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RPG Evolution: The Dragons Come Home to Roost
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8870792" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>This is interesting to me because you're largely talking about aesthetics, rather than rules. That's not a criticism, but stuff like the prose was more or less unique to Gary Gygax, who even the best of worlds would be long-retired by now. No-one is going to have a voice quite like that. The DMG was more a matter of dare I say it "vibe" and experimental advice than anything else, and very much of the moment (Gygax a wrote a truly awful book for DMs a few years later). The charm is absolutely in the aesthetic elements, and the whimsy, which no author would maintain. Indeed Gygax himself lost both, as can be easily seen with <em>Dangerous Journeys</em> a decade or so later, which is a rather tiresome/tedious work (imho, YMMV etc.).</p><p></p><p>Btw I saw this and I thought of you: <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/168306/A-Brief-Study-of-TSR-Book-Design?manufacturers_id=3482" target="_blank">A Brief Study of TSR Book Design - Sine Nomine Publishing | DriveThruRPG.com</a></p><p></p><p>I guess what I'm saying is, these things are going to be lost whether you go to a "modern standard" or not, simply because different people will be working on stuff. So I'm not sure anything later TSR or even WotC could really have done there. 5E has a less distinct and convincing voice than any previous edition, I'd say, and I do think that kind of rests on the people who designed it (the obsession with "natural language" - which is anything but - definitely doesn't help). On the flipside the PHB rules design is very strong.</p><p></p><p>I will say one thing re: vocabulary, RPGs in general - and I do think Gygax's use of language was significantly influential here! - expanded my vocabulary vastly, even though I started with 2E, and it really wasn't just D&D, all sorts of RPG books taught me words and ideas and ways of thinking about things, and even that periods of history existed that I wasn't previously aware of.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8870792, member: 18"] This is interesting to me because you're largely talking about aesthetics, rather than rules. That's not a criticism, but stuff like the prose was more or less unique to Gary Gygax, who even the best of worlds would be long-retired by now. No-one is going to have a voice quite like that. The DMG was more a matter of dare I say it "vibe" and experimental advice than anything else, and very much of the moment (Gygax a wrote a truly awful book for DMs a few years later). The charm is absolutely in the aesthetic elements, and the whimsy, which no author would maintain. Indeed Gygax himself lost both, as can be easily seen with [I]Dangerous Journeys[/I] a decade or so later, which is a rather tiresome/tedious work (imho, YMMV etc.). Btw I saw this and I thought of you: [URL="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/168306/A-Brief-Study-of-TSR-Book-Design?manufacturers_id=3482"]A Brief Study of TSR Book Design - Sine Nomine Publishing | DriveThruRPG.com[/URL] I guess what I'm saying is, these things are going to be lost whether you go to a "modern standard" or not, simply because different people will be working on stuff. So I'm not sure anything later TSR or even WotC could really have done there. 5E has a less distinct and convincing voice than any previous edition, I'd say, and I do think that kind of rests on the people who designed it (the obsession with "natural language" - which is anything but - definitely doesn't help). On the flipside the PHB rules design is very strong. I will say one thing re: vocabulary, RPGs in general - and I do think Gygax's use of language was significantly influential here! - expanded my vocabulary vastly, even though I started with 2E, and it really wasn't just D&D, all sorts of RPG books taught me words and ideas and ways of thinking about things, and even that periods of history existed that I wasn't previously aware of. [/QUOTE]
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