Love the Legend Covers

[Supplement Four]

I don't play this game, though it has caught my curiosity. Looking around the Mongoose site, I see the Legend items published so far. And, I've got to say, I love the plain covers with just the title of them.

Classy. Good looking stuff.

 

[Harshlax]

I don't play this game, though it has caught my curiosity. Looking around the Mongoose site, I see the Legend items published so far. And, I've got to say, I love the plain covers with just the title of them.

Classy. Good looking stuff.

You should have been here for the long "fight" the forum had with some of the design team to get them to go for plain covers. When you see what art they had in mind for the main book cover... :roll:

All in fun guys.

 

[torus]

You should have been here for the long "fight" the forum had with some of the design team to get them to go for plain covers. When you see what art they had in mind for the main book cover...

Essentially the same art as is used internally in Legend, i.e. fantasy high-school ninjas.

In their defence, they also came up with the plain cover as an alternative design.

 

[Prime_Evil]

Personally, I would favour a slightly rougher edge to the interior artwork - I don't have anything against fantasy high-school ninjas per se, but they don't really suit the flavour of the game. I think that swords-and-sorcery artwork recalling early Conan comics would be the way to go, but with less a cheesecake factor and a slightly grittier edge. Legend needs to work hard to differentiate itself from the dozens of D&D clones out there - and one way to do this is to give it a strong visual feel.

 

[torus]

Full agreement here - the existing art does nothing for me. I think as well as swords & sorcery, another direction would be early medieval/dark ages. Legend works well for that.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

And remember that womens' breasts are smaller than their heads.

 

[Prime_Evil]

And remember that womens' breasts are smaller than their heads.

I don't think that the illustrations in the Legend rulebooks are as bad in this area as some older d20 products, but it's definitely something to watch out for. Female characters don't need to be overly sexualised to be cool - in fact, this acts as a major turn-off to most female players that I know. The depiction of Anathaym in RQ 6 gets the balance mostly right - she wears sensible armour, looks like a veteran adventurer, and seems to have a strong sense of agency. Plus there is minimal cheesecake factor. This is also something that Paizo has done right from the very beginning - their female iconic characters have strong personalities and are rarely depicted in cheesecake costumes or poses (with the possible exception of Seoni). The style of the artwork used by Pathfinder wouldn't suit Legend at all, but there are some lessons in how to depict women in RPG sourcebooks that other publishers could learn from.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but increasingly I look back on the artwork from early RPG books with a sense of nostalgia. The artwork was often rough and unpolished by modern standards, but at least it depicted adventurers as real people with flaws and weaknesses rather than as comic book superheroes or figures out of bad anime series.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

I was a magazine art-editor in the 1990's. I was fairly often having to reply to freelance artists' submissions that "we like you stuff... but can you "de-anime it?".

Scrubbing the "hot chicks" and drawing their mother or sister was another common suggestion.

 

[Prime_Evil]

I was a magazine art-editor in the 1990's. I was fairly often having to reply to freelance artists' submissions that "we like you stuff... but can you "de-anime it?".

I feel your pain. I've got nothing in particular against anime as an artistic style, not it's not always appropriate - and it certainly doesn't suit the gritty feel of Legend. It's a bit too clean and slick, implying that the game is all about high-powered cinematic action...

Scrubbing the "hot chicks" and drawing their mother or sister was another common suggestion.

I don't have anything against "hot chicks" in principle, but they should only appear where appropriate. Falling back on pictures of semi-naked women in suggestive poses every time is sheer artistic laziness. The Legend product line isn't too bad in this regard, but Mongoose doesn't exactly have a fantastic track record in this area.

 

[soltakss]

I don't play this game, though it has caught my curiosity. Looking around the Mongoose site, I see the Legend items published so far. And, I've got to say, I love the plain covers with just the title of them.

Classy. Good looking stuff.

It also makes it nice and easy to produce third party supplements with similar-looking covers, without splashing out loads of money on a cover.