[Dragon] Lord, the cheese...

[satori01]

Fantasy is about imagination, and imagination is often about creation of a "cool" image or concept. The chainmail bikini has been around for ever, and for some female gamers, (my girlfriend included), sexy unrealistic stylings are perfectly valid expressions for the imagination.

Fantastic and Mythological art often has nudity, if a pre raphelite painting was displayed on the cover of Dragon Magazine, say
Waterhouse's Echo and Narcissus would this be Porn or Dragon showing cultural sensibilities.

Role Playing has always been a hobby for the Mature Minded, in terms of it's complexity of rules, and often its very subject mater and context. I would hate to have Dragon's cover stripped down to innanity by prudish whines of a select few.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Role Playing has always been a hobby for the Mature Minded, in terms of it's complexity of rules, and often its very subject mater and context. I would hate to have Dragon's cover stripped down to innanity by prudish whines of a select few.

"A hobby for the Mature Minded"...? If that were true, I'd imagine we'd see less succubi on the cover of Dragon. The truth of the matter is that a large portion of D&D players are in their teens. And while Dragon knows it's content will draw in it's older readers (and to be fair, some younger ones as well), a nekkid girl on the cover may snag a casual young gamer browsing the newsstand.

Myself, I don't mind the occasional fantasy image, but I'd also prefer not to see Dragon develop a marketing strategy that leads to people hiding Dragon as if it were the latest issue of Hustler.

 

[Larry Fitz]

Fenzer confessed:
I had to hide it, the magazine, from my kids. I don't want them seeing that stuff yet. They will soon enough.

We are now at a point where parents feel they should hide Dragon from their kids? Not because they don't want them to game, but because they are too young to deal with seeing a sexual portrayal of a demonthing from hell? I don't think Dragon needs prurient covers to sell their magazine. In fact at least a couple more people would have seen it (Fenzer's kids) if it didn't have such a cover. Don't get me wrong. I'm not in favor of censorship or telling Dragon "Don't put sexy pictures on your magazine because it's morally wrong!" But I do remember buying Dragon and letting my young nephews see it and not hearing their mom tell me not to let them do that. My playboy collection was strictly off-limits. The point is we want this hobby to expand as time goes by, and the younger generation cannot be exposed to gaming early enough in my opinon. Deliberately creating product that is arguably innapropriate for young teens is counter to an expanding market.

 

[s/LaSH]

At least it's not InQuest magazine, Wizard Publishing's gaming rag (Wizard, not Wizards, they do Wizard magazine about comics - confusing, perchance?), which actually does have an annual swimsuit issue and often isn't much better (when they don't have Pokemon on the cover).

At which point I point out that I haven't seen this magazine yet, so I can't possibly pass judgement. I'll just note that evil, starting with Morningstar, is generaly held to be beautiful, and leave it at that, shall I?

 

[John Crichton]

I don't see that cover as pornographic. All one has to do is flip to the inside to see that it contains mostly articles on gaming. It's no worse than any other magazine out there, IMO. I have no problem with magazines like SI or Maxim either who's content is mature but mostly comical. So there is an artist's rendition of a sexy hell-beast. If one knows what the drawing is, then it's not a problem. And for those who don't know what it is, it's just an odd looking woman with some revealing clothing.

We've all seen much worse than this...

... now on to the content?

 

[Olive]

More "Succubus Porn". Feh. I really wish Dragon would think of other ways to draw attention to themselves. Where's the Erinyes porn? Dryad porn? Wood Nymph porn? I mean come on, what is this, 1E?

indeed...

 

[Gez]

???

That is porn ???

Oh dear...



Maybe you should do a quick search on "porn", since you have Internet access, and compare in all honesty between what you would get and that picture.

 

[Robbert Raets]

Mr Gez, please consider my poor, over-worked heart....

 

[Gez]

 

[d20Dwarf]

I for one am not attracted to her (her arms are too skinny), therefore it cannot be porn.



Ummm, I'm joking (just in case ).