D&D General “‘Scantily Clad and Well Proportioned’: Sexism and Gender Stereotyping in the Gaming Worlds of TSR and Dungeons & Dragons.”

[Steampunkette]

Decided to look up that guy on Facebook to see how much he's changed in the last 17 years...

... I suspect not for the better.

 

[billd91]

I hadn't even talked to a physician or a psychiatrist about being trans or to get on HRT or anything, and here I am having to tell this guy "No" as gently as possible because HE WAS DRIVING THE CAR AT THE TIME.

He got pissed at me for being Friendzoned and refused to drive me to or from work after that.

That’s pretty effed up behavior. And let me tell you, I got some theories as to why…

 

[Charlaquin]

As for scantily clad miniatures: I don't have a problem with them, and neither does my spouse (they're non-binary). I like a scantily clad miniature, TBH; I think they're good, cheesy fun. They're kinda campy. But I think it's a matter of attitude and taste, and I have enough miniatures that everyone can find one that suits them best (or I make them one). That said, I do have some that definitely don't go into school!

I love a good scantily clad miniature. But, I am glad that there are practically-dressed minis available as well. And we’re even gradually starting to get more body diversity in minis. Still room for improvement, but I appreciate the scantily clad ones all the more for it being a specific choice I can make, rather than being all that’s available.

 

[Charlaquin]

My middle-and-high-school D&D group “didn’t have any girls in it.” Now, if we got the gang back together for a reunion adventure (not unreasonable, we are all still in touch, but scheduling and arranging transport would be a challenge), the group would be about half women. And not because people would bring their SOs (actually I think I’m the only one of us currently in a relationship).

 

[Mort]

Times have changed.

When I was in high school, we didn't imagine that any girls would want anything to do with our impossibly uncool hobby. And we sure as hell didn't play at school; that would not have been safe. Similar to others on this thread, I was in college the first time I played RPGs with women.

But now I run the D&D Club at my school. Our ratio is roughly 50/50, depending on the year, and usually there are a few non-binary students. There is a strong overlap with the Pride Club, and several players have come out first through the game. One of my best DMs was trans and no one batted an eye (she's at college now and running a game there). And although the club is still seen as kinda nerdy, that is nowhere near the stigma it used to be. Being in D&D Club is treated more or less like being in theatre or on a soccer team.

It's better this way. For everyone. Everyone should be able to enjoy RPGs, and feel safe doing so.

The D&D club at my son's school is roughly 50/50. It's also one of the biggest clubs at the school (and it's a BIG school).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Nobody is judging this art for the aggregate. This art is fine. I’d even say I quite like it. But, if most of the art of women in D&D books were still of its ilk, that would be extremely off-putting, even if each individual piece was of excellent quality. Nobody is docking points from their assessment of any particular artwork. They’re saying, all the art of women within the hobby being sexualized sure makes it feel uncomfortable to be a women around people who are into the hobby.

But look at the way it is handled in the article. That artwork is what ends up establishing where the line was (and Roger moore stated he felt it crossed it after it generated controversy). To me this seems like a pretty clear example of good art being judged because of the aggregate of perceived beefcake around it in the hobby and on the cover of Dragon. From the article:

Perhaps the greatest uproar concerned the October 1986 cover, which depicted a work by a male artist, David Martin. The painting, Spirit of the Night, showed a nude woman inprofile, crouched atop a statue. Martin described the painting in language laced with sexual undertones: “In a shower of moonlight, alone figure kneels in supplication to the image of a god worshiped long ago. Aroused, the elemental nightwind rises up, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the dead city. It carries the smells of the forest, invisible, yet potent as a prayer in the silence.”
....

