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Thread: Armor designs for females?
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2017-07-26, 10:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
What it comes down to is you ignore and discredit the wisdom of the ages, the wisdom of the culture, and the evidence of your own senses, in favour of anti-Traditionalism based on half-baked scientific analyses. You are a culture wrecker in the real world, every bit as you are trying to wreck fantasy cheesecake. If I believed in luck I might be tempted to say "good luck with that," but I won't. Tradition will triumph in the end and all these fashionable theories of sexual psychological identity will be flushed away in the river of history.
And, at last, a TED talk (more popular hokum?) that is relevant. Interesting though how the speaker talks about the need for corporate women to "be like men" in a "male designed workspace" as if that's a bad thing--almost as if the sexes were not naturally identical! If women and men were the same, why shouldn't the old ways continue and women can just be like men?
Good day, sir.
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2017-07-26, 10:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
The appeal to "tradition" as if it were a thing with power of its own, and not a human construct, is telling. The description of science as "half-baked" is telling.
This "wisdom of the ages" you cite is nothing more than fairly modern mythology, of a kind with the myth of Chivalry, the myth of Bushido, the myth of a wholesome past, the myths of a moral and simpler 1950s... it looks to a past that never existed and a history that never happened.
Your stated conclusions are based on a narrative of history that was never true, and interpreting history to fit that narrative -- you are drawing your unfacts backwards, from the very conclusions you expect them to support.
"This article explores the manner in which culturally prevalent narratives lead us not only to interpret facts in a particular way
but also to generate those very facts through the acts we perform in consonance with these narratives."
TED is pretty much pop-culture at this point, with drek and quality in equal measures. Go through the list of speakers and topics sometime.
Does the speaker talk about whether or to what degree those differences are innate vs cultural?
You keep presenting these examples of difference, and proceeding on your own unquestioned assumption that they prove that the difference is innate -- while entire skipping the question of whether they are innate, or cultural, or some mutually-reinforcing combination of both.
And no one is claiming that there are no differences, or even that here are no innate differences. What they're telling you is that those differences are an order of magnitude narrower in scope and depth than the overall variation in the human species. We're human beings first and foremost, not "males" and "females" who just happen to be of the same species.
Without realizing it, you keep telling me that people I know and care about don't exist, that they can't exist, because they break your assertions of what it is to be "male" or "female" -- that the women I know who weld, and fix their own cars, and do metal sculpting in furnaces that can kill if you're careless, and brew their own beer, and hunt, and fish, and "know kung fu", and run marathons and compete in triathlons, and drive motorcycles, and work in science and engineering and electronics and carpentry and so forth, and fix their own houses, and manage their own investments... you're telling me that they can't exist, or maybe worse that they "shouldn't" exist, at least according to your view of women as soft pretty things that need saving and protecting by strong powerful men, because they're under threat from other strong powerful men.
And "yet somehow" many of these women are loving wives, and even terrific mothers (who would kill you in a heartbeat to protect their children, or die to save them).Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-26 at 11:59 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-07-26, 11:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Agreed.
I like to think of myself as a middle of the road guy on this complex issue, although my strong anti-censorship views and appreciation of the beauty of the human form tends to put me on the "pro chainmail bikini" camp more often than not, but the rhetoric on both sides has gotten a bit too heated for my comfort.
On the plus side, I think this is the longest I have ever seen a debate on this topic go without being locked.Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.
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2017-07-26, 11:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
I say we can go where we want to, a place where they will never find. And we can act like we come from out of this world, leave the real one far behind. We can dance.
The Adventures of Amber Yarrowhill, IC and OOC
In the Hands of an Angry God June 2017 - November 2018. RIP.
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2017-07-26, 11:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-26 at 11:40 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-07-26, 11:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Last edited by CharonsHelper; 2017-07-26 at 11:52 PM.
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2017-07-27, 12:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
I truly wish I could say the same.
While on the subject, I apologize to any innocent bystanders who were inadvertently sprayed with the vitriol overflow from some of my posts. Discovering that an attitude I encounter depressingly often outside the internet, was alive and well in what I believed was my sexism-free sanctuary, may have caused an over-reaction or two. Or three.
Expectations have been adjusted, which hopefully will prevent vitriolic outbursts in future threads on similar topics.I say we can go where we want to, a place where they will never find. And we can act like we come from out of this world, leave the real one far behind. We can dance.
