Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

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Kane
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Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

Post by Kane »

To quote someone at Dragonsfoot a long time ago,
Novels do not have any pictures in them, and I have no problem imagining the world depicted therein. Encyclopedias, books on history and philosophy, reference works, etc. rarely have pictures, and when they do, those pictures are diagrams, schematics, maps, illustrative photographs, etc. that depict the subject being discussed, not unrelated and inconsistent pictures of people grimacing or posing while doing things that have no relation to the text.

Art in most game books is bad because it is inconsistent, useless and irrelevant. No art is better than bad art in RPGs, and almost all RPGs have bad art in them.
Personally, I don't pay attention or appreciate most of the art in RPG books for it to be anything but something that boosts the cost and page count. I like some fantasy art, even some of the cartoon doodles in the DMG, but I'd want them in a poster, not a book. The book for me serves an entirely practical purpose, making the rules available in as concise and convenient a format as possible. My imagination is better than most art, and the art I really like is high-end hyper realistic Osprey art that no OSR company seems able to afford or inclined to produce.

When I bought Darkest Dungeon and grabbed their free PDF, I wished I'd done the latter first - because as much as I love Dore, Dore has nothing to do with the rules of the game. It does add a lot of black that drives up printing costs, however. I positively prefer the old-style of 0e module which is just pages and pages of text. The formatting could be improved, for readability and so forth - a typewriter is not the ideal word processor - but, unless it's a map or MAYBE a monster illustration, having a picture of some random fantasy snowflake in horrible looking armor doesn't do anything for me. In fact, the character art in AD&D2e is so bad I drew on it in high school - I don't want Grand Heroes who look like 80s Romance novel models, so it's just completely the wrong tone. I have such particular tastes in art (including music) that if it's not something I personally selected I'd probably just as soon not have it.

Art has never had much of anything to do with why I buy RPG books (many of my favorite RPGs are produced on shoestring budgets, anyway, and look it) but if I see a big glossy book with a bunch of full page paintings, I'm definitely not going to buy that. Most RPG books are too large for no good reason, anyway, which is why I prefer PDFs even when I have the books. I can fit every RPG book ever printed in my jacket pocket, why would I need paper? I know some people find paper 'easier to use', but I am an office nerd and have been using computers since I was like 8, so 'search' function is a lot easier and more efficient for me than randomly leafing through pages hoping to find the right section.

I very frequently take the PDFs now (which is what I primarily use) and delete all the art, remove the borders, and republish it that way for my tablet. Easier to navigate, loads faster, takes us much less space on my SD card. The only version of OSE I'm going to use is the text-only version.

The unfortunate part is that the books are already too-elaborately formatted with all kinds of filler backgrounds, side bars and so forth, all positioned around the art, and it still wastes space as a white. But a white space where I can write notes is more useful to me than a picture of a kobold ever has been.

I'm thinking about systematically going through the BFRPG book, stripping all art and reformatting it to A5 for tablet reading, eliminating all the blank spaces and shrinking the font down to size 10 or 11 for the main text (size 12 is already excessive for a screen) and making the entire thing single column. If anyone else prefers these bare-bones, no frills, tablet/computer oriented versions let me know, because I know I wish someone else had already done this stuff for me.
Last edited by Kane on Sun Nov 20, 2022 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dimirag
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Re: Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

Post by Dimirag »

Maybe the Tablet-friendly Core Rules may be of help here.
Sorry for any misspelling or writing error, I am not a native English speaker
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Kane
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Re: Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

Post by Kane »

Dimirag wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 5:01 pm Maybe the Tablet-friendly Core Rules may be of help here.
"You are not authorised to read this forum."

Also, my idea of minimalism transcends what the OSE text version offers. I took their RTF files, reformatted all the tables to make them as small as possible and added a clickable ToC/bookmarks to it. In my opinion, my version of their free text files is actually more 'usable' than their fancy printed versions. If I felt like it I could even add color coding to the tables, which is basically the only formatting advantage their core books have on plaintext (once you accept that I don't actually want art and have no trouble with pt 8 fonts).

