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Scott
Referee


Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 389
Location: Charleston, WV

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

WyzardWhately wrote:
I'm in either way, if you do it.

Cool. I'm actually going to gauge interest on one of the OD&D boards. I have a feeling, the more I think about it, that porting the current PCs over to the Wilderlands may derail things just as some characters are forming some ties to the community, and I'm reluctant to chance it.
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Nick
(Sinlocah)


Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 121

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sam ran some Wilderlands stuff and I loved it. I was thinking about picking it up and doing some quick conversion to 4e, but i have time to wait for someone else to print an actual product. Is Judges Guild still around? I seem to remember seeing a web page with a bunch of their stuff on it...

I would be happy continuing where we are, but I am open to moving on to the Wilderlands. I don't think the ties to Tegel are so invested we can't leave them behind.
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Scott
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Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 389
Location: Charleston, WV

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Judges Guild revival was under the auspices of Necromancer Games and my understanding is that the products did not sell particularly well, which is a shame. They're very good, although I prefer the originals for nostalgia value and sparseness of detail.

I have every significant Wilderlands product now with the exception of Wilderlands of the Fantastic Reaches and Wilderlands of the Magic Realm, neither of which is essential for the campaign and both of which I have in .pdf and have the big JG maps for. I'm holding out for a hard copy of the Jaquays adventure Dark Tower, as he's my favorite dungeon designer and it's a doozy, but the one that ended last night was over $100 and again, I have it in .pdf.

I can run a larger group in the Wilderlands because it's easier to stay ahead of things. This is the intro blurb I'm circulating:

What are the Wilderlands?

The Wilderlands, collectively, are the setting products published in the late 1970s and early 1980s by Judges Guild. Published details are broad rather than deep, i.e., there are skeletal details of nearly location in the Wilderlands, but there are exhaustive details of almost none. Even the flagship product, City State of the Invincible Overlord, includes hundreds of small plot seeds but nothing in the way of a modular adventure, plot, or any depth of detail regarding locations or characters.

This is a large part of the attraction for me and many others. There's just enough detail, along with some superlative maps, to get the ball rolling, but the Wilderlands is ultimately just a good foundation for a do-it-yourself setting -- the campaign equivalent of the 1974 D&D rules. Like OD&D, each referee's Wilderlands is his own, because there's no choice but to customize.

For me, the level of setting definition is perfect. I have a starting point, but there's little "canonical" information about anything. Conversely, the d20 products published during Judges Guild's revival are very good, but they fill in too many of the blanks for my purposes, and I don't use them. I'd rather not have anyone else tell me very much about what the various regions and peoples are like.

The overall feel of the Wilderlands, as I see them, is of a pastiche of elements conducive to D&D-style adventure gaming. It's obviously tailored for PCs to run amok in. There are very few large settlements and correspondingly few rulers or big guns telling the PCs what to do -- just a few City States, some towns and villages, and a lot of wilderness -- so PCs can choose their own paths and carve out their own places in the world. There's no attempt at historical or genre simulation; the Wilderlands have hints of certain influences, like classic sword-and-sorcery fiction and the Near East circa the Iron Age, but for practical purposes the setting is a mishmash of 9-level dungeons, byzantine City States, Earth and literary mythologies, science-fantasy tech, and wretched gamer jokes.

The area of the Wilderlands on which I'll be focusing initially is dominated by two City States (the City State of the World Emperor and its recalcitrant tributary, the City State of the Invincible Overlord), but PCs are by no means limited to this area.

Campaign Style
My aim is to provide a setting for classic D&D gaming, and to adjudicate the events that happen therein. Once things get rolling, it's entirely up to the PCs to drive the action. There will be dungeons to explore if you want to do that, or you can hex-crawl, or get involved in City State affairs, or get into any other mischief you'd like. I'll place plenty of rumors and hooks, and provide you with enough information to find appropriate adventures, but I won't tell you to go on "tonight's adventure."

