What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Bagpuss]

See, that's the old thing. One has to continuously point out that women like sex and enjoy sexy illustrations - if it fits the theme and the playstyle, and is geared at a diverse audience, and is supplied by diverse creators, as it does in much of Vampire. In many other games it often doesn't.

Who gets to decide what fits the theme and playstyle though? Not all women are the same, so what fits for one might not fit for another.

It's the pervasiveness of the attitudes that is the problem, not the individual product.

It's it is pervasive then it shouldn't be hard to find an example.

The last illustration I recall making a stir as being problematic, was the Exalted cover of Savant & Sorcerer but that was back in 2004, nearly two decades ago now.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The last illustration I recall making a stir as being problematic, was the Exalted cover of Savant & Sorcerer but that was back in 2004, nearly a decade ago now.

I got some bad news for you....

Time, it just keeps moving on.

 

[Bagpuss]

I got some bad news for you....

Time, it just keeps moving on.

Thanks, I think I said in another thread that when you get to my age twenty years feels like five. I have corrected it.

But it illustrates the point. I don't think it is a pervasive in TTRPGs as people might think. Maybe more so in fantasy art in general, and particularly Japanese/Chinese fantasy CRPGs and the art supporting them.

Avalanche Press are just doing wargames now days. Even in 2001 their covers were generally disliked in the industry for being over the top.

 

[Xamnam]

Can you give and example from a recent TTRPG product that you think it a serious problem?

I'm going to give a couple caveats first. I understand that this is aimed at a specific niche, half the point of its existence is they have a genre/playstyle/aesthetic they are trying to copy / bring forward, and I'm not at all personally bothered by that being their mission.

That said, I was actively somewhat put off of playing Dungeon Crawl Classics because there's a fair amount of artwork that hews to close to that classic soft-titillation style of older works, and I felt uncomfortable asking my friends to read the rulebook.

 

[Umbran]

Well looking at the 1st Edition V:tM the female character of Shelzza is displayed naked in six illustrations in the first two chapters, has a outfit with a slit to the waist showing her full leg and side of her bum, in another six illustrations, didn't seem to put a lot of women playing the game.

Interesting. The 1st Edition of V:tM was published in 1991.

Now, look at the Second edition book, published only one year later, please. You will find a notable change in art direction - almost no nudity in the book.

 

[Bagpuss]

Interesting. The 1st Edition of V:tM was published in 1991.

Now, look at the Second edition book, published only one year later, please. You will find a notable change in art direction - almost no nudity in the book.

They quality of the art improved a lot as well, and perhaps most importantly the binding. There were certainly more complaints about 1st edition falling apart than there were about the art it contained.

 

[Bagpuss]

That said, I was actively somewhat put off of playing Dungeon Crawl Classics because there's a fair amount of artwork that hews to close to that classic soft-titillation style of older works, and I felt uncomfortable asking my friends to read the rulebook.

I'll have to check it out, but I imagine they were trying to invoke the feel of the classic Morgan Ironwolf illustration by Jeff Dee in 80's red box D&D.

 

[Voadam]

And, again, it’s not about personal taste but about making people comfortable in the hobby.

Pin up art? In a calendar or maybe a novel cover, sure. In rpg book after book after book where the majority of female depictions in the books are chainmail bikinis? Maybe we really don’t need those.

Yes, there is a percentage above zero. For one, there's nothing wrong with sexy art when it's appropriate to the scene. If I have a picture of a tavern (to pick a rather random example) and it includes a singer on a stage that looks like Jessica Rabbit, well, fair enough. That's pretty understandable. Context matters.

But, when nearly every armored female character has boob windows and bare midriff, well, that's maybe not a good look.

No, it generally isn't a problem anymore.

Now, ask yourself WHY isn't this a problem anymore? Is it not because about fifteen (around) years ago, people actually stood up and repeatedly told the hobby that pinup art in the game was making thing feel unwelcome?

And, oh look. They pull most of the sexualized art from the game, and now, poof, 40% of gamers are apparently female. About two or three times the percentage from even ten years ago where women made up around 10-20% of gamers according to virtually every single poll out there.

