>>97079123
>I am too poor to hire artists. Is it worth using AI art?
some people will simply not click on it if they see ai art, these people will generally assume a large portion of any content that includes ai generated art will also be ai generated
some people simply will not click on it if there are no pictures to look at, regardless of the quality of the book itself
some people are both
some people are neither
i can't give you statistics here except to say "these people exist as some portion of the population" so you'll have to weigh the pros and cons yourself

>>97079123
Idk depends on your target audience, but you're probably fucked already if you have to ask one of the deadest boards on this site for help.

>>97079123
Unless the art is necessary, just focus on making the book competent to read. There's tons of rulesets and rulebooks that go completely without art on the internet, regular art didn't change anything about their contents let alone ai slop.

Otherwise just do whatever, the art would be your own to use/reuse/abuse all you like if you hired the artist, but I'm not your mom.

>>97079146
Each piece of art in a book like this can run 200 USD. For 1 per page over 100 pages that's like 20,000 USD.

>>97079142
>post number 97 million
>deadest board
Also you responded to my post, so I don't believe you.
>>97079141
I considered just making trash art of my own. Literal stick figure tier.

>>97079123
Use public domain art that you find fitting. Its a cost effective compromise and shows that you at least care enough to find cool shit instead of getting a bot to churn it out.

>>97079161
Like I said, I'm not anon's mom. He can do what he wants, including going with ai sloppa if that's what he wants. Though frankly, anon, I'd say if you need to pad out your book with an art piece for every page, then you've got bigger problems than your wallet since most books I've seen barely cover maybe a sixth of the book with illustrations, let alone a tenth of that.

>>97079169
>I considered just making trash art of my own. Literal stick figure tier.
It worked for Risus, and if it gets the idea across competently enough then more's the better

>>97079123
I personally wouldn't trust a book with AI images to be human-written, and there are plenty of others that think that way. Also, it's pretty unlikely that GMs would ignore your work for a lack of images, and they're the best target audience (as they're more likely to get their group to play it).

>>97079176
I mean the op image is 147 pages, it's not really a content issue, it's an optics issue. I might just raw dog text. Make the book for "real rpgamers".
>>97079180
I'm just really trying to gauge the willingness for people deal with the text walls. I figure if I format the book pretty enough people will overlook the lack of pretty pictures.

>>97079193
If you wanted to min-max your optics, you can just start with the text only, market it as a basic/beginner's "ruleset only" version, and then do one up later with the pretty pictures as a "premium" edition or something. Plenty of people make homebrew documents with just regular text and tables, after all.

>>97079123
OP, I mean this in the nicest way, but why do you think anyone wants what you're making?
>my unique rules system!
Okay, I see.
But counterpoint: your unique system takes up 150 pages. Probably more like 200 with art and nice formatting.

The most successful games are the ones that are the easiest to understand.
>but D&D!
D&D is just: roll a d20, add a number from your character sheet, compare number to target number.
Sometimes the enemy rolls the d20 instead.
That's it. That's the entirety of how D&D works.
The rest of the book is just giving you options for what numbers to add to the D20.

Maybe your game is already like that.
But if it's not, it will fail. Sorry if nobody's told you this before.

>>97079230
>>97079230
Wouldn't it be cool if I told you what the system was? Man, that would be something huh.
This thread is about if people will tolerate the book without pretty pictures in it.

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>>97079277
nta, strongly depends on the content of the book.
If its useful material for other games, tables, scenarios, etc. that's a plus. If its just a heartbreaker of some sort with lore dumps or large quantities of poorly thought out rules no one is going to give a fuck.
Even your msp stickmen will add a homemade charm like this thing.

>>97079123
AI has no place in anything you're trying to sell. Especially if it's not by a large company.

>>97079299
I want the story on that thing

>>97079123
Using AI images tends to poison the well so to speak. It creates distrust, makes everything else look suspicious and will lead to the endless accusations that the game isn't really yours since the people will claim that everything else is also AI generated. There are a few better options:
>use your own trash art
>find some artist willing to help on DA, Pixiv, etc.
>use stock pictures and retouch them in a free program.
Basically, you can get a lot of value from a free high quality stock site like:
>https://unsplash.com
and editing them in some free image editor like Krita (which I am recommending since it's both free, pro-tier and easy enough for a newbie to use).
I genuinely suggest to just use stock and add some small retouches in Krita.

>>97079331
I'm pretty familiar with Krita. I guess I could whip up contour art or something of that nature.

>>97079123
If you use the latest models like nano banana pro it would be worth your while. I find oil painting prompts look pretty good for Fantasy sort of stuff.
>>97079141
Except soon you won't even be able to tell

>>97079363
>Except soon you won't even be able to tell
Won't stop people from accusing shit of being ai made, just means there'll be more false flags

>>97079354
That's great. Also, you could really do well if you collage or retouch some stock pictures of nature and weapons from a free stock sites.

>>97079169
>deadest board
Yes, anon, /tg/ is indeed one of the deadest boards, and one of the few that has consistently had a decreasing userbase even while other boards were on the upswing.
It also has a long post history, glad you noticed.

>>97079363
Post an example.

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>>97079385
This is about the quality of what I can do.
>>97079390
Yet you are still here responding to a thread.

