I imagine the the iconics will be the illustrations for each of the classes.
I know it doesn't have to do with the look, but if you're talking old school, I'd like to see something like the example of play script in the original DMG. That grabbed my imagination as much as anything, and I can still picture the scene with the ghouls in my head.
lol i used to read and reread the introductory adventure in the original basic set.
That would so rock.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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A couple of stat suggestions based on real life averages, while I'm barbequing sacred cows:As mentioned above, women have 1/2 the upper body strength of men, and less lower body strength too. Don't know how you'd reflect the bifurcation between upper and lower though.
Women have slightly higher mean IQ than men, but their bell curve is narrower so you have many more men than women at both extremes.
Women have slightly better immune systems.
I'm not as sure about this one, but I think women on average have slightly slower reflexes than men.
Women on average have higher "charisma" (i.e., social skills) than men.
...
Without debating the veracity of any of these claims*, As you said, these are averages. The OP suggested that there be an even split in gender of our heroic characters. These heroic characters are decidedly non-average.
*Other estimates place female body strength on average at closer to 70% of males; IQ is affected by environment including education; men tend to talk more than women in many settings, etc.
If I were to add anything to this debate, it would be that I want the artwork to LOOK GOOD.
Why would anyone get hung up if there was one picture more or less of either gender? I won't count if you won't.
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If I use a picture from Sailor Moon as my D&D character then something dreadfully awful has happened to D&D, something I will never pay for.Let´s be serious, those ´re only a simple kind of stereotypes, take a look to Wen-M works,this is manga too:
Go to Wen-M gallery
From an art perspective it is nice. It isn't D&D. It is Final Fantasy. As much as people draw parallels between 4E and WOW, I don't want that for Pathfinder RPG and FF.
I can respect the artist's work and aptitude at his craft but at the same time, I hate it. I detest that style of artwork and that most computer games seem to want to follow right along with it.Gritty semi-gothic fantasy, that's what I want.
I'm going to admit something.
I like attractive protagonists in my RPG products. Plain and simple.
Call me shallow all you like, but it's true. And while I try to differentiate content versus presentation, presentation still manages to count for something.
I married a gamer. Mrs. Watcher always points out to me the only problem that TV shows, comics, and RPG products consistantly fail on, is that they don't provide something for everyone.
Likewise, as DG points out, we can't have an entire gender relegated to to being objectified. By all means, lets have our Paladin in the Core Book. She rocks.
It's a matter of balance.
Personally, I could do without all of the artwork in the books. It would save a hell of a lot of page space for other things and would also lower the cost of producing it. But then I know I am in the minority when it comes to this.
Every four months I pray for a little plastic DDM Morgan Ironwolf. Is something wrong with me?
If I were to add anything to this debate, it would be that I want the artwork to LOOK GOOD.
Why would anyone get hung up if there was one picture more or less of either gender? I won't count if you won't.
Clearly, I want good artwork too. But since I have never seen Paizo artwork I didn't think was good, I felt no need to call that out. But it's true, and worth mentioning. Cruddy art is unwelcome, no matter what it depcits.
I don't care about gender ratio so much that having it be off by one picture is going to bother me. What I *do* care about is making sure the one missing picture isn;t a woman in full plate mail. Because a lot of young female players want to run that character, and if they don;t see her in the book, they end up deciding this game isn't for them. And, honestly, when they face some of the Our Gang no-girls-allowed rpg groups 9and if they're new to the hobby, they may not know what their other options are), the NEED a picture IN THE RULEBOOk so they can say "I can to play a female Fighter in heavy armor. Look, there's a picture."
These things happen.
Now, I do not want to get into an argument about whether women can put on plate mail and swing a longsword along with the men in the real world. It's pointless. And the reason it's pointless, is that nearly every 7th level fighter in plate mail I see has a belt of ogre strength, and mithral armor. So, real world is irrelevant. If a woman CAN become a fighter in heavy armor in an rpg game, even if it's NOT THE NORM, then you need a picture of that.
Because otherwise, some women will be disinvited from ever getting into the hobby. As soon as I run into a group, just once, that refuses to let a young male player run a wizard because "Men can't multitask or act cautiously enough to realistically be a spellcaster in any fantasy campaign world," and have him flip through a rulebook looking for some evidence they're wrong, I'll take up the Gandalf Picture cause with equal fervor.
Do whatever you want in your own campaigns. Goodness knows I have. But don't shoot down the one piece of visual support I have actually seen, more than once, in different states and different game with different groups, prevent a woman from being able to play the first rpg character that interests her.
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Some interesting info from Wikipedia:
While it looks heavy, a full plate armour set could be as light as only 20 kg (45 pounds) if well made of tempered steel. This is less than the weight of modern combat gear of an infantry soldier, and the weight is better distributed. The weight was so well spread over the body that a fit man could run, or jump into his saddle. Modern re-enactment activity has proven it is even possible to swim in armour.[2] It is possible for a fit and trained man in armour to run after and catch an unarmoured archer. The notion that it was necessary to lift a fully armed knight onto his horse with the help of pulleys is a myth originating in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.[3][4] Even knights in enormously heavy jousting armour were not winched onto their horses.
