@SimonGill Our university tries to be all Internetty, but they don't have the budget to put anyone on it full time.

Oh, jeez. More Wizards developer insanity.

@BESW So, "Trigger: Anything happens."

Dear Wizards: whyyyyy?

Also: the attack? is a close burst three targeting everyone in the burst and dazing on a hit.

@BESW Needs a few more ys for emphasis.

What on earth is that on?

Above: a dramatic reenactment of my reading of every major adventure module in 4e.

@BESW What's it from?

That is from Myst III: Exile. Also known as the only time Brad Dourif was ever *mis*cast as an insane villain.

Not the best Myst game. Not the worst though!

(Riven remains one of my two golden standards for games, the other being Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.)

If anyone's interested in the Lovelace & Babbage webcomic, she's doing a Twitter drawing giveaway. twitter.com/sydneypadua/status/278092306761015297

@SimonGill Is that what you were asking?

@BESW Yes, you answered my second question with the Myst answer. I'm still curious as to what monster or trap has this triggered anti-fun power.

"Eldritch Storm." Level 22 warder hazard in Pluton, the sealed Astral realm of the dead god Nerull. From the Tomb of Horrors Superadventure.

Hey, @JonathanHobbs.

Hi @BESW :)

I am loudly lamenting the exclusive diet of crack that Wizards feeds their developers.

I notice ;o

Stylishly too.

Why is bold markup not working?

Er, bold

I... may fail at markups.

Okay I guess it only matters like this

Wait it is even fine when I do that. Why isn't it working in your previous posts!?

:( Weird

@JonathanHobbs a thing

@JonathanHobbs "YOU are not scientifically possible!"

@JonathanHobbs Weird.....

Shift + Enter seems to break markups.

Seems so

I'm trying to take four "getting there" encounters and condense them into one short intense one.

@BESW Sounds like something for a short wave.

I'm actually thinking of doing a minion wade.

Give the party a chance to feel good about themselves before they get to the dungeon.

I'll give Wizards this: they have a sense of spectacle. In the windy frozen waste studded with shards of black ice, a team of zombies is trying to rebuild a shattered statue of their dead god--but the wind and their clumsiness means the task will never be complete.

@JonathanHobbs how's your elven rebuild?

@BESW Going slowly. Went back to considering their history from the ground up. Far more than just accepting the humans' presence, they probably reached out to the Nerathians and said "Hey, come here! We'll keep you safe until you can get your bearings." Lots of humans, not as many of the other races. They carved a space in the wilderness for the humans, and provided some food and shelter.

Only, I don't know: would the elves be accepting of the fact the humans would have to cut down some trees if they were going to live there?

Let me copy-paste two bits from the PHB.

There would be trees that weren't a part of the elven forest, maybe they would be ok with that. Maybe elves are just ok with the fact that other races have to cut down trees, and simply wouldn't do it themselves, like the tree-preservation version of a vegetarian who just quietly avoids meat and doesn't get in your face about you eating some.

Elves revere the natural world. Their connection to their surroundings enables them to perceive much. They never cut living trees, and when they create permanent communities, they do so by carefully growing or weaving arbors, tree houses, and catwalks from living branches.

Elves are a people of deeply felt but short-lived passions. They are inclined to impulsive behavior, and members of other races sometimes see elves as flighty or impetuous, but elves do not shirk responsibility or forget commitments. Thanks in part to their long life span, elves sometimes have difficulty taking certain matters as seriously as other races do, but when genuine threats arise, elves are fierce and reliable allies.

@JonathanHobbs I think that's probably most accurate. The "young" races should be shown tolerance and patience... to a point.

I suspect the elves would eagerly and in all good faith welcome the humans to take refuge... and then feel bound by that hospitality.

Oh. Unlike the Eladrin, they wouldn't think things through as far, and then would be like "wait... shit... these people cut down trees to build with, right?"

Oh now I have my answer

They'd probably think that far, but be caught up in their sympathy and desire to help and think "It's just for a while, it'll be okay. What's the worst that could happen?"

Oh man. C:

and then

"What's that your building?"

