First Dark Sun Excerpt!!!

[Wik]

There's a number of problems with this, however. First, and most obvious, is that there's a huge population of younger generation gamers who find the whole "damsel in distress" trope cliched at best and demeaning at worst. Nothing screams bad, decades-old alpha-male fantasy like a bunch of a strong manly-like dudes rescuing a beautiful (and often scantily clad) female from a horrible ugly monster. There's a reason Hackmaster covers poke fun of this trope all the time. Also see Shrek.

"Damsel", in this case, does not necessarily mean "princess". It means "person in trouble". So, fine, the PCs are rescuing a dude. Though, personally, I have absolutely no problem with it being a lady. Most of the women I know wouldn't, either. There's something cool about the image. One of my all-time favourite D&D images consists of a burly fighter-type protecting a female warrior-type from a pack of wolves.

As for the homogeneous groups idea; well that goes against several principles WotC is working from. From a pure aesthetic perspective, few things are more bland than a group of similar-looking people.

How is all of one ethnic group "similar"? I mean, we're not going to go into "they all look alike" territory, obviously. It's a fairly well known fact that there's more genetic diversity within an ethnic group than there is without. Just because everyone in that picture is a zulu tribesman, doesn't mean they all look alike.

It just gives the picture a bit more authenticity. It's sometimes better to focus on one thing ("hey, those zulus killed a dragon!") as opposed to variety within the piece ("Um, those adventurers... one is a zulu, one is a dragon-guy wearing samurai armour, and the third looks like some sort of intelligent bull-man with kung fu powers and medieval armour... uh. It looks like they killed a dragon....").

Like it or not, diversity (and I mean in the general sense, not just the huggy-PC sense) is more visually interesting (at least, it is to a much broader subset of humanity).

Perhaps as a whole. But piece by piece, we prefer simplicity. More people own Green Day albums, Brittany Spears, and Kanye albums, all at the same time, than they do freeform Jazz.

Secondly, having a homogeneous party on a book cover sense the opposite message to players: parties need to be diverse and have a great deal of versatility.

Agreed. But why does a party need to have a huge degree of cultural/ethnic diversity? To put it simply, I think a party would be a lot cooler if all the PCs were norse. Or celtic. Or hebrews. Or Japanese.

Rather than a party where one guy is a celtic archer, another is a jewish priest, and a third is a japanese samurai (or even a celtic warrior, a jewish archer, and a japanese priest, to break the obvious type casts), I'd rather have a group entirely within the confines of one nationality. Call it personal preference. And I'd love to see that reflected in the art.

I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of WotC's art... my favorite art was always from either the 3.5 Eberron books or the third party 3.0 Ravenloft books. The problem with 4e art as a whole is that while it is certainly colorful, it completely lacks action (especially the covers).

I sort of agree here. What it lacks isn't action... what it lacks is STORY.

The best art, for me, has always been images that suggest a story. I love that 2e painting where the battered and bruised adventuring party proudly looks upon the wyrmling dragon they've just slain. Or that Elmore painting where an adventuring party is trying to surround a dragon emerging from a crevasse. Or even that painting where the pudgy wizard fondly looks upon a summoned nymph or something.

I much prefer the original Earthdawn cover (a mask, half-covered in silt, forgotten at the bottom of the ocean) or the Al-Qadim cover(a woman staring out from her palace upon a city scape) than any sort of action scene. ESPECIALLY one in which gonzo characters that have more in relation to a comic book than traditional fantasy art are busy flexing their muscles.

Edit: Oh yeah, and the psionic halos are stupid too, but this only reinforces my point... you visually distinguish your psionic characters not by giving them a stupid halo but by showing them doing something psionic. If you draw a dude, and there's all sorts of crap floating around him, okay, he's a psion. I get it. Somebody's punching a goblin in the face? Yeah, that's a monk.

Fully agreed. I think the reason they do it is to differentiate psions from wizards, visually. Still sucks.

***

Anyways, all this being said, I am a bit bugged by the half-giant/goliath art, but it's at the point where I just don't care. Wotc art doesn't bug me anymore, because I've ceased caring about it, or even really looking at it. There are exceptions in 4e products, but they're few and far between.

