How does the former differ from the latter? Which is more awesome? I don't know very much about the former, I do know quite a bit about the latter, and have judged it to be awesome. Could the former really be more awesome?

RPGPundit

Bledsaw vision of the Wilderlands is of isolated City-States surrounded by a wilderness of monsters and ruins. It is a pretty fun vision and I had a lot of fun writing up my share of the maps for the Necromancer Boxed Set in accordance with that idea.

But that not how my personal version of the Wilderlands works.

Instead is it a place where the adventure is generated in large part by the clash of religion and culture. It is a fuller world, and larger. It a place my players liked to explore because I had layers of mysteries both regional and campaign wide for them to uncover.

You don't have to take my word for it. Two of my players have blogs of their own and you can read them yourself.

http://gothridgemanor.blogspot.com/2009/12/majestic-wilderlands-unleashed.html

http://gamerscloset.blogspot.com/2009/12/majestic-wilderlands.html

Also Al of Beyond the Black Gate played at a con game I ran using this stuff and he some things to say.

http://beyondtheblackgate.blogspot.com/2009/12/majestic-wilderlands-take-look.html

With 30 years of play I happen to have developed a few rules along the way. Which is what the Majestic Wilderlands supplement is about. Specially adapting those rules for the OD&D game as represented by Swords & Wizardry.

Why Swords & Wizardry because it didn't have a lot of baggage compared to later editions that have retro-clone. Now we are talking inches here not miles but it was enough to say "I am going to use Swords & Wizardry to build off of".

The supplement has 85 pages of rules and 55 pages of a setting guide giving the broad overview of the Majestic Wilderlands. I tried to explain why I chose the things I did so that the setting part would be useful as a idea generator.

As for the rules the heart of it are the various classes I introduce for the Majestic Wilderlands. The reflect the setting as I referee it through AD&D, Fantasy Hero, GURPS, D&D 3e and now back to OD&D/S&W. Unlike some class expansions these are designed around niches in my setting as opposed to the needs of an adventuring party.

For example the Mountebank is a specialist in the context of the thieves culture of City-State. They are the back alley magic-users that help the Brotherhood of the Lion (the Thieves Guild) with jobs that require a little magical grease and to prevent those pesky divination spells from spoiling enjoyment of the ill-gotten gains. Hence their street name of "Foggers".

As to why I don't just use a magic user, it is because Mountebanks are not as good. They don't have as good as training, they continually distracted and forced to use street smart for day to day survival. As result they are a different class than the Magic-user.

So the focus is not fix D&D but rather present how I ran things. Because I never strayed far from the core bag of the stuff that made up of D&D I think many of you play D&D will find it useful. I would be surprised if somebody managed to use everything.

As for the future I am working on an adventure the Beast of Kensla set in the Majestic Wilderlands. Hopefully this will be done by the end of March 2010. I expect to have something to release every quarter. I will also be doing sandbox campaign material, support of the settings in Points of Light, and possibly some Mongoose Traveller stuff.

It is awesome? In the end that a question only you can decide.

To help there is the preview at RPGNOW and a table of contents here at http://www.batintheattic.com

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=68864

http://www.batintheattic.com/contents.html

Looks interesting! When do you expect the print version to become available?

Quote from: Melan;347320Looks interesting! When do you expect the print version to become available?

1 to 2 weeks I need to review a proof copy. Similar to the drill that Fight On! goes through.

Quote from: RPGPundit;347300How does the former differ from the latter? Which is more awesome? I don't know very much about the former, I do know quite a bit about the latter, and have judged it to be awesome. Could the former really be more awesome?

RPGPundit

Given how much of the 'Majestic Wilderlands' is taken up with rules material, if you have no intention of running the MW with some version of pre-3e D&D (0e/Basic/RC/1e), or one of those retro-clones that I know you love, then it may not be of great interest to you.  OTOH, if you play an older version of D&D, this may be worth getting even if one you not want to run a game in the Wilderlands.

