“These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today.”
1. If it's so morally reprehensible to WoTC, why are they continuing to sell product and make money from such a shameful, awful thing?
2. So many of these sniveling bootlickers owe their careers and everything they have to the legacy of men like Gygax, but they crap all over them because they are of inferior talent and importance, and they know it. Rather than build themselves up, they think they can cut these giants down at the knees. But they'll never be taller, no matter how much they cut.
3. These people are actually worse than the moral busybodies of the Satanic Panic era. At its worst, that era only went after comparatively mild depictions of demons and devils. They didn't turn the game into a skin suit puppet show for their fetishes and as a vehicle to attack cultural norms and their perceived "oppressors."
4. Speaking of the Satanic Panic era, isn't it telling that these people embrace D&D being more demonic and evil today than ever before? Baldur's Gate 3 is FULL of half demon NPCs, everywhere. Two of the companion characters are half demon. Tiefling (half demon) is a basic character race going back years. Aasimar characters (half angel)... crickets. Throw in all the gay stuff, the BDSM stuff, and the new moral "greyness" they often shoehorn all over characters, modules, and novels, and modern D&D is an order of magnitude worse on the Satanic scale than in the 80's, yet chainmail bikini tops (a rather tame one here) are the ultimate evil and must be purged with fire.
To summarize my four points, WoTC employees are hypocritical, talentless, petty, demon lovers.
Sigh... I don't know what bugs me more, altering someone's original art for 'tEh MOderN auDieNcES', or doing it in such a lazy way. They probably could have gotten away with it with no complaint at all, if they'd just commissioned a new artist to do original cover art of Alias wearing plate-and-maille, but apparently that was just too much effort.
I wonder...could this be Hachette deliberately trying to gin up some outrage to drive ad views?
Disclaimer - I have the original Azure Bonds novel packed away in a box somewhere, and I still occasionally spin up the C64 emulator to play the old SSI Gold Box game. Fun stuff from my childhood, but even back then I thought it was kind of silly that an experienced mercenary adventurer would rock a maille shirt that left the...most important areas uncovered.
So, I read the book, long, long ago. Wasn't bad, at least at the age of 13!
There's a scene that actually fits the picture. She's been captured and controlled by the bad guys, and the text actually calls out the gap in the chainmail as leaving the chest wide open for a thrust, and says it's more for show than anything else. The implication is sort-of that they want to be able to kill her easily if things go wrong, so it does kind of make sense in-context.
What I don't know is if the painting existed before the book and Novak or Grubb were specifically mocking the fantasy-painting style of the era...or they put that in the text and Caldwell painted it afterward to specification.
The game was a lot of fun, I finally had stuff to do with my party from Pool of Radiance, though I did lose my longsword +5 from the fake Tyranthraxus and longsword +4 from the pirate captain!
It never ceases to amaze me how the woke can be so puritanical and so transgressive at the same time. Then I remember that logic means nothing to them.
That's why it's so easy to (admittedly somewhat bitterly) laugh at the people who exclaim that WotC is reverting course at any opportunity. It's like wizards is playing poker with you, talking up their hand, while holding their cards the wrong way around.
“These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today.”
1. If it's so morally reprehensible to WoTC, why are they continuing to sell product and make money from such a shameful, awful thing?
2. So many of these sniveling bootlickers owe their careers and everything they have to the legacy of men like Gygax, but they crap all over them because they are of inferior talent and importance, and they know it. Rather than build themselves up, they think they can cut these giants down at the knees. But they'll never be taller, no matter how much they cut.
3. These people are actually worse than the moral busybodies of the Satanic Panic era. At its worst, that era only went after comparatively mild depictions of demons and devils. They didn't turn the game into a skin suit puppet show for their fetishes and as a vehicle to attack cultural norms and their perceived "oppressors."
4. Speaking of the Satanic Panic era, isn't it telling that these people embrace D&D being more demonic and evil today than ever before? Baldur's Gate 3 is FULL of half demon NPCs, everywhere. Two of the companion characters are half demon. Tiefling (half demon) is a basic character race going back years. Aasimar characters (half angel)... crickets. Throw in all the gay stuff, the BDSM stuff, and the new moral "greyness" they often shoehorn all over characters, modules, and novels, and modern D&D is an order of magnitude worse on the Satanic scale than in the 80's, yet chainmail bikini tops (a rather tame one here) are the ultimate evil and must be purged with fire.
To summarize my four points, WoTC employees are hypocritical, talentless, petty, demon lovers.
Ah, it's the *male gaze* that's evil.
BDSM is OK with them as long as it's femdom. You're not seeing the Gor books adapted anytime soon.
Sigh... I don't know what bugs me more, altering someone's original art for 'tEh MOderN auDieNcES', or doing it in such a lazy way. They probably could have gotten away with it with no complaint at all, if they'd just commissioned a new artist to do original cover art of Alias wearing plate-and-maille, but apparently that was just too much effort.
I wonder...could this be Hachette deliberately trying to gin up some outrage to drive ad views?
Disclaimer - I have the original Azure Bonds novel packed away in a box somewhere, and I still occasionally spin up the C64 emulator to play the old SSI Gold Box game. Fun stuff from my childhood, but even back then I thought it was kind of silly that an experienced mercenary adventurer would rock a maille shirt that left the...most important areas uncovered.
So, I read the book, long, long ago. Wasn't bad, at least at the age of 13!
There's a scene that actually fits the picture. She's been captured and controlled by the bad guys, and the text actually calls out the gap in the chainmail as leaving the chest wide open for a thrust, and says it's more for show than anything else. The implication is sort-of that they want to be able to kill her easily if things go wrong, so it does kind of make sense in-context.
What I don't know is if the painting existed before the book and Novak or Grubb were specifically mocking the fantasy-painting style of the era...or they put that in the text and Caldwell painted it afterward to specification.
The game was a lot of fun, I finally had stuff to do with my party from Pool of Radiance, though I did lose my longsword +5 from the fake Tyranthraxus and longsword +4 from the pirate captain!
Censorship was wrong then and is wrong today.
A little tiddy won’t hurt anyone
It never ceases to amaze me how the woke can be so puritanical and so transgressive at the same time. Then I remember that logic means nothing to them.
That's why it's so easy to (admittedly somewhat bitterly) laugh at the people who exclaim that WotC is reverting course at any opportunity. It's like wizards is playing poker with you, talking up their hand, while holding their cards the wrong way around.