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Just read this over at Monte's website Montecook.com
For those not linking:
When I worked at TSR, there was always basically a truism in cover art--the central figure had to be a white male. Most of us actually helping to create the cover art, either by conceiving it or actually creating it, hated that kind of outlook, but the powers that be believed that our audience was entirely white males and they needed someone that they could identify with on the cover. This was absurd for two reasons:
1. You're talking about a game where you pretend to be elves, halflings, or other things that are different from you, is it so hard to believe that the people who engage in this hobby might be able to see beyond themselves?
2. It's not only incorrect to assume that the audience is all white males, but it just makes the issue worse when the artwork only fixates on white males. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy, in other words.
So, when D&D was bought by WotC and we started working on 3E, we really felt that this was a time when we could break this mold. We worked with the artists to create iconic characters of different ethnicities (both in appearance and in name) and with equal representation of male and female. At some point in the process, someone said, "hey, you don't have a male human fighter in the mix." We replied, "exactly." The reasons were again, twofold:
1. In order to be true to the system, we wanted the iconic fighter to a dwarf, because dwarves are the race that favors the fighter class.
2. It was a thumb to the nose of the old TSR requirement. Because, sadly, the people who noted that there was no "male human fighter" were basically saying "white human male fighter." It was our intention that while humans would be multi-ethnic, nonhumans were just that. So Tordek wasn't a white dwarf or a black dwarf, he was just a dwarf. So the core fighter wasn't a white guy. At least that was our intention.
Then, I went to Clarion (a six week writer's workshop). 3E was design was basically done, and so the game was in the hands of others (editors, marketing people, etc.), so it didn't seem to matter that I would be gone. But when I came back, there was suddenly this... guy. A big, burly human fighter.
Regdar intruded his way into 3E, empowered by marketing and sales people. At the last minute, in a matter of just those few short weeks, the old TSR standard reared its ugly head. Not only was Regdar on the scene, he was in the spotlight. This was the character that would be on the cardboard standees and other promotional items, and would usually take center stage in the covers. I was caught entirely off-guard and was far too late to even comment on him. Now, to his credit, the initial Regdar artist, Todd Lockwood, made Regdar's ethnicity kind of vague. (Regdar had shown up in Todd's earlier sketches when he designed the look of 3E armor.) It's only in later artwork that Regdar seems to be pretty clearly the white male fighter we tried to avoid. And to the credit of a number of people--artists, art directors, designers and editors alike--our disdain for Regdar made its way into a lot of art. If you look closely, Regdar is getting thrashed on most of the early pieces he shows up in. (Look for his ignominious fate on the original DM's Screen, for example.)
Once Sue and I started Malhavoc Press, we tried very hard to have a diversity in both ethnicity and gender in our art. We already knew that unless you specified non-white, non-male, that's what you would get from most artists. In other words, if I asked for a drawing of a warrior, I'd get a white guy unless I specifically asked for something else. And I'm not trying to be harsh toward any artists--it's just the stereotypes of the genre that we need to loosen.
We recently got a lot of Malhavoc artwork framed and hung up. A friend was looking at it and said she could tell that it was from our books because the women were sensibly dressed. That made both of us feel pretty good. We've slipped up now and again, but I'm pretty proud of our books in this regard.
I hope that it made even a little difference. I hope it's a maybe even a trend that can continue.
- Monte Cook
My first thought when I read the article was how sad the whole marketing influence has been on D&D (at least going back to TSR, I'm not vilifying WotC here). Then I thought "hey, I kind of liked Regdar because he always gets his butt kicked."
Now why is this in the PRPG forum?
Because one of the first things I noticed when I became interested in Paizo was the artwork. This has probably been mentioned in other threads, but Monte's comments have some bearing as he is helping out with PRPG (I wonder if he had this conversation with Jason?).
