[Ron]

Originally Posted by Bochi

Hmmm. The interesting thing about that is that both AD&D1e and AD&D2 became bloated and overly complex - and muddled - by the end of their active publishing life. D&D 3.x is heading the same way.

If we define rulesets as technologies there is a tendency for the popular technologies to become too complex. They are a bit like mobile phones that will do everything except make it easy to call somebody.

I only partially agree with you, I would say that D&D 3.x was definitely bloated from the start. Considering AD&D initiative it is arguable that it too was bloated from the DMG onwards. It is kind of disappointing knowing TSR had a really good game with Mentzer's edition but never went all the way to develop it as its main D&D line.

You're right about cellular phones, I always look for the cheaper ones and even those are bloated nowadays with countless of useless functions.