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

[Bedrockgames]

Fascinating, same here.

They are distinct lol

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm not doubting that this has happened, but I never encountered it. So it still depends on the group. Our games, even as teenagers, were pretty PG.

Ours weren't much to my chagrin. Teenage boys in the 80s, being exposed to fantasy films in the height of the T&A era? We role-played out similar scenes that one would find in Deathstalker, Conan, Barbarian Queen, etc.

Heck, there was a Dragon magazine that had an article about spending your down-time money on orgies...

Edit I suspect the difference between people never seeing it and others seeing it is because we probably define sexual violence differently. I'm sure some view it as an act of obvious physical violence, while I view any form of non-consensual act as violence.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think groups which didn't have sexual violence were necessarily rare outliers, but distasteful and misogynistic stuff was definitely out there, especially in all-male groups. When I was growing up I encountered a few gamers like this, though thankfully my regular groups were better. Those still definitely had some sexist jokes, though we got better once we were playing with some women and girls.

My experience is also that they weren't outliers. Of the ten or so groups I played with from 10 to 22, I never encountered someone suggesting sexual violence in a game - not even jokingly. Maybe that reflects who I played with, maybe that reflects some other peculiarity, maybe people just somehow intuited I wouldn't stand for it for even a heartbeat - but I wasn't something I talked about, because I didn't even think it was a thing anymore. I'd seen it in RPG horror stories which were on the web since the mid-90s, but never in person, and most of the horror stories seemed to be about the '80s or were in little backwards-sounding places in the US. I definitely encountered sexism, but my first DM was an my older female cousin (and she taught me a ton in just two-three days), so the idea that women shouldn't be in RPGs and/or weren't cool was insane to me. At 22 I met my first "lol sexual violence is funny" RPG-player freak, and yeah, that was horrifying, because it made it clear people were still around like that, and in London.

I always really liked the "scene" pieces as opposed to folks action posing out of nowhere that got popular at some point.

Pretty sure the main reason we see less scenes is that they cost a lot more to commission, because, realistically, they're a lot harder and more time-consuming to paint, like, they can easily take multiple times longer. And art budgets in RPGs have been pretty low relative to art costs (even with artists starving themselves) for a very long time. That said, D&D 2024 + a lot of other products seem to be turning around on the value of art (and to be fair, I think it's the industry forcing D&D to higher standards here, not vice-versa), including scenes. But like, it's all about the benjamins rather than people thinking "single character posing" is aesthetically better, I would suggest (TTRPG art directors, if I am totally wrong, please feel free to nuke me from orbit! I accept my fate!).

Or, in the notorious case of Laurana as a prisoner of the Dragonarmies on the cover of Dragons of Triumph, he found a way to make clear that she wasn't wearing underwear despite wearing a breastplate on top.

Jesus bloody christ, that's practically a record-scratch moment, not so much "I bet you're wondering why I'm being sacrificed to Takhsis!" as "I bet you're wondering where my pants and knickers went!". I literally did a double-take and head-shake when I scrolled down and hit that.

(It's sad too because great face/hair/arms on her there!)

(There are a remarkable number of "Look, she's definitely not wearing underwear, I, as an artist, have done everything I can to make this crystal clear!" pieces from Caldwell.)

I'm going to hazard a guess that it was editorial direction. FRA didn't come out until 1990, in the more family-friendly 2E era.

Good point re: edition change, that may well be exactly it.

 

[Remathilis]

It isn't even necessarily about the clothing either. It is about threat and vulnerability.

If the art is filled with strong angry men and vulnerable women it is going to be scary for women to enter that space.

If the women have confidence that is different (to clarify the problem with something like chainmail bikinis is that it is about vulnerability because the armour is either largely useless or will even direct blades inwards rather than deflect).

It didn't actually take me much time to find one in the 2024 PHB. The difference is that she is confident and powerful and the purpose is to show fey aesthetics.