"Oh, a city."

"A wh... a what?"

man its too bright......

HI @NOVIAN HELLO ARE YOU A VAMPIRE :C

@JonathanHobbs Love that thought :)

@JonathanHobbs And as the rush of sympathy fades, they're left bound by hospitality.

@JonathanHobbs nah my computer screen is just blinding me on its lowest brightness.

its dark here

Use flux

I haven't used it myself but a friend of mine is super pleased with it

In Japanese culture there's a tight, toothy smile that means "You are so lucky I am a civilized man, because it's the only reason you still have your teeth."

LOL.

In all ways their behavior is impeccable and respectful and dignified. But there's that smile.

This makes a lot of sense.

I think the elves are probably learning this smile.

Hahaha!

I think I saw the prismatic chicken with that smile

@Novian When a chicken has a toothy smile, either run or get a hammer (chicken teeth are expensive spell components).

I actually was considering something: The city is not just any city. It is called the Stone City, and it is called the Bastion. It is built against a mountainside, like Gondor, and made with high and strong walls. Remember, these people were fleeing the war that would mark the end of the Nerathian era!!

But it was also built of stone because they know the elves liked trees, so they'd build it out of something other than lots of trees.

They'd still need trees for support beams and such. But lots of stone!

The elves will think "Yes and lots of trees felled to hold up those stones" and say "Yes how nice of you" :DDDDD

The Prismatic Chicken was a creation I made during a ridiculous campaign. It was the culmination of a Cabal of wizards researching enchanting and eventually sacrificing their souls to create a harbinger of destruction that couldnt be stopped.

@BESW I'm reminded of the Not-A-Chicken from Soul of the Fire... an evil air spirit trying to kill everything in the world.

@BESW No, get another chicken and breed it. One set of teeth today, or five sets of teeth in a month!

@JonathanHobbs Nice. Both sides trying to accomodate the other, and neither appreciating it.

it was a normal chicken given imortality and a 2 layer enchantment involving Prismatic Wall and antimagic feild on each feather

@Novian That is a hard chicken to pluck.

it acted like a normal chicken too.

well they did want it to destroy and not die

@Novian Barn chicken or feral?

barn....

i told you it was a ridiculous campaign

@Novian Oh I should've dinged you. That was directed at you: use f.lux! It tunes your screen's brightness and colour settings by the time of day.

Even barn chickens are unpleasant to cross if unprepared.

(I grew up in a village with lots of semi-feral chickens.)

@JonathanHobbs It's pretty cool and very fast to install (I just did it) :)

one of the fighters wondered if the Prismatic chicken tasted good.

Oh yay :D

@Novian I once ran an entire session in which two monks chased a chicken through a rebel encampment in which they were guests.

There was no plot justification for this, and it concluded when they crashed into the mess hall and were confronted with a no-nonsense cook who outweighed the two of them together and wielded a mean cleaver.

Hahaha!

Apparently one panicked chicken can outmaneuver two level 5 monks. I was surprised.

I am that as well as impressed.

I now know how a fat flightless bird could survive long enough to reach modern day and be wild.

Chickens can fly.

Not well, and not far, but they definitely fly.

....What they cannot do is perch successfully on coconut trees.

@BESW That's a silly image in my head now.

Slide right down the spine of the frond and off.

I thought they could only sort of flutter enough to extend some jumping and not fall like a brick.

Like the flying sheep sketch in Monty Python

@BESW How do you even know this

@JonathanHobbs I imagine that fat overfed barn chickens with no exercise are probably more like that.

I grew up in a village with lots of semi-feral chickens. On a tropical island.

Right. ;o

Chickens sliding out of coconut trees is silly, but for me it's also my childhood.

@BESW Every childhood should have plenty of locally sourced silly in it :)

I agree ;)

A good half of my school science projects were based on observing the behavior of the chickens in my yard.

Hey, look! People who probably didn't expect to learn about chickens in coconut trees in the rpg.se chat. Hi!

Ive made the perfect weapon.

chickens in coconut trees?

amazing

@Novian No, silly. They slide off the spine of the frond. Slowly, and with a surprised look on their faces. Before flying back up and trying again.

