General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
The whole notion of Monte Cook telling us what a good guy he is because he was upset that Redgar, the white fighter, would be the figure head of the artwork, is frankly a little insulting to all the real injustices we have had to endure. Come one. It is art for a game that mostly white folks play.
This isn't a vanity article on Cook's part. He wouldn't need one, people worship him anyway.
What this is, however, is Cook explaining that the marketing team forced the creative team to make the lead iconic a white male human, because they have this stupid idea that white males will be appealed by him more. Which seems silly to me, this is a roleplaying game.
So someone tries to help diversity, even a little bit, and you accuse them of insulting the injustice your ethnic group has gone through? If you want to help improve race relations, Bump2daWiza, you'll get nowhere fast with that attitude.
In response to this thread in general, most of the gamers are white males. But what most of the gamers are not is racist or sexist. They probably wouldn't mind having, for example, Ember as the iconic lead. The vast majority of them would just look at illustrations of her doing some badass things monks do and go "Ooooo! That feat looks cool! I should have my character take it!" There would be some people who would be turned off by D&D because of a different race or sex, but if I was WotC, I'd not want their money. Marketing that takes into account intolerant attitudes does not help at all.
__________________ Blah, bah, row your boat gently down a twinkle twinkle little star? What?
Last edited by MrApothecary; 8th July 2008 at 06:35 PM..
Diversity in the US? Where are you living. I live in a city where all the people are ethnic. Next door is a suburb full of white people. Every well-to do place I have been is full of white folks. Talking in the classroom about how great diversity is campus, how there should be more equal representation of races in media, how hurftul negative stereotypes are does little for the black man who can't afford a college education. By the way I am all for Affirmative Action. Because it is pro-active and it gets more black faces into the work force. But I find it insulting when a product (that appeals mostly to white people with a good education) pats itself on the back for throwing in some colored characters. They want diversity, give inner city kids a discount on the books. Stop putting out splat books every week so us poor folk can't even stay current on the hobby. Use language that appeals to people without a college education. But don't include a black monk and act like you are Malcolm X or something.
Way over the line in terms of "politics".
ENworld is for gaming discussion, not solving (or otherwise) issues of real life such as this.
Any more steps over the line and the thread will be closed.
Thanks
__________________ Plane Sailing
(Enworld Admin)
If you need to email me click here
"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
While I won't argue against the ease of making art orders for a business, the value of iconics to the consumer is questionable.
Really, AFAIC, iconics are bland, boring, and - most importantly of all - completely and utterly irrelevant. What's the point to the consumer? Branding? Meh. Looks like, for example in Pathfinder's case, some giant nobody/schmoe just plastered on the cover and getting in the way of some artwork that's actually cool.
Sure, Seoni's got a nice rack, but who are these other schmoes? For me, at least, not only are the iconics completely irrelevant, it's getting to the point that it could be seen that we're getting them shoved down our throats (the aforementioned prominent ruining of covers along with two wasted pages of - again, irrelevant - stats of these nobodies in the book itself).
Sounds like WotC made the right decision for 4e, from this particular consumer's point of view.
(But sure - maybe art ordering would have been easier for their business. Meh.)
LOL, you are such a crank it is hilarious.
I can appreciate why a reader wouldn't care about the complexity of art orders, but a publisher should.
And I can appreciate how some readers might not like the iconics, but I'm positive it is a minority opinion.
While I won't argue against the ease of making art orders for a business, the value of iconics to the consumer is questionable.
Really, AFAIC, iconics are bland, boring, and - most importantly of all - completely and utterly irrelevant. What's the point to the consumer?
I think what the Iconics offer to the consumer is consistency and a sense of continuation.
Sure, it can be boring, that consistency. On the other hand, it also means that they won't have to worry about tieflings that look like someone said "hey, make that random human in that artwork a tiefling" and then paint a demon mask there...
In addition, it serves to illustrate the situation rather than the character. If you want to show the new styling armor, Alhana can do so without drawing attention to the character, or worrying about the artist improvising with her looks. If you want an action scene, it's more about the action than the characters, as it were.
Quote:
Sounds like WotC made the right decision for 4e, from this particular consumer's point of view.
(But sure - maybe art ordering would have been easier for their business. Meh.)
