Quote from: RPGPundit;579711I don't care if they're white,  black, asian, elves, drow, or succubi (hell, bonus points if they're succubi!), just please make sure you (WoTC) include the same kind of fantastic and mouth-watering images as certain past editions had; both for the sake of the principles of high adventure that D&D stands for, for the traditions, and of course for the youth of today; as well as for the purely logical commercial considerations which should be the main driving force in your attempt to create a new edition of D&D (and not some misguided attempt to listen to the simpering whining of a group of people who mostly don't actually play D&D and WON'T play D&D regardless of what you do, and whose only interest is to push forward an essentially anti-gaming agenda).

So please, by all means, make your art diverse, interesting, fantastical, and representative of a variety of races and colours, but don't follow some douchebag's quota-system demands; and please by all means show women in positions of strength and valour, and some of them can even be fully clothed! But don't be afraid to also present the representations of women in your D&D art as hot babes meant to fire up the imagination; this too is part of the imagery of western fantasy, and this shouldn't be whitewashed away for the sake of a group of politically correct pseudo-activists that don't really care about diversity or inclusiveness as much as feeling smug about themselves.   I'm sure that if you do include stunning and impressive art that includes beautiful women; real gamers everywhere (be they white, black, brown, or asian, male or female, or of any part of the gender spectrum) will thank you.

There, now I just need someone to put this thing up on that retarded "online petitions" site.

RPGPundit

Finally the voice of reason!

Petition for sexy D&D art? Where do I sign?

Quote from: SineNomine;579728All this shrieking irritated me so much that I'm writing a game in answer, Spears of the Dawn.

God damn it, Crawford, stop publishing things I want to buy!

I stand by my former assessment that the historical and cultural variety of African peoples is a huge untapped motherlode of gameable awesomeness.

Looking forward to your new game.

Traffic numbers drooping a bit, :pundit: ?

Quote from: The Butcher;579741I stand by my former assessment[/URL] that the historical and cultural variety of African peoples is a huge untapped motherlode of gameable awesomeness.

I'd like to see a comparative review of Spears of the Dawn and Nyambe.

I wanted to like Nyambe, but somehow it just failed to be interesting.  I dunno.

Quote from: daniel_ream;579748I'd like to see a comparative review of Spears of the Dawn and Nyambe.

I wanted to like Nyambe, but somehow it just failed to be interesting.  I dunno.

From what I've seen with Nyambe, I think its main problem was in accessibility. It had a lot of great stuff in it, but that stuff was not organized so as to easily accommodate a typical reader. It's the same thing you see with Tekumel- fabulously intricate culture and mythological corpus, but no easy place to get a handle on it. To my mind, it's a question of where you start building from, and whether you start building from the source material or from the game activity.

With one angle, you start by sitting down and saying, "Okay, what are the most characteristic and flavorful cultures, societies, and conflicts in this setting? What do I add to make it most like the geographical and historical zone I'm targeting?" And once you've got that, you can build your pastiche knowing that it's going to be very richly flavored and built out. But you're essentially de-prioritizing the sort of activities that usually take place at a D&D gaming table, and leaving it to the GM to either see the hooks in the setting or accept the somewhat desultory efforts you've made to direct them to entry points for the sort of play they want to have. Primary fidelity is to the setting and its inspiration.

With the other angle, you start with the sort of things people want to do at a D&D table and ask how the setting can be made to accommodate them. "Okay, this game needs to provide dungeon-crawling, tolerate murderhobos, have intrigue and urban adventures, include evil wizards in need of stabbing, and supply sacks of treasure. What parts of medieval Africa support these activities?" This angle runs the risk of a more shallow and less authentic setting, because you're fundamentally making it in service of a game experience. But it also tends to be a setup that casual readers and players can much more easily bring to the table.

In both cases, the inclusion of hot babes is, obviously, a necessity for success.

Quote from: SineNomine;579728The whole business just makes my teeth hurt. It's so easy to make the kind of content you want to see, but these people would rather spend their emotional energy polishing their halos with a useless petition site than actually show people awesome things. They're using an entire continent as a prop in their own little psychodrama of purity and extremely visible enlightenment, and I find it flatly offensive. Africa does not need their help, okay?

I'm not sure what we're talking about.  I had thought that this was in response to rabalias' petition for more women and non-white characters in the next D&D.  That petition makes no mention of Africa.  

