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

[Gradine]

Man, the line of discussion about “white-knighting” and “tone-policing” sure is weird when you can only read half of it…

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Man, the line of discussion about “white-knighting” and “tone-policing” sure is weird when you can only read half of it…

I think I can see all of it, but I doubt it makes it noticeably less weird.

 

[CleverNickName]

I think I can see all of it, but I doubt it makes it noticeably less weird.

Same here. I can read the whole thing, and it's still very weird.

People will go to some great lengths to dismiss/deny sexism (and other forms of bigotry) in this hobby.

 

[AnotherGuy]

* = For a specific example see Cicero, who advised a friend never to buy slaves from Britain, because British people were in Cicero's opinion, so profoundly stupid, they were the only people who literally couldn't learn to read, and were in general the stupidest and ugliest people on the planet. Caesar's opinion was not dissimilar - he was convinced Celts were incapable of learning music, among other things.

This gives me ideas for a mind-flayer or other such superior being which communicates with the eloquence and intelligence of a Cicero for the treatment of humans (elves live longer, dwarves are industrious, orcs are mighty...etc whereas humans are less useful with no appealing aesthetic).
Villain magnifique

Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[Charlaquin]

I don’t agree. That sort of emotionless logic is not human. Perhaps one could imagine some sort of super exceptional humans that would behave that way, but it’s still different when it is a common feature of the entire species.

I mean… a lot of autistic people get characterized in exactly that way. I am not autistic myself, but I do tend to act more on careful reasoning than on emotion, as a learned behavior due to some pretty rough formative experiences where acting on emotion had very negative outcomes. I think we should be very careful about characterizing the actions of characters that look, walk, and talk like humans with slightly restricted or exaggerated elements as “inhuman,” because chances are there are more humans than you think who do act in similar ways. Sometimes due to cultural differences, sometimes due to cognitive or developmental differences, sometimes due to individual differences. But the range of human behavior and expression is incredibly broad, and it’s very rare that a fictional species’ behavior and expression actually falls outside of that range.

Like, take the excellent post @Steampunkette made about ways to roleplay elves, dwarves, and halflings inhumanly. It was clever and inspiring, and all of the suggestions in it could make for great roleplaying advice. But none of it is really inhuman. Sure, the lengths of time in the elf suggestions or the poisonous spices in the dwarf suggestions are exaggerated. But crippling boredom is a real human experience, often tied to depression and other mental illnesses. Steampunkette herself caught that the dwarf characterization was ultimately an autistic stereotype. The Halfling suggestions sounded like they could have been describing my partner, who has severe social anxiety.

And yes, of course the creators are human, but they still attempted to convey a species that come across as recognisably alien, and largely succeeded in it.

And no one is asking more than this, and it is definitely better than making no attempt at all.

My point is, any way you might try to characterize a humanoid species as alien is bound to fall within the range of the human experience, because that’s what we’re all drawing from to inform our fiction. Therefore, the idea that if orcs (or whatever other fantasy humanoid species) have a rich, diverse range of experiences and expression, they’ll just be the same as humans doesn’t hold water to me. Every fantasy humanoid species is the same as humans. We can exaggerate or restrict elements to create a bit of exotic flavor, and I think it’s fun and interesting when we do. But we shouldn’t let the fear of them seeming “too human” stop us from giving them rich, diverse, interesting ranges of experience. If “alien” has to mean “homogeneous,” then I don’t want my fantasy species to be “alien.”

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There will, always, be bad actors in any community group. Within minority groups the folks who play Oppression Olympics are among the worst, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they did a bunch of that as well?

The whole "Well I'm -more- oppressed because of (insert list here)"?

Yes. This was particularly spectacular when this person decided to lay into a poor female colleague who was from the Middle-East and had literally been arrested over there and roughed up, and who had friends who had been tortured, detained indefinitely without trial and so on, and implied the colleague didn't know what "real oppression" was.

 

[Charlaquin]

View attachment 388081

Not to ruin a good meme by taking it seriously, but I don’t really know what portion of it I can read, to be honest. Though there’s a good chance I can read more of it than many others, as I hate not being able to see the full context of a conversation, so I don’t use the block function myself, instead just choosing not to engage with people when it doesn’t seem productive. And I know at least a few folks must have me blocked, but I think it’s a fairly small number.

 

[Faolyn]

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?

Maybe he's actually a gladiator and only does combat-for-show in an arena?

Nevermind; apparently he is a gladiator.

 

[I'm A Banana]

At what point does this white knighting

Why do you think there's some insincere protection going on here? I'm not protecting anyone, really, just bringing up the apparently-taboo concept of real-world context in light of it not being considered in the question I was responding to. Why don't you want to engage with that in good faith?

result in a a complete ban on humanoid artwork by restricting too sexy too fat t& too everything else?

Who said anything about a complete ban on anything? Are you afraid of some sort of external police force you imagine might be coming to get artists who paint sexy things? The whole point of my post was to encourage the conversation to deal with the world as it exists, not some imaginary land of true gender neutrality or thought police.

Why make up a paranoid fantasy to distract from that?

At some point long before that it's worth questioning if the respective inclusivity review bars for male artwork and female artwork looks like early and late stage limbo competition positioning.

Chris Hemsworth Says He Isn't Taken Seriously as an Actor Because of His Muscles

Chris Hemsworth said that he's not taken as seriously as an actor because of the muscle-building he has to do for his role in Thor

people.com

https://www.justjared.com/2017/10/30/chris-hemsworth-doesnt-mind-being-exploited-with-shirtless-scenes/

Why is the assumption that an inclusivity review necessarily means lowering a bar? That's not something with any evidence. It's another fearful pearl-clutching that distracts from the actual context of the thing.

Do we extend the filter criteria to extend across body type like twink daddy chub & others like leatherdaddies lumbersexual too? I know that I've seen all of those and more in 5e books... might be worth accepting that it's ok for folks questioning the ttrpg equipment of measuring skirt length when the male equivalent is not even under white knight consideration.

In the actual world of today, there is a difference in the presentation of a woman's naked body and a man's naked body. It's not "equivalent" in any way. That difference is real, is demonstrable, and is the context in which any artwork exists. These aren't abstract concepts. It's not something you can choose to ignore if you're honest about trying to understand the world.

Crying "White Knight!" and spiraling into imaginary art bans when a cis guy simply acknowledges reality is a learned response, though, and you're definitely capable of unlearning it, if you'd like to talk about the real world instead.

"Typically" or not the post he linked is the very reason I used the term.

One of the key differences between what you posted and the other post is that the other post isn't insulting someone in the conversation. Once again, context.

 

[Bagpuss]

The issue though is that the analogy breaks down because elves are a PC race.

(snip)
So why shouldn't orcs?

Because it is meant to be reflecting heroic fantasy so you play the good guys and not the bad guys.