@Novian So... it can be anything and still be wielded without penalty. And can be put back together when shattered. Correct?

D&D has just facilitated a weapon that is all the weapons overcomes all the damage reduction and can be any size and never permanently broken.

@Novian But it doesn't actually do very much, does it?

@Novian What is da in this context?

@SimonGill A typo

@SimonGill mishevious pixies typing improper english at 6:30 am

What are Morphing, Sizing, Transmuting and Proficient?

@BESW nope its just a +1 weapon after all that.

Ah, I thought it might have been some kind of special overriding damage reduction.

@JonathanHobbs Can become any weapon, of any size, overcoming any resistance type, and be used proficiently by anyone who picks it up.

but it does personify perfection.

@BESW no matter the form

@Novian No, it personifies not being able to make up your mind.

Wow.

@Novian D&D has just facilitated groundbreaking proof of why GMs and their judgement calls exist. c(:

@BESW it also personifies a period of boredom.

Anyone who actually wants to use a weapon will be proficient with it, have feat support for it, and want the extra enchantments for accuracy and damage bonuses.

@BESW The big advantage is that it can go through any damage reduction. Which quality actually does that?

@Novian That I will grant, and I applaud you.

@SimonGill Transmuting, I believe.

@BESW yep. and it only requires you to hit them the round before

I would totally allow this weapon build. It nerfs anyone who picks it up, compared to the same PC with a weapon designed for them personally.

You would? It would? How would it?

@BESW So, you can make a +5 weapon Keen Transmuting weapon for the same cost? Wow... I know which one I'd pick.

It neatly achieves its goal, and that's cool, but I'd be very disappointed if I were expected to use it. Lovely proof of concept.

@JonathanHobbs See @SimonGill above me.

Extra +4 hit and damage, doubled crit range, and the resist override.

@JonathanHobbs Massive opportunity cost. You could spend those quality slots on something that only the weapon can do that actually achieves the goal of ending a fight faster.

Remember, in 3.5 you can stack multiple enchantments on the same weapon.

Recently designed a weapon for demon slaying. a +2 Large Starmetal Heavy Mace with Vicious and Bane (Outsider)

Ah. Okay, I get it. It's great because it can do a bunch of stuff, but it's a generalist's weapon, and you could easily just take all the money you spent on making it all the weapons and use that to make a single weapon you're good at even better?

Yeah.

You don't need all the weapons, you need a weapon for you.

Like a regular dagger of transmutation, +9.

I've only ever once seen a morphing weapon that was useful in combat.

Or what have you.

basically yeah.

(There's a +5 cap on raw +s, but you have the idea.)

....Actually, it wasn't a morphing weapon. It was the sorcerer spell equivalent.

The Witch Queen Mombi was woken from her two-thousand-year sleep by the party, and one of her first actions in combat was to use command on the fighter to make him give her his sword. Then disintegrate on the sword.

The sorcerer quickly morphed his dagger into the fighter's preferred sword type and tossed it over.

Oh that is clever. :D

Mombi was furious.

(She thought she'd been the clever one with her strategy.)

It was a good example of how the fight was going to go, though. She had a lot of low-level spells she used very cleverly, and the party countered most of them with their own clever spell use.

It pleases me to hear you have such clever players.

...then the Tarrasque showed up, hyped up on magic crack.

@JonathanHobbs I like to boast about them. [grin]

3.5 has a lot of creation minigames, and weapon enchant optimization is one.

@Novian set himself a goal and achieved it spectacularly, but it's not a result optimized for use.

D'aw. Does 4e have an enchantment system like that, or is it just "pick your magic item, and the number of +'s."

4e simplified it greatly, yes.

your choices are weapon type, weapon enchantment (singular), and level (how many +s and sometimes higher levels have better versions of the enchant).

Hm.

Bother ;o

It's still important to find the right enchant for your character, of course.

I like D&D Next's version so far... no more than +1 bonuses involved. Magic items tend to have minor magic abilities rather than big beefy ones.