On the one hand, I'm not thrilled with the language of his petition - and I'm not particularly taken by the other RPG material on rabalias' site (Black Armada).  Still, there are plenty of people who signed the petition whose work I like a lot - such as Emily Boss and Joe McDonald.  If you're criticisms are directed at these people, I think they're off base.  WotC specifically asked for feedback about what people wanted to see in D&D5 - and also posted specifically asking for feedback about art in D&D5 in a post on sexism.  No one needs special qualifications or accomplishments to give feedback about what they want to see.  

Re: the original post.  Personally, I don't want hot babes in D&D.  I have been put off by decisions to put babes in - particularly on the cover like the chainmail bikini damsel-in-distress on the 1e DMG or the bustier-clad sorceress of the 4e PH.  I much preferred the 3e covers which I could read without embarrassment on the bus or in the airport.  

I have nothing against pictures of hot babes, and appreciate them at particular times and places.  But D&D isn't where I want them.

Quote from: SineNomine;579728All this shrieking irritated me so much that I'm writing a game in answer, Spears of the Dawn.
...
The whole business just makes my teeth hurt. It's so easy to make the kind of content you want to see, but these people would rather spend their emotional energy polishing their halos with a useless petition site than actually show people awesome things. They're using an entire continent as a prop in their own little psychodrama of purity and extremely visible enlightenment, and I find it flatly offensive. Africa does not need their help, okay? Africa is pretty awesome exactly as it is, and it does not require quota counts established by marginally functional game nerds for multinational corporations to tell a goddamn story. Medieval Africa has were-leopard cults, actual amazon warriors that don't require ahistorical padding to justify, sorcerer-kings, fabulous golden treasures, libraries crammed with books of ancient lore, turbaned chain-armored cavalry lancers, gigantic thatch-roofed palaces, gigantic stone palaces, ruthless intrigue in those palaces, complex theological structures and the most elegant-looking swords in the world. If you can't make compelling gaming content out of that it better be because you're in a coma.

Yeah, I think, this. You have a buyer. I have wanted an African-themed game that wasn't about strict culture simulation for a long while, and you are hitting the points that make the concept interesting.

Quote from: jhkim;579772I have nothing against pictures of hot babes, and appreciate them at particular times and places.  But D&D isn't where I want them.

What is hot though? My personal favourites at the moment are highly technically competent women who can beat up a gang of ninjas in the event that we should encounter the velcro fingered vagabonds whilst enjoying a nice dinner at a local restaurant. Basically a hacker/mechanic/kung fu-ist, golden skinned asians a big plus, although I'd settle for a smartass latina. I mean who doesn't want a challenging and intelligent partner?

The stripper with the improbably oversized swords does exactly nothing for me, and I'm well over my wistful waif phase should that arise.

What the shrieks are really complaining about is the depiction of compliant white large breasted blonde women as the ideal, but of course anyone stupid enough to buy that isn't going to get near one, and as a result is probably better off out of the gene pool anyway.

So bring on the busty alabaster skinned flaxen haired maidens, but don't expect me to buy your product on that basis. In fact they are so tedious they may very well count as a minus. Art involving clever, athletic and capable women on the other hand, well...


tl;dr define "hot" before declaring a petition war.

Quote from: jhkim;579772I'm not sure what we're talking about.  I had thought that this was in response to rabalias' petition for more women and non-white characters in the next D&D.  That petition makes no mention of Africa.

It's the associated threads that make mention of Africa, and it's the associated petitioners that are making my teeth hurt. The petition itself is harmlessly useless, but the Righteousness Rays emitting from many supporters in the relevant threads are enough to make a hardshell Baptist tent preacher look like Voltaire.

I find the whole thing offensive on multiple correlated axes. First, they're using perfectly good cultures and histories as mere props for their own moral preening. I'm sure some actual creators have signed the petition, and it may well be that some of them have actually created the kind of material this petition calls for. I gladly credit them with seriousness based on the meaningful work they have done, regarding which I suspect neither they nor I would include "clicking 'like' on a petition". The rest? Well, clicking like is about the extent of the effort they're willing to put into it.

Second, they're aiming in the wrong direction. They're trying to encourage what they openly admit is a highly unusual art and design profile for the flagship property of an industry titan that has recently found itself quite possibly looking at being in second place. This titan is being beaten down by a company that is selling an old version of their product. This is not a situation that encourages radical redefinition of IP.

