City of the Gods

[Falconer]

How does the d20 City of the Gods compare to and differ from the Ritchie DA3?

Which has more Arneson content? What was Dave Ritchie working from for his version, and what was Harley Stroh working from for his version?

Thanks.

[havard]

Dec 19, 2008 1:15:43 GMT -6 Falconer said:

How does the d20 City of the Gods compare to and differ from the Ritchie DA3?

Which has more Arneson content? What was Dave Ritchie working from for his version, and what was Harley Stroh working from for his version?

If any has more "Arneson content" I'm guessing Ritchie's version. My impression is that Harley was working based on DA3, although I am personally not ruling out ZGG's access to Dave as a way of Dave's ideas to seed into ZGG products even if he isn't actually writing them.

From what I understand, Ritchie mainly based his work on the original Temple of the Frog and the FFC. Much of CotG is derived from ToF. OTOH, even if Ritchie never consulted Dave about the modules, he must have heard tales of Dave's campaign. Spaceships, aliens, power armor and robots did appear in Dave's games and that must have been the inspiration for Ritchie's take on City of the Gods. I don't know if Dave Arneson actually had a space ship crash in the Valley of the Ancients though. I thought that area was mainly the home of dragons.

The above is mainly speculations though.

Havard

[Falconer]

My impression is that Harley was working based on DA3

That would be my guess. I looked at the free preview PDF and the impression it strongly gives me is that Stroh doesn't even use DA3 much and mainly wrote it from scratch as his own work.

From what I understand, Ritchie mainly based his work on the original Temple of the Frog and the FFC. Much of CotG is derived from ToF. OTOH, even if Ritchie never consulted Dave about the modules, he must have heard tales of Dave's campaign. Spaceships, aliens, power armor and robots did appear in Dave's games and that must have been the inspiration for Ritchie's take on City of the Gods.

Have you read Rob Kuntz's Journey to the City of the Gods? It's the most authentic account of the City that I know. Here's a quote:

Surely it was a sight. All golds and silvers, with towers and buildings of the oddest shapes and hues and sizes. Many towers seemed proportioned the same; but this in no way indicated mundanity, for surely the towers gleamed in morning's sunlight. Metal towers, and hundreds of them!

They fight steel-encased "fighters" with no body beneath the "armor" (robots?). The buildings look like they are on their sides, with no apparent doors or windows. I think it's fair to say you could miss it if you didn't already know, but it is indeed high-tech, and the crashed spaceship idea has been mentioned as the inspiration for S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

So Ritchie definitely did not invent the concept, but did he get any maps or anything from Arneson for it?

[blackmoor]

Well he didn't consult me a lot. Ae least it was beter than Duchy Of Tehn (See the Zeigisit one for a better treatment there.) We had passkeys, robots, ray gun, holographs and the ;ile. As far as the building go they were from the World's Fair in Seattle, I got a bunch, were futurist looking soo....

The whole idea of a spaceship craft was pretty well known in the Sci-Fantasy world so I really cannot point at one inspiration.

Dave Arneson
"Dark Lord of Game Design"

[harami2000]

Dec 19, 2008 14:28:43 GMT -6 havard said:

Spaceships, aliens, power armor and robots did appear in Dave's games and that must have been the inspiration...

Ditto John Snider...?