One of my highlights in gaming this month has been Bruce Heard's return to the Mystara community on the Piazza. For those who don't know it, Heard was product manager for the Classic D&D line (ie not AD&D) during the 1980s and also wrote several key products for the Mystara setting as well as authoring the Voyage of the Princess Ark, a long running series in Dragon Magazine supporting the setting/system.
As part of a Q&A session on the Facebook Group "Mystara Reborn" (are you a member yet?), Bruce Heard was telling us about how Gaz 3 the Prinicpalities of Glantri came to be. This has just been reposted at Bruce's Blog.
Personally I find it interesting how there was no real formula for what a gazetteer could contain. While many of them included a section on General Skills, Gaz3 dodged this section and instead provides so much excellent crunchy content on rules on magic (yet not a single boring new spell!) combined with rich setting atmosphere and possibly the most fascinating NPC gallery in RPG history. It is funny compared to how today's discussion about Crunch vs. Fluff was completely ignored in the Gazetteer series and the decision was simply made to have high quality bits of both.
More discussion on this topic may be found here.
-Havard
If you haven't already joined Mystara Reborn, what are you waiting for?
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic. I've actually been planning a "behind the scenes" look at the Gazetteer series, which I feel is one of the most under appreciated, high-quality series of works released for an RPG. And behind-the-scenes stuff is always great; it's like the Director's Commentary on a DVD. Awesome share, Havard; thansk for the head's up!
ReplyDeleteExcellent news!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the assessment! :)
ReplyDeleteNice overview, good solid assembly of information & background. Peace out & keep doing your thing man! Very cool
ReplyDelete