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

[RangerWickett]

Ugh. If teenage males (or people with the minds and emotional development of teenage males) need to find sexy pics, I suggest Google Image Search. I really really really don't want D&D rulebooks to have cheesecake. It's tacky, tasteless, and alienates women gamers.

The exception being, of course, books that are intended as humor for people who, like me, don't think cheesecake is appropriate. A whole book on how silly chainmail bikinis are, for instance.

 

[jdrakeh]

I moderately oppose it.

Sexy images are fine, images which exist only for the sake of titillating male gamers are not.

Pictures which exist more to provide wank material than to illustrate how much fun and imagination there can be in D&D can stay on crappy "fantasy" calendars, and out of the rulebooks.

That sums up my own stance nicely.

 

[Jhulae]

alienates women gamers.

Might want to qualify that some, because that's really an overgeneralization there.

I've never been alienated by 'cheesecake art', and as others have said, women they know haven't been either.

So, while it may alienate 'some' women gamers, unlike your statement, it doesn't alienate 'all' women gamers.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I voted "Slightly Oppose".

I don't find that kind of art objectionable in any absolute sense, and I don't mind its existence, but at the same time, it can get rather annoying.

I don't know, I guess I prefer girls in art to be "cute" or "beautiful" rather than "half-naked and screaming". A character can easily be cute or beautiful while fully clothed, but I think it actually gets harder to pull off when the character is wearing scanty clothing. Also, it seems that too often in D&D, they too often make a female character half-naked without putting in the effort to make her attractive.

I guess I oppose cheesecake art, but for reasons completely different than the stereotypical reasons.

 

[DandD]

Both are okay, as long as the non-cheesecake-pictures dominate AND most importantly are used to depict combat situations.

No to scantily clad fighter chicks protecting wizards holding their shields in a stupid position just to show her cleavage.

Yes to at least believable competent warrior women wearing heavy full armour with no holes and silly gaps in their protective armament to shield their wizard companion against incoming attacks.

Yes to both pictures if the warrior-woman just is standing there for show, although the more dressed woman should always be preferable to the bikini-chainmal slut (yes, that's how I think about them). Heavy protective armour does look cool too, after all.

If you absolutely must have have a female warrior being almost half-naked just for the sake of drawing semi-perverted pictures and trying to appeal to little boys, draw them while they're trying to don their armour (so, reverse-striptease, basically. ).

And show the barely-armoured wizards, rogues and whatever-dudes and dudettes having heavy wounds BECAUSE they don't wear armour, and perhaps should be glad and thankful to the dude and/or dudette who does wear armour and stays at the front-line to protect them.

 

[perchy]

I think this post is misleading. Whilst i oppose cheese cake, i don't think there is any in 4th ed

 

[am181d]

So the consensus is... no consensus. (Though I'd suggest that anything that less than 50% of the market supports shouldn't be there...)

 

[CanadienneBacon]

Voted moderately opposed. Don't really like all those pics of voluptuous scantily-clad chicks. Never have. I find them alienating. But it ain't gonna ruin my day or anything.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ugh. If teenage males (or people with the minds and emotional development of teenage males) need to find sexy pics, I suggest Google Image Search. I really really really don't want D&D rulebooks to have cheesecake. It's tacky, tasteless, and alienates women gamers.

Cheesecake art is about archetypes and a celebration of the beauty of imagination as much as it's about titillation. Which means that it shares the same basic impetus as the rest of fantasy art. It's not just a need to arouse thirteen year olds (or the thirteen year old in all of us).

My opinion isn't a simple for or against. We're going to have sexy ladies in D&D art in 4e. Ones impractically dressed and all. Heck, you could argue that we already have the beginnings of it (why else to dragonborn have breasts?! ), if you wanted to focus on it. I don't think it should be a focus or a major theme of the art (I don't want my D&D to look TOO much like a Vajello painting), but given the simple realities of existence, it's not something that's worth getting high-and-mighty over unless it becomes onerous and ubiquitous. 4e's overall tone is definitely more serious and practical than 3e so far (with the notable exception of the size of the tiefling's horns and tail. ), so I don't even think Buckles McGee will be a problem for the foreseeable future.

Seriously, at this point, this is just a complaint in search of a problem.

 

[Vegepygmy]

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

In for a penny, in for a pound, I say. Strongly favor.