View attachment 387954

Unironically, that is one of my favorite subclass images in the PHB. It captures the vibes of the fey, has a hint on sexuality (oooh, bare legs and no shoes, or what most younger women wear in the warmer climates) without making her overtly posed for the male gaze. I think it makes a fine "at home/in safely" style pic (I question anyone going into a forest, let alone a dungeon, without proper pants and footwear).

 

[payn]

Pretty sure the main reason we see less scenes is that they cost a lot more to commission, because, realistically, they're a lot harder and more time-consuming to paint, like, they can easily take multiple times longer. And art budgets in RPGs have been pretty low relative to art costs (even with artists starving themselves) for a very long time. That said, D&D 2024 + a lot of other products seem to be turning around on the value of art (and to be fair, I think it's the industry forcing D&D to higher standards here, not vice-versa), including scenes. But like, it's all about the benjamins rather than people thinking "single character posing" is aesthetically better, I would suggest (TTRPG art directors, if I am totally wrong, please feel free to nuke me from orbit! I accept my fate!).

That sounds plausible. My theory was the RPGs have moved more into character power fantasies and away from group challenge experiences in general.

 

[Steampunkette]

Half Orcs are a great example of both unintentional racism and the pervasive presumption of sexual assault in fantasy worlds. First "Officially" introduced in the Monster Manual for 1e in 1977, their description is... grossly racist.

Orc society is blatantly sexist in the early days, with women existing exclusively to bear young. You never -fought- Orc women, you only slaughtered them and their children after killing the men in battle, like a -civilized- hero. References to Half Orcs being the "Unfortunate" result of raids between the two cultures (meaning humans were sexually assaulting orcs, too, because, y'know... horrible) are the prevailing story across various books and adventures.

3e kind of started toward breaking away with that when they made Half Orcs a core heritage for the PHB... but there's still a lot of references to raids and intentional breeding of Half Orcs in 3e materials. Like eugenics levels of grossness.

Not that it's limited to D&D worlds, either. In the Warcraft RPG they make a special note that half-orcs are "Almost always" the result of sexual assault.

4e moved a little further away from it, though explicitly had half-orc NPCs and example characters who were either outright stated, or heavily implied, to be the children of sexual assault.

And 5e has really gone the whole way of trying to get away from it by making half orcs often the result of frontier marriages to unite warring tribes... Because forcing your adult children to get married and have sex with orcs is -totally- not sexual assault or coercive...

Err...

Yup. The trope remains to this day about half-orcs being children of sexual assault perpetrated by members of one brutal species or another.

 

[abirdcall]

Unironically, that is one of my favorite subclass images in the PHB. It captures the vibes of the fey, has a hint on sexuality (oooh, bare legs and no shoes, or what most younger women wear in the warmer climates) without making her overtly posed for the male gaze. I think it makes a fine "at home/in safely" style pic (I question anyone going into a forest, let alone a dungeon, without proper pants and footwear).

I mean, unless they are infused with the power of an archfey But still yeah, gross. Definitely wearing boots down there.

Another key difference I didn't touch on is that this image is not common in the 2024 PHB. If 90% of the women were dressed like this that would be a problem. Instead it stands out as an exception which helps with the otherworldly fey aesthetic.

 

[Theory of Games]

Half Orcs are a great example of both unintentional racism and the pervasive presumption of sexual assault in fantasy worlds. First "Officially" introduced in the Monster Manual for 1e in 1977, their description is... grossly racist.
View attachment 387963
Orc society is blatantly sexist in the early days, with women existing exclusively to bear young. You never -fought- Orc women, you only slaughtered them and their children after killing the men in battle, like a -civilized- hero. References to Half Orcs being the "Unfortunate" result of raids between the two cultures (meaning humans were sexually assaulting orcs, too, because, y'know... horrible) are the prevailing story across various books and adventures.

3e kind of started toward breaking away with that when they made Half Orcs a core heritage for the PHB... but there's still a lot of references to raids and intentional breeding of Half Orcs in 3e materials. Like eugenics levels of grossness.

Not that it's limited to D&D worlds, either. In the Warcraft RPG they make a special note that half-orcs are "Almost always" the result of sexual assault.

