Beyond the Wall, Season 3 Episode 6

Nice job Lauren!

I just want to comment on your part about creating female characters that don't exist in the books.   I would be ok with it if it made thematic sense.   You have to remember,  Westeros is a largely patriarchal society.  I don't think you could make up a female knight as that takes away from Brienne who should be a knight but isn't just because she is a woman.  Most soldiers in Westeros also seem to be predominantly if not entirely male.  The only exception seem to be the Mormonts and the Martell.  

I really liked this episode (yeah, the 100 before too).

When you talked about an alternative term for Shagga/combo-players I had to think of Quentyn (who - to be honest - isn't a woman): He has a crazy plan, shoots high and if everything had come together right it would have been fantastic for him.

But it didn't so it wasn't - just like playing a combo deck ;D

Ugh, the Viper wasn't being flashy for its own sake.

The Viper is flashy for everyone's sake. He met a desperate need for the whole of Westeros

More Lauren, please.

I only dislike the "Melisandre" title for "janky" players, because I cannot spell her name without googling.

I want Jaime to be replaced with Loras. He just fits the archetype better.

great Appisode !

There are so many strong female characters in this game, I would think this game would appeal to women more. But alas we only have one female player in our meta. It is a player base I hope grows  !

First, I want to express how much I appreciate Beyond the Wall taking on this topic. This is an incredibly important topic that is under-discussed, and largely misunderstood among players (I think). Lauren's participation was especially additive to this episode, and provided a unique, valuable perspective. I agree with Roy--we need more of her on the show!

Second, while I don't normally call out individual contributors on forums, I do want to emphasize my disagreement with some of what Ironswimsuit posted above. I assume it was feedback shared with good intent, but I think this point of view reflects a counterproductive mindset. The assumption that women avoid this game due to the complexity of the game mechanics is, I think, patently false. While that isn't the point of his post, framing the issue as one of barrier of entry due to complexity leads us to focus on the wrong issues. As Lauren eloquently points out in her competitive Scrabble anecdote, the game itself isn't the problem. Rather, the challenge is how we as players create an environment that is welcoming of diverse players, and especially women. This takes both a general awareness of the issue, and in many cases a proactive mindset to combat it. The fetish-ized house cards, depiction of Sansa as the big loser, and the language/conversations that either objectify or in some other way differentiate women as not part of the core group are concrete examples that she raises. The point is, there are myriad opportunities to support diversity--both within the competitive scene and within the storyline--and we as players often miss these opportunities. For example, I think one of the biggest "losers" of books is Quentyn...spends all his time traveling distant lands chasing an old promise, only to do something really stupid and end up dying to dragon fire. That's a character who was empowered at the beginning, and really through his own actions lost everything...unlike Sansa, who perseveres amid some serious hardship (though to be fair, I agree that Martin did not write her character to be the most dynamic character, and she's certainly one that is difficult for me personally to relate to). I don't mean to pick on Ironswimsuit, per se, but I do want to dispel this notion that diversity boils down to the "golden rule" of treat others how you would want to be treated, because that lowers the bar for everyone, and also because there are real issues here that take real effort to improve. And though it's clear that none of these issues are unique to Game of Thrones, one of the great things about our community is, generally speaking, the maturity of the player group; if anyone can make progress on this, it's us.

I support the idea of changing the "Sansa prize" to the "Edmure prize" (or perhaps even the Quentyn prize). Whatever the consensus, we'll adopt this change at NYC events going forward.

Maybe that last place prize doesn't have to be named after a character.  Would it be interesting to name it after an event, location, etc?  Like, the Black Cells prize, Forever Burning prize, Stinking Drunk prize, etc.  Or we could go Direwolf and call it the Lady prize(damn it, why is her name Lady!) because she got crapped on by Joffrey being a whiny brat.

Doran Martell prize?  "He Calls it Thinking" could be akin to the last place player gaining intel and experience for their next event!

