Probably Most Overlooked Necessity for T5

[Eneri]

Professional graphics and layout. Real artists. Whatever you think of the D&D3 books, they are top notch in production quality. Even if you don't care for the art or the fonts or whatever, there is no question that it was very well and very professionally produced.

The Imperium Games T4 books were great failures in this regard. They look like they were laid out with MS Word 2.0.

 

[Takei]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Eneri:
Professional graphics and layout. Real artists. Whatever you think of the D&D3 books, they are top notch in production quality. Even if you don't care for the art or the fonts or whatever, there is no question that it was very well and very professionally produced.

The Imperium Games T4 books were great failures in this regard. They look like they were laid out with MS Word 2.0.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree that the D&D3E stuff has great production quality, but not that T4 was so bad. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the art (OK on it's own but not Trav IMO), but I feel that a 'clean' page approach has more of a Trav feel to it.

 

[BitKnot]

The original LLB were professionally laid out - including not being cluttered with extraneous pictures.

I enjoy good illustrations and graphics, but unless the such are going to contribute to the understanding of the rules, they are best used sparingly.

Reference for adventures, and Alien manuals, etc., can greatly benefit from good artists. Personnally, I perfer photo-realistic art or line art to 'cartoon' versions.

Most importantly though is content. I would rather have no artwork at all and great content than shoddy or cartoony artwork. For the best visuals are often those of the imagination!

Just my .02Cr...

 

[lucasdigital]

I agree with all this.

I would add that top quality art work is expensive and tends to be done late in production.

I think that the realities of production call for line art as the mainstay for general content.

Why not open up to the players/fans for submitting artwork. While I don't want to put any fine illustrators out of work I recon that even if only the best 1% per used it would be pretty good.

Mark Lucas www.lucas-digital.com

 

[Graham Spearing]

Anyone seen Metabarons yet. I picked the game up yesterday - it looks gorgeous! Ok it's based on a graphic novel series - but the book is beautiful. Also WEGs last cut at the Star Wars RPG had very similar production values.

It would be great if T5 could have a really beautiful look and feel. Also ensure that things that need to be photopied can be!!

Yes content needs to be in tune with today - but so does the anticipated production values.

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Graham
graham@tux.uklinux.net