Banestorm artwork

[dstroup]

On the subject of the map: You can't have it both ways... making the whole book color and hardcover makes it more expensive, a pull-out/fold-out map would be another added expense. I would have traded the color interior for a $5 price cut OR a big map, but I'm not sure I would pay another ($5? $10) for the map AND full color/hardcover. Offering the big map as a pdf and/or selling it online might be the best compromise after all.

The biggest problem with the maps, for me, isn't the lack of the Big One With Everything -- it's the lack of detail. They're all very, very pretty, but they have the level of detail I would want for player handout maps. I would have sacrificed some interior art -- or paid a few bucks more, even -- for a few big, highly-detailed maps in a non-period style, really showing geographic details (natural and man-made -- rivers, roads, caravan routes, etc.) as they actually are. In fact, my choice would have been to make those the maps included in the book -- I can download and print out the pretty, low-detail, periody ones.

Pictures of what the major races look like would have been nice -- but since Yrth is clearly intended to be very much a standard fantasy setting in many ways, they're not that necessary. Your elves, frankly, look like 90% of all RPG elves... ditto dwarves, hob -- er -- HALFLINGS (wink wink, nudge nudge) and so on.



A few randow thoughts:

Cover: Great, very evocative.

pg. 29: Pretty, but very, very generic. A space filler. I do layouts myself, I know sometimes you have to just fiull space or break up the grey of big columns of text.
pg. 49, 85, 161, 239: Crowns R Us.
pg. 71: Nice, very dynamic.
pg. 143: Couldn't we have gotten something a little closer to a real city map? Any detail at all -- a few streets, city limits, markets, anything? A picture may be worth a thousand words, but I could have given the information included in that map in text form in about a paragraph -- less space than the map occupies -- just as clearly.
pg. 157: Unfortunate placement of the art: Your Japanese/Chineseosh scene is placed with above the head "Zarak," giving the (initial) impression that the two go together. Not really confusing if you look at the layout for more than a few seconds (or read the text), but someone who turned to that page unsuspecting would get the first impression that Zarak is the psuedo-Asian region.
pg. 222: Pretty, but who needs another Gryphon? On the other hand --
pg. 225: That's what we need -- pictures of creatures of unfamiliar appearance.
pg. 234: Filler, maybe, but nice, humerous and distinctive. Again, that's what we need -- everyone knows what a snarling ork looks like, but "humanizing" goblins with that sort of depiction goes a long way towards cementing their role in this setting.
pg. 237: ObIconics.

Overall, a good looking book. A big step up from Magic.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

in fact the cost per page has DECREASED with the full color hardcovers!

I've been saying that since 4e was announced, but it just doesn't seem to sink in.

[Bandii]

Not a big fan of the current crop of art for GURPS 4e.

My main complaints concerning Banestorm in particular are:

1) the artwork is way TOO generic.

2) the Goblins just look...dumb. Way too humans with green skin and pointy ears.

3) nothing about it jumps out and says "this is the setting".

4) I feel like I'm looking at clip art most of the time, this goes for the whole line so far, especially Magic which had some particularly gruesome artwork.

I truly yearn for the old days of GURPS, with Dan Smith or Andi Jones or even Christopher Shy; this new stuff is just bland and uninteresting to me. The art could be for any generic fantasy setting as far as I'm concerned.

Thankfully, I buy the books for the text not the pictures. But I wouldn't complain if the artwork developed a little more personality; too many gamebooks are filled with crappy art for me to feel great about shelling out cash for pricey GURPS books filled with the same quality artwork.

-Mike

[Ciaran]

Yeah pretty much all the GURPS 4th Edition art so far sucks amazing amounts of generic ass. The Goblins do, in fact, look incredibly stupid. I don't even use them in my setting, replacing them (and Kobolds) with the far more interesting alcoholics from GURPS Goblins.

What happened to the sort of cool art we got in Cabal and Transhuman Space?

[Luther]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Oh, man, now that is an idea I can get behind 100%. Put a smaller 2-page map of Yrth on the cover of the GM's Screen itself and include a larger folded poster map with the screen.

Post deleted because it needs its own thread, see Banestorm GM Screen

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Rev_Pee_Kitty

I loved the fold-out map at the back of Fantasy/2E and was looking forward to, at the very least, a map that took up a full two-page spread in the middle of the book somewhere.

I know I might be nitpicky here. But in my Fantasy/2E the map is a fold out somewhere in the middle of the book.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Paul

What would you pay for such a product?

Since I already own a 4e GM screen, to get me to buy another one, it'd have to have the map included.
So, $19.95 for a Banestorm GM Screen w/Fold out map, would be an automatic purchase. Maybe as much as $22.95 for the set, but it wouldn't be automatic.

The map by itself, maybe $2-$3 as a PDF.

BTW, this could give you a way to resell the GM screen yet again when GURPS Vorkosigan comes out too, though in that case the fold out map would be of known space.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Paul

What would you pay for such a product?

$10. Sorry for not including that, but I thought it was obvious because all posters were that price. :)

And for the record, I would not buy a new GM's Screen. I already bought the generic one and don't need a new one. I would definitely buy the map separately if done right.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Thorkell

I know I might be nitpicky here. But in my Fantasy/2E the map is a fold out somewhere in the middle of the book.

Not exactly -- it depended on what printing you got. One printing had it in the middle, one had it at the back. We're both right. :)

[mbasico]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

9.95$ for the poster, like the rest of SJG's posters
19.95$ for the screen, like the standard GURPS 4th ed GM screen.

Same here.