My current group has two different PCs whose builds are structured around having a weapon that makes all damage they deal a particular type--their feats and features are better with that damage type, but the class powers by themselves don't provide for it.

@SimonGill I signed up for the beta, but kinda gave up. I don't have the time or the group for it.

I like the philosophy of a system with modular subsystems, and a few of the individual mechanics were shiny, but I don't have a lot of hope that it can be done well.

I'm afraid they're trying to please everyone and will fail to address the needs of many people at all.

@BESW Yeah, I'm basing my comments on just reading the book. But getting away from the Wealth by Level requirements for effectiveness is a A Good Idea(tm)

@SimonGill I contain agreement.

They are trying to please everyone.

@JonathanHobbs Gnooooooooooomes!

I admit that is pointless to build said morphic weapon but it was more of a personification of my hatred for being nonproficient in every damn loot weapon weve found thus far in my groups current session besides a +1 flaming dagger....

@Novian That's a cruel DM you've got there.

little late in the conversation I know but I had to shower

he rolls the loot.

so yeah

"Okay, fine, you get a weapon. How about one that deals damage of the type most commonly resisted?"

@BESW especially against what we fought against most last session

Devils. and a bluespawn godslayer

@Novian I frequently rolled on the loot tables in 3.5. But I fudged it if I was going to drop something useless, or if someone was obviously hurting for a major item.

@Novian Herp, derp, goodnight.

he even tried to bullshit that demons and devils to work together.....

he still hasnt justified it

it just doesnt happen

AKA, "We're sorry. The damage you are trying to deal is not a valid type in this encounter. Please try again."

@Novian Never say never! But yeah, he'd better have something major up his sleeve.

Off the top of my head... a conjuration specialist who bound them both into his service.

@BESW And this is one reason why psionics are better - one power, many energy type choices.

Aha. I was looking for this comic

And Tycho's commentary.

I had to resort to using Psionic powers that could deal multiple energy types and deal Sonic damage which universally for Psionics means Dealing -1 Damage per Damage die.

> Have you ever seen The Dungeon Masters? Try to imagine for a second that all those people are playing the same game. In a very real way, they aren’t. The old adage is that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, which is the stated goal of this project.

> The truth of the matter is that some combination of TSR and Wizards of the Coast actually did please all the people, it’s just that they’re each pleased with their own iteration of the system. They’ve already pleased them; they’re pleased. It’s only a problem if you’re trying to sell them something else.

exept on the godslayer.

(on D&D 5th Edition)

@JonathanHobbs Simple Green is great stuff.

Source: Tycho's Blog Post, "The Way Forward"

I did over 50 damage with my level 1 power: Energy ray. Without calculating Anarchic Surge.

which would have been +50%

@Novian Why were you forced into sonic? If they're immune to fire, typically they won't be immune to cold.

@JonathanHobbs Tycho has interesting things to say. Even though I frequently disagree with him, he thinks parallel to most ways of approaching topics and I like that.

@SimonGill 3.5 cold damage: the best way not to damage books.

@SimonGill seemed to be.

its not immunity but resistance

@Novian The simplest way for your NPC villain to be a meanie-face: summon something with obvious vulnerabilities and give it an item or spell that makes it resistant to that.

@Novian Sorry, resistance. Same logic though.

without wild surging or wasting power points I wouldnt overcome Resist 10.

@BESW Yep. Bastard. Easiest way to show intelligence for a summoner too.

I was rolling terrible and didnt want to risk enervation

Wow. An Ice elemental immune to fire damage.

"Why isn't this fire elemental taking damage from my cone of cold? NOTHING MAKES SENSE!"

@JonathanHobbs Psh ITS STILL NOT IMMUNE TO THE DAMAGE THAT MATTERS.

What would be more jerkish: Saying things like "the flames lick at the ice giant, but it pushes on" - which mean the players would take several turns to realise that the ice giant is not just being high in constitution, they are dealing no damage whatsoever

My party has ruled that all untyped damage (mostly physical weapon damage) is to be given the keyword "batman."

Haha what!?

