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

[Steampunkette]

This seems like an unjustified conclusion.

I can't imagine that the all male groups I mostly played TSR D&D with in the 80s and 90s were rare outliers in not making sexual violence and misogyny integral to the gaming while still having plenty of violent actions in our gaming.

If you saw frequent use of rape and violence against female NPCs in your gaming that is pretty horrible, my condolences on the bad experiences.

That's a big part of it, yeah. A ton of female characters in fantasy fiction, whether PC or NPC, are motivated by being sexually assaulted. Red Sonja is a great example. Where their whole schtick is "No other man will have me but that I choose it" or the ever popular "Only someone who defeats me in combat will have me"

Orc raiders were often stealing women to assault and impregnate to create half-orcs. Even the Army of Darkness had skeletons kidnapping women with their chests exposed, presumably not to bone with since no one in the army -had- that bone...

It's a pervasive trope. And that's not even getting to your party hanging around in a tavern and the fighter making an offhand comment about swatting the barmaid's backside or rolling to check if there are any hot chicks there "'Cause I wanna doooo them!"


Just a ton of subtle and overt sexism that becomes the background radiation of a ton of D&D games.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I am sure the ratio of it was more revealing images of women but he did have beefcake art of male figures too, like this one

View attachment 387927

Pretty certain that was a Caldwell image

Beefcake, cheesecake and the ratios thereof; is the miss the point, it is not the individual art pieces are good or bad or acceptable or not acceptable but uniformity of the art style and the uniformity of their depictions of men and women that is the issue.
That said, the above image and it female equivalents really grind my gears. Why partial armour? could he not afford a breastplate? Can he turn his head? Why a spike on the pauldron? Surely that restricts his arm movements.
why the armour plates directly on skin with no padding. That groin guard? Why no pants?

 

[MGibster]

More body diversity is slowly happening but not nearly fast enough. I have enough Conan and Barbarella stand-ins to fill a shoebox, but very few adventurers with any meat on their bones. Speaking of Bones, my number 1 request for the last Reaper kickstarter was a visibly pregnant adventurer. Still waiting on those.

As a miniature painter, I sometimes buy miniatures just because they're different. I have a Guildball miniature I bought specifically because she's a hefty girl, with pig tails, and a faux Viking helmet with horns. I need to strip the paint off her and give it another try. A pregnant adventurer? That's a bit niche I think. You might be better off buying a mini you like and using some greenstuff to make a belly.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This seems like an unjustified conclusion.

I can't imagine that the all male groups I mostly played TSR D&D with in the 80s and 90s were rare outliers in not making sexual violence and misogyny integral to the gaming while still having plenty of violent actions in our gaming.

If you saw frequent use of rape and violence against female NPCs in your gaming that is pretty horrible, my condolences on the bad experiences.

We... we had an entire species in the books for decades that was explicitly, canonically the product of sexual assault.

Your group didn't have to do anything--the designers baked that crap right in.

 

[Dioltach]

That said, the above image and it female equivalents really grind my gears. Why partial armour? could he not afford a breastplate? Can he turn his head? Why a spike on the pauldron? Surely that restricts his arm movements.
why the armour plates directly on skin with no padding. That groin guard? Why no pants?

It appears to be from the Dragonlance book "Time of the Twins" - Caramon is sent to an arena to train and fight as a gladiator. It's explicitly noted that the armour is impractical and serves mostly as a costume.

 

[Remathilis]

I think it's worth noting the trend wasn't relegated to TSR era D&D. This was the cover of Dungeon Magazine #340 (cover dated February 2006). It feels very similar to the art the article describes, with a little more opacity to the fabric. No male caster would wear "clothes" of that type nor assume the "hip jutting" pose she is in to cast her spell.

Now don't get me wrong. I love this piece of art. The artist is Udon, whom I'm a fan of. But 2006 was deep into WotC's ownership of D&D and this was still the kind of art Dungeon was using on their covers. This is certainly not a TSR only thing.

The artist's deviantart page:

Zodiac Ceremony by UdonCrew on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean, I'm 100% against realistic and functional armor, but I want the armor to look cool like the chunky-bois that showed up in 3x art with the unnecessary ridges and boots that weight fifty thousand pounds, or Hennet's belt of many belts, not single leather straps on a single pauldron that doesn't even have any skulls on.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It appears to be from the Dragonlance book "Time of the Twins" - Caramon is sent to an arena to train and fight as a gladiator. It's explicitly noted that the armour is impractical and serves mostly as a costume.

Ok, that specifically makes sense, since gladiator armour often does not but that has not sopped many many artist portraying people (mostly women) in equally silly outfits.

 

[MGibster]

I think it's worth noting the trend wasn't relegated to TSR era D&D. This was the cover of Dungeon Magazine #340 (cover dated February 2006). It feels very similar to the art the article describes, with a little more opacity to the fabric

And I have a new candidate for what painting I would have airbrushed on the side of my 1973 Chevrolet Van. Thank you.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I am sure the ratio of it was more revealing images of women but he did have beefcake art of male figures too, like this one

View attachment 387927

Pretty certain that was a Caldwell image

It is Caldwell. You can always tell his paintings by how he paints gems. They are all the same, and a unique style of his. While I love Caldwell's art (my favorite D&D art is his cover of DL1), he is well known for wanting to paint scantily clad women. I think it was either Larry Elmore or Jeff Easley who told me a couple years ago that Clyde would volunteer to take the art assignments that had a women in a precarious scenario just to paint them.