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Pasta Fzoul
Seeker
USA
79 Posts |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31726 Posts |
 Posted - 30 Sep 2008 : 06:44:09
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Awesome stuff! Ed's adventures ranks as some of the most memorable I've ever used at my gaming table. In fact, they're about the only pre-made adventures I've used for my campaigns.
I wonder if THO can provide any tidbits on this new work from the Bearded One?  |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium -- Volume IX now available (Oct 2007)
"So Saith Ed" -- the collected Candlekeep replies of Ed Greenwood
Zhoth'ilam Folio -- The Electronic Misadventures of a Rambling Sage |
Edited by - The Sage on 30 Sep 2008 06:44:48 |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2008 : 21:00:47
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| What setting do these adventures use? |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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Skeptic
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1273 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2008 : 21:16:34
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| Ed wrote some of the worst adventures I have ever read (Shadowdale, Tantras, Waterdeep) so I don't know what to think about this. |
Edited by - Skeptic on 30 Sep 2008 21:34:52 |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2008 : 21:21:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Skeptic
Ed wrote some of the worst adventures I never read (Shadowdale, Tantras, Waterdeep) so I don't know what to think about this.
If you didn't read them, how do you know they're so bad? |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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Skeptic
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1273 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2008 : 21:34:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
If you didn't read them, how do you know they're so bad?
Put that on my English skills, I meant some of the worst I have ever read. |
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Hawkins
Great Reader
USA
2131 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2008 : 22:12:44
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| I might just have to be a part of this Open Design venture. $30 is not bad, and for 8 adventures. |
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ddporter
Acolyte
26 Posts |
Posted - 01 Oct 2008 : 00:29:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Skeptic
quote:
Originally posted by Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
If you didn't read them, how do you know they're so bad?
Put that on my English skills, I meant some of the worst I have ever read.
If memory serves me, Ed had very strict guidelines from TSR about what he had to do with those adventures; thus the railroading. I'm sure there are scribes who can shed much more light on this particular topic. |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 01 Oct 2008 : 04:03:16
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Yes, I can.
Skeptic, what you read in that published trilogy of modules was rewritten repeatedly from what Ed handed in, to (as ddporter quite correctly describes it) "railroad" groups of PCs through a lock-step adventure).
Ed had to submit his finished modules BEFORE the three Avatar novels were written, and the modules got rewritten 'in house' by others, several times over as the plots of the novels were changed and changed again, their work unseen by Ed until the modules were published (I remember him seething over the term "Harper troopers" [funny, I didn't think the American Civil War happened in the Realms!]).
Ed's entire endings to two of the modules were discarded, and the "kangaroo court" in Shadowdale added, without his even knowing (until he bought the modules in his local hobby shop).
What Ed DID manage to squeeze into those modules, just by writing reams and reams of lore and encounters so that a few of them would survive, was some of the "this is how it feels to walk the streets of the Realms as the Time of Troubles unfolds" flavor.
I agree with you that the published modules are terrible. Ed agrees with you, too.
However, those modules tell you very little about Ed's capacity to DESIGN an adventure, because almost nothing of his design (which had to follow novel plots he didn't craft in the first place) survived into print.
Yet there's another "however" here, too; Ed hints to me that the new Zobeck work he's done isn't an adventure so much as it is a very tightly-focused setting (small area, presumably within Zobeck, NOT a kingdom) with a bare-bones setup for ongoing adventures included, that a DM can use as a background for his/her own adventures, or to drop adventures crafted by others, into.
So the Open Design adventure probably STILL won't really display Ed's adventure-crafting skills.
Which are undeniable to anyone who's attended one of the many, many roleplaying sessions he's written and run over the years at fifteen or so GenCons and dozens of other cons, from Pentacons in Fort Wayne to Phantasms and Knightmarchs in Cobourg to cons in Germany, Sweden, Australia, and the UK. Trust me, the guy knows his stuff; I've played under him (ahem, yes, UNDER him; might as well let that wording stand) for lo these many years.
love,
THO |
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Skeptic
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1273 Posts |
Posted - 01 Oct 2008 : 04:38:03
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quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Yes, I can.
Skeptic, what you read in that published trilogy of modules was rewritten repeatedly from what Ed handed in, to (as ddporter quite correctly describes it) "railroad" groups of PCs through a lock-step adventure).
Ed had to submit his finished modules BEFORE the three Avatar novels were written, and the modules got rewritten 'in house' by others, several times over as the plots of the novels were changed and changed again, their work unseen by Ed until the modules were published (I remember him seething over the term "Harper troopers" [funny, I didn't think the American Civil War happened in the Realms!]).