@Novian Oh well. Again, this is why psionics is great. You can throw out small powers to probe for strength and weakness before you unload crazy-town.

@JonathanHobbs I've been that guy, but very rarely.

There was a DM on the 'net with a cautionary tale that every party should always have multiple damage types.

He put his players up against some zombies and skeletons. Weak zombies and weak skeletons. But he almost TPK'd his players.

So much necro resist?

Not even that.

Just because in the edition he was using (2e?), zombies only take damage from piercing weapons, and skeletons only take damage from crushing weapons.

Their party had one person with one crushing weapon, and two people with two weak piercing weapons. So the entire party was useless but for these three people, who were slowly whittling down the zombies and skeletons - but that was after they spent so many turns just wailing on the skeletons and zombies dealing no damage whatsoever.

@JonathanHobbs I think that's even earlier.

@JonathanHobbs Ah, right! Actually 3.5 kinda did it too.

@BESW: I see an anti-hotlinking image. Try uploading that to imgur.

@JonathanHobbs "Explosive" and "Armour-piercing" works for me, generally. Add fragmentation and incendiary to taste.

llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/target128.html

It could have been AD&D. This guy does oldschool.

Wow. All hotlinking disabled images. Just upload it to imgur.

@MartinSojka Is that Maxim 6? If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.

I even tried a different browser!

...that wasn't even a hotlink.

I know!!

@BESW hotlink protection stops you getting an image if it's not being loaded from an acceptable page.

Simon: it was from the site's own page.

It was an image gallery page from the site's image gallery of pics.

imgur.com/GKhiI

oh xD

Ha. I have houseruled away psionics in my campaigns. "No psionics. No psionic heroes."

One of my players was disappointed.

It's reasonable in 4e.

@JonathanHobbs Wow... ok, that is screwed.

Is it?

What's more, I kinda doubt they even have the rights to that image, so what's there to protect?

4e psionics is weird, the closest thing to a subsystem any class has, but it's pretty balanced.

Hotlinking is what's there to protect. Hotlinking means I can show their image on my site, and they will pay for the bandwidth for all the people viewing the image, and I get free image hosting.

Okay good!

I guess I'll allow it then. I thought it was still broken in 4e!

Instead of encounter powers, they get more at-wills. But all the at-wills have 'augment' costs of 1 and/or 2 power points that make them more powerful, like encounter powers.

@JonathanHobbs 2E was broken... 3rd ed not so much.

@JonathanHobbs I have tens of terabytes per month of free bandwidth on my server. I kinda doubt hosting a single image like that, or even a whole gallery of them, would make a dent in that.

You get a number of power points based on level that refresh every short rest, and it's enough to basically let you have the same number of augmented powers each fight as other classes have encounter powers.

@MartinSojka The idea of hotlink protection is more just a hangover from the 90s, when bandwidth wasn't so cheap.

@MartinSojka Not everyone is so lucky.

@BESW That's no luck; I pay about 120 EUR for it per month.

So psionic classes (except monks, they're special) get a ton of at-wills, which they can spend points to upgrade to encounter level effectiveness as desired, with a frequency roughly in line with other classes' encounter power availability.

Very versatile, but ultimately still pretty balanced in the grand scheme of things.

Well ok then. :)

Monks... imgur.com/JXY0W

Every monk attack power comes paired with a movement power. Each pair together is a "full discipline."

If you use a discipline power in a turn, you can't use any other power of a different discipline in the same turn (unless you spend an action point; that resets it).

This means monks have nearly twice as many powers as other classes, but are very limited in the ways they can combine them. It's actually very flavorful.

@JonathanHobbs I was very apprehensive going into the PHB3 because I've had bad experiences with psionics in 3.5. Less broken than in earlier editions isn't not broken.

But because the foundation of the class system is so firm, with its balance of kinds of powers and what they should generally be capable of, the psionic system is easier to measure against the other classes and that made it easier for them to balance it.

Most of my problems with 4e developers is when they write adventures. That's when they bust out their shrines to Snow Flame.

Shrines to Snow Flame..?

