Re: TSR's Birthright Campaign Setting


Dear Sirs,

I am currently starting my first Birthright campaign for our gaming
group.

Despite its shortcomings, we play mainly AD&D because we are all
familiar with the rules. We liken it to putting on a pair of old,
comfortable, worn slippers after playing in other systems.

However, the Birthright campaign setting has all the advantages of using
these familiar rules with expansion into realm management and
*consequences* for the players' actions. It seems to appeal to the more
mature player (I think I'm the youngest in our group at 30 years old).

The players are currently designing characters and competing for court
positions, and are already forming alliances and plotting with, for and
against each other. They each have a pool of characters available in the
court of Aerenwe from Crown Princess down to scullery boy and visiting
ambassadors and entrepreneurs.

They are developing a real fear of the enemies of Cerilia, an
appreciation for the need of alliances to stay alive, and a new respect
for magic and the very rare magic items around. Safeguarding against
betrayal is driving them to the brink of paranoia.

I personally have spent over £300.00 sterling commissioning three maps
of Aerenwe to be painted at different scales to use for my campaign. To
me it is a worthwhile expense for the amount of enjoyment for all
involved. With a pool of characters, politics, intrigue, and more
"conventional" plots, I don't see the characters even leaving my map of
Calrie City in the first year of gaming.

In Birthright there is so much you cannot do without reprisals and, as
for the amount of new plots and weapons available for the DM's use, most
of my long-term campaign direction has written itself. The rules for
affecting one realm from another far away have added so much depth to
the setting.

It would be a great shame if, what to me should be the future direction
of the AD&D rules, is dropped due to mistakes in promotion and
production of the original release.

Yours,

Stephen White
52 Mount Pleasant Road
New Malden
Surrey
KT3 3LB
UK
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