Sexism and presumed sexism in RPGs

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Lots of strong views in this thread... I have nothing really to add to the conversation at this moment so you all keep rocking and I'm going to hide behind this bar while you all keep throwing your tomatoes at each other... just don't make to much a mess.

Oh... porn is great, as a woman I love it. Magic armor in games is also great. Art is highly subjective. And tomatoes make splotching sounds upon impact...

Game of Thrones, epic and amazing, love the books and the show. IMO it's a series where I feel all the main women characters, might appear weak at first, have incredible inner strength, and often tower over the men. Just saying.

 

[Janx]

I think that is a mistaken assumption. Most DM's will say they are wearing leather or chain or plate and leave it at that. If a player picks an image for their fantasy character with skimpy tight leather they think is cool or boob window armor they think is cool, or impractical fantasy jumbo plate with lots of parts sticking out they think is cool, I believe most DMs will say "fine, whatever" and not "How functionally impractical, take an AC penalty."

As a GM, I see a fork in interpretations that I can go either way on.

If you buy Chain Mail armor, then your PC gets the AC bonus of Chain Mail armor. You can describe it as sexy and shapely or plain and practical. I don't care. You bought the in-game resource, and how you describe it is mostly up to you. There's some limits on how far I'd accept "making stuff up" however.

If you say your PC bought or made a Bikini made of chainmail and that your PC was wearing it and insisted that it was NOT a suit of ChainMail armor, then you've made a new type of armor that is not on the equipment list by the RAW.

I would then guesstimate it's body coverage round to a minimum of +1 or use the old DarkSun partial armor rules as guidance.

I don't have a problem saying your armor is artsier than the default. I'm not going to get overly realistic and try to determine the mechanical impact of boob windows and shoulder spikes.

But saying you are wearing a small fraction of a full suit of armorm I can't justify giving you the full bonus. If you choose to wear half of a mail shirt, why should you get the full bonus?

What if that mail shirt had been in your backpack and the wizard messed up moving his Sphere of Annhilation during his watch, so you wake up to get dressed to find you only have half of your armor left?

To me, the act of declaring on the PC or GM side that the armor is significantly less than the normal unit of armor is defining that it protects less than the normal unit of armor.

 

[TanithT]

And this is a good point. Where TanithT brings up going skyclad and Paganism setting her viewpoint, even that's not a common viewpoint. Scott Cunningham, a big name in pagan circles had noted that often those that insisted on going skyclad had more interest in seeing others naked.

Not saying TanithT's experiences were good or bad. But some of those people likely got a little more from their gathering than others.

Point. Though you'd be surprised how fast nudity becomes boring or completely invisible when you associate it with church services, not sex. Also, most of the officiants? I guess if you get a thrill looking at mostly older, matronly or grandfatherly types, you'd be having tons of fun.

In the same way, some of us may be desensitised, insensitive, or just not coming to the same conclusion when we see an attractive woman holding a sword with some cleavage armor.

What I think you're saying is that due to my somewhat unusual "nudity is no big deal/not automatically sexual" and generally sex positive upbringing, I am likely to be less sensitive, not more sensitive, to seeing gratuitous sexualization where there is not any. Would that be correct?

The thing about cleavage armor, that's pretty much gratuitous by default, because it doesn't work. It won't get you to 0HP quite as fast as a chainmail bikini, but it will get you there. I expect that most artists don't actually know this, because the myth that female armor has to have separately protruding boobs keeps getting perpetuated in the fandom. Because, boobs. But I do know, so I can't help facepalming at it.

 

[Janx]

I did, and you have a point. Mine was mostly "game mechanics good, silly Ren Faire costume funnier."

If nothing else, you and I may reach the same in-game conclusion that bikini armor ain't happening in our games.

I felt that your had a rather strong reaction to typical fantasy art of women and its relation to RPGs and its practicality.

I simply look at its practicality as a simple interpretation of the rules, not as art or commentary on women or as applying reality to the game.

I couldn't see granting bikini armor any benefits not already applicable to normal armor and thus it wouldn't be a viable option for players to choose. It's partial armor and there is precedent for handling that.