Anyway, in Pathfinder we get:
Harsk - male dwarf ranger (pretty nordic looking)
Merisiel - female elf rogue (could be caucasian)
Seelah - female human paladin (black and female, bravo)
Lem - male halfling bard (fairly caucasian)
Kyra - female human cleric (definite middle eastern look)
Amiri - female human barbarian (caucasian)
Ezrin - male human wizard (caucasian, but passably a minority)
Seoni - female human sorcerer (definitely ethnic)
Seltyiel - male half-elf fighter/sorcerer (albino)
Lini - female gnome druid (ethnic)
Valeros - male human fighter (caucasian, possibly ethnic)
Sajan - male human monk (black)
PRPG has a healthy mix:
6 out of 12 are female.
5 out of 12 are distinctly non-caucasian.
3 out of 12 are female and distinctly non-caucasion.
1 out of 10 is female and scantily clad.
That is a pretty inspiring and healthy representation, and a very good assortment of role-models for players young and old.
I hope I didn't leave anyone out. And good job again, Paizo!
EDIT: Added Valeros and Sajan.
For those of you keeping score, D&D PHB 3.5 had:
Krusk - male half-orc barbarian (ethnic)
Gimble - male gnome bard (caucasian, possibly ethnic)
Jozan - male human cleric (caucasian)
Vadania - female elf druid (possible ethnic)
Tordek - male dwarf fighter (ethnic)
Regdar - male human fighter (possibly ethnic)
Ember - female human monk (black, a good choice by Wizards)
Alhandra - female half-elf? paladin (ethnic)
Soveliss - male elf ranger (ethnic)
Lidda - female halfling rogue (caucasian)
Hennet - male human sorcerer (possibly ethnic)
Mialee - female elf wizard (ethnic)
Nebin - male gnome illusionist (ethnic)
5 out of 13 are female.
6 out of 13 are distinctly non-caucasian.
2 out of 13 are female and distinctly non-caucasian.
1 out of 13 are female and scantily dressed (the wizard, the monk is dressed fairly appropriately for her role).
And before anyone gets upset, remember this is from the perspective of Monte's article. I am not trying to offend anyone by picking apart race or gender.
Creative Director
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Keeping a balance between genders and ethnicities in our characters has actually been a goal for us from the start. In fact, making sure that three of the first four iconics were women was a very conscious decision on my part to turn the standard "Three guys and a gal" makeup of most classic groups on its ear. And including various ethnicities was also a goal from the start as well; even in the adventures themselves we try to mix it up as often as possible so that not every NPC is a white guy. The world we live in isn't so bland and boring, after all, so why should the worlds we create be bland and boring?
But yeah... resistance to Regdar at WotC was pretty strong. They were calling him Captain Whitebread for a while over there. Also; the story goes that marketing spearheaded his creation, then came to Jonathan Tweet and asked him to name the guy. He was pretty fed up with the whole thing and said, "I don't care. You guys created him, you should name him." Marketing still didn't want to do that, so Jonathan said, "Just name him Regdar." So they did.
The thing that's funny about that, of course, is that the same thing happened in the Magic: The Gathering cycle. At one point, they were going to have a cycle featuring a black woman as the captain of a ship and she was going to be the focus of the storyline, but again, marketing or whoever stepped in with the, "You can't do that; the main character has to be a white guy so our customers can identify with him!" And so the black woman got shunted to a supporting role and a new character, Gerard, was born.
Regdar, of course, is an anagram of Gerard.
Anyway... I'm not really trying to pick on WotC here, but it is what it is. And I'm pretty happy with how our iconics turned out in the end... even if we DID go for a white human male fighter for our first Pathfinder!
Multiculturalism in D&D seems like a no-brainer to me. From Al-Qadim and Oriental Adventures to Indian inspired homebrews, the Dungeons and Dragons rules borrow a lot of material from cultures not populated by white folks. I'm sure quite a few monsters (Rakshasas-India, Pentaggalan (or however it's spelled; I believe those originate in Phillipines mythology) are pulled from across the globe; why not heroes? Why not the people we're supposed to identify with?
