Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Here is a review of Troll Lord Games' new Castle Zagyg: Upper Works:
http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

The boxed set includes 5 modules. Of the 5 modules, 3 of them are "almost entirely new. As former Greyhawk player James Ward notes in the introduction, the players in that campaign virtually always ignored the above ground fortifications entirely in favor of the dungeons below."

I was hoping for more old stuff from the 70s.

Geoffrey wrote:I was hoping for more old stuff from the 70s.

As was I, although I guess the real question now becomes, "How good is the new stuff?" That is, does it reflect "Gygaxian" design principles? Is it at all reminiscent of the kind of stuff you'd have seen in the 70s? Or is thoroughly new school with a thin veneer of the older sensibilities?

Don't get me wrong: I'd have preferred a "true" version of Castle Greyhawk (with the necessary serial numbers filed off) rather than a largely new creation as well. However, for various reasons, that might not have been possible/feasible. If what we get instead (and I don't know, since I don't own the product) is a solid old school dungeon, I'm willing to overlook its being mostly new and enjoy it as an example of the Old Ways being brought forward to the present.[/i]

It's more than "60%" all new, I assure you.

It's a worthy work by modern standards, but it's Jeff Talanian's worthy work written under Gary's supervision, not Gary's near-legendary dungeon. Bear in mind that Gary was in ill-health and in semi-retirement even during the earliest stages of preparation and his levels of participation will have decreased steadily after that.

And Gary always preferred to keep his writers on a long creative leash rather than a short one.

I very strongly suspect that Jeff had no written notes from the 1970's to work from at all. I'm very confident that even the map is new.

Which isn't to say there's anything wrong with CZ. It seems competently-written to me, I prefer it to stuff like Undermountain, and I congratulate Jeff Talanian on his achievement in writing it.

I guess I'll have to be content with my Bottle City.

James Maliszewski wrote:Don't get me wrong: I'd have preferred a "true" version of Castle Greyhawk (with the necessary serial numbers filed off) rather than a largely new creation as well. However, for various reasons, that might not have been possible/feasible. If what we get instead (and I don't know, since I don't own the product) is a solid old school dungeon, I'm willing to overlook its being mostly new and enjoy it as an example of the Old Ways being brought forward to the present.

While I plan on getting this product eventually (frankly, as soon as I can pick it up at a considerable discount) and have no doubt that it represents the best of Jeff T and Gary-circa-2007 design sensibilities (the pretty much unanimous praise it's receiving online attests to that) it's really not what I want, what I think would be valuable to the gaming community-at-large, and at least from my perspective I think the lingering confusion over what this product actually is could be downright damaging.

What I mean is that, as anyone who's been paying attention will know, my primary interest D&D-wise is in the game as it existed and was played roughly 1970-75, the dynamic of play and design sensibilities of that era, which are a lot different not only from what we see today, but even from what we saw in the late 70s (as freewheeling OD&D morphed into regulated Gygax-centric detail-heavy AD&D). Getting people to recognize and understand that the game "worked differently" in those days is an uphill battle, in part because the actual evidence of how the game was played in the Twin Cities and Lake Geneva is pretty thin, and so much of what there is has been filtered through the lens of a later perspective (such as the DA, EX, and WG series modules, or the published World of Greyhawk as a whole). With this product out now that is 2007 in its approach but will be taken by most readers (even if the introduction instructs them not to) as representative of 1972-3, that job just got even harder.

This product may well be 100% "Gygaxian" and the crowning achievement of the entire rpg field, putting Griffin Mountain and Masks of Nyarlathotep and Necropolis and all the other classic warhorses to shame, but it's not a time-capsule glimpse into the way the game was approached and played in the early 70s -- when the level maps looked like mazes and the keys were 1-2 pages of handwritten notes. First Fantasy Campaign and some of the other earliest Judges Guild stuff (Tegel Manor, the 5 level I-series dungeon) gives this, The Original Bottle City gives this, but Castle Zagyg vol. II: The Upper Works, for all of its (presumably considerable) merits, does not. That was Gary's decision -- he recognized that tastes and approaches have changed since those days and wanted to present something that would appeal to current players, not amateur historians like me. That was his call and I can't really argue with it, but I don't much like it (and am still holding out hope that someday Gygax Games might be convinced to let the public get a look at those original maps and handwritten keys, to see how Gary actually did it at the time, as opposed to how he did it 35 years later).

