#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY FOUR: RPG with great ART

Day Four of #RPGaDAY2024, and today we're looking at RPGs with great ART. I have to say that most RPGs these days have the most amazing art that my 80s RPG playing self would never believe. 

Star Trek Adventures is one that really stands out for me as it's a licensed game that doesn't use photos from the movies and TV series, and the art really captures the feel of the universe. 

I always love a game where a particular artist is key to the game, where the publishers just use one or two artists to ensure the game maintains its theme and feel all the way through the books.

A great example of this is Raven, featuring the amazing art of Abigail Larson -

However, when it comes to art in games, and games based on art, there are two examples that really stand out, and both of them are by Free League. 

The first is Vaesen, the Nordic horror RPG based upon the art and work of Johan Egerkrans, whose stylish and evocative illustrations really bring the setting to life. And the whole book, and the production values, are flipping gorgeous. 

The other has to be one of my favourite games of the last ten years, and that's Tales from the Loop. Simon Stålenhag's artwork is amazing, and I've always loved it. It just perfectly captures that weird alternate 1980s where robots and anti-grav vehicles are fairly commonplace, and the game that was inspired by the art does just the same. It has led to some of the most memorable games I've played, and it easily one of my favourites. 

Not Everything You Do is For An Audience

After my recent post about how I was frustrated at my drawing and wanting to do something but it being a little... how's the best way to put it?... crap, I received a perfect message on Instagram from a good friend pointing me to a wonderful comic strip by @pascalcampionart (seriously, check out the art, it's lovely).

In the strip (I won't post it here as I haven't asked for permission) the frustrated artist says that he has ideas, but doesn't like them. 

The wonderfully drawn cat says that he should just do it, get them on paper - it may inspire something better. The strip closes with the line "Not everything you do is for an audience". And that one kinda hit hard. Maybe that's my problem. Everything I've done except for a couple of rare passion projects (WILD, and Missing) have had an audience in mind. 

And that is what's holding me back. The weekend comes, I have time away from the dayjob, and I want to be creating something, but I think 'what's the point if I don't share it with people?'. Sometimes you just have to get it out of your system, put it on paper, and you'll feel better.

I need to get over myself and just do it. I mean, look at me, I'm displacing by writing a blog post on a blog that barely anyone reads. 

So here I go. Putting the computer away again, and just going to do something for me for a change. 

Tarotica (Part I)

Let's get back to normal things shall we? By that I mean my usual mix of nostalgia, game design and rambling on about stuff. I had this weird idea a number of months ago to do a few blog posts about Tarot.

I know, it's weird, but I've always had this strange fascination with Tarot. One that I remember from my dim and distant childhood and has stayed with me right into the development of my roleplaying game - WILD.

The first real memory I have of Tarot is from James Bond. My parents got me interested in movies at a young age, and one of the first movies I remember them taking me to see was The Man With the Golden Gun. I was instantly hooked. My mum dug out her collection of Ian Fleming novels for me to have a look at and one of the first records I ever bought was an LP of James Bond themes. Yes, I got obsessed with things very easily. I guess some things never change!

But this was the late 1970s, and we didn't have things like video recorders and so on. Luckily, in January 1980, ITV in the UK showed Live and Let Die for the first time. In the TVTimes before it aired there were production drawings and designs for the gadgets and the stunts, and I kept those pages for many years to come. However, during Live and Let Die, the now famous scene introducing Jane Seymour's character - Solitaire, I was a bit confused by the weird cards she was using.

Solitaire reads the Tarot cards - Live and Let Die

Colour me sheltered, but up until this point my eleven year old brain was purely focused on spaceships, lego, and Star Wars figures, and certainly not on the esoteric.

My dad told me about Tarot cards, and how they were used for fortune telling, but they sounded weird and mysterious, and not to be messed with.

It wasn't long after this that my father bought his first (and to my knowledge, his only) deck of Tarot cards. Maybe he was as inspired by watching Bond as I was? Dad was always intrigued by these things and I remember him bringing the pack home, though I wasn't allowed to play with them.

