Nudity, inclusivity and racial representation in RPGs

[Salamandyr]

Yeah I'm done. I'm not going to have any sort of real discussion here with you putting words in my mouth. I really don't have the patience for it.

Then have a good day, or evening.

 

[Bartholomew Klick]

I'll commit to replacing one backer who dropped because of the inclusivity statement. Gaming is for everyone and should make pains to say so.

So, today we made a statement on race and gender inclusivity, along with nudity and sexuality in my book ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimandperilous/zweihander-grim-and-perilous-rpg/posts/1813848



I figured I'd nip this one in the bud before fulfillment, so nobody is surprised. Most opinions in our comments section and on Facebook have been positive and supportive, whereas others have been damning. We've already received some requests for refunds, which I fully intend to refund at 100%.

Lovely bits; bait and tackle; cash and prizes - however you want to categorize them, the full monty is on display in our artwork. Sometimes, it's done tastefully. Other times, it's lurid and purposefully sexualized. My initial takeaway from this is that violence = okay, but when it comes to penises, vulvas and/or intersex = offensive.

What are your thoughts on nudity and inclusivity in RPGs?

EDIT - UPDATE
We've always aimed for contextual appropriateness in the artwork. For fans of Warhammer, the context is readily apparent. For others that are unfamiliar with the work, you have to read into the creature's descriptions to get a good feel for why a handful of creatures have their naughty bits exposed.

For clarification, however, the only nudity we have up to this point is restricted to the bestiary.

While I can concede to the 'inappropriateness' of sexualized nudity in the book for those who wish to expose their little ones to ZWEIHÄNDER, I personally believe that it's no different than having a discussion with them about emulated violence in a game that's intended to be violent. Frankly, ZWEIHÄNDER - and Warhammer in general - is and has always been for mature audiences.

EDIT 2 - UPDATE
Just posted this over at Kickstarter:

Hey gang, we had a long, hard talk internally last night.

While we can concede that some of the artwork needs to be changed, we also want to keep the integrity of our artistic vision intact regarding nudity. Our first step is to 'desexualize' the artwork, and address the penises and breasts in a more natural way. Some may be tactfully changed, whereas others may disappear entirely. However, we intend to keep a few creatures in their 'natural' state (such as the Nephilim & Skrzzak Broodmother). We are also going to readdress the Carnal Demon (daemonette) in a way that's less fetishized and offensive to our transgendered fans. I'll post another update once we make the changes.

And, as before, if you are dissatisfied with our approach, we'll give you a refund, no questions asked. Thanks!

So naughty bits still exposed in a few rare cases, but less sexualized and more natural. Thanks everyone for your comments - constructive, supportive and otherwise!

EDIT 3
Just posted this over at Kickstarter:

We appreciate everyone's feedback on the recent batch of artwork for the bestiary. It's a critical part of our design process, and a way for us to self-check ourselves against the needs and wants of the community.

Following this, we spent the weekend revising a number of creatures from the bestiary. This includes dialing back the explicitness, and revamping a handful of creatures whose images could be taken out of context. The changes manage to 'sanitize' some of the images, while keeping with our vision of the bestiary.

The following includes revised images and a handful of ones we haven't made public yet. Kickstarter's interface won't allow us to dial in the image size correctly, so they may appear to be of lower quality than they actually are.

We'll work on releasing Professions and Races images later this week, as to better explain our approach to real-world racial and gender inclusiveness in the character artwork.

Thanks everyone, and happy gaming!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/1817859

 

[Imaculata]

That's not her tail. It's a barbed phallus.

It's not a good drawing, I'm sorry to say. I'm just being bluntly honest about it. Many of the other drawings look fine, but this one isn't up to a high enough quality. I would advise to replace it with a different drawing on the Kickstarter page.

Drawing women is hard. Heck, drawing human-figures in general is hard. I know all about it. I attend a sketch session every month where professionals and amateurs gather to draw a nude model (usually a woman), and I'm not sure if my skills will ever get close to those of the professionals. But when you attend a session like that, you see just how many people get it wrong, and how difficult it is to get it right. It's not just the proportions, but also the pose and the perspective. It all has to be just right.

 

[Bartholomew Klick]

I could be persuaded to help on the art front.

 

[Lylandra]

Phew, quite a can of worms you've opened

As a first disclaimer, I'm certainly not the target audience of ZWEIHÄNDER, as I'm not a fan of "grim, realistic & gritty". But I do have my opinion on art and RPG art in particular, so I think my feedback could be helpful.
Also, I'm a German and you know what they say about Germans and nudity... let's just say that our TV shows are generally not R because of nudity or sexual content, but because we have a much thinner skin for depictions of violence.

