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Why Monochrome Covers?
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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:39 am 
 

Go-Captain Suzdal wrote:It has got to be just cost.


Obviously cost is the major factor to make a publisher use little color. Upscale minimalist design exists, but doesn't necessarily fit the market. However, once the need for cost-related minimalism is established, what design decisions are made?

That is the central question of the original post. TSR could have chosen any number of approaches. They could have used elaborate B/W line-drawing designs to cover the grey spaces with florid/roccoco curliques, or whatever, but they made specific choices otherwise. Why?  

Go-Captain Suzdal wrote:As someone who started playing around the time when the full color modules were starting to be produced (ca. 1980), and who never owned any of the monos, they don't hold any kind of appeal for me.


I started at the same time. Early-80s color cover editions were what was on the shelf for me to buy, but over time my attention was drawn to earlier stuff.

It came to represent the earlier phase of my own involvement, when RPGs were new to me. I owned the red Otus-cover basic book, but learned the game from the blue monochrome basic version.

The more experienced players when I started had more of the older editions, so that's what I remember from the actual games vs. just my own collection.

Eventually things like the Players Handbook & AD&D character sheets came to represent the drudgery & boredom aspects of the game to me, while older editions evoked RPGs as a mysterious & exciting new thing.

There was also a period in the mid/late-70s before I actually started playing, when I would look at the books in hobby shops & wonder what they were.

Finally, even if I myself had never seen the early stuff, it would still be the original form of the game. For that reason the awkward prose & amatuerish illustrations are dripping with the creativity of the genre as it was being formed.

  

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:05 am 
 

sauromatian wrote:There was also a period in the mid/late-70s before I actually started playing, when I would look at the books in hobby shops & wonder what they were.


Oh man, I thought I was the only one who had that kind of experience...

I still remember going to the toy and hobby shop at Century Mall, the "Red-Headed Step Child" of malls in Merillville, Indiana, especially as compared to the massive Southlake Mall.

That store was absolutely a kids dream. It had all the normal toys, plus tricks and novelties, books, puzzles... all sorts of cool stuff. And a shelf section dedicated to that strange game with wizards and dragons and monsters, that game that made me drool and fondle the small booklets and the strange, monochrome booklets. I'd pick up the purplish-blue box with the dragon and wonder at what the game was like.

But then there was that *one* booklet with the naked lady on it... and when my mom realized that I was checking out *that* section, she'd come over and pull me away. This was the late 70's, and I was all of 8 to 10 years old.

Of course, several years later, she and my dad unknowingly picked up the latest edition of "that game" for me for Christmas (the wonderful, dreamy Moldvay edition). They bought it at Toys R Us, because, well, unlike that weird game and toy store at Century Mall, obviously the biggest toy store chain in the world couldn't have anything *evil* in it, now could it?

But I still remember back to that era, ca. 1978 to 1980, when all I could do was dream...



  

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:14 am 
 

sauromatian wrote:I started at the same time. Early-80s color cover editions were what was on the shelf for me to buy, but over time my attention was drawn to earlier stuff.


I wish that I had grown up somewhere that RPG items were readily available back in the late 70's - early 80's.  I dont ever recall seeing any monochrome modules when I was a kid.  And finding any non-TSR stuff was pretty much impossible.  Probably 99% of my purchases from '79 - '89 were made at either local toy stores or Waldenbooks....and they didnt have much.


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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:38 am 
 

Kingofpain89 wrote:
I wish that I had grown up somewhere that RPG items were readily available back in the late 70's - early 80's.  I dont ever recall seeing any monochrome modules when I was a kid.  And finding any non-TSR stuff was pretty much impossible.  Probably 99% of my purchases from '79 - '89 were made at either local toy stores or Waldenbooks....and they didnt have much.


Our group started witht the monochromes, when Q1 came out witht a color cover we were blown away by it.  Wow have things have changed since then.


