D&D 5E Inappropriate breasts on female monsters

[Desdichado]

[MENTION=81446]Professor Tolkien wrote in his letters that dwarf women are in fact bearded in Middle Earth. But he didn't do so until many years after LOTR was published. He hints at it in LOTR, tho'.

That may be technically true, but it's not accurate. Tolkien wrote in a footnote in Appendix F that most non-dwarves couldn't tell dwarven women from men. To suggest that that is only a "hint" of dwarven women's beardedness seems pretty obtuse.

EDIT: Sorry, typo. It was the end of Appendix A, not Appendix F.

 

[Tormyr]

Professor Tolkien wrote in his letters that dwarf women are in fact bearded in Middle Earth. But he didn't do so until many years after LOTR was published. He hints at it in LOTR, tho'.

Most people don't realize that the Rohirrim had bearded women as well.

Spoiler

Check the special features in The Two Towers boxed set

 

[aramis erak]

That may be technically true, but it's not accurate. Tolkien wrote in a footnote in Appendix F that most non-dwarves couldn't tell dwarven women from men. To suggest that that is only a "hint" of dwarven women's beardedness seems pretty obtuse.

I have a friend whose mother would be hard to tell from a man. She's not bearded. (Tho' she does have a pronounced moustache.) Another woman I know, very feminine, and quite attractive, except for an unfortunate propensity to a beard. The beards and being presumed male tend to correlate, but are not synonymous. It wasn't clear to many readers, and so the professor eventually, in his letters, made it explicit.

 

[Desdichado]

The beards and being presumed male tend to correlate, but are not synonymous.

For people, yes. But for dwarves not as much. Dwarves and beards went together in Tolkien like elves and stars.

 

[rjfTrebor]

really? 12 pages on Minotaur boobs and bearded females?

i thought this was a gaming forum.

 

[mcbobbo]

Simply put, this is another iteration of a very old, very large debate; only the context in which it's taking place has changed.

While you're certainly correct that there is room for debate on whether the whole of all media everywhere influences culture, I am referring only to D&D.

Whatever you believe, it is not big enough to change the inertia of human sexuality, and II hope it never becomes such.

 

[Vic Ferrari]

That may be technically true, but it's not accurate. Tolkien wrote in a footnote in Appendix F that most non-dwarves couldn't tell dwarven women from men. To suggest that that is only a "hint" of dwarven women's beardedness seems pretty obtuse.

EDIT: Sorry, typo. It was the end of Appendix A, not Appendix F.

And a few bars that I know of.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This excuse has never sat right with me, just because you are playing a fantasy game does not mean you have to get completely absurd, some basis/grounding in reality I find can enhance the "fantasy" experience.

Oh sure.

But dragon people with mammaries is hardly completely absurd.

It has about as much basis/grounding in reality as dragon people in the first place.

 

[Umbran]

With regards to your first point, I'd say that "actual correctness" did not feature female breastplates in any significant numbers for anyone to say that there was a historically accurate field model ideal to which to aspire. (And no, I'm not familiar with any such arguments, nor have I ever seen any.)

I meant that the correctness is not merely political. Sexism does actual harm, is not merely a meaningless political checkbox.

As for the field model - the same argument works the other way, though. When there are *no* extant examples of historical armor of that form worn into battle, why then deviate from the forms you do know existed?

Oh, and 'Imad ad-Din, was a historian of the Crusades. He did describe some women warriors:

"On the day of battle, more than one woman rode out with them like a knight and showed (masculine) endurance in spite of the weakness (of her sex); clothed only in a coat of mail they were not recognized as women until they had been stripped of their arms."

(The "only" should probably be taken with a grain of salt - helmets, footware, and gloves were probably also involved. )

Moreover, the fact that such a design is dangerous for the wearer is demonstrable with some basic thoughts of engineering.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/boob-plate-armor-would-kill-you

With regards to the rest of your post, since it delves deeply into politics, I'm extremely surprised you brought it up, knowing that I can't respond to it. (Perks of being a moderator, I assume.)

Nope. We've had threads on sexism, as it applies to gaming. Morrus even had a series of videos with interviews on the topic not too long ago. My comment is within bounds on that basis.

This goes to the good faith argument. To state 'dragonboobs are sexist and therefore wrong' you have to assert that they influence culture more than they are influenced by it.

The road to heck is paved with good intentions. It is possible to bring a wrongness into the world, even when acting in good faith - you can make a mistake, you can not fully consider the ramifications of your actions, and so forth. The result is still something that should be corrected if at all possible, once you realize the problem.

You may try to make the argument that since the books do not really influence culture at large, there's no point in worrying about it in gaming books. But, I think that's a cop-out. It kind of amounts to, "Since I am not a mover and shaker on the large scale, I can be a jerk!"

 

[billd91]

Oh sure.

But dragon people with mammaries is hardly completely absurd.

It has about as much basis/grounding in reality as dragon people in the first place.

The suspension of disbelief is often helped by the small details that fit in with our notions of reality. I don't have to hand wave everything because I've hand waved one thing. I am coming to really hate the argument "If you can accept this fantastic thing, you should be able to accept that one too."