Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Black Campbell" data-source="post: 7810084" data-attributes="member: 7015921">I agree that the &quot;bang for your buck&quot; with RPGs is high. You buy a book or a few and you have entertainment for life. Add to that the value across a number of people is a higher value over ti e than most other forms.That said, the value of RPGs with higher production values does have diminshing returns as they get more expensive. I love the Tales From the Loop series, where the art is integral to the flavor of the game, and showing it can enhance the game. The opposite, I would suggest, is the new Star Trek game, where the print is far too fine and the color palette not complementary enough to make them easily readable. There's a lot of flash, but the amount of substance is 't there. Additionally, the amount of verbiage can actually detract from finding the rules you need quickly. Charging for 400 pages of scene-setting and short stories isn't more effective and 200 pages of rules and pointed setting material.The argument that a less expensive product, with less attention to gloss paper and high ink density printing is &quot;cheaper&quot; often misses the quality of the writing and game design -- let's use Free League again -- &quot;Forbidden Lands&quot; is an excellent book, but the pages are white with black type and simple B/W line art. It's easy to read, well laid out, and while it looks &quot;cheap&quot;, it!s a high value for the price. Similarly, my &quot;one man shop&quot; only has a few writers, editors and artists and we make our products on a shoestring budget. We specifically chose a similar aesthetic to make the books easier to read (seriously, look around you gaming table...there's a lotta glasses on people's faces), cheap to print bits of if needed, and inexpensive to purchase considering the amount of work that goes into them. But they aren't pretty.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Black Campbell, post: 7810084, member: 7015921"] I agree that the "bang for your buck" with RPGs is high. You buy a book or a few and you have entertainment for life. Add to that the value across a number of people is a higher value over ti e than most other forms. That said, the value of RPGs with higher production values does have diminshing returns as they get more expensive. I love the Tales From the Loop series, where the art is integral to the flavor of the game, and showing it can enhance the game. The opposite, I would suggest, is the new Star Trek game, where the print is far too fine and the color palette not complementary enough to make them easily readable. There's a lot of flash, but the amount of substance is 't there. Additionally, the amount of verbiage can actually detract from finding the rules you need quickly. Charging for 400 pages of scene-setting and short stories isn't more effective and 200 pages of rules and pointed setting material. The argument that a less expensive product, with less attention to gloss paper and high ink density printing is "cheaper" often misses the quality of the writing and game design -- let's use Free League again -- "Forbidden Lands" is an excellent book, but the pages are white with black type and simple B/W line art. It's easy to read, well laid out, and while it looks "cheap", it!s a high value for the price. Similarly, my "one man shop" only has a few writers, editors and artists and we make our products on a shoestring budget. We specifically chose a similar aesthetic to make the books easier to read (seriously, look around you gaming table...there's a lotta glasses on people's faces), cheap to print bits of if needed, and inexpensive to purchase considering the amount of work that goes into them. But they aren't pretty. [/QUOTE]

Verification