The setting exists independently of the PCs, and many locations in the wilderness and elsewhere are keyed ahead of time. That means that there are high-level dungeons and nasty monsters, that don't care what level you are, they just sit there either way. There's no attempt to make sure every challenge is appropriate to the PCs' levels. Legendary dungeons have to accumulate all those piles of bones from somewhere. Do your research, tip the barkeep, and remember that sometimes, no matter how well-prepared you are, it's time to run.

The corollary bright side is that you can occasionally stumble into treasures or magic items that are ahead of the balance curve.

The power level is roughly the default level presented in the initial D&D rules. 9th level characters are considered formidable heroes or villains, a +1 magic sword is a significant find, and any magic above the 6th level of spells has been lost to the ages. A character generated with 3d6 in order is viable, attribute bonuses and penalties are relatively rare, and you'll never meet a mortal with 100 hit points, or even 75. Dragons are formidable, but not nukes-on-the-wing.

The rules are firmly grounded in the original "three little books." There are things I like and have incorporated from later supplements (mostly Supplement I and The Strategic Review) and editions (some combat, movement, and spell memorization rules gaps filled using Moldvay Basic) and house rules, but the overall rules philosophy is pre-Supplement I: small bonuses, small penalties, abstract combat, and no mechanically defined skills system.

Your "skills" are determined by your character concept. We can assume a pirate can sail and a knight can ride. If you're a mighty-thewed barbarian, you know your way around a wench. If you're a bard-type, you can play a musical instrument. You can be a lightly-armored rogue without being a member of the Thief class (which is a good thing, because it doesn't exist). Anyone can try to climb a wall or sneak past a sentry or figure out whether a corridor is trapped, but some concepts will probably be better at that sort of thing than others.

Initial characters should be members of the standard races and classes, but you have a lot of freedom within those broad guidelines. Once things have been going for a while, we can consider some more outre choices if you're into that sort of thing.

Tone and Influences
My influences, like everyone else's, are eclectic. For OD&D purposes, the important ones are Hyboria, Blackmoor, Arduin, Tekumel, Gamma World, Barsoom, Pellucidar, the Dreamlands, the Mythos, Zothique, Dying Earth, and Middle-Earth. I have a weakness for fungi, vermiforms, slimes, pods, cephalopods, gastropods, mutants, human-animal amalgams, dark cults, dinosaurs, robots, body horror, and assorted tentacular booglies.

I'm not going to lie and say I'm planning to run "dark sword-and-sorcery" or any other kind of genre-based campaign, though. I'm planning to run an OD&D campaign set in the Wilderlands, and beyond that I don't have an overarching theme in mind. There's really dark stuff in OD&D and the Wilderlands, and there's really goofy stuff.

I'm not worried about anachronisms or unrealistic economies, and I've played WFRP too much to be bothered by humor in my games. If one character is named Ardoc Darkwind and another is named Dwayne the Dwarf, whatever. You can pick a deity from Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes or Unknown Gods and not worry about whether it fits my carefully crafted religious construct.

As for the ecology of monsters and humanoids, they spew out of somewhere and are nasty gits, and that's all we really need to know about them.
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TheMyth
(Kexy the Fage)


Joined: 03 Apr 2008
Posts: 141
Location: Pennsylvania, USA

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nick wrote:
Sam ran some Wilderlands stuff and I loved it. I was thinking about picking it up and doing some quick conversion to 4e, but i have time to wait for someone else to print an actual product. Is Judges Guild still around? I seem to remember seeing a web page with a bunch of their stuff on it...

I would be happy continuing where we are, but I am open to moving on to the Wilderlands. I don't think the ties to Tegel are so invested we can't leave them behind.


http://www.judgesguild.com/

some free stuff on the Downloads page: http://www.judgesguild.com/downloads.html
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Scott
Referee


Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 389
Location: Charleston, WV

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've talked with a couple "outside" people about the possibility of a Wilderlands PBP. I think they may good fits. I may also post to rpg.net, although the asshole-to-person ratio there has, in the past, yielded unfavorable and occasionally alarming results.

I don't think it's a good idea to move the existing PCs to the Wilderlands, particularly if we get additional players. I like to start characters in new campaigns off at 1st level for the initial go-round, and I'd rather not have a group of 2nd level characters in the mix. It's tough enough being one of the new guys in an existing group without a power disparity.

