TLG announces new publishing rights for works of Gary Gygax

rkhigdon · January 29, 2024, 01:54:42 PM

Of course we were all expecting this, but it's nice to see what we'll be getting moving forward.

"We are beyond pleased and honored to announce that the powers that be have released multiple works of the late Gary Gygax to Troll Lord Games for mass-market publication. These include the complete Gygaxian Fantasy World series, Castle Zagyg: Yggsburg, Castle Zagyg: East Mark, Castle Zagyg: The Manse, Castle Zagyg: Mouths of Madness, Castle Zagyg: The Dungeons (including all 17 handcrafted levels and any sublevels), and all related Castle Zagyg adventures such as the Teeth of Barkash Nour, The Halls of Many Panes, The Hermit, and the Kings of England Kings of France boardgame. "

BoxCrayonTales · January 30, 2024, 03:25:02 PM

Yay! I really wanted to get his fantasy world series back in print

GhostNinja · January 30, 2024, 04:42:58 PM

It's great that it is out. I don't want to have to buy all the Castles and Crusades books to play this, but for those who are a fan of the system, I am sure they will have a lot of fun.

JeremyR · January 30, 2024, 05:09:49 PM

I hope they publish the good stuff first, or at least soon, and by that I mean the dungeons. I don't want to have to wait for years while they publish stuff only vaguely related, like the Ybbsburgh city or completely unrelated dungeons or huge books of random tables written by someone else with EGG's name on it, then have them have a hissy fit because they didn't sell well.

Jam The MF · January 30, 2024, 05:49:56 PM

I would have purchased a book or two of Gary's last works, years ago. Since these weren't available; I purchased AD&D 1E, multiple clones of B/X, and some other dungeons instead. Rappan Athuk, Temple of Elemental Evil, Undermountain via DotMM, Tomb of Horrors via TftYP, etc. Also Dungeon Crawl Classics, which I believe would have impressed Gary.

This Gygax estate stuff; is now coming along too late, for me to throw much money at it. Truth be told; I am attracted to more simple RPGs, and modes of play. Faster play, to cover more content more quickly.

rkhigdon · January 31, 2024, 04:40:09 PM

Quote from: GhostNinja on January 30, 2024, 04:42:58 PM
It's great that it is out. I don't want to have to buy all the Castles and Crusades books to play this, but for those who are a fan of the system, I am sure they will have a lot of fun.

You don't have to buy all the books, It's close enough to other C&V versions/retroclones that I think that someone of your experience could easily handle it. Otherwise you could get by with just the PHB, which you can generally get for free.

honeydipperdavid · January 31, 2024, 06:11:42 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on January 30, 2024, 05:49:56 PM
I would have purchased a book or two of Gary's last works, years ago. Since these weren't available; I purchased AD&D 1E, multiple clones of B/X, and some other dungeons instead. Rappan Athuk, Temple of Elemental Evil, Undermountain via DotMM, Tomb of Horrors via TftYP, etc. Also Dungeon Crawl Classics, which I believe would have impressed Gary.

This Gygax estate stuff; is now coming along too late, for me to throw much money at it. Truth be told; I am attracted to more simple RPGs, and modes of play. Faster play, to cover more content more quickly.

Gary's settings are good, just replace them with OSR monsters if you want. I'm running mine on Fantasy Grounds and it greatly simplifies combat, including using advanced rules. A bit of mods helps as well. I'm running a campaign that is:

Keep on the Borderlands
Village of Homlette
Temple of Elemental Evil
Against the Giants
Descent into the Depths
Queen of Spiders

My players are extremely happy. There is no reason why you could not take the maps and settings and repurpose them. For Descent intot he Depts, its easier to use the 3.5 Drow source book to build out the Drow city and Dragonsfoot helps with a module to truly build out Elreiniu (thanks Gary for an unspellable Drow City name).
[/list]

GhostNinja · January 31, 2024, 07:27:19 PM

Quote from: rkhigdon on January 31, 2024, 04:40:09 PM
You don't have to buy all the books, It's close enough to other C&V versions/retroclones that I think that someone of your experience could easily handle it. Otherwise you could get by with just the PHB, which you can generally get for free.

Do you think it would be easy to convert to something like Old School Essentials?

David Johansen · January 31, 2024, 08:16:48 PM

The only real issues are the absence of theives skills, ascending AC, and class hit dice based on AD&D instead of Basic. Monster hit dice use the full range of d4 - d12 but that's less of an issue.

Persimmon · January 31, 2024, 11:14:19 PM

Quote from: GhostNinja on January 31, 2024, 07:27:19 PM
Quote from: rkhigdon on January 31, 2024, 04:40:09 PM
You don't have to buy all the books, It's close enough to other C&V versions/retroclones that I think that someone of your experience could easily handle it. Otherwise you could get by with just the PHB, which you can generally get for free.

Do you think it would be easy to convert to something like Old School Essentials?

Absolutely. I've gone back and forth between OSE & C&C literally on the fly, converting as we play. It's not difficult at all. If you're converting from C&C to OSE, really the only thing you need to do is flip the AC and that's if you're using descending AC in your OSE game. Just run saves, monsters, etc., as in OSE. A few might be a bit more powerful, but that's easily tweaked. And I'd recommend using the AD&D hit dice (d8 for clerics, d6 for thieves, d10 for fighters, etc.) for OSE characters. But there's no reason you could not play Castle Zagyg using OSE rules.

GhostNinja · February 01, 2024, 09:32:03 AM

Quote from: Persimmon on January 31, 2024, 11:14:19 PM
Absolutely. I've gone back and forth between OSE & C&C literally on the fly, converting as we play. It's not difficult at all. If you're converting from C&C to OSE, really the only thing you need to do is flip the AC and that's if you're using descending AC in your OSE game. Just run saves, monsters, etc., as in OSE. A few might be a bit more powerful, but that's easily tweaked. And I'd recommend using the AD&D hit dice (d8 for clerics, d6 for thieves, d10 for fighters, etc.) for OSE characters. But there's no reason you could not play Castle Zagyg using OSE rules.

Thank you. I have also started looking at C&C and I am impressed so I will looking into running Castle Zagyxg.