I'm digesting the final section of chapter 5, which covers remodeling the rules. Before I finish my treatment of the chapter, I feel there is a paragraph of historical interest that deserves preservation and dissemination, so I am going to reproduce that paragraph in whole below. Since Role-Playing Mastery was published sometime in 1987, the paragraph might not reflect events as late as 1987, but certainly it gives us an outline of the Greyhawk campaign from 1973-1986, so after the final stages of AD&D and Gary's departure from TSR. Gary breaks that history up into three significant periods by changes in the rules or the campaign.
My own fantasy campaign has been changed three times. Once the Greyhawk campaign went from D&D to AD&D game rules. Then it was altered from a single-GM campaign to a dual-GM setup, in which another person assumed GM duties when I was unable to participate. Finally, it was redeveloped to enable the management of diverse player groups over a long period of time and at erratic intervals while still allowing those members of the core player group to continue their various PCs within the whole. My reduced time for game mastering forced some of these changes, but time and change were also factors, for the campaign was initiated in 1973 and is still reasonably active to date. The last alteration, that of no longer aiming the campaign at a single player group, was forced by a set of altered personal circumstances that included relocation of some participants, resultant radical changes in the core group, and severe time restrictions. While some of the original group members moved to other campaigns and one or two have developed their own campaigns, most have not been actively involved in RPG activity since the last alteration of my campaign because there is no home for them, no campaign to operate in (94-95).
Next Tuesday I will wrap up chapter 5. As always, I wish you happy imagining, whether reading, gaming, or creating.
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| The Domain of Greyhawk from Anna Meyer's beautiful Atlas of the Flanaess project |