I don't have a problem with shapely armor, despite [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]'s points about even that being a bad idea in real combat. That level of realisim doesn't appeal to me and isn't simple to model in D&D.

 

[TanithT]

I'm not sure what you are seeing as the large number of sexualized female portrayals in the art from these.

The most recent books I've looked through (and facepalmed at) have all been Pathfinder.

Am I misremembering and there a large number of sexualized female portrayals that I just don't remember? Are you seeing gratuitous sexualization while I am not?

I don't *think* so. My specific criteria for gratuitous sexualization is that there is no good reason to be dressed in skimpy, sexy or revealing clothes/armor, and some good reason to be dressed in normal clothes or armor. I think those are reasonably fair criteria.

My "gratuitous" alarms may also start going off when there are a whole lot of female images that are borderline on the "stupid" criteria, but the CHA range in all the possible female characters is ridiculously narrow, statistically speaking. Maybe they aren't naked and barefoot on the Arctic tundra, or trading arrow shots while wearing one rabbit fur and a couple of chainmail rings. There's lots of reasons that a mage who lives in a city might dress attractively or revealingly on occasion. Indoor fighter or rogue practice can very reasonably be conducted in form fitting clothes. Some characters drawn in some of these situations is a non problem - it's a slice of life.

But when a really out-of-proportion number of females are drawn in a way that strongly emphasizes their cleavage (which is always way above average size) and de-emphasizes or ignores their weapons or their skill sets, or really anything else about them as a character, I start thinking, "gratuitous". On average, sure, you're going to see some charismatic NPC's. But really, is the entire range of possible female NPC's limited to CHA 16 and up in form fitting clothing? When the numbers start looking like that, I facepalm. Especially when the male characters don't look like that at all, and you have a substantially wider representation of varied appearance and clothing in the male images.

Can you provide some examples from one of these PH books so that we know we are talking about the same thing?

I could, but my energy for doing paperwork is not very high at the moment. How many examples were you thinking of?

 

[TanithT]

I felt that your had a rather strong reaction to typical fantasy art of women and its relation to RPGs and its practicality.

Yes, I do. It makes me feel marginalized as a gamer when I see representations of female characters in our hobby sexualized by default, to the detriment of showing them as well rounded characters.

I'm not saying that sexy art is bad or wrong, just that I don't want it to be the default setting for a female character in RPG source material, comics and video games. The fact that it does tend to be the default setting does have consequences for female gamers.

I simply look at its practicality as a simple interpretation of the rules, not as art or commentary on women or as applying reality to the game.

Well, I'm glad that from where you sit, you have the luxury of not feeling excluded or marginalized in your hobby. Not everyone has that luxury. The folks who don't are probably going to feel a little more strongly about the things that make them feel excluded.

I don't have a problem with shapely armor, despite @Umbran 's points about even that being a bad idea in real combat. That level of realisim doesn't appeal to me and isn't simple to model in D&D.

Your game, your rules.

Umbran's points are all correct, albeit secondhand. Firsthand experience as an SCA heavy fighter, 'shapely' armor in the sense of it having separate protruding boobage will a) not be approved by SCA safety marshals, because b) it will get you hurt or killed for reals. And I'm talking about with rattan just for fun. Live steel would be more problematic.

Am not sure what isn't simple to model about plate mail being plate mail. The female breastplate design even for relatively well endowed women is not substantially different. You want a little curvature for comfort and to let weapons slide, but protruberances that will catch or bounce and result in a face full of rattan (or steel) are very not good.

I do agree with your excellent points about partial armor being partial armor and most accurately handled under those rules, whether it's ooh-la-la or not.

 

[Alzrius]

A player is going to choose the armor that best fits his/jher AC goal and DEX limitiations. I ignored MaxDex in my example because I forgot about it and I seldom play PCs with a low DEX.

My point is, there's no rules for Sexy Armor in D&D. Near as I can guess it'd be a form of partial or "new" armor. To make a PC wearing bikini armor to match a painting, you'd have to use such a rule.

To then claim there's also magic involved to help protect the uncovered bits in the art is to translate that as a magic AC bonus to whatever armor she's wearing.

