Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!
Now we come to Loch Gloomen (Dave Arneson):
So he tells of the players being "exiled for losing Blackmoor to the Baddies," so they were sent to Loch Gloomen or Lake Gloomy under heavy escort. They could only take what they could carry. This would mean that they lost a lot of stuff.
Then he sets it up so they cannot tell determine direction. A 20% chance of getting lost without knowing it. On top of that he provides multiple adversaries of the human variety not counting the monsters.
A sample playing area, with base wealth, creature based in each area plus treasure. Also Hit Dice of creatures per area. He says no more than 300 Hit Dice of creatures followed by examples all larger to much larger than that, one example be 3000 Hit Dice of creatures.
A table to roll on for a description of an area. A lot of information is packed into this little table. It is an excellent guide for how to create and use a table.
I love this, one True Troll and two Ogres (standard Trolls).
This is a pretty detailed, but very concise note. A lot of people tend to dismiss and sneer at this volume, but IMO that is pathetic and the complaints ring hollow. There is so much information in The First Fantasy Campaign, and it was first. I really believe that anyone who really sneers at this volume is just jealous. This is not a rulebook although it has rules in it, it is a snippet of the campaign as it was. But then I am not someone who thinks a nice prettied up document is better in some way, than the honest unpolished gem. I would take one of these over a dozen hard back, slick paper, full color modern tomes. IMO an awful lot of time and money are wasted producing things that are more designed to be a coffee table book, than to be useful for gaming.
That being said, there are of course some real gems with high production values. But to be clear, the high production values is not what makes them a gem, the high production values are the whipped cream with a cherry on top. The gem is the great stuff under the whipped cream.
The next page is a long section detailing the description of each area and what it contains.
Bleakwood was provided as another example. Note that it was accidentally destroyed.
Then we have the makeup of Bleakwood, as far as major features.
Now we come to Loch Gloomen (Dave Arneson):
So he tells of the players being "exiled for losing Blackmoor to the Baddies," so they were sent to Loch Gloomen or Lake Gloomy under heavy escort. They could only take what they could carry. This would mean that they lost a lot of stuff.
Then he sets it up so they cannot tell determine direction. A 20% chance of getting lost without knowing it. On top of that he provides multiple adversaries of the human variety not counting the monsters.
A sample playing area, with base wealth, creature based in each area plus treasure. Also Hit Dice of creatures per area. He says no more than 300 Hit Dice of creatures followed by examples all larger to much larger than that, one example be 3000 Hit Dice of creatures.
A table to roll on for a description of an area. A lot of information is packed into this little table. It is an excellent guide for how to create and use a table.
I love this, one True Troll and two Ogres (standard Trolls).
This is a pretty detailed, but very concise note. A lot of people tend to dismiss and sneer at this volume, but IMO that is pathetic and the complaints ring hollow. There is so much information in The First Fantasy Campaign, and it was first. I really believe that anyone who really sneers at this volume is just jealous. This is not a rulebook although it has rules in it, it is a snippet of the campaign as it was. But then I am not someone who thinks a nice prettied up document is better in some way, than the honest unpolished gem. I would take one of these over a dozen hard back, slick paper, full color modern tomes. IMO an awful lot of time and money are wasted producing things that are more designed to be a coffee table book, than to be useful for gaming.
That being said, there are of course some real gems with high production values. But to be clear, the high production values is not what makes them a gem, the high production values are the whipped cream with a cherry on top. The gem is the great stuff under the whipped cream.
The next page is a long section detailing the description of each area and what it contains.
Bleakwood was provided as another example. Note that it was accidentally destroyed.
Then we have the makeup of Bleakwood, as far as major features.
Elegant in its simplicity. There is nothing that urks me more than having to read a wall of text just to get a sentence or two's worth of essential description. Blackmoor continues to fire up my imagination to this very day and was the impetus for my own campaign, soon to hit print. Great blog and I always look forward to sitting down at the end of a hard earned day to read and contemplate on your posts. And then get inspired to play.
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