If classes were a color.

[Joker]

Mornin' everyone,

I'm making initiative cards for our DM to slide across his screen to show the order of combat and I'm in need of some creative help.

The first batch I made looked cool but they were all completely different. Each player had a picture that he thought would look good. But it was a bit chaotic and confusing at times.
I'm making something more simple now. The images are simple, the colors have been taken out and I use the same font and font size for all the cards. Each picture does have one color that best relates to the class.

What are your ideas on what image and/or color best represents each class?

Here are some preliminary cards as an example:

 

[Kzach]

Nice.

You could go with WoW colours since they're pretty well known. From memory they're red for warrior, pink for paladin, yellow for rogue, white for priests... umm... can't remember others.

 

[Coce05]

I would recommend using consistent style throughout all your slides.

If you use a shield for the fighter card, use a dagger for rogue, not an entire image of a person wielding dagger. Also, position the key element in the same place. If you are intent on using whole images, at least try to have the colored element (dagger in the second picture) in the center.

After a while people will stop looking at symbols, and just look for the color, when they get used to them.

 

[Asmor]

Nice.

You could go with WoW colours since they're pretty well known. From memory they're red for warrior, pink for paladin, yellow for rogue, white for priests... umm... can't remember others.

Came here to say the same thing. The actual colors you choose don't matter if there's no prior association; people will pick them up. For people like me who have a background in WoW, it's really weird seeing Fighter as blue in your example.

The WoW colors are:

Warrior: Brown
Paladin: Pink
Death Knight: Dark Red
Hunter: Light Green
Shaman: Blue
Druid: Orange
Rogue: Yellow
Mage: Sky Blue
Warlock: Purple
Priest: White
Monk: Dark Green

 

[Joker]

A couple of things.

I forgot to mention that the art is not mine*. I scour the internet looking for cool pictures and then adapt them. I hope no-one is bothered by this.

About the colors. It's funny you mention WoW because I picked blue because the Lordaeron guards have a lot of blue in their armor. That's always kind of stuck with me.
Other than that, the colors you guys mentioned do resonate with me. Except for pink and white. Pink because it's pink and white because the images have been desaturated and then the outer glow doesn't stand out.

I think I'll make it in a few different styles.
A set that has just the class name and a centered iconic image. A set that has the class name and an stylized scene like the rogue image.

Sofar for iconic images I have the following:

Fighter: Shield.

Paladin: Holy Avenger (two handed sword) with golden glow.

Wizard: I couldn't find appropriate images of bat guano, so for now I have a wand, but I'm looking at fireballs, staffs and hats with stars and moons on it.

Cleric: Angelic image on a holy symbol. I needed to make the first five today at work because we're playing tomorrow. I'm kinda at a loss with what is a cleric icon.

Rogue: Dagger.

Ranger: Two weapons? Bow and arrow? Arrow flying at a target? Silhouette of a man crouching at some tracks?

Warlock: Completely at a loss here.

Then there's barbarians, wardens, psions, warlords.

Let me know if you have any suggestions. I'm gonna remake the cards as the ones I did today were just placeholders so any advice is welcome.



* I couldn't find the artist of the shield. Some places where I've seen it they mention an artist named Sushiyaswe. Couldn't find anything on him.

The man in shadows is from art from the Cloak and Dagger campaign setting.

 

[fireinthedust]

Why would WoW colours matter for association?

I mean, not only is this likely for D&D and not WoW, but it's a totally different medium than a MMORPG.


I didn't know there were colors for the different classes in WoW. Just saying.


I'd go red for melee types, blue/purple for spellcasters, green for naturey types, and grey for Rogues. Maybe yellow for clerics/paladins?

There are too many classes to assign each on a colour. I'd go by theme. For 4e there are the power sources and the roles.

 

[fba827]

i may be missing something (i.e. maybe you play with rotating groups or what not).

But have you considered making them per PC rather than per class.
i.e. rather than "Fighter" say the PC's name and then a color that the player picks as appropriate for that character rather than picking it based on the class that he/she plays?

 

[Dragonhelm]

If classes are represented by colors, then would bards be a rainbow?

 

[Joker]

i may be missing something (i.e. maybe you play with rotating groups or what not).

But have you considered making them per PC rather than per class.
i.e. rather than "Fighter" say the PC's name and then a color that the player picks as appropriate for that character rather than picking it based on the class that he/she plays?

These cards are for a side campaign we're doing using the essentials rules. The campaign involves the adventurers hired by our main party. They don't really have a background and given the lethality of this smaller campaign we're using class cards instead of individualized player cards.
I do this mostly because it takes a lot of time to make this cards. From searching for proper images to designing the cards to printing and laminating and then cutting. I print, laminate and cut all the cards at the same time and I prefer that then coming back after a week and repeating the process for one card because someone decided that an 80 foot drop is only an average of 28 points of damage and "what's the worst that could happen".

 

[scourger]

This is why I import the card-based initiative from Savage Worlds to other games. Dealing cards from a standard deck then counting down from ace to deuce with suits in reverse alphabetical order is a very visual way to keep the initiative count each round.