Does It Really Need A Redesign? (The "Indefinite Ashcan" Versus "The Eye Candy Impulse")

Believe it or not, I'm actually a "classically trained" visual artist with a BFA in Painting, of all things, and several years of commercial graphic design experience to boot. However, when I am making a "thing" that is not fundamentally a painting, my priority is always to focus on whatever kind of thing said specific thing happens to be at its core ... in its quintessential ... thingness ... um ... you dig? Basically, if I am making a ttrpg, I try to focus on the elements that are absolutely essential to the format, form, and function of a ttrpg. Everything else is secondary, and can, often for the sake of my own health, be indefinitely postponed or cut entirely with no compromises to the fundamental "vision."

I still stand by that philosophy. In my view, a tabletop roleplaying game cannot be made fundamentally better or worse by the level of gloss applied to its pages or the number or quality of the pictures that accompany it.

I'd still recommend the "indefinite ashcan" approach to basically anyone who is working solo and/or just starting out, even fellow visual artists. Despite how painful the compromises sometimes get, said approach has served me just fine so far and will likely continue to do so in at least some, if not most, of my future ttrpg projects.

Well, it's great for actually MAKING ttrpgs. It's maybe not as great for SELLING them ... but you also can't sell something that doesn't, on some level, exist ... well ... unless you're, like, a cryptobro, or a politician, or something else awful along those lines, I guess.

That all having been said, when it comes to the aesthetics of my PDFs and the such, well, I'm definitely happier with certain "indefinite ashcan" releases of mine and more critical of others. At the end of the day, the visual artist in me can't really escape the mounting dissatisfaction that results from this disparity.

When it comes to This Town Is Full Of Monsters in particular, the presentation and layout that the game "shipped with" are, um ... far from being my favorites. I don't know what it is. I might have just been off that week. There are some games where I really don't mind the simple, steady, layouts at all. But this one does occasionally pop into my head while I'm trying to sleep. Considering my own relationship to the game and the source material it derives from, as well as the fact that this is probably my most "public facing" creation, this particular mote of creative anxiety has perhaps gnawed on me more than it otherwise might have.

How do you feel about generative AI and do you use it?

TLDR: I don't like it. I think it's bad for our species, bad for the environment, and, like, really, really, really boring. That's a big nope from me, dog. 

While I am no stranger to digital tools, and have painted using a digital drawing tablet of some brand or variety since around the age of 18, which is now more than 20 years ago, dear god, "generative AI" is not really much of a tool, in my opinion (I see it as a very costly gimmick that consistently manufactures poor quality images - not art, which requires the two things that AI can never replicate intention and deliberate process - in a manner that is both too unethical and too unsustainable to warrant playing around with, let alone deploying in any kind of creative or professional capacity).

To be fair, even if it were somehow super duper green and managed to avoid "training" itself on the blood, sweat, and tears of underpaid, undervalued human artists, who, unlike the machine, are very capable of suffering, the use of such a machine simply does not align with my values, interests, or process at all. For one, where would be the fun or pleasure in that?

Commercial concerns aside, the enjoyment of manual creative pursuits is one of the few things, alongside love, community and communion, the appreciation of the creative output of other fellow humans, sushi, and pizza, that can elevate a human experience above a rote, base, and miserable existence or subsistence.

When I am making art, I want to be IN it, to go on a journey, to struggle and discover. When I am looking at, or spectating, or listening to, or reading art made by others, I want to experience a singular form of symbolic communication and expression. I am not looking for just an image of a face or a tree, or an assortment of notes aligned mechanically in a superficially pleasing fashion - I am looking for evidence of a hand, an eye, an ear, a mind, for evidence of that same struggle and process discovery that I go through, for limited, messy, sometimes confusing, personal, political, intellectual, emotional communication and connection.

Generative AI doesn't simply miss the mark in terms of quality and utility. It, well ... misses the point entirely. Why rob myself of joy and wonder? What's would be the purpose of such a sacrifice? So that I have more time to the things I don't like to do? Why deprive myself of something that is plentiful and accessible and real. I wouldn't my nutrients through an IV drip if I could help it. I wouldn't "go for walks" in a randomly generated pixel maze when the park is right friggin' there. I wouldn't steal a car. I wouldn't spend 18 hours staring at a shadow on the wall when I could be rewatching Twin Peaks: The Return for the umpteenth time.

Anyway, what the tech folks call "AI" is kinda bad, actually, if you ask me. In the practical sense, any work that I am involved in explicitly and forcibly eschews it. It will always be hand written, hand painted, and replete with human errors and imperfections.  

Why The Crowdfund(e)r?

At the risk of disincentivizing timely support by killing the sense of artificial urgency, I would like to reiterate that this is something I've been planning to do (eventually) regardless of funding. The funding is primarily going to affect the timeline and level of priority this project is given (the closer I can get to the goal, the sooner I can dedicate a solid, continuous chunk of time to hammering out all the essentials), but isn't likely to affect the final product itself.

As for why I have chosen "Crowdfundr" over the other options, well, there are a few simple reasons. Again, the aforementioned fact that this project is not a matter of "if" but of "when" is a big part of that. A dramatic "all or nothing" campaign is probably not the best fit for that kind of approach, and I personally have no way to easily gauge a viable target.

Aside from that, this platform allows for more flexibility than others in a variety of relevant areas. The biggest one for me is the ability to run multiple campaigns at once. Since most of my projects, even the bigger ones, tend to be pretty niche, I often can't afford to do just one thing at any given time, and while that works well enough with my own process (I've always tended to hop around from week to week and sometimes from day to day, and I quite like allowing my projects to cross-pollinate and being afforded a chance to temporarily step back from any one project while still maintaining the overall creative practice) it's not something that every platform is built for .

In more specific and practical terms, I've got a big old video game dungeon crawler thing set to go up on Kickstarter in the near future, and while there is no immediate indication that these campaigns will overlap, that is certainly a possibility, and I would like to have that option.