Quote from: J ArcaneThe only "illustrations" are a couple of diagrams explaining the sector design rules, and one of the "football field" range band system for combat.  There are no "drawings of vehicles" anywhere in the books.

Looking at my funny-shaped reprint of LBB0-8, I find,

Book 3: Worlds and Adventurers, p20, vehicles.

Book4: Mercenary, p0, "Mercenary Striker", basically a soldier.

Book 7: Merchant Prince, p0, uncaptioned drawing of a ship being un/loaded with wooden crates.
p33, uncaptioned image of what looks like a crewman dealing with customs, with starport, starship and planetoid in background

Book 8: Robots, p8, uncaptioned drawing of somewhatcrab-like robot blazing away with laser.
p52, uncaptioned drawing of robot cleaner

It's certainly true that the drawings are very sparse, and seem to be whacked in as an afterthought rather than specifically drawn to be part of the final product. And five for eight books is very few indeed. But they do exist.

I love a bit of art. It gives me a thrill to see lovely pictures when buying a book. As for writing games, I'm obsessed with filling Icar with tonnes of art. It means the books take longer to do but I get a kick out of making the images and I think the pictures help set the scenes.

I just need to lean how to render people properly!

Quote from: Rob LangI love a bit of art. It gives me a thrill to see lovely pictures when buying a book. As for writing games, I'm obsessed with filling Icar with tonnes of art. It means the books take longer to do but I get a kick out of making the images and I think the pictures help set the scenes.

I just need to lean how to render people properly!

I want to punch you. You and your cool, FREE, rpg.  


Seriously though, I need to take some time and prepare an Icar campaign.

Good art can sell a shitty game. The original Judge Dredd RPG sold out at the Games Day it was launched because of good artwork (well and a loved theme) The system was dire.
Bad art can turn people off a good game and a good game is better with no art that bad art.

The 2 illustrations are both good quality well produced and drawn with some degree of skill. They will enhance any book even if there might be some who say I don't like the style of that drawing that is unlikely to put them off buying it because the drawings are not offensively bad (like 1e AD&D or those monads in MM2 (or was it FF?) .

I think the original games could escape with bad art because of the market and the target audience. Take MtG some of the illustrations in the Alpha and Beta, which even made it to Unlimited are truely awful, Julie Barrow's Kolbolds .... or Iron Root Tree Folk, and there is no way they would be accepted in a 'modern' release but compared to the playtest cards which were just white bits of card with 'Lightning Bolt' or 'Elvish archer' written on them ...

And well done on the pedantry of the Traveller illustrations sub-thread ... excellent work.

I should probably stop doing any illos. People either love them or hate them - which is not a good thing, they aren't standard RPG line drawings, and there's no heavily mucled men or overendowed women. I think they confuse people. Then we'd find out if people will in fact buy an un-illustrated game, and if no illos are better than bad illos. Of course if my intuition is right, and bad illos are in fact better than no illos, I'm out of business... :O

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceThen we'd find out if people will in fact buy an un-illustrated game, and if no illos are better than bad illos. Of course if my intuition is right, and bad illos are in fact better than no illos, I'm out of business... :O

You sell PDF and print-on-demand games, right?

Do an experiment.  Produce a no-illustration version and see how it sells.

Quote from: flyingmiceI should probably stop doing any illos. People either love them or hate them - which is not a good thing, they aren't standard RPG line drawings, and there's no heavily mucled men or overendowed women. I think they confuse people. Then we'd find out if people will in fact buy an un-illustrated game, and if no illos are better than bad illos. Of course if my intuition is right, and bad illos are in fact better than no illos, I'm out of business... :O

-clash

See, I disagree Clash, your art is appropriate to your games. People are fond of the "no art better than bad art" but I am more in line with "Appropriate art is more important than great art". I use a fair amount of clip art in my games. Some people can;t stand this but my point is to 1) Set the mood and 2) illustrate a point in the text. If my point was to decorate the book, I would be failing horribly. That said, I also cheat and mix originals in there as well.

Now, from a marketing point of view? Hell, we should all be doing full color glossy books. Marketing is not everything though. We need to look at our expected returns, property placement, fan base, the condition of the industry and a slew of other points that should be in your BP. Thus, a lot of us end up with various types of art. Does your art address your goals? Does it pull your clients in? Is it even part of your marketing? My guess is, your games are marketed on system, historical veracity and military/technical veracity. Your illustration come into play with maps, detailed char sheets and descriptive tables. Some folks forget how important that stuff is.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltSee, I disagree Clash, your art is appropriate to your games. People are fond of the "no art better than bad art" but I am more in line with "Appropriate art is more important than great art". I use a fair amount of clip art in my games. Some people can;t stand this but my point is to 1) Set the mood and 2) illustrate a point in the text. If my point was to decorate the book, I would be failing horribly. That said, I also cheat and mix originals in there as well.

