D&D 5E Toward a new D&D aesthetics

[Yaarel]

in the poll there is, also:

- The ocean is not trending into lemonade.

Wich you can choose. So what?

The poll would be more useful if it instead asks:

You like saltwater.
You like freshwater.
You like lemonade.

Because a "change" is vague and can mean anything, including a change in the imaging technologies.

Probably few, if any, use acetate for line drawings today, even tho that was once a common imaging technique.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I could just as easily have picked nearly any of the options:

I really enjoy those changes. The illustrations resemble well my ideal setting!

Some of the illustrations resemble my ideal setting. I could have picked this if I chose to think about the ones that do, over the ones that don't. Most do.

I'm ok with those changes, even if my ideal setting has a different aesthetics.

Or I could have picked this, if I chose to only think about the ones that I don't like, even if they are rare(ish).

I'm uncertain about those changes

Do I qualify as uncertain because I don't like all the art, even if I like some of it? Who knows?

I'm not ok with those changes because it impairs my immersion in the game.

If I thought there were any "changes" (which I don't, really), then I might decide it impairs my immersion. Probably not, but maybe. I'd have to decide then. Could happen.

I hate those changes, I do not recognize D&D anymore

(Okay, this one I'm not likely to pick. It's far too extreme a stance for me to take on any subjet. I'm also not likely to pick an "I LOVE EVERYTHING!" stance either. There's always room for improvement).

The art doesn't really matter to me either way. I don't buy/play the game for the art.

This one is true. I'm reminded of when some people complained about the 4e Tiefling having too big of Horns and too big of Tails. My opinion was "so don't have your Tieflings look like that.". Ditto Dragonborn. Mine have always had tails. It doesn't really matter what the art in the books looks like for my world to look how I imagine it. YMMV.

Change in aesthetics? Where? What?

Ultimately, I chose this one, because there's always been art in D&D that I didn't like. There's always been cartoony art. Always been ugly art. There's also always been some awesome pieces. I expect all of that will continue going forward. I really don't see a "trend" (other than one towards inclusiveness). And different projects will have different art.

I understand what others are seeing that might make them fear that things will trend that way. I just don't think it will.

But it wasn't a clear winner. I could have chosen a different option.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Heh, I hadn't quite paid attention, but, look at the top of the page and the poll.

75% of people aren't seeing a major change in the aesthetics or aren't bothered by the changes if they're there. Less than 10% of respondents actually dislike the changes.

Pretty much sums up the whole thing doesn't it? Either people don't see or don't care about the changes and only a tiny minority of people are actually seeing what the OP saw.

If 3 out of 4 people don't dislike something, you're doing pretty good.

I see in there what Mr. Rinaldelli saw, but I also voted that it doesn't bother me (because it doesn't). So I don't think the statistical breakdown is quite such a tidy bifurcation.

 

[Bluebell]

Speaking for myself, I picked "I'm ok with those changes, even if my ideal setting has a different aesthetics" because... my ideal aesthetics wouldn't really match most DnD art, new or old. That doesn't mean I think the current art, if it is particularly different from older art, is bad at all (on the contrary, I've enjoyed most of the examples posted here). It's just that my ideal aesthetic is something different.

 

[Irlo]

I don't have an ideal setting with an ideal artistic representation. I play and run games with a variety of tones and flavors (though not as much variety as I would like, because I don't play or run games as often as I'd like). Having a variety of artistic styles in game books works well for me, in part because different artistic styles can spark the imagination to take the game in new directions. Or old directions -- I enjoy nostalgia too.

I have a wide array of game books from all the D&D editions, but my collection is nowhere near comprehensive, and I haven't made a side-by-side comparison to identify trends, but, for what it's worth, I don't see a distinct and identifiable trend.

 

[Undrave]

It's marketing. In one of Wizard's lore videos, Perkins admits that the tiefling homogenisation is due to marketing because something that looks like anything can't be trademarked. (But really, Wizards of the Coasts have never really gotten tieflings and has always been "they need to be more devil stereotypes" even as far back as 3e.)

And I will say I'm of the opposite opinion about Joy Ang's DM screen. I'd gladly have that on my wall and she should be hired to do character and creature design for a DnD animated tv show.

It makes sense. It's why Tieflings and Dragonborn are in the PHB: It's something Wizards own and can control better than generic elves and dwarves.

If anyting they've ever done in 5e is "for artistic reasons", it's the stuff happening now, not the stuff at the start of the edition.

A lot of early art was recycled from 4e, I recognized some of them.

Right, but those are (I would think) wildly different settings. I know Steven Universe was watched in my house for quite a few seasons, so I recognize the look/style, but again it doesnt fit remotely to me with Fantasy, and least of all D&D Fantasy that I would prefer. It bleeds into a retro Sci-Fi Fantasy, very much so.

She-Ra was always Sci-Fantasy, considering the villains were alien invaders and the good guys fought them off with magic.

Well, D&D mostly doesn't have firearms. When I see "modern" D&D art where everything (especially the clothing) looks vaguely Victorian, I can't help but wonder: "Why do these people bother with chain/plate, and with outdated weapons? Where's the muskets, the mortars, the cannons? Where are the star forts?"
The apparent anachronisms really grind my gears.

Star forts would be useful even without canons so I think the only reason we don't have any is that they'd be a pain to model on grid paper

 

[doctorbadwolf]

2 choices:
I'm ok and my ideal world is as depicted
I'm ok BUT my ideal world isn't as depicted

It doesn't seems to me so difficult to understand.

The second choice doesn't really necessarily communicate the importance you are placing on the "but", though. Instead, what it reads as to many of us is simply that the aesthetic isn't absolutely perfect, which reads as much more positive than negative.

