Over the course of the last few days I have had the opportunity to flip through the Oriental Adventures book, and read some choice sections. First of all, what a great book! So much information and creativity, packed in a relatively slim volume (by RPG standards). However, I noticed a couple of things that I hadn't before.
First off, if you are an experienced D&D player, and know the basic mechanics for AD&D, you could conceivably play with the OA book all by itself. It has a complete character section, with all that you need to know about character creation, including generating abilities, all of the races available, and all of the classes. Not to mention a complete monster section, and sections on aspects of an OA game that would be unique. Really, if I were running an AD&D Oriental Adventures campaign, I would bring this book, with the DMG and maybe some setting splat books for reference. And that would be it!
Another thing I noticed is the lack of artwork. I think that there may be a total of 15-20 pieces of art in the entire book. And a handful of those are actually borrowed from another resource, rather than drawn by the in-house artists of the day. The monster section is completely devoid of artwork. Not a single monster illustration.
This second part has me re-thinking my strategy for putting Life of Rage out. As you may recall, I am working on expanding the supplement I had previously published into a stand-alone retro-clone. Right now I have a few pieces of art that I have done myself. And I have a list of ideas for several more. But now I am thinking that I may not need that much more than I have. There are a couple of things that I definitely want, such as a nice, full-color cover image. But, for the rest I'm thinking of just letting my descriptions stand as they are.
If I decide to go that route, I am probably over 90% done with it. And that's kind of encouraging.
In semi-related news, I have been looking into doing the PoD option through RPGNow instead of Lulu for Mutants & Marvels. If I can figure out how to do the cover and get it uploaded, I will switch over to that method. And, if I can get it all worked out, it will pave the way for setting up the LoR book for the same treatment.
I have been gaming, off and on, since I was 12 years old. Now that I'm...well, MUCH older, I don't get to play quite as often as I like, but I still like to keep my hand in the game, as it were. This blog is about the role-playing games I write, the games I play, and the games I wish I could play.
I'll do artwork for a PDF copy if you decide you need additional pieces. I'm not a professional artist, but you can see examples at www.digitalorc.blogspot.com if it's what you'd want.
ReplyDeleteI think I just may take you up on that! I will be in touch. :)
DeleteAnd I could probably help you get the cover generated as I've been doing them for the Frontier Explorer issues we've made print versions of. Or if you have Photoshop I could walk you through the process. The hardest part was getting the color profile set up properly (which I did 2 years ago and haven't looked at since :( ).
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