Here we are at day four of the RPGaDAY 2024 challenge and our topic is “RPG with great art.” Being the father of an artist who is trying to break into the business, this is a big topic for me. Lately there has been a rash of AI renderings (I refuse to call them art) that has been used in RPG publications. Yes they are cheap, but the old saying is “You get what you pay for”. AI renderings look plastic and uninspiring. I remember when creating a character for Vintage Space in the last Character Creation Challenge and I noted how bad the AI renderings were. They didn’t have any uniformity and just seemed to be a random jumble of bad images that didn’t fit together.
So I’m going to talk about an RPG product that I purchased specifically for the art. It was the X-Treme Dungeon Master 2nd Edition that I picked up from Kickstarter and did a review when it arrived. The book was written by Tracy & Curtis Hickman, but the artist is Howard Tayler. I’ve talked about him before on my blog when he did some personalized art for me. Howard ran a webcomic called Schlock Mercenary and was able to keep it running for twenty years. As a loyal reader, I got use to his art style. The art he created for the XDM 2nd edition book had his style, but not once did I think “oh it’s Schlock Mercenary”. He was able to make it unique, make it his, but also make it new. There were a few color pieces on the cover and just inside the front cover, but the black and white art on the inside flowed along with the subject matter being discussed. There was also a little “flip book” art at the bottom of each page. I really liked the piece where the GM is using the “theater of the mind” to describe the scene. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few photos of the book that I took just for this blog post.
Additional things about the challenge. I’ve appreciated the feedback that readers have given me on my first couple of posts. I’ve had questions about comparing different Star Trek RPG systems. I’ve also enjoyed looking up #RPGaDAY2024 on BlueSky and finding a lot of other interesting gamers to follow. If you’ve followed me back, thank you.
Is there an RPG product that you thought had really good artwork in it? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
Note: This article was originally started in June and was held in a draft form until it was completed and released now.
Adopters of new technology. Grabbing something that has a buzzword attached to it and running with it. It’s trendy with techies to jump into something shiny. There was even a course I had to take at my college to identify and understanding emerging technologies. Well I’ve actually dipped my toe into that water, and it wasn’t on purpose.
I’ve got the reputation for being a “technology whisperer” when it comes to computer issues. From family members to previous jobs, I had people approaching me about how to fix various IT issues. If I can get my hands on the device, I can usually “scare” it into working again. Most of this happens by poking around in the device until I find the correct settings or functions. However fixing them and understanding them didn’t mean that I was interested in being the first to get them. At first I was hesitant about getting wireless routers set up in my home because I was concerned about outside connections. Later as I saw the security options, I adopted the technology. I don’t need the latest OS or cell phone when the hype is the biggest because I know they will have some bugs that need to be worked out. I have no problems letting someone else be a guinea pig and getting burned while all the kinks are resolved. So when I heard about cryptocurrencies and NFTs, I thought “no thanks”.
Why was that? Well the first time I heard about NFTs was from my college aged art student. Apparently anyone can take a piece of art and turn it into an NFT without the artists permission. Something that really bothered the art community. For those of you who don’t know, NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. Boiled down, an NFT item (mostly artwork, but it can be assigned to videos. music, in-game items and other things) has a blockchain code attached to it. This code cannot be duplicated (the non-fungible part) and the record of it’s ownership is contained within the blockchain. Allegedly this gives a value to the image in question by trying to make it rare. Yea, a piece of artwork that has a limited run number imprinted on it (such as number 30 of 100 prints) is something similar, but I tend to trust the individual artists who put these out since I can support them directly. Here is an example of a limited print run artwork.
Print 1 of 10 of Starbug (Red Dwarf) by the artist, Michael Goodwin
To me, this has value. The artist made it, the artist signed it, the artist got money for it. I can enjoy it on my wall and it will still be there if a server goes down. I still own it if someone hacks the account the NFT is connected to. An NFT can’t be held in my hand. It’s a glorified graphic file which anyone can right click and save. I’ve noticed when someone tries to artificially inflate the value of something, and I tend to avoid it. While I’ve enjoyed collectable card games, I didn’t jump on them right away. When they first came out and I noticed that they had the word “collectable” attached to it, I held off. When a comic publisher releases 12 versions of the same issue with different covers, I just buy one because I want the story on the inside. The NFTs producers even tried to attach them to a brand name with limited success. So it was no surprise that no one was buying the Star Trek NFTs at the official Star Trek convention in April. When the Admiral Pack went on sale at Mission: Chicago, it had a list price of $250. Now you can get one on their website for $189 (at the time of this article’s publication) Yea that collectors item really took off. One of the more popular NFT themes, the bored apes, had a unit sell for $50,000 in 2021 only to be re-sold in 2022 for $115. Ouch. While that may have been a one-time anomaly, an article in Marketwatch stated that the bored apes had lost 60% of their value in a month earlier this year.
OK Carl, I get what you are saying, but how do you now own NFTs if this trend is going south?
Believe me, I was just as shocked as you are. I received an email from a vendor for an upcoming concert that I purchased tickets for. Basically it said, “Congratulations, we are giving you an NFT of your ticket (which can’t be used to get into the concert) for free.” I remember raising an eyebrow at this email. When I looked at the NFT website (which was legit from the ticket company), it showed two generic looking tickets attached to my account. The same looking thing. Perhaps if there had been a different image on each NFT ticket, it may have been interesting. But it was just a boring looking ticket. And since I had purchased tickets to a second concert later in the year, another pair of NFT “tickets” showed up in the account a few weeks later. Again with similar boring illustrations on it. “Trade them with your friends, give them as gifts or sell them off to collectors.” Big whoop.
