The Proper Use of Nudity in FRPG Art

[Hussar]

In every other avenue of art and culture, there is space for BOTH the inclusive and friendly, AND the risque, daring, and, yes, offensive or incorrect. The instinct to get personally insulted, and accuse others of not being inclusive, is what I hope we can get past. Just like art, literature and moving pictures, I want our role-playing game hobby to tolerate what we find obnoxious or risque, simply by ignoring it and focusing on what we do like.

You do recognize the incredible amount of privilege that shows right? It's ok to be obnoxious or risqué just because it doesn't bother you?

You then go on to talk about motives. No one cares. The motivation is 100% completely unimportant to the conversation. It does not matter. Determining motivation is about assigning blame and no one has any interest in assigning blame. That's not the point of these conversations. It's to show that yes, these images (and other things) make people feel less welcome in the hobby.

Again, I find the mindset utterly baffling that thinks that it's okay to tell people to "just ignore it" when they are directly telling you that this is making them feel bad.

 

[Hussar]

Okay. Mainly I'm pushing back against the idea that just because an image makes someone uncomfortable that it's wrong for the publisher or anyone else to want to keep it in.

Great? No one is making this argument, so, win, I guess?

I do agree that comparing the moral panic of the 1980s to reactions we're seeing from people regarding cheesecake is silly. And it's not just women, Avalanche Press lost my business primarily because their cover art alienated me. You're right, on one hand we had people who wanted to end the hobby and on the other hand you have people who just want to participate and feel as though they're welcome. Big difference.


Well it would be tough to have a lot of chainmail bikinis in a property that has very few women to begin with or one where they all start out as children. Of course both Harry Potter and LotR are also head and shoulders above a lot of fantasy offerings in terms of their literary quality which likely has a lot to do with their success.


Going? They went that route a long time ago. At least since 3rd edition in 2000, it seems to me that the majority of women have been depicted as being appropriately attired. And, like I said earlier, I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to see them add nudity to anything in D&D. I don't need illustrations of topless succubi, lamias, or nymphs in the Monster Manual. I'll save the Frazetta illustrations of women with glorious asses and buff dudes with axes for the appropriate venue; Airbrushed onto the side of my '77 Chevy Van.

Fair enough. The job is certainly getting done.

 

[MGibster]

Great? No one is making this argument, so, win, I guess?

No one? What we have here is a failure to communicate on my part then. Because I don't understand what you mean by the following:

I just don't get it. If someone says they are feeling uncomfortable, and all it costs you is switching out the picture in a game book to make them happy, who says no to that?

Reading that, it seems to me that you're arguing that it's wrong to keep an image knowing it makes someone else uncomfortable. Is that not what you meant?

You do recognize the incredible amount of privilege that shows right? It's ok to be obnoxious or risqué just because it doesn't bother you?

I find this really odd. Being obnoxious and risque is often a way to attack the establishment (i.e. those with privilege). Swift's A Modest Proposal was obnoxious and Gulliver's Travels were risque for example. And saying that someone is arguing from a position of privilege isn't really much of a counter argument. So what? It doesn't mean the argument is wrong.

 

[Hussar]

No one? What we have here is a failure to communicate on my part then. Because I don't understand what you mean by the following:

Reading that, it seems to me that you're arguing that it's wrong to keep an image knowing it makes someone else uncomfortable. Is that not what you meant?

It's wrong for the fandom to argue against change knowing that not changing something is keeping someone from enjoying the hobby. Publishers and publishing is an angle you keep trying to bring up and I simply don't care. Publishers in no way need my or your protection. If they choose to sell something, even knowing that whatever it is they're trying to sell will cost them sales, that's on them.

But, this repeated attempt to steer the discussion into the realm of publishers is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned. Who cares if some publisher wants to publish something?

I'm saying that arguments from the fandom defending these sorts of things is what keeps people out of the fandom.

I find this really odd. Being obnoxious and risque is often a way to attack the establishment (i.e. those with privilege). Swift's A Modest Proposal was obnoxious and Gulliver's Travels were risque for example. And saying that someone is arguing from a position of privilege isn't really much of a counter argument. So what? It doesn't mean the argument is wrong.