The setting overview material looks great on a quick glance, but does not appear to be exactly the same Wilderlands of the box set (thus introducing yet another variation of that setting, James Mishler's version being another).  I'm not sure how it would all mesh in practice.

Quote from: Akrasia;347336The setting overview material looks great on a quick glance, but does not appear to be exactly the same Wilderlands of the box set (thus introducing yet another variation of that setting, James Mishler's version being another).  I'm not sure how it would all mesh in practice.

It not intended to mesh readily. Locales could be transposed with tweaks in background but other than that it as different from the WoHF as Greyhawk.

My intent that the setting stuff stands on it's own merits. The reason I license is that it save me a lot of work as opposed to my Plan B which was take all of my stuff and transpose it to a new map. But thanks to Bob Bledsaw's Jr's generosity I was able to secure a license.

However it is limited to just the production of Majestic Wilderlands. Bob has other plans for the WoHF and sorry I don't much about them. So if I continue the work I did for WoHF it won't under Bat in the Attic Games or the Majestic Wilderlands. Also the stuff I created for the WoHF is all new. When I read Bob notes on the background (mostly unpublished stuff at the time) I just jettisoned any idea of using my Majestic Wilderlands and started with the original stat lists.


With all that said I have a lot of choices on what to do for products for the Majestic Wilderlands. Picking stuff that is usable in both is a consideration.

A cover screenshot for those who are interested with a link to a bigger version.


http://www.batintheattic.com

Hey Melan, can we do some collective order for Europe? Lulu Germany is basically not doing business the last I checked.

Quote from: Settembrini;347378Hey Melan, can we do some collective order for Europe? Lulu Germany is basically not doing business the last I checked.

My last Lulu order arrived without delay (August, Fight On! #5 and Ruins & Ronin).

In case you haven't got more recent info that suggests to better not deal with Lulu directly you're invited to join my order of Supplement VI.

Quote from: estar;347304Bledsaw vision of the Wilderlands is of isolated City-States surrounded by a wilderness of monsters and ruins. It is a pretty fun vision and I had a lot of fun writing up my share of the maps for the Necromancer Boxed Set in accordance with that idea.

But that not how my personal version of the Wilderlands works.

Instead is it a place where the adventure is generated in large part by the clash of religion and culture. It is a fuller world, and larger. It a place my players liked to explore because I had layers of mysteries both regional and campaign wide for them to uncover.

Would you be willing to elaborate on this last paragraph?

QuoteFor example the Mountebank is a specialist in the context of the thieves culture of City-State. They are the back alley magic-users that help the Brotherhood of the Lion (the Thieves Guild) with jobs that require a little magical grease and to prevent those pesky divination spells from spoiling enjoyment of the ill-gotten gains. Hence their street name of "Foggers".

As to why I don't just use a magic user, it is because Mountebanks are not as good. They don't have as good as training, they continually distracted and forced to use street smart for day to day survival. As result they are a different class than the Magic-user.

This is pretty much my precise motivation for the Rogue-Wizard in FtA!

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;347416Would you be willing to elaborate on this last paragraph?

QuoteInstead is it a place where the adventure is generated in large part by the clash of religion and culture.

Most players in my campaign start out or quickly join one of the different groups that make up the societies of my campaign.

For example a recent campaign had a cleric of Mitra, a Paladin of Mitra, and a Thothian Mage. Mitra told the paladin to protect the mage as he has some destiny that he must remain alive for. The cleric was in between assignments and got caught with the paladin's quest and the church wound up assigning him to help the paladin by the third session. The campaign started with the Mage poking around the orc infested Dearthwood east of City-State. The paladin was called by Mitra to go in there although the player didn't know really why. The two met up and helped each other. Once back in city-state the mage liked hanging out with at the temple of Mitra better than the mage's guild. Since the mage has kept up with his guild duties it was not an issue. I suspect tho if the campaign progressed the mage would have come into conflict with the guild attitude by the way the character was played.

