Quote from: TristramEvans;811680I'm pretty damn fast, but I don't pay for diddly...

Well then, you are the perfect RPG artist.  

Quote from: Bren;811676Now if only you'd like doing computer art better than posting assine shit here we'd all be happier.

It is blindly obvious that paying for art makes an RPG cost more. The question is does that cost generate sufficient profit to make economic sense. Now if you have some actual data you didn't pull out of your ass to support your idea that paying for RPG art is profit positive by all means trot it out. Otherwise you are, as usual, putting your preference out there as being morally or objectively true. And people who have a different preference form yours as being morally wrong.

What would be awesome is if you didn't let your reflexive stupidity get in the way of reading comprehension, so I didn't have to waste my time correcting every stupid moo that you utter.

Hint for the astute:
Did I SAY it was my preference? Did I SAY it was 'moral'? Or is Bren making up more bullshit and stomping his tiny feet?

Maybe the reason you think my posts are asinine is because you're actually reading a post you wrote in your head.

Quote from: CRKrueger;811575Everyone knows "Sex Sells", but it's much more momentary and subtle then that.  That's what I say Sex doesn't Sell, Sex Attracts.   No one ever bought GURPS Wizards because of the hairbra, and most of the people who picked it up didn't think they were picking it up because of the hairbra (and they weren't) but the hairbra got them to the point where they were deciding whether to pick it up at all, and this may have been a subconscious choice.

Madison Avenue doesn't spend millions a year on neuropsychologists for nothing.

Sure - I believe it's true that there are lots of people for whom this is true, but it's not all people.

There are an awful lot of markets where sex doesn't attract. For these markets, putting a sexy picture of a woman on the cover decreases average interest among the target audience - not necessarily because they're prudes and/or they don't like women - but because it makes the product look like something they're not interested in (consciously or subconsciously). When I look at the vast majority of the commercial products that I have bought, extremely few of them have such an image on the cover. This includes lots of RPG product lines.

Quote from: jhkim;811711Sure - I believe it's true that there are lots of people for whom this is true, but it's not all people.

There are an awful lot of markets where sex doesn't attract. For these markets, putting a sexy picture of a woman on the cover decreases average interest among the target audience - not necessarily because they're prudes and/or they don't like women - but because it makes the product look like something they're not interested in (consciously or subconsciously). When I look at the vast majority of the commercial products that I have bought, extremely few of them have such an image on the cover. This includes lots of RPG product lines.

Correct...which means it's even less probable that SJG put the painting on the cover in order to draw people in via sex, right?

Sometimes the tit is there because...women coincidentally happen to have them.

I prefer tasteful nudity on the inside of a book rather than the cover, tbh.

Quote from: TristramEvans;811680I'm pretty damn fast, but I don't pay for diddly...

I also like free diddly.

Quote from: TristramEvans;811677Well, I'm illustrating my own game. So.....cost effectiveness achieved!

Welcome to the club brother!

My first published RPG and I had to not only illustrate myself. I had to match the style and skill of one of the biggest artist in that field at the time. Later I ended up illustrating a second book because was having a bitchingly hard time with freelance artists at the time and said "Fuck it I'll do it myself!"

The costs of publishing really hit home when you start scouting around. The joe on the street and apparently 75% of most gamers have no damn clue just how costly something like a CCG can be. A 200 card game could set you back upwards of 50 grand to 100 grand just for the damn art. 2500$ for a 10 card expansion when I was pricing for a project. Probadly more.

If the art helps sell the book then it helps sell the book and to hell with the prudes and nuts if thats your route because they likely wouldnt have bought it anyhow.

Though personally I still advocate alternative covers out of respect for those with valid concerns like not wanting family or kids to see something.

Quote from: Will;811431I remember the occasional stupid thread about 'RPGs are too expensive!' from people with very little brain.

And there's always some dilhole who says 'it shouldn't have art or anything! I don't need that! Don't pay all that stupid money to artists.'

Which is wrong on so many levels -- not just advertising and getting people to look at a product and, thus, being able to sell enough to keep costs down, but also in communicating the mood of a game and inspire people playing it.

Quote from: Will;811689Hint for the astute:
Did I SAY it was my preference? Did I SAY it was 'moral'? Or is Bren making up more bullshit and stomping his tiny feet?

You said it was wrong Will.

