Shadowdark Shadowdark Discussion Thread [+]

[Scribe]

By the end of the year for sure, I think.

 

[The Glen]

I suspect the 2E revival of The Known World/Mystara was not especially successful.

It wasn't. They never recovered from the setting nuke, The products they got in second edition were a very poor quality. They made massive lore changes nobody liked, they wanted to put CDs in every adventure and box set. The authors the started cutting and pasting elements from other books to save time. It was definitely part of the death spiral of TSR

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It wasn't. They never recovered from the setting nuke, The products they got in second edition were a very poor quality. They made massive lore changes nobody liked, they wanted to put CDs in every adventure and box set. The authors the started cutting and pasting elements from other books to save time. It was definitely part of the death spiral of TSR

I think a lot of this was overstated by people who were upset that BECMI was being abandoned in favor of 2E. And yes, I was part of the Mystara Mailing List where people screamed a lot about this in the years immediately afterwards.

The 2E publications are fine, once you get past A) a lot of them were aimed at beginning groups and B) the very cringeworthy CD soundtracks.

The BECMI Mystara material was selling to a smaller and smaller audience all the time, and TSR was either going to have to try to do something to goose the line's popularity, like moving it to AD&D and doing a soft reboot, or they were going to let it die.

 

[Byrd]

I think a lot of this was overstated by people who were upset that BECMI was being abandoned in favor of 2E. And yes, I was part of the Mystara Mailing List where people screamed a lot about this in the years immediately afterwards.

The 2E publications are fine, once you get past A) a lot of them were aimed at beginning groups and B) the very cringeworthy CD soundtracks.

The BECMI Mystara material was selling to a smaller and smaller audience all the time, and TSR was either going to have to try to do something to goose the line's popularity, like moving it to AD&D and doing a soft reboot, or they were going to let it die.

< tangent >
I think the 2E version is BECM.
It tossed the "I" out, which was part of the (potential) play loop. Transcend Life Force
has a much different tone when the result is "Congats! Your character is a NPC!"
< /tangent >

 

[Byrd]

I started another thread, this one for discussing Mystara.

Thread 'Mystara Musings [Discussion]'
D&D General - Mystara Musings [Discussion]

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't think it's going to fit into my city book, but I'm pretty sure I want to do a Bookhounds of Ashalom supplement for SD based on Ken Hite's Bookhounds of London for Trail of Cthulhu. A roaring trade in occult tomes seems like a natural fit in an Old World type setting.

 

[Jahydin]

Fun interview with Kelsey and Prof DM:

8:20 mark if you want to know her answer to the thumbnail. Spoiler: Hero, of course!

 

[Retros_x]

Fun interview with Kelsey and Prof DM:

8:20 mark if you want to know her answer to the thumbnail. Spoiler: Hero, of course!

love her answer to "Shadowdark is not good for roleplaying and not good for long-term campaigns".

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In today's Ship of the Dead podcast, they've confirmed that Joseph R. Lewis' The White Crypt Hungers will be the first adventure published by Arcane Library that wasn't written by Kelsey. It debuted at GaryCon but will be coming out later this year.

A white building grows up out of a battlefield full of dead bodies. Cultists emerge and steal the bodies. Within the crypt is a void gate with void creatures coming out of the portal. Clark Ashton Smith and H. R. Giger inspired.

It won't get published until Kelsey is further along in the production of the Western Reaches Kickstarter.

 

[Scribe]

I've got some of his other stuff, so looking forward to that.