|
When: Saturday, March 27th, noon until 5 pm
Where: Compleat Strategist, 11 E. 33rd St., Manhattan, NY
What: Celebrating Arneson's legacy by playing some of the roleplaying games inspired by his pioneering 1972 Blackmoor campaign (which is to say, all of them!)
Who: Players and GMs of all ages, experience levels, edition preferences, and degrees of old- or new-schoolness.
The big draw for Paizo fans is the Pallid Plague PFS scenario run by its author Mark Moreland, but even if you've already played it I hope to see you there if you're in the tri-state area! Drop me a line at arneson.gameday@gmail.com if you'd like to run a game, or just want more info.
This thread has a description of the games that folks ran last year and notes about my own experience playing, running, and talking to folks about the parts of Arneson's legacy like wilderness travel, clearing territory for strongholds, overseeing baronies, and leading armies that got largely left out of the branch of D&D that I grew up with (which did preserve things like dungeons, clerics, monks, and monsters, hurrah!)
If you're not able to make it, why not run a tribute game of your own in your local community? It's always a good time to get together with friends and celebrate the fun that's passed down to us from the giants of our hobby, but March 21st-27th is an especially good time: it's the International Traditional Gaming Week. By running an event then, you'll share the collective experience of re-entering whichever classic gateway to adventure you choose, and TARGA's publicity and organization for the ITGW may help you find players - what better way to remember Dave Arneson, after all, than making a new friend who'll stand by your side even when your henchmen flee the oncoming horrors?
On to the game listings:
Game Name: The Pallid Plague (Pathfinder)
Run By: Mark Moreland
Maximum Players: 6
Scenario: Reports from Andoran's Darkmoon Vale indicate that a new plague is causing the deaths of untold fey. The Pathfinder Society sends you there to aid the nymph queen in stopping the plague and finding and destroying its source. When the plague spreads to the human population of Falcon's Hollow, the need to find a cure grows more frantic. Can you save the many denizens of Darkmoon Vale from certain death?
Characters: Players are encouraged to create their own Pathfinder Society characters using the guide to Pathfinder Society organized play and the Pathfinder RPG, both of which are free online. Pregenerated characters will also be available.
Recommended For: Fans of Pathfinder and its world Golarion, which harkens back to the pulp novels that inspired Arneson, as well as folks who want to play Yoda8myhead's scenario as run by its author!
Game Name: Temple of the Frog(4e)
Run By: George Strayton
Maximum Players: 6
Scenario: For centuries, the tangled maze of sluggish watercourses, stagnant ponds, and festering marshes known as the Great Dismal Swamp has defended Blackmoor's southwestern frontier. Recently, both large armies and smaller parties have disappeared altogether inside its vast, dripping, claustrophobic corridors. But great treasures are said to lie hidden within a secret and weird temple at the heart of the morass and so you and your companions have decided to leave the comforts and safety of civilization behind. Deep into the fetid swamp you must go -- far from sunlight and sanity -- there to find...the TEMPLE OF THE FROG.
Characters: Bring your own 12th level PC or use one of the pregenerated characters provided at the table.
Recommended For: 4th Edition players who want to experience 1st edition feel or OD&D/1st edition players who want to see how 4e can be used as an old-school system.
- Game Name: Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works
- Run By: joethelawyer
- Maximum Players: 6
- Brief Blurb:
The curse has finally lifted! The most legendary and fabled castle of them all, Castle Zagyg materializes from a dread fog that has long held it enthralled and thus averting its many seekers. As your party emerges from the tangled brush, briers, and vines that fence the Old Castle Track, you observe the sprawling ruins of an enormous castle complex built upon a sloping bluff of rock. Crumbling, battlemented walls join towers square, round, and pentagonal. Gatehouses, courtyards, and craft shops lie in varying states of disrepair. High above the ruins, at the culmination of the bluff, rise two impressive towers: one round, the other hexagonal. The great east towers flank an enormous fortress of stone from which carved spires rise, piercing the very sky. This edifice can be none other than Castle Zagyg, the dwelling of the Mad Archmage.
- Recommended for: Folks who want to revisit (or experience for the first time) the glories of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1E and adventure in Gary Gygax's final contribution to the castle-and-dungeon genre pioneered by Arneson's Blackmoor.
Director of Brand Strategy
|
While I'll be running Pallid Plague, I would love to see something to get players excited about Kingmaker being run, since the whole campaign concept evokes such a strong Blackmoor feel for me. I hope to see lots of Paizoans there, whether you're playing at my table or another GM's, and whether you play my game of choice or not.
Have a great time!
|
|
yoda8myhead: Last year I ran a hexcrawl where the players set off into the swamps of Loch Gloomen looking for a castle they could use to establish a new barony. A four hour gameday event does not a campaign make, of course, but I certainly concur that Kingmaker seems likely to tap a vein of pure Arnesonian gold.
One thing that was interesting about last year's gameday was meeting players who'd grown up playing the Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters/Immortals branch of D&D, while my friends and I took the AD&D branch. They said that they used all the rules for strongholds, mass combat, clearing wilderness hexes, etc. that were part of the original Blackmoor campaign but tended to get buried among all the other details of AD&D. It was cool to learn that those things had survived along some alternate evolutionary path, just as it is to see Paizo taking a modern stab at them!
ArnesonianNarrativism: Thanks! Any chance you'll run a companion event in your home town or online?