I have no idea if this is a hot take or not, but...

[ThorinTeague]

Sounds like you are trying to make a point. Maybe expand some on when they left and why you think this. Maybe the term is meant to be a conversation starter and I just am not getting it.

I don't necessarily know how to "explain" it in an easily digestible way. In essentially the same way that I wouldn't go into CERN to discuss the emotional implications of their experiments, I can't really provide objective measurements that describe in an exact and formulaic way that you can put in your pocket and use to objectively measure art in the future, and get the same conclusions.

And yet there is art that is objectively good and art that is not. I know it pisses my students off sometimes too. There are those who cannot understand why one student gets praised for using color and the next student gets told that it's detracting from their purpose. It's not a math problem.

And yet there are answers that are right and answers that are wrong. But we don't get from here to there using identical systems and formulas.

 

[bulletmeat]

like, for me it will always be Brom’s Dark Sun, Elmore’s Dragonlance, DiTerlizzi’s Planescape, Fabian’s Ravenloft, Szcuzdlo‘s Birthright.

I feel this is so much of it. I'm not a huge fan of Wayne Reynolds but his concept of Eberron gives it a life of it's own. A that I can see is seperate from something like Placescape. Same with DiTerlzzi. That dirty victorian like watercolor truly made Planescape unique.
The art just seems so much more homogeneous, I can't tell if I'm looking at forgotten realms, ravenloft, or magic the gathering.

 

[ThorinTeague]

I feel this is so much of it. I'm not a huge fan of Wayne Reynolds but his concept of Eberron gives it a life of it's own. A that I can see is seperate from something like Placescape. Same with DiTerlzzi. That dirty victorian like watercolor truly made Planescape unique.
The art just seems so much more homogeneous, I can't tell if I'm looking at forgotten realms, ravenloft, or magic the gathering.

This guy explained it better than I did.

 

[Blue Orange]

I feel this is so much of it. I'm not a huge fan of Wayne Reynolds but his concept of Eberron gives it a life of it's own. A that I can see is seperate from something like Placescape. Same with DiTerlzzi. That dirty victorian like watercolor truly made Planescape unique.
The art just seems so much more homogeneous, I can't tell if I'm looking at forgotten realms, ravenloft, or magic the gathering.

I don't know about 'soul'...I definitely agree the 'key artist' factor definitely gave each setting its own feel. TSR was already pretty corporate by that point though.

 

[bulletmeat]

The question may be; who gave more freedom for artist to create their own vision of the setting or action vs what the board wanted.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The question may be; who gave more freedom for artist to create their own vision of the setting or action vs what the board wanted.

I don't think letting artists do whatever they want, without direction, produces consistently good results. Far from it, in fact. Art directors serve a real purpose, even if one disagrees with the artistic direction of a given edition.

 

[Yora]

When you have a single artist do all the illustrations like for Planescape, or two like for 2nd edition Dark Sun (I believe), then you can give the artists freedom to interpret the setting visually as they want. Though I would say in those cases, the artist might very well be the art director.
It's when you have dozens of artists each producing a few illustrations each, that you need someone to coordinate their work so that they are able to work towards the same goal.

Wayne Raynolds illustrations are certainly "special". But when you use it to define the aesthetic of a new setting like with Eberron, it works. I can totally understand if people aren't fans of DiTerlizzi's style, but I think it might actually have established the unique identity of Planescape more than any of the writers. (Though he also did the whole 2nd edition Monstrous Manual, and those illustrations are much more tame.)

 

[Andvari]

When I think of beholders, Terry Dykstra's version appears first in my mind.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I can totally understand if people aren't fans of DiTerlizzi's style, but I think it might actually have established the unique identity of Planescape more than any of the writers. (Though he also did the whole 2nd edition Monstrous Manual, and those illustrations are much more tame.)

If you read Realms, his art retrospective that Dark Horse Comics published a few years back, he says that the Monstrous Manual was done at a sprint, so all of those works got a lot less TLC than the Planescape stuff did (plus he was less experienced at that point, which also changes things).

So maybe he was stretching stylistically, or maybe he just had more time. He'd have to weigh in and say, I think.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Hot take- Siamese Dream is an abandonment of the implicit promise of Gish.

Yeah, that's right. Feel the HEAT!

Tristessa was probably their best song, no doubt

Others may argue a different inflection point, and thus in the metier of this thread...

When D'Arcy left, the soul left with her