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

[Scribe]

AI would love to make your character any way you want with any representation you wish. If only you with to cross over.

It certainly does, and as someone with zero artistic ability, its quite interesting to see ones thoughts pulled from the ether a bit.

 

[gban007]

I thought "DnD" in the title meant D&D, Dungeons and Dragons. If one approaches it some other way then either they need an intervention like Debbie, and gotten away from Jack Chick and his insanity, or Dungeons and Dragons is not the game I began playing in the 1980s any more and have no frame of reference to ever be able to discuss whatever it is that you call DnD.

So I would advise you NOT to assume what I am talking about from when I began playing in the 1980s as you were not in my group, and have no business trying to do what you have done now 3 times in this thread telling me what or how to think or speak.

Your rights end where another person begins, and you have overstepped your bounds with your God complex. Back off!

They aren't telling you what to think, they are just requesting you not speak for everyone, you can speak for yourself, but for myself, also been playing Dungeons and Dragons since the 1980s if appealing to that sort of authority, I disagree with your stance and think that if people want to relate to characters in one way or another they are welcome to, and would still be playing Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[Charlaquin]

This is what I mean. We did not try to relate to them. They are game pawns like the iron on a Monopoly board. They are not us nor extensions of us.

Some people play that way, but many don’t. That has been true throughout the game’s history and remains true today.

When one plays MegaMan, are they trying to relate to an android cyborg, or just getting cool weapons to use to solve puzzles.

Most people are probably doing both.

The pawn of the game means nothing, it is about how you personally play it.

Well, yeah, because a pawn is too abstract to identify with. If you gave the pawn a name and a backstory and hopes, fears, likes, and dislikes, people would start identifying with it. That’s just human nature.

If the character in a TRPG is ever untelatable to you, yhen it is not the fault of design, but how you choose to play it.

This isn’t really about the design of the game, it’s about the art in the books.

 

[Charlaquin]

Except that broadest appeal does not care, or used to not care. Art is always wasted space in a book, like the tiny dragon earlier, or cover art, as someone said was meant to "attract".

For the most part, the black girl flying with glasses and magic circles around her was a good piece of art. Think that was another thread about PHB art leak?

But what does that art offer? A PC example? There should be no PC examples. Weapon art, monster art, fine. If people need the PC examples for races, they should be on the PHB cover. But then you will run into, "Why is the wizard a slim young attractive black girl, can Asian looking old overweight men not be wizards?"

Art is always a problem when it highlights only one group. So either you look at the art and think, well an old white guy drew himself here, or you have to increase the cost of the book and depict all nationalities of humans as all classes, each in full page color art. That would be over 300 pages of full color art so where is the room left for the rules in the book?

I have always thought the art should just be filler where you had more page than text, if it was not like a diagram showing something like how a kobold and goblin look different.

Also, to remake something to rewrite it for a few new people, is sanitization of art, drawn and written. Anyone can ignore tye draw art and written art, read lore, in a game and just insert tueir own choices.

A lot of people buy gaming books specifically for the art, so no it’s not a waste of space. And yeah, only depicting one example of a character of each class would obviously not create much room for representation, but depicting every class as every possible combination of identifying traits is not the only alternative. As long as the art is generally diverse, people can find examples of art that is relatable to them.

 

[Fifth Element]

I thought "DnD" in the title meant D&D, Dungeons and Dragons. If one approaches it some other way then either they need an intervention like Debbie, and gotten away from Jack Chick and his insanity, or Dungeons and Dragons is not the game I began playing in the 1980s any more and have no frame of reference to ever be able to discuss whatever it is that you call DnD.

So anyone who plays D&D differently than you is doing it wrong ("needs an intervention") or has been inculcated into cultish thought ("gotten away from Jack Chick and his insanity"). It's surprising that it has taken this long for you to learn that many people play D&D differently than you do, and always have played D&D differently than you do. That's a pretty basic fact about D&D. It gets played in many different ways, and has for decades.

 

[Fifth Element]

Except that broadest appeal does not care, or used to not care. Art is always wasted space in a book, like the tiny dragon earlier, or cover art, as someone said was meant to "attract".

Many people who consume RPG books, including D&D, would strongly disagree with this. Give me Elmore and Easley art all day long.

 

[Charlaquin]

It certainly does, and as someone with zero artistic ability, its quite interesting to see ones thoughts pulled from the ether a bit.

If by “the ether” you mean a vast collection of works made by human artists who never consented to having their work used for this purpose and received no compensation for their indispensable part in its creation, sure.

 

[Fifth Element]

Needless retcons, even as cash grab rewrites, like the Spellplague, will always be met with confrontation.

See:

Burton vs Snyderverse Batman

There are many retcons in Burton's Batman, depending on what you consider to be "original" Batman. And the "needless" is purely subjective.

 

[Fifth Element]

Yeah, I'm familiar with Maude. But Maude did not live with Sofia, Blanche and Rose.

 

[Scribe]

If by “the ether” you mean a vast collection of works made by human artists who never consented to having their work used for this purpose and received no compensation for their indispensable part in its creation, sure.

I'm well aware if you've at all looked at the other "AI" threads on this.