Aside from artwork, WotC needed Iconics for the simple reason of examples to demonstrate character creation and combat. Using the same folks with consistent powers and such to illustrate how the rules work would have been of great assistance.
__________________ Why should I listen to you?
You're just a pigment of my imagination.
Like bleen or gurple.
--8Bit Fighter
For the race thing, I think it would have been a more useful comment had he posted BEFORE Lockwood revealed the same thing. Now it just seems like he's reacting to that in a sort of "ooh, me too!" way.
For racial diversity in artwork, you need to figure whether the setting has such racial diversity. In addition, you need to see if your artists can actually... you know, make racially diverse art that doesn't look horrible. I mean, if they can't even draw a white guy sometimes, trying to find more colors to use might be worse than just having the white guy.
(I'd also like to note that gnomes were generally brown, but of course another race that was generally drawn as "tanned" rather than "african".)
__________________ Why should I listen to you?
You're just a pigment of my imagination.
Like bleen or gurple.
--8Bit Fighter
Like any good RPG artwork, it helps me visualize the characters in the game and immerse myself in the world. A good illustration gives me ideas. A good characterter illustration gives me good character ideas and gives me a visual bead on the character.
__________________ "This game requires no gameboard because the action takes place in your imagination..." - Cover of Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Set 1.
And I can appreciate how some readers might not like the iconics, but I'm positive it is a minority opinion.
WotC doesn't think so. (Yeah, yeah, I know - I'm on shaky ground with that assertion already...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scribble
Iconics tend to make the art seem a bit repetative, but not enough in my eyes that I sit around thinking... "Grrrr hates me some iconics grrrrr!!!"
Agreed. I didn't even know what an iconic was until I read ENWorld for a length of time.
But yeah - I think that's the problem I have, that I couldn't put my finger on/articulate for the longest time. It was "why is artwork in the last little while so boring to me?". That's it!
I would love to see actual data that supports marketing's decision.
Census data, probably. More than 75% of the US as a whole is white. I would feel safe betting that a significantly higher percentage of gamers are white; if I had to guess, I'd say 90-95% and feel I was being generous.
They can take the safe route, which is to produce a book with a white male on the cover. A certain percent of whites will look less favorably on the book because of this, as will a certain percentage of non-whites. The gamble is: which is safer in terms of sales?
I'd read a while back something, somewhere about how Regdar wasn't part of the original iconics. I've tried to track down that article many times, but can't remember anything else about it. Still, this is penetrating regarding WHY he was suddenly added in.
As to the value of iconic characters as a whole...I have mixed feelings. I was surprised to find that I did, in fact, derive some sense of enjoyment that the same characters were regularly featured in the art across the books. That said, I also took it for granted that there were stereotypes in there that would appeal to the largest demographics - it's something of a necessity (or perhaps necessary evil) when your product is a niche one, as RPG books are. Yes, Regdar is the white male that white males are supposed to identify with, and yes, Seoni is the scantily-clad big-boobed sex object said white males are supposed to lust after. I don't believe that there's any sort of sinister intent to belittle women or other ethnicities; it's just companies trying to appeal to the people who are already most likely to buy their products.
(As an aside, I've often wondered if part of the requirements for each release of Paizo's Pathfinder was that every book has to have at least one full-body piece of art depicting a sexy woman - not that I mind, personally. )
The real question, to me, is are these tactics inherently offensive (and harmful)? That is, is there a social effect to always showing the main fighter character as being a white male? Does it have an impact on women (and men's perception of women) when most of the females depicted look like a sex-fantasy? That, I think, is much harder to determine.
__________________ Need an informed review of a product? No problem! Check out my RPGnow Staff Reviews!
Last edited by Alzrius; 8th July 2008 at 07:25 PM..
I like iconics (or at least, I like the iconics that I like). One of the primary joys of D&D is watching your crew of familiar characters grow through their adventures. The use of iconics gives this feel, especially if the iconics evolve.
I'd also like to give a thumbs up for the Pathfinder iconics. They're more interesting than the 3.x ones. Even the white males among them.
Samus wore a bikini in her first game, take that as you will.
