Bruce A. Heard Podcast Interview

If you havent done so already, make sure to check out the latest Save or Die Podcast. It features an interview with Mystara guru and Voyage of the Princess Ark author Bruce A. Heard. For those of my readers who are strictly Blackmoor only affectionados, there are several interesting tidbits about Dave Arneson and the DA modules as well as the Egg of Coot in there as well. Bruce also touches upon the connection between Mystara and Blackmoor which I discussed here last month.

If you think like the "questions from fans" that Vince asks Bruce about in the podcast, several of them were submitted by me. If you dont like them, then I guess I will take the blame for that too ;) Several of Save or Die's podcasts have been mentioned on this blog in the past, including the Frank Mentzer interview, the Bill Owen podcast and the episode with Jean Wells.




-Havard

Prep Time

One of the lessons WotC and other companies seem to have learned from 3E is that if the edition requiring alot of preparation before a game this is a bad thing. This apparently, is part of the reason why 4E turned out the way it did.



I can understand that 3E DMs soon grew tired of writing up huge stat blocks for their NPCs and determining skill selections for their Monsters. Some industry experts seem to think the recipe is to turn D&D into a "family game", ie basically a board game, since apparently kids today have no patience to sit down and spend hours to plan a game.

This is where I think that they are missing something. Sure it was boring to write up those huge stat blocks or do other game mechanical stuff if it takes forever. But DM Prep Time is not neccessarily such a bad thing. When you are a kid, it seems like you have all the time in the world. Spending hours dreaming up worlds and planning adventures that you can take your friends through Friday night can be almost as fun as playing the game itself. As a DM, this is when you really get to tap into your imagination.

Remember when D&D was marketed as "Products of your imagination"? This is D&D's strength. Market researchers trying to get game designers to focus on the "battle grid" and fast paced exciting combat only are missing a vital point. These are all areas that computer games do better than D&D. What D&D does better than any computer is to stimulate your imagination. I dont believe that kids today dont want that. Sure there are kids out there with no imagination, but those are the same kids who were calling D&D players geeks back in the 1980s. Those guys will always be boring. D&D should be for real gamers, not those guys who would rather play a video game alone than hang out with their friends.








-Havard

180!

The Hordes of Blackmoorians keep growing in numbers. Thanks for your support everyone :)



-Havard

Img Source: http://donotargue.com/note/over-300000-players-join-age-of-conan-unchained-in-first-month/

Anna Goes to Blackmoor

Legendary Greyhawk-mapper Anna has in her process to map all of Greyhawk's continent of Flanaess arrived at the corner which includes Greyhawk's version of Blackmoor. The map above is unfinished, but it still looks so spectacular I wanted to share it with you right away. To follow the process of this map in detail, visit the Flanaess Geographical Society Facebook Group.

-Havard

Gary Gygax

Four Years ago  today.

Img Source: http://www.stargazersworld.com/tag/gary-gygax/




-Havard

The Art of Stefan Poag

I first came across Stefan Poag at one of the old Zeitgeist Games Forums way before we set up the Comeback Inn Forum. At the time, he was running one of the few Blackmoor websites on the Net other than the Blackmoor Archives. Poag did illustrations for various ZGG Blackmoor products including Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor.

This Michigan based artist has done alot of RPG illustrations over the last decade. His work has appeared in several of Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure modules and has a prominent place in the upcoming DCC RPG from the same company. Author Harley Stroh talks about further connections between the DCC RPG and Blackmoor here.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that much of Poag's more recent work also show his connection to Blackmoor:

Which Blackmoor cult could degenerate fanatic be obsessing about?

Whether intentional or not, this illustration reminds me of the illustration in the First Fantasy Campaign about the assault on the Black Castle of the Orcs

The Steam Bores of Blackmor is of course another familiar theme and an example of Blackmoor's many infernal machines..

I nicked these illustratios off Stefan Poag's Website. He also has a page dedicated to his art on Goodman Game's Website.




-Havard

Ed Greewood on Mystara

Ed Greenwood is probably best known as the Guru/Creator of the Forgotten Realms and Elminster, but like most of the best TSR game designers, he also ventured into the Mystara setting. The book he wrote was Gaz8 the Five Shires, the book that introduced the term Hin to describe the setting's Halflings. Ed later brought this term into the Realms as well, perhaps a nod to his romance with Mystara?

I never really got into the Forgotten Realms much, but when I saw Ed Greenwood on Celebrity D&D from GenCon2010, I just decided this guy is awesome.

On Tuesday Ed showed up on the Mystara Reborn Facebook Group offering the following comment:

"I have fond memories of each Gaz release, but I think Bruce [Heard] really brought the setting to life. The standout Glantri product, the Princess Ark series, the superb DRAGON coverage of the dragons of the setting . . . wonderful stuff that stands the test of time. I'm raising a glass of very good wine to Bruce, as I type this!"

I already talked about Gaz3 the Principalities of Glantri the other day, mentioning how it was the first product to connect the Blackmoor DA modules with the Gazetteer line.

Ed Greenwood also added:

"[...] Bruce, you're the heart and soul of Mystara. I know you had to ride herd on a lot of projects for all of TSR's lines and settings, but the Known World was your baby and a delight to write in...because of you. Don't hide; you deserve public praise you all too seldom got. (And I think it's long overdue for a publisher to give you a fat contract for, say, a fantasy trilogy, so you can show the New York publishers what you can do, and give all of us fantasy fans a new setting to fall in love with!)
We must sit down somewhere and somehow for another nice long dinner and chat..."

Now this almost ruined my image of mr Greenwood as a recluse who almost never emerged from his house in Canada (not sure where I got that image from?), but as someone who enjoyed the Voyage of the Princess Ark series at least as much as Ed Greenwood, I sure hope publishers are listening to this. I almost managed to convince the Paizo guys to publish a Voyage of the Princess Ark collection back when they were still in partnering up with WotC, but even if that boat has sailed (flown?), more fiction from Bruce is something I am looking forward to seeing.




-Havard


Image source