In terms of nudity, I'd include it (with an appropriate warning sign) when it makes sense. Creatures who don't have any need for protection via clothing and/or who don't feel the need to dress because they don't feel any sense of modesty wouldn't wear clothes. However, I'd be cautious to not apply anthropocentric standards or our "usual cultural views" when creating such creatures or art of such creatures.
My pet peeves here are genders, dimorphism and how to display them. When I look into usual RPG bestiaries, I see either "bestial" monsters who don't display any dimorphism or "semi-humanoid" monsters (including demons, demihumans, undead, horror spawns etc) who display typical human dimorphism. Also, we see a tendency to use a default male anatomy to any "general purpose" monster and a tendency for a female anatomy to be used for a "sexy type" monster (succubus, pleasure fiend, harpy...). And this general trend is just unnerving. Why does every creature have to have exactly two genders? Why does every female of a species have to have breasts and a hourglass figure? Why does every male of a species to be the bigger, broader, more muscular one? We already see more variety in the species we encounter on earth? Why then would a fantasy environment where magical stuff can happen have *less* variety in their living fauna?

To fully satisfy me, a creature has to make sense. To pick up your discussion, I'd take breasts and penises, the two organs which were a matter of debate. Human women have rather large breasts when compared to other species. Some scientists say because they are a symbol for matureness, fertility and health and signal the ability to feed children. When you consider this, large breasts (or any kind of breast)don't make any sense on any creature who 1) doesn't breastfeed 2) doesn't stand upright or 3) doesn't want to mislead human(oid) males for specific reasons. Same thing applys to the hourglass figure and/or wide hips when it comes to creatures who don't give birth to large live children. Humans also have rather large visible penises, again a symbol for fertility and a relaxed stance (they shrink when one is in a stressed state). This only makes sense when the creature displaying it is standing upright. Many quadrupedal animals have rather large penises, but they are hidden most of the time. Also, it only makes sense on creatures who happen to use it for reproduction.
Also, western beauty standards. We rarely see any body hair on humanoids despite having low-magic (or no-magic) systems. Okay, we got the hairy chest guy from time to time, but on WOMEN? Even monstrous women seem to have clean-shaven bodies. And even if they all got magically access to appropriate razors, then why on earth would every (monstrous) humanoid society hate body hair? And yes, I loved the bearded dwarf ladies from ye olden D&D 2e.

For diversity, as you can propably guess from my prior exposition, I'm all for diversity. Racial, cultural, sexual diversity. It doesn't have to necessarily be a big giant melting pot and I also appreciate settings which only use specific cultures or races. But there should be a variety in which of them are used and a repeated use of generic "quasi-medieval europe" can get a bit boring when you yourself stem from Europe.

 

[Morrus]

Actually, that's exactly what it means

No, that's not exactly what it means. "Inclusive" in this context is shorthand and has a very specific meaning related to the equalization and correction of minority exclusion and visible representation. It is not the general English usage (like "theory" in scientific terms isn't the general English usage). It seems odd to discover somebody who doesn't know that in 2017, but there you go. That's what it means.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Thanks everyone for your comments on this issue.

We addressed it directly in our AMA, but I am certain we've managed to realign everything (moving from rated X to rated R).

With that out of the way, I wanted to present the first in a series of pieces that show the sort of inclusiveness we've been talking about. Here's a look at the player races - Ogre, Dwarf, Halfling, Elf, Human and Gnome.

Let me know what you all think!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimandperilous/zweihander-grim-and-perilous-rpg/posts/1820798

 

[jasper]

ok. I will be snarky. Quit sending the women type to the plastic surgery aka how about some "A" or "B" cups or no cups? Lay off the roids on the men. And reduce some of the pencil shading if you want old school drawing. I think page 8? you have pencil drawing of gamer group with light pencil work above it is the adventure with way too much pencil work. Go with the light pencil work most of the time.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

ok. I will be snarky. Quit sending the women type to the plastic surgery aka how about some "A" or "B" cups or no cups? Lay off the roids on the men. And reduce some of the pencil shading if you want old school drawing. I think page 8? you have pencil drawing of gamer group with light pencil work above it is the adventure with way too much pencil work. Go with the light pencil work most of the time.

Thanks for the feedback.

Keep watching our Kickstarter, and you'll see where ALL body types are being portrayed through our artwork. We aimed to include all manner of folk: skinny, short, obese, squat, thin, tall, well-muscled, toned, husky, A-F cups (some with a burned-off breast in the case of the Gnome above), handsome, ugly, beautiful, just okay, etc...

Cheers~

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

And now, we'll show you the badass ladies of ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG!

Here's a mere sampling of artwork from the 120+ Professions in the core book:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimandperilous/zweihander-grim-and-perilous-rpg/posts/1820820