Since magic AC bonuses are a pretty standard mechanic in D&D, assuming it's in the player's power/choice, they'll take the best AC they can get. Why settle for Bikini Leather Armor +2 when you can wear Leather Armor +2 which has a higher AC and fits your game objective.

I feel you're quibbling over a point on whether somebody would wear light or heavy armor in general. A PC will wear an armor type that makes sense for their stats and class. Within that, they will tend to maximize the AC bonus they can get.

I suspect a player won't choose bikini armor over "real" armor in the same effect zone. They may, however, declare that the armor looks sexy (which has not practical purpose and in real life may actually be a hazard).

A quick caveat; I'm defaulting to Pathfinder when it comes to specifics, purely from habit (this makes a difference where AC values of various armors are concerned).

You're talking about several different issues here, and in doing so conflating them. First you say that players will always choose the best armor available, then you go on to say that sexy armor doesn't exist, then you say that if it does exist with magic bonuses it's still worse than normal magic armor with bonuses.

All of this is also built on the idea that the characters in pictures are PCs, and have been run as PCs with the same level of optimization, which is also a flawed way of looking at it.

First, while a PC will always try to have the highest Armor Class that they can, that doesn't always mean the heaviest armor, as you admittedly noted. However, for some reason you don't seem to think that this perfectly reasonable postulation extends to "sexy" armor, which is an odd claim to make. If we're going to say that PCs will seek all different kinds of combinations depending on their build, you can't then turn around and say that a certain item will never be useful no matter what the build is.

As for bikini armors not existing, you likewise undercut your own argument by saying "unless they declare it looks like that" which is a perfectly viable declaration. There's no rule saying that your leather armor can't have a cleavage cut, or end above the midriff, for example. Likewise, if you want stats specific for bikini armors, there are supplements and third-party supplements that have such material anyway.

Third, that doesn't necessarily mean that sexy armors will necessarily have a worse AC than armors of the same "weight" class; see below.

I'm saying that in game terms, the rationalization hoops of game stats, magic, items, etc it takes to make a sexy PC that matches what is seen in a stereotypical painting is such that you could deploy those same magics and items on a PC with armor from the RAW and come out ahead.

I'm just quoting this part of your post, because I feel it best encapsulates your point.

I should mention first that this still assumes that the character in question is in a position where they get to choose between all things equally - that's good for a theoretical discussion, but often not the way things actually happen in the game world. If you get to choose from everything in the Core Rules and then some, you can optimize - if the only things in the store are enchanted bikini mail and leather armor, it's something else again.

Having said that, let's grant one of the two central premises of your argument: that bikini armor only grants a +1 AC bonus onto itself. I'll modify that to state that such armor has no max Dex restriction, no armor check penalties, and no arcane spell failure chance (which I think is reasonable).

Now, the other central premise you raise - why would a character wear that versus another light armor, which grants a better bonus? Believe it or not, there are other reasons.

A character with a +9 Dex bonus, for example, will find the bikini armor better (leather's max Dex bonus is +8). Admittedly that sounds absurdly high, but high-level characters can get up there without too much trouble. Hence, a character in "normal" armor would not come out ahead under this build.

Let's examine another possibility. If we make the assumption that bikini armor is not made out of metal, it becomes one of the better armors for a multiclass druid/wizard (or druid/sorcerer) - druids are restricted to medium armor or lighter of non-metallic materials; that's padded, leather, or hide armor. But also being an arcane spellcaster, hide armor (+4) is out (20% chance of spell failure). Leather armor (+2) carries a 10% chance of failure, which is not-inconsiderable. Hence, why not ignore padded (+1) and just use the bikini armor (+1) which again has no chance of spell failure.

Heck, let's simplify that for a third build: an arcane spellcaster with no armor proficiency whatsoever. Wearing armor you're not proficient with means you take its armor check penalty to all attack rolls, and Strength- and Dexterity-based skill and ability checks. But bikini armor has no armor check penalty! Why not wear leather or padded armor, you ask (especially since the latter grants a + AC bonus)? Because, as noted before, only bikini armor has no spell failure chance either. Why gain only an additional +1 in exchange for a 10% failure chance?

