All this OSR talk made me dig out my old Red Box and Expert Set, which then prompted me to finally get a complete print set of the Gazetteers from DMsGuild...how long before they're finally pulled? Showed up yesterday and I'm gonna say not bad for what they are. I never did buy the originals when I had the chance (baby stuff!) and don't wanna drop tons on them now, so for ~$10 each these work wonderfully IF I plan to actually use them. So, on to that.

Current list of resources
B/X (using these for the original maps)
BECMI boxed sets
Cyclopedia
Wrath of the Immortals
Gazetteers
Dawn of the Emperors (POD I got with the above)
Hollow World boxed set, along with some adventure for it
In Search of Adventure
Creature Catalog
A bunch of modules like B1, B2, B3, B4, some X stuff, DA3? The one with the robots on the front
PDFs of the Vaults of Pandius which I might get POD eventually because they are pretty nice

So anyway...what's a good approach for this? Obviously I've played in Mystara before, but it was kinda limited in scope. One summer we went from 1st to 36th, then Immortal because I had the boxed set and wanted to try it out. But it was almost all Grand Duchy stuff. Isle of Dread. Fort Doom. Etc. We never went past the Frost Giants or Gnomes on the map. Never been to the Hollow World, Alfheim, or Glantri (except in the D&D videogame). I really like the game world because it's very clever and subsumes magic in a way that actually makes sense. I think Forgotten Realms sucks because it's so magic-rich yet LIMITED. Oh you can't do any of that crap because these certain people won't let you! Mystara is like, fuck that, you want flying boats? Go for it. Teleportation booths and giant robot dragons? Sure. But it does it in a way that's not stupid nor contrived. The immortals keep tabs on everything, but are still kept in check and cannot just arbitrarily do whatever they want. And this is where the problems arise as to where to start and how to proceed. If I just assume all this stuff exists and the game doesn't take place on a little island, isolated from reality, how the hell do I make it all work?

I thought about working through In Search of Adventure, then then wondered why not just start with B2 instead, which then made me remember that B2 has conceits that don't really fit into Mystara 100% and blah blah blah. I'm at a loss as to the best way to do this. Should I just dump a group of 1st level PCs in Specularium and run it like a sandbox? I mean, that would work, but I've done that game before as already stated...I want to do the full D&D Game World (tm) Campaign, not the B/X one.

Opinions are welcome, especially if you've actually done something like this before. If it helps, I want to do another 1-36-Immortal game, with the ascension basically being "you won" if the PCs ever get there.

Each GAZ is very much its own campaign setting. I've done a Northern Reaches campaign and a Karameikos campaign (oh: and a Dawn of the Emperors campaign!), both starting in 1000 AC and developing very differently, with very different world events. I'd recommend that. Take one GAZ and make it the truth of the setting, with the others just used for support as the campaign develops. You can run over a dozen very different several-year campaigns.

So I think, decide on the campaign theme you want, which GAZ excites you the most, and go from there. Use published modules that fit the theme. Magic School - Glantri. Mongols - Ethengar Khanate. Dwarves - Rockhome. etc.
Dawn of the Emperors is very good for level 1-36 play if that is your main concern. If using it, decide whether you want a Thyatian or Alphatian campaign. There were several Thyatis based low level modules to start you off.

Having twice run a party from level 1 up to the cusp of immortality (we never liked those rules), there are lots of ways to go.  You can rely mostly on published material and bounce around, or focus on one particular area and use that as the main base.  The Dawn of the Emperors boxed set is great in that you've got a good built-in back story with the Alphatia-Thyatis rivalry that also provides opportunities to travel around Mystara.  Or you could be in Darokin or Minrothad and run a trade-oriented campaign.

I also highly recommend the Desert Nomads modules (X4-5 & X10), especially if your players are into diplomacy and/or mass combat.  The latter is for levels 10-14, but includes hooks to play lots of the other expert modules.  And the last time we ran a Mystara campaign it was great because The Master had killed one of the PCs in X5 and escaped, making him a hated villain when he showed up again and making it more satisfying when they finally defeated him.

We used X13 to transition into domain play and I then shifted the various companion level adventures to the Northern Reaches, which worked fine.  But Norwold is interesting too and if you grab the fan-made gazetteers from Vaults of Pandius, there's a ton of good content for the realms up north.

Finally, since all the gazetteers have built-in adventures and hooks, you can mix and match as needed if you don't want to plot things carefully out.

