Editorial: Concealing Violent and Sexual Imagery in RPG Materials

In this editorial, I ponder the impact of violence, sex, and gore in RPG illustrations and covers while also discussing the shift from keeping my RPG materials on display to storing them in a less exposed location. To be clear, the point of this isn't to simply rant about how the artwork is inappropriate but to convey how my perspectives have changed since I've become a husband and father and to open a conversation about dealing with the duality of the nature of the RPG hobby and being a spouse and parent who is considerate to his family. So please, for the duration of this editorial, rest any defenses you might have and hear me out.

Dismembered corpses. Half-naked women. Impaled combatants. These are the images that commonly populate many pages and covers of RPG books and magazines. There was a time when my worst reaction was embarrassment from accidentally leaving an issue of Dragon Magazine on my desk at work after some light, lunchtime reading. Having a half-naked, buxom mummy on the cover of Dragon Magazine wasn't really explainable and could be borderline grounds for sexual harassment in the workplace depending on how touchy someone else might be. These days, however, I feel a bit more apprehensive and guarded about such artwork, not because I am offended personally, but because I'm a husband and father.

I look at my collection of RPG books, their covers, and their interior art, and I see images that once stoked my imagination. Instead I now see these images as potentially jarring to a child or offensive to an in-law. High-fantasy art work that's composed of a lone figure travelling across an awe-inspiring scenery (imagine something from The Lord of the Rings) might be a conversation starter. A half-naked woman carrying a bloody spear... not so much. Additionally, violent images of a monster with blood on its mouth and claws after rending a human being are not images I care for my daughter to see as a young child.

With that said, I do understand that not everyone who plays RPGs is a parent or spouse. As I admitted earlier, it never bothered me before, and in fact I enjoyed the more gruesome images as I imagined my player's reactions if I were to present such imagery to them in my Greyhawk and Eberron campaigns. These days, however, I can't help but feel protective.

I liken this sentiment to an experience my wife and I had recently with the movie Superbad. We watched this movie in the theater before she was pregnant and laughed our asses off. We watched it again after our daughter was born, and still laughed our asses off, but were stunned by the thought of our daughter -- even as a teenager later in life -- watching this movie with us. "Not until she's 30!" my wife said exaggeratively. We saw it as a humorous reaction, but it's something I think every parent experiences. (We had the thought that parents aren't stodgy because that's who they are; they seem stodgy because they don't want their kids to be like them!)

As I've gotten older, I have to admit that I feel a bit more displaced by such gratuitous imagery, but I still don't feel outright offended; I only feel as though I'm no longer the target audience, or that some RPG publishers don't take into consideration that many gamers are older and have kids running around their homes and exploring their books.

The folks at Paizo Publishing (not intending to target them) once justified their covers based on the fact that their sales would always shoot up for those particular issues of Dragon. Some felt it was a rather cheap way to get sales. Rather than compelling buyers with content, Paizo compelled them with cleavage. Surely sex sells, but I've seen a large number of great RPGs that have stunning imagery without any sexual undertones or gratuitous violence. Take a look at the covers for all three Hellfrost books from Triple Ace Games as examples. The covers portray a fantastic, magical, threatening world without relying on sex or gore to sell the product.

With all of that said, I recognize that the responsibility really falls on the parents, and not the publisher. In other words, I can still enjoy the product, while being careful about leaving it lying around the house. Putting the books away and magazines out of reach and in a discrete location isn't necessarily going out of my way or compromising anything.

Another solution I've adopted is buying PDFs exclusively. PDFs are effectively always concealed, aren't typically left laying around on a coffee table or night stand, take up no space in my home, and are usually cheaper anyway. (Luckily I don't play D&D 4e, otherwise, I'd be stuck with printed hardcovers rather than my much more portable PDFs.)

I recently asked on FriendFeed/Twitter: "Parents, do you or your spouse worry about your kids seeing sexual or violent images of RPG books? If so, how do you prevent such exposure?" @anthonyayers responded with a rather sensible reply: "I lock mine in my game cabinet. With all the little fiddly bits in most of my games, I don't want them in the games anyway." His answer seemed reasonable to me, and I realized that I had already done the same myself, complete with child-proofing gear (my daughter is only 14 months old).

In any case, here are some follow-up questions for the rest of you:

1. What are your own opinions about violent or sexual imagery on the cover and inside of RPG books and magazines?
2. Parents and spouses, do you have concerns about displaying such content in your homes?
3. Do any of you ever feel like you need to hide some of your RPG materials from non-gamers?

Feel free to answer in the comments below.