>>97079396
ngl, that's better than the average fa/tg/uy could do.

>>97079396
maybe just stick to text anon

>>97079323
No idea, I saved it from a module called Giant's Perch over 3 years ago. Didn't keep the module but I liked the thing.

>>97079421
It definitely has sovl that much is for sure.

>>97079123
Fuck art. If a TTRPG company published two versions of a book, $20 and 20 MB with art vs. $20 and 1 MB without art, I would buy the no-art version every time.
FUCK ART.

>>97079396
>This is about the quality of what I can do.
Probably matches the writing so you should be fine.

>>97079396
This is totally acceptable as a home made project. Has a lofi vibe that could work depending on what the game is about. You'll get better as you go too.

>>97079396
Very observant of you, there is indeed at least one (1) person responding to this thread.

>>97079396
It's decent for a homemade art project and as I have said, you can always just use retouched photos or photos cut and pasted into collages for more expressive stuff. Unknown Armies did that quite a lot.

>>97079425
You ain't gonna pay for the game regardless anon.

>>97079123
who cares? anyone who wants great art in the rulebook will never even see your indie sloppa lol

>>97079431
(づ￣ 3￣)づ
>>97079436
I did plan to sell the book, and reupload versions of it as content expands. I could update its art as I go.
>>97079425
Is 20MB really a burden for you?

>>97079123
Use AI art. It's better than no art.

People who tell you that AI art is bad and you should feel bad for using it are the same crowd who will tell you "well, if your game isn't D&D it's pointless" doomerposting and "nyeh, if you can't afford art just give up" type crowds. Fuck 'em all. Do what you need to to make your game look good.

>>97079123
Are you the autist who got ran out of /agdg/?

>>97079471
That's terrible advice. No art is better than bad art since all bad art does is take up space and distract from the rules.

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>>97079390
We have a high post but low new thread ratio. Makes sense given the prevalence of generals and the siloing of ttgamers into GW, MTG and DnD by a huge margin.
15th or so on the board, have been since recovery post sharttening. The huge downturn was post 2024 american election, went down 1000s per day iirc. Its been on the downward curve since late 2022ish, the vid quarantine numbers and hobby boom wouldn't stay up forever.
Be nice if 4stats got their graph back together so we could compare over time again.

>>97079123
You can put some interesting old paintings as an eye candy if you want free art that doesn't advertise "this has been written by LLM".

>>97079123
Just release it and say you'll get art when you have the money for it, people love a starving artist. You could do the same and include your own hand drawings too. Make sure to save the original artless one so if you do make enough money to pay for art you can rerelease the art-free as a printer friendly version.

>>97079458
>Is 20MB really a burden for you?
It just makes me angry to see all that bandwidth and disk space wasted on stuff that doesn't matter one iota.

>I could update its art as I go.
Don't forget to keep the old versions available for purchase.

>>97079487
Imo the bigger issue is the overall quality. Outside of generals most threads are trashfires that devolve into a few spergs/bots (Couldn't tell you which it is) fighting over nothing. Even this one is on its way there.

>>97079479
Don't generate bad art?

I've seen (and released) plenty of games without art in them. They get zero traction if you have nothing. Even if it's human-made and you have a cover, that's not enough. You're already going to struggle getting eyes on a project. You should be utilizing every tool at your disposal to maximize the chance people will be interested in your book / game, and give it a try or read.

AI art, if used correctly, can suffice. Luddites will whine and complain because "it's not human made!" but will then not pick up your game whether it's human made or no.

>>97079142
You can go ahead and fuck off with your sad little demoralization tactics

>>97079458
>I did plan to sell the book, and reupload versions of it as content expands.
Nice. Don't expect to make much and make what you love because not many other people will, but good luck to you. Taking time to make a thing and learn new skills is a worthwhile human activity regardless of how much money you make.

>>97079508
I said bad art, anon. I didn't even mention ai in my post. Thanks for telling on yourself, though.

lol mad

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I'm going to make the following assumption
>I want art in my game so that more people look at my game.

If that's wrong then my following advice is unhelpful, so ignore me.

>should I use AI
In general its a coin flip if the average person cares about AI art. Some don't like it, some don't care. But "the average person" also probably not going to see your game in the first place, because you're an indie TTRPG that's not quite finished or at a physical book print stage yet.

The people most likely to see your game are the people online enough to know that indie TTRPGs exist, and that are willing to check out a work in progress one. When talking about that demographic most of them have an opinion about AI art, and usually a less positive one from a vague feeling/vibes I get online so

>source: my ass

Obviously there's sites like 4chan where people are mostly AI positive, but as many people, including 4chan, constantly point out: 4chan is full of contrarians and are a minority online.

If your goal is to get in front of more eyes, and you're primarily distributing through online and word of mouth, I wouldn't recommend it. If you're primarily distributing to normal offline people, AI art will get you in front of more eyes. If your mainly going to sites like 4chan where you know people don't care, then definitely do AI art since it will get more eyes on your post.

Personally I think you would get more mileage out of putting more effort into the layout. Especially since that work will carry over if you ever get art. That's the option I went with.