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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:14 pm 
 

Wow, fascinating responses and I want to thank everyone for adding their constructive thoughts. This was the type of commentary I hoped for with the post. Great insight into the "two-color" art. Not having a background in print I hadn't thought of that before. It makes me look at them in a completely new way.

  

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:08 pm 
 

Cost was certainly the single largest factor. Four color separation work would have been way too pricey in that day for this type of product. The print runs were much too small (given the price) to use four color.

Remember, everything back then was done by hand - desktop publishing did not exist. Those modules were typeset by hand and laid out on boards - probably via the old wax method. A single color process would let you "fake" the four color look by using gradations of the same color.

Then there would be the factor of paying an artist to do a full color cover. More money.

So in the end, you get monochrome.


And I could've bought these damn modules off the 1$ rack!!!

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:49 pm 
 

I've read somewhere that EGG said that the first print run of Tomb of Horrors was 250,000 copies. That's hardly a small time order.

I suspect time and ease factored in as well.

I am sure that the initial runs of G1 were relatively small, however. Which is when the art style was established.

I personally always liked the monochromes. I distinctly remember thinking that the A-series covers looked garish.

It's the one throwback that I wish DCC would make in creating their stuff. They went to the A-series look, I wish they had gone monochrome.

  


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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:58 pm 
 

Busman wrote:I think it's because you should be able to posit your own answers for your paper. There is no definitive answer here. Your speculation for your homework would be as good as anyone else's for your homework.


Not really. The original post on this thread is a request for primary source information, which academically [or in journalism, or just about any other writing] is held in higher regard than the writer's own opinions, or what may be found in an existing book.

  

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:31 pm 
 

sauromatian wrote:
Not really. The original post on this thread is a request for primary source information, which academically [or in journalism, or just about any other writing] is held in higher regard than the writer's own opinions, or what may be found in an existing book.


I concur. And honestly, it wasn't the first post that set my homework flags off. It was when further help was provided such as the name Dragonsfoot and Troll Lords Games and the questioner asked for links that my "I'm too lazy to type Troll Lords Games into google" alarms went off.

A corollary I think gamers might appreciate: it reminds me of people in MMOs who wander into an area and start asking questions to get through quests quickly because they can't be bothered to think or explore for themselves and just want to be handed the answers.

Apologies if I'm way off the mark, but that's how the posts came across.

  

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:35 pm 
 

Busman wrote:I've read somewhere that EGG said that the first print run of Tomb of Horrors was 250,000 copies. That's hardly a small time order.

I suspect time and ease factored in as well.

I am sure that the initial runs of G1 were relatively small, however. Which is when the art style was established.

I personally always liked the monochromes. I distinctly remember thinking that the A-series covers looked garish.

It's the one throwback that I wish DCC would make in creating their stuff. They went to the A-series look, I wish they had gone monochrome.



250,000 copies of S1 monochrome in 1979!!!!!!!!!! That does not sound accurate to me. I can't believe there were that many people even playing the game at that time.


And I could've bought these damn modules off the 1$ rack!!!

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:20 pm 
 

Yeah, 250 K can't possibly be right. I remember reading sometime in 1981 that EGG estimated 100,000 total AD&D players at the time. It wouldn't make sense for them to print more than double that number of an adventure module that perhaps half that figure (less than that being actual DMs) might purchase. 250,000 sounds more like mid-'90s print runs.

  


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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:42 pm 
 

Go-Captain Suzdal wrote:Yeah, 250 K can't possibly be right. I remember reading sometime in 1981 that EGG estimated 100,000 total AD&D players.. 250,000 sounds more like mid-'90s print runs.


While I have no idea of the actual numbers, in 1981 it seemed like every kid played D&D. By the mid-90s relatively few did.

  

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:54 pm 
 

guerret wrote:Remembrance of the hippies and their flamboyant colours was still too painful in people's minds.


Whoa, dude, what a bummer!  I mean, I can't grok you here.
Like, get a load of the Monster Manual?

I mean, those are some seriously trippy colors, right man?  