People in general avoid card games due to their complexity. It's something we as card players often overlook as many of us have been playing for such a long time. We can be as welcoming as possible to anyone, and still not make much headway in growing the community. The barrier exists. It isn't insurmountable. If addressed by the community it may yield long term solutions making it easier to achieve the specific goal of attracting and welcoming women.  Scrabble can't really be used as a comparison for complexity. Lauren may also be smarter than the average gamer. If a person can form words in English, that person can play Scrabble. Most people like words. Thrones requires a different mental skill set, plus an interest in the specific subject matter. Euros might be a better comparison.  Wizards recognizes the inherent complexity of this style of game and mitigates it with the free mono color half decks, the intro decks, and the deckbuilder kits. These highlight the fundamentals of the game while hinting at enjoyable options more complex cards afford. They know the game is complex and have created an ease of access which doesn't insult the intelligence of the new player. Look at a rulebook from Magic's early years and compare it to the sheet supplied with new product. I don't know if Wizards has an initiative to specifically attract female players, or if they let things flow more organically, but with 38%  of the player base being female, they're doing something right, Thrones doesn't really have this. Surely, there is something we can do to make the game more accessible and surely we can do it without dumbing it down too much or drifting into the dreaded realm of 'mansplaining'.   Now, if people want to perceive social issues or speak in generalities, or complicate basic social interaction that's up to them.

I think my problem with that, Ironswimsuit, is the assumption that the technical (rules, complexity) barrier of entry is more of an issue for women than men. While that may be true (I think, and hope, it is not!), the evidence from high level scrabble, chess, Go, or Poker - where the technical barrier of entry is low but women are not particularly well represented, suggests that the issue lies elsewhere.  

I'm not saying that lowering the barrier of entry wouldn't facilitate the entry of women into the game - it would (and would for men too!) - but I don't see a reason why it would increase the proportion of women.

Doran Martell prize?

While we're on the subject, I never understood the use of Sansa or Tyrion in those particular placements, male or female argument aside. I'm used to them just because, but they never made sense to me when initially explained.

I think my problem with that, Ironswimsuit, is the assumption that the technical (rules, complexity) barrier of entry is more of an issue for women than men. While that may be true (I think, and hope, it is not!), the evidence from high level scrabble, chess, Go, or Poker - where the technical barrier of entry is low but women are not particularly well represented, suggests that the issue lies elsewhere.  

 

I'm not saying that lowering the barrier of entry wouldn't facilitate the entry of women into the game - it would (and would for men too!) - but I don't see a reason why it would increase the proportion of women.

I am not saying the technical barrier is more of an issue for women. If women are generally too busy, as it was mentioned on the cast(and I'm not saying they are, this is definitely an IF), the time aspect of the technical barrier could be more applicable. Again, I am in no way saying women need men to overcome any technical barriers in the game.  We may all know how to play the game, but we all may not know how to teach it in welcoming way. This is something we can all work on as a community. Would we rather have the technical barrier and the soft skills barrier when being ambassadors of Thrones, or just the one?

Hm. I tried to comment on this a few days ago but looks like my comment didn't appear. Hope it works this time.

I'm really glad that BtW covered this topic - like most folks in this thread I think it's both extremely important and under-discussed. Didn't agree with everything you guys said - seemed to me you were skating around the bigger issue of the everyday sexism common in our culture, which tends to pervade everything but is amplified somewhat in male-heavy environments. That said, that's a big old problem and trying to tackle sexism as a whole is probably not the best place for our little community to start!

That said, there are practical ways of tackling these issues, and they're already being used in LCG communities. Specifically I have the London Netrunner community in mind. Some TOs have been making an excellent effort to diversify their tournaments using practices common in other areas of life. I highly recommend listening to this episode of the podcast Run Last Click, which features a couple of guests who've been involved in making some exciting progress on this front. If you're ever looking to do a follow up episode on this topic, Quinns and/or some of the other London Netrunners would no doubt make great guests.

Since Noj's Tip of the Week was about getting advice from more experienced players, I'd also like to point you towards another Netrunner community initiative - the Stimhack Mentor Program. I haven't been part of the program, but Noj's description echoed the way I've heard it discussed with uncanny similarity, so I thought it might be of interest.

@Kennon, I think it is broadly true that continental Europeans are less uptight about nudity than we Anglo-Americans, but in the case of the Batalla pin-ups they were still definitely over-sexualised, by any cultural standard.

