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Old 04-28-2005, 08:21 PM   #31
varianor
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Default Re: Have you played in the Mad Lands?

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Originally Posted by Akicita
There's a simple explanation - the animals are all described in terms that would make sense to a madlander. They've never seen a donkey, so they describe Eeyore as a peculiar, antlerless moose. IIRC, Kanga and Roo are also described without naming them as kangaroos, which the madlanders have also never seen, but neither do they have a local animal with which to confound them, as with the moose.
Ooh. I like that. I'm pretty sure they renamed him as the Moose because my playtest group pointed out the prior name (the Mule?) made it just too obvious. Heh. I'm amazed that more people hadn't figured this out, but it's not a current hot product. I have to say that Laws did write some really cool monsters for the setting, even if my players hated it.
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Old 09-19-2018, 06:28 PM   #32
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Default Re: Have you played in the Mad Lands?

I'm thinking I'm going to use the Mad Lands as the primary inspiration for the Not!Russia portion of my D&D/Pathfinder setting. Which will make, for example, Not!Chechnya interesting, because the bit of my world that would sub in for Islam is essentially Jediism with a significant admixture of In Nomine (Destiny and Fate replace the Light and Dark Sides) (also note that said religion is not my Islam analogue, it's just the biggest religion in the region that has the same geographical relationship to the Mad Lands as the Middle East has to Russia) I can only imagine the fun places I can take it when that mixes with the Pooh Gods . . .
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Old 09-19-2018, 06:57 PM   #33
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Default Re: Have you played in the Mad Lands?

Madlands is my favorite campaign setting I'll never play. It's beautiful and terrible, actually has some smart anthropology put into it, and nobody I know even remotely wants to play in that world.
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Old 09-20-2018, 07:34 AM   #34
tbone
 
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Default Re: Have you played in the Mad Lands?

I'm a big fan of the book, though no one I know wants to play the gameworld. : /

If anyone's interested in some Mad Lands-related reading, I have some (years-old) thoughts on how to game low-power PCs in a killer setting, using the Mad Lands as my prime example: http://www.gamesdiner.com/2013/02/ga...ech-pcs-part-i

Fantasy II is really an interesting book (to me). I'd love to hear reports from anyone who has run a campaign.
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Old 09-20-2018, 02:35 PM   #35
evileeyore
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Default Re: Have you played in the Mad Lands?

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I'm a big fan of the book, though no one I know wants to play the gameworld. : /
Ditto. I'm not a huge fan, but I've always wanted to play in a Madlands campaign.

I even sorta styled my Gamma World/Fantasy mash-up a bit on Madlands (mostly in having mad gods).
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Old 09-21-2018, 12:18 PM   #36
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Default Re: Have you played in the Mad Lands?

I agree that it's catnip for GMs, but not so much fun for players.

Amazing world building, darkly hilarious cosmology, really scary monsters (well worth stealing for any horror game), but nearly impossible to use as anything but a one-shot when dealing with your typical gaming group.

If Robin Laws was able to turn the Madlands into an actual campaign, he had some insanely good roleplayers in his group.
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Old 09-21-2018, 12:24 PM   #37
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Have you played in the Mad Lands?

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I agree that it's catnip for GMs, but not so much fun for players.

Amazing world building, darkly hilarious cosmology, really scary monsters (well worth stealing for any horror game), but nearly impossible to use as anything but a one-shot when dealing with your typical gaming group.

If Robin Laws was able to turn the Madlands into an actual campaign, he had some insanely good roleplayers in his group.
If I was ever going to use Madlands it would be in a context of the players being explorers from over the ocean.
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Old 09-24-2018, 11:55 PM   #38
patchwork
 
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Default Re: Have you played in the Mad Lands?

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I agree that it's catnip for GMs, but not so much fun for players.
Well, it's GMs that buy books.

And while you could and should bend, fold, spindle and mutilate the shamans, gods, !fae and undead as you see fit for your campaign, for me the fascinating thing was how much of the game would necessarily be about the nitty gritty details of band relationships. With no currency, very low technology and almost no concept of private property, Madlanders do not go out to try and amass a pile of phat lewt you can ski down. It's inevitably about who gets to sit at the head of the table, who is dating whom, who gets to speak first at evening council, which elder the new baby should be named after, who can win the mostly-friendly wrestling contest or swim to the outer island....the stakes are, to swords and sorcery people, amazingly small. But they are exactly the stakes that are important to such people. Today you could throw Mr. Stoddard's work on social interactions into it and get a pretty rich and satisfying game about tribal politics out of it. With occasional fae and undead.
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