General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
Well, I should start a new thread about this. Perhaps I will in a bit when I have the time.
Essentially, this is how I see D20: there is a complication. You try to position yourself (or the group MVP) to roll against your best skill to solve it (example: you could use Climb or Disable Device; your climb is better so you tell the DM you'll go with that one). Then you roll the D20 and hope for a high result. The End.
It's just roll after roll, always trying to put your "best foot" (highest-rated skill) forward. That's basically all there is to figure out (the game is "solved" as they say in boardgaming) and thereafter all you're doing is playing against the dice.
C&C is the same. Want to see something? Roll to see it. Want to climb something? Roll to climb it. Want to compose a poem? Roll to compose it. Ad nauseam. It's a thoroughly new school game.
I don't mind having a "skil" such that it justifies why my character can do X, but I don't want it to be the mechanical means by which he does X.
Yeah, we need to start another thread. I know you have a TLG account, lets talk about it there. I think you have mistaken C&C to be too much like other games.
A fundamental rule/attitude of C&C is to do it the way you like best. Anyways, I hope to talk about this elsewhere.
__________________ It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. NEVER hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, IF it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters give in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Volumes, YOU are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a WHOLE first, your CAMPAIGN next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do.
Sam: "Including those two, the new total is nine hundred and one. Guess you owe me that steak dinner."
Max: "It seems these evil men will never begin to understand our peaceful nature."
Sam: "Hope they figure it out pretty quick. My trigger finger is blistering."
-- Sam & Max, Freelance Police
has gail gygax even played dnd before? does she have a clue what she is doing with the intellectual property?
Well, she's been on the business side of RPGs since the early- to mid-80s, so she does have a clue. I can't personally vouch for her playing D&D, but I'm gonna guess it might have happened at least once.
And is it about money? Of course it is! TLG put love into their products, but they are also a business. Gygax Games is a business, too.
There's a lot of ifs, but my guess would be that CZ goes either as systemless as possible (very hard for a product like that!), or might somehow work in a couple systems. Gygax Games didn't rule out future work with TLG either (in fact, Gail said those words almost exactly), so maybe licensing C&C is a good idea.
I'm a little worried because I don't recognize the staff of Gygax Games...who are their designers and writers? If it was Mentzer or somebody like that, well, then there's hope. If it's a bunch of no-names, then...well, they better be AMAZING.
Also, consider Gary's bible o' CZ...I can't imagine he wrote it in a manner that would allow it to be directly worked into the 4E mind set, so that would be a huge conversion. Not sure how that'd even work.
Also, what about the CZ stuff already released? Are they going to reboot from scratch? Because that will KNOWINGLY put a ton of people off, or reduce sales of Yggsburgh Reloaded or whatever junk like that they try to put out.
There's some seriously odd business decisions going on here, but Gail's been around the biz for some time, so one would think she's gotta have some kind of plan.
http://dungeon-crawl.blogspot.com
Tools & tips you can apply immediately to your D&D game! Encounters inspired by the movies, suggestions to speed up your game and reduce bookkeeping, and more!
I don't know if Gail games, but I do know she was a very gracious host to everyone who gamed with Gary. So she definitely knows something about gaming.
The Moderators of ENWorld played a D&D game session with Gary Gygax on His and Gail's WEDDING ANNIVERSARY.
"Gracious" doesn't begin to cover it.
As for the news, it wasn't unexpected, as I heard rumblings of it about a week and a half ago. I'd prefer the rest of the Castle stay in D&D-ish waters, and not Lejendary waters, because the systems are significantly different, but I do wish Gail and the writers of Gygax Games the best of fortunes with this.
I do know it's compelled me to seek out the Upper Works with some early Christmas money before it disappears...
__________________ "Conversely, I'm amazed at the number of people queueing up to tell people that don't like 4e that they are wrong. Why can't people just agree to disagree, and get on with actually playing the game?" --Delericho
If there's one dragon, it's a solo monster.
If there's five dragons, they're standard monsters.
If there's a dozen dragons, either most of them are minions or your DM is tired of the campaign.
--Lizard
Five years after the publication of C&C, the game created to facilitate the publication of Gary's Castle Greyhawk, and we have one dungeon level from TLG. Not what I would call a stellar track record.
I'd say it's about time someone else got a shot at doing this thing the right way. I'm anxious to see what GG has planned.
Five years after the publication of C&C, the game created to facilitate the publication of Gary's Castle Greyhawk, and we have one dungeon level from TLG. Not what I would call a stellar track record.
I don't know how much it was TLG's fault and how much it was Gary's. Let's face it: starting with Yggsburgh and then doing the Upper Works was not a good plan.
I don't know how much it was TLG's fault and how much it was Gary's. Let's face it: starting with Yggsburgh and then doing the Upper Works was not a good plan.
Cheers!
