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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 8699093" data-attributes="member: 6799660">Here's why I don't think this is so: People played in Greyhawk. People did not play in the Castle Greyhawk megadungeon. I mean, sure, Luke and Ernie Gygax, Rob K, Geezer/Gronan, probably also Tim K, Alon Lucion, Jeff Key and a bunch of other individuals played in it (and, last time I checked, were people, some of whom even show up here now and again). However, for the most part the gamer base never got to see that castle (as it was never published). Thus, people that are nostalgic for Greyhawk are nostalgic for the campaign setting (the one that, in total, is only somewhat linked to Gary's version, which itself is both larger and distinct from the megadungeon castle). For them, the name Castle Greyhawk is a draw, but it's not the setting which I think is what they really want. There are, as well, people with no attachment to the Greyhawk world, but like the idea that this was something from one of the original game creators. For them, there will be some initial interest from such a sales announcement simply from what the thing is (although if there was a huge market for this, there would have been more buzz around the Castle Zyggag project back when it was in development, and I don't remember that being the case). That said, what they will get is either 1) a megadungeon designed around game principles wildly divorced from what the game evolved into even in the first couple years of existing (again I posit that more evolution took place within oD&D than between it and everything that came after it), or 2) something someone at WotC derived from Gary's notes but put their own interpretation on to make it fit modern game ideas (even OSR ones), kinda defeating the 'from Gary' aspect.Mystara always was an interesting beast -- a default setting for the basic-classic line once Gary wanted Greyhawk for AD&D, yet one learned precious little about it unless you partook in some of the highly optional accessories like Gazetteers, Dragon articles, or at the very least adventure modules. It would be interesting to see exactly how much impact it had and how much people bought new material to learn more about the implied world. Probably impossible to suss out, but an interesting idea.Each of the TSR editions certainly suggested taht this was the post-name-level gameplay you were supposed to follow (if nothing else, few if any salient benefits to levelling for non-casters past a certain point suggested that you should find other things about which to get excited). However, excepting BECMI's domain management rules (which were probably too little, too late for most people and honestly are fine but not enough to sustain my interest in the game when actual domain-running games like Civilization exist in computer form and are purpose-built for the role), there never really was any support other than those followers and some prices for building castles. I understand the initial issue was that EGG assumed that everyone would just transition to Braunstein or Diplomacy or whatever system they had on their shelves (being avid wargamers and probably having a dozen), but it's odd that once it was clear that the average person to pick up A/D&D wouldn't be avid wargamers, why TSR didn't make their own or add such rules between ~'75 and '84.</blockquote>

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