Nudity in RPG books?

[Sejs]

Acceptable nudity: http://classweb.ghc.edu/art100/images/delacroix.jpg

Yep, the woman is indeed nigh-topless. What I want to know is what the heck happened to that guy on the floor's pants! Or his other sock! There's a story behind that pantless, mono-socked deadman, mark my words.

 

[Sejs]

-- Had a demon rip the head off a character and then scoop out the brains from the neck side and eat them

So what kind of action did that take to perform? Was that a move-equivalent, or did the demon just wait until next round to have its mid-battle snack?

 

[billd91]

Acceptable nudity: http://classweb.ghc.edu/art100/images/delacroix.jpg

the woman and the fact that she is topless is not the point of the art. That is what separates porn from art in my book. Art is good.

Aaron.

I dunno. If the nudity isn't there for a reason, then it's gratuitous. And in the case of this French revolution painting, it's not there for any discernable reason that I can think of.
If the nudity is there because the art is depicting things that are reasonably likely to happen (characters walk by provocatively dressed prostitutes, captured characters chained up and stripped of all equipment, characters bathing in a stream, characters jumping out of bed to ward off a surprise raid by orcs, etc) then I'm not at all opposed to it. Topless women in incongruous situations, even when they are symbolizing liberty or other ideals, is gratuitous nudity even if it's considered a classic of fine art (underlining some of the hypocracy in the social critic world, I think).
Personally, I'd like to see more nudity in media around me and less violence, especially on TV and in the movies. Nudity is normal for all people in various activities of their lives. Violence is not. I'd prefer my media to reflect that more. Funny how violence is more acceptible than a staged "wardrobe malfunction". Pathetic too.

 

[Dogbrain]

I dunno. If the nudity isn't there for a reason, then it's gratuitous. And in the case of this French revolution painting, it's not there for any discernable reason that I can think of.

I guess liberal education no longer exists.

The woman here is an allegorical figure, "Liberty leading the masses". As such, she has aspects of a fertility goddess, which means that a single bared breast is symbolic of that aspect. Likewise, as a sort of amazon, only one would be bared.

 

[Raduin711]

I strongly feel that nudity is like profanity. Both can be used to make a point and give a product a certain feel. However, a skilled writer or artists can make the same point better without use of either and I think that too often nudity and profanity are used more for shock value than for any actual augmentation of the material they take place in.

True, true. But sometimes it also behooves us not to include it; For instance, if someone wanted to write a scene in a book that took place in a seedy bar. The purpose of the scene has nothing to do with the swearing that (inevitably) takes place in it. Glossing over the colorful vocabulary or censoring it completely is dishonest. It is, after all, a seedy bar.

The bottom line is, considering our audience (which an author must do) we may want to accept a certain level of dishonesty to keep from turning away the potential audience. Too much honesty (nude minotaurs) or too little (Harpy wearing a tube-top) can disenfranchise the audience. From my perspective, I think that WOTC leans toward the side of having too little honesty, though i can understand why.

 

[Dogbrain]

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

And the next, inevitable, step is to vehemently demand that it be put onto every other page of all core rule books. Of course, such claims will be accompanied by snide personal insults of "what is everybody afraid of". It's the intolerance of dogmatic tolerance. "If it doesn't bother me, then nobody else in the world has the right to be bothered by it." Anybody here bothered by the idea of making a movie that features a woman in her thirties getting jiggy in the bathtub with a ten-year-old-boy--who is played by a boy that is actually ten years old? Guess what, the movie's been made and it stars Nicole Kidman. Obviously, SOME liberal lunatic somewhere thought it was a good enough idea to fund and make this movie. So, does that mean that those of us who would not wish to have this sort of thing foisted upon our daily lives are being "narrow-minded" and "intolerant"?

 

[Piratecat]

Consider this a gentle nudge back towards nudity in RPG Books.

 

[Agback]

What I want to know is what the heck happened to that guy on the floor's pants!

Easy. It is the French Revolution, right? There is nothing remarkable about teh sans-culottes.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Kahuna Burger]

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.

This is a problem I have as well. First of all, lets leave aside age and go for reasonable proportions... That topless amazon archer has worked out her chest muscles for years practicing with that bow, and as a result, she should be lucky to have a B cup. Its a simple fact of life that women in top physical form have lost a lot of their body fat, including the soft cuddly padding on the breasts. Even a high level magic user or psion has developed fighting ability and physical reserves that should be represented by a more 'toughened up' look.

Of course for the wood elf sporting a D cup, that brings us to the next issue... While nudity can be more comfortable under many conditions, high impact exercise isn't one of them... Archery sounds like it would be right out. But seriously, I was (prior to pregnancy) a fairly small chested woman (and I MISS it!) but I still could not jog without some sort of bra. There was a great cartoon I saw once of a woman in a tee shirt running across a street holding her breasts in her hands. It was titled "The Do It Yourself Jog Bra (or: how women run when we think no one is watching)" and it's totally true. The wood elf or the amazon might very well hang out topless around the house, or be complete nudists when not adventuring, but when they go out to hunt or fight, there will be some binding up done.

and, of course, any situation where the women are going nudist should have some men in the same state. If there aren't the nudity isn't there because it's "appropriate", its there to tittilate.

I voted 1 after making sure everyone knew it was a horribly written poll, because I neither need nor want nudity in my rpgs. And I just want to thank Elton for exposing me to the adorable little lable "textile" for the first time in years.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Dogbrain]

Of course for the wood elf sporting a D cup, that brings us to the next issue... While nudity can be more comfortable under many conditions, high impact exercise isn't one of them.

There is a film clip of a gymnast wearing only a bikini bottom. She does a simple run and vault. It plain looks painful to even see her run, much less do the vault. I hope she was well paid.