This Week in Geekdom (PAX and DC Edition)

Oh this week you guys. This. Week. By now, I'm sure you've heard about at least one of the controversies that went down in the past few days and currently have the Internet Outrage meters dialed up to eleventy.  Let's tackle these, as the implications for each kerfuffle are both broad in scope and will likely impact two major geeky franchises for quite some time.

Bruhaha #1: Exactly one week ago, on the last day of PAX Prime, the infamous now three-year-old dickwolves controversy reared its hydra-esque head(s) after Penny Arcade founder/artist Mike Krahulik (a.k.a. Gabe) stated that pulling the highly inflammatory 'Team Dickwolves' line of merchandise from the Penny Arcade store was a mistake.

Damnitsomuch.

If you're unfamiliar with this protracted mostly-digital war, there is an excellent timeline of the events leading up to last Sunday's PAX panel here. 

The response to Krahulik's remark was almost instant and pretty much set the interwebs aflame. Many self-identifying feminist gamers gathered their binary lances and led the charge, calling for those who disagreed with Krahulik to boycott all forms of PAX. Other lady nerds expressed deep disappointment and their personal intent to eschew PAX, as they feel they can no longer attend in good conscience, and at least one indie game developer has cited these events as the reason it pulled out of PAX.

Correspondingly, there's been a disturbing and ugly outpouring of support for what some wrongly perceive as the message behind the dickwolves: that rape, rape culture, and misogyny in general is a-ok. I'll say this again because it bears repeating: the original comic and the dickwolves were NOT, in any way, condoning rape, belittling the victims of rape, or promoting misogyny. This is extremely important, because this misunderstanding is what started this horrific ball in motion in the first place. 

Ugh, what a mess. Krahulik offered up this post in way of an explanation and apology but, for many, this was more than too little, too late. As this maelstrom has been swirling about for literal years, more than a few gamers have found themselves simply incapable of believing Krahulik when he says he's sorry. That's understandable. His words and actions are grossly inappropriate and he has not handled the situation with much maturity or tact. However, I feel that much of this current strife is wrought not from what was actually said at the panel, but from people reading/encountering the beliefs of others, then giving themselves over to rage rather than taking the time to actually sit, look over the primary sources, apply those to a larger context, and formulate an opinion for themselves. If you have not done this, I implore you to do so before weighing in or deciding to cancel your trip to PAX next year. 

But Kel, you're a lady gamer and PAX East is one of the big convention highlights for The Care and Feeding of Nerds. Are you going to boycott?

No, I'm not. I state this intention not just as a female gamer, nerd/geek, and blogger, but as a survivor of sexual assault and attempted rape.

**The next three paragraphs contain triggers. Please consider this your trigger warning.**

When I was 20 I lived in Spain for a time and, though the vast majority of that experience was wonderful, I will never be able to look back on that stay without recalling this unpleasant event. While walking home from class, near mid-day, in broad daylight, a group of 5 guys near my age began to follow me, making the type of catcalls that are familiar to any woman who has traveled to a place where machismo culture holds sway. Those outcries are so common that you quickly learn to just tune it out and keep walking; most of the time that's enough to ensure you're left alone. 

This time was not 'most of the time'. It was quickly apparent that the catcallers took active offense to being disregarded and moved to ensure that their words were being heard, whether I wanted to hear them or not. They pinned me up against a nearby wall, began to rip my clothes off, kissed my face, put their hands all over me, promised me that I'd eventually come to enjoy what they planned, in lurid detail, to forcibly do. I screamed until my vocal chords gave out, thinking someone in this half-filled plaza would at least phone the police. People stopped, stared, and walked away. No one, of all the people meandering through that square on their way home to lunch and siesta, made any move to intercede.

Two things spared me from being raped: I'd had two years of training in aikido and basic self-defense at that point and I was also wearing leather boots with hard, pointy heels. When the attacker closest to me shifted his grip on my arm to try and force me to touch him, I hit him in the nose with my elbow, then raked one my heels against the shin of the attacker immediately adjoining the first. It wasn't pretty, but it was enough to get them to drop me so I could run away.

**End trigger content**

So, even with that history, of being part of the infamous 1 in 6 statistic, I will be going to PAX East 2014. 

