How do you feel about nudity in RPG books?

[Bedrockgames]

If you are fine with cutting out a part of your potential audience, then that is, as publisher, of course your right to do so. I wonder though, how successful the Black Dog games were compared to the slightly less edgy White Wolf games. But as you already seem to know which way you as the Publisher want to go, then I am wondering at why you asked the question in the first place? Was it just curiosity?

I wanted the artist to know how people might react and I wanted to get a sense of whether people would understand what we might be going for with it. Also while we do know what we want as a publisher we've never featured nudity before so do want to know what we might be getting into. It isn't that we don't care what people think, we want folks to like our games of course, it is just that we know our target audience isn't teenagers and we know we occupy a different place in the market.

 

[was]

At this point I have to be honest, we don't really worry about people who make a fuss. There are actually too many groups making fusses that it became pointless years ago (at least from my point of view) worrying about any one of them (because someone, somewhere, will take issue with what you do). I am simply trying to give the artist information so she can get a sense of how people might interpret the decision. Ultimately this will be the artist's choice.

...While I respect you supporting your artist's choice, I think that total nudity will limit your sales in many parts of the country. Knowing the owner of my FLGS personally, I am aware that most of his business is not rpg-based and that it simply could not survive a confrontation with local parents. Parents who most definitely take issue with any nudity being sold in a comic book shop.

...As far as the aesthetics go, I do prefer semi-nude pictures to total nudes. But then, I still have a vivid imagination.

 

[Samloyal23]

I really think if this hobby is to grow it must diversify and part of that is create products marketed directly to adults. Look at comic books. They range from silly stuff for little kids to pornographic hentai for adults. You have the Peanuts and you have tentacle porn. Yes, adding adult content narrows your market, but it also deepens it, creating added value to buyers in that niche. Role-playing games simulate genres of literature and film, there is no reason not to include adult forms of fiction under that umbrella. Why NOT have a setting inspired by the writings of Henry Miller and Anais Nin? Why NOT have a cinematic martial arts game inspired by hentai? We have R-rated movies, why not R-rated games? Gamers have grown up, games need to do so as well...

 

[Zak S]

I really think if this hobby is to grow it must diversify and part of that is create products marketed directly to adults. Look at comic books. They range from silly stuff for little kids to pornographic hentai for adults. You have the Peanuts and you have tentacle porn. Yes, adding adult content narrows your market, but it also deepens it, creating added value to buyers in that niche. Role-playing games simulate genres of literature and film, there is no reason not to include adult forms of fiction under that umbrella. Why NOT have a setting inspired by the writings of Henry Miller and Anais Nin? Why NOT have a cinematic martial arts game inspired by hentai? We have R-rated movies, why not R-rated games? Gamers have grown up, games need to do so as well...

I agree but the standard response to this I've heard is some sort of weird gamer-essentialist argument that elfgames and the elfgame audience are too dumb to have an Anais Nin so the best thing to do is stay away from it all and make Disneygames.

Or else that the thing the person arguing likes is totes Anais Nin but the thing they don't like is totes not.

Neither seems like exactly the strongest argument--especially when you consider the legal and social role "trashy" sexualized art in every medium has always played in paving the way for "classy" erotica. (And that the line between "trashy" and "classy" usually has to do with codes about social class.

 

[UselessTriviaMan]

...While I respect you supporting your artist's choice, I think that total nudity will limit your sales in many parts of the country. Knowing the owner of my FLGS personally, I am aware that most of his business is not rpg-based and that it simply could not survive a confrontation with local parents. Parents who most definitely take issue with any nudity being sold in a comic book shop.

This. If you publish a book with nudity, you'll almost certainly hurt your bottom-line sales. Why risk it?

