D&D 4E Women in 4E

[Aloïsius]

Oh, please, God, yes!



Hey, I'm not turning down Lux the Barbarian porn.

according to wikipedia :

The armor breatplate she was wearing throughout the movie was specifically custom made due to the size of her breasts

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Hey, I'm not turning down Lux the Barbarian porn.

Hey, stop sexifying Lux the Barbarian...you probably will offend somebody with it.







Also, it's not like she needs it.

 

[Wormwood]

according to wikipedia :

I'll be in my bunk.

 

[Klaus]

according to wikipedia :

You, sir, I like.

 

[ToddSchumacher]

I'm a bit late in this thread, but if Klaus is going to promote stuff....well so am I.

And the Cheesecake

 

[pawsplay]

I have seen this kind of "pincer" shield used in LARP games. They are a pain for the attacker, because it allow the defender to block the weapon. And while your weapon is stuck in this damned shield, the wielder of the shield can easily cut you in pieces.
That's the way it works, at least with latex/foam weapons.

That's because in larps, you can't simply bust someone's shield into pieces. That's also the reason why sword-and-shield enjoys such a dominance in larps, even though historically people used a variety of armaments, mace and buckler, greatsword, two weapons, etc.

 

[Moonshade]

I'll say this again...women!=prudes, any more than men are. Let's not market to them as if they are, because, it just makes gamers look like we know even less about women than we do.

So can we have incubi like this in the Monster Manual? Or would it lead to a lot of whining from fanboys unable to handle the sight of men that women actually find attractive and whose sexiness is emphasised? Not just gross half-naked Schwarzeneggers or men who happen to be showing some skin, but men who are meant to be good-looking.

An unfortunate number of male posters on fantasy boards do seem to be prudes. They'll defend the bikini babe but freak out over pictures of attractive men. They're effeminate, they're pathetic, they're not heroic enough, and so on. The amount of hate that, for example, Vaan from Final Fantasy XII gets! And yet that game also has a playboy bunny in leather and a princess in a tiny skirt, so it's not unfairly lacking in female eye candy in any way.

Should I start posting pictures of men who have a lot of female fans in order to balance the Lux porn talk?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Should I start posting pictures of men who have a lot of female fans in order to balance the Lux porn talk?

If it's D&D or fantasy related...why not? I was pondering on opening a separate thread for exactly that purposes, asking posters to post links or images they like, as long as they are related to our hobby.

Couldn't decide where to post it, though...in General, or in the Graphics forum.

 

[Clavis]

So can we have incubi like this in the Monster Manual? Or would it lead to a lot of whining from fanboys unable to handle the sight of men that women actually find attractive and whose sexiness is emphasised? Not just gross half-naked Schwarzeneggers or men who happen to be showing some skin, but men who are meant to be good-looking.

An unfortunate number of male posters on fantasy boards do seem to be prudes. They'll defend the bikini babe but freak out over pictures of attractive men. They're effeminate, they're pathetic, they're not heroic enough, and so on. The amount of hate that, for example, Vaan from Final Fantasy XII gets! And yet that game also has a playboy bunny in leather and a princess in a tiny skirt, so it's not unfairly lacking in female eye candy in any way.

Should I start posting pictures of men who have a lot of female fans in order to balance the Lux porn talk?

I for one am comfortable enough with my heterosexuality to say "Yes". If we are actually having a dialog, the contributions need to be two-way. The problem is, most male D&D players I know would be freaked out by pictures of men that women would find attractive.

The way I see it, WOTC has a marketing conundrum when it come to art for D&D. If they want more female players, they will have to make the game rules simpler, really emphasize role-playing (at the expense of tactical combat), and yes, probably include some art that's attractive to heterosexual women. Those same three things would chase away the majority of the existing male players, however. And its not definite that the new female players would even be there to replace the male players D&D loses. If I was in charge of WOTC's marketing, I might tell the company to make some noise about bringing in female players, but to ultimately make the decisions that keep the existing (male) players happy. I'd tell them that, and then go vomit. It's a horrible choice, but it would keep Hasbro's shareholders happy.

The socially-retarded fanboys will rule the day when it comes to fantasy art, because they are the consistent market. They buy the books, they subscribe to the magazines (and Digital Initiative), and they they control the social networks that recruit new players. And they like to look at the kind of girls who won't give them the time of day in real life.

Now, I'm NOT saying fantasy games shouldn't use sexy art. If anything, I think the art should be sexier, and the game NOT marketed to children. I still maintain that it's not the art, but the male D&D players themselves that drive women away from the game. Show them erotica for women, and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Moonshade]

I can't remember Mirumoto Shiryu ever doing anything in the storyline (CCG or RPG), but ages after his one and only card was released he keeps getting mentioned when female players of Legend of the Five Rings talk about art.



Even this guy is clearly more muscled than the actors women tend to like, but since he has a handsome face and isn't outrageously over the top he manages to be attractive.



He may be showing skin, but he's the opposite of sexy:



Fantasy art of the barbarian/chainmail bikini type tends to have attractive women who resemble actresses or Maxim favourites, the kind to believably inspire both "I want to date her" and "I want to look like her" reactions. The barbarian men in those pics might inspire "I want to look like him" but "I want to date him" would be a very, very unlikely reaction. Of course, the general style of D&D art is different these days, but some of the basic sentiment remains IMO. There's plenty of half-clad female characters, succubi and so on. There's beautiful but sensibly clad female characters, the kind of art I'd print to illustrate a PC (Lockwood's woman in chainmail is an example of this). But based on my own memories of reading 3E books it's still pretty rare for art to feature a handsome male character, even more rare for that character to be depicted in a sexy pose.