D&D 4E Forked Thread: 4e Artwork

[Umbran]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please allow me to make something clear - you all agreed to some rules for posting here. They include, but are not limited to:

1) No profanity. The language filter is a last resort, not something to rely on to keep you safe - if you can't post without having smiley faces show up, you are way too heated, and should step away from the keyboard.

2) No name calling or insults. However fitting you may feel it is, if you're reduced to slapping labels on people, it is time to stop...

A couple of you have shown poor restraint in the sexism side of this discussion, specifically. Please don't continue in that line. There are other places where similarly heated stuff may be appropriate, but EN World is not one of them.

Thank you for your attention.

 

[Wik]

We can't possibly include a person of every race in every piece of art, so we just shouldn't bother at all? This is just a simplistic and illogical argument, and it's based off of one of the biggest misconceptions political correctness opponents have about diversity.

That's one way to read my quote. The other way to read it is ultimately as "the only race is the human race". There are so many divisions of human ethnicity that any attempt to convey that diversity is ultimately going to fail.

Yes, it's a simplistic argument, because those ones work the best. For what it's worth, I'm no real opponent of political correctness; I am an opponent when it comes down to art. Making the new karate kid black was cool, because it's a new story opportunity. That ol' 1980s trick of adding a black character to every action movie (and then, usually, killing him off) is not cool.

Look at popular media in this country (and from Europe) over the last century. Until very recently, the only people who were allowed to be the "heroes" were fair-skinned, and usually male. For a very long time the fantasy genre has fallen in lockstep with this.

Yyup, and that sucks. But I never said ANYTHING against that. If you'll remember, I never said ANYWHERE that fantasy art should just be white dudes. What I SAID was that I wish there was less diversity in individual art pieces. That's an entirely different statement.

And again, as I mentioned several times in the previous thread (though it bears repeating here) D&D parties are encouraged to be diverse, be it race, class, or background. The more diverse the party is, the broader the possibilities exist in both gameplay and RP. Why not reflect that in the artwork?

Don't those "typical" adventuring parties all meet in a village tavern somewhere? Aren't they all from within 50 miles of said village tavern, with the races all making up the local population? Why shouldn't they wear similar clothes, and have similar appearances? Sure, you may have an elf, a dwarf, and a human, but wouldn't it be kind of cool if they all wore asian-style clothing?

I want less diversity in my individual D&D art pieces, simply because in D&D, the adventuring party is a character in and of itself. The Party I GM for right now consists of five individuals, but it is also an entity in an of itself, and if I were to take one of the PCs and put them in a new group, his/her means of behaving would be entirely different. That adventuring party wears different armour types, wields different weapons, and no party member is the same race as any other (well, the shadar-kai and the drow belong to the same "Species", I suppose, in my world). Yet, this adventuring party all shares a similar "look" in how they dress and behave.

A little bit less diversity in individual art is a good thing - not every picture needs to consist of U.S. "Melting pot" adventuring parties (or Canadian "Cultural Mosaic" B.S.). I see absolutely nothing wrong with an adventuring party that would make more sense in a pre-industrial society.... "Diversity" be damned.

 

[Jhaelen]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with an adventuring party that would make more sense in a pre-industrial society.... "Diversity" be damned.

I'm not sure if an adventuring party 'makes sense' at all. Historically, what did a pre-industrial adventuring party look like?

Let's compare to a setting which actually bothers to explain the existence of adventuring parties: Earthdawn.

I think every single piece of art showing an adventuring party includes no more than one individual from each of the available races. This serves two purposes:
- It underscores that adventurers are something special and can come from any background.
- It serves to show off the diversity of the setting. It tells the viewer something about the world of Earthdawn, i.e. that it's possible to play not only humans but also small winged elf-like beings, lizardmen, rocklike beings, or horned giants.

 

[deadsmurf]

I prefer seeing diversity in D&D art - my favourite setting (Eberron) is a cosmopolitan world, where the humans of the main nations are very mixed in skin colour, and even multiple races live together regularly (the 3.5 phb races are pretty much common in ever village, town and city, everywhere)
Also the setting has fewer gender role stereotypes than the real world, with sex equality being the expected norm.

