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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nisarg" data-source="post: 1749082" data-attributes="member: 19893">I understand Blackmoor is Dave Arneson's baby, and that maybe this is his attempt to "set the record straight"; to present BM as he wanted it, which he never had the chance to do at first.However, I don't think the market is really there for vanity settings anymore. It really doesn't matter if its R. Bumquist Unknowngamer's "fantasy realm" or Dave Arneson's "Blackmoor".. yea, hooray for you for having your own world, dude, but it better be different and interesting in some way or I'm not going to buy it.You have to ask, given the current presentation of BM, what does it have that you can't do with Eberron or FR or Greyhawk or etc. etc. etc.What they could have had, that would have been unique, is to present a fantasy world with a strong sci-fi element, a setting that wasn't "dragonstar" or something like that, because all the sci-fi was alien tech thatthe current medieval society couldn't possibly reproduce, so instead the tech is basically relic items, that only great heros can get access to; but more importantly the tech has changed the cultures of the setting.. the aliens who crashed their starship in the swamp are now "the fallen gods beyond the sky", and the designers could have really played up that "cargo cult" kind of impact on Blackmoor's society, religion, politics, economy, etc. etc.Instead, we have a setting that is very hard to differentiate in any real way from any of the other generic fantasy D&D settings, along with a vague promise that if you're willing to wait six to twelve months, if the company doesn't go under, and if you can afford to spend another $50 for another book, they'll give you stats for a laser rifle that you could have just ripped off of Star Wars.Do I sound bitter?  :\ Maybe its because I couldn't really give a damn about a setting like Eberron.. I was disappointed that Eberron wasn't really what it had promised, but beyond that I had little invested in it. On the other hand Blackmoor was one of my favourite settings from my youth in the old D&D days.. I was waiting with baited breath to find out how they had updated BM into a sophisticated D20 setting that incorporated all of the classic elements I remembered and loved.. only to discover that instead BM has been whitewashed into a vanilla fantasy world... after years of Arneson bitching about BM having been shoved into being a backwater region of Greyhawk or an ancient ruin in Mystara, we finally get to see Blackmoor as an individual, and all we end up with is a setting indistinguishable from Greyhawk or Mystara.This is monumental level disappointment here. We're talking a betrayal that can only be surpassed by the way Bruce Baugh butchered Gamma World.So if I am sounding upset, its only because this is one of the settings that I truely cared about.Nisarg</blockquote>

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