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How much does the art in an RPG book matter to you? Would it be enough to affect your purchase of the book, ultimately? Is it only quality which affects your choice, or style as well?

RPGPundit

There are a handful of old roleplaying games I've owned for ages, never played but which have survived several culls because I kind of like the illustrations. First among these is Warp World. I am not saying the art work on that book is much better than any other game - itis comic book fare - but it speaks to me.

There are some game I will play depsite the art work, but I will curse them for it. I still feel deeply embarassed by the cover of 4th ed Gamma World.

I don't care too much, unless it's awful. For me, the art is similar to the fiction. A little bit can spice up or clarify the rules, but it's not the goal of the product to me.

Art in an RPG is like frosting on a cake.

If the cake sucks, then good frosting isn't going to save it.

If the cake is good, then frosting is a nice plus but not required.

One can always scrap bad frosting off of a good cake.

Not a lot.

Very little. I would have no problem with an artless book that had good rules, and poor rules are not redeemed in the slightest by good art.

assuming you're including layout art (page design, margin dressing, etc.), i'd say it's pretty important.  (i'm looking at you, Secret of Zir'An)

assuming you're talking about illustrations, then probably not too much. (looking at you, beautiful Traveller LBB's.)

being an artist, i'd like to think that quality evocative artwork will grab people sometimes based on that alone.  granted, the game needs to be worth a damn first and foremost... (come for the artwork, stay for the great game.)

Quote from: RPGPundit;303734How much does the art in an RPG book matter to you?

I see the conspiracy has been foiled and your site access restored. :p

For the most part, I have to mention only one game: Traveller (http://therpghaven.com/viewtopic.php?p=5057#p5057).

!i!

• good art . > . no art ................................................................................ >  ................................................................................ bad art [-]

Traveler had art in it, didn't it? Black and white line art- and plenty of it. I have the 1982 hardcover Traveller book- it has art from (shockingly) Kevin Siembieda, amongst others.

Siembieda mainly did weapon drawings, I think.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;303789Traveler had art in it, didn't it?

The first boxed set had all of one drawing (of a character looking like a 17th century French dandy no less), so not much. It must have been a later print or product.

I prefer art and layout to be relatively unobtrusive - very good art is an exception, but I'd rather have none at all than bad. There are a lot of ways art can be good - from Otus to John Blanche to some of the White Wolf illustrators, even... unfortunately, the "realistic oil painting look" is far more common, and almost universally lackluster.

Cover art catches eyes in the sea of books.   All the pulp dime novels knew this.  Interior art is important to help browsers become buyers.

"Judging a book by its cover" is how most people buy stuff.

Art keeps me from being bored. It's one of the things that makes the difference between a 'Reference book' and a 'Book I read for fun'.

Be aware that, all other things being equal, I will buy more of the latter than the former.

plenty of games sold well becuase of their art even thought eh system stank. I was at the UK Games Day when the first Judge Dredd the RPG was released. The background and artwork sold a game that stank worse than a 2 month old side of ham (I still have it and the PSI expansion needless to say :-) )

Bad art work can sink a product. The 1e AD&D DmG cover would these days ensure no one bought the game. So no art is better than crap art.
One of the elegant things about he traveller boxed set was that it realised this and expunged any poor artwork.  Gamma World didn;t do so well.

bad art will keep me from buying a game more than good art will sale me one

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;303789Traveler had art in it, didn't it? Black and white line art- and plenty of it.

It depends on which version of Traveller you mean. I have the recent reprint of Books 0-8, the "classic books" - that is, the 1st edition.

Book 0:- The first illustration is a map. The second the imperial sunburst.
Book 1:- none
Book 2:- "a typical interplanetary journey" diagram of a ship accelerating from origin and halfway through decelerating to the destination world. Secondly, there's a globe of Earth with orbits and accelerations at the different orbits.
Book 3:- a blank hex map, and a couple of hexes marked as legends for when you use the hex map.
Book 4:- none
Book 5:- none
Book 6:- none
Book 7:- a rough sketch of some guys un/loading a ship by a large building. Secondly, a guy presenting a bribe or box for inspection to an official with a guard, and some people, flying spacecraft and world in the background.
Book 8:- at the back, a robot of some kind doing something.

Thus, of the first 9 books, 4 have no illustrations at all, and 5 have 9 between them; though of those 9, only 3 are what most of us would think of as "illustrations" - scenes or figures - and 6 are graphics to explain something, like a map.

And yet the game is fondly remembered, and still played today. So it seems that if you have a good game, you can get away without art at all. If my game were not so good, I would probably want lots of shiny art for it, just like if my product is pretty ordinary I'll advertise it with some hot people ;)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;303969It depends on which version of Traveller you mean. I have the recent reprint of Books 0-8, the "classic books" - that is, the 1st edition.

Book 0:- The first illustration is a map. The second the imperial sunburst.
Book 1:- none
Book 2:- "a typical interplanetary journey" diagram of a ship accelerating from origin and halfway through decelerating to the destination world. Secondly, there's a globe of Earth with orbits and accelerations at the different orbits.
Book 3:- a blank hex map, and a couple of hexes marked as legends for when you use the hex map.
Book 4:- none
Book 5:- none
Book 6:- none
Book 7:- a rough sketch of some guys un/loading a ship by a large building. Secondly, a guy presenting a bribe or box for inspection to an official with a guard, and some people, flying spacecraft and world in the background.
Book 8:- at the back, a robot of some kind doing something.

