Unknown Armies
Thomas Bagwell
rulebook?
If you don't care about my reason for asking, that's all. Because it's
happend with a few other books, I thought I would see what other opinions
are out there, though.
[Because for some reason it seems to be necessary, what follows is my
opinion. I'm describing my reaction and how it affected my buying decision.
For those who feel otherwise, great. I'm glad what bothered me didn't
bother you. What I say will therefore not apply to you. (Like this will do
any good...)]
I just discovered Unknown Armies. By accident, really. I serendepitously
came across a review of it at RPG.net and found it very interesting. I
scanned through the other reviews as well.
My conclusion from the reviews was that this was a game I really should
check out, as it includes several concepts I have really come to
appreciate...an un-predefined skill list, percentile, "critical"-like
successes and failures, de-emphasis on skill rolls, consistent
mechanics...it sounded like a real winner. I liked several aspects that
it's fans also liked, and I also liked several aspects that it's detractors
didn't like.
Yeah...hear the "but"?
I made it by the store to actually look at a copy. Why do game designers go
out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot? A chill went through me
when I saw the cover...no, not like they intended. It was a needlessly
gross cover. I flipped through to read some more detail on the
mechanics...page after page of gross artwork.
Bad artwork is annoying, but can be dealt with. This wasn't "bad" per se,
although I've seen better. It was gross and annoying, though. To the point
that I put it back on the shelf without being able to concentrate on the
parts I wanted to see. <sigh>
If they wanted a dark and disturbing atmosphere to the book, it is very
possible to come up with dark and disturbing artwork that doesn't borrow
from the slasher mentality...namely 'horror movies are scary if you have
lots of blood and guts'. Wrong... Obviously my tastes and theirs are way
divergent in this area...which surprised me as our tastes were obviously
similar in other areas.
Oh, well. If it's ever possible to get the core mechanics without the
unnecessary baggage, I'll give it another try.
Tom B.
S. John Ross
| rulebook?
I agree that that'd be great.
--
|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn/fonts.htm - FONTS FOR GAMERS
Wyrdlyng
news:8et5kl$bi1$1...@news.smartworld.net...
> Bad artwork is annoying, but can be dealt with. This wasn't "bad" per se,
> although I've seen better. It was gross and annoying, though. To the
point
> that I put it back on the shelf without being able to concentrate on the
> parts I wanted to see. <sigh>
Let me pose a general question. Is artwork really that significant a factor
to your purchasing an RPG rulesbook? (You being the general everyone else
you.)
Isn't an rpg rulesbook essentially a technical manual? How many technical
manuals do you purchase based on interior artwork?
Or should it be considered something different?
And once you read through the rules once does the internal art ever really
come into play again? Don't you just flip through the book to get to a
specific rule after that? Do you even notice the artwork again after the
first read?
Is artwork even all that essential to an rpg rulesbook? Or have we started
to slide into the shallow realm of style over substance? (Not calling gamers
shallow, just the other consumers. ;)
Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor artwork
or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference?
Should there even be artwork in rulesbooks? Why?
Just curious to see people's responses.
--
"It's not very pleasant in my corner of the world at three o'clock
in the morning. But for people who like cold, wet, ugly bits it is
something rather special." -- Eeyore
Wyrdlyng
wyrd...@bellsouth.net
Wil Hutton
that of the game designer, but into mine as I gain inspiration from the
rules and setting. The artwork can assist in that. To relegate it to just
being a mere technical manual takes away much of the romance, imagination
and fantasy. There are illustrations and even photographs in most textbooks
and manuals (many textbooks will even have cartoons that are relevent to the
subject) and those are (supposedly) chosen and presented in a manner that
accentuates the subject material. The artwork serves to break up pages and
pages of text and make it easier to get through what could (depending on the
rulebook) a very dry read. As for the quality of art, even in games that
are just rules sans setting, stick figure drawings just won't do. While I
don't require artwork to enjoy a game (the artwork in Jovian Chronicles is
fairly sparse compared to other DP9 books),. the artwork there is has to be
of a minimal level for quality to not ruin the rest of the reading. For a
game like Tribe 8, the artwork is nearly essential - for atmosphere as well
as to convey images that are difficult to just describe as narrative.
Just my $.03...
--
Dreams of Flesh and Spirit for Tribe 8: http://www.crosswinds.net/~warpweft/
JSPD Datanode for Jovian Chronicles: http://www.crosswinds.net/~jovian/
The Atomic Rumpus Room (RPGs, PikaDance, Club Metro Survivor's Homepage and
more!): http://www.crosswinds.net/~atomicrumpusroom/
Brett Evill
>
> To relegate it to just
> being a mere technical manual takes away much of the romance, imagination
> and fantasy.
There's nothing 'mere' about a good technical handbook. They might not
appeal to you, but I find them as wonderful as Alladin's Cave. There is
more disciplined and detailed imagination in a bridge than in most works
of fantasy.
Regards,
Brett Evill
Wayne Shaw
>to your purchasing an RPG rulesbook? (You being the general everyone else
>you.)
>
>Isn't an rpg rulesbook essentially a technical manual? How many technical
>manuals do you purchase based on interior artwork?
It won't be the primary reason for or against, but it can nudge me,
and I can see if it was actively offputting that it might nudge me
away quite hard.
Robert Braddock
>Let me pose a general question. Is artwork really that significant a factor
>to your purchasing an RPG rulesbook?
And I return with a nice and general answer: Well, it _can_ be that
significant.
If a game has annoying artwork, I'm probably not going to consider it very
much. The game had better be awfully impressive if I am to think about
buying it--and I'm not going to go to any effort to find a reason to buy it.
In fact, if the artwork is very annoying, I'm likely going to be actually
irritated at the game, before I've even considered it's actual game value.
On the other hand, a game could have stunning artwork, that held so much
character and quality, that I'd buy it just for that, regardless of the
system. A book like that is a resource for every game I play, even if i
never actually play it. Talislanta is probably the only game I'd put in this
class.
>Isn't an rpg rulesbook essentially a technical manual? How many technical
>manuals do you purchase based on interior artwork?
Ack, no, an rpg rulebook is not just a technical manual. Why do I say that?
Because the GURPS books are very much like a technical manual. I read GURPS
books in stores, and I just didn't care. Not "didn't care FOR it"--just
didn't care. I even played gurps later, and it was a so-so system, but there
just wasn't anything about gurps to care about. It seems to fight caring
about it. In the future, I'll probably never use gurps just because I have
no reason to. Moral: making the rulebook like a technical manual won't do
anything for you. (not to say the shouldn't have high quality organization
and indices, of course)
Remember: people read technical manuals because they need to, not because
they want to. Don't emulate that in a recreational work.
>And once you read through the rules once does the internal art ever really
>come into play again? Don't you just flip through the book to get to a
>specific rule after that? Do you even notice the artwork again after the
>first read?
Yes, I do notice the artwork again. Often, in fact, if it is outside of
average.
>Is artwork even all that essential to an rpg rulesbook? Or have we started
>to slide into the shallow realm of style over substance? (Not calling gamers
Style can be important. Aren't there whole genres distinguished by style
alone?
>Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor artwork
>or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference?
Yes, I would. The game makers have a certain obligation to add a little
spice to the reading experience, even if it's as simple as some nice page
headers. Note that I'm not saying there needs to be much of anything. Actual
_bad_ artwork tells me straight out that _quality_ was not even a concern, and
why spend my time on something like that?
>Should there even be artwork in rulesbooks? Why?
Definitely, and for so many reasons. The art does improve the actual reading
experience, just as good font choice does. The art can help players to
mentally organize the book and remember reference points. The art can
inspire readers with aspects of the games. The art can transmit that
touchy-feelly "character" of the game much more efficiently than text.
--
Robert Braddock
Karen J. Cravens
W>Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor artwork
W>or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference?
Yes. I've skipped over things like GURPS Wizards, a product I'd been
waiting for, because the cover art unimpressed me so much. It's not the
first time, either.
--
Karen J. Cravens sil...@phoenyx.net
Wil Hutton
better than tech manuals. No offense intended ^_^
--
Dreams of Flesh and Spirit for Tribe 8: http://www.crosswinds.net/~warpweft/
JSPD Datanode for Jovian Chronicles: http://www.crosswinds.net/~jovian/
The Atomic Rumpus Room (RPGs, PikaDance, Club Metro Survivor's Homepage and
more!): http://www.crosswinds.net/~atomicrumpusroom/
"Brett Evill" <b.e...@nospam.tyndale.apana.org.au> wrote in message
news:3918F2...@nospam.tyndale.apana.org.au...
Bruce Baugh
>Ack, no, an rpg rulebook is not just a technical manual. Why do I say that?
>Because the GURPS books are very much like a technical manual. I read GURPS
>books in stores, and I just didn't care. Not "didn't care FOR it"--just
I think that that's a failure of execution, though. (I feel the same way
about most, though not all, GURPS prose.) Gaming books _are_ technical
manuals - they're the instructions for creating games. This means that
they should evoke their setting and tone as well as covering the
numbers.
--
Bruce Baugh / bruce...@sff.net
http://bruce-baugh.users.spiretech.com/ - finally, small but current.
"Never let it be be said, especially by large men with big guns,
that I failed to help." - Dave Weinstein
Bryan J. Maloney
"Karen J. Cravens" <silve...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 9 May 2000, Wyrdlyng wrote:
>
> W>Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor artwork
> W>or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference?
>
> Yes. I've skipped over things like GURPS Wizards, a product I'd been
> waiting for, because the cover art unimpressed me so much. It's not the
> first time, either.
I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters. For GURPS
products, TEXT is content. Art is almost always mere fluff and should be
considered as such.
--
"Before we judge the lobotomist of old too severely, we
should go to the nearest street grate and see how we are
dealing with our mental health crisis today."
Ann Dupuis
"Bryan J. Maloney" wrote:
>
> In article <Pine.LNX.4.21.00051...@lists.wirebird.com>,
> "Karen J. Cravens" <silve...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 9 May 2000, Wyrdlyng wrote:
> >
> > W>Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor artwork
> > W>or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference?
> >
> > Yes. I've skipped over things like GURPS Wizards, a product I'd been
> > waiting for, because the cover art unimpressed me so much. It's not the
> > first time, either.
>
> I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters. For GURPS
> products, TEXT is content. Art is almost always mere fluff and should be
> considered as such.
Unfortunately, for GURPS products, art is sometimes more than mere fluff
-- it's actually off-putting. The GURPS Wizards cover falls into that
category for me. (And no, it made *no* difference to me that the artist
is a woman. I didn't find that cover either appealing or in good taste.)
I'm currently re-doing the maps for GURPS Old West, and am glad I'm a
*much* better cartographer now than I was 10 years ago when the first
versions of the maps hit print in that book. Looking at the other art in
that book, I'm also very glad that most if not all of the art will be
replaced, too. :-)
In general, the GURPS artwork is improving (so are their prices to
artists). I must admit having been appalled by some of the art in years
past. (That hasn't stopped me from packing half a bookcase with GURPS
stuff, but a lot of the GURPS materials I have were in "trade" for work
I've done for SJGames.) There are very few GURPS books I appreciate as
aesthetic pieces, although I think that's improving immensely now (GURPS
Discworld is a lovely book.)
