Strange Article, On Maturity, Slaanesh and 40k

neferhet said:

I honestly think that this Social Justice Warrior thing has gone too far. Why plastic soldiers have no women in the bag? Ridiculous.
About the article, me thinks that addressing Slaanesh as genderphobic and immature or offensive is pathetic and blatantly stupid. I think slaanesh is the most mature, gender-equal aspect of the game(he/she is a fucking hermaphrodite and would totally cheer knowing you are a drag, trans or have mixed sexuality.) What about the fascist - male driven - patriarchy Empire of star-holocaust? How comes that THAT is ok and absolutely halal for those fuckers that keep bashing their heads over gender policies in games?
Also, i've always wondered why saying "tits" loud is going to kill a 12 yo mind while "Exterminatus" is perfetly ok. Let's read something good about exterminatus (from WH40K wikia)

" they completely wiped out Istvaan III's entire population of 16 billion people in only minutes, leaving the planet barren but habitable, if only just"
16 billions dead people is ok. Tits are not. basically you can go along the road and shout heil fucking hitler, but you better keep those tits in check, motherfucker.

"Imperial Virus Bombs release a special virus known as the Life-eater Virus that was genetically designed to quickly spread and destroy all organic cellular structures it infects, reducing all planetary life, whether flora or fauna, to an undifferentiated organic sludge of biochemicals and organic gasses as a by-product, both of which are highly flammable. Exterminatus protocols dictate that a lance strike or an incendiary device be deployed to ignite the byproducts and turn the atmosphere into a firestorm that usually takes out whatever life may be left."
Again, it's ok to portray an entire planet (made of people like you, me, the baker, the mechanic over there, that mother with toddler there) just sludging its way to the grond due to virus induced liquefaction. And then become a ball of fire. Ok then. Totally sane.
I bet a lot of the foreign fighters in Siria And Libia took some of the WH40K novels too seriously. And not the sexy parts.

Also, why the hell Slaanesh is considered to be just the god of kinky sex? He is not. If i say "lust, excess, pride, perfection. Also with exposed female breast" and you laugh 'cause you only heard "breast", i am mature and you are not.

I fear that an Age of Sigmar treatment is coming for slaanesh in 40K too, thanks to people like this moron who wrote that (interesting but) stupid article.

If anything, mature aspects of the game, not involving violence, should be further developed, at least in the books if not in the game itself.

Ok. Rant over.

Btw @LordNurgle0777 i like your rants.

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Kreuger said:

I read the BoLS piece though I haven't listened to your reactions. I think this is a storm in a teacup.

I think the author makes a number of very points about what qualifies mature content. I also agree with him that wargaming isn't the best medium for mature discourse. I also think his final supposition that slaanesh could be a FW property isn't unreasonable, however I think that conclusion misses the point.

My rejoinder is: there are a number of assumptions and conclusions in this piece, which to the best of my knowledge are wrong. First, that 40k is a game for children. It wasn't originally conceived of that way. Reading through the early publications like Rogue Trader and Realms of Darkness, these are not intended for kids. The realms books included a mature audiences warning. Second edition of 40k was a little more appropriate for younger players, but not much.

Only with the drastic redesign of the game for 3rd edition (ugh, how I despised 3rd Ed!) was 40k targeted to early teen or preteen players. During this time there was also a real concern about how to handle slaanesh. Gw purportedly produced something like 25 sculpts of the keeper of secrets before they could re-release the model to a game with a younger audience. I think the entire arc of 40k development between 3rd edition and the 5th has been marred by the same problems. Gw has simultaneously increased prices and reduced the maturity level of the game (both rules and content) so that only the children of the wealthy or working adults could afford the game. This alienates the core demographic of 16-25 (ish) players who are growing into more mature forms of media and often prices them out of participation.

Interestingly, the last 2 editions of 40k have seemingly doubled down on targeting that more mature demographic again. The content of the games and the complexity of the rules are once more moving into more grown up territory.

The other major error the author made is in identifying the chaos gods as nothing more than heavy metal album art on steroids. The chaos gods represent primal emotions and urges carried to their most extreme. As though the 7 deadly sins were trimmed down to 4, khorne is rage, nurgle is fear, tzeentch is greed, and slaanesh is lust.

The only way the author's point may be valid is if there are, as he suggests women, men, or LGBTQ players who are offended by Slaanesh. I'm interested to know if there are gamers who are offended by slaanesh. And obviously, I can't speak for any of those groups. I think slaanesh characters and art clearly borrows from BDSM culture and equipment so I could see members being offended. Though I would argue that slaanesh isn't about sex or fun or food or any one pursuit in particular but all of them and taken to their utmost extreme, and anything taken too far is detrimental. The game isn't for kids. As @neferhet has so eloquently pointed out genocide is ok, but tits are objectionable?

Gw needs to tone down marketing 40k to kids. Unless there are players truly offended by slaanesh is a silly argument. I even recall an article or press release from GW about the difference between 40k and Age of Sigmar, where the GW writers claimed that AoS was intended for younger audiences, hence 2 pages of rules, no points, and no slaanesh! And they were reserving 40k as their game for more mature audiences.

So all of that said, I can't speak for anyone but I'm interested in the opinions of other members of this forum.

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