D&D 4E Women in 4E

[Nahat Anoj]

This reminds me of the New Coke debacle a while back. I bet if WotC depicts women in a "sensibly" clad manner, all those who supported this will say "Man, this sucks, bring back our l33t hawt chixx0rs!"

 

[The_Gneech]

More Conan!

-The Gneech

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I wonder if the reason the different genders are portrayed is also because of the different beauty concepts of the genders...
Man like half-naked, slender women.
Women like strong, powerful men.

Yes, it's archaic. But that doesn't mean it is not true. We might try to reduce our archaic influences (and maybe it is good we do that), but they are still there, and in artwork (and commerical images), these archaic influences are used. Because art (and commericals) are to appeal to our emotions, not our logic...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The Internet is the current escapist refuge for misogynist social retards... so you might take whatever answers you get here with a grain of salt.

So sadly true, and later demonstrated in some comments in this thread (not many though).

I'd like to see more faces with "character" on both genders. And I very much agree with Natalie--adventurers shouldn't need classic features and runway poses to be glamorous. Humor and competence are just as attractive, but perhaps they've been harder to convey.

I think that 3E did an excellent job, however. The female iconics had some nice variety, and they certainly weren't all top models. The prettiest were probably the paladin and druid, both fully armored. Lidda, Ember, and Mailee were all rather average, wouldn't you say?

Also very true, and it's not THAT difficult to draw female characters who are attractive but not "hot model lol". Mialee was almost always downright unattractive, perhaps because of her appalling outfits and haircuts, though. Not really sure what was going on with her. Red-nosed Lidda and scowling Ember were certainly towards the middle of the attractiveness scale, and none of the female iconics dressed like hookers.

So long as they continue the trend of 3E, I think concern over this is not really warranted. As far as I can see, WotC has done a decent job with their portrayal of women.

The question is IF they continue the 3E trend, though, isn't it? I don't remember any mainstream 3E books with Hookerplate Boobmail-types on the front, but bloody P-H-freakin-B for 4E currently has a Hookerplate Boobmail fighter on the front blimmin' cover!

I just think they need to present more strong females in art and stories, that don't cater to any particular style or description. That also means they shouldn't go overboard and try to play up a constant feminist angle or something... but I'd like to see a female knight rescue a prince from a dragon once in a while.

That'd be nice.

My take:

So far, the "interior art" we've is absolutely great. Female Dwarves, Tieflings, etc. look are tough, attractive and smart in their appearances. Absolute kudos there. If they keep that up, awesome.

Only concern for me is WAR's PHB cover painting and uncharacteristic Hookerplate, which looks kind of "out-of-place" on a D&D book (never thought I'd be saying that!). I know WAR is a frickin' awesome artist (I'm even warming to his style these days), but like, why put stupid-looking armour guaranteed to annoy a few female (and male) players on the bloody cover, guys? What's the thinking behind that? It's not like the "Horned Wizard" won't pull in the nerds anyway.

Oh, probably a just a blip, I guess.

Keep up the good work from 3E and the early 4E stuff we've seen!

 

[Cadfan]

I wonder if the reason the different genders are portrayed is also because of the different beauty concepts of the genders...
Man like half-naked, slender women.
Women like strong, powerful men.

That's got NOTHING to do with it.

MEN like strong, powerful men.

I post this every time this conversation comes up, and everyone ignores it. Its like it explodes a brain cell and they instantly forget having read my post.

Look, do you think that He Man was shirtless to appeal to chicks? Do you think that professional wrestlers would wear more clothing if it weren't for the need to appeal to a female audience? Was Conan half naked because he had to provide fan service to his vast following of female readers?

No, no, and no. The burly half naked barbarian men are in there for the men to look at. The naked slave girl barbarian chicks are in there for the men to look at. Everything is in there for the men to look at.

If the half naked male art work were being done to appeal to female viewers, it would look very different. Probably it would be a hybrid of harlequin romance covers and yaoi anime, but we'll never know since it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Clavis]

RPGs (and D&D in particular) are never going to have a wide female audience - no chicky is ever going to sidle up to you and whisper in your ear that your tactical use of fireball made her hot - but I think that by taking women seriously in published game material we can reduce the widespread image of D&D as an escapist refuge for misogynist social retards.

It can tell you from experience that the problem is NOT that RPGs can't attract a female audience. Vampire: The Masquerade groups were often largely female. Of course, Vampire dealt with sexy, romantic subject matter, and encouraged role-playing.

And there, I think, is the real issue.

I personally don't like to DM for, or play in "sausage parties", so I pay attention to attracting females to my game groups. My current group is 2 women, 3 men. When I was storyteller for a Vampire Chronicle in the 90s, that group was 3 women, 2 men. As far as I could tell, female gamers didn't really mind sexy art at all. Granted, most of my female friends have been bisexual and/or polyamorous, but I also see plenty of attractive female images in magazines aimed at heterosexual women, too. Anybody in advertising can tell you that images of pretty women make products attractive to both genders. It's not the art, but the truth is something nobody wants to swallow. It's the D&D game, and the male gamers, that turn many women off.