--
Best regards,
Ann Dupuis (ghost...@fudgerpg.com)
Grey Ghost Press, Inc. (http://www.fudgerpg.com)
"Take that, you blasted game!" - Fourth most common use of the Computer
Control Cybernetic Enhancement. (From the "Gatecrasher" roleplaying
game; http://www.fudgerpg.com/gtcrasher)
Karen J. Cravens
BJM>I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters. For GURPS
BJM>products, TEXT is content. Art is almost always mere fluff and should be
BJM>considered as such.
Thanks for the insult. Was it really necessary?
Art can't make me buy books. Art, especially cover art, can make me *not*
buy books, though... call it "dimwitted" if you must, but I just can't get
sufficiently excited about the content of *any* gamebook to overcome the
repulsion factor of having it lying around looking ugly/annoying/whatever.
I dunno. I just don't find the notion of voting with my dollars to be all
that dimwitted.
Karen J. Cravens
AD>In general, the GURPS artwork is improving (so are their prices to
AD>artists). I must admit having been appalled by some of the art in years
AD>past. (That hasn't stopped me from packing half a bookcase with GURPS
AD>stuff, but a lot of the GURPS materials I have were in "trade" for work
AD>I've done for SJGames.) There are very few GURPS books I appreciate as
AD>aesthetic pieces, although I think that's improving immensely now (GURPS
AD>Discworld is a lovely book.)
Actually, I thought the icon-on-black look during the lean years was a
really, really good thing. Maybe that was my Traveller origin showing,
but I thought it was slick, classy, and a real standout, and was actually
kind of disappointed with they got enough money to do plain old picture
covers again.
Frank T. Sronce
>
> Unfortunately, for GURPS products, art is sometimes more than mere fluff
> -- it's actually off-putting. The GURPS Wizards cover falls into that
> category for me. (And no, it made *no* difference to me that the artist
> is a woman. I didn't find that cover either appealing or in good taste.)
>
Is that a Rowena print? It looks like her style, but I haven't
actually looked at the book itself.
Kiz
Steve Miller
<< Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor artwork
or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference? >>
If I pick up an RPG I know nothing about and the art isn't to my liking, I'll
put it back on the shelf without knowing what the mechanics are.
That might be unfair, but I only have so much money and time at my disposal and
if one part of the product is not to my liking, I might find others not to my
tastes as well.
Steve Miller
Writer of Stuff
And Jesus, he knows me, and he knows I'm right.
I've been talking to Jesus all my life.
--Genesis, "Jesus He Knows Me"
John Peralta
factor
> to your purchasing an RPG rulesbook?
YES! Artwork provides much of the mental images I use to make the game
enjoyable.
I realize that many game companies don't have the resources to employ a
decent art staff. Art on the whole is expensive; as it should be given the
talent some artists have. The problem is when game developers think that
they can just get by on bad art. BAD MOVE! too bad this is more common than
not.
On the other hand, I would not buy a game based solely on the art although I
might be tempted. Take for example 7th Sea. I came very close to buying the
game based on the color faction templates in the PHB, but after reviewing
the content (or lack of it I should say) I decided against it.
CCG's are another example of why art is important. Compare the initial sets
of Magic to the more recent ones and you will see a big improvement in the
quality of the art. I go as far as using CCG art to augment my RPG games by
method of visualization. Take that to the next level with games like
Netrunner. Although the act of netrunning is often ignored in most cyberpunk
games I have used my Netrunner cards to great effect in describing what the
net is like.
> And once you read through the rules once does the internal art ever
really
> come into play again? Don't you just flip through the book to get to a
> specific rule after that? Do you even notice the artwork again after the
> first read?
I ALWAYS look at the art and continue to enjoy it long after the initial
purchase. Yes, in the middle of a battle you are not going to pause to enjoy
the art but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be there.
> Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor
artwork
> or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference?
Champions is the perfect example of a game I skiped over due to bad artwork.
Here is a game that should have some of the best art out there given its
"comic book" background, and yet they use art that seems taken out of a
1970's comic book. COME ON GUYS, what are you thinking? The rule system is
great but the art bites.
Games with good artwork:
Heavy Gear, Tribe 8, Jovian Cronicles, Chronopia, Warhammer, Warhammer 40K,
Alternity
Many card games, my favorites: Middle earth: the Wizards, Doomtown, Heresy:
Kingdom Come, Netrunner
Games with inconsistent artwork:
(most of them)
D&D, All World of Darkness, Aberrant, Trinity, Shadowrun, L5R RPG
Many CCG's, I nominate: Legend of the Five Rings, Legends of the Burning
Sands,
Games with bad artwork:
Call of Cthulhu, Champions, Babylon 5
In closing I would like to ask game companies not to ignore the art in their
games. Bad art takes a lot away from the enjoyment of it.
John Peralta
StornC
Being an artist, and a newly contracted SJ games artist, I have to
respectfully disagree.
Art is part & parcel of the CONTENT. It is an interpetation of the words
within the book to be sure, but it is another avenue to convey story,
information and mood.
Example: I can spend paragraphs talking about the differences between 5 or
6 races of elves or orcs. Yet I can group 5 or 6 of those individuals in one
illustration and give you a ton of information that you might not even be aware
you are absorbing.
Orc 1 is obviously arabic culture based, scimitar and all, Orc 2 is a
woodland dweller, complete with camoflauge. Orc 3 is dark skinned, coming from
the darkest jungles, Orc 4 is from winter climes, having extra hair and funky
eye protection (which would be weird for most fantasy worlds). And so on.
This is all available at a glance, as well as a visual cue on "this is where
the racial info on orcs is located in the rule book".
Lastly, artwork can inspire adventure seeds, mood and actual character
ideas. I did the cover for the Ultimate Martial Artist. The writer liked my
protagonist so much that he asked me what I was thinking about when I drew it.
After a discussion, the character came out in the follow up book, Watchers of
the Dragon.
I was inspired by those great little cartoons in the margins of the DMs
guide showing an intrepid party venturing further and further into the depths
of the underground.
I assume that by your e-mail address that you are in Ithaca. Well, I grew
up in Ithaca, love it with all my heart. Ithaca is a pretty strong artist
community. I hope it and I can change your mind on this subject.
--storn
StornC
Here is a game that should have some of the best art out there given its
"comic book" background, and yet they use art that seems taken out of a
1970's comic book. COME ON GUYS, what are you thinking? The rule system is
great but the art bites.<<
What can I say. I'm responsible for a lot, A LOT! of bad artwork. But I
was young. Hopefully, I've improved. But I loved doing the Champions stuff
(which I was involved with for Normals Unbound to Watchers of the Dragon).
I look back and yes, it is bad. But I can also see where I was heading.
And that I improved.
See for yourself. Check out my webpage: http://www.solaria.net/stornc
However, somethings come down to style. I can't stand the gothic,
grotesque, out of proportion artwork of Warhammer (in any of its myriad
offshoots). Some of Alternity (which I'm running at the moment) has great
artwork. But some of it is downright criminally bad.
--storn
--storn
George W. Harris
Maloney) wrote:
:In article <Pine.LNX.4.21.00051...@lists.wirebird.com>,
:"Karen J. Cravens" <silve...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
:
:> On Tue, 9 May 2000, Wyrdlyng wrote:
:>
:> W>Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor artwork
:> W>or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference?
:>
:> Yes. I've skipped over things like GURPS Wizards, a product I'd been
:> waiting for, because the cover art unimpressed me so much. It's not the
:> first time, either.
:
:I have never been that dimwitted.
Sure you have. Just two days ago you
started a thread cross-posted to *five* newsgroups
and didn't set follow-ups. That's about as dim-
witted as one could get.
--
Doesn't the fact that there are *exactly* fifty states seem a little suspicious?
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'
John Kim
Bruce Baugh <bruce...@sff.net> wrote:
>storm...@bigfoot.com wrote:
>> Ack, no, an rpg rulebook is not just a technical manual. Why do I say
>> that? Because the GURPS books are very much like a technical manual.
>> I read GURPS books in stores, and I just didn't care.
>
>about most, though not all, GURPS prose.) Gaming books _are_ technical
>manuals - they're the instructions for creating games. This means that
>they should evoke their setting and tone as well as covering the
>numbers.
I tend to agree in general -- but how exactly is the GURPS
rulebook supposed to evoke setting and tone?
-*-*-*-
For my two cents: Personally, I view this much as I view
books. I don't particularly look for illustrated books, and I find
pure prose (like, say, Gene Wolfe's _Shadow of the Torturer_)
perfectly capable of evoking setting and tone. There are cases
where illustrations can be a good and integral part of the work,
however.
In RPG's, there are perhaps a handful of cases I can think
of illustrations working with them. _Skyrealms of Jorune_ would be
one -- where the illustrations were used with the text to show
the alien world. _Talislanta_ is a similar case. I can't think
of a third offhand.
Good layout and lack of poor illustrations help immensely
in my mind. An example for me would be _Ars Magica_. Personally,
I preferred the 1st edition -- whose only illustrations were
medieval woodcuts (I think), compared to the 2nd and 3rd edition
which added in modern fantasy drawings.
In my opinion, for the vast majority of RPG books the
illustrations are only filler which can at best maintain the feel
of the book and at worst detract from it. Of course, I'm probably
not the majority market. Putting a scantily-clad babe on the cover
may help sales more than anything else.
--
John H. Kim | Whatever else is true you
jh...@fnal.gov | Trust your little finger
www.ps.uci.edu/~jhkim | Just a single little finger can
UC Irvine, Cal, USA | Save the world. - Steven Sondheim, "Assassins"
Wyrdlyng
"StornC" <sto...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000510174703...@ng-fz1.aol.com...
<Storn's intelligent response snipped>
This is what I was looking for. Not "yeah, it'll turn me off" but WHY art
makes a difference to people. This is what I really want to hear about.
--
"We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."
-- Eeyore
Wyrdlyng
wyrd...@bellsouth.net
Wyrdlyng
"John Peralta" <john...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:pOjS4.48505$g4.13...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> YES! Artwork provides much of the mental images I use to make the game
> enjoyable.
Fair enough.
> I realize that many game companies don't have the resources to employ a
> decent art staff. Art on the whole is expensive; as it should be given the
> talent some artists have. The problem is when game developers think that
> they can just get by on bad art. BAD MOVE! too bad this is more common
than
> not.
So then another question for discussion: if a company has a very limited art
budget for their upcoming book, should they a) have minimal art (meaning
less than most "regular" minimal art rpgs) or b) use newer and less polished
talent which willwork for less?
> Games with bad artwork:
> Call of Cthulhu, Champions, Babylon 5
CoC may have bad artwork but it would be hard to label it a bad RPG. (No,
this is not open for debate or flames. Stick to one debate at a time. ;)
Wyrdlyng
Many consider the artwork in rulesbooks to be a window into the gameworld or
to at least help evoke imagery to associate with the game. Some have said
that prose is not enough to evoke the feel of a world but aren't novels
essentially nothing more than textual (is that actually a word?) description
of a fictional world and they feature usually only one picture (the cover).
