As a lover of Classic Traveller, I would favor a clean, well-designed text, with little or no art inside. If you think of the literary inspirations (presumably largely shared between CT and Thousand Suns), most were published post-pulp era, in books sans internal illustrations. Doing your book this way too would reflect its sources. And the first mockup cover is quite striking.
For a counter argument, unfortunately we live in an increasingly illiterate society, with more direct visuals assuming increasing importance. But please discount this.
“From the beginning, I conceived it as a science fiction roleplaying game about time and distance, about interstellar societies separated not merely by light-years, but by months-long voyages and the absence of real-time communication. In such a setting, knowledge is always incomplete. News arrives late, distorted, or filtered through competing interests. History must be reconstructed from fragments. Meaning is not delivered whole; it is assembled by the players from what survives.”
Of course, this should also be the situation in Classic Traveller. If your text provides rules or additional insights on how to model this and have it impact the game, that would be great and an additional selling point for those of us looking for things to bring to CT.
"After seeing the three cover mock-ups I’ve shared with you, I am increasingly inclined to believe that a rulebook’s aesthetic, by which I mean its typography, layout, and graphic design, can do as much or even more to communicate its themes than any number of illustrations."
YES! What you're talking about is the power of graphic design.
If you haven't already done so, check out Juan Ortiz' graphic design work on classic Star Trek:
I’m not a fan of art free or low art RPGs. I find them sterile and boring. There are probably more options than ever to fund art these days even beyond using the overly relied on crowd funding platforms (that all take a hefty cut). I might be a minority but I’d frankly rather see an authors very amateur attempts at art over no art, AI art, or public domain art. For someone like James with an established audience a single direct sale from author to customer is superior to crowdfunding.
Different anon - Of the three mock-ups, I would rank them from top of screen/scroll down to bottom 3, 1, 2. That middle image is very powerful, somehow. I can see these as Asimov Foundation re-issue covers, modern and contemporary yet evocative of the old-school. Thumbs up.
Same anon - also, forgot to mention that the 1e Stormbringer rpg rulebook was not art-heavy. There were a few stunning Frank Brunner full-page illos, but most of the interior art was small - many were map close-ups - to break up the text.
Same anon - Gah, hit enter too fast. Re: Stormbringer I was going to say that what that rulebook did was commission 4-5 full page b&w stunners to start each chapter, then if you look carefully, you'll notice that the rest of the smaller art insertions are simply zoom-in closeups of sections of those larger illos in the respective chapters. It's very effective, and probably cost a lot less than having every bit of artwork be original. And hey, if you want to hearken back to some classic rpgs, Stormbringer isn't sci-fi but one could surely do much worse by way of emulation. Classic doens't describe it, I know you feel the same about that game. Just a thought.
FWIW, there were six B&W art pieces and the color box cover, all of which were collected in the 1980 (or maybe late 79) limited-run Elric portfolio from Looking Glass Press. I lost my copy to a flood back around 2010 and it still gnaws at me - there were only 2000 of them made, and that's one gone forever. You can see images of it (including the quite awesome portfolio case/envelope thingy) over on reddit at the url below. It will pester you about being 18+ for adult content due to the "Empress of the Dawn" plate having (gasp) exposed boobs on it. I remember getting yelled at about that as a teen. The prude parents didn't much like me hanging Kaluta's Children of the Twilight on my walls for the same reason, but it was impossible to call either prurient.
Brunner did a Stormbringer: World of Elric portfolio a few years later as well, which I think was full-color but never having owned it I might be wrong.
Same anon - Dick, thanks for this! That illo of Myshella is one for the books, but honestly I've always been more fascinated in that pic by the ribbony design of the bird. I mean, I love the ladies, but boobs are boobs. The design of that bird, though, that's art. I had no idea about the portfolio - that link is great.
...commissioned illustrations strike me as ideally-suited to crowdfunding stretch goals: hire an illustrator / graphic designer to establish the core project scope and then commission supplemental embellishment on the basis of campaign success...
I like the third one because it looks like a sun. I am a simple man.
I think you can get real mileage out of black and white art, which would go well with the cover mockups, and urge you in that direction. FASA used to have a ton of excellent very simple black and white art in a lot of Battletech products - two colors, cheap to print, still good pieces.