The Adventures of Amber Yarrowhill, IC and OOC
In the Hands of an Angry God June 2017 - November 2018. RIP.
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2017-07-27, 12:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
I hope it's of some consolation that people also stood up and spoke against it.
Maybe it was shocking to me because I figured in a place full of people who pride themselves on imagination, we'd all be able to "imagine" that women are people and get our heads around the idea. Or maybe because in forum for discussion of putting ourselves in other people's shoes, we'd all have considered what it might be like to be on the receiving end of that sort of belittling, demeaning paternalism, and found the wisdom to reject it.Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-27 at 12:29 AM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-07-27, 01:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-07-27, 02:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
A female software engineer friend of mine overheard a (male) manager at work telling another manager that he shouldn't expect too much of the female engineers, because once they start wanting babies they won't be as focused on the job anymore, and their productivity will start to decline.
This was last year. At a very large company that has been praised and acknowledged for its inclusiveness and commitment to diversity in the workplace.
But yes, I was as surprised as you are to see these ideas here, of all places.I say we can go where we want to, a place where they will never find. And we can act like we come from out of this world, leave the real one far behind. We can dance.
The Adventures of Amber Yarrowhill, IC and OOC
In the Hands of an Angry God June 2017 - November 2018. RIP.
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2017-07-27, 02:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Ill be honest, I couldn't slog through all the pages of this thread, but I'd like to chime in and say a few things.
For anyone who finds females attractive (in my case, I am a heterosexual male), there is NOTHING WRONG with enjoying artwork that combines your love of fantasy gaming with attractive females in revealing outfits (e.g., the "chainmail bikini" and other examples). In fact, it would be weird if you didn't. It doesn't make you a sexist, it doesn't make you misogynist, it doesn't make you a pervert, and I PROMISE YOU there are females in this gaming community who also like that artwork.
HOWEVER...
It is important to recognize that there are people who find that kind of artwork demeaning to women. They don't want to see females in fantasy art depicted that way. Artwork, however is protected under freedom of expression, and the default solution, unfortunately, is "if you don't like it, don't look at it".
It's an important distinction, I feel, in what constitutes "official" game art (that is, the artwork published in official books like Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks), and what constitutes other, purely artistic fantasy art. I think the "if you don't like it, don't look at it" tag only belongs with the latter. Official artwork for RPGs should be respectful to ALL potential players of that game (or, if you want to be completely realistic, customers. We are discussing catering to CUSTOMERS who buy a PRODUCT).
In the days of yesteryear, D&D art was chock-full of scantily clad women, because most of the people playing the game, statistically, were males. That doesn't really make the blatant sexism okay, but that's the reason. When 3rd edition came out, there was a revolution in the art style. Most of the females actually LOOKED like they were professional adventurers, not Medieval Playboy Bunnies. Vadania the Druid and Lidda the Rogue were wearing leather armor that LOOKED like actual armor. Ember the Monk wasn't wearing a lot to cover, but neither were most depictions of male monks. Monks didn't wear armor. But she was beefy as hell and LOOKED like a badass. Her clothing may not have been a lot of material, but neither was she sexualized. Alahandra the Paladin...okay I don't know what was up with the dangly sheet of scale mail "shirt", because it didn't look like realistic protection, but she wasn't depicted "sexy", either. She looked like a tough chick (later depictions sometimes showed her in plate armor). And THAT'S what was good. Female gamers should be able to look at the artwork of female characters and see the same things that we males expect when we see male characters. It should inspire a reaction of "that character looks cool! I'd like to be playing a character like that!".
Then 4th edition came along...with a GIANT step backwards in the art department. Don't get me wrong, I was intrigued by the design goals for some of the artwork (as found in the 4e preview book, Races & Classes), for example, they wanted to find a way to make dwarven women look beautiful, even sexy, while still retaining the aesthetic of strong and tough, which they nailed. But the point is, almost every female character in the 4e PHB had exposed cleavage (not just décolletage) and/or bare midriff (usually "and"). I'm a straight male, and not to sound like a cliché, but even I was put off. I've played D&D with lots of women over the years, and the artwork depictions of females wasn't something I really focused on. Not until 4e. Not until I saw the giant step back. That was when I really realized that 3e had done such a good job of NOT sexualizing the female characters. 3e had done such a good job that I wasn't even thinking about the female characters' armor choices as something that "could be sexier". I just thought "man, that female human paladin in plate armor looks like a total BAMF smiting that demon!". Don't get me wrong, 4e DID have some depictions of female armor that were not all cleavage and bare midriff. But the overwhelming majority of the artwork, ESPECIALLY in the first PHB, were just that. And first impressions are important.
