The Importance of the "TSR Style" in Retro-Clone Publishing

[AxeMental]

HAHA you left coast high tech bastard.

I actually don't hate technology, its more that I don't particularly like the style of those in control of its look and design (at least what I've seen). Plus, the more you show the less you leave to the imagination. I think What Foster posted is probably more close to reality then my wishful thinking (that 1E some how survives us). But I stay optimistic non-the-less.

[grodog]

a game manual is first and foremost an instructional tome, and navigation, dissemination of information, and reader comprehension/retention must be foremost in the mind of the designer. I feel that all publications from Wizards (and Paizo, who is competing with Wizards for our attention) do not address those issues at all. Their only concerns seem to be centered on eye-candy.

Agreed: there's very little to no information design and usability thought given to gaming books in general.

WRT to Tony's original points, I do think that we have two major themes going (perhaps now three with usability/info design above thrown in). I culled these from his first few posts in the thread, pulling together various points originally made in different posts:

1) TSR Style presentation (in particular in cover design, but also font selections)

Ever since the development of retro-clones and the ability to legally publish D&D comparable games, I've noticed that publishers consistently try to emulate the look of the products TSR published in its heyday. Most do this by mimicking the layout of the module covers with the yellow band in the upper left corner, but some opt to replicate the monochrome color scheme. Typography and font selection will be as close a match as possible to the ones used in the 70's/80's products, and a few will even go so far as to use themes and compositions found in the classic art pieces of the time.

[snip] It doesn't have to be this way. OSRIC is not a campaign setting: is a system, a platform that allows game designers to create adventures and supplements for play under a very popular ruleset. That doesn't mean that we want or need to see an adventure [snip] complete with TSR trade dress, art depicting samurai hobgoblins, and a totally irrelevant letter/number identifying code in the corner in case you can't remember the title of the product. This ruleset can be used to create any number of fantasy adventures that can be presented in an infinite variety of layouts. If the game we love is so timeless and still relevant today, why won't publishers leave the nest and break away from the TSR template? Are they afraid they'll lose the nostalgia consumer base if they were to try something different, or is it a matter of ego, where they want to make the products they were such fans of when they were younger, to become the next TSR?

and 2) Confidence in the content to let it stand on its own without TSR Style presentation propping it up (for good or ill):

All of these TSR knock-off products feel like forced, cheap imitations. They don't capture the 'essence' of the game for me, and when I thumb through one I don't automatically say "Wow, it's just like something I would have bought in '82"! No, instead I feel like I'm looking at fan fiction, works that aren't good enough to stand on their own so they attempt to win over an audience through association. Familiarity can breed contempt, especially when it feels like its cashing in on our fondest childhood memories.

[snip] I'd like to think that the average 1E/retro-clone fan is hungry for new and exciting products that their game of choice supports. I know that when TSR was cranking out adventures in the early 80's it was the cool, new adventures that grabbed my eye ("An adventure in Wonderland? Awesome!" "Going to the Abyss to fight the drow goddess in her demon pits!? Fuck yeah, sign me up!") not because it looked familiar and comforting. It felt like the thread contained a bunch of old sheep who totally forgot about the wonder of the game and only were concerned with its resemblance visibly to things already published.

So, how to handle these issues? (issue 3 really is a separate thread, I think, but then 1 and 2 may need to be too, if only to keep them straight while discussing all of this ):

1) TSR Style presentation (in particular in cover design, but also font selections): why bother?
2) Confidence in OSR content that lets it stand on its own without TSR Style presentation propping it up (for good or ill)?

I'm going to tackle these in reverse order, because I think the confidence question that Tony raises underlies his concerns with both the content and the presentation, and it's worth getting out of the way first.