These are just three of many possible builds where the lightest armor possible is still one of the best options, even assuming that you have access to everything and can customize and optimize whatever you want. (This isn't even getting into Voadam's entirely reasonable point of just saying that your armor looks a bit different, without altering its game mechanics.)

 

[Loonook]

The most recent books I've looked through (and facepalmed at) have all been Pathfinder.




I don't *think* so. My specific criteria for gratuitous sexualization is that there is no good reason to be dressed in skimpy, sexy or revealing clothes/armor, and some good reason to be dressed in normal clothes or armor. I think those are reasonably fair criteria.

Alright... Let us look through Pathfinder. I'll take the Core rulebook, From the cover through Chapter 1, to the opening of Chapter 2: Races. I count 6 full-color plates. Let us check this out.

Cover: A nude red dragon (gender indeterminate as I wasn't able to see a cloaca much less sex the beast) battling a warrior (male) and a spellcaster (female). The spellcaster is dress in a red form-fitting gown with a slit cut up to the top of her thigh. The gown also has an open back.

Salacious? No, just Seoni.

So she's the Illustrated Woman. And a Sorcerer (High Charisma, tattoos covering her body that she shows as a symbol of power and pride).

Reasoning behind her dress? Pretty solid. Even better if you actually take Charisma as attractiveness... While I personally see it as force of personality but ehh, that's interpretation.

Pg 4: 7 goblins, indiscriminate gender raiding the streets. A depiction of a faerie (indisciminate gender) in the background appears to be nude, though really it could just be the lack of coloring on the shoddy sign. Foreground has a picture of a fat man with a giant haunch of meat. No definite depictions of women in a 'negative' light. Apparently fat men exist in Pathfinder for amusing tavern signs.

Pg 6: Four characters, three females (from left to right): A rogue dressed in black leathers with two daggers, Seoni, gear as Cover but including tribal fetishes around her armband slot and a heavy fur cloak. A cleric (Kyra) in what appears to be soft scale armor, and several layers of vestments. The male figure, Valeros from Cover, is bleeding out while being protected by the three female party members. A large White Dragon stands before them.

Seoni stands in a position of classical 'I'm charging mah lazerz' Spellcaster POWER. Staff raised and at the ready. She seems to have magic items (the fetishes) and combined with the bearskin cloak I'm assuming a weather protection/cold protection effect. Definitely makes sense considering their prey. As mentioned in supplied text the Sorceress is preparing a defensive fire spell, which makes sense considering the pose and the positioning in the 'defensive' left hand of the staff.

Kyra has a slight breast swell in her scale armor, though her positioning suggests the natural shifting of supported breasts in the crouching pose. A defensive posture is taken.

The Rogue (Merisiel) varies from her Iconic depiction, showing no real skin save for where she seems to keep daggers. I cannot see her breasts, and her body's positioning suggests she is attempting to get into position.... As we all know, the Rogues love them some flanking, and the Dragon could be setup for this with the submissive, weak male human fighter as the bait.

Total Female Appearances: 4
Total Males: 2
Total Enemy Female: Unknown
Total Enemy Male: Unknown
Helpless Characters: Male 1, Female: 0

Pg 9: Seoni, Merisiel, and Kyra stand to the left, Merisiel looking ready to scout, Seoni in the short foreground in a 3/4 bust view. The Ranger (if I recall correctly... Off the top no idea what the heck his name is) is standing to the right. Merisiel wears her Iconic armor, showing the back is open but covered in sheathes for her dirks. Kyra is in the same clothing, Seoni is in a yellow cloak of indeterminate shape (we see her from the bust view).

Total Female Appearances: 7
Total Males: 3
Total Enemy Female: Unknown
Total Enemy Male: Unknown
Helpless Characters: M 1 F 0

Pg 14: Skeleton Army (former gender unknown) minimum 9 humans and 1 skeletal horse facing down 4 member adventure party (3 males, 1 female). The males are dressed in typical Mage, Bard, and Fighter/Barbarian gear respectively, while the female (far left, in a challenging pose) is dressed in full plate Paladin garb.

Meet Seelah. Female. Black. Paladin. Her armor has minimal breast accentuation, but they seem to be guards (look to have association with her cloak in her Iconic pic) and I have not seen her in a 'helpless, submissive' pose from my memory.