Pic related is my game. I saved up and eventually had enough money to pay an artist for border frills and a fancy logo for the title, and then I spent forever hours trying to make the layout the better. Effectively as expensive as buying 1 art piece, and the rest of the book can just be white boxes where I want to put art eventually.

>>97079500
You should maybe consider investing in a hard drive that isn't from the 90s. Or are you a thirdie?

>>97079507
What are they fighting over? All I see is
>a few pro and anti ai bits
>a few standard contrarian discouraging things
>a few light jokes
>anon gets some decent advice and makes a picture that isn't a camera, might make a thing
This is fine. Doesn't have to be 300+ upvotes or whatever.

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>>97079516
and here, just for you, the stats of how that worked out for me.

For context my game has been public on itch for a year and a half now. It was marked as an Alpha, it is now marked as a Beta, but the entire time has been "pay what you want" so it's been free.

>>97079516
What a load of buyer's remorse nonsense. Tabletop is one of the most AI-Positive scenes in the world and the vast majority of people in this hobby are neutral towards or supportive of it.
/tg/ is one of the more negative places outside of the more productive generals because it's full of trolls and contrarians.

OP, the fact is most people don't care what art you use, as long as it looks vaguely intriguing and hooks them, and no art is the worst way to approach that.

>>97079514
>Use AI art. It's better than no art.
>No art is better than bad art
>Don't generate bad art?
>I didn't even mention ai in my post.

Actual retardation.

Pointless talking to someone deliberately trying to be a smug retard.

Do what you will, OP. Just remember not to listen to posters like this guy.

>>97079555
You're the retard who equated ai art to bad art in your own post, anon, don't get upset

>>97079550
>pwyw
>9 payments
>$401.01
Neat. NTAYRT.
How'd that break down per payment?
Generally I don't pay to look at it and then go back to pay if it seems like something I'd use. Happens about 1 in every 5 or so I think.

>>97079123
The average person doesn't actually care that much about AI generated art, or AI generated music, or AI generated video memes, or AI generated scripts being read by AI generate TTS, with AI generated images for filler. However, the average person does not play TTRPGs. The average TTRPG player only plays D&D 5e, and while they may be less inclinded to bitch about AI generate content in a 5 dollar third party supplemental PDF on DTRPG, the kind of person who will go looking for new systems is going to be way more stingy and reflexively turned off from something that is blatantly plastered in shitty AI art.

My advice would be to aim to build up a following first. Before any other steps, spending any money, or prepping for any further production, get people playing your game. Get people invested in the system as a system. Not as an idea. Not as the potential for a good system that they can buy later. Not as a kickstarter that you will be posting in a few months. People need to be able to play the system and decide if they like it first. You can be up front and tell everyone that you don't have thousands of dollars to pay out of pocket for the commercial distribution rights from an artist. They'll understand. Maybe if your system is good enough, you will even attract artists willing to work with you for a fair price.

Just don't resort to AI and then try to make the excuse that you're took poor for good art.

>>97079564
I told him it's better to have than not to have art at all. Especially in terms of getting eyes on it.

This has nothing to do with whether it's good or bad. It's about not using it because of stigma. So. Stop being a retard. Read. Use context. Stop conflating shit.

>>97079552
>straight up lying

>>97079582
You're the retard who wanted to waste his time whining about the people who don't "appreciate" your llm slop.

Frankly, art is arguably the least important aspect to a ttrpg book, and bad art regardless of origin only serves as a distraction from the contents. He would be genuinely better off just making sure his book is as solidly formatted as he wants it before thinking of how to decorate it. This isn't like worrying about the seasoning to a food dish before it's done, it's like worrying about the garnishings before it's finished cooking. That's why people are telling him to go with other low-cost alternatives or do the art himself if he's just trying to get the book in a ready enough state. He can worry about paying an artist or about spending time tardwrangling the art machines later, after he's got his shit together.

>>97079615
t. ranny

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>>97079566
>How'd that break down per payment?

Not as exciting as you expect. A majority of the money was from two friends/playtesters who had played the game for months and were bullying me into posting it online.

I had been posting into the /tg/ dev threads every month as I made progress, but I didn't want to put my game on itch on the "real internet" until it was done. I didn't think it was good enough to post if there were only 2 classes if I wanted to eventually have 12. Felt like I would be ripping people off somehow even though

>game is literally free

If I had it my way, it still wouldn't be online anywhere outside /tg/ threads and a google drive link.

>>97079516
There are people here making a lot of assumptions when I have said shit about my game or myself.
I have 4 months worth of free banner advertising on DriveThruRPG I can use. I'm confident that any game I release will be seen by some people just browsing the site.
The issue is getting those people to stick.
Your book layout looks pretty sick even from the thumb.

>>97079620
>Frankly, art is arguably the least important aspect to a ttrpg book,
>and bad art regardless of origin only serves as a distraction from the contents.
idk man Mork Borg sold a lot of units.

>>97079620
>Frankly, art is arguably the least important aspect to a ttrpg book
NTA but you're retarded.

>>97079632
And I think Mork Borg's book looks ugly, so idk what that adds to what I said

>>97079634
You've yet to disprove my claim

>>97079625
You have good friends, anon.

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>>97079550
I could probably put it up on itch.io, but I prefer DriveThruRPG as my tabletop game distribution platform.
>>97079582
I mean, its very clear now that AI art is not at all desired, so I'm not going to do that.