Understood.

QuoteNow, from a marketing point of view? Hell, we should all be doing full color glossy books. Marketing is not everything though. We need to look at our expected returns, property placement, fan base, the condition of the industry and a slew of other points that should be in your BP. Thus, a lot of us end up with various types of art. Does your art address your goals?

My illos attempt to show the setting. Hopefully I succeed some of the time, but I'm not the one who can judge that.

QuoteDoes it pull your clients in?

Perhaps. I get equal amounts of love and hate for the illos, so it seems to pull some in and push others away.

QuoteIs it even part of your marketing?

Yes, in that I always include illos in the marketing. Other than that, no.

QuoteMy guess is, your games are marketed on system, historical veracity and military/technical veracity. Your illustration come into play with maps, detailed char sheets and descriptive tables. Some folks forget how important that stuff is.

Bill

That isn't really in question. Maps and technical diagrams are vital to most any game. I don't consider them to be illos in the sense most folks are talking about here.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceThat isn't really in question. Maps and technical diagrams are vital to most any game. I don't consider them to be illos in the sense most folks are talking about here.

-clash

And I guess that is the point. People should really be considering it as part of the illustrations, the art describing the setting.

But, that could just be my take on it.

Bill

Quote from: JohnnyWannabeI want to punch you. You and your cool, FREE, rpg.  


Seriously though, I need to take some time and prepare an Icar campaign.

Between Rob and Marco, these excellent FREE games are ruining our exploitative businesses!

(Lights torch and grabs pitchfork)

Let's end this thing now. Here!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceIn the game publishing business, we also call illos "art." I personally prefer the term "illos" or "illustrations" but I am indeed being facetious here.

-clash

When I started reading RPG forums in English, I was puzzled by the fact that everybody call illustrations "art". I adjusted, of course, and I say art when I mean illustrations, but in my native language I'd never say art when referring to illos, it would sound wrong.

I will note, however, that while I think that over all, art/illustration means fuck all as far as most of the public is concerned, my personal take is different.  For me, I'd rather no art at all than bad art, because frankly, it puts me off the game pretty quickly.  Makes it hard to get into the setting, and it tends to make me wonder what other aspects of the game have taken shortcuts when it comes to quality.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that if you can't do something right, don't do it at all.

Quote from: Acta Est FabulaI'm not talking about the frequency of art in a book (1 piece per 4 pages being the average), but I'm talking about the quality of it.

How imporant is the artwork to you when deciding to purchase that book you haven't played before?

Art is not an important factor to me when deciding whether to buy a game, at least I think so. That said, I like good art a lot. A lot. It's a pleasure to see a nicely illustrated game. It doesn't mean I'm a lover of full color candy, on the contrary, I prefer black and white art to full color art, full color tends to repel me (Artesia is the exception that confirms the rule). Examples of, in my opinion, great art in RPGs? Ars Magica 3rd and HARP. The art in these two games is gorgeous. No need for full color, just good art.

Hmmmm.   Some interesting things to think about.  As a point of comparison, let me also post some of the interior "illios"

I'd be curious to hear folks' reactions.  Of course I have many more, but these give an idea of the different styles

As an artist myself, I find the distinction between art and illustration interesting as mentioned here.
I was scoffed at in college for wanting to illustrate comics and games. It was clearly considered "low art", and to gain the degree I was after I had to become accomplished at "high art" such as painting and sculpting. It was a very ego driven environment of elitists and their pride. I did not appreciate it. My heart was still with the Jim Lee/Scott Williams comics I cut my teeth on in the late '80s and early '90s. I later discovered more classic artists (yeah, I said it) who are far to numerous to mention here.

I have found through developing my own products, being around others, being a consumer and gamer myself, and just watching people that many people (I would even assert 75% or so) are very visual. If you can sell them on a great cover that draws them into the game world, they will buy your book. One of my first loves (and still my favorite game of all time) was DarkSun from TSR. The concepts were wild and fresh (to me), and just alien enough to be interesting in a dark fantasy type of way, but the artwork of Gerald Brom stole my heart and imagination. I barely saw the other artwork in the products, and focussed entirely on Brom's vision, which then became my own view of the world, and still is to this day. My sketches of DarkSun still mimic his style a great deal.
The artwork and/or illustrations of a game setting can and should tell the story of the world without the reader ever having to read a word, but it should also compel the viewer to want to read the story/text to learn more about it. If this does not happen, then the artwork has failed, and so will the game most likely.
Can a game exist and be successful without images to support it? Absolutely, but you (typically) will be hitting a niche market of readers and writers, and miss out on those visual types like myself and many others.
(Of course, the writing skill of the production/design team determines and skews a lot of this, right?)

Btw, Acta Est Fabula, those images present a wide range of styles, but it all seems to work together to tell something of the setting. Nice stuff.