Wrong on "being able to sell enough to keep costs down." For which I asked if you had any data. Apparently you don't have any. So if you didn't mean that it is objectively, provable wrong, I concluded maybe you meant it was morally wrong or maybe you were just trotting out some preference of yours and labeling anyone who doesn't agree wrong. Both are things you do fairly frequently.

Wrong on "communicating a mood of a game and inspire people playing it." But the person saying they don't need art is clearly saying that they don't need or want art. They are expressing their preference. But according to Will they are wrong and a "dillhole" because they have a difference preference than Will has. Or do you actually think how people get inspired and understand mood is objective rather than subjective?

This is your usual drill. You label something you don't like as "wrong." And when asked to provide some evidence to support it you don't. Instead you insult and repeat yourself louder.

So did "wrong" mean anything more than Will doesn't like it?

I was going to respond at length to Bren, and just realized he's a fucking pedantic asshole and there's no point.

If anyone with more than half a brain actually is confused as to what I meant, feel free to ask.

Quote from: CRKrueger;811714Correct...which means it's even less probable that SJG put the painting on the cover in order to draw people in via sex, right?

Sometimes the tit is there because...women coincidentally happen to have them.

I think you're mixing me up with Spinachcat. Spinachcat made a claim that the GURPS Wizards cover was there because Sex Sells. It feels a little like this is one of these binary divides again: Where I have to conform to being either an RPGnet SJW who wants to ban all sexual imagery in RPG illustrations; or an OSR who approves of every nude picture and wants more of them.

Personally, it isn't important to me what the thought process at SJG was - though I'm doubtful that the nudity is a complete coincidence. Mainly, I care about how the cover turned out.

When an RPG book illustrates a scene or scenes, I want it to look like something from the expected RPG adventures. i.e. It should show what the game is about, not just be a generic pretty picture that is related to the topic. In this case, I feel like the cover doesn't illustrate what the book is about.

Quote from: Bren;811470It's not a natural hair color, but that was so obvious it didn't merit a mention.

Quote from: Nexus;811481I do know one woman with that hair color and due to a wardrobe malfunction I think its either her natural color or she's very thorough when she dyes. (her eye brows match too).

Did I miss the thread with 200+ posts on hair color in RPG art? No, I don't think I did. It can be weird, unnatural, natural but unusual, and completely unrelated to the RPG mechanics or setting and it still won't generate much comment, and certainly not preemptively as in the current thread.

Quote from: CRKrueger;811419Sex doesn't sell...sex attracts interest.  No one's going to buy a 20 dollar rpg book for a hair bra bikini cover.  It will make them more likely to evaluate the product to begin with.

The people more likely to ignore the content to talk about the cover are people who weren't going to buy it anyway.

There's a game* that I know only a couple** of things about:

• its name;
• that it's an RPG, at least within common definitions;
• its artwork is both praised and slammed, to the point that I know no more about it.

So it is possible to have the artwork distract from discussion of the actual content, just by sucking up all the oxygen in the room or luring into any discussion people who care about the controversy but not the content (and who, indeed, maybe did not buy the book and maybe haven't even actually seen it). No, this GURPS cover by itself isn't going to rise to that level of controversy.

*I will neither confirm nor deny any identification of the game in question, to avoid derailing this thread into educating me on games I don't know much about. Start another thread on whatever game(s) you think it might be.

**Pedants can treat the two things as #2 and #3 (the name just being the thing they are about) or can accept the idiomatic usage of "couple".

Quote from: rawma;811806Did I miss the thread with 200+ posts on hair color in RPG art? No, I don't think I did. It can be weird, unnatural, natural but unusual, and completely unrelated to the RPG mechanics or setting and it still won't generate much comment, and certainly not preemptively as in the current thread.

What the fuck did you quote me for? I wasn't claiming it was controversial or noteworthy just making an aside.

Quote from: jhkim;811805When an RPG book illustrates a scene or scenes, I want it to look like something from the expected RPG adventures. i.e. It should show what the game is about, not just be a generic pretty picture that is related to the topic. In this case, I feel like the cover doesn't illustrate what the book is about.

Would the picture have been acceptable of if was exactly the same except for the sorceress being in long flowing robes?

Quote from: Will;811754I was going to respond at length to Bren, and just realized he's a fucking pedantic asshole and there's no point.

It took me a lot longer and an intervention by Raven to learn that.