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Artists take note!
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"Here let me tell you why (besides historical inaccuracy) I don't like breast armor."
*Proceeds to give reasons based solely on historical accuracy*
Just because you say "But here's how it would work IRL!" doesn't mean it's not the same objection.
Just sayin'.
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"Here let me tell you why (besides historical inaccuracy) I don't like breast armor."
*Proceeds to give reasons based solely on historical accuracy*
Only if you think that history and physics are the same subject.
Please try not to get History in my Fantasy. I like beautiful, full figured women in armor. I like it, and there are very few things left that I can hold onto that keep me from putting a gun in my mouth.
Well, in your fantasy, you can include magical padding for the sternum area.
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I like beautiful, full figured women in armor, but I do not need them to have boob-shaped armor for me to enjoy them. First of all, boob shaped armor still doesn't look like boobs (IMO it in fact looks ugly and dumb), and second of all if I want to look at boobs (other than my own) I'll just look at porn and not fantasy art (I mean, really, that is what the Internet is for), and third of all, while I love boobies, women turn out to have beautiful features all over their body, and having the very occasional art piece that draws the eye to somewhere other than the chest... let's be daring and nonconventional and suggest a body part like, oh, the face... that would be nice once in awhile.
And although she's more slender than full figured, I could look at Leelee Sobieski as Joan of Arc (one of the examples posted in the link) all day... hells yeah.
And the last picture, the fantasy drawing, that woman is damn sexy. That's the kind of fantasy artwork I'd love to see more often.
Eh. No good reason to hate. It's not as silly as high heels for fighting. It's still a layer of steel. And the 'which way weapons slide' argument only holds if the person in the armor is also wearing a gorget, etc. Boob-bump armor is as ridiculous as an overlarge codpiece, and that's how I tend to see it. Artists and writers take note, I don't see 'stacked armored babe', I see 'needs to advertise'. Which is about as flattering on a female as on a male. (However true it may be for either).
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I love boobplate. But i understand not everyone does.
I will admit, it's nowhere near as WTF as the preg-armor Barbie dolls I once saw on the net. The dolls' armor was amazing, they were just also all pregnant, and apparently so was their armor. I mean, there was a whole fleet of them. o_O When do you need a whole army of extremely late-term women? And they say drinking is bad for the baby? How about getting rung like a bell?
But yeah, boob-plate is annoying. I agree with DeathQuaker.
Also realistic full plate looks nice to some people too.
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Maybe there should be a male version, then, with a strategically placed gap to allow one's glory to shine forth, or (alternatively) some sort of eye-popping steel 'aesthetic enhancement' to the same area. If anything would prove distracting, that certainly would, and it would also make sure your opponent was at least nine inches away from you at all times.
Maybe there should be a male version, then, with a strategically placed gap to allow one's glory to shine forth, or (alternatively) some sort of eye-popping steel 'aesthetic enhancement' to the same area. If anything would prove distracting, that certainly would, and it would also make sure your opponent was at least nine inches away from you at all times.
Wasnt this called the cod piece? I am pretty sure it existed and in abundance. Though it isnt common in fantasy art. Certainly not as common proportionally impractical female armor.
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See the linked photo. Yes, it did, but there's a difference between your common and garden codpiece and something that could have your eye out.
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This reminds me of the recent Penny Arcade comic about Dragon's Crown.
Well, that and my occasional usage of 'that's as useful as nipples on a breastplate' during gaming sessions.
Only if you think that history and physics are the same subject."Here let me tell you why (besides historical inaccuracy) I don't like breast armor."
*Proceeds to give reasons based solely on historical accuracy*
They're quite closely related in this case.
What he's saying, in a roundabout way is "Boob armor didn't exist in history because it was impractical and dangerous".
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Eh. No good reason to hate. It's not as silly as high heels for fighting. It's still a layer of steel. And the 'which way weapons slide' argument only holds if the person in the armor is also wearing a gorget, etc. Boob-bump armor is as ridiculous as an overlarge codpiece, and that's how I tend to see it. Artists and writers take note, I don't see 'stacked armored babe', I see 'needs to advertise'. Which is about as flattering on a female as on a male. (However true it may be for either).
Read the article. A codpiece won't kill you if you fall face forward, even a quite large one; boob armor will, by shattering your sternum.
The author fails to take into account the one benefit of the design: distracting the opponent.
A woman doesn't need boob shaped armor to attract the kind of guy who thinks with his codpiece. Really, the options are fairly endless. :)
In fact, "look, boobs!" often works even when there aren't any. I know, I've tried. On the same person. Innumerable times. Hasn't failed yet.
Now, if you want historical boobage, I'm pretty sure I read in a book of historical costumes that some female blacksmiths (yes, they existed) worked topless, for the same reason male blacksmiths did--they got hot, and risked taking off aprons and shirts to not sweat to death. SO: there, you can have history, practicality, and partial nudity all in one. You just gotta look in the right places.
This reminds me of the recent Penny Arcade comic about Dragon's Crown.
Well, that and my occasional usage of 'that's as useful as nipples on a breastplate' during gaming sessions.
wuv that game.