It's hard to know whether a tougher-minded publisher could have done better with EGG and prevented his going off on whatever tangents caught his fancy. Maybe he would have produced nothing; maybe we'd have had a Castle Zagyg complete boxed set in 2005. TLG are even more amateurish than most of the smaller games companies and have been very unreliable at getting product to market, but it did seem that with Talanian the project was moving forward well - and the released Zagyg products have certainly been high quality. A publisher like Mongoose would be more likely to take a "quick and dirty" approach - but IMO that's better than the entire project failing from over-ambition, as has now happened with TLG.
Overall, I'm certainly disappointed. TLG seemed to be maybe-sorta getting there. However from a business perspectie it's far from clear that Gail made a stupid decision. Look at how Upper Works isn't even in distribution, months after completion. Mongoose would never let that happen: product that falls apart on the shelf or has appalling editing errors, yes - product unavailable, no.
Mongoose would never let that happen: product that falls apart on the shelf or has appalling editing errors, yes - product unavailable, no.
In fairness, appalling editing errors haven't really been much of an issue with Mongoose products since the Starship Troopers line was cancelled. The books binding issues seem to have been eliminated since they gave up on trying to print their own books, as well.
Upper Works is great. Yggsburgh is poor. Dreadful editing, an economic system that just doesn't make sense, and a bunch of other flaws.
Really, I consider all of those things to be somewhat minor flaws when compared to the 'layout' — the thing looks like it was arranged entirely in MS Office, right down to the two columns with huge margins and the horrible text flow.
Five years after the publication of C&C, the game created to facilitate the publication of Gary's Castle Greyhawk, and we have one dungeon level from TLG. Not what I would call a stellar track record.
I'd say it's about time someone else got a shot at doing this thing the right way. I'm anxious to see what GG has planned.
I've got to confess, as down as I am about it no longer being guaranteed as a D20-compatible game, there is the fact that so little of it had seen print that, really, what am I missing?
I didn't buy any of the released packs because, while I wanted Castle Greyhawk to finally see a released form, I wasn't interested in the tertiary products they were starting with. I get the logic: work from the top and go down, which necessitates the info on faux-Greyhawk and the castle ruins..... but that wasn't the party we waited years for! Heck, if even the classic team didn't explore the ruins much, what makes you think I'll care for them?
I know Gary was old and sick (didn't shingles force him offline for a bit?) and prone to rambling, so I shouldn't be too surprised by this - nor that Troll Lord Games, with a bit of a spotty record on releasing the products people are super-psyched for, should leave me hanging. Still, I can't help but feel that Castle Zagyg has been a bit of a wash as far as "finally releasing Greyhawk" goes.
Here's a bit I posted over at the Necro forums re: CZ and GG. I'm really upset by this, mainly I guess, cos Gary din't want things this way and can't do a damn thing about it now
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffB elsewhere
I don't know Gail's motivations obviously, but as a consumer, TLG is pretty frustrating. Now, the PEOPLE behind TLG are awesome, every single one of them, but everything gets strung along for ages..whether it's the CKG or CZ, the layout is...to put it politely, not so great (Yggsburgh e.g.) there are tons of errors/editing issues, and while Peter's art is good (very good in many cases), the books are just physically bland (IMO, of course). I'm not sure why, but I've seen plenty of B&W books from other companies that are just beautiful, so I'm not sure why TLG has to continue to be that way. It's like I'm reading old copies of Gamelord's Thieves Guild modules- which was fine 27years ago. From the original D20 modules and Codex of Erde, up to the East Mark, things haven't changed drastically for the better with the products I've purchased. The consumer side of me has a hard time continually telling myself "well, cut them some MORE slack, they are a bunch of cool guys"- after awhile , great people or not, you want to support someone who gets things done in a timely, well executed fashion.
So I could see someone like Gail looking at the physical product, and delays, and other production related issues with TLG and saying "it's time to move on". Mongoose has very good production values (though they've had their issues too with editing and choosing some less than stellar binders), and they are a big company with lots of staff and resources, so they def can give us a great looking and well done physical product, and do it quicker/stick to deadlines.
However, and this is a BIG however- as I stated over @ EnWorld, Gary chose to work with The Trolls, Gary chose to work with the C&C ruleset, and Gary chose to work with Jeff T- and those things are FAR more important than worrying about poor layout or poor editing- to me, and I'm sure to the majority of fans who care about CZ.
Bad news all around
__________________ Founding Father of O.A.F! - Old school Admirers of Fourth edition
Proud Rouseketeers Member-Badge #2!
"I feel books like "A Princess of Mars", "The Swords of Lankhmar" and "The Black Company" are far more important to your gaming experience than whether you choose between OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, or D&D4E." - The Ravyn
I think people sometimes get too fixated about what's "official" to see what they could do with the whole- "David "Zeb" Cook
I don't like people attacking Gail, because I know her and I know Gary loved and trusted her. Gail was always the legal owner of Trigee, not Gary.
Part of the frustration I've had with the prior publishers--and this is not an attack on them or anything like that--is that completed works have been really slow to ever be published. Gary wrote so much for LA and a lot still hasn't been published--Elder Worlds and Lejendary Asterouges. There is a huge campaign-sourcebook-module called The Key of Sand / Maladicted Plateau that has been completed over a decade ago in 1997-1998! It still hasn't been published. This is not in outline format like CZ, it was feature complete for LA, etc. It extremely frustrates me as a fan to see these items get delayed.
