03-01-2016, 06:22 AM
Havard Wrote:chirine ba kal Wrote:As a side note, I find Blackmoor very intimidating, these days, and I would not even consider running any Blackmoor games for the very same reason that you mentioned. I played for a while with Dave, and the Blackmoor I played in was a very different place with a lot of details then the Blackmoor that you folks discuss here and on other fora. The Blackmoor I played in was closest to what was in FFC; the d20 book had, to my eye, so little 'Dave' and so much 'd20' that I simply put it back on the shelf; it's not the Blackmoor I knew and loved.
Unfortunately many Blackmoor fans feel a bit alienated by the d20 line of Blackmoor products. I think alot of that had to do with Zeitgeist Game designers trying to accomodate the world to the rules heavy needs of the d20 system. Alot of detail was also added to the setting in the 1980s with the DA Modules and although I believe that Dave Arneson had quite a bit of influence on those modules (at least the first 3), it did advance the timeline 30 years or so beyond the FFC. Personally I like revelling in tons of details and obscure sources and trying to make everything fit in with eachother, but I can understand that this can be intimidating. That is one of the reasons why we added the Original Campaign section to this forum to focus more on the Blackmoor that is described in the FFC, Supplement II and other stories from the early days of Dave's campaign.
I can understand that something similar is what is facing Tekumel. I like the idea of creating some sort of beginner's primer to the Petal Throne setting. I also like Dave Arneson's approach with the Captain Harchar. Playing a trope that is familiar, yet probably not uncommon in the setting.
-Havard
FTR, this is one of the reasons why I recommended people to use Havard's "East March" Gaz in my, uhm, abdication speech. (*Drools, points to sig.*)
Blackmoor, most of the old settings, are simply not accessible to beginners - not, "beginners to the hobby", but "beginners to the setting". Even with settings that have gotten more love than BM or Tekumel in recent years, the amount of material that is considered basic is pretty impressive. RuneQuest had an encyclopedia released two years back that is about twice the size of the Norton Reader of English Literature.
Seriously, how is one supposed to get into stuff like that, on a casual base? - Like, I am really impressed by some of the more classic settings, but even as a teen, I wouldn't have wanted to spend that sort of time; as an adult, even less. And the problem is, you don't get to Blackmoor, Greyhawk, or Tekumel as a kid, at least not usually.
So, the big thing for the coming years will be to find a way to keep new people able to get into the game. And NO company in the business even remotely knows how to do that. Rulesets, yes, but to decomplicate complex settings - no gaming world that I know of has had that made for itself, ever since Dragonlance Saga (which was universally hated, back in the day, IIRC).
Havard's stuff for Blackmoor, perhaps paired with Rob Conley's Blackmarsh, would be my recommendation to any newbie, any day. ...And if they can handle THAT, then one can point them to more complex material.