Tiny Epic Dungeons Brings the Crawl Down to Size

Josh Look wrote:
Don't worry, everyone, I found the problem.

Insightful, poignant, concise.

Well, one of those things.

But anyhoo, just looking at the $$$ for TE dungeons (1.3 MILLION) it looks to be twice (TE quest and tactics at 600k) to 3 times what they usually get (TE dino at 500k, TE defenders and galaxies at 400k). So clearly SOMEONE likes the game. Call me the problem, but i'd say I'm the target audience...and I am legion.

jason10mm wrote: Whats the controversy?

Venture on over to BGG and read the post by Elizabeth Hargrave (of Wingspan fame) regarding the issue. It pretty much sums up the issues.

(Sadly, the thread is also a great example of BGG's ridiculous current "moderation" policies in full effect, but that's a whole other conversation. Just expect to see dozens of posts vaporized/removed for supposed transgressions involving "derailing" "dismissive" or even my favorite "irrelevent".)

jason10mm wrote: Wow, i went looking expecting to see some egregious salacious stuff but this looks like run of the mill fantasy comic book art design 101. Boringly so.

So I went and had a Big Rant about this on Twitter but this right here is exactly why TED has got me so worked up. Because 10mm is right about one thing: this is pretty run of the mill stuff.

It's been suggested that changing the box art a bit would make it more inclusive, and I support that. But huge changes aren't necessary. You put a shirt on the rogue or the highlight on her face. Job done.

Yet from the responses, you'd think that putting a shirt on a woman was the end of all things. The end of art! The end of discourse! The end of freedom! Where will it end?!

The towering arrogance of the responses against the smallness of the problem really highlights what a laughable mob of pathetic bigots this minority in gaming are.

My favorite part is how the initial response is all "What's the big deal? The characters aren't real. It's just art. I don't see a problem." And then when it was changed: "The outrage! The game has been defiled! It's the end of freedom!"

Honestly it's exhausting to even respond to posts like this because there's so much wrong with it, it's easier to just ignore. But you should be held accountable for your ignorance, even when the problems are spelled out for you. The fact that your tone is so blasé underscores how big of a problem these things are.

jason10mm wrote: Wow, i went looking expecting to see some egregious salacious stuff but this looks like run of the mill fantasy comic book art design 101. Boringly so. Whats the controversy? Did you actually read Elizabeth Hargrave's post? It's literally spelled out in very clear way. Alluring rogue, scantily clad elf wizard, loin clothed barbarian, and bushy bearded dwarf. Gender swap any of them and you get the same basic result. What are you even talking about? It's just a coincidence that the sexy stereotyped fantasy character types just happened to be female?

Its a kickstarter. If they hit goal by appealing to an adolescent male (in mindset if not in body) audience, so what? Because it's probably better to not be sexist if you don't have to? (I don't know, I'm just an SJW so it's probably a very extreme mindset.) Do you really believe the game wouldn't be as popular if the female characters were less sexualized? One of the most popular board game Kickstarters with minis, Gloomhaven (and Frosthaven), did pretty well without sexualizing it's characters as far as I can tell.

Otherwise we'll get shapeless blocky characters that are indistinguishable in the mini, dull on the card, and only appealing to a vocal minority.

Maybe they can do two versions, one their original artistic intent, and one the most bland, four quadrant focus group tested inoffensive to all aesthetic and see which one sells better. I have my suspicions....

Are you serious? Are you implying that you can't have interesting art and design if it's not appealing to horny white men? This is just like a comedian who complains about getting called out for punching down, as if the only way to be funny is to offend someone. Try using your imagination.

But it is a slight departure from their normal aesthetic so i can certainly understand some concerns, though TE defenders is pretty similar.

I think we've discussed this topic here before so i won't rehash it but i don't think we will see an end to exaggerated feminine features on a mini to distinguish it from male figures very soon. Gender specific pose is a somewhat related issue but more problematic in my view, particularly when it breaks the "casual standing" versus "action dynamic" criteria applied to the male poses.