Holy crap...why? Why would you go? 

Short answer: because if I don't go, if I don't make an active effort to combat those who do embrace misogyny, then I'm letting PAX become a cesspool of hate. This, in turn, is effectively allowing the culture that I love and fundamentally identify with to be undermined and thus hasten its decay. I won't stand for that.

Longer answer: MC Frontalot composed this brilliant post about his stance on this matter and why he, too, will be attending PAX in the future despite being hurt and disappointed by these recent events. PAX is not just about Gabe and Tycho. It's not just about dickwolves and the uglier side of our community. It's about nerds coming together, feeling accepted, and having fun. It's a place where developers can make critical business connections and garner feedback from us, the players, so the gaming industry can move forward. Those are beautiful things. Those are things worth saving. If we run from PAX, we surrender it to the worst elements in our ranks and become accomplices in its destruction. We cannot let that happen.

Bruhaha #2: DC seems, for reasons that defy logic, overly eager to become the EA of comics. On Wednesday, Batwoman co-authors J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman announced they would be leaving the comic after issue number 26 is released in December. The duo cited a number of 'creative differences' with DC that prompted their departure from the Batwoman title, the most cited of which seemed to be that DC refused to allow Kate Kane (mundane alter-ego of Batwoman) to marry her long-time girlfriend Maggie Sawyer. This has been spun into a whole lot of "DC is homophobic!" over the past few days.

Here's the thing, DC isn't necessarily against gay marriage (though it hasn't been supportive either), both authors conceded that the issue did not factor at all into their decision, it's just against marriage as an institution. In DC's eyes, marriage is approximately equivalent to death, so they avoid including it in their storyarcs at all costs. This distinction, however, is both lost to public opinion at this point and doesn't paint DC in a flattering light. It just makes you shake your head, as DC had, quite frankly, a golden opportunity to present themselves as highly inclusive and be rid of any rumors that they were capitulating to the whims of famed homophobe/crazy person Orson Scott Card (who is working on the new Superman series). Instead they chose to adhere to their outdated, backward paradigm. 

Sigh.

As if that didn't cause you to facepalm and reconsider future purchases of DC titles, on Friday the publisher put forth this drawing contest appealing to artists hoping to break into the comics industry. All contestants need to do is draw Harley Quinn naked in a bathtub about to commit suicide. Yes, you read that right.

Many nerdy properties of various media have a long, unsettling history of treating their female subjects as disposable. Violence against women, specifically suicide, has been romanticized time and again both within and outside of geekdom. True, the acts detailed as requisite for the drawing contest are well within the standard purview of Harley Quinn, who herself is a member of the Suicide Squad, but the combination of the hypersexualization of Harley's impending death on the eve of National Suicide Prevention Week (this upcoming week) with the news concerning the Batwoman series just makes DC look damned near evil. Argh. Why DC? Why? You are arguably the epitome of corporate insensitivity.

However, we can take meaningful action on this matter as well. If you'd like to contribute to the efforts to support National Suicide Prevention Week, I recommend heading over to PostSecret and looking into their work with IMAlive/Hopeline. You can also visit the International Suicide Prevention Wiki to see what's being done near you and how you can help.

Here's to making this next week better than the last one guys. We can, and we will.

 

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This Week in Geekdom

Hey guys. Hope everyone's having a great weekend thus far and you're all able to squeeze all the goodness out of the unofficial End of Summer here in North America. It's now just barely over a week until I defend my master's thesis, so family visits and barbeques have been interspersed with studying, notecrafting, and more studying. Woot! As a break from said studying, let's get down to The Week in Geekdom!

Science/Technology

 Elon Musk, he of Tesla, SpaceX, and Hyperloop fame, seems to be on a personal quest to become Tony Stark. Check out his comments regarding the drafting process for his latest crop of rockets. Seem familiar?

It's taken 78 years, but we may finally get to know whether Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead. Physicist Art Hobson attempts to offer a solution to this famous quandry in the latest edition of Physical Review.

The most recent issue of the journal Naturwissenschaften tells the tale of how a team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh used the fossils of ancient bean weevils to refine the date of the cataclysmic "Atlantis" eruption.

