D&D 5E Should the next edition of D&D promote more equality?

[Nellisir]

Doesn't occur to anyone that bewbs on a bird is kind of silly, anyhow? Makes about as much sense as having them on a reptile. Hello, not mammals, ergo no mammary glands.

Still, depictions of a harpy or a succubus are not actually in the 'stupid' category. Assuming you can get past the whole avian/mammalian biology thing by imputing it to magic, anyhow. If it makes actual sense for them to be showing boobs as opposed to it being incredibly foolish for them to be doing so, at least you're not demeaning the character being depicted by showing her as stupid.

I think harpies with boobs is a slippery argument. The dragonborn were a result of WotC creating a new race whole cloth. Boobs were silly. The harpies are mythological creatures that were converted for use with D&D, and were often depicted with breasts (but not always). Biologically unnecessary? Yes. But true to the original depictions of the creature. There's room for interpretation, and even for eliminating the boobage in that case, but not via a science argument.

 

[Morrus]

I wonder what is happening to our language and our ability to communicate with this kind of censorship of words happening.

Dude. Please stop characterizing disagreement as censorship. Someone disagreed with you. They did not censor you.

 

[kingius]

I seriously do not think you have any idea what is and isn't offensive to women.

You're jumping to conclusions there, but at least you are honest about it. If you read my posts you'll see I'm not advocating skimpy clothing, actually the opposite. I actually mentioned some guy writing a Fight On article who wants that and said it's not my idea of old school, i.e. I do not agree. Anyway if you look at what Wizards have done with 3E and 4E you'll not find much skimpy clothing in there. Even the topless monsters (e.g. harpies) are no longer topless. It's a solved issue this one. D&D Next isn't going to regress.

 

[pemerton]

Is including a better balance of racial/ethnic groups going to alienate white buyers? I doubt it. Is replacing most pandering cheesecake with more sensibly dressed and posed females going to alienate male buyers? Again, I doubt it. But is lack of positive models for non-white or female gamers going to alienate them? I think evidence shows it does. So what is a game company to do?

This fits with my intuitions, and seems to me to settle matters even before we get to more oral/political considerations that might be relevant to the issue.

The remaking of a game's artwork in order to fufil an ideal about the way society should be perceived really is political propaganda.

If wizards want to enforce a lack of white folk in their artwork to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist, in line with a liberal political agenda of promoting cultural diversity across all mediums, well it won't be the existing fans that really have a say in it.

The existence of non-white people, and of women, isn't a perceived reality. It is reality. And unless things really aren't what they seem, this thread is all about existing fans of D&D asking wizards to do a better job with its artwork - not by "enforcing a lack of white folk", but by showing a world that is not simply white men, plus their sexually compliant women.

If the aim is to kill D&D, by all means, change it's artwork to coloured dwarves

According to Gygax's MM, many dwarves and gnomes are brown; but the artists seem not always to draw them as they're described.

I don't really understand why brown skin-tone on demihumans would kill the game, but then I'm just one customer.

The reason this needs to stop is not just about women, either. That level of pandering insults everyone's intelligence, and it keeps up the stereotype that gamers are sniggering, immature nerdy virgins who can't relate to women who aren't imaginary. If that isn't who you are, if you are a grown man who is not threatened by normal, non cartoonish women who have jobs and lives and dress normally and expect the same respect as men when they do those jobs, then you don't need your D&D art to be nothing but chainmail bikinis.

As I posted upthread, this is definitely an issue for me.

 

[technoextreme]

Not sure what the thesaurus commment is supposed to be about, you're wanting alternate words for 'coloured' or 'oriental'... why exactly?

Because its actually flat out racist and offensive to lump in people of all nationalities under the single word of colored or oriental.

 

[MoonSong]

I seriously do not think you have any idea what is and isn't offensive to women. Nakedness and depictions of sexuality are NOT automatically offensive to women. Consistently portraying women as stupid, as inadequately dressed and equipped for the jobs they are supposed to be doing or as unworthy of regard for anything except how their bodies look, is a lot more likely to annoy and exasperate female players and make male players look like nerdy virgins who can't deal with normal women who are not unrealistic sex cariactures.

Normal, sane women who are doing the same jobs as men wear appropriate gear and equipment for the environment they will be in and the challenges they will be facing. They do not arch and pose in skimpy lingerie on the battlefield, because that is stupid. When the art consistently shows them doing so, it says some things about the people who have these fantasies and who are unable to cope with women being normally and sensibly dressed for the jobs they are supposed to be doing. I don't think they are very flattering things either for the men or the women in our hobby.