Why is text enough to describe a world in a novel but not enough in an rpg?*
*-I'm not comparing novels to rpg books directly but using the fact that
novels usually describe parts of the world with limited prose--the rest
focusing on the plot and the characters--and thus the focused world
description could be comparable to what you find in rpg rulesbook world
descriptions. Talking about the core rulesbook not the detailed setting
supplements.
As Storn mentioned, artwork can clarify easily what may take many words but
it need be why couldn't the words be enough?
--
"Laughing at the window. Thought I saw your face
Only cloudy images on my window pane.
And all I hear is rain and things I tried to say."
-- Concrete Blonde, Rain
Wyrdlyng
wyrd...@bellsouth.net
REZcat
Karen J. Cravens <silve...@phoenyx.net> wrote com>...
Bryan J. Maloney wrote:
> BJM>I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters. For
GURPS
> BJM>products, TEXT is content. Art is almost always mere fluff and
should be
> BJM>considered as such.
>
> Thanks for the insult. Was it really necessary?
>
> Art can't make me buy books. Art, especially cover art, can make me
*not*
> buy books, though... call it "dimwitted" if you must, but I just can't
get
> sufficiently excited about the content of *any* gamebook to overcome the
> repulsion factor of having it lying around looking
ugly/annoying/whatever.
>
> I dunno. I just don't find the notion of voting with my dollars to be
all
> that dimwitted.
You go Karen. Being an artist myself, I am obviously biased against another
portion of what Bryan has stated. I do believe that art in gaming books
serves various purposes, such as illustrating npcs, etc. and is more than
'mere fluff" in many cases. (never underestimate the power of a visual
aid.)
Granted, there is some horrid art out that shames the profession and
makes me cringe, but as far as it's use goes, that often falls on the head
of the art director and not the artist themselves.
REZcat
obliged to post just recently. I wish I had written this...:-)
StornC <sto...@aol.com> wrote in article
<20000510174703...@ng-fz1.aol.com>...
> >>I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters. For GURPS
> products, TEXT is content. Art is almost always mere fluff and should be
Wyrdlyng
news:6u8zxi2...@chonsp.franklin.ch...
> Content is what matters. And content is not just text. It includes
> also the tables, maps, artwork, etc.
>
> IMHO, a book is an attempt of the author(s) to tell something to the
> reader(s), such as their idea of an great game. All of above content
> types have their expressive abilities. A good author uses the right
> combination of these to get the point(s) he wants to make get across.
> That leads to the most annoying type of book: one author writes a
> text, an other gets commissioned a bit of art, the art is then
> scattered into the text to "loosen it up".
>
> _Such_ artwork is just a waste of time/money of the publisher, and
> simply a distraction of the readers concentration. But that is because
> it is part of an badly designed book, not because is is artwork.
These are some good points, but MOST rpgs are like this. A good
writer/artist hybrid in the comic book industry is rare enough but I have
yet to see one in the rpg industry. As far as I know, all rpg books are
written by one person with the artwork being comissioned from several
artists. The most common scenario is the writer working from a general
outline of the book and the artists either being given a similar outline
sketch or asked for genre art. Otherwise, the book would come out on
computergame-type schedules ("sometime in the next 18 months...or so..."). I
know there are professionals out there so please correct me if I'm working
off a false assumption.
> Back to the original question: I regard bad/unfitting artwork as a
> good sign of an shoddy thrown togehter for a cheap sell product. So
> I will not buy it.
But is it enough to dismiss a work which thus remains essentially unseen?
Why is the quality of the artwork an instant means of judging the quality of
the writing? Isn't that truly judging a book by its cover?
Wil Hutton
news:xUlS4.8971$V35.4...@news4.mia...
> As Storn mentioned, artwork can clarify easily what may take many words
but
> it need be why couldn't the words be enough?
I think you pegged it earlier by saying that rpgs are not novels. Not to
trivialize the talents of game designers, but many of them are simply not
fiction authors and a select few should just stick to rules. Plus, an rpg
has to cover a lot more ground than a novel, and oftentimes more information
has to be revealed about a gameworld to make it playable within 50-100 pages
than an entire 300 page novel *really* reveals about it's world. The
illustrations in an rpg can assist in this greatly. Otherwise I agree that
rpgs don't need illustrations any more than novels, but I think that they
are very nice. It would be extremely difficult for me to envision, say, a
Pathfinder exo-armor or one of the spaceships from Jovian Chronicles without
a good illustration.
Wil Hutton
>As far as I know, all rpg books are
> written by one person with the artwork being comissioned from several
> artists. The most common scenario is the writer working from a general
> outline of the book and the artists either being given a similar outline
> sketch or asked for genre art. Otherwise, the book would come out on
> computergame-type schedules ("sometime in the next 18 months...or so...").
I
> know there are professionals out there so please correct me if I'm working
> off a false assumption.
Well, Dream Pod 9's art is done for the most part by one artist (Ghislaine
Barbaine) who works closely with the editors and authors. There are some
instances where NPC portraits don't look exactly like the description, but
it's not really that bad. I'm also pretty sure he works from the final
manuscript and not the outline - but this is because many of the books have
a lot of input from the authors (frex, in Word From the North the authors
knew what had to happen in the storyline, but it was up to them to decide
*how* these things happened). This makes it hard to have the artist create
the art from just the outline.
Neil Franklin
> In article <Pine.LNX.4.21.00051...@lists.wirebird.com>,
> "Karen J. Cravens" <silve...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 9 May 2000, Wyrdlyng wrote:
> >
> > W>Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor artwork
> > W>or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference?
> >
> > Yes. I've skipped over things like GURPS Wizards, a product I'd been
> > waiting for, because the cover art unimpressed me so much. It's not the
> > first time, either.
>
> I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters. For GURPS
> products, TEXT is content.
Content is what matters. And content is not just text. It includes
also the tables, maps, artwork, etc.
IMHO, a book is an attempt of the author(s) to tell something to the
reader(s), such as their idea of an great game. All of above content
types have their expressive abilities. A good author uses the right
combination of these to get the point(s) he wants to make get across.
> Art is almost always mere fluff and should be
> considered as such.
Lots of authors (or is it the publishers?) seem to see art as fluff.
That leads to the most annoying type of book: one author writes a
text, an other gets commissioned a bit of art, the art is then
scattered into the text to "loosen it up".
_Such_ artwork is just a waste of time/money of the publisher, and
simply a distraction of the readers concentration. But that is because
it is part of an badly designed book, not because is is artwork.
But a good book has the art as integral part of what the author is
telling the reader, chosen and placed with the same craft as the words
of the text, then when it is the best way to get a point acress ("a
picture can say more than 1000 words").
Example: Having a bunch of stats of, say, a robot is OK, a picture of
how the inventor imagined it to look strikes home to the readers
immagination, how it will act in the game, far faster and intense.
(Take the picture of Mark IV in Acute Paranoia, makes the point that
it does not need "protecting" far more intense than all the stats)
Just think of how often you, in trying to describe something
complicated to someone, have wished to have the ability to mentally
project an image to them. That is when a author should include a
picture, and at that point in the narrative.
Back to the original question: I regard bad/unfitting artwork as a
good sign of an shoddy thrown togehter for a cheap sell product. So
I will not buy it.
P.S. the same problem exists with non-RPG books, also multimedia CDs
and websites, also in university lectures and office presentations.
--
Neil Franklin, ne...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic
Use a WIMP (Windows Icons Mouse Pulldowns) interface -
or get one with a CLUE (Command Line User Environment)?
Bruce Baugh
> Art is part & parcel of the CONTENT. It is an interpetation of the words
>within the book to be sure, but it is another avenue to convey story,
>information and mood.
Precisely. Good art enhances and complements the text in describing the
setting, suggesting possibilities, evoking mood, and so on. Bad art in
gaming is whatever, regardless of its technical merits, works against or
simply without relationship to the text.
Bruce Baugh
> I tend to agree in general -- but how exactly is the GURPS
>rulebook supposed to evoke setting and tone?
Based on the subject of the particular book.
Justin Bacon
>Let me pose a general question. Is artwork really that significant a factor
>you.)
Artwork is a significant factor to me. First, because art is cool. Second,
because it is really excellent example of how much effort went into a product
(if the company in question didn't even bother to get good art, it's an
indication that not a lot of effort was put into making the product a success).
And third...
>Isn't an rpg rulesbook essentially a technical manual? How many technical
>manuals do you purchase based on interior artwork?
And third because your average RPG book is *not* just a technical manual.
Certainly the core rules of GURPS, CORPS, or even FUDGE are technical manuals
-- but these type of setting-less engines are far and few between, and even
they are supported by a plethora of products which then go on to describe
settings.
Why is artwork important in the discussion of game settings? Because a picture
is worth a thousand words. I gain information about the Egyptians, for example,
by looking at a sampling of heiroglyphics that cannot be adequately
communicated through words. Similarly, I gain a very good understanding of what
the world of Tribe 8 is like through the pictures by Ghislain Barbe found in
the Tribe 8 books. Raven Mimura's artwork for John Tynes' Puppetland is another
good example of how art can be a significant addition to a product. Sure,
Tynes' Puppetland is really good all by itself. But Raven's artwork makes it
better.
>And once you read through the rules once does the internal art ever really
>come into play again? Don't you just flip through the book to get to a
>specific rule after that? Do you even notice the artwork again after the
>first read?
Depends on the effectiveness and quality of the artwork. Sometiimes the art is
nothing more than an effective way of breaking up the text in order to make it
an easier read... at other times, the artwork serves as a valuable reference
resource in and of itself.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
>I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters. For GURPS
>considered as such.
And since you so polite in stating your opinion, Moron Boy, I'm sure Karen has
been completely swayed by your appeal to rational reasoning.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
(A healthy dose of Irony has been injected into this post. It's good for your
teeth. Really. I swear. Would this face lie to you?)
Chuck (aka. WormSpeaker)
If you have ever taken one Dragon lance novel (300 pages) and
compaired it to one dragonlance suppliment (90 pages) you will note
that the actual ammount of total back ground that the novel covers
compaired to the total ammount of info the supplement covers and you
will see that pictures can definetly help convey thoughts that a great
deal of text can't.
One example: It takes like 30 pages (IIRC) in the first dragonlance
book to describe the tree village and one picture can show it all with
richer more full detail. The books went in to great detail about how
the bar looked, but never said what color the stained glass window
was.
Later,
Chuck (aka. WormSpeaker)
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
BADLANDS and JARPS Free RPG's on the
WormSpeakers page.
Http:/www.geocities.com/wormspeaker/
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Chuck (aka. WormSpeaker)
flipping through a book, the human mind will corrilate with a picrure
faster than a chapter number. And i quite enjoy the art from many RPG
books. (such as Cyberpunk and the Werewolf book from WW. I some times
get great ideas for scenes and adventures just from looking at some of
the pictures.)