In the realm of "not sure if this is awesome or terrifying", researchers at the University of Washington performed what is believed to be the first non-invasive brain-to-brain interface with human minds. Read here for the science and the amazing video of the procedure.

In 1964 famed science fiction author Isaac Asimov made a series of predictions about what life would be like in the year 2014. See just how spot-on some of these were.

Experts in the semiconductor industry proclaim that their governing dicta, Moore's Law, is on the cusp of becoming inapplicable. Here's why.

Games

Remember those old game cartridges that you managed to squirrel away from your little sibling or your parents' threats to toss them in the trash? You might want to consider digging them up. Turns out there's quite a market out there for them.

If you were thinking of picking up a copy of Final Fantasy XIV this week you were probably left disappointed. Publisher Square Enix put a temporary ban on digital sales of the game after their servers were nearly fried tending to the much-more-massive-than-anticipated initial player load.

Clearly EA needs to be sent home, for it is either drunk or far more incompetent than we realized. The iOS version of the newest Sim City title was released to the Mac-using world on Thursday. You can probably guess just how well that went.

Movies

After years of setbacks and general administrative bruhaha, the World of Warcraft movie is set to begin filming in January of 2014.

Comics

Wednesday was Jack Kirby day and here's the memorial tribute that the guys at American Barbarian put together.

General Awesomeness

Check out this incredible photo series that aims to capture the raw destructive power of atmospheric storm cells.

As always, best wishes for an awesome week ahead!

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Game Review: Star Wars: Edge of the Empire (Part II)

And just like that we're on the cusp of September. I know, I know. That's some serious old lady speak. Apparently my next foray into super science should be a remote control that can manipulate the space-time continuum. <<drums fingers>> Excellent.

You know what else is excellent? The fact that the players in my inaugural run as a GM still haven't fled in terror. Three sessions in and they're apparently sticking around. I'm going to give the vast majority of the credit for that to the system, for it does indeed deliver on its promise to be narrative-based fun.

Now that we've all had a bit more time and opportunity to get our role-playing hands dirty, I wanted to update the earlier Edge of the Empire review with some of our experiences and observations. Hopefully these will come in handy if you're considering running a campaign in the system or if you've signed up for the public beta of the successor volume, Age of Rebellion. The following tidbits are divided between commentary gleaned from the players and input from my point of view, as the GM.

For the Players

My players are generally affable nerds with considerable role-playing experience who relish the opportunity to roll some dice and utilize their imaginations in the Star Wars universe. While they can get particular, none of them are 'rules lawyers', despite the fact that one is, by profession, a lawyer. For the most part, they've enjoyed the flexibility that the system provides in terms of character maintenance and interaction with NPCs. As discussed in part one of this review, the core mechanic of the game centers on creating a brisk, complex narrative. The most common remark I've heard regarding this is that the core mechanic and, by extension, the system as a whole, is something of a double-edged sword. The degree of freedom is unlike most other systems and my players have reveled in being able to do pretty much anything that springs to mind. They now have several sources of illicit income derived entirely from activities for which there are no formal rules or guidelines, but sprang into being simply from, "I do X, would that then let me do Y?"

It's a lot of fun to see them get to stretch those imagination muscles and dive into a universe almost entirely unfettered. However, sometimes that lack of structure can be more of a bane than a boon. There are a significant number of concepts, activities and encounters that have no more explanation than, "Whatever the GM feels is appropriate." Understandably, this can cause frustrations when the players are trying to formulate a plan of action or lay out logistics for how they intend to fill the downtime between encounters.

Crafting is one area that could have benefited from a bit more guidance. Things like scavenging or modifying a weapon seem at least somewhat straightforward in their intent, but the activities themselves are enormously broad. Scavenging in particular is frustrating because there are no rules differentiating someone looking for any potential usable parts versus someone looking for a rare metallic alloy with which to make an auto-cocker for their bowcaster. To address this, we've modified the rules governing the rarity of a given item (meant to apply to the purchasing and sale of goods in the game) and applied them to salvaging components.

