Yep. Despise abuses of male and female forms in art. But careful with that brush. It gets awfuly wide and slops a lot of paint. Give me examples and contexts and I might or might not agree.
Maybe it's a question that does not have simple answers. There's not just the artists choice of subject matter, poses, and what all but the choices of the art directors who select that art over different images and then the sensibilities of INDIVIDUALS who view that art.
Don't want the thread to go on a tangent, since this thread wasn't about art but about homosexuality in games.
Just to add a benchmark, though, to turn a good movie script into a porn movie is a shame.
I don't necessarily disagree - but who gets to be the censor who determines what _I_ am able to view objectively?
And who is the censor who determines that I *have* to see tasteless art in books?
Censorship works both ways.
See, I'm a reasonably mature adult (definitely in age, somewhat less so in attitude
) Are we talking about what _I_ should be viewing, or what a 12 year old should be viewing? Game materials are sold to both. Don't be condemning the larger gaming community about art content because we haven't strung up
art directors who are still choosing chainmail bikini artwork.
You conveniently ignored (or at least didn't use) the part where I mention that chainmail bikinis do have a place if used properly.
For what? Tame, family-friendly art throughout all gaming publications? Parental supervision over the media consumption of their children? Alterations of societal attitudes towards sex to be universal and conforming to one persons dictates? Redefinition of what RPG fantasy gaming is or is not allowed to be?
If anything, to stop "art" that looks stupid and promote art that doesn't look stupid.
And actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea if we also did it to give women the dignity they deserve and that has been denied for so many decades.
Oh, and because, as an art director, I rather see good art direction than crap art direction.
I'll put it this way: For myself, I do not prominently feature sexuality in my games for the same reason I would not inquire into the sexuality of my players. I do not run D&D and other RPGs for players to openly explore questions of sexuality, hetero- or otherwise. If for some reason it should come up in game and need to be dealt with on anything more than a superficial basis then I suppose it would be dealt with as such and then in all likelihood left behind.
Yep. That seems to be very much a norm. People don't include sexuality in their games, even though they (for obvious reasons) include cross-gender player characters.
It really isn't a question I've had to deal with and don't see any reason why I should need to go out of my way to establish some kind of personal policy on. I haven't had a game that has dealt with sex beyond the visitation of brothels, and once or twice a sex change cursed item. When I get a player who wishes to prominently and actively define a character by their sexual orientation and not just picking M/F I hope it will be for some reason OTHER than to simply keep that fact a preeminent topic in gameplay.
The point is that you don't know what other reason there could be because they haven't done it and neither have you.
My inquisitive mind (one has to be inquisitive to be a counsellor) wonders why.
That's quite unfortunate and allow me to convey my sympathies - but this, frankly, is not an issue regarding D&D. It would be an issue regarding the individual concerned and the attitudes of his/her so-called gaming friends. It is a an issue between real individuals seated at a table but I don't see it as a topic the game itself needs to address in any way.
Maybe because if the game addressed it it wouldn't happen to readily.
I should think at least as many as those who don't bother exploring a character whose gender is opposite their own.
And, alas, you'd be incorrect. If anything this thread is making clear, is that a lot of people play cross-gender characters.
Again, an issue for you and those at YOUR game table, as it would be an issue for me and mine to come to grips with should it arise at our table.
And why at my table? Why not at a table at a convention?
Also, they were genuine questions. Dismissing them rather than answering them doesn't really lead anywhere.
I hope I phrase this as I wish it to be understood: Do not presume to tell someone else what kind of characters they should play nor what aspects of their character they should explore. Their character should not be an issue you need to concern yourself about unless the characters behavior is something you find obnoxious and/or offensive in game or out. Then it becomes a subject needing mature discussion among players and with DM's if there is a need for some enforcement of at-table attitude adjustment.
At no point I have told anyone, or inferred in my post, that people *should* do anything. I have asked if they don't and why?
Nobody has an obligation to openly deal with questions of character sexuality, PC or NPC. Again, given the question of the very wide spread in age and maturity of intended customers for RPG products, to say nothing of their utterly unknowable real-world mores, beliefs, and practices there is good motivation to decidedly ignore the subject and just leave it to the individual DM and table to grapple with as they see fit.
True about the obligation (except maybe some ethical obligation to acknowledge the integration of minorities within anything) and I understand the commercial sense.
However I find that one terribly sad.
Male and female are distinctions that have existed since humans became self-aware.
So his homosexuality.
On a clock scale between that time and today, the OPEN engagement of questions of human sexuality beyond male and female gender is not even a single tick. Engagement of questions of race is only slightly longer and though I believe humanity as a whole has made progress in that area as well, it too is a subject that is FAR from decided.
Completely untrue. We, as human beings, have been questioning and dealing with sexism, sexuality, racism and many other issues for millennia.
I still think the subject of sexuality is less a question that the gaming community needs to grapple with and more a concern with individual conduct at YOUR game table.
Any why is that?
