Originally posted by Iván R. Molia:

I´ve an example…
Here (Badajoz, Spain) in one of our greats events (Carnavales - carnivals?) we have groups of singers in “funny-line” with costume… and this year one of these groups dress like “dictators” (one of all they found in the world) and i think…
If im friend of someone of they and have their photo in my playmat??
Can or can´t use it…

Im sure than young people, or people with null relation with they sure was fine meanwhile lot of people can be disrupted by it.

I think that the violet´s example was similar… much people will not fond problems but people can had dislikes…

Well… I would only point out that if you were in Germany you could face legal issues with certain images of certain dictators…

Let's not delve into the corners of specific examples here. Each case is different and should be handled accordingly.

Look, I'll admit, these questions are always hard. No matter where you draw the line, you risk upsetting one group of people in favor of another. And being caught between those two is never a great place to be.

You see some art that looks sketchy to you, you can ask the player to remove it, and anger the player, or you can let it slide, and risk someone else seeing it and being offended or made uneasy by its presence and, more importantly, the implicit suggestion that Wizards condones it. And when dealing with real versus hypothetical players, it's easy to side with the real one.

I understand that perfectly, and yet, I still have to hope we can hold ourselves to a higher standard than that. While it may cause a moment of awkwardness, I think it's healthy for the game in the long term to be proactive on these issues. It behooves us to engage ourselves as judges in the discussion of what kinds of images cause what kinds of reactions in people and why, and exercise some compassion for the underrepresented groups of magic players.

Another thing I've noticed in this discussion is that we are talking about two different types of reaction that often get conflated, I think. There's the person that is offended, as in, they see or hear something and get visibly upset by it. Those are best dealt with, as has been said, with compassion and diplomacy, and on a case-by-case basis.

But there is also the more baseline feeling of what the atmosphere of a magic event is. Is it a place where people of all ages, abilities, and genders etc. can come and feel welcome and safe, or is it a place where they are going to witness subtle reminders that they are the interlopers, the unwelcome, the objectified? It's in the interest of improving the latter that I think it is good to be proactive with regards to dubious imagery, and to tend to err towards the safe side when reaching decisions on these matters.

But many individual cases are complex, and the line isn't always clear, so discussion and being open to other people's opinions is necessary in a lot of the trickier cases, I think.

Originally posted by Violet Edgar:

Well… I would only point out that if you were in Germany you could face legal issues with certain images of certain dictators…

this is just the point…
that playmate here, in the hometown of the people in the pic… all people will see it as “a gay with a friend on that group or follow that group” meanwhile in another place, even in Spain, we can found people that “claim to skys for Paco in the pic” (and surely dont need travel more than 300Km).

Here's another one for y'all to discuss, that I brought up at the last judge conference I attended.

A player is wearing a plain black t-shirt with the words “I'd tap that in an instant”. No images. Potentially offensive, or not?

Originally posted by Huw Morris:

A player is wearing a

Riki Hayashi
Let's not delve into the corners of specific examples here. Each case is different and should be handled accordingly.

Enough said.

Well… I would only point out that if you were in Germany you could face legal issues with certain images of certain dictators…

Since this is clearly satire there wouldn't be any charges. This is of course totally different with other images and I wouldn't want to alienate players in a German event with this since most people view all imagery even satiric ones as offensive when it comes to the topic. Which is understandable.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

“Do you know nothing about what we are?” and “nicely” “ask” them to leave. However, what is not going to happen is a religious person buys a ticket to a Black Sabbath concert, Black Sabbath gets word of this, and then they censor the lyrics to all their songs to avoid offending that one religious person in the audience. I think that's the difference.

To bring this back around to Magic, if “even one person” is offended, that is not a reason to change the player behaviour, for the same reason as if “even one person” is offended by Black Sabbath lyrics then Black Sabbath should not put on concerts The standard, therefore, probably ought to be some sort of “reasonable person test”; the alternative is basically cancelling Magic in public places (or just playing the Aikatsu TCG), as everyone is offended by something and Magic players in particular are notorious for whining about nothing. If the standard is “if one person whines about this we as judges need to step in and reprimand the offending player”, we're going to do an awful lot of reprimanding and not a heck of a lot of actually getting tournaments run.”

“Don't you know that MtG has a large male audience, and seductive ”art“ about women are allowed here?” Sorry but that is what I can make off this Black Sabbath anology. Like Violet already stated; Black Sabbath says nothing about creating a safe environment, whereas MtG does. So we should behave accordingly. Even if it looks like it's “unreasonable” for a person to be offended (which I don't comprehend, how can it be unreasonable to feel a certain emotion?), we as judges have the task to make the tournament, FNM, or wherever you are player-friendly for all.
Saying MtGplayers are notorious for whining about nothing, is a hard statement. The ruling is not “if one person whines, we need to step in and reprimand the offending player.” The ruling is “have respect for each player no matter what their background is”. Having respect for someone's opinion can result in actions taken otherwise fe like we are now discussing about these tokens. This is a good thing, because this means we take all ‘possible’ complaints seriously.