The core rulebook lists what skills may be utilized in order to make scavenging checks, but everything else is, "Whatever the GM feels is appropriate." Want to add a scope to your sweet carbine and improve your aim? Sure thing. The core rulebook provides instructions as to how many free hard points are required for the task but, as for the actual time and effort it will take to mount the scope to the carbine? Eh, "Whatever the GM feels is appropriate." I'm not saying that every handicraft and activity needed a correspondence chart. Yes, the system is narrative based, we understand. But it would have been very helpful to get just a bit more clarity on certain things, particularly when the talents that support crafting get some explanation, but the craft itself does not. Though, as mentioned, my players aren't 'rules lawyers', they were meeting with difficulty trying to ascertain these details definitively, building off of previous experience with other systems that do provide substantial instruction. This may be parsed out and addressed in future rulebooks.

Speaking of rulebooks, the core rulebook itself is dense and quite lengthy. Is it a Randian tome? No. Does it take a bit of effort to get comfortable with? Yes. With such a new system, it's taken a few sessions for my players to tap into the rulebook and start creating synergies or applying talents for maximum effect and that's to be expected. What might be nice in the future is an online dictionary or wiki, akin to what Paizo has with their Pathfinder system, that would allow players to look up aspects of the game and study them at their leisure.

For the GM

Though I've loved the system, and being able to GM, quite a bit thus far, the lack of structure regarding certain skills or interactions has been as big a source of frustration for me as it has been for the players. While I do my best to explain the logic in any rulings made where formal written rules leave off. The vast majority of said logic is founded in my existing knowledge of the Star Wars universe which is handy to have, but not required. There are also suggestions as to what you can do if you'd prefer to run your campaign outside of established canon. Only one of my players is similarly obsessed versed so, on occasion, without formal rules, some of the rulings themselves do not make complete sense to the rest of the players. This is obviously also something I need to work on as well.

That said, if you do decide to use canon in your campaign it can provide some seriously awesome, potentially goosebump-inducing moments for both you and the players. At one point in the last session the players landed in a hangar bay riddled with blaster fire and made their way to a nearby cantina. Only after seeing an all-Bith band playing "that same song" did they have the realization that they were standing in that cantina and parked in that hangar bay. Similarly, watching them roleplay after learning critical bits of information, like that Alderaan had just been obliterated by the Empire, was a pleasure in itself and truly where the core mechanic gets a chance to shine.

Some things that are ok for the time being, but feel, for lack of a better word, clunky include two types of combat: mass and space. The rulebook does an excellent job of laying out not only the base protocol, but three alternate courses of action a GM can take when laying out adversaries for the PCs to confront. That in itself is great but, akin to our qualm with the crafting, this section could have benefited from just a bit more explanation. Something as simple as "we recommend you use this for groups of 5 or more" would go a long way in preventing needlessly drawn out combat sequences.

Sorry YT-1300. We seem to be having a scanner malfunction

Space combat, while fun, is also fairly complex. Part of this is due to our relative inexperience, but it is also not the simple extension of personal combat that the rulebook makes it out to be. For this there is plenty of instruction, but it seems especially dense given that other sections, including those governing more common activities, aren't given nearly so much detail. We go from "Whatever the GM feels is appropriate" to "you need to reach this speed within this range and position yourself within this arc to be able to have even a chance of hitting a craft of this silhouette." It's fine. As with everything else, we're still learning and will get more comfy with space combat in time but, at present, it seems a bit uneven and tends to weigh heavily on the pace of the game.

Something other GMs may want to do is to counsel their players on the importance of having at least one individual with a minimum of two ranks (the most a PC can have at the game's outset) in the skill Pilot (Space). GMs may want to provide this designated PC with a copy of the rules governing pilot only maneuvers and actions before the campaign begins so the player can familiarize themselves with these unique instructions. They are almost assuredly too much for one person to take in and utilize effectively while in the heat of combat.

It's been a great experience thus far. Here's hoping that this continues.

Wishes for a wonderful Labor Day weekend for all those celebrating these next few days and a happy con to those lucky nerds headed off to Dragon*Con or PAX Prime!

