D&D General Just sweeping dirty dishes under the rug: D&D, Sexism, and the '70s

[PHATsakk43]

Learning the golden age of settings, which I remember fondly, was one of the factors in TSR's demise was a painful lesson.

It was merely the final demise.


TSR had merely awaken after taking a lethal dose of fentanyl several times to finally stop being revived.

 

[PHATsakk43]

In fact, with the Holidays approaching, all I can ask for is spiked egg nog, well... a wish!

I've got a couple gallons of homemade aged eggnog resting in the basement, but you'd have to travel to rural Ontario to indulge.

As for the wish, what you think we are, a bunch of efreet?

 

[GrimCo]

Difference between Mattel and TSR is night and day. Mattel was publicly traded company since early 60's. TSR was, even at it's peak, smallish company. Mattel was also run by people that cared about making money. TSR, well, not so much.

They made so much stupid business mistakes, it's pure luck that they lasted as long as they did. First mover advantage helped them a lot. There isn't anything wrong per se if you wan't to cater to specific demographic, even nothing wrong if you want to be gatekeepy and make products that are unappealing to broader demographic. But with that, you pigeonhole your self into a niche and with that, you limit your company growth. Sooner or later, someone else will see that there is market that's interested in your type of product, but not in your product specifically. And that someone will fill gaps in the market you left. That's why in 90s, White Wolf kicked D&D from the throne. They appealed to broader audience, hence, bigger customer base.

When WoTC/Hasbro took over D&D what did they do? They started making products appealing to broader demographics. Gone was fantasy centerfold art aimed at horny guys. 3ed era is less sexy, less objectifying, less horny geek teen power fantasy ( be beefcake, get sexy princess). And with every iteration of products, they go more and more in that direction. Cause - money. If you want to make most amount money possible selling consumer products, you need largest possible consumer base. So you need products to appeal to almost anyone.

 

[haakon1]

But yes, I live to have my blood angered.

And I thought you were the one person on the internet who wasn’t here for that.

Never meet your heroes.

 

[Mad_Jack]

And I thought you were the one person on the internet who wasn’t here for that.

Never meet your heroes.

Nah, it's just his blood that gets angered. The rest of him is pretty chill. He's actually here because if he doesn't type at least 15,000 words a day he'll explode from the build-up of pressure caused by his hatred of bards swelling up to the point where it physically crowds out all other thoughts.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I've got a couple gallons of homemade aged eggnog resting in the basement, but you'd have to travel to rural Ontario to indulge.

As for the wish, what you think we are, a bunch of efreet?

I have to say that the first time I read that, my brain translated that into "As for the wish, what you think we are, a bunch of feet?"

And I momentarily was confused, and concerned that people here are mistaking me for Rex Ryan and Quentin Tarantino. And I thought to myself, "Self, I know I posted about the greatest Tarantino movies of all time, but that doesn't mean I share his ... predilections. Not that I judge- as I always say, we don't kink shame. Unless your kink is bards, in which case...."

 

[tetrasodium]

Difference between Mattel and TSR is night and day. Mattel was publicly traded company since early 60's. TSR was, even at it's peak, smallish company. Mattel was also run by people that cared about making money. TSR, well, not so much.

They made so much stupid business mistakes, it's pure luck that they lasted as long as they did. First mover advantage helped them a lot. There isn't anything wrong per se if you wan't to cater to specific demographic, even nothing wrong if you want to be gatekeepy and make products that are unappealing to broader demographic. But with that, you pigeonhole your self into a niche and with that, you limit your company growth. Sooner or later, someone else will see that there is market that's interested in your type of product, but not in your product specifically. And that someone will fill gaps in the market you left. That's why in 90s, White Wolf kicked D&D from the throne. They appealed to broader audience, hence, bigger customer base.

When WoTC/Hasbro took over D&D what did they do? They started making products appealing to broader demographics. Gone was fantasy centerfold art aimed at horny guys. 3ed era is less sexy, less objectifying, less horny geek teen power fantasy ( be beefcake, get sexy princess). And with every iteration of products, they go more and more in that direction. Cause - money. If you want to make most amount money possible selling consumer products, you need largest possible consumer base. So you need products to appeal to almost anyone.

There might be some outliers not coming to mind, but we really haven't seen that kinda sexy centerfold type artwork of old for a very long time & have seen these kinds of discussions on that particular sin of decades past with fair regularity. I don't think that making sure wotc doesn't go back to producing such artwork is the goal though. I think that they get used to provide an easy target for justifying zero tolerance type filtering in setting/adventure content with a term that allows disagreement to be immediately shifted to sexy centerfolds & avoid questioning where the far edge of the overton window is by just misusing a self-satirizing Ferengi scene to criticize someone's admission to being the target of a number of things including "abuse" for their word choice☆ when they spoke up.

☆ I'll add a not so fun fact, it's 3-4x more common that way among teens.

 

[PHATsakk43]

There might be some outliers not coming to mind, but we really haven't seen that kinda sexy centerfold type artwork of old for a very long time & have seen these kinds of discussions on that particular sin of decades past with fair regularity.

This is a post regarding the early days, specifically the 1970s.

I brought up the "Women of Fantasy" calendars simply to point out that it didn't end with the removal of the Blumes or Gary and continued well into the 1990s, at least to some level.

 

[cranberry]

Would anyone be against sexy centerfolds if there were both male and female models?

After all, women can be horny teenagers too.

I think I remember seeing a "recent" drawing of a female orc in an apron holding a rolling pin.
For me, that's not D&D.

And doesn't such a picture reinforce gender stereotypes?

 

[Staffan]

That's why in 90s, White Wolf kicked D&D from the throne.

I'm pretty sure White Wolf never outsold D&D. I think there was a brief window in 1996 or 1997, when TSR wasn't publishing anything new because of "a problem with the printer" where Palladium overtook them in hobby stores, but I haven't been able to find the ICV2 charts from those days so I'm relying on possibly faulty memories that are nearly 30 years old, so take that with a grain of salt. But while White Wolf was the New and Cool thing for Serious Gamers who want to Role Play and not Roll Play, it never seriously challenged the dominance of AD&D.