5th edition, so far, has been a grab-bag, leaning slightly to the "functional female armor" side. It's still fairly new, with not as many books, so it remains to be seen.
Ultimately, the point is that artwork in official RPG books should NOT be depicting female adventures as "porny slave girls" or in "chainmail bikinis". I know some of the readers (of all genders) may like it, but it's better to have more positive image-enforcing artwork. Gamers of any gender should be able to look at the artwork and think the character looks awesome and playable, and not only in some kind of adult-rated manner.
But while I STRONGLY advocate for the "female armor should LOOK like it protects them" group, I also don't find anything wrong with armor that is CLEARLY for a female. People criticize "armor boobs", for example, when sometimes there are actually practical reasons for it. Leather armor has to be boiled in oil until it is a hard shell, a bustier female might actually need that shaping, so it won't be loose everywhere else. And full-plate is actually custom-made for each wearer, so...same thing applies. I think having some females in unisex armor and some in armor that-while still looking like real armor-is still "feminine" in shape is a good compromise.
And for all that, I believe there is STILL a place for the "Red Sonja" style of art. It can be fan art, it can be professional art sold in gaming stores, or at conventions. It can be hanging up in your gaming den, or a life-size poster over your bed. Doesn't matter. And there is NOTHING WRONG with enjoying the view. But I think we should all be able to agree that artwork like that doesn't belong in the rulebooks for the RPGs we play. Yes, some of the women who play might like it, but a lot more do not. We all, as gamers, face a certain amount of social stigma, if not outright ostracism, in our lives. We should never do it to each other.Red Mage avatar by Aedilred.
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Best advice I've ever heard one DM give another:
"Remember that it is both a game and a story. If the two conflict, err on the side of cool, your players will thank you for it."
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2017-07-27, 02:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
ITT: People act very rudely to drive the moderate positions and the opposition out of the argument, and then pat themselves on the back for "apologizing" in the same rude and condescending manner.
It always amazes me how often people on forums would rather accuse you of misreading their posts with malice than re-explain their ideas with clarity.
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2017-07-27, 03:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
No, neither my boyfriend's, nor my girlfriend's, nor any previous partners' form serves to me as a metaphor for their mind, nor ever has.
To be quite fair, I don't even know how it COULD, or what that is even supposed to mean. What are you TALKING about?
Noone claimed they are identical, Donna. Max said most of what needs to be said in response already, but to add on a few points:
1. Noone actually knows, at the current state of science, what causes the desire in people to be a certain gender. This is probably more readily exemplified in trans people's desire to transition, rather than such fringe cases as you linked. Since I have more experience with those, and the underlying points are pretty much the same, I shall focus on them. Yes, there is some innate urge that drives them to seek out the respective treatments, be it medical or social. Sure. But to take from the fact that there is some innate possibility for people to feel like a man or a woman that there is any large difference beyond that is dishonest, and drawing conclusions one cannot from that fact. Even if (And that's a big if) there is a hard-coded bit in the brain that says "I need to run on an estrogen/testosterone-dominant hormone system", this does not, in fact, sayanything more than that.
Sure there is SOMETHING in most people, trans or cis, that makes them desire a certain type of body (Cis people just... have that already, mostly). But even here the differences even within the transgender community are so staggering (Considering what treatments to actually go for; but also how they interact with gender roles) that it isn't really possible to draw their existance as an example that there is an innate difference between men and women that determines everything, even IF we assume transness is actually inert in the brain, and not caused some other way. Which, honestly, noone knows.
(Disclaimer: Even if transness was somehow caused by nurture (or a combination of nurture and nature), that doesn't mean there is any other possibility to treat it than them transitioning and everyone else supporting them on their way. I firmly believe trans people are the gender they say they are, just not that the cause for WHY is known. Or that it even is the same cause in all of them, considering how different their experiences are.)
