D&D (2024) Comeliness and Representation in Recent DnD Art

Vaalingrade said:

And as we've seen in the official handling of it in things like Dark Sun, D&D is not good at making that environment safe.

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Fair enough.

Vaalingrade said:

Also, calling not making the game actively hostile 'sanitized' is disgusting.

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If we want to tell a story about prejudice being bad, then we most likely need to also be able to depict prejudice. It is not about being hostile, it is about being able to tell such stories.

I get that you have very good reasons for not being interested in that though.

Cadence said:

Do we have young adult human characters of all classes that are portrayed heroically but are significantly above or below the BMI recommendations? Who don't appear to be particularly athletic? Who have acne or acne scars? Who have non-combat induced scars? Who have obvious vitiligo or hemangioma? Who don't look like they've had braces on their teeth earlier in life? Who look like they wouldn't be cast as a sorority or fraternity member in a stereotypical movie of the sort?

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I sold my Young Adventurers Guides, but I feel like there were some heavier young adventurers and definitely plenty who weren't particularly athletic. Those books probably had the most depictions of young adventurers in new art in years.

MGibster said:

There were jokes about World of Warcraft male orcs and trolls looking monstrous with the women looking more conventionally attractive.

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I was in the World of Warcraft alpha. They made troll women, especially, look more conventionally attractive because alpha testers howled with outrage previously. (They originally were much more crone-like.)

Charlaquin said:

I mean, it’s not always about wanting your PC to look like you, (though it can be). Rather, sometimes it’s about wanting your PC to have a particular thing in common with you. Some people have an easier time identifying with a character who shares a certain trait with them, even if they are otherwise quite different. My partner has a lame leg, and their D&D characters almost always have a physical disability of some kind. Just makes it easier for them to get into the character’s head, and they enjoy roleplaying the different ways the characters’ disabilities impact their lives as adventures.

True! And I’d say we not only can, but should, accommodate both.

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If My PC had anything in common with me, his adventuring career would be over in less time than it took me to type this.

Cadence said:

Do we have young adult human characters of all classes that are portrayed heroically but are significantly above or below the BMI recommendations? Who don't appear to be particularly athletic? Who have acne or acne scars? Who have non-combat induced scars? Who have obvious vitiligo or hemangioma? Who don't look like they've had braces on their teeth earlier in life? Who look like they wouldn't be cast as a sorority or fraternity member in a stereotypical movie of the sort?

If there aren't, are there any reasons not to? Does it feel awkward to even look through the art to try and locate ones that you don't think fit what others think of as conventionally attractive? Why is this all so hard?

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So, we have a few tidbits here that complicate matters...

1) Sample size. You start out by limiting to "young adult human characters". I can think of several good reasons to limit consideration in that way, but... how many pieces of D&D art actually pass that filter to begin with?

This especially applies when you speak about specific traits - like, say, capillary hemangiomas. Hemangiomas are seen most in infants, and people 30 to 50 years old. They are notably less common in "young adults". So, how many should you see?

The question is a bit better in the more generalized form - how many bits of the art are not conventionally attractive?

2) This is hard because of an empirical truth - however much we say we want to see diversity in our art, we still subconsciously respond more positively to "attractive" figures, so those attractive figures will tend to sell more books.

Scott Christian said:

Chainmail bikinis are an aesthetic. A type that some players don't mind. I always find it weird when someone argues for inclusiveness, and then turns around and says - "Except for this." Chainmail bikinis can represent an aesthetic

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When we ask for diversity and inclusion, I think we are asking for diverse people and inclusion of people of various types, not diverse esthetics.

Charlaquin said:

I have friends who would prefer to get away from that kind of persecution in their pretend play time, and that’s a perfectly reasonable desire.

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I hope I am quoting correctly. Not sure about all policies about cripping, only been reading this place since Eric created it and just now had something I wished to say.

If some people are allowed to get away from persecution, then why are all not? There was some thing you said a few posts above that made me think of this, but this one really gave me reason to speak.

in the 1970s, nerds were persecuted for playing a non-game. There were movies about Nerds being persecuted, 5 I think.

So is representation efforts an attempt to prevent persecution or to make more persecution? How can people get away from it in their "pretend play time", when representation efforts force that persecution?

