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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 2613594" data-attributes="member: 697">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.</blockquote>

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