2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day One Hundred and Thirty-Seven

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!

Starting off we have the Forward (Foreward) by  Bob Bledsaw (Senior).

Bob, Sr addresses the fact that this work is not some slick highly polished item, calling it an "unpolished gem that preserves the feel and wonder of its unveiling." I agree with him that it is to our benefit that it is unpolished, because polishing would have destroyed its value and ruined it as a source of inspiration. Contrary to the view of many I disagree that polishing RPG products is a virtue. I think it generally is to the detriment of whatever is being published. When you polish these types of products you sanitize them of the good parts where inspiration abides.

As an example, let us take apple cider vinegar with the "mother". What is the "mother?"

 In food or drink recipes though, I always use an organic and unrefined version of apple cider vinegar with “the Mother.” Over the years, my mentions of “vinegar with the mother,” have gotten a lot of questions. Readers ask what “the mother” means and how to find it, so I wanted to fully explain exactly what it is and why it is important. 

In short, it is apple cider vinegar that still has the culture of beneficial bacteria that turns regular apple cider into vinegar in the first place. This is similar to the SCOBY (also called a “mother”) in Kombucha making. In ACV particularly, “the mother” is a complex structure of beneficial acids that seem to have health benefits. Unrefined vinegars have a murky appearance and typically still contain the mother culture. Clear and pasteurized vinegars typically do not contain the mother culture and don’t carry the same benefits.

The First Fantasy Campaign contains the "mother", whereas many or most RPG products are "clear and pasteurized" and have lost the benefits of the raw and unrefined product.

For example we have all of these "clones" and many are quite good, but for some of us, even the best ones (the ones that we recommend) lack something and you cannot quite put your finger on it, but this is what it is, even the best ones are lacking the "mother." They have been polished and pasteurized and sanitized until the "mother" is gone.Whose fault is that? IMO that is a feature of the OGL. Using the OGL is the thing that strips the "mother" out of the item. So the question arises, can you use the OGL and still keep the "mother" in your game?

So IMO Dave Arneson succeeded in keeping the good stuff for this book, he kept the "mother." I think the fact that there is not a lot in the way of mechanics in this book is a good thing. While many would have loved to have seen Dave Arneson's mechanics spelled out in detail (including me), I think he correctly judged that the mechanics are for the most part, irrelevant. 

Here Arneson talks about how it began, how it expanded and grew and the heights it reached. Think about this - one setting and six dungeons/six campaigns with six judges/referees all be coordinated by Arneson. Over 100 detailed player characters active. He  laments that there is more than enough for the players to do, but they are talking about visiting the Egg of Coot. As a side note, the Egg of Coot is mentioned in the Forwad(sic) of Men & Magic in OD&D published in January 1974 by Gary Gygax which was way before Arneson and Gygax had their following out. That, in and of itself, should have put the urban legend that the "Egg of Coot" was Gygax, to death. But that falsehood stubbornly lingers on and is repeated every now and again.

 If anyone has ever run a shared world with other referees, his statement about having each area mesh with the areas around it should bring up memories. He further says that his experience with running a wargames campaign tipped him off that the shared world would need an Overall Background as a framework for each referee to build off of. He goes on to talk about a master villain - the Evil Egg of Coot and a competitor -the Great Kingdom. This background did not have to be extensive to begin with and grew as the setting grew. 

Here in just the first two paragraphs of the Introduction Arneson is giving World Building and Dungeon Building advice.and touting the benefits of it. Opportunities arise quickly as a greater variety of monsters and more granularity of the monsters and he says "certainly a a deeper dungeon.' Just two paragraphs in he has already covered a lot of territory.

Tomorrow we will continue with our look at the Introduction.