I am not sure what teifling has to do with LGBT, but am I just a wheelchair or a human? Why am I treated like an object now in games? Because I got old and injured? I am no longer allowed to "pretend play time" that I can walk?

Is comilness about representation? A teifling is a demon is it not? Why would LGBT literally demonize themselves? Demons in most literature are hated beings. Exterminators of human-kind.

Maybe I fail to see the connection with the teiflings other than, "Hey let me play an anime character", but it seems representation is abusing those it seeks to represent, from wheelchairs to "fat" as has been mentioned earlier.

Why, in a fictional game must 9ur imaginations force simulation instead 9f fantasy? Are you saying that since I am in a wheelchair, I am not allowed to play Conan, as your other post mentioned, and I must and may only play bound to a wheelchair?

That seems a very insulting and denegrating mindset if that is what you are implying with the quoted and your previous Conan post.

Nobody should have that power, not you, not Hasbro, not Piazo, not Chasium, not Palladium, not FASA, etc; to exact that much power over other people's "pretend play time". This "push" in the industry seems to not understand what effect it is having to the hobby, and making people feel "lesser than", pun intended, human.

Who at your table persecutes you personally when you play a teifling?


Thanks for reading and answering.

Micah Sweet said:

If that's what its all about, that kinda fights against the concept of representation though, doesn't it?

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There's contextually representative.

There's a range of what even fantasy adventurers can look like (our concepts of healthy weight are distorted), but I think what I'd expect for a set of D&D style adventurers who hike all the ruddy time would be would vary considerably from a set of modern action heroes who might include some people who spent most of their time behind a wheel or a computer terminal).

Neither of these says any of them have to look like glamour puss types though, but I suspect there is a certain standard of "Hollywood plain" at play.

Edit: To make it clear, I think there's something to be said for trying to go outside of these standards, in particular with disabled characters, but I think its at least worth doing to have an in-game explanation how they can overcome their handicaps enough to be functional. Most fantasy games don't have a sufficiently commonly available magitech to make it work, but that's in and of itself a setting choice, not something you can't do if that's a priority.

MGibster said:

Oh, boy. I love me some evolutionary psychology, but so much of it is just seems to be used to reinforce current cultural and social norms. As far as I know, there are only three standards of beauty that are pretty much universal.

1. Symmetrical features.
2. Clear skin.
3. Youth.

What's considered the ideal man or woman changes from group to group and even over time. Standards for both men and women have changed just over my relatively short life. When I was a kid, action stars weren't expected to be ripped like Brad Pitt in Fight Club and I remember when women were worried their butts were too big. Now thicc is in.

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Of course it can change. Beauty standards are twofold. Biological and social.

And on an biological level for example though thighs, wide hips are a signal of fertility and an ability to easily have children.

And also what we see on film/hollywood/popular culture is not the beauty standard of the general populous. Even when in every movie and series all the females were super skinny with big fake breasts, I would dare say that a lotmof.men preferred curvier women.

It is one thing of what is represented as a beauty ideal in Media an what is actually considered attractive by the populous.

But of course, the media influences beauty standards. But also other social/external factors. Scarcity is usually a social beauty standard. Somebody who is rare in looks - like fat was more of a beauty standard in societies that had problems to get enough food. While skinny becomes more of a beauty standard in societies with an abundance of cheap food that makes you fat easily.

Status is also beauty. In a lot of Africa, lighter skin and straight hair was seen as a beauty ideal because it the symbol of the people in power.

Then there is social pressure, too.

LesserThan said:

I am not sure what teifling has to do with LGBT, but am I just a wheelchair or a human? Why am I treated like an object now in games? Because I got old and injured? I am no longer allowed to "pretend play time" that I can walk?

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Sometimes something resonates with people because they can easily relate to it for some reason. I wouldn't have thought a lot of gay men would be into a show about four senior citizen women living together in Florida, but nontheless The Golden Girls resonated with gay viewers. There was just something about those characters that gay audiences could connect with.

KYRON45 said:

If My PC had anything in common with me, his adventuring career would be over in less time than it took me to type this.

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I suspect your PC has some things in common with you. Gender? Sex? Ethnicity? General age range? Approximate height? Probably some amount of core values? If not, it’s probably a very intentional choice to avoid making them alike you in any way at all.