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Post by geneweigel on Mar 30, 2016 19:49:21 GMT -5
I was just pondering about the last time that I bought a game supplement.
Was there anything that popped with all that "OSR" goings on?
Last time that I looked there was a bunch of game systems that cloned old D&D but not a lot adventure content wise. Any adventures that stick out?
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Post by grodog on Mar 30, 2016 22:35:41 GMT -5
There have been a number of good adventures published in the past 10 years, Gene. Were you simply looking for favorite recommendations, or did you have some more criteria in mind?: level ranges, monster types, surrounding topography, etc.
Allan.
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 31, 2016 6:55:43 GMT -5
Criteria would be more on the content i.e. isn't a salad mix of old crap and not a long talk about non-relevant characters.
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foster1941
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 31, 2016 12:13:49 GMT -5
I don't really follow this stuff but occasionally when something gets a lot of positive buzz I'll take a look at it, and nothing that I've seen has really impressed me. The stuff I've seen all seems to fall into one of two categories: 1) workmanlike, uninspired stuff that copies the look and feel of old-TSR (frequently all the way down to blue maps and ugly Century Gothic font) but content-wise is reminiscent at best of the second-tier 80s-era TSR staffers (folks like Mark Acres, Carl Smith, Merle Rasmussen, and Frank Mentzer), Dungeon magazine, and Mayfair's Role Aids line - not as offensively awful as the stuff folks like Jean Rabe and Skip Williams were puking out around the time of the 2E transition, but also nothing that makes me actually want to use it in a game, or even read it all the way through. I get that same sinking feeling from it that you'd get when you picked up some new module like The Forest Oracle or The Savage Coast because it had a cool cover and then start reading it and realize it was totally bland, boring, derivative, and uninspiring; and 2) stuff that doesn't feel like AD&D, either because it's full of "gonzo" sf elements (robots, lasers, etc.) or because it goes for more of a "horror" feel than AD&D-style heroic fantasy adventure. This stuff tends to get a lot of praise for being "new" and "creative" but as far as I can tell most of that supposed innovation is really just mislabeling adventures that would have been better suited to Gamma World, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, or the Dark Ages versions of Call of Cthulhu and Vampire. I get that early play in both Greyhawk and Blackmoor apparently included a lot of that sf-type stuff, but that was mostly written out of AD&D (except in special cases - S3 and interaction with alternate Prime planes), IMO for the better: it works best in small doses.
It doesn't seem like it should be all that hard to write a passable "Gygax-pastiche" module that emulates the feel and style of his adventures without being totally derivative of them - something at or hopefully a bit above the level of what we used to see from folks like Mike Carr, Lawrence Schick, Allen Hammack, Harold Johnson, David Cook, Len Lakofka, and Rob Kuntz. But it feels like most people aren't trying to do that - either because they don't actually "grok" what made Gygax's adventures good, or don't want to emulate that style (perhaps because they feel more affinity for the TSR-UK style, which was always "not quite right" to me), and those who are trying to do it just aren't very good at it - their stuff is too obviously derivative and brings nothing fresh or interesting to the table. D&D enables anyone to be an author-of-sorts, but it doesn't mean you'll be a good one.
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foster1941
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 31, 2016 12:56:29 GMT -5
Regarding my last point, it occurs to me that some of why the third-party-author modules c. 1979-81 still had a pretty "Gygaxy" feel likely isn't just coincidence but because Gary was probably more personally involved in the module editing and development process in that period, when the company was smaller and its output lower - that he presumably read manuscripts more closely and gave notes and "suggestions" (i.e. mandatory orders) for revisions in order to create a more consistent "house" feel and style, and that the drop in those standards that becomes more and more evident in 1982-85 is directly tied to his decreased hands-on involvement, first by delegating that work to his "right hand man" Frank Mentzer (there was a blog post a couple years back that traced the development process for module X6: Quagmire! - a pretty perfect example of one of those totally uninspired wastes of paper I alluded to above - that shows that while Frank Mentzer did a pretty detailed review and made lots of notes (and even expressed his opinion that the module wasn't very good, to no avail) Gary's only apparent input is a single check-mark (or maybe an "OK") on the cover page), and eventually not being involved at all, once he relocated to LA.
Which might help explain how early modules by Zeb Cook (A1, I1) can still feel pretty close to the Gygax mold, while his later stuff (too much to list) was anything but (or why all of the ex-TSR folks' recent stuff seems so much worse than what they were producing in the 70s-80s), but doesn't really explain why there seems to be so little interest or effort into trying to achieve that feel nowadays. I can read a module and tell you almost instantly whether it "feels like AD&D" and, if it doesn't, pretty much exactly what would need to be done to it to make it so (whether folks actually follow my advice is another story) and I know I'm not the only one. Is it because nowadays since people are doing this stuff as labors of love rather than work-for-hire that they're more protective of their own ideas and "voice" that they resent criticism and are less willing to conform their work to someone else's standards? If so, that suggests the need for someone to set up a publishing house for AD&D-flavored content and buy adventures on the explicit understanding that it can and will be heavily edited and developed for style and flavor as the publisher sees fit.
