How important is artwork to you?

[Amiel]

How important is artwork in roleplaying accessories/supplements et al to you?
Does the artwork breathe life or additional life into written descriptions?
Is it necessary? To what extent?
Is it absolutely necessary?
Does some of it detract from what is written?
If a supplement or accessory contained no artwork yet was very well written, would you consider purchasing it?
If something was poorly written and worded yet had amazing artwork, would you consider it?

Would you prefer something that included a balance of well written entries and artwork, or no artwork and was very well written?
What's your preference?

[Myou]

If it's a picture of the frog-queen, Mialee, then it rather spoils the book and makes me feel dirty.

But artwork that doesn't require you to wear goggles to stop you going blind can be a good addition that helps you get a feel for the materail and can inspire ideas on how to use it.

It also builds atmosphere and helps break up the monotony what would otherwise be a block of text a hundred or more pages long.

You need some art, but if the crunch is no good then the art doesn't help you.

If a book had no art but good crunch then that would be fine, but it would be better to have both.

[Temet Nosce]

How important is artwork in roleplaying accessories/supplements et al to you?
Does the artwork breathe life or additional life into written descriptions?
Is it necessary? To what extent?
Is it absolutely necessary?
Does some of it detract from what is written?
If a supplement or accessory contained no artwork yet was very well written, would you consider purchasing it?
If something was poorly written and worded yet had amazing artwork, would you consider it?

Would you prefer something that included a balance of well written entries and artwork, or no artwork and was very well written?
What's your preference?

Not very.
Depends on the quality of it.
No.
No.
Yes, quite often in fact.
Absolutely.
No.

The best possible writing.

Anyways, to elaborate it feels to me like artwork is considered mandatory these days but no one wants to spend enough time/effort/money on it to make it add anything to the material. Personally, I do like artwork but I'd far rather have just a few achingly beautiful pieces than a whole slew of wince worthy (or even just meh) ones. If someone is going to include artwork in a book, they should invest enough into each individual piece to make them meaningful instead of just eyesores or things to be ignored.

[Curmudgeon]

Artwork is completely unimportant. I ignore it.

[Shademan]

I love the art!
we need the art of classes, prestige classes, monsters, arms and armour, artifacts and even spells.
it does indeed help set the mood and I can't understand why anyone would want the books filled with ONLY text.

[pita]

I need art in a monster manual.
Other than that?
No need at all, but it's a nice addition.

[oxinabox]

Art Work is esencial, for Monster Manuals.
Ever monster (yes even the Dire weasel) should have atleast an passpost sized pic.
And main mosters (eg not dire weasles) should have decent picture.

In Equiptment books:
I like every item to have a description (including the shortsword)
or how it works.
and a picture, preferable multiple of differnt sytels:
Eg realistic mediaevil, fantasy, fantastic fantasy (read Final fantasy), asianisfied maybe.

I like a Picture of every race, as there prefered class at least.
and a Picture of each class, whith there sterotypic race.


Pictures are what makes it feel nice to have the books.
rather than the SRD.

[Yuki Akuma]

I don't mind if it's not there, but when it is I prefer it to not be ugly.

(Book of Erotic Fantasy and Big Eyes Small Mouth 3e, I'm looking at you.)

[Domigorgon]

Good artwork is very important to me, but while 4E seems to have upped the quality of it (and switched to digital artists entirely, it seems), I am completely disinterested in the new rules.

But a good illustration might be what draws me to an article or prestige class etc., but then it's worthless if the text is not as good.

Oh, and since I am somewhat good at drawing, I usually do my own artwork for characters, maps, campaigns, etc. :)

[Violet Octopus]

What detracts: I like good cover art. D&D 4th ed. cover art is really off-putting. Not that I'm judging 4e solely on that basis, but bad art makes it difficult to perceive how I can fit your character concept into the crunch. 3.5 and the Star Wars Saga Edition core book have bland cover art, but at least you can ignore that.
So yes, bad art can really detract.

What's essential: as others have said, pictures for monsters, races, weapon types is essential. Classes not so much.

