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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2286103" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'll agree with that.  The thing is, if you were a fan of quality adventurers, you could just about see the glorious recovery of the game that 3rd edition represents coming.  Right there at the end of 2nd edition, there was a sudden flurry of good products - mostly epic scale adventurers.  Whenever people talk about great 2nd edition adventures, they are either talking about Planescape or the big boxed set adventurers that came out around the time of the silver anniversary.  That reinnasance in dungeon design lasted through the early years of 3rd edition with modules like 'Sunless Citadel' and RttToEE.And I can't help but think that is the influence of Monte Cook and company.  I could read a module like Axe of the Dwarven Lords and see Skip's same frustration that I felt with the old out of date mechanics, and see even the author's frustration with try to cludge a 'fix' together.  And yet, Axe of the Dwarven Lords was a wonderful module.  The criticism it most frequently recieves revolves solely around its end run around the mechanical limitations of 1st/2nd edition.  But at the same time, for the first time in years you were seeing really good products coming out for D&D - Rod of Seven Parts, Axe of the Dwarven Lords, Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Planescape, etc.  For the first time I since I was a young DM was seeing things being published which I felt were as good or better than what I could do on my own.I hate to dump on anyone, but as long as we are blaming people for the downturn in product quality during 2nd edition, you have to add Ed Greenwood to the list.  To me, Ed never struck me as more than a mediocre hack and slash DM - where as Monte is an extraordinary hack and slash DM.  I mean, I'm sure that if your sitting at his table, Ed Greenwood is a blast to play with.  You can tell that much from his work.  But as far as the creativity and the inventiveness goes, he's just not in the same league IMO as EGG, Tracy Hickman, or Monte Cook.  Small company that it is, you can't help but feel that TSR/WotC is basically influenced by the visions of a small handful of DM/players.  Sometimes these are amongst the best DM's in the country, but its not really being extraordinarily talented and creative that gets you the job and gives you creative control over the company.  To a large extent, its even more important that your just willing to do the work and be productive.There has been alot of list going around lately celebrating the products, but if you were building a hall of fame for game content writers, who would you put in it?</blockquote>

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