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foster1941
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Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 31, 2016 13:26:33 GMT -5
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 31, 2016 14:24:50 GMT -5
Foster, as far as development, I know what you mean. My first lesson in that was when I was doing that adventure project and everyone was adding a lot of contrary material so I was faced with chiding them for wrecking my crap that they now believed was their crap. For instance, the someone stated something wasn't magical as the truth behind a rumor they made about something that I designed that I had already figured out with legwork. Thats when I realized that open group development was bad it wouldn't be until much later that I'd realize that even one on one development is problematic if no clear method/order is established. As to there be nothing outstanding in your opinion, which is a thorough one, that is kind of depressing. Is there any C- projects?
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foster1941
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 31, 2016 15:04:56 GMT -5
A lot of the "group 2" stuff seems to be pretty decent quality, it's just too aesthetically at-odds with what I'm looking for that it's a turn-off for me. From what I've seen of them, (Castle Zagyg ghostwriter) Jeff Talanian's "Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea" stuff and Patrick Wetmore's "Anomalous Subsurface Environment" are both pretty solid, just too heavy on the lasers and robots and such for my taste (plus Jeff T loses points for having his own ruleset that's ~85%ish AD&D but just different enough to be annoying). Some of James Raggi's "Lamentations of the Flame Princess" adventures have gotten good reviews (for people who prefer their AD&D to be WFRP - "early-modern" quasi-historical setting (flintlock pistols, etc.), style/tone focusing on lots of gore and hopelessness - his primary shtick seems to be forcing players into no-win dilemmas where they have to do abhorrent things for the greater good ("the only way to stop this demon from destroying the world is to murder an entire village of innocent civilians," etc.)) but I'm so turned off by the tone and style (and the author's online persona, about which the less said the better) that I've never actually read any of them beyond the free online previews. Of the group 1 stuff, James Boney's 4 or 5 contributions to the "Advanced Adventures" line are probably the best of what I've seen. Had his stuff appeared in Dungeon magazine or been published by TSR c. 1984 it would have stood out as being better than most of the rest. An early version of one of his adventures was sent out as a freebie by Rob Kuntz a dozen or so years ago - "The Red Mausoleum." If you remember, or still have, that it's a pretty fair indication of what his stuff's like and whether you'd consider it worthwhile. There might be some other stuff at or near that level, but nothing else comes to mind at the moment (and, as I said way back at the top of the first post, there's LOTS of stuff I'm not familiar with at all). I'm cautiously optimistic about the upcoming stuff from Benoist Poire and Ernie Gygax (but annoyed that they're following the Castle Zagyg module of promising a big, classic-vintage dungeon - the so-called "Hobby Shop Dungeon" that Ernie used to run in the 70s, with the famous poster-sized maps - but have set that aside and are instead focusing on other stuff - an outdoor setting and another dungeon). I'm not totally on the same stylistic and game-philosophical page as Benoist, but he's very enthusiastic and a workhorse and I'm hoping Ernie is having a good stylistic influence on him. At very least the maps all look really nice My friend Tony ("wheggi" on various message-boards) also has a couple of adventures in-progress that I know will be very good and totally within the Gygax feel-zone, assuming he ever gets around to finishing them...
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 31, 2016 17:26:59 GMT -5
I vaguely recall RED MAUSOLEUM. I must not have a copy because I don't see it anywhere.
I seen some of that ASSH stuff and that Anomalous Environment thing as well. They did not ring my bell as something that I would want to bother with.
As for Ernie doing the dungeon, I mentioned to him doing more stuff like his Dad the 5 or 6 times that I talked to him so maybe it'll be good. However, I checked out the MARMOREAL TOMB OF GARN PAT'UUL in GYGAX MAGAZINE #3 (WINTER 2013) which is supposed to tie-in to HSD1 – THE HOBBY SHOP DUNGEON and it seems like its not Ernie from some of the content "Le Horla" (referring to "the Horla" from Maupassant.) and a reference to Rambo doesn't sound very "DUNGEON HOBBY" era. Suspicious.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 1, 2016 13:58:29 GMT -5
All you can tell Wheggi is good luck with getting the feel, as I know he is someone who has shown a sincere interest in the lost flavor, and I'll definitely check it out.
