For everyone who piles on Avalanche for their covers, please look

[Desdichado]

Tsyr wrote:

Jade and Steel (Which I own and love for the rules information) is probably the worst offender. A woman that's only BARELY asian in decent if at all, in clothing that isn't aisian in the slightest (much less chinese), with a sword that is _japanese_ instead of chinese, on a landscape that could be chinese perhaps but has nothing intrinsicily so about it.

I'd be careful about making generalizations about this. The Tarim basin mummies, not to mention tons of "barbarian" cultures that were often heavily integrated in Chinese society, were not the classic "New Mongoloid" physical type that we think of when we think of Asians today. Now, as to the clothing and equipment, to a certain extent the same thing applies. Historians used to think (sorta) that China developed in a vacuum, without major influence either way with, say, more western cultures. That view is no longer seen as viable these days. Influence, cultural exchange and the like passed back, forth and through China. Considering the vast ethnic assemblage that is "Chinese" picking out a clothing style and saying that it's inappropriate for a large area, made up of scores of ethnicities and covering a relatively large time period is not the kind of claim I'd like to try and back up.

 

[Ashtal]

The funny part is, since a cover's real job is just to attract attention to the product and keep it in the forefront of the audience's mind, Avalanche's covers are doing their job perfectly. If you have a gripe with Avalanche's use of flesh to move products, contact them directly, or don't buy their stuff. These two accomplish the goal of getting them to change. Drawing attention to them in a thread like this just makes people curious. They go check out the cover yall are rallying against, and some of them probably go "hey, that looks cool" and buy it. Then it appears to Avalanche that their production strategy is working, and we get more flesh.

Honestly it doesn't, and never has, bothered me. One look at the covers of such "women's" magazines as Cosmopolitan and Elle will show you the hypocrasy in attacking scantily clad women on products that are supposedly geared toward men.

I don't by Avalanche stuff. Not now, not ever. And I chime into threads like these to make it clear that there are people who find it offensive, silly, and misrepresentative.

And, yes, Cosmo and Elle ARE pushing the same unrealisitic body expectations and the worship of beauty above all things. They are there, in this case, to sell you the image, to tell you, "Read us, and we can make you be this." That is the implied promise. It is also a lie.

It's not hypocracy - it's the same damn problem creeping into women's media. Women = Sex = Object of Pursuit, no more, no less.

Is Avalanche's strategy a success? I don't know. I've seen one or two of the babe covers actually appear in my local store and they've been met with rolled eyes and annoying snarls by the patrons I've seen. Seems to me like companies like Sword and Sorcercy and Necromancer Games are doing better in this neck of the woods - their stuff is constantly ordered and reorderd and sold like hotcakes, with narry a boob or flash of ass to be seen.

Marketing is more than Boobies.


Ashtal

 

[King_Stannis]

Re: King, Do You Ever Feel Like A Voice Calling In The Wilderness?

...Just some thoughts my friend!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

and, as always, our thoughts are one my friend.

ps: I do sometimes feel like a lone voice in the wilderness, as i'm sure you do.

 

[King_Stannis]

...Seems to me like companies like Sword and Sorcercy and Necromancer Games are doing better in this neck of the woods - their stuff is constantly ordered and reorderd and sold like hotcakes, with narry a boob or flash of ass to be seen.

Marketing is more than Boobies.


Ashtal

Ahh, but we are forgetting the strategically placed scimitar over the Marileth’s chest in Demons and Devils. And, to be technical, S&S is doing the cover to Demon God.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

King Stannis,

OK, I have a better idea of where you are coming from.

While I feel that T&A does affect women in general (c.f. recently discovered 'tribal' cultures being exposed to western media and the reactions of the women thereof) I can't say that it bothers me in the same sense that, say, living in an area with the 2nd highest murder rate in the USA bothers me. There are many problems in the world and the fact that Milla Jovovich can earn more money by standing in front a camera than I can earn in a year simply doesn't make my top ten list.

