def

I think I got your point. Mine is simply that LEGO is not just a business. I'm not surprised by that sort of target marketing by Mattel or Hasbro. Of course, as an adult, I would never spend my time on an Adult Fan of Mattel website. I have higher expectations of the TLG than other toy manufacturers. Pulling out old maxims like "businesses are designed to make money" doesn't mean much. I don't think anyone is under the illusion that it's a charity organization

Why don't they just crank up the flowers ten-fold and get rid of the scientist character? Girls hate math, after all. Test market. After that, they could sell jewelery sets and make-up kits. The test market, after all. Since that's what's important to you... As I wrote in the post above yours, from a business point of view, it makes sense. But I'm not going to respect the decision. It's stodgy and old. To be honest, being profitable has never been in my top ten things I respect about any company. I like LEGO because it's been an intelligent company, and ideas like "Girls like pink," is nothing I'd consider intelligent. Their avoidance of such things was something I really respected about them in the past. Add this series to NinjaGo's collectible cards concept, it seems like the "new ideas" of LEGO are based on trolling other toy companies' successes from past decades rather than being a trail blazer. But, as you say, "the test market." The test market It's my own fault for placing faith in a company.

I wouldn't say I'm a believer in nurture over nature either. I've taught kids for years, and boys tend to fight in a way girls don't, at an early age. I live in Japan, a country where a majority of women still become housewives, my wife included. I don't think housewife is a pejorative term. But I think marketing the world as such is poor. Why your teenage son is uncomfortable with something girly is another issue, not suited to EB, having to do with negative connotations of feminine things in language and society, where a woman who becomes a CEO is a stunning success, while a man who becomes a house-husband will have low self-esteem. I don't hold LEGO in any way responsible for that, and don't think these toys support that notion at all. I certainly don't think girls choosing to play with "girls" toys is weak at all, and never said anything of the sort. If they choose to, it's great. But that's not what this topic is about. It's about a company that chooses to divide its market into boys and girls for the sake of profitability, and using stereotypes to sell to girls. It makes business sense, and I've acknowledged that, but I don't have to respect it. LEGO is one of the few brands in the world I have any respect for, so it's a shame that they have to resort to this sort of thing.

Try not to give yourself a headache as you slam it There is no genetic disposition for the female to like pink and purple. It is a gender role that people learn to fulfill. Is pink feminine? NO. Is blue masculine? NO. That is a contemporary invention. Here is the quickest thing a Google search came up with. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2831/was-pink-originally-the-color-for-boys-and-blue-for-girls So, what you call "wanting to be girly", I call, imitating other kids. It's all arbitrary. Likewise, pre-teen girls dressing 'slutty' usually has no sexual implications with them, it's just a form of imitation. So, nothing is wrong with girls wanting to be girly. Something is wrong with companies promoting a small minded view of what being a girl means. In toy-terms, it means boys like building, jobs (construction, military, police, fire fighters) and generally active things, and girls like fashion, homemaking, and generally non-active things. A company can simply target the lowest common denominator, or they can be a market leader. I think LEGO was really a world leader in the 20th century, and though they are the most profitable now, I think they have a lot of unremarkable business practices coming to the fore these days. This is certainly one. You can chalk 'Friends' up to genetic disposition, but I would class it more of humans' tendency to imitate, which is the basis of society. Again, if you think girls inherently liking Polly Pockets is a fact of life, I hope you never raise a daughter, with such a limiting point of view. Girls have enough negative, restricting influences on them in this world already, without parents to reinforce such a world-view.

Really? Is the City line slammed for being for boys? This is the first I've heard of it. I've only ever heard of TLG being slammed for patronizing girls with pink bricks. Agreed. They are mostly there with the general themes. (Duplo, City, block buckets), but the licensed stuff is only as gender targeted as the product in question; ie. superheroes are aimed at ten year old boys in the States, so the LEGO is too. But I think it's fair to say LEGO has made backwards progress on this topic as the decades move on. The early ads showed boys and girls, and, as the detestable ads they use these days show, they consider their target audience to be boys now. I'm sure the majority of the market share is boys, but by relegating girls to the margins, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why can't we have an obnoxious girl to hate as much as this prick?