I definitely think that trying to evoke Traveller and the era with the layout and font choices is 100% the right move. Just remember readability. lol
For a variety of aesthetic and philosophical reasons (*) I don’t go in for SF/Space Opera RPGs. There are now precisely two exceptions: yours and Mothership. The slowness and silence you describe as the essence of Thousand Suns really captivates me. That quality is what I very much appreciate in the film 2001 .. a deep, philosophical tone. Mr McCoy’s artwork conveys that sense very well (all the more for referencing the cover of ‘Unknown Pleasure’ by Joy Division .. whose music conveys a similar mood in sound). The point regarding ‘aesthetics’ is important, no less so in the mechanics (**) than other aspects of the game. I will comment on the details (including the *s) separately, as I have only a moment now to post, and do not want to delay encouraging you on this path. As always, Thank You for sharing your ideas (as well as insecurities). Your example is creatively inspiring, intellectually engaging, and psychologically reassuring.
Again, apologies that life necessitated I divide my response to your Substack post into a few separate comments. The following is ‘Part II’ (of three):
(*) a: My aesthetic reasons for disfavouring SF/Space Opera games are two fold. One is the common approach which treats Space as merely another frontier of colonial expansion (be it the American West, Africa, Antartica, or elsewhere) encountering ‘alien’ flora and fauna. I have no issue with ‘colonialism’ per se, just that its simulation (with a few exceptions) tends toward cheap, impoverished caricature.
b: The philosophical reasons are sufficiently deep and nuanced as to befit another forum, but can be distilled with an acceptable degree of distortion to this stance: humanity should sort out itself where it currently abides before striking out to disseminate its problems more widely (note lessons of ’colonialism’ above). Most SF (in whatever medium) romantically glosses over all manner of associated difficulties, thereby encouraging aspirations to strike out to the stars in a vain attempt to escape problems on Earth. As a professional Ethicist, I can’t participate in that sort of thing on any level. .. However, an RPG that simulated the hardship, tragedy, etc. (at least in proper proportion with the excitement and opportunity) is entirely another matter. From what I have seen of Mothership, and what you describe of Thousands Suns, these games take this latter sort of tack .. which I think is not only more interesting, but in fact philosophically important - as it allows people to test out decisions and courses of action in a safe, contained space (a sort of ‘Mirror Realm’, to reference the Dr Strange comic book stories). I am thus intrigued and genuinely excited to try out these games!
(**) re: ’aesthetics’ and ‘mechanics’. .. it is obvious that the ‘architectural’ structure of the game’s ‘mechanics’ are as integral a part of the ‘gesamkunstwerk’ which is ‘Thousand Suns’ as artistic details of sight and sound (by which I mean not only illustration, but cinematic sense, and Music per my previous comment); however and furthermore, I humbly suggest you simultaneously consider the mechanics for TS in association with your work on Telluria. As you may recall from our comments to your Urheim post of Friday 20 February 2026, both Daniel and I found the possibility of ‘cross-wiring’ Metamorphosis Alpha with Urheim a most exciting possibility. ‘Gating’ between your own games is even more appealing .. as well as being more practical.
An example: in designing a new campaign for my long-time friends (we started with RPGs in the 1970s), they were very interested in temporal jumps and genre hopping. As none of us like GURPS, figuring out a consistent suitable yet minimalist mechanics for such a wide-ranging romp has been one of my creative challenges over the last couple of years. If you were able to harmonise the mechanics for TS with ‘Telluria’ (Urheim/ Cursed Chateau/ Dwimmermount/ et al) .. a big ask, I know .. it would aid people in my sort of position (which can’t be all that uncommon, especially among long-time gamers), as well as making the purchase of multiple games more attractive to those of us who already own ‘several’ (understatement) RPGs .. you could then even bundle the separate games in a nice slip-cased set :)
Finally, merely an affirmation of several comments: I too am thoroughly turned off by the saturation of RPGs with excessive imagery (which is often distracting and dates the publication). Granted that ’Coriolis’ by Free League represents an excellent exception with great integrity among all the publication’s aspects. Martin Grip’s art is beautiful and evocative. .. But why repeat that (rather expensive) success rather than succeed at a different ‘aesthetic’ more appropriate to Thousand Suns? .. To filch a few encouraging words from Dieter Rams’ design philosophy:
As a lover of Classic Traveller, I would favor a clean, well-designed text, with little or no art inside. If you think of the literary inspirations (presumably largely shared between CT and Thousand Suns), most were published post-pulp era, in books sans internal illustrations. Doing your book this way too would reflect its sources. And the first mockup cover is quite striking.
