Art Styles

[wyrdlyng]

This is more of a curiosity question but how much does the art style in a game affect the way you play it?

For example, Rifts is considered a fairly munchkinny game. The art style in the books (the old ones, I've not seen anything of Rifts in a while) is sci-fi-ish/comic-bookish. If Rifts had been done with Anime/Manga style art would people have accepted the ludicrous scales of power more easily? ("Oh, they always blow cities up in Anime.")

Likewise, in the setting/game I've mentioned before would the art style (assuming it was somehow printed and bound or something) affect the way you play? Would surrealistic art cause you to play different than say anime style art?

I guess I'm just curious how deeply a game's art style affects how people play the game.

[J B Bell]

I'd say that the art in a game definitely influences my purchase, but has essentially no influence on my Actual Play.  I was a huge GURPS player for a long time, and the art was, to be charitable, uneven, but we had many fun games anyway.  (Ah, the heyday of my innocent drifted Simulationism.)

Music has been a much stronger influence my gaming, as a GM anyway, than art.j

--JB

[Ron Edwards]

Hey there,

I found these threads from the Publishing forum, which all address relevant aspects of art in role-playing, from various points of view and regarding various questions. The current thread asks a new question, which is great, but maybe material from these can be reviewed so we can start the new topic running, rather than retracing older points.

Pure visuals
Dying Earth and covers
Art necessity
Looking for artists

One germaine issue has to do with who actually sees the art, and for how long.

When I was a li'l wiener, everyone owned "the book" separately and thus everyone was familiar with the interior art. Nowadays, it seems, for many RPGs, one person owns the bulk of the material and everyone else gets to see "the book" only intermittently, mainly during character creation. That's a pretty broad generalization, I know, but despite its limitations it illustrates two very different contexts for how the art even relates to the role-player at all.

Another interesting issue arises when the players producing art becomes a central part of the game system in any way. Amber, the first edition of Over the Edge, and Sketch all make use of this principle to a large degree.

Best,
Ron

[Eugene Zee]

JB,

I believe that art does have an effect on the way we play but it is very subtle.  It is almost subconscious.  When we see what the artwork portrays often we imply the atmosphere of the game from it, which influences the way we play.  I have found that this is not true for everyone, there are many people that simply hack and slash or negotiate through all of their characters.  

For example, if a fantasy roleplaying game had nothing but pictures of people hacking away at huge monsters and bloodletting, it wouldn't matter to many people that the game was about negotiation, politics and intrigue.  They might treat the game as a hack and slash, regardless that the mechanics were not conducive to fighting.

[Lance D. Allen]

Another interesting issue arises when the players producing art becomes a central part of the game system in any way. Amber, the first edition of Over the Edge, and Sketch all make use of this principle to a large degree

 Hey Ron, seeing as how I don't have access to these games at the present, I don't suppose you'd be willing to explain how they make use of the principle, would you? I find this an intriguing idea, and not solely for the purposes of Mage Blade.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Lance,

AMBER - one way to gain extra points for your character is to volunteer to draw "Trumps," or Tarot cards, with the various characters on them. This is a big deal in the Amber setting, as such cards are important in-game devices and one of the main "nifties" from the source literature. Even though they are not explicitly required, an Amber game without physically-real Trumps of the characters is a poor thing indeed.

OVER THE EDGE - One step in character creation in the first edition is to draw the character, accompanied by a rather stern explanation that it "cements" the character into the player's brain in a way that cannot otherwise be duplicated.

SKETCH - Character creation begins with each person drawing a picture of the character, and then numerical scores are actually assigned by the other players based on the picture. As a secondary note, I liked this idea a lot but was very disappointed by every other aspect of the game.

Best,
Ron

[Lance D. Allen]

Interesting. Suppose, however that you can't draw.. Would finding a truly suitable picture online, or elsewhere count for the same thing? Or alternately, writing a story to detail your character's personality, appearance and background? Not all players are good artists or writers, but I think either a picture or a story would be good ways to help make the character more real in the minds of all players and the GM.