Interesting point of history:

The "Sansa Prize" was originally thought up by a meta in Madison, Wisconsin which I worked with for organizing big events back in the CCG days. It's use spread through the community from there.

The Sansa Prize went to the player with the lowest tournament record who stayed in through the end of the event and played all rounds. 

The name was chosen because they wanted it to be thematic to ASoIaF, and because to our way of thinking, Sansa embodied the spirit of the survivor - the character who constantly seemed to be down, but never really out. Ignore her at your peril. It was always meant to be a prize for stamina and to show the organizer's respect that the player didn't drop or quit. 

It's actually kind of disheartening to hear that so many people think of it as the "losers prize" instead of the sign of respect it was originally intended to be.

I join the people who think it's an important topic, and I'm very happy you guys took it on. I agree with some of the comments mentioned above so as not to repeat, here are some more thoughts:

- Assuming Lauren is right, and I think she is, that women are on average busier and have less time for this kind of hobby - I want to respectfully disagree with Darknoj's comment that 'there is nothing wrong with it'. It's just another way in which the more general question of inequality is reflected into our community: the reason women have less free time for hobbies is because of the unequal distribution of child care and home related choirs. The thrones community probably can't change the broader phenomenon, but we can definitely do something to make our events more friendly, and be more conscious about it. I'm assuming most player who have kids are able to go to tournament because their spouse is taking care of the kids? I'm not sure. I know Darknoj won't make it to any regionals (neither will I) and I suspect it has a lot to do with the need to take care of children. Running shorter tournaments (alongside competitive ones), making meetings times flexible, welcoming older kids who want to join even if they are not super Jaime and so forth - adjusting has to be done on the very local level, but I don't think it's something to be complacent about. 

- I find it a bit funny when people talk about 'forcing diversity' where the reality is - the population is diverse, we're just asking why is it that our community isn't. I have been around all sorts of gaming circles and as you may know, this is an actual problem. It starts with young people - many girls aren't exposed to games by their parents/schools/social circles. Many girls who play games get exposed to it because a brother was playing games at home and that's how they got into it. Given that the books/show fan base attracts a lot of women, that women are getting more and more into gaming and that this is a really awesome game to be into _with_ your spouse (it's a 2 player game, after all) - I personally think that the community would benefit greatly from being more welcoming to women. So it's not about forcing diversity, it's about pausing and examining ourselves, realizing that for whatever reason we don't reflect our own greater community and then doing something to at least remove some barriers (like unnecessarily sexualized images that can make some women feel like this is a boys club). Some of the reasons might lie outside of our community - overall trends of inequality, larger issues with gaming culture and so forth - but there are definitely things we can do to make this game and this community better.

- The discussion of the materials of the books centered around the representation of women in terms of numbers, and that's important, but there are large issues some people have with the way women are represented in this fictional world. We are all fans of the material - I know I am - so I'm guessing we generally have a favorable view of it, which is fine. I don't necessarily want to open up this topic - I've engaged in many discussions on this matter, some of them written and my position has typically been defending Martin and the work. But that's not to say there aren't some valid criticisms that should give us pause. In particular, I think the showrunners have done an awful job in the way they've integrated nudity and sex into the show, and the way they've adopted the materials in the context of rape is, in my opinion, very very bad. That's not because I'm averse to sex or nudity - I'm not at all, and I enjoy all sorts of cultural forms, some of which are explicit (I just finished reading the comic book series Saga and enjoyed it, mostly its commentary about parenting and division of labor in the house as it were) - but the series walks a fine line in a variety of ways, in the eyes of many has crossed it. Likewise, many have criticized (the show and to a lesser extent, the books) for its characterization of 'brown' people. I know for a fact these kinds of discussions aren't interesting to some people who play the game, and that's fine. But while you guys talked about it, I thought it was worth mentioning that this too might be an issue for some people, and even if you disagree - they have some valid points. The sex has been, for the most part, eliminated from the card game (as far as I can tell). I think this is the right choice - it would be awful if there was a triggered ability of rape or something. I'm glad Cersei and Jaime don't pump each other in some way as well. Brothel madame is there, and so is the Dornish Paramour ,and both of these are fine. I just think this is something to be concerned about, especially if we want this game to be welcoming to more people.