Course, it wouldn't be long before my obsession with James Bond movies would collide with my biggest pastime - tabletop roleplaying games. When the James Bond RPG came out from Victory Games I was not only amazed at the incredible production values, but the game was fantastic too. We played a LOT of sessions of the Bond RPG. A LOT!

But something was different about the Bond RPG. Due to the licensing issues at the time, a certain villain and his vast organisation that featured so heavily in the movies could not be used. Instead of Ernst Stavro Blofeld we had Karl Ferenc Skorpios. And instead of SPECTRE, we had TAROT.

Intriguing.

Dad eventually decided he was never going to use those Tarot cards, and gave them to me. I still have that set now - the "Tarot Fortune Telling Game" as it was called came complete with a book to assist in working out the divinatory meanings of the cards, as well as a sheet that showed you where to place the cards, and explained what each card position meant.

My dad's one and only Tarot set, purchased in the early 1980's.

They weren't anything too fancy or pretty, very old and traditional illustrations. I don't know if it's because the names of the cards were in French, but they felt mysterious. Like that book cover of a horror novel that scares you but you can't help but look at. I never did a reading, looked at the cards once in a while but didn't really return to them for many years.

It wouldn't really be until the very early 1990s that I would find myself drawn to the cards again...

--

I had left school, was unemployed for a little and, after a spell working in Nature Conservation and Archaeology, had gone back to college to do art and graphic design (much to my mother's delight). At the end of my BTEC the course tutors were really keen to get all of their students onto degree courses around the country. While initially I wasn't too fussed about going away to a university, I still applied as it kept the tutors quiet. My first couple of choices of places to go didn't accept my application, but my third choice asked me for an interview.

Before the interview, well in advance, the University sent a letter - an assignment that was part of the interview process. I was tasked with painting, drawing, sculpting or whatever, a self portrait. For some strange reason, I can't remember why, I decided that for my self portrait I'd create a deck of Tarot cards. Time was limited, so I focused on the Major Arcana.

To make it a self portrait, I looked at the meaning of each of the cards, and how that related to my life at the time. Then, I got some friends to take photos of me in various poses, and used them as a basis for a mixed media collage for each card. I know, it's a pretty lame idea, but it seemed to be okay. The cards were very oversized - each one A5 - and I created a box for them with a suitable quote from David Byrne on it: "People will remember you better if you always wear the same outfit." As I always wore completely black, I thought this particularly apt.

My first, rather bad, attempt at creating my first Tarot deck, as part of a self portrait assignment for University.

It seemed to work as I was accepted at the University, and while I could tell the tutors in the interview were underwhelmed by my portfolio, they liked the originality of a self portrait presented as Tarot cards.

I'll continue the Tarot stuff later, looking at my favourite decks, and look a bit more at creating a specific deck for WILD.

Until next time, who knows what fortune awaits?

#RPGaDAY2018 - DAY 18: Art that inspires your game.

Day eighteen of #RPGaDAY2018 is the start of a weekend all about art and music, and how they can inspire and enhance your game. Both of the questions this weekend were provided by Richard Brewster, who hosts a great blog called Batjutsu which you should definitely check out!

The first part of this art and music weekend asks for "Art that inspires your game".

Again, there are a couple of answers to this one. If it's the game we've just finished playing, that's easy as it's just a case of checking out the amazing visuals of Simon Stålenhag's fantastic paintings, as we're just finishing up our Tales from the Loop game.

Art (c) Simon Stålenhag - I mean look at it, it's freakin' beautiful and inspiring!

I can see why Fria Ligan decided to use Stålenhag's artwork for a roleplaying game. Every image seems to tell a story and ask questions, with an amazing juxtaposition between 80's tech (see the guy carrying the old computer monitor and the Volvo parked in the drive) and cool, crazy sci-fi.

Awesome.

The other way to answer this question is to look at the art that's inspiring me when I'm working on WILD. I've got one of those wacky Pinterest boards dedicated to things that I see and flag as inspiration for WILD. One of the first inspirations artwork-wise for WILD was looking at the cool art of David Despau.

Art by David Despau

I just always liked the way his artwork is blend of fine line work, with energetic splats and half finished lines. It's simply beautiful.