PapersAndPaychecks wrote:I very strongly suspect that Jeff had no written notes from the 1970's to work from at all. I'm very confident that even the map is new.

That's more or less what I expect to be the case. As I said above, there's nothing wrong with this approach and, indeed, there's much that can be said in its favor if one is so inclined (and I sometimes am). I do feel that, if it's the case that so much of CZ is in fact brand new, then it's misleading to draw too close a connection between it and Castle Greyhawk, because the connection seems more tenuous than originally advertised.

As I say, though, I don't own the product, so I can't say for certain. When/if I can justify grabbing a copy, I'll be looking at it with an eye toward seeing just how much of Castle Greyhawk I can detect in it.

T. Foster wrote:With this product out now that is 2007 in its approach but will be taken by most readers (even if the introduction instructs them not to) as representative of 1972-3, that job just got even harder.

I am deeply sympathetic to your plight. It is extraordinarily hard, in my experience, to talk about how things were done "back in the day" when there's so little evidence of it out there to be had by gamers too young to have experienced it themselves. There's also a great deal of revisionism going on in various quarters that, I think, only muddies the waters further for those of us who share an interest in the history of the hobby.

Not great news. Nor particularly surprising or new news.

That said, Yamo's review does make it sound like it's a product I might want to pick up. Not to see the classic Castle Greyhawk, but rather to see Gygax's more modern take on dungeons. A setting we really hadn't seen from Gary since Necropolis, since most of his recent adventure materials had been city-based or planar-based.

Most of what everyone is waiting for will be in the second boxed set - The Dungeons. The first level of the dungeons is in the first boxed set (I was lucky enough to be part of Gary's "Porch Crew" and have Gary run us through the first three levels). Most of what I've seen so far was in/on the first level.

But, on the bright side of things, there is alot there to use!

Hello fellows,

Thank you for taking interest in the adventure and engaging in some discussion about it. I also appreciate the kind words as pertains to my modest effort in seeing Gary's vision of this work fulfilled. I just wanted to correct a minor misconception, if I may be so bold.

I can't say too much about the design of this product, but I assure you I had complete use of Gary's original extant notes, including those yellowed-with-age scribblings from the early 70's, and every pain was taken to ensure that they were accurately included in the adventure.

Best,
Jeff T.

Hi Jeff,

Glad to see you checking in here. I hope you realize that nothing we (or at least I -- can't speak for everybody else ) are saying here should be taken as a diss of your and Gary's accomplishment with this set (and the set(s) still to come). It may not be exactly what some of us wanted, and we may lament that, but it's still a very big deal. And I assure you that every bit of "early 70s essence" you can manage to distill into these late 00s products will be very greatly appreciated, at least by me

Ghul wrote:I can't say too much about the design of this product, but I assure you I had complete use of Gary's original extant notes, including those yellowed-with-age scribblings from the early 70's, and every pain was taken to ensure that they were accurately included in the adventure.

This is very encouraging; my interest in the product has now increased considerably.

T. Foster wrote:Hi Jeff,

Glad to see you checking in here. I hope you realize that nothing we (or at least I -- can't speak for everybody else ) are saying here should be taken as a diss of what your and Gary's accomplishment with this set (and the set(s )still to come). It may not be exactly what some of us wanted, and we may lament that, but it's still a very big deal. And I assure you that every bit of "early 70s essence" you can manage to distill into these late 00s products will be very greatly appreciated, at least by me

This.

James Maliszewski wrote:

Ghul wrote:I can't say too much about the design of this product, but I assure you I had complete use of Gary's original extant notes, including those yellowed-with-age scribblings from the early 70's, and every pain was taken to ensure that they were accurately included in the adventure.

This is very encouraging; my interest in the product has now increased considerably.

As it was stated from the beginning...

Is is already out? It's still listed as a pre-order everywhere that I've checked.

Oh, and this is my first post here... so hello everyone!