[DL] Re: Combined Format

["Reuben McCallum" <bloopy40@hotmail.com>]

Hey Folks
I know I'm probably wading into this debate a little late, but I've been 
deprived of computer access lately. But I want to put a little perspective 
on it.
In the four years deadlands WW has had sourcebooks on the Great Maze, The 
City o' Gloom, The Mississipi river region, sourcebooks for the north and 
south, a source book south o' the border, one little boomtown explored in 
Depth (Doomtown or Bust!), has released a yearly update, and a wide array of 
character books. Honesty, I can't see the necessity for setting specific 
sourcebooks for that game anymore. Sure, it'd be nice to see Europe, but 
that's, strictly speaking, well out of the brief of deadlands innit? I mean, 
as interesting as post-reckoning china would be, it's limited, isn't it?
The new line of books will be, I think, more generic, cross-setting stuff; 
hunting grounds things, storylines, rules, and that sort of stuff. There 
will be still setting specific stuff, and that will probably cover your 
location specific stuff (like, one hopes, Great Wierd North - Twin Peaks 
here I come!), and they haven't given up on it. But I would shudder to think 
that Peg might start bringing out sourcebooks that are multiply redundant 
(like a hunting grounds sourcebook for each of the settings, etc.) Already, 
I bring a fair swath of my WW books to my HoE game (not visa-versa - much. 
My Undead Scrapper with the Zap power, a primitive genesis of modern 
cyborgs, is another, nastier, story...). It becomes especially confusing 
when there are small combat rules in a WW book here that I want to use, one 
in HoE book, probably a miscellaneous rule here and there, and I'm buying 
heaps of books at no appreciable gain. When they do a rules update, put it 
in a generic book, instead of speading between two (or soon to be three) 
books.
There's a good much bit of Deadlands WW material. I certainly don't feel 
that if they never produced another sourcebook for it, and concentrated on 
storyline stuff, the setting would be left hideously underdeveloped (like so 
many games gone the way of the dinosaur; Dark Sun, Earthdawn, 
Spelljammer...). They've done an admirable job of creating the west; there's 
a few gaps (Texas Rangers, GWN), but that could be dealt with easily, in 
time, with a couple of releases. I'm not that Desperate for the Great Dark 
Downunder sourcebooks (but please, please, please let me write it if you 
do!), and could live without further expansive or inspansive setting 
specific source material. I'll pack the rifle and get on board a returning 
refugee boat if they stop the storyline however, but I think that's where 
most of the future source material will be.
In any case, that's my belated 1.1 cents (including current exchange rate)
Reuben McCallum
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