Yes, it really does. The only reason you can argue, "Well, if you don't like it, leave." is because you have the privilege of knowing that your voice will ALWAYS be heard. That everything you want and like will be catered to. And, let's be honest here, if you're seriously comparing Swift, deliberately writing satire of the upper classes, and very, VERY much not punching down, and drawing pin-up art in fantasy game books, well, we really have no conversation here.

Swift, at no point, was punching down. He was very deliberately writing satire to effect social change. Are you now claiming that we should include pin-up art in game books as a vehicle for social change?

 

[Hussar]

I took a minute to think about why the publisher angle doesn't really work. And hopefully this will clarify my position.

A writer and publisher make works for a specific market. There is a target audience for a work. If someone doesn't like that work, then they probably aren't the target audience. If enough people don't like the work, the work fails to make enough money and it quietly goes away. Usually - with exceptions of course. If your target audience doesn't like the work, well, then that's a big problem.

My point is, the market will handle the publishers. No one is claiming that publishers can't publish whatever they want. Of course they can. But, when a segment of your customers is telling you that what you are publishing is putting them off the product, the response generally isn't, "Well, if you don't like it, leave". That's the way things were done for a long time and that's why D&D stayed a tiny niche product in a tiny niche hobby, while things like Magic the Gathering are global brands that absolutely dwarf RPG's.

Now that RPG's have finally managed to break free of the "boys club" image, suddenly we're seeing massive growth. And, a very, VERY large amount of that growth is with women joining the hobby.

It's pretty hard to argue that we should ignore complaints when apparently listening to complaints means that we have massively grown the hobby. Heck, even the edition wars stuff worked that way. Had WotC listened earlier on, things probably would have been very different. But, all they listened to was the RPGA and their own message boards. And it was a disaster.

Funny how listening to customers gives good results.

 

[Bluenose]

No, these creators did not in fact publish those modules to insult or exclude you. No, really. That just weren't their motivations.

No? Then what is the motivation? I don't think they can remotely claim that they believe the art is "realistic", it'd be very hard to be unaware of the controversies about specifically female art representation in games, so unless they're totally oblivious as to the effect of their art choices then their motivation is rather less obvious than you seem to suggest.

 

[CapnZapp]

@Hussar (and everyone else) I do not tell you to leave. I do not want you to leave. You are all completely free to want whatever content you desire. And not purchase the content you dislike.

But it's a delicate balance. Of course I realize that women gamers might want supplements with no nudity (say, just focusing on one aspect of this complex discussion, chiefly because, well, read the thread title). (No "tasteless" nudity I might add, for whatever value of "tasteless" you prefer)

And it follows it is a good thing writers are nowadays much more likely to exclude content that excludes.

But sometimes the arguments spill over to a place which is not good for the community - where any content that does contain female nudity (again, just an example) is interpreted as attacking people.

We just can't go to the place where any nudity (yes, I am specifically including exploitative cheesecake now!) is interpreted as attacking female gamers, we just can't. It opens the door to a very bad place, where we give the power to everybody to call for censure based on the argument "this offends me". I desperately hope everybody reading this understands why this means the death of creativity.

Art must be allowed to be free. And sometimes offensive. It just isn't attacking you, no matter how strongly you feel it does. No, really, it isn't. (Except when it is - read me quoting myself below)

I'm going to quoute Hussar here - not because I want to start an attacking argument, but because he set up my point perfectly:

You do recognize the incredible amount of privilege that shows right? It's ok to be obnoxious or risqué just because it doesn't bother you?

My point is that it is ok to be obnoxious or risqué full stop. Even if it bothers me. Even if it offends or aggravates me.

You are right, though. Yes, I am a white cis het male, so yes, it is probable far fewer things will come across as hurtful to me than some other parts of the demographic. But I ask you to consider my point to be valid despite my privilege.

Which brings me to a possibly related topic. Again, I realize writing "[something] must be free" will inevitably be misinterpreted, so I feel obligated to quote myself:

That does not mean I secretly want hate crimes or right-wing propaganda.

Other cultured folks are able to separate the hateful from the merely provocative, and so should we.

