D&D 4E Women in 4E

[Aloïsius]

I like this one.

I think this is the worst of the lot. "let's draw a nude chick wearing armor"... This is not a swimsuit plate, because swimsuit are usualy less indented (don't know if the translation is right)

of course, the first one is not a girl in armor, but rather some kind of err.. "artist".

 

[A'koss]

My games tend to be pretty grounded so I do tend to view fantasy images I want to use in my games with an eye towards "practicality". I tend to draw inspiration from outside what WotC produces and I tell you if they're not in head-to-toe full plate armor, it can be tough to find "practically" dressed warrior-women images...

 

[hida_jiremi]

Except "boob plates" have a good chance of deflecting the attack INTO the center of your chest. Really you dont want form fitted plate as a busty female. I guess its slightly better than Alias' armor however, as at least theres soemthing to absorb the blow.

Personal pet peeve here: I never like it when people use this particular piece of art to explain how badly female fantasy characters are drawn. It shows that they haven't ever read the novel, for one thing.

See, I mostly agree that in fantasy art, D&D art especially, female armor tends toward the breast-revealing more often than not. But in this piece of art, there's actually a good reason for it. Alias wears this outfit for about 10 pages, and then gets rid of it as soon as she possibly can, since it offers absolutely no protection whatsoever, something she herself notes. Why is she wearing it then? [sblock]Because the people that put her in it wanted to make it easier for them to stab her in the heart, and the simplest way to do that while still keeping her in "theme clothing" was to give her kinky, boob-cutaway armor.[/sblock] Pet peeve explained. XD

Edit: Ack! Just re-read the thread and saw somebody explain this already. Missed it the first time. Crap! Ah well... at least I included spoiler tags!

Jeremy Puckett

 

[Cadfan]

My biggest argument is that this obsession with making gaming safe for women by taking the beauty out of the artwork doesn't do anything. I'd say that this is misguided at best, and prudish at worst.

And this line is where I start to think there's no point in talking to you. If you can't conceive of female beauty that doesn't involve a lack of clothing and heightened sexualization, you've got problems. But of course, that's the problem with discussing things on the internet. I don't actually think you're incapable of understanding that you can have beautiful art without boob-holes in women's armor. But for some unknown reason, whenever someone says "no more boob-holes in the armor," you accuse them of wanting to take the beauty out of the artwork.

So I guess we're at an impasse here. I could make fun of you for maintaining that boob-holes are mandatory for beautiful art. Your responses, read literally and in context with what you're responding to, have quite clearly adopted that position, and I don't think it would be foul play to mock you for it. I could call you a sexist for thinking that the only beautiful woman is the unclad one, I could do a lot of things like that, because you're saying a lot of silly things. But I don't think you actually believe those things that you're clearly saying, so I don't think you're a sexist. I think you're just saying them because, I don't know, L0L INT3RN3TS or something.

So honestly I don't know where this conversation is supposed to go.

For the record, yes, I think that the cited pictures are offensive and shouldn't be part of the game. But the part I don't think you understand is my reason why. I don't consider those pictures offensive because they have sexuality and I'm offended by sexuality. I think they're offensive because they're fan service for men, and I don't think D&D is a game that ought to be marketting itself in that way. If those pictures were in an art book entitled "Babes of Fantasy," then great. They'd be fine. But they're not. And I'm glad for you that your significant other is fine with the artwork and likes roleplaying characters that are, and I quote, "hawt," but her opinion does not accord with my experience of the opinions of even one of the female gamers I've known over the years, who enjoyed playing attractive characters, but not scantily clad ones. Nor does it accord with the opinions of any of the geek-but-non-gamer women I know, to whom I have to constantly defend my hobby, precisely because stuff like this makes them think this game is a masturbatory fantasy for nerds.

I agree that the first step in changing that reputation is to change our behavior. I simply think that one of the ways to change our behavior is to cut out the constant demands and defenses of what is blatantly fan service.

 

[AnonymousOne]

Ya know, I wasn't going to get involved in this thread but I feel the need to at least state what a lot of other males that play this game think when they see women in things that want to be/are supposed to be armor:

"My that's rather absurd." (BTW we've never said that while looking at any WotC product)

The puritans need to get off their soapboxes and the radical "OMG! OH NOEZ! both genders have to be equally represented" people need to stop being so snooty about this whole thing. Christ on rollerskates, it's a damn good thing you people aren't the morality police.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Even though this may make me seem to be a pr0n obsessed sub-creature to some, none of these pictures were offensive to me at all. More to the point, I showed them to my real-live girlfriend, and she laughed at the notion that she should be protected from this sort of thing.

Now she's not a gamer, but this is an indication of why I think I'm a lucky guy: she looked at the pictures and asked if the game was detailed enough that the exposed midriff would give some sort of in-game penalty, meaning can a bad guy actually stab me there? I said no, and her response was that she'd love to play a character like these, because she'd be tough as nails and also hawt! She particularly liked the dervish picture, to which I responded that she was a secret power gamer.

In case you're wondering, she's also an educated, professional woman.

So is this sort of thing anecdotal? Heck yes! But I have consulted one more woman about the perspective of women on those pictures than almost anyone else here has done. Again, note that I've said "almost" here as the comments by folks with wives and significant others have been duly noted and logged.

--Steve

Thank you, SteveC...your girlfriend made the point I was trying to explain in my other posts further up for me.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Ya know, I wasn't going to get involved in this thread but I feel the need to at least state what a lot of other males that play this game think when they see women in things that want to be/are supposed to be armor:

"My that's rather absurd." (BTW we've never said that while looking at any WotC product)

That's probably because with D&D products, that assertion is an unwritten standard by now. "Sure, the monster rams 2' long teeth through my fighter's midsection...it's just a flesh would, I'll decapitate it next round." "What, the mammoth is pushing me off the cliff? Just wait until I've climbed those 100 feet again, and it'll be mammoth shishkebap!" "Oh, another demon? Disintegrate!" "Hey, check this out, the chain shirt is lighter than my silk blouse AND I can cast spells in it...and it doesn't even chafe at the nipples!"

 

[Hussar]

"Hey, check this out, the chain shirt is lighter than my silk blouse AND I can cast spells in it...and it doesn't even chafe at the nipples!"

Now THAT would be a feat of magic.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Now THAT would be a feat of magic.

A Mithril Chain Shirt of Silky Smoothness with the Weightless armor quality?

 

[DonTadow]

So let's ban sexy everywhere because it makes fat and unattractive women feel uncomfortable.

Better solution, work on improving your self esteem.