 

[Bedrockgames]

...While I respect you supporting your artist's choice, I think that total nudity will limit your sales in many parts of the country. Knowing the owner of my FLGS personally, I am aware that most of his business is not rpg-based and that it simply could not survive a confrontation with local parents. Parents who most definitely take issue with any nudity being sold in a comic book shop.
)

Certainly it might affect sales. But every choice we make affects sales in some way. The decision not to make our games d20 for example (which was a conscious choice) is probably the biggest thing that limits our potential sales. The decision to make a game modern rather than set in a European fantasy analog, has a similar effect. At the end of the day, for us, worrying about that, or worrying about what groups we might irritate with a choice, is too creatively paralyzing to pay attention to. I do want to know what we are getting into with these kinds of choices, and it is important to me to understand how people might interpret it, but at the end of the day, there are just too many voting blocs in the gaming community to worry about coalition building (at least for us with what we are interested in doing with our products).

 

[Samloyal23]

I created a villain who was a serial rapist using Sleep spells to knock out his victims in lieu of roofies and a demon who framed men for child molestation. I would not publish this type of content without a warning label, but if a mature adult wants to play a campaign that takes evil to the next level, beyond the rather silly Book of Vile Darkness, sexual themes are going to come up, and why shouldn't they? Is it going to be a narrow market? Sure, but RPGs are a narrow market, so what? If the content is well written and the art is good quality, the product will make money.

 

[UselessTriviaMan]

I created a villain who was a serial rapist using Sleep spells to knock out his victims in lieu of roofies and a demon who framed men for child molestation. I would not publish this type of content without a warning label, but if a mature adult wants to play a campaign that takes evil to the next level, beyond the rather silly Book of Vile Darkness, sexual themes are going to come up, and why shouldn't they? Is it going to be a narrow market? Sure, but RPGs are a narrow market, so what? If the content is well written and the art is good quality, the product will make money.

I disagree. I have absolutely no qualms about running games with adult theme, but there are limits to just how dark a story the vast majority of adult gamers would be willing to play. (As an aside, I'm a very open-minded guy, but if my GM sprang that serial rapist villain on us I'd have serious misgivings about continuing to game with that person. And I'm certainly not the only one. Sex, in my opinion, really has no place at the gaming table.)

Just because you're an adult and can include anything you want in your game (or your gaming book), that doesn't mean you should. Given the very narrow niche RPG market, I'd be VERY hesitant to alienate any piece of that pie if I were the one trying to sell books.

 

[Samloyal23]

I do not see why the game industry should be different from any other artistic field. There are comics that deal with the issue of rape, like "Watchmen". The movie "Spanking The Monkey" dealt with incest. "Lolita" was a whole novel about an pedophile's relationship with his step-daughter. These works may be controversial, but they made money and were considered artistic. Explain to me why the RPG, out of all the types of art in the world, should shy away from adult content? Again, if the hobby is to grow then it has to diversify and fit different levels of maturity and sophistication. If it can go in a script for Law & Order: SVU, why not have it in a published adventure module?

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

I do not see why the game industry should be different from any other artistic field. There are comics that deal with the issue of rape, like "Watchmen". The movie "Spanking The Monkey" dealt with incest. "Lolita" was a whole novel about an pedophile's relationship with his step-daughter. These works may be controversial, but they made money and were considered artistic. Explain to me why the RPG, out of all the types of art in the world, should shy away from adult content? Again, if the hobby is to grow then it has to diversify and fit different levels of maturity and sophistication. If it can go in a script for Law & Order: SVU, why not have it in a published adventure module?

Because society does not have a single set of standards.

Compare television and movies to books. Then compare them to video games. Note that each of those has their own rating system and their own standards about what is and what is not commonly acceptable. So just because it is acceptable in one medium does not mean it is acceptable in another.

The issue comes down to watching vs. doing. Watching something is considered a bit of a lesser issue, especially when you have no choice about how things are going to go. If you cannot control anything about what you witness, it is not your fault for how it comes about. But with video games and tabeltop roleplaying, you are actually doing; even if you are pretending, it is still your choice to perform the action. That is why video games have a harsher rating system than television.

Books tend to be much, much looser simply because you're not actually watching; you're reading about it. You are neither witness nor participant; you're just reading a report of what happened.