ReplyDeleteFor a counter argument, unfortunately we live in an increasingly illiterate society, with more direct visuals assuming increasing importance. But please discount this.
“From the beginning, I conceived it as a science fiction roleplaying game about time and distance, about interstellar societies separated not merely by light-years, but by months-long voyages and the absence of real-time communication. In such a setting, knowledge is always incomplete. News arrives late, distorted, or filtered through competing interests. History must be reconstructed from fragments. Meaning is not delivered whole; it is assembled by the players from what survives.”
ReplyDeleteOf course, this should also be the situation in Classic Traveller. If your text provides rules or additional insights on how to model this and have it impact the game, that would be great and an additional selling point for those of us looking for things to bring to CT.
"After seeing the three cover mock-ups I’ve shared with you, I am increasingly inclined to believe that a rulebook’s aesthetic, by which I mean its typography, layout, and graphic design, can do as much or even more to communicate its themes than any number of illustrations."
ReplyDeleteYES!
What you're talking about is the power of graphic design.
If you haven't already done so, check out Juan Ortiz' graphic design work on classic Star Trek:
https://www.cbr.com/saturday-with-illustrator-juan-ortiz/
I’m not a fan of art free or low art RPGs. I find them sterile and boring. There are probably more options than ever to fund art these days even beyond using the overly relied on crowd funding platforms (that all take a hefty cut). I might be a minority but I’d frankly rather see an authors very amateur attempts at art over no art, AI art, or public domain art. For someone like James with an established audience a single direct sale from author to customer is superior to crowdfunding.
ReplyDeleteDifferent anon - Of the three mock-ups, I would rank them from top of screen/scroll down to bottom 3, 1, 2. That middle image is very powerful, somehow. I can see these as Asimov Foundation re-issue covers, modern and contemporary yet evocative of the old-school. Thumbs up.
ReplyDeleteSame anon - also, forgot to mention that the 1e Stormbringer rpg rulebook was not art-heavy. There were a few stunning Frank Brunner full-page illos, but most of the interior art was small - many were map close-ups - to break up the text.
ReplyDeleteSame anon - Gah, hit enter too fast. Re: Stormbringer I was going to say that what that rulebook did was commission 4-5 full page b&w stunners to start each chapter, then if you look carefully, you'll notice that the rest of the smaller art insertions are simply zoom-in closeups of sections of those larger illos in the respective chapters. It's very effective, and probably cost a lot less than having every bit of artwork be original. And hey, if you want to hearken back to some classic rpgs, Stormbringer isn't sci-fi but one could surely do much worse by way of emulation. Classic doens't describe it, I know you feel the same about that game. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, there were six B&W art pieces and the color box cover, all of which were collected in the 1980 (or maybe late 79) limited-run Elric portfolio from Looking Glass Press. I lost my copy to a flood back around 2010 and it still gnaws at me - there were only 2000 of them made, and that's one gone forever. You can see images of it (including the quite awesome portfolio case/envelope thingy) over on reddit at the url below. It will pester you about being 18+ for adult content due to the "Empress of the Dawn" plate having (gasp) exposed boobs on it. I remember getting yelled at about that as a teen. The prude parents didn't much like me hanging Kaluta's Children of the Twilight on my walls for the same reason, but it was impossible to call either prurient.
Deletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/ElricofMelnibone/comments/x2gqv7/elric_by_frank_brunner_portfolio_from_1980_enjoy/
Brunner did a Stormbringer: World of Elric portfolio a few years later as well, which I think was full-color but never having owned it I might be wrong.
Same anon - Dick, thanks for this! That illo of Myshella is one for the books, but honestly I've always been more fascinated in that pic by the ribbony design of the bird. I mean, I love the ladies, but boobs are boobs. The design of that bird, though, that's art. I had no idea about the portfolio - that link is great.
Delete...commissioned illustrations strike me as ideally-suited to crowdfunding stretch goals: hire an illustrator / graphic designer to establish the core project scope and then commission supplemental embellishment on the basis of campaign success...
ReplyDeleteI like the third one because it looks like a sun. I am a simple man.
ReplyDeleteI think you can get real mileage out of black and white art, which would go well with the cover mockups, and urge you in that direction. FASA used to have a ton of excellent very simple black and white art in a lot of Battletech products - two colors, cheap to print, still good pieces.