I think Gary had a trait to trust a publisher--once he made a deal with somebody he trusted he was very hesitant to back out, even if the performance was less than stellar. I think it's time for Gail to consider the options of other publishers. For instance, I'd love to see all the Gord books reprinted by Paizo instead of TLG--Paizo has shown quality support when it comes to novels.
Gail is probably not doing everything 100% Gary would have done, but I think it's a necessary step. Gary was able to live comfortably not on royalties and deals but in part from Gail being the breadwinner of the family--let's face it, the RPG business is not that lucrative for anybody. Gail has a very hard job ahead of her, she enjoyed casual games but wasn't a game geek, and probably can't dedicate the same amount of attention Gary could, so she has to leave it in the hands of somebody she trusts.
As far as Castle Zagyg goes--I'm hopeful but realistically we will never get a very pure Gygax form of it. I have a feeling any attempt will be like the Giant Rat of Sumatra--a story A.C. Doyle referenced a lot but never wrote for Sherlock Holmes, which means the imagined version would be better than the real one. There is no "huge bible" from what I remember--it would probably fit in a 32 page module if published "as is". I think any hope for getting a pure Castle Zagyg died when Gary had to cut his workload a few years back due to health reasons. This is my personal opinion, and I never really contributed to CZ outside Yggsberg because of this. (And just to correct--Gary retained all his faculties, he just had to cut back to keep his health up). So I think the castle will never be 100% what we wanted, but that is the "Greyhawk Curse" in my opinion.
As a Gygax fan I want to see more of Gary's pure work, and I am very hopeful that LA, CZ, and other stuff will get the proper treatment. I wasn't as excited about the GFW series since a lot of it was co-written (except Living Fantasy, that was pure Gary). I want to finally see Key of Sand published. From what I see, people who Gary trusted like Greg Timm, Jon Creffield, and others have gotten involved, so I'm sure Gail and Spenser are doing a good job.
(And just to correct--Gary retained all his faculties, he just had to cut back to keep his health up).
I didn't mean to imply anything else otherwise up above. When I said he was prone to rambling, I meant the same rambling he'd done all throughout D&D's history, I.E. The first ed DMG. :-)
I hate to be negative, but my honest feeling is that if TLG had handled CZ properly it would have been on shelves years ago, and this wouldn't even be an issue.
__________________ "There are few problems a well-placed fireball cannot solve. Now, tell us more about this... orphanage?" - Balfour Grimstaff
----------
I don't know how much it was TLG's fault and how much it was Gary's. Let's face it: starting with Yggsburgh and then doing the Upper Works was not a good plan.
That one always puzzled me...
I actually like Yggsburgh. I mean, I agree about the atrocious editing and everything, but the town itself is well conceived. Still, why publish it before the actual dungeon?
__________________ You scored as Power Gamer: Power Gamer 100%, Tactician 92%, Storyteller 83%, Butt-Kicker 83%, Method Actor 50%, Specialist 42%, Casual Gamer 0%. And proud of it.
Thanks, Gary.
I loved Yggsburgh. It is classic Gygax. I have also enjoyed The Upper Works. We will see what Gygax Games does. Mongoose was a good move for them. I am waiting to see about Castle Zagyg, that is my main interest.
__________________ "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see
your good works and give glory to your Father
who is in heaven." - Matthew 5:16 - One of Gary Gygax's favorite bible verses.
Upper Works is great. Yggsburgh is poor. Dreadful editing, an economic system that just doesn't make sense, and a bunch of other flaws.
There are good things about Yggsburgh, but it doesn't excuse the copy & paste errors and the lack of care.
Cheers!
Oh? Ok, maybe I haven't looked at my copy closely enough. I heard the economics was totally screwed (due to the whole $/gp conversion plus EGG's use of 50sp=1gp) and was planning to ignore that and use default of C&C/LL/etc. The plentiful plot hooks looked good, and that's more the kind of thing I care about.
Even leaving aside the terrible editing and production I found Yggsburgh to be very lackluster and bland. There were a ton of plot hooks, sure, but most of them were both completely obvious and not very interesting; very mundane stuff that's not at all what I want to spend my limited rpg-playing time on. To me, Yggsburgh was a whole lot of unneeded detail about a completely uninspiring place (and the fact that they took something that I felt was already overkill of useless mundane info and decided to multiply it twenty-four-fold with the Yggsburgh Expansion Project strikes me as pure, unmitigated folly -- imagine if that level of effort (a team of a dozen+ freelancers working hard under Gary's supervision for a year or more) had gone instead into detailing the actual dungeons what we could've seen instead!).
__________________ "AD&D is designed to be an amusing and diverting pastime, something which can fill a few hours or consume endless days, as the participants desire, but in no case something to be taken too seriously." - Gary Gygax (DMG, 1979)
"There are people who regard the RPG as something more than an amusing game, more than a most entertaining hobby. They really do need to get a life" - Gary Gygax (EN World, 2004)
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
