When it comes to Blackmoor and The First Fantasy Campaign, most are hard put to find much information about it. I am lucky enough to have gotten a copy a long time ago (well not that long ago) and so I don't have to worry about the high prices that it and other items fetch these days.
One of the ways to find out about it are of course to read a review of it and I am going to link to one here. This review ( First Fantasy Campaign Review) is by Michael Falconer and it is mostly good. I just take exception to some things when he introduces the review.
One, what has everyone wanted all these years? The answer to that is easy, the real Greyhawk, a "journal" of the Gygax home campaign. That was promised many, many times over the years, but it never happened. I am not going to speculate on the reasons why, although many of them are known.
Two, the First Fantasy Campaign is something that the published World of Greyhawk never was for Gary Gygax, the FFC provided a real look into the creative mind of Dave Arneson and his players.
Three, the FFC is and was an idea grab bag of inspiration and that it is, just as much today as it was 41 years ago.
Four, you could have taken FFC and have heavily edited it and organized it and in the process removed the life and charm from it too. I am really glad that did not happen.
I could go on, but that is enough. The only thing you could do to make The First Fantasy Campaign book better is to provide additional volumes containing all of the experiments that Arneson did along the way between Christmas 1970 and his passing.
Let's hope that Arneson's heirs and Bob Bledsoe's heirs will bring The First Fantasy Campaign and other items back to print and to pdf. This has been hidden long enough!
One of the ways to find out about it are of course to read a review of it and I am going to link to one here. This review ( First Fantasy Campaign Review) is by Michael Falconer and it is mostly good. I just take exception to some things when he introduces the review.
This product is nothing like what you would expect. I love FFC, but I am still amazed that it was considered ready for publication, even by the standards of the day. When Gary Gygax published The World of Greyhawk in 1980, he essentially published a huge map and an accompanying booklet which systematically described the lands on the map; it was not a "journal" of his home campaign!I would take issue with his implication that it was not ready to publish and that it is a problem that it is not like The World of Greyhawk. Personally I am so glad that it was not like The World of Greyhawk in 1980. Here is why,
One, what has everyone wanted all these years? The answer to that is easy, the real Greyhawk, a "journal" of the Gygax home campaign. That was promised many, many times over the years, but it never happened. I am not going to speculate on the reasons why, although many of them are known.
Two, the First Fantasy Campaign is something that the published World of Greyhawk never was for Gary Gygax, the FFC provided a real look into the creative mind of Dave Arneson and his players.
Three, the FFC is and was an idea grab bag of inspiration and that it is, just as much today as it was 41 years ago.
Four, you could have taken FFC and have heavily edited it and organized it and in the process removed the life and charm from it too. I am really glad that did not happen.
I could go on, but that is enough. The only thing you could do to make The First Fantasy Campaign book better is to provide additional volumes containing all of the experiments that Arneson did along the way between Christmas 1970 and his passing.
Let's hope that Arneson's heirs and Bob Bledsoe's heirs will bring The First Fantasy Campaign and other items back to print and to pdf. This has been hidden long enough!
No comments:
Post a Comment