Going back through the catalog these days, though still keeping an ear to the ground for new stuff, particularly as year-end lists start surfacing all over the Internet. One of the great electronic artists, with one of the great band names too, Mouse on Mars.

I didn't watch the video, but I can easily imagine the content. The lame-ness of "girls LEGO" was the first thing I thought when I saw it. At the same time, as a parent of a daughter who plays with LEGO, my wife is always attracted to the Purple girls' bucket, and perks up when she sees Belville sets. LEGO didn't use to be like that though. Until the introduction of Castle and Space, it was very much gender neutral. I think it's fair to say, stuff like Pirates and Star Wars is boy-targeted. As a profit oriented move, I totally understand it. Gender based marketing is pretty crucial for toy companies. If you go to any Toys R Us in the world, the store is divided by gender, except the educational stuff and board games. But, as a parent in the 21st century, I find it pretty lame, and will avoid the series when shopping for li'l def. I still consider LEGO one of the few toys that is gender neutral.

I think it's comparable in terms of the topic of "questionable behavior in mafia games." The scum in this game were quite frustrated about being called out for playing Heroica but not the mafia. But it happened to town too. K-nut got called out for it. I said something to him, but I was taking Kiel's reports for it. I don't consider it metagaming to stalk someone's activity (off topic, I find all metagaming fair), but I find it icky, and it makes me a lot more uncomfortable than mafia-based insults. The more important point was that teasing was part of the strategy though, and it actually helped track down the scum in this game. Not Brickdoctor, but the others, for sure.

But what if annoying people is part of your strategy Only the scum were teased, for the purpose of breaking them down.... I think it's at least as fair as stalking their Internet activity, which I never did. I won't take that as a compliment I'd like to think there is a happy medium between casually checking in every few days, and obsessively following the game. I'll admit, on Sundays, when at home for the day and it was snowy outside, I checked in too much, but other than that, I probably put in an hour a day. Which I think is healthy for a mafia game. But it's up for debate. Croc was never on the hook, since he was killing for town. He killed the Ventriloquist night three at my request, and there was never any question of his town affiliation, to me. I addressed this around day five or so. A number of townies were throwing out accusations at "quiet" players, but those players were pretty much cleared, so it was simply causing stress in thread. Another example of the importance of coordination.

If nobody decides to host one, I might step up to fill in the gap. I really enjoyed hosting the last game, and there were a lot of solid players who shone in it As Flitwick said, keep your eyes peeled.

Sorry to revive a topic that had gone suddenly dormant without sufficient feedback from the hosts, in my opinion....(and a few players never bothered to check in after the game?! Where's the etiquette in that?) In regards to all the business between me the scum here, a similar situation has arisen this week in another off-site mafia game I'm playing. It's a daily mafia game, where 24 hours equals one game day + night, so, I, with my job and part time job to pay for my move this year, and presents for def jr, have been participating at, shall we say, K-nut levels (no offense intended at all whatsover K-nut, I even capitalized your name as you like it ). So, I have been somewhat harassed, accused of "lying out my megablocks" among other things. Just a somewhat solid accusation that I'm full of shit. It's certainly lighter than my accusation that scum in Gotham are a bunch of whiners needing rattles and a change of diapers. Anyway, someone else has quit that game out of frustration at accusations (not mine, natch ) stemming from game-based "enthusiasm". I have urged a good night's sleep and further consideration tomorrow, so we'll see. But, to those who think a game gets out of hand... It's a worthy topic. I think when it gets personal, it's out of hand (ie. my mafia school insult, which was very much on the fence, but to me, was more about mocking scum behavior than any individual. I don't actually have a formed opinion on the scum of this game, I hardly know them). But I think generic insults to be entirely fair. Really, this is an interpersonal game, so I think you should go into it with some "Internet-level" thick skin. As in, you shouldn't take personally what some person you don't know and will never meet writes about you, whether correct or not. What say you? What level of abuse is fair when tracking scum?