I liked it when it was just the Known World, NOT "Mystara" with its flying ships and crap like that.  Also never liked the whole Immortals thing.  I liked it as Greyhawk-that-wasn't-Greyhawk.  That's just me though; it could be run either way you wanted.  Some of the Gazetteers are great, and others were ruined by being too full of jokes and parodies.  You could easily run an entire campaign using just one of the Gazetteers.  Interestingly, the Five Shires was one of the better ones.  I wish I had the whole set of originals.  I treasure the few that I have, though, and have read most of the others.  I liked the two Trail Maps as well.

I almost bought the Gazetteer POD from Drivetrhu.  But there were complaints that the print was blurry.  I will probably track down an original copy.

As for your campaign, B2 can be easily adapted into anything. 

Have you checked out the original B3: Palace of the Silver Princess?  It can be found on archive sites as a .pdf.

BECMI is a solid system.  I am sure you and your players will have a good time.

I still plan to run a Glantri campaign someday. Once I had characters up to a decent mid-level, I'd put that on pause and begin again in a new location that allowed for cleric, dwarf and halfling play. Maybe in Thyatis. Once the new PCs were of comparable level to the original group, I'd let the players mix and match characters into a new party with back-ups. After some rambling around the landscape I'd let them get into the dark elves and then the Hollow World.

After going over everything, my plan so far is thus:

1) Start characters with the Red Box dungeon. This is the first game I ever played, so I figure it's a good place to begin. The assumption made later is that it's in Threshold, which is an excellent starting point.
2) Move through some of the B-level modules based on the map locations in the Expert set. B1 keeps with the whimsical nature of Red Box and is fairly close to the starting location, but I'm debating on whether to do B2 or B3 next. B3 seems like the next logical choice, with B2 being a good jumping-off point to an excursion to B4, then on to some more wilderness-oriented adventures.
3) Have to throw in X1, because that's just what you do.
4) At this point, after 4-5 modules, characters should be 10th or so by my estimation. I figure they will mop up B4 and be in good shape to take on X1, then back to Grand Duchy for "high-level" stuff.
5) ...??
6) PROFIT!
7) Wrath of the Immortals adventure stuff here...basically run some ascension adventures.

So the 5-6 part is problematic. Maybe Fort Doom->Five Shires->X2->Glantri->Rock Home->X3? Ylaruam and X3 after B4 seems more logical, but I sort of like B4 as a "mission" with the characters reporting back to the Duke then being sent to handle the Baron.

One point about B4 is that you don't really have to set it in a desert. The lost city can be anywhere, from arctic wastes to jungle & temperate wilderness.

Quote from: S'mon on April 07, 2023, 07:17:27 AM
One point about B4 is that you don't really have to set it in a desert. The lost city can be anywhere, from arctic wastes to jungle & temperate wilderness.

Yeah I realize that, but I was trying to strictly use the Mystara map. Now that I've delved further into it, I am thinking of ditching the "Mystara" idea and going more "Known World" with the Gazetteers outside of the greater Karameikos region being essentially lands that cannot be traveled to except by traversing through portals or the hollow world. Like they're "different planes of reality". Or something.

Also had an idea of having several parallel campaigns going in some of the different locales (maybe three or four), and changing characters every week. Shared experience pool so they all level up at essentially the same time (lots of off-screen adventures). When they finally petition for immortality, it turns out each player's characters are aspects of the same immortal persona, and they have to try to combine them as part of a quest, then ascend. This would allow moving around with no required rational and give a cool, definitive "end game" to wrap up, something which rarely ever seems to happen.

Greetings!

You know, I have many of the Gazeteers. There are a few I don't have, sadly. I always found the Gazeteers to be absolutely full of historical-based lore, cultural details, and always lots of cool adventure ideas, awesome NPC's, and just all kinds of really inspiring stuff. I think they were a great value, and a very nice primer for a DM that isn't a Historian with bookcases full of books. Even then, because they are specifically-game related, they are awesome! I love them!

Your Gazeteer Campaign should be HUGE FUN, Brad!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: S'mon on April 07, 2023, 07:17:27 AM
One point about B4 is that you don't really have to set it in a desert. The lost city can be anywhere, from arctic wastes to jungle & temperate wilderness.

...or the central plateau on the Isle of Dread.

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 23, 2023, 08:06:29 PM

Quote from: S'mon on April 07, 2023, 07:17:27 AM
One point about B4 is that you don't really have to set it in a desert. The lost city can be anywhere, from arctic wastes to jungle & temperate wilderness.

...or the central plateau on the Isle of Dread.

I'm going to cry that I never thought of that myself.