Huh, funny how taking the stuff out that makes people feel unwelcome in the hobby results in those people joining the hobby in greater numbers.

All right so 15 years ago 2008 was the transition to 4e.

I am having some trouble coming up with examples of RPG books with the majority of women warriors being chainmail bikinis in the AD&D or 3e eras of D&D.

I can think of some Dragon magazine covers, some d20 era 3rd party Avalanche Press covers, but not a lot of interior art chainmail bikini types. Maybe some Mongoose publishing d20 stuff and White Wolf's more adult/mature oriented Exalted.

More often in AD&D there is a lack of female warriors period. In the 1979 1e DMG there is an unarmored woman in the woods (druidess?) talking to what looks like a party of armored warriors and unarmored spellcasters, there is the DCS recurring party with a woman magic user, there is a mermaid and a succubus picture, but no female warrior or chainmail bikini type. Similar for the 1e PH, there are only three women depicted in the art at all and none are chainmail bikini warriors.

1981 Moldvay B/X Basic however has iconic Morgan Ironwolf as the character creation exemplar as a prominent focus woman whose art is a fairly sexy warrior, but her chainmail is not unrealistic bikini type. 1983 BECMI has Aleena the cleric in full body armor.

Most D&D Monster Manuals have some specifically female monster types who are either attractive (nymphs and a number of other fey types, succubi, most medusa depictions) or generally specifically unattractive (hags, some versions of harpies) so there is often some sexy woman fantasy RPG art there but usually not ridiculous armor female warriors.

I might expect some sexy impractical armor female warriors in drow specific books given the BDSM decadent demon worshipping culture generally attributed to them and their focus on dominant women warriors and clerics.

Flipping open WotC's 2003 Miniatures Handbook for 3.5 (I just bought the PDF recently so it is on hand) there is skimpy tiefling skirmisher armor for both the male and female tiefling art but with a ridiculous spiked boob bikini top for the women (cover and page 134) that seems to be evoking Warhammer Slaanesh daemonette types, there are two drow that can be considered borderline sexy impractical armor (pages 37 and 130), and the axe sister sketch looks like it has a bare midriff even if the accompanying picture of the miniature clearly does not (page 146), but there is a lot more art of female warriors throughout the book with head to toe armor even if it tends to the more fantastical than realistic (pages 4, 6, 7, 8, 15, 18, 22, 28, 30, etc.).

I think this is individual images standing out (such as Alias's boob window armor from the Forgotten Realms novel cover) more than an actual predominance of depictions in RPG book art from the 1970s to 2010.

I could also see this as more of a thing in computer games where constant visuals and limited designer provided choices are more of a thing than in tabletop RPGs.

Or are there examples of RPG books with predominant chainmail bikini women warrior depictions that I am not thinking of?

 

[Micah Sweet]

See, that's the old thing. One has to continuously point out that women like sex and enjoy sexy illustrations - if it fits the theme and the playstyle, and is geared at a diverse audience, and is supplied by diverse creators, as it does in much of Vampire. In many other games it often doesn't.

EDIT:

It's the pervasiveness of the attitudes that is the problem, not the individual product.

But without examples, what do you point to? Where's your evidence that this is still " a serious problem"?

 

[Kariotis]

But without examples, what do you point to? Where's your evidence that this is still " a serious problem"?

I thought our point here was to learn something about how the people playing these games feel, not win a rhetorical battle. So what is "the evidence"? The evidence is, for one, the women who tell us they don't want to play the game or feel uncomfortable because they dislike the art style with their overrepresentation of stereotypically beautiful, slim women who are on average a lot younger than the men, and who are more often dressed in revealing outfits drawn for the titillation of stereotypically male viewers than the other way around. And you can grab almost any TTRPG release, even today, flip through the art and see that these women have a point. So what I would say is: listen to the women and marginalized voices around you and what they have to say, and you will hear a wide range of opinions. That's much more important than us exchanging our own personal views on a forum.