How important are and RPG's aesthetics to you?

[Xamnam]

Pastoral and whimsical catches my eye easily, and grimdark really has to do something special to get past my initial aversion. If the core of the game, or the mechanics really capture my interest, then I'm not going to let aesthetics stop me, but, well, there are probably games where I would have been interested if the style had compelled me more to pick it up / not ignore it. Like others have mentioned, I've picked up Mork Borg several times, due to its popularity, but each time I think that it's interesting, but not for me. Similarly, there are parts of Dungeon Crawl Classics that I do like, but some of the art actively puts me off.

There's also the consideration of trying to sell the game to my players. I decided to pick up Dagger in the Heart, a decent example of the content winning me over despite the vibe being outside of my normal milieu, but I only have maybe one person in my regular rotation of folks that it won't be an uphill climb to convince to give the setting a shot.

On the other hand, I bought Ultraviolet Grasslands and Wanderhome almost on sight. I looked at whole game, and also really loved what they were doing, but even if I had never ended up playing them, I'd probably still be content with those purchases.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I consider aesthetics of an RPG to be very important. The mechanics are vital, true, but it's the art, the attitude, the prose choices, that help inspire, fire imagination, bring the game to life.

 

[Celebrim]

I honestly could care less about artistic merit of a game that lies outside of its artistic merit within a session.

Like it's nice that the games micro-fiction and accompanying artwork is nice, but it will never sell me on the game and to be fully honest if I see lots of micro-fiction and really good artwork it is a turn off because to me the developers seemed to be focused on making a coffee table book or a lonely fun book and not a game book.

I will say that the opposite can also turn me off. If I see art that offends me or is coming from a completely different aesthetic than one that I prefer, I'm not going to give the game a chance either because I'm going to assume that if the persons artistic aesthetics are that divergent from my own that the game itself is likely to have aesthetics very different than my own.

So having written that, I realize that from the perspective of a game developer art has absolutely no upside and significant downside when it comes to selling me something. You're better off with bare bones text and some meh ink line art than you are trying to wow me with your artistic achievement that to me is wholly unrelated to anything I'm going to be doing at the table with your game. If you are a small independent publisher, by all means throw a bit of carefully chosen AI generated art into your product. Bad art isn't going to turn me off unless your trying to be edgy or dark or grim or whatever middle school boy aesthetic you think is cool.

 

[Joshua Randall]

It needs to (A) not look like crap and (B) not have a huge mismatch between the aesthetics and the game. (For example, the cutesy bunny aesthetic would have no place in Mork Borg.)

Beyond art, though, is the layout itself, typography, use of white space, paragraph length, etc. Again, it needs to not look like crap and it needs to match the game.

 

[R_J_K75]

Bad art definitely takes away from a good RPG but I can literally just look passed it and if its a good RPG its not a deal breaker. On the other hand, good art in a RPG definitely helps stimulate the imagination, so it makes it better.

 

[aramis erak]

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. It is pretty common for me to find the description of a game intriguing but then to be turned off by its aesthetics, whether that is the over-the-top grimpunk of Mork Borg, or the cutesy cartoon art of like 50% of 5E Kickstarters these days. Andof course aesthetic that I like will get me to look at stuff I might have otherwise skipped: Shadowdark's old-school reminiscent art, or the beautiful and unique style of Dragonbane (even if there are anthro races).

How important are a game's aesthetics to you? Not so much quality of art -- although that might be a factor -- but more style, theme and mood of the art? Have you ever been completely turned off by a game's art style even though it was otherwise something you might like? Or the opposite: has a game's art style so intrigued you that you gave a game a chance even though the actual system or play loop of theme of the game is something you would not have liked?

My preference is for B&W line art, tone matched to setting. Full color full bleed gloss is a devalue to me, even in PDF. (I read many on a 10.3" B&W eink reader.) My next tech upgrade's likely to be a color 10.3" eInk.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Its probably the main selling point for me, outside of playability of the game itself.

Beyond the Wall or any other project by Jon Hodgson is a instant buy for me. Gritty line art, like everything from Scrap Princess, is pretty appealing to me also.

On the other, some other project were benched because of their art style. I wont say names to avoid throwing shade for what amount to style preference, but I cant enjoy a game if the art is not to my taste.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'd like to say it doesn't matter to me, but that's a lie. I will say its only a thumb on the scale, and it has to really attract or repel me to have a strong impact.

 

[Reynard]

One element that bugs me: when a game changes its aesthetic for the worse (IMO at least). Like, I am a huge fan of the Pathfinder look, and even the newer stuff. Except the kobolds. Dear gawd are they ugly AND dumb looking.

 

[TwoSix]

One element that bigs me: when a game changes its aesthetic for the worse (IMO at least). Like, I am a huge fan of the Pathfinder look, and even the newer stuff. Except the kobolds. Dear gawd are they ugly AND dumb looking.
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"On Tuesday, the kobold ate two adventurers, but he was still hungry."