I know some people are attached to books and pictures for their own sake, but I've got too many books to bother with that maudlin sentimentality. I'd really just rather have a Wiki with every OSR cross-linked than a book at all.

King Chris here has done a nice job of making the ODTs available, though, which is a lot more than you get from WoTC or even Kenzer, so I'm not really complaining about the BFRPG books as just saying the priorities of marketing departments and RPG consumers are generally out of sync with my own. Also, as soon as I see something that looks too polished, I know a committee is involved and budget was wasted on doodles instead of playtesting. I'll take an RPG book printed in Times Roman on newspaper if you take all that money and put it into content and playtesting instead. Or, like Chris, just sell it for $5. I have no use for 'premium' products, I view fancy modern books as the equivalent of buying Kristal when I'd rather just drink PBR and get it over with.

And if anyone wants my enhanced versions of the OSE text files (all free from the company themselves, and enhanced by my own elbow grease and free software) you can let me know. ODT > RTF, if nothing else.
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Dimirag
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Re: Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

Post by Dimirag »

Shoot, I copied the wrong link, the one to the workshop should work now.
Sorry for any misspelling or writing error, I am not a native English speaker
Drawing portfolio: https://www.instagram.com/m.serena_dimirag/
Kane
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Re: Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

Post by Kane »

Dimirag wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:20 pm Shoot, I copied the wrong link, the one to the workshop should work now.
Thanks, works.
I feel like (Well, I know) a lot of rpgs are aimed at selling them to people who don't already have a fixation with sword & sorcery and spend a lot of time explaining things and trying to get their attention with stuff that's totally irrelevant to me. Most 'advertising', and art is mostly that, just lets me know that they're not confident in their core product, because I buy things (or don't do business with) based on results, not presentation. And I'm not opposed to a book that looks nice, and is well bound, practical things - but I wish that everyone who puts out a $60 art splatbook with rules inserted would also give me a PDF and print option that were bare bones in content but tough as nails in construction. Heck, I might even pay $50 if it was a good game. I honestly feel the same way about cell phones! It can be ten years old in tech, just make it bullet proof for me.

The things that WotC does to sell their books makes me not buy their books, because they clearly aren't thinking about me when they write them. As far as I'm concerned, I'd just as soon every RPG on the market was a pdf only A5 with no art, I'd be more likely to buy something like that because it shows the producer is in sync with the actual needs of a the consumer and not trying to sell shiny things to people who don't know what's in the book. Maybe this is 'necessary' for 'muhbusiness', but I don't care if they make money, I care if the product does what I want. They won't be getting a cent off of me if they spend too much cash on stuff I don't care about, because it demonstrates we're not in harmony as to what RPGs are for. That being said I will play just about anything that sounds interesting, as I have a high tolerance for reading books and spending other people's time. It's just that I am at a stage now where, if I really wanted a brand new heartbreaker RPG, I'd write it myself. What I am mostly looking for is intelligence in rule design and setting creation, which is hardly exclusive to people with million dollar art budgets.

I think Kenzer, Chris here, the DCC goofballs, and a dozen or so manglers of the Classic Fantasy RPG have actually added more usable, original, interesting things to games* than the other 79.7% of production money spent on RPG games in the last 30 years. If only someone would give these aforementioned guys, gals and assorted procedural generators 117 million dollars, I'd say RPGs are in good health.

*OSR and D&D games, I'm not talking about the broader network of extremely varied types of RPGs and RPG-adjacent games, from GURPS to Munchkin, that make up the overall market. I'd say that the niche RPG market, whether GURPS or BFRPG, tends to be higher quality and more useful to long-term players, than the general market in general.
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Re: Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

Post by toddlyons »

Kane wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 3:55 pm To quote someone at Dragonsfoot a long time ago,
No art is better than bad art in RPGs, and almost all RPGs have bad art in them.
Personally, I don't pay attention or appreciate most of the art in RPG books for it to be anything but something that boosts the cost and page count.
I did read this whole thread, and know that you appreciate Chris for what he's doing.

