Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on October 03, 2023, 02:59:44 PM
The only time art has effected my enjoyment of content was when they drastically changed the look of books in the mid-90s for 2E. In particular the black revised books I mentioned and the Ravenloft line (which went from looking incredible to this very barren and thin vibe----and it was both on the layout design and the art side I think).

   Yes; the art team managed to alienate Stephen Fabian (who wasn't very happy with doing so much Ravenloft stuff to begin with), and the layout changes didn't help. I think it hurt the 1996 products the most; after Domains of Dread, the look improved a bit, although I still prefer the earlier 2nd edition products.

  Fun fact: The Black Box tied with Shadowrun's Seattle Source Book for the 1990 Origin Award for Best Graphic Presentation of a Role-Playing Game. The other nominees were the Castles box set for AD&D 2E, Angus McBride's Characters of Middle-Earth from ICE (which I have to assume didn't win only because of the relative obscurity of the line), and Feast of Goblyns--the other Ravenloft product within the eligibility window.

Quote from: Abraxus on October 03, 2023, 01:35:13 PM
Saying Brom and  Caldwell are garbage burn the heretics. Sure some 2E art was imo terrible much of 1E was just as bad though the IoSR crowd views that through rose coloured glasses that they spray painted black.

Every edition imo had its good and bad art art. One edition because it's an favourite edition for some does not and should not be given an exception. I hated one artist I think his last name was Crapapple who drew for third edition . One bad artist does not mean an entire edition art is garbage.

Brom and Caldwell are world class artists. Though I can't stand the direction Caldwell took in the 90's. While Parkinson really took off. I don't know what happened to Easley he started out strong but didn't grow like Parkinson and Brom did. Jeff Butler, Fred Fields, and Robh Ruppel were not good fits. Tony DiTerlizzi is an interesting exception, he's basically a children's book illustrator and had his own thing going on.

The stable of artists they put together in the 80's, particularly for the time, was remarkable. My criticism has been aimed at the art direction. TSR never had a world class art director, though I will give props to Jim Roslof for building that art team.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 03, 2023, 04:45:31 PM

   Yes; the art team managed to alienate Stephen Fabian (who wasn't very happy with doing so much Ravenloft stuff to begin with), and the layout changes didn't help.

Stephen Fabian was a genuine talent. I didn't appreciate him at the time, my teen self didn't care for his work. Now that I have perspective I get what he was doing. He rarely worked in color, but when he did the results were fantastic. Interesting story: he learned art from the Famous Artist's School, you may remember those "Draw Binky" ads that looked like a scam. That was a legitimate art school started by Norman Rockwell and other famous illustrators! Bernie Wrightson went to that school too. I wish I'd known it was legitimate when I was a teen interested in art.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on October 03, 2023, 04:31:58 PM

Quote from: Scooter on October 03, 2023, 08:20:56 AM

Quote from: Thor's Nads on October 03, 2023, 06:34:00 AM

5e is only good insomuch as it rekindled some of the spirit of 1e, with a modern twist.

LOL!  Milk and coolie rest breaks, super tough hard to kill 1str level PCs, NO!  Not the spirit of 1st Edition at all.

That is why I qualified that with "insomuch" and "some". Besides, player death and TPK's aren't the only thing 1e is good for.

You can play 5e in hardcore mode if you like.

I have no clue what Scooter is talking about - at first level, the characters in my newbie 5e game had three encounters. They talked their way out of the first one, bribed their way out of the second, and ran like hell from the third after an initial skirmish; any one of those could easily have been a TPK if they'd tried to stand and fight.

Now, this is a non-WotC published location-based module they're playing through, but I've had TPKs playing WotC-published 5e modules by the book, and the old starter kit was famous for them.

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 02, 2023, 09:29:59 AMWith the possible exception of the stuff about the punch holed Monster Manual entries, which was demonstrably garbage and a moronic idea.

I did not like it. But I got the concept behind it. It was one of those 50-50 things where it could be useful on paper. But once implimented the flaws kinda stood out.

The main one being that it puts some wear and tear on the pages. But the pages were sturdier than standard and there are those little ring binder patches.

I could see how it could be really useful. But it was a hassle at the same time and so good idea-bad idea.

Quote from: Abraxus on October 02, 2023, 09:30:45 AM
Is Pundit so desperate for clicks and attention he is now rehashing and recycling topics he already spoke about. Nice ttry with changing the title it still sounds like a broken record.

Imo 2E was the heyday of D&D with better art. As for splat books definitely too many yet absolutely no one had a gun to their head forcing them to use them.

Honestly there were not too many expansion books. Just one per class, think one per race. A few add-ons. Alot of players loved the class books and how TSR handles it. You could buy just what interested you and ignore everything else.

Weird how people keep bitching and moaning 20odd years later about something that was optional.

The rest was setting specific.

Quote from: Omega on October 04, 2023, 05:19:41 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 02, 2023, 09:29:59 AMWith the possible exception of the stuff about the punch holed Monster Manual entries, which was demonstrably garbage and a moronic idea.

I did not like it. But I got the concept behind it. It was one of those 50-50 things where it could be useful on paper. But once implimented the flaws kinda stood out.

The main one being that it puts some wear and tear on the pages. But the pages were sturdier than standard and there are those little ring binder patches.

I could see how it could be really useful. But it was a hassle at the same time and so good idea-bad idea.

I wasn't even really opposed to the idea. The fact that they put monsters on both sides of a sheet so you couldn't really alphabetize them drove me nuts.