Using Gloomhaven as an example again, I don't know HOW they were able to distinguish these minis without exaggerated feminine features: gloomhavenshop.com/frosthaven/frosthaven-starting-6-classes/

Wake me up when we get around to canceling entire genres of music like rock and rap for sexism and exploitation of groupies. Or when we make even a small beginning at addressing the widespread toxic masculinity and discrimination against women that has been happening since before recorded history. This tiny epic freakout over some lame and mildly repellant artwork seems like very small stakes. It's certainly bad marketing if it makes women feel excluded or subjected to the male gaze when they just want to play a board game, and I hope the tiny epic game makers learn something from this experience.

ZeeAyKay wrote: Using Gloomhaven as an example again, I don't know HOW they were able to distinguish these minis without exaggerated feminine features: gloomhavenshop.com/frosthaven/frosthaven-starting-6-classes/

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Hah hah hah, are you kidding? Those gloomhaven minis are TERRIBLE! The male(?) ones are barely even humanoid while the female ones all have delicate facial features and are THE EXACT SAME "young 20 something archtypes" that TE dungeons gets called out in that BGG thread. Try harder.

At least the gloomhaven minis are interesting to look at even if you'd be hard pressed to say what each of them are (while the TED minis are easily assigned a class).

And we havent even gotten to Lara Gambit, the drunken panda, and the asian person...who of course is doing kung fu.

I did read the bgg thread, at least what is left of it. She doesnt like the boob spotlight. I get it. But you'd think it was some sort of Frazetta style centerpiece with bare chested orc dude with "huge tracts of land" rogue lady and saucy witch girl lavishly sprawled at his feet, feeding him grapes.

But that isn't the case. It is an obvious attempt to compose an actiony scene from the mini portrait images and surprise, it doesn't look great. But its hardly an affront to all womynkind either. On the shelf i doubt you'd never notice it. That Sofia Vergara rogue mini is gonna look a bit weird depending on how its painted but it'll still look pretty much like most every elf lady cosplay outfit at every con since...ever. Don't tell me you've never seen a woman at a ren faire, often entire gaggles of them, dress JUST LIKE IT.

But whatevs. The game is selling like bananas. This little kerfluffle seems to only boost sales. And their next game will probably be much tamer in aesthetics like many of their other games. Life will go on.

But that Lara Gambit mini is still aces

Jason, may I ask what it is you're actually trying to argue for?

The impetus of this "kerfuffle" is that a woman, who happens to be a prominent designer in the board game space, called out a very popular Kickstarter for its sexist treatment of women on the cover of the box - continuing a very long history of women being poorly represented in this industry (often in much worse ways, as you've pointed out).

This really is a situation of there being two kinds of people. Those who empathize with an actual woman who is bringing up the complaints and are taking the opportunity to change things for the better, however small the progress may be. It's not a HUGE DEAL. As Elizabeth Hargrave said herself, she never told people to boycott the game. She was just frustrated in yet ANOTHER example of casual sexism in her industry.

And then there are people like yourself - correct me if I'm wrong - who seem to feel the need to downplay the valid concerns of an actual woman pointing out just the latest example of sexism in the hobby.

Do you feel like she shouldn't get upset because it's not egregious enough? That people who side with her concerns are "virtue signaling?" I honestly want to know, because I don't really understand what you're trying to get at.

ZeeAyKay, I think we know what he's getting at. He sees that people have a problem, and he thinks that not only should he speak over those people and dismiss the issue, but thinks it's okay to do so because it appeals to him, dollar amounts should be a reason justify it and that nothing should change. Welcoming products* < CONSOOM.

jason10mm wrote: I'm the target audience...and I am legion.

You have someone on the KS comments pretending to be Octavian, people saying Dwarf Lives Matter and slews of right wing, troll filth there only OwN tHe LiBs.

Yeah, great folks, I'm sure.

* - No, not every piece of entertainment can be for everyone, but this is a TE game with a fantasy dungeon crawl setting. It's not niche, read the fucking room and make at least the surface level of it inviting to all players.

