How strictly do you follow the reference art in the books in your games?
I'm curious about variances between tables I suppose. I was mostly wondering because catfolk and ratfolk artwork, while nice, doesn't quite strike a chord with me, unlike the ratfolk from say, Starfinder. Or warhammer's skaven.
Is it common at your table to allow diverging from the common concept?
Sidenote, the new art of kobols is hella cute.
Visuals are generally just fluff to me, and can be significantly altered if it helps someone have more fun. A player in my current PF1 game likes classic Tolkien elves, so for them our elves are more traditional and less alien.
Visuals are generally just fluff to me, and can be significantly altered if it helps someone have more fun. A player in my current PF1 game likes classic Tolkien elves, so for them our elves are more traditional and less alien.
I've had a weird concept, would you say that a lizardman-tiefling with a more human-ish face would be too far fetched? Or could a tribe live in the forests ala oni/yokai if there were enough of them?
I generally don't worry much about it, to be honest.
It does seem worth noting that, canonically, catfolk appearance varies a lot in terms of how catlike they really are, which allows most interpretations to be canonically valid.
Would that mean that they could go from Puss in Boots from shrek( but bigger) to something like that movie Cats to a mix of flesh'n'fur as one might see in modern media?
Visuals are generally just fluff to me, and can be significantly altered if it helps someone have more fun. A player in my current PF1 game likes classic Tolkien elves, so for them our elves are more traditional and less alien.I've had a weird concept, would you say that a lizardman-tiefling with a more human-ish face would be too far fetched? Or could a tribe live in the forests ala oni/yokai if there were enough of them?
I don't think that's too much to ask for from a GM. A tiefling could be displaying more "humanoid" features from a human-like demon forebear like a succubus.
A tribe of tieflings is a harder sell, since they're supposed to be rare and crop up from spontaneous genetic expressions. However, if it were important enough to you I would hand wave it. Say a village of lizardfolk were cursed all at once by some fel magic or something.
Visuals are generally just fluff to me, and can be significantly altered if it helps someone have more fun. A player in my current PF1 game likes classic Tolkien elves, so for them our elves are more traditional and less alien.I've had a weird concept, would you say that a lizardman-tiefling with a more human-ish face would be too far fetched? Or could a tribe live in the forests ala oni/yokai if there were enough of them?I don't think that's too much to ask for from a GM. A tiefling could be displaying more "humanoid" features from a human-like demon forebear like a succubus.
A tribe of tieflings is a harder sell, since they're supposed to be rare and crop up from spontaneous genetic expressions. However, if it were important enough to you I would hand wave it. Say a village of lizardfolk were cursed all at once by some fel magic or something.
When in doubt. Curse them.
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There's art in the pathfinder books?
But seriously, this is a game about imagination. You can imagine things to look like however you please. I consider it a major faux pas to tell someone else what their character looks like.
Personally I'm not a fan of the visual style paizo chose, but I don't consider that part of the game at all. The Pathfinder game is rules and stat blocks, the descriptions are up the the GM and the players.
Interesting question. Honestly, the art is what got me into even looking at TRPGs (a lot of supplements or games I won't bother reading because I don't care for the art). It's how I connect to the world and the game so it can always be a hit or miss for me, so I definitely feel you about the catfolk and ratfolk. I've never been a fan of the feline-headed catfolk introduced in the PF1 ARG. Catfolk were a fairly large part in the campaigns when I was GM and I made it a point that any catfolk NPCs were as much "folk" as "cat" (though PCs could of course decide however they wanted to look).
I was never able to really grasp the ratfolk (I guess they are the general tinkerer ancestry that is usually served by gnomes in other settings), but I am glade Paizo gave a little blurb that seemed to echo what I always thought--"why don't people assume these are wererats?" Of course now I definitely get more of a "mouse" feeling from the art that "rat".
But I'm a visual person. There are way more monsters that I've seen the image for and been like "I want to have that in the game!" than monsters I've looked at the stat block for and said the same.
My catfolk esthetics are based on the Elder Scrolls khajiit. The Pathfinder catfolk resemble domestic cats a bit too much for me, especially their facial structure. The khajiit project strengh and intelligence with their leopard-like appearance.
I'm not really fond of how literally catfolk seems to be taken. Also, a lot of the art in the APG felt unfinished to me and I found that a bit disappointing.
There's still plenty of great artwork, I like most of the Archetype stuff, and it gets the point across fairly well.