First Dark Sun Excerpt!!!

[Moon_Goddess]

It's because he is a psionic class and in the pictures of psionic classes in 4E they tend to have a "halo" around their head. Don't ask me why, they just do. Not sure what Psionic character he is, perhaps a battlemind, but that's why he has it.

Oh I know that, but it was stupid when it was in PHB3 and it's beyond stupid to put it in Dark Sun....

 

[Wik]

Meh. In general, the quality of the art has been great in D&D products since WotC took over... but the content of the art has been crap since around that same point. I'm not really going to sweat over this, because it's an issue I've had with WotC since 3.0.

To put it simply, Emirikol the Chaotic, were he to appear in a 4e product, would be riding a flaming horse through some bizarrely fantastic city while blasting running townspeople while a ethnically-diverse adventuring party with a balanced gender mix would be busy flexing in awkward poses while waving oversized swords at the mage. Who, by the way, would not be a human but some sort of tentacle-y thing covered in runes that shoot frickin' laser beams or something.

Moral of the story? WotC art has never been for me.

 

[MrMyth]

To put it simply, Emirikol the Chaotic, were he to appear in a 4e product, would be riding a flaming horse through some bizarrely fantastic city while blasting running townspeople while a ethnically-diverse adventuring party with a balanced gender mix would be busy flexing in awkward poses while waving oversized swords at the mage. Who, by the way, would not be a human but some sort of tentacle-y thing covered in runes that shoot frickin' laser beams or something.

Moral of the story? WotC art has never been for me.

I like the way you present the idea of an ethnically-diverse adventuring party with a balanced gender mix as one of the flaws in how WotC approaches art.

Oh, wait, I don't like that at all. There may or may not be reason to criticize some of the approaches WotC has taken with their art, but I'm rather uncomfortable with saying that you want more sexism and racism in your art. If that isn't what you are saying, my apologies, but that is exactly how this criticism is coming across.

 

[Wik]

I like the way you present the idea of an ethnically-diverse adventuring party with a balanced gender mix as one of the flaws in how WotC approaches art.

Oh, wait, I don't like that at all. There may or may not be reason to criticize some of the approaches WotC has taken with their art, but I'm rather uncomfortable with saying that you want more sexism and racism in your art. If that isn't what you are saying, my apologies, but that is exactly how this criticism is coming across.

That's one way to read it. But another way to read it would be as follows:

I want to see some pictures where that party of two both happen to be male (or female). Or where the entire party belongs to the same ethnic group. In short, I want to see art that is just art, and not some sort of attempt at political correctness.

I mean, doesn't it seem just a little insulting to have every cover consist of two adventurers, one male, one female? Why can't there be pictures of all-male (or female) adventuring groups? I know I wouldn't be offended. And I'd love to see some classic "rescue the damsel" pictures out there.

And it'd be great to see an all-african adventuring group. Or all-celtic. Or all whatever. It'd make the stories seem more "real world" as opposed to a fantasy version of the modern day.

Again, my two cents. And this really has nothing to do, on the whole, with Dark Sun. Let's just say that I rarely like wotc art decisions.

 

[MrMyth]

I want to see some pictures where that party of two both happen to be male (or female). Or where the entire party belongs to the same ethnic group. In short, I want to see art that is just art, and not some sort of attempt at political correctness.

I mean, doesn't it seem just a little insulting to have every cover consist of two adventurers, one male, one female? Why can't there be pictures of all-male (or female) adventuring groups? I know I wouldn't be offended. And I'd love to see some classic "rescue the damsel" pictures out there.

And it'd be great to see an all-african adventuring group. Or all-celtic. Or all whatever. It'd make the stories seem more "real world" as opposed to a fantasy version of the modern day.

Ok, that's all a bit more reasonable - I think the problem, though, is that if you don't take the approach of trying to keep a balance in the art, than normal imbalances will creep in overall, whether intentionally or not. I'd have no problems with the occasional outliers, but I look at some older art, and while some is breathtaking, some is also very embarassing.

