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+--- Thread: Q&A with Dustin Clingman (/showthread.php?tid=274)
Q&A with Dustin Clingman - TheMystic - 02-15-2010
Hi Havard and crew. This is Dustin Clingman of Zeitgeist Games. I'll do my best to answer questions that you guys have about Blackmoor, ZG, etc.
Just be forewarned that I'm kinda busy, so my replies may take time.
- Havard - 02-15-2010
Wow! Great seeing you here Dustin. Welcome to the forum!
-Havard
- aldarron - 02-15-2010
Excellent! And I had just mentioned to Havard how great it would be if you could join in for a Q and A. Now I just have to think up something to ask...
Well, here's something kinda general. In your conversations with Mr. Arneson, did you talk much about the details of the first couple years of Blackmoor before D&D was published, or about what Arneson had wanted D&D to be like originally?
- Rafael - 02-15-2010
Welcome, Dustin!
One simple question:
How have you been doing? - It's been very quiet around the ZGG crew lately!
- aldarron - 02-19-2010
I suppose it won't hurt to ask a couple more while we wait for you to get back to us.
I really enjoyed Wizards Cabal. I think the magic systems and classes in there are some of the best ever put together for D&D and I can see the similarities between them and Arneson's earlier stuff like Adventures in Fantasy.The spell focus seemed like a new idea and a very cool one too. who's idea was the spell focus? Was that yours or did DA come up with that?
Did Arneson have any outlines or plans or anything written for ZGG that never made it to the publishers?
- TheMystic - 02-20-2010
Hi Guys! Sorry for the slow reply. I'm going to work my way through this thread.
Aldarron Wrote:Well, here's something kinda general. In your conversations with Mr. Arneson, did you talk much about the details of the first couple years of Blackmoor before D&D was published, or about what Arneson had wanted D&D to be like originally?
Wow, that's a huge question. Dave loved to tell stories of the early games. I think he was just as surprised as anyone at the success of the game. I think the players really took the game to places that they had not even conceived and they were all very proud to have worked on something so monumental.
- TheMystic - 02-20-2010
Rafael Wrote:Welcome, Dustin!
One simple question:
How have you been doing? - It's been very quiet around the ZGG crew lately!
What have I been doing? Well, I've been very busy. At the end of 2008, the folks behind ZG decided to sell the company to IMI Labs. I took over as CEO of the new company and we worked out a co publishing agreement with CMP.
Since then, I've been working on alot of different game projects (electronic) as part of IMI and occasionally blogging on my own site.
- TheMystic - 02-20-2010
Aldarron Wrote:I suppose it won't hurt to ask a couple more while we wait for you to get back to us.
I really enjoyed Wizards Cabal. I think the magic systems and classes in there are some of the best ever put together for D&D and I can see the similarities between them and Arneson's earlier stuff like Adventures in Fantasy.The spell focus seemed like a new idea and a very cool one too. who's idea was the spell focus? Was that yours or did DA come up with that?
Did Arneson have any outlines or plans or anything written for ZGG that never made it to the publishers?
Ok, several questions in this one.
Thanks for the compliments on WC. Blackmoor was a very rich environment before I ever came around. That being said, we wanted to include as much *new* into the world. We knew at the beginning that any license was only temporary and we had hoped to be able to use some of that new material on future projects outside of Blackmoor.
Dave was also very keen on the idea of there being many permutations of Blackmoor. Consider that the guys time traveled to fight Nazis and then into prehistory to combat dinosaurs. Blackmoor really could mean alot of things depending on the night or the DMs mood.
With this in mind, I made two modest contributions to Blackmoor. One was the Docrae race. Patterned after my first D&D3.0 Character (a halfling barbarian that Dave abhorred..), I gave them some permanency by extending the core races to include them alongside the traditional "hobbitish" halflings. This made more sense to Dave because of the fact that the slender Greyhawk halflings were not akin to his image.
The other contribution I made was the Spell system and focus. I gave Jeff Quinn a design that he extended and made awesome. I'm a big fan of Rolemaster and always disliked that D&D spells always seemed to go off (excluding concentration checks of course). I also wanted a more "run and gun" magic style that could distinguish Blackmoor from the rest of the other settings (aside from it's already dark tones).
Dave was quick to mention that this magic system and other differences were really an expression of the many facets of Blackmoor and that canon was always controlled by the DM.
- TheMystic - 02-20-2010
"Did Arneson have any outlines or plans or anything written for ZGG that never made it to the publishers?"
There were always plans for various things. Some of these continue to exist in notes and outline form. Dave was always thinking of new ways to torment the players. That's all I can say right now.
- aldarron - 02-20-2010
TheMystic Wrote:"Did Arneson have any outlines or plans or anything written for ZGG that never made it to the publishers?"
There were always plans for various things. Some of these continue to exist in notes and outline form. Dave was always thinking of new ways to torment the players. That's all I can say right now.
Tease! :wink: Actually I'm really glad to hear that and hope that some of those will come to light some day. Thanks for your answers Dustin!