NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 6582862">I appreciate the post. Another point I am trying to make here, and admittedly maybe not doing such a great job, is that mechanics that feel archaic may not be as bad, they may still have utility. I'm not saying we need THAC0 or attack matrices. But on the other hand, you can do some interesting things with a tool like an attack matrix and it provides a very different experience in a game. It isn't something I would write off as archaic. I look at it more like music than evolution of physical design in cars or musical instruments. There are styles and patterns that develop over time. Some start to sound hokey or dated after a while, some a bit convoluted, but you can always go back and explore the tools of outdated styles for new material. Some of those things are never going to regain currency, but others will. Few people would write extended pieces in the style of Bach or Mozart today. I don't think that makes extended pieces are bad, our tastes have simply changed. At the same time, yes there are some basic components that will change, we will learn to improve certain things. I think people now have a much tighter sense of RPG design in that we focus a lot more energy on setting clear goals and achieving them. Things do generally feel less haphazard. That is good. But sometimes I sense a good deal of hubris there as well, and I don't think that is good because you miss valuable lessons you can learn from people who came before you. I am just generally very wary of writing off anything that could potentially still have utility or tap into a gaming experience more current approaches might not allow or encourage. So I do think the hobby should grow and change, that people should build on what has been done and seek out new directions (I try to be experimental in what I do). But we can learn a lot from the early days of the hobby. I think taking a dismissive attitude toward it is a mistake, just like it would be a mistake to take a dismissive attitude toward Lead Belly, Django Reinhardt or Monteverdi.</blockquote>

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