The RPG Art Thread

Palladium’s art was always good. I still like to look through at all the vehicles, robots, etc.

I’ve been reading Spelljammer, which is full of crazy cool fantasy art. I really wish fantasy would go back to being, well, fantastic! That’s one of the things Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands has going for it.

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RPG art these days does not impress me. Seems like every D&D or Pathfinder book in the last 20 years has been nothing but spiky dragons and a brown and green color pallette. You can’t tell one book from another.

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Shadowrun has had some great art over the years, and has also been one of my favorite RPGs to GM (does that make me a sadist?).

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I love Shadowrun but have seldom had a chance to play it.

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In the grand tradition of the Out of Context Comics thread, I feel like noting “you’re going to find out very soon if you keep hugging it like that. Also, living things make poor teddy bears.”

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I could mention the Discworld Roleplaying Game (definitely recommend to any fans), but since it uses Paul Kidby’s art that kinda feels like cheating.

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Shilling for Pearl, there’s some good weird art in They Came From Beneath the Sea.

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Perhaps…? My only real frame of reference is second edition which seemed just as chunky as other systems of the era, but reading fifth edition flipped my wig. It isn’t bad. It seemed to have some great improvements. It’s… involved…

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For me, 2nd Edition was probably my favorite implementation of Shadowrun, as I felt it was the most balanced edition, and had the best supplemental support. Early 3rd edition was great as well, but started going off the rails when they introduced wireless Matrix tech. Shadowrun has always suffered with the problem of how to incorporate the Matrix in a realistic manner without bogging everything else down in the process, and 5th edition probably dealt with that the best, but supplemental support was abysmal. It was really, really bad. Most supplements were absolute garbage, the worst of any RPG I have ever played, it really soured me on the game.

I have only run a few sessions under 6th edition, due to the pandemic, as well as my experience with 5th edition. My general impression is that the Magic system is very overpowered (4th edition had a similar problem), and the Skill system is badly broken in the other direction. I have not paid attention since the pandemic, but maybe they have fixed things. If I ever get going with another group that is interested in SR, I will have to take a look.

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Finally re-located this cover, which I remember being very impressed by back in the day… though I never played the game.

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I always loved Jim Holloway’s art from the Paranoia RPG. His comic book style captured the spirit of the game perfectly:
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His interconnected covers for the 1st edition box set was pure genius:


Everyone has an angle on someone else, but the troubleshooters are caught in the middle. Chaos is about to ensue, and clones are going to die, the perfect setup for a hilarious night of dice chucking (and ignoring the results).

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I actually have a dice tower version of that Player’s Handbook cover idol. The flames even light up!

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Feh! That’s just one of the Seven Deadly Enemies Of Man, squirreled away in the Rock Of Eternity by that old wizard Shazam.

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This just turned up in my Facebook feed. The game doesn’t interest me much but the art is gorgeous.

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That is quite pretty, yes.

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Loved to play Shadowrun in HS

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Arise! We need more art! Here’s some more from Mutants & Masterminds, one of their many “pastiche” pieces.

…that feels like something that would go into the Out of Context Comics thread.

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One more, I haven’t seen these yet, one from the series, also very funny if you have a chance to read them !

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