And okk, hm :/

ok*

Hurf. Snowflame is a DC comics villain who appeared briefly in 1988. He... got superpowers from cocaine.

Oh dear.

Like, "I am covered in white flames and have super strength" superpowers when he was high.

There's a fanmade webcomic continuing his stories. snowflamecomic.com

The comic reviewer Linkara had a few short bits about Snowflame earlier this year.

[yawn]

That comic is nuts.

It's SNOOOOOOOWFLAAAAAAME.

Also speaking of Batman

This guy was just imagining what Batman would be like if he did it.

"If DC ever paid me to do a Batman story it would look like this, and it would probably be about how Batman is pretty insane and can only convince teenagers to team up with him."

Sounds about right.

And then he goes all the way.

There is no way to present Bruce Wayne as entirely well-adjusted and still have Batman make any sense.

There are plenty of ways to present the idea, and many of them have been well-executed. I'm not especially attached to any one of them.

Yes well he runs with the whole he-is-bonkers thing.

Also this is an artist who dislikes DC's process.

And... well, most things about the DC comic world. Marvel to a lesser extent.

Well, I once read a rule of thumb that, while not entirely accurate, has a point.

If a hero's stories are about his superhero identity and his 'normal life' only comes up when it forwards a superhero plot, it's a DC comic.

If a hero's stories are about his 'normal' identity and being a superhero is frequently just another part of his life, it's a Marvel comic.

That sounds accurate.

That's one reason I love Jaime Reyes, especially pre-New 52 Jaime.

He's a DC with a family, for whom being the Blue Beetle is really a pain in his normal life.

dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/10756160867/… It is not a coincidence that 9 of these 10 are from DC. It is not because he was targteting DC.

targeting*

The guy's had a lot to say about both Marvel and DC and made a lot of sound points

His Clark Kent and Diana kick butt

Oh, come on. Half that "bad redesign" stuff is just the 90s. A lot of things in the 90s look really stupid now.

And Batzrael was supposed to look silly.

Yeah he is not trying to beat on DC or Marvel, he was just doing a thing.

Actually these comments on DC and Marvel don't even exist because he wants to comment on DC and Marvel. They exist because this guy talks a lot about artistry and the artistic theories involved in making comics, and his audience is western, and the first thing a Western audience thinks of when they think "comic" is Marvel or DC.

He's got some interesting stuff, for sure.

So in talking about artistic lessons, like the role of usage of silouhettes, he uses examples and counter-examples.

Just so happens that DC and Marvel have a lot of examples from artists who don't know this stuff, and thus results in poor comic art.

But he also goes for some really easy targets sometimes.

You might enjoy Linkara's comic reviews, if you haven't tried them.

blip.tv/at4w

I don't know of them, I don't really care for it so much as the artistic lessons I've learned from this blog. And writing lessons.

Comics were something I considered doing seriously a year or two ago.

Does he talk about closure? That's one of my favorite things lately.

Don't think he has.

If so, the example he probably used is Sin City.

He has probably left a lot of the general storytelling lessons out, as well as a lot of the basic art lessons, and just mentioned the lessons that are particularly pertinent in comics!

@JonathanHobbs On the other hand, how is that picture of Starfire anything even close to a "John Carter’s Princess of Mars-themed stripper"?

@MartinSojka He may be thinking of some of the book covers.

It's something some others have mentioned: Starfire is sexy. Really, very sexy. But they try to make her sexy by dressing her up in very little. She doesn't need to be wearing almost nothing to be sexy.

@JonathanHobbs Agreed!

@BESW Those range from "basically naked" (anything by Frank Frazetta, and close to the source material) to "oriental silk" (anything by almost everyone else). :)

@MartinSojka Yes, but a common theme is... this kind of... clothing? fashionnaction.blogspot.com/2012/03/…

This is closure: psalm9.tumblr.com/post/31052597022

I can't find it but there are cases like this - there are better ones - where Starfire actually has a decent amount of clothing and still looks sexy. I sure don't have a problem with a girl wearing less, and I am not conservative - it's just that she doesn't need to dress scantily to look sexy, but that's what artists often go for.