My witch does not need metal boobs to distract. He simply goes into lurid and graphic detail about his latest daliance with a Calistrian courtesan.
You'll hardly even notice the spiders and knives, I promise.
Well, until they're in you, I suppose.
Better tell the ancient Greeks and Romans stop to putting 6 packs and pecs on their breastplates.
Not practical - but it showed off your status if you could afford custom armor.
Or if you see the acid etched intricate design work on some of the suits still surviving in the Landeszeughaus in Graz, Austria.
People bling out their gear... Its natural human nature, I am sure there is a reality show called Pimp my platemail.
Now, if you want historical boobage, I'm pretty sure I read in a book of historical costumes that some female blacksmiths (yes, they existed) worked topless, for the same reason male blacksmiths did--they got hot, and risked taking off aprons and shirts to not sweat to death. SO: there, you can have history, practicality, and partial nudity all in one. You just gotta look in the right places.
*golf claps while nodding appreciatively*
Thank you DQ, thank you.
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Maybe there should be a male version, then, with a strategically placed gap to allow one's glory to shine forth, or (alternatively) some sort of eye-popping steel 'aesthetic enhancement' to the same area. If anything would prove distracting, that certainly would, and it would also make sure your opponent was at least nine inches away from you at all times.
Wow that was hilarious, i knda wished they have a sideview photo. That was ridiculous
There are articles that explain why something is unrealistic.
There are articles that explain why something is dumb, and you're having badwrongfun if you like it.
Which one does the article linked to in the first post fall under?
Actually, there are articles that explain why something is unrealistic.
There are articles that explain why something is dumb.There are articles that explain that you're having badwrongfun.
The linked article is the second kind. Boobplate would kill the wearer in a world with real physics. That doesn't mean it's unrealistic, as there's all sorts of dumb ceremonial armor out there. That doesn't mean it's wrong, as you can always claim A Wizard Did It.
But it does mean that, absent a friendly wizard, it's dumb.
I equated "dumb" with "badwrongfun" because both are value judgments, in that you're indicting that which someone else enjoys, something I find does little except encourage attitudes of defensiveness and vitriol.When I mentioned things that were "unrealistic" however, I was attempting to invoke instances of discussing the problems or issues with something in an objective manner - that is, without any discussion of the qualitative merit of a given thing.
Fair enough. In my experience, questions of realism are usually shorthand for historical accuracy; e.g. no, the Vikings didn't wear lorica segmenta, 'cause,... well, they just didn't, that's why. There aren't any women priests in the Catholic Church, 'cause,... well, there just aren't. There's nothing that kept Roman matrons from enjoying popcorn at the circus except that popcorn was a New World plant.
On the other hand, there's a fairly good reason why Roman matrons didn't enjoy death cap mushrooms that transcends mere historical accident. I think "kills you when you use it" is a pretty robust explanation for the widespread absence across time and space of both death cap fritters and boobplate.
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The issue I have here is that the game world often, if not usually, has a very casual relationship with real-world physics (this is primarily, but not completely, due to magic), and so articles such as the one that the original poster linked to seem "selective," by which I mean that they've found a very minor area of the game to critique for its cognitive dissonance.The underlying understanding (insofar as I recognize it) is that the game rules are the "physics" of how the game world works, rather than demanding strict fealty to real-world physics.
I don't agree with this line of reasoning, for several reasons. Meta-gaming, the ruleset is far too small to be the physics of how the game works. As a simple example, there are only a few bestiaries, but more than 62,000 identified vertebrate species (and more than 1.3 million invertebrate ones). It's obvious, to me at least, that the Bestiary lists only some of the more interesting creatures out there, but if my PC wants to be a birdwatcher as a hobby, she can find all sorts of mundane things that never made it into the bestiaries as well as more exotic birds like Rocs. Similarly, I don't think there are any game stats for morel mushrooms -- but that's exactly the type of thing that my halfling with Profession (cook) would be looking for ALL THE TIME on long walks through the forest.
Boiling water is still hot enough to burn even though it's never mentioned in the books, sounds get quieter the further away you are from the source, diamonds will scratch glass instead of the other way around, and, yes, a heavy object and a light object will fall from a tower at about the same rate, just like Galileo is famously supposed to have shown. I don't think RAW addresses any of those.
So the baseline that I use is that Pathfinder (or D&D) physics is roughly like real-world physics unless magic specifically intervenes, and in the case of human-crafted artefacts, magic is relatively rare and uncommon. More people have chickens in their yard than Roc chicks; a peasant's draft horse is shod with iron, not adamantium; and if you make a wall of brick, you don't need to enchant it to make it fireproof, but if you make a wall of wood, you do.
Ultimately, I suspect that many, if not most, of the people who dislike boob-plate are being somewhat disingenuous if they say that their only reason for this dislike is its unrealistic nature - I believe that their dislike is political; that is, that they have ideological issues with women depicted as sex objects in a manner that (by the real-world physics of that armor) compromises the utility of the gear that they're using.