Fitz
> However, somethings come down to style. I can't stand the gothic,
>grotesque, out of proportion artwork of Warhammer (in any of its myriad
>offshoots). Some of Alternity (which I'm running at the moment) has great
>artwork. But some of it is downright criminally bad.
I'd have to agree with you about Warhammer art, most of it is pretty
grotesque (and I don't mean that in a *good* way).
I'm still waiting for a RPG illustrated by Brian Froud. I'd buy that
even if the mechanics sucked dead donkeys' scrotums.
Wyrdlyng
as enhancements designed to either evoke mood or clarify the accompanying
text. We've also seen that many buyers are put off by poor artwork which
they see as an initial indicator of a poor overall product.
So, let's put this into some concrete terms. If game X has excellent writing
but poor cover and interior art it (going from what's been said) would be
(we're talking from an in-store flip-through, not factoring in reviews or
word of mouth) overlooked and not purchased by a fair number of consumers
who would assume that the textual content was just as poor as the artwork.
Is this a fair assessment?
So does this mean that the converse, a book with beautiful cover and
interior artwork but poor writing (not mistyped or grammatically incorrect
but just weak and vague), would sell more copies (again, just from an
in-store flip-through and not factoring in reviews or word of mouth) than
its graphically inferior cousin?
Here's the big question which should interest the game companies. Are we
saying that publishers should put more focus on drawing in consumers by
beefing up their art budgets? Would they receive more initial sales through
eye-candy than through the strength of their product?
Admittedly once reviews came out if the product was poor it would be
reviewed as such and the word would spread but it would have already sold a
fair amount before that point. Has the gaming industry shifted to be more in
line with regular commercial marketing strategies? (See both video game
marketing and movie marketing, for examples.)
Before going off, I know that there are more factors to whether or not a
game sells like author recognition and line loyalty but assume that we're
talking about unknowns and new companies. And also, I'm not saying that
marketing is evil--okay, it is evil but it's a necessary evil--I just would
like to see how you all feel.
Again, just curious to hear what you all have to say. No big whoop.
--
"I've had a hole in my heart for so long,
I've learned to fake it and just smile along."
-- Iggy Pop, Candy
Wyrdlyng
wyrd...@bellsouth.net
Ann Dupuis
Wyrdlyng wrote:
> So then another question for discussion: if a company has a very limited art
> budget for their upcoming book, should they a) have minimal art (meaning
> less than most "regular" minimal art rpgs) or b) use newer and less polished
> talent which willwork for less?
Either a) or a careful combination of a) and b).
I'll add a c) in cases where the subject material is suitable: public
domain art available from "clip art" services such as arttoday.com.
But I think most companies with limited art budgets would be better off
making sure the layout is an attractive, clean design than trying to
"break up the text" with art on every 2-page spread (or on every page as
some companies try to do). A good layout can make up for a lack of art
-- but it can't entirely make up for the inclusion of "bad" art.
--
Best regards,
Ann Dupuis (ghost...@fudgerpg.com)
Grey Ghost Press, Inc. (http://www.fudgerpg.com)
"Take that, you blasted game!" - Fourth most common use of the Computer
Control Cybernetic Enhancement. (From the "Gatecrasher" roleplaying
game; http://www.fudgerpg.com/gtcrasher)
Chris Camfield
That's what the SJG website says - I wanted to see what the cover
looked like for myself...
CC
Chris Camfield
Mm... WW should have tried to get him to do illustrations for
Changeling. That's the game that would seem most natural for him to
illustrate.
Chris
Matt Goodman
> In general, the GURPS artwork is improving (so are their prices to
> artists). I must admit having been appalled by some of the art in years
> past. (That hasn't stopped me from packing half a bookcase with GURPS
> stuff, but a lot of the GURPS materials I have were in "trade" for work
> I've done for SJGames.) There are very few GURPS books I appreciate as
> aesthetic pieces, although I think that's improving immensely now (GURPS
> Discworld is a lovely book.)
GURPS Goblins!
Matt
StornC
>obliged to post just recently. I wish I had written this...:-)
Thank you to both you and the others who thought I was on to something.
This is a subject that I think way too much about. But it is part of my
profession and probably at this point, hardwired into my personality.
To, I think, Bruce, who mentioned bad art not giving any support to the
writing. This is true in a very general way. But sometimes, an artist will
have a piece of artwork in a RPG that is not well done or executed, but still
gets the idea across.
I think we can all agree that we want to see "good" art in RPGs. Although,
it would be tough to agree on what is "good" art.
But deadlines, artist availability, money being paid out, etc do affect the
art job for a particular book greatly.
And as stated before, I did a lot of bad artwork for Champions. But it did
give me a leg up and into the field. Where I improved at a fairly regular
clip. There have always been bottom tiered products (Independents in the comic
industry) that are the breeding grounds for the next generation.
But in even the worst pictures I ever produced, I tried my best. I tried
to tell a story and support the text.
Industry note: Many times, artists do not have access to the writing due
to production schedules. Artists are working on the artwork at the same time
writers are finishing the actual book. What we get is anywhere from a sentence
to a paragraph of the illo description.
What I love about working with FASA is that they send photocopied pages of
the actual page layout, so not only do you get the words, but where the illo is
going on the page. Allowing you to push the viewer's eye in the direction you
want it to go... like to the most important paragraph or to turn the page.
Wow! I've babbled on much longer than I expected. Sorry about that.
--storn
StornC
>even if the mechanics sucked dead donkeys' scrotums.
I'm not aware of the name connected to artwork. Is there any place you can
check out Brian Froud's work on the net?
--storn
StornC
>> decent art staff. Art on the whole is expensive; as it should be given the
>> talent some artists have. The problem is when game developers think that
>> they can just get by on bad art. BAD MOVE! too bad this is more common
>than
>> not.
>
>budget for their upcoming book, should they a) have minimal art (meaning
>less than most "regular" minimal art rpgs) or b) use newer and less polished
>talent which willwork for less?
Here is my professional and private opinion.
Artwork should be divided into two camps for the book. Large illos, 1/2
page to full page and few of them, but done and budgeted as "money" shot
illustrations. Highest quality possible. Tell the artist that they will get a
better pay rate (slightly above the normal illo rate), but the editors expect
time to be taken, sketches for prelim approval and full backgrounds and the
little details that make for a great piece of work.
And small simple spots and/or icons.
I'll take fantasy rpg as an example. A spot could be just the bartender's
head, a 2- handed sword, a standard, a mage's hands (only) weaving a spell.
Spots can be churned out. Great place for new artists to cut their teeth
and it still can serve to break up text. I would caution about repeating the
little spots too often or using them only in the corners of the page.
--storn
StornC
<<<
>It would be extremely difficult for me to envision, say, a
>Pathfinder exo-armor or one of the spaceships from Jovian Chronicles without
>a good illustration.
>
Oh, I'm sure you can envision a Pathfinder exo-armor. As we all can
visualize stuff in a novel. But it will be different than how *I* see it.
RPGs are different because we are sharing a story around the table. We
need to have some things that we can agree on as what they look like.
Illustrations serve as a baseline of the world view.
I'm always struck how different everyone at the table sees the same
situation or object. It happens every game session. I see the King's court as
well-lite and romantic, filled with laughter, Neil (a player) sees it filled
with cobwebs and shadows and dour guards. Eric thinks that its day because the
GM hasn't specifically said otherwise.
So even if you hate an illo in a RPG book, all of its viewers can look at
it and use it as the basis for what the world looks like. Even if the GM says;
"I hate this picture and I'm changing x & y about it to fit my world view" The
all the players can nod their heads and understand where the GM is going with
this particular subject.
Bokman7757
head >>
Bring me the head of Alfonse the Innkeeper!
Bokman7757
can
check out Brian Froud's work on the net? >>
Just for quick reference, he designed a lot of the characters in LABYRINTH.
Glenn Patton
>
>
> Let me pose a general question. Is artwork really that significant a factor
> to your purchasing an RPG rulesbook? (You being the general everyone else
> you.)
>
For me, it is *not* a significant factor. I have nearly 50 books on my
shelves, (yeah, only 50 in 17 years of gaming) and my decision to buy
them was never affected by the art work. In those books, there is a
wide range, from excellent to "oh, my God, who gave that idiot a
pencil?". There are, perhaps, 7 or 8 illustrations that I could easily
bring to mind out of those books. The rest hardly exist.
> Isn't an rpg rulesbook essentially a technical manual? How many technical
> manuals do you purchase based on interior artwork?
>
Again, for me, a rule book is a technical manual. I don't buy an RPG so
that I can run someone else's game background. IMHO, most game
backgrounds make assumptions that I find annoying or even insulting.
There is only one that I will run straight: 2300AD.
> Or should it be considered something different?
>
For some people, it is. Maybe I'm different, but my opinions are my
own, and just that - opinions.
> And once you read through the rules once does the internal art ever really
> come into play again? Don't you just flip through the book to get to a
> specific rule after that? Do you even notice the artwork again after the
> first read?
>
I hardly ever notice it on the first read. As far as this question
goes, interior art ranges from mildly interesting to terribly
distracting, depending on how good or bad it is.
After the first read, the internal art becomes even more invisible.
I have never been inspired to run a scenario over a picture. I have
been inspired by a chapter, paragraph, phrase, and even a word. For me,
reading is a true pleasure. I have felt anger, love, hate, joy - even
gotten choked up and shed a tear over words on a page. I have never
come across a piece of art, including real museum pieces and master
pieces, that touches me like a simple combination of letters can.
Glenn
"After a thousand years the darkness has come again!"
REZcat
Wyrdlyng <wyrd...@bellsouth.net> wrote
> So, let's put this into some concrete terms. If game X has excellent
writing
> but poor cover and interior art it (going from what's been said) would be
> (we're talking from an in-store flip-through, not factoring in reviews or
> word of mouth) overlooked and not purchased by a fair number of consumers
> who would assume that the textual content was just as poor as the
artwork.
> Is this a fair assessment?
Sadly, yes, as it takes much less time to form an opinion based on what you
can readily see as opposed to take the time to read.
>
> So does this mean that the converse, a book with beautiful cover and
> interior artwork but poor writing (not mistyped or grammatically
incorrect
> but just weak and vague), would sell more copies (again, just from an
> in-store flip-through and not factoring in reviews or word of mouth) than
> its graphically inferior cousin?
Odds would make it seem so, yes.
>
> Here's the big question which should interest the game companies. Are we
> saying that publishers should put more focus on drawing in consumers by
> beefing up their art budgets? Would they receive more initial sales
through
> eye-candy than through the strength of their product?
not necessarily, but most likely, yes.
the key word here is "initial" sales. Art attracts people to look at the
product (and is therefore rather important, however....), the writing and
mechanics are commonly what bring people back in the long run
>
> Admittedly once reviews came out if the product was poor it would be
> reviewed as such and the word would spread but it would have already sold
a
> fair amount before that point. Has the gaming industry shifted to be more
in
> line with regular commercial marketing strategies?
Like I said above, they may have sold a decent amount initially, however,
come time for the next release, the lack of quality writing would have come
to light and would factor into the supplement's sales. Therefore, a good
balance is needed to remain in business. You need to not only draw them in
(pardon the pun), but keep them as well.