>>97079620
If he can afford an artist later, he should use an artist. IF he can afford it.

I'm not whining about people not appreciating AI sloppa. I don't like people berating people for using AI art, especially for low-budget or unfinished projects.

ESPECIALLY if you're saying "just do it yourself, it'll be faster than genning AI art", really? Seriously? Are you serious? If it's about getting shit down, and a drawing he makes would suffice, a gen put down to represent "this is kinda sorta what I want", yeah fuck off that's good enough.

>>97079643
And Mork Borg is art made by a person. It adds by telling you ugly art didn't affect its sales. Human or AI, doesn't matter.

>>97079643
>You've yet to disprove my claim
I think >>97079632
just did and you're coping, prove me wrong.

>>97079625
>friends bully you into them giving you money
lolwut
I get it though, interesting data regardless. I was wondering if that
>$0.01
was from one buyer just leaving a penny to be cheeky.

>>97079643
>so idk what that adds to what I said
Mostly that your opinion on art doesn't matter one iota in comparison. :)

>>97079658
And public domain art is literally faster and cheaper than ai, fwiw

>>97079664
It proves the art of the game is ugly and distracting?

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>>97079658
I would if I could. I realize I'm not going to make lifechanging money from selling TTRPG books. My last game over 4 years has sold about 400 copies. Its only a 20 page book, so I was surprised to even see that. It also didn't have any art.
If I had the money to hire an artist, I definitely would.

>>97079683
Is your book physical and if so how are you distributing it
Also fuck yeah

>>97079123
I will do all the art with AI for 50 bucks. It's not hard to make great stuff IF you know the right prompts

>>97079679
It's faster...if you can find what you want. If there's public domain art that matches what you're looking for.

>>97079683
Hey, sold more than me on any of my projects combined. Shows the quality of your work supersedes the need to some degree, and having art of any kind may boost that, especially depending on which audience it's reaching out to.

>>97079689
It was both print on demand (which DriveThruRPG does, a reason I use them) and PDFs (at a lower price). I render the PDFs in LaTeX which I'm getting better at using.
>>97079695
Thanks, which brings me back to deciding if I want to even bother with art. I just feel a book ten times the size (at potentially 5-10 times the price) people will tolerate containing no art.

Actual advice if you use Ai art: Ai art can't be copyrighted in the he US at least, and I suspect many other countries as well. Only human created works can be copyrighted. If you use AI art, everyone can steal it with zero reprocussions (granted they couldn't steal the text is you mostly wrote it yourself).

My advice: do whatever your opinion of Ai art tells you to do. I personnally don't give a rats ass about this purist debate, I didn't care where if art came from a sweatshop in the Philippines before and I don't care if it comes from Ai now.

>>97079695
No joke, I do personally find it is legitimately easier to just grab whatever is already out there than trying to mess with llm machines. They usually either make rather generic stuff or end up with tiny flaws that I can't help but notice and end up hating.

>>97079723
Public domain art always feels pretty cheap. Basically is the "well at least they didn't use AI" option.

MS Paint has layers now, so you can have the best of both worlds by finding art you like, be it AI, stock photos, photobashing, literally anything, and tracing over it with your mouse in weird colors. Will people know that's what you did? Yes. Will your game look more interesting than just AI art? Also yes.

>>97079728
I've been around since people were making faceclaims for chat rooms and forum games by photoshopping celebrities' faces green and obsidian. People are a lot more tolerant of public domain art than they are of most ai art not because ai art is inherently bad, but cause they just try to use whatever the llm gives them as-is rather than touch it up post-generation, while most public domain art at least mixes it up.

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>>97079753
>MS Paint has layers now

>>97079758
I was around for a lot of similar things, including text-based roleplay chat rooms.

You had elitists mad you didn't buy $80 art of your OC versus people using anime pictures grabbed off of Google Images of generic cat girl versus someone using a picture of Johnny Depp saying he's playing the actor playing the character in the movie adaptation of their story if it ever existed.

People use what tools are available to them.

>>97079753
Maybe on cuckdows 11.

>>97079770
>You had elitists mad you didn't buy $80 art of your OC versus people using anime pictures grabbed off of Google Images of generic cat girl versus someone using a picture of Johnny Depp saying he's playing the actor playing the character in the movie adaptation of their story if it ever existed.
I was the latter
I always made fun of the former and befriended the other artists who were there to just chill. A couple even drew up one of my OCs for free to replace the shitty ms-painted doodle faceclaims I was using for them

I almost miss those days. Discord is less wholesome than the old chatrooms in some ways.

>>97079785
Okay so do it in GIMP or whatever open-source shit /g/ told you you're allowed to use, point still stands.

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>>97079123
Post your game OP, I want to read it.

>>97079801
I just miss IRC

>>97079865
Maybe one day I'll drop some copies.

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>>97079876
Don't be a coward post it now so we can see how good it is.

>>97079888
I'm good with not doxing myself, thanks though. I have enough schizos as it is.

>>97079552
Yeah, I think ayrt is getting the survivorship bias/"vocal minority" effect. I really couldn't care less if a free indie game uses AI art to get its tone across, and I think lots would agree. It's the ones that take issue that you hear about.

