Blackmoor Conflict Lines

[Havard]

In a review of the Blackmoor Player's Guide at Amazon, a customer writes:

As with every other Blackmoor product I've owned, used, or read, I was underwhelmed. It's a campaign world, sure, it's famous as heck, and it's been around forever. It's detailed. It's got its quirks and flavor. But it's just not that compelling. The big conflict presented as the basis for most Blackmoor organizations? A fight between spellcaster groups for political supremacy.

I can see how some Blackmoor books would give you this impression, but the Wizards Cabal only got its prominent position in the D20 line. Looking at the entire Blackmoor catalog from the FFC, through the DA modules and the entire D20 line, what conflict lines do you see?

In no particular order:

1. Law vs Chaos (AKA The Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys)
2. The Wizards Cabal vs Sorcerers
3. The Egg of Coot vs. Humaninty
4. The Afridhi vs. Blackmoor
5. The Thonian Empire vs. Blackmoor.
6. Technology vs. Nature
7. Westryn vs Cumasti Elves
8. Dwarves vs Orcs
9. Blackmoor dungeon denizens vs. surface dwellers
10. Temple of the Frog vs Blackmoor
11. Civilisation vs. Barbarism

What else?

Should any of these been expanded upon more?

-Havard

[aldarron]

Yeah that's just silly. If anything, Blackmoor has too many arch enemies out too rule the world. There's also Skandiharrians, the Ran, Sir Fang, certain elements of the Peshwah, and Marfeldt. (heh).

[RobJN]

Thorn's World That Was explores the following themes:

• Man vs. Nature (Men of the North vs. the Wild and unsettled land itself)
  
• Law vs. Chaos (in Civilization vs. the Natural World and "Good Guys vs. Bad Guys"; also: Men vs. Fairy/Elder races; Men vs. Demons)
  
• Man vs. Man (or... elf vs. elf in the Cumasti/Westryn Split, the Elder Twilight-/Dawnfae split; Empire vs. Kingdom (Thonia vs. Blackmoor, and then vice-versa; the Twins' Insurrection against Korin I, and again against Melnek))
  
• The Old Ways vs. the New (Magic of the Blood vs. that of the Tome; also: Magic vs. Tech; Ritual vs. Science)
  
• Generation vs. Generation: Past vs. Future (Thonian/Blackmoorian Emperors' thirst for immortality, Well of Souls resurrection technomagic, Projects SONATA & VALKYRIE, the awakening of the Daughters, and the Twilight Insurrections to wrest the tech from the hands of Men, who would turn it on their own)

... all the while also dealing with those conflicts already pointed out by Havard

Also, just so I have it written down somewhere: While Uther and Svenny are an even match against Leansethar, Marfeldt is the only Man to ever beat her in a fight.*

* note that I didn't write "fair fight."

[finarvyn]

Yeah that's just silly. If anything, Blackmoor has too many arch enemies out to rule the world. There's also Skandiharrians, the Ran, Sir Fang, certain elements of the Peshwah, and Marfeldt. (heh).

Of course, many of these began as player characters out to rule the world.

[Rafael]

The truth is, I never quite understood why the d20 version pushed so much into that direction; from all we know, the Cabal was never, at least not in the way that ZGG presented it, the center of Arneson's own games. Now, that BM is much richer, is absolutely clear, but, yeah, got to say, the d20 books very much give that impression, IIRC.

[Havard]

The truth is, I never quite understood why the d20 version pushed so much into that direction; from all we know, the Cabal was never, at least not in the way that ZGG presented it, the center of Arneson's own games. Now, that BM is much richer, is absolutely clear, but, yeah, got to say, the d20 books very much give that impression, IIRC.

Well there could be several reasons for this, but OTOH the focus does seem to shift in the later books. Once they got to Temple of the Frog, City of the Gods, Riders of Hak etc you had a more balanced presentation of Blackmoor as a whole. Unfortunately due to problems with publishing it took a really long time before these books were made available to the general public. So the perception of an inaccurate focus could be a result of that.

-Havard

[Rafael]

Sure, still... I don't want to make it sound as if I was bashing ZGG (not for *that* :wink: ), but the first few books kind of overloaded the setting with unnecessary fluff. Granted, the material was pretty much instantly playable, but in hindsight, a focus on BM's core themes would have been way better.

My personal beef with the entire ZGG run was more than some additions seemed kind of random. The WC stuff, in contrast to some other d20 additions, fits in pretty well.

[aldarron]

There's prolly a lot of reasons for the prominance of the WC in the d20 line, and some of it may have to do with meta theme of the 21st century of shadowy government control. But I think at heart it is Arneson's old school response to 3e's sorceror class. The OD&D wizard (and sage, and assassin) are expected to be members of a guild or cabal. The idea that "hey, here is this whole new class that uses wild magic..." is going to seem inimical to that traditional order.

[Rafael]

I can see that, though I have to say, while the overall concept of the WC as per the DAs is acceptable, almost nothing from the ZGG material on the subject stayed in my games. Might be that it's simply my mistake, but very little of the actual crunch of the whole WC arc remains in my game, nine years after the publication of the book. In contrast, other stuff from other BM books keeps a much more prominent role, like the prehistory to CBM, and so on.

[Havard]

I can see that, though I have to say, while the overall concept of the WC as per the DAs is acceptable, almost nothing from the ZGG material on the subject stayed in my games. Might be that it's simply my mistake, but very little of the actual crunch of the whole WC arc remains in my game, nine years after the publication of the book. In contrast, other stuff from other BM books keeps a much more prominent role, like the prehistory to CBM, and so on.

CBM? You mean Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor?

-Havard