In other words, I suspect that most people who chose it like the aesthetics of the last few books.

Now, I mostly see the newer books as just having more new art, from different artists, rather than actually having different intentional aesthetics along some sort of guided trend from the suits, but either way I enjoy it. Not all of my worlds look anything like the nearly crystalpunk aesthetic of Citadel, but certainly I have used that aesthetic before and I will do again.

I want to say that I do like when DnD doesn't try to just copy the fashion and architecture of any real world medieval society. Fashion, architecture, and so forth, are all results of the world the people who make those live in, and our world and D&D's world are different. Maybe some monsters' blood can be used to make good blue/purple dye that even the common people can afford. Maybe a different color is what's rare in D&D land? Maybe there's lighter material that are as solid as what we use in construction so they can make taller buildings.

That sort of thing. The artwork should reflect a world that is both familiar and alien to our own.

Absolutely. Combine all of this with the fact that the European Middle Ages were much more vibrantly colorful than people generally imagine it to have been, and most "no one could afford this color at all except the wealthiest nobles" or "only this class was legally allowed to wear this color" stuff is all very specific to time and place, and the middle ages covers 1000 years or so of history.

I have used stuff like very dark "vibrant" (ie richly died with no fading or other visual flaws) black clothing to denote wealth, in my alternate 1600's Europe game, but it was as much about the cloth as it was about the dye, and the expense of maintaining clothing at that level of perfect black color so expertly composed that the naked eye simply cannot detect any dominant color within the dye, while cheaper black clothing might reveal a predominant blue, brown, or other, tint.

But I sometimes go deeper than is really sensible on material culture to help my players immerse into a scene. One time, I had used descriptions of smells that they were so used to they barely noticed them to get them thinking about things like fresh rushes on the floor, the importance of ventilation, etc, and just generally help them "walk into" a room and exprience it sensationally. This meant that when they walked into an alchemist's laboratory and smelled almost nothing, it was very unsettling for them, and when the court of the fey princess had none of the smells they associated with gathered people and animals, and instead smelled only of flowers and oiled leather and food and drink, it helped add to the magical nature of the place.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I want to say that I do like when DnD doesn't try to just copy the fashion and architecture of any real world medieval society. Fashion, architecture, and so forth, are all results of the world the people who make those live in, and our world and D&D's world are different. Maybe some monsters' blood can be used to make good blue/purple dye that even the common people can afford. Maybe a different color is what's rare in D&D land? Maybe there's lighter material that are as solid as what we use in construction so they can make taller buildings.

That sort of thing. The artwork should reflect a world that is both familiar and alien to our own.


That palette seems to be part of a whole idealized 80's nostalgia trend. It's very Kung Fury... The real 80s weren't that neon pink though, maybe too much brown and orange from the 70s still lingering around.

Hopefully for you it'll just come to pass like all arts trend.

Now that it's been almost a week from the start of the poll i would like to express clearly my idea, for whom it will be interesting.
The Occam's razor suggest me that if they use the purple/pink/blue palette is because it feels "magic" as "magic" can be imagined by my young 8 years old daughter. I feel delighted when I see her drawnings, clearly. But definitely is not what I think when I imagine a fantasy world that boost my imagination.
Look, the same is for the architecture. I feel disappointed when I see subterranean temples carved in the soil with a room 25 mt large. These are two examples to be taken with a grain of salt: I want to say that fantasy, for me, is evocative when the fantasy element is not the main ingredient but something suggested or even present but in a context widely normal. I don't feel comfortable with illustration slapping on my face with coarse and in excess. This is not related to hopepunkness, grimdarkness, inclusivity or other kind of subterranean political or ideological elements. I don't like excess, tackyness and the total contempt of elegance in the partition of ingredients inside an artwork. I don't like things shoutened. I must admit that it could be a matter of origins, I live in Tuscany and my eye is very vitiated by art and reinassance everywhere. I really live inside reinassance, my home is a 14 century watermill with stone arch and hand carved stone columns, with a lot of wood in the ceiling and in the floor... so I often laugh (without malevolence) to the reconstructions I see in fantasy artworks. The change I've seen is toward a massive inflaction of magic, fantasy elements that dilapidate the sense of wonder and overcome the observer with a pornographic multitude of fantasy elements. I've used the term pornographic because, as the master Umberto Eco sad, pornographic is not about sex, is about explicitly showing instead of suggesting. Stuff for strong palates and large stomachs. This inflaction is typically appreciated by newcomers, the long time observer appreciate something more diluted, an artwork in which fantasy is present and evident, but not pervasive and shouted. My english do not permit to myself to express more clearly my toughts. Excuse me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I must admit that my limited intellect is not able to face your objections.
In the poll you can express your agreement/disagreement, in various degree, toward the change and you also can negate the change at all.
So what?
You can say that the change go toward your tastes, that doesn't go toward but you feel comfortable with it, that you disagree and that you disagree to the point you will probably not recognize the game at all. Also you can say that there are no change or that you are in doubt to take a position in regard of the change. More, you can use statement 6 that, look closely, is redundant.
But if you insist I glady surrender.

Except you then turned around and said:

The majority (51%) do not have problems with the changes, but anyway do not want to play in a fantasy world that reflect the new aesthetics.

And...

from the 51% who it's ok with those changes but do not use them to inspire him/herself

Which 1 Billion percent does not follow from the actual poll question.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A lot of early art was recycled from 4e, I recognized some of them.

Absolutely. And I like most of it. But they had a very strong vision for the art direction that was based on making the people filling out the surveys happy.

These days, I honestly think it's more just what the people making the books want to put in the books, than anything else.