How much art should be in an RPG book?

[Raelcreve]

Taking the thread of how much should artists get paid in a different direction, how much art should a d20 RPG book contain?

Now taking into account that no art IS better than bad art, budgets being tight, and artists needing to make a living, all things being equal, about how much art should each of the following books contain? (pieces of art to number of pages) Should the ratio be the same for all?

Rule Book (Core, PC Specific, DM Specific)
World/Campaign/Setting Book
Adventure/Module
Monster/NPC Book (one for each entry?)

Is it just a matter of personal opinion? Are there some hard and fast (or loost and soft) rules that apply? How much is too much?

Anyone? Anyone?

 

[JoeGKushner]

I think that for the most part, it is going to be a personal thing.

For example, if a PrC has an image to go with it, that's great. The image however, has to showcase something about the PrC. If it's a special type of wizard, I don't want just a bearded old man that looks like every other wizard.

Spells are another one that's difficult to call. I suspect this is mainly because spells come in larger numbers and illustrating every spell is just not practical.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Salutations,

I believe that unless it is of a new monster, npc, or hard to describe area/scene.. then the less internal art the better. The art is rarely going to impact my game- more text could.

FD

 

[uv23]

I will not buy a product if there is little to no interior art. Period. As I have mentioned many times in the past, visual cues are just as important as textual information. Not to mention fun to look at.

 

[Cergorach]

It's a bit of a balancing job, isn't it?
-Does the book contain enough art, to little, to much?
-Does it fit my budget, should i make the book more expensive?

I would suggest that you take a look at the percentage of art an it's placement as done by WotC and WW (these people make books that sell and have far more resources than you to do market research). It also depends on genre and style, how do you want to present yourself to the consumer?

Art is pretty important in a product, a very large percentage of the population reacts to visual stimuli before anything else (taste and smell are also very powerfull, but unless you want to add perfume to your books, it's not really relevant). Now, i don't know how that applies in the RPG market, but i suspect it has generally the same distribution of people who react to visual stimuli first. => art=important

 

[jgbrowning]

art

i always viewed art like a bathing suit.

just enough to cover the subject. any more than that i find boring, any less isn't sufficient.

'cource, very subjective. I just dont get a rush from most fantasy art, that vicarious exileration i got when i was younger. now i honestly like art that is more static, like landscapes and character portraits. (portraits where they are just standing there, not fighting or killing things. pictures just dont compare with my imagination on those things.. IMHO)


joe b.

 

[RangerWickett]

17.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I think for a monster book you ought to have one piece for every creature because the picture is often what gets the buyer to actually get interested in the monster. For every other kind of book I think you can go pretty flexible; you want enough graphics to break up the text and keep it from looking like a dissertation. If you can't afford much art you can do a lot with nice use of boxed text, sidebars, tables, and non-art graphics.

 

[Raelcreve]

RW

The answer is 42, not 17.

 

[Drawmack]

I like high quality art. Basically my take would be if it's something I might want to show my players in game then make it a piece of art. I scan in images from the books that I buy, run them through some 3d imaging software then run an out to my tv and during game I'll click on the tv and there will be a hoard of orcs running at the part. That has a bit more impact then "You see this big burly thing with uhhh green skin and uhhh beedy eyes"