Well, since you all at Paizo asked for our input on this game, here's mine. I'm like Forsetti, a D&D player from the '70s. I remember the old AD&D rules for max & min values for PC's...they made sense. A halfling with a 20 Str was and is ridiculous to me. I have an in-house set of rules (which are just a copy of the old 1st ed rules) about max natural ability scores. And please recognize this, I have problems with the base, natural score being too high or too low for a non-human race. So, I'd like to see a little bit of change in that direction.
Also, I liked having the "cartoons" in the old books because they were funny AND they taught the rule in a way which was easily remembered. A few cartoons to illustrate some of the rules would be nice. But they should be multi-panel comic strips, just one panel chuckles.
Lastly, a couple of interesting bits of art or samples of play to help new players get the feel of the game. I know that if I mention Emirikol the Chaotic, a batch of you will remember Dave Trampier's full page art from the 1e AD&D DMG. And the script of game play I've used ever since when trying to describe to someone what a game is like. It works. We've got lots of podcasts out there. Find a good one and put in part of the transcript.
Well, that's my 2cents....back to hiding in the dark....
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Erik,
Cartoons. Really, seriously. Cartoons.
Shouldn't be comic strips. But in the section on encumbrance, if you've got room for an illustration at all, it should be a short Aaron Williams henchman, looking over a treasure trove with a despairing look in his eye.
And I'm really hoping that you can get Tony Mosley to draw an underground druid.
Oh! Now I get it. When Dungeon Grrrl mention cartoons, I was thinking strips or Far Sideish gags and really didn't care for that idea. The jokes would get old quick. But if you're talking about using less serious artwork to illustrate a point, I can get behind that. I remember Wizards.com showing a picture of a warrior jumping with fright into the arms of his wizard ally at the sight of a rust monster.
On the point of racial diversity, I'm torn. It is good to include humans of every colour in the examples, but I've always paused when human ethnicities are applied to non-humans. I know when Star Trek Voyager introduced a Vulcan with an African skin tone, it made me question if every race in Star Trek should have the exact same range of skin tones as the humans.
I really appreciate that the sample gnome in Pathfinder alpha has a purple-ish skin tone. Maybe if every race was given its own specific range, that would work.
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I don't undertand about the cartoons. But I'd like to. :) Please explain. Why is it necessary to put cartoons in the core book?
I think she's referring to some of the black and white illustrations in some 1st Edition AD&D books... I particularly liked the image of the wizard holding a cowering fighter in his arms with a rust monster a few feet away.
Ah nostalgia..
As for the cartoons in the corebooks... I don't think that valuable space should be used for cartoons. In some of the early books they used these to increase their page count which directly related to how much they could sell the book for.
I'm not thrilled with the anime/WoW art style so I hope there isn't too much of that used in the books. Throw in some Lockwood, Elmore, Easley, Wilson and I'd be a happy camper.. I'd love to see some DiTerlizzi artwork but not sure how much RPG stuff he's doing these days.
Trent
Infinet Media & Design
DigitalDungeonCast.com
Because a lot of young female players want to run that character, and if they don;t see her in the book, they end up deciding this game isn't for them. And, honestly, when they face some of the Our Gang no-girls-allowed rpg groups 9and if they're new to the hobby, they may not know what their other options are), the NEED a picture IN THE RULEBOOk so they can say "I can to play a female Fighter in heavy armor. Look, there's a picture."
Now I don't think you give the girls enough credit here. Of course they might be put off by "Our Gang no-girls-allowed rpg groups" but this would have nothing to do with pictures in books.
Now I have created several characters that have no support in artwork (until I created it). Why? I guess I'm just imaginative like that. Now I have never heard that imagination is either a male or female trait but I don't think any girls have less imagination than I do.
But if you realy want a full-plate-grrrl-picture in the book, then I support you whole-heartedly and ad my vote to the polls.
I'm new here; but I've been playing D&D since the seventies.
Hi Forsetti and welcome!
Snacks are over there in the corner and Lilith will be along shortly with freshly baked cookies.Someone mentioned that a woman can't be a knight due to upper body strength. I know a woman who's 6'4" and can bench press 250lb.
Is she single? :-D
Well, since you all at Paizo asked for our input on this game, here's mine. I'm like Forsetti, a D&D player from the '70s. I remember the old AD&D rules for max & min values for PC's...they made sense. A halfling with a 20 Str was and is ridiculous to me. I have an in-house set of rules (which are just a copy of the old 1st ed rules) about max natural ability scores. And please recognize this, I have problems with the base, natural score being too high or too low for a non-human race. So, I'd like to see a little bit of change in that direction.
That was one of my major put-offs for the older editions. To me, it automatically put you at a disadvantage to play a female or non-human fighter. I said Hallelujah when 3E chucked those mechanics that limited what your imagination would allow in a magic-filled fantasy game. Reality be-damned!