Not at all It was a slowly snowballing thing, culminating on the final game day. But we were good before the game, and good now For me: Too dangerous to be kept alive In that same game, the scum decided to kill me on day one, and instead, I killed them. All six of them. Sometime you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you. Should have killed me day three, Deadshot. Now your goose is cooked

Riley? Who's that? As far as I know, mafia is taking a break until New Year's. I was thinking of whipping up a mini-Bethlehem mafia to fill in the gap, but then I figured I need a little break from hosting

My thoughts on a licensed character game... I think it's better to work in the realm of a licensed universe than to use characters themselves. There were too many places where characters actual attributes overlapped to their game attributes, enough so that this was only half mafia. I think if you had a story set in Gotham, with all new characters, it could make a great environment. And it's not to say this wasn't fun; it was. But, if you have your heart set on using known characters, you might just want to run with it and push it further, but not call it a mafia game. The game I ran in the summer borrowed elements of a mafia game, but was going well outside the territory of one, so I labeled it a "Mafiystery Game" or whatever I called it. It didn't stop some people from being frustrated after the game, but I let them know up front it wasn't a mafia game If you had a game where there were connections between the villains abilities and the night actions, that could certainly become part of it, and could be quite fun for people I was a comic nerd back in the day, so certainly I feel comfortable with the setting.

It wasn't the argument! All I asked of you was one thing! No seed on me. There was a little self-preservation there, but ultimately, you were an "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" thing. When you targeted me, all of a sudden I had to put some time in to check out if you were on the up and up. You would have won if you'd stayed away. I can understand that the game wasn't as thrilling for you, just lurking about in the background though. Next time A lot of people did. Too many to count. I think it's in bad taste to quote the host, with time stamps and all, but writing it without quotes seems fine to me.

I know the feeling. I was playing the Forest mafia last March when the tsunami hit Japan, and I was absolutely miserable playing that game. I wanted to drop out, but I stuck through it, and it was a mistake. Two weeks later, I was okay to play, but at that time, the game wasn't fun, it was a job I had to do. If you're in an emotionally stressed state, mafia is not a good game to play. Mainly because you have human opponents, and need to interact, and lie! I think Heroica is fine for stressed people, since you're playing NPCs. But mafia, no. If it ever came up again that I was in an emotionally stressed place during a game, at this point, I would drop out. You can say that, but we'll never know. Other than Peanuts, all the people I teased were scum. And on the writeboard, you can see that the experienced people were letting it roll off of them (Pie, Flitwick, BD), and the new players were getting rattled. That was my goal, though I wish I could have rattled Brickdoctor. He really played it calm I played a bully game, but you guys were the bad guys in the story, so that's a strategy of town... Pick on the scum bums. One player I play with always calls the scum evil lard-megablocks in every game, and every once in a while, some new player will come along and say they don't think it's appropriate to call players lard megablocks. But it's absolutely generic and not aimed at anyone. I know how it is to be on a scum team when town is on a roll. You hate them. You just want them out of the game. But the other townies kept contacting us to see what's up. Even Two-Face, who had a crap night action, kept in touch. If you'd kept up with him each day, trying to track down scum, you would have been much harder to track. We lynched Brickdoctor on day seven(!) but I wasn't confident about it. It was only that I was confident that a lot of others weren't scum, and he was the last left. But, I wouldn't have been surprised if he turned up town. Your lynch I was very confident of, and it was 100% because of your behavior. Not night actions, or investigations, but because of your behavior. Rumble, Flitwick, Nightshroud and Brickdoctor were all convicted, partially, because of night actions. So, there were a lot of things you could have done differently. And that PM I sent to you, asking what you've been up to, I sent the same one (copy-pasted) to four or five players, and they all were cooperative and willing to work. You gave me attitude. I really think that town players don't get rattled in a game like this. If they keep lynching townies night after night, they get loopy, but the stuff in thread doesn't bother townies. The town were working hard and cooperating. You can't discount that. I pushed them to get into gear, but most of them were quite active and working hard. I just was loud about it in thread, since I wasn't afraid of being killed. But I specifically asked Alopex to keep a low profile, because he was the protector. And you guys never paid him any attention. Maybe. I just think you were over-sensitive since you (and your team) were on the receiving end. No comment on your English Maybe I could have helped you target, but I would have had a hard time keeping the info flow going if I kept making "mistakes" Anyway, no hard feelings on my part

