If people want to debate the quality of Lovecraft's prose, i think that is best done in the Media and Inspiration forum.

A recurring problem seems to be that a setting may start off good. And then deteriorate over time. The kill point seems to frequently be at an edition change. But not allways.

Gamma World, Dark Sun. and Dragonlance come to mind from personal experience.

I've heard some mention Ravenloft in passing. But so far have not personally had a chance to look at more than my red box edition. (The one with the Tarokka deck) Think some of the irk was with the White Wolf version?
The planned revision to Star Frontiers saw enough resistance that it was discontinued. So only one book made it.

For non TSR settings, Others mention the whole White Wolf WOD change.
Traveller is one I've heard of but never seen. The odd edition with the rampant space computer virus AI? Not sure, been ages.

Quote from: Omega;702963A recurring problem seems to be that a setting may start off good. And then deteriorate over time. The kill point seems to frequently be at an edition change. But not allways.

I guess edition change is when you are most likely to get a new line manager or producer or editor brought in from outside. Or you wind trying to please your most vocal critics of prior editions, ignoring the 99.9999% of players who were quite happy with it and never said anything. (But marketing assures me that there is one guy on the internet who just hates it!)

My first exposure to Dragonlance was pretty negative.  I had a DM who loved the novels and wanted to run the adventures identically.   It wasn't fun.  But as a setting, it had some things going for it.

Later, I read the novels.  They were decent.  While they wouldn't qualify as great literature they managed to cover the material and characterizations in an effective manner.   It brought people into the hobby and it isn't hard to see why.  Outside of the Weis/Hickman collaborations,  they're markedly worse.

I remember liking some of the comics, because they had Minotaurs.

Settings tend to deteriorate the more defined they become. They are at thier strongest when serving as a springboard for individual GM's imagination, and conversely weakest when they become chronicles of famous NPCs (designer's PCs or spinoff media characters) and every corner of the world has been trodden by supplements.

Quote from: TristramEvans;702997Settings tend to deteriorate the more defined they become. They are at thier strongest when serving as a springboard for individual GM's imagination, and conversely weakest when they become chronicles of famous NPCs (designer's PCs or spinoff media characters) and every corner of the world has been trodden by supplements.

The Spinward Marches.

Quote from: jeff37923;703011The Spinward Marches.

Exactly. Traveller never got better.

I never had any use for Dragonlance or Birthright.

Quote from: TristramEvans;702997Settings tend to deteriorate the more defined they become. They are at thier strongest when serving as a springboard for individual GM's imagination, and conversely weakest when they become chronicles of famous NPCs (designer's PCs or spinoff media characters) and every corner of the world has been trodden by supplements.

Agreed. That's one reason why Planescape was good, in my view - it was mostly about flavour and inspiration rather than cataloguing every last centimetre of the Planes (for obvious reasons).

Quote from: Steerpike;702856That's certainly one point of view, and there's a great deal of legitimacy to it.  I don't think it's the only standard by which to measure art.  I'd hazard, for example, that if you surveyed the public about Mozart's compositions and Lady Gaga's songs, most people would be able to name more Gaga songs than Mozart compositions.

I don't think so.  I asked 6 people I know.  Not a single one could name a single "song" from Gaga. Nor had they heard any.  5 of them were able to name at least one work of Mozart.  So in a very narrow demo she is better known.  If you were to survey across all groups, in the Western world, you may find a similar result.

Fair enough.  I just don't think the public opinion of the day is the only measure by which literature can be judged and evaluated.  For example, there's something to be said for works that appeal to particular sensibilities and tastes rather than catering to the broadest possible demographic.  I don't think it's fair to dismiss such works as inherently inferior just because their fanbase is more select or specific.

Quote from: Steerpike;703208Fair enough.  I just don't think the public opinion of the day is the only measure by which literature can be judged and evaluated.

I agree.  The less something is known, for what ever reason.  The less reliable that method is.  But, all else being equal, it will be probably the best way.

Quote from: noisms;702782Yeah yeah, you were incredibly intelligent, mature and discerning at that age, I'm sure.

You'll notice that at no stage did I say that the Dragonlance books are better than those "classics", although to be honest plenty of what Moorcock wrote is drivel, and probably more adolescent than Weiss & Hickman in its own way. The Corum books, for example, are perfect for 12 year olds, and very entertaining, but if you think they're classic literature you need your head examined.

What's with the assumption that 12 year olds/adolescents must necessarily like shoddy fiction? Are you actually suggesting that whilst it is possible to write interesting, moving, exciting and original books for 5-11 year olds and folk of 21 and up, folks in that awkward decade in between have to make do with crud?

In terms of the relative merits of Lovecraft, Moorcock and Howard, my take on it is this:
- Lovecraft had some daringly original themes when he was in his prime (though he did write his fair share of absolute trash), which make his stories of interest provided you can live with the limp prose.
- Howard's themes were, at best, pedestrian and unoriginal and at worst were offensively crazy and crazily offensive (if you read enough of his different fantasy series and figure out the recurring themes you find he constantly comes back to anthropological and ethnological ideas which were on the fringe in his time and are way out on a limb kookery today), but he does write some really exciting fight scenes, so if you want to read a story about a dude you may or may not find especially appealing hacking folks to bits he was a good pick back in the day (though there's a wide range of choices in such literature nowadays so if you don't want to deal with Howard's particular issues you really don't have to).
- When he puts his mind to it, Moorcock has both interesting themes and electric prose. However, when he's knocking something out quickly to pay the bills he produces tripe that's just as lukewarm and unpalatable as anyone else's tripe. Complicating matters is the fact that his back catalogue is extremely diverse (to pick three series at random, there's really no stylistic similarity between the Jerry Cornelius stories, the Elric saga and the Colonel Pyat novels) and also ridiculously huge - I'd say Moorcock's output trivially outstrips Lovecraft when it comes to word count and may give Howard (who was damn prolific himself during his short life) a run for his money - so unless you have a guide it's really hard to sort the wheat from the chaff with Moorcock's stuff.

So the best of Moorcock, for me, is more appealing than the best of Lovecraft and the best of Howard, though Moorcock has had the advantage of living substantially longer than either of the other two and also coming along after them and benefitting from standing on their shoulders. (And the less good Moorcock material tends to tread on the toes of the superior stuff - I think the Elric saga was much better when it was just limited to the original run of novellas plus Stormbringer, and the later additions to the series have been increasingly transparently about money and have little compelling thematic reason to exist). And all three are fallible mortals who shouldn't be used as the unwavering yardsticks of what's best in fantasy. (Does the fetishisation of Appendix N bug anyone else?)

Something occurred to me last night. While everyone may now hate the DL setting with zeal, it was a memorable setting and one which produced table-top books of art, an atlas, calendar, produced iconic characters and the like. Few other settings, if any, have produced the same range of secondary materials and memorable characters.