Total Female Appearances: 8
Total Male Appearances: 7
Total Enemy Female: Unknown
Total Enemy Male: Unknown
Helpless: M 1 F 0.

P 18: Human Male Monk(Sajan), Female Gnome Druid (Lini), Half-Elf Male Magus(Seltyiel), being attacked by Drow Males (Class Unknown).

All are on the run, the one showing all of the skin is Seltyiel, who is bare-chested. Lini's armor is pretty much a patchwork of swirls on leather, pretty typical armor for a druid. Oh, and another non-white human? Sajan is from the sort of vaguely South Asian/Indian analogue of the setting.

Total Female Appearances: 9
Total Male Appearances: 9
Total Enemy Female: 0
Total Enemy Male: 4.
Helpless: M 1, F 0.

So in the depictions in the first chapter we have a 50/50 parity, no unexplained fan service (a body positive tattooed sorceress who is slinging flames in every shot?)... And the only helpless, submissive individual is a gutshot male who is being protected by an entire party of female adventurers.

We can keep going. The Races section has women in bra and panties... And males in briefs. And trust me... I knew in theory that Dwarves were hairy, but I never knew a treasure trail could become a treasure highway. The entire section other than the classic Race Lineup is filled with rippling men and curved women covering the naughty bits... So I'd call it a wash. Except for Hairy Barry, who is just glorious no matter your specific orientation.

I imagine he smells of Sex Panther and ale. His hands know the secrets to turn the hardest stone to gravel. Truly grace and brutal strength combined into one.

In Classes:


The female Barbarian who is dressed in a cross-chest breast-support, vague scraps of leather... And has a sword the size of Mr. Hairy Barry Dwarf above. So she is dressed in a primitive breast-wrap and carrying a giant stone sword.

But I'll leave the next 2 chapters up to you.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Janx]

Am not sure what isn't simple to model about plate mail being plate mail. The female breastplate design even for relatively well endowed women is not substantially different. You want a little curvature for comfort and to let weapons slide, but protruberances that will catch or bounce and result in a face full of rattan (or steel) are very not good.

By difficult to model, I mean what is the engineering impact of a breast view port to AC on the various armors. By what factors does it cause an impact of -1 to AC? How big or small must it be to cause an impact?

What differences are there in material. Plate armor gives +10. Leather gives +2. Does a view port in either type cause -1 AC? I think not. The comparitive crappyness of Leather Armor to Plate, a CleavagePort does little to weaken already weak armor. Your vulnerability factor for having a boobview is marginal compared to the fact that you are wearing another animal's skin which was penetrated in a mortal blow. Contrast that to full plate, where you're sitting pretty safe, except for the excellent stabby hole between your nippes.

The same mechanical considerations would have to be applied to spikey armor. How much extra stress on the metal to put spikes on it. How much does the spikes add to the weight and balance? What chance do they have to snag on things?

I vote that the D&D system is too abstract to get into such technical considerations about the exact optimal versus suboptimal shapes that armor should come in.

Additionally, it spoils fun folks may have in visuallizing their armor. So it just ain't worth it.

 

[Janx]

A quick caveat; I'm defaulting to Pathfinder when it comes to specifics, purely from habit (this makes a difference where AC values of various armors are concerned).

Sure. I use D&D3.5. Ps. I really hate multi-quoting by hand. this site should just quote all your paragraphs for me so I can interject more easily.

You're talking about several different issues here, and in doing so conflating them. First you say that players will always choose the best armor available, then you go on to say that sexy armor doesn't exist, then you say that if it does exist with magic bonuses it's still worse than normal magic armor with bonuses.

Players will generally choose the best option for their PC. That usually means maxing their AC to the limits their class allows. Nobody chooses to have a 12AC if they can get a 15AC, ceteris paribus.

I didn't quite say sexy armor doesn't exist. At least not in the way you meant I meant it.
Bikini armor does not exist in the RAW. It's not on the equipment list. Somebody had to make it up.
Whereas, full plate armor that just happens to be full plate armor with some cleavage is not contradicted in the rules. It's no different than saying your armor has shoulder spikes.

