I stopped by the RPG section at a book store on this last Monday. Pretty much all WotC and White Wolf, as always. Something about the very look of it just seemed so wrong.
The books were so glossy, so colorful, so lavish that they were just viscerally ugly somehow. Garish and tacky, like a rhinestone-studded cowboy hat (or a painted whore, to be perfectly vulgar).
One word kept coming to mind as I scanned this tableau of flashy, expensive, soulless corporate refuse: Decadence.
Is it just me?
16 hours ago
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No. It's not just you.
ReplyDeleteWhat really surprised me is that this whole reaction was all prompted by a simple glance at the shelves.
ReplyDeleteNo. And it's no wonder these books cost a bomb compared with old school products, even though many OS offerings have some great art work.
ReplyDeleteI think the OSR could push relative cost of materials as a real selling point, especially to teens.
Frankly, I think that it's not just you, but I have to disagree with you. I like the look of a lot of the WotC stuff.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is an issue of what is considered the 'state of the art' in gaming materials. Look at ALL types of games from 30 years ago and compare them to ALL types of games from the present. There has been a huge "advancement" (to use a word that you might not agree with) across the full spectrum. WotC is just keeping up with what is commonly viewed as the standard. Just my two cents...
"WotC is just keeping up with what is commonly viewed as the standard. Just my two cents..."
ReplyDeleteAnd passing the cost on to who, exactly?
And for what gain in product utility?
I just think overall the styling of fantasy in the post Warcraft world is too garish and fussy. Too much Boris Vallejo and not enough Frank Frazzetta. Like the difference between most modern sports shoes that look like Spiderman threw up on them and a classic pair of Chuck Taylors. Stuff if overdesigned and overstyled these days. Pah! Get off my lawn!
ReplyDeleteAnd for what gain in product utility?
ReplyDeleteThat, I think, really gets to the heart of the problem with these big glossy books. They may serve the companies that publish them fairly well, but they are a pain for people actually trying to play thses games. First, there's simply the matter of lugging these monsters around; Oddyssey has told me horror stories about trying needing to manuver a suitcase loaded with gamebooks just to play the game. She's even cut the portion of her gaming collection that she brings to school down to a "mere" two feet.
Juggling all the books you need to play just one game in your backpack on the bus, or trying to smuggle them into the office in your briefcase, is a pain in the neck. The books are just too big, too heavy, and to clumsy.
Beyond their mere physical encumbrance, they're not easy to use. When you need to find a rule, it requires that you flip through multiple books to find what it is you wish to reference. This seems especially true in 4E with its new players handbook and DMG and monster manual every year. Indexes help, but not every game out there has an index, and some of them aren't that good.
And finally, to fill these big thick coffee table books, we get terribly byzantine, labyrinthine rules. Long gone are the days when the GM could be expected to keep all the rules he really needed in his head. It was rare for me to have to look up rules in my 2E games, and almost unheard of when I played Moldvay/Cook. Now it's just an expected part of the game; not only do you have big, heavy, clunky books to juggle, you will be juggling them more often just to play the game.
All of which points to something that gamers have lamented for quite some time now: the industry appears to be more interested in collectors than players.
I like to use the term Magpie Gamer, to describe some one who looks at products based on their cover rather then their content. I'll be honest I'm pretty guilty of it myself.
ReplyDeleteWhen The New World of Darkness released I had no interest in Vampire the Requiem (The Masquerade was one of the worst game in the OwoD IMO,) but I ended up going to a release event to pick up the WoD core book out of curiosity. The VtR display was pretty provocative, and I left the store with WoD core, and the VtR book with out ever looking at it's contents.
As much as I'd like to say I agree that production value takes back seat to actual content, but some times all it takes is to get a product noticed to get a sale.
"the industry appears to be more interested in collectors than players."
ReplyDeleteAll due respect trollsmyth, I'm an incurable collector (and player! - every week for over 20 years now) and I wouldn't touch those books with a ten foot pole.I personally find them just as soulless, decadent, garish and otherwise uninteresting as Will and the rest of you.
Collectors like things that are old and/or rare - like mint copies of the LBBs or the tiny print run on BH's S&W White Box boxed set. Not slick new mass-produced corporate blah.
A good point, nextautumn.
ReplyDeleteI concede that a proper collector collects things of value.
This is the same generation that gave us all-over gold ink print hooded sweatshirts and Ed Hardy "clothing," so kids these days and all...
ReplyDeleteTwo things going on I think.
ReplyDeleteOne, business. A higher price item brings in more money for everyone: Freelance writers and artists, distributors, retailers, publishers (if they sell, of course). Putting together a $30 product brings in a hell of a lot more money than a $10 product, and the $10 product doesn't sell any more copies because it's cheaper.
Two, creator's pride. Who wants to put out an ugly or cheap looking book? When you cut corners for cost purposes, maybe the customer realizes it, maybe they don't... but the people making it sure do. And if they don't have to cut those corners, and people will buy the product at the higher price, why would they put out something less than what they're capable of?
