Quote from: Cranewings;469433Not true. Go to Origins sometime. The foam larpers are the most outrageous fatasses in the place. They want to compete in something, but they either can't run around the block or would get beat up by jocks so they take it out on little kids. Want to get pissed, try and let your 5 y/o play with them. They will whip his ass because he's the first person they ever met they can take.

The one time I went and tried it the foam larpers were beating up little girls. I got really pissed over it.

That sounds truly horrible. As it sounds like you've actually met such people, you have my sympathy.

Well of course mutants and some others shouldn't be handsome. Can't stand anime's handful of body types myself. But the idea that I need to see more ugliness than already exists is what I reject. Bilbo shouldn't be buff no, but he also shouldn't be ugly just so some artist can have fun either.

As for maimed etc, that's entirely dependent on the setting. Standard High Fantasy RPG's usually have very effective healing available. Even in a setting without much in the way of healing the maimed are rarely going to be in the forefront of things.

Quote from: XanadorWell of course mutants and some others shouldn't be handsome. Can't stand anime's handful of body types myself. But the idea that I need to see more ugliness than already exists is what I reject.

Never said more than exists. Just as much as would exist given the context of the setting.

Men wizards are 80. Women wizards rarely look over 25. Realism that ain't.

QuoteBilbo shouldn't be buff no, but he also shouldn't be ugly just so some artist can have fun either.

What about a fat hairy midget do you find attractive, exactly?

Quote from: beejazz;469445What about a fat hairy midget do you find attractive, exactly?

He's not a fat hairy midget, he's a hobbit. For reference I think the depiction of Bilbo in the LoTR movies was spot on. Do you think that was an overly handsome representation?

Quote from: pawsplay;469240Well, there was the recent kerfuffle on EN World and CircvsMaximvs, concerning whether it was acceptable to justify mass rape on EN World. Hint: It's not, but it's even less acceptable to criticize EN World's moderation policies.

This made me laugh out loud. "ENWorld: Where defying moderator policy is worse than mass rape".

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I have mixed feelings on the whole thing.

On the one hand I can't fucking STAND the author of H&H. They're a drama whore and one of the most bigoted, hateful and prejudiced people I've ever met. They have zero sense of humour and beat anyone who disagrees with them about anything with accusations of misogyny/transphobia/etc (Yeah, Kynn's trans, which adds a whole other level of irony/complication to this whole drama).

On the other hand, if people want games like this they should make them, so kudos and more power to Kynn for going ahead, even if I suspect this is going to end up another Wraethuthu.

Back to the first hand again, I think the stated aims of those project are very much at odds with its execution and presentation. It's not going to change anyone's mind, it's going to have narrow appeal and Kynn is such an offensive and offputting person it's just going to make people more hostile - as happened in the RPGnet thread.

Nobody much cares how I would have gone about the same agenda and anything I say will, constructive or not, will be taken as hatred and get me accused of all sorts again so I won't bother going into that. Let's just say I'd have gone about it differently.

As to that thread, I found the 'pro-feminist' (for want of a better term) posts to be far more strident, offensive and dismissive of the points of others. 'Privilege denying dude', 'mansplaining' etc are terms that ARE going to get people's hackles up, as is denying the hardship other people suffer in their life or playing one-upmanship over who has it worse.

Quote from: beejazz;469420Don't get me wrong, though. As an artist I share your peeve. There need to be more fat, ugly, and old people in fiction and art generally, and there need to be more maimed individuals in violent genres. For realism/verisimilitude.

EDIT: And because fat, ugly, and old people are just so much more fun to draw.

I'd like to do some fantasy illustrations that had Wal Mart shoppers as models. Not necessarily fat and ugly but also strangely eccentric and out of balance... the kind of folks who really might think it's a good idea to go into a hole in the ground looking for violence and trinkets.

Quote from: jibbajibba;469251One thing i think is quite funny that happens at a lot of Cons including Origins i was just at, if that for the adventures people nearly always split the party 50:50 male female even though they know that its unlikely a single woman would show up. When I ran my Amber game at GenCon I had 8 PCs and let the players choose 6. I included 2 females on the basis that these were likely to be the ones not chosen. As it happens there was a female player but I think Amber appeals more to females becuase it is less about killing and more about relationships and there is less gold.

The women who've played my Amber games, and there've been quite a lot of them, have generally loved it, and have always been quite good at it, even if they were relative novices to RPGs.

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Quote from: Xanador;469447He's not a fat hairy midget, he's a hobbit. For reference I think the depiction of Bilbo in the LoTR movies was spot on. Do you think that was an overly handsome representation?

I would not think it was handsome at all. He has the paunch he is described as having, the hairy feet, and a face as aged as is appropriate for his character.

I'm not talking grotesque here. Fantasy is a rare genre in that it is allowed its ugly old men on a larger scale. Dwarves, goblins and wizards all fit the bill. It's just that the "all women must be bangable" standard becomes more noticeable in a genre full of ugly old men. Dwarf women can't exist because dwarves are defined as ugly old men. Female wizards are rarely as old as their male counterparts* for no other reason than narrative convention.

*Exceptions exist. Harry Potter's a good example. Young female wizards make sense in the context of the setting, and on top of that we get professor McGonnagal(sic?) (she gets to play mentor a little before Dumbledore takes the role) and Dolores Umbrige.

Quote from: beejazz;469457I'm not talking grotesque here. Fantasy is a rare genre in that it is allowed its ugly old men on a larger scale. Dwarves, goblins and wizards all fit the bill. It's just that the "all women must be bangable" standard becomes more noticeable in a genre full of ugly old men. Dwarf women can't exist because dwarves are defined as ugly old men. Female wizards are rarely as old as their male counterparts* for no other reason than narrative convention.

That's not entirely true. There are strong tropes of male magic coming from study etc and female magic coming from pact/nature and being more innate. This is even found in Discworld. In D&D terms Men are From Wizardry, Women are from Sorcery. It's not a universal, but it's definitely a strong theme.

Quote from: Simlasa;469455I'd like to do some fantasy illustrations that had Wal Mart shoppers as models. Not necessarily fat and ugly but also strangely eccentric and out of balance... the kind of folks who really might think it's a good idea to go into a hole in the ground looking for violence and trinkets.

Let me know if you find anyone in need of such illustrations.

Quote from: GRIM;469458That's not entirely true. There are strong tropes of male magic coming from study etc and female magic coming from pact/nature and being more innate. This is even found in Discworld. In D&D terms Men are From Wizardry, Women are from Sorcery. It's not a universal, but it's definitely a strong theme.

If that's how magic works that's how magic works. But if it's not explicitly stated (as in D&D) it just looks unrealistic instead.

Quote from: beejazz;469459Let me know if you find anyone in need of such illustrations.

I made a suggestion to create some 'inclusive clipart' but there was almost no interest. I don't think it would be a viable commercial proposition but if you want to give it a go...

If anything, the publishers go out of their way to make the games seem gender-neutral.

Thing is, most RPGers are guys. Probably always will be. So all of the game material with 50 per cent female sample characters, 50 per cent female NPC guard captains, 50 per cent female villains, etc. just comes across as self-conscious and desperate.

Quote from: Imperator;469338ANd this other one:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/octarina8/sets/72157622284027600/

Looks a lot like what a lot of Uruguayan gamers look like, frankly; minus the LARPing.  Well, I'm sure there's some uruguayan larpers out there (or at least cosplayers), but that's just not my scene.

We have our share of fatasses and socially retarded ubergeeks here, but proportionally they seem to be far less than in my experience of north american gamers.  

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