Nonessential, but useful: I love the anatomical drawings in the 3.5 PHB, such as the one comparing human, half-elf and elf facial structure. They work a lot better than just picturing each race one by one, or having to cross-check height and weight tables.
In Tome of Magic, the pictures of each vestige's seal is such a simple addition, but one that really makes it easier to engage with the rules and flavour.
The art at the beginning of every chapter of Tome of Battle (retelling the fall of the temple), is great at reinforcing the quasi-setting of the book. It makes me wish campaign settings had more art depicting major historical events.

I probably wouldn't buy a book just for the art. If the art and fluff were very good, but the rules were incoherent or unplayable, sure.

[shadzar]

How important is artwork in roleplaying accessories/supplements et al to you?
Does the artwork breathe life or additional life into written descriptions?
Is it necessary? To what extent?
Is it absolutely necessary?
Does some of it detract from what is written?
If a supplement or accessory contained no artwork yet was very well written, would you consider purchasing it?
If something was poorly written and worded yet had amazing artwork, would you consider it?

Would you prefer something that included a balance of well written entries and artwork, or no artwork and was very well written?
What's your preference?

:smallfurious: All these questions, its like you are interrogating people? I'm being waterboarded! :smallbiggrin:

-The artwork is very important to me.

-Yes the artwork can breathe life or death into the written words on the page. Take for example AD&D DMG where the image of the 3 people getting ready to play "papers and paychecks" takes place. There was nothing about this piece of artwork that had to do with anything written on the page. The volume of words in the compressed type on the pages could have used that space to be more legible. None the less, this artwork helped get through the book as it broke up the words with something humorous. It could have been done without. Take again the images of actual weapons along with their descriptions. This goes a LONG way to help the words in describing what is being discussed. So while the comic was and still is funny, it really didn't help anything on the page, and could have been placed at the end or in a Dragon Magazine, but the illustrations of the weapons actually help where one might not know what this implement was supposed to look like outside of a few or more words. The picture pretty much let you discuss how the weapons were used, rather than what it looked like because there it was allowing you to see it.

-It is necessary for when it helps illustrate something. 150% page artwork is nothing more than a waste of space, ink, and pages.

-The extent? (see above)

-Yes it is absolutely necessary. Had it not been for the "Papers and Paychecks" comic, as well as a few others in the 1st edition books, they would have been so hard to read with off-white pages, compressed fonts, etc. You need something to break up the words on larger page sizes otherwise anyone eyes will just get sore from focusing so tightly on the words on any large page for the duration of the book.

-Again those recent 150% of a page and even 2 page pieces of artwork, are really a waste of space. 3rd edition D&D was a travesty with the page itself trying to be artwork and a major eyesore. Crappy backgrounds with color fade, then the words wrapped around images as though it was some elementary school text book. "See the elf. See the elf choose ranger for her class. Shoot your bow elf. Shoot your bow." :smallconfused:

-No. A supplement again will need artwork of some kind just to break up the monotony of the words and have as page breaks, section breaks, and even bookmarks. "Where was that bit about grappling again? Oh right! Near the picture of the confused fighter and troll."

-Poorly written with good artwork? No, I did not purchase the Alternity system published by TSR. I could just look at art from Star Wars or watch the movies to see relatively the same thing.

--My preference would be artwork placed in the proper place to break up the text and sections of the book properly. It is a book so the words have to be written well and expressed well. Also the landscape of each page should be use appropriately without excessive white space or over sized margins/borders or 2 inch header bars. The words and art much be put on the page properly, not just slung on there like some novice or fresh out of college thinks they know everything about everything degree holder. Someone who has gotten there ears wet a few times needs to look at what is presented and how to make sure the best use of text, images, landscaping is assessed.

Take an Atlas. BIG picture with words describing it. Its form follows it's function.

Also, never wrap paragraphs around an image; and never use line width justification. IF you have one word on the last line of text prior to a break, don't space out the letters in it to fill the whole line. That is just stupid and people don't read that way. If you want to do something to make that line look more straight along the righthand edge, then try taking a word out in the paragraph to remove the line and truncate it entirely.

My preferences is for art that is needed, but no more than needed. If a book book, then less art is needed than words. If a picture book, then the art will require the majority of space from the book.

[Tetsubo 57]

I've purchased role-playing books just because the art was good. Bad art is a major turn off. If the games creators can't be bothered to hire decent artists, what else did they cut corners on?

[Mike_G]

Artwork is completely unimportant. I ignore it.