Actually reading my previous posts is a great idea, before you think I am saying something I really am not.

Now then, I am not accusing you for anything, Hussar. I might have been sloppy with my usage of "you" above, so let me assure you I am not saying anything about where on this line you fall, Hussar. I realize it is possible to construe my argumentation as strawmanning - so let me say it outright: nobody has called for all content to strip out "bad stuff". Not in this thread anyway. I am simply bringing up a discussion born out of consternation and frustration about how the ttrpg discourse is perilously close to capsizing in my opinion.

Yes, this is difficult to talk about. But the only way to successfully avoid a new morale panic is to have a dispassionate discussion. Thank you for your thoughts, Hussar.

Best regards, Zapp

PS. Here's one possibly constructive idea: before you (or I!) condemn any new roleplaying supplement, how about considering how it would have been received in the greater world of culture. That it, if it was a book or painting or movie (or play or poem etc).

If it glorifies white power or some other idiocy it would be rightly shunned and ignored completely. But what does not happen (thankfully) is that infrequent instances of "bad stuff" overtakes the entire reception the way it can do in our hobby, with entire threads devoted to picking the content apart. We can have great (or at least popular) art that includes nudity, even of the gratuitous exploitative kind, just to pick one example. (Example again not random because thread title)

 

[CapnZapp]

I can come up with several examples (re: PS in my previous post just above), but will discuss them within spoilers, not because they might spoil works (they might) but because it is a sidetrack for this thread:

Spoiler

Showrunner Misha Green made a misstep when the only transgender native american character on Lovecraft Country was killed off almost as quickly as the character was introduced. It didn't help the character was introduced in a vulnerable state (featured in fully frontal nudity). However, the series as a whole was lauded and Misha Green does not face accusations of being an naughty word generally.

The 2015 movie Youth features a textbook case of gratitious nudity, when Mădălina Diana Ghenea decides to enter the pool where Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel sits, completely in the nude, with the camera definitely in "male gaze" mode. While director Sorrentino might get a pass "because Europe" and thus being outside the reach of morally indignant Americans, actors Caine and Keitel have faced zero pushback for their participation.

The Netflix series Altered Carbon got a mixed reception to say the least (talking season one here). It does many things to naked females that can't be said to be politically correct, and that's not my point. My point is that the showrunner Laeta Kalogridis sure faced a lot of criticism, but not of the "you are excluding women" kind. Full disclosure: I personally loved its sleazy uncompromising take on classic cyberpunk.

Margot Robbie is a very successful and talent actress. But would she have been where she is today without her fully nude scene in Scorcese's Wolf of Wall Street? (I wouldn't call it a "debut" since Wikipedia tells me she had half a dozen acting credits pre-2013) And would another, less culturally entrenched, director get away with such a scene? Would another actor than Leonardo diCaprio? This example is admittedly less potent of its relative age, since 2013 is pre #metoo. But does that mean Margot should consider herself lucky to have made her big break before that door shut? I cannot recall a single instance of somebody claiming Robbie is overrated because she took the "easy" way to fame.

(only two four examples for now. I might add a few more if and when I think of them. Hopefully this is enough for you to see my point. Note: I am deliberately aiming to include at least as many works by female and/or PoC creators than rich white pasty dudes, just because)

I could add many more examples (and please do, possibly in a new thread?) but the point stands: these are works of art that can be construed as offensive to somebody. Definitely. Without question. That is still not a good reason to censor or block them. It is a good reason to avoid them, though.

Of course, I'm not arguing for frontal nudity in products like D&D aimed partially at an underage audience, but I don't need to say that. Roleplayers don't limit their dissections of gaming material to only PG supplements after all.

 

[S'mon]

No? Then what is the motivation? I don't think they can remotely claim that they believe the art is "realistic", it'd be very hard to be unaware of the controversies about specifically female art representation in games, so unless they're totally oblivious as to the effect of their art choices then their motivation is rather less obvious than you seem to suggest.

I'd think their main motivation was to sell product. A possible secondary motivation is that they liked the art.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Edit: following @S'mon sensible advice, I am self-censoring and will just say that your concern is well-founded and I think we're on the losing end by advocating free speech for artists in RPG context.