tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post7063888610237183000..comments2023-06-08T08:26:07.304-05:00Comments on Advanced Gaming & Theory: Successful Organizing & the Framework PrincipleRipperXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-644300354650273772015-12-23T20:05:51.524-06:002015-12-23T20:05:51.524-06:00Looking forward to it Brooser. You have a Merry Ch...Looking forward to it Brooser. You have a Merry Christmas as well, my friend.RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-13722869199959497852015-12-23T19:26:21.499-06:002015-12-23T19:26:21.499-06:00Rip, Merry Christmas or Happy Winter Solstice, wha...Rip, Merry Christmas or Happy Winter Solstice, whatever you celebrate!<br /><br />I like reading stuff for DMs about adventure design. One of my favorite subjects. Most of the books in Gygax's Living Fantasy series are collections of descriptive lists organized into tables you can roll on to flesh out your setting, but one book seems the cut above, it is the volume called Insidae, and it seems to have to do with campaign design. I will review it over the holidays on my blog.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-123592370723548992015-12-22T20:06:27.372-06:002015-12-22T20:06:27.372-06:00No, I never read those books. I've read the in...No, I never read those books. I've read the interviews with him that are on-line, as well as the stuff that he wrote for Dragon Magazine, but other then the DMG, nothing! <br /><br />I guess that I enjoy what he's done, but I'm not one of those Grognards that worship the ground that he walked on. <br /><br />Seek no masters, seek what they themselves had sought! I live by that mantra RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-25124418532505793292015-12-22T18:50:20.514-06:002015-12-22T18:50:20.514-06:00Thanks for the distinction between the two. I didn...Thanks for the distinction between the two. I didn't know that about Gygax and Greenwood. Did you ever get a chance to read the Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds series of books that Gygax wrote on Dming towards the end of his life - Insidiae, Nation Builder, World Builder, Extraordinary Book of Names and Living Fantasy? Cosmos Builder is a dud.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-37644538311296822802015-12-22T16:38:23.177-06:002015-12-22T16:38:23.177-06:00Thanks for the kind words Brooser.
I think that t...Thanks for the kind words Brooser.<br /><br />I think that the published settings are written so that you can throw anything at them and at least something will stick.<br /><br />Greyhawk is a world that is going to hell if you are there to fight evil or not. I think that it is too well defined, there are no buffers between countries, and constant war is always going on. This was written directly into the framework of the place.<br /><br />I think that Forgotten Realms is a more open world, wars happen but politics isn't the only game in town. As written, the world is more in balance, you've got evil factions and good factions always at odds in essentially a very frontier world that is untamed. <br /><br />To compare the two based on the creators, Gygax was a wargamer, that bleeds through his writing. He did enjoy dungeon delving, and that is also evident. His stories were pulpy and straight forward. I would say that Greyhawk is geared towards Fighters and men of action.<br /><br />Then you have Greenwood, he is a role-player, and the Realms allow a lot more possibilities for scenarios that could go either way depending upon the people that run them. His world would be geared to Mages, and thinkers.<br /><br />Another way to look at it is to remember that Gygax enjoyed full creative control over the World of Greyhawk, which Greenwood didn't. They took his notes of his world, and allowed him to write it, but he worked with a team and had to cater to corporate influences. From what I've read, he said that he was happy with Forgotten Realms, but his world is much darker then the official version, but I bet that everybody who plays the realms has a darker game. It is fun to go back and read his articles in Dragon Magazine. Would the world be as wonderfully diverse if Greenwood had been given the amount of creative control as Gygax enjoyed, or would it had been more limited like Greyhawk was, but in different ways?RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-15553764635639394592015-12-22T08:33:53.347-06:002015-12-22T08:33:53.347-06:00That's a great article about world building. W...That's a great article about world building. World building is a guilty pleasure for me, that I don't do enough of. I never used any of the published settings. My own vague universe. I think that I hit it right with the framing. I started with some physics and cosmology that defined the setting. That became the goal for the campaign. The primary menace is tied to the nature of the world and the players must figure out their world to reach the objective and save the world. My current mapped world is the size of a single county. Framing itself is simple text, here as a post: <br /><br />http://midlandstales.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html<br /><br />No maps, except for the map of the Barony, where the players adventure.<br /><br />Regarding the Greyhawk vs Forgotten Realms, once I was fascinated and finally figured out the difference - Gygax Greyhawk was written during the cold war, when the fear of the bomb was prevalent, and Greyhawk setting reflects the fantasy equivalent of the US and USSR after a thermonuclear exchange: Sueli and Bakluni carry out an apocalyptic exchange - Baklunies fire the reign of colorless fire, which is very much like raining nukes, which creates a barren desert, and the Suel launch Plague of the Invoked Devastation. Forgotten Realms, on the other hand, are similar to the Balkans, which were engulfed in civil wars, when the Forgotten Realms were marketed by TSR. Forgotten Realms are many small enclaves and kingdoms representing unique cultures jammed in like sardines in a can. This WAS the situation in both, the Balkans and in the ancient Indian societies. Balkans were an expanse of small self-enclosed villages each containing some unique ethnic group, with its own language, religion, and cultural history. Ethnic cleansing became so easy, because each ethnicity was self-contained, separated and segregated. Ancient India was a different situation. People of vastly different tribes, ethnicities, languages and cultures were living on top of each other, literally, mostly in a overcrowded squalor. The caste system was introduced (larger and more complex than presented in text-books) in part to alleviate crowding - people can be crowded in the same village, but will only socially interact within their own caste - thus creating a smaller community with which to interact.<br /><br />The Time of Troubles in forgotten realms, is similar to the civil war in Balkans, with powerful warlords moving across the landscape sowing destruction and violence in it path. Regarding Bhaalspawn, Warlords and Warring Nobility of history is represented as gods in Forgotten Realms. Something similar went on in the ancient muslim world and in medieval western Europe, with nobles and sheikhs (religious leaders with military and political powers in ancient islam), warring among each other, terrorizing the common people and spreading their seed in the form of illegitimate children. In feudal Europe, to become a man at arms, one had to be of noble blood, and most men at arms, who were apprenticed as swordsmen since childhood, were the sons of noblemen, it didn't matter if they were legitimate or born out of wedlock (illegitimate). This is what inspired the Bhaalspawn. Somebody raised in seclusion hidden in a monastery and then a victim of assassins (like in Baldur's Gate), was what typically happened to the illegitimate children of Kings and Royal Aristocracy with legitimate claims to the throne.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.com