Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Well, yes and no. Presuming the artwork is meant to reflect the rules of the game world, which the characters live by, a character who isn't allowed to wear armor (e.g. a D&D wizard) wouldn't be decked out in plate mail or anything of that nature. Quite often they'll instead be using a combination of spells and magic items for personal defense, which can be hard to present visually ("that cape she's wearing is actually a cloak of resistance +5, and her pendant is an amulet of natural armor +3").OK, I actually agree it makes more sense for adventurers with monsters swinging at them to be fully enclosed in plate.