The baseline D&D, however, is a Western setting. Castles, a somewhat feudal society, western weapons and armor; these are kind of assumed as the baseline. Coming from that perspective, it may not just be "The Suits Upstairs" pulling the strings to have white males depicted in the art. But when it's ONLY white males, yes, that's a problem. Variety is the spice of life after all and as stupid as it is to assume that white folks are attracted to products marketed with white actors/models and black folks are similarly inclined to their own ethnic profile...it works (at least some of the time), or else we wouldn't see it rearing its head at board meetings and such. It could bring fresh players into the hobby with a more diverse approach to the sympathetic hero-types.
And as much as I love babes, it is good to see depictions of the scantily-clad fantasy chick (especially the embarrassing scantily-clad "damsel in distress sex object") start to diminish. It'll never go away completely, but fully armored and costumed female characters are a fresh change. As a young hopeful fantasy artist myself (Shameless plug), I try to steer clear of that kind of work most of the time. Not that I think they should go away entirely (nor should the loincloth-clad barbarian type, for people into that) but it is definitely time to move forward and I'm encouraged to see that the hobby steadily is moving in that direction.
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Remember Monte helped saying who and what appeared in the images of DnD 3.0, which are the same guys of 3.5, so no in this case is Monte and the people designing 3.0 who have the merit. WotC has the merit of getting Regdar (that if you read correctly is the classic White Fighter Male), hey i don't know enough, but aye parentally the artist decided to hit the poor guy for being part of the marketing :P
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Keeping a balance between genders and ethnicities in our characters has actually been a goal for us from the start. In fact, making sure that three of the first four iconics were women was a very conscious decision on my part to turn the standard "Three guys and a gal" makeup of most classic groups on its ear. And including various ethnicities was also a goal from the start as well; even in the adventures themselves we try to mix it up as often as possible so that not every NPC is a white guy. The world we live in isn't so bland and boring, after all, so why should the worlds we create be bland and boring?
Nice detail James, and so so true, thanks for the intel, its quite interesting :D
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Hey, isn't Regdar the one getting killed in all the 4e art too? I can think of 2 or 3 pictures in the 4e books where he's getting killed. And I seem to remember a couple threads b@++&ing about him getting killed as yet another thumbing of WotC's nose at 3e...
But apparently, 4e was actually continuing the tradition of hating on Regdar.
Now that's comedy...
Regdar, of course, is an anagram of Gerard.
Except M:TG's character was 'Gerrard'. Redgar's short an 'R'. </wiseass>
Never knew Gerrard was actually supposed to replace Sisay. At least she got a card before he did.
Though now I know why Redgar was always replaced by Tordek, or why he even existed, for that matter. Tordek held down the Iconic Fighter role just fine.
Edit: To the OP - Wasn't Vadania a Half-Elf? Alhandra was Human. Oh, and Sajan is Vudran/Indian.
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Creative Director
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Killing off Captain Whitebread is indeed a time-honored tradition in WotC books. I've written my fair share of art orders for those books, and have made sure to have Regdar get blasted or ruined or murdered a few times myself (such as at the end of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk). It's a fun little semi-secret D&D tradition!
Though now I know why Redgar was always replaced by Tordek, or why he even existed, for that matter. Tordek held down the Iconic Fighter role just fine.
Yes - that actually always confused me - every other class had just one iconic! Kept getting Regdar and Jozan confused :) - made them both seem weak.
Bravo to Paizo for the diversity!
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Wow, I never noticed the cover of the Heroes of Horror Until now. I had to flip it over to get the joke.
By the way I have always loved the Paizo artwork for D&D. The old Iconics for Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine were great. No White Male Fighter and no half naked Princess to rescue.
Although I do like me some half naked Chained females to rescue on occasion.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Incidentally, the Dungeon iconics were really the origin of the idea. Readers were always clamoring for more information about their names and backgrounds and stats and stuff, so this time around we designed the iconics with that approach firmly in mind.
Also, since the Pathfinder iconics are owned by Paizo, and not Wizards of the Coast, we are free to make t-shirts and stickers and miniatures and stuff with abandon.
