Living Campaigns

[wanderer9]

Apolgies if this subject has been raised elsewhere but I can't seem to find anything on this topic, which I am surprised about.

I wondered what peoples opions are around the closer of all the RPGA support Living Campaigns (Greyhawk etc.) and the annoucement of Living Forgotten Realms.

Do people think this is a good / bad thing? Is it a move in the right direction? Should WotC / RPGA have brought in a conversion process and contined to support Greyhawk or is the time right to drop everying and start again?

From my own conversations many players that I have spoken to about living games are not happy about this situation, but I wanted to see what a wider audience think of this topic?

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

As someone who was trying to research Greyhawk information and material the same day 4e was announced, I think it should receive support. I missed it the first time and it seems cool. Plus, you know, it's a familiar bone to toss to the grognards. Also the RPGA thing.

 

[beldar1215]

I'm not sad to see Greyhawk go. I look forward to the new Living FR. I went through the Living City conversion from 2nd edition to 3rd. It was horrible. I hope they get LFR right!

Beldar

 

[Alt Boy!]

They changed worlds precisely to avoid having to convert PCs.

 

[psionotic]

Yes, the Living City conversion was a nightmare. That quagmire probably had as much to do with the death of the campaign as the ascendance of LG. It seems that, thankfully, the lesson's been learned.

While I enjoy Living Greyhawk, I'm not sad to see it go. 8-10 years seems about right for a shared world campaign; better to wrap it up before the inevitable burnout and/or rampant proliferation of broken rules and exploitive players with unkillable PCs.

 

[gothmaugCC]

Current RPGA games
I'm sad to see Greyhawk go.

Living Green Regent (forgotten realms) and Living Ebberon are pretty terrible systems (IE thier record keeping/advancement/treasure system, not the actual worlds), and thier low popularity reflects that.


That leaves the ex RPGA games (*WOTC cleaned house in 2007, and all non-WoTC comapnies were asked to leave the RPGA):

I'm still waiting to see what Paradigm Concepts does with Living Arcanis. I assume they will be carrying into the future, but whether as 3.5, 4.0 or converting to thier new system from Witchhunter remains to be seen.

Living Witchhunter (ala paradigm concepts) has its own mechanics so it doesnt have to worry about conversion.

Living blackmoor...I have no idea which way they are going.

In the end, Living Greyhawk and Living Arcanis are the 2 biggest boys on the block right now. With Greyhawk being cancelled, I see Arcanis as having a major advantage to step in and fill the gap. Though I'd bet my bottom dollar that the 4.0 SRD is going to have caveats, or not be generally available to 3rd party publishers, so WoTC can try to monopolize the RPGA community once again.

Certain large firms will be contracted (probably Paizo, Mongoose, Necromancer [aka White wolf], Margaret Weis Productions, and perhaps green ronin), the rest will have to wait , perhaps up toa year, before they can access the new edition. It makes perfect sence for WotC to do this froma busines standpoint. They definalely want to avoid the huge proliferation of non WOTC product that hit when the 3.0 SRD was released.

I hope im Wrong.

Gothmaug

 

[kenobi65]

If you really want to see the reactions to the news, go read the LG board over on the WotC boards, or the Living Greyhawk Yahoo group.

Summary: a fair number of people are really hacked off, a lot of wondering about why RPGA wouldn't convert LG, and there's a small number that are vowing to never play an RPGA game again. But, after about 2 weeks of spleen-venting, the initial reactions are generally done with now.

Generally speaking, all of the non-RPGA Living-style campaigns are seeing the end of LG as an opportunity to get new players to try their campaigns.

I'm still waiting to see what Paradigm Concepts does with Living Arcanis. I assume they will be carrying into the future, but whether as 3.5, 4.0 or converting to thier new system from Witchhunter remains to be seen.

Word is that:
a) There will likely be *no* conversion until after Living Arcanis finishes its current story arc (which is at least another year, maybe another two years).
b) It sounds like PCI's initial thought was that the new story arc would also feature new PCs, but I'm not at all sure that that's set in stone.
c) It also sounds like Origins 2008 (which is Living Arcanis's biggest convention) is where / when one can expect to hear more firm plans.

In any case, it sounds like there's no plan to end Living Arcanis, though the game system may change after the current story arc.

Living Witchhunter (ala paradigm concepts) has its own mechanics so it doesnt have to worry about conversion.

Technically called "Dark Providence", and, as you note, it's not d20-based, anyway.

Living blackmoor...I have no idea which way they are going.

Technically not called "Living Blackmoor"...but, I don't follow the campaign, so I've got nothing to add there.

Some other "living-style campaigns":

Legends of the Shining Jewel: This was originally a spin-off from Living City (it was the "Procampur Expansion") before going independent when Ryan Dancy bought Living City; LSJ retooled to take the WotC IP (the Realms) out of the campaign in 2004. (Disclosure: I'm on the LSJ staff.)

At this point, LSJ has no announced plans one way or the other, regarding conversion. A lot will depend on what we learn about how open 4E will be to us to use.

Fellowship of the White Star: This is an independent campaign, sort of a spin-off of the gothic-horror Living Death campaign (some of the LD writers are involved in it); it just premiered at Origins. Also no announced plans at this point.

 

[gothmaugCC]

Thanks for the information.


Legends of the white star huh? Intreseting 2 living death type spinnoffs, BOTH premiring at Origins this year. As far as I know Witchhunter: Dark Providence is a dark pulp/gothig horror campaign as well. And it too has a few old Living Death authors on board.

I find it really gutsy on LotWS to premir at origins, since thats the flagship convention for Arcanis these days. One con, 2 competing simmilar living campaings starting...Sounds like a battle royale. Ill have to keep my eyes on it.

 

[kenobi65]

Legends of the white star huh? Intreseting 2 living death type spinnoffs, BOTH premiring at Origins this year. As far as I know Witchhunter: Dark Providence is a dark pulp/gothig horror campaign as well. And it too has a few old Living Death authors on board.

Yes, Dark Providence is also a horror-themed campaign. One difference is in time period: Witch Hunter (and the Dark Providence campaign) is set in 1689. Fellowship of the White Star is set in 1905, and is, IMO, more of a direct descendent of Living Death.

I played the introductory adventure for White Star at Origins, and enjoyed it quite a bit. FotWS uses the standard 3.5 SRD rules as a base, with some additions and modifications to the ruleset to account for firearms and the time period.

I haven't played WH: DP yet, but I have some friends who did (also at Origins), and they really enjoyed it, as well. So, it certainly seems that both are promising.

 

[kenobi65]

Apolgies if this subject has been raised elsewhere but I can't seem to find anything on this topic, which I am surprised about.

Oh, and in answer to this: there's just not a lot of serious RPGAers on EN World. Whenever the topic of the RPGA comes up, you get a few folks (like myself) who play and enjoy RPGA (and other living-style) campaigns, and a few folks who say "tried that once, hated it, never going back". I don't think I've ever seen more than a dozen ENWorlders chime in as current RPGA players on any related thread here.

IME, conversations about Living Greyhawk and other such campaigns are much more plentiful / diverse on the Yahoo groups dedicated to those campaigns, and (secondarily) on the RPGA sub-boards within the WotC boards.