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This Week in Geekdom

It's Sunday again <does a little weekend dance>. The past week has had that whole bittersweet tinge to it that this time of year tends to render. Though my back-to-school days are long gone, there's something a bit melancholy about watching the last grains of summer trickle through the proverbial hourglass as we prepare to embrace autumn again. In any case, this week was chock-full of nerdy goodness. So, without further ado, This Week in Geekdom!

Comics

Oh DC, you and your new 52 are so silly sometimes. We've seen quite a few...interesting aesthetic choices and edits in the newest incarnation of the DC roster and this week it was Lobo's turn to go under the reinvention knife...er...pen. Check out the results here.

Surprised? Well, Lobo is hardly the only comic denizen to undergo a fairly dramatic makeover. Here are 10 of the most noted alterations comics fans have seen to date.

Justice League America also got something of a makeover this week, going from JLA to JLC. It's true, Justice League America is moving north of the border to become Justice League Canada.

In coincidental tribute to this inter-continental move, the federal government of Canada released a special commemorative stamp featuring Justice League member Superman on Friday.

Science/Technology

The head-shakingly, face-palmable story of lengths one hacker had to go to in order to edify Facebook on the latter's lax security. 

Ever wanted to build your own robot, but don't have a degree in engineering, electronics or robotics? Well, for $350 USD Lego can give you ahand with that.

In a victory for electric car enthusiasts, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (aka the government body that gets to crash cars for fun) awarded Tesla Motors with the highest crash-test safety rating ever in American automotive history. Read here about the Model S and its insanely high 5.4 star grade.

Remember last week how we chatted about the Hyperloop and how it would revolutionize mass transit if such a thing could be made? Apparently the guys over at WhiteClouds don't deal well with hypotheticals when they're discussing game-changers, so they whipped together this 3D model of the proposed Hyperloop using 3D printers....in under 24 hours.

Stargazers rejoice! It has been confirmed that, earlier this month, our limited view of the cosmos got a bit more diverse.

Have a minute or two? Check out some of the most stunning, colorful footage of the Aurora Borealis ever caught on video.

It's the roundest (and possibly the most expensive) kilogram on Earth. Here's the extraordinarily precise and spherical results of the Avogadro Project.

Speaking of highly precise, the latest issue of Science describes what researchers believe is the most detailed, precise clock ever created.

TV

Impatient for the upcoming release of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D? Well, the powers-that-be at Marvel took pity on their loyal fanbase and released these promo stills/videos to help tide usover.

Games

Ever wondered what the best Tetris players in the world do to assert their shape-placement skills? Well, they try to clear as many lines as possible in an absurdly short period of time. Like, say, 40 lines in 20 seconds.

On Tuesday, Microsoft released a list of 23 titles that will be hitting stores alongside the Xbox One when the latter debuts in November.

For those of you still loyal to the Diablo franchise, Blizzard took some time this week to attempt to steal more of your money garner your attention by announcing the title of the forthcoming expansion to Diablo III, Reaper of Souls. Fans will have to wait until BlizzCon for little details like a release date.

Either Bethesda Games has a really great product on hand or they refuse to see the MMORPG reality for what it is. On Wednesday the studio announced that the much-anticipated title Elder Scrolls Online will be subscription-fee based (and also feature micro-transactions). Just some quick math here for you guys: it will be a $60 base game plus $180 a year in subscription fees to get your free-form Skyrim fix.  

While some MMORPG-ers cried out for their wallets, others cried out in mourning. Disney announced yesterday that its 10-year-old family friendly digital universe, Toontown, will be meet with the end that Judge Doom sought. The game will officially go dark in its entirety on September 19th.

Feats of Nerdery

Since we already gave electric cars a bit of much-deserved love earlier in the post, let's keep to that theme. Meet John Watson, the 73-year-old farmer who eschewed that whole going to a dealership and buying a Prius thing and made his own electric car.

Ok, there's loving your favorite TV show, then there's spending 3 years of your life turning your car into a real-life KITT. Watch the incredibly accurate results of one Knight Rider fan's labor of love.

One enthusiastic British stone carver sought to ensure that his/her nerdery got divine approval. While refurbishing an 850-year-old abbey, several time-weathered gargoyles got a more geeky, contemporary visage.

As always, best wishes for the week ahead!

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