Now a month or two ago I went down to the game store and had a look through all those big hardcovers myself. I was mostly impressed with the layouts and general production values, but horrified by the art direction. It was god awful seeing how White Wolf and Paizo and WotC wanted to visually present their products - and you know they weren't cutting corners on that count. With more level-headed art direction, I think those big bricks could be things of beauty.
(looks up from reading my $10 full color Savage Worlds corebook)
ReplyDeleteFolk like Adam Jury and Fred Hicks do some nice full color layout. Eclipse Phase, Classic Battletech, Shadowrun 4th edition, Hero 6th, Dresden Files RPG, Cthulhutech and the like are pretty good. Adamant has some great looking and playing games, much of it pulp inspired. Similar for a lot of Savage Worlds material, such as my current fav The Day After Ragnarok (Conan meets alt.1948). From what I've seen of Cubicle 7's stuff it's a nice balance between playability and great look. Even Mongoose has gotten some nods for the better of its Traveller run so far and for Runequest II (in leather at no additional cost no less).
White Wolf's nWoD core's fairly affordable and a good modern day occult/horror lower powered RPG. But meh, they're transitioning to POD/PDF outside of evergreens like the core books anyway, so you likely won't see them much in stores anymore soon, or at least unless a POD option in game stores finally takes off, which I'm not holding my breath for.
@JimLotFP
ReplyDelete"Two, creator's pride. Who wants to put out an ugly or cheap looking book? When you cut corners for cost purposes, maybe the customer realizes it, maybe they don't... but the people making it sure do. And if they don't have to cut those corners, and people will buy the product at the higher price, why would they put out something less than what they're capable of?"
This is a lot of it. Because, Will, some of that trash you were looking at was probably mine, and I'm dearly fond of it.
And I'll be damned if I'm not going to wring every drop of production value out of a book that management will pay for.
Sometimes it does end up being tacky: I'm not happy with the look of every book I've written, but I also sure as hell don't want it to look like no one tried.
Decadent, however, may not be an unfair word for the look. With that vampire game, in particular, you're supposed to have the sense that you're looking at characters with an unfair privilege. I certainly try to push that idea in the text.
I write this, by the way, as I try to figure out how I'm going to cover the illustration costs of a black and white booklet game that I'm making at home. Hand-stapling, at this rate.
"And I'll be damned if I'm not going to wring every drop of production value out of a book that management will pay for."
ReplyDeleteAgain, unless you feel that you can somehow give buyers more gaming utility this way, commiserate with the extra money you're asking of them, I have to disagree vehemently with this practice, however else you may justify it.
Oh, I can definitely give gamers more utility with better production. The whole point of color artwork, for instance, is so that you can say "hey, folks, the monster looks like this." And that's not mention the benefit we've gotten out of cultivating a smaller group of more highly paid writers.
ReplyDeleteWith the vampire game, we've managed to go full color and better writing without raising the price point -- in fact, for some books, we've reduced it. I'm proud of that.
I've also tried to make the line more newbie-accessible, reducing the amount of arbitrary White Wolf IP you need to understand to use the books in your game.
The accusation of soulless corporate refuse is kind of an odd one. None of that stuff you see from WW sells as well D&D did in 1981. You can feel free to gloat on that, if you like, but the work of gentlemen like Holmes, Mentzer, and especially Gygax was far more commercial than anything I do today.
None of this, of course, is to say that you ought to like anything I make. I'm even less keen to say that other creators should emulate White Wolf -- the number one commandment of this hobby should be to go your own way.
"Oh, I can definitely give gamers more utility with better production."
ReplyDeleteAlright. I'll adjudicate that.
"The whole point of color artwork, for instance, is so that you can say "hey, folks, the monster looks like this."
Failed 100%. The older representations of such artists as Otus, Sutherland, and Wham prove once and for all that you and yours are childishly unable to illustrate the slightest thing. You're mere dabblers, and most pathetic ones at that.
In retrospect, I apologize for my overly-aggressive tone above.
ReplyDeleteThe fundamental point, though, still stands: I see no merit whatsoever in the argument that a WotC or WW-style "gloss for gloss' sake" approach makes the illustrations in their products any more useful to gamers that the free, fan-made B&W illos in a typical issue of Fight On!
No problem, Will, I understand you've got strong feelings here.
ReplyDeleteI love Fight On and Knockspell, and I wouldn't want them to trade in any of the things they do so well to be more like WW books.
What we need is a printer that can do pre-yellowed paper, with that pungent smell.
ReplyDeleteI loathed the 3rd edition books with each page printed to look like some wizard's tome, with lines ruled on the pages - which made the text hard to read.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who thinks plain white pages with black text and illustrations just look more... grown up?
Clear.
ReplyDelete*zap*
The thread's alive again... {that's probably not funny}
A decent B&W line drawing is more than adequate. Are we not meant to be playing a game of imagination?
These highly produced books confuse me. I feel like I'm having my attention fought over by the text, the powerful full colour artwork, and the background graphics - which are often more harmful than appealing (Cthulu-tech, I'm looking at you). They remind me of the new style of documentary: you know the kind with all the sound effects, snappy graphics and quick edits.
@Jon Hendry: I'm on your boat. Plain white pages with black text and black & white art. It's been enough for centuries and likely will be for many more.