D&D General On different tones and aesthetics in D&D

[AtomicPope]

I mean, I'm 42, and my first exposure to fantasy was basically Greek/Norse myths read to me as a child, and then my first contacts with "proper fantasy"-style stuff were largely Disney via things like the Sword in the Stone, The Black Cauldron, and yes, Gummi Bears.

Gummi Bears and Gummi-berry Juice™, as the theme song goes, was a huge influence on me as well. I modeled NPCs off of the Great Dom Gordo of Ghent, Duke Igthorn and his ogres, and of course the littlest ogre Toadwart. That show had lots of good character material to work with.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I'm 42, and my first exposure to fantasy was basically Greek/Norse myths read to me as a child, and then my first contacts with "proper fantasy"-style stuff were largely Disney via things like the Sword in the Stone, The Black Cauldron, and yes, Gummi Bears.

I believe I have about a year on you.

It was Greek myths, Norse myths, King Arthur, Excalibur, Krull, Dune, Clash of the Titans, and Hanna-Barbera. But then came Dragonlance and Melanie Rawn and David Eddings, and the old Phantasie DOS game, that was that.

But in many ways the real turning point for me was Weis & Hickman's Rose of the Prophet series. Which is what led directly into my live for Al-Qadim and the imagery I posted above.

What can I say? I love turbans and scimitars, deserts, and weird technology in my fantasy.

 

[reelo]

Unfortunately the Dolmenwood stuff above exceeds my cutesy limit. Conceptually, I like it, and if you described any of the pictures to me with words, I'd probably think I'd like them, but in practice it's just a little bit too affected, too conscious in it's faux-naivety. So I see it as clever and well-executed but it lacks any emotional connection.

Oh, rest assured, the setting is anything but cutesy:
It has (among others) goatmen aristocrats that keep charmed human slaves for fun, as cattle, and for all sorts of depravities, cabals of geomancers that aren't opposed to human sacrifice, a banished elf-lord waiting in the realm of faery to be able to unleash winter again, all sorts of mind-and-body warping mushrooms, the ruins of an abbey warped by chaos-magic, etc.... It's fairytale, but the really dark kind of ones.

 

[Ringtail]

Oh, rest assured, the setting is anything but cutesy:

Quite right! Dolmenwood is very much the Brother's Grimm version of the fairy-tales it likes to draw from. It's disarming and charming before suddenly becoming delightfully twisted.

But yes I feel there is an aesthetic shift but I think it has a lot to do with digital artists, especially on places like Twitter, Deviantart or the r/DnD on reddit. In my experience a lot of those artists have cartoon inspired art-styles that I really enjoy. I mean, Avatar TLAB, Legend of Korra, The Dragon Prince, and She-Ra all can fit under the D&D umbrella. I kind of embrace this as I find D&D doesn't quite fit my historical aesthetic anyway, especially something like the Forgotten Realms which is HIIIIIGH Fantasy. For darker aesthetics I go to other games, like Old-School D&D, Warhammer, Symbaroum, or The One Ring.

Personally I do like my armor to be somewhat inspired by real armor, but with extra fantasy flair. For example, I like The Witcher 3 and Darkest Dungeon more than I like Skyrim or World of Warcraft aesthetically.

 

[Scott Christian]

I personally like when tone and aesthetics come together to match the campaign setting.

I have no problem with cartoony or swords too big for a storm giant swung by a rabbit man if that is where the campaign setting is actualized. Just like I have no problem with gritty realism in the art (probably my preferred to stare at) as long as it matches the campaign setting.

I do not like it when it is mixed. It messes with some weird sense inside me, and I find it awkward; like a museum putting a Picasso in the middle of Monet's Haystacks.

 

[Umbran]

I think a lot of what a person considers "in the pale" and "beyond the pale" regarding fantasy can be tied to early influences that one gravitated toward. For example, the works of Beatrix Potter...
... were very influential in the life of a young C.S. Lewis, and became the framework for his earliest imaginative works.
As Lewis's fantasy literature resources expanded, so did the shape that his fictive worlds. But there remained an impression left by his imagination's first love.

Which has led to things like Humblewood:

 

[BookTenTiger]

DiTerlizzi's art was all over my first D&D books, and I just fell in love with that style. I love both the sense of wonder and weight in his art; you get the sense that you could really pick up that sword, smell that goblin... but there's a lot of just fun as well.

This will always be my D&D:

 

[jmartkdr2]

I personally like when tone and aesthetics come together to match the campaign setting.

I have no problem with cartoony or swords too big for a storm giant swung by a rabbit man if that is where the campaign setting is actualized. Just like I have no problem with gritty realism in the art (probably my preferred to stare at) as long as it matches the campaign setting.

I do not like it when it is mixed. It messes with some weird sense inside me, and I find it awkward; like a museum putting a Picasso in the middle of Monet's Haystacks.

I generally do not pay for dm's, seeing as I find it easier to recruit them by dming for them first, but: I would gladly shell out real money to have a dm find enough art assets to play a roll20 game where everything is in the same art style. It could be 8-bit, I'd be all over that.

 

[embee]

I generally do not pay for dm's, seeing as I find it easier to recruit them by dming for them first, but: I would gladly shell out real money to have a dm find enough art assets to play a roll20 game where everything is in the same art style. It could be 8-bit, I'd be all over that.

I actually do try to do just that when looking for battlemaps for Roll20. I hate mismatched styles.

 

[Reynard]

I generally do not pay for dm's, seeing as I find it easier to recruit them by dming for them first, but: I would gladly shell out real money to have a dm find enough art assets to play a roll20 game where everything is in the same art style. It could be 8-bit, I'd be all over that.

Don't pay someone to do that. Rather, frequent the same artists on DTRPG or whatever. The best way to make your games look consistent is to buy stock art from DTRPG. It is generally very inexpensive and almost always consistent in aesthetic.