Castle Zagyg coming in 5-8 parts

[Derulbaskul]

Dear Gary,

You are a bona-fide legend but if you make me wait the best part of decade like you like you did with T1 (Village of Hommlet) and T1-4 (Temple of Elemental Evil) I will never forgive you (*)!

Cheers
D

*: Yes, I am conscious of the fact that you don't know me so this isn't really much of a threat!

 

[RFisher]

I received part one last week. It weighs in a 322 pages. It covers the environs of castle zagyg and is chock full of adventures and such. The castle itself starts in part II.

I thought part II was Rob's Dark Chateau.

Your telling me Gygax let some one else do the work for something he put his name on?

Not entirely unprecedented.

 

[Davelozzi]

Not entirely unprecedented.

Not to mention Troll Lord's Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds series. I'm not sure about all of them, but on the Gary Gygax's Extraordinary Book of Names he was overall line editor (or something), and wrote a one page intro while Malcolm Bowers wrote/compiled the whole body of the work.

I'm not sure, but believe that The Canting Crew was written by Gary with d20 stats by someone else. I can't speak for the other books, but my understanding is that the series is essentially just something that carries his name as a stamp of approval.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Unfortunatly it still seems to be lumbered with Silly Name Syndrome (SNS) which afflicted so much of Greyhawk - compared to any fantasy novels I was reading at the time the various names in Greyhawk seemed so silly to me that I couldn't bring myself to take any interest in the setting.

It is a shame really, as my exposure to the world of Greyhawk in various Storyhours on ENworld shows it to be an interesting place and positively pregnant with adventures. If only it wasn't for SNS...

 

[T. Foster]

Not to mention Troll Lord's Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds series. I'm not sure about all of them, but on the Gary Gygax's Extraordinary Book of Names he was overall line editor (or something), and wrote a one page intro while Malcolm Bowers wrote/compiled the whole body of the work.

I'm not sure, but believe that The Canting Crew was written by Gary with d20 stats by someone else. I can't speak for the other books, but my understanding is that the series is essentially just something that carries his name as a stamp of approval.

Yup, EGG wrote everything but the d20 stats for 2 of the GFW books (Canting Crew and Living Fantasy), co-wrote 1 of them (World Builder), and has just given his stamp of approval to the other two (Extraordinary Book of Names and forthcoming Insidiae). There are also several more titles planned in the series all of which AFAIK are being written by other people.

This was also the case with the "Gary Gygax's Fantasy Master" series of generic (i.e. AD&D-compatible) adventures/sourcebooks from NIPI in the late 80s -- Gary gave his stamp of approval and usually a little bit of introduction but all of the books (that saw print) were written by other people.

EDIT: Not that I'm implying EGG takes credit for other people's work, just confirming that in addition to his own prolific writing, EGG also has an established history of placing his "personal stamp of approval" on others' work; the actual authors have always received full credit.

 

[T. Foster]

Unfortunatly it still seems to be lumbered with Silly Name Syndrome (SNS) which afflicted so much of Greyhawk - compared to any fantasy novels I was reading at the time the various names in Greyhawk seemed so silly to me that I couldn't bring myself to take any interest in the setting.

It is a shame really, as my exposure to the world of Greyhawk in various Storyhours on ENworld shows it to be an interesting place and positively pregnant with adventures. If only it wasn't for SNS...

You could always change the names for your own use. Since all the names in the published Castle Zagyg are going to be changed anyway (since all the actual Greyhawk names are owned by WOTC) a lot of us are going to be changing them, only in your case instead of changing them back to Greyhawk names you'd be changing them to something else entirely. If you think the ideas are good it seems, well, silly, to let a few silly names put you off...

 

[Razuur]

Is there any concern that this product may have difficulties since it is not D20?

Sounds like a big project, and people haven't even seen Castle & Crusades. Troll Lords must have a lot of confidence in this line.

Razuur

 

[johnsemlak]

Is there any concern that this product may have difficulties since it is not D20?

Sounds like a big project, and people haven't even seen Castle & Crusades. Troll Lords must have a lot of confidence in this line.

Razuur

It definitely seems like a bit of a risk, which I have to give Troll Lord Games credit for taking. Of course, a mega-module by Gygax should have a certain amount of selling power, but not being d20 could hurt.

I'll be picking it up myself for sure.

 

[grodog]

Since when is C&C not a d20 game? Is it just OGL? I thought the whole point of creating a d20 rules light system was to appeal to the d20 market???

 

[johnsemlak]

Since when is C&C not a d20 game? Is it just OGL? I thought the whole point of creating a d20 rules light system was to appeal to the d20 market???

Here's an informative post by one of the TLG folks on that subject. For more info, check the Castles and Crusades thread on this board, and the TLG forums and Dragonsfoot forum.

Well, as lead designer (that's me - davis) I had several goals. One of which was to pore over the rules from all editions and all permutations and pull out the core unifying elements and designs, strip them bare and start from ground zero. Hence, there is a unifying theme.

We have added a little here and there and created a few very unique manners of dealing with issues that have proven problematic in all editions. Again though, these will not unfamiliar though they are unique. They are also mutable without drastically effecting play. (more on that later).

The design team is made up of members of the Castle and Crusade Society. There are many 3e fans, 2e fans and of course 1efans. There are even a few OADD fans, a Godlike fan and a Rolemaster fan. We have gatherd under one banner to create a game we all, hopefully, like. And we have done it without devolving into 'edition wars.' And I want to tip my hat to them for alll the innovative thought and for helping bring this game to fruition.

I should say we do have a pugalistics section which is funny to read as everyone needs to let off steam every once in a while. check it out --- http://pub83.ezboard.com/ftrolllord...opicID=22.topic really, some of it is funny.

Davis Chenault