WotC is not necessary. There is no more intermediary gatekeeper between the game creator and the gaming public. Every ounce of effort spent coaxing WotC to add a third pigment to their fleshtone palette is an ounce of effort spent in a fundamentally useless pursuit. Anyone and everyone can create exactly the game content they want to see and can share it with the entire planet. They can even get paid for it sometimes. With the tech we have available and the existing infrastructure of artists, writers, POD printers and online storefronts, the only limit to your ability to articulate a given vision is the extent of your determination to do so. Pundit wanted a game rooted in classical India, so he made the game. These petitioners wanted a game with more than two skin tones and half a bikini split between the women, so they should make that game.

It would be harmless if people were just "giving feedback" with this petition. If they were just clicking like and going on with their day. But people who blow this up into a grand statement of principle, into some kind of warped participation award of righteousness against the heathen unenlightened hordes who have yet to perceive the Real Need this Meaningfully Addresses, are actually working against the final situation they'd like to see. They're implicitly condemning the aesthetic of the hobby and waiting for someone else to save it, when all the while they could just pick up a word processor or a sketch pencil and do it themselves.

Because when it comes down to it, petitions won't make a tinker's damn worth of difference to WotC. You want to make them produce the kind of products you like? Make another Pathfinder and watch them spin.

Quote from: SineNomine;579795These petitioners wanted a game with more than two skin tones and half a bikini split between the women, so they should make that game.

Apropos of nothing: this is how we solve this problem in software engineering, too.

"BLAH BLAH BLAH is broken stupid Micro$oft why aren't they using the boolean anti-binary least squares approach"

"Well, if you feel so strongly about it and it's so easy to fix, you should be able to knock out a quick proof of concept by next week's status meeting.  I look forward to seeing your prototype."

TL;DR: man up or GTFO.

Quote from: SineNomine;579728All this shrieking irritated me so much that I'm writing a game in answer, Spears of the Dawn. It's not hard to write a game, or to find artists, or to publish it. It requires a certain minimal level of effort, yes, but heaven knows you don't need to be a genius to do it. Hell, you don't even need to be capable of functioning in modern society if some game authors are any indication.

Sold, sir.

I think Pundit should just pay his $10 and troll SA directly.

I think RPGNet needs it's own fantasy game, where all the men are gorgeous and gay, and all the women weigh over 300 pounds.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;579719White males telling minorities that they should in fact be offended when they otherwise aren't makes me gag a little (and yes, I have a mixed race immediate family, so I see this a lot, usually by people who are trying to get some sort of "minority cred").

Or race apologists of any kind.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;579715I'd sign.  

I think it's great to see a female paladin in full plate, but there's nothing wrong with an ocassional 'damsel in distress', either.

Ever see "Fire & Ice"? The princess was total cheesecake AND she kept rescuing herself every time she was captured.

It was win-win.

Quote from: danbuter;579826I think RPGNet needs it's own fantasy game, where all the men are gorgeous and gay, and all the women weigh over 300 pounds.

PRIVILEDGE The RPG!
This game only has one stat...Priviledge. Your score is found by adding up the following modifiers...

Are you...

White? +10
Black? -10
Other visible minority? -5
invisible minority -1
Male +10
Female -10
Transexual -20
Heterosexual +10
Homosexual -10
Bi -5
American +50
University Educated? +10
Rich? +50
Middle class? +10
Lower class? -10
Poor/Homeless? -20
A feminist? -5
ugly? -5
fat? -5

Add up your rerspective modifiers to get your Priviledge Index! This will be used for online fights!

Combat system...

Characters compare their respective Priviledge scores, and the one with the highest Priviledge goes first and must make a reasoned argument. This is a straight d100 roll with no modifiers.

The attacker (the character with lower Priviledge) then subtracts the difference in their Priviledge score from their opponenet's from their opponent's reasoned argument score along with a bonus from any of the following tactics they can work into their rebuttal:

Personal attack -1 (cumulative)
Misdirection -5
Strawman -5
"What About the Menz?" -10
I don't feel like I'm "safe" when this person expresses their opinion online -10
When did you stop beating your wife? -5
The Godwin -10
(Providing a link to Derailing for Dummies) -10
"Blaming the victim" -10


If the attacker is able to reduce the reasoned argument to zero, then they win! The loser must roll 1d10 and consultthe consequences chart:

1 - 2 -  You're a racist nazi shithead
2 - 5 -  You're a sexist agent of the Patriarchy
3 - 7 -  You're opinion is invalid because you are white and/or male (even if you're not)
8 - 9 -   You've been threadbanned by a mod!
10 -      You're a rape-supporter


If the attacker fails to reduce their opponent's reasoned argument to zero, they take the remainding points in Butthurt. When a character's butthurt reaches 100 points, they explode in flames and self-pity.