Some of the adventures along with all this was going through a cavern of orcs in the Dearthwood, an abandoned underground elven hold infested with undead, and a mission to secure a concession for a magical spring for the Guild from a Baron in the Duchy of Dearthmead.

One of the previous campaign had a group of characters where one was a knight of Dearthmead and the rest are officers and members of his household.

Then there was series of campaign I ran in the mid 90s where everybody was a mage, another where everyone was in the thieves guild, another city-guards and so on. Each fleshed out a formally mundane aspect of the setting. So when read about the Thothian Guild, the Trehaen and the rest realized those was created by my players asking question and doing things that required me to make up characters and plots.

From a very early date I always stressed that your allies and enemies were just as important as the +2 sword you found. In many of my campaign what was treasured was the position and titles the players earned.

QuoteIt is a fuller world, and larger.

I expanded my maps to 12.5 miles to the hex instead of 5 miles when a group went "that was a surprise!" when they travelled from City-State to Viridistan in a week of walking. They though it was much vaster than it was. After talking with them out of game I realize that how I wanted it so made the change. This happened around 1985 and is the dividing line from when my campaign became the Majestic Wilderlands instead of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy.

QuoteIt a place my players liked to explore because I had layers of mysteries both regional and campaign wide for them to uncover.

I like writing history stuff. King's list, timelines, historical maps and the like. The appendixes to the Return of the King; eat them up. Wasn't always of practical use but as it started to pile up over the years I was able to use it to make my dungeons and ruins more interest for those who choose to go into it a little later. It also was useful for a memorable series of adventure involving time travel that one group liked.

The following link is what much my notes look like in a raw unedited form.

http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/beta/Lands_Antil_Kings.pdf

I did this for a campaign where the players gotten themselves into war with the Kingdom of Antil. I need to understand who the factions and personalities were. So I expanded this from five lines on a timeline note into a fuller essay on the topic.

While this seems way nitpicking and overkill this is a result of 30 years of running the same campaign for fantasy rpgs and keeping my notes in good shape.

Looking over my archives it looks like I wrote this in 1998 and for that year I added a map of Dunador, two pages of notes on a campaign set a 100 years from my "present" in the wilderlands, and a Treaty between City-State and one of players, Draco-lindus who became a Duke because of the conquest of Antil. This was done in one year so it not like it was a lot of work.  But when you add up everything from 1982 to 2009 (with computer files taking over for paper around 1990) you get enough for a 140 page supplement for Swords & Wizardry and then some.

Because of some lucky choices and great players much of the stuff I feel is playable rather than one big drawn out exposition.  Now that I am publishing the trick is to distill all of my notes and maps into various products that are useful and fun to play. And do it so that they have at least some minimal value for other campaigns.

Seven Yankee dollar!  Thanking to strong Australian ruble, I am also being able to take part in this most excellent bargain.

Announcing the release of the print version of the Majestic Wilderlands. It is available for $12 at lulu.com.
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/supplement-vi-the-majestic-wilderlands/8026307

For those with the PDF there is now a Original style cover for you to use if you choose to print out your book.
http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/OriginalStyleBookletCover.pdf

If you need the same type of card stock for the cover you can buy some from this site.
http://www.mybinding.com/.sc/ms/ch/GBC-Parchment-Stone-Grain-Binding-Covers

Good info, thank you! Sounds very interesting, unfortunately, not enough for me to know which version I'd like better until I can compare the two personally. It sounds like they're not really that far apart, and its mostly a question of style.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;347401

My last Lulu order arrived without delay (August, Fight On! #5 and Ruins & Ronin).

In case you haven't got more recent info that suggests to better not deal with Lulu directly you're invited to join my order of Supplement VI.

Dirk, I would join too - if possible

Thanks

Deepfire