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Post by grodog on Apr 1, 2016 13:59:11 GMT -5
It doesn't seem like it should be all that hard to write a passable "Gygax-pastiche" module that emulates the feel and style of his adventures without being totally derivative of them - something at or hopefully a bit above the level of what we used to see from folks like Mike Carr, Lawrence Schick, Allen Hammack, Harold Johnson, David Cook, Len Lakofka, and Rob Kuntz. But it feels like most people aren't trying to do that - either because they don't actually "grok" what made Gygax's adventures good, or don't want to emulate that style (perhaps because they feel more affinity for the TSR-UK style, which was always "not quite right" to me), and those who are trying to do it just aren't very good at it - their stuff is too obviously derivative and brings nothing fresh or interesting to the table. D&D enables anyone to be an author-of-sorts, but it doesn't mean you'll be a good one. I think all of your points above (not just the ones I quoted here) are fair ones, Trent. That said, I do find some of the OSR works published over the past 10 years to be quite worthwhile, and useful at the table: - Guy Fullerton's two modules: F1 Fane of the Poisoned Prophecies and F3 Many Gates of the Gann; details @ www.chaotichenchmen.com/- Jeff Talanian's ASSH ruleset and modules, in particular Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes and Beneath the Comet (although I like all of the material he's written or published to date); details @ www.hyperborea.tv/products.html- I really liked a few of Pacesetter's modules, but will need to flip through to determine which (his sequel to B1 and T1 are the ones that come to mind immediately, but I'll need to double-check, given the number of them that Bill's published) - Jason Sholtis' Dungeon Dozen (tables of HPL/CAS-inspired strangeitude for your games); details @ roll1d12.blogspot.com/- XRP's Malevolent & Benign monster book, and several of their OSRIC adventures written by James Boney (#20: The Riddle of Anadi, #16: Under Shattered Mountain, #13: White Dragon Run, #8: The Seven Shrines of Nav'k-Qar, #6: The Chasm of the Damned, #3: The Curse of the Witch Head, #2: The Red Mausoleum; of James' works I like #3, #13, and #20 best), Matt Finch (#1: The Pod Caverns of the Sinister Shroom), and others (Keith Sloan's #26 The Witch Mounds, Joe and Suzy Browning's #24: The Mouth of the Shadowvein and #23: Down the Shadowvein, both of which are thematic sequels to Finch's Pod Caverns module); details @ www.xrpshop.citymax.com/page/page/3906568.htm- the OSR zines scene has produced excellent content in Knockspell and AFS zines (I may be biased here, since I wrote for both ), and Fight On! was generally good, but I found it far more uneven that than the previous two I'm sure there's more high-quality content out there, but that's what immediately popped into my head and jumped off my shelf at me. I didn't include other RJK or EGG projects, since they would obviously fit the mold of what interests all of us. Allan.
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Post by grodog on Apr 1, 2016 14:16:53 GMT -5
Regarding my last point, it occurs to me that some of why the third-party-author modules c. 1979-81 still had a pretty "Gygaxy" feel likely isn't just coincidence but because Gary was probably more personally involved in the module editing and development process in that period, when the company was smaller and its output lower - that he presumably read manuscripts more closely and gave notes and "suggestions" (i.e. mandatory orders) for revisions in order to create a more consistent "house" feel and style [snip] Which might help explain how early modules by Zeb Cook (A1, I1) can still feel pretty close to the Gygax mold, while his later stuff (too much to list) was anything but (or why all of the ex-TSR folks' recent stuff seems so much worse than what they were producing in the 70s-80s), An excellent point. While I love Gary's game design and adventure design skills, his ability to orchestrate, assemble, compile, and edit diverse content into a useable and excellent product is perhaps even more noteworthy, in the end. but doesn't really explain why there seems to be so little interest or effort into trying to achieve that feel nowadays. I can read a module and tell you almost instantly whether it "feels like AD&D" and, if it doesn't, pretty much exactly what would need to be done to it to make it so (whether folks actually follow my advice is another story) and I know I'm not the only one. Is it because nowadays since people are doing this stuff as labors of love rather than work-for-hire that they're more protective of their own ideas and "voice" that they resent criticism and are less willing to conform their work to someone else's standards? If so, that suggests the need for someone to set up a publishing house for AD&D-flavored content and buy adventures on the explicit understanding that it can and will be heavily edited and developed for style and flavor as the publisher sees fit. That's probably part of it (much of the OSR is DIY authors publishing on Lulu, KS, etc.), but I think that the distinct lack of playtesting really impacts adventures, and many folks write adventures but they may not be playtested at all (or not at all outside of their home group, for those who do playtest their modules). Many of TSR's earliest modules grew out of home campaigns (whether from Blackmoor, Greyhawk, or others outside of the core "business" campaigns), and saw active and heavy play prior to publication, both in the home games and as convention tourneys. The C1-2, G and D modules, R1-4, and S1/3/4 fall into this category (while others were well-tested as con tourneys prior to being published, like A1-4, but lacked home campaign origins, and some were home campaigns adapted to publication but not run as tourneys, like B1, B3, EX1-2, L1-2, S2, T1-2, WG5-6 X1, and maybe X2). As time went on, and the need to publish modules grew, they received less and less playtesting before publication, so the quality of the final product was much lower. I don't think that lack of playtesting alone, however, drove this quality gap: some folks simply grok D&D and its sources better than others, or have better imaginations, or have better writing skills, and I think they all factor into the mix of what makes a successful and worthwhile D&D module.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 4, 2016 13:43:53 GMT -5