4e moved a little further away from it, though explicitly had half-orc NPCs and example characters who were either outright stated, or heavily implied, to be the children of sexual assault.

And 5e has really gone the whole way of trying to get away from it by making half orcs often the result of frontier marriages to unite warring tribes... Because forcing your adult children to get married and have sex with orcs is -totally- not sexual assault or coercive...

Err...

Yup. The trope remains to this day about half-orcs being children of sexual assault perpetrated by members of one brutal species or another.

How does this post relate to the portrayal of women in ttrpgs? Seems like someone is venting?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That sounds plausible. My theory was the RPGs have moved more into character power fantasies and away from group challenge experiences in general.

I just don't really believe it, because playing from '89 onwards, and talking to players a few years older than me a lot in the '90s, it seemed clear that even back then, a huge number of groups were basically just about like, four ultra-badasses being ultra-badass. And people had some insulting names for that (including me), but like, I don't think "character power fantasy" is at all new. I think in 1E and 2E it was more conveyed by either playing a Wizard and getting past like level 7, or just the DM giving you tons of magic items and/or letting you do very dubious stat generation or both, whereas later on it's been more about optimizing your character and the like. BECMI including Immortals for a reason, too. Don't get much more individual power fantasy than that!

Looking at like, Shadowrun, Rifts, Cyberpunk 2020, some oWoD games and so on in the 1990s, those were more "individual power fantasy"-oriented than modern RPGs in similar genres are now, I would argue. Certainly a lot of people played them that way. In the indie-sphere and non-D&D RPGs, with notable exceptions like Exalted, I feel like the general trend over the last 15-20 years has been away from "individual power fantasy".

Also, being real, even just in D&D, the peak of "character power fantasy", depending on perspective, is absolutely 3.5E or 4E (I would say 3.5E because of LFQW, PrCs, and single characters being more powerful than entire parties, but 4E is probably arguable). So we're moving away from that, if anything, with 5E.

And 5e has really gone the whole way of trying to get away from it by making half orcs often the result of frontier marriages to unite warring tribes... Because forcing your adult children to get married and have sex with orcs is -totally- not sexual assault or coercive...

Yeah the issue here was D&D 5E 2014 wanted to have its cake and eat it - it wanted to like, completely demonize orcs and describe them in literally racist terms (see Volo's before the great edit), as sort of subhuman brutes, but it also wanted half-orcs to be fine and dandy. Pick a lane, people! 2024 removing them outright in favour of non-subhuman orcs is probably the right play.

 

[payn]

I just don't really believe it, because playing from '89 onwards, and talking to players a few years older than me a lot in the '90s, it seemed clear that even back then, a huge number of groups were basically just about like, four ultra-badasses being ultra-badass. And people had some insulting names for that (including me), but like, I don't think "character power fantasy" is at all new. I think in 1E and 2E it was more conveyed by either playing a Wizard and getting past like level 7, or just the DM giving you tons of magic items and/or letting you do very dubious stat generation or both, whereas later on it's been more about optimizing your character and the like. BECMI including Immortals for a reason, too. Don't get much more individual power fantasy than that!

Looking at like, Shadowrun, Rifts, Cyberpunk 2020, some oWoD games and so on in the 1990s, those were more "individual power fantasy"-oriented than modern RPGs in similar genres are now, I would argue. Certainly a lot of people played them that way. In the indie-sphere and non-D&D RPGs, with notable exceptions like Exalted, I feel like the general trend over the last 15-20 years has been away from "individual power fantasy".

Also, being real, even just in D&D, the peak of "character power fantasy", depending on perspective, is absolutely 3.5E or 4E (I would say 3.5E because of LFQW, PrCs, and single characters being more powerful than entire parties, but 4E is probably arguable). So we're moving away from that, if anything, with 5E.

Yeap, Im not suggesting the character power fantasy wasnt there, but nobody can deny that PCs have become more hardy, more important, more resilient to insta-death effects and mis-adventure. The focus has been more and more significant since 3E in my experience.