Wow.

Nice choice on the user name.

[ericgrau]

I need art in a monster manual.
Other than that?
No need at all, but it's a nice addition.

This. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

[Mike_G]

You people have no souls.

The whole frickin' game is about imagination, (unless you are such an optimizer it becomes about mathematics). Art is a great aid to imagination.

I agree that bad art can detract from a book, but good art always adds something.

[ColdSepp]

I need art in a monster manual.
Other than that?
No need at all, but it's a nice addition.

This. I have an imagination for a reason.

[Dixieboy]

(Book of Erotic Fantasy I'm looking at you.)

Had mostly photos for art if I remember correctly, it looked decent IMO. (Except for the one in the STD section... yuck)

[nightwyrm]

Art work in a monster manual is important since it's probably the most space-efficient way to convey monster descriptions. As for art in a rulebook, I don't look at them. Or rather, they are colored bookmarks so that I know where I'm and how to flip to the section I need to go.

[Xenogears]

Mostly I ignore it but the picture of the epic level monk in the epic level handbook with the greenish glow is awesome to me...

Monster pictures and equipment pictures are also very nice to have.

[Mushroom Ninja]

I like good art, but I don't mind a lack of art. Bad art, on the other hand, annoys me greatly (I'm looking at you 4e; yes you, with your cartooney dragonborn and your fetish for Wayne Reynolds).

[Aneantir]

Artwork is important as a DM tool, I find. I have an artist friend of mine draw up a picture or two of every major villain in my world to give the players a proper visual of what they look like, and so that the enemy is more memorable than faceless mooks.

[Vortling]

I enjoy it if it's good and ignore it if it's bad. Overall it's not the first thing I look for in a RPG book.

[Eldariel]

You people have no souls.

The whole frickin' game is about imagination, (unless you are such an optimizer it becomes about mathematics). Art is a great aid to imagination.

I agree that bad art can detract from a book, but good art always adds something.

I personally find that art often limits imagination. I have my own image of how something works/what something looks like and then I have a book that tells me what it "officially" looks like/how it officially works.

I appreciate good art as much as the next guy, but beyond some vague glimpses as to what exactly a Choker is, I don't feel it needed and indeed, some things are best served with no picture as no artist could truly do them justice. Some things are called "unimaginable" for a reason.

It is no less unimaginable once you've seen someone's attempt at imagining it, but now you're thinking of some person's idea of the thing and it's far less unimaginable and far more someone else's idea of unimaginable in your mind.

[Mushroom Ninja]

I personally find that art often limits imagination. I have my own image of how something works/what something looks like and then I have a book that tells me what it "officially" looks like/how it officially works.


I know the feeling. It's all too easy to let art or descriptive fluff color your perception of a class, limiting the ways in which you use it.

[nightwyrm]

I know the feeling. It's all too easy to let art or descriptive fluff color your perception of a class, limiting the ways in which you use it.

Cthulhu was much scarier before all the art of him came out. Now he's just a big dude with an octopus head.

[Woodsman]

Had mostly photos for art if I remember correctly, it looked decent IMO. (Except for the one in the STD section... yuck)

Actually, the art was either really freakish-looking or really bad. Bleh.

I dislike pretty much the entire book, though. There's some good stuff in it, but are the mechanics of pregnancy really necessary?

For sex magic, I prefer Nymphology. Pardon me, off topic.

As for art, I really enjoy it. I'm disappointed when there isn't a picture of a monster (namely dire animals).

[Mushroom Ninja]

Cthulhu was much scarier before all the art of him came out. Now he's just a big dude with an octopus head.

Yeah (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYqZxiUN5HQ), I gotta agree with you on that one.

[woodenbandman]

High quality writing (i.e. Frank & K) >>>>> art.

[Dracomorph]

Well, for me, BAD art is worse than no art. Far and away.

But I far prefer a rulebook to have some artwork to break up page layouts, because it really, really hurts my eyes and soul to see wall after wall of text, with nothing but paragraph breaks and charts to diversify.

Sometimes, particular details about an artwork will bug me, like how Caladbolg was drawn in Weapons of Legacy as if it was an axe without a wooden handle. Arg, arg, arg. Things like this can really detract from the mechanics of the things they're supposed to illustrate, because they're so distracting.