Frank T. Sronce
>
> CoC may have bad artwork but it would be hard to label it a bad RPG. (No,
> this is not open for debate or flames. Stick to one debate at a time. ;)
>
> Wyrdlyng
> wyrd...@bellsouth.net
Actually, the quality of the CoC artwork has varied immensely from one
product and/or edition to another. I've got a couple editions of the
Dreamlands book, and I gotta say that one of them has _very_ nice
artwork, and the other has... crappy artwork (the actual quality is
variable within the books too, of course; even the 'crappy' edition has
some nice pieces). I suspect that what happened may have been that
someone decided that every critter _needed_ a corresponding
illustration... and when they ran short on time/money, they went with
some very poor quality, quickly done pics to fill in for the creatures
that hadn't been illustrated yet.
Personally, I feel that if you can't get a nice illustration,
particularly for something as important as what some monster actually
_looks_ like, just replace the picture with a little extra descriptive
text and let the players use their imagination.
GM: "And it looks like this!" [waves illustration at players]
Players: "You're kidding."
GM: "Well, it looks like that except that it's big and strong instead
of small and shrivelled looking, and impressive and scary instead of
kind of goofy looking."
Kiz
Frank T. Sronce
>
> Okay, so some good points have been made describing the artwork in rpg books
> as enhancements designed to either evoke mood or clarify the accompanying
> text. We've also seen that many buyers are put off by poor artwork which
> they see as an initial indicator of a poor overall product.
>
> but poor cover and interior art it (going from what's been said) would be
> (we're talking from an in-store flip-through, not factoring in reviews or
> word of mouth) overlooked and not purchased by a fair number of consumers
> who would assume that the textual content was just as poor as the artwork.
> Is this a fair assessment?
>
Yes.
> So does this mean that the converse, a book with beautiful cover and
> interior artwork but poor writing (not mistyped or grammatically incorrect
> but just weak and vague), would sell more copies (again, just from an
> in-store flip-through and not factoring in reviews or word of mouth) than
> its graphically inferior cousin?
>
Probably so.
> Here's the big question which should interest the game companies. Are we
> saying that publishers should put more focus on drawing in consumers by
> beefing up their art budgets? Would they receive more initial sales through
> eye-candy than through the strength of their product?
>
Alas, it's probably true... ONCE. After you buy one beautifully
illustrated but content-less book from some RPG company, though, you're
likely to feel ripped off and not purchase from them again. Good
artwork, like personal beauty, improves first impressions, but doesn't
help that much once they start looking at the game in detail and trying
to _play_ it.
I'd make a few comments on art: 'filler' art is going to be more
interesting than completely unadorned text, but if there's too much
(some White Wolf games are like this) it will _eventually_ detract from
their opinion of it... especially if it has silly trends (how many
characters in Mage apparently use katanas and like to lurk on rooftops?
Quite a few...). Art that actually fits the product and _illustrates_
things is far better.
And it's better to get _appropriate_ original art from a minor artist
than reuse some inappropriate piece from a big-name artist.
Occasionally I get to some piece of "big name" artwork in a product and
end up going, "Oh, yeah, that's the cover of _X_," and suddenly I
associate the illustration with the product I originally saw it with
(some sci-fi or fantasy novel, generally) and not whatever they wanted
to use it as.
Kiz
> Admittedly once reviews came out if the product was poor it would be
> reviewed as such and the word would spread but it would have already sold a
> fair amount before that point. Has the gaming industry shifted to be more in
REZcat
StornC <sto...@aol.com> wrote
> To, I think, Bruce, who mentioned bad art not giving any support to
the
> writing. This is true in a very general way. But sometimes, an artist
will
> have a piece of artwork in a RPG that is not well done or executed, but
still
> gets the idea across.
(like SCAR studios for the old werewolf books, henious artwork, but it was
good for Wyrm beasts, truly sickening ;) )
> I think we can all agree that we want to see "good" art in RPGs.
Although,
> it would be tough to agree on what is "good" art.
> But deadlines, artist availability, money being paid out, etc do
affect the
> art job for a particular book greatly.
*nods*
> But in even the worst pictures I ever produced, I tried my best. I
tried
> to tell a story and support the text.
> Industry note: Many times, artists do not have access to the writing
due
> to production schedules. Artists are working on the artwork at the same
time
> writers are finishing the actual book. What we get is anywhere from a
sentence
> to a paragraph of the illo description.
this is certainly true. I know I prefer to work from either previous illos,
or very detailed text. I like getting details correct. I'm picky that way.
> What I love about working with FASA is that they send photocopied
pages of
> the actual page layout, so not only do you get the words, but where the
illo is
> going on the page. Allowing you to push the viewer's eye in the
direction you
> want it to go... like to the most important paragraph or to turn the
page.
Wow, that sounds wonderful. seems like they give a good bit of thought to
the books overall presentation. that's nice.
>
> Wow! I've babbled on much longer than I expected. Sorry about that.
Not a problem.
Viktor Haag
> I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters.
> For GURPS products, TEXT is content. Art is almost always mere
> fluff and should be considered as such.
Glad to know you hold the work of illustrators in such high
regard, Bryan. Franklky, I think you're full of crap on this
one. A *good* illustrator can provide all sorts of benefit to a
game: apart from providing real information value to various
setting details (What do people wear? What exactly does a
X'ght'yrr look like? Which villages does this river flow past?),
good illustrations can also provide an invalualbe conveyance of
"atmosphere" to a game, making the book a greater pleasure to
read, leaf through, and so on.
HarnMaster, for example, would be a much less interesting package
to me if it didn't contain all that gorgeous Eric Hotz artwork,
not to mention the cartography and floorplans.
And Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles/Tribe 8 would be *much* less
interesting without all those spiffy illos...
Whatever makes you think that illustration is not CONTENT? How is
it any less CONTENT than the words on the page?
If your comments are specific to GURPS, then perhaps you've got a
more firm leg to stand on, but taken as a general plonk, I think
you *are* in fact being that dimwitted.
--
Viktor Haag Senior Technical Writer, RIM
'79 99, '89 9000T, '00 9-3 SE My opinions are my own, only.
Bryan J. Maloney
<wyrd...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> So does this mean that the converse, a book with beautiful cover and
> interior artwork but poor writing (not mistyped or grammatically incorrect
> but just weak and vague), would sell more copies (again, just from an
> in-store flip-through and not factoring in reviews or word of mouth) than
> its graphically inferior cousin?
You've just described the entirety of White Wolf's success!
--
"Before we judge the lobotomist of old too severely, we
should go to the nearest street grate and see how we are
dealing with our mental health crisis today."
Bryan J. Maloney
<fsr...@myriad.net> wrote:
> Alas, it's probably true... ONCE. After you buy one beautifully
> illustrated but content-less book from some RPG company, though, you're
> likely to feel ripped off and not purchase from them again. Good
Didn't stop White Wolf from selling gazillions of items.
Bryan J. Maloney
(StornC) wrote:
> Example: I can spend paragraphs talking about the differences between 5 or
> 6 races of elves or orcs. Yet I can group 5 or 6 of those individuals in one
> illustration and give you a ton of information that you might not even be
And GURPS products VERY rarely do that. I've been buying GURPS stuff for
quite a long time. I can say that the art is usually quite
information-free. You may want to present information, but SJG practice
up to now has been to use art mostly as information-free fluff. Indeed,
one of the critiques I read against Swashbucklers, for example, was how
the art was so information-free.
> I assume that by your e-mail address that you are in Ithaca. Well, I grew
> up in Ithaca, love it with all my heart. Ithaca is a pretty strong artist
> community. I hope it and I can change your mind on this subject.
Doubtful--my wife is an artist and she hasn't managed to do so. As for
"artist community"--I'm surprised they associate with you. Don't you do
"mere illustration" and that horrible inferior "representative work"? I
know my wife got all kinds of crap from "fellow artists" regarding her
preferences for years.
Bryan J. Maloney
Baugh) wrote:
> In article <20000510174703...@ng-fz1.aol.com>,
sto...@aol.com (StornC) wrote:
>
> > Art is part & parcel of the CONTENT. It is an interpetation of the words
> >within the book to be sure, but it is another avenue to convey story,
> >information and mood.
>
> Precisely. Good art enhances and complements the text in describing the
> setting, suggesting possibilities, evoking mood, and so on. Bad art in
> gaming is whatever, regardless of its technical merits, works against or
> simply without relationship to the text.
That may be the way that art should be used, but it's not how art has
typically been used in GURPS products.
Bryan J. Maloney
> Art is part & parcel of the CONTENT. It is an interpetation of the words
> within the book to be sure, but it is another avenue to convey story,
> information and mood.
I have never bought a game with good art and bad text. I have bought many
games with bad (or no) art and good text. Art is purely secondary.
Bryan J. Maloney
<ne...@franklin.ch.remove> wrote:
> Back to the original question: I regard bad/unfitting artwork as a
> good sign of an shoddy thrown togehter for a cheap sell product. So
> I will not buy it.
Good art, bad text--I will not buy. Bad art, good text--I will buy. It's
that simple. Art is secondary.
Bryan J. Maloney
(StornC) wrote:
> What can I say. I'm responsible for a lot, A LOT! of bad artwork. But I
> was young. Hopefully, I've improved. But I loved doing the Champions stuff
I bought Champions on the strength of the game system. The art was irrelevant.
Bruce Baugh
>writing. This is true in a very general way. But sometimes, an artist will
>have a piece of artwork in a RPG that is not well done or executed, but still
>gets the idea across.
Right. The flip side of art that's technically good but inappropriate is
art that's evocative in some key way despite technical weakness. Best is
to get technique and result in sync, but I can live with a certain
erratic level of quality if the result really fits the environment being
illustrated.
This is, as far as I'm concerned, the equivalent of my advice to new
writers: keep the prose simple and clear, and let the ideas show.
> What I love about working with FASA is that they send photocopied pages of
>the actual page layout, so not only do you get the words, but where the illo is
>going on the page. Allowing you to push the viewer's eye in the direction you
>want it to go... like to the most important paragraph or to turn the page.
That rocks.
--
Bruce Baugh / bruce...@sff.net
http://bruce-baugh.users.spiretech.com/ - finally, small but current.
"Never let it be be said, especially by large men with big guns,
that I failed to help." - Dave Weinstein
Kallini
>>I'm still waiting for a RPG illustrated by Brian Froud. I'd buy that
>>even if the mechanics sucked dead donkeys' scrotums.
>
> I'm not aware of the name connected to artwork. Is there any place you can
>check out Brian Froud's work on the net?
>
>--storn
Kallini
Bokman7757
that simple. Art is secondary >>
But bad art, or art that doesn't fit can be distracting. I utterly HATED the
cartoony illustrations in PARANOIA 5th edition- they were okay in and of
themselves, but totally wrong for the game's tone. The overabundance of
superhero art in HERO (admittedly spun off from CHAMPIONS but still sold as a
generic system) was also distracting.
Wil Hutton
news:1zg0rp5...@swdocs.rim.net...
