ZG material and Scale of things

[Havard]

I've been rereading some of the ZGG material lately and I have been thinking about how these books assume Blackmoor to be on a scale that just doesnt add up. Not that ZGG are the only ones who have ever made this mistake. TSR did it all the time, Thunder Rift being a notorious example.

Let me explain what I am talking about. The North is a pretty small place. Yet it has 10 different organizations for wizards, each tiny village has about 5-10 temples etc etc.

The point here is not to criticize ZGG. Afterall, this is a pretty common problem in RPG products. What I want to focus on here is how to deal with it. First of all, has anyone else encountered this problem in Blackmoor material? More examples are needed!

Now, Sollutions:

I can think of a few ways of handling this:

1) Things arent as big as they seem. This huge number of organizations is unproblematic because they are really just clubs with a handful of members each. Temples mentioned aren't really temples, but just shrines within a single building.


2) The material does not refer to "the North" alone, but to Thonia as well. Having 10 organizations for wizards is unproblematic when the majority of the members can be found in the Empire rather than in the North. The problem with this is that the text seems to suggest that this is not the fact, but I guess that can be ignored.

Thoughts?

-Havard

[Dave L]

My impression from the material was that these groups were peculiar to the North - the Blackmoor area.

You could always up the scale to the 24 miles/hex of DA1.

[Havard]

My impression from the material was that these groups were peculiar to the North - the Blackmoor area.

I agree that this was probably the intent, but it has some unreasonable consequences as mentioned above.

The good thing about making them not exclusive to the North is that it gives us more information to use when fleshing out other parts of the world...

You could always up the scale to the 24 miles/hex of DA1.

Heh,
it is more a matter of population size than map scale, but of course the two are connected. I think the 24mphex model makes it unreasonable to speak of Blackmoor as a handful of small baronies.

Havard

[Rafael]

That's why I ignored most of the ZGG stuff for the LFC.

All good and creative stuff (especially some of the material in the PG), but simply too much to treat with balance.

[Havard]

That's why I ignored most of the ZGG stuff for the LFC.

All good and creative stuff (especially some of the material in the PG), but simply too much to treat with balance.

At first glance, I would agree with you, but giving this a bit of work-over, I think much of it can be adapted. Personally, I am especially interested in the approach of making some of it spill over into Thonia as this gives us more to work with for that region.

Havard

[Rafael]

I think the difference between us in that respect is really that my approach is more historically oriented:

I simply do not think of the ZGG stuff when I plot over my Blackmoor notes.

For Thonia, for example, I dug out some old JG modules, my favorite gaming book "Ivid the Undying", and researched RJK's World of Kalibruhn.

In general, whenever I add something to the setting, I look first at my personal favorite gaming books (which is really a very, very small collection of four or five books), and then at really, really old stuff.

The reasons for that are really just that I like the classics more, the same way I like old movies better than most actual Hollywood stuff.

[Havard]

Well, perhaps there's also the fact that our purposes are different. Your research is for the campaign. My own campaign is currently pretty much dead. I see myself as a researcher searcing for the "true Blackmoor".

While some material will be considered more important than other, I will not disregard any sources that specifically describe Blackmoor. While it isnt as systematic as that, I probably consider the sources in the following manner:

1) DA series (of most vital importance)
2) FFC
3) Anything else written by Dave Arneson
4) ZGG/CMP Material
5) JG/RJK/C&C Societyetc.

I want to place the Company of the Maiden material in there as well, but not sure where. I do consult it on a regular basis though as I dont want to
contradict it if I don't have to.

Havard

[aldarron]

Trouble is the old addage of "Too many cooks". Ritchies additions and the variuos ZGG author's material each created a new and more complex Blackmoor and trying to reconcile all those "ingredients" is going to give you one overstuffed pot of soup.

This is one of the reasons I stick with the Blackmoor of the FFC as the Baseline and only add in such later material as either fleshes out FFC stuff (like riders of Hak or Blackmoor Dungeon) or compliments it without overcomplicating things.

[Rafael]

Yeah, exactly.

I look first and foremost to make things work, and that only goes by naturally reducing things to a playable level.

I sometimes take completely unorthodox decisions due to that, like every DM does from time to time.

Yeah, my city of Greyhawk was ravaged by a giant hamster.

[Havard]

Looks like I'm alone on this one.

Where I am coming from is the Mystara Fan Community. There we have a long tradition of thoroughly going through every obscure source we can find, analyzing every phrase for details.

This might seem strange at first, but if you take a look at pandius.com, you will see the pretty amazing results of these discussions.

Contradicting sources is also not a problem. You would be surprised at the creative ideas fans can come up with trying to reconcile two statements that at first glance are completely opposite.

On the matter of published material compared to things people make up themselves, I think that the advantage published material has is that it is the common ground for people who communicate on forums. People are usually more interested in reading my material if I can connect it to something "official" rather than present something that I have come up with completely by myself. Most people are Mystara fans or Blackmoor fans, not Havard fans. Which is fine



-Havard