Badkarmaboy
First Post
Nice!
I'm the Duchy of Urnst module guy.
Good to meet you (sorta).
I'm the Duchy of Urnst module guy.
Good to meet you (sorta).
Living Campaigns
- Thread starter wanderer9
- Start date
Anthraxus
Explorer
I knew next to nothing about Greyhawk when I started LG back in 2002. I came to know and love it, and made several new friends at the cons I traveled to throughout my 5 years of playing(and judging). I worked my way up to co-writing 2 Shield Lands regional interactives. I'll be sad to see it go.
That said, I'm looking forward to Living Forgotten Realms, and I'm sure it will bring in many new players.
That said, I'm looking forward to Living Forgotten Realms, and I'm sure it will bring in many new players.
Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
It won't happen for a number of reasons. The biggest one being that the contract that all authors signed when they wrote mods for LG(in Year 3 through Year 8) said that they were giving WOTC rights to use the adventures for purposes of Living Greyhawk for a 2 year long period and then, afterwards, the rights to the adventure returned to the authors to do with as they would. It also said that WOTC granted the author the rights to use IP of WOTC while the adventure was in use in LG.IanB said:
So, what this means is that almost all the adventures produced belong to the authors who wrote them, not WOTC. WOTC is not allowed to publish them or do anything with them after the end of the campaign. The authors themselves can republish them, however, they are not allowed to use any names of cities, places, or people who live in Greyhawk. Plus there are probably a couple of hundred authors, each of which would need to be contacted individually to ask them to use the rights to their mods.
The year 1 and 2 mods(from what I've been told) were sold to WOTC and WOTC owns the full rights to them. However, it would be mostly pointless to release them now as they are all written in 3.0 rules.
Paradigm
First Post
gothmaugCC said:
Living Arcanis will continue its current rules format until the end of the current storyline, which will occur at its own convention (Arcanis Con) and we will have the date information as soon as we put together a venue.
Witch Hunter Dark Providence is not D20, but very kick ass! (in my biased opinion at least) www.darkprovidence.net
Agamon
Adventurer
Why would WotC support a setting they no longer really support? Why not grow a setting that they sell books for?
I've played in GH more often than not, but I wasn't too big on the GH of LG. Or maybe I just didn't like LG. It was fun in the beginning when it was core rules only, but new rule glut plus the oneupmanship between players that minmaxed their PCs to be gamebreakers and mod writers who tried to build a better mousetrap soured me.
The guys in my local RPGA chapter are good guys though, I may rejoin to give LFR a shot (if only to try 4E when it comes out, my other 2 groups won't be playing for a while).
I've played in GH more often than not, but I wasn't too big on the GH of LG. Or maybe I just didn't like LG. It was fun in the beginning when it was core rules only, but new rule glut plus the oneupmanship between players that minmaxed their PCs to be gamebreakers and mod writers who tried to build a better mousetrap soured me.
The guys in my local RPGA chapter are good guys though, I may rejoin to give LFR a shot (if only to try 4E when it comes out, my other 2 groups won't be playing for a while).
Reading through all the different posts some questions come to mind. I don't think there are any definative answers, at this time, for these questions but I would like to read your thoughts on how they may be approached.
Forgotten Realms has a huge amount of background material and as such will require a large amount of updating to bring it into line with 4e. However there are many "organisations" and npc "characters" that were created based on things like prestige classes. For example the Shadowmasters of Telflamm (The Unapproachable East) had its own prestige class. What will be used to update this organisation (if anything)?
Or will WotC forget a lot (or all) of the background material that uses things like prestige classes and start from scratch? All the source books for the FR contined lots of information that can not just be ignored, but they also contained things that sound as if they will be obsolete or superseeded. What is going to be done to clarify what is still canon and what is not?
Majoru Oakheart said that "The department that works on the novels at WOTC and the RPGA came to an agreement to integrate the novels into the campaign and vice versa."
This to me is the "campaing consequences" section. But if modules are going to be run on DDI the shear scale of consequences would be very difficult to reflect things such as novels. Or will the campaign consequences only be derived from the conventions they are originally played at? If that is the case I can imagine many conventions wanting their own "premier" scenarios so they and advertise to the players that the can "directly impact the future of the Realms".
What lessons have the RPGA learned from the Living campaigns that they have previously run? Everyone has their own ideas about what was good and bad from previous campaigns. Living City US (Ravens Bluff) died a painful death where as Living City UK (Sarbreenar) continued and eventually died because it became to successful. How are the RPGA going to approach LFR so that it is a success in every country?
Personally I think the RPGA will need to get the basics correct at the begining, or it is going to be a long hard slog to make LFR as successful or more so than LGH.
Tony
Forgotten Realms has a huge amount of background material and as such will require a large amount of updating to bring it into line with 4e. However there are many "organisations" and npc "characters" that were created based on things like prestige classes. For example the Shadowmasters of Telflamm (The Unapproachable East) had its own prestige class. What will be used to update this organisation (if anything)?
