Your gender isn't your "class" (ie dictating what you're doing in the image or what clothes you wear, or what your apparent ability scores are). There's nothing wrong with "looking good" (whatever that means), so go ahead and "look good" as long as you don't look ridiculous while you're at it with equipment and postures that are completely ill-suited to the circumstances.
I'm not sure classes themselves should entirely dictate your activity or outfit either, and not every PC is between the (effective) ages of 20 and 38; look at Gandalf, Bilbo, the main character of Howl's Moving Castle, The Earthsea books, The Chronicles of Prydain, etc.
Even if Charisma isn't tied to looks, its tied to how you use those looks. A fat ugly person might know what kind of haircut or makeup and clothes will make them more socially acceptable. Whereas the number of teen movies that turn a plain teenage girl (who is beautiful, but has low charisma) into a beauty by showing them not to wear pony tails and glasses are plentiful.
So even if you are ugly you can look good with a high charisma.
Even if Charisma isn't tied to looks, its tied to how you use those looks. A fat ugly person might know what kind of haircut or makeup and clothes will make them more socially acceptable. Whereas the number of teen movies that turn a plain teenage girl (who is beautiful, but has low charisma) into a beauty by showing them not to wear pony tails and glasses are plentiful.
So even if you are ugly you can look good with a high charisma.
Wow, almost everything here is not OK. I'm too busy with my balance tirades to put a lot of effort into feminist tirades that don't 100% belong here, but you seriously shouldn't talk about someone's weight or appearance as socially unacceptable. And I doubt you're trying to say this, but you make it sound a bit like glasses + pony tail = ugly.
IMO this whole tangent of Charisma as attractiveness is a different topic anyway. What happened to the art posts?
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves.
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
agreed. Charisma *can* include appearance, but it doesn't have to.
Appearance is often considered to be part of the equation, but how much weight it is given is very subjective. This is primarily because of character concept. You can have a charismatic fighter who was born average looking, who later developed several ugly scars, but is still charismatic because of his leadership experience in combat.
I'm a big proponent of divorcing appearance from Charisma entirely... just let players decides how attractive their characters are (or aren't) and let Charisma be... Well, charisma.
Playtest or get off the playtest boards.
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I want justice for the voice that can't be heard Vindication for every suffering and hurt Let retribution hold dominion over earth --Nemesis, VNV Nation
Whereas the number of teen movies that turn a plain teenage girl (who is beautiful, but has low charisma) into a beauty by showing them not to wear pony tails and glasses are plentiful.
And those movies should die a horrible flaming death. "No, it's not okay to be yourself, you must conform to society's stupid, arbitrary and sexists mores instead of taking a stand for yourself and how you choose to self-identify."
Playtest or get off the playtest boards.
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I want justice for the voice that can't be heard Vindication for every suffering and hurt Let retribution hold dominion over earth --Nemesis, VNV Nation
Even if Charisma isn't tied to looks, its tied to how you use those looks. A fat ugly person might know what kind of haircut or makeup and clothes will make them more socially acceptable. Whereas the number of teen movies that turn a plain teenage girl (who is beautiful, but has low charisma) into a beauty by showing them not to wear pony tails and glasses are plentiful.
So even if you are ugly you can look good with a high charisma.
Wow, almost everything here is not OK. I'm too busy with my balance tirades to put a lot of effort into feminist tirades that don't 100% belong here, but you seriously shouldn't talk about someone's weight or appearance as socially unacceptable. And I doubt you're trying to say this, but you make it sound a bit like glasses + pony tail = ugly.
IMO this whole tangent of Charisma as attractiveness is a different topic anyway. What happened to the art posts?
I'm sorry, but some people are considered generally unattractive by most of the population. I gave some examples. I did not mean to imply that because of those traits those people are ugly.
I also am a guy that is attracted to glasses and pony tail girls. However in those films they usually do what I mentioned. An attractive woman with the body of a model and the face of an angel could still look unattractive by simply wearing the wrong clothes and not knowing what to do with their hair and make-up. I was using examples...try not to get offended.
Attracting and keeping/retaining are two very different things. A girl can be very beatiful and actractive but if she is very boring or a bad person, the romance will not last very much, and a woman can be not very popular but she get a true love, and she gets confidence and sincere admiration, the basis of true respect, that love can be forever.
And for me a female "nerd" PC like Ugly Betty, Amy Farrah Flower (Sheldon Cooper´s no-girlfriend from TV comedy Big Bang Theory) or Buffy´s friend Willow (when she was straight) is more interesting that hot chicks (like those blond-hair cheeladers, the main character from videogame "lollilop chainshaw" or Buffy Summers, the vampire slayer).
(If you have seen the manga/anime Slayers..) I would rather the character of Ameria Wil Tesla Seiruum, the "priestess" that the main character, Lina Inverse. Or if we talking of Sailor Moon characters I would rather Ami Mizuno (the clevest girl) that the main character Usagi Tsukino or Mikano Aino (the prettiest one). For me inteligence (and moral noblity) is sexier that a beatiful face.
