OSR Art Friday: The Magic Mouth

This is the first of a series that will appear every Friday.

By "OSR Art" I mean artwork of the original or classic games--including of course Dungeons & Dragons--as well as that featured in more contemporary efforts such as Swords & Wizardry, Lamentations of the Flame Princess and others.

These games are or were better partly because of their art. A game is not merely defined by the abstract mechanic of the rules. For an entire game to aspire to be art in the more general sense (which, in my view, every game should, even in the smallest or most humble of ways) the physical product must also be attractive. And the art inside the game should be inspiring, evocative, thought-provoking and memorable.

Yes, it should try to more than being a tacky rip-off of a video game screenshot.

As Dungeons & Dragons devolved, beginning with 2e and picking up steam downhill with 3e, 4e and now 5e, the quality of the art devolved with it. I actually think the cause and effect works both ways. If you know that on every other page your text is going to be paired with blaring CGI-like color images of "Tieflings" or "Dragonborn" your design ideas and prose may very well sink to match that.

The illustration above is for me the most iconic interior drawing of any of the classic books. If it doesn't encapsulate the wonder and mystery of the dungeon, what could? Note that like most of the best classic pieces, it's not about combat, and it features relatively "normal" looking figures (if Hobbits and/or Dwarves can be considered normal)--not pumped-up Rambo types.

I like the way the light sources--the torches and magic sword--are emphasized, and the fact that it takes place on a stairway--going down.

The drawing appears on page 108 of the original 1978 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook and is by David Trampier, one of the leading artists of the first years of TSR.

For those of you who haven't seen it (probably not very many), enjoy! For those of you who have seen it, here's a bittersweet reminder of what once was.

First RPG Purchased: Advanced D&D Players Handbook

I bought the Players Handbook after discovering Dungeons & Dragons in the Winter of 1978-79. Thirty years later Tim Kask would declare:

It all starting going bad with the publishing of AD&D, The Player’s Handbook... 

So I guess I was late to the party, as always.

In seriousness, I agree with Kask that the seeds of what was to later go wrong with the game were contained in that book--the legalistic codification of the rules, the excessive detail offered in the spell descriptions, the further importance placed on superior ability scores and thus the ability score "inflation" that went with it, and finally the additional class and race options for player-characters--something that at the time probably seemed like an undeniable good, but would lead down the road to "kits" and "builds" and all sorts of other horribles.

But, we're taking about the seeds. Both at the time and looking back, the book itself was stunning--perhaps the best single RPG product ever.

And of course it began with the art. That cover summed up Dungeons & Dragons for me--and it still does: In a room, presumably somewhere deep in the dungeon, we are witness not to a scene of combat but to the aftermath of one. Two characters (thieves?) are attempting to pry the jewel out of the eye of a grinning idol. Two others are consulting a map--where to go next? A fighter is sharpening his sword next to the bloodied corpses of some kind of reptile, while a magic-user, leaning on a staff, looks on.

The interior art by Trampier, Sutherland and others contains some of the best illustrations the genre has ever produced. For me, this piece in particular is iconic:

And of course there was Gary Gygax' wonderful prose and, well, opinions:

You will find no pretentious dictums herein, no baseless limits arbitrarily placed on female strength or male charisma, no ponderous combat systems for greater "realism", there isn't a hint of a spell point system whose record keeping would warm the heart of a monomaniacal statistics lover, or anything else of the sort.

Let's give him the last word:

All in all, this is a game for enjoyment. We are certain that it will provide endless hours of entertainment and excitement. That is the sole purpose for its creation. So enjoy, and may the dice be good to you!