One reader, John Maxstadt, called the cover “soft-core pornography” and said that he was glad his magazine came in a brown wrapper.” He linked sexualized artwork to the game’s poor reputation. He commented that Dragon magazine’s“preoccupation with flesh” did not help TSR’s reputation for misogyny. He also complained that many products like lead miniatures often “look like porno or heavy-metal queens.”vi

Maxstadt’s letter drew a number of responses that defended the cover. Dan Tejes said that “swords and sorcery and fantasy role-playing games both, for whatever reason, appeal almost exclusively to males” and claimed that “there are almost no traditional female swords and sorcery characters.” Another reader went further, asking “when was the last time you saw a magnificent painting of a woman dressed up like a tin can?” “Women,” he said, “look better in outfits that enhance or emphasize their beauty.” These responses in turn drew their own criticisms from male and female readers. Roger Moore, who had recently taken over as editor of Dragon, said that the painting“crossed the line on how much should be shown,” and that line“will be more closely watched in the future.”i

I hadn't seen the image before so when I read the text and then opened the spoiler tag I was genuinely stunned by how good the image was. It is an incredibly well composed and effective image. And given what I remember of some of the art from that time, quite a tame example.

 

[Bedrockgames]

As a wee MGibster, we didn't have any girls in our group. We didn't have girls in our group until were were in our early twenties. And even then we didn't have girls because they were women at that point. My particular group didn't include some of the more egregious examples of misogyny I've read about in other groups, but we had our share of bad jokes and we treated NPCs as sex objects and victims more often than we should have. Odds are good if we had a real live girl who actually wanted to play AD&D with us a lot of what we had at the table wouldn't have been there. I don't want to brag, but I was a reasonably good looking beholder in my younger days, and even then I knew you couldn't behave like a pig if you wanted to spend any time around girls. (Now we can discuss the trope of women as a civilizing force.)


I will say this is an area I've seen considerable improvement on in gaming circles. It used to be there was always some smelly guy, possible named Ogre, who would hang out at the hobby shop. This guy was to hygiene as Snarf is to brevity. A few months ago I ran into an Ogre at my local game shop and it was the first time I had seen one in a long, long while. I've also noticed the number of visible butt cracks when down about ten years ago. My wife used to joke with me that she didn't want to go into the game store for fear of witnessing an errant butt crack, but (ha ha), you hardly see them anymore.

By the 90s, we had two women in our regular group. But I ran Ravenloft and that seemed to have a larger female audience (at least from my vantage point at the time). As the 90s progressed, Vampire brought in a lot of female gamers in my area. There were quite a few in our gaming circles. It wasn't uncommon for me to have Ravenloft campaigns that were 50-50 by the late 90s.

 

[Steampunkette]

That’s pretty effed up behavior. And let me tell you, I got some theories as to why…

Is it because he was a "Nice Guy" who eschewed fedoras but went to Hooters for lunch every day because he thought the waitress was into him? (Yes. Really)

He would spend well over an hour in her section constantly trying to get her attention to flirt with her while she was at work. He eventually got banned from the Hooters because of how much of a distraction he was and his overly "friendly" attitude...

At a HOOTERS. How "Friendly" do you have to be to get kicked out of Hooters permanently without touching the wait staff inappropriately? 'Cause he was -that- inappropriately friendly.

Considering he posts a "RIP Doctor Who" after the episode with Donna's transgender daughter appeared I think I might've psychologically scarred him when he was in his early 30s and looking to call "Dibs" on me before I transitioned...

Doomscrolled his Facebook and the Facebook pages of the rest of my old D&D troupe...

Apparently I got out at a good time.

 

[Charlaquin]

But look at the way it is handled in the article. That artwork is what ends up establishing where the line was (and Roger moore stated he felt it crossed it after it generated controversy). To me this seems like a pretty clear example of good art being judged because of the aggregate of perceived beefcake around it in the hobby and on the cover of Dragon. From the article:

I hadn't seen the image before so when I read the text and then opened the spoiler tag I was genuinely stunned by how good the image was. It is an incredibly well composed and effective image. And given what I remember of some of the art from that time, quite a tame example.

The author of the article isn’t judging the piece though, they’re citing an accurate historical fact that the piece caused an uproar when it appeared on the cover of Dragon Magazine.

 

[MGibster]

The author of the article isn’t judging the piece though, they’re citing an accurate historical fact that the piece caused an uproar when it appeared on the cover of Dragon Magazine.

On one hand I realize standards can change over the decades. Elvis shaking his hips on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 was shocking while today such behavior isn't noteworthy. Unless you're Shakira and then we all just enjoy it. I sometimes wonder if the internet has desensitized a lot of us to sexual imagery. I don't mean me. I'm dead inside. I mean for those of you we might call psychologically healthy.