[PId6]

How important is artwork in roleplaying accessories/supplements et al to you?
I love having art in books, especially for classes and monsters. Gives a starting point for imagination and definitely helps break up text walls.


Does the artwork breathe life or additional life into written descriptions?
Definitely.


Is it necessary? To what extent?
Is it absolutely necessary?
A book without any art can be fairly boring. That said, if the writing is good, then art isn't as necessary. But when it comes to rules text and things like that, having some pictures and color really helps make things easier to read.


Does some of it detract from what is written?
If it's really bad or disgusting art, I suppose *cough*frogprincess*cough*, but generally just having some pictures in between long paragraphs only help, not hinder.


If a supplement or accessory contained no artwork yet was very well written, would you consider purchasing it?
I might consider it, but it would be a much bigger pain to read it than if there were some art at least, however limited. This is only for supplements, not something like a novel. Rules text is rules text, however well-written it is.


If something was poorly written and worded yet had amazing artwork, would you consider it?
No; regardless of how good the art is, it's not the main focus of the work.


Would you prefer something that included a balance of well written entries and artwork, or no artwork and was very well written?
What's your preference?
Ultimately, how well-written it is wins out over artwork, but I'd still much favor a supplement with some artwork throughout than no artwork at all.

[Kaiyanwang]

Art could be even completely avoided, but is a good addition to everything, from a race, to a weapon, a monster, and so on.

Said this, I prefer the art of the book not so "shiny". This could seem odd, but I've seen through my favourite edition of D&D (3.x) an increase of overall quality of the art, but a decrease of "soul", at least in my perception.

This lead to the art of 4th edition, cool but quite "made up" (generally speaking, I've seen a lot of nice things). I cannot explain.. maybe is the digital art that makes this effect on me.

Said this, Di Terlizzi forever.

[Faulty]

I'm always skeptical when PrCs have no illustration. Like... they didn't care about this PrC enough that they didn't bother to have it drawn.

[ken-do-nim]

Art is important for depicting the feel and tone of the game. I took one look at the cover of the 4E Player's Handbook and realized it was not the game for me. This had nothing to do with the game rules, except for the corollary that dragonborn are apparently a choosable player race, which doesn't jibe for me. Now on the other hand you look at the original cover of the 1E Player's Handbook with the guys prying the gem-eyes off the statues and the adventurers checking their map to see where to go next, and my eyes light up and I want to see what's inside.

[Yuki Akuma]

Had mostly photos for art if I remember correctly, it looked decent IMO. (Except for the one in the STD section... yuck)

That's mainly why I thought it was ugly. They just got a few okay-looking models and then photoshopped wings or whatever to them.


You people have no souls.

The whole frickin' game is about imagination, (unless you are such an optimizer it becomes about mathematics). Art is a great aid to imagination.

I agree that bad art can detract from a book, but good art always adds something.

If you need art to picture something, your imagination is broken. :smalltongue:

[PLUN]

Art in Dark Heresy is my enemy. The Radical Handbook stuff looks like a welcome change, but players see the art, they see 40K stereotypes. No Soriatas outside the militant orders, pictures of emperor damned Wulfen on Feral Worlds (which really is just a catch all for 'low tech, fight to survive - a rough medieval world can be 'feral'). The classes look like generic examples, which is fine, but there's not enough in the book to emphasis you can, asthetically, explore the setting and flavour it to taste. Just frequently recycled, otherwise generic stuff. Half of the fun of Dark Heresy is hidden away in words, with no images to inspire players or defend variety.

Then you get useful art, like in say, a lot of the Saga books. Not stellar images one and all, but really do the job. The Udon work in Old Republic springs to mind. Want to play a Miraluka? A Selkath? What the heck ARE those things anyway? Yo. Right there beside the character. A few more full bodies would be nice, but great images that help you 'get' the setting without telling you to blindly emulate the tone set in the films. With enough variety of classes and novel images throughout the set (Selkath Jedi fighting Battle Droids is delicous era hybrid and all kinds of awesome) to get players browsing really curious about powers and sections to boot. Relevant art.

Then you get art so yawn inducing it doesn't actually get noticed or influence the player at all. Lookin at you, Spycraft. Remember edition 1? You had girls using armoured briefcases for cover and meaty dudes driving through hugesplosions with gun in hand! What happened to you man?