I'm new here; but I've been playing D&D since the seventies.Hi Forsetti and welcome!
Snacks are over there in the corner and Lilith will be along shortly with freshly baked cookies.
*drops a fresh batch of cookies along in the thread*
Hi Forsetti! Welcome! :D
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Without debating the veracity of any of these claims*, As you said, these are averages. The OP suggested that there be an even split in gender of our heroic characters. These heroic characters are decidedly non-average.Heroes have averages, too. And as I pointed out, there's more to bell curves than the middle, which is probably why males crowd out females by a huge margin in the upper levels of math, for example. More relevantly, this is why sports are segregated by sex.
*Other estimates place female body strength on average at closer to 70% of males70% is still quite a split.
IQ is affected by environment including educationTrue, but: environment is often an obscurantist crutch, and the current research suggests that IQ is significantly more nature than nurture.
men tend to talk more than women in many settings, etc.True, and obviously, again, those are averages - plenty of quiet women and loquacious men.
Now, I do not want to get into an argument about whether women can put on plate mail and swing a longsword along with the men in the real world. It's pointless. And the reason it's pointless, is that nearly every 7th level fighter in plate mail I see has a belt of ogre strength, and mithral armor. So, real world is irrelevant. If a woman CAN become a fighter in heavy armor in an rpg game, even if it's NOT THE NORM, then you need a picture of that.How's it pointless? The 7th level fighter presumably had lots of killin' to do with plain old +0 mail, wearing a +0 leather belt, on his way to becoming a 7th level fighter.
The real world isn't irrelevant. If it was, we could remove sex altogether and have worlds populated with Androgenites.
And just to repeat myself to avoid confusion, I don't mind that picture of a female in plate. The kind of thing I'm objecting to is made-up nonsense like "gender balance" (where we...
People who decide to argue, point by point, just to try and show how superior their 'facts' are, is really annoying.
And on the whole men talk more than women... Men tend to average around 8000-10000 words a day while women average between 25000-28000 per day. If you mean in SOME environments that men out-talk women then you are fine but to say in many setting is just false. Obviously by those numbers women out-talk men in the majority of settings.I'm married, I know.
For the record.
I do NOT insist that half of all characters in plate mail be women. I want *one* obvious picture of a woman in plate mail. Being an iconic would be great, but is not required.
I want APPROXIMATELY half of all positive character illustrations to be male, APPROXIMATELY half to be female, and ONE to be a woman in full plate.
And I want APPROXIMATELY half of all negative depcitions to be of each gender.
And I want a mix of fantasy races and cultures, as well as a mix of things drawn from real-world bloodlines and cultures.
And the question of how common adventurers female who look like knights is irrelevant to the real world because all fighters can wear plate, even if not all choose to. Yes, a female fighter might not have access to a belt of giant strength and mithral plate at 1st level. She doesn't need to. She can wear chainmail until higher levels, like a lot of characters do. But since at some point she DOES have access to strength-enhancers, and DOES have access to mithral plate, logic dictates some female clerics, fighters, paladins and even barbarians are going to end up in full plate at some point in their career, and we need a picture for that, because it is the ONE and ONLY character concept I still *see* women get *denied* the ability to play in game shops and basements.
And, especially since Eric and Paizo already seem to be on the same page with me on this one, I think that's about all I have to say on that topic. ;D
If I were to add anything to this debate, it would be that I want the artwork to LOOK GOOD.
Why would anyone get hung up if there was one picture more or less of either gender? I won't count if you won't.
Clearly, I want good artwork too. But since I have never seen Paizo artwork I didn't think was good, I felt no need to call that out. But it's true, and worth mentioning. Cruddy art is unwelcome, no matter what it depcits.
I don't care about gender ratio so much that having it be off by one picture is going to bother me. What I *do* care about is making sure the one missing picture isn;t a woman in full plate mail. Because a lot of young female players want to run that character, and if they don;t see her in the book, they end up deciding this game isn't for them. And, honestly, when they face some of the Our Gang no-girls-allowed rpg groups 9and if they're new to the hobby, they may not know what their other options are), the NEED a picture IN THE RULEBOOk so they can say "I can to play a female Fighter in heavy armor. Look, there's a picture."
These things happen.
Now, I do not want to get into an argument about whether women can put on plate mail and swing a longsword along with the men in the real world. It's pointless. And the reason it's pointless, is that nearly every 7th level fighter in plate mail I see has a belt of ogre strength, and mithral armor. So, real world is irrelevant. If a woman CAN become a fighter in heavy armor in an rpg game, even if it's NOT THE NORM, then you need a picture of that.
Because otherwise, some women will be disinvited from ever getting into the hobby. As soon as I run into a group, just once, that refuses to let a young male player run a wizard because "Men can't multitask or act cautiously enough to realistically be a spellcaster in any fantasy campaign world," and have him flip through a rulebook looking for some evidence they're wrong, I'll take up the Gandalf Picture cause with equal fervor.
Do whatever you want in your...
DG: you should check out artesia :)