So, confidence: does relying on TSR's module cover template(s) make a publisher or an author weaker than striking out on their own, with their own graphical vision? I think a number of folks have raised good points and reasons why using TSR's shorthand template is not cowardice, however, I think it's still a good question to raise, Tony. The reasons that Jon and I publish using that template (and we haven't used it on all of our products, as the old Mullen Spire cover for S&W below demonstrates) are several fold:

- we like the look and feel of many of the TSR-era modules, personally and artistically (this may be somewhat of a circular argument, but I think it's worth bringing up: many folks writing for the OSR esteem OD&D and AD&D design and artistic principles, so staying true to your roots is important for many of us)
- we like the evocation and association that those templates make about our products' content; while this certainly provides instant recognition to our core audience (a "recognition" that is generally unnecessary from the POV of marketing awareness, since few of our customers purchase our products without knowing about them ahead of time via the usual online channels for news...), I don't think we're using it as a crutch, because we produce content that we believe can sit side-by-side on the same shelf with TSR's output
- we also use the cover templates to build a visual identity for the products; when we were still going to publish Castle of the Mad Archmage, we discussed aligning the cover designs for those books with the Rob Kuntz material we're starting to publish now and also with the levels from own version of Castle Greyhawk: so whatever their specific look/function, we wanted them to have a common template to help show that they're related product lines, even if they might have different specific artwork types/artists filling the templates, and perhaps complimentary but different color schemes; that visual similarity (across the three lines, not with TSR specifically) we hoped would drive some cross-product awareness and sales

Anyone who spends the time and effort to publish their OSR writings out there in the market is doing so knowing that they'll not make a lot of money off of such efforts, and knowing that someones somewhere will really hate their work, for whatever reason. So, on some level, I give anyone a pass on the confidence issue if they're risking their time, talent, and some $$$ to share their vision with the rest of us.

I imagine that other folks will have different reasons for using (or not using) the baseline TSR cover template, but I think I backed into answering Tony's first concern there too, at least in terms of why we bother using the TSR elements in our covers.

Lastly, I also think that the OSR is probably quite a bit more diverse in terms of look-and-feel than most of us suspect. Marcel pointed to a few books that break the TSR mold @ http://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/view ... 14#p181314 and I've added several more to the mix below:









Those are just me cherry-picking good products that I'm already familiar with or own that have a fair amount of diversity in their visual design. I'm sure there are a ton of additional products out there that are in fact still solid, old school content, but which don't completely ape TSR's layout templates. Even the Night of the Black Swords' and Witch Mounds' and ASE2-3's templates---while the closest to TSR's classic style among these---emphasize and include/exclude different elements from the classic template, such as the gradient fill running up/down ASE2-3, the lack of a module description below the picture on Witch Mounds, and the rather large size of the artwork on Night of the Black Swords. So, even while leveraging the baseline TSR template, you can still make it your own, and create a distinctive design.

[robertsconley]

It isn't computer games, but VTTs, that hold the future for RPGs. People already use hangouts for purely social activities, for a lot of reasons. I know that up to this point VTTs haven't really picked up yet, but I think Roll20 is about to gather enough critical mass to entrench itself as something simple enough to just pick up and use, without a large learning curve.

I slightly disagree, What VTTs do is expand the available social opportunities for tabletop gaming. But like other type of social activities impacted by the internet, people find they still want to get together and meet in person.

With that minor point stated, I feel that VTTs are going to absolutely vital to the health of the hobby. Groups will be able to game together for much longer despite the vagaries of life. Moves to other places, or graduation doesn't spell death for a group ability to stay together.

The big unknown is how the the technological and social issues effecting all print publishers are going to impact the publishers of tabletop roleplaying games.

What I think will happen in the long term is that tabletop roleplaying will stabilize as a hobby and as a small industry. Technology still can not completely compete with the imagination of the human mind and the theater of the mind. Sure it offers a spectacle that a lone tabletop referee would have hard pressed to match. But then tabletop roleplaying is feasible for an individual to learn and master as a hobby while the spectacles of technology and other media require a far larger time investment and cooperation of many other people.

Also it wouldn't surprise me if tabletop roleplaying is subjected to another fad cycle, but I wouldn't bother trying to predict it when it will occur.

