The Fall of Castle Zagyg?

[Treebore]

Well, I should start a new thread about this. Perhaps I will in a bit when I have the time.

Essentially, this is how I see D20: there is a complication. You try to position yourself (or the group MVP) to roll against your best skill to solve it (example: you could use Climb or Disable Device; your climb is better so you tell the DM you'll go with that one). Then you roll the D20 and hope for a high result. The End.

It's just roll after roll, always trying to put your "best foot" (highest-rated skill) forward. That's basically all there is to figure out (the game is "solved" as they say in boardgaming) and thereafter all you're doing is playing against the dice.

C&C is the same. Want to see something? Roll to see it. Want to climb something? Roll to climb it. Want to compose a poem? Roll to compose it. Ad nauseam. It's a thoroughly new school game.

I don't mind having a "skil" such that it justifies why my character can do X, but I don't want it to be the mechanical means by which he does X.

Yeah, we need to start another thread. I know you have a TLG account, lets talk about it there. I think you have mistaken C&C to be too much like other games.

A fundamental rule/attitude of C&C is to do it the way you like best. Anyways, I hope to talk about this elsewhere.

 

[Silent Cartographer]

I don't mind having a "skil" such that it justifies why my character can do X, but I don't want it to be the mechanical means by which he does X.

Cool! Amber Diceless, anyone?

 

[timbannock]

has gail gygax even played dnd before? does she have a clue what she is doing with the intellectual property?

Well, she's been on the business side of RPGs since the early- to mid-80s, so she does have a clue. I can't personally vouch for her playing D&D, but I'm gonna guess it might have happened at least once.

And is it about money? Of course it is! TLG put love into their products, but they are also a business. Gygax Games is a business, too.

There's a lot of ifs, but my guess would be that CZ goes either as systemless as possible (very hard for a product like that!), or might somehow work in a couple systems. Gygax Games didn't rule out future work with TLG either (in fact, Gail said those words almost exactly), so maybe licensing C&C is a good idea.

I'm a little worried because I don't recognize the staff of Gygax Games...who are their designers and writers? If it was Mentzer or somebody like that, well, then there's hope. If it's a bunch of no-names, then...well, they better be AMAZING.

Also, consider Gary's bible o' CZ...I can't imagine he wrote it in a manner that would allow it to be directly worked into the 4E mind set, so that would be a huge conversion. Not sure how that'd even work.

Also, what about the CZ stuff already released? Are they going to reboot from scratch? Because that will KNOWINGLY put a ton of people off, or reduce sales of Yggsburgh Reloaded or whatever junk like that they try to put out.

There's some seriously odd business decisions going on here, but Gail's been around the biz for some time, so one would think she's gotta have some kind of plan.

 

[Henry]

I don't know if Gail games, but I do know she was a very gracious host to everyone who gamed with Gary. So she definitely knows something about gaming.

The Moderators of ENWorld played a D&D game session with Gary Gygax on His and Gail's WEDDING ANNIVERSARY.

"Gracious" doesn't begin to cover it.

As for the news, it wasn't unexpected, as I heard rumblings of it about a week and a half ago. I'd prefer the rest of the Castle stay in D&D-ish waters, and not Lejendary waters, because the systems are significantly different, but I do wish Gail and the writers of Gygax Games the best of fortunes with this.

I do know it's compelled me to seek out the Upper Works with some early Christmas money before it disappears...

 

[Ourph]

Five years after the publication of C&C, the game created to facilitate the publication of Gary's Castle Greyhawk, and we have one dungeon level from TLG. Not what I would call a stellar track record.

I'd say it's about time someone else got a shot at doing this thing the right way. I'm anxious to see what GG has planned.

 

[MerricB]

Five years after the publication of C&C, the game created to facilitate the publication of Gary's Castle Greyhawk, and we have one dungeon level from TLG. Not what I would call a stellar track record.

I don't know how much it was TLG's fault and how much it was Gary's. Let's face it: starting with Yggsburgh and then doing the Upper Works was not a good plan.

Cheers!

 

[S'mon]

I don't know how much it was TLG's fault and how much it was Gary's. Let's face it: starting with Yggsburgh and then doing the Upper Works was not a good plan.

Cheers!

It's hard to know whether a tougher-minded publisher could have done better with EGG and prevented his going off on whatever tangents caught his fancy. Maybe he would have produced nothing; maybe we'd have had a Castle Zagyg complete boxed set in 2005. TLG are even more amateurish than most of the smaller games companies and have been very unreliable at getting product to market, but it did seem that with Talanian the project was moving forward well - and the released Zagyg products have certainly been high quality. A publisher like Mongoose would be more likely to take a "quick and dirty" approach - but IMO that's better than the entire project failing from over-ambition, as has now happened with TLG.

Overall, I'm certainly disappointed. TLG seemed to be maybe-sorta getting there. However from a business perspectie it's far from clear that Gail made a stupid decision. Look at how Upper Works isn't even in distribution, months after completion. Mongoose would never let that happen: product that falls apart on the shelf or has appalling editing errors, yes - product unavailable, no.

 

[MerricB]

the released Zagyg products have certainly been high quality.

Upper Works is great. Yggsburgh is poor. Dreadful editing, an economic system that just doesn't make sense, and a bunch of other flaws.

There are good things about Yggsburgh, but it doesn't excuse the copy & paste errors and the lack of care.

Cheers!

 

[jdrakeh]

Mongoose would never let that happen: product that falls apart on the shelf or has appalling editing errors, yes - product unavailable, no.

In fairness, appalling editing errors haven't really been much of an issue with Mongoose products since the Starship Troopers line was cancelled. The books binding issues seem to have been eliminated since they gave up on trying to print their own books, as well.

 

[jdrakeh]

Upper Works is great. Yggsburgh is poor. Dreadful editing, an economic system that just doesn't make sense, and a bunch of other flaws.

Really, I consider all of those things to be somewhat minor flaws when compared to the 'layout' — the thing looks like it was arranged entirely in MS Office, right down to the two columns with huge margins and the horrible text flow.