D&D (2024) Here's The New 2024 Player's Handbook Wizard Art

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nope. Pretty sure you looked through the viewfinder, and had to adjust for the fact the lens was lower. Google tells me the first SLR camera was 1936.

Edit: Even as a kid in the 80’s, there still were low end cameras that weren’t SLR.
Edit to my Edit: further googling shows it’s more complicated than that…

Fundamentally though you're correct - most significantly-used early camera designs did not use mirrors to convey the light to the plate. You can still get cameras and photography today that don't use mirrors. I was looking at a picture just today, taken a few months ago, a very striking image, which was taken with an extremely large plate and a camera with a fixed focal distance, no mirrors involved.

 

[Vaalingrade]

To be charitable, I think the poster meant a boy's fantasy of a nerdy girl. I hope.

I still think it's a bad take, but at least my interpretation doesn't smell of exclusionary grognard.

I mean between that, the 'sly' racial comments, the usage of 'anime' to mean 'thing what I don't like', the open description of disabilities as 'flaws', the open hostility toward creative embellishment of visualization, the nitpicking of clothing choice, and the complete lack of understanding of what superheroes are, the level of grogginess is simply suffocating.

Edit: Oh! And 'It's not D&D' junk. Surely someone has gotten a Bingo by now.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's almost like D&D came out of an inherently misogynistic subgenre of fantasy.

Hey! D&D derives from multiple inherently misogynistic subgenres of fantasy, with different styles of misogyny! Exclusionary, fetish-y (multiple different fetishes, too), hateful, worshipful, often multiple of these at once!

 

[Tonguez]

Personally, that isn't my issue about the glasses. Glasses IRL have been around since the 13th century IIRC, which for myself falls well within the range of "medieval period" for the fantasy I like to run.

It simply strikes be as odd for a powerful "wizard" which this image depicts to me. As I've mentioned upthread, magic can do all these amazing things in the game of D&D, but can't help impaired vision? Seems strange. Now, I've admitted the option they are "magical lens" of some sort makes more sense, even if not depicted in the way I imagine magical lens would work in the game.

Near and farsightedness, and astigmatisms are refractive errors caused by natural variations in the shape of the eye, they are not a disease or medical condition. They eye itself is normal, but the shape isnt perfect which is what causes individual variations - significant variations can lead to blindness though.

I suppose something like a doppelgänger might be able to change its eye-shape but I cant think of any DnD spell that can permanently reshape a body part in fine detail.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's well and good, but what kind of wishes is it fulfilling? 3d6 down the line was not the same fantasy as this.

I think that's one of the fundamental disconnects, here. D&D fantasy is evolving (or has evolved) into something where naturalism isn't welcome, and player characters are superheroic.

As others have pointed out, superheroism has always been present, and naturalism has always been selective at best. What has shifted is where the naturalism and superheroism are employed. And it really has been more of a gradual shift than a sudden one.

Traditionally, the trope with D&D wizards is that they sacrifice everything else for their power. They're physically weak, usually elderly, and not especially attractive (unless they're women -- a bit of sexism this art reinforces rather than subverts).

Right, because the target demographic was nerdy, usually white, boys. The wizard being physically weak and unattractive kept them relatable to that target demographic, while their superheroic abilities came from their intelligence, study, and preparation served that demographic’s power fantasy. Even their quadratic growth compared to the fighters’ linear growth satisfied the narrative of the jocks peaking in high school while the later-blooming nerds would be vindicated in the long-term with wealth and power later in life.

Now the iconic wizard looks like a typical floaty, glowy superhero, right down to the silly outfit and perfect figure. Does she look like she's ever had to sacrifice anything for her power -- aside from skipping meals, perhaps?

Well, she’s a woman of color, which puts her at the intersection of at least two demographics that are underprivileged in real life. I imagine there are plenty of young D&D players who would be thrilled to see someone who looks like them depicted in the game as being powerful, just as young nerdy boys were to see characters who looked like them depicted as being powerful. I don’t expect old, white-bearded wizards are going away any time soon, but it’s nice for there to be other wizards too.

I know I'm just an old man yelling at clouds, but I really dislike this shift: aesthetically; because of the relationship with the fiction it implies for play; and because it betokens a fantasy of unlimited, perpetual, consequence-free power and beauty which I think is fundamentally unhealthy.

I think you are giving too much credit to a silly pretend elf game. It’s ok, D&D wizards looking cool doing magic isn’t going corrupt the moral fiber of today’s youth, any more than video games did to my generation or comic books did to Gen X.

 

[Charlaquin]

I run several games right now and most of my games are split between the genders evenly. I asked the women what they thought of this new piece of art and they essentially said they love how badass she looks. Seems like her being "sexed up" isn't a problem that I'm encountering with the would-be aggrieved demographic. YMMV.

Yeah, characters can be attractive without being over-sexualized, and I would say this character does so easily.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I mean between that, the 'sly' racial comments, the usage of 'anime' to mean 'thing what I don't like', the open description of disabilities as 'flaws', the open hostility toward creative embellishment of visualization, the nitpicking of clothing choice, and the complete lack of understanding of what superheroes are, the level of grogginess is simple suffocating.

Yeah, this is reminding me of back when the Radiant Citadel book was announced and all of the sudden people were complaining about minor or ridiculous nitpicks that they hadn’t been for previous, similar books. They couldn’t say exactly why they were so upset about the book before it even released, but anyone with half a brain could absolutely tell what they were complaining about. It seems like it’s happening again.

 

[ezo]

The shift has been happening since 1974. It isn't sudden.

True, but the speed has been exponential.

Wizards were, very clearly not "elderly", because you rolled for age, and you were very young.

Oh, I disagree with this, especially for "wizards", as far as AD&D 1E goes:

Just looking at humans, the minimum age for a starting M-U was 26, and the maximum was 40! Compare that to ALL the other classes (barring Illusionist of course), where the ages from 16 to a maximum of 25 (the monk).

I don't recall if they had "age tables" in 2E, but they probably did and it might have changed then.

While I wouldn't call even 40 elderly by any means, it is significantly older.

 

[Reynard]

Even their quadratic growth compared to the fighters’ linear growth satisfied the narrative of the jocks peaking in high school while the later-blooming nerds would be vindicated in the long-term with wealth and power later in life.

I have never considered it in those terms before but that's, well, interesting at least (but probably beyond the scope of this thread).

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, this is reminding me of back when the Radiant Citadel book was announced and all of the sudden people were complaining about minor or ridiculous nitpicks that they hadn’t been for previous, similar books. They couldn’t say exactly why they were so upset about the book before it even released, but anyone with half a brain could absolutely tell what they were complaining about. It seems like it’s happening again.

I will reiterate that our likes and dislikes are usually driven by irrational, emotional reactions, and our attempts to identify logical reasons behind them are usually wrong. But for some reason we have an inherent discomfort with owning the inherent irrationality of our tastes, and make up post-hoc reasons to explain them to ourselves anyway.