I know we're all supposed to be Kumbuya during #RPGaDay, but I am seriously not the proper demographic for Day 23:
"Which RPG Has the Most Jaw-Dropping Layout?"
My biggest confession of this month?
I absolutely despise everything about "Modern" RPG Publishing, especially the layouts.
Seriously folks. Black ink on white paper, some token artwork, and keep the sidebars chock full of appropriate info, and I will buy as many products of yours as you can produce. I am certainly not the gamer demographic everyone is targeting.
Full-color, glossy paper, eye-popping extravaganzas? Your sixty dollar book will find its way to my local con's auction in the next six years and might fetch five bucks. Easy to read content is better than luxurious fluff.
We're having the same problem in the wargaming (non-GW) community: super fancy $50 rulebooks when the content couldn't hold a candle to something as basic as Laserburn.
"Which RPG Has the Most Jaw-Dropping Layout?"
My biggest confession of this month?
I absolutely despise everything about "Modern" RPG Publishing, especially the layouts.
Seriously folks. Black ink on white paper, some token artwork, and keep the sidebars chock full of appropriate info, and I will buy as many products of yours as you can produce. I am certainly not the gamer demographic everyone is targeting.
Full-color, glossy paper, eye-popping extravaganzas? Your sixty dollar book will find its way to my local con's auction in the next six years and might fetch five bucks. Easy to read content is better than luxurious fluff.
We're having the same problem in the wargaming (non-GW) community: super fancy $50 rulebooks when the content couldn't hold a candle to something as basic as Laserburn.
Preach it, brother!
ReplyDeleteI do miss the days of black and white, saddle-stitched books and likewise had trouble coming up with an answer for today...
What actually gets me now is when things now are only available as PDFs - yet they STILL feel like making every page full colour, which, with my B&W laser printer, only eats up the toner faster and makes every page grey and hard to read... ugh... (I know, some have "printer friendly" versions and others are theoretically layered and can be printed without the background layer - though not on my old computer and I haven't tried printing any off my new one...).
Thanks Tim!
DeleteI remember the shudder within the grognards as AD&D 2nd Edition was coming out in *color*, but the I have found memories of the subtle blues making effective breaks in the text.
Vampire: the Masquerade was the first book that had a production value even better that the West End Star Wars d6 books. I never got into V:TM, but I read the heck out of those books.
And Castle Falkenstein was a simply beautiful book, but halfway through reading it the formatting, not the system resolution, overwhelmed me.
To transfer a comment from author S. John Ross from my Google Plus link for today's entry:
"The rise of consumerist "values" (expenses, more like) in hobby-gaming has cost us a lot, I suspect. It's been a bone-cancer since the early 90s."
I want things organized better than City-State of the Invincible Overlord, but typewriting font and manilla covers are fine by me.