What would bother me is if these kind of covers became the norm. I take enough crap for playing RPGs I don't need to be associated with the soft core porn industry.

However, as you noted. The primary purpose of a cover is to gain notice. 80% of all RPG sales are impulse buys and most of those impulse buys are made based on the cover (we can conduct informal polls on ENWorld all we want, this is some very solid marketing data collected by WotC just before the release of 3rd ed.) Ergo, if you want to sell a product the best way to do it is to spend a few thousand dollars on the cover art (and since small RPG publishers only sell a few thousand copies, I'll let you do the math on what this means to the consumer ... don't forget to account for markup by the vendor and distributor!) So on the one hand companies like Avalance are on some fairly solid ground.

However, as the consumer, I can make my descison about what I want to buy based on whatever I want. And I don't see the need for entire product lines to have lots of cheesecake. I will vote, as they say, with my dollar and I invite others to make whatever choice they want based on whatever criteria they have. After all, it isn't just about me.

 

[King_Stannis]

King Stannis,

OK, I have a better idea of where you are coming from.

While I feel that T&A does affect women in general (c.f. recently discovered 'tribal' cultures being exposed to western media and the reactions of the women thereof) I can't say that it bothers me in the same sense that, say, living in an area with the 2nd highest murder rate in the USA bothers me. There are many problems in the world and the fact that Milla Jovovich can earn more money by standing in front a camera than I can earn in a year simply doesn't make my top ten list.

What would bother me is if these kind of covers became the norm. I take enough crap for playing RPGs I don't need to be associated with the soft core porn industry.

However, as you noted. The primary purpose of a cover is to gain notice. 80% of all RPG sales are impulse buys and most of those impulse buys are made based on the cover (we can conduct informal polls on ENWorld all we want, this is some very solid marketing data collected by WotC just before the release of 3rd ed.) Ergo, if you want to sell a product the best way to do it is to spend a few thousand dollars on the cover art (and since small RPG publishers only sell a few thousand copies, I'll let you do the math on what this means to the consumer ... don't forget to account for markup by the vendor and distributor!) So on the one hand companies like Avalance are on some fairly solid ground.

However, as the consumer, I can make my descison about what I want to buy based on whatever I want. And I don't see the need for entire product lines to have lots of cheesecake. I will vote, as they say, with my dollar and I invite others to make whatever choice they want based on whatever criteria they have. After all, it isn't just about me.

all good points and well taken.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Considering the vast ethnic assemblage that is "Chinese" picking out a clothing style and saying that it's inappropriate for a large area, made up of scores of ethnicities and covering a relatively large time period is not the kind of claim I'd like to try and back up. [/B]

Noted.

I own a copy of the book the Tarim mummy archeologists wrote. I took a course at the Smithsoanian about Chinese archeology. China has a very rich and diverse history and culture. But, dude, find me the reference where ANY woman in the area we know as China or historical China dressed like the woman on the cover of Jade and Steel.

For bonus points show me a Norse woman who dressed in electrical tape like the cover of Ragnarok.

 

[hong]

The reason behind some people having a distaste for T&A is, if I’m not mistaken, the fact that they feel it degrades women. The cover for Demon God is every bit as gratuitous as anything Avalanche has done, and perhaps, surreptitiously, even more so. With Avalanche they have dropped all pretense and said “look, let’s get people’s attention by showing an illustration of a beautiful women on the cover. Maybe then, if they’ve got our product in their hands, they’ll give it a look”.

People who make this argument always remind me of Danny DeVito's character in _Romancing the Stone_. The scene is near the end, where Danny takes the gem off Kathleen Turner, saying that "I'm a thief, but I'm an honest thief". It seems to me that once the point is reached that people start saying okay to be a thief, as long as you're an honest thief, that's really an indication that they've run out of meaningful things to say. Trying to defend a position by pointing out other people's alleged hypocrisy amounts to evading the issue, and as far as I'm concerned, all it does is highlight the moral and/or intellectual paucity of those who try it.

