RPGaDay 2024 Day 4 - RPG With Great Art

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Art in RPGs has evolved so much from the early days of line drawings in the original games: early D&D versions, Rolemaster, Call of Cthulhu and Palladium, just to name a few. And yet, I still remember being drawn to the fearsome image on the cover of the 1e Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide: The large red demon sizzling with power as the mage attempts to slow him down with a spell, while the captured woman has her dagger still out and ready to use it. It wasn't great art, especially by modern standards, but it was striking and evoked images of the possible stories that lay within the pages of the book.

Over the 45 or so years since then, art has become a critical aspect of RPGs. Besides being "shelf candy" that encourages people to buy, the art has really gotten into the vibe of teasing at the stories inside the game, as well as illustrating the potential for the mechanics and setting inside the covers.

Examples of Great Art

Before I answer the question, I'm going to list three games, all by Monte Cook Games, that excel at the artwork and using it to capture the readers imagination.

First, Numenera, which is set a billion years in the future, and has the characters surrounded by technology bits left over from prior civilizations. Things in the world are weird and foreign and filled with mysteries that are truly unsolvable, and yet it's also a world in which people thrive. They accept the weird as their normal, and that creates incredible opportunities for stories. The art of Numenera captures that: floating crystal towers, strange devices sitting in an undiscovered valley still crackling with energies, and perhaps most important, the people who chose to explore the world, wearing bits of technology they've put together, on their changed or mutated bodies that nobody gives a second look.

Then came The Strange, which had the same purpose to its art, but also came in a color palate that I absolutely loved. The purple-themed book and inner art spoke of the multi-dimensional sci-fi potential of this new game. For this, I was already hooked, just listening to the creators talk about it, but when I first saw the art of the book I'd kickstarted, I immediately knew I'd made a good choice. In a sense, I don't think it's possible to have an RPG book with so much care put to the presentation without also having exceptional content within. In any case, that certainly proved true for this book.

And finally, came Invisible Sun, which was a non-Cypher game. The whole point of this was ubiquitous magic in a surreal environment. And the art really pushed the boundaries of what you'd think it meant by surreal. The image that really stuck out was a typical party where a woman with a mystical book for a head holds a drink, completely confident in herself. Players seeing that art immediately knew that "no boundaries" was truly a defining theme of the game, and as they built their first neighborhoods, they drew on that to go wild with their neighbors, problems and points of interest.

My Pick

Given what I have said already, my person choice for the art that captured me was "Shadows of Esteren". I was immediately drawn to the table with this incredible art displayed in the open books. It was only after getting to the table that I saw they'd won a Gold Ennie for art--and it was certainly deserved.

The art, which is the header art for this article, was absolutely beautiful. And only after talking to the creators did I know that it was a French game, provincial setting, low-magic and horror based. While I didn't get the game at the time, I spent the next 10 years obsession over it. I signed up for an event at GenCon (which unfortunately was cancelled) and kept going back to the booth, just to see what new things they'd created for it. I knew I didn't have time or player interest to justify getting it, but I neeeeded it.

The game finally won this year, when I picked up a "starter" kit for it, which was the core book, 3 other setting books, and a few odds and ends. And I have loved starting to go through it. Whether I run a game of it or not, I'll have learned what are apparently some innovative mechanics, and I'll get to read the words behind that amazing art.

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