You don't see the bikini unless you beat the game. Up until that point, many players did not even realize Samus was female. Since then, sometimes you see Samus in armor, sometimes in a bikini, and it doesn't matter; Samus is still Samus, and we all know Samus is a complete badass. Samus's armor is cool. Etc. Samus is basically Iron Man. Sometimes we see Tony Stark with fewer clothes on, too, but it doesn't impinge on his iconic status.
Agreed. I didn't even know what an iconic was until I read ENWorld for a length of time.
But yeah - I think that's the problem I have, that I couldn't put my finger on/articulate for the longest time. It was "why is artwork in the last little while so boring to me?". That's it!
I think what bored me was the fact that the art was geared more towards illustrating something as opposed to just art.
Older edition artwork, to me, seemed like a momentary pause in what I was reading to see a scene that inspired my creativity... Made me think, hrmm who are those characters and what are they doing in this place?
3e stuff always tended to be too specific... Oh that's redgar, and he's cleaving... something... (as they also tended to lack any kind of a background.)
Chalk me up as another who always thought Regdar was black (but then again, I watched scourge of worlds though), I always thought Alhandra and Kerwyn where hispanic and Nial and Hennet where asian. When I first looked at the PHB I thought Jozan was the only white human Iconic.
__________________ Gaming group looking to add a few additional players in the Fort Worth TX. If interested email billyandstacey@sbcglobal.net for further information.
Older edition artwork, to me, seemed like a momentary pause in what I was reading to see a scene that inspired my creativity... Made me think, hrmm who are those characters and what are they doing in this place?
That specifically reminds me of the demi-human art in the Red Box Basic set, three adventurers pausing to sit and converse on their way to... somewhere.
One of the things I always liked about Talislanta is that it's countries, cities, and folk were most often illustrated by scenes rather than portraiture, or worse, model illustration.
I wouldn't really label it 'TSR-logic'. In the 80's and 90's you had mainstream book publishers that would regularly 'white-wash' covers that featured black characters and not include author pictures with the back-flap bio if that author was black (unless that book was slated to sell in the African-American section). (And I say specifically black rather than 'non-white' because that's usually the only point things break down; you could find a number of asian characters on book covers in the same period since that was also the big 'japan-o-phile' phase of fantasty and SF).
Sorry, I think you missed why I was saying that. TSR's leadership didn't respect their readers at all, and didn't seem to feel that expanding the audience was a valid goal, which is why I say it's TSR logic. I had forgotten about the general "white-washing", though, that is a valid point, and something which I think most people are completely unaware of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Erik Mona
And I can appreciate how some readers might not like the iconics, but I'm positive it is a minority opinion.
I think you're right in very specific sense. For the people who like the Paizo Pathfinder series, most of them also like or are neutral to the Paizo iconics. However, I think this is largely because Paizo's iconics are pretty cool, and nowhere near as dull or irritating as WotC's ones. Also, they only pop up "where they should" as it were, which is to say, in books where they're the "default" PCs. Rather than making it so the vast majority of illustrations in every single book of a game have the same couple of dozen characters in them, over and over again. Personally I find that stifles my imagination (obviously not a problem with a pre-written adventure), and generally bores me rigid. Not a single one of my players likes any of the iconics, and indeed, it was one of them who brought up that this "Badly-dressed wizard with big hair" kept appearing in all their books and it was annoying them (regarding Mialee).
Also, even though you also have a white, male, human fighter as the "first" iconic, and he is perhaps the least interesting or memorable of them, he at least has the merit of not having a ridiculous chin-beard
__________________ Hobo - "You're confusing you with someone else."
Ruin Explorer is officially pleased with 4E's DM advice (mostly), and thinks that it's RP-advice etc. is both present and pretty darn solid, and certainly better than all other editions.
I guess I never bought enough books, because I'm still used to thinking of Regdar as ethnically ambiguous. I don't really remember white Regdar. But, yeah, the tendency of artists to take an ambiguous character and skew them whiter and whiter with each iteration is a familiar one, particuarly from mainstream comics. Angel Salvadore from X-Men comes to mind.
Also, for the record, I'm entirely disgusted with the idea that I, as a white male, can only identify with other white males.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bump2daWiza
Use language that appeals to people without a college education.
Oh, wow. That was insulting to basically everyone.
In the racism thread?
I criticize because I love! (No, really!)
)
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