Josh Look wrote:
You have someone on the KS comments pretending to be Octavian, people saying Dwarf Lives Matter and slews of right wing filth there only OwN tHe LiBs.

Yeah, great folks, I'm sure.

Dude, they are mocking your ideology and apparently it is working. But its low level humor at best and i try to not engage in it.

I'd actually have to work a bit to find a lot of what i would consider TRUE SEXISM in game art. There are some glaring examples but overall i dont think women are BADLY represented in game art, perhaps just UNDERREPRESENTED. So i think you may be setting your goal posts in a very different spot.

Of course there is an entire school of art that gets that sexist label now (and it is clearly evident with the hawkeye initiative stuff) but i think that style of posing just makes female characters more appealing and i dont think that is an inherently bad thing. Male posing is very different to achieve a like appeal to the core audience.

I showed the original TED cover to my wife and asked her opinion. She naturally commented on the highlighting of the rogues....ahem..assets but then mentioned the orc had his chest lit up as well once she realized what i was asking. I asked if this cover made her not want to play the game and she told me to order it But then she basically looks like the rogue anyway so there is that.

Anyway, i think there can be sexy ladies in SOME games. I also think there can be very masculine men. I dont think you can represent each gender in exactly the same ways. I also think that there is a place for more normal appearing folks of any gender and that is ok too.

But to play that cover off as if it were a lewd image from some long forgotten issue of Penthouse Comix (yeah, that is/was a thing) is just a joke. I've already theorized how it came to be (composite of mini portraits that themselves are not that bad) and the company addressed it. Now that poor company will have to suffer examination for every subsequent cover choice and this will probably dog them for YEARS and for what? Cause some lady didn't like it. Hell, i think most of the folks railing against it in BGG and the original tweet PROMOTED AND BACKED the game, knowing FULL WELL what the art looked like, they just flipped over when they saw a chance to be vocal about dropping the pledge. Signaling in other words.

AFAIK, she said nothing about pulling pledges, just said it was unfortunate that the art was cliche and unwelcoming.

Your point that they should think about their future box art is exactly the point- it might even help their bottom line. This isn’t about clutching pearls and being “offended,” but trying to get popular games to avoid the mistakes of the past.

The fact that there is “debate” over this speaks volumes. There are not multiple sides here. Gamelyn put skeevy art on their game that has fallen into cultural obsolescence. Almost definitely, a male contracted the male artist and it was approved by males who likely didn’t even consider how skeevy the art was. Anyone with any sense should be able to see this and say yeah, that’s pretty skeevy, it needs to be changed. End discussion.

BUT there are all of these man children that can’t handle the fact that they are being held accountable for the skeevy things that they have historically overlooked, ignored, or encouraged. There are man children that can’t get with the fact that culture is moving toward greater inclusion and proper representation. They want things to be like they were in the Good Old White Boy Days when they could admire titties on a game box and not have a shrew like Elizabeth Hargrave getting hysterical about it.

Shellie is absolutely correct. The root problem is that these man children can’t handle the fact that a powerful, respected woman had something to say that called out Gamelyn and really just said hey, can’t we do better than this?

Queue up the fREe sPeEcH brigade, the anti-cancel culture cavalry, the white boys with their thumb-up-ass “can’t we all just play games” falsely apolitical stance.

Cancel culture is -awesome-. I love it. Because it is a natural weeding out of shit we don’t need anymore as a culture and a society. Things I have liked in the past have been canceled and I’ve looked back and thought, yeah, I’m glad we are cutting that loose. Instead of waxing nostalgiac for times of ignorance and denial,
I’ve found that the things let go were replaced by more progressive, positive things of -greater, current cultural value-.

But there are all these fucking white boys and Karens that just can’t deal with the realization that Dr. Seuss had some really fucking racist shit. They don’t want culture to progress beyond the limits of their nostalgia and limited world view. They want the Good Old Days when white people could gleefully enjoy racism and men were free to be as caddish as they wanted without fear of censure. Fuck nostalgia, fuck the Good Old Days.