I purchased the tickets to the two concerts because my wife and I wanted to enjoy an evening together watching an artist we liked. Had I been on the fence about purchasing the tickets; the cost, not the opportunity to get an NFT, would have been the deciding factor.
I’ve talked with other friends about this whole NFT fiasco. And I think I’ll end this rant with a comment that has stuck out ever since I heard it. “The way you’ll know if NFTs are really going to take off is if the porn industry gets involved with it.” The more I thought about it, the more I believed this person was right. The porn industry has always been early adopters of new technology that gets their product out to the masses while making them money. Magazines, cable TV, VHS tapes, pay-per-view, the internet, DVDs, Blu-rays, 4K High Def, streaming, etc. When holodecks become common place, I’m sure that the porn industry will be right behind NASA and PBS in adopting the medium. If you look closely there hasn’t been any movement by the porn industry into NFTs. There are plenty of bondage chains, but no blockchains. (Fade Out)
I elected to go with the suggestion of “Image” for today’s entry for several reasons. Graphics, artwork and photography go a long way in helping our imagination with role-playing games. It didn’t need to be a complete illustrated story, but show just enough to get the imagination going. The old saying is, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” but I will say that a good cover usually attracts my attention before a dull one will. For the longest time I had no desire to read The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun because the cover image confused me. The bulk of images used for other modules made sense and attracted me towards the book and gave me a little taste of what I might find inside. But Tharizdun… well I just wasn’t attracted to it and that was due to the cover image.
When we create a character for any system, we usually have an image in our minds-eye of what our character looks like. We can write down a description or bring it up during a role-playing session, but sometimes we just have to have an image of that character. I’ve never had the computer skills to photoshop a image of my characters, but I did attempt to hand draw some of them. Recently I found my old three-ringed binder that I used to store my RPG characters going all the way back to the late 80’s. I started scanning in some of these characters for future blog entries.
One of the AD&D 1e character sheets also included my crude drawings of the character and possible “logos” that could have been used for his in-game persona. Lornic Mynsor was a Half-Elf Fighter/Thief that also went by the name “Stealthblade”. (Hey, I was a teenager, don’t judge) I don’t recall any of the adventures I played him in (it seems like a lifetime ago) but it appeared that we were running with some house rules. There is a Perception attribute that the DM was using. I believe I drew the image and logos while I was waiting for my turn in the game. Here are the images and the character sheet.
Final Thoughts:
The suggestions for today were not bad ones. I was just more excited to post my geeky artwork from a long time ago. A topic on “Tactic” could have easily talked about the Starship Tactical Combat Simulator by FASA. “Risk” could have covered some of the risks that players have to think about as they make their way through the adventure. And “Support” could have been a post about how some companies support (or don’t provide support) for the game that they have published and how the gaming community adds their support as well.
Host Vincent Van Dahl holding the home made artwork from my kids.
I’ve talked about my enjoyment of the show Creature Features before. It is a program presented by a “horror host” that shows a… not so high brow movie (i.e. affordable to programs on a shoestring budget). But sometimes these are the best movies. They are cheesy and rare. Sometimes watching a “horror host” show like Svengoolie, Elvira Mistress of the Dark or Creature Features is the only way to see some of these weird and wonderful films. Yea some are bad enough that I probably wouldn’t give them a second viewing, but that’s what the hosts do. They make a bad film entertaining.
Creature Features has this segment where they read viewer mail. Some fans have sent them packages with gifts, others have provided artwork or letters with criticism/kudos. On Father’s Day, my kids created a home made Father’s Day card with the cast of Creature Features as the main part of the card. I had to scan the card and send it into the show. On Saturday, July 17th while airing the movie “The Titan Find” (an 80’s copycat of Aliens) the cast read the letter and showed off the artwork I had scanned. My kids were tickled pink that their work (and their names) were aired on the show. I even had a few friends buzz me that they had seen the segment.
For those of you who don’t know, every new episode of Creature Features is broadcast live on their YouTube Channel every Saturday night. You can also watch past episodes that they have done from the past 4-5 years. In most breaks from the movie, host Vincent Van Dahl is interviewing a special guest. They also post the “Letters to” segment as a separate video later in the week. Here is the segment with just the letters. My letter is the last letter in the video.
So I’ve been trying to get all of my stuff out of cardboard boxes. While cardboard boxes are good for short term storage or getting pizza delivered in (mmmm… pizza) they are not good for long term storage of items you want to keep safe. One of the goals that I have set for myself is to get everything that is still in a cardboard box out of said box. Sometimes I even feel like Indiana Jones uncovering the hidden ark. From there I can decide if I want to trash it, donate it, trade it or keep it. When I uncovered this bad boy in his protective sleeve (now scanned and posted above), I knew I wanted to keep it.
Over thirteen years ago I went through a period of insanity where I was a Con-Chair for a local fan-run convention. A Con-Chair is basically the president of the committee (a Con-Com) that puts together the convention. One of our primary guests at this convention was an artist named Howard Tayler. Howard is one of those fellow geeks that when you see what he’s done, you have to be inspired. Twenty straight years of publishing the web-comic Schlock Mercenary without missing a date. He has also designed role-playing games, written short stories and participated in a weekly podcast which has won a Hugo award.
Howard made a caricature of me at the convention. I was in “Con-Chair” mode with my body in an injured Captain Pike wheelchair. Like Pike, I could beep ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but I also had the option to ‘delegate’. I thought it was hilarious. I have fond memories of those conventions and seeing this image reminded me of some of them. Now that I have an office, I will be framing this and putting it up on the wall. Thanks Howard.
Now I wonder what I will find next? I’m motivated to get more boxes emptied.