2. The leap in logic from "some people HAVE to be men, otherwise they kill themselves" to "therefore heterosexuality is about mental and physical characteristics both" is... staggering. I might suggest to you that there are different kinds of attraction - sexual, romantic, or even just aesthetic. One can feel any or all seperately, or together, for the same people. Some people don't feel some of those at all. But even if we lump this all together, what exactly triggers the attraction is so different between people that even "heterosexual men" can be well differentiated. Because what exactly triggers the "this is a woman, and therefor a potential target for my attraction"? Where are the lines drawn, how much of this attraction is cause by phsyical appearance, how much by how the people are acting?
Human attraction is way more complicated than you make it out to be.
3. "There must be a mental difference, otherwise heterosexuality makes no sense" leaves out the fact that even IF brains are similar, there is still a difference in body that might explain differing sexual attraction. Your line of reasoning here is sketchy at best.
4. The explanation for the utter prevalence of heterosexuality is indeed, to some part, cultural; which might be jokingly considered brainwashing. I firmly believe that without any social pressure, there would still be straight and gay people left, but much more bisexual people than there are today. (Though I do not have any real reason to believe that beyond "it seems sensible to me" and "my life experience suggests so".)
On those tropes? No. I do try to avoid these tropes, after all. (Hard enough as it is, but I mostly meet them in videogames. Those sometimes appear to be lagging behind when the possibilities of storytelling are concerned.) As for the opposite? The First Law series doesn't do perfectly, but is trying and the books do get much better over time in regards to women (And are great the whole way through if you enjoy Dark and Gritty Fantasy). If you are familiar with German, the novels for the Dark Eye, though I have not read all of them at least all take place in a world of full gender equality, and might showcase the possibilities of allowing for such things in fiction.
You did not, in fact, blunder. I'm indeed a woman. (I think I stated it in other threads, too... one you were part of, Max, so maybe that was memory creeping in?^^)
Is it weird? Cause I do like women, and very much so, and I find this artwork and design to be tired at best, and never quite managed to see it as sexy.
(Also, real life experience tells me chainmail bikinis do look mostly weird on people, and really don't do a good job at being sexy. Maybe that ruined them for me.)
I will pretty much sign the rest of your post, though. Contains many things I agree with, especially the careful differentiation of where to put this artwork, and that not liking it does not inherently come with a wish to censor.Last edited by Floret; 2017-07-27 at 04:45 AM.
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2017-07-27, 05:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
As a general comment on one of the above tangents: railing against evolutionary psychology in response to Donnadogsoth, is homologous to arguing that modern psychology is quackery in response to someone who believes in Freudianism. It's fighting strawmen with strawmen, a misrepresentation of a thing that's already being misrepresented by the opposition.
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Back to the main topic, I didn't see a lot of discussion on Aleena the Cleric, the iconic mentor figure in BECMI tutorial? It seems strange to omit her in a discussion of past artwork of the hobby. Especially since she, to paraphrase a certain funny net personality, could only be more covered if she wore a burqa."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."
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2017-07-27, 06:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Red Mage avatar by Aedilred.
Where do you fit in? (link fixed)
RedMage Prestige Class!
Best advice I've ever heard one DM give another:
"Remember that it is both a game and a story. If the two conflict, err on the side of cool, your players will thank you for it."
Second Eternal Foe of the Draconic Lord, battling him across the multiverse in whatever shapes and forms he may take.
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2017-07-27, 06:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-27 at 06:41 AM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-07-27, 06:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
I totally agree with Max. I havnt seen any good evolutionay psychology studies. They usually fails in both basic understanding of culture, biology, statistics, and not least how our past looked like (that is they invoke a prehistoric past that never existed). Some don't fail all four though.
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2017-07-27, 06:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
The 10% I give them credit for is the basic concept that the human brain is part of a living creature and therefore had to have evolved, and as the human mind is in the human brain, evolution has had some impact on the human mind.
They just don't seem to be able to go much of anywhere scientific with it -- instead coming up with a series of just-so stories and "anecdotal theories" based on things that aren't actually true, as you say, about culture, biology, history, statistics, or actual human beings.It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-07-27, 07:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Sigh... except it was demonstrated in the first couple of pages of this thread (by me for Basic and by another poster for AD&D) that this isn't true at all. Far and away the vast majority of women were clad in armor and gear perfectly well suited for adventure with minimal skin showing. So as I've been beating on this entire thread unless you or someone else has evidence that either 2e or the majority of the supplements around Basic and 1e had radically different art styles from that found in the core books, it would be a great service to our hobby is we stopped acting like early D&D was a cesspit of sexist artwork.
