Rafe's Blackmoor Campaign Overview

[Rafael]

Found this one somewhere:





Awwww.

[Rafael]

Hi, all!

Well, another year, another pack of scars! Since I am not really often at the CBI, any more, I thought I'd give a little update.

- So, this year saw the rather premature end of the Meleon PBP campaign, which was somewhat like the unofficial sequel to the LFC. The reason why I decided to end the game was, quite simply, that I am not a student anymore, like I was during most of the LFC days: Adult-Me has a work/travel schedule like hell, lamentably, and games like the ones I like to run require a lot of attention; more attention than I could give, lamentably.

However, I think it's fair to say that we ended that game in style, though, a fitting epilogue to more than eleven years together. ...And a famous face from the LFC made one last appearance, as well!

You can read about it here: http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/12266 ... ii-reprise


After that, many goodbyes, and many farwells. Three months after the end of the Meleon PBP, I also ended my Meleon home-game. (We, as a group, decided to move on to Thieves' World, but with me as the DM, as always.) My home-game was built around a, ahem, very Blackmoor-inspired region, called "Gravesend". it was a good game, and it had run for quite some time. We ended it mainly for one reason - I am not as self-absorbed as it may seem, sometimes. "Meleon" was a setting that was all about me, as I was the only real reference-point my players really had; that's a dynamic that is surely charming and flattering to me. But for a game, that's not what I want.

So, here I am, twelve years after the begin of the Grim Winter, for the first time since forever not playing or otherwise partaking in a Blackmoor game. - And I don't think I will, for a time. Blackmoor, or rather, my personal relation to the setting is bound to the memories from the PBP; I have no interest in returning there with other people, or in other, new continuities. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the setting, any more; that means that I consider my memories of the LFC as something truly special.

What will my BM-related future look like, then? - Obviously, there are always some things in the making, and some of you might have noticed that I am suspiciously often logged in here, even though I don't post much... In the public space. Apart from that, it's not out of the thinkable that I run a one-shot in BM some time next year; a German oldschool-related con has reclaimed my presence coming spring. Obviously, they want me to run something classic for them, and I find myself considering it more than I did when they first offered the table to me. - But right now, though, I wouldn't bet on it. :wink:

Meanwhile, I am moving on with things; kill-the-boy-let-the-man-be-born. You know the drill. Normal stuff. So, the other day, we packed away about seventy RPG books and booklets; for ebay.

Among the few books that I keep (outside of the ones I use for actual gaming) are my Blackmoor books.

"That's a lot of books to keep just for memory's sake", my girlfriend suggested, with that voice that carries an unspoken, admonishing message.

"Yeah, yeah. Way too many books to keep around unused", I anwered, somewhat thoughtfully...



Until perhaps next year, and very happy gaming!

- R

[Puss In Boots]

...Let's test this.

[Yaztromo]

I think there are also some options to turn at least some parts of your campaign into adventure modules that may be played by other people in other ways and generating other memories, but somehow related.

[Rafael]

Thank you for your kindness, Yaz. I don't think it's going to happen, though. The LFC's main purpose as a game was to be a "community-builder", to bring many of the creative minds together that were doing (and are still doing) their own Blackmoor- and OSR-related projects.
I'm honored that the LFC came to have an influence on the way we're looking at Blackmoor today. (Or, at the CBI's version of BM, at least.) I never intended it to be a "setting-builder", though, and I think the participants back in the day made their contributions to the game(s) in such confidence that noone would ever try to "milk" it. It would feel like betrayal to me if I now went back and started I-don't-even-know-what.

Now, with the games that came after the LFC, that's a different matter: Not sure how many people who visit the CBI are aware of this, but our gaming group fundamentally stayed together after the conclusion of our adventures in Blackmoor. Discounting the occasional breaks here and there, we've been playing together ever since, for seventeen or eighteen years now. Those games, after 2012, were a fresh start for us, as we didn't continue with the LFC, and they have mainly been taking place in two gaming worlds of my own design, the very Moorcockian "Meleon", and the more Brooksian and Gemmellian "World of the Wind Isles". So, as I write this in late 2022, I've now been a DM in those two settings for quite some time longer than I was been a Blackmoor DM. If I were to write something RPG-related, which I don't presently plan to do, then it would probably be more related to those campaigns and settings than it would be to the older games.

It doesn't quite "help" either that, as a fan, I find my "Classic Blackmoor" needs quite well provided for: Havard's annual or bi-annual collections and gazetteers have been a lot of fun, for starters. And from "official" sources, there have been Bruce Heard's "Calidar", Rob Conley's "Majestic Realms", and lately of course Greg's and Dan's "Tonisborg". If I was to make a return to Blackmoor, then I think I'd rather like to be a player in one of their games than to create my own stuff again. 

Yay, haven't posted at the CBI in ages! Good to be home!  ...And happy holidays, Yaz, and everyone!

[Yaztromo]

...And happy holidays, Yaz, and everyone!

All the very best!