> bj...@cornell.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) writes:
> And Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles/Tribe 8 would be *much* less
> interesting without all those spiffy illos...
I wouldn't say that they'd be much less interesting...they're all three
dynamic settings in their own right, it just so happens that the art adds a
different dimension to the settings. To be truthful, DP9 may depend too
much on their illustrations as opposed to describing things in the books,
but I don't mind because the art is almost universally *good*. This is an
example of three game lines that have different styles of art, although
they're done by the same artist.
Besides, art inspires art. The Tribe 8 artwork has inspired an artist named
Jude Godin to produce several very cool pieces:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~warpweft/stalker.htm
http://www.crosswinds.net/~warpweft/bonemachine.htm
http://www.crosswinds.net/~warpweft/cinder.htm
And there's an entire site devoted to Tribe 8 artwork at
http://www.bonusninja.com/tribe8/
That's an impressive amount of outpouring for a fringe game like T8 - surely
inspired mostly by the setting, but also by the artwork already present in
the games. Try looking for AD&D artwork on the web...odds are you're going
to find scanned Dragon magazine covers.
--
Dreams of Flesh and Spirit for Tribe 8: http://www.crosswinds.net/~warpweft/
JSPD Datanode for Jovian Chronicles: http://www.crosswinds.net/~jovian/
The Atomic Rumpus Room (RPGs, PikaDance, Club Metro Survivor's Homepage and
more!): http://www.crosswinds.net/~atomicrumpusroom/
Phil Masters
> Example: I can spend paragraphs talking about the differences between
> 5 or 6 races of elves or orcs. Yet I can group 5 or 6 of those
> individuals in one illustration and give you a ton of information that
Hmm. That sounds like an ideal. Unfortunately...
Don't get me wrong; I appreciate good art in RPG books, I have friends
who are artists, and I *love* it when my books get good art. (I also
grind my teeth when they don't. People who remember *Kingdom of
Champions* will understand that I went through that - my first book
published - alternately punching the air and wanting to punch one of the
two main artists.)
However... While I've seen plenty of good, evocative, attractive RPG
art, I've seen *very* little that really, accurately illustrates the
subject of the book better than the adjacent words. Worse, I've seen too
much art - some of it very good in itself - which *contradicted* the
adjacent words. I'm afraid that too many artists just don't read the
text with any care. Having a 70-year-old character depicted as a
smirking thirtysomething hunk can be really, really annoying, believe
me.
I have a nasty feeling that, nine times out of ten, those five or six
races of elves or orcs would be illustrated as five or six exercises in
style and mood by the artist, with maybe a nod to what the artist
thought that the writer was trying to say. In fact, quite often, at
least one of the pictures would have the writer screaming that some
important point has been actively contradicted.
The tenth time... Is a wonderful thing. But the RPG industry doesn't
seem to be organised to make it happen more often than that.
--
Phil Masters * Home Page: http://www.philm.demon.co.uk/
"Battle not with flamers, lest ye become a flamer; and stare not too
deeply into the 'net, or you will find the 'net staring into you."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche (loosely translated)
Steve Miller
<< I do believe that art in gaming books
serves various purposes, such as illustrating npcs, etc. and is more than
'mere fluff" in many cases. >>
In my opinion, *bad* RPG art is mere fluff. *Good* RPG art is *crucial* to the
product, as it illustrates people and places from the book.
One reason my art orders go on and on and on and have page after page of
reference attached is because I want *illustrations* in the products I can
impact on, not just *art*.
That's one reason why I hold the illustrators working in this field who willing
to actually read the entire ms. they are illustrating in high esteem.
Steve Miller
Writer of Stuff
And Jesus, he knows me, and he knows I'm right.
I've been talking to Jesus all my life.
--Genesis, "Jesus He Knows Me"
John Kim
>> For GURPS products, TEXT is content. Art is almost always mere
>> fluff and should be considered as such.
>And Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles/Tribe 8 would be *much* less
>interesting without all those spiffy illos...
>
>it any less CONTENT than the words on the page?
Note that he specified that "text=content" for GURPS
products, which is likely due to how the books are generally
produced. In general, illustrations are not content if they
do not add coherent information to what you have already read.
Personally, this is how I feel about the _Tribe 8_ art.
It might look spiffy, but it gave me close to zero information.
The illustrations are frequently of lone pieces of strange-looking
figures dressed in outlandish costumes. It is unclear what they
are doing or who they represent. Are the strange costumes the
regular dress of people on this world? If not, what occaision
is represented?
I would contrast this, say, to _Skyrealms of Jorune_ where
the illustrations were excellent at conveying a coherent picture
of the other world. Most illustrations had captions which
explained what was represented, and you could see coherent
vision of (say) the architecture and clothing of the alien
world.
--
John H. Kim | Whatever else is true you
jh...@fnal.gov | Trust your little finger
www.ps.uci.edu/~jhkim | Just a single little finger can
UC Irvine, Cal, USA | Save the world. - Steven Sondheim, "Assassins"
John McMullen
bruce...@sff.net (Bruce Baugh) wrote:
> In article <slrn8hhrfm....@canticle.concordant-thought.com>,
storm...@bigfoot.com wrote:
>
> >Ack, no, an rpg rulebook is not just a technical manual. Why do I say
that?
> >Because the GURPS books are very much like a technical manual. I read
GURPS
> >books in stores, and I just didn't care. Not "didn't care FOR
it"--just
>
> I think that that's a failure of execution, though. (I feel the same
way
> about most, though not all, GURPS prose.) Gaming books _are_ technical
> manuals - they're the instructions for creating games. This means that
> they should evoke their setting and tone as well as covering the
> numbers.
>
As a technical writer, I'd have to agree with Bruce.
Gaming books need to do three things:
1. Introduce the reader to the concepts.
2. Explain mechanics clearly and succinctly.
3. Refer readers to the appropriate places in the book.
4. Inspire the players and the gamemaster.
They're frequently called upon to be used in three different ways:
tutorial, procedural guide, and reference. Those are three very
different ways of working.
Numbers 1, 2, and 3 should be done by any technical document longer
than four pages. You can dump number 1 if your audience is already
knowledgeable. Number 4 is largely the domain of roleplaying games
and writers' guides.
Artwork is useful in any kind of page design -- large blocks of text
are difficult to read unless you have something invested in them (as
in a work of fiction or a gripping magazine article). But artwork is
especially good at inspiring players and evoking mood. It's instantly
evocative, with little processing required.
(Fiction can do it, too, and games use narrative snippets and
vignettes for exactly that purpose. But it can take time to read
fiction, while artwork is right *there*.)
That said, I've never bought a game because of the artwork. In cases
where I had a choice between two books with equal quality of text and
differing quality of artwork, I've gone with the good artwork.
Generic rules systems have a hard time of evoking anything. GURPS and
Hero (and CORPS, come to think of it) work around it by having a
hodgepodge of milieus shown in their artwork. I'm a big fan of some
generic systems, but it was the words and the mechanics that won me
over, not the artwork.
John
--
John McMullen
I don't speak for my employers; my employers don't speak for me.
"Putting the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional.'"
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Bryan J. Maloney
<ph...@philm.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> However... While I've seen plenty of good, evocative, attractive RPG
> art, I've seen *very* little that really, accurately illustrates the
> subject of the book better than the adjacent words. Worse, I've seen too
> much art - some of it very good in itself - which *contradicted* the
> adjacent words. I'm afraid that too many artists just don't read the
You PREACH, brother! You PREACH!
> thought that the writer was trying to say. In fact, quite often, at
> least one of the pictures would have the writer screaming that some
> important point has been actively contradicted.
I should mention, though, what might happen if the artist and author work
closely together. Examples:
http://members.tripod.com/~Lunaseas/Artwork/puddles_magaera.html
http://members.tripod.com/~Lunaseas/Artwork/uz.html
However, on both occasions, I rejected the first two attempts.
Bryan J. Maloney
nue...@aol.comDELETEIT (Steve Miller) wrote:
> That's one reason why I hold the illustrators working in this field who
willing
> to actually read the entire ms. they are illustrating in high esteem.
An illustrator who learns what a rapier actually looks like--THAT would be
a godsend!
Bruce Baugh
>HarnMaster, for example, would be a much less interesting package
>to me if it didn't contain all that gorgeous Eric Hotz artwork,
>not to mention the cartography and floorplans.
Isn't it Hotz who does the maps for Ars Magica, as well? Some of the
recent tribunal books are nearly worth getting for those alone, quite
apart from the books' other merits.
Bruce Baugh
>it by sprinkling ink all over it. And those great pages with black text
>on black...
I know of one page like that, from the first printing of Book of Nod, a
1993 release. I realize that fandom remains locked in the past a lot,
and even more recently (as with Kindred of the East, from 1997) there
are overly dark page screens, but not all of these charges have much
foundation in fact.
Bruce Baugh
>That may be the way that art should be used, but it's not how art has
>typically been used in GURPS products.
Since I've been criticizing GURPS art since before I discovered Usenet,
I both agree and wonder what your point is. Did I say something to
suggest the contrary?
Bruce Baugh
>Good art, bad text--I will not buy. Bad art, good text--I will buy. It's
>that simple. Art is secondary.
And of course you are the center of the gaming universe, your pulse
firmly on the finger of demand and anticipation. Nobody should seek to
meet any demand you don't share, nor is there any need to acknowledge as
worthwhile any desire you don't feel.
Or so one would conclude from your posts. Fortunately, the rest of us
will go back to working on games that sell pretty well even when you
disapprove.
Steve Miller
<< An illustrator who learns what a rapier actually looks like--THAT would be
a godsend! >>
Well... part of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of the person
drafting the art order.
You want to make sure the character is carrying a rapier? Supply the
illustrator with a visual reference of a rapier and say "THIS is the sword Rafe
is weilding in Illo #3. Make sure the basket has the symbol referred to iin
Illo #2, but otherwise make the sword look like this." I learned long ago not
to leave elements that you think are important in an illo up to chance. I also
learned the reverse... make sure you leave room for the illustrator to flex his
creative muscles, too. For example, if an artist defines a character that
hasn't been previously illustrated differently than what *my* visualization of
he or she was, but it is still within the parameters of what was requested, I
tend to let it go.
Justin Bacon
>but poor cover and interior art it (going from what's been said) would be
>(we're talking from an in-store flip-through, not factoring in reviews or
>word of mouth) overlooked and not purchased by a fair number of consumers
>who would assume that the textual content was just as poor as the artwork.
>Is this a fair assessment?
Yes, so long as we keep it entirely to flip-through sales. If Book X and Book Y
were of equal quality, I would be more likely to pick up the book with
appealing art. This is especially true for flip-through/scan-the-rack sales;
since those are largely based on what catches my eye.
>So does this mean that the converse, a book with beautiful cover and
>interior artwork but poor writing (not mistyped or grammatically incorrect
>but just weak and vague), would sell more copies (again, just from an
>in-store flip-through and not factoring in reviews or word of mouth) than
>its graphically inferior cousin?
Also true. It doesn't save the product once I start reading it, of course.
And there is a range here, of course. THE WORLD OF SYNNIBAR, frex, is
(graphically) a very strong book -- but a quick glance-through would warn me
off.