I don't find the 'one male, one female' cover insulting. I mean, I occasionally find it bland - I am very unhappy with the Dark Sun cover, particularly because the one they are using for the Creature Catalog is so spectacular, and would have been a much better cover than just another couple heroes in dramatic poses.

But that said, I think the general concept of 'one male, one female' is a great one - because any of these books could be someone's introduction to the hobby, and showing that sort of inclusion is a good message, and something WotC has very much done right.

 

[Phaezen]

Some more Dark Sun previews via Mudbunny

Sun Creature Catalogue
Dark Sun Campaign Setting

Edit:I am sure I put Mudbunny in those mention tags, which are apparently not working for debugging according to the meta forum...

 

[DarthMouth]

Some more Dark Sun previews via @Morrus;

Dark Sun Creature Catalogue
Dark Sun Campaign Setting

WOW


Will be space on the book for new class powers ?

 

[Aegeri]

The Dark Sun campaign guides cover is pretty bad to be honest. I loved the art for it they had originally, which has now become the creature catalogue art.

It's immensely disappointing to me to know that one of the best pieces of art in 4E is stuck on a softcover book (that will get mauled over time).

 

[hvg3akaek]

I don't understand how arcane users are meant to 'bluff' that they are really psionic when they don't all wear one of those nice class-defining headbands!

 

[Gradine]

That's one way to read it. But another way to read it would be as follows:

I want to see some pictures where that party of two both happen to be male (or female). Or where the entire party belongs to the same ethnic group. In short, I want to see art that is just art, and not some sort of attempt at political correctness.

I mean, doesn't it seem just a little insulting to have every cover consist of two adventurers, one male, one female? Why can't there be pictures of all-male (or female) adventuring groups? I know I wouldn't be offended. And I'd love to see some classic "rescue the damsel" pictures out there.

And it'd be great to see an all-african adventuring group. Or all-celtic. Or all whatever. It'd make the stories seem more "real world" as opposed to a fantasy version of the modern day.

Again, my two cents. And this really has nothing to do, on the whole, with Dark Sun. Let's just say that I rarely like wotc art decisions.

There's a number of problems with this, however. First, and most obvious, is that there's a huge population of younger generation gamers who find the whole "damsel in distress" trope cliched at best and demeaning at worst. Nothing screams bad, decades-old alpha-male fantasy like a bunch of a strong manly-like dudes rescuing a beautiful (and often scantily clad) female from a horrible ugly monster. There's a reason Hackmaster covers poke fun of this trope all the time. Also see Shrek.

As for the homogeneous groups idea; well that goes against several principles WotC is working from. From a pure aesthetic perspective, few things are more bland than a group of similar-looking people. Like it or not, diversity (and I mean in the general sense, not just the huggy-PC sense) is more visually interesting (at least, it is to a much broader subset of humanity). Secondly, having a homogeneous party on a book cover sense the opposite message to players: parties need to be diverse and have a great deal of versatility.

Adventuring parties are special. This is reinforced by the source material time and time again. What you call realism is indeed realistic... for everyone in the world save the heroes. Thus, most traveling groups in any D&D world will be quite homogeneous; a group of Elven scouts, dwarven warriors from a single clan, a band of human knights, etc. But PC groups are supposed to be different... the basic idea that the PC group will succeed where the above NPC groups failed is because they are diverse; because they bring so many different complimentary things to the table. This has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with a) good principles of artistic design and b) reinforcing these important ideas about party makeup.

I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of WotC's art... my favorite art was always from either the 3.5 Eberron books or the third party 3.0 Ravenloft books. The problem with 4e art as a whole is that while it is certainly colorful, it completely lacks action (especially the covers).

Edit: Oh yeah, and the psionic halos are stupid too, but this only reinforces my point... you visually distinguish your psionic characters not by giving them a stupid halo but by showing them doing something psionic. If you draw a dude, and there's all sorts of crap floating around him, okay, he's a psion. I get it. Somebody's punching a goblin in the face? Yeah, that's a monk.