u/SpellbladeYT

The TLDR Question

When using things like tokens, battlemaps, music .etc in your games do you put any effort into ensuring they are aesthetically consistent? Would you ask, suggest or enforce your players to adhere to this? As a player, do your care about your GM doing this at all?

More detail / Ramblings

Many TTRPG sessions will have the GM and players using some form of artwork to represent their characters and the world, especially if they play online via a VTT. Players will need something for their token, the GM will need a lot of artwork for various NPC / enemy tokens, battlemaps or maps to represent a town or area, artwork to show the player the vibe of a place, as well as music / ambience to set the right tone.

I’ve been DMing for a long time and for that entire time I’ve got by googling stuff “D&D Goblin Warriors” and “D&D Sewer battlemap” and taking the first result I like, or just stealing something that I already looked cool. A real throw everything in the kitchen sink approach that throws all the stuff I like together without rhyme or reason.

I’ve had scenarios where I’m running a game of D&D and the battle has consisted of the PCs whose tokens are:

An IRL photo taken of an actor or cosplayer in costume.
An anime character made by a picrew
A screenshot of a BG3 character the player made
An acrylic painting of a fantasy character

All the while they’ve been fighting a boss who is just a .png of pixelart sprite from a game I like, who is backed up by minions that just use the artwork from the PHB, and they are battling on a relatively realistic, high fidelity 3D battlemap, while the battle music playing is stuff I’ve stolen from some classic PS2 JRPGs.

Nothing wrong with any of that of course, but it is an aesthetically incohesive mess.

For my next game, I’ve decided to really put some thought into the aesthetics and create a style guide. I’m limiting myself to just a few sources for each of the assets I’ll be using for my game – that means only using artwork for tokens and battlemaps from a few specific artists and only using music from a few specific series. I'm not going to lose sleep if I can't find something from those sources and I have to branch out once or twice, but i'm putting in more effort than usual to create very specific mood and aesthetically cohesive world. This might end up being the only time I do this, depending on if the players notice or care enough.

Is this something any of you have done personally or had a GM do? Did you use a strict method to ensure the aesthetic cohesion of your world or just play it loose? Is this something you think matters at all?

The TLDR Question

When using things like tokens, battlemaps, music .etc in your games do you put any effort into ensuring they are aesthetically consistent? Would you ask, suggest or enforce your players to adhere to this? As a player, do your care about your GM doing this at all?

More detail / Ramblings

Many TTRPG sessions will have the GM and players using some form of artwork to represent their characters and the world, especially if they play online via a VTT. Players will need something for their token, the GM will need a lot of artwork for various NPC / enemy tokens, battlemaps or maps to represent a town or area, artwork to show the player the vibe of a place, as well as music / ambience to set the right tone.

I’ve been DMing for a long time and for that entire time I’ve got by googling stuff “D&D Goblin Warriors” and “D&D Sewer battlemap” and taking the first result I like, or just stealing something that I already looked cool. A real throw everything in the kitchen sink approach that throws all the stuff I like together without rhyme or reason.

I’ve had scenarios where I’m running a game of D&D and the battle has consisted of the PCs whose tokens are:

An IRL photo taken of an actor or cosplayer in costume.
An anime character made by a picrew
A screenshot of a BG3 character the player made
An acrylic painting of a fantasy character

All the while they’ve been fighting a boss who is just a .png of pixelart sprite from a game I like, who is backed up by minions that just use the artwork from the PHB, and they are battling on a relatively realistic, high fidelity 3D battlemap, while the battle music playing is stuff I’ve stolen from some classic PS2 JRPGs.

Nothing wrong with any of that of course, but it is an aesthetically incohesive mess.

For my next game, I’ve decided to really put some thought into the aesthetics and create a style guide. I’m limiting myself to just a few sources for each of the assets I’ll be using for my game – that means only using artwork for tokens and battlemaps from a few specific artists and only using music from a few specific series. I'm not going to lose sleep if I can't find something from those sources and I have to branch out once or twice, but i'm putting in more effort than usual to create very specific mood and aesthetically cohesive world. This might end up being the only time I do this, depending on if the players notice or care enough.

Is this something any of you have done personally or had a GM do? Did you use a strict method to ensure the aesthetic cohesion of your world or just play it loose? Is this something you think matters at all?