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2017-07-27, 08:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-07-27, 08:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Decades later, maybe it's mental mashup with some of the monster art, which was at times a bit more "risque" at times as I recall. And there was ancillary material that was certainly a lot more racy and/or unfortunate.
Some of the art, as with the cover shown earlier, did have issues. A lot of it didn't.It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-07-27, 09:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
To wit, I'm not interested in particulars of Pundit's argument. I just found the lack of mentions of Aleena curious, because she was meant as an introduction to what D&D is even about - and factually achieved that, as "Red box" D&D was arguably more popular and widespread than all other editions of D&D.
So a fully-armored woman was the first image of what a cleric is meant to be like to millions of roleplayers, but no-one ever seems to argue that this had any lasting impact on anything.
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@L33t b4k4: I think the reason is that people are conflating general trends in superhero comics and pulp art with what was in RPG books. Actual RPG books from 70s and 80s were light on illustrations and rarely had anything really racy on them. Genre art outside RPGs was much more common and much more pin-uppy. Illustrations grew in number and raciness during the 90s, but this was hardly limited to RPGs: for example, comic books also went through a "dark age".
In general, I suspect comic book art was a greater trend setter for RPG artwork than anything D&D did.
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@Max & Tobtor: way to miss the point.
Spoiler: Spoilered for irrelevancy to everyone elseHere, let me quote something from Wikipedia's "criticisms" page (actually criticism of criticism): "Buller (2005) makes the point that the entire field of evolutionary psychology is never confirmed or falsified; only specific hypotheses, motivated by the general assumptions of evolutionary psychology, are testable."
EvPsych is not a single hypothesis, it's not a theory, it's not a collection of those either. No matter how many faulty claims, studies etc. technically fall under that term, you can't "debunk" evolutionary psychology or label it "pseudoscience" anymore than you can debunk psychology on the basis that Freudianism is wrong, or debunk physics on the basis that Aether theory is wrong.
To Max in particular, many of the criticisms you posted are already obsolete because the edge of research moved past the theories they refer to. At least one stuck out to me as admitting it is targeting "Pop EvoPsych", that is, popular misconceptions and beliefs that stemmed from the field, rather than individual or recent studies... and used other, newer EvPsych findings to support its criticism, similar to how modern critiques of Freudianism use contemporary psychological theories and findings to support theirs.
The idea that Donna's ideas are the right place and time for criticism of EvPsych, is equivalent to the idea of a some layman's appropriation of Freud's terminology being the right place and time to cry "psychology isn't a real science", or to the idea that some mystic's mangling of quantum theory is right time and place to cry "physics can't explain everything!" Donna's ideas may lack substance, but that's more on Donna than any inspiration behind their views.
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EDIT: oh yeah, about more recent artwork:
Lamentations of the Flame Princess has gained quite a bit of notability and notorierity recently. Based on my personal meetings with Raggi as well as general quality and quantity of products he's putting out, his business is quite healthy and well-received. However, based on Zak Smith's blog, there's supposedly a vocal hatedom for LotFP... somewhere. But outside of one Something Awful thread lampooning the art in the corebooks and Zak's snippets, this crowd is generally invisible to me. Where are they?
Also, what's your opinion of LotFP's art when it comes to topic at hand? Pictures of the iconics are easy to find on the net. I personally admit to having initially bought the game because I thought the cover was so cool (the one with the titular red head fighting the naked marilith).Last edited by Frozen_Feet; 2017-07-27 at 09:29 AM.
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2017-07-27, 09:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
I'm going by the exposure I've had to that subdiscipline of psychology -- the posts here did nothing to shape my view of it, I already had that view. Its basic principles (modularity of the mind, etc) are... odd, and largely unsupported by evidence.
If you have references to something that sheds a different light on the topic, I'd be happy to read it.
What are some character names I should be looking for? Or sites I should look at?
From what I've seen poking around, most of the art "with a lot of skin" is more about invoking horror or weirdness, than being "titillating".Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-27 at 10:16 AM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-07-27, 11:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Too bad, I was looking forward to more of Ashiel's art, and Max_Killjoy's words, but as a grumpy old coot who dislikes change, I really dislike regression to "the wisdom of the ages" (it dishonors the real past, and its struggles).