>>97079876
I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

>>97079907
Google "Hybrid TTRPG"

>>97079161
You're talking full page colour. Smaller illustrations cost a fraction of that, and black and white line art even less.

>>97079898
>not doxing myself

It's a fucking PDF. If your name is on it just edit that page and export. Quick hiding behind excuses and post.

>>97079900
Genuinely, there's a big difference between free indie/home project and a product when it comes to ai art. Most people still believe in a "pay for what you want" mentality, and ai art is on par with an asset flip in terms of respect as in "use it if that's what you got, but don't expect praise for doing it" kind of thing.

>>97079918
Thankfully, I'm not mostly fucking retarded.
Just kinda fucking retarded.

>>97079123
What's the elevator pitch? General themes, genre, etc. I could do some placeholder art for free.

>>97079936
Nah, I'm good. Not even going to give the genre.
>>97079921
I've always heard that using AI could get a TTRPG dev basically cancelled.

>>97079949
>games not even worth talking about and he's worried about using AI art.

You don't have anything to worry about. Nobody is going to see your game either way.

>>97079949
>Not even going to give the genre
Very homosexual of you.
Here, I'll post mine anyways since you won't.

https://colearkenach.itch.io/the-fade-abyss

>>97079123
Make it for you.
That's what the hobby is about: playing the game you want to play. So make it how you want.

>>97079949
I don't blame you, posting about your game on here is just asking for schizophrenic losers to screech that it's not exactly what they would've designed so it's unplayable and bad.

>>97079969
I was wondering why the board didn't have a TTRPG design thread, now I know.

>>97079977
>I was wondering why the board didn't have a TTRPG design thread
...It does though?

>>97079959
>>97079965
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

>>97079949
>I've always heard that using AI could get a TTRPG dev basically cancelled.
Like I said, people have a "pay for what you want" mentality. And given that far too many people who rely on LLMs for their art production don't bother touching up whatever the LLM creates and just shove it out the door it as-is, of course it's usage has been stereotyped with a lack of care and effort.

>>97079977
Eh, those generals show up intermittently. They just get drowned out by all the other generals and shitposting.

>>97079969
To be fair, were their opinions of any worth anyhow?

>>97079987
>>97079990
I don't think I've ever seen one in the catalogue despite lurking in worldbuilding for the last year.

>>97079977
But there is one! It's a monthly general and everything!
>>96940090

>>97080000
Quads of truth.

>>97079996
You might just be blind and ret-
>Worldbuilding
Ah nvm

>>97079123
I would avoid AI, both for personal reasons and the fact that it poisons marketability. You want clean and neat for formatting, lest you fall into Work Borg territory, and tbf Mork Borg is made by actual graphic designers so it would be hard to make something palatable.
Hand made drawings, even if crude, would really help in my opinion especially since it's an "indie" project, giving a homespun feel to the book. Passion, so to speak

>>97079123
If your system deserves the effort so does the presentation. Art actually is important it communicates the tone of the game and gives concrete images to the players of the setting and it's archetypes. They also act as landmarks for anyone flipping through the book and make navigating it more intuitive.

You don't need art on every page but you should have at least something for the cover. Ideally you should have something for each chapter.
That said, no art is better than bad art. If you are well and truly broke then focus on formatting. If you have a quick-play version of the game polish that up. I'd rather read a 15-page pamphlet with no art than 140 page manual.

I'd suggest taking a very keen interest in art. Familiarize yourself with artists and look for people who are new to the scene and enthusiastic amateurs who are willing to work for cheap. You should also get a very clear idea of what the look of your game will be. Because you'll be drawing from the the less talented end of the pool you want to find someone who, even if they aren't technically perfect, get the vibe of your game. Simple and striking, that's the key.

>>97079123
Just hire an artist. You don't need fully rendered pieces and you can find ones that won't charge a ton of money per piece. Plenty of third worlders charging between 30-60 USD for colored full body pieces.

>>97079169
Stick figure art is extremely soulful

>>97079123
You should use AI art as placeholders so you know where you want it and what you want, and the get actual art commissioned for your release version.

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>>97079123
Don't you have any artsy friends?
Otherwise you can learn how to draw something appealing in less than a month.

The whole point of art is that it's communication from one person's mind to another's. Why would I be interested in the image equivalent of auto complete?

>>97082102
>aI generates art
>yes this is what I visualized in my mind glad I can finally make something from my mind real
>"YOU AREN'T CREATIVE YOU JUST LET AI DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU"

>>97079123
This is literally what ai art us for, proof of concept.

>>97079508
If it's not made by a person it isn't art, and the Luddites were right.

>>97079123
Release an artless version and if the game is even moderately successful make a kickstarter or something for an art vrsion.
Otherwise just free modern art or even better old art that is copyright free
For gold and glory and a few other books do that and it works surprisingly well but there isnt oldschool art for all rpg themes of course

>>97079552
how can you be this desperate LOL

>>97082119
Correct. Glad you finally get it.

>>97079331

>Don't use Ai to generate unique images, that's lazy and theft! Instead copy other people's art directly and make minor edits in paint.

Jesus fucking Christ

>>97082126
OK then, images. You doodle faggots are absolutely insufferable.

