Quote from: Starglyte on September 02, 2021, 08:31:39 AM
That being said, I think the best use of Known World is actually starting point for homebrew. As mentioned above, these areas are better treated as separate settings for campaigns

This is my feeling - choose one Gazetteer and build a campaign off that. Assume the other areas are more or less compatible backdrop areas to your star area.

I did this with Dawn of the Emperors - Thyatis & Alphatia, pagan Romans vs Magi. Then 20-something years later I did it with Grand Duchy of Karameikos, quasi-Christian Byzantines on the quasi-Balkan frontier. Two completely separate campaigns, both starting in 1000 AC and running for ca 30-45 in-game years.

It does not actually make any sense to have 3rd century pagan Imperial Rome next door to a 14th century Christian Byzantine colony, so you either ignore the huge worldbuilding gap*, or you choose your 'star' area, and you make the other areas compatible with it.

*Given that both Gazetteers were by the talented Aaron Allston, I suspect this approach was deliberate.

Mystara is where lots of gamers cut their teeth. It's hyper generic lands because it's for beginners to fill in the details themselves. Also your campaign was probably my campaign back in the day.

Clear out the Caves of Chaos.
Hunt down that rascal Bargle
Go to the Isle of Dread
Face of that loon Xanathon
Investigate and then kill the Master
Discover ol Palpy clone (the Master) somehow survived and has launched an assault on the known lands. (the War Machine/Battlesystem module)

tons of fun, good times.

I think it was a fantastic setting for my young adult self who had no conception of how anything in the real world worked.  That's not intended to disparage the setting at all just a comment on what is and isn't in it.  What I think makes it appealing is its potential use as an underpainting for your own home creations.  Take a module or a region and draw it out your own way to suit your needs.  You get a rough cultural template for any region and get to say the bad guys come from places with names you didn't have to come up with.  Another fun thing you can do is mix in something like Birthright - do some cultural region matching and squish the two together.  You get a bit more detail to work with.

Curious were alot of these more exotic and anthropomorphic races actually playable in the basic sets?

Quote from: Ocule on September 03, 2021, 10:33:54 AM
Curious were alot of these more exotic and anthropomorphic races actually playable in the basic sets?

No, the standard races from the first Basic set through the Rules Cyclopedia and the black and white boxes were the dwarf, elf, and halfling. The alternate races (and alternate classed versions of the 3 standard demihuman races, because Basic used race as class) were scattered among the Gazetteers and were a prominent feature of the Creatures Crucible series. Many of those alternate classes were questionable, from both a conceptual and a mechanical standpoint.

You can take this as an attempt to unsell: If I wanted to grok something as formidable as Glen's Mystara sourcebook, I would probably just pick up the Guide to Glorantha (regardless of what system I planned to run in it), or some other classic Glorantha setting books.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQPXbAIKA94

From what I hear, Glorantha would definitely tick the boxes of being both immersive and consistent.

Quote from: Ocule on September 03, 2021, 10:33:54 AM
Curious were alot of these more exotic and anthropomorphic races actually playable in the basic sets?

They were not added until later. The 2 biggest races in the Lupin and the rakasta didn't appear until they were added in Dragon articles but they were done clumsily. A good chunk of the races were put in with the creature crucibles, with varying results

I haven't played it, but I read that it was the first setting to make the elemental planes remotely interesting by giving them actual geography. Also, Dark Dungeons X is a retroclone that includes rules for space travel.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 03, 2021, 01:08:01 PM
I haven't played it, but I read that it was the first setting to make the elemental planes remotely interesting by giving them actual geography. Also, Dark Dungeons X is a retroclone that includes rules for space travel.

The elemental planes in BECMI were slightly different from the vague abstractions in AD&D, but they were still vague abstractions.

Quote from: Pat on September 03, 2021, 01:30:19 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 03, 2021, 01:08:01 PM
I haven't played it, but I read that it was the first setting to make the elemental planes remotely interesting by giving them actual geography. Also, Dark Dungeons X is a retroclone that includes rules for space travel.

The elemental planes in BECMI were slightly different from the vague abstractions in AD&D, but they were still vague abstractions.

Yeah, I'm probably mixing it up with DDX's refinements and the atlases on pandius.com. Long story short, the idea is to take the geography of the prime material plane and then make it themed after an element. Makes you wonder whether the elemental planes are necessary to have at all.

Oh man, yeah. I have a deep fondness for this setting. It was our default for many years.

What I like about it:
Voyage of the Princess Ark
The Hollow World
Heldannic Knights
Duchy of Karameikos
Black Eagle Barony
Blackmoore
The Immortals from Wrath of the Immortals

What I don't like:
The whole day with no magic every year - but WotC says it ain't canon so you should be good/s
Glantri is meh for me - if you wanted wheelchairs of diversity it'd be here hehehe
and that's about it. I'm sure I can find other stuff the longer I think about it.

Would I play in the setting today, sure. But I just run stuff in my homebrew setting where I liberally steal from everywhere else.

I think of fondness of the poor wizards almanacs - man so many good npc's

Ah, good times.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 03, 2021, 02:12:14 PM

Quote from: Pat on September 03, 2021, 01:30:19 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 03, 2021, 01:08:01 PM
I haven't played it, but I read that it was the first setting to make the elemental planes remotely interesting by giving them actual geography. Also, Dark Dungeons X is a retroclone that includes rules for space travel.

