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

[Kid Charlemagne]

The Golden Age of most anything is "twelve."

 

[tetsujin28]

But it isn't Elmore or Parkinson.

AGH! MY EYES!

rogueattorney nailed the true Golden Age of D&D.

 

[The Shaman]

DAT was the man.

Fer sure - WAR is no DAT.

 

[MonsterMash]

For me I suppose the Golden Age of D&D is between 1977-82 or so, so its the original artists, the Trampiers, Sutherlands, and for me a personal favourite Paul Jaquays that are the art that defines D&D to me. After 1982 I was off into playing RQ2 and Call of Cthulhu and now I've come back to D&D for 2.5 years I don't care for the art much except for some of the Necromancer and Goodman Games stuff which is often consciously in tune with the old school not the 'dungeonpunk' style of WotC.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

I always assumed I was the only one to not be particularly impressed with the dungeonpunk art I'm seeing nowadays. My players lap it up, more with cries of 'Whoa!' or 'Cool!' when another completely nonsensical weapon is shown on some death-knight of some description.

And I'm a newish gamer.

I don't know what it is. I can recognise it for the work gone into it, I just can't seem to like the style overall. It's too.. punky for me.

Then, I often like my fantasy almost completely real anyway, to emphasize the fantasy part. The dungeonpunk doesn't show the magic as amazing; it does show how common to the 'ideal' D+D setting according though.


Hmm; I wonder. IF the original artwork was cartoony, was the action likewise? If the later art was more realistic, did the games reflect that? What does that imply for 3.5 D+D?

I suppose that would be hard to tell without a comprehensive study. Oh well.

 

[Pants]

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'll say it:
Elmore is technically good, with some great pieces of art, but they can be really, really boring. He also tends to rely on 80's hairstyles which I find strangely funny.
Parkinson is, no doubt, my favorite early D&D artist.
Otus has a style of art that I loathe.
Sutherland's pictures often look goofy, unrealistic, and well... bad.
Trampier was just... bad.
I've been unimpressed with 90% of Caldwell's illustrations, but I admit that I haven't seen as much of his stuff as I have of the others.

Give me the new stuff any day of the week.

Even though I'm no big fan of the older art, I will admit that the older stuff was often more... imaginative. They had more 'action' scenes back in the day, while many of 3.x's pictures seem to be just 'posing models.'
However, that seems to be changing, especially with some of Wayne Reynolds latest pieces. Yeah, I know that WAR gets slammed for some of his unrealistic stuff, but the man captures action better than anyone else.

Plus, are his unrealistic pictures any worse than the silly bowl-cut Owlbear from 1e?

 

[Wombat]

I dunno.

None of the art of D&D, in pretty much any incarnation, did much of anything for me. Then again, that is true for almost all gaming art with me. Just not really my thing.

Oh, there are exceptions. I love Eric Hotz's work, whether the realistic shaded pen & ink (Harn, mainly) drawings or the woodblocks (Ars Magica, esp. 4th ed). I generally enjoyed the stuff found in Paranoia, at least in the earlier editions, but that was because of the crazy mood it envoked. I am in awe of much of the art in Skyrealms of Jorune. And in any given gaming book there are usually one or two pieces that really do it for me. Other than that, most of it is serviceable, but that is about all I can say for it. Many of the combat poses, for example, tend to make me giggle just because the sheer implausibility of the weapons, the armour, and, worst of all, the fighting techniques.

I remember looking through the 1st ed AD&D books and thinking that the art had come a long way from the Three Little Books, but that was about as far as I would push it.

Golden Age of fantasy illustration? Mmmm, I think I'd have to go back to the Golden Age of Illustration in general for that, 1890s-1910s. Much more my style that way, sort of bargain basement Pre-Raphaelites.

 

[mearls]

It's interesting to look at nostalgia from a design angle. Nostalgia is a powerful force in D&D design for many reasons. It reminds gamers of the good 'ole days, and a product can ride that fuzzy glow to success. That article really hits the nail on the. Much of nostalgia's power is that it's relative - the viewer places his own personal good feeling/reaction on whatever evokes that nostalgia.

Nostalgia also communicates a tremendous amount of information in a few short words. It might take me a paragraph to explain Magic of Incarnum, but the words "Return to the Tomb of Horrors" tell you everything you need to know.

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. There are times when I think that there are some design concepts from the good 'ole days that have faded yet remain powerful tools. It's definitely something to think about. IMO, the space between the DM and designer, and exactly where that space resides, is the most important issue a designer faces on a strategic scale.

Personally, my golden age will always be from 1999 to 2002. I had got back into D&D after a 6 years hiatus. GenCon 2000 was an absolute blast, and 3e had me really excited. 3e felt like the D&D I always wanted to play. I played in 2 campaigns that were a lot of fun and set the tone for my experience with 3e.

 

[DaveMage]

1E and 3/3.5E.

Two golden ages for me.

Loved 'em both.

I played 2E as well, and liked alot of it, but 1E and now are the best times I've had with the game.

 

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

Erol Otus is a God. That is all.