Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 16 Jul 2002 to 17 Jul 2002 (#2002-184) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 18/07/2002, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 10 messages totalling 461 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Vaults of Pandius (5) 2. Ville's Adventures 3. Vaults of Pandius/Council of Alphatia 4. Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) (3) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 20:18:06 +1000 From: Michael Diehm Subject: Re: Vaults of Pandius Just want to take this opportunity while it is topical to congratulate Shawn (a fellow Aussie I believe) on this great site - it's tops! Cheers _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:20:41 +0200 From: Daniel Mayer Subject: Re: Vaults of Pandius Yeah, seems to me that the alphatian clique has claimed the vault at last. On the other hand, even thyatians are allowed to present themselves on that site... looks like the work of stalker "mage-wannabe"... But earnestly: shawn really has put anything on that site that more or less fits Mystara, Peter. It may be a "clique" in the discussion of certain terms, but that's nothing to complain: They're "working" on the list since years. Many years... By the way: You write articles at work? -wonderinmyeyes- > Sorry if I'm going a bit overboard here, but yeah I am feeling a little > miffed here. > > shawn - an apparent clique of one > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:53:34 -0400 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Ville's Adventures Ville, I thought I'd post a quick note of thanks for all of the adventures you've taken the time to share on the List. It's always nice to see different plotlines, as well as new uses for familiar settings in Mystara. Keep it up! Geoff -- Geoff Gander, BA 97, MPA 02 Carnifex Loremaster/Mad Roleplayer Master of the Elemental Plane of Bureaucracy au998@freenet.carleton.ca : www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2091 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 06:13:21 +1000 From: shawn stanley Subject: Re: Vaults of Pandius At 22:28 16/07/02 +0100, you wrote: > Um I am just writing again on a previous email I did just to clear up what I > said and apologise to anyone I might have inadvertently offended. When I > said the Mystaran community can FEEL like a clique is because it doesn't > matter how welcoming the community is, for new people everyone seems to know > each other and the work that has been put looks like the same few people. I > myself find that the Vaults is a superb site and very useful, I was just > trying to point out how it can look to someone coming in new. Because I'm as concerned about the appearance of the thing as I am the actual thing then I am concerned that the Vaults might still appear cliquish. I put on the main page of the Vaults and in the FAQ that I accept any freely submitted articles to the Vaults, I'd have thought this could have helped alleviate this. As a maintainer of the site I can't help that certain people or groups tend to be prolific, I put that material up as much as I put anyone elses material up - and I link to it from multiple places (in the instance of bits of the Almanac) so as to make the Vaults more useable. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can make the Vaults feel less cliquish? shawn stanley what have you done for me lately ... more to the point what have i done for me - mightyfew, "i can't wait" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 06:16:00 +1000 From: shawn stanley Subject: Re: Vaults of Pandius > Thank you Shawn, both for running a great site and for your "open" > policy. Out of all the world-oriented sites I've seen, both official > and otherwise, the Vaults is by far the most useful and eclectic... > and the least cliquish. When the official site thing was first > announced I was apprehensive to say the least, concerned about > someone picking and choosing what would be canon and otherwise. > > If you want to see "cliquish" take a look at Living Greyhawk! > > Anyway, just wanted to say "thanks" and I hope you don't change a > thing. :-) thanks to peoples kinds words, they're really appreciated. and yeah I don't intend to change the basic tenets by which I run the Vaults and yeah Michael, I am Australian. shawn stanley what have you done for me lately ... more to the point what have i done for me - mightyfew, "i can't wait" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:08:23 -0500 From: Dylan Rickards Subject: Re: Vaults of Pandius/Council of Alphatia I think the Vaults of Pandius is an excellent site, and I am one of those people who still play using mostly material from the mid to late eighties. For one thing it encourages us gamemasters to put a little more thought into our work, because it may be presented on the vaults. I have always considered my best piece of campaign work to be the Duchy of Machetos, which is presented on the vaults, even though my players split for the City of Thyatis after only four sessions in the Duchy. I have also used information from many of authors (Ruhland is an excellent resource as I recall) but so much of what is posted is not very useful in my world. So what, I am sure that my bleak, low magic blend of Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer world setting is not for everyone. Although I do not like the idea of a cohesive "Alphatian Council" with real power, such as the lists NAYCE, I have used ideas from it to create a somewhat secret society dedicated to restoring Alphatian glory. Granted this society is almost completely unknown in the Known World (Glantri, Rockholm, Thyatis, and Ylaruam are completely opposed to it, and will hang its membership, though each for its own reasons) and has increasing tended to evil ruthlessness. There are members who are not evil also involved and this has created some strange alliances (politics make interesting bedfellows), such as Terari (who is a member for obvious reasons, though not in his