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I think this is a very insightful look at the medium, actually. I approve thoroughly. I think something even more inspirational about Pathfinder is its treatment of gay and bisexual lifestyles in Golarion: that is to say, they exist, which they pretty much don't in vanilla D&D.
As a citizen of the American city with the highest per-capita population of alternative lifestyles (no, not San Francisco, guess again) I have quite a few gay and bisexual friends who lament that the only airtime their subculture regularly gets in role-playing games is in a certain game about vampires which shall remain nameless. I pointed out the sexual openness of the Pathfinder setting to them, and they were thrilled.
The fact that lots of the nations of Golarion are pretty open homages to real-world cultures is hardly surprising. The fact that anytime a real-world culture is used as inspiration, it has both good and bad things about it - now, that's damn near shocking. The fact that several of the adventure paths make casual reference to gay or bisexual characters is almost unheard-of.
What impresses me more than all of this is that Paizo isn't stepping on eggshells to get all of this done. They're showing respect without deference, courtesy and fairness without apology or preference. It continues to earn Paizo my loyalty as a customer and a fan. Thank you, Paizo people.
Jeremy Puckett
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Valeros, perhaps based on the name, but also the coloration, always struck me as mediterranean, either Greek or Roman-esque. I'm still impressed that the first Iconic party had an Int 13 Fighter as the 'brains.'
Yes - that actually always confused me - every other class had just one iconic!
They snuck in some human Iconics for almost every class, scattered through the book. (And a Dwarven Cleric iconic, Eberk, although I think he's only in the 3.0 PHB and the quickstart game.) I even statted some of them up for Mutants & Masterminds!
Naull the Mayan-looking Evoker (3.5 p 110). (Who was much hotter than Mialee, the Iconic Transsexual.)
Kerwyn the Rogue (3.5 p 168).
Devis the Bard (3.5 p 105).
I'm a fan of the underdog, so I always prefer Naull and Kerwyn to Mialee and Lidda. (Okay, I'm speciest! Or perhaps it's just that Lidda looks like a Kender and Mialee has an adam's apple...)
My favorite non-Iconic party is the one on the advertisements for the Miniature's Handbook (last page of Complete Warrior, among other places), with a Half-Orc Monk, Elven Sorcerer/Wizard and Human Fighter fighting a Displacer Beast.
Although I'd still love to see write-ups for the Dungeon Iconics, assembled on the cover of the last Dungeon to face Demogorgon, with the Tiefling Barbarian, Drow Bard, etc, etc.
Hey, isn't Regdar the one getting killed in all the 4e art too?
Regdar, Iconic Bantha Fodder!
Devis the Bard (3.5 p 105).
Devis is Half-elf: He was the iconic bard before Gimble, back when Nebbin was right.
I would like to see iconics from well and truely unusual sources.
Lizardmen, Orcs and Gobbos need their time in the sun.
And Vampires too, but maybe moon as opposed to sun. (After all only white human fighter guy needs to die).
Killing off Captain Whitebread is indeed a time-honored tradition in WotC books. I've written my fair share of art orders for those books, and have made sure to have Regdar get blasted or ruined or murdered a few times myself (such as at the end of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk). It's a fun little semi-secret D&D tradition!
Yeah I noticed in the 4e Players Handbook there was a picture of him lying in a pool of blood, eyes wide and staring. Looked pretty deceased to me.
Charles
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I would like to see iconics from well and truely unusual sources.
Lizardmen, Orcs and Gobbos need their time in the sun.
An Iconic Gnoll Druid (with Dire Hyena companion) would rock my world!
Perhaps as part of an all 'humanoid' party.
Hobgoblin chain-Fighter
Goblin Wizard
Bugbear Rogue
Kobold Cleric
Gnoll Druid
Orc Monk-grapple-and-bite specialist
I would like to see iconics from well and truely unusual sources.
Lizardmen, Orcs and Gobbos need their time in the sun.