What we know now is that the capital cost of producing a polished work continues to drop. We know that ability to contact and connect with people from around the planet is becoming easier. It getting easier to put physical products into people's hands. That the barriers to designing new product is lower. Partly due to open gaming and open context, partly because the internet allows like minded people to organize and volunteer resources easier.

I will caution that it is not just rose colored vision. All of this require work to make things happen. Maybe not the same amount of type of work that you had to do in say 1985 but it still work and require an investment of time and resources. The fundamental thing that changed that more people have the opportunity to do what they want with the hobby.

[PatW]

Even the Night of the Black Swords' and Witch Mounds' and ASE2-3's templates---while the closest to TSR's classic style among these---emphasize and include/exclude different elements from the classic template, such as the gradient fill running up/down ASE2-3

The reason for the gradient fill is that a full-color painting for the front is too expensive, so it was a cheap way to liven it up. Otherwise it would've been a solid color 100% TSR trade dress imitation.

[AxeMental]

Yeah, I totally understand limited budgets, especially when your talking about small sales figures. My comments are directed at the big boys that could buy paintings but continue to pick kewl photoshopped artwork (that can create more effects but just lacks something, to me anyway).

[EOTB]

It isn't computer games, but VTTs, that hold the future for RPGs. People already use hangouts for purely social activities, for a lot of reasons. I know that up to this point VTTs haven't really picked up yet, but I think Roll20 is about to gather enough critical mass to entrench itself as something simple enough to just pick up and use, without a large learning curve.

I slightly disagree, What VTTs do is expand the available social opportunities for tabletop gaming. But like other type of social activities impacted by the internet, people find they still want to get together and meet in person.

I think it will be more than that, as it gets more user friendly.

A 3-D VTT is probably only a few years away. Once that hits it becomes feasible for a WOW-ish type game that has a human AI (the DM) sitting behind the curtain pulling the lever. So I think that with technology, people who would find the idea of sitting around the table and imagining everything to be kind of boring, would like the explicitly visual element that technology-driven RPGs could provide.

We've all played computer games where the AI lets you down. We've all had great D&D sessions that would have been fun to see on a screen in real-time (granted, some prefer the theater of the mind, but I think the younger the participant, the less valued that is). We're going to hit a convergence at some near point where both audiences will be able to use RPGs to get that.

[francisca]

A 3-D VTT is probably only a few years away.

[EOTB]

Now that would be awesome, but is probably more than a few years away

Maybe for AD&D 35E

[Kalex the Omen]

Sorry for the thread Necromancy.

Just speaking for myself, I emulated TSR's trade dress from the era of AD&D I started with and still love to this day. It is sort of an homage to something that has a profound effect on my life for the good. I would be lying if I said there wasn't a thought of the nostalgia effect such trade dress could potentially have on prospective customers, but it certainly was not the only or even prime reason. There is also an "amateur graphic designer" factor that cannot be dismissed. The TSR adventure module trade dress of the early 1980's is simple to recreate using today's computer layout and design software packages. I'm not going to come up with a trade dress that looks anything like what bigger companies or more skilled graphic designers can create, but I can pretty easily emulate that old TSR look.

My plan was always to move beyond that classic trade dress eventually. Build the business first, then hire real graphic designers to completely redesign the trade dress with something original and professional looking. Building the business can be the hard part though, and it takes a long time sometimes. A lot of businesses that may have started with the same reasoning never get beyond the phase of putting out a few books and folding up shop. Heck, I'm not even beyond that stage myself. Between RL work, wife, kid and regular gaming sessions, getting out new and hopefully improved products is an uphill battle that I'm not certain I am winning. In just over 4 years we've released 3 adventure modules, two of which needed serious revision after my business partner left, and I'm still revising the second of those. I wish I had more time and could crank out material like some other designers I see, but in spite of my love for the game, the community and the work itself, I just can't short my family time to do it.