Where do you like to see your art dollars in a ttrpg book?

[Jd Smith1]

I give away free products too!

Already got that one. You know the full-sized preview doesn't work?

 

[gamerprinter]

It's a regular problem at DrivethruRPG, sometimes I update my content with new maps, or something, but after I post the preview dies in the process, and it takes weeks for DrivethruRPG to fix it - it happens all the time.

 

[gamerprinter]

I would say cover is probably the least important for me, because, well, most covers suck, and I mostly buy books digitally now.

Maybe these covers suck, I don't know - it seems good enough for my needs. For the first time, I'm actually preparing my entire 2022 product schedule (I've never done that before) and it gives me incentive to get the work done. I have been creating one-shots and supplements for Starfinder, but prefer to make maps, and a good module is a lot of work. I'm really probably a better setting developer than strictly doing crunch. Because I just published the Planet Builder supplement - rules to create entire star systems for Starfinder, I'm finally making the effort of taking my implied setting in the background of all my releases and making the setting itself it's own product line, mini-guides one star system at a time - doing a bunch colony worlds, alien worlds, even "wilderness areas" of the setting. I see them as 30-ish pages, because I'm including quite a bit of content (even having to do the setting main overview guide, and I'm already 1/5 done, and I just started a couple days ago). So I created these concept covers to get me going!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

On the first point, it shouldn't be less important, because in your experience cover art sucks (which it may be), it's still very important. It's like the cover on anything, it's the first thing the buyer see's usually, and even digital content has thumbnails of the cover art. I think it's crucial and when I'm paying for art, the cover art is the most expensive piece (short of maps, but I do all my maps).

On the second, then you'll probably hate all my maps - they're all color (I've done one grayscale map on commission, because the publisher asked for it), but even my color maps in grayscale look fine (not all art looks right when done gray instead of color). I'm a detail man, so publishers even let me add content to the floor that isn't in the author's work, nor the rough draft - it just fits the setting. Some of my work is hand-drawn based, but most is either completely vector (although still looks in Photoshop or something), and I'm starting to make fully 3D maps. But you can easily deliniate the details... but yeah, arguably, you might call it distraction. Here's the kind detail I put in my maps - this is hybrid vector and 3D. (Though this is for post-apocalyse).

View attachment 152202

And to the third, of course you must, fully agreed...

I actually am fine with that particular example is it doesn't seem overwrought and has kind fun vibe for a post apocalyptic game. Indeed real world stuff is in my experience the best place for colour maps and where you most often get good colour maps.

But with fantasy and cyberpunk particularly I see piles of hyperdetailed full colour maps which are often slightly or even extremely hard to make out, and which pin the DM to specific details and where the players seem to use their imaginations less than with simple maps and description and actually be less immersed (YMMV). I'd much rather stuff like Dyson Logos tends to do for fantasy and, well I've never seen good cyberpunk maps but I think it could be done.

If also like personally to see maps with slightly more personality in the sense of fitting the specific game.or setting, rather than feeling like generic full colour maps that could be for anything.

Re covers a good cover can sell me on looking at something but generic stuff can be more off-putting than nothing.

 

[nevin]

So if you have a budget for art and you want to split up between

• cover
• character classes
• character races
• monsters
• miscellaneous throughout the book
• etc

Of course the cover is the most important, but apart from that where would you put Color vs Black & White vs not necessary?

Does every class and every race need a color drawing? Can you get away with just black and white drawings for monsters?

How would you split it up?

Honestly don’t care. More worried about content.

 

[pogre]

A good cover does impact my buying decision - I may as well admit it.

I like monster illustrations. I like color, but black and white is fine.

Pretty much everything else in the book I like to have illustrations of the characters in game. If we use D&D as an example - I would like pictures of the party bartering near the equipment section. I want to see a rogue sneaking near his class section. Things like that.

As far as budget goes - I would throw most of it at the cover and make sure monsters that are unusual or not widely known are illustrated.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well I don't create art for art's sake - so what I put in my maps, have game reasons for being there, not artistic reasons. I create maps that tell stories, without having labels or text blocks doing that for you. Unnecessary color or splash is meaningless and useless in a map. I like Dyson Logos stuff too, I even make hand-drawn maps, rarely - and regarding that I wouldn't use 3D in a fantasy map, I almost always prefer hand-drawn maps for fantasy, though my style is hybrid vector too..

 

[ART!]

So if you have a budget for art and you want to split up between

• cover
• character classes
• character races
• monsters
• miscellaneous throughout the book
• etc

Of course the cover is the most important, but apart from that where would you put Color vs Black & White vs not necessary?

Does every class and every race need a color drawing? Can you get away with just black and white drawings for monsters?

How would you split it up?

My gut reaction is "cover, and miscellaneous": the cover for obvious reasons, and I really love the sort of random images one finds scattered throughout a rulebook, not necessarily even relevant to the text on that page, that suprise me and spark my imagination.

This image from the 5E PHB is somewhere in the equipment section, IIRC, so not especially relevant to the text, but I find it very evocative.

That said, illustrations of the "races" are essential, especially if they provide more than one example of what members of that "race" might look like.

I don't think I need much in the way of illustrations for classes, at least partly because how can you represent the range of possibilities within a class? I guess you could say the same for "races", but that's just how I feel about it.

 

[gamerprinter]

Honestly don’t care. More worried about content.

Sorry, I posted and didn't see the response, so posted again, now there's two posts...

 

[gamerprinter]

Honestly don’t care. More worried about content.

If the content is crap, then anything else done to it is just putting lipstick on a pig. Talking about art, only comes in discussion after the written content is worthy of giving any aesthetics, in the first place. Sure the art doesn't matter if the content is junk.