Remixes without art are certainly practical and pack in a lot of information. Personally, I would find them a bit hard to look at. I love art for what it adds to presentation, but also as a landmark in the books when I'm flipping through. I'm terrible with page numbers, but I can recall that the section I'm looking for is next to the whatchamacallit.

Happily for me, art is here to stay in the Basic Fantasy books because:
  • it's an open source project, and people submit it
  • artists aren't paid, and can't be (no one is),
  • one benefit that can be offered is putting work in print
  • page counts are never artificially inflated -- print books have a fixed minimum cost, so it's not even worth the expense to print something less than 40 pages
  • the books are sold at near-cost (making a few pennies by accident here and there)
  • the longer the book is, the better the value it is to the buyer: the fixed cost is met, and you're just paying cost for the "extra" pages
But getting back to the person you quoted from Dragonsfoot. I don't understand them or what they've seen. As much as I agree that there is a wide variation of styles in art, I've never seen bad art in a BFRPG product, for example.

What's clear is that there are a range of individual tastes. John Fredericks and Al Cook have both had many front covers between them. I like them both but their styles are extremely different. Maybe "bad" just a style an individual doesn't personally enjoy? If so, I'll say that I bought the 5e core boxed set on sale and found it extremely unsatisfying to look at it. I look away from the pictures and focus on the text, because the 5e art isn't to my taste. The art I love is here, on this site.

I love what John, Al, Erik and others have made for covers, and we're up to our eyeballs in talented people. This is why I chose someone different to make the cover for the book I just finished. All of our great artists should have their chance to be not only inside a book, but on the cover, too.

As was already said though, the tablet version exists. I don't even know if it's current to Core revision 107; I've never used it.
Kane
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Re: Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

Post by Kane »

I don't dislike the art in BFRPG, as fantasy art. It's appropriate in tone and content. It's usually a depiction of something in the book. I just don't like art in rule books, unless it's practical. I'd say the same thing if it was a DBA or Warhammer book. For Warhammer, yes, I need pictures of each mini and gear - it's needed for practical reasons. But a bunch of random chaos demons and so forth in splash pages is just going to annoy me.

I understand the dressing up of a book in art, and I like it if I'm reading a fantasy novel or an art book. But I find it just takes up space and ink in rule books, and I pretty much ignore it.

Because Chris makes the ODTs available, it's pretty easy to remove art I don't need. I wish I could say the same for other RPG systems.
I don't even know if it's current to Core revision 107
That doesn't bother me a bit, the game was fine when it first came out, the errata and corrections are cool but not necessary for me to play the game. It's simple as peach pie, and I will probably spot errata myself if I'm paying attention.

The point about fixed costs is a good one. Printing at all has a certain amount of labor and machinery involved, whether it's 2 pages or 5000 pages. However, added pages do make it longer, which isn't good unless there's more content, because it makes it harder to go through. Only marginally, but it adds up.

My preference for size 10 font (I have good eyes, what can I say) and no art is a niche one, but I'm not the only person like this. If I published an RPG (And I might some day) it would be incredibly dry and brief, with numbered rules :P I Grognarded before I knew there was a word for it. I see rpg books as technical writing pieces and tools, not as art.

I have pictures of Elric, Faenor and Superman on my walls. I don't have a problem with art, per se. I just don't want drawings on the side of my skillsaw that require the buttons to be moved. I also like OP non-humans, as an aside.
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onearmspence
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Re: Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

Post by onearmspence »

Delving Deeper has an approach that may be more of your liking. It even have an hypertext version of it's current stable edition. https://www.immersiveink.com/?page_id=22

IMHO you shouldn't be so dismisive of the utility of art (which is more that just publicity) in the readibility and utility of a text.
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Re: Working On A Bare Bones A5 Core book, the Anti-Art Equation

Post by chiisu81 »

As this is straying away from BFRPG discussion, I'm closing this thread.
Please review this post; we encourage visiting Dragonsfoot for general OSR discussion and its own Workshop sub-forum for other rule-set development feedback, etc.
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