Is full color art definitely required now?

S'mon · May 08, 2015, 01:15:35 PM

Quote from: Gabriel2;829413My experience has been almost opposite.

Not speaking of Goodman Games. I used to have a bunch of their DCC modules for 3.x. They were easily the best adventures made for that system.

As for Troll Lord, I used to have the C&C corebooks (I think they were second printing). Trying to find a rule in there was a chore. I can't pin it on anything. It's not like the books were disorganized. It was just that the important bits that I needed to reference always seemed to be buried somewhere. I don't remember if the book had an index, but if it did, it was probably borderline useless.

For Pathfinder, all I've used is the Corebook and the 4 monster books. (I have Mythic Adventures, but I haven't done anything with it yet.) I've found the books fairly easy to find stuff in, and the Index of the corebook is always helpful.

I dunno. Diff'rent strokes.

I was talking about adventures.
With rulebooks I tend to feel that if I have to crack it open in play, the system has already failed.

RunningLaser · May 08, 2015, 01:36:25 PM

Quote from: Haffrung;829416Yep. Just look at the reception in the hobby to the D&D 4E Essentials books. Excellent design by any normal standards. Attractive fonts large enough to read without straining, effective use of white space, limited text per page, content spread over several low-cost books, convenient digest format. The Essentials Rules Compendium is easily the best designed and laid out rules book in the history of D&D. I wouldn't be surprised if someone with a lot of commercial experience outside the RPG industry was brought in to design the books. But the existing market hated it. And WotC have taken a step back to the old format of burying rules content in fat paragraphs of text. It seems anything other than one heavy book packed with tiny text will be met with hostility by the peculiar and frankly backward expectations of the RPG market.

I thought essentials failed because it was too late and still associated with 4e, not because of the format.

I think for the end user of rules, clearly written and easy to find rules trumps everything. For the collector of rules- that doesn't necessarily apply.

Matt · May 08, 2015, 08:39:56 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;830448The cover of Mongoose Traveller (which is really the classic Traveller cover design) is really a rare case of a very simple design that's also awesome, though.

The cover is good because it's the classic cover. The Mongoose interior art is awful. Makes my eyes hurt. Terrible cyberpunk cliches and sexist as well if you notice what women wear and compare to the men depicted. But mainly just ugly drawings depicting an ugly future world.

Haffrung · May 08, 2015, 11:57:41 PM

Quote from: RunningLaser;830505I thought essentials failed because it was too late and still associated with 4e, not because of the format.

It did. But people complained about the format too. For a lot of participants in this hobby, different=bad. And so WotC dropped the digest format for 5E. Which is too bad - Savage Worlds has had tremendous success with the digest Explorers Edition.

Haffrung · May 09, 2015, 12:08:10 AM

Quote from: RunningLaser;830505I think for the end user of rules, clearly written and easy to find rules trumps everything. For the collector of rules- that doesn't necessarily apply.

Agreed. The 4E rules compendium was clearly designed as a book meant to be used at the table in play (as were all the Essentials books). With 5E (which I do love as a game), WotC reverted to the rules/collector/coffee-table book.

Omega · May 09, 2015, 02:20:50 AM

I've been glancing through some newer RPGs of various sorts and noticed a trend in the mid to small level publishers to buck the system and go BW more often. Could be for cost reasons or could be aesthetics?

Matt · May 10, 2015, 12:22:07 PM

Quote from: Omega;830647I've been glancing through some newer RPGs of various sorts and noticed a trend in the mid to small level publishers to buck the system and go BW more often. Could be for cost reasons or could be aesthetics?

Could be both. Were I to publish anything, the interior would be B&W because I like it that way but also because I have no money. Might even opt for a slick design like the Traveller cover with just three striking colors (black, white, and red).

Omega · May 10, 2015, 04:20:38 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;830165I think in some ways its a lot more important to have an impressive cover than it used to be. Mainly because of how often people are buying online now; the cover may be the only art they get a chance to have a prior glance at.

This is why I point out to people blowing thousands on colour interior art on some belief that it increases sales that with the increase in electronic shops, and book stores that do not allow leafing through, all that matters is the cover.

Even when looking up reviews about all you ever see is the cover piece.

Momotaro · May 10, 2015, 07:58:21 PM

Quote from: Matt;830575The cover is good because it's the classic cover. The Mongoose interior art is awful. Makes my eyes hurt. Terrible cyberpunk cliches and sexist as well if you notice what women wear and compare to the men depicted. But mainly just ugly drawings depicting an ugly future world.

Mongoose did a revised printing - compared to the awful art in my original hardback, all the art was replaced (and improved) in the PDF I picked up a couple of years later.

I dunno, maybe you have the revised edition

S'mon · May 11, 2015, 03:30:11 AM

Quote from: Omega;830836This is why I point out to people blowing thousands on colour interior art on some belief that it increases sales that with the increase in electronic shops, and book stores that do not allow leafing through, all that matters is the cover.

Even when looking up reviews about all you ever see is the cover piece.

A lot of the small print books would benefit from cutting the interior art. I just got 'Liberation of the Demon Slayer' - nice cartoony sexploitation cover, but some of the interior art is terrible and should have been left out.

Jame Rowe · May 11, 2015, 02:38:50 PM

Quote from: Matt;830575The cover is good because it's the classic cover. The Mongoose interior art is awful. Makes my eyes hurt. Terrible cyberpunk cliches and sexist as well if you notice what women wear and compare to the men depicted. But mainly just ugly drawings depicting an ugly future world.

In the Core Book, definitely. In other books, the art is at least a bit better.

RPGPundit · May 13, 2015, 06:28:23 AM

Quote from: Matt;830575The cover is good because it's the classic cover. The Mongoose interior art is awful. Makes my eyes hurt. Terrible cyberpunk cliches and sexist as well if you notice what women wear and compare to the men depicted. But mainly just ugly drawings depicting an ugly future world.

I didn't find the book to be particularly ugly, but I didn't really find the interior art particularly awesome either. It didn't stand out either way.