Women, in my experience, do not tend to enjoy the intricacies of a rule set. Hell, most female gamers I gamed with barely bothered to learn the rules in the books at all. When a rule set is intricate, and part of the fun of game is supposed to be optimizing your character by understanding the rules, you have already lost most women. Making a D&D character (from AD&D on) has always been a bit like doing your taxes, but currently its like doing your taxes if you're self-employed, work at home, have investments, and claim lots of deductions. I don't find it fun, and I've watched the looks of confusion and discomfort while the third edition character creation rules were explained to women.

D&D RAW combat is also off-putting. I didn't say combat, I said D&D combat. In my experience, women like to pretend to kill things just as much as men. And generally they like their characters to look sexy doing it! They don't so much like pushing miniatures around a table, or calculating which attack bonuses stack.

The other problems is male gamers. There is a stereotype of the overweight, smelly gamer geek that has to be overcome. It doesn't help when its true. I'm not saying that we all have to hit the gym and wear cologne. But lets face it, most of us didn't start gaming because we were comfortable with girls.

Making an effort to have your PC NOT rape every women, roleplaying situations that don't involve rape or plunder, and not acting like the women at the table ought to be OK with your raping PC, all might do wonders for keeping women at the game table. I don't expect this to be a problem on these boards. In general I've found these boards to be inhabited by a higher class of player. What I'm saying is that D&D seems to attract gamers with a set of social skills that don't attract women. And its not that women don't want to play out sex and violence. I've had female players pick up male prostitutes, and want to play out extended sex scenes in-game. I have also watched them describe murdering creatures with relish. Women, however, are generally more willing to roleplay out encounters were nothing dies.

Everybody will be able to find exceptions to everything I've said. I believe my main point, that sexy art does not turn off female players, but rather they are repelled by the overly complex rules and poor social kills of male D&D players, is sound.

And remember, I'm a gamer of 23 years, not the enemy.

 

[Moonshade]

Klaus, your pictures show a lot of variety and that's what I'd like to see for both male and female characters in 4E. Among your women, the monk with bare arms, the desert warrior and the woman carrying a magic bow are all cool in their own ways.

Women like strong, powerful men.

Teenaged girls tend to like boybands and Zac Efron-types, older women talk about Johnny Depp, Jude Law and George Clooney. Even a somewhat more rugged actor like Clive Owen is far removed from bodybuilder types.

To go back to my Troy example, whatever people thought of the movie's quality it was generally seen as having a lot of beefcake that women could enjoy: pretty boys Paris and Achilles and loving husband Hector. The half-clad Conan barbarian resembles the big brute Ajax, not exactly a character that was noted for sex appeal.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

This thread reminds me of the annoyance that built up playing the first part of the Savage Tide Adventure Path. (I don't know if the writing got better or if the DM cued to his audience and skipped some of the box text.) Female characters were described in these flowery paragraphs chock full of "raven tresses" and details of skin tone. Men got a sentence. Maybe. Vanthus has a family resemblance to Lavinia. The evil Captain was a half orc.

Can you imagine a module where the men were described in the way women were in STAP? "You enter the room to see Commander Anton discussing strategy with his officers. He moves from map to war table with a combination of grace and barely contained power in his muscled frame. The tousled disarray of his dark locks gives an impression of boyish charm, until the steel of his blue gray eyes locks onto you. Through the loosened laces of his tunic a few wisps of chest hair escape...."

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Its sad to say, but gamers have always been rather sexist, homophobic and more than a little racist. Its a by product of being in an environment dominated by white middle class men, where they dont have to self-censor due to anyone other than other white, middle class men hearing. Every so often, the topic of what fantasy races sound like comes up on boards. You're going to get frequent responses of "scottish" to dwarves. Know what you get almost always for orcs? "Black". Because apparently "black" is an accent. I've played in a number of cons in the 80's and 90's, and all it did was convince me that gamers as a lot should be rightly classified as sub-human. Its changing slightly over time, so who knows, we may approach human baseline for decency sometime in the 2020's.

A simple cursory examination of any fantasy MMO's female armors will pretty much confrim the obvious. Should you request a non-skank suit of armor, you're almost immediately shouted down by throngs of rabid geeks angry at the thought of a prude or PC nazi impacting their game. However, should you want skimpy male armor, or to pull an example from WoW, an incubus instead of a succubus, and you can almost hear the bile creeping up their throats.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

That's got NOTHING to do with it.

MEN like strong, powerful men.

I post this every time this conversation comes up, and everyone ignores it. Its like it explodes a brain cell and they instantly forget having read my post.

I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Could you repeat what you said?

If the half naked male art work were being done to appeal to female viewers, it would look very different. Probably it would be a hybrid of harlequin romance covers and yaoi anime, but we'll never know since it hasn't happened yet.

Well, except for the men being more clean-shaven on the Harlequin romance covers, and swords (if present) tending more to the rapier end of the spectrum rather than the two-hander, I see very little difference between the two. Yaoi anime aesthetics -- if it can be called that -- has a lot with peculiarities in Japanese aesthetic sense: namely, that muscles are ugly, so most characters in those pieces are thin rather than burly.

The problem is, what kind of artwork does appeal to the female viewers? Rather than making a sweeping generalisation, which is just on the tip of my tongue but I'd rather spare myself the heartache, I'd like to invite our fellow female boardies to chime in...