I really want to keep the splat look in WILD. I don't know if it's because there are the echoes of the Rorschach ink blot tests, or just the energy and dynamism that makes you feel like there's action and excitement in the game.

Promotional image for comic Feel Better Now - art and writing by Jonathan Hickman

That splatty feel, with cool graphics on white, meant that Jonathan Hickman's graphic novels (Nightly News, Pax Romana) appealed, but this image from a graphic novel that has been stewing as long as WILD has, used to be my desktop wallpaper for months while working on WILD. That is just amazing and perfect. I'd love to see the final product one day.

Just as I hope to have WILD finished one day...

Hip to Be Square

I hope you'll endulge me this post, as I'm going to talk about a weird obsession I have - square books.

Weird huh? When I first decided to go it alone and start work on WILD, thinking "I want to make my own RPG that's about dreamsharing", before I'd even considered what kind of system I was going to use, I'd already determined that the book was going to be square.

Nobilis 2nd Edition - the "Great White Book"
Look at it. Isn't it glorious!!

I love square books. There aren't too many of them in the gaming hobby, from the amazing Mouse Guard, to the holy grail of RPGs - 2nd edition Nobilis. There's just something stylish and cool about them. 

Page example from 2nd Ed Nobilis
Two column with two quarter column asides.

From a design point of view, you get the wonders of having a two column layout just as you would with a traditionally shaped book, but you get a cool half-column that you can litter with sidebars, notes and other info, or just keep it clean. 

Sorry, the old-school graphic designer in me was clawing its way to the surface for a moment there.

I'd always imagined WILD to be my Nobilis - but I knew I wasn't smart or prolific enough to produce something as vast or wordy. In my head, it was going to be about the size of Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars RPG (Saga edition). The same width as a normal RPG book, but shorter to make it square. Cool! Also, it'd mean you wouldn't give yourself a hernia picking it up, as Nobilis 2nd edition has a tendency of doing if you approach it wrong.

Star Wars Saga Edition
Force Unleashed supplement

Not only had I a clear image in my head of how big the book would be, but I also knew what I wanted on the cover. I wanted it to be reversible, with a person on the front (originally intended to be the lead character for the WILD spin off fiction novels) wearing the dreamshare device, and her hair flowing out behind to become part of a swirling image of the many dreamworlds. The back cover would be the same image, only with her father hooked up to the machine (creator of the device, hoping to wake her from her coma-like persistent hypersomnia). You could approach the book both ways, with the back being the reference for the cards.

I'd even had the idea that you could put the whole thing in a slipcase that would also contain the Tarot cards, so on the shelf it'd be the same height as the rest of your books...

But I've been having a lot of ideas over the last couple of weeks. A LOT. And the more I think about it, the more that could work with WILD. No longer is it just a one-shot deal. A one-trick pony. It could work as a line. 

Rough design for the corebook cover -
please excuse the art, it's very small (10cm x 10cm)
and I haven't drawn in years!

With a book that details nightmares and night terrors - turning the game into more of a horror game.

Rough supplement cover design -
again, only 10cm x 10cm, sorry.

Another book that looks at other ways of accessing the dreamspace, some being able to do it without technology either by meditation, ritual or psychic ability. Organisations and groups using the dreamspace to manipulate others, and even control or eliminate elements of the waking world.

Supplement cover rough number three!

Maybe a book on the real world. The waking world. How does the technology impact on the real world and the dangers involved. Does society accept the tech, or does it get out of control and lead to a disaster like the flash-forward episodes of Joss Whedon's underrated series "Dollhouse"?

Supplement cover rough number four!

A book on the collective unconscious. The raw dreamspace that hides at the heart of the dreaming, where creatures of myth and archetypes lurk, hoping to ride their way to the surface, to break into the real world.

And, before I knew it, I was doodling the covers again. Rethinking the design, and realising that the covers could all join together, as well as be reversible. If only I knew how to draw...

How the covers could fit together. The fifth cover, of the collective unconscious
could lay over the middle, changing the dreamspace to a new image.

Who knows. I need to finish the first one to begin with. But we can dream, can't we?

"But what about the rest of it?"