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| No, not the cover for the Dwimmermount Kickstarter, this is the cover of "what almost was" |
Now, I say "essentially complete", as there is still proofing, spell checking and layout to do, but Alexander Macris says the Labyrinth Lord edition of Dwimmermount is complete.
I do not doubt the effort that has been used to get this monster of a Kickstarter completed, but I suspect the hands of three very different creators are going to have a bit of a "Frankenstein" effect. I could be wrong. Hopefully I am wrong, as I invested a pretty penny in this cursed project. It's good to see there will be some closure soon, no matter what the end product finally is.
Here's the first paragraph of the backers only update that was sent out late this afternoon:
Hello Dwimmermount backers. I'm pleased to report that I've just uploaded three huge word documents to the backer dropbox: Chapters 1-7, Chapters 8-20, and Appendices A-G. To put it bluntly, the writing of the Labyrinth Lord version of Dwimmermount is complete.It's still in .docx format and multiple files. I'll wait for the "maybe ready for prime time PDF" before I spend any time pouring over this.
Here's hoping it's everything we had originally hoped it would be.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to owning this controversial piece of OSR history! :)
ReplyDeleteI may be late for this - but what really happened to James Maliszewski, does anybody know?
ReplyDeletehe's still around on G+ - if you are his friends list
DeleteHe also has the occasional article over on Black Gate.
DeleteSome kind of meta humor:
ReplyDelete"A disgusted adventurer has left graffiti, scrawled in blood, on the south wall. In Low Thulian (Common) it reads “I explored Dwimmermount and all I found was 2,000 lousy coppers - Sir the Fist”. An arrow points downward to the rubbish containing the coin sack."
Alexander went and made the entries longer. He spent a lot of time smoothing out the conceptual links between levels and making all the "mythology" consistent.
There is some cool shit scattered along this massive document. I'm not sure the material is all that well served by the format, which is like a really, really long TSR module. I remember back when we were all talking about megadungeons six years ago or so, and none had really been published, that I thought a dungeon like this would be better off just detailing the cool parts and having no detail at all for the normal rooms - just a listing of contents and some tables to generate detail. Stonehell was closer to this in practice, with its ultra-minimal key and two-page spreads to expand on a few rooms per quadrant.
At a glance, Alexander's changes are not going to change the minds of people who didn't like James's original draft of Dwimmermount. It's still a whole lot of vanilla. For people who did, I think it will improve the depth of the book, although I'm less convinced that it makes it more playable.
I didn't backed this KS when it appeared, but I've backed the three ACKS kickstarters, and I have confidence in the work of Alexander Macris. I will try to buy a copy of this book when it becomes available.
ReplyDeleteThe gentlemen at Autarch truly have my sympathy on this one. Time will tell what they were able to salvage and I hope they get huge accolades if they prove successful.
ReplyDeleteCorrect.
ReplyDeleteAt worst there will be stuff worth mining for ideas and it'll probably be a fun read. At best it'll be something I'll want to run for my group.
ReplyDeleteMy enthusiasm has certainly fallen off over the years, but I'm glad to be getting a book. I really appreciate the work put in by people to see that the KS is finally fulfilled. And I still can't be too upset with James Maliszewski given how much his blog did for my gaming and getting me interested in the OSR. Heck, I still reference Grognardia for my games.
Not even at that point if you apply the Kevin Crawford "is my KS ready?" test.
ReplyDeleteDwimmermount is the one and only KS I have backed. Boy, I picked a doozie! lol
ReplyDeleteI'll be glad to finally get a book at some point this year. Am I jinxing if I say that?
How much more jinxed could this KS get? :)
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