Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Kalex the Omen wrote:One of Alyssa Faden's Dungeon Maps (not blue and white though).

Link

Wizardawn wrote:"Alyssa Faden"? Never heard of her. Did she make the "big names" list and I am just out of touch with the current market? Her maps are nice. Maybe she should drop the "Faden" and just go by Alyssa.

Wheggi wrote:

Kalex the Omen wrote:One of Alyssa Faden's Dungeon Maps (not blue and white though).

Link

It is a nice map, with a nice layout. Does she have any available to view that are publication caliber? I'd love to see what her end product looks like.

- Wheggi

Wizardawn wrote:

Jeffery St. Clair wrote:Please don't tar and feather me for knowing this, but that above map is what the players are handed before they try their luck inside those caves just outside of Northending. I played that region in a Lake Geneva Game Convention back in 2005.

I am pretty sure you are not going to get Mesner cooties because you played in one of his games. This thread extra-picks this KS apart for a couple of reasons. One...it is just poorly setup and executed. If this were any other KS, we would pick that apart. Two...this is extra-picked apart because it is Frank's KS and his outburst on DF really just scrapped his balls over our collective faces. I still struggle to find the "trolling" I keep hearing about, and failing. All I see is posts disagreeing with some things and his "I used to work at TSR so kneel before me" attitude summing the situations up to "trolling". I don't really hold any torch to these people and to quote Frank, "But game designers are people too, entirely human". So yup, Frank is just a person with feelings and opinions that will often conflict with others like ours do.

I think of situations with my daughter (13) where she will say things like "mom yelled at me for such and such", only for me to think back, "my wife didn't raise her voice one bit". But that wasn't the real issue. The issue is my wife told my daughter something she didn't want to hear so she was "yelling". So when you disagree with a legendary ex-TSR employee, you are basically "trolling" them.

I realize this may be a big digression from this topic, but that outburst on DF really hurt this KS to the point where people openly admit to not supporting him due to that alone. It was a bummer on Frank's part that he had a blow up just before going live with that KS. It also didn't help that Tanknerd posted about it because now it shows up on the top of the Google searches when you search for "Mentzer" and "Empyrea" so now people that don't visit DF can see what happened.

So it isn't an issue if someone likes Frank and/or likes playing in his games. That doesn't matter. Be a BECMI fan all day long. It doesn't make anyone associate Franks outburst to them personally...that is for Frank to own and own alone. I myself find these old timers' games to be quite underwhelming. I played is a couple and I didn't have the time of my life. I had way, way more fun playing in Keith's and Allan's games than I did in any gray beard's game. I am not stating that to give virtual handjobs...it is just Keith and Allan run games like I used to play. Kask's games are a confusing mess of "I am not even sure what game we are playing anymore".

So Frank can keep babbling about how many years he has been in the business and that he is not an amateur. Truth is, he is an amateur as he hasn't done anything substantial without the backing of a company like TSR. This sloppy KS seems to demonstrate that. I was never going to support it whether he was the friendliest guy in the world or not. If I still played AD&D constantly, I would have my own material and my own world. Ever since I got the Forgotten Realms box set, I decided not to use a published world ever again. But if I did, I wouldn't need to have an author empower me to put a tavern wherever in the hell I wanted...or throw Dragonlance material into it as I see fit. I would just do it. Hell, I would even maybe make a town called OSRGaming, and it is a ghost town with 1HD tumbleweeds roaming around.

Wheggi wrote:Very nice, thanks!

- Wheggi

ghendar wrote:Ultimately, what this all comes down to for me is that, despite initial interest and initial support, I don't think Empyrea (as described thus far) is useful for me. I backed out.

Wizardawn wrote:

ghendar wrote:Ultimately, what this all comes down to for me is that, despite initial interest and initial support, I don't think Empyrea (as described thus far) is useful for me. I backed out.

You backed out? As "you were in"' at one point? If that is true, your character will be vilified in Mesnerya according to the pledge levels.

Wizardawn wrote:

ghendar wrote:Ultimately, what this all comes down to for me is that, despite initial interest and initial support, I don't think Empyrea (as described thus far) is useful for me. I backed out.

You backed out? As "you were in"' at one point? If that is true, your character will be vilified in Mesnerya according to the pledge levels.

bobjester wrote:

I would'a backed this, had I been more KS savvy or financially capable (and finances wouldn't take a whole lot to get up currently), and I would have known about it not on the last day.

bobjester wrote:
Ghendar: I saw that you backed this & stated so at the Piazza. Have you heard how other supporters there feel about the KS? I haven't heard anything there, and considering my distaste for it, it would be better for everyone all around if I stayed out of Mentzer's threads.

RFlowers wrote:

bobjester wrote:

I would'a backed this, had I been more KS savvy or financially capable (and finances wouldn't take a whole lot to get up currently), and I would have known about it not on the last day.

Well you still have 8 hours. I might gamble $10 for the PDF... not so sure I would ever see a physical copy of anything at the $19 level, though...

RFlowers wrote:

bobjester wrote:
Ghendar: I saw that you backed this & stated so at the Piazza. Have you heard how other supporters there feel about the KS? I haven't heard anything there, and considering my distaste for it, it would be better for everyone all around if I stayed out of Mentzer's threads.

I'm sure the Piazza does the right thing, and deletes any poo-flinging posts, as well as banning the troll authors.

bobjester wrote:But, I can see value when someone shows me something, and this KS, as a very good example, definitely grabbed my attention. Too bad, it ends today, and I never got to watch it develop: Survive This!! Dark Places & Demogorgons RPG Core Rulebook.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/15 ... s-rpg-core

My first impression was that this is at least unique enough to the OSR to warrant further investigation, only if it satisfies a few chuckles at the table for an hour or two, and then put away to get out the real game.

bobjester wrote:
Ghendar: I saw that you backed this & stated so at the Piazza. Have you heard how other supporters there feel about the KS? I haven't heard anything there, and considering my distaste for it, it would be better for everyone all around if I stayed out of Mentzer's threads.