I then expounded on the hypothesis that bikini chick was really protected by magic, and not just the physical materials of her chainmail bikini. If she was protected by magic, she could just as soon apply that magic to real armor and get a better AC bonus for just the armor.

All of this is also built on the idea that the characters in pictures are PCs, and have been run as PCs with the same level of optimization, which is also a flawed way of looking at it.

Since the debate was about art in RPGs which is what inspires or dismays players by its depiction of women, my thesis was that we are in effect justifying whether such armor feasible. [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] used real world logic. I used game world logic.

First, while a PC will always try to have the highest Armor Class that they can, that doesn't always mean the heaviest armor, as you admittedly noted. However, for some reason you don't seem to think that this perfectly reasonable postulation extends to "sexy" armor, which is an odd claim to make. If we're going to say that PCs will seek all different kinds of combinations depending on their build, you can't then turn around and say that a certain item will never be useful no matter what the build is.

Sexy looking armor that is in effect normal armor is a non-issue. It's armor and I wouldn't bother modelling any detrimental impact.

Bikini armor is less than full armor. You have a good example that does make it feasible below. barring that, I stand by my ruling.

As for bikini armors not existing, you likewise undercut your own argument by saying "unless they declare it looks like that" which is a perfectly viable declaration. There's no rule saying that your leather armor can't have a cleavage cut, or end above the midriff, for example. Likewise, if you want stats specific for bikini armors, there are supplements and third-party supplements that have such material anyway.

Once again, actual Bikini armor is partial armor, and falls under partial armor abjudication rules, and not descriptive armor rules which is "if it pretty much performs like the rules say, and looks sexy or spiky its fine"

I don't care to get into metrics on exactly where the line is between descriptive armor and skin slots so big she might as well be in a chainmail bikini. For one, it doesn't actually come up in my games. For two, I'm giving my general approach to how I'd handle a situation that does not come up.

Third, that doesn't necessarily mean that sexy armors will necessarily have a worse AC than armors of the same "weight" class; see below.

Let's leave off descriptively sexy armor. That is fully functional armor that happens to have some flair or cleaviness to it. It's normal armor as far as I care to model.

Therefore, what remains is partial armor, stereotyped as Bikini Chain Mail.

I should mention first that this still assumes that the character in question is in a position where they get to choose between all things equally - that's good for a theoretical discussion, but often not the way things actually happen in the game world. If you get to choose from everything in the Core Rules and then some, you can optimize - if the only things in the store are enchanted bikini mail and leather armor, it's something else again.

That's true. However, I've never rolled up Bikini Chainmail on the treasure tables, so the players aren't likely to find a pair. I assume they might make them, if they should spring into existance.

Having said that, let's grant one of the two central premises of your argument: that bikini armor only grants a +1 AC bonus onto itself. I'll modify that to state that such armor has no max Dex restriction, no armor check penalties, and no arcane spell failure chance (which I think is reasonable).

Sure. This builds into your good example that I hadn't considered.

Now, the other central premise you raise - why would a character wear that versus another light armor, which grants a better bonus? Believe it or not, there are other reasons.

A character with a +9 Dex bonus, for example, will find the bikini armor better (leather's max Dex bonus is +8). Admittedly that sounds absurdly high, but high-level characters can get up there without too much trouble. Hence, a character in "normal" armor would not come out ahead under this build.

It's a valid point that I hadn't considered the game at the extreme end of stats. I would suspect that this is a high level game. I suppose 20th level people can prance about in chainmail bikinis if it is tactically sound.

...snips of pretty much the same thing in a different color...

These are just three of many possible builds where the lightest armor possible is still one of the best options, even assuming that you have access to everything and can customize and optimize whatever you want. (This isn't even getting into Voadam's entirely reasonable point of just saying that your armor looks a bit different, without altering its game mechanics.)[/QUOTE]

I already addressed descriptive armor as a non-issue. Effectively, that's a non-point because I already agree with it.

You've certainly found a case where Magic Bikini armor could be better than other choices.

I imagine though, if I brought in such items, if I would then have backlash from female players for sexualizing the game because I brought in items meant to optimize them tactically while tarting them up.