This isn’t just about the skeevy man child art on Tiny Epic Dungeons. It’s not about pearl clutching or prudery. It’s about women asserting power and authority and calling for us to do better. And the man children are upset because they still want to be able to get a low key boner looking at Red Scorpion without feeling weird or somehow wrong for it.. There isn’t anything wrong with sexiness, eroticism, or even vulgarity. But what is wrong is that when those are in the context of male gaze and there is an imbalance of power and agency because the sexuality is a decoration meant for man child delight...it’s not right. And it’s time for the culture to jettison it.

Also I’d like to just say fuck Frank Frazetta. Time for that skeevy ass trash to be left the fuck behind in a trash pile where it belongs along with HP Lovecraft.

You couldn't answer my one simple question, but instead continue on with even more evidence that you really don't get it or want to get it.. I do want to try to understand why it is so hard for you to just listen to their concerns and take them at face value instead of pushing back against this false narrative you've built up in your head. But in replying below I think I've realized that you really just want to keep things the way they are because you like them - as immature as you taste may be - and that sexy minis are more important to you than the real concerns of real people.

jason10mm wrote:

Josh Look wrote:
I'd actually have to work a bit to find a lot of what i would consider TRUE SEXISM in game art. I almost spit out my coffee. Holy shit. Thank god there's a man like you out there who gets to decide what TRUE SEXISM is. Women like Elizabeth Hargrave just don't understand it and are being hysterical for no reason, huh? There are some glaring examples but overall i dont think women are BADLY represented in game art, perhaps just UNDERREPRESENTED. So i think you may be setting your goal posts in a very different spot.

Of course there is an entire school of art that gets that sexist label now (and it is clearly evident with the hawkeye initiative stuff) but i think that style of posing just makes female characters more appealing and i dont think that is an inherently bad thing. Male posing is very different to achieve a like appeal to the core audience. YOU think that women have to pose in a way that highlights their sexuality to make them more appealing. Believe it or not, this view IS an inherently bad thing, IS sexist, and you are NOT some omnipresent voice of the core audience.

I showed the original TED cover to my wife and asked her opinion. She naturally commented on the highlighting of the rogues....ahem..assets but then mentioned the orc had his chest lit up as well once she realized what i was asking. I asked if this cover made her not want to play the game and she told me to order it But then she basically looks like the rogue anyway so there is that. Well, there it is. Of course you have to mention to all your internet friends that you have a hot wife, as if that's relevant to this conversation at all. I'm sure she's proud of you.

Anyway, i think there can be sexy ladies in SOME games. I also think there can be very masculine men. I dont think you can represent each gender in exactly the same ways. I also think that there is a place for more normal appearing folks of any gender and that is ok too.

But to play that cover off as if it were a lewd image from some long forgotten issue of Penthouse Comix (yeah, that is/was a thing) is just a joke. Dude, talk about moving the goal posts. I AM NOT SAYING THIS. MOST RATIONAL PEOPLE ARE NOT SAYING THIS. That's not the point! The way the woman are depicted is fundamentally different in a stereotypical way than the way the men are depicted. That's it! That's "true sexism." You don't have to dig into your stash of Penthouse Comix to show me what sexism is. And guess what? The fact they changed it - QUICKLY - shows they know it was wrong. Or do you think they just bent to the terrible power of cancel culture? I've already theorized how it came to be (composite of mini portraits that themselves are not that bad) and the company addressed it. Now that poor company will have to suffer examination for every subsequent cover choice and this will probably dog them for YEARS and for what? Cause some lady didn't like it. LMAO, "some lady" being the designer of one of the most popular modern board games in the last decade. Your casual disrespect of her is not surprising given everything else you've said but it is damning. Hell, i think most of the folks railing against it in BGG and the original tweet PROMOTED AND BACKED the game, knowing FULL WELL what the art looked like, they just flipped over when they saw a chance to be vocal about dropping the pledge. Signaling in other words.

