ezo
Where is that Singe?
Nah, it would simply bounce off of his rock-hard chiseled abs.
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D&D (2024) Comeliness and Representation in Recent DnD Art
- Thread starter Cadence
- Start date
Crimson Longinus
Legend
Nah. That arrow is like 1d8+2 piercing damage, halved due the rage. Barely a scratch for a mid level barbarian.
Scribe
Legend
Nothing about 5e healing, damage, unarmoured defense or combat, makes any kind of sense.
Faolyn
(she/her)
Not wanting cheesecake--or let's face it, it's sort-core erotica--in an RPG book that isn't about that sort of thing isn't dismissing peoples' desires due to their gender identity (or their sexuality).
I should also hope that most people, regardless of their gender or sexuality, are capable of reading books that don't have cheesecake in them. If they can't, if their ability to enjoy an RPG book is literally diminished because there aren't acres of skin on display, well, that strikes me as a them problem.
But now imagine that that was the sort of thing nearly every male character was drawn like, no matter what. For decades. Terrible weather? Middle of battle where they're in the front line? In the of a royal court, where everyone else is dressed in formal clothes? Nope, it's pin up-palooza, all day long. And then, when it became more common for male characters in outfits that are actually dressed appropriately for the circumstances, other people complained about it and called the art "sanitized."
Should it be gotten rid of entirely? Nah. But c'mon. There's a time and a place for everything, and most of the time, that sort of art is just gratuitous.
This I agree with completely. A few scars as well. One of D&D characters has a fencing scar on her face and a missing horn.
Nymph, probably not. It would be inappropriate for the monster type.
But, well... this is a piece of old D&D art:
This next art is from Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Ignore the art style and imagine it was painted like the picture above.
The D&D art may be more "medieval," but it's otherwise basically the same thing: a female spellcaster in not very much clothing at all. I kind of wonder how many people would be cool with cheesecake that looks like the TSW art (and weren't cool with it just because they have type and/or fetish), and how many would suddenly start wanting women to be more fully dressed if this was the type of women that was being drawn.
And for the record, TSW has a great variety of physical female bodies, ranging in body sizes and how much they're clothed. It's the kind of variety I'd like to see, for characters of all genders, in D&D books. I was, for example, quite pleased to see the following bit of art in the Level Up Adventurer's Guide, as the illustration for the cleric entry:
Faolyn
(she/her)
Heh. But he's not raging there. He's posing for the August picture of the Adventurer of the Month calendar.
ezo
Where is that Singe?
I think conceptually a lot of it makes sense. I think the larger issue is retaining outdated terminology which has caused issues for decades.
If a hit isn't always a "hit", and damage doesn't have to be "damage", etc. then you get confusion.
Crimson Longinus
Legend
Sure, but he is not likely to be shot by an arrow in such an occasion is he?
In any case, I don't think it is particularly weird, silly or even unrealistic for a person to go to battle in such an attire. People did so for much of an human history. Granted, once armour became available, those who could afford it tended to use it, but D&D is anachronistic in that regardless, mixing armours from different time periods and having people use them side by side. And of course there were exceptions to this.
The barbarian class harkens back to things like Germanic berserkers and some Celtic warriors who fought unarmoured and sometimes literally naked though armour obviously was invented. It is just a heightened and exaggerated fantasy version of that, and I think it is fine to depict it as such, and it is not inappropriate "cheescake" even if the individual question would happen to be a woman. Though in such instance I hope she too would be depicted being a hulking wall of muscle like Arnie, instead of having a physique of a fashion model.
I really want diverse and respectful depictions of all sort of people, but what I don't want is reflexive American-style prudery. When supposed progressives and puritans are making the same arguments, something has gone wrong. (And to be clear, I didn't mean you were doing that, it is just general observation over the years about many discussions regarding topics like this.)
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ezo
Where is that Singe?
Most definitely!
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Even that isn’t really the equivalent to the type of “cheesecake” art of women we’re talking about. When I think about sexualized art of men, I’m always reminded of this piece from MtG that was explicitly made to appeal to “ladies and bro-philic bros” , and the absolute poop storm its reveal stirred up from male fans complaining that it was creepy and inappropriate for the context of MtG:
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