Blackmoor what edition?

[Hexenritter Verlag]

What is your preferred edition of Blackmoor? Do you prefer the Judge's Guild First Fantasy Campaign booklet? Or is the TSR DA module series Blackmoor your favorite? If not those, is the Zeitgeist Games 3.5 (or 4e) edition your cup O' tea? 

I personally like ZGG's Blackmoor only because I owned it in print (I still wish I had it) as it is more fleshed out and I like its clockwork based tech. That all said, I love the campiness of JG's FFC but I'm not sure it'd fit the tone of my campaigns; while the TSR DA modules give you setting info it is minimal and not as useful - to me that is. 

I've been considering fusing the ZGG Blackmoor into a setting mash-up to take bits that I like from the various fantasy settings out there and make a fun setting that tips the hat to the originals but puts my own spin on things. Basically taking realms from other settings and use them as the basis of the Thonian Empire and other realms that surround Blackmoor. It is still in the "sounds fun, should I do it stage" so if I do it it'll be a long term project, as I'll be drawing a world map incorporating various regions that the settings I'd be poaching for the project into a coherent whole.

[xizallian]

I've read the FFC, but have not really seen anything else. This would be a fun project and you should go ahead and do it.

[mormonyoyoman]

Eb, I did a lot of that with Great Honk, though I had nothing but 1st Fantasy Campaign & some rememberences from 1979 until the turn of the century. (Never thought I'd be using that term in MY old age.) I did love the Zeitgeist books, but they didn't have the gonzo moxie that attracted me to the Arneson method of GMing that attracted me to rolegaming.

[ripx187]

The First Fantasy Campaign is a very generous product. I'm not by any means a Gonzo type of DM, but the ideas found in this title are still very useful. It isn't a "How To" system, but a "This is how I did it" system. What makes it really special is the fact that these are just Dave's notes which have been formatted into a logical work that has been unchanged. Yes, by using this book one can run Blackmoor-like games, however, that isn't necessary. One of the DM's biggest challenges, especially over long periods of time, is managing data. How to organize the work that we have done, and what kind of work should we do that won't be wasted. Finding those "constants", that isn't easy. You look at most setting books and you see walls of text, so this is what we emulate. Why not just give well-written summaries? 

I think that it would have been awesome for all of the great Dungeon Masters of yore to have a book like this. Imagine if Ed Greenwood was allowed to write one book which detailed only what he thought was important to run a game. Not a huge boxset and hundreds of supplements written by everybody and their mother. Not a collection of "This is the world of Forgotten Realms", just one book that has Ed Greenwood's notes. Systems that he felt that he needed to have at the table. The product that TSR purchased from Greeenwood in its rawest form. That is how I would describe FFC.

Not to take anything away from the AD&D World of Greyhawk boxset, it too is ripe with ideas on how Gary worked. Things to think about when designing your own worlds. FFC is a product for a more advanced user, there aren't very many of those. I love this book! I wonder how the hobby would have evolved if more people were aware of its existence and had seriously studied it? 

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Jul 25, 2018 15:40:13 GMT -5 xizallian said:

I've read the FFC, but have not really seen anything else. This would be a fun project and you should go ahead and do it.

I am mulling over what settings to poach from to do this. There are bits from Greyhawk I really like, such as the pantheons & the Olman and Touv cultures in the Scarlet Brotherhood supplement. I like several things from Forgotten Realms (Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep & 1e FR Box set in general). I like bits from Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms & WotC Eberron, plus elements of Palladium Fantasy's setting. Plus there are a few Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry oriented settings that I might mine from as well. 

I'll have to go through my books & PDFs to see what might make the cut. That said, just because certain parts might be from these other settings they will be tweaked to fit the overall Blackmoor setting and I might try to incorporate some of the more gonzo elements from the FFC as long as it doesn't make it too silly.By the way if I do this I'll start another thread either in the Village Commons or down in my Multiverse of Akar forums. 

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Jul 26, 2018 12:13:12 GMT -5 ripx187 said:

The First Fantasy Campaign is a very generous product. I'm not by any means a Gonzo type of DM, but the ideas found in this title are still very useful. It isn't a "How To" system, but a "This is how I did it" system. What makes it really special is the fact that these are just Dave's notes which have been formatted into a logical work that has been unchanged. Yes, by using this book one can run Blackmoor-like games, however, that isn't necessary. One of the DM's biggest challenges, especially over long periods of time, is managing data. How to organize the work that we have done, and what kind of work should we do that won't be wasted. Finding those "constants", that isn't easy. You look at most setting books and you see walls of text, so this is what we emulate. Why not just give well-written summaries? 

