Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 arakor Jun 08, 2005 6:48:10	[IC] Greetings, one and all ... I am called Nicodemus; Arakor Nicodemus if you want to be formal about it, and "that meddling old coot" if you prefer to be impolite. :D For those who don't know me, I reside in a quiet little tower near Marnockham, about a day north of Penhaligon. I'm a pleasant old soul, though a bit curmudgeonly, and I've retired to Mystara after spending too long saving Allansia. [/IC] Hello everyone. I'm Gareth and I'm from the UK. I've never been that much of a fan of D&D in any edition (I loathe Vancian-style magic) but I've always had a soft spot for Mystara. To cut a long story short, I've come back to Mystara after a 20-year haitus and I've begun building up my ESD collection, and acquiring the books. However, I'm going to be using it with HARP. It's a shiny new system from ICE which takes inspirations from 3.5E, MERP and Rolemaster. (I know that there's at least one person on here using Mystara with Rolemaster). I won't prothelyse too much but if you are interested in finding out more, check out the following links: The HARP website Free HARP Lite PDF Anyway, onto the meat of this post. I'm the Secretary of my local Games Club (see .sig for details) and I recently ran a brief (3-weeks brief) scenario for the club. For all the information in the ESDs and the various websites including the Vaults, there isn't a great deal of information on Penhaligon. I've got both GAZ1 and K:KoA and the Penhaligon entries are, word-for-word, identical despite the 10+ years difference in the timelines. Particularly I'm interested in finding any maps of the Penhaligion Barony and the town itself. Anyone got any links that I could try?? (In case you're wondering, I will be publishing my Mystara Conversion for HARP in the future ... just as soon as RL leaves me some spare time ... and I can install the Wiki ... and I can take a break from studying ... and ... you get the idea? :D )
#2 zombiegleemax Jun 08, 2005 6:51:47	That Rolemaster guy would be me. The spells and criticals are what snared me in. I haven't seen HARP, I'll check out those links later. I don't think I have any Penhaligon stuff either, but I'll look through my stuff.
#3 arakor Jun 08, 2005 7:01:59	That Rolemaster guy would be me. The spells and criticals are what snared me in. Well met, that man ... I'd be interested in taking a look at any materials you feel like sharing with a stranger. (What edition are you using? RM2, RMSS or RMFRP? I'm assuming RM2 from some of your previous comments) I haven't seen HARP, I'll check out those links later. I don't think I have any Penhaligon stuff either, but I'll look through my stuff. I thank you kindly, good sir for your offer. Do take a look at HARP, it's a different kettle of fish to RM but I like it as there's a great deal of support from ICE and the web community. I won't bore you with details as the HARP HQ website will fill you in enough. One comment I will make, is that ICE are making all their books available in PDF format for about half the price of the print books. If you've the methods to bind them, they're very good value.
#4 twin_campaigns Jun 08, 2005 7:45:21	I'm an old OD&D fan, and my original campaign still runs using those rules. But my newest campaign is set in Mystara using HARP. We've played 20-30 sessions, so I have a pretty good feel of the problems with the system especially regarding Mystara. In you are interested, I can give you some pointers. In general I like many parts of the system, but even with serious debugging I think the combat system is very problematic. But that's another topic for another forum, I think.
#5 zombiegleemax Jun 08, 2005 17:27:44	Well met, that man ... I'd be interested in taking a look at any materials you feel like sharing with a stranger. (What edition are you using? RM2, RMSS or RMFRP? I'm assuming RM2 from some of your previous comments) I thank you kindly, good sir for your offer. Do take a look at HARP, it's a different kettle of fish to RM but I like it as there's a great deal of support from ICE and the web community. I won't bore you with details as the HARP HQ website will fill you in enough. One comment I will make, is that ICE are making all their books available in PDF format for about half the price of the print books. If you've the methods to bind them, they're very good value. I'm currently putting together a redone Monster Manual using the OD&D Rules Cyclopedia, Creature Catalog, Champions of Mystara, and all other Mystara OD&D modules I have with new more stuff. As well as a few AD&D creatures such as Ettin and Draconians and those included in the Tomb of Horrors, Dragon Mountain and some Packs of mini adventures. I'm also throwing in the MERP creatures that are included in the MERP 2nd by I.C.E. Those won't be converted of course but will be tossed in as I'm going to open a Deminsional gateway to Middle Earth from Mystara which will be located in the area around Angmar during the Witch-King's reign (That would be the Lord of the Nazgul in the movie for all those unaware of Tolkien trivia). I haven't decided where the gateway will be in Mystara yet. My players are obsessed with Middle Earth so the Witch-King himself will make an appearance where he will chase them back into Mystara and be trapped there for a time before he returns to Middle-Earth to do what he did after Angmar crumbled. I was thinking of having another gateway deep in the earth gaurded by a Balrog. Another thing I thought instead would be having the Nine escape from dieing after the destruction of the ring with the power of their own. Then having them return through a gateway created by an unaware magician, who they kill and begin searching for the radiance which they think might revive their master Sauron. That might be going way off, but sometimes ideas roll around in my head a while before they really get good. The pdf thing would be good, because I want the book on Arcane Magic, but I can't pay the ammounts I see it going for. Oh and yes I'm using RM2. It's older, but I've done some of my own modifications. Mostly just designed my own character classes and leveling system. All of which I make up as I go. I'm one of those DM/GM's. Though I keep things realistic and balanced.
