Visual Media in RP

Hey everyone!

So I was pondering the ups and downs of worldbuilding the other day (as I sometimes do when trying not to think about other things like school), and I came to the question of what really makes a compelling world- what makes people want to join a story taking place in a setting? There are of course, the necessities of author keyboard-work, so to speak: dynamic, interesting environments, potential conflicts, and so on, but it seems to me that a good portion of the most successful roleplays (in terms of interest) are those that make use of visual media: graphics, photos, colors and interesting text headers.

Even in character profiles, using pictures is much more common than not doing so, and many GMs actually require them. Now, this doesn't make a character any better or worse, so it's most likely something aesthetic. Does this tendency go too far? We are, after all, a text-based roleplay community. Or is it just harmless visual variety, more for the eyes to work with? Might it actually help a world or RP be realized? I'm interested to read what people think on this, as I'm not yet sure what my own opinion on the matter is.

While pictures are nice, depending too much on them is terrible.

I cite the "Song of Ice and fire" book as an example, seeing some fanart and the such has brought to my attention that the majority do not see Dorne as copper skinned people.

How does this relate to the RP, well people are bound to repeat images, I know I have seen a dude with a hood and a blade behind him or a steampunk cloud form FF7 or sabre from fate/stay night in so many places that it makes me sick.

While images can give us a step foward in the right direction and make things look clearer, just look at my characters and all but one have a huge image in their profiles that denotes the visual image I have of them.

When I use a image is to give the others a very near to picture of what I see in my mind, I am terrible with descriptions describing a character to my is hard, i come of with things like

A broad muscular woman with short black hair and green eyes, has a fit body after years of practice as a hardened monk, despite of it all she knows she is pleasant to the sight which makes her job easier

When all I really wanted the others to picture was this http://th09.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2 ... 3cb8iu.jpg

Now of course, I trough other details on the RP, such as branded hair, earrings and the such, but to give a quick mental image that will later be modified trough text, thats the best image usage I can come up with, linking an image as the entire description of a character comes off as lazy

HELLO I LIKE DRAWING AND NONSENSE so this caught my attention.
I believe the main purpose of imagery is not only to grab attention, but to differentiate the subject from others. It helps two male characters seem less similar, despite both having brown hair. It can help set the tone--one rp may have a header picture of a giant golden tree, while the other has a forest during the night.

And another thing--it shows effort on the part of the GM, which always grants brownie points in my book. Not to say that a two-page introduction is unimpressive, but having both just ups the keen excitement and expectations that We the Roleplayers will have a good, realized story to work with.

It will defo' go "too far" once we start replacing posts with storyboards or some such (though it will also be epic); but other than that, it's fairly harmless, particularly for beginner settings. In advanced roleplays though, you'd expect images as little more than accompaniment for writing, like a pretty side dish.


There is, however, such a thing as legitimately overdoing images for the situation in which you could say: "This is meant to depict someone else's character, not mine." I speaketh to the yoinkers of unpublished OC art. Hello there! I will not tell you what is right or wrong, because blech preachers, but I will say this: In my case, I avoid exclusively online characters who have names and expressed personalities, just as a courtesy. Published works such as concept art from a video game or photographs of real people though = fair game, because now I am serving more as a (free) vehicle of advertisement than a "YOINK, NOW YOUR CHARACTER LOOKS MY CHARACTER TOO, HAHA." That's just my personal ruleset though, mind, because I personally would not want someone taking art of my (deep and well thought out, thank you) character and making him out to be something he isn't; not until he's well-known enough to have little confusion over actual ownership. Etc, etc.

(But that's funny--I ponder world building when I'm trying very hard to focus on my life. Haha... augh.)

Never make the reader reliant on pictures; never. Never. Never.

You can throw all the supporting artwork in the OOC you want to, but don't force me to look at a picture to understand something.

I make maps specifically for roleplays and games like D&D.

Here's an example.

http://obsidianentity.deviantart.com/ga ... 4#/d4cnd9n

I've also made custom character portraits as well for my roleplays.

Here are some examples.

http://obsidianentity.deviantart.com/gallery/33174024

Having blocks of text isn't as attractive as throwing some visuals here and there but when you over do the visuals it's just as bad and sometimes worse than blocks of text taking up space on a page.

After all, roleplay is a creative and imaginative exercise with one or more people. Might as well utilize some visuals here and there. Just adds to the experience and I don't see anything wrong with that.

I'll extend this offer though, if anyone does fantasy or medieval roleplays, I can make similar portraits and maps for you and your roleplay if you want. As long as things aren't too over the top I can get them done in a timely manner. (Just trying to stay busy throughout the day.)