As for the cover of Demon Fane, that's cheesecake too, and the same objections apply to it as to the Avalanche covers. Perhaps DF does have the rather comic-booky quality of its cover art as a mitigating factor. Comic books have always featured severely exaggerated physiques, and this isn't likely ever to change. This isn't exactly a great argument in its favour, though, since it amounts to dismissing the artwork as silly enough to be treated as a parody.

The problem with covers like Demon Fane is that it wants to achieve the same objective, but does so under the pretense that it somehow fits the story. As has been discussed numerous occasions, the AC benefit for a chainmail or leather bikini is nil. I’d never go into combat with one. ( ). How many of you have equipped female characters or even NPC’s with them?

I haven't, not in 15+ years of gaming. In fact, the best depiction of a female D&D fighter that I know of is Elmore's Laurana in The Death of Sturm. If that one somehow managed to escape your fevered attentions, Laurana is wearing plate armour and holding a dragonlance. They don't detract at all from her appearance; if anything, the garb contributes to her air of calm authority. The picture is meant to show a character who has the force of personality to lead armies into Hell if necessary, and it succeeds.

[ remaining silliness deleted ]

 

[Tsyr]

Tsyr wrote:



I'd be careful about making generalizations about this. The Tarim basin mummies, not to mention tons of "barbarian" cultures that were often heavily integrated in Chinese society, were not the classic "New Mongoloid" physical type that we think of when we think of Asians today. Now, as to the clothing and equipment, to a certain extent the same thing applies. Historians used to think (sorta) that China developed in a vacuum, without major influence either way with, say, more western cultures. That view is no longer seen as viable these days. Influence, cultural exchange and the like passed back, forth and through China. Considering the vast ethnic assemblage that is "Chinese" picking out a clothing style and saying that it's inappropriate for a large area, made up of scores of ethnicities and covering a relatively large time period is not the kind of claim I'd like to try and back up.

Yes, sure, you can always find exceptions to generalisations. I didn't feel like going into a lengthly post discussing possible reasons for variations.

Because, let's cut the academic theories here... Avalanche was not trying to make a point about how common assumptions about the cultural and racial development of ancient china are in fact sometimes in error. You know that as well as I. What they did was hire a cheesecake artist who didn't even bother to put in a half-days research (Like, say, even bothering to watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or something) in regards to the subject he was drawing, and then the company failed to care enough to make him redo it.

Not a company that seems very careful about getting historical facts correct, ne? Which is fine for most products (IE, the Cook work in question), but Avalanche has billed their books as "historical".

T&A is a part of fantasy unfortunatly, it has been for as long as I've been alive and longer I'm sure (I'm 21). Look at Boris' work, among others. But at least then it was blatent, no pretence, "This is T&A because we like it, so deal with it, after all, this is all fantasy, ne?" type stuff. Avalanche tries to step above the masses (as they see it I suppose) in terms of module content, but flop on cover presentation. Maybe they think that without a lot of T&A "historical" stuff wouldn't sell well, but judging by a lot of the posts on this message board clamoring for good historical stuff, it looks like they didn't bother to do their research on that fact either.

Ja'

 

[Ashtal]

Ahh, but we are forgetting the strategically placed scimitar over the Marileth’s chest in Demons and Devils. And, to be technical, S&S is doing the cover to Demon God.

Granted.

However, those boobs weren't there to say, "HELLO, big boy!" They were part of a demon who likely doesn't care what we think of her and is more than likely going to rip out our hearts given the chance. That, to me, is a far cry from the Avalanche covers, which basically have a "Screw Me" pose.

And granted again. Still not happy about it, mind you, but the S&S books I was refering to are more their hard cover reference books which have been steady sellers. This module cover seems a little out of step with the rest of their line.


Ashtal