>>97082216
>ai
>unique images
Lol, good one anon

>>97079123
If you unironically released this without art, it would be funny

>>97082236
Nobody here knows how AI image generation actually works. People who do know understand its impossible for AI to "steal artwork".

>>97082253
imagine if op made millions off a rulebook with no art in it

>>97082255
Who said anything about stealing? 99% of ai art is just generic anime and google image slop because people just shit it out of these LLMs and upload their slip with no quality control, with the remaining 0.99% being incomprehensible noise and the last 0.01% being properly modified enough post-generation that it’s closer to editing a picture digitally than ai generated

>>97082273
op could probably generate ai art and trace it nobody would know

>>97082278
So essentially, just draw it himself?

>>97082282
You're hugely underestimating how hard it is to construct and render a piece from scratch vs tracing and swatching an established piece
t. drawfag

>>97082316
Usually when people talk about making art with ai, they aren’t talking about using a tool to expedite the painful and boring parts of it, they’re talking about using a tool to bypass drawing altogether, like a literal “press button, get Mona Lisa/print money” kind of machine. To the latter, even tracing is far too much time and effort compared to just print money, get banana.

>>97079277
>This thread is about if people will tolerate the book without pretty pictures in it.
Nigger I'll pay real world money for a fucking TXT file if the content is good and what I want. And I've seen enough bad art or badly used art that I'll take good formatting with minimal or no art over that shit any day.

>>97082374
op doesn't have the balls to release his game as a txt file

>>97082374
I don't think the majority of people are like that. If you go on reddit or whatever your "mainstream" tabletop discussion forum of choice is you'll frequently see people admit they skip over artless/bad art books, even if they're interested in the premise. I think it's silly, but that's how it is.

>>97079161
>1 per page
If you do this you're retarded.

>>97082802
Getting all of your information from reddit is only useful if you're courting a more casual audience. The kind that would prefer plain text don't usually advertise as such. Even then, kickstarter and al kinds of crowd-funded books show that there's an audience that will readily accept a text/graph only format for a ruleset just as readily as they would a full on book full of art and fancy text, it's just a matter of advertising and who you want.

>>97083015
>Getting all of your information from reddit is only useful if you're courting a more casual audience.
NTAYRT but that's the vast majority of the tabletop sphere. People are visual whether we like it or not, and people that have opinions on the decision to include one mechanic over another are a niche within a niche at best.

>>97083197
>that's the vast majority of the tabletop sphere
Pretty sure that the vast majority are on their own Discords and private forums. The vast majority of redditors only play D&D 5e, so they wouldn't be looking for indie rpgs like the kind OP is making to begin with.

>>97083279
>>97083015
>The vast majority of redditors only play D&D 5e
Check non-DnD spaces on Reddit (where people actually tend to be quite hostile to DnD because of its market dominance taking space away from "their" games) and RPG spaces that aren't reddit like EnWorld. You'll see people saying the same thing throughout. If having no art didn't affect sales negatively then surely more game designers and companies would do it? Comissioning a book's worth of art is expensive, afterall.

>>97083369
Have any actual examples of this talk then, anon?

>>97083381
Do you mean do I have random threads from different sites saved? No. Do you have any examples of the majority of people being fine with no art?

>>97083464
This thread

>>97083464
>>97083520
I second this anon, this thread unless you have counter examples.
>pics or it didn't happen

>>97082216
kek you're so fucking mad

>>97082255
nope it's theft eat shit

>>97082316
So what if it's hard? What are you afraid of?

>>97079123
Using AI art can't really help you all that much.

Either people will feel neutral about it being included, or they will feel negative about it being included. There's no version of this where people go "wow, AI art!" as a positive draw to your book's layout.

You also don't need character art or anything like that to make a book effective. There are other things you can do with the layout to marry both visual interest and ease of reading. Ways to break up the information into neat segments, draw eyes to useful tables, make good use of color, etc. It looks like you have a nonzero understanding of this already, but you can go harder. Check out some game rules that you already know and study how they design their pages.

>>97083657
If I put you in a room with white walls, the Mona Lisa, a toilet, and then tell you everything you see is art.
If I tell you to draw art, you'll either give me the Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa with her head replaced with a toilet, a white wall with a toilet framed up on it, Mona Lisa with the background replaced with toilets or a white wall. All would be relatively creative.
If I tell you to draw the Mona Lisa, you'll give be a pretty good replica of the Mona Lisa as you've been looking at it your whole life. But it wouldn't be a 1 to 1 recreation. It would have small mistakes, it wouldn't be the original.
AI image generation models only create what you tell them to. They will "steal art" when you tell them you want "stolen art". That's on you.
Otherwise, image generation model are as capable of stealing art, as someone searching for reference bases on deviantart is. If you think AI art is theft, then using a reference is also theft. Learning art is also theft. Going to college to get a fine arts degree, studying the greats? Nope, you are stealing their art.

>>97083687
OP here, do you have any good reference materials for this?

It doesn't really matter.