Terari identity) and Bargle (who likes both creating a chaotic magocracy that he can be a mover and shaker in [he was run out of Glantri IMC] and likes the chance to sow chaos). This actually led to situtation where Bargle was saved from the Elven Guard in Krakatos, so he could continue acting on the behalf of a new Alphatia, especially from his new base in Machetos. Another group active in this organization is the "Purifiers", who were a group who sought to change the nation of Alphatia to an Evil Dictatorship of Magic in previous years, and now seek to use the Alphatian Council to create this Dictatorship elswhere. Who leads the purifiers? A Patriarch of Alphaks, of course. This is an idea, I love. It allows the PCs to be friends and employees of Terari while hunting Bargle (they got a personal grudge since first level) and never suspect how Bargle always seems to be one step ahead of them. Nor are they sure how this fits into the overarching plot of defeating the Church of Finity, which seeks to prove that there is no such thing as infinity by destroying the world, Thanatos and Alphaks may [ARE] involved. Dylan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:07:53 -0700 From: The Stalker Subject: Re: Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 15:25:19 +1000, Alfred O'Meagher wrote: (snip) > > > According to Fantaseum's poll, the forum sites polls, valuation sites polls > and the big download sites polls, 3e gets about 40% to 45% of the market, 2e > about 30% and everything else about 25%-30%. Since the basic "Mystara" > setting was really quite vanilla, with increasingly strange and specific > stuff added as time went on, it follows that there is a colossal residuum of > useable material, and it's pretty much everywhere. > There's lots of material that can be used, yes, but I completely disagree that Mystara is quite 'vanilla' and so. The initial composition was a rather hap-hazard affair, yes, which is why we have desert nations like Ylaruam bordering norse lands like the Northern Reaches, but as more material was published the setting became more and more evolved and complex. And Mystara is far more politically 'grey' and complex than goodie- goodie hero wizard campaigns like the Realms. Yes, lots of Realms stuff could work in Mystara and vice versa, but that is one most important distinctions between Mystara and the Realms to most people. If it weren't, we'd all drop Mystara and play in the Realms. So why don't we? I mean, the Realms are far better developed rules-wise in both 2e and 3e with established pantheons and granted powers to clerics, etc. while Mystara remains a strange mixture between all the different rules. I can already tell there are some of the granted powers and domains for clerics that the 3e Mystara group have decided on that I will disagree a lot with, so once again we will not be a united community. The Realms are much easier in that respect, and yet we stay here... > Like the chap doing the Vampire / Mystara stuff, with a setting that has > "classic" monsters it is actually pretty easy to support variants like the > Vampire project, because there is no weird version of the monster set as the > default in Mystara. Not counting the nosferatu? But then even if you did, why would you care if you liked your plot? I modified 2e vampires IMC because I didn't like the 'touch and lose 2 levels' bit (the result was not better, though!) Yeah, it was 2e, but I actually consider 3e to be just as bad or worse... > Likewise, there is a 3e campaign site detailing their > adventures based on piracy on the high seas and so forth - terrific fun and > basic useful research for the many seaborne adventures Mystara should also > be home to. A quick consideration of numbers of aircraft versus numbers of > surface vessels in Mystara should establish that seaborne adventures would > be way more common due to the sheer volume of ocean traffic. Of course there are lots of ocean-going adventure in Mystara. I even participated in writing an adventure with that recently. But for some reason people don't seem so interested in it, not here since few people write that stuff, nor IMC where the players have passed up several 'suggestions' from me to get their own ship... Go figure, because I don't see why that is... > Also, all the Atlantis stuf online is a no-brainer for Alphatia, our very > own drowned continent. Instead of accepting that the survivors struggle on > with some inane equivalent of an anachronistic pseudo-empire, why wouldn't > the survivors' efforts come to naught, so that Alphatia becomes like > Mycenae, a vanished race and culture that produces sub-Alphatian nations > with bits and pieces of vanished Alphatian lore? Much more interesting. Perhaps, but the former colonies won't become that in eight years after the collapse of the central empire. Is it realistic to let it become some ancient fallen empire in less than a decade? Remember, the MA only details one year at a time. > Also, the game designers gave Alphatia the kiss of death - shouldn't that > mean that the canon zombies should let it drop also? > Ahem, no, they didn't. They placed the main continent in the Hollow World where it will simply continue. What remained in the outer world has gone through significant changes, and if you read PWA3 and JA it is very clear that the game designers got rid of Zandor as emperor and replaced him with a central council. This council has later been called Nayce, but what founded it was established in those sources which are canon sources published by the game designers, not written by the MA team! > In terms of official sites or what have you, I think the Birthright support > site wins pretty much hands down. It is beautifully laid out, lovingly > detailed, added to in a coherent way and still caters to any potential > variant by clearly setting out styles of play and reviews of same by people > who tried it. The entire look and feel is fantastic and closely follows the > colour scheme and professionalism of the original rulebooks. Navigation