Eight DA Modules and a Blackmoor Novel planned by TSR!

[Havard]

I had a searchable PDF document a few years ago, but I don't seem to find it any more.
I think it said something about a few entire boxes of manuscripts that were delivered. ...Or do I have that from another source? Raaah.

I'll check over Christmas, and then send you what I have. ...If I have something. :x

Thanks! I believe you are right about this. My main reason for being interested in the quote is the possibility that there could be other clues there. So if you find something that would be very helpful!

Now, to give a more coherent answer than that one, what we all know anyway is that David Ritchie worked with different material than what he published.
We also know that Arneson handed several manuscripts to Tim Kask, which that one today classifies as unreadable, etc. and possibly everything he had concerning the BM campaign.

True. I would have loved to see those notes. I suspect that the main reason they were discarded is because the people at TSR were still thinking in terms of miniature simulation games. After all, noone really knew what an RPG was or what it was going to become. They were writing the first chapter in the history of the hobby. How much could they possibly understand of what gaming was to become? Very likely, much of this material was what would later end up in the FFC though.

So, there should be more than enough machine-written draft papers, like the Thonia manuscript you pointed to that was sold on ebay.


I think, the next step would be to contact the collectors at the Acaeum, and to see what they own. My personal estimation, for several reasons,
is that there might be up to 10,000 manuscript pages on Blackmoor alone.

Working on it. 8)

Your estimation sounds a bit high IMO, but its hard to say. If you take into account multiple drafts then I suppose the number could be very high.

- BUT that doesn't mean that there were novel drafts, and on. The story about the production slots, a different animal. Goes into the entire Lorraine Williams debate,
and my view on that is that I concur with her reasoning about restructuring the product lineups

You are probably right about this. However, what I find interesting about this interview is that it is Dave Arneson talking about the 8 modules and novel. This means that even if TSR did not have too specific plans for more Blackmoor products, it does suggest that Dave had ideas for what those unpublished modules/novels might have contained.

I started a similar thread to this one on The Piazza, and Cthulhudrew's suggestions for what the later modules could have contained seems highly likely.

The Thonia Chronicles document contained 525 pages. This should be more than enough material for much more than 4 modules of about 70 pages each, which is what we got to see.

Possibly the ZGG Blackmoor line and the FFC could offer clues about what we were missing as well. As I have previously speculated, DA5 would likely have included the map of Blackmoor Town (with description) and perhaps material later included in Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor.

The Thonian Rand, the Egg of Coot and the Duchy of the Peaks do seem like likely areas for further exploration. Perhaps the Peshwah and the Skandaharians would have featured more prominently as well.

-Havard