If you're putting AI art in your finished product you're a retard because you're setting yourself up for failure anyway - not just because AI art bad, but because you'll have to find some way to keep your characters and art style consistent (either you'll have to invest way more time and money into the AI than you intended or you'll have to learn art to fix/replicate it)

On the other hand, when playtesting (you are playtesting this, right OP?), there's nothing wrong with using AI art, outright art theft with your own two hands, or even your own shitty doodles, all as placeholders while you get the feel for the style you want. This is exactly what every TTRPG/TCG game has done since forever - see pic related, goofballs who made MTG scanned magazine clippings for their playtest art. Really you should be doing a mix of all three of these things and iterating on the results.

SCP foundation is another good example - anons on /x/ used whatever art seemed cool, then later got real artists (or asked permission retroactively, lol).

Eventually, if/when enough people like your game, you might find an artist to add to the team and you can pay them a percentage or something.

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>>97083743
forgot to attach pic

>>97083743
>you are playtesting this, right OP?
Of course it would be stupid for me not to. We've ran playtests both among the playgroup and with randos over discord in short sessions. As well as a few conventions, and at our local gaming stores. I live in a rather large city.
Character creation is relatively easy (10-15 minutes with indie RPgamers), although the gameplay rules require explanation.
I could use public domain art, or even just straight up trace art as people here suggested. Though I'm starting to lean on just trying to make a well formatted book with a "thematic UI" so to speak.

>>97083730
I don't think I have anything laying around that would be useful learning material, but I learned how to use things like InDesign (fuck Adobe) and Scribus (which is free and open-source) when I was doing graphic design studies. They're programs that let you have a lot of control over where things are on the page, and how things look. You can find tutorials on how to use these kinds of programs all over the web, via things like YouTube videos or questions asked on forum/reddit threads. When I say that learning to use creative programs is getting easier than ever due to the availability of information, I very truly mean it.

>>97083788
I'd really like to not use software that forces me to layout each individual page of content. Imagine I have to add content on page 7 and trickle all of the edits from page to page for 50 pages.

>>97083804
I mean, you can control some page layouts with word processors, but I was making suggestions with the thought that you would want to go for a really professional effort that you would take time making all the details just right by your liking.

Being able to do things like custom headers, graphically outlining your tables with borders, etc, is simple and effective, and it's the kind of thing that you find in pretty much any TTRPG rule book.

>>97079123
The "industry" makes it so that people would buy lorem ipsums with pretty pictures. It is infested by the touch of the so-called "artist".
AI images are not art; digital paintings are not art; photography is not art; "traditional" art is not art; music is not art; games are not art; nothing that exists is art, real art has never been tried.

>>97083996
this is the most schizo shit i've seen on /tg/ in a long time

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OP here, I've been messing around with latex styling. I figure I can whip up a different page background between chapter and content pages, then sort just make some crude drawings throughout the book.
I think this purple might be a little eye bleeding though.

>>97084934
it's hard to tell from that zoomed out, if there's a page or two that you're really happy with how it looks, or has a lot of the purple you're afraid is too garish, it might be better to zoom in on that page so people can give feedback.

First impression from this zoomed out is that it's fine for titles, but I hope you're using a softer, darker, or more neutral purple for any in text sub titles or keywords.

>>97085030
I have people I can talk to for AB testing. I'm just posting to get a feel if it was or not.

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>>97084934
Other thing people missed was even if its not images of characters or whatever, having interesting marginalia and section breaks, framing, etc. helps make the whole thing look more professional and paces out the writing.
No idea what themes your game is but stuff like pic related is easy to find and place at points.

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or stuff like

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>>97079123
1. If you want profit you'll need to rake up the cash for an artist.
2. If you want to present something you can be proud of then you should hand draw whatever you can, no matter how shitty it is.
3. If you just want to present your players with something engaging, feel free to steal art from wherever you want.
4. If you want 3 but don't want to use copyright art just go for public domain stuff, but you'll be hard-pressed to find your original monsters and characters there.

>>97083745
>mtg playtest cards
Neat, makes sense given the time.

>>97084360
He's right about one thing though, digital "art" is ultimately on the same level as AI slop.

>>97087377
this is the second most schizo shit i've seen on /tg/ in a long time

>>97086169
I do have the benefit of simply uploading new version of the book pdf whenever I want. I could add and improve art over time, but release it initially without art.

>>97079123
I'd say, don't go AI due to people sperging about it. Ask around online for artists from poorer countries who would not ask for much.
If you cannot afford even that, start saving up from your job to finance it. No way around it.

>>97082528
>op doesn't have the balls to release his game as a txt file
OP doesn't have the balls to release the game as a jpg photo of his work notes.

>>97088643
Nobody here wants to see the level of autism that is my work notebooks from high school.

>>97079123
>release artless 1st edition
>scrape together $15bux
>fix all the shit people complain about in the rules, use money to buy pitchers
>release 2ne edition
>scrape together $30bux
>etc., etc.

>>97090054
Just don't forget to give all buyers the art editions for free as well. No jewry allowed outside of /pol/ and /biz/. Only fren vibes.

>>97090117
I planned on having one edition that I just continued updating ad infinitum.

>>97088579
Then draw your own shit. 1 doodle a day, 20 minutes, no matter how shitty, in 6 months you can easily have 1 presentable illustration per page.
>>97090054
Or this.

God I hate artists.