So yeah, art is a mixed bag, needs to be carefully considered.

[AslanCross]

I'm always skeptical when PrCs have no illustration. Like... they didn't care about this PrC enough that they didn't bother to have it drawn.

This is pretty much my attitude towards RPG books in general. While well-written articles and balanced material is most important (not to mention rare), quality artwork helps me take the book more seriously.

[FMArthur]

Artwork does little more than make me feel sad that something with a really awesome picture is often so bad that you could never make a character with it and maintain the same kind of dignity on display in the image.

[oxybe]

if they show art it should be properly representative of the material it covers, which is one of my biggest 3rd ed art peeves, that you honestly couldn't judge a book by it's cover (the biggest being repeat offender Mialee).

they never stood out and told me "pick me up and read me!" those that did few that did were stuff like Libris Mortis or the Draconomicon (probably one of the better covers 3rd ed ever had, IMO). the "tome" look didn't do anything for me.

[Mike_G]

If you need art to picture something, your imagination is broken. :smalltongue:


What is this about "need?"

If you "need" rules for Bluffing, your RP is broken. :smallamused:


Allow not nature more than nature's needs
man's life is cheap as a beasts.


I don't "need" foreplay. I can get the job done without it, but I'm sure as hell not gonna call it useless or irrelevant.

Good art adds a lot to the experience of looking through the book. Bad art can detract. But the "art is nothing. It takes up space where there could be tables" argument is the refuge of androids.

[Shpadoinkle]

It's gravy. Nice to have, but essentially useless. My decision to buy or not buy a book has, as far as I can recall, never been influenced by the artwork.

[Amiel]

Hmm, given people's answers, do folks feel that gaming supplements, and also those outside of the d20 subcategory, tend to have an over-reliance and over-emphasis on art?
That while it can be and is spectacular and shiny, it is mostly filler material, designed to fulfill page allotment and aesthetics rather than really adding to the material.


Me, I like art, but agree with others that it's gravy; so, while great, it's not exactly necessary if the flavor is top-notch. It can help channel the imagination, but if one's imagination is already abundant, it doesn't do much.

[Yora]

I think I'm a very visual person. Just short scenes from movies or videogames can provide me with tonnes of inspirations that can last me for weeks.
Even though it's not logical, the artwork and the layout make a big impact on me, when I read an RPG book. One of the reasons I totaly like old AD&D books, but can't be bother with even flipping through a 4E book just to see if there's something that looks or sounds fun for my games.

Whenever I get my hands on a creatures book, I only look at the picture and then decide if I want to read the name and description. Which also makes the later MMs and the 4E ones fail in my eyes. There's always these same (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM5_Gallery/106284.jpg), naked (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Monster2_gallery/61.jpg), monochrome (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm4_gallery/98734.jpg), fat (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Monster_gallery/86.jpg) humanoid demons. They don't inspire my imagination at all.

[horseboy]

Art to break up a wall of text is good, as page after naked page after naked page just gets tedious. Though you want to keep it simple, so it doesn't detract from the rest of the page. Personally I find line art works well for this. Save the color stuff for plates in the middle of the book to highlight fantastical things in the setting. All in all I'd say it's one of the things Rifts did well.

[Kiero]

Artwork is totally irrelevant to me. I'd rather have a well-edited and properly laid out plain text book, for a lot less, than pay for artwork.

[Chrono22]

I like good art, but to be honest I like it to have some relevance/context. Having a two page layout of a dragon fighting a knight is nice... but pointless if the chapter it is located in is discussing building a castle.
I think a good balance is one good page of art to open each chapter, and various clippings to represent concepts presented throughout. So, a small sketch of someone doing a flip under the Acrobatics entry would work.

[Amiel]

Having poked around DeviantArt and becoming acquainted with the prices commissions go for, it's not surprising that art can be quite expensive. In the D&D (and related businesses) context, the art budget may consequently account for much of a book's purchase/item price.

Having read folks' opinions of not really needing artwork to inflame the imagination and not really needing artwork alongside the descriptive text, would a lack of art in these supplements consequently mean that the purchase price of books will be less than what they are now? or would they still remain the same irrespective of any art in them?