ParanoidObsessive posted... this isn't really much of an issue if you're playing a mostly homebrewed patchwork system and have enough players to support such a game long-term
Yeah I was gonna say. I run Pathfinder with a list of custom rules and 3rd party replacement content (Vancian casting is so badly executed) in a custom setting. And I still have no freaking idea how to make crafting not suck!
I don't buy a ton of new games in general, and I know the market oughtn't cater to me. I just always like it when games coming out are interesting rather than "reliable".
5e gives me nothing that I couldn't do myself with a big red marker and a 3.5e book, for instance. Cutting out complexity could have been an overall improvement worth respecting, but they took it way too far for my tastes.
ParanoidObsessive posted...New things can just as easily be terrible in "art" as well, though.
You can still learn from them? But yeah, missteps are sort of the price of entry. If you try something new you might fail. Unfortunate.
ParanoidObsessive posted...And that's not even getting into a long, philosophical discussion about what "art" is in the first place, and if we even really HAVE "art" in the modern era when most artistic endeavor is powered more by financial gain or for entertainment purposes, which have their own aesthetic requirements.
Sturgeon's Law explains that one. Movies and games and such can be art, really any medium can, but 90% of it is crap.
In its basest form, art is something valuable for its emotional impact. We tend to not use the word "art" on the 90% that's crap, but I think it still technically applies to entertainment.
The plus side of such a wide definition being that it feels more consistent, and it lets me say I'm an artist just for running a game where we make pretend we're elves. :>
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One day dude, I'm just gonna get off the bus, and I'm gonna run in the woods and never come back, and when I come back I'm gonna be the knife master!
-The Rev