An Iconic Gnoll Druid (with Dire Hyena companion) would rock my world!
Perhaps as part of an all 'humanoid' party.
Hobgoblin chain-Fighter
Goblin Wizard
Bugbear Rogue
Kobold Cleric
Gnoll Druid
Orc Monk-grapple-and-bite specialist
I'm... oh my god... I'm mildly aroused by that line up.
I need a new hobby.
Wait, Regdar's a guy? I thought he was a target.
Seriously though, Half-Orc Rogue would be a great Iconic, I played one, named Thass. He would often say "I'm gonna Pick tha Lock!" SMASH! And his fist would go break the door down. Ahh I missed Thass.
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Perhaps as part of an all 'humanoid' party.
Hobgoblin chain-Fighter
Goblin Wizard
Bugbear Rogue
Kobold Cleric
Gnoll Druid
Orc Monk-grapple-and-bite specialistI'm... oh my god... I'm mildly aroused by that line up.
I need a new hobby.
Thanks. I think. Have a towel.
My original thoughts on this group, which I was going to pit against my players as a Mercenary group hired to 'take care of them;'
Hobgoblin – Fighter (former slave to giants, uses a chain (non spiked) as a weapon, along with various feats to make him kick ass with it), since his two goblinoid allies tend to either go invisible or hide for a sneak attack at the onset of combat, he is used to fighting with no regard for his allies
Goblin – Wizard (sneaky little crowd control, enchantment and debuff specialist)
Bugbear – Rogue (Fur so dark red that it’s almost black, likes to use poisons that debuff prey, avoids damaging ones)
Kobold – Cleric (ranting fanatic about the dragons being gods, and Kobolds being their chosen people, able to keep his head only because of his gift for Dragonfire Channeling!)
Gnoll – Druid w/ Hyena Companion and focused Wild Shape (only Hyena forms, but more powerful?)
Orc – Monk (Grapple and Bite specialist)
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Eh I gotta say I sorta side with WOTC on the whole thing. When I was playing back in middle school and high school, it was pretty much all white guys. We had one girl (white) who gamed sometimes. I'm pretty sure most of our experiences were similar, if I'm off the mark then apologies of course.
Why wouldn't they make art that relates to what they want? C'mon be realistic, last time I saw advertisements for FUBU they were mostly black men and women in the clothes...surprise surprise that's also who they're marketing to. DnD was typically marketed towards teen and college age white guys I figure, so of course the heroic man up front in armor is going to be white. And of course, last time I watched Lord of the Rings I didn't see a large number of ethnicities, or even women heroes for that matter.
Now, I have no problem with the nice variety of characters that are being used. I rather like the Paizo art thus far. I'm just saying I don't see the big problem making it they way they did in the past. No big deal either way to me I guess.
Eh I gotta say I sorta side with WOTC on the whole thing. When I was playing back in middle school and high school, it was pretty much all white guys. We had one girl (white) who gamed sometimes. I'm pretty sure most of our experiences were similar, if I'm off the mark then apologies of course.
Nobody is going to deny that the majority of gamers are probably white males. However, that doesn't mean I (speaking as a white male gamer) need a white male hero to 'identify' with. I want to see a Badass on the cover of whatever, because that's cool, but I don't care if that's Valeros, Seoni, or the Vrock Screeching downt he opposition from Demon Within!
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Just seems like a company goes with what's safest. Throwing a white guy in armor on the front is probably going to hit the general gamer population a lot better than throwing a black gnome wizard on the cover. I don't think it's bad for them to try to play it safe, tabletop gaming ain't exactly that strong a business to begin with really.
Hobgoblin – Fighter (former slave to giants, uses a chain (non spiked) as a weapon, along with various feats to make him kick ass with it), since his two goblinoid allies tend to either go invisible or hide for a sneak attack at the onset of combat, he is used to fighting with no regard for his allies
Goblin – Wizard (sneaky little crowd control, enchantment and debuff specialist)
Bugbear – Rogue (Fur so dark red that it’s almost black, likes to use poisons that debuff prey, avoids damaging ones)Kobold – Cleric (ranting fanatic about the dragons being gods, and Kobolds being their chosen people, able to keep his head only because of his gift for Dragonfire Channeling!)