I think you're at least partly wrong. I've known a lot of armor gearheads, and one characteristic they share -- or they wouldn't be armor gearheads -- is a deep appreciation both of the technical skill that goes into making armor, and the incredible subtlety of design that also went into making armor that was usable. These are often the same people who point out that, no, the katana wasn't a lightsaber capable of cutting through the hull of a battleship, and that there was actually a reason that claymores and similar greatswords were typically only six pounds or so in weight. People have always been able to make stupidly large swords if they wanted to, but if you ever tried to use an anime-style sword in a fight, you'd die.
But that's not a sexism or political issue; that's a "don't the artists know enough about how this stuff works?" issue.
"Here let me tell you why (besides historical inaccuracy) I don't like breast armor."
*Proceeds to give reasons based solely on historical accuracy*
Just because you say "But here's how it would work IRL!" doesn't mean it's not the same objection.
Just sayin'.
We've had this discussion already - many times.
FACT: The realism/fantasy disagreement on this subject is rooted.
FACT: It is based on personal preferences; so no amount of argument will change anyone's base positions.
The above to facts are not going to change.
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what the-
where did all the fun go
Boiling water is still hot enough to burn even though it's never mentioned in the books, sounds get quieter the further away you are from the source, diamonds will scratch glass instead of the other way around, and, yes, a heavy object and a light object will fall from a tower at about the same rate, just like Galileo is famously supposed to have shown. I don't think RAW addresses any of those.I wanted to call attention to the last sentence in the above quote, because I think it underlines what I think is the flaw in your counterargument.
The game rules don't address any of the things you mention - that places it outside of the issue of "the rules are the physics of the game world." The Bestiary doesn't state, either implicitly or explicitly, that what it (and future volumes) contains are the sum total of life-forms in the game world. The rules don't deal at all with questions of cooking (save for the occasional skill check), and so it's not a question of "rules versus realism."
To put it another way, the relevant issue is areas where the game rules (create results that) conflict with real-world physics, not where the game rules are silent on an issue of said physics.
I don't think we're in disagreement. But carry it out a little further -- just as the rules are silent on whether or not boiling water will burn you, the rules are also silent on what factors influence the design of armor. In the real world, boobplate could kill you; this is something that you might want to thing about if you are trying to run a relatively realistic world with hard (plausible) physics.
what the-
where did all the fun go
Some people consider it fun to know how things work. Knowing something about the actual physics behind scimitars and broadswords can provide a justification for game mechanics like damage types, damage dice, and critical ranges.
Ever wonder why a scimitar crits on an 18 but a longsword doesn't?
Large codpieces were supposed to give stability to a rider by being fastened in a saddle, IIRC. But nipples, well, you only get to have nipples on your full plate if you are Batman.
I wonder how that worked - fitted into a socket in a saddle, or something? Wouldn't that be a bit risky if you were hit hard, or would the armour, etc., be constructed so as to absorb or disperse the shock? Interesting....
As I understood it, it was fitted into a saddle socket. If hit hard enough, either the codpiece or the saddle would likely break... and seriously, in either case, I think the risk of a... ummm... sausage break... would be pretty minimal.
Chief Technical Officer
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The author fails to take into account the one benefit of the design: distracting the opponent.A woman doesn't need boob shaped armor to attract the kind of guy who thinks with his codpiece. Really, the options are fairly endless. :)
In fact, "look, boobs!" often works even when there aren't any. I know, I've tried. On the same person. Innumerable times. Hasn't failed yet.
Hey, jumping to conclusions! Perhaps the distraction I was thinking of is the moment where the opponent stops to note that your poorly conceived armor will fracture your sternum.
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That could work. They might be so horrified at your flouting of sensible Health & Safety regulations that they'd run off to fill in a risk assessment form, at which point you can sneak up behind them and STAB THEM IN THE BACK!
That will teach them! And the lesson is... You don't get a second chance!
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Part of me likes vikings in horned helmets and roman emperor going to battle with their nipple-and-belly-button breastplates.
Another part of me enjoys the more realistically-accurate/practical depictions or armour in fantasy, based on a specific era and geography.
Both parts of me think that a woman can be very beautiful and sexy in a boob-less/cleavage-lees armour and for that matter, that not all fantasy women need to be beautiful nor sexy in order to become strong and memorable characters.
In short, we can argue all we want but in the end is a matter of taste, as it has been said before. I don't think horned helmets and boob-plates are bad taste, I don't think medieval accuracy is snobbish. Fantasy can afford to be fantastic when it wants too, or impose realities similar to our own. I prefer when the campaign proposes strong guideline toward one or the other and tries to stay coherent, but that's just me.
'findel
Part of me likes vikings in horned helmets and roman emperor going to battle with their nipple-and-belly-button breastplates.
But roman leaders did go into battle with nipple-and-belly-button breastplates. They also had 6-pack abs.
But roman leaders did go into battle with nipple-and-belly-button breastplates. They also had 6-pack abs.Part of me likes vikings in horned helmets and roman emperor going to battle with their nipple-and-belly-button breastplates.
I was under the impression that the nipple-and-belly-button breastplates were reserved for their glorious procession on the way back into Rome and for other ceremonial uses (such as posing for the sculptor), but I may be wrong.
but regardless, examples of style-over-substance are plentiful even in history...