Nudity in RPG books?

[Psion]

What are people afraid of? That their kids will grow up and have sex?

I realize that I formulated the question provocatively,

If you realize it, why did you even post it? You know you are begging for a political fight, and you know the rules of the board. Are you begging for the poll to be closed? If anyone entertains your question, we are down to the same old flamewar over and over again.

This thread has gone way beyond talking about gaming and is well into (rude) social commentary when people start tossing sarcastic jibes like "What are people afraid of? That their kids will grow up and have sex?"

 

[Piratecat]

This is a tricky subject because it's something that people feel strongly about, and that means that they may have an axe to grind. Please keep your posts away from advertisements for / condemnations against the nudist lifestyle, and don't make provocative statements designed to tick off the folks reading. We're not here to try and prove that everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.

Instead, keep the thread focused on the actual topic: nudity in RPG books.

 

[Psion]

Okay, trying to distance myself from the hot button here, here's my fundamental problem:

Even games that make a good claim that their pics are appropriate are primarily marketing to young men who want to see titilating images. SS&S has their heat-generating sorcerers (which I find a fourth-wall breaking move, BID) and primitive wood elves illustrated topless. Okay, topless art is appropriate in relaiton to the setting. But here's the rub: have you ever seen a sorceress or elf not drawn with the approximate age and vital statistics of a playboy model? It makes the whole "it's in context" thing seem rather transparent.

(On the other hand, I ought be careful what I wish for. I am not eagerly awaiting bare-breasted hags in my books.)

 

[diaglo]

yeah without pics of three foot long schlong wielding satyrs or demons i don't think there is enough fair play by the artists.

chainmail bikini babes did it for me when i was 11. but now... well i can buy real pics of real women doing real things.

 

[Crothian]

Nudity has very little place in RPGs, it is just not needed. I can't think of a single example of a nude picture in an RPG that actually added something to the book. It's used to grab people attention and to just be of shock value it seems.

 

[hunter1828]

But here's the rub: have you ever seen a sorceress or elf not drawn with the approximate age and vital statistics of a playboy model?

Lots, actually. Some of it published in gaming books, some of it merely posted on the artists web site.

But, as to the approximate age and vital statistics... Well, considering the youngest Playboy Playmate was a few days shy of her 18th birthday when she posed (Elizabeth Ann Roberts, January 1958) and the oldest was 35 when she posed (Rebecca Stamos, January 2003) you run a wide range of ages there, although the average age is 22 and so you do have something of a point, only on the age/appearance though.

The average vital statistics is 35-23-35, though there have been a number of playmates with smaller breast sizes (Miss May 2004 was a 32B, if I remember correctly). Interestingly enough, since the 1960s the average weight has increased about a pound since, and the average height increased about two inches. The average bust size has dropped about an inch, waist size has increased an inch and hip size has remained about the same.

Just something to put it in persepctive, for either side really, as this can be interpreted in many ways.

Hunter, who now has to go to work.

 

[Psion]

Lots, actually. Some of it published in gaming books, some of it merely posted on the artists web site.

I -- and this thread -- am not particularly concerned about what does not appear in books.

Lots in books? I have a lot of RPG books, and find your estimation of "lots" faulty.

The discussion of how playboy models have evolved over the years in largely irrelevant. I merely used that to singify a young and sexually attractive woman. Which most nude (or scantily clad) pics in RPG books depict.

 

[el-remmen]

Personally, if it fits and it works then I see no problem with nudity in RPGs. I recently picked up the BoVD and while I loved it I was shocked at how tame the art was. I am not neccessary, but a little bit of discomfort would have been appopriate for a book of that kind.

I want demon-women with three sets of breasts cutting open the lower torso of some paladin and lapping up the blood with her forked tongue. I do not mind seeing drawing of druids doing human sacrifice in the nude, or taking part in some ritual that involves sex.

I just think people that don't like that stuff or don't want it as part of their gaming experience should simply not buy those books - but I personally run a game with some "mature themes" - including an incestuous greater succubus with six breasts that often copulates with her own half-fiend brood in wild group sex even as she squeezes out yet another demon baby (the party found color plates in a book about demons that depicted just such a scene) - for me the discomfort such an image evokes is exactly what I am going for. . . It is not meant to be an arousing thing, but something to fill the players with disgust and give them a sense of the perverse and corruption of mortal morality of their main foe.

On the other hand, to me gratuitous nudity is the kind of thing a bunch of people mentioned - naked or half-clothed adventurers for no good reason, etc. . .

 

[Psion]

I just think people that don't like that stuff or don't want it as part of their gaming experience should simply not buy those books

Again this brings us to the subject of relevance. There have been many books whose content I have appreciated but whose art is not related to the topic at hand. So, I must forego a book I want because I don't want those pictures in my gaming material?

I thnk I'd ruther the publishers keep it tame where it's not appropriate, and grab a Royo book if I want fantasy nudes.

 

[el-remmen]

Again this brings us to the subject of relevance. There have been many books whose content I have appreciated but whose art is not related to the topic at hand. So, I must forego a book I want because I don't want those pictures in my gaming material?

I thnk I'd ruther the publishers keep it tame where it's not appropriate, and grab a Royo book if I want fantasy nudes.

Cross out or blank over the pictures and use the resulting white space for notes on house rules or something. . .