Also notice that it isn't just the actual outfits, posing and composition play a very important role in sexualizing compare this image (An Argent Savant from 3.5)

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ca_gallery/85430.jpg

with the picture of the Elemental Savant (Heroes of Elemental Chaos page 126, couldn't find it on the net)

Both women are depicted with very similar and almost equally revealing outfits (the argent savant is actually a little more revealing) yet the second image is overly more sexualized than the first. Composition and contrast play a huge role on this.

In the Argent Savant pic, the power she is wielding is the most important element of the picture, folowed by her facial expresion and her fierce and aggresive posture, while her cleavage and belly are placed on neutral zones of the image, where they draw little attention to themselves. This one while somewhat gratuitous isn't as much.

In contrast in the Elemental Savant one, the placing and ilumination draws attention to her boobs and exposed tummy, they are the very first element perceived, then her face and finally her staff (a symbol of her power) is barely visible by being placed on a very weak area and barely has contrast from the background (not to mention the impractical posture she has adopted to hold it, but I guess a more realistic angle would obstruct view of her abdomen and breasts and place her shoulders forward) and is almost the last element to be noticed, it isn't helped by the fact she is arching pushing her head backwards in order to place her breasts closer to the observer.

 

[kingius]

Because its actually flat out racist and offensive to lump in people of all nationalities under the single word of colored.

Ah, here we go. Anybody who opposes the liberal agenda is instantly branded a racist. Well feel free to ignore me then as I obviously don't have anything of value to add. The censorship of opposing views begins!

I don't really understand why brown skin-tone on demihumans would kill the game, but then I'm just one customer.

Well that's how it starts. D&D becomes a political football. The next big thing in cultural engineering finds its way into there. D&D ceases to be about a fantasy world and tries to match reality, bows to the whims of politicians and their agendas. Need some green cred? Lets get the green agenda into the artwork. Etc etc. Now where is the consideration for the game going? It's SECONDARY. That's what will kill the game in the long run. But don't listen to me, what do I know, apparantly I'm a racist for using the word coloured (!)

Edit - And on that note I'll bow out of this. People just cannot debate these issues sensibly. I've no doubt D&D Next will bow to political pressure about diveristy; anyone who thinks things are fine as they are and actually speaks up about it is going to get shot down just like me.

 

[Umbran]

Those words are perfectly good, inoffensive words ...

You may not be offended by them, but other people are - in the USA, those words are often seen as offensive, due to how they were used in the past. When people do take offense, the word is not, by definition, inoffensive.

Now, you may feel people have insufficient reason to find the words offensive, but that's really a whole separate discussion.

 

[Obryn]

Edit - I'll expand slightly. Banning words is a prime tactic that people use to destroy the opposition to the liberal agenda. For example (deviating here!) anybody who opposes immigration is instantly labelled a racist over here; it's a way to shut down an argument without dealing with its merit. That is effectively censorship. Let's stray away from those sticky topics though; D&D is what matters to us.

Nobody is censoring you.

But nobody is going to take seriously your claim that you aren't being racist when you casually throw "coloured" into your posts, either.

-O

 

[Morrus]

That's not what I mean. Implying that people cannot use the words 'coloured' or 'oriental' by telling them that they need a thesaurus and highlighting those words in the quote is what I mean. Those words are perfectly good, inoffensive words and what you are doing is a form of censorship of the argument being made because you are effectively saying those words should not be used; go find other words. Does that make sense?

Edit - I'll expand slightly. Banning words is a prime tactic that people use to destroy the opposition to the liberal agenda. For example (deviating here!) anybody who opposes immigration is instantly labelled a racist over here; it's a way to shut down an argument without dealing with its merit. That is effectively censorship. Let's stray away from those sticky topics though; D&D is what matters to us.

But nobody's banned a word!

Someone basically told you - in a flippant way, no less - that they found your term to be offensive (Danny, incidentally, is a member of one of the two groups you referred to). He is no censoring you. He cannot censor you. But he can tell you that the phrase you chose to use is offensive, and has a whole load of backstory (something I'm incredulous that you don't know - I'm on a different continent and I know that about Americans).

What you are basically saying is that censorship = disagreeing with or criticizing kingius. Anybody who disagrees with you is censoring you. But this simply isn't true.

Seriously - would you happily throw around the "n" word? Or are you being censored there? Why have you not used it? Could it be because you know it's offensive and chose to do the right thing?