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<blockquote data-quote="Gus L" data-source="post: 9318369" data-attributes="member: 7045072">Yes, it's precisely that B5 is a post 80's TSR product.&nbsp; I don't think AD&amp;D does much better given the general disorganization, though as you say there are some good passages in the DMG about running less linear games.&nbsp; Unfortunately the circumstances of AD&amp;D's production (as a collection of accreted table rules, bundled together and given to editors to get out quick at least partially as part of a litigation strategy by Gygax) don't help, and the adventures produced for it vary widely in both style and design.&nbsp; For sure though by the mid-1980's (and B5 is on the cusp of this) one sees the more &quot;Trad&quot; style of adventure design taking over - the design style often associated with the Hickmans (though to be fair to them they manage to write far better adventures then most of their emulators) - that relies on rather linear narratives and forced moral decisions.&nbsp; The whys and hows of this happening are interesting, but I think that places like r/OSR seemingly heading down the same path now (at least as far as praising things like B11 indicates) are an interesting eternal reoccurrence style event. Perhaps in 2051 we'll be seeing the emergence of the OSRR (Old School Renaissance Revival) where folks on forums are excited about rediscovering Sleeping Place of the Feathered Swine and Anomalous Subsurface Environment.**This is unlikely as Google will undoubtedly scrub blogger from existence as soon as it finishes using all of our blog posts as AI corpus.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gus L, post: 9318369, member: 7045072"] Yes, it's precisely that B5 is a post 80's TSR product. I don't think AD&D does much better given the general disorganization, though as you say there are some good passages in the DMG about running less linear games. Unfortunately the circumstances of AD&D's production (as a collection of accreted table rules, bundled together and given to editors to get out quick at least partially as part of a litigation strategy by Gygax) don't help, and the adventures produced for it vary widely in both style and design. For sure though by the mid-1980's (and B5 is on the cusp of this) one sees the more "Trad" style of adventure design taking over - the design style often associated with the Hickmans (though to be fair to them they manage to write far better adventures then most of their emulators) - that relies on rather linear narratives and forced moral decisions. The whys and hows of this happening are interesting, but I think that places like r/OSR seemingly heading down the same path now (at least as far as praising things like B11 indicates) are an interesting eternal reoccurrence style event. Perhaps in 2051 we'll be seeing the emergence of the OSRR (Old School Renaissance Revival) where folks on forums are excited about rediscovering Sleeping Place of the Feathered Swine and Anomalous Subsurface Environment.* *This is unlikely as Google will undoubtedly scrub blogger from existence as soon as it finishes using all of our blog posts as AI corpus. [/QUOTE]

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