Avatar image diversity redux

[Saint Bernard de Clairveaux]

I have just begun play in a Legacy of Fire campaign online. Several of the PCs are playing Keleshite, Mwangi or Vudrani characters (from what I understand).

Unfortunately, as we look at the available avatars, there are very few available.

I've been super grateful for the free service you provide for play by posts, and appreciate that you've worked hard to broaden the range of available avatars since an earlier conversation in 2006. The options are still pretty narrow, though.

Perhaps licensing out images from folks like prismaticart.com...? I know it costs you money, but would be very meaningful for those of us who use your non-European-inspired settings or just want to see ourselves or our character types represented as options.

Of course, one could say that the options aren't wide enough around other dimensions, like body shape, gender, etc.. However, to me it's especially meaningful as a player to have options around racial, ethnic diversity, and different genders (from muscular, masculine looking men to masculine, heavy set women to slim, femme dudes).

If licensing images for a public website weren't an issue, I'd just suggest allowing us to upload custom avatars. My sense is that you use images for which you already own the rights, which makes sense.

I'd be grateful if folks responding to this post don't equate a frank discussion of race and ethnicity for 'playing the race card' or use it as an excuse to rail against 'political correctness.' I'm all for chatting about race and other elements of diversity within roleplaying games, but this is about a pretty specific request.

[Skeld]

I say "no" to uploaded avatars. The rest of it, I don't care about.

-Skeld

[Gary Teter]

We have 2,551 avatar images available—are you sure you're looking in the right place? Click the "Change Your Avatar" button on your My Account page.

[Saint Bernard de Clairveaux]

Hey Gary,

Thanks for your quick response. Yes, I did review all of them. I only saw about 1-2 male avatars that fit the Legacy of Fire campaign setting. There weren't a huge amount of options for other racial, er, phenotypes (though much more for European).

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I might suggest art direction plans that try to fill a cross-section of:

• races/ethnicities & skin tones
  
• body types
  
• genders (with Wes Schneider's discussion of including transgender characters, this might be more than just male/female)
  
• character class types, or the range of armored to cloth

A quick scan of the available avatars will likely show that European-style avatars cover a lot of these categories (e.g., girthier white men with goatees in armor or in cloth; young, slender, buxom women and perhaps fewer older or full-figured women...), but other race/ethnicity types don't.

I appreciate your efforts, in any case! I know the budget for image licenses must not be high...

[Gary Teter]

We actually spend a lot on art—all our avatars are from the products we produce. We extract every image we think is suitable for use as an avatar. I won't say we'll never spend money purchasing art purely just for messageboard avatars but it's not something we've done before.

[Saint Bernard de Clairveaux]

I hear you, and wouldn't necessarily expect you to develop a separate line of avatar images. Best to build up the overall image library, from an art direction perspective... I'd be curious whether the art department is working with the sort of grid that I mentioned above as it develops NPCs, new iconics and their images...

[Gary Teter]

Pretty much all I know about our art ordering process.

[Saint Bernard de Clairveaux]

Would it be helpful to send a note to Erik or Sarah Robinson with suggestions? I appreciate your receptiveness to feedback.

[Liz Courts]

Saint Bernard de Clairveaux wrote:

Would it be helpful to send a note to Erik or Sarah Robinson with suggestions? I appreciate your receptiveness to feedback.

This is also a good place for it. :)

[James Sutter]

As folks have said, our avatars are pulled from products we've produced. So the best solution to the avatar issue is actually for us to order a wide arrange of ethnicities/genders/body types/etc. in the art in our products--which, fortunately, is something we're already super committed to!

Unfortunately, while increasing our diversity of art is something we're working hard on, the fact that the image archive goes back so far means that it'll take a long time to truly balance things out. But it *is* something we're working on.

As for your specific desire to find male non-European avatars for Legacy of Fire... while I don't know exactly what the process for making avatars is, I do know that we've DEFINITELY published more than just two of those! So I'm not sure why they either aren't up there or you're having trouble finding them, but it's something we'll look into.

Thanks for the feedback!

[James Sutter]

Saint Bernard de Clairveaux wrote:

I'd be curious whether the art department is working with the sort of grid that I mentioned above as it develops NPCs, new iconics and their images...

Yup! And not just the art department--editorial, too!

[Saint Bernard de Clairveaux]

Thanks, James and everyone! Much appreciated. I"ll keep my eye open for new avatar options as the new campaign gets into full gear.