D&D 5E Mearls and Crawford interview with The Mary Sue

[the Jester]

Indeed, for as long as I've been working on them, the rules for Strip D&D remain tantalizingly unplayable.

You're just not trying with the right people. *waggles eyebrows*

 

[Savage Wombat]

Indeed, for as long as I've been working on them, the rules for Strip D&D remain tantalizingly unplayable.

Your problem is that you're making clothing loss too punitive. Try using incentive instead. Instead of using the inspiration point system, give players bonuses and rerolls for sacrificing clothing items. Then, if they're not getting naked enough for you, make the fights harder.

 

[Lalato]

Your problem is that you're making clothing loss too punitive. Try using incentive instead. Instead of using the incentive point system, give players bonuses and rerolls for sacrificing clothing items. Then, if they're not getting naked enough for you, make the fights harder.

I believe 5e already has this Skinspiration Point mechanic built in.

 

[Libramarian]

For example, in the section on the human race in the Player’s Handbook, the [illustration representing humans] is a black woman. The illustration makes me smile every time I see it.

I find that a bit patronizing, personally.

 

[Selkirk]

I dunno, man, I get less of a "scandal!" vibe than a "WTF?" vibe. It's not "OMG these pics are TOO SEXY" its "Why do we have to see bare breasts in a book for people to pretend to be magical elves? Why is that a thing that happens?"

And "Because some straight dudes think breasts are maybe kind of sexy" isn't really a good enough reason.



Kids these days with their rock and roll music, amirite?

Again, I don't think it's prudishness as much as it is a consideration of the purpose these things serve. The purpose of the art isn't to titilate some subset of the D&D playing populace. If Mearls was editing a book like, I dunno, this little number, the calculus as to what kind of images you want in your product is different.

It's not prudish to omit nudity that doesn't serve the purpose of the product. D&D is something that we want 8 year old girls and 12 year old gay kids and 50 year old church nuns to be playing, and sexy sexy sex isn't a necessary part of playing the game, so including it is just going to put a barrier to entry there that doesn't need to be there.

The goal isn't "cover the shame!", the goal is, "We want everyone to play D&D," and pictures that focus on the awesomeness of D&D, and when I think of the awesomeness of D&D, I don't think of nakedness, since most games of D&D I've played keep everyone fully clothed.

just to stake out my position on this...i love d&d and bought the fifth edition (which i also plan on playing )....but you have somewhat proven my point here. the game as written now is safe enough for a five year old and a 50 year old churchgoer . but is this a good thing? playing it safe like this (and it isn't just the illustrations but the tone and tenor of recent editions as well...) is a recipe for boredom and the utterly forgettable.

again the history of the game argues against this very thing...the game we loved was generally viewed as the realm of outcasts/freaks/losers. and it was and we loved it ! present day rpg conservatism rests on faulty pillars...and of course plenty of moronic assumptions :
1) the never proven, but always assumed, notion that women and people of color like asexual characters and inherently fear/despise depictions of sexuality...this isn't true in real life why would it be true in rpgs?
2)that rpg's have an incredible amount of influence over the cultural development of children/women/teens/people of color...a picture of a buxomy barbarian in a phb has as much(or more !) influence on our innocent youth as a miley cyrus video-placing an outsized importance on 'scandalous' rpg illustrations is common in the cloistered world of the rpg blogosphere
3)the thickheaded idea that nerds are less horny now than they used to be (accompanied by the clueless sniff of the moralizer-that they should be less horny...horniness leads to hairy palms etc....)...this assumption is patently and provably false
4)rpg's should be all ages...why? should every movie or album that comes out abide by this same 'logic'? of course not. kids have games...adults have games. if need be release a d&d kid set .
5)they 'had' to do it for market reasons...this is the worst of the conservative arguments (as it hints that the prude actually would have liked something interesting...). there are a hundred utterly boring and kid friendly games already. why not try to make something provocative and daring...make something memorable. if you do that and fail it was still a noble effort. the first dungeons and dragons games were exciting because they were different...not because they tried to be like everything else. they didn't do market research..a group of guys made some things they liked and they sold every copy they could print.

 

[Melkor]

Stuff...

I can't give you more XP, or I would.

 

[I'm A Banana]

the game as written now is safe enough for a five year old and a 50 year old churchgoer . but is this a good thing? playing it safe like this (and it isn't just the illustrations but the tone and tenor of recent editions as well...) is a recipe for boredom and the utterly forgettable.

While I don't know that bare-bosom'd fictionalized Finnish goddesses or whatever are necessarily a remedy for boredom and forgetability, either, I think your assertion that something that appeals to both 5 year olds and 50 year old church folk is necessarily boring and forgettable is off-base.

I mean, I've played fun games of D&D with both of those kinds of people before. Very different games, but D&D's adaptability wins the day there.

the game we loved was generally viewed as the realm of outcasts/freaks/losers. and it was and we loved it !

