The Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor

Post by **Falconer** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:22 pm

So are people getting the new THE DUNGEONS OF CASTLE BLACKMOOR book from Zeitgeist Games?

Revisit the most classic dungeon crawl of all time! The Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor will take adventurers on a journey through the dungeon that started the roleplaying game genre! The Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor details the 20 known levels of the dungeon including the first 10 levels as originally created by Dave Arneson himself. Designed to scale with varying party sizes and power levels, this incredible dungeon includes adventure material for characters level 1-20. Classic styled maps and artwork make this book a great nostalgia piece and an excellent tie in for new adventurers to Blackmoor! Take your party back to the birthplace of RPGs for an incredible adventure through The Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor! 304 Pages, Softcover $39.99

What are your expectations for this? It will be interesting to me to see if it actually adds anything useful over what we got in FFC. I probably will get it and run it at some point, with caution, and fitting it into FFC rather than the other way around. I don't know why they felt they needed to add 10 levels beyond Arneson's 10. That's kind of fishy. Regards.

Post by **Falconer** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:23 pm

I'll be interested to see what the "classic styled maps and artwork" look like.

T. Foster · Post by **T. Foster** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:38 pm

I saw the online preview for dungeon level 1 and wasn't impressed. The map looked close/identical to the FFC map but was redrawn in what looked like CC2 trying to emulate "old school," which was disappointing compared to the wonderfully idiosyncratic hand-drawn maps in FFC. The room descriptions were bland and uninspiring. The only interesting thing was a handful of sidebars from DA telling anecdotes about the Orcian Way and other "landmarks" of the castle. Plus, IIRC, there were sloppy errors on both the map and the room descriptions. I'd say if you have FFC there's very little of interest in this product. I'll still flip through it if I come across it in the FLGS and give it a second chance to impress me, but this definitely isn't something I'd pay for up-front if that web-preview was any accurate indication.

grodog · Post by **grodog** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 6:20 am

That squares with my impression, Trent. Anderson's anecdotes are very lightly interspersed in the text for the first chapter or two, and then don't appear throughout the rest of the book at all.

Le Noir Faineant · Post by **Le Noir Faineant** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 3:18 am

As far as I get it, the book will see some more slight revisions before it is released on a wider scale.

One of the players in my Grim Winter PbP already got the book and wrote us a review:

(Sorry, would post the link, but the board is members only, and I am not the admin.

)

Treebore wrote:One of you asked my opinion about the Blackmoor Castle book. Well, I did some reading through it. The biggest dissappointment to me was the size of each level. They are only about 22 to 25 encounter areas in the early levels getting down to 10 to 12 encounter areas in the lowest levels.
i can see the reason for this, though. Space. For them to do this Castle the way I would have liked it they probably would have had to triple the size of the book.
I would like to have seen this Castle given the same scope as is being done with Castles Zagyg, which will have tons of maps, etc...

Other than that I like the approach taken to how this castle was laid out. Each of the twenty levels corresponds to level of the characters. It may have been better to go by CR, but still, I think it is a smart game plan. They also have some randomization where monsters from the lower (higher level) will come up and surprise unwary players. So if the players get too comfortable with each level of the dungeon being "their level" these random monsters can definitely throw a wrench in their expectations.

So over all I think this is a good book/adventure module, but it isn't anything like I was expecting, but admittedly my expectations have been jaded by what I have read being done by Gygax and TLG on the Castle Zagyg (Castle Greyhawk) project, which is much more in depth than this treatment. For example they are doing 3 books, or maybe a huge boxed set, because there are so friggin many maps.

To be honest, if I wasn't at GenCon when I bought this, and basically in the mindset to blow money, I wouldn't have paid the $35.00 for this. I would have waited until I found it at the steepest discount I could find on the internet, then bought it.

I mean, this isn't really the "Castle Blackmoor" this is the "20 Dungeon Levels of Castle Blackmoor". Really not what I was hoping to see, but good for what was designed. So I was dissappointed in that this isn't what I was hoping, but for a 20 level Dungeon crawl it is pretty good.

I, for my part, will get it when it's finally out, though I am not sure of its value in terms of playability. - 20 level dungeons are heavy to play out, especially, if there's few/no info about the castle and the city in it.

But most ZGG books have been proved to be better than what I expected; so I think one can really expect a work of high quality.

not to deetwenty the K&K boards, but their other adventure, *The Redwood Scar* is one of my all-time minisetting favourites.

Glgnfz · Post by **Glgnfz** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 3:42 am

hey, stop deetwentying the board!

(great word! i'll have to check if it can be found in any dictionary!)

Finarvyn · Post by **Finarvyn** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 5:48 am

Somehow I'm confused. I bought this at GenCon, yet some are saying that they'll look at it "when it comes out".

I bought it because I love Blackmoor, but it has mostly sat on my shelf and collected dust. Being a 3E-based product, it still has a somewhat 3E sort of feel. It's not the same as reading the FFC, even if a lot of the material is similar. (Yes, I know I can de-3E my product and get ... well ... the FFC book, but it seems like too much bother.)

To me, real "old school" is thin B&W booklets that look like they just came off of someone's typewriter, with line art and maps that look like they have been played and loved. Maybe no one else wants to buy stuff that looks like that anymore, but Blackmoor SHOULD be about as old school as you can get!

If only they would release Blackmoor in C&C.

Post by **Falconer** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 1:08 pm

So far it was only on sale at GenCon. It's not generally released yet for the rest of us.

As far as what system it would be nice to see it released for, well, I made the point over on Rob's boards that this dungeon wasn't written for OAD&D or even OD&D, let alone d20/C&C. I'd love if it were printed alongside the proto-D&D rules that Arneson used.

Wait! I just described FFC!

grodog · Post by **grodog** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 10:17 am

Hmmm, I wans't aware that it wasn't generally available yet. I'm pretty sure I've seen it in FLGS' in the Bay Area when I was there????

Finarvyn · Post by **Finarvyn** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 4:46 pm

Falconer wrote:As far as what system it would be nice to see it released for, well, I made the point over on Rob's boards that this dungeon wasn't written for OAD&D or even OD&D, let alone d20/C&C. I'd love if it were printed alongside the proto-D&D rules that Arneson used.

Wait! I just described FFC!

But really what I want if a FFC 2nd edition. One that explains some of the strangeness that Dave put into the FFC. There are places where you read the FFC and go "Huh? What the heck is that?" or "How does THAT work?" and it never says. I would love something that cleared up some of those things.

Le Noir Faineant · Post by **Le Noir Faineant** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 2:16 am

A new edition of the FFC was announced unofficially by ZGG - now, no idea if it will still have any rules stuff for us oldschoolers in it.

Yet, something's definitely coming.

Post by **Falconer** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 3:33 am

From what I recall they were going to provide a free PDF of the original FFC with "hobbit" and "ent" and such edited out. It has been a while since anything has been mentioned on that front. It seems to be one of those endlessly stalled projects. Regards.

Le Noir Faineant · Post by **Le Noir Faineant** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:14 am

Falconer wrote:From what I recall they were going to provide a free PDF of the original FFC with "hobbit" and "ent" and such edited out. It has been a while since anything has been mentioned on that front. It seems to be one of those endlessly stalled projects. Regards.

Yeah...

Let's hope they don't forget about it at all...

Le Noir Faineant · Post by **Le Noir Faineant** » Sat Nov 04, 2006 12:28 pm

FYI, I posted a review of DoCBM here:

clicky