I think that it would have been awesome for all of the great Dungeon Masters of yore to have a book like this. Imagine if Ed Greenwood was allowed to write one book which detailed only what he thought was important to run a game. Not a huge boxset and hundreds of supplements written by everybody and their mother. Not a collection of "This is the world of Forgotten Realms", just one book that has Ed Greenwood's notes. Systems that he felt that he needed to have at the table. The product that TSR purchased from Greeenwood in its rawest form. That is how I would describe FFC.

Not to take anything away from the AD&D World of Greyhawk boxset, it too is ripe with ideas on how Gary worked. Things to think about when designing your own worlds. FFC is a product for a more advanced user, there aren't very many of those. I love this book! I wonder how the hobby would have evolved if more people were aware of its existence and had seriously studied it? 

This would be epic if it did occur. I'd love to see Greenwood create such a book for Forgotten Realms. I need to read the FFC in greater detail than I have up till now. BTW have an exalt.

[ripx187]

Thanks Hexenritter Verlag. 

An interesting thought, in regards to FCC. The way that I read AD&D, the style which we call "The End Game" or domain play doesn't start until around 10th level; but according to FCC, this was done simultaneously. The players appeared to be playing the domain game until they got distracted by the dungeon; once this happened then the game changed.

There is a war game here that is written in the language of Chainmail, but can be converted to any system. What was this used for? Was there a strategic game going on? We know that Blackmoor was under threat of the Egg of Coot, and we also know that when the players decided that it was more interesting to explore the dungeon than it was to defend the village, originally the Egg of Coot won and Arneson said that the game was over. The good guys lost. But that wasn't really the end of it, was it.

What were the players doing prior to discovering the dungeon? Was this a mishmash of a very elaborate and highly advanced game of Braunstein, mixed with a strategy/tactical wargame where the players were just playing against Arneson? Were the players playing their own domains against each other, and then those strategic characters would become NPCs while they simulated their player characters? 

The armies were specific, including specific point ratings. Somebody was playing a wargame, if it was just Arneson playing a solo game, he wouldn't need anything this advanced. To me, this suggests a highly evolved system of background events. He states that this system stopped because the users couldn't meet up regularly anymore and new players were just interested in the dungeon. 

This book is definitely worth studying. AD&D eludes to this system but doesn't really identify it completely, then you have this one. Were entry-level PCs in charge of armies, or was it something else? The Chance cards are also interesting, this also dictated background events which were independent of the referee. We are taught to keep things secret, it is more fun that way. In our games, we were taught to run background events as background events. If the players were not just playing their characters, but also playing a Diplomacy like game that resulted in tactical mass combat, how do you blend this all together?

[Colinouchou]

I prefer the Judge's Guild First Fantasy Campaign booklet.

An interesting thought, in regards to FCC. The way that I read AD&D, the style which we call "The End Game" or domain play doesn't start until around 10th level; but according to FCC, this was done simultaneously. The players appeared to be playing the domain game until they got distracted by the dungeon; once this happened then the game changed.

This is the point that robkuntz , tried to make repeatedly is that domain play is not "The End Game", all parts of the game are one game woven into a whole thing that is one piece. Bitd those guys did not see a dungeon game, a city game, a wilderness game, a domain game, etc,. They just saw a game, they did not tag it all into little separate boxes like those that came later did.

[mormonyoyoman]

Jul 26, 2018 12:13:12 GMT -5 ripx187 said:

The First Fantasy Campaign is a very generous product. I'm not by any means a Gonzo type of DM, but the ideas found in this title are still very useful. It isn't a "How To" system, but a "This is how I did it" system. What makes it really special is the fact that these are just Dave's notes which have been formatted into a logical work that has been unchanged. Yes, by using this book one can run Blackmoor-like games, however, that isn't necessary. One of the DM's biggest challenges, especially over long periods of time, is managing data. How to organize the work that we have done, and what kind of work should we do that won't be wasted. Finding those "constants", that isn't easy. You look at most setting books and you see walls of text, so this is what we emulate. Why not just give well-written summaries? 

