ParanoidObsessive
Mongoose
I was skimming through some of the Lone Wolf books the other day for campaign ideas, when something occurred to me.
If the entire premise of Magnamund started out as Joe Dever's ideas for a homebrew D&D setting, with the various classes and setting details being worked out before he ever really had the idea to turn it into a gamebook series, just how many original campaigns did he run in the setting? Does any record of them still exist, or are they lost forever except in misty memory? Have any details ever leaked out?
If Grey Star was originally actually Ian Page's character in Joe's games, who (if anyone) was playing Lone Wolf? Banedon? Characters like Gwynian, Paido, or Rimoah? Were there any other players with Kai monks, and if so, who were they? Were any of the supporting characters in the books based on NPCs or even PCs from Joe's games, or were they all made up fresh for the new story?
Granted, it doesn't necessarily matter, and it's possible (and maybe likely) that the concepts and details of those early games were later changed as "Chinaraux" became "Magnamund", but I just sort of find it fascinating that there could be dozens of campaigns with intricate storylines that we simply know nothing about.
I also know we're almost certainly never going to see anything like the Japanese "replays" (where they literally publish outlines of RPG game sessions), but I figured it might be interesting to hear little snippets of setting detail or game notes from Joe's old games if maybe there was something he mentioned somewhere in a past interview, or if there was maybe stuff in his notes that August read and gleefully kept clutched to his chest while he chuckled at our ignorance.
If the entire premise of Magnamund started out as Joe Dever's ideas for a homebrew D&D setting, with the various classes and setting details being worked out before he ever really had the idea to turn it into a gamebook series, just how many original campaigns did he run in the setting? Does any record of them still exist, or are they lost forever except in misty memory? Have any details ever leaked out?
If Grey Star was originally actually Ian Page's character in Joe's games, who (if anyone) was playing Lone Wolf? Banedon? Characters like Gwynian, Paido, or Rimoah? Were there any other players with Kai monks, and if so, who were they? Were any of the supporting characters in the books based on NPCs or even PCs from Joe's games, or were they all made up fresh for the new story?
Granted, it doesn't necessarily matter, and it's possible (and maybe likely) that the concepts and details of those early games were later changed as "Chinaraux" became "Magnamund", but I just sort of find it fascinating that there could be dozens of campaigns with intricate storylines that we simply know nothing about.
I also know we're almost certainly never going to see anything like the Japanese "replays" (where they literally publish outlines of RPG game sessions), but I figured it might be interesting to hear little snippets of setting detail or game notes from Joe's old games if maybe there was something he mentioned somewhere in a past interview, or if there was maybe stuff in his notes that August read and gleefully kept clutched to his chest while he chuckled at our ignorance.