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Post Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:14 am 
 

welland_warrior wrote:Does anyone have a link to one of the aforementioned forums so I can pose the question to Gygax?

The part II to the question: the monochrome modules have a certain appeal that other modules may not have (in my opinion). We even see 2007 printings in monochrome (DCC Saga of the Witch Queen, for example). Obviously there must be some cultural meaning connected to it for rpg'ers. Why do you think that is?

Thanks for the responses!


Well, now you're mixing together two separate issues -

(1) is "why did TSR make early modules monochrome?"

They almost certainly did it for cost reasons, at least initially.  Maybe they made a few more that way, even after it was feasible to have something more sophisticated, just for recognizability/consistency's sake, maybe not.

(2) is "why does monochrome have such cachet with collectors and ex-players"?

One reason is that these are the earliest modules, which have higher value.
Another is that they are simply from the beginning.  Most people started playing at a young age, so those are the modules of their youth.  And they're from when the game itself was in it's youth, too.  People remember their firsts, their youth, and beginnings very fondly.  For example, ask a married couple which they remember more clearly - their first date or their 37th.

(And the 'new' monochromes are specifically designed to appeal to that nostalgia and old school feel, for their primary audience of older gamers)

  

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Post Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:39 am 
 

I believe cost and availability made monochromes the only viable option. Strangely, I thought they were some sort of retro-crap, when I first saw them, in the mid-90s. You see, where I lived, I was lucky to have even known D&D existed, let alone the glory of being able to buy an AD&D DMG. It was not until nearly a decade later, and a new edition, that I was really able to "get into" it, on any kind of basis, and by then, I had discovered other games like Shadowrun which wanted me to play them. So, anyway, yeah... I sw the monos in a game store, looked at them, put them back, and thought "those are some ugly things... and very thin. Stupid." Now, I stab myself in the back and wish it was a shrew. Oh well... what people say about environment is totally true: if you're a metropolitan, you have advantage. If you're a rural hick, you're out of luck.


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Post Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:13 pm 
 

Not really. The original post on this thread is a request for primary source information, which academically [or in journalism, or just about any other writing] is held in higher regard than the writer's own opinions, or what may be found in an existing book.

I concur. And honestly, it wasn't the first post that set my homework flags off. It was when further help was provided such as the name Dragonsfoot and Troll Lords Games and the questioner asked for links that my "I'm too lazy to type Troll Lords Games into google" alarms went off.

A corollary I think gamers might appreciate: it reminds me of people in MMOs who wander into an area and start asking questions to get through quests quickly because they can't be bothered to think or explore for themselves and just want to be handed the answers.

Apologies if I'm way off the mark, but that's how the posts came across.


I understand your point of view, and yes you are off the mark. Sometimes questions are just questions. If this post has told me anything (and it certainly has) I was right to start here. Cheers to all the excellent and constructive posts.

  


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Post Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 12:41 am 
 

welland_warrior wrote:Sometimes questions are just questions. If this post has told me anything (and it certainly has) I was right to start here. Cheers to all the excellent and constructive posts.


Now that we've given our opinions, what are yours? You started the thread suggesting that there might have been some certain reason why TSR chose the appearance & designs that they did. What did you originally have in mind?

  


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Post Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:17 am 
 

A 250K print run for Tomb of Horrors is probably wrong. I remember Gary saying that the best-selling modules for TSR (of which S1 was one -- others included T1 and I6) sold about 100,000 copies each. Of course this doesn't count modules that were bundled in like B2. A 10K or 25K print run sounds more realistic, and even the latter number is probably too high.

Anyway, on the subject of "monochrome" covers, the fact that TSR switched to color fairly early on indicates to me that it was strictly a matter of cost.

And while I do enjoy seeing a monochrome cover in a stack of modules, it does not give me any venereal pleasure. :)

I would suggest before e-mailing Gary that one look over his past Q&A threads (yes, I know there are a lot of them) to see whether he might have answered this question before. I know he answered the question of why the early maps were blue so he might have answered this one as well.



  
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