D&D General Luke Gygax and Troll Lord Games news Wednesday Aug 23rd 2023

[timbannock]

Honestly, I'd rather all those people did their own takes on a Castle Greyhawk-style complex. I think we'd lose a lot of what makes those folks' special if they were forced to sing cover songs.

Agreed. Save all those folks for some big "inspired-by" dungeon or something. Something Jayquaysed to heck, and packaged in an awesome box set with tons of poster maps. Probably with a Beadle & Grimm special edition or something ;-)

For the Castle Greyhawk/Zagyg fans, what many really want is probably the same thing Rob Kuntz did with El Raja Key: just a massive dump of the home notes, history, and commentary. These were living campaigns over a very long period of time; many want to see that as it was actually used/played. Commentary from the designer might be tough, but interviews with the players would certainly provide some wonderful stuff.

IMHO, any other version is just that: yet another version of Not-Gary's-Castle-Greyhawk. Those things are cool and all, but as I'm finding out more and more, they are simply somebody else's fun-house dungeon with all sorts of randomness and little cohesion to it. The tools to build that already exist and are just fine: the 0E and 1E encounter tables, the AD&D DMG random dungeon generator, and the old geomorphs. I don't particularly find Castle of the Mad Archmage, Greyhawk Ruins, or anything of that ilk to be compellingly better. Their main benefit is that they are simply done (published, complete, already packaged). But they aren't Gary's dungeon.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know Harn, but the Empire setting in Warhammer Fantasy is something that I can compare to Yggsburgh. While there's a traditional Euro-Centric/Late Medieval feel, there are some differences: the rise of Chaos (creeping into the power structure of the Empire), the hidden Skaven menace under their feet, ancient ruins of the forgotten Fimir in the swamps, wars with the Orcs and Goblins, vampiric warlords - and that's all in addition to bandits, pirates, wolves and other rampant beasts.
Yggsburgh is just sort of ... not exciting when compared to Warhammer's Old World. Or RuneQuest. Or Forbidden Lands. Or even Greyhawk.

Yggsburgh is supposed to be a background against which crazy things can be contrasted. I suspect it'll find a decent audience.

 

[darjr]

They are live now and are answering questions https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OyKAVLAwPLGb

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The OSR community has changed a lot since then, definitely. And if I recall correctly, mechanically a lot of the TLG stuff was translated by others from the Lejendary Adventures rules by others anyway.

I think it's probably a mistake to think of it as a single community. There are definitely people who like acid fantasy, but I think there's also a large mostly separate group of people who just want to play like it's 1979 again. Yggsburgh is a product for the latter group.

 

[Nikosandros]

Agreed. Save all those folks for some big "inspired-by" dungeon or something. Something Jayquaysed to heck, and packaged in an awesome box set with tons of poster maps. Probably with a Beadle & Grimm special edition or something ;-)

For the Castle Greyhawk/Zagyg fans, what many really want is probably the same thing Rob Kuntz did with El Raja Key: just a massive dump of the home notes, history, and commentary. These were living campaigns over a very long period of time; many want to see that as it was actually used/played. Commentary from the designer might be tough, but interviews with the players would certainly provide some wonderful stuff.

IMHO, any other version is just that: yet another version of Not-Gary's-Castle-Greyhawk. Those things are cool and all, but as I'm finding out more and more, they are simply somebody else's fun-house dungeon with all sorts of randomness and little cohesion to it. The tools to build that already exist and are just fine: the 0E and 1E encounter tables, the AD&D DMG random dungeon generator, and the old geomorphs. I don't particularly find Castle of the Mad Archmage, Greyhawk Ruins, or anything of that ilk to be compellingly better. Their main benefit is that they are simply done (published, complete, already packaged). But they aren't Gary's dungeon.

I remember discussions about this back in the day on Dragonsfoot. IIRC, Gary was always firmly against the idea of publishing his private notes.

 

[Voadam]

Here are some:

Different wandering encounter tables are influenced by which lairs are nearby. There's a sense of "real" ecology throughout.

Several factions have prisoners from other factions, which supports all sorts of potential hijinks between them when the players get involved.

There are river pirates that trade with some of the bandits holding the castle fortress, and the implications for infiltrating these groups are big.

There are a bunch of invisible fey in the castle carrying out (sometimes dangerous) pranks. There are also several cats that carry out much more minor pranks. Additionally, there's a single, large haunted room. All three of these things are unconnected, but likely will be seen by players as a major haunting. Finally, there's a drunken minstrel who interacts with the ghosts and has several hideouts, so it might be assumed he's a ghost, or is part of all these hauntings/pranks.

There's lots of little connections to Yggsburgh city as well as some of the wilderness encounters in that campaign book, such as the elven settlements. It really makes it seem like a living world, but notably the connections are written so as to be easily reskinned for your setting of choice.

Cool. When you said "silly" interconnections I was not quite sure what you meant and was worried it might be all bad puns or something.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think it's probably a mistake to think of it as a single community. There are definitely people who like acid fantasy, but I think there's also a large mostly separate group of people who just want to play like it's 1979 again. Yggsburgh is a product for the latter group.

Yeah, at this point, just about any community is composed of (sometimes very disparate) communities. For some OSR is just B/X-based stuff. Others, it's only the original books they grew up. Some are die-hard devotees of the Borg family of games, or of Troika. And there's frequently overlap.

A huge part of Yggsburgh's appeal now and when it came out is that it's the last world created by Gary Gygax.

 

[darjr]

I remember discussions about this back in the day on Dragonsfoot. IIRC, Gary was always firmly against the idea of publishing his private notes.

It was restated that the Troll Lords and Luke dint plan to go against Gary’s wishes currently. But they did discuss it as an historical document and maybe in the future that might get it published. Big maybe.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It was restated that the Troll Lords and Luke dint plan to go against Gary’s wishes currently. But they did discuss it as an historical document and maybe in the future that might get it published. Big maybe.

It's always a hard decision. Terry Pratchett's daughter literally burned three partially completed novels after his death, per his wishes, but probably paining a lot of his fans.

 

[Nikosandros]

It was restated that the Troll Lords and Luke dint plan to go against Gary’s wishes currently. But they did discuss it as an historical document and maybe in the future that might get it published. Big maybe.

Yes, I heard that part on the live talk on X. Makes sense. Personally, I'd LOVE to get to see a scan of the notes of course, but let's see if we can get Castle Zagyg first.