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<blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6347573" data-attributes="member: 59082">n00bdragon took one extreme--RPGs as a developing technology--and you took it to another--RPGs as art. I'll take the middle ground and say that it is a combination of both, or somewhere between the two extremes. Some development has occured; we can see, for instance, the development from the 1E combat charts to THAC0 to Basic Attack Bonus, etc. There's a clear development from clunky and over-complicated to more streamlined. Certain mechanical aspects of the game certainly did improve, especially from 2E to 3E, which seemed to be the largest jump (and that is largely because D&amp;D in 1999 was clunky and anachronistic compared to the last decade of game design innovations).But this doesn't mean that the more recent the &quot;better.&quot; Certain things are lost. We can look at the early art of Erol Otus, Jeff Dee, Roslof, etc. Relatively crude and simple, but brimming with character and spirit. Later art, by and large, become far more technically proficient but lost some of the charm. But another way that I don't think the artist analogy really flies is that an artist is, well, an individual. A lot of musicians, artists, and creative types do their best stuff early on - it is the stuff that is just dying to come out, the early creative urge. Sometimes the well runs dry. Some artists meet that by trying something new, while others just rehash the old. But many artists experience a gradual creative decline. D&amp;D, on the other hand, is the work of many - think how many people have had input over the years, and the fact that no one working on it today was working on it in the 1970s. It is like the Beatles still being around but without any of the original members.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mercurius, post: 6347573, member: 59082"] n00bdragon took one extreme--RPGs as a developing technology--and you took it to another--RPGs as art. I'll take the middle ground and say that it is a combination of both, or somewhere between the two extremes. [I]Some [/I]development has occured; we can see, for instance, the development from the 1E combat charts to THAC0 to Basic Attack Bonus, etc. There's a clear development from clunky and over-complicated to more streamlined. Certain mechanical aspects of the game certainly did improve, especially from 2E to 3E, which seemed to be the largest jump (and that is largely because D&D in 1999 was clunky and anachronistic compared to the last decade of game design innovations). But this doesn't mean that the more recent the "better." Certain things are lost. We can look at the early art of Erol Otus, Jeff Dee, Roslof, etc. Relatively crude and simple, but brimming with character and spirit. Later art, by and large, become far more technically proficient but lost some of the charm. But another way that I don't think the artist analogy really flies is that an artist is, well, an individual. A lot of musicians, artists, and creative types do their best stuff early on - it is the stuff that is just dying to come out, the early creative urge. Sometimes the well runs dry. Some artists meet that by trying something new, while others just rehash the old. But many artists experience a gradual creative decline. D&D, on the other hand, is the work of many - think how many people have had input over the years, and the fact that no one working on it today was working on it in the 1970s. It is like the Beatles still being around but without any of the original members. [/QUOTE]

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