D&D General Is DnD being mothballed?

[Stormonu]

I don't think art is the primary draw for many, if any people. I think you might be seeing a problem where one doesn't exist.

I may be one of the few then that is quite motivated by the art. I often find myself conjuring up worlds, encounters, NPCs and the like just on the art alone. I have bought several D&D art books just for the artwork (Art of Dragonlance, for example), and non-D&D fantasy/sci-fi art books because of the inspiration they give me.

Also, I won't buy Mork Bork because I absolutely loathe the art.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I may be one of the few then that is quite motivated by the art. I often find myself conjuring up worlds, encounters, NPCs and the like just on the art alone. I have bought several D&D art books just for the artwork (Art of Dragonlance, for example), and non-D&D fantasy/sci-fi art books because of the inspiration they give me.

Also, I won't buy Mork Bork because I absolutely loathe the art.

Well, there you go... looks like you are the yin to @Micah Sweet 's yang.

 

[Staffan]

I don't think art is the primary draw for many, if any people. I think you might be seeing a problem where one doesn't exist.

I don't know if it's the primary draw, but it's definitely a source of inspiration. I would likely not have become as enamored of Dark Sun back in the day without Brom's paintings and Baxa's B/W interior art, bringing that stark world to life (such as said life was).

 

[Dire Bare]

I find this position laughable, because WotC have never once shown any real "data-driven decision making", and if you're going to bring up the surveys, that's extremely funny but totally undermines your point.

A reasonable position and yet you previously claimed that the release cadence specifically was responsible for their success. I guess everyone is entitled to change their mind, nothing wrong with that.

They don't share their data with us . . . why should they? Yet, they have relied heavily on marketing and playtest data for quite some time now. I'm sure it's not perfect, but again, I trust it far more than I do the armchair quarterbacking so common on the interwebs. From folks who consistently conflate their preferences with what is best for the game.

Their slower release, IMO, is most definitely a part of their success. But has it been the most perfect release schedule? We can't know without visiting those alternate realities where WotC made different decisions. There is no changing of this mind, or moving goal posts, or yadda yadda yadda.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I may be one of the few then that is quite motivated by the art. I often find myself conjuring up worlds, encounters, NPCs and the like just on the art alone. I have bought several D&D art books just for the artwork (Art of Dragonlance, for example), and non-D&D fantasy/sci-fi art books because of the inspiration they give me.

Also, I won't buy Mork Bork because I absolutely loathe the art.

But those are art books, not game books. The focus of people's attention in a game book should be the game material. Instead, I keep seeing more and more emphasis on the art in game books, and more posts about art, then has generally been the case previously.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't know if it's the primary draw, but it's definitely a source of inspiration. I would likely not have become as enamored of Dark Sun back in the day without Brom's paintings and Baxa's B/W interior art, bringing that stark world to life (such as said life was).

Absolutely. As someone who was introduced to D&D during the 2E era, I definitely turned up my nose at a lot of 1e material precisely because I thought the lack of color art made it look shoddy.

And I guarantee that a lot of the fondness for the great setting flourishing of the '90s was precisely because so many of the introductory products had such great art that hooked people in.

 

[TwoSix]

But those are art books, not game books. The focus of people's attention in a game book should be the game material. Instead, I keep seeing more and more emphasis on the art in game books, and more posts about art, then has generally been the case previously.

If my entire concern was the quality of the rules, I would simply type up all my house rules into a nice PDF and play that. I'm inevitably going to make up rules I like better than any one particular designer, because I'm designing for me.

But, assuming the rules are solid, my number one concern is selling people on trying out a new game with me. Having a super-pretty book that spurs the imagination does quite a bit to help sell the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not saying I don't like art in my game books, or that it serves no purpose. I am saying the quality of the art, or lack thereof, has never been the tipping point on whether or not I would buy literally anything, and I personally have a hard time understanding a point of view where it would be. What it seems like to me is a budget sink that could almost always be cut down to some degree, and it never lessens the value of a game book as a game book to me to have less than stellar pictures.

Bad formatting? Whole different story potentially.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If my entire concern was the quality of the rules, I would simply type up all my house rules into a nice PDF and play that. I'm inevitably going to make up rules I like better than any one particular designer, because I'm designing for me.

But, assuming the rules are solid, my number one concern is selling people on trying out a new game with me. Having a super-pretty book that spurs the imagination does quite a bit to help sell the game.

That's what I do. I have a 400+ page homebrew doc, double column, no art, suits me great. I will accept a lower profit margin if it means a lower art budget. Nice cover, some chapter plates, and illustrations for stuff that needs illustration.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Absolutely. As someone who was introduced to D&D during the 2E era, I definitely turned up my nose at a lot of 1e material precisely because I thought the lack of color art made it look shoddy.

And I guarantee that a lot of the fondness for the great setting flourishing of the '90s was precisely because so many of the introductory products had such great art that hooked people in.

I liked a lot of the art in the 2e era, and I can't say that no cover caught my attention, but it wasn't why I was there.