>Here's the big question which should interest the game companies. Are we
>saying that publishers should put more focus on drawing in consumers by
>beefing up their art budgets? Would they receive more initial sales through
>eye-candy than through the strength of their product?
To me the scale is something like this:
Good Artwork
No Artwork
Bad Artwork
In other words, bad artwork will hurt you far more (IMO) than a *lack* of
artwork. And good artwork doesn't necessarily mean an over-abundance or
super-glossy quality. Take, for example, a good 90% of Cheapass Games artwork
-- black and whtie cover illos, but of good quality.
Price also factors in here. The more expensive a book, the better the
production values I expect to see. If, for example, I'm looking at a 200 page
book for $30 I'm going to expect some fairly high production values to justify
that tag. OTOH, if it was a 500 page book for $30 I'm not going to expect as
much artwork to be present.
>Admittedly once reviews came out if the product was poor it would be
>reviewed as such and the word would spread but it would have already sold a
>fair amount before that point. Has the gaming industry shifted to be more in
>line with regular commercial marketing strategies? (See both video game
>marketing and movie marketing, for examples.)
There's really no shift here. The game market has always been this way. All
markets are this way. In the absence of other information the only thing you
*can* judge a product by is how it looks.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Justin Bacon
>dynamic settings in their own right, it just so happens that the art adds a
>different dimension to the settings. To be truthful, DP9 may depend too
>much on their illustrations as opposed to describing things in the books,
>but I don't mind because the art is almost universally *good*. This is an
>example of three game lines that have different styles of art, although
>they're done by the same artist.
This is an interesting point: Since Dream Pod 9 can rely on Ghislain Barbe to
produce artwork that will "describe" their settings in a beautiful and
evocative fashion, it occurs to me that they *can* get away with skimping on
the descriptions themselves. And, even better yet, they can then use the space
that would have been used on those descriptions dealing with other facets of
their worlds.
Which actually raises another point in relation to this thread: One of the
reasons we judge games by their artwork is that the artwork is a clue to what
type of world is being described and what type of game it is.
Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com
Karen J. Cravens
So... can I blame my newsfeed for your responses to everyone *but* me
showing up?
--
Karen J. Cravens sil...@phoenyx.net
Bokman7757
grind my teeth when they don't. People who remember *Kingdom of
Champions* >>
I have that! Don't have CHAMPIONS (though I have the HERO system rules), but
the UK info was useful. Can't say much about the quality of artwork, a piece or
two stood out maybe...
Bruce Baugh
>Illo #2, but otherwise make the sword look like this." I learned long ago not
>to leave elements that you think are important in an illo up to chance. I also
>learned the reverse... make sure you leave room for the illustrator to flex his
>creative muscles, too.
Just so.
There's an example of this in the Hunter Survival Guide. Leif Jones did
the chapter frontispieces, and by golly he actually reads art notes and
pays attention. Here he illustrated a critter I came up with which looks
to most people like a group of children. He figured out a
clever way to do that and show the underlying reality, and gave the
landscape a vaguely Central European look, to match the text. The
picture, IMHO, actively enhances the chapter - it suggests some
principles to apply to other Hunter creatures as well as fitting the
scene it's supposed to illustrate.
Would that there were more Leif Joneses around....
Robert Braddock
>So, let's put this into some concrete terms. If game X has excellent writing
>but poor cover and interior art it (going from what's been said) would be
>(we're talking from an in-store flip-through, not factoring in reviews or
>word of mouth) overlooked and not purchased by a fair number of consumers
>who would assume that the textual content was just as poor as the artwork.
>Is this a fair assessment?
If the writing was sufficiently high quality to convey it's quality quickly
from wherever the book was opened, then it will overcome the art unless the
art/layout is _very_ bad. There's special cases too: I wouldn't buy 7th sea
because the books waste a ridiculous amount of space and the product line is
splintered--I feel like they are cheating buyers.
>So does this mean that the converse, a book with beautiful cover and
>interior artwork but poor writing (not mistyped or grammatically incorrect
>but just weak and vague), would sell more copies (again, just from an
>in-store flip-through and not factoring in reviews or word of mouth) than
>its graphically inferior cousin?
If the art is good enough to sell the book without the text, then yes. But
if you have art that good, you should probably block most of it into a
single art-only book so you can get sales to non-gaming people.
>Here's the big question which should interest the game companies. Are we
>saying that publishers should put more focus on drawing in consumers by
>beefing up their art budgets? Would they receive more initial sales through
>eye-candy than through the strength of their product?
No, publishers should put more focus on having a quality product. They
should carefully use whatever good art they have the budget to get. They
should start with a very attractive design/layout and add some spice and
then some good art at appropriate points (like near rules people will
probably look up a lot, but that don't have easily visible tables). If they
have good art and bad writing/game, they should release a themed art book.
> I'm not saying that marketing is evil--okay, it is evil but it's a necessary
> evil--I just would like to see how you all feel.
Marketing _is_ evil, and it is _not_ in any way a necessary evil.
--
Robert Braddock
Wil Hutton
news:20000511145254...@ng-bd1.aol.com...
> Which actually raises another point in relation to this thread: One of the
> reasons we judge games by their artwork is that the artwork is a clue to
what
> type of world is being described and what type of game it is.
Of course, someone earlier said that the art in Tribe 8 did little to help
him visualize the world, while for me it did wonders. I tend to not care
about little details like, "Is that outfit ritual robes for the Sacred
Scarring Ceremony or are those pajamas?" The art caused the world to come
alive for me as much as the text did. Of course, I will often lean more
towards stylistic art than hyperrealistic (which seems to grace one
percentage of rpg books) or what I call "comic-book" style (which seems to
grace another).
Oliver Booms
wrote:
>
>Let me pose a general question. Is artwork really that significant a factor
>to your purchasing an RPG rulesbook? (You being the general everyone else
>you.)
>Isn't an rpg rulesbook essentially a technical manual? How many technical
>manuals do you purchase based on interior artwork?
>
No, not to me. Over the years I've found myself stripping my style of
play more and more of rules I considered unneccessary (up to a point
that character advancement rules dropped away). So, I'd rather prefer
a basic rpg book to have no more than, say, 20% of rules compared with
about 80% of background. Even if artwork - as in illustrations, page
border design or even choice of font - is no more than fluff, I'll
have to say that this 'fluff' is what I buy the books for.
To me, good artwork has to major functions: mood and detail. Good
artwork and text (considering that even a really well written rpg book
is rarely more than trash literature) can create much more atmosphere
than any of the alone. I addition, a skilled artist can convey a load
of minor details that would make quite a tedious read if simply
listed.
As for the importance of "artwork" in technical manuals: Visuals can
convey a whole lot of additional information as well as clarify what
is said in the text; so, for a technical manual, a visual
representation of the content is no less important than in rpg books
(however differently modivated).
>And once you read through the rules once does the internal art ever really
>come into play again? Don't you just flip through the book to get to a
>specific rule after that? Do you even notice the artwork again after the
>first read?
>
I don't see this as a specific argument against artwork. If you only
flip though a book for a rule once in a while you should simply ask
yourself if it was worth spending the money on.
>Is artwork even all that essential to an rpg rulesbook? Or have we started
>to slide into the shallow realm of style over substance? (Not calling gamers
>shallow, just the other consumers. ;)
>
>Would you skip over an rpg which had excellent mechanics due to poor artwork
>or lack of artwork? Should art make that big a difference?
>
Frankly, a well written but badly produced rpg books would have to be
really inexpensive compared with a well-produced one. After all, you
can find a whole lot of well-conceived rule systems without any fluff
or major artwork as free resources in the 'net. Why bother with
paying? OTOH, with a well produced book, I can understand if I'll have
to pay more.
bis dahin -
der bomster.
http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/lothlorien/artists/booms/booms.html
--
"Die wahre Poesie ist die Stille ... und wenn man immer nur Bohnen
isst,
wird man nicht zum Dichter." - Blacktown, S.24
Danke, Sie waren ein tolles Publikum.
Oliver Booms
wrote:
>
> For my two cents: Personally, I view this much as I view
>books. I don't particularly look for illustrated books, and I find
>pure prose (like, say, Gene Wolfe's _Shadow of the Torturer_)
>perfectly capable of evoking setting and tone. There are cases
>where illustrations can be a good and integral part of the work,
>however.
>
But that would be assuming that RPGs are nearly as well written as a
good novel. Personally, I think most RPG writers are uhh... less than
brilliant novelists (or at least that's the conclusion I came to after
reading novels published by companies like TSR or FASA). I don't need
illustrations in literature (actually, for some of the better SF&F
books I'd prefer a less gaudy packaging than your usual colourful oil
painting), but most rpg books are not written as literature but rather
as essays of some sort. (especially considering the fact that a whole
lot of players prefer a scientific style for background writing,
dismissing short prose pieces as unneccessary fluff). Often, tone and
atmosphere are only secondary to the importance of pure information,
so there's actually a need for artwork to help create the mood of a
setting.
> In RPG's, there are perhaps a handful of cases I can think
>of illustrations working with them. _Skyrealms of Jorune_ would be
>one -- where the illustrations were used with the text to show
>the alien world. _Talislanta_ is a similar case. I can't think
>of a third offhand.
>
So, a setting must be as alien as Jorune or Talislanta in order to
justify illustrations?
> In my opinion, for the vast majority of RPG books the
>illustrations are only filler which can at best maintain the feel
>of the book and at worst detract from it. Of course, I'm probably
>not the majority market. Putting a scantily-clad babe on the cover
>may help sales more than anything else.
In fact, I agree with you here. For the majority of products the
artwork is filler material - or close to it - but to me that is not
the case because they are illustrations (illustrations being filler
material per se) but rather because much of the artwork is of mediocre
quality or only marginally connected with the text. If the artwork
consists only of pretty pictures used as a layout tool (1st and 2nd
ed. AD&D rulebooks were prime examples of the latter practice)
I'd agree with the above statement.
Bis dahin -
der bomster.
(der.b...@uni-muenster.de)
... jetzt auch bei Elfwood:
Oliver Booms
<john...@earthlink.net> wrote:
(snip)
>
>Games with bad artwork:
>Call of Cthulhu, Champions, Babylon 5
>
Just a short notice: the second German CoC edition (by the now defunct
publisher Laurin) was very impressive visually. Instead of mediocre
ink drawings they almost exclusively used actual period phtographs or
maps which very much helped set the mood. (okay, so you had no images
of big slimy Beings Man Was Not Meant To See, but for those I've found
actual images to be a hindrance rather than a help for your
imagination...).
I guess 'good artwork' is a matter of decinding what kind of art to
take as well as the decision not to illustrate something as well...
Bis dahin -
der bomster.
(der.b...@uni-muenster.de)
...jetzt auch bei elfwood:
Bryan J. Maloney
Baugh) wrote:
> In article <bjm10-11050...@potato.cit.cornell.edu>,
bj...@cornell.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) wrote:
>
> >Good art, bad text--I will not buy. Bad art, good text--I will buy. It's
> >that simple. Art is secondary.