#6 RPGpundit Jun 08, 2005 19:29:49	I've never been one of these "setting tied to system" guys, but in this case I re-iterate that to me there is no system other than the "basic" OD&D that can fully and fulfillingly represent the style of Mystara. RPGpundit
#7 agathokles Jun 09, 2005 2:49:38	Particularly I'm interested in finding any maps of the Penhaligion Barony and the town itself. Anyone got any links that I could try?? There's a 4 miles per hex map of the area in B12 Queen's Harvest, and a similar but less detailed map in B11 King's Festival. There's no map of the city, AFAIK. Penhaligon is also featured in the "Penhaligon Trilogy" books, but I can't say whether there's relevant info (or maps) in there.
#8 arakor Jun 09, 2005 3:49:40	I'm an old OD&D fan, and my original campaign still runs using those rules. But my newest campaign is set in Mystara using HARP. We've played 20-30 sessions, so I have a pretty good feel of the problems with the system especially regarding Mystara. In you are interested, I can give you some pointers. Oh, indeed I am interested. I will be in touch in the future about this. And I thank you for your kind offer. In general I like many parts of the system, but even with serious debugging I think the combat system is very problematic. But that's another topic for another forum, I think. Take a look at "Hack & Slash", I reckon it revises the combat system wonderfully. Also, you can always use some of the articles from the Guild Companion as well (http://www.guildcompanion.co.uk/)
#9 zombiegleemax Jun 09, 2005 6:22:03	I've never been one of these "setting tied to system" guys, but in this case I re-iterate that to me there is no system other than the "basic" OD&D that can fully and fulfillingly represent the style of Mystara. RPGpundit I used to think that, but RM is very flexible and I think my adjustments to the rules keep it pretty much the same. Only real difference in my variation of rules and OD&D is the hundreds more spells and all levels are multiplied by 1.5. Which makes those 36th level mages more powerful. Mystara always seemed to have quite a few powerful characters in it so I don't see how this messes up the whole image of Mystara. Besides, I enjoy a criticals system that allows someone to lose an eye when they spring a trap or a hand in a swordfight. And makes the cleric a lot more helpful when they can cast spells to give the player a new hand or eye after the adventure is done. For a price of course. It forces players to do more roleplaying and less hack-n-slash. That gets boring. IMHO.
#10 havard Jun 10, 2005 4:04:19	There's a 4 miles per hex map of the area in B12 Queen's Harvest, and a similar but less detailed map in B11 King's Festival. There's no map of the city, AFAIK. Penhaligon is also featured in the "Penhaligon Trilogy" books, but I can't say whether there's relevant info (or maps) in there. The Penhaligon trilogy portrays Penhaligon a bit differently than whats written in the Gaz and K:KoA. This may be explained by the fact that the events in the novels occur between AC1000 and AC1010. In the novels, Penhaligon is a barony and is somewhat larger than whats presented in the gaming material. The novel also details various personalities, Penhaligon Castle and the Order of the Three Suns, a Knightly order connected to the Barony. Book 1 also has a map of the realm, but to be honest, its crap. There are AFAIK no maps of the town itself. The maps in B11 and B12 are useful though, as is the map in Escape from Thunder Rift, as it details the exact location of Bywater. Also, B10 has lots of useful locations not far from Penhaligon, Xytaqa being the most important one... I have never used HARP, but it looks interesting. I have played Mystara using alot of different systems, and I agree that this can have a good effect on your campaign. It also gives you an opportunity to reflect on what you feel is important about the setting, and what you feel is simply baggage from D&D that can be dumped... Håvard