Violet Edgar
But there is also the more baseline feeling of what the atmosphere of a magic event is. Is it a place where people of all ages, abilities, and genders etc. can come and feel welcome and safe, or is it a place where they are going to witness subtle reminders that they are the interlopers, the unwelcome, the objectified? It's in the interest of improving the latter that I think it is good to be proactive with regards to dubious imagery, and to tend to err towards the safe side when reaching decisions on these matters.

I couldn't agree more. Tokens like that (and even some arts in MtGcards themselves) give implicit reminders that MtG's audience is mostly straight male and it is okay to objectify, since it's allowed on tournaments.
I can't understand how nudity can still be allowed on tokens, sleeves and mats. I'm not saying this from a prudish point, but from a female point. What is the message you're giving by using these kind of arts?

I personally believe this topic will get discussed more and more, since more women start playing magic, and not all of them like it to look at art that is objecifying. Why? Because it's denegrating, and a reminder of why MtG struggled so long to get a female audience.
I'm not saying this is the only reason, but it's a contributing one. It's a really good thing that we are discussing this topic, because it means we're evolving with the playercommunity.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

To use your analogy to a religious person at a Black Sabbath concert: Certainly, if a religious person comes to a Black Sabbath concert and is offended, the usher (or bouncer, or whoever) will say to them “hey, seriously? You, a religious person, came to a Black Sabbath concert, and you're complaining about being offended? Do you know nothing about what we are?” and “nicely” “ask” them to leave. However, what is not going to happen is a religious person buys a ticket to a Black Sabbath concert, Black Sabbath gets word of this, and then they censor the lyrics to all their songs to avoid offending that one religious person in the audience. I think that's the difference.

To bring this back around to Magic, if “even one person” is offended, that is not a reason to change the player behaviour, for the same reason as if “even one person” is offended by Black Sabbath lyrics then Black Sabbath should not put on concerts. The standard, therefore, probably ought to be some sort of “reasonable person test”; the alternative is basically cancelling Magic in public places (or just playing the Aikatsu TCG), as everyone is offended by something and Magic players in particular are notorious for whining about nothing. If the standard is “if one person whines about this we as judges need to step in and reprimand the offending player”, we're going to do an awful lot of reprimanding and not a heck of a lot of actually getting tournaments run.

I believe this analogy totally misses the point. Magic cards and tournaments are not supposed to be a niche product that only appeals to a certain demographic. I believe a better analogy is pop music or musicals. It is supposed to appeal to as many people as possible and the actual problem is not that a hypothetical person is going to something that is not intended for them, like the religious person at a black sabath concert, but rather this person is going to something that IS INTENDED FOR THEM and realizing that they do not want to be there because other people show them: YOU ARE NOT WELCOME. An example would be going to a concert where the audience catcalls the singer.

I do not believe we should follow the “reasonable person” approach because these issues are not all entirely reasonable or to put it another way you do not get offended by something because you make a decision guided by reason to be offended. Also what is reasonable differs from area to area or culture to culture. For example: I grew up less than 500 meters from the Dutch/German border but there is a giant divide between the level of acceptable nakedness/sexuality between me/Germany and the Netherlands. Germans are more prudish for anyone that cares. So for international events having both German and Dutch players, Dutch judges would have to draw the line below what they would consider reasonable. While German judges might have to let some things pass they would not in a local tournament.

While I do not believe we should or could formulate a written code to figure out what is acceptable there are a couple of guidelines we can develop, either as a local group or for ourselves, for proactive behaviour while judging/playing.
Here is mine for nudity (full or partial): okay, as long as the person(s) depicted is/are clearly in charge of their own fate. Think: Liliana of the Veil, Triumph of Ferocity the soldier token from the op, even the dreadful Prerelease Promo of Hero of Bladehold and the depicted figures do not offer/promise anything sexual.
This of course still leaves grey areas but in those I would rather err on the side of telling the player to consider refraining from this object (in the future) than letting it slide. So far I have not had one player who did not at least pretend to understand my argument and actually quite a few who came to me on the second day of multi-day events to show me their new sleeves or playmats.

Furthermore, I believe that people tend to complain too little about stuf that makes them uncomfortable because you have to voice your feelings to a stranger and human beings usually do not want strangers to know they have a “weakness” and it is only a little thing. But those little things add up and there is only so much you can endure before you say enough is enough and you either have an (ir)rational explosion about the stuff that made you uncomfortable or you try to avoid the place and the activity where you feel uncomfortable. The second option, in my opinion, is far more common than the first. This also means that if one person complains publicly about something that made them uncomfortable there are more that were not willing to say anything.
Even if there is only one person that is feeling uncomfortable because of X we should take them serious and see what we can do about X to achieve the best outcome for the tournament and the players involved.

TL;DR
Please be open for what might offend someone however reasonable or not it might seem to you and please take those that come to complain to you serious even if that complaint is not reasonable to you and try to work on the best outcome for the players and the tournament as a whole.

Well said, Simon. Also, my thanks to Violet and Natalie for attempting to bring us all a little understanding on this difficult subject.

I'm not convinced that we're going to get anywhere by continuing this; I'll offer my short summary, and close this thread.

Please re-read the posts from Violet, from Natalie, and the penultimate post, from Simon; please consider the things I tried to communicate. If you feel that we are off track or just plan wrong, I humbly suggest looking into sensitivity training; it's a reasonable thing to do.

d:^D