Monte on covers

[Aaron L]

The cover of an RPG books means very litle to me as far as purchasing goes, and I have never ever even come close to buying an RPG book because of its cover. I much prefer the faux tome look to an illustration as cover.

 

[dsfriii]

I think the cover of Fall of Man looks a HECK of a lot better than the player advantage book. I am one that also does not like the Faux book cover look....

 

[dreaded_beast]

I think when it comes down to it, people do judge books by their covers, so good products have to have great covers as well as great content.

Not necessarily

There are a couple of times that I have been waiting for an RPG book to come out at the local bookstore, because I have either heard great reviews about it or because I just like what it is going to be about, and picked up the book on the spot after leafing through the insides a bit.

After I make my purchase and digest what is inside, then I take a look at the cover, and either realize the cover is great, sucks, or is mediocre.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I liked the old 1E covers. All I'd have to do to get in the mood to play was to look at the 1E Demon Idol Cover for a few minutes until I was in the right frame of mind.

 

[Arnwyn]

For me, it depends. As Aaron L says above, what's actually on the cover doesn't mean much to me, overall.

I mostly agree with Monte. I REALLY like the faux book covers on the core books ONLY, because I don't want the core rules to define my campaign setting. However, I really hate all the lazy, badly photoshopped imitations that most of the d20 publishers use.

Taking Monte's arguement one step further, I really miss the the full page interior art from 2e. The 3e art is fine, but I just wish it had more context (like th full page stuff from 2e).

This I totally agree with. I like the covers of the core books, but I'm not impressed with much else. And the single-character poses on the front of Dragon Magazine are absolutely horrendous. I have been very disappointed it that mag's covers for a few years now. Awful.

 

[MEG Hal]

Love the "Fall of Man" cover, but I look at the "Player's Advantage" cover and think, "Someone spent a whole half hour in photoshop." If there's so little care taken with the cover, I automatically assume the same of the content...

While I love the Fall of Man cover also (own the original), to discount the quality of a book by its cover is a shame, I have some older books in my collection (book collection, not RPG books) that are plain leather covers and to have passed on them would have been a crime...

Our books in the Player's Advantage line are suppose to compliment the core books as well as some of our fellow "plain cover" series by other companies (Mongoose's Quint line as an example), so our idea was make it look more exciting then those but familiar so you understand they compliment each other...

We even have a gem missing from our Rogue cover thinking a rogue would like to steal one, so it took a lil more then an hour....don't assume, you know what they say . Charles Plemons III is writing that series and has numerous credits to his name and is a fact maniac, so please give books with faux covers a second look, they may surprise you.

 

[BryonD]

The cover of an RPG books means very litle to me as far as purchasing goes, and I have never ever even come close to buying an RPG book because of its cover. I much prefer the faux tome look to an illustration as cover.

I agree.

If anything I slightly prefer the faux-cover covers. Only because they are more of a blank slate.

For example, MEG's really awesome cover above is great and dynamic. But after having it on the cover of a book for six months, it starts to become static. The PH cover just makes me think of D&D in whatever terms or images are on my mind lately.

But this is a very minimal thing. It certainly wouldn't impact my purchase.

 

[Krieg]

You know....looking over at my D20 collection on the shelves, very few of them actually have the "faux book" covers that Monte is discussing. Now, it's a given that I have very few Quintessential "X" books or the one word title supplements "Mercenaries" etc and absolutely nothing from FFE, but the majority of my books appear to have the old standard "artwork" featured on the cover.

Am I missing something? Or is Monte?

 

[Nellisir]

The "Secrets of the ..." books from Rokugan have great, evocative covers. I liked the faux book look initially, but it's gotten very old. UA was a nice twist, though.

 

[Henry]

We even have a gem missing from our Rogue cover thinking a rogue would like to steal one, so it took a lil more then an hour....don't assume, you know what they say

You wouldn't have by chance been inspired by the hubbub over the rear cover of song and silence, would you?

I think the marketers are right - book covers are almost as important as their contents, especially when dealing with unknown quantities. How many PDFs and 3rd party game books go with minimal sales each year not necessarily because of poor quality, but because they look like crap on the outside? Just as unillustrated works go less sold than lavishly illustrated ones, the cover and the presentation is half the battle of getting an unsold buyer to pick up that book.

If an author is popular, or a given company has a strong track record, then buyers may well pick up a book with a cover uglier than a cardboard packing box. However, unknown quantities take a LOT of marketing to get people to acknowledge their presence.