"Say me what you're showing off for, and I'll say you what you lack!" (Spanish saying)
Book 13 Anaclet 23
Confucius said: "The Superior Man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony"
Attracting and keeping/retaining are two very different things. A girl can be very beatiful and actractive but if she is very boring or a bad person, the romance will not last very much, and a woman can be not very popular but she get a true love, and she gets confidence and sincere admiration, the basis of true respect, that love can be forever.
I'm not offended by this, but I am somewhat concerned. You seem entirely hung up on female characters as people to date, love, and so on. Not at all as characters to play, individuals to respect. This is, to me, also a form of objectification. Above and beyond whether we focus excessively on looks, there's a problem if we always view women as 'the other'. Some of the users here, some of the posters to this thread, are women. Your posts have repeatedly established a pattern of viewing women as different from the audience as you seem to understand it. Female characters do not exist solely, or even primarily, for your character toromance. This cuts to the heart of the original question, for me: I want to see female characters who could be my PC, or my PC's boss, henchman, rival, oradversary. Which is also what I want from male characters. I do not want to see characters who belong in Playboy, or even the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, unless they fit that main criterion first.
As long as we view female characters as a special category, a problem, an exterior object, we are storing up trouble for us, and for the game's marketers, in the future. The game will live longer, and do better, if it has more lasting appeal. That means credible, rounded characters reflecting (and exceeding) the diversity of a broad potential audience.
To be honest, that's also what would make me view the game as a serious potential vehicle for a romance plotline (see the 'supernatural romance' thread). If I'm going to cover romantic or sexy themes in the game, I want characters I care about - not badly-repurposed porn.
And for me a female "nerd" PC like Ugly Betty, Amy Farrah Flower (Sheldon Cooper´s no-girlfriend from TV comedy Big Bang Theory) or Buffy´s friend Willow (when she was straight) is more interesting that hot chicks (like those blond-hair cheeladers, the main character from videogame "lollilop chainshaw" or Buffy Summers, the vampire slayer).
I agree with you about which characters are more appealing to me - but I think that's both our individual preferences speaking, rather than a universal value. And I really, really don't agree that Willow's orientation makes any difference to her appeal as a character.
Female characters do not exist solely, or even primarily, for your character toromance. This cuts to the heart of the original question, for me: I want to see female characters who could be my PC, or my PC's boss, henchman, rival, oradversary. Which is also what I want from male characters.
A whole post of win, imo. What I want from female character art is the same thing I want from male character art. Awesome fantasy people to be. IMO art of D&D characters should always, always be concerned with and aimed at an audience that wants to be those characters, other concerns shouldn't even be on the map.
Artists will tend towards figures they find attractive well enough without making it a design goal, to the point that avoiding those cliches may need to be explicitly stated. It's not that I want every character to be 'ugly', it's that I don't want every female character tending towards the same body type and facial features whether they're orc, elf, or human, lithe rogue, powerful barbarian, or scholarly wizard. And I don't want them all in the similar costumes and poses whether they're saucy bards, stealthy assassins, or armored knights. And tangentially, I would like some variety in skin tones and racial characteristics, regardless of gender, class, or fantasy species.
Again, I don't mean to be leveling huge accusations at the art as it is now. D&D art in general, and 4e art in particular, is much better than that of a lot of other games and a lot of other 'dork hobby' stuff, but there's still a lot of room for improvement.
Even just starting with a few simple rules, like:
"If the character is somehow pointing both her butt and her boobs at the viewer, you're doing it wrong."
Yes, major personal pet peeve here, but honestly people - any image that does this has put titilation above any consideration of anatomy or context or anything else, it's an automatic fail stamp.
"If the fullplate armor has a bare midriff or plunging neckline, you're doing it wrong."
I understand that the 'dungeonpunk' aesthetic is part of D&D these days, and I even like it half the time. And I understand that 'protection' isn't always the primary goal of fantasy adventuring outfits. I understand that the barbarian is put in a skimpy outfit not so much to objectify them as to show off their massive muscles (though, if you do this with a female barbarian, she better have massive muscles - see DiabloIII barbarian for good example). But if the character is wearing plate armor, then the aesthetic impression should convey some sense of "tank", and obvious gaps in the armor ruin that aesthetic entirely.
or
"Grab a half dozen images of female PCs. If they all have the same body type, or if they all have their backs arched, hips swayed, or are otherwise in some sort of 'sexy pose', you're doing it wrong."
Seriously, a powerful standing pose has the hips square, not swayed, even for female characters, as mind blowing as this might be. Now, there are differences between male and female figures in terms of center of mass and body shape that do influence static and action poses, but honestly, those differences are best understood after getting a grounding in the basics of those poses to begin with, and there are certainly artists who do work for wizards who would stand to improve their art by starting off every character as a male figure, and changing them to a female figure after the pose is set.
