I need some art in a rulebook to get into the game, so art is important to me. Art I don't like is a deterrent, but it's not so much objective good/bad in terms of proficiency. I hate greyscale art for instance (eg in most Necromancer Games product) while I like black & white ink art. It can be good (3e Wilderlands Players Guide) or crude (OD&D), I'll still like it.

Quote from: Necrozius;866448I feel exactly the same way.

High production values can mean bad readability, however. On the flipside, some highly praised indie stuff looks totally not user-friendly or readable.

It's about restraint, good layout, good writing. Good art enhances a book, in my opinion, doesn't dominate it.

Yeah, I'm in near perfect agreement with the two of you. I think good layout has been a bit under-appreciated in the OSR, although there are some standouts. But I find it greatly enhances both the readability and usefulness at the table of an RPG book.

Quote from: S'mon;866496Art I don't like is a deterrent, but it's not so much objective good/bad in terms of proficiency.

Absolutely! Bad/Good art is very subjective.

I used to care more about it, but these days not as much.  I kinda prefer minimal art to no art in a rule book, especially if it's generic or genre generic- i.e.- fantasty, sci-fi, ect.  As a rule book, just want it clear and easy to reference as needed.

If the game is tied to a very specific setting, then art showing me what they are talking about helps.

It's largely irrelevant to the game content, but if it's really off-putting, then it's off-putting and a shame marring a good set of rules, even if irrelevant. I'd rather it weren't there. Rules without art are ok for me, and better than problematic art.

My bar is fairly low, and crosses into "bad" territory when it contradicts my imagination of a game I'd want to play.  Or if the aesthetic bugs me (e.g. The Palladium Role-Playing Game core book had a lot of portraits that put me off somehow - dragons with human-like muscles, off proportions, and lots of faces that creeped me out and made me slightly nauseous somehow - I did not want to imagine myself if a world of creatures that looked like those). Or if the art is weirdly off in how it draws stuff - either too cartoony without being cartoons, or bad perspective or body proportions (http://i48.tinypic.com/t6cv0x.jpg), or characters doing things in ways that look really dumb or wrong, or that illustrate misconceptions as if they're cool, or something.

I strongly dislike this, for example:


And I rather like art that contributes and appeals to me, by being well-done, attractive, interesting/intruguing, somewhat realistic, and evoking something that sparks my imagination, and seems/feels/looks appropriate to the genre in a way I might want to play it, and that helps me get or get into the setting. The Fantasy Trip tended to do a good job of this in some of its art, without being too fancy, just well-done, for example:

I think there's probably room to break down "bad art" into some categories.

Embarrassing Subject Matter - Cheese Cake, Childish or Cartoonish

Lack of Proficiency - Ugly, Confused, Bad Proportions, Rob Liefeld

Irrelevance - What did this have to do with the text again?

Quote from: David Johansen;866538I think there's probably room to break down "bad art" into some categories.

Embarrassing Subject Matter - Cheese Cake, Childish or Cartoonish

Lack of Proficiency - Ugly, Confused, Bad Proportions, Rob Liefeld

Irrelevance - What did this have to do with the text again?

Except for the Irrelevant category (of course ;P) all of these could be appropriate according to the subject matter.
I may well expect a RPG about punk fanzines to have art that is utterly lacking proficiency for example...
Or a game about Boris Vallejo-style barbarians to have cheese cake art.

Quote from: David Johansen;866538I think there's probably room to break down "bad art" into some categories.

Embarrassing Subject Matter - Cheese Cake, Childish or Cartoonish

Just goes to show how different views can be. I see nothing embarrassing about "cartoonish art".  I prefer cartoon style art, stuff that evokes that unbridled sense of joy and excitement of Saturday morning cartoons. That is the space where roleplaying games live and thrive for me.

The style of illustration I dislike is the overly ornate paintings, especially if the figures end up looking rather stiff. That kind of art is a complete buzz kill. And poser art, but that goes without saying. Everyone hates that.

Quote from: Skarg;866533The Fantasy Trip tended to do a good job of this in some of its art, without being too fancy, just well-done, for example...

I was looking at my (recently rediscovered) copy of Melee over the weekend and was kind of surprised at how good the art still looks to me after all this time... though the cover image is kind of iffy (I've got the one with the  floppy-dick gargoyle.
I'm pretty sure those illustrations helped boost our enthusiasm for the game.
GURPS on the other hand, had such lackluster (though not technically bad) art through most of books I own, that I suspect it served to water down my expectations a bit... despite liking the rules quite a bit.

I'm thinking my preferences run to having a variety of artists illustrate rather than having the whole look of a game defined by one person's work that might hit or miss with me... and silly as it sounds I think it frees up my imagination a bit if there's a wider menu of visual interpretations.

Quote from: Simlasa;866547the  floppy-dick gargoyle.

Dude, that just made me laugh- well done!

I'd add a fourth category, David: Overblown.

Two of my classic pet hate examples are from the Serenity RPG book and the GURPS 4th edition Characters book.  In the first, eight whole pages are swallowed up by full-color photos of the ship's crew.  In the second, two-thirds of the page the 'Locksmithing' skill is on is taken up with a full-color illo of a fellow on his knees picking a lock.

You can't really claim that the art is irrelevant, nor is it poorly done.  But it's a crazy waste of space.  If I wanted action shots of Nathan Filion or Summer Glau in costume, I can Google search ten thousand of them right this minute, for free.  I'm pretty secure on the notion that lockpicking involves fiddling with locks using tools (and it's not as if they have a demonstrative illo of every skill in action).

Quote from: Soylent Green;866545Just And poser art, but that goes without saying. Everyone hates that.

I don't. There's good and bad Poser art like any medium.  Most of it used for rpg illustration is on the lazy side though.

One persons junk art is ok or fine to someone else.

One of my players really dislikes Okum's art in the Big Eyes, Small Mouth RPG books. Was rather funny when we were in a craft store and there on the shelf was a "How to Draw Anime" by... Okum. heh-heh.

I actually thought the art in original D&D was overall ok. Others detest it. On the other hand I find alot of GURPS art to be little better than shaded clip art. Some people didnt like the folk art style art in 2e D&D. Others didnt like certain paintings.

Totally YMMV there.

I do though like to have some art of the non-human races and monsters. If only to get a feel for what the designer, or just the artist, thought they should be. (That and one of my benchmarks for impending trouble in a book is if the art and the description do not match.) Like White Wolf totally wasting Tim Truemans skills by assigning him stuff he just wasnt adept at. Horrible art direction can make the best of art fail. 4e D&D GW being the other posterchild for art direction failure.

I like the art in GURPS 4th edition in principle at least.  It's a more grounded and realistic look for a more grounded and realistic game.  For all that, most of it leaves me cold.

Quote from: Soylent Green;866545And poser art, but that goes without saying. Everyone hates that.

Not really. There are games with some surprisingly good poser art in them.

They are unfortunately so rare as to be nigh mythical.