Just for the record, I wasn't taking the game seriously at all. I was laughing with most of my posts, especially the ones teasing scum. I just got frustrated at you that last day. But it really wasn't a case of taking it too seriously. It was a sort of disbelief. And as much as nobody made me take up the responsibility, it just happens in some games. I was the only one people could trust. I didn't even trust Kiel much of the game. I shared some info with him, but always kept a certain distance. It's a team game, and if it happens that you are in the position to coordinate things, you have to step up. In this case, that was me. After taking out three scumbags, I was just in that position. When you sign up for a mafia game, participation is key, and you need to give the time to it that you've promised. A game full of dedicated players is amazing fun

That was mostly me being a dick. I wanted the scum to know who I was going after next. I had a protector, a blocker, an investigator and a vig killer, plus I was unkillable. There was no advantage to keeping things quiet. JimB said I wasn't telling him any info, but there was little need to. I was just stating it all in thread, so people knew who I was targeting. And it did make the scum scramble. Under normal circumstances, I would have played it closer to my chest. Keep in mind, my role was simply to survive, making me invincible. I just chose to break the rules day one rather than fulfil my role. With the way scum were targeting me from day one, it seems I chose the best approach too. My role would have worked with an under the radar player, but I couldn't have believably pulled off floating for a whole game. My role: I forget who all I voted for, but I'll take a look.... Day two, voted for the Ventriloquist, though I was more sure Bane was scum. But, I wanted to split the votes so we could look through them later. Sure enough, all the scum voted for Bane. Day three was with the crowd. Should have voted for the Ventriloquist. Day four, only vote for Scarecrow. He died that night (I'm so sorry Peanuts ) Day five, only vote for Ra's. We tried to vig kill him, but couldn't. We lynched him the next day. Day six, only vote for Black Mask. We tried to vig kill him, but couldn't. We lynched him the next day. So, my voting for someone I wasn't accusing was mostly to scare the scum, and I voted for scum almost everyday. It was like Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth thing (I forget which) where they point to the wall before hitting a home run. It's a shame our vig kills failed, it would have looked great, all one after another

But that isn't what you did wrong. It's not that you didn't jump on the Riddler bandwagon, but the way you didn't. You made a point of going against the grain. And then your later logic about it being better to just kill the investigator sealed the deal. But it wasn't because you didn't bandwagon. Don't think that. Though joining the bandwagon would have kept you to day two I didn't vote for Riddler, and nobody fingered me as scum for it

Ra's wasn't affiliated with you, but he was against the town. Out of 25, six were scum, and two of those six could recruit. That would seriously cut into town's numbers, added to bad lynches and night kills, mistaken vig kills. I think you could run this game again, and if the town didn't lynch the cult leader night one, the game would be weighted to scum. The main reason all town's night actions went against the scum is that I had gotten a lot of trust, and most of them simply confessed their night actions to me, and I was able to harness them. Really, you could have taken out the vig with the paranoid gun owner role, but I organized a block of Flitwick before I organized the hit. All the night hits, except Two-Face, were done with a blocker at the same time. And I got Whitefang to target Tammo, to double our investigator, and get more results back. But none of that could have happened if I hadn't built up trust with everybody first, which leads back to the day one lynch. No lynch, and all of town is targeting each other. Without it, you would have been in a great position The first day of your writeboard is filled with so much hubris, it's beautiful.