 

[Jhaelen]

Rather than a party where one guy is a celtic archer, another is a jewish priest, and a third is a japanese samurai (or even a celtic warrior, a jewish archer, and a japanese priest, to break the obvious type casts), I'd rather have a group entirely within the confines of one nationality. Call it personal preference. And I'd love to see that reflected in the art.

You already mentioned the reason why they don't do that. Political correctness. Because for every person liking such a cover there is another person who'll feel insulted because the band of heroes doesn't include 'X'. WotC obviously fears to lose sales if they don't conform to PC.

I remember someone complaining about the 'Dark One' art in the monster manual because the Dark One has 'a long nose' and concluded it was a sign of anti-semitism. Go figure.

Get used to it. Or print out a piece of art you like better and paste it over the book's cover.

 

[Gradine]

"Damsel", in this case, does not necessarily mean "princess". It means "person in trouble". So, fine, the PCs are rescuing a dude. Though, personally, I have absolutely no problem with it being a lady. Most of the women I know wouldn't, either. There's something cool about the image. One of my all-time favourite D&D images consists of a burly fighter-type protecting a female warrior-type from a pack of wolves.

Like it or not, this kind of scenario is tired and hack-neyed, is demeaning, and has been mocked so relentlessly by modern media that it no can no longer be taken seriously by the vast majority of the audience. I hate to pick apart a piece of artwork I've never personally seen, but by your simple description the image you describe is just as bad. It's even worse that she's described as a warrior; even though her very profession lends herself to getting in physical altercations, she still for some reason must be protected by a man, and against a fairly mundane threat, no less. Again, like or not, there are clear implications here that are the hallmark of the awful, alpha-male, sexist fantasy that the genre has thankfully (for the most part) grown out of. To return to this style would alienate too many newer players, to appease too few old grognards.

How is all of one ethnic group "similar"? I mean, we're not going to go into "they all look alike" territory, obviously. It's a fairly well known fact that there's more genetic diversity within an ethnic group than there is without. Just because everyone in that picture is a zulu tribesman, doesn't mean they all look alike.

It just gives the picture a bit more authenticity. It's sometimes better to focus on one thing ("hey, those zulus killed a dragon!") as opposed to variety within the piece ("Um, those adventurers... one is a zulu, one is a dragon-guy wearing samurai armour, and the third looks like some sort of intelligent bull-man with kung fu powers and medieval armour... uh. It looks like they killed a dragon....").

Agreed. But why does a party need to have a huge degree of cultural/ethnic diversity? To put it simply, I think a party would be a lot cooler if all the PCs were norse. Or celtic. Or hebrews. Or Japanese.

Rather than a party where one guy is a celtic archer, another is a jewish priest, and a third is a japanese samurai (or even a celtic warrior, a jewish archer, and a japanese priest, to break the obvious type casts), I'd rather have a group entirely within the confines of one nationality. Call it personal preference. And I'd love to see that reflected in the art.

You're ignoring the fact that adventuring parties are supposed to be different. It's one of the many things that make them unique. We've all enjoyed those "all-humans" campaigns that we've been in at some time or another in our pasts, but this is very far from the norm. I'd be honestly surprised if, looking back on your own history, you found that most of the adventuring parties you were a part of looked like the kind of artwork you're pining for. I can only speculate, but far more like than not they probably look much closer to the parties shown in WotC's artwork.

Real-world race and political correctness really have no bearing at all in this discussion, and I really can't fathom why they're such a sticking point for you. Not every human is going to be the Aryan ideal; people from different parts of every world are going to look somewhat differently, and as I've said, adventuring parties, by and large, are going to be made of characters of different races from different places. Again, this is the norm, and deserves to be highlighted in the artwork.

I agree with everything else you're saying, save that weird music tangent that mostly didn't really make any sense in context to the discussion and the part that did only proves my point. No one going to buy a Green Day album if every song on it sounds exactly the same (I guess people still buy John Mayer albums, so there's always that.)

 

[Kobold Avenger]

While I find the implications that diversity is somehow not ideal to be insulting, as I happen to be an Asian who lives in a very multicultural city.

Here's a couple things to consider when it comes to D&D art.

1. Most parties don't play all humans. Of course I find that a lot of the newer art tends to have the problem of having only Humans have non-whites, and other humanoid races by all-white.