is > simple and the core information on the setting is summarised and correctly > indexed. The links are updated regularly and the additional rules are set > out alongside sidebars of canon information. > I use it a lot because Birthright is one of the other rules sets we use in > our campaign. My legacy holder mixes it up with cinnabryl mutants. > IIRC there are several people on this list who play Mystara using Birthright rules. I have those rules, but IMHO I'd rather use the the Birthright world for that since it was written for it, unlike Mystara. But that's just me. > It's great that some Mystara fans make the effort to do an almanack at all, > I just hope they don't hurt their hands patting themselves on the back all > the time. And where, pray tell, have people done that? > It's pretty good, but not great. I'm terribly sorry we cannot live up to the obviously high standard you've shown us thus far..... > You should check back in with the > other "dead" settings people out there, because some of them are kicking > a$$. > I agree that nothing could be worse than the clique mentality of Living > Greyhawk, although we don't know how much of that is due to the baleful > influence of EGG of Coot himself back in the day. However, the online > Greyhawk started off with the best of intentions, and was, once, > disturbingly similar to Mystara's current almanack. > Please note that the MA project began *before* Greyhawk 'died' for TSR and was turned into this online thing. > Possibly the best thing to happen D&D will be if Hasbro sells the brand name > for some quick bucks. That way Mystara might actually be resurrected in > useable form. > This is the sort of comment that, to me, has large neon-signs in red saying 'Alert!' all over it. Don't get me wrong, I'd sort of like to see Mystara in print again too, but I greatly fear what it will then become instead, because that really would be 'cliquish' in that a select few people would get to decide on everything. What if they thought, like you do, that Alphatia (which is one of my preferred regions) should just serve as the sort of 'fallen empire of ancient lore', a kind of Mystaran version of Netheril in the Realms? You might like that, but I would hate it! Or what if those people loved Alphatia/Nayce so much they wanted to revive it and crush Thyatis and the Heldanners in the process? There are people who would absolutely hate that too! If you want an example, compare what Dupuis wrote in the PWA2, PWA3, and JA with the original gazetteers. She wrote what she wanted and several people have been appalled as a result. I'm not of them, but I do agree she wasn't particularly true to canon established earlier. There as a time there when Mystara was coming dangerously close to becoming another Realms-clone, even from where I'm sitting, and that's the 'luckier' side of the table! Oh, and as for the ESDs, yes they'll be great, but only if you're lucky enough to live in the 'right' country. I've stated my position on this several times and won't go into it again, just note that if you're lucky enough to live in one of the 'right' countries, then that is all fine and good for you, but please keep in mind that not all of us do, and Mystara tends to be a world with fans from all over with an unusual concentration in Europe you won't find in other campaigns for some reason. That's not to say there are more Europeans here, just that there are more than you might expect. - The Stalker ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:11:36 -0700 From: The Stalker Subject: Re: Vaults of Pandius On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:20:41 +0200, Daniel Mayer wrote: > Yeah, > > seems to me that the alphatian clique has claimed the vault at last. > On the other hand, even thyatians are allowed to present themselves on that > site... > looks like the work of stalker "mage-wannabe"... > Pardon me? Now *I* am feeling a little miffed! > But earnestly: shawn really has put anything on that site that more or less > fits Mystara, Peter. It may be a "clique" in the discussion of certain > terms, but that's nothing to complain: They're "working" on the list since > years. Many years... > Not all of us. I joined the MA only last year, and I didn't even join this list until very late in 1999. - The Stalker ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 02:06:57 +0000 From: adrian mattias Subject: Re: Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) Plenty of Aussies on the list as well ... > From: The Stalker > Reply-To: Mystara RPG Discussion > To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) > Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:07:53 -0700 > SNIP ... but please keep in mind that not all of us do, and Mystara > tends to be a world with fans from all over with an unusual concentration > in Europe you won't find in other campaigns for some reason. That's not to > say there are more Europeans here, just that there are more than you might > expect. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 19:13:52 -0700 From: The Stalker Subject: Re: Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) True. I stand corrected. - The Stalker On Thu, 18 Jul 2002 02:06:57 +0000, adrian mattias wrote: > Plenty of Aussies on the list as well ... > > >> From: The Stalker >> Reply-To: Mystara RPG Discussion >> To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM >> Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Mystaran Almanac: AC1018 Events (a short review) >> Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:07:53 -0700 > >> SNIP ... but please keep in mind that not all of us do, and Mystara >> tends to be a world with fans from all over with an unusual concentration >> in Europe you won't find in other campaigns for some reason. That's not to >> say there are more Europeans here, just that there are more than you might >> expect. > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 16 Jul 2002 to 17 Jul 2002 (#2002-184) ****************************************************************