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>>97079487
>hemorrhaged post count post-Trump re-election
lmao makes you think

>>97079123
Artwork sets the tone of the book. At a minimum you’ll need a cover to draw people in.

Faggots on here will get all angry and demoralising. Just ignore them. What you need more than artwork is to learn about advertising. Have a look online there are plenty of guides.

Think about it like this. If you set up a fish and chips shop even if you have the best food out there if nobody knows you exist you’ll just be sitting there without any customers.

It’s the same with ttrpg books. You need to start advertising preferably 6 months before release. AI art will kill your game. AI has a stigma and you will lose customers.

>>97079123
draw your own art if you have to but don't use AI slop. It's not like RPG rulebooks have always had the best art, and if you practice drawing seriously every day, even for just 30 minutes to an hour a day, you might be surprised where your skills are in only a few months.

>>97091943
not endorsing AI but this is such fucking stupid advice

>>97091952
if you don't want to draw yourself then start saving money money to pay artists

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>>97091965
Literally nobody seriously thinks "wowie, the author drew art rather than resort to AI slop I am now more likely to continue reading his system! Sovl!". Art as part of the aesthetic is too important to the average DriveThruRPG mongoloid even if they DO thumb their nose at AI slop
>but I would...
I don't believe you really mean this, frankly. This is bad advice given in an attempt to dissuade somebody from using AI, which I don't even disagree with the principle there's better ways to do it.

Better advice would be to use public domain art such as >>97086169
(ran through a black n white filter if need be)

>>97079123
Use stick figurine art. That'll stand out from the rest.

>>97079123
>Is it worth ruining it with slop?
Are you retarded?

I feel you man, i just started solodeving my own ttrpg, in my native tongue. Ive made all the art, some rules, a story but no one in my cunts gonna play it. I don't want to use Ai to translate it, so it's gonna fade away in obscurity. D:
https://files.catbox.moe/rx30fm.pdf

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>>97079141
top tier post.
>>97079123
Why don't you draw your own?

>>97087797
>it's just muh tool
It's computer-generated slop. Photographing a piece that you hand painted yourself is acceptable, but anything else is selling your creativity to the machine.
>>97083668
Funny, I said the same thing to your mother last night

>>97092804
catbox down

>>97092804
>https://files.catbox.moe/rx30fm.pdf
I can't read a word of this, but looks sick AF.

>>97092804
For future reference you might not wanna shorten country to that particular word in english

>>97079396
eh good enough. send it

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>>97093437
That look like a minute to draw. Here is what it looks like when I take like 15-30 minutes.
Think this art is passible enough?

>>97079123
My vote goes to doing amateur-level sketches. Breaking up blocks of text with the occasional doodle will help your formatting be less monotonous. I assume you'll also have a healthy number of tables and charts, so throwing in a few images of your own making will not only complement your arrangements but will add a personal touch that won't be as immediately disgusting to many people as AI-generated images would be.

>>97093503
yes. a few pictures are nice but in a rulebook they’re secondary to the actual game.
that drawing is more than passable for a rulebook.

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OP, you don't care for art. If you cared you wouldn't had though askig
>Is adding art a good or a bad?
There are good illustrations, there are bad ones, some can contradict what you want. It still needs to be good art that serves a prupose.
Also
>I have 112 pages of text
>will they be better if I make it 120 adding generic AI pictures?
How would we know? I hate how hard it is to find stuff in Free League books because they added art everywhere to make it "nice" and justify the price, but the pdf takes ages to move and even the physical book needs constant flipping and marking pages. Gats of Krystalia went so hard into AI art that it ended up having mechanics just to justify having more AI art, at least I hope so because it's extremely retarded as a game. Troika barely had any art when it came out, Into the Odd used a handful of old pictures, Mothership had scribbles by the game designer, the White Hack and Black Hack didn't have art at all, the internal art was never a selling point for OD&D.

Now, we all see a cool cover and want to check the book, if the cover shows nothing it'll be hard to get people to notice you exist. You still need to do the marketing, networking, shilling, copy editing, and so on, to convince clients. A cover is a bit of brand identity.
Are you good enough at AI that it won't look like one of those amazon chatgpt slop books? Because that will instantly kill the identity of the product, making it worthless as a cover, while losing any traction you could have with anti-AI consumers without really getting pro-AI sales because you're just one drop in the bucket. There is no selling point from a marketing perspective over a series of colored lines that looks cool or some other abstract nonsense unless you can hide it's AI.

>>97093948
these all look identical

>>97094004
Fitting, considering they're all supposed to be isekai slop style character classes

>>97079123
Recruit an artist with a contract that includes profit sharing and a guarantee that they have all ongoing work on the setting because they are helping you define the style of that world.
Don't be exploitative, try to have something that you can provide immediately that isn't money.

>>97094961
>try to have something that you can provide immediately that isn't money
Get an artist gf op so that you can provide your dick.

>>97095274
>get an artist gf op so that you can provide your dick
Worst possible advice but funny. You want to incentivize an artist, not scare her off.

>>97093824
>that drawing is more than passable for a rulebook.
why would you lie to OP like that

>>97096934
In terms of rulebook art, it's better than average. Which means, yes OP it looks like shit, but less like shit than the other shit I normally see.