but she taught at least 3 hours of tough cardio classes a day and barely got out of breath, in sharp contrast to some of the smaller ladies there who looked much fitter but weren't.

Unless your the scholar. Who is a fat man in boxers that fights crime with a rock

Silverleaf your are 100% right in both your points, I guess "pretty fit" was a poor choice of words on my part,what I should have said is that I think Adam is going to a "heroic build" comic book style which limits body type

Yeah, I think you're right. And while I love his style, one way I think he could improve it would be to diversify a bit when it comes to body types, particularly for the females. I'd like to see an overweight female, a female with a slim frame that doesn't also have huge boobs, a muscular female, a skinny non-muscular male. We have "overweight male" covered already.

I’m getting a bit of deja vu. Does anybody want to dig through the forums and locate the thread where we’ve had this conversation before?

(I mean that I’m pretty sure that we’ve been discussing SotM’s diversity, mentioned body types, and then mentioned Scholar at least once before, and I find it interesting how this conversation is following the same path)

I`d like to see to those things too ,there's no reason skyscraper for example could not have been more muscular.

I think it was when Broken City was announced, and it may have been triggered by the art for MindPhyre.

that sounds right, especially if it was around Unity coming into the video game. We commented on the differences in art for her & Vanessa.

There wer also comments made on Miss Information's new design, with her immense cleavage front-and-centre. I'll just mention at this point that when it comes to the stereotyping stuff (includes the current discussion over in the Spirit Island area), I tend to pretty much agree with what Silverleaf says, but generally anything I think has already been said by the time I read the thread so I can never think of anything to post and I don't really want to just repeat what's already been discussed.

Yeah, i’ll third being in full agreement with Silverleaf here.

I'll fourth that.

I think the fabric of reality has been warping around me recently. First people here agree with me, then yesterday on a rabbit forum several people said that they always liked to see my posts because I'm insightful and interesting.

This is not something I'm used to.

I'll just throw something out there. Take it for what you all will.

I've had the pleasure of talking to Adam on numberous occasions when I'm lucky enough to attend and work at conventions. One of those conversations centered around this very thing about his female representations in art and particularly about MindPhyre. I won't say too much about our discussion, but It was interesting to me that Adam passes everything he does by his wife first and she indeed gives feedback that he takes very seriously. In my own estimation, I doubt Adam would put something out if his wife really dissaproved of the portrayal or felt it overly innapropriate. 

If it will help, we can have Craig threaten to ban you?

I'm not scared of Kregg.

Famous last words.  

Kregg is awesome.

She makes small dolls using long needles.  People tend to be nice to you when you do that.

Not long enough to reach across the Atlantic if I decide to revoke her posting privileges.

I think they were talking about voodoo.

English Voodoo.  They'll make your tea taste chalky, your biscuits damp, and all beer taste like Old Style.

Seriously man, tread carefully.

If I'm nice, does that mean my poppet will get a backrub?

...with a cheese grater, maybe? ;)

My degree encourages me to say that (my understanding is) proper Vodou doesn't use the dolls for malign purposes. Haitian sorcery on the other hand.....

Wait, wait - Rabit has his own dedicated forum somewhere?

Yes, I too definitely agree with Silverleaf on this. The representation is amazing and one of my favourite aspects of both the game and the company but some more body type variety, especially for female characters, wouldn’t go amiss.
Mindphyre being a good example of this, she’s not a physical fighter and doesn’t need to be athletic, so in theory could have had any body type, which is then shown up further by the huge variety of body types among the male clones. Likewise even Akash’Bhuta, while clearly quite monstrous, often strays towards the stereotypical female comic book body shape. Those are probably the main two I think of that could be prime candidates for body variety.
At the same time totally have to call out Kaargra for doing it well, that is one impressively muscled beast of a body there.

My independent knowledge also encourages me to say that there are a number of religions and magical practices that utilise sympathetic magic, either through poppets or other means. For example, many modern day witches use written names or photographs.

Also, pretty much all of these practices rely on the use of having something personal belonging to the recipient of the effect, such as hair, blood, or a personal item. Silverleaf has none of these things.

My knowledge also agrees. I shouldn't have used the word 'proper' in that statement.
It's more a reflex to point it out at this point, I wrote my dissertation on how Vodou is misrepresented. I didn't want to make it sound like sympathetic magic wasn't used anywhere.

How do you know she doesn't? :3

Yes, indeed. How could she. It's not like people you know in Indianapolis and St. Louis have traveled to the UK and met with her.

You're not missing anything, are you?

Does this magic stuff work if I don't believe in it?

It doesn't matter if you believe in magic, if the magic believes in you.

If you're really interested, this is an insightful read. At least, I thought so.

Back on topic however, my fiancée loves all the artwork in the game so far and has no problems with the representation of women with it. Which is good because we play a lot of it.

want me to make a list?

That is something I noticed, as well – sure, all the women are gorgeous, but they're all dressed reasonably. Sure there's some cleavage and the odd belly-button window like with Visionary, but nobody's out there in like a chainmail bikini or anything like that. If anything, the dudes are more skimpily dressed (looking at you, Ra and Haka).