Adventures in Fantasy as a Blackmoor Setting Resource?

[Rafael]

Agreed. The box is too expensive for anyone but the most hard core fans.

My apologies, by the way, for derailing the thread. - It's just my old admonition about not being to academic:
AiF is a great resource for Arnesonian concepts, for sure; but at the same time, it's not useful in the same way that, what, a d20 book would be useful.
I... I guess I felt I neede to point that out. :oops:

The things I am looking into now are:
1) Bleakwood Mini-setting (this goes without saying).
2) References to Religion and Cosmology
3) Alignments: Alignments seem to be more like Elric-eque forces in AiF than in D&D.
4) Monsters: Monsters sometimes say more about the setting than just that the monsters are there.
5) Artifacts: What are their origins, who used them etc?
6) The Faerry Races

Actually, I am glad you're getting more into this; the game surely warrants a closer look, if only, because it's the only full-fledged product ever released where Mr Arneson allegedly had full creative control. So, certainly, worth a look, for a plethora (yes, I went there) of reasons.

[finarvyn]

AiF is a great resource for Arnesonian concepts, for sure; but at the same time, it's not useful in the same way that, what, a d20 book would be useful.

I don't want to come off as argumentative, but I'm not sure what this means, exactly. Usefulness comes down to what you want to do with it, yes?

In other words, if my goal is to recreate "OD&D Blackmoor" I would best look for Dave's First Fantasy Campaign, since it clearly was written to follow along design concepts common to Chainmail and OD&D.

If my goal is to recreate "Dave's Original Blackmoor" then it seems like he liked percentile dice and other elements which didn't find their way into the design of OD&D. Adventures in Fantasy may contain more of those aspects.

The d20 Blackmoor product line was most useful to those who want the setting expanded and modernized using current game rules.

In other words, what is useful to one person may not be as useful to another with different goals in mind.

Just my two domars.

[Rafael]

By all means, BE argumentative! That's the purpose of a "discussion board", isn't it?
Also, if you contradict me in a convincing way, I can always ban you! :twisted:

- On topic, though: We're on the same page here, it's just a bit of convoluted semantics, I think. Can we agree that AiF is not a resource of universal applicability, even for the more well-rounded fan of Mr Arneson's work? - Because my problem, as stated above, is just that the item in question is pretty expensive for a gaming product. I would not unconditionally recommend it to people, unless they are really, really already at the stage when they have already collected most of the other material out there.

Also, and I am aware that I might be wrong there, but wasn't AiF precisely Arneson's step away from Blackmoor, rather than an addition? Did he want to use the ruleset for what later became the DA modules? - Because my impression was that the ruleset etc. were not all too close to D&D/"The Fantasy Game". But then, I did not do any sort of close-reading.

[Havard]

By all means, BE argumentative! That's the purpose of a "discussion board", isn't it?
Also, if you contradict me in a convincing way, I can always ban you! :twisted:

No, you may not

-Havard

[Rafael]

Awww, man. Let me ban SOMETHING, at least!

What... What about we ban "eating while posting"? There are some boards who do that!




...Anyway, back to topic: Any idea who is the current copyright holder of AiF? I want to know who is going to sue me if I keep the name Bleakwood in a certain booklet... :wink:

[finarvyn]

wasn't AiF precisely Arneson's step away from Blackmoor, rather than an addition?

This is a tricky one, as we're trying to see inside Dave's head. I don't think he talked much about AiF and his intentions so we'd have to make guesses.

However, let's consider Gary as an example. When Gary was forced out of TSR, his first action was pretty much to create a "new D&D" that had many of the same design ideas but some new ones. TSR shot it down. Gary had to go even farther away from D&D before he could publish game stuff. (The exception here would be his novels, where he wrote about things which were closer to his own Greyhawk than the published material.)

It's possible that Dave had to move away from the traditional D&D rules becasue of TSR, but if his own campaign didn't quite match D&D anyway he might have drifted toward his own roots. So my speculation would be that AiF represents a trend toward what he really wanted D&D to be anyway, and the game that he might have written if done without Gary. (I seem to recall somewhere that Michael Mornard had commented about AiF being very similar to Dave's home game. I assume he meant in terms of rules, but it might have been setting as well.)

Anyway, great discussion. Sorry for not stirring the pot more; I'll try to get banned another time. :lol:

[Rafael]

NOW we're talking! See, this is where I think differently about things - for all we know, Mr Arneson was a very progressive gamer; that's how he invented "The Fantasy Game", after all. Like most of the early-80s publications by the different members of the St. Pauls group, I think this game came from an evolution of his concepts, not some sort of genesis-hour retroclone. (I don't have my copy here, but I am not even sure if there were rules for demihumans as PCs in it - or maybe I am mixing with P&P...)

Also, do you happen to know Dragon Warriors, the UK game, Fin? The two games feel very, very similar, at least on first sight. I wonder if there is, in fact, some sort of connection.

[finarvyn]

Also, do you happen to know Dragon Warriors, the UK game, Fin? The two games feel very, very similar, at least on first sight. I wonder if there is, in fact, some sort of connection.

No, drawing a blank on that one. Either never heard of it or totally slipped my mind. Have to visit Google...

[Havard]

Interesting to see where this discussion has been going.

Although it has been interesting so far, perhaps we could shift towards discussing which setting elements from AiF might be used with Blackmoor?

-Havard

[Rafael]

Well, the Referee's map looks compatible enough with Blackmoor - wasn't Bleakwood originally the name of a place near Bramwalk, alongside the shores of Steelhead River? (I don't remember, at all. )

Personally, I think the entire atmosphere fits more into either a VoA, or a Loch Gloomen environment.