[Eugene Zee]

My previous post was directed towards wyrdling, not JB.  Sorry.

[joshua neff]

Lance--

As far as Amber goes, you don't have to contribute visual art, so if you're not comfortable drawing, you can get bonus points other ways (like writing journals or poetry or whatnot). In the case of Over the Edge & Sketch, the idea is (& I agree with this) everyone can draw, even if everyone can't draw well. Jonathan Tweet is very stern in OtE that everyone must draw a portrait of their character, no matter how crude. (Of course, it's not like he's gonna bust down your door & smack you around if you ignore that rule.) If I'm GMing OtE, though, I do enforce that rule. I don't care how badly people think they draw, they still have to produce a portrait of their character. (That has to do with my attitude towards art & the way it's taught in the US. The statement "I can't draw" is utter nonsense that has most likely been drilled into someone by some asshole Art teacher who didn't like the way the person drew & didn't want to take the time to help them. Everyone can draw, even if it's just stick figures. There's nothing wrong with stick figures.) (That being said, I'm very sympathetic to people who have a vision in their head that they're unable to reproduce on paper, due to lack of training--I have lots of images in my head, but because I haven't been trained in art, I can't reproduce them. It's really damn frustrating.)

[Mike Holmes]

Josh has it right. It's a rule of OtE that specifically forbids you from overlooking it. Tweet says that by doing the drawing (not just downloading one) that a connection with the character is formed. I'm not sure how much this is true or BS.

It may have another purpose in OtE, however. Just the fact that you are made to do something unusual like this I think is preparation for the sort of mind bending that is to come. It's like one Paranioa adventure in which the computer orders the PCs to do morning calisthenics, and the test tells the GM to have the players actually do a quick little work out.

These things do work to get people into a "game" frame of mind.

Mike

[Gordon C. Landis]

I recently picked up OtE and read that "you must draw" bit.  I have very little artistic talent or training . . . but for some reason, I *did* sketch my Gnomekin Gao pirate in a Talislanta campaign that became one of my all time favorites.  So Sunday I forced myself to do a (pitiful, really) portait of the charcater I created for a Dark Sun game . . . the three sessions so far have been underwhelming, but like I said, I only drew the recently, so we'll see ;-)

On the subject in general, I appreciate good art in an RPG, but if it has an impact on how I play the game, it's entirely unnoticeable to me.  I suppose something like D&D has such a wide variety of artistic input that it's not a good test case - let see, a more "pure" artistic-themed game I've played a fair deal is Mekton.  I've played some fairly gritty SciFi as well as full-blown Anime in Mekton.

So my guess (no surprise) is that however the art impacts gameplay, it's not a simple and/or overwhelming influence.

Gordon

[contracycle]

I find that I am quite susceptible to art styles; I will struggle with a conflict between the mood in the art and the text if they clash.

I generally like strongly lined art if in monotone; not sketchy stuff.  I actually quite like the style used in GURPs which exploits borders.  I like Tim Bradtsreet (IIRC) work in WoD, but not thet scratchy, figures-in-bardbed-wire stuff in some of the others (cannot trace art credit).

[Fabrice G.]

The art had a lot influence on me.

The Drew Tucker's painting (forex) in Wraith helped me to get the mood and gave me visual references to build an appropriate setting.

The art in Exalted made me not even reading nor buying the game (shale on me...).

But beyound that, I think that art has a lot to do with how you first judge a product. That very first opinion may be changed, but it's a strong bias affecting your perception of the game.

Fabrice.

[Henry Fitch]

Didn't they keep the art thing in OtE second edition? I hope I don't have first, I thought I ordered second... maybe I have the 1ed rulebook and 2ed player's guide...

Incidentally, he said that if you really really can't draw your character, you should draw his car or his weapon or his family coat of arms or something.