I think that it would have been awesome for all of the great Dungeon Masters of yore to have a book like this. Imagine if Ed Greenwood was allowed to write one book which detailed only what he thought was important to run a game. Not a huge boxset and hundreds of supplements written by everybody and their mother. Not a collection of "This is the world of Forgotten Realms", just one book that has Ed Greenwood's notes. Systems that he felt that he needed to have at the table. The product that TSR purchased from Greeenwood in its rawest form. That is how I would describe FFC.

Not to take anything away from the AD&D World of Greyhawk boxset, it too is ripe with ideas on how Gary worked. Things to think about when designing your own worlds. FFC is a product for a more advanced user, there aren't very many of those. I love this book! I wonder how the hobby would have evolved if more people were aware of its existence and had seriously studied it? 

This, perhaps the most accurate description of 1st Fantasy Campaign, gets at least an exalt! 

[mormonyoyoman]

Jul 26, 2018 12:43:05 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

Jul 25, 2018 15:40:13 GMT -5 xizallian said:

I've read the FFC, but have not really seen anything else. This would be a fun project and you should go ahead and do it.

I am mulling over what settings to poach from to do this. There are bits from Greyhawk I really like, such as the pantheons & the Olman and Touv cultures in the Scarlet Brotherhood supplement. I like several things from Forgotten Realms (Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep & 1e FR Box set in general). I like bits from Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms & WotC Eberron, plus elements of Palladium Fantasy's setting. Plus there are a few Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry oriented settings that I might mine from as well. 

I'll have to go through my books & PDFs to see what might make the cut. That said, just because certain parts might be from these other settings they will be tweaked to fit the overall Blackmoor setting and I might try to incorporate some of the more gonzo elements from the FFC as long as it doesn't make it too silly.By the way if I do this I'll start another thread either in the Village Commons or down in my Multiverse of Akar forums. 

Do like 1st Fantasy Campaign suggests: Create your own. I'm betting that, with similar notes of conciseness, you'll be able to take the raw data and "fill it in" during the actual play. Let's face it, one cannot map out and be prepared for everything which might happen. That's one of the greatest joys of rolegames!

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Jul 26, 2018 16:35:33 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

Jul 26, 2018 12:43:05 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

I am mulling over what settings to poach from to do this. There are bits from Greyhawk I really like, such as the pantheons & the Olman and Touv cultures in the Scarlet Brotherhood supplement. I like several things from Forgotten Realms (Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep & 1e FR Box set in general). I like bits from Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms & WotC Eberron, plus elements of Palladium Fantasy's setting. Plus there are a few Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry oriented settings that I might mine from as well. 

I'll have to go through my books & PDFs to see what might make the cut. That said, just because certain parts might be from these other settings they will be tweaked to fit the overall Blackmoor setting and I might try to incorporate some of the more gonzo elements from the FFC as long as it doesn't make it too silly.By the way if I do this I'll start another thread either in the Village Commons or down in my Multiverse of Akar forums. 

Do like 1st Fantasy Campaign suggests: Create your own. I'm betting that, with similar notes of conciseness, you'll be able to take the raw data and "fill it in" during the actual play. Let's face it, one cannot map out and be prepared for everything which might happen. That's one of the greatest joys of rolegames!

I may do just that take what I like from the various Blackmoor & other settings and build something new of my own. Now I just need to read through the PDFs & books I have and see where their inspiration leads me. Ask True Black Raven about how fertile my imagination can be - he was a brave soul who read through all my setting posts, can you say he did a bit o' reading.

[mormonyoyoman]

If you take things from Blackmoor, I wanna be the Blue Rider!

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Jul 26, 2018 16:44:22 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

If you take things from Blackmoor, I wanna be the Blue Rider!

We'll see what we can do  

[mormonyoyoman]

"HELP! JANE, HOW DO YOU STOP THIS CRAZY THING??!!"

[xizallian]

Jul 26, 2018 14:20:24 GMT -5 Colinouchou said:

I prefer the Judge's Guild First Fantasy Campaign booklet.

An interesting thought, in regards to FCC. The way that I read AD&D, the style which we call "The End Game" or domain play doesn't start until around 10th level; but according to FCC, this was done simultaneously. The players appeared to be playing the domain game until they got distracted by the dungeon; once this happened then the game changed.

This is the point that robkuntz , tried to make repeatedly is that domain play is not "The End Game", all parts of the game are one game woven into a whole thing that is one piece. Bitd those guys did not see a dungeon game, a city game, a wilderness game, a domain game, etc,. They just saw a game, they did not tag it all into little separate boxes like those that came later did.

Have an Exalt for that observation.