I definitely think that trying to evoke Traveller and the era with the layout and font choices is 100% the right move. Just remember readability. lol
Dear James,
ReplyDeleteFor a variety of aesthetic and philosophical reasons (*) I don’t go in for SF/Space Opera RPGs. There are now precisely two exceptions: yours and Mothership. The slowness and silence you describe as the essence of Thousand Suns really captivates me. That quality is what I very much appreciate in the film 2001 .. a deep, philosophical tone. Mr McCoy’s artwork conveys that sense very well (all the more for referencing the cover of ‘Unknown Pleasure’ by Joy Division .. whose music conveys a similar mood in sound). The point regarding ‘aesthetics’ is important, no less so in the mechanics (**) than other aspects of the game. I will comment on the details (including the *s) separately, as I have only a moment now to post, and do not want to delay encouraging you on this path. As always, Thank You for sharing your ideas (as well as insecurities). Your example is creatively inspiring, intellectually engaging, and psychologically reassuring.
Cheers. Matthew.
Dear James,
DeleteAgain, apologies that life necessitated I divide my response to your Substack post into a few separate comments. The following is ‘Part II’ (of three):
(*) a: My aesthetic reasons for disfavouring SF/Space Opera games are two fold. One is the common approach which treats Space as merely another frontier of colonial expansion (be it the American West, Africa, Antartica, or elsewhere) encountering ‘alien’ flora and fauna. I have no issue with ‘colonialism’ per se, just that its simulation (with a few exceptions) tends toward cheap, impoverished caricature.
b: The philosophical reasons are sufficiently deep and nuanced as to befit another forum, but can be distilled with an acceptable degree of distortion to this stance: humanity should sort out itself where it currently abides before striking out to disseminate its problems more widely (note lessons of ’colonialism’ above). Most SF (in whatever medium) romantically glosses over all manner of associated difficulties, thereby encouraging aspirations to strike out to the stars in a vain attempt to escape problems on Earth. As a professional Ethicist, I can’t participate in that sort of thing on any level. .. However, an RPG that simulated the hardship, tragedy, etc. (at least in proper proportion with the excitement and opportunity) is entirely another matter. From what I have seen of Mothership, and what you describe of Thousands Suns, these games take this latter sort of tack .. which I think is not only more interesting, but in fact philosophically important - as it allows people to test out decisions and courses of action in a safe, contained space (a sort of ‘Mirror Realm’, to reference the Dr Strange comic book stories). I am thus intrigued and genuinely excited to try out these games!
Cheerio! Matthew.
Part III:
Delete(**) re: ’aesthetics’ and ‘mechanics’. .. it is obvious that the ‘architectural’ structure of the game’s ‘mechanics’ are as integral a part of the ‘gesamkunstwerk’ which is ‘Thousand Suns’ as artistic details of sight and sound (by which I mean not only illustration, but cinematic sense, and Music per my previous comment); however and furthermore, I humbly suggest you simultaneously consider the mechanics for TS in association with your work on Telluria. As you may recall from our comments to your Urheim post of Friday 20 February 2026, both Daniel and I found the possibility of ‘cross-wiring’ Metamorphosis Alpha with Urheim a most exciting possibility. ‘Gating’ between your own games is even more appealing .. as well as being more practical.
An example: in designing a new campaign for my long-time friends (we started with RPGs in the 1970s), they were very interested in temporal jumps and genre hopping. As none of us like GURPS, figuring out a consistent suitable yet minimalist mechanics for such a wide-ranging romp has been one of my creative challenges over the last couple of years. If you were able to harmonise the mechanics for TS with ‘Telluria’ (Urheim/ Cursed Chateau/ Dwimmermount/ et al) .. a big ask, I know .. it would aid people in my sort of position (which can’t be all that uncommon, especially among long-time gamers), as well as making the purchase of multiple games more attractive to those of us who already own ‘several’ (understatement) RPGs .. you could then even bundle the separate games in a nice slip-cased set :)
Finally, merely an affirmation of several comments: I too am thoroughly turned off by the saturation of RPGs with excessive imagery (which is often distracting and dates the publication). Granted that ’Coriolis’ by Free League represents an excellent exception with great integrity among all the publication’s aspects. Martin Grip’s art is beautiful and evocative. .. But why repeat that (rather expensive) success rather than succeed at a different ‘aesthetic’ more appropriate to Thousand Suns? .. To filch a few encouraging words from Dieter Rams’ design philosophy:
‘Less but Better’.
With Abiding Gratitude, Matthew.