Who Do You Want Illustrating 4th Ed.?

ArmoredSaint said:
I'm not saying that fantasy armour must look exactly like real-world armour, but I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect it to be believable.
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And that is where our tastes diverge.

Chainmail bikinis, fluted elf armor, straps and buckles and spikes (oh my)? As long as it looks cool, I'm thrilled.

From Warduke to Doctor Doom, it's all just fantasy styling to me.
 

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Hobo said:
I think we need to see less female NPCs. I mean, c'mon---how many women would go out "adventuring" in the real Middle Ages anyway?
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Less wizards, elves and dragons, as well. :)

Add me as another player who doesn't care if the armor and weapons in D&D are, strictly speaking, unrealistic to the fans of Middle Ages; I want them look a) cool and b) verisimilitudious; that is, like something we can imagine people actually using in a fight; and not just a fight against another swordsman, but a manticore or a strangling carnivorous vine, or a 10' cube of jelly that wants to eat you.

In my opinion, 3.* has mostly fulfilled this requirement; yes, there is weird and silly artwork (rapier is not a cutlass!) around, but mostly it is quite, quite good.
 

And that is where our tastes diverge.
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Quite.

To me, saying "I just want it to look cool!" seems like a shallow, fanboyish perspective that emphasizes form over function. It just strikes me as astonishingly crass and ridiculous to scorn the real armour someone posted earlier, a genuine piece of history, while placing trashy scribbles like the PHB's armour on a pedestal.

How can you register indignation at the rapier being depicted as a cutlass, but not care if the armour doesn't look like armour? As long as it appeals to your discriminating postmodern punk aesthetic tastes, it's all good, right? :\

I like my D&D art to evoke classical, heroic adventure, not puerile, lowbrow comic book stories.
 

ArmoredSaint said:
Quite.

To me, saying "I just want it to look cool!" seems like a shallow, fanboyish perspective that emphasizes form over function. It just strikes me as astonishingly crass and ridiculous to scorn the real armour someone posted earlier, a genuine piece of history, while placing trashy scribbles like the PHB's armour on a pedestal.
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Grognardism is veering dangerously close to self parody at this point.
 

ZoA2 said:
Yet despite these similarities in function and design they look so different, which is pretty much point I was making. :)
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And?

Each armour has more or less the same components.

That's not the case with a great deal of armour in modern Dungeons & Dragons art. Modern fantasy armour is designed by artists who know little to nothing about armour, who can't seem to be bothered to crack a book on the subject.

The point is that cultures separated by a span of milennia and miles came up with very similar answers to the same question. There's no reason to believe that fantasy cultures wouldn't have done likewise.

Yet, instead of believable armour--something with an ounce of research and though put into it--low-end fantasy artists routinely treat us to the crap we see in the PHB: a nearly random assortment of plates strapped asymmetrically to the body in a haphazard fashion.

I dearly hope that 4th edition has something better in store for us...
 

ArmoredSaint said:
Quite.

To me, saying "I just want it to look cool!" seems like a shallow, fanboyish perspective that emphasizes form over function. It just strikes me as astonishingly crass and ridiculous to scorn the real armour someone posted earlier, a genuine piece of history, while placing trashy scribbles like the PHB's armour on a pedestal.

How can you register indignation at the rapier being depicted as a cutlass, but not care if the armour doesn't look like armour? As long as it appeals to your discriminating postmodern punk aesthetic tastes, it's all good, right? :\

I like my D&D art to evoke classical, heroic adventure, not puerile, lowbrow comic book stories.
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Again... you're talking about Hârnmaster. The rest of us are talking about D&D.
 


Hobo said:
Again... you're talking about Hârnmaster. The rest of us are talking about D&D.
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I don't see it that way.

I'm talking about D&D; you're talking about BESM or Exalted.

Dungeons & Dragons is the world's flagship fantasy rpg. Mindful of that, I'd like to see it retain at least some semblance of class. Let other games handle the foolishness...
 
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ArmoredSaint said:
Are you implying that I'm being disingenuous?
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Heavens no---quite the opposite! You seem both sincere and passionate in your colorful characterizations of anyone whose tastes differ from yours.

By all means continue.
 

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