>
> And of course you are the center of the gaming universe, your pulse
> firmly on the finger of demand and anticipation. Nobody should seek to
No, more people are idiot boobs swayed by glitter instead of substance, I
will admit that.
Bryan J. Maloney
"Karen J. Cravens" <silve...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 10 May 2000, Bryan J. Maloney wrote:
>
> BJM>I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters. For GURPS
> BJM>products, TEXT is content. Art is almost always mere fluff and should be
> BJM>considered as such.
>
> Thanks for the insult. Was it really necessary?
>
> Art can't make me buy books. Art, especially cover art, can make me *not*
> buy books, though... call it "dimwitted" if you must, but I just can't get
> sufficiently excited about the content of *any* gamebook to overcome the
> repulsion factor of having it lying around looking ugly/annoying/whatever.
Cover art? CONTENT is what matters. I don't play a game with the COVER
ART. I play a game with the RULES.
Bryan J. Maloney
nue...@aol.comDELETEIT (Steve Miller) wrote:
> Bryan J. Maloney wrote:
>
> << An illustrator who learns what a rapier actually looks like--THAT would be
> a godsend! >>
>
> Well... part of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of the person
> drafting the art order.
I haven't had that kind of authority on projects.
Scott A. Taylor
(StornC) wrote:
> >>Why is text enough to describe a world in a novel but not enough in an rpg?*
> <<<
>
> >It would be extremely difficult for me to envision, say, a
> >Pathfinder exo-armor or one of the spaceships from Jovian Chronicles without
> >a good illustration.
> >
>
> Oh, I'm sure you can envision a Pathfinder exo-armor. As we all can
> visualize stuff in a novel. But it will be different than how *I* see it.
Case in point.
In a BGC game I am playing in, the group owns a battlemover named Venom,
which has a pair of railgun turrets on it. For most of the game, it has
been used, and assumed to be. designed with both guns in universal turret
mounts, located on the right and left sides of the battlemover... until
the time we actually started talking about what the unit looked like (so I
could get the unit illustrated by a friend of mine), and found out that
the designer had always thought the guns were fore and aft, like a mutant
APC of some kind!
The turrets had never been defined in the (otherwise very good)
description of the unit, and the designer had never stopped to pay
antention when we had used both gun turrets at once on a single target...
as a result, he had to re-image the unit in his head.
> RPGs are different because we are sharing a story around the table. We
> need to have some things that we can agree on as what they look like.
> Illustrations serve as a baseline of the world view.
Exactly.
I can write a description that describes two crew members walking down the
hallway of a starship. While I could spend a lot of time describing
clothing, manner, equipment, the condition of the hallway, etc. It's a lot
easier to give up a quarter-page illo and let the artist draw all that for
me... sure, I still have to do the write up for the scene, but that
writeup won't cut into the total word count for the book.
Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words.
(Yeah, there's a lot of abominable artwork out there; some of it just
plain sucks rocks. And sometimes the artwork doesn't come *close* to
matching what the scene is supposed to look like. But that's the blame of
the Art Director, not the idea of artwork itself. Done right, artwork is a
godsend. Done average, it neither helps nor hinders, and is a better use
of necessary whitespace than giant borders, loose tracking and kerning,
etc. Done poorly, it sucks... but if the artwork is done poorly, it's very
possible other things are as well).
--
Scott Taylor
Freelancer for Hire
Have Powerbook, Will Travel
REZcat
Phil Masters <ph...@philm.demon.co.uk> wrote >
> However... While I've seen plenty of good, evocative, attractive RPG
> art, I've seen *very* little that really, accurately illustrates the
> subject of the book better than the adjacent words. Worse, I've seen too
> much art - some of it very good in itself - which *contradicted* the
> adjacent words. I'm afraid that too many artists just don't read the
> text with any care. Having a 70-year-old character depicted as a
> smirking thirtysomething hunk can be really, really annoying, believe
> me.
I would tend to agree with you, but in artists' defense, they sometimes do
not get the writer's text to work from and are forced to invent whatever
that may not coincide. That is often an oversight of the editors, and not
necessarily of the artists themselves. Granted, there are those artists
that just don't seem to care about having things fit the text at
all....(Christopher Shy comes to mind...)
REZcat
Steve Miller <nue...@aol.comDELETEIT> wrote >
> One reason my art orders go on and on and on and have page after page of
> reference attached is because I want *illustrations* in the products I
can
> impact on, not just *art*.
>
> That's one reason why I hold the illustrators working in this field who
willing
> to actually read the entire ms. they are illustrating in high esteem.
This touches on something I have said before to others. You are perfectly
correct here. Many of the RPG artists out there have to remember, they
aren't just making *art* for art's sake, but that they have to /illustrate/
something. It boils down to art directors making sure the artists have the
text they plan to illustrate, and the artists themselves actually reading
it and using it.
REZcat
Bryan J. Maloney <bj...@cornell.edu> wrote in article
<bjm10-11050...@potato.cit.cornell.edu>...
> In article <Pine.LNX.4.21.00051...@lists.wirebird.com>,
> "Karen J. Cravens" <silve...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 10 May 2000, Bryan J. Maloney wrote:
> >
> > BJM>I have never been that dimwitted. CONTENT is what matters. For
GURPS
> > BJM>products, TEXT is content. Art is almost always mere fluff and
should be
> > BJM>considered as such.
> >
> > Thanks for the insult. Was it really necessary?
> >
> > Art can't make me buy books. Art, especially cover art, can make me
*not*
> > buy books, though... call it "dimwitted" if you must, but I just can't
get
> > sufficiently excited about the content of *any* gamebook to overcome
the
> > repulsion factor of having it lying around looking
ugly/annoying/whatever.
>
> Cover art? CONTENT is what matters. I don't play a game with the COVER
> ART. I play a game with the RULES.
>
Karen J. Cravens
KC> Thanks for the insult. Was it really necessary?
You still haven't answered this bit.
BJM>Cover art? CONTENT is what matters. I don't play a game with the COVER
BJM>ART. I play a game with the RULES.
Yes, rules matter. But am I willing to put up with offensive cover art
merely to play with a particular set of rules?
The answer there is a big fat "no." I did that once, with the Grimoire...
cut-and-punched the critter, and tossed the cover in the trash. Then I
said to myself, "Why did I pay for something I intended to throw away?"
So if another edition of Wizards comes out with a reasonable cover, I'll
buy it. If not, I'll spend my money elsewhere. That doesn't mean I'll
buy something with a pretty cover and bad rules. It just means I won't
buy something I find unpleasant. Does that seem unreasonable?
John Kim
Oliver Booms <der.b...@uni-muenster.de> wrote:
>John Kim <jh...@cascade.ps.uci.edu> wrote:
>> I don't particularly look for illustrated books, and I find
>> pure prose (like, say, Gene Wolfe's _Shadow of the Torturer_)
>> perfectly capable of evoking setting and tone. There are cases
>> where illustrations can be a good and integral part of the work,
>> however.
>
>But that would be assuming that RPGs are nearly as well written as a
>good novel. Personally, I think most RPG writers are uhh... less than
>brilliant novelists
>Often, tone and atmosphere are only secondary to the importance of
>pure information, so there's actually a need for artwork to help
>create the mood of a setting.
No, I'm not assuming that the writers are brilliant -- I am
simply assuming that the illustrations of an RPG work will be of
roughly comparable quality to the writing. Then again, I am not
usually swayed by "mood setting" as an important job for a game.
In most cases, RPG's will have source material which does a much
better job of mood setting than the illustrations or fiction in
the book. (i.e. for _Call of Cthulhu_, read Lovecraft; etc.)
If they exist, I think it is better to point readers to these
sources rather than trying to recreate them in your own fiction
and illustrations.
_Star Wars_ is a case in point. I found the drawn
illustrations of the RPG to be pretty pointless, given that everyone
already has visualized the images from the excellent movies. The
chinsy drawings made for the RPG looked really awful by comparison
and did nothing to add to the game.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>> In RPG's, there are perhaps a handful of cases I can think of
>> illustrations working with them. _Skyrealms of Jorune_ would be
>> one -- where the illustrations were used with the text to show
>> the alien world. _Talislanta_ is a similar case. I can't think
>> of a third offhand.
>
>So, a setting must be as alien as Jorune or Talislanta in order to
>justify illustrations?
Not at all. However, I suspect that in these cases the
producers of the game realized took great care that the illustrations
were consistent and informative. Producers of RPG's in more
familiar settings might take more details more for granted, and
end up with "fluff" illustrations as a result.
--
John H. Kim | Whatever else is true you
jh...@fnal.gov | Trust your little finger
www.ps.uci.edu/~jhkim | Just a single little finger can
UC Irvine, Cal, USA | Save the world. - Steven Sondheim, "Assassins"
George W. Harris
<silve...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
:On Thu, 11 May 2000, Bryan J. Maloney wrote:
:
:So... can I blame my newsfeed for your responses to everyone *but* me
:showing up?
He didn't respond to me pointing out that
he's dim-witted, either. I'll take silence for assent.
--
They say there's air in your lungs that's been there for years.
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'.
Wyrdlyng
> Here is my professional and private opinion.
>
> Artwork should be divided into two camps for the book. Large illos,
1/2
> page to full page and few of them, but done and budgeted as "money" shot
> illustrations. Highest quality possible. Tell the artist that they will
get a
> better pay rate (slightly above the normal illo rate), but the editors
expect
> time to be taken, sketches for prelim approval and full backgrounds and
the
> little details that make for a great piece of work.
> And small simple spots and/or icons.
>
> I'll take fantasy rpg as an example. A spot could be just the
bartender's
> head, a 2- handed sword, a standard, a mage's hands (only) weaving a
spell.
> Spots can be churned out. Great place for new artists to cut their
teeth
> and it still can serve to break up text. I would caution about repeating
the
> little spots too often or using them only in the corners of the page.
That's a damned good idea that I'd like to see used by the industry in the
future.
--
"Beautiful, beautiful girl from the North
You burned my heart with a flickering torch"
-- Iggy Pop, Candy
Wyrdlyng
wyrd...@bellsouth.net
Scott A. Taylor
> In article <20000511143624...@ng-ch1.aol.com>,
> nue...@aol.comDELETEIT (Steve Miller) wrote:
>
> > Bryan J. Maloney wrote:
> >
> > << An illustrator who learns what a rapier actually looks like--THAT
> > would be a godsend! >>
> >
> > Well... part of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of the person
> > drafting the art order.
>
> I haven't had that kind of authority on projects.
And aren't we all just totally astounded, our mouths agape, at this
ghastly turn of events?
Steve Miller
<< There's an example of this in the Hunter Survival Guide. Leif Jones did
the chapter frontispieces, and by golly he actually reads art notes and
pays attention. >>
He amazed me with his work on 'Clash of Wills,' too. I flipped through that
adventure and could recognize specific characters and scenes!
I agree... every game illustrator should be like Leif Jones. :)
Bruce Baugh
>I agree... every game illustrator should be like Leif Jones. :)
He's just so good and flexible. I've started buying originals from him,
and he's dirt cheap.