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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 3413773" data-attributes="member: 467">This is a good, and accurate, point.On topic, I would say that each edition of the game has been informed by different sources and therefore has been different in feel and tone.  And these sources don't exist in a vacuum.  D&D has informed other games, video games, fiction and other forms of entertainment, which have in turn informed D&D.  Because D&D has traditionally had a very long "edition life", the tone of any given edition has changed over time, as well, even if the edition hasn't.  I'll use 2E as an example because, again, I am most familiar with it when referring to previous editions.The core 2E books, both blue and black, use an art style reminiscent of what you'd see on the cover of a fantasy paperback.  it isn't particularly stylized, it doesn't push any envelopes, and it says that this game is a traditional fantasy game.  But 2E also had a lot of settings for it and the art direction for each setting wasn't only unique to the setting, but also marks a preogression toward more out-there, non-traditional fantasy as time goes on.  Planescape, Dark Sun and Spelljammer -- all latter-day 2E settings -- had very stylized and very non-traditional art direction.  this isn't a bad thing, IMO, but it does mark a shift, or at least the beginning of one.  Many of the later generic supplements utilized less traditional art styles as the rules themselves changed and became bloated.Like I said, I am not as familiar with the evolution of 1E, though there is very obviously a marked difference between the original 1E covers and the "wizard" covers.  personally, I like the art ebtter on the later covers, but the earlier covers are far more evocative of sword and sorcery adventure.To my recolecion, B/X/C/M maintained a fairly consisten art style throughout, but as efforts were made in the '90s to re-introduce gamers to D&D, the new "basic" sets had much more extreme, almost 3rd edition art to them (with less spikes).I generally like my D&D "traditional" -- not so much Tolkien, but dark ages medieval high/sword and sorcery fantasy with a nod toward the mainstream in the genre literature.  Somewhere along the line, though, the mainstream genre litertaure became the game literature and it fed on itself until the traditional and mainstream was just tired and old hat.</blockquote>

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