Gnoll – Druid w/ Hyena Companion and focused Wild Shape (only Hyena forms, but more powerful?)
Orc – Monk (Grapple and Bite specialist)
Suh-weet!
While it certainly makes sense for a gnoll's companion to be a hyena, especially a gnoll with the hyena wildshape ability... some kind of contrasting animal, other than another type of canid, might be sexier. Imagine a gnoll druid with a thick indigo to black python bearing tiny red eyes curled over his shoulders like a deadly shawl, leaping off to crush anyone who attempts to grapple him.
Another way to go is to make the companion something that could interact synergistically with his hyena-forms wildshaping ability.
Man I'd love to see an evil monkey (Shout out to Family Guy) animal companion riding around the the druid's quadrupedal hyena back like a cowboy.
"The rider's bein' ridden!" -- Penitentiary
Honestly, all this just makes me feel sorry for poor ol' Regdar. He can't help that he was born a white guy, and it's the fault of his player's DM that he didn't get to be a warblade or something. Regdar was actually the first D&D character I ever played (anyone else remember the old 1st-3rd level Adventure kit for 3e? I still have that lovely little gateway drug away up in my room).
Stupid racism. Why can't we all just get along -- white human male fighters and black female elf together? I mean, other than that the black female elf cleric probably wants to sacrifice worships the white human male fighter to her dark god Lolth...
I think this is a very insightful look at the medium, actually. I approve thoroughly. I think something even more inspirational about Pathfinder is its treatment of gay and bisexual lifestyles in Golarion: that is to say, they exist, which they pretty much don't in vanilla D&D.
As a citizen of the American city with the highest per-capita population of alternative lifestyles (no, not San Francisco, guess again) I have quite a few gay and bisexual friends who lament that the only airtime their subculture regularly gets in role-playing games is in a certain game about vampires which shall remain nameless. I pointed out the sexual openness of the Pathfinder setting to them, and they were thrilled.
The fact that lots of the nations of Golarion are pretty open homages to real-world cultures is hardly surprising. The fact that anytime a real-world culture is used as inspiration, it has both good and bad things about it - now, that's damn near shocking. The fact that several of the adventure paths make casual reference to gay or bisexual characters is almost unheard-of.
What impresses me more than all of this is that Paizo isn't stepping on eggshells to get all of this done. They're showing respect without deference, courtesy and fairness without apology or preference. It continues to earn Paizo my loyalty as a customer and a fan. Thank you, Paizo people.
Jeremy Puckett
You've never played Shadow world by ICE, don't you ? It's full of homosexuals, and the game is not new.
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I like the world of Golarion, and appreciate the effort to make most people likable (i guess that's next to impossible for diabolists), but some seem to get the bad end of their stereotype only. (based on what i read in the Gazeteer)
Taldor is decadent and paranoid only. Doesn't seem to dwell a single decent man or woman there.
Belkan. It's Orcs. And gamers need something they can "love to hate"? Even the paladin needs people he can gleefully slaughter and be called "noble" for it. 'nuff said.
Mwangi. Primitive, jungle dwelling primitives, that resisted hundreds (!) of years to civilize them just to turn feral again the very moment the structure of their benevolent "massas" fails. On top of that, lacking an own God, the fall in droves to evil superstitons to follow and undead mummy master.
Now, I am aware that the PFC Gazeteer contains several critical stabs at religious zealotry and imperialism, but in the case of the Mwangi the colonial narrative reamins intact.
These are minor points, and I agree that the equality between genders is handled failry well, but there are still hierarchies of civilized / primitive and good / evil based on race. In a large part, this is due to the inclusion of metaphysical evil, but that would be another topic.