Thus, of the first 9 books, 4 have no illustrations at all, and 5 have 9 between them; though of those 9, only 3 are what most of us would think of as "illustrations" - scenes or figures - and 6 are graphics to explain something, like a map.

And yet the game is fondly remembered, and still played today. So it seems that if you have a good game, you can get away without art at all. If my game were not so good, I would probably want lots of shiny art for it, just like if my product is pretty ordinary I'll advertise it with some hot people ;)

I have the 1982 "The Traveller book" which is a hardcover compilation of several of the little black books. It has a lot of art in it- one of the reasons I had to have it is because it has some early Kevin Siembieda artwork, as well as a Paul Jaquays cartoon.

Quote from: mhensley;303964bad art will keep me from buying a game more than good art will sale me one

I second that. I absolutely loathe the D&D 4e art and feel it sets a tone that I find utterly repulsive. This has gone a long way towards squashing whatever interest I had in the thing.

But I have a hard time thinking of a game that is 'made' for me by the art. Maybe the Planescape campaign setting. Or Changeling:The Dreaming, which I think looks gorgeous but plays like shite.

Quote from: RPGPundit;303734How much does the art in an RPG book matter to you?

Not much, if at all. I think of RPG art as a selling point doesn't really apply to me.

Although while discussing this with another Player last night, learned that the entire reason why he doesn't like D&D 3.x is because of the artwork and the "Dungeonpunk" aesthetic.

Quote from: RPGPundit;303734Would it be enough to affect your purchase of the book, ultimately?

Nope. Hell, I like the minimalism of the Classic Traveller LBBs.

Quote from: RPGPundit;303734Is it only quality which affects your choice, or style as well?

It doesn't affect my choice at all. It can help my choice, but it doesn't hurt it.

...Actually, now that I think about it, the 'minimalism' of Hero System helped sell it - It was billed as a detailed, 'make-anything' game and the cover art looks it - Leonardo DaVinci-ish human figure on a hex grid. Green on black background. Plain text.

Not ugly, but utterly...Hmm...Well, it looks like something you'd see on a reference book. And that's what it is, a reference book.
And the idea behind the system appealed to me.

I guess, then, that what you should aim for to appeal to me is good representational art.

Huh...Difference between poll and 'watch subject' test result.

You don't need to quote an entire post, just pull out the relevant text for context.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;303970I have the 1982 "The Traveller book" which is a hardcover compilation of several of the little black books. It has a lot of art in it

And when they decided to do a reprint, they chose which version to reprint?

That's one of the reasons I say: if you have really good content, then you can do without art entirely. I mean, we don't need pretty pictures to get us to read and understand novels.

Sometimes you need illustrations, in the literal sense of a graphic to illustrate - demonstrate, explain - something in the text. There are some things it's clumsy or would be too lengthy to explain only in words. But pictures just for prettinesss - they're nice, but we can do without them.

I hate to admit it, but art does matter to me.

One of the reasons why I dig Swords & Wizardry so much (and prefer it over the other 'retro-clones' and C&C) is the amazing cover art by Pete Mullen.  It's not the only reason why I prefer S&W, but it is a reason.

I'm willing to overlook mediocre art if I like the game enough (case in point: the D&D Rules Cyclopedia), but good art definitely gives me a 'warm and fuzzy' feeling about a game.

Quote from: jibbajibba;303962The 1e AD&D DmG cover would these days ensure no one bought the game

Hey, that's one of my favourite covers of all time!

Art matters to me, but not in a predictable way... like, I really love the look of the original Traveller books... somehow the absence of images got my imagination going.
Unless a game has a cohesive and compelling vision for it's setting (such as Rackham had for Cadwallon) then a buttload of art, regardless of quality, might be as likely to turn me off as turn me on... most modern D&D stuff works that way on me... and I can't stomach Elmore... or that guy who illustrated most of the Paranoia books.
But I can look at stuff like the old Arduin Grimoire books... or some of the newer low budget productions... and be inspired to play just because of some craptacular line drawing.
I think what it is is that the art/layout has to be interesting to me... tell a story... define a character. Otherwise it's might as well be white space.
Unfortunately my own art doesn't always come up to those standards...

I always liked the RC art.

RPGPundit

If the art and layout are terrible, then it can easily drive me away from a game. Good art helps me to immerse myself in the game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;304125I always liked the RC art.

:confused:

Well, at least you like the RC!

Oh look! my thread got cloned!

Though I must say that you formulated the question better than I did, pundit.


On topic:

I'd like better art direction.

I want art to be evocative and/or informative.

Less is quite often more.


Bad art has repeatedly put me off buying a book. Good art is a lesser factor in convincing me to buy one. Reviews and word of mouth is much more important.

No art is better than bad art.

Welcome to theRPGsite, Dalmatian! I hope that you stick around here, and start some threads.

RPGPundit

I know this is stupid, but art is the first thing I look at in a book (RPG, that is). Bad art would probably not put me off a game, but good art will definitely sell it to me.

Thanks. I've been lurking on and off for quite some time now.