dd.stevenson
Super KY
Yuck.
Draogn's Eye View 7/31: Transmedia Experience
- Thread starter I'm A Banana
- Start date
Yuck.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
and now you are sounding just like me
How do you try to capture the diversity of all the different worlds in a single example. The answer is, you can't. But you can work to keep some consistency within the expressions. If you've got a video game, a comic book and a TRPG product all set in FR, then keep the vision consistent - so those folks that love it, get the same experience no matter which expression they interact with. If you've got a video game, and novel and an animated short set in DL, then do the same thing. A product that goes across all the worlds, like the core rule books??? That's a good question. I had actually proposed to R&D that we do the core rule books without art at one point. So that they could be setting and world agnostic. That didn't set well with most folks. So now, they have to decide which setting will be used as the point-of-view, so that I can choose how to depict the monsters in the MM.
There are worse people to sound like.
You thought about being "setting and world agnostic." But did you think about going "setting and world polytheistic?" Rather than the message being: "We won't tell you what it's like!", the message can be "We will let you pick from LOTS of different ways it can be!"
So to represent that visually in the books, rather than no art and no context, have incompatible art and contradictory context. Orcs from FR meet goblins from Dragonlance meet psionics from Dark Sun. There's 4e comic-book-y art and two pages later is 2e fabulous-80's-hair art and the next chapter contains something like 3e WAR-y art and a 1e-esque black-and-white tableau. On one page there's a vision of a desert world with a thick, dark sun, on another page there's a scene in a verdant pulpy jungle temple, and on a third there's a dark, Gothic castle shrouded in mist, and then there's some sort of pseudo-Asian pagoda with modrons marching out of it done in the style of an old Japanese watercolor or something. You can play all these worlds in the same game, but none of these worlds defines the "default" game, because the default game is what you make with your table.
You don't have to provide stats for every type of goblin up front, but you can pick from the entire array of potential D&D goblins, and present one (while perhaps referencing alternative possibilities), and know that this kind of goblin isn't "the goblin," but just one amongst a menagerie of goblins. It's not the goblin all media is to use, it's one goblin that media can use.
Maybe think of each book as something like the 2e MM: the book starts with space giants from the '70's and semi-sci-fi oozes and ended with psuedo-arabian turtle-islands and pulpy psychic jungle snake-men and...frickin' zombies.... That was an accident of history, jamming all those disparate critters into the same massive tome. But it was insanely effective at communicating the idea that D&D was a home for any kind of fantasy you can imagine. It's something I think NEXT, with its message of modularity and flexibility, is well-suited to embracing again. There should be pictures of elves in spelljammers and halflings in jungle gear and lightning rails: D&D is all of that, too.
The message of diversity, inclusiveness, and infinite imaginative possibility, isn't as effectively delivered when there's a consistent look for goblins (or whatever) across the whole of the game, because that's saying "there's only one kind of goblin in D&D." There should totally be one kind of goblin in FR, one and only one Drizzt (with his cape and his scimitars and his flowing white hair) but that doesn't need to apply to the whole game!
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Within a world or campaign setting, I completely agree with you -- these need consistent visions across media.
But for "D&D" itself? D&D is all worlds and none of them. I don't think you can have a consistent look and call it "D&D", unless you're willing to identify the D&D-generic setting assumptions. I was frankly OK with the way 3E did this, by assuming Greyhawk as the "default" setting and building iconic artwork, deity & spell name references, etc on a Greyhawk baseline (though it helps that Greyhawk is my preferred setting). The 3E FR artwork, packaging, and other branding was different enough to appear uniquely FR, while not being so far off the baseline as to not be relatable to D&D. (As an aside: way back before the internet, I had this problem with FR products. When the first generation FR products came out, I didn't know they were for AD&D, because the FR branding was too much more prominent.) 4E tried to go fully generic, and I think failed in execution -- for me personally because the "default" assumption in the PHB wasn't based on any of the familiar campaign settings.
Frankly, I think 5E is stuck -- it can't go fully generic without completely alienating the existing customer base, but if it bases itself on an existing world assumption is risks alienating a significant portion of the existing base. My suggestion would be this: pick something relatively common as a default "baseline" for the core books (e.g. FR), but avoid the most iconic figures of that setting (Drizzt, Elminster). Then within the book text, there should be specific references to other, different applications -- and have art to match. That could be in each chapter, or in a "tailoring your game" chapter, but I envision something like "Halflings can be interpreted in different ways. For example, in the Dark Sun setting ...[insert Dark Sun halfling description, placed next to an art inset in different style of a Dark Sun halfling]". It wouldn't take a lot of these art excursions for the core books to provide variety and inclusiveness while still retaining the majority of the product as a consistent whole.
JamesonCourage
Adventurer
I started with 3e. I would not recognize the 2e creatures as hobgoblins if not for the context of these posts. I see the 4e artwork as similar to (what I'd recognize as) hobgoblins, though. If that gives you two any help in this conversation.
JeffB
Legend
At some point in 3e, maybe..or maybe 4e...there was a monster book or two that had a general description of everything you needed to know...and then there was a "in the Realms" entry...just a paragraph or two...describing something unique about said monster in said campaign setting. Maybe just a baseline representation of the creature & description and then some extra detail about FR, Eberron,.or GH or whatever settings you plan to support in the near future.
Or make the "in the Campaign Setting X" info available as web enhancement downloadable PDF.
Probably too much trouble, but an idea nonetheless.
Or make the "in the Campaign Setting X" info available as web enhancement downloadable PDF.
Probably too much trouble, but an idea nonetheless.
Klaus
First Post
I really liked those. They were in MM IV and V, iirc.
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