Ed's entire endings to two of the modules were discarded, and the "kangaroo court" in Shadowdale added, without his even knowing (until he bought the modules in his local hobby shop).
What Ed DID manage to squeeze into those modules, just by writing reams and reams of lore and encounters so that a few of them would survive, was some of the "this is how it feels to walk the streets of the Realms as the Time of Troubles unfolds" flavor.
I agree with you that the published modules are terrible. Ed agrees with you, too.
However, those modules tell you very little about Ed's capacity to DESIGN an adventure, because almost nothing of his design (which had to follow novel plots he didn't craft in the first place) survived into print.
I'm glad to read that! It's a shame his name is written on these products.
quote:
Yet there's another "however" here, too; Ed hints to me that the new Zobeck work he's done isn't an adventure so much as it is a very tightly-focused setting (small area, presumably within Zobeck, NOT a kingdom) with a bare-bones setup for ongoing adventures included, that a DM can use as a background for his/her own adventures, or to drop adventures crafted by others, into.
So the Open Design adventure probably STILL won't really display Ed's adventure-crafting skills.
Which are undeniable to anyone who's attended one of the many, many roleplaying sessions he's written and run over the years at fifteen or so GenCons and dozens of other cons
Now I'm sad, because if there is one thing I would like to see from Ed is how he design/run adventures, because one of my pet theory is that many who try to reproduce his style are completly failling at it. |
Edited by - Skeptic on 01 Oct 2008 04:38:29 |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 01 Oct 2008 : 15:11:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Skeptic
quote:
Originally posted by Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
If you didn't read them, how do you know they're so bad?
Put that on my English skills, I meant some of the worst I have ever read.
All right. |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 01 Oct 2008 : 15:14:25
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So, can anyone tell me a little bit about the setting (Zobeck?). I'd appreciate it. |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 02 Oct 2008 : 02:43:19
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Well, Zobeck is a riverbank city, created by Wolfgang Baur, and thus far revealed in many short articles in Kobold Quarterly and Open Design booklets/sourcebooks (published and forthcoming), as well as the very first of Wolf's "sign up as a patron and here we go" custom-designed adventures, "Steam and Brass."
It's known as the Free City of Zobeck, is a medieval-plus-clockwork city (and so sometimes also called the Clockwork City) whose economy is "juiced" by the metals kobolds mine nearby, and their "get drunk and work off steam" visits to the surface (i.e. the city). I started off envisaging it as something akin to Girl Genius (the web comic by the Foglios), but am now retreating from that to see what it REALLY turns out to be (we haven't yet seen all that much of it revealed, though there was a great article by Mr. Baur and a collaborator [Nicholas Logue? sorry, I'm away from my library at the moment and my memory fails me] on the gangs of the city.
I believe Mr. Baur has described it as "steampunk," and I think very little concrete (i.e. in the way of detailed maps and neighborhoods) has been published about Zobeck (or its surrounding world) yet. Quite likely this is deliberate, so it gets revealed to us over years of interesting magazine articles and Open Design stuff, and grows and changes as those articles (by various writers, under Mr. Baur's direction) enrich it for us.
Hope this helps,
love,
THO |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31726 Posts |
Posted - 02 Oct 2008 : 03:17:36
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quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Well, Zobeck is a riverbank city, created by Wolfgang Baur, and thus far revealed in many short articles in Kobold Quarterly and Open Design booklets/sourcebooks (published and forthcoming), as well as the very first of Wolf's "sign up as a patron and here we go" custom-designed adventures, "Steam and Brass."
My Lady, which of these Open Design booklets/sourcebooks have been published? I wouldn't mind looking into the material for Zobeck myself.
quote:
I started off envisaging it as something akin to Girl Genius (the web comic by the Foglios)...
Heh. I've only just recently re-discovered that comic.  It's quickly become a worthwhile source for some very neat ideas [which I've often tinkered with afterward] in my own writings on a variety of similar subjects that'll eventually feature in the book I'm currently [trying] to write.  |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium -- Volume IX now available (Oct 2007)
"So Saith Ed" -- the collected Candlekeep replies of Ed Greenwood
Zhoth'ilam Folio -- The Electronic Misadventures of a Rambling Sage |
Edited by - The Sage on 02 Oct 2008 03:20:41 |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 02 Oct 2008 : 14:40:12
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| Thanks for the information, Hooded One! You've piqued my interest. |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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New Open-Design Adventure... by Ed Greenwood!