I'm not sure what is what but I've seen a few adventures that seem like "WHAT IF I DID MY OWN ARDUIN in 1975?" type things. As for the Flame Princess and Carcosa things it seems like its another AD&D BOOK OF SEX type thing or at least catering to people interested in things like that. The worst ones were I believe looked like old modules but were as bad as 2E or 3E at its cheesiest. I believe they're called DUNGEON CRAWL CLASSICS.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 4, 2016 20:57:54 GMT -5
I had a chance today to check out most of the OSR mags while FIGHT ON and KNOCKSPELL seem better than GYGAX Magazine they still feel like they need pizzaz literally the same content as the free mags. Too much of a dry pseudo-basic feel. They need more seriousness in submissions and less fanciful flourishes and afterthoughts if they're going to charge for material.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 5, 2016 7:57:22 GMT -5
Sorry, I didn't have time to go over the mags piece by piece but I got the idea that I wouldn't want to buy into them. I felt like slightly better art than "&" Magazine but the only common thread was this should have more to it if it isn't free especially corresponding illustration. While there is an effort on the art side there seems like its missing something.
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foster1941
Warlock
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 5, 2016 12:44:51 GMT -5
Part of the issue you're seeing with those magazines (Knockspell, Fight On!) is that neither of them were paying anything for contributions - everything you see in them was being given away by the authors. That's why it looks like the same stuff you'd see in the free web-magazines (&, Footprints, etc.) or on forums and blogs - because as far as the authors are concerned, it's the same thing (and was often literally the same thing - blog-posts recycled into articles and vice-versa). A magazine that paid for a higher level of content would been great, but 1) I'm doubt there's enough content actually worth paying for to fill a magazine*, and 2) I KNOW there isn't enough of a market for such an endeavor not to lose tons of money.
*I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of people who would happily accept money for the same stuff they've been giving away for free, but I'm not sure that the quality-level would be noticeably improved if the content went from free to paid
EDIT: All of the above applies to written content; I believe that Knockspell at least did pay something for art (not sure about Fight On!)
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 5, 2016 15:46:45 GMT -5
Really? That is weird. How are they run? By an artist? Overall, looking at the majority OSR material and samples, I'm getting a vibe that screams "We Should Write in Luddite" for an Old Time Cosplay weekend or something.
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foster1941
Warlock
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 5, 2016 17:03:44 GMT -5
Yeah, the whole ironic retro-hipster tourist vibe is overwhelming in almost all of the OSR stuff and is extremely off-putting. My personal least favorite are the people who put on some faux-naive act like they've just dropped in from an alternate universe version of 1977 and proceed to write thousand-word essays dissecting some passage of the white-box rules, either claiming to have "discovered" amazing insights that were old news decades ago in the real world (like that treasure is a better source of XP than killing monsters, or that hit points should be viewed abstractly), or making deliberately-obtuse "interpretations" and using them to fabricate flagrantly contra-historical explanations about how the game was really meant to work if only Gygax hadn't wrecked everything with the money-grabbing screwjob of Dave Arneson that was AD&D.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 5, 2016 19:39:33 GMT -5
My brother was playing in 1981 just like me and his output blew mine away however it was a decade of forgettable dross that went into the shitbin. I think thats what drove me to have a need for quality for D&D ( and to some degree homemade comics) because he was doing monsters, spells, races and classes and they were original but they just weren't likeable. While in contrast to the big name edition era designers I would reckon he was at least on par with that design-wise it all just falls on the wayside of an unending need for lost quality.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 6, 2016 5:25:24 GMT -5
I've said it before about Arneson, when Kuntz was doing this weird Cassius-Brutus recruitment spiel at GenCon 2002 walking me around talking about the new products (mostly 3E/D20) and we ran right into Arneson, with his silent aide/friend looking around not reacting to me in any way whatsoever so I just stood there waiting for some interaction which never happened, he totally conveyed the line from ADVENTURES IN BLACKMOOR about Blackmoor being millions of years before Greyhawk in the way he said anything and everything. I just wish that I saw Gary and him interact. All this mythical Arneson mystique is wishful thinking.
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