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<blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 4827113" data-attributes="member: 1106">The penny dropped for me on what keeps AD&amp;D 1E and Greyhawk in particular a bit different from generic fantasy setting #19902 (e.g. Mystara, Thunder Rift, Dragonlance, Birthright etc).It's playing up the sense of the eldritch.&nbsp; Let me explain.Even when it was new, the AD&amp;D internal artwork made the thing look like the nearest thing modern publishing had to an old spell tome.&nbsp; &quot;Unearthed Arcana&quot;, in the literal sense.&nbsp; Quirky names and references abounded, compounding this impression.&nbsp; Greyhawk modules like Tomb of Horrors and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth dripped with history and dusty arcane secrets.&nbsp; I was so fooled by the &quot;old tome&quot; look of the Greyhawk boxed set that it wasn't immediately obvious that it was faked.&nbsp; The Dungeon Master's Guide's style is an enigma wrapped in a thesaurus.This hasn't been totally lost - the 3E books nod to it with the covers, but the interior artwork and writing style totally let it down.&nbsp; Even BECMI and Mystara lacks it (so please don't get out the nostalgia accusations just yet), and it was a big difference between 1E and 2E.&nbsp; 4E lacks it too.&nbsp; It's not even in the Red Box Basic game, which would be a contender if I were rose-tinted glasses-ing my perspective here.Maybe it's not Gygax vs Mentzer, maybe it's just the art direction of 1E, and that Gygax had his nose buried in a thesaurus looking up similes for &quot;wizard&quot; when he wasn't inventing anagrams, and maybe Sutherland et. al. were looking directly at old style mythological artwork to inspire their own style.&nbsp; I don't know.&nbsp; Even by the time of orange spine books it was pretty much gone (try to detect it in the Wilderness Survival Guide).I think that if you want to reboot D&amp;D, or a generic D&amp;D setting, then playing up the sense of the eldritch is a key way to make it appealing and intriguing, even to a modern audience into Buffy and Harry Potter.&nbsp; If the books look and read like ye olde tomef of ancient myfterief, and you have modules and settings carrying the theme forward, then that's a kind of nitro fuel in the D&amp;D brand tank.&nbsp; Even if it means silly anagrams to make the names sound that way.&nbsp; That's how you might recapture the core D&amp;D magic without having to reinvent it all the time, perhaps.Well, it's a thought, at least.&nbsp; How do you make a D&amp;D book an arcane tome and a useful reference?&nbsp; There's the Asmodeus in the details.&nbsp; Maybe sidebars?&nbsp; The main text written like a spellbook, with translated specifics in the margins?&nbsp; That'd be cool.&nbsp; I think similar stuff has been done with Pluffet Smedger, Volo, and Elminster before, but not to the nth degree.&nbsp; It'd blow out the page count though.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="rounser, post: 4827113, member: 1106"] The penny dropped for me on what keeps AD&D 1E and Greyhawk in particular a bit different from generic fantasy setting #19902 (e.g. Mystara, Thunder Rift, Dragonlance, Birthright etc). It's playing up the sense of the eldritch. Let me explain. Even when it was new, the AD&D internal artwork made the thing look like the nearest thing modern publishing had to an old spell tome. "Unearthed Arcana", in the literal sense. Quirky names and references abounded, compounding this impression. Greyhawk modules like Tomb of Horrors and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth dripped with history and dusty arcane secrets. I was so fooled by the "old tome" look of the Greyhawk boxed set that it wasn't immediately obvious that it was faked. The Dungeon Master's Guide's style is an enigma wrapped in a thesaurus. This hasn't been totally lost - the 3E books nod to it with the covers, but the interior artwork and writing style totally let it down. Even BECMI and Mystara lacks it (so please don't get out the nostalgia accusations just yet), and it was a big difference between 1E and 2E. 4E lacks it too. It's not even in the Red Box Basic game, which would be a contender if I were rose-tinted glasses-ing my perspective here. Maybe it's not Gygax vs Mentzer, maybe it's just the art direction of 1E, and that Gygax had his nose buried in a thesaurus looking up similes for "wizard" when he wasn't inventing anagrams, and maybe Sutherland et. al. were looking directly at old style mythological artwork to inspire their own style. I don't know. Even by the time of orange spine books it was pretty much gone (try to detect it in the Wilderness Survival Guide). I think that if you want to reboot D&D, or a generic D&D setting, then playing up the sense of the eldritch is a key way to make it appealing and intriguing, even to a modern audience into Buffy and Harry Potter. If the books look and read like ye olde tomef of ancient myfterief, and you have modules and settings carrying the theme forward, then that's a kind of nitro fuel in the D&D brand tank. Even if it means silly anagrams to make the names sound that way. [i]That's[/i] how you might recapture the core D&D magic without having to reinvent it all the time, perhaps. Well, it's a thought, at least. How do you make a D&D book an arcane tome [i]and[/i] a useful reference? There's the Asmodeus in the details. Maybe sidebars? The main text written like a spellbook, with translated specifics in the margins? That'd be cool. I think similar stuff has been done with Pluffet Smedger, Volo, and Elminster before, but not to the nth degree. It'd blow out the page count though. [/QUOTE]

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