Chainmail Bikinis & other Cheesecake art in the 4th Edition Core Books.

[Incenjucar]

Take a woman.

Put these on her.

http://assets.spirithalloween.com/images/spirit/products/processed/00185959.zoom.a.jpg

DONE.

If that's not enough, I've got a picture from Halloween that could qualify as a male tiefling accountant.

 

[erisred]

A sexy sorceress summoning smoke.

I liked almost all the illustrations in that edition of the book. Frankly, that's the only game illustration that really made me turn pages to find next one. It wasn't the cheese cake, it was that the illustrations were *good*...or at least to my taste.

 

[Dunamin]

What you alienate is the Parents. A kid with naked chics on the front of the cover might get his books thrown out. What I mean by naked is chic’s scantily clad in armor and the like. I heard of one kid had his books thrown out because his parents saw the picture of the beholder in the monster manual. I believe wotc better watch out what they put on the front of the cover of their books.

That is kind of funny because I never had this problem. And yes, I had several of these kind of books . . .

My Wonder Woman, X-Men, Justice League, Advengers, Superman, Batman, etc. comics all had that kind of art.

I never had that problem either.

Scantily clad women have been in my comics since childhood, in movies I've seen with my family, why they're even in about every other commercial I see.

I did not like the book of vile darkness not because of the graphic art in the book, but because it was not for minors. I believe all the books that wotc puts out should be for all ages. People of all ages play this game. It is a shame to alienate a chunk of them.

Besides, how many of you have heard of some store getting in trouble because a parent saw their kid with the book of vile darkness, opened.

I have in fact heard no such thing.

WotC is fully within its right to produce content suited for an audience older than minors, when they explicitly note the content as such.
Should Walt Disney Pictures not have been allowed to produce Pirates of the Caribbean? After all, the movie is PG-13 and everything else they had made so far had been for a younger audience as well.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Art is part of product identity and marketing, and while I have no personal objections to cheesecake, when viewed in terms of marketing and product identity I can only say no.

I mean I like Artesia (http://www.daradja.com/artesia.php) a lot, and despite her appearing nude on several pages of the preview comic nothing about it strikes me as particularly cheesecake like either - because its contextually appropriate. Notice when she is not in private she goes fully clothed, or armored - no peep holes in sight. Yet from reading the comic you learn that she is considered "hot" in the setting and is generous with her affections. That kind of being the point - you don't need to get about half naked to get the opposite sex interested in you.

People making comparisons to modern clothing styles are also missing the point that modern clothing is largely based around control of environment and modern (Western derived) ideas of beauty.

That's half the issue with Fantasy art the stereotypes are derived entirely from modern Western culture. Not sure about that, consider the definitions for beauty in Asian cultures vs Western ones. (The appeal of the nape of the neck in Japan for example...its why the kimono of geisha and whores are worn to expose the nape of the neck and top of the back.)

It would be nice if Fantasy art tried to establish a culture that wasn't just modern style with swords and armor.

 

[Tewligan]

Strongly opposed. It's nerdy enough playing D&D without making it into pornography as well.

But it's more efficient that way!

 

[The Little Raven]

Should Walt Disney Pictures not have been allowed to produce Pirates of the Caribbean? After all, the movie is PG-13 and everything else they had made so far had been for a younger audience as well.

Dragonslayer, rated PG, released in 1982 by Disney. It features violence and nudity. One of the best fantasy movies ever made, it would be rated at least PG-13 today (as would ET, most likely). And this is because we seem to expect our children to be less mature when dealing with mature issues than we expected from them 25 years ago, so our children's movies veer more towards Snow Dogs and away from things like ET.

It really makes me sad.

 

[Dunamin]

Dragonslayer, rated PG, released in 1982 by Disney. It features violence and nudity. One of the best fantasy movies ever made, it would be rated at least PG-13 today (as would ET, most likely). And this is because we seem to expect our children to be less mature when dealing with mature issues than we expected from them 25 years ago, so our children's movies veer more towards Snow Dogs and away from things like ET.

It really makes me sad.

Indeed.

It’s depressing how children are underestimated these days in their capacity for distinguishing right from wrong and fiction from reality.

 

[S'mon]

I voted 'strongly favour' - but sexy, not soft porn. Morgan Ironwolf in form-fitting chainmail, not Clyde Caldwell 2e-style groin pics.

 

[S'mon]

Dragonslayer, rated PG, released in 1982 by Disney. It features violence and nudity. One of the best fantasy movies ever made, it would be rated at least PG-13 today (as would ET, most likely).

Dragonslayer is a really grim movie. I found the lengthy scene where the sacrificial maiden tries REALLY HARD to escape the dragon, nearly succeeds, but gets killed anyway, to be genuinely shocking, and I'm a 35 year old adult. As an 8 year old I think it would have slightly traumatised me, as did the scene in the 1930s King Kong where he snags a girl out of her bedroom and drops her down the Empire State Building.

Conversely the brief glimpse of the heroine's buttocks in Dragonslayer was entirely harmless, but would probably get it raised to a '12' these days.

 

[GreatLemur]

I was annoyed and embarassed by art direction that presupposed that I was a dateless 14-year-old boy even when I was a dateless 14-year-old boy. Now that I'm 30 and married, it looks even dumber.