Topic: Tanara

[Walt]

A short one:
is the pdf Tanara version worth buying and is their any new material?
I thought it?s only the electronic version of old Tanara and from this I have in the meantime 3 or 4.

[egdcltd]

The pdf version is a 2006 overhaul of the old module. I'm not sure what the differences are, not having the old version, but here's what was put in the Foreword:

Basically for the Second Edition, I decided to leave most of the original text as it was, but added in some notes (generally at the end of a section) updating the status of the culture or location. The biggest addition is possibly the timeline, which I have extended to the present and filled in a bit pre-2500 as well, hopefully closing some gaps in the history of Tanara.

[Walt]

Thanks. Probably somewhere I can find only the updated paragraphs

[ob1knorrb]

You forgot the biggest difference, the font size is actually large enough to read 

[Elrik]

Well on that note, my old copy has splotches and print marks that block out works and cross lines, so that is very true.

[Walt]

You forgot the biggest difference, the font size is actually large enough to read 

No, the biggest difference is, that a very coherent and brilliant module, one of the best I know in many roleplay worlds, changed into a mediocre and dissonant supplement.
Very dissapointing!

[DonMoody]

I did not understand that last comment.

DonMoody

[Der Graumantel]

very helpful, costructive comment walt! 

serious : what ist wrong with the book? I havn?t read it and have only the original. So what aspect of the new release is so dissapointing you?? I?m intrested in buying it. Should I do it??

[Walt]

Yeahh, this was the very short version. (reading the following please keep in mind that I absolutly loved Tanara, playing it with my old group in the early nineties)
Basically it?s the same booklet, most of the texts are the same. Like written in the Foreword the "biggest addition is possibly the timeline". The re-edit of the text is sluggish done, for example sometimes the personal notes of the editor are  still in brackets in the text.
It doesn?t read like there was a real debate with the content and the up-dating of the timeline for Tanara, only the Shadow World timeline till 6057 was very roughly imposed on top of the existing book.
The contents are for sure for discussion on a very individual preference, but to link genetically the Duranaki (small, lithe and green) to the Zori (big and blond) sounds weird.
The Vale of Merisia get?s lost every few hundred years and pompously refound. At the end the new emerging Cloudlords in the timeline in 6047 TE are Myris, but the section later in the text about the Cloudlords still speaks about the Zori Cloudlords.

After some time I even stopped reading, because in my opinion it?s not a finished, properly rereleased product. I can?t recommend it at all, not in this semi-finished state!

(and, again very personal, it lost a lot from the original freshness and unique brilliance of the original version!)