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About 3rd editions artwork, I didn't like it either, but couldn't put my finger on why at first. It was the lack of action scenes. It seemed like everything was either a portrait, a pose or cut outs around the character (see Lidda shooting the crossbow bolt into the ogre's head). There was hardly any full page pictures, and when there were it was usually the heroes posed like they were about to fight, but rarely showed what they were fighting. I think that's why a lot of people liked Eberron, lots of dynamic art, with great covers.
It might also explain why more people like the Pathfinder Iconics more than the D&D ones. Pathfinder usually has their Iconics depicted in the midst of battle, not posing before the battle begins
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Also, Krusk looks like the guy from Sin City wearing a cheap Halloween mask.
That's very true, and also scary. Because Marv (who I presume you are referring to) kind of looked like he was wearing a halloween mask at the best of times.
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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.
"discount on the books", (You make a choice, I gave up certain things when I was younger so I could scrape together the money to buy my books. The question is how to make this more appealing than xbox 360 or PS3 games?).
My point is if they want to reach out to blacks, rather than talk about how great they are because they fought the marketing department to keep too many white faces on the cover, it would be more productive to do something where the racial disparity is real: wealth. Everyone has a different situation. But we didn't have enough money for me to buy a 20$ book when I was growing up (I think that is how much PHB for 2E cost). I had to go to the library and take it out, until someone stole it. Eventually I did get the players handbook for Christmas. With books priced as they are now, they are out of reach for many inner city kids (where most of the non-white population is).
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Originally Posted by Imaro
Everything you list above, except using dumber language, isn't something the creative team has any control over.
Not dumber language, but lets be honest black inner city kids use different language than white suburban kids. The books as written apeal more to upper middle class whites than the former.
What's the representation like in Pathfinder iconics?
I won't go into most of my thoughts on the race in art argument, because it was already masterfully (and for the most part politely!) done in the other thread, but as a Amerindian/Filipino gamer I could definitely see myself buying the Pathfinder books specifically for diversity in the art.
What's the representation like in Pathfinder iconics?
Bard - white halfling male
Cleric - Black or possibly arab female
Druid - skin color indeterminate female gnome with gree spiky hair
Fighter - White male human
Monk - black male human
Paladin - black female human
Ranger - white male dwarf
Rogue - albino female elf
Sorcerer - skin color indeterminate female elf
Wizard - white old human with long silver hair
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I always thought the original 3.0 Player's Handbook Regdar was either black, hispanic or some mix of those and white, but I couldn't quite tell. I figured the ambiguity was an intentional effort to avoid just these sorts of issues! Ha!
In art (and politics), I suppose people often see want they want to see.
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.
I think that's tangential; it says nothing about what that market will buy. If it did, books with cheesecake drow elf women wouldn't sell, either.
The data WotC marketing would need to produce is sales figures for various books with different covers, and be able to demonstrate that covers featuring white males consistently sold more. (Just like they were able to justify Dragon Magic because products with the words "dragon" and "magic" consistently sold better.)
Thing is, I don't really buy that their data backs this up.
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She's the only black iconic, but what about Regdar, Alhandra, Hennet, and Naull?
Regdar: white (most often depicted unambiguously so, otehr than Lockwood's initial work).
Alhandra: White.
Hennet: White.
Naull: who? (Googles around) Oh, her. Does she even count? I mean, yeah, but she's not really an iconic, is she?
__________________ If knowledge of a game's plot would spoil its experience, it isn't a game.
... A player cannot learn of a game's ending without experiencing it, because a game is not a linear object.
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As to the value of iconics... I don't know if there's any obvious advantage. We all certainly seem to be able to identify them, and even have strong opinions. Does that really affect my enjoyment of the game? I'm not sure, other than the shared fan experience, like talking about Meepo.
The Pathfinder iconics... I dunno. I have the first PF adventure path, and I couldn't even tell you their names. To me, they're just sample PCs at the end of the books.
__________________ If knowledge of a game's plot would spoil its experience, it isn't a game.
... A player cannot learn of a game's ending without experiencing it, because a game is not a linear object.
—Mike Mearls
The pathfinder iconics aren't really iconics. The point of iconics is that they're generic. They're "iconic" of what the class is generically like. This is why we often got pictures of the iconics in hypothetical future realities- you know, "Here's Mialee as she might have looked in a war campaign. Here's Jozan in a horror campaign." Etc. The pathfinder iconics are really just pcs.
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?
The overwhelming majority of rap music -- which overwhelmingly features black performers -- is bought by white people. This is not a new phenomenon: Run DMC'S "Raising Hell" album predates 2E.
This was not a good marketing decision on TSR's part. It was an indefensibly stupid and demonstratably ineffectual marketing decision.
The pathfinder iconics aren't really iconics. The point of iconics is that they're generic. They're "iconic" of what the class is generically like.
Elminster is iconic. Drizzt is iconic. Tasslehoff is iconic. Raistlin is iconic. Mordenkainen is iconic.
"Iconic" does not mean generic.
I agree that WotC really wanted "generics," and they got them, which was bad news when they decided they wanted to do novels starring them. Even in house, the misused terminology tripped them up.
Personally, I like the 1E iconics (and Pathfinder iconics, although their gnome concerns me somewhat) a lot more than the 3E generics.
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?
Well, the problem with this thread is that a lot of this topic was already covered when Lockwood mentioned something a week or three ago.
And, lets be honest, historically speaking there probably weren't a lot of "black knights". No one is writing about Rokugan's books not featuring enough racial diversity either.
So yeah, "put a white guy on the cover" is silly, but at the same time "because people can identify with it" doesn't just mean "because they're white".
I don't think D&D should be limited to replicating Earth's racial patterns, but that doesn't mean different ethnicities just appear togethor in a middle age setting either.
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I don't think D&D should be limited to replicating Earth's racial patterns, but that doesn't mean different ethnicities just appear togethor in a middle age setting either.
D&D is not a middle age setting. D&D is D&D. If people can swallow elves and fire-breathing dragons easier than they can a racially diverse fantasy world, there is something fundamentally wrong.
(And it's not like medieval Europe was all blonde and blue-eyed, either. Moorish Spain, anyone?)
__________________ If knowledge of a game's plot would spoil its experience, it isn't a game.
... A player cannot learn of a game's ending without experiencing it, because a game is not a linear object.
—Mike Mearls
D&D is not a middle age setting. D&D is D&D. If people can swallow elves and fire-breathing dragons easier than they can a racially diverse fantasy world, there is something fundamentally wrong.
(And it's not like medieval Europe was all blonde and blue-eyed, either. Moorish Spain, anyone?)
This is especially true given what TSR was publishing in this period. Both the Forgotten Realms and Mystara, for instance, are explicitly multi-racial settings.
Al-Qadim, Planescape and Dark Sun have no reason to feature WASPs on the cover, either.
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