I had two last comments/criticisms to make to the hosts: 1) Looking at the Agents power list, it really seemed that they had a strong advantage at the start of the game, with two kills and a cult leader. The cult leader had no restriction, and would have caused all sorts of problems to town if we hadn't taken her out day one (Thanks again for telegraphing your moves, Pie ). Not only would town have been secretly down a player each day, but they'd be voting with the scum. Add to that, Ra's recruiting scum to his side, and town was in a sort of impossible situation. That day one lynch really changed the whole game. So, though them having no kill at the end was kind of bad, they had a lot of powers to begin with. 2) Penguin, you stepped in at the end of the last day to clarify town's win condition and in some way defend me. That was a no-no. I had to fight Oky's claims on my own, and the host stepping in was too much. Next time, let us flail

Alopex was also a protector, and he protected me some nights. I asked him to protect Kiel once or twice too. We must have just randomly survived. My night action was to be invincible if I targeted a Criminal, but would die with that Criminal if they died. I lucked into choosing Alopex night one, and kept up the contact with him. So, I was unkillable most nights, but I could be blocked and killed, which is what Alopex was for. I was double unkillable. So I wanted you to target me It's all in hindsight, but you in the future, you should just consider killing random townies, since they are much more likely to be guaranteed, and you had a good chance of taking out someone important to the cause.

Well, I finished with the Writeboard, and it was a thoroughly hilarious read :roflmao: Scorpiox, I wasn't offended one bit. You have to consider that I was able to sniff out the scum, and you called me an idiot over and over again, while complaining about my behavior in thread. From my point of view, it is a misunderstanding of the word idiot; I had a solid strategy, and that doesn't make me an idiot. Your cursing me out in the writeboard and in thread on your final day just makes your complaints seem hypocritical. You think I'm offensive, and resolve it by calling me names in private and public. I have no problem with you calling me an idiot, but doing that combined with decrying my manners is more than a little ridiculous. You and Nightshroud hating on me there doesn't upset me because, even as EB users, I don't know you at all. This was my first encounter with you. If I had a relationship with you, even just a few games, I'd take your words more seriously. I don't think I was egotistical at all. The Creeper was, but I wasn't. Your writeboard mentioned my name more than anyone else, so that was you guys, and you need to take some responsibility for that. You made me out to be a bogeyman, and I was happy to fulfill the role for you I am really confident that if you had recruited me night one that you would have loved me I hope you guys stick around and that ten games from now you can laugh about how megablocking pissed off you were during the Gotham Mafia Game. I'm sure you'll be a lot harder to rattle in your next game. And yes, Rumblestrike, the mafia school comment was not called for. You were in a rough position that day. I don't think your lie was very good, but no matter what you said, I wasn't going to believe you. I think you'll do better next time too About the "Scum or dumb" thing... It's not meant to say people are literally stupid. But I genuinely can't fathom some town statements that come up over and over again in these games. On day one, people are asking for evidence. Evidence is not there, and the repeated requests for it are, in a word, inane. Asking in thread for leads... Calling everyone sheep when they have real accusations they are following... To me, this isn't good playing. It's very repetitive and without strategy, unless your strategy is to be inane. I'd like to see all players step up and have a solid game. Someone like K-Nut, I spoke to him in PM about his participation level, and he understood, with no offense. He was much more active in PMs after that, and better in thread. I think most of the town stepped up quite a bit and improved their play throughout the game. It wasn't 100%, but it was one of the more active games I've seen on EB I was impressed with everyone's play overall, particularly after day three.

I'm looking at the scum board now Haven't got through day one yet, but I'm looking forward to it. It really is Meta-game central. For the record though, this is the first EB mafia I have ever survived It's amazing that people could consider me a dangerous player without a single survive to my name. To be fair though, when I first playing mafia, I latched onto the known names and targeted them. It really wasn't a good strategy. But, that's how I started out.

You have to remember, most of the town was feeding me info. So, they weren't following me, they were working with me, and they knew I was getting reliable information. What Zeph said about effort... Say Zsasz, who was cooperative at first, but he never gave me any info. If he had bluffed a role, and then fed me fake info (some maybe true, some false) he would have lived as long as Brickdoctor. I trusted most of those who contacted me. But, it was most certainly not a case of people following the herd You have to admit, you were scheming from the first post, trying to be active, but not too active, and you didn't vote for Riddler because you knew he would come up town and that would be a future defense. Right? There is something to go on, but it's not very substantial.