How do you introduce new players to Blackmoor?

[Deleted]

Hi all,

*If good, I will steal for this thread, to shape out a freebie publication.*

Well, question's in the title: How do you introduce players to Blackmoor, the setting, in general - and to Blackmoor, the dungeon, in particular?

I am really interested in any sort of approach you might have, but especially in play reports from the FFC dungeon!

Yours,

Rafe

[aldarron]

I start them outside the place. Most of my players began as peasants on the isles of Maritiz. This way, everything is new from the character perspective and character backstories are less constrained by details I want to introduce into the setting. After a couple adventures local to their home island, they were hired by a merchant as guards on a caravan headed to Izmer. They left the caravan when they heard rumors of an abandoned wizards sanctum (B1) in the southern superstitions.

So now they are wandering around the Northern Marches, seeking their fortune and finding it.

[Deleted]

Thanks! Maritiz, as in from Quag Keep, right?

[aldarron]

Sept 5, 2014 10:52:55 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Thanks! Maritiz, as in from Quag Keep, right?

yep. On one of the old Great Kingdom maps it is east of Blackmoor in the great bay.

[Deleted]

Never got around to read that one, actually, though I like Andre Norton's other work.
(Actually, back in the day, when I was more active, I consciously didn't read it - because everyone else had read it. )

- So, how do "your" isles of Maritiz then look like? As in, did you flesh that part of the setting out, to give your players some more backstory options?

[scottenkainen]

Before I ran my short-lived Blackmoor online campaign, we planned out a lot on a Yahoo!Group in advance with polls. So I asked lots of questions like --

If we play in Blackmoor, which Blackmoor?
a. 1971 - an untraditional, tongue-in-cheek, post-apocalypse, wilderness/hi-tech setting that mixed sword & sorcery with sci fi.
43% (3)
b. 1980 - Blackmoor becomes a small part of the World of Greyhawk. Blackmoor remains a weird wilderness, but most other elements are downplayed.
14% (1)
c. 1986 - Blackmoor is retrofitted into the World of Mystara's ancient past. It becomes a more traditional campaign setting about a good kingdom beset by evil enemies on all sides. Hi-tech elements remain, but the weirdness is downplayed and the tongue-in-cheek is gone.
14% (1)
d. 2004 - Blackmoor regains its own world, but retains most of the flavor of the 1986 version. Hi-tech is now diminished too.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[aldarron]

Sept 6, 2014 3:26:56 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Never got around to read that one, actually, though I like Andre Norton's other work.
(Actually, back in the day, when I was more active, I consciously didn't read it - because everyone else had read it. )

- So, how do "your" isles of Maritiz then look like? As in, did you flesh that part of the setting out, to give your players some more backstory options?

Here's the background I made up for my campaign:

Maritiz – Islands of farmers and fishermen recently annexed by the Great Kingdom. Culturally the inhabitants resemble late medieval/early modern Irish/Welsh and stem from a mixture of Pictish and Simmeryan stock. They live in Skaara Brea/Welsh Wheelhouse type semi subterranean dwellings clustered in small villages. Life is cold, wet and harsh but community bonds are strong. Livelihood is primarily from fishing and sheep herding. These islands are mostly ignored by the rest of the world. At times barons have arisen in the islands but, politically speaking, they are currently fragmented, with local Townchiefs being the closest thing to authorities. There is however a titular king of the Maritiz, descended from a Skandiharrian conqueror long ago, who lives in a fishing shack and answers to the name of Hadi. Out of politeness, the king is sometimes consulted on matters of particular importance.

[Finarvyn]

RE: Quag Keep

Sept 6, 2014 3:26:56 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Never got around to read that one, actually, though I like Andre Norton's other work.(Actually, back in the day, when I was more active, I consciously didn't read it - because everyone else had read it.

It's not nearly as good as her other works, IMO. The problem that I see with Quag Keep is that there is a vague sense of gaming therein, but she doesn't really get it right. It's like someone has described a D&D session to her but she's never actually played, or something like that. Locations like Greyhawk and Blackmoor get mentioned in passing, but I can't see that she has any particular insights as to any of these locations. A very strange book.

Having said that, I still have my copy all these decades later and occasionally dust it off to read it. I also bought the sequal but have yet to read it; the sequel seems to get universal "thumbs down" ratings and that seems less than encouraging.

Sorry for the thread-jack.

[Deleted]

Nah, threadjacks of the kind, I appreciate very much.

I liked the Ithkar series she co-authored quite a lot, but with "Quag Keep" and other books from the "Appendix N and associated" list, I usually try to evade - because I don't want to replicate what might be understood as "mainstream" among us fantasy nerds. In fact, and thus a return to the original topic is indeed possible, my vision of Blackmoor, and of fantasy in general is most highly influenced by Tad Williams' take on the genre, from the Osten Ard series to Shadowmarch and the sequels of that one. - To the point when, if you read those, many of the ideas and concepts that made the LFC so memorable don't seem at all so original, I am afraid.

I also usually have new players experience BM as a closed system - they come as outsiders, and don't start as natives. Now, I use the GK as a rather generic background, usually mixing JG and WoG sources, as I please. Since the games are usually pretty short, and taking my place within my own timeline, I also don't worry all too much about canonicity, any more.

Now, my next series of games will likely move to my homebrew world, so "Firewater" is sort of a bittersweet goodbye to BM...

[Deleted]

Sept 8, 2014 9:30:26 GMT -6 aldarron said:

They live in Skaara Brea/Welsh Wheelhouse type semi subterranean dwellings clustered in small villages.

As on the island, or in "The Bard's Tale"?

[RobJN]

How do I introduce players to Blackmoor?

Have them in the audience at the Blackmoorian equivalent to a TV studio during a pop idol's major public appearance, and see what they do when assassins try to bump her off and cultists try to carry her away