Curious that your friend heard sexist remarks at a "diverse company", but you found that the male weight lifters at the gym welcoming. Any kind of pattern?
Also, I'm puzzled by what's the point of alienating half the population from your hobby?
Are there really so many males eager to play "pretend to be an Elf games" that a "no wimmen's allowed" attitude makes any sense?
What's the benefit?
Similarly the fantasy fiction that I've most enjoyed reading lately has all been written by women younger than me, and if they'd been told "these stories aren't for girls", while growing up, they wouldn't have written in the genre, and my reading would have suffered.
I don't get it.
Anyway, I just so happened to have picked up a game supplement yesterday:
Which has AWESOME setting info, and I noticed in the introduction something that may be relevant:
"I'm going to tell this story in two parts, just like the NATIONS OF THÉAH books are in two parts. The first part is how I fell in love with 7TH SEA. When I was in college, a friend of mine suggested we play a pirate game.I read through the 7TH SEA core book and immediately fell in love with Montague, and wanted to make a daring, Panache-filled, Montaigne Marketeer. Normally, when I played games with any kind of historical bent, historical accuracy was the bane of my existence."Women didn't do those things," my friends would say. No one told me women didn't do the things I wanted my Montaignoise Hero to do, because it was right there in the book, women do these things too. This was my first experience with a game that stressed inculsivity, and I'll never forget it...."
So a little bit of effort was made to welcome women characters and I, a man, benefit because a women than wrote some great game content, that I enjoy reading (I haven't noticed any cooties yet).
I must've missed any of that, but I've mostly bought pre '83 stuff ('78 to '85 were the years I played the most), some post '98 stuff, and all of post '13 (so. 0e, 1e, and 5e).
The 3e-4e stuff seems "racier' to me (with the possible exception of the Monster Manual and Deities & Demi-Gods).
I find a lot of LotFP's art a bit "squicky", and some of what I've seen as "old school revival" "what is old school" that's been published under the LotFP's umbrella doesn't actually fit what I remember of D&D in the late 1970's and early 80's (in Berkeley, California).
Otherwise the rules and adventures seem alright, and I've bought some.
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2017-07-27, 12:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Hmmm...looking up the subject of LotFP artwork, as always online, I end up somewhere other than my destination. Evidently the self-appointed Forge God went after James Raggi in an OSR 'zine article at one point... for capitulating to "Victorian societal values". I find that a bit funny given the rather unflinching approach to artwork and subject matter in Raggi's products.
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/...al-purity.html
http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2009/08/de...d04efea2a75028Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-27 at 01:00 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-07-27, 12:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
It was a rather tongue-in cheek response to a detail in your comment ;) I apologize if that wasn't clear enough.
Since I didn't grow up on DnD, and my socialisation for RPGs was in Germany... have some early Dark Eye artwork. I don't think its doing all that great (Many not-so clothed men, too, but at least there are fully clothed men to be found. Hard to find much linkable non-coverart.)
http://de.wiki-aventurica.de/de/images/4/49/RB_AAS.jpg
http://de.wiki-aventurica.de/de/images/8/8a/AB_B19.jpg
http://de.wiki-aventurica.de/de/images/6/69/AB_B17.jpg
(All from the mid-80s)
From my perspective at least it is doing pretty well these days, though.
Now I'm curious, what do our proponents of realistic armor say about this? (One of the pictures I consider evidence of the current state of The Dark Eye.)
Gonna bite the bullet here - to be completely honest, I can kinda understand the critique of the picture (Though it is really nitpicky and at certain points at least a bit reaching) Sure, it's generally pretty good; functional armor (Though when nitpicking, open flowing hair and chainmail don't mix well. At all. The Tabard is far as I can see a bit long and thin; but that might just be me heavily favouring those closed at the sides. The chainmail looks a bit skin-tight as well. And what's with those weird leather straps around the breasts?). But just because a person is fully covered, doesn't mean they cannot be sexualized - after all, a catsuit fully covers a person, but I hope noone would argue that isn't somewhat sexualized? The posing did strike me a bit strange at first glance, it looks weirdly contortionist and, yeah, somewhat emphasizing her feminine features. That in combination with the skin-tight chainmain creating an effect similar to a catsuit and the weirdly flowing, thin tabard... No, while that picture is really quite good and certainly ways off cliches about art from that time, it is definitely not perfect in regards to its portrayal of a female character as non-sexualized. Sure, nitpicks. But the devil is in the details.
