[YouTube] DA1 Review by Captain Courageous.

[Havard]

RPG Retro Review: DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor.

Listening to it now. Let me know what you think.

-Havard

[Havard]

Overall, a decent enough breaking down of the adventure module. He makes a couple of minor mistakes such as crediting Bruce Heard for the decision to connect the DA modules to the BECMI/Classic D&D line. Bruce Heardt recently told me that this had already been decided when he got involved in managing this product line and was likely a result of the 1979 lawsuit and eventual settlement between Arneson and TSR which is what I think many already suspected.

I think the youtube reviewer is pretty fair in his assessment of the strengths and flaws of the module. He rates it as good on his scale. I would probably rate it much higher (big surprise? ), but I can see how some of the things the reviewer is unhappy about could put others off.

For more of my thoughts on DA1, see this thread here at The Comeback Inn.


-Havard

[Greg]

I think the Captain's review points to the fundamental problem with Blackmoor: whoever decided to set Blackmoor in the distant past of Mystara made a major mistake. Blackmoor should have been published by TSR as a standalone campaign setting, similar to Greyhawk, for BECMI or AD&D. Then TSR could have published a series of adventure modules without the time travel elements of DA1 and without all the complexities and backstory weirdness that eventually impacted Mystara.

This is probably a minority opinion among old school gamers, but I come at this from a different perspective. I played D&D in the mid-80s, but I never started learning about Blackmoor until 2014, when I returned to tabletop RPGs after a 20-year absence. This means I don't have any nostalgia or previous history with the Mystara/Blackmoor connection. I see the placement of Blackmoor in Mystara's past as purely a business or legal decision, and it doesn't makes any sense to me as a gamer or a fan of Blackmoor.

I'm sure others know much more about the decision than I do. But it seems like Blackmoor was placed in Mystara because TSR didn't want or couldn't allow Blackmoor to be an AD&D setting, especially with the past lawsuit by Dave Arneson over D&D royalties. Plus Greyhawk was the default setting for AD&D, and the Known World of Mystara was already expanding and becoming the default setting for BECMI. I'm sure TSR didn't want to supplant or threaten the status of those settings, but it was a moot point because we ended up getting the Forgotten Realms and a number of other settings once Gary Gygax was gone, starting in 1987.

All of this amounts to the core problem with Blackmoor, Mystara and TSR. It also explains the many flaws that Captain Courageous found in his review. DA1 was trying to be both a campaign setting book and an adventure module at the same time, and it suffered as a result. There is great material and inspiration in the book, but it would definitely be overwhelming and a bit complex and puzzling for a lot of DMs and players. And creating an adventure for 10th to 14th level characters is no way to introduce a setting to DMs and players who weren't familiar with it.

Despite the best efforts of those involved, the aforementioned issues caused DA1 to lay a weak foundation that led to the entire DA series not doing as well as it could have and to TSR eventually abandoning Blackmoor. I wish we could have seen a Blackmoor campaign setting box set and then a different DA1 with an entirely different adventure and plot designed for new player characters.

For me, the value of DA1 is strictly in the campaign setting information it provides. The adventure itself is not something I would want to run. But I certainly respect and appreciate its place in D&D and fantasy RPG history, and I've used it to help learn about Blackmoor and develop a lot of notes and information about the setting.