Let's improve the Blackmoor Wikipedia article!

[Havard]

I've been busy for ages now, and have noticed your inability to catch me up at The Piazza!

All part of the grand plan my friend... :twisted:

Maybe that could be a multi-part thing.

That's a pretty good way of handling it.

There have been several "waves" of Blackmoor. The first was obviously Dave Arneson's private campaign (which Svenny could tell you some stuff about).

Then you have the first products, where people only really see a hint of what Dave Arneson did. The obvious question there is, how much Blackmoor is in that stuff...and how much is omitted.

Then you have the Blackmoor references in Mystara stuff...and Greyhawk stuff. The question there is how true is that atuff to Dave Arneson's original game?

Later you have the 3e stuff. The question there is: is it Blackmoor? Or is it maybe Mystara's version of Blackmoor? Or is it something new?

Then you have the MMORPG. What is that? It is based on the 3e stuff, but what direction does it take the game in? Is it more Arneson-esk or less so?

4e. Is it any different to 3e (rules aside)?

Age of the Wolf. If this had been 3e, would it have been finished in time?

I think there are a lot of interesting questions that could be asked about every edition of Blackmoor.

I agree to that. I am less interested personally in which products are most true to Arneson's ideas etc. There has been alot of discussion on this on various foras, but I find that it only serves to draw up borders between fans.

There have been attempts at the same with Mystara, drawing lines between the very early Known World material, the Gazetteers, and the later Mystara material. I strongly dislike this kind of divisions.

Havard

[Dave L]

There have been attempts at the same with Mystara, drawing lines between the very early Known World material, the Gazetteers, and the later Mystara material. I strongly dislike this kind of divisions.

Havard

Quite right, especially as it should be self-evident that my viewpoint is the correct one!

[Havard]

Quite right, especially as it should be self-evident that my viewpoint is the correct one!

*LoL*
Well, what annoys me is that some people take these kinds of divisions as an excuse not to read certain books because of when they were published or whatever. I think that instead the products should be reviewed based on their quality and what they bring to the setting.

IMO, every single product adds something.

Havard

[Dave L]

Well, what annoys me is that some people take these kinds of divisions as an excuse not to read certain books because of when they were published or whatever.

Seriously?

That's like cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Read everything, steal the good stuff - works for me!

[Big Mac]

There have been several "waves" of Blackmoor. The first was obviously Dave Arneson's private campaign (which Svenny could tell you some stuff about).

Then you have the first products, where people only really see a hint of what Dave Arneson did. The obvious question there is, how much Blackmoor is in that stuff...and how much is omitted.

Then you have the Blackmoor references in Mystara stuff...and Greyhawk stuff. The question there is how true is that atuff to Dave Arneson's original game?

Later you have the 3e stuff. The question there is: is it Blackmoor? Or is it maybe Mystara's version of Blackmoor? Or is it something new?

Then you have the MMORPG. What is that? It is based on the 3e stuff, but what direction does it take the game in? Is it more Arneson-esk or less so?

4e. Is it any different to 3e (rules aside)?

Age of the Wolf. If this had been 3e, would it have been finished in time?

I think there are a lot of interesting questions that could be asked about every edition of Blackmoor.

I agree to that. I am less interested personally in which products are most true to Arneson's ideas etc. There has been alot of discussion on this on various foras, but I find that it only serves to draw up borders between fans.

I think fans are their worst enemies sometimes. :roll:

As a 3e fan, I've already got the "choice" of core rulebook "made" for me. But what I would primarily be wondering (like Dave) is: "what can I raid from this other stuff?"

Well, what annoys me is that some people take these kinds of divisions as an excuse not to read certain books because of when they were published or whatever.

Seriously?

That's like cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Read everything, steal the good stuff - works for me!

I think that every D&D product has at least one good idea in it. But sadly, there are people out there who dislike one or more products and who make it their personal mission to try to persuade other people to not bother to read them.

I think that is plain wrong. As Havard said: "every product adds something" and with a finite amount of D&D canon (especially for out of print settings, like Blackmoor) it is insane to turn your back on a source of canon, just because of some sort of "political view" about the book.

In my opinion, if a product does have issues (and many D&D things do) the best way to deal with it is to set up some sort of fan process to discuss the problems and find ways to work around them. (For example, if a product has an unworkable map, someone could create a replacement map. And if a product was missing stats for a new monster, someone could make the "missing page" that has them on.)

But I know of two products/product lines that have really taken an unfair hammering (IMO). One is the Living Greyhawk stuff. This potentially, could have been transformed into a large set of freebie downloads. But some "true Greyhawk fans" insulted the authors of these adventures so much, that they would rather see their former downloads vanish from the world. The second thing is Shadows of the Spider Moon (the 3e Spelljammer adaptation). This was a mini-setting and had a lot of things cut out. And a lot of fans have not "forgiven" it for that (despite the fact that most TSR SJ products had more holes in them than SotSM).

I for one, find it "useful" to know if something is true to the "original vision" of a product line or if it is "a reboot". That doesn't make me want to "burn books", but it does make me realise that certain books are going to be a lot harder to work with than others.

And in the specific case of the Zietgeist Games/Code Monkey stuff, they do actually slap "Dave Arneson's Blackmoor" on the cover instead of just "Blackmoor". So they are kind-of making the claim that the book is more like Dave Arneson's game than other books. That is something that I think I'd like to see a review challange.

I certainly think that the 3e product line was the perfect opportunity to "add back in" things that TSR might have cut out. But was there actually anything to add back in?

[Rafael]

But I know of two products/product lines that have really taken an unfair hammering (IMO). One is the Living Greyhawk stuff. This potentially, could have been transformed into a large set of freebie downloads. But some "true Greyhawk fans" insulted the authors of these adventures so much, that they would rather see their former downloads vanish from the world. The second thing is Shadows of the Spider Moon (the 3e Spelljammer adaptation). This was a mini-setting and had a lot of things cut out. And a lot of fans have not "forgiven" it for that (despite the fact that most TSR SJ products had more holes in them than SotSM).

Can't comment on SJ, but LG was crap in great part; not because the efforts of the fan had been bad, but because there were too many people involved and they lacked quality control.

For example Adri Forest and Onnwal: Two excellent campaigns.

Nyrond, Lendore, Iuz: Facepalm every time they put a new paper out.

The LG journals and the Gaz are of course another matter; they were cool, and noone disputed that.

And in the specific case of the Zietgeist Games/Code Monkey stuff, they do actually slap "Dave Arneson's Blackmoor" on the cover instead of just "Blackmoor". So they are kind-of making the claim that the book is more like Dave Arneson's game than other books. That is something that I think I'd like to see a review challange.

Well, given that part of the DA line is 80s was published AGAINST Mr Arneson's consent, this is pretty much as close as one could get.

I certainly think that the 3e product line was the perfect opportunity to "add back in" things that TSR might have cut out. But was there actually anything to add back in?

Nope, contractual obligations.

[Havard]

Well, given that part of the DA line is 80s was published AGAINST Mr Arneson's consent, this is pretty much as close as one could get.

DA4. Without his consent, not against it. I suspect the main area of disagreement was the extent of the Afridhi invasion, but Arneson later decided to go with that decision in the ZG line.

Havard

[Rafael]

Thanks, Havard.

Also, we might think about putting together a FAQ section.

(Which could be useful for your blog, also.)

[Havard]

Thanks, Havard.

Also, we might think about putting together a FAQ section.

(Which could be useful for your blog, also.)

Good idea. Not sure what the most frequently asked questions are though?

Havard

[Havard]

Any more thoughts on this subject?

Havard