Happy memories indeed!

[boomer]

Wow! I haven't thought about Blackmoor in so many years. Castle Bramwald, Drinks on the House Inn, Tower of Booh, Sir Fang, Temple of the Frog, no puns allowed within the city limits. I hid Acererak's Tomb in a big swamp somewhere to the west of Bramwald. Tegel Manor I put on the coast to the north.

It seems playing the game was so much freer in spirit at the start. I remember running Tegel Manor without having a full understanding of what ghosts could do. No internet then and I actually ended up calling about 15 other people from all over Canada to find out advice on how to run things.

I had a full dozen players who would meet twice weekly just to play. Sigh.

Sorry to ramble there. When I saw Blackmoor here I was just overwhelmed with happy memories I just wanted to share with someone.

Thanks Dave for my first campaign setting!

[havard]

Thanks for sharing Boomer! I love to hear about people's Blackmoor campaigns.

Did you ever get into any of the sci fi elements of the setting?

Havard

[boomer]

Hi havard! As a matter of fact yes we did. I'm afraid I had a tremendous time blending some pretty far-out elements together in my attempts to surprise and challenge the players. Very little was off limits back then. I even stole ideas from Arduin when those books first started coming out. We had "lost technology" and interplanetary adventures peppered throughout our campaign. When Expedition to the Barrier Peaks came out it blended in just fine.

The whole "City of the Gods" thing became a mainstay in the campaign. Oddly enough the players didn't go crazy with technology. They saved it for when things looked dire. "We're almost dead people, I think it's time to use....the Artifact!" Then they'd pull out a grenade or some such that they'd been carrying around with them for a while and huck it at the dragon or Balrog or whatever screaming "Chew on this!!!"

It was all in good fun.

[havard]

That sounds like great fun Boomer!
It probably makes sense to give out mainly one use weapons like grenades though if you want that kind of result doesn't it?

I have been very careful about using straight out sci fi stuff IMC. I don't think players today have the same level of tolerance for mixing Sci Fi and Fantasy as they once did. Which is a shame really. I tend to disguise it as Steam Tech though, which for some reason is much more accepted.

Havard

[boomer]

Thanks for the compliment havard, it was great fun indeed! Since it was such a new thing there was really noone to spoil our fun by telling us that this was wrong or that was broken, etc the way it seems to go nowadays.

I agree that care has to be used when mixing the genres so one doesn't overpower the other. One time use items of great destructive power satisfied things in the campaign and when they were used they were gone from play leaving only a fresh scent of pine (jk).

It is funny how Steam Tech is readily accepted. I suppose it's primitive enough and atmospheric enough that it fits in the concept of fantasy more readily. I recently downloaded something called "Engines and Empires" which is a steam fantasy setting but I haven't had time to look at it closely yet.

[Random]

Engines & Empires has been getting some high praise on the Goblinoid Games forums.

I haven't looked at it really closely yet either, but the author is extremely ethusiastic about his work, and that almost always bodes well for the quality and creativity of products.

He's said on occasion that the main reason he wrote E&E is so that he could write modules for it.