Community

Nov 25, 2012 -- 3:35PM, Rustmonster wrote:

Nov 25, 2012 -- 11:22AM, bluespruce786 wrote:

Yes, I would like the art to evoke a sense of mystery, to carry the weight of history, and to portray the game as a serious story telling medium. If Manja/WoW inspired art is their baseline I will have to pass.

not just the short selection of images you have in your head of Dragon Ball Z style characters that you throw around alongside WoW when you want to tell off those durned kids these days, correct?

This makes me pretty sad tbh. I have a great ammount of respect for all generations of gamers. Star Blazers is probably what got me playing games in the first place, I loved watching the old Bublegum Crisis stuff even though I couldn't understand it, and Deus ex Machina is beautiful, along with Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, and Ponyo.

 I also don’t want to see anymore of Larry Elmore, Parkinson and company. My earlier posts on this topic make that clear.

 And so for you to want to classify and dismiss me so quickly is troublesome. I have always felt that we are too small a community to treat one another like that.

Rule 0: the DM is always right

Rule 1: the DM can only be right so long as it advances the story and the game.

Rule 2: anyone can sit down at my table.  

Nov 25, 2012 -- 11:40PM, DoctorNecrotic wrote:

....
Anyway, this goes for the so-called "WOW" aesthetic as it's been dubbed.  This is the kind of fantasy I can't stand.  Now, I'm not calling for everyone to be dressed up like they're in a history book.  While I would enjoy that, I want that element of whimsical weirdness and surrealism.  I love the surrealist artists (Hell, I've focused several reports during college on this obsession)  Dream imagery has always been a fascination after all.

Just some random rants and ramblings from a mad insomniac.

I agree with you Dr.nec. There’s some anime art that I don’t’ care for, and some that I love. Regardless of those feelings I don’t think manga works as inspiration for D&D.
Elves and the Fairy, Trolls, witches, twisted old trees reaching to the moon, castles as home to madness both living and unliving,  questing knights and fair maidens, Dragons, wooden boats on the open ocean; these images are part of our racial memory. Something that, I believe, existed before any exposure to story and tale. I believe that these ancient inhereted memories are the basis for D&D and actually all story telling of that genra. 

 Manga has its own set of dark childhood fears and dreams, but the sources are different and the contrast between the two is rough. In some cases the flow between the different aids the creative process. But for D&D the manga based art recalls too much from popular culture, it floods the creative landscape with modern advertising and archetypes that have been remolded into brightly illustrated boxes for sale at Wal-mart. And so buries the ancient images that are its core.

 I would love to see a manga based game get some real attention; it would need a very different mechaninc than D&D though, something far more streamlined and metric feeling I think. Fast and loose and deadly. D&D is more baroque, slower to ramp up, and a bit challenging to see in the minds eye, at least all at once.

 For these reasons and others I would like to see the artwork in D&D presented from a classic into dream oriented perspective. The picture on page 77 of the DMG for 4rth edition, 2 men one of which looks something like Othelo, is one of one of my favorite from that book. Most of the other pictures in that book just make me think of action figures sold in K-mart. Which is not the game I would like to see D&D presented as. 

Good luck getting some sleep. 

Nice finish Lord Markelhay. I think we just set a record for the coolest D&D campaign ever run in 3 lines or less.