Jim Cooper
07-21-1998, 06:20 PM
Hey all:
John asked me to post this to the BR list:
Hail, all.
if this comes through twice, please forgive me.
Peter Adkison was at DarkCon, a convention in Oklahoma City, OK, USA and
it had an online portion with guests doing chat on IRC. The IRC is on
magicstar.net at #darkcon. Gary Gygax is due on Sunday at 3 PM CST
Adkison had several things to say of interest to this list. I've not
included the comments regarding Magic.
He has run his own home-grown campaign since 1981, has had about 100
players in it, though he has not seen some for a year or so; he runs
three groups in it each week when he is at home. "Being rich means I
get to play MORE. That was the whole goal!" Asked about 'favorite
Realm' he replied, "Forgotten Realms, because of its sales. :-)
...personally, I don't have a favorite because I've been running my home
brew campaign all through my DMing career, so I don't know them that
well. I like to cannibalize bits and pieces of everything, and I've
seen stuff I've liked and stuff I didn't, from just about every realm."
He continued, "Honestly, this idea of different realms was probably a
huge mistake. They probably should simply have left everything in
Greyhawk. Just from a marketing view that is."
He believes, "we should do more adventures published under the AD&D
logo, which can be plopped in anywhere, and fewer in the various
settings. I also like what we did with the College of Wizardry where we
put notes on how to use it in various settings." He would most like to
see "good stuff on governments, economies and militaries for AD&D
games".
Someone asked if the BR book of Regency would be posted as an online
product - "Sorry, I don't know the answer to that one." When asked if
his desire for 'good stuff on governments, economics and militaries for
AD&D campaigns' was the reason for BR cancellation he replied,
"Birthright was losing money. Simple as that." When he was asked about
Spelljammer, he said, "We have no plans to support Spelljammer. It was
replaced with Planescape." I thought it interesting that he was very
certain on the topics he liked, and what was definitely gone, but, had
no info on BR. For Dragonlance, he said there would definitely be
novels, as they sold 'great', and if the new setup for DL didn't boost
game sales they would "try something different, like move it back to
AD&D again." In addition to requesting more game material, perhaps
asking for more novels will also help in showing our interest in the BR
setting. However, as we've noted, none or few of us wish to see the
main villians of the world dealt with in novels. I'd prefer to see
novels that involved plots of the major foes, but undertaken by various
lesser minions, as that is more likely the types our PCs would
encountered, at this time anyway.
They have licensed a text based mud on their website; they are hoping
the version 3 of the core rules CD, approximately 18 months away "will
have tools for running your own online games." He 'prefers 1st edition,
truth be known...but 3rd edition (if it happens) will be the best of
all! His hopes for it is "a cleaned up system that has really clear
rules, something that's still class-based but with significant room for
tailoring....with faster combat/initiative, get rid of silly things like
percentile strength so the the whole system is more consistant and
intuitive, monsters with stats that look like characters (Strength
rating, etc.) and more support for higher level play."
Producing OOP material is not economical...far cheaper to put several
products on one CD. "the first such product (TENTATIVELY!) will be the
first couple hundred issues of Dragon magazine!"
Also, apparently the RPGA has just done an Al-Qadim adventure, which
along with the Hogunmark material may be the place to see more
developement for BR, IMO.
Well, that was about it, chat with you later!
John Ewan
John asked me to post this to the BR list:
Hail, all.
if this comes through twice, please forgive me.
Peter Adkison was at DarkCon, a convention in Oklahoma City, OK, USA and
it had an online portion with guests doing chat on IRC. The IRC is on
magicstar.net at #darkcon. Gary Gygax is due on Sunday at 3 PM CST
Adkison had several things to say of interest to this list. I've not
included the comments regarding Magic.
He has run his own home-grown campaign since 1981, has had about 100
players in it, though he has not seen some for a year or so; he runs
three groups in it each week when he is at home. "Being rich means I
get to play MORE. That was the whole goal!" Asked about 'favorite
Realm' he replied, "Forgotten Realms, because of its sales. :-)
...personally, I don't have a favorite because I've been running my home
brew campaign all through my DMing career, so I don't know them that
well. I like to cannibalize bits and pieces of everything, and I've
seen stuff I've liked and stuff I didn't, from just about every realm."
He continued, "Honestly, this idea of different realms was probably a
huge mistake. They probably should simply have left everything in
Greyhawk. Just from a marketing view that is."
He believes, "we should do more adventures published under the AD&D
logo, which can be plopped in anywhere, and fewer in the various
settings. I also like what we did with the College of Wizardry where we
put notes on how to use it in various settings." He would most like to
see "good stuff on governments, economies and militaries for AD&D
games".
Someone asked if the BR book of Regency would be posted as an online
product - "Sorry, I don't know the answer to that one." When asked if
his desire for 'good stuff on governments, economics and militaries for
AD&D campaigns' was the reason for BR cancellation he replied,
"Birthright was losing money. Simple as that." When he was asked about
Spelljammer, he said, "We have no plans to support Spelljammer. It was
replaced with Planescape." I thought it interesting that he was very
certain on the topics he liked, and what was definitely gone, but, had
no info on BR. For Dragonlance, he said there would definitely be
novels, as they sold 'great', and if the new setup for DL didn't boost
game sales they would "try something different, like move it back to
AD&D again." In addition to requesting more game material, perhaps
asking for more novels will also help in showing our interest in the BR
setting. However, as we've noted, none or few of us wish to see the
main villians of the world dealt with in novels. I'd prefer to see
novels that involved plots of the major foes, but undertaken by various
lesser minions, as that is more likely the types our PCs would
encountered, at this time anyway.
They have licensed a text based mud on their website; they are hoping
the version 3 of the core rules CD, approximately 18 months away "will
have tools for running your own online games." He 'prefers 1st edition,
truth be known...but 3rd edition (if it happens) will be the best of
all! His hopes for it is "a cleaned up system that has really clear
rules, something that's still class-based but with significant room for
tailoring....with faster combat/initiative, get rid of silly things like
percentile strength so the the whole system is more consistant and
intuitive, monsters with stats that look like characters (Strength
rating, etc.) and more support for higher level play."
Producing OOP material is not economical...far cheaper to put several
products on one CD. "the first such product (TENTATIVELY!) will be the
first couple hundred issues of Dragon magazine!"
Also, apparently the RPGA has just done an Al-Qadim adventure, which
along with the Hogunmark material may be the place to see more
developement for BR, IMO.
Well, that was about it, chat with you later!
John Ewan