The Golden Age of D&D and its Art...

[ThirdWizard]

No matter where you started, I think we are all inclined to view fondly the artwork that first helped us visualize all the wonders of the D&D world.

Yep, It's all nostalgia, baby!

I know noone in person who played in 1985.
I know noone in person who likes the art of 1985.
Most of them hate it. I hate Otus. There, I said it. I've been wanting to say it with all these threads and people fawning over him. I hate Otus. That feel soooo much better. It's like a giant weight has been lifted off my chest!

 

[The Shaman]

I was thinking about nostalgia the other day while reading Gygax and Kuntz's excellent Castle Maure adventure in Dungeon. That adventure does a lot of things "wrong" by modern design standards - many of the encounters are simply X number of monster Y in a room, without detailed tactics or personalities, yet the vivid, imaginative background and concepts made me want to run the adventure.

I'm inclined to think the vivid, imaginative background and concepts provide the GM with the tools to develop the tactics and personalities of the monsters, without requiring a designer's hand-holding - perhaps it's modern design standards that have it "wrong"...?

More toward the topic at hand, I think part of what makes work like Trampier's so amazing even now is how evocative it was using both colors - black AND white. I think his wight is scarier than anything in the current books - heck, even his shriekers are cool!

 

[Maggan]

I look at D&D art today and I know that, technically, it's very good. But it isn't Elmore or Parkinson. (Heck, Lockwood is too late for me!)

I look at D&D adventures today... and wonder where they are. (Yes, I know they're coming back. And the ones I do have, although fine books, aren't as great as I3-5).

Cheers!

I recognise the feeling. I also think Desert of Desolation was awesome, and that the art rocked on the BECM boxes, and all that. Few things grab me the way it did then.

But when I look at the 12 and 13 years old kids I DM'd last weekend, their eyes were sparkling! To them there's three cool core rules, with awesome art, there's tons of other games as well, with splendid art and great gameplay. There's Shackled City, and WLD, and Eberron, and a Basic Set, and DDM and ... the list goes on.

For them, the golden age is now.

Cheers!

/M

 

[tetsujin28]

Erol Otus is a God. That is all.

Word. He's brilliant.

 

[Testament]

Erol Otus is a God. That is all.

I'm with Third Wizard and CarlZog. Its the art you first encounter that you fall in love with. The only thing I think Otus is the God of is hysterically bad perspective and composition. And I won't disrespect the dead with my opinion of DCS.

For me, its WAR, Lockwood and Spencer all the way.

 

[MerricB]

I recognise the feeling. I also think Desert of Desolation was awesome, and that the art rocked on the BECM boxes, and all that. Few things grab me the way it did then.

But when I look at the 12 and 13 years old kids I DM'd last weekend, their eyes were sparkling! To them there's three cool core rules, with awesome art, there's tons of other games as well, with splendid art and great gameplay. There's Shackled City, and WLD, and Eberron, and a Basic Set, and DDM and ... the list goes on.

For them, the golden age is now.

Indeed it is.

I had a 6-player game of DDM on Tuesday, with mostly players who have played only one or two games before. They loved it.

Cheers!

 

[diaglo]

I'm with Third Wizard and CarlZog.

gotta say i'm not.

the first art i encountered was Keenan Powell... and well.. i drew better than that back then and i was a kid.

 

[Pbartender]

Let's see... Technically my Golden Age of D&D was about 1984 (when I inherited my big brother's 1977 editions of 1st ed. AD&D) to about 1990 (when my friends and I finally saved up enough allowance to buy copies of 2nd ed. AD&D. From then, it was a slow downhill into a D&D Dark Age that lasted me through college. After I graduated, and got a real job, 3.0 was released, and I experienced a sort of D&D Renaissance that rivals, but cannot nostalgically surpass, my Golden Age.

So while my Golden Age thrived through the late 80's, it was fed by the decade old hand-me-downs of my big brother. My favorite pieces of D&D art include a catoblepas attack, a paladin in hell, a string-following troll, a skeleton attack in a water-filled room, dwarfs and halflings conversing with a magic mouth, Emerikol, rat disguises, "Papers and Paychecks", and a +5 backscratcher... All in glorious black and white.

 

[Quasqueton]

The first D&D art I saw back in ~'80 still has a comfortable place in my heart. I love opening up my Basic/Expert D&D rulebooks and FF and looking through the images. Memories, feelings, imagination, all stirred.

But even back then, there was artwork I liked, and artwork I disliked. And nowadays, there's artwork I like, and artwork I dislike.

Quasqueton

 

[grodog]

Oh, just a note: Fane of the Drow reminds me vividly of my very first AD&D module: D3. Not of the final section (the Vault), but of the encounters faced on the way there. It was always the Descent that grabbed me, never the final location...

While I always enjoyed D3, D1 is definitely my favorite module in the series, so I'm right there with you Merric