Which Era of Blackmoor do you find most interesting?

[Havard]

Which Era of the Blackmoor Setting do you find most interesting? I don't neccessarily mean the books, but more what the world of Blackmoor is like in each period of its history.

Year 995-1000 (First Fantasy Campaign)
Year 1025 (DA Modules)
Year 1030 (ZGG Books)
Historical Era (Mage Wars, Age of Giants etc)
Beastman Wars (Fan Created)
Last Days of Blackmoor (Fan Created)
Other (Specify)

-Havard

[RobJN]

I voted DA module-era, simply because it is what I know the best (having copies of the series).

My other two votes are for those "fan created" eras, simply because there is so much room for adventuresome goings-on.

[finarvyn]

I voted for:
Year 995-1000 (First Fantasy Campaign)
Year 1025 (DA Modules)
because of my "older is better" philosophy for Blackmoor, but
Year 1030 (ZGG Books)
would have been a close third had I voted for three.

It's hard for me to articulate without sounding like a "Blackmoor snob" but my favorite Blackmoor is the most closely associated with Dave and the good old days of D&D when it was first being created. Something about the free-wheeling attitude where anything could happen because there really weren't any rules just grabs me. The farther along you get in the evolution of Blackmoor, the more things are spelled out and somehow some of the surprises are gone.

Something like that. Maybe someone else can explain it better.

Just my two coppers, of course. 8)

[Mythlym]

I picked other.

I have a couple of Blackmoor books. Mostly 3.5 and 4E stuff. I do have the FFC as well but really don't find very helpful for my needs.

I really want all fluff Blackmoor book with no game stats at all. A history is cool and all but mostly that is just for my reading pleasure. My pc's mostly don't give a leaf about history. What I want is fun and interesting NPC's,cool Blackmoor places that add to the atmosphere and loads of ideas for adventurers!

Other peoples game play do indeed give me ideas and make wonderful backdrops for my games but mostly I would just create my own.

[Rafael]

Where does the LFC fit in there? -_- It's not like we're pretending like THAT ONE never happened, or are we? :evil:

For me, personally, the issue is mainly, most of the published eras are notoriously overplayed.
DA and ZGG, is there really a difference? I think not. And between DA and the MMRPG, you have about eighty documents floating around, in print and online, that deal with the same general topics.
That's just too much to really be able to remain interesting on the long run. Playing in published BM is like watching the first season of a TV show, over and over again;
not because I would not like it, but a setting can only give you so many moments of awe. First time inside the City of Gods, cool. Fourth time, not so much.

Personally, with the LFC timeline being pretty far advanced, I guess the "Crusades" era is my new playing field, or rather, my take on it, with AoT. Or rather than that, Rob's take on BM. Not mine, but still, very original, and engaging. If THAT GUY had some sense for business, he would remove all the BM references, and make a good buck selling it as a completely separate world. :wink:

[Rafael]

Playing in published BM is like watching the first season of a TV show, over and over again;
not because I would not like it, but a setting can only give you so many moments of awe.

By the way, I do not mean this in any way offensive; but the very nature of a setting like BM is that you come to its limits sooner or later. For me, the way there was still way more interesting than with many other games, but at the end of the day, sooner or later, I think everyone expands a world like BM, one way or another.

[RobJN]

Playing in published BM is like watching the first season of a TV show, over and over again;
not because I would not like it, but a setting can only give you so many moments of awe.

By the way, I do not mean this in any way offensive; but the very nature of a setting like BM is that you come to its limits sooner or later. For me, the way there was still way more interesting than with many other games, but at the end of the day, sooner or later, I think everyone expands a world like BM, one way or another.

I see your point, and where you are coming from, and can agree... up to a point. Part of my reason behind the conception of the Twins was to frame many of the settings' canon events from a fresh perspective. All right, so a city falls out of the sky and the King's Companions have to investigate... but what better reason than to chase after two headstrong, mischievous daughters off for a look at the place they have specifically been forbidden to visit?

And what's to say there isn't a Thorn's World Setting Sourcebook in the works behind the curtain, here?

[Havard]

Playing in published BM is like watching the first season of a TV show, over and over again;
not because I would not like it, but a setting can only give you so many moments of awe.

By the way, I do not mean this in any way offensive; but the very nature of a setting like BM is that you come to its limits sooner or later. For me, the way there was still way more interesting than with many other games, but at the end of the day, sooner or later, I think everyone expandsa world like BM, one way or another.

I respect your opinion and I am in no way offended by it, but I think you and many others with you grossly underestimate the potential of Blackmoor sourcebooks like the FFC and the DA modules.

We tend to return to the main themes and locations for Blackmoor, but with a module like DA1 alone there are countless hours of playing potential *after* the main adventure has been played through. And that's just one of the modules.

As to expanding the world, I think that is just a logical extension of Arneson's vision. It can be expanded geographically, in time, across planes and in many directions.

I see your point, and where you are coming from, and can agree... up to a point. Part of my reason behind the conception of the Twins was to frame many of the settings' canon events from a fresh perspective. All right, so a city falls out of the sky and the King's Companions have to investigate... but what better reason than to chase after two headstrong, mischievous daughters off for a look at the place they have specifically been forbidden to visit?

And what's to say there isn't a Thorn's World Setting Sourcebook in the works behind the curtain, here?

I think that this vision of Blackmoor along with mine, Rafe's, Mythlym's and everyone elses here on these boards shows the multitude of options offered by the tiny setting that is Blackmoor. And we are really just beginning to scratch the surface...

-Havard

[Rafael]

I think we're really debating only semantics, here. We all come back to the campfire that BM is for us, for different reasons - but still we come.

The thing is just, looking at all the games I ran over the last decade, the freshness is not quite there, any more. Adventuring stories, especially interactive ones, like P&P RPGs, rely very much on an exploration of the unknown, and the more you present an element of story, like, say barbarian hordes, or ash goblin riders, or robotic servants of St. Stephen, the harder it is to elicit that sense of "not knowing".

Then again, it's always a two-edged knife: I stuck with BM so long precisely because of the setting was open enough to allow me to tell my stories - as opposed to getting clubbed to death by splatbooks that cover everything up to Elminster's favorite nosehair trimmer. - Well, we will see what the future brings for me, in that regard... :wink:

[Havard]

It's hard for me to articulate without sounding like a "Blackmoor snob" but my favorite Blackmoor is the most closely associated with Dave and the good old days of D&D when it was first being created. Something about the free-wheeling attitude where anything could happen because there really weren't any rules just grabs me. The farther along you get in the evolution of Blackmoor, the more things are spelled out and somehow some of the surprises are gone.

Although our opinions are a bit different on the later material, I definitely agree with you about the original campaign and the attitude from the Twin City Gamer group that shines through the FFC.

-Havard