Quote from: Abraxus on October 02, 2023, 09:30:45 AM


Imo 2E was the heyday of D&D with better art. As for splat books definitely too many yet absolutely no one had a gun to their head forcing them to use them.

I think most of the splat books in the 2E era were fine because 1) they were highly optional and GM approval was still very important and 2) they were not as mechanically hefty and broken as the later 3E splat books. There were certainly things that could be abused, and I hated stuff like skills and powers because to me that broke the game, but the lines with the color themed covers (blue books, green books, brown books, etc), were all very heavy on flavor and setting, with mechanics that tended be stuff like NWPs and slight bonuses. Books like the Complete Bard, Glory of Rome, A mighty Fortress, and the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb guide, were all things that added a lot to my campaigns on the GM side, seemed to give players more ideas for playing things like a bard, but never really produced an issue for me at the table as a GM. The complete books for 3E, on the other hand, were a constant source of frustration. Obviously things like easy class dipping were as much a factor as the books in the case of 3E.

Some of the later books, like aforementioned skills and powers, I think produced significant problems though. I remember having balance issues with the psionics book.

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 02, 2023, 09:29:59 AM

Quote from: Persimmon on October 02, 2023, 08:41:42 AMSeriously?  2e art was generally trash, particularly DiTerlizzi, possibly the worst artist in TSR history.

This statement alone disqualifies anything you have to say on the subject. With the possible exception of the stuff about the punch holed Monster Manual entries, which was demonstrably garbage and a moronic idea.

I have to admit, as much as the hole tearing was a problem, I loved this monster manual. It still remains my favorite. I used to like mixing the different packets of monsters so I could tailor the manual to my campaign. I get why people had issues with it, there was a practicality issue with things like the potential for lost pages. But I loved how it blended perfectly with a GM's notebook. I even remember buying things like the Ravenloft packet twice so I could have on in the main MM binder, and one in my GM binder. I liked the art for these as well. The hardback MM they released with the 2E revised edition just didn't do anything for me

Quote from: Naburimannu on October 04, 2023, 04:31:43 AM


I have no clue what Scooter is talking about

Read the rules then.  If your fighter has 20 hp at max you can take 40 hp damage and still live.Compare that to AD&D. Are you a total moron?

I loved the binder MM idea until I saw some printing on both sides. Then I was sad at the potential photocopy costs.  That said, we live in a wonderous new age where all that is much cheaper and often available at home.

Hmmm... I should collate my own campaign MMs jusr for organizational purposes. Then I could use that Custom 5e MM/Item entry to translate MtG monsters & stuff for my campaign binder. What a needlessly distracting organization project!  I just might do it! Do they already have templates for Custom 1e or 2e MM/Items?   

I would say the wussification of D&D began when Gygax set the stat bonuses for 15 or better, then came up with ever more ridiculous ways to generate high stats, including the infamous Method V where you rolled 9d6 and took the best three of those for your primary stat. 

If you look at the stats in the AD&D Rogue's Gallery, you can see the player characters of the people at TSR who were designing and playtesting the game.  They had some pretty beaucoup stats.  No way it was 3d6 down the line.  Gary might have portrayed himself as a hardass in the Dragon Magazine articles, but he wanted the PC's to be heroic.  And so every fighter had 18(xx&) strength or they were considered useless.  And every Magic User had an Intelligence of 17 or better.  Don't believe me? Go look at the Rogues Gallery.  You'll see where the power creep started. 

Moldvay did the game a service when he flattened the curve when it came to stat bonuses.  Too bad we didn't pay attention to him back then because we were chasing the many options of "Advanced" D&D.

Quote from: Scooter on October 04, 2023, 08:57:25 AM

Quote from: Naburimannu on October 04, 2023, 04:31:43 AM


I have no clue what Scooter is talking about

Read the rules then.  If your fighter has 20 hp at max you can take 40 hp damage and still live.Compare that to AD&D. Are you a total moron?

A hilarious oversimplification of the rules that clearly you haven't read either. Please, do us all a favor and throw yourself off a rooftop.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on October 04, 2023, 11:01:52 AM

Quote from: Scooter on October 04, 2023, 08:57:25 AM

Quote from: Naburimannu on October 04, 2023, 04:31:43 AM


I have no clue what Scooter is talking about

Read the rules then.  If your fighter has 20 hp at max you can take 40 hp damage and still live.Compare that to AD&D. Are you a total moron?

A hilarious oversimplification of the rules that clearly you haven't read either. Please, do us all a favor and throw yourself off a rooftop.

Yes, I have you fucking moron.  I stated the effect of the rule correctly.. PLUS resting for 8 hours to get back all HP lost as opposed to 1 hp/24 hours in AD&D.  Now run along dipshit.

5e took many of the lessons of the OSR and either put them in to some extent, or wrote the rules so that you could play 5e in an old school-ish kinda way.  It's way more OSResque than 3e or 4e.

As to whether people here didn't get mad until they started pretending Pundit didn't help with the new edition, I couldn't say.  Companies had this idea, possibly related to "ESG" investments, that they needed to "piss off the conservatards" or whatever, and many of them made small statements about equality or whatever, but these weren't targeted enough and I guess they wanted redder meat, so a lot of them started being overtly and deliberately offensive.  While this is less now than it was a couple years ago, it's still going on.  If this negatively impacted your view of certain companies, I mean, that's fine, it certainly did for me.  If your only reason for hating 5e is that they tried to rewrite history to fuck over Pundit, uh, sure, that's a fine reason.

But I'm not even saying that happened.  I'm saying if it did happen, good.