The thing that Jason and people like him don't seem to realize is that, despite the fact that they don't find the art problematic, it's not about them.

Let me repeat that: It's Not About Them.

It's about everyone else who are part of a larger segment of society that would like to move on from stuff like that because the entire game industry doesn't have to be and isn't targeted at overgrown children any longer. There's another perspective outside of that made up of many and many kinds of people. So, your saying that you don't see any problem with it is, quite frankly, irrelevant. Other people do have a problem with it and, as players and presumably customers of said company's output, they're making it known.

In the context of Gamelyn specifically, they have had people on their box covers before; precisely none of them in this cheesecake style. So this was a conscious choice. You speculate that they're going to be held to account with every future release, but this release is the exception to their previous style. So, it's not about a bunch of "virtue signallers" jumping on a detail. Gamelyn dug their own hole on this one and it's probably because their subconscious interpretation of heroic fantasy is in that Frank Frazetta/Larry Elmore style. It's understandable. It's just not the norm anymore and wasn't the norm for them in every other game that they've produced. So there is no "angry mob" making a mountain out of a molehill here.

And if we're going the anecdote route (which is never a good idea), I showed the image to my girlfriend and asked what she thought of it. She frowned and said: "Is this a reprint of a game from the 70s? Why do both women look like they're going to explode out of their clothes?" So there's just as much "evidence" (just for the record: anecdote != evidence) on our side as there is on yours in that respect. But the simple fact is that there shouldn't be two sides here. It's about bringing more people into the gaming sphere or not. I know which "side" of that I'm on.

Michael Barnes wrote: Cancel culture is -awesome-. I love it. Because it is a natural weeding out of shit we don’t need anymore as a culture and a society. Things I have liked in the past have been canceled and I’ve looked back and thought, yeah, I’m glad we are cutting that loose. Instead of waxing nostalgiac for times of ignorance and denial,
I’ve found that the things let go were replaced by more progressive, positive things of -greater, current cultural value-.

But there are all these fucking white boys and Karens that just can’t deal with the realization that Dr. Seuss had some really fucking racist shit. They don’t want culture to progress beyond the limits of their nostalgia and limited world view. They want the Good Old Days when white people could gleefully enjoy racism and men were free to be as caddish as they wanted without fear of censure. Fuck nostalgia, fuck the Good Old Days.

I don't find cancel culture awesome. I think it is entirely appropriate for people to decide that they don't want to spend any more time or money on artist/performers/writers/whatevers who have expressed offensive opinions or supported offensive causes. But aggressively rallying everybody else that same target feels like a witch hunt, and it sometimes happens on a thin pretext like a disparaging remark by an ex-spouse. The witch hunt can go both ways, as we saw in the '80s with the right-wing pearl-clutching about music lyrics. Or Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare of the '50s. In our current polarized society, cancellation is of limited efficacy anyway, as right-wingers will likely rally to support the cancelled out of partisan spite. Just look at Lewis CK, who got canceled in 2017 and yet went on a lucrative world tour in 2019.

Last year, a friend who I have known for over 20 years tried to bully me on Facebook over still liking some songs by the Smiths. He got verbally dogpiled by other friends who share my opinion that Morrissey is just a musician and not a role model. Separating the artist from the art can be valid choice and doesn't make someone a bad person. If we all only consumed entertainment produced by perfect people, our lives would become barren.

Did you know that in 1998, NATO paid to translate The Sneetches and Other Stories into Serbo-Croatian and distributed 50,000 free copies to children in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as part of a campaign to encourage tolerance? Hopefully the more offensive Seuss works drop out of circulation but the good ones remain available. Which will likely be the case, because what is happening to Dr. Suess books right now isn't an example of cancel culture. This was a business decision by Dr. Suess Enterprises to essentially recall defective products that can't reasonably be fixed. They want to continue printing Dr. Suess books, just not the ones that will undermine their brand in a changing society. Hopefully the publishers of Tiny Epic Dungeons will make a similar decision soon.