Or will WotC forget a lot (or all) of the background material that uses things like prestige classes and start from scratch? All the source books for the FR contined lots of information that can not just be ignored, but they also contained things that sound as if they will be obsolete or superseeded. What is going to be done to clarify what is still canon and what is not?
Majoru Oakheart said that "The department that works on the novels at WOTC and the RPGA came to an agreement to integrate the novels into the campaign and vice versa."
This to me is the "campaing consequences" section. But if modules are going to be run on DDI the shear scale of consequences would be very difficult to reflect things such as novels. Or will the campaign consequences only be derived from the conventions they are originally played at? If that is the case I can imagine many conventions wanting their own "premier" scenarios so they and advertise to the players that the can "directly impact the future of the Realms".
What lessons have the RPGA learned from the Living campaigns that they have previously run? Everyone has their own ideas about what was good and bad from previous campaigns. Living City US (Ravens Bluff) died a painful death where as Living City UK (Sarbreenar) continued and eventually died because it became to successful. How are the RPGA going to approach LFR so that it is a success in every country?
Personally I think the RPGA will need to get the basics correct at the begining, or it is going to be a long hard slog to make LFR as successful or more so than LGH.
Tony
smerwin29
Reluctant Time Traveler
Ok, although I was an administrator in the LG campaign, and I am currently a Factionmaster in the Xen'drik Expeditions campaign, here is my speculation, based on no inside knowledge whatsoever. I think some players see the voluminous canon of FR as a burden, and others see it as benefit. The 4e version of FR, I suspect, is going to "reset" a lot of information. I don't think that which has passed before is going to be ignored, but the concept of the Spellplague could essentially wipe out all but a few of the most powerful NPCs. All of the leaders of every nation could be dead, giving new opportunities for writers and players to flesh out the Realms without the worry of "canon-fanatics" raining on the parade. That is not to say that the history cannot be used and shouldn't be important, because there are too many good storylines and plotlines available.
Let me talk about campaign consequences and integration with novels. While I will admit the online character tracker and reporting does not work 100% correctly all the time, it works well enough to use. And one of the major benefits of online tracking, which people usually gloss over in their haste to criticize a system they have never used, is that online tracking makes it very easy to track results of adventures and figure campaign consequences. One of the reasons why it is hard in LG to have players affect the plotlines is there is no easy means of reporting, so it ends up being informal calls to send results to an email address, or collecting haphazard data from a single convention, or a small group of conventions. Online tracking makes it possible for every single table to contribute to the collective direction of a story. And if the table has to be reported for the characters to get credit (xp and gp), you know you are getting the results of almost every table.
What has the RPGA learned from previous and existing campaigns? A great deal. However, as you say, players all want different things, so the lessons learned are still only as useful as the campaign staff is at predicting the often-changing whims of the players. Sometimes changes that the players have railed against have turned out much better for the campaign as a whole. Sometimes changes players have applauded have hurt campaigns. But I do know this for sure. The RPGA Content Manager Chris Tulach rose from the rank of player to LG Triad member to LG Circle member before his hiring by WotC. If anyone knows about Living campaigns inside and out, top to bottom, it is him. I can't think of anyone better to build a Living campaign from the ground up.
Shawn
Let me talk about campaign consequences and integration with novels. While I will admit the online character tracker and reporting does not work 100% correctly all the time, it works well enough to use. And one of the major benefits of online tracking, which people usually gloss over in their haste to criticize a system they have never used, is that online tracking makes it very easy to track results of adventures and figure campaign consequences. One of the reasons why it is hard in LG to have players affect the plotlines is there is no easy means of reporting, so it ends up being informal calls to send results to an email address, or collecting haphazard data from a single convention, or a small group of conventions. Online tracking makes it possible for every single table to contribute to the collective direction of a story. And if the table has to be reported for the characters to get credit (xp and gp), you know you are getting the results of almost every table.
What has the RPGA learned from previous and existing campaigns? A great deal. However, as you say, players all want different things, so the lessons learned are still only as useful as the campaign staff is at predicting the often-changing whims of the players. Sometimes changes that the players have railed against have turned out much better for the campaign as a whole. Sometimes changes players have applauded have hurt campaigns. But I do know this for sure. The RPGA Content Manager Chris Tulach rose from the rank of player to LG Triad member to LG Circle member before his hiring by WotC. If anyone knows about Living campaigns inside and out, top to bottom, it is him. I can't think of anyone better to build a Living campaign from the ground up.
Shawn
Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
We were told the Realms was in for a kind of shake up at GenCon, so there might be LESS background that is important to the campaign.wanderer9 said:
As for the integration. It was explained to us as "Imagine you could take the path less traveled in that novel you just read, finishing the part of the story that the heroes in the novel didn't. Imagine if a novel was written where Drizz't ended up helping your mission from a different angle. That's the kind of thing we're going for."