His comment on being a stripper outfit comes from that.

You get just enough solid shape that your brain can fill in the rest: we don't need to be shown the gun's full barrel.

Oh boy.

That is neat.

@JonathanHobbs I personally find long skirts exceptionally attractive. Perhaps in part because the women who wear them seem to generally be more self-confident.

First time I see that picture, frankly. :) The most recent visual cues should be either that boring film, or Dynamite's comic line, where she's basically wearing just strategically placed jewellery.

@JonathanHobbs I love closure. It's a lot of fun to do.

Sadly Sin City is some of the best popular closure in modern art, and it... has other problems.

In general though, as long as it actually has a reason to be like that and the world reacts in a sane and understandable manner to the fashion sense or lack thereof of the character in question, I don't mind overly skimpy clothing - on any gender.

The whole Sin City series is basically a massive middle finger to the Comics Code Authority and a celebration of its death. Which means the comics just run down a list of all the things the CCA ever banned or censored, and don't have much beyond that except being pretty.

@MartinSojka I find it hard to swallow most attempts at justifying it, though. The male gaze is insidious in our culture and most arguments that a particular example isn't male gaze... well, are just silly.

So, Powergirls "Hey Kal-El, look, your little cousin is all grown up now! Also, my eyes are up here." style is actually fine with me. :)

shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/05-the-death-of-snkrs/…

@BESW I don't think most writers even attempt to justify it, which is sad.

Spending four years in a high school that was 90% female basically beat most of the male gaze out of me by sheer overexposure.

Whatever your motive or method, at the end of the day if you have a girl in little clothing in a publication with a decent male audience, people will put it down to one thing. Any justification or response is seen as hollow and a dodge of the real reason.

@JonathanHobbs Aye.

And whether that's an accurate assumption or not, commercial artists need to consider that kind of thing before they do it for whatever reason.

@BESW I'm all for making the Olympics performed the classic way to compensate. :)

@MartinSojka That's not the same at all, as the Shortpacked! comic I just linked points out.

Come to think of it I would probably be fine with a skimpily dressed girl in a comic like Dresden Codak, because the women in it are actual women and not male fantasy women.

@BESW Lean, athletic bodies, oiled and glistering in the sun, is not a male power fantasy.

So I know there is deeper stuff to it than oh hey sexy girl.

@JonathanHobbs This is one of my deep problems with Sin City. Frank Miller's women are sluts, prostitutes, or (occasionally) virgins, and that's always their defining characteristic.

@MartinSojka Speak for yourself. [grin]

I consider myself lucky that I am 22 years old and actually understand women to a decent degree.

@JonathanHobbs Yeah -- they're people.

That is probably some kind of track record. Or at least somewhere in the top 1%.

@JonathanHobbs Heh. I dunno about that, but my experiences are probably atypical and should not be used as testimonial.

Yeah the 1% is a super huge exaggeration I guess.

The major problem comes from gender separation and segregated socialization during the formative years, I think.

If you work and play alongside the other gender as a teenager it comes as no surprise that they're just people too. If you spent most of your youth among your own gender and only associated closely with your counterparts in stilted formal circumstances (like dating) then it's easy to mystify them as other.

Also a current overreaction to those years in which guys can be damned for doing reasonable stuff and feminism is getting to the point where girls in my generation might stand up for their rights but would die sooner than call themselves a feminist. It would be like ridicule.

@BESW It works the same with other cultures as well.

@JonathanHobbs Feminism did itself no favors by demanding the right to engage in those practices which men are permitted but which should be considered appropriate for no one.

@MartinSojka Yup.

Hi, @waxeagle!

@BESW morning

Hi!

We're trying to talk about gender equality and its depiction in art without putting our feet in our mouths!

@BESW good luck

Well, I think I needs me some sleep.

"One day I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine." - The First Doctor, The Five Doctors

Goodnight.

G'night. :)

quick survey, any of you guys married?

Nope.

@waxeagle If we were, do you think we would be here so much? :P

@SimonGill lol. Doesn't stop me :)