Hello!
Hmm...tough, tough, call, choosing between my two favorite worlds, Birthright and Mystara. I chose Mystara, since it looks like it needs more support, but my true favorite among them depends on what mood I'm in when I'm asked...
Posted by The Sigil:
Mystara is a poor cousin to the beautiful world detailed in the Boxed Sets and Gazetteer series.
Posted by Bronze Dragon:
Can you further explain this?
Inspirational response, Sigil. It does my heart good to see others passionate about one of my favorite game worlds
.
As The Sigil rightly pointed out, Mystara was an immense world that, as the only official BD&D campaign world, got a huge amount of development and attention, much of which was wonderfully inspired and executed. The vast majority of this was done for the BD&D rules - 14 Gazetteers, 4 Gazetteer-sized Creature Crucibles, 2 major boxed sets (
Dawn of the Emperors and
Wrath of the Immortals), and a regular Dragon Magazine column ("The Voyages of the Princess Ark", which eventually became "The Known World Grimoire") that was partly collected into yet another boxed set,
Champions of Mystara. This is leaving out the exclusively Hollow World and Red Steel stuff, that got a fair bit of seperate development of their own. The 2e Mystara, in contrast, had only 6 product releases that I am aware of: The Karameikos and Glantri boxed sets, two Almanacs (PWA3 and Joshuan's), the Mystara addendum to the Monstrous Compendium, and the boxed module
Mark of Amber (again, leaving out the 2e Red Steel stuff). I have problems of my own with the 2e Mystara stuff, but to be honest, Sigil, I feel some of your criticisms are a bit misdirected.
Posted by The Sigil:
Well, first and foremost, we have "historical creep" - one of the things I absolutely loathed about the FR was that they had to keep updating the world to keep up with the novels. Give me a world with a history, and let ME do the future, not you.
Annoying though this may be to some, it can't really be blamed on 2e Mystara. It got its start in the BD&D modules the Gazetteers had to conform to (especially X10,
Red Arrow, Black Shield), and was institutionalized in the
Poor Wizards' Almanacs, which began while Mystara was still being developed under BD&D rules.
Posted by The Sigil:
Follow that up with "massive change" - well, we have to "shake things up" to explain all the rules mechanic changes associated with the transition to a new edition.
Most of the changes you mention occurred in
Wrath of the Immortals, which, again, used the BD&D rules rather than 2e.
None of the changes in that set had to do with rules transitions, they all proceeded from events in the Gazetteers and certain Companion- and Masters-level modules. The begrudging tolerance of Clerics in Glantri didn't appear to come about for any rules reasons, but simply because of the difficulty of playing anywhere without clerical healing available. And the loopy bit about humanoid leaders being deformed shadow elves (idiotic, I agree) was introduced in GAZ13, the shadow elf gazetteer - again, a product using BD&D rules (and as you note, a fascinating product aside from that one unfortunate bit of stupidity). Alfheim was indeed a tragic loss, but again had nothing to do with rules changes, and at the time Wrath was being drawn up, a Wendar gazetteer was in the works (Sadly, it never made it into print - which is itself one of my little gripes about the abanonment of BD&D and the transition to 2e).
Posted by The Sigil:
Focus on Karameikos AFTER it kicks out its classic villains (Bargle the Infamous and the Black Eagle Baron von Hendricks).
I don't know that I'd say they "focused" on Karameikos per se; they seem to have simply started 2e Mystara with it because they really started BD&D Mystara with the Karameikos Gazetteer, and because it was always intended as a place for low-level adventurers to start out. As for Bargle and Ludwig, I don't really mind them being mysterious roving terrors, rather than being tied down to the geographic base of Ludwig's barony.
Posted by The Sigil:
Give me cultures that lived and breathed, not reams of stats (the almanacs are nice for creating realistic economies, I'll grant you that, though).
I don't think it was ever envisioned, under BD&D or 2e, that the Almanacs would be sufficient to run a campaign in and of themselves. They were always periodical supplements, historical updates, and broad introductory summaries, rather than in-depth primary sources - much like real almanacs.
Posted by The Sigil:
Don't give me "Realms lite" where drow - er - shadow elves are the dominant force.
They were VERY powerful even in their initial Gazetteer - they had huge subterranean territories and Rafiel's secret magics could match up with anything in the Known World. But while they are a power in post-Wrath Mystara, I wouldn't call them anywhere near "dominant". The Heldannic Knights, Minrothad, and to some extent Thothia and even Ostland are rising powers that are daring to challenge Thyatis in the power vacuum left after the wreck of Alphatia. Exploitation of the newly-discovered Hollow World is a major long-term goal for the far-sighted top-tier powers, and the Aengmor shadow elves are not even in that ball game. The shadow elves are reluctant even to openly challenge Darokin, even while Darokin is itself preoccupied with the aftermath of its own recent war against the Master of the Desert Nomads.
Posted by The Sigil:
Changes in the rules should be *completely transparent* to the denizens of a campaign world. Sadly, they have not been. THAT is why I can't stand "Mystara" - or the Realms, for that matter. They violate this simple idea - and they didn't have to.
As I've said above, I haven't seen any evidence that the major changes to Mystara in
Wrath of the Immortals and other products had the slightest thing to do with the transition to 2e rules - most of them took place while BD&D was still a going concern and plans for future Gazetteers (and BD&D Hollow World stuff, etc.) were still in the works. But I'm also not buying the concept that changes in the rules should NEVER be reflected in changes in the campaign world. Changes in real-world "rules" can affect society radically, and much of science fiction is fun speculation about how societies might change when we are able to change current "rules" about things like FTL travel. DMs and authors can do things the "we have never been at war with Eastasia" way, and apply changes retroactively ("the Simbul has always been a sorceress"), or they can do it the "Time of Troubles" way, and put them in current continuity. Either way can be done well, and either way can be done badly.
For the record, my own major gripes with 2e Mystara include:
- an actual rules-transistion issue - the truncation of Mystara's epic-level characters (mostly in Glantri, but also Terari in Karameikos and other high-level characters in the 2e Almanacs) to fit 2e's Procrustean level-20 limit,
- the horribly gimmicky and puerile CD adventures in the boxed sets, and the way they served as an excuse to jack their prices up to ridiculous levels, and
- scanty data on the elves in the Karameikos set. Post-Wrath, three of Alfheim's seven clans migrated to Karameikos and settled there with King Stefan's approval; none of them were mentioned by name in the boxed set, none of their NPC leaders from GAZ5 were re-statted and presented for 2e, and even the locations of their domains in Karameikos were specified only vaguely. Not what I'd hope for in the elven refuge closest to the old homeland.
I'm also not thrilled with most of the stuff the folks at the official Mystara site have been doing with the setting, the NACE and all that. Nothing really specific about their stuff bugs me, but it just seems somewhat uninspired compared to the original materials (well, mostly - there are some sterling articles there). Ah well, maybe if we're lucky Bruce Heard or Ann Dupuis or one of the other old Mystara hands will be struck with a burst of enthusiasm, and arrange for a proper 3e Mystara, with the same level of caring and detail lavished on the 3e Realms hardcover. Incredibly unlikely, I know, but one can always dream...
