Artworks in an RPG

[Rogerd1]

So to be clear, you're saying hand-drawn art cannot be good?

The examples I gave the art in them was sh*t

 

[Bedrockgames]

We are diametrically opposed. Listening to a GM drone on bores me to tears. But to each their own.

Live and let live lol. But I don't like droning GMs either. For me short descriptions, choosing the best word to describe something, is the art of GMing. I don't like when it sounds like a GM is narrating. I prefer a conversational tone, in plain spoken language.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Live and let live lol. But I don't like droning GMs either. For me short descriptions, choosing the best word to describe something, is the art of GMing. I don't like when it sounds like a GM is narrating. I prefer a conversational tone, in plain spoken language.

I prefer a professionally drawn, beautiful map done to scale. I've never gamed with a GM who could describe a scene worth listening to.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The examples I gave the art in them was sh*t

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I think you'll find yourself in the extreme minority to think that hand-drawn art is not good. In fact, I don't think you'll find two other people who agree with that. Also, you do realize that most art is hand drawn, right? Even the art in the modern 5e books. But even setting that aside, there are a lot of people who love the art of Trampier, Otis, Rosloff, etc. The Palladium art (Iike Kevin Long and Ramon Perez) is also widely appreciated.

 

[Rogerd1]

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I think you'll find yourself in the extreme minority to think that hand-drawn art is not good,

I didn't say that did I? I gave examples of subpar hand drawn art

The Palladium art (Iike Kevin Long and Ramon Perez) is also widely appreciated.

Only by hardcore PB fans, pretty much most others agree with me you'll find. There have been topics on this elsewhere on the internet.

 

[aramis erak]

While I agree RPGs come from war-games: to me the thing that makes them special is they are a different medium from boardgames. They are all about the imagination. This is why battle mats, miniatures and particularly tactical grids, just take me out of the game. Personal preference of course, but I think for me, the more heavy use of visual media, boards, and other materials shifts it away from the imagination part (not 100%, I don't mind useful handouts on occasions, or visual references when something is particular hard to grok, but overall, I prefer the medium to be our collective imaginations).

Not all "board games" play on boards. Much of the play of Starfire is done on spreadsheets. Nuclear War and Illuminati are card games, stocked and sold as board games - since generally card games and board games get lumped together. Lords of Space is a human moderated PBM/PBP rulesystem (late 80's) for running empires at war.

I came to D&D from wargaming - I treat it like its own claim at onset - a game of medieval violence and fantasy campaigning. I've always approached rules as just that, rules.

If I had the funds to do so, I'd happily have the right minis and 3d terrain, and the house with a room dedicated to it just at the edge of bus service... TOTM for me is useful, but it's much better when augmented with maps, illustrations, and diagrams. It's not the goal, the goal is to put challenges for the PCs that require players to make suitable choices, and to inflict suitable consequences (be they good, bad, or indifferent) for those - that's the role most games lay out for the GM.

I don't like anything making more work for me. I chose the claidhmore because it's able to be looked up; it's got multiple meanings in different contexts; it's also thus unclear as to which it refers. Now, when I mention the Elven Crescent Blade, with its half moon edge, and an overall length of 1 elf-height... it's an imaginary item. Just what is a "half-moon" in weapon terms? Is it a giant ulu? Is it a leather workers 1/3 circle push-knife? Is it an axehead shaped like a crescent welded onto a metal haft? And if that last, for forward thrust, or for chopping? THe one in the RPG was pictured... it was a crescent enclosing 270° of the outer circumference, and 190° or so of the inner, configured with 1.75 edges: the entirety of the inner edge, for sickle like use, and 3/4 of the outer edge, for chopping The handle connected 15° from the near point. Realistic? Well, it CAN be made, it was made; historically it was considered a sickle, not a sword... Most of us hear claidhmore and think a straight blade. Which kind? Varies. Half moon blade, not so much. I've no way of really knowing if a person reading the above would figure it out.

But the game, with a fairly small (1×1.5", 2.5×3.8cm) image, made it quite clear. (I suspect they traced it from Palladium's CoWAC)

And it relates to theater of the mind thusly: since I do not value TOTM as a thing to be aspired to, the very idea of not providing images when practical a waste of time of both the GM and players... when a single illo to hand is a paragraph's worth of speech, if one has the illo, not using it is, to me, irresponsible and intentionally slowing the pace.

TOTM is a tool. It's a useful one. It's largely what people do... but I really have no grasp of why people would value it enough to question the use of images in rules. I use TOTM, a lot, including wed night this week. Mostly because I was too manic through the week to prep maps. (Fortunately, I can visualize maps reasonably well in my head... my descriptions were not where I wanted them to be, and a map would have made a HUGE improvement... But TOTM is a fallback position. I wish I could afford terrain, minis, and paints, and the patience to make them useable.. I'd quit tabletop instantly if a Trek holodeck was available...

 

[aramis erak]

I didn't say that did I? I gave examples of subpar hand drawn art

Only by hardcore PB fans, pretty much most others agree with me you'll find. There have been topics on this elsewhere on the internet.

I love the PB art... I am no fan of the company nor its founder, and the games have incredible worldbuilding and barely serviceable rules.

It's some of the most consistent art in the industry.

And, as far as that goes, PB has been solvent longer than most of its fans have been alive... so it's doing SOMETHING really well.

 

[Bedrockgames]

TOTM is a tool. It's a useful one. It's largely what people do... but I really have no grasp of why people would value it enough to question the use of images in rules.

To be clear I wasn't questioning the idea of art or images in rules (I think they were useful). I was just weighing in on points about use of mats, boards, miniatures, etc in an RPG and my own personal point of view on them.

 

[aramis erak]

Ok, now that it is clear that artworks can grant several benefits for the reading (not for the in-game moments), I have another question for those who think artworks are effective for in-game moments: you (a player) and your fellows enter in a room (this is simply the GM description). There is a troll standing in the middle of the room looking at you. Do you think that your PC concentrates on other details of the room or not? This just for the sake of role-playing.

Depends upon the perception task.

 

[aia_2]

Depends upon the perception task.

Ok, thanks.
Back to the first question: i didn't want to discuss whether or or not artworks support the game towards TOTM models rather than grid+minis model. This is a matter on how the game is managed by the GM (and accepted by players) and it depends solely by their choice... My question was referred to the visual support to the reading of a rule book.
I got several different points and i am not yet convinced that artworks would help the reading of a rulebook... I am now for sure convinced that artworks are essential for a setting (for the reasons you outlined, such as the mood, the flavor and so forth)... I still have some doubts how an artwork could be helpful to a GM while he reads a chapter about progression of the PCs for instance.