Thursday, March 10, 2011

Ok! Ok! FINE! The Hot Elven Chick Welcomes You to the OSR..


Evidence of the hive-mind at work.

THE quintessential hot elven chick welcomes you to the OSR.

(Parkinson is one of my all-time favorite D&D artists)

12 comments:

  1. See ... now that wasn't too bad, was it?

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  2. Now ... where do you stand on the pie or cake debate?

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  3. Gotta love those 80's pirate boots.

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  4. So I hope this interlude is going in your "art of the OSR" file - what actually happens when you subject a bunch of grognards to social pressure to sexualise and objectify elf chicks.

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  5. Indeed Richard!

    Masculinity and the male gaze has been a key feature of D&D from the outset.

    Along with imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, race imperatives, social class, and, as you can see, gender.

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  6. Sure, but all of that's in the pulp fantasy literature it draws from. I wonder what new stuff D&D itself brings to the cultural table.

    You probably have a more appropriate place for hosting this conversation (in class?) and/or preliminary reading to start a proper discussion, but I'd love to know what you think about it. I'm also wondering where you give papers/publish research on this.

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  7. Oh sure. That's the idea. Sadly, there are only a couple journal articles that examine the subject critically, and the books aren't from first rate university presses.

    In terms of publication, the relatively new discipline of Game Studies provides options. They are almost exlusively interested in digital games. Games and Culture is a first rate journal in the area though, if you are interested.

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  8. Thank you. Back when I designed games for a living there was no critical literature (either for digital or pen-n-paper). I was pretty excited when the Forge started up because it seemed like a go at criticism from actual gamers. Now it seems like the academy is finally getting involved. Good to see.

    richardthinks

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  9. There must be a better way to contact you... if you're interested in actual colonial attitudes (rather than evidence of enjoying playing with colonialism) among gamers this here might be useful.

    Let me know if you don't want more like this.

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