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Which reminds me, looking through the 4E books. *Somebody* has a tiefling and horns fetish, big time. It's like HALF the PCs are tieflings. After a certain point, I actually felt the emphasis was odd and becoming intrusive to my reading experience (not that the 4E is fun to read, it's 1 step up from reading a phone book IMO).
And the other Half are Drogonborn PCs.
They are really pimping those new races in the books!
...
Man I'd love to see an evil monkey (Shout out to Family Guy) animal companion riding around the the druid's quadrupedal hyena back like a cowboy.
"YEEEE HAAAW! GEEYAP HYENIE! AWAY!"
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Mmmmm, life sized Seoni Dolls....(drools)Also, since the Pathfinder iconics are owned by Paizo, and not Wizards of the Coast, we are free to make t-shirts and stickers and miniatures and stuff with abandon.
Hey, how about a t-shirt with Seoni's breasts on? You now, tasteful-like. Could be a big seller.
Well, the problem with 'at least a half of the people flipping through the books weren't white' is that the other half was. That's 50% and that's what attracts the marketing people :/
I'm a blonde, blue eyed male (human, if you are not sure), but I'm all for more diversity in the books...
Anyone ever considered making all race (or even gender) portraits for every character class? I mean something like the representative pics of all races in 3.5 PHB on pages 12 and 13? Well, it certainly takes up space, but it would allow you to present a fair amount of visual representatives of various cultures in the setting.
I also quite liked the adventuring parties in the Eberron setting...
Aside from that unless the elves are taller in PRPG the elf o page 8 is way too tall (Even more than the Half-Orc).
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I'm not really against greater diversity, but it should be pointed out that this diversity drive is being driven by a bunch of white males. Personally, I don't feel too much guilt about my ethnicity, sexuality and so on. I'm in favour of diversity to the extent that it reflects real life (we are not all white, straight males in their thirties, even if most players are) but I hope it doesn't start getting silly (lesbian, one-eyed, one-legged iconics living in a menage a trois) and turn into tokenism.
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I'm not really against greater diversity, but it should be pointed out that this diversity drive is being driven by a bunch of white males. Personally, I don't feel too much guilt about my ethnicity, sexuality and so on. I'm in favour of diversity to the extent that it reflects real life (we are not all white, straight males in their thirties, even if most players are) but I hope it doesn't start getting silly (lesbian, one-eyed, one-legged iconics living in a menage a trois) and turn into tokenism.
This whole thread, but particularly Aubrey's comment, brought to mind a news story I read last week. Samir Shah, a non-executive director of the BBC, accused the BBC of over-representing minorities in its programming, leading to tokenism in their representation. I can't find the full story that I read at the time, but here's a link to a short version of it.
I found the story interesting at the time, and thought it might be interesting enough to share.
U
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The problem with D&D is that it doesn't appeal to scantily-clad women, and I put this down to marketing, especially by Paizo, with its obsession with women encased in non-revealing armour, or the preponderence of gay men, old men and ugly dwarves. We need more scantily-clad women depicted in D&D art - on the cover, inside, everywhere in fact - so that said women with few clothes can feel that D&D really is the game for them, and will want to play. Seoni cannot do this alone. So let's throw off the tyranny of the sexist, clothist white males who think that scantily-clad women should not be depicted in D&D, and show that we really are serious about diversity in the game. I'm sure we agree that the game can only benefit from more scantily-clad women around the gaming table.
The problem with D&D is that it doesn't appeal to scantily-clad women, and I put this down to marketing, especially by Paizo, with its obsession with women encased in non-revealing armour, or the preponderence of gay men, old men and ugly dwarves. We need more scantily-clad women depicted in D&D art - on the cover, inside, everywhere in fact - so that said women with few clothes can feel that D&D really is the game for them, and will want to play. Seoni cannot do this alone. So let's throw off the tyranny of the sexist, clothist white males who think that scantily-clad women should not be depicted in D&D, and show that we really are serious about diversity in the game. I'm sure we agree that the game can only benefit from more scantily-clad women around the gaming table.
Now this a good and vitaly important point. I agree totally.