I also don't want to have to deal with the inconsistencies between the homebrew versions of things I'm currently using and the classic Judges Guild versions I'll be running for Wilderlands. Obviously these could be explained as parallel universe stuff, but I'd rather not deal with it.

We have two choices.

1. We keep playing the current campaign with its characters as is, and I start an entirely separate Wilderlands campaign. Anyone who can keep up with posting to two campaigns is welcome to do so. I don't foresee it being a problem for me, as it's a very local campaign and quite low-maintenance on my end.

2. We put the current campaign on hiatus and try out a Wilderlands campaign with new characters and perhaps a couple new players. I enjoy what we're doing now but I'm fine with putting it on hold to try something new.

I'm equally fine with either prospect. If we choose option 1 and only a couple people feel like playing both, then obviously I'll need to recruit a few more players.

Let me know when you get a chance and I'll start making preparations either way.
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Bhartec Redhands



Joined: 26 Mar 2008
Posts: 154
Location: Sam@ Morgantown, WV

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Scott wrote:
2. We put the current campaign on hiatus and try out a Wilderlands campaign with new characters and perhaps a couple new players. I enjoy what we're doing now but I'm fine with putting it on hold to try something new.


My preference. I've always liked Wilderlands. But only if I can play a pirate. Shiloh Pete, the Treasure Barnacle is'a callin.
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Scott
Referee


Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 389
Location: Charleston, WV

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have no issue with that whatsoever, although it will be funny if he ends up with a 4 Str and 18 Cha.
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Last edited by Scott on Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
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WyzardWhately
(Lars)


Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 260

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

With regret, I must vote for the hiatus. I'm worried two games might burn you out. Also, might we have links to the recruitment thread?

If you do want people from RPG.net, I can probably vet them for you. I'm familiar with a lot of the people there, including several of the worst of the lot. If Nick012000 tries to join (and I believe he's active on several sites) you tell him to go fuck himself. Just as an example.
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Nick
(Sinlocah)


Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 121

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Option 2, please. Although I hate to see that 17 Cha. go.
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Scott
Referee


Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 389
Location: Charleston, WV

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's the new banner:



Here's the thread from the OD&D Discussion forum, my "home" old-school forum:
http://odd74.proboards76.com/index.cgi?board=tradingpost&action=display&thread=1107

I've got two folks I'm talking to in PM, and they both seem fine.

When do we want to migrate? I have the new forum set up. If we get new players, even though we all now each other (some of us for 14 years now?), I'd like to do a brief intro thread so they don't feel too much like the n00bs in an established group.
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Bhartec Redhands



Joined: 26 Mar 2008
Posts: 154
Location: Sam@ Morgantown, WV

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Scott wrote:
When do we want to migrate?


When its up and more or less ready.

I'd recommend a out-with-a-bang sort of battle here on the way out. We head back to town, where the the unspeakable Dearth Monster is placing its new clutch to feed, that sort of thing. Town+us vs black dragon, good stuff. Just my two cents.
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WyzardWhately
(Lars)


Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 260

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

interesting banner.

Not as cool as Orcus & the Naked Chick, but then, what is?
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Scott
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Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 389
Location: Charleston, WV

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll probably just leave things frozen as opposed to doing a Butch-and-Sundance ending for the current PCs.

I can have the new game up and running by Sunday, honestly. I have the rest of the week free, and am busily wearing an ass-groove in the couch.

Let me know for sure if you're in and I will roll up your character. Some background information will be up by this weekend, with sketchy guidelines on what kind of people there are in the area, etc., if you want to make use of that sort of thing to determine character details. For instance, there's a pirate faction you could make use of. I will also distribute an updated rules document.
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WyzardWhately
(Lars)


Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 260

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 2:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I look forward to character numbers. That said, let's hope that more of them are in the double-digits, this time.
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Scott
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Joined: 24 Mar 2008
Posts: 389
Location: Charleston, WV

PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

WyzardWhately wrote:
I look forward to character numbers. That said, let's hope that more of them are in the double-digits, this time.

Bah, munchkin. Smile
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