The (quoted) critique is overblown, but so is the response linked.
From what I could see from a quick google search the general trend seems to be doing quite well, though it does seem to have a tendency to take female nudity in monsters as an element to add to the "disturbingness", which is... questionable. (The often-found connotation of "uncontrolled" female sexuality with villany or monsters is not a hill I'd die on debating, but a trend with certain unfortunate implications)
As for the cover art I am questioning the necessity to put boobs on a snake. Personally I'd find the monstrousness to be much better portrayed with a more reptiloid body. Or maybe keep the breasts, but put them in scales. This way its a sexy woman attached to a snake, which... meh. Seen that, not particularly threatened or disturbed by a sexy woman.Last edited by Floret; 2017-07-27 at 12:59 PM.
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2017-07-27, 01:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
It's the pattern that gets me. It's not that one woman in one picture is incongruously clad compared to her male comrades... it's that all three of them are, one on each cover.
They're trying. They've tried to depict a female character in what's supposed to be functional armor.
It has some issues... scale-mail acting like cloth and hugging her form, with a tank-top cut leaving upper chest, neck, shoulders, and underarms all unprotected... but at least she's wearing what attempts to be full torso armor. I'd like to see some indication that she has a helm even if she hasn't had a chance to put it on, but I'm willing to overlook that since it's just the character and not a full scene.Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-27 at 01:32 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2017-07-27, 01:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
To be fair, I did select a bit. Mostly for pictures with women and men on them, though - after going through stuff for the second edition, maybe some more (With quite some scantily clad men, now.):
1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11
And sure, some of that is okay. And DnD might have been doing alright as well. But most of that... really isn't, and DnD wasn't alone on the market for long. So from my experiences - yeah, portraials of female armor/Adventuring clothing have improved greatly over the years, even in RPGs, where there WAS a certain "need" for improvement. To act as if there were only bad examples is dishonest, sure, but to act as if there wasn't (or isn't still) a certain problem is as well.
...Unless, of course, one doesn't consider non-equal representation of men and women to be a problem. But I do.
Pretty close to my take. I just really love the character and the fact that this is amongst the iconics now - a woman defined mostly by her muscles and strength, not her prettyness.
(Depicting especially iconic characters in helmets is not the strong suit of the illustrations, sadly; at least not better than in most media. So, no, she never wears one.)
For better depictions of armor:
Maybe this? My second favourite picture of an armored woman from the current edition - the favourite isn't findable by google, sadly
Or, one of my favourite signs of "Hey, something is changing":
Rondra, the goddess of Honor, War and Storms... One time from 4th Edition, one time from 5th.
...Dark Eye picdump over. (For now?)Last edited by Floret; 2017-07-27 at 01:59 PM.
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2017-07-27, 02:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Red Mage avatar by Aedilred.
Where do you fit in? (link fixed)
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2017-07-27, 03:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Armor designs for females?
Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy
That's explained by looking at the date stamps. Edward's article and Raggi's response to it predate LotFP breaking out big. Eight years is a long time in the hobby.
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@Floret: oh, Raggi is a fan of using male nudity for shock value just as well, Death Love Doom and Fuck for Satan being two examples. However, those images tend to be interior art, so they're not what you get to see when looking up the products on Google. Raggi's gone on record for idly wondering / advicing GMs to use male genitalia because it seems to upset people more.
Which brings me to the Marilith's boobs. My reaction to seeing the image was "that is a really cool Marilith!" I did not pay any attention to its exposed boobs. So when I eventually saw someone on Something Awfull placing a black censor bar over its nipples, I was like "why on Earth would anyone feel the need to censor that?"
The idea that an exposed female torso on a naked inhuman monstrosity is any more noteworthy than a naked male torso on a naked inhuman monstrosity in a similar arrangement, is literally foreign to me. But I do think such ideas warp the discussion on art, not the least because they impact visibility of images on the net. In a world where LotFP box cover is somehow "Not Safe For Work" by the virtue of nipples, how would you expect pictures using full male nudity to ever get past Google Safe Search? Meanwhile, partial male nudity is completely unnoteworthy, due to some strange double standard; evidence suggests that if we had Balor nipples or Satyr nipples on that cover, no-one would've cared, no matter how hunky the Balor or Satyr would've been."It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."