But really how many adventuring parties have more than one human in them anyway? It's really not much of an issue.


I pretty much expect art to follow suit from what I'm expecting out of the parties that will be played - a single human, and 3 to 4 random races, 2 or 3 of the characters being female.
I really wish Wotc would start having the characters Do something instead of just posing though (though I like that just fine for PHB covers)

 

[MrMyth]

That's one way to read my quote. The other way to read it is ultimately as "the only race is the human race". There are so many divisions of human ethnicity that any attempt to convey that diversity is ultimately going to fail.

But again - so, the attempt shouldn't even be made?

The goal of having the diversity is to avoid all the art being of white guys. If you want to take it a step further and have the diversity less predictable, that is one thing. But the most likely result, if they stepped back from pushing for diversity in every shot, is that we'd return to having a bunch of white guys.

Right now, what we have, is that odds are good that gamers of different ethnicities could come across a random piece of WotC art, and find themselves represented in it. That is absolutely a good thing, and yes, it is somewhat priviledged of you to want to take that away because you aren't impressed with enforced diversity in WotC's artwork.

 

[Wik]

But again - so, the attempt shouldn't even be made?

The goal of having the diversity is to avoid all the art being of white guys. If you want to take it a step further and have the diversity less predictable, that is one thing. But the most likely result, if they stepped back from pushing for diversity in every shot, is that we'd return to having a bunch of white guys.

What? Where do I talk about wanting it to all be white guys? I am specifically saying that in INDIVIDUAL pieces of art, I'd prefer there to be a bit more of a cultural/ethnic theme. I want a piece of D&D art that is mesopotamian themed, one that is egyptian themed, one that is celtic themed, and so on and so forth.

Skin colour/ethnicity does not factor into it. I have no desire to "return to a bunch of white guys". But I don't want art that seems to use the shotgun approach (shoot as much as you can onto the page, and hope something hits) when it comes to diversity.

What I do not like is every piece of art belonging to that same non-descript 4e world (and 3e did this, too). Every piece is thematically tied to the same setting. And that bores me. And it bugs me when EVERY PIECE OF D&D ART nowadays is multicultural/multiethnic/diverse.

Right now, what we have, is that odds are good that gamers of different ethnicities could come across a random piece of WotC art, and find themselves represented in it. That is absolutely a good thing, and yes, it is somewhat priviledged of you to want to take that away because you aren't impressed with enforced diversity in WotC's artwork.

How is it privileged of me? Aren't you making some pretty big assumptions? For what it's worth, I'm half native, and half red-headed ginger kid. Neither of those "ethnicities" get much representation in game art. My native side is only seen in D&D art as "primal, down to nature" people, and the only red-headed males you'll see in work are either pudgy halflings or "nerds". The last real red-headed badass out there was Tanis Half-Elven, who, for what it's worth, was probably my favourite D&D character until my early twenties for a variety of reasons.

And I have no problem if people of irish roots are still ignored in D&D art. Ditto for natives (though it does bug me a tad). I'm a big boy, I can handle it. But if I do see a native character in a "shotgun approach" group, I just kind of roll my eyes at the inevitable headdress or eagle companion he has, and say "there's the token native character". I'd be much more impressed to see a piece of art that has an entirely native-american theme to it, as opposed to just one character standing around with a bunch of other stereotypical ethnicities.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Actually, one thing that the cover actually conveys a lot better than the rest of the concept artwork is the concept of non-metallic weapons. The only other artwork on there that really does a great job of it is this one. The stone maul... and especially the wood-and-bone mace. Excellent.

Yeah... can't say I like that piece at all... the poses are rather ridiculous (they look like exactly that, not like a fight is occuring) and each person has no connection with the next - its like they were all shot seperately on green screens and then edited into the picture.

Now, there is a pic up on the GW sneakpeaks page with a dwarf being flattened by some rhino being - I find the chitin armour on the dwarf quite evocative and the picture ties together far better - though I'm not a fan of the jumping person in the back, as I can't really tell what he/she is or is doing.