As I stated before, I do not see it as a given that women feel excluded by virtue of cheesecake that is, frankly, not overrepresented.
I can't speak for all women; that would be silly. I can say that I feel this way, and that every other female gamer I've ever talked to feels this way, and all the women posting in this thread who don't work for Genesys feel that way. That's all.
I don't feel quite ambitious enough to undertake a full statistical count myself, though I did an informal one while looking through some random modules I got for Free RPG Day at a local store this afternoon.
One of the supps - specifically the Pathfinder one, huzzah - was really, really good about showing female characters in totally appropriate clothes. Even better, there was a dark skinned female paladin in full plate mail. The mail did have small cups, which I truly wouldn't recommend for fighting in, but most artists aren't going to have enough experience to know that. And the cups were definitely not emphasized; they were relatively small and the armor was properly large and blocky. No skin showing that was not on her face.
The only stupid/skimpy armor in that book was on a succubus, which makes enough sense to get a total pass from me. The succubus belonged in the module as a logical part of the plot, and they use sex as a weapon, so the depiction was not gratuitous. Score for Pathfinder's "Dawn of the Scarlet Sun" module, A+. No facepalming.
The Warhammer 40K freebie, "Only War: Eleventh Hour" also gets an A. It has a single female image, plus one character in the far background on the cover that is probably female. Both are appropriately dressed and holding weapons, just like the men. The female fighter looks bad@$$ but not ridiculous, like a real woman who seriously lifts weights and runs around the jungle with heavy weapons on her back. She is sleeveless, but so are most of the men, because they are all depicted as running around in a grungy, sweaty, tropical environment. So the assorted states of undress (shirtless for some men, light/sleeveless for the woman) all make sense for the environment.
Good job, Games Workshop. The only reason it's an A rather an A+ is that the male images substantially outnumber the female ones; there were only two of the latter and twelve of the former,, and one of the female images was a small one in the background of a larger image, where the men were the primary focus.
The D&D "Dead In The Eye" module had no character art at all. It did have one advertisement in the back that included a drow in dubiously skimpy armor, but the drow was male. He was depicted as powerful and evil, as well as fit and strong. You could probably argue that this was a sexualized male image, though there was enough else going on that I still saw it as primarily a character illustration. Still, it met the criteria for impractically skimpy armor.
The Harn map had 12 total human images. None were of females alone; most were of males alone. Many of the males have weapons and armor, or are shown as other types of adventurers. Three of the images contained a female. Two were depicted neutrally, as normal people in ordinary clothing. None were shown as adventurers or fighters, or with weapons. One is a queen, the other two are in peasant-ish garb. One woman in a peasant dress was being restrained with a hand over her mouth by two smiling men in armor while a third watched. You kind of get the idea what is likely to happen next.
Er. Um. Grimdark in an RPG is fine with me. I have no issues with 'dark' plots or storylines, including torture, murder, genocide, violence and rape - if it's a useful part of the plot and if it forwards the story. But reading the text that accompanies the image, there's nothing in it that a "violation is imminent" picture would be related to. So, why? The message I'm getting from this encapsulation of the Harn system is that men are the fighters and women are NPC background. Or fodder for violent use.
This one would get a pass from me if the "oh look, evil armored soldiers physically abusing a terrified peasant woman" depiction actually illustrated anything that they were writing in the source material. It didn't, so it doesn't. That's a fail, Harn. Showing realistic pictures of bad, evil people doing bad, evil things is one thing, if it seriously supports the storyline and world background. Like, if they were giving background for a group of really Bad!Evil people to show just how Bad!Evil they were. Maybe. But random female victimization picture for apparently no reason I can find in the text? Facepalm.
The rest of the freebies either had no pictures at all or contained images of women literally in bikinis with bared midriff and thighs and decorative "armor" that covered very little, while fighting. The offenders were:
Cosmic Patrol quick start rules: The Kahn Protocol. Really, guys? 30's era one piece swim suits are not armor. They're just not. Wearing a Busby Berkeley outfit to an axe fight is so much Not A Good Idea. Facepalm.
Worst offender: Dungeon Crawl Classics by Goodman Games. There are seven images in total in this book, including the cover, that contain people. The rest are maps, a skull, a house, abstract decor, non gendered monsters, etc. Five of those images show women who are fighting or adventuring with bare cleavage, midriff, thighs, etc. No woman depicted in this sourcebook was in normal, practical or just non revealing clothing.
Seriously, who wears spiky "armor" just on one arm, carries a shield in the other, then goes to fight monsters in a
miniskirt and bra? Because that is actually what she is doing. The guy next to her getting dumped off the pier is in full plate mail; the guy in front of her appears to be in some kind of robe, or possibly a tight shirt with loose sleeves and textured pants. On the bright side, she's the only one not yet getting her butt kicked by the fish-thing monster, but I think that's probably because it's laughing too hard at how she's dressed.
Next page, take one point for racial diversity because she isn't lily-white, but for sheesh sake, strapping on a sword and fighting with a thin strip of cloth tied off around your breasts and a highly impractical harem-girl style dangling cloth strip covering your hoo-hah while leaving hips, thighs, midriff and everything else bare? Really? Are you not going to a) trip on those fluttering cloth strips, b) end up naked when somebody else steps on them, and c) GET FREAKING KILLED?
Couple more pages over, there's a male dwarf in a tabard. At least he's as crappily armored as she is in this picture. She's in some kind of superhero-looking leotard getup with another one of those "dangling strips of cloth over the hoo-hah" things going on, leaving her hips and thighs bare. In fairness, his thighs are showing too, but they aren't the focus nearly as much as her bare bits are. Facepalm.
Back cover, the group of four adventurers. One big guy is in armor, two men are in cloaks and robes, but the woman has a peek-a-boo cleavage hole in her hooded upper garment, and no pants. Seriously, no pants. The mace she's wearing at her belt can NOT be comfortable on her bare thigh.
Who the hell goes adventuring with
no pants? I am facepalming. So. Hard.
This was an accurate and complete representation of all of the RPG source material I was handed today in the Free RPG Day swag bag at the store I went to. I didn't choose any of it, so there's no personal bias.
As I edited into a post above, I submit that the casual attitude towards extreme violence that is typical of RPG's and the gamers is not a draw for them.
I don't mean to be insulting, but, um, do you actually know any female gamers?