The elemental planes in BECMI were slightly different from the vague abstractions in AD&D, but they were still vague abstractions.

Yeah, I'm probably mixing it up with DDX's refinements and the atlases on pandius.com. Long story short, the idea is to take the geography of the prime material plane and then make it themed after an element. Makes you wonder whether the elemental planes are necessary to have at all.

I've been doing that for decades. And I get rid of gates. You don't suddenly appear in another world, you just walk. Walk into the volcanic badlands to find the City of Brass, step off the top of a mountain onto a cloud to find the realm of cloud giants and djinn, climb into the primal mountains to find the scheming dao, and discover the marid under the clearest seas. Not every mountain or sea has such realms; you need to know which areas are most imbued with the primal essence of the element. And while you can walk there seamlessly instead of teleporting, these are secret ways to otherworldly realms, and the world shifts around and becomes more representative of the element as you walk.

You need a guardian who casts magic mouth on a fearsome golem that says  "Answer me these riddles three ere ye pass or else be gone. Answer well and the lock falls free. Answer them poorly you shan't travel on! If you want to offer an answer true then heed ye well this subtle clue."

Then the party kills it for XP with a stone to mud spell and beat the guardian up ordering him to summon more golems for you to kill as a level up scam until he is out of spells. Then they sacrifice him to a neutral deity. 

------------

Sphinx : What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the noon, three legs in the*...

Monk : Quiveriniiiiiiiiing Palm!!

Spinx: X X P

Monk:  : KRUNCH! It takes three licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

Cleric : What praytell is a tootsie pop wise sage from afar?

Monk : Stop role playing. DM gib XP NAOW! Pizza will be here soon.

DM :  I HATE YOU GUYS! READ A BOOK!

Greetings!

I would say that unless you have a well-developed home-brewed world you have invested in, Mystara is a good selection. Mystara is as good as anything--standing I think in good company with Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, or anything else. Mystara is certainly a kind of Gonzo, "Kitchen Sink" kind of world. I would think for the people that hate that kind of approach--are definitely more suited to just designing their own home-brewed world. I think Mystara has its charms, though, and while seeking to provide a Gonzo world that is suitable and attractive for new gamers and DM's alike--much like Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms--it does so with its own sense of style and flavour.

As S'mon mentioned, each gazetteer can definitely function as a entire campaign setting. A group of players starting out in Karameikos, or Ethengar, can easily be entertained and occupied without ever leaving such an area. The Bruce Heard expansions dealing with the Princess Ark adventures are very entertaining, fun, and inspiring. I used to read them regularly, and I don't even run a Mystara campaign.

Honestly, Mystara really is great! It offers endless variety and possibilities for virtually any kind of campaign. I think it is important to rememeber that it is not likely that a player group is going to be extensively exploring six or a dozen different cultural locations or gazetteers in a campaign. Chances are they will focus on far fewer. Certainly one, and maybe one or two beyond that. The DM should narrow their lens so to speak, and develop the areas with far more detail and depth. As I alluded to earlier, for example, if you are playing as a Mongol warrior in Ethengar, a well-developed campaign can keep you busy there for an entire campaign, with not much need to go beyond its borders and parameters. The same could be said for most any of the Mystara gazetteers.

In developing my own world of Thandor, I came to grips with many of the same dynamics found in Mystara, or Greyhawk, or Forgotten Realms. And I actually downplay or avoid much "Gonzo" elements, instead preferring a more unified, historically-inspired Ancient World/Dark Ages themed world. Even in my own development, for example, as I detailed my own world's Norse environment--in doing the research and incorporating much of that into my own world--I was blown away by how enormous, how diverse, how wondrous such an environment is. A Norse "Bronze Age" environment or iron-age environment has so many different Norse tribes; some are coastal sea-farers, while others live deep in the forests. Meanwhile, other Norse tribes live in the hills and mountains, and herd animals. Then there are long-distance trading by both land and sea with Britons and Celts, Germanic tribes, Baltic tribes, Slavic tribes, as well as Finnish people to the east. Add in a few Siberian/Asian migrating tribes, too. Fantastic elements include various kinds of undead, as well as werewolves and other lycanthropes. Giants, ogres, goblins, dwarves, gnomes and elves are all readily included. Then you can have lots of elemental creatures and spirits of earth, air, water, and fire. And of course, Dragons. Later in the campaign, players for example can perhaps run into Roman-like people, Greek peoples, Scythians, Asians, or eventually even Persian-like peoples. The variety is staggering, even from a more historical-minded approach. Add in fantastic elements, and yeah, an enormously rich and deep campaign can be created for the players being centered on some no-name coastal Norse town in the Dark Ages.

That same kind of richness, depth, and variety can be achieved also with a Mystara campaign.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: BronzeDragon on September 02, 2021, 09:48:56 AM
If Mr Welch can't convince you, no one can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrIbBixP5dU

Legit. If Mr. Welch doesn't get you hyped for Mystara, nothing anyone here says can or will.

It's such a fun setting. There's literally something for everyone, and TONS of space left for you to make what you want. Read GAZ1. When you're done with that one you're probably know if you want to read more.