It's still going to take a particular kind of dork to love pretending to be an elf enough to play it for four hours a week or more regularly, no worries. But there's no reason that a 50 year old nun and a 5 year old toddler can't be that kind of dork, really (and those that AREN'T that kind of dork can still go see the movie or play the game or whatever).

the never proven, but always assumed, notion that women and people of color like asexual characters and inherently fear/despise depictions of sexuality...this isn't true in real life why would it be true in rpgs?
...
the thickheaded idea that nerds are less horny now than they used to be
...
they 'had' to do it for market reasons

I don't think that these are anyone's actual ideas.

that rpg's have an incredible amount of influence over the cultural development of children/women/teens/people of color

I don't think that anyone imagines the magnitude to be so great, but it's totally the case that people who aren't adult Eurpoean males can enjoy this passtime, too, and there's no reason for the publisher to throw up barriers to entry for those folks by insisting on out-of-context artwork.

rpg's should be all ages...why?

Because there's no good reason they shouldn't be. Especially as those who grew up in D&D's heyday start having kids old enough to do basic math, it's becoming an appealing family activity, and it's flexible enough to accommodate that just as it is flexible enough to accommodate ninjas and paladins and blaster rifles and red dragons and half-giants and film noir and gothic horror and...countless other styles.

why not try to make something provocative and daring...make something memorable. if you do that and fail it was still a noble effort. the first dungeons and dragons games were exciting because they were different...not because they tried to be like everything else. they didn't do market research..a group of guys made some things they liked and they sold every copy they could print.

They ARE doing something provocative and daring. At the very least, they seem to have provoked you.

But not using sexuality as an easy sell to the all-important male 18-25 gamer demo? *And* depicting characters of diverse ethnicity that may not reflect the lion's share of the people who will pick up the game? There are plenty of marketing departments right now for whom this would be unthinkable and radical and insane.

That diversity is uncommon, and is making headlines (as we see right here with the article that started this thread -- it ain't about how gender-normative that paragraph is!). It's notable. It also seems to reflect the personal intent of the people designing the game.

So it seems that they are doing exactly this!

 

[Selkirk]

@Kamikaze Midget
i would label my feelings toward 5th as more disappointment rather than disgust . i really was looking forward to it...and now that i have it i like the mechanics but the setting and art(the soul of the game) are so vanilla and bland that it's a real turnoff. gone are the geeky(and yes horny) enthusiasms of an earlier d&d generation of writers and artists...replaced by the very staid and conservative 'market driven' approach of the present group at wotc. and....they could have done better-the players involved (mearls/rodney thompson/jon schindette) all love the game that is evident but what they have produced is soulless.

you either make provocative work or you make bland work...there isn't a middle ground. our memories of great film and music celebrate the original and distinctive voice...not the monotone corporate flatline of the marketeer. why invest such effort in something that claims to please all...as if this were something to strive for! did gygax think this way? obviously rhetorical . which isn't to say that they had to channel gygax but dammit the game is more than this moralizing asexual crap. why slap the fans(you know the people that actually bought and buy all the product) in the face with the holier than thou conservative jive-the tut tutting on top of a bland launch is what provokes.

not to run this into the ground-but how did mike mearls become an expert on what women and people of color want? a few surveys? read a blog? a journal of cultural studies? do women and people of color really want characters (and worlds) that are sexless and utterly bland in appearance and shape? i would argue that this is wrongheaded and condescending on a number of levels.

this is regression- a call for diversity which is actually a demand for sameness. norman rockwell has replaced frazetta as inspiration. drow aren't decadent sadists but rather elves that just look different and have perhaps a cruel curl to the lip(but not too cruel... hey some of them are heroes too-as the product placement for ra salvatore's drizzt tells me in the starter set). . why not present something exciting and sexy and the boring people can water it down...instead we start with the watered down and are told to spice it up-truly the lazy man's way to design a world.

but as you note ...i wasn't consulted and the decisions have been made...and i'll still play of course ( not with nuns ) but my visions are of heroes not my next door neighbor swaddled in a bedsheet !

 

[Agamon]

Didn't the playtest Barbarian have decent AC without wearing any armor? The way the rules were written, I remember thinking that you could easily do Conan in only a loincloth with them when I read that class description.

Sure. That doesn't change the fact that chainmail bikinis are the worst idea ever. Just wear a real bikini, seeing as all the mail is doing is causing chafing. If your going to leave the most vulnerable parts of your body open while wearing armor, don't bother with the armor.

I don't think 'sense' really has to apply when you are playing a game with levitating eye-balls that shoot magic rays, unicorns, and undead dragons.

Ah, that old nugget. There's magic, so nothing needs to make any sense. It's called verisimilitude. You can still have that in a fantasy setting.

 

[Lalato]

I can pretty much guarantee that a little bit of side boob is not the reason why I continue to play this game after more than three decades. If I want side boob I can find it elsewhere in massive quantities. In fact, I can find full on boob as well. To think that a lack of side boob is what turns someone off of an RPG seems odd to me.

I was introduced to the game via Basic D&D. I don't recall very many racy pictures in Basic. I guess you could count Morgan Ironwolf's chainmail bikini-esque outfit. I eventually "graduated" to AD&D. But it wasn't like I picked up AD&D because I wanted more side boob. I picked it up because I wanted more D&D.

Ultimately, I played a lot of different RPGs over the years. You know what. Some of them had side boob. Others did not. Calculating the data (or thinking back to younger years, whichever you prefer), I could find no correlation between amount of side boob and amount of fun had at the table.