2. While I do find it enjoyable if there was someone on the cover who looked like Bruce Lee or Jet Li, it's not the end of the world if there isn't. Of course not every player, plays a characters that happens to be their race. I've had a white person play a black character, and I've played a character that's sort of Roma (aka Gypsy).

3. Classic fantasy art is tired, especially if it has a damsel in distress. I think more people want to see a scantily clad woman kick ass.

4. Athas is a very sunny and hot world. If realism was applied, there wouldn't be any white people there.

 

[TarionzCousin]

4. Athas is a very sunny and hot world. If realism was applied, there wouldn't be any white people there.

Like California?

 

[PowerWordDumb]

4. Athas is a very sunny and hot world. If realism was applied, there wouldn't be any white people there.

Yeah, because evolutionary adaptation works on millennial scales instead of millions and millions of years like everyone thinks.

 

[Wik]

While I find the implications that diversity is somehow not ideal to be insulting, as I happen to be an Asian who lives in a very multicultural city.

Dude, where did you get that from? All I said was, diversity does not ALWAYS have to be the keyword in D&D art. When diversity is shoehorned into something, isn't that more insulting?

And I live in a very multicultural city, too. I happen to love multiculturalism, and cosmopolitan cities... so I kind of dislike it when even the smallest village in D&D art is like downtown New York. But that's a side issue altogether.

On a side note, I'd be curious to know which city you're talking about - I've lived in most of them. Victoria, here.

1. Most parties don't play all humans. Of course I find that a lot of the newer art tends to have the problem of having only Humans have non-whites, and other humanoid races by all-white.

Agreed.

2. While I do find it enjoyable if there was someone on the cover who looked like Bruce Lee or Jet Li, it's not the end of the world if there isn't. Of course not every player, plays a characters that happens to be their race. I've had a white person play a black character, and I've played a character that's sort of Roma (aka Gypsy).

Agreed as well. I'd love to see a ginger in D&D art that isn't a nerd. Now, ask me how many gingers I've played. The answer is less than one.

Like it or not, this kind of scenario is tired and hack-neyed, is demeaning, and has been mocked so relentlessly by modern media that it no can no longer be taken seriously by the vast majority of the audience.

I call shenenigans. The last three major motion pictures I've seen in the theatres have all had a "damsel in distress" that has been rescued by the male hero. A large portion of the audience (male and female) enjoy seeing that. Those movies, by the way, have all done pretty well. Audiences didn't seem to mind that much. (they are:

Spoiler

Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, and Avatar

).

I hate to pick apart a piece of artwork I've never personally seen, but by your simple description the image you describe is just as bad. It's even worse that she's described as a warrior; even though her very profession lends herself to getting in physical altercations, she still for some reason must be protected by a man, and against a fairly mundane threat, no less.

Maybe. You're probably right, in fact. I never saw it that way when I was growing up, and my girlfriend doesn't either. But I can see your point (and you're at a disadvantage here, having never seen the piece... it's from the dungeoneer's survival guide, or maybe the wilderness survival guide, from 1e days). For what it's worth, the thing I liked about it was the fact that it was WOLVES they were afraid of - it had a very sword & sorcery, "Conan" vibe to it.

I'm not saying I want super sexist pictures in D&D, either. I have no problem if the man is being protected by the woman. What I want are pictures that are STORIES. I want art that says "these are stories that you can play", as opposed to the general philosophy of 4e: "These are characters that you can play". There's a difference in approach, and I prefer the older way.

Again, like or not, there are clear implications here that are the hallmark of the awful, alpha-male, sexist fantasy that the genre has thankfully (for the most part) grown out of. To return to this style would alienate too many newer players, to appease too few old grognards.

Never been called a grognard before. Kind of weird, being under thirty and all.

***

More to the point, I find this an interesting argument, but it's derailing the thread. If we want to continue it, does anyone mind if I move it to another place?

 

[Gradine]

More to the point, I find this an interesting argument, but it's derailing the thread. If we want to continue it, does anyone mind if I move it to another place?

Done so here: Forked Thread: 4e Artwork

 

[Knightfall]

COOL.

 

[Knightfall]

Plus...

Chapter 1: The World of Athas