Production Values

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by mhd

Isn't there an option for POD where retailers don't have to pay full price? Probably not a margin that's sufficient to live on, but then again, they can't compete on a price level with online dealers anyway, and I'd be surprised if gamers didn't do the "browse locally, shop at Amazon" thing.

Not formally. The best way to do this is for the retailer to contact the author, who can order copies at cost and then split the profit margin with the retailer. that's what I did for the retailers that bought Dungeon Grappling.

However . . . DriveThruRPG is NOT competitive with other venues for this. For my 52-page book, Amazon CreateSpace was 4.50 (but unreliable quality), Publisher's Graphics was $5.40 and the highest quality, and DriveThru is $7.70. So if you plan on doing retail, the best bet is to have some inventory of your own.

If you're going to do enough retail business to matter, you can probably get an offset print run at low quantity and sell through Studio2 or Indie Press Revolution. SJG may have better outlets than these guys, though, being bigger.

[doctorevilbrain]

Bring back Smif? Ugh! I think that he was the reason that GURPS got a reputation of having bad art and with good reasons. If you want to see RPG art, then see Rob Caswell's.

[Boomerang]

The artwork for Dungeon Fantasy helped convince me to support the Kickstarter. My group won't switch from Pathfinder to gurps if the art is terrible.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

The artwork for Dungeon Fantasy helped convince me to support the Kickstarter. My group won't switch from Pathfinder to gurps if the art is terrible.

Makes sense. Bad art (or no art) makes the product look like somebody in a basement wrote up their home-grown system. It needs good art, and professional layout and design.

Full stop.

[David Johansen]

It's a fair point, it's not how I sell or pitch games to my players but it certainly is an issue. When it comes to running something other than D&D Every GM is a salesman.

[Shostak]

Production value is not just pretty illustrations (which are things I highly esteem); it is smart design. The color-coded bottom margins on the Basic Set, Magic, and some other GURPS books might seem unremarkable, but it is a wonderfully useful aid to using the book. Paper choice is another important issue. My copy of Ars Magica 5e is hardbound with tons of illustrations (most mediocre or worse) but the paper and font make for a book that feels cheap and is hard to read. SJGames might not have the greatest illustrations, but their hardbound books certainly don't have the worst, and the overall quality of the books is great. I will always be willing to pay more for high production value, because it means a better product that will last longer and be more enjoyable to use.

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

The artwork for Dungeon Fantasy helped convince me to support the Kickstarter. My group won't switch from Pathfinder to gurps if the art is terrible.

I find the GURPS design style to be great for a generic, universal system, but I was disappointed to see DFRPG use essentially the same style. The art was above average, but the rest of the package seemed...too clean? I'm not even sure what word I'm looking for. The choice of font makes the side of the box look goofy and the pages within each book lack personality.

It's one of the unfortunate side effects of being such a broad system that each line within feels uninspired from a design perspective. It has to be that way, to maintain consistency across the whole thing, but sometimes I wish the layouts could better resemble the genres of the books.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

The art was above average, but the rest of the package seemed...too clean? I'm not even sure what word I'm looking for...

I don't know the words either, but perhaps it's the direction some fantasy game books take: gothic or other "fantasy" fonts (at least in headings), subtly yellowed page colors (to evoke a scroll or ancient tome), maybe even details in margins that hint of dirt or burnt edges...

I don't know that I'd prefer that look for DFRPG, or that I myself would even care much one way or the other... but I wonder whether newcomers from some games might come with an expectation or even preference for that style of artistic direction. (One negative: it'd cost more, I'm sure.)

In any case, I'll agree with anyone noting that the DFRPG style (and GURPS style in general) doesn't excite. Then again, it's clean and usable, and there is such a thing as going too far with the decorative stuff.

(I definitely give a thumbs-up to the colored page margins in DFRPG and color GURPS books. Those are really useful!)

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

I find the GURPS design style to be great for a generic, universal system, but I was disappointed to see DFRPG use essentially the same style. The art was above average, but the rest of the package seemed...too clean? I'm not even sure what word I'm looking for. The choice of font makes the side of the box look goofy and the pages within each book lack personality.

It's one of the unfortunate side effects of being such a broad system that each line within feels uninspired from a design perspective. It has to be that way, to maintain consistency across the whole thing, but sometimes I wish the layouts could better resemble the genres of the books.

I think I know what you mean. I would have liked for the dungeon fantasy books to look like some sort of ancient and forbidden source of lore like out of a Lovecraft story. It would be hard to balance that style of design against the requirements of an easily accessible rules manual. I'm happy with the final result, it looks like a proper professional game.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by tbone

I don't know the words either, but perhaps it's the direction some fantasy game books take: gothic or other "fantasy" fonts (at least in headings), subtly yellowed page colors (to evoke a scroll or ancient tome), maybe even details in margins that hint of dirt or burnt edges...

Personally I rather dislike all that sort of nonsense. More often than not it just ends with things that are hard to read or, in most cases, a nightmare to use as a pdf.

Contrast that I cleanly and quickly leaf through GURPS pdfs, but if I have open a White Wolf pdf? Most pages take 5+ seconds to finalize as art elements load and out and are covered or overlapped. It honestly makes me not want to use their products.