2012/12/31

Ysgarth, still another forsaken gem.

Yesterday i re-opened my blog after several days (i was far, far away, both physically and mentally) and noticed someone commented again on my post about Ysgarth (here), and he was happy in having found someone had spoken about this game in the vast ocean of the web.

So, since i want this place to become the shrine and refuge of forgotten old fantasy rpg's...here it is, in part.

Happy new year 2013 to those who visit my diary.



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for sharing

mythusmage said...

Got a copy of third edition for something I did a long time ago. Have you looked up "Dave Nalle" on the Web?

Phersv said...

Ysgarth had an interesting setting, an alternate Earth.

David Nalle seemed bitter when he used to write on rec.games.frp.misc. He seemed to be really disappointed that Ysgarth had remained quite obscure.

Philosophical slumber said...

yes i saw him on a wikipedia entry.

Anonymous said...

David seems to have gone so far down the libertarian road as to be beyond rescue.

In their Abyss mag, the Ragnarok crew seemed to make a virtue of their lack of success (sales and critical), saying that meant they were making mature products for sophisticated gamers. They never missed taking a swipe at TSR, whose success they 'blamed' on gamers who didn't know any better.

But another explanation is that the games just weren't that good. For myself, after reading Ysgarth (the rules and the world) nothing jumps out as fun or original, or as standing out in any way, really. It's fun to read as something from the early days of RPGs, but IMO it doesn't have anything that makes you want to actually play it.

For laughs, read a pair of reviews of Ragnarok boardgames here (legit site, Berg is a big name in the wargame biz): http://richardhberg.tripod.com/brog12.html

The file is "The Passage Trio Review". Representative quote: "A type of game exists which is so bad that players become bonded through the attempt to play it."

Philosophical slumber said...

thank you so much for the links you provided, i'm reading that article with much interest.

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