|
Acknowledging that the Tomb of Horrors is a tournament-oriented series of gotchas that isn't really meant for casual play, what is a TSR-era module that's a traditional dungeon crawl that's "normally playable" without having to poke everything with Also, is there a nice, recommended module series/campaign/adventure path that'll start characters at 1 and take them all the way to ... name level at least?
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 18:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 07:03 |
|
|
For both of those, how about T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil?
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 18:56
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Acknowledging that the Tomb of Horrors is a tournament-oriented series of gotchas that isn't really meant for casual play, what is a TSR-era module that's a traditional dungeon crawl that's "normally playable" without having to poke everything with I think the normal accepted "adventure path" of AD&D is the Slaver's series, followed by Giants, Drow, and then finished with Queen of the Demon Web Pits
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 19:29
|
|
|
Alhireth-Hotep posted:For both of those, how about T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil?
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 19:33
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Yeah, the Moathouse in particular is a great little intro. (Though the evil cleric is a killer fight if they don't level up by then...) Everytime I've played in a game that started that we got murdered by the loving frogs and called it quits.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 19:46
|
|
|
Angrymog posted:Everytime I've played in a game that started that we got murdered by the loving frogs and called it quits. Yeah, frogs are murder My party had real luck with die rolls a few years back, and beat them enough that they failed their morale rolls.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 19:58
|
|
|
In Search of the Unknown (B1) and The Keep on the Borderlands (B2) are both. . .interesting. They're both educational, but are very playstyle dependent. B1 is just a fucker of a map, full of weird maze bullshit. If you're expecting mapping to be a big part of the challenge of your games it's a good one to drop on your players early to set expectations. I kind of hate it, but it's one of the classics. B2 is pretty cool, but it only really works if you do a lot of prep beforehand and really think about the dynamics of the various factions living in the dungeon. It's pretty boring as a series of rooms that you walk through and kill monsters in, but it seems to be set up with the expectation that there's a lot of interplay between the factions, and that the actions the players take will result in the dynamics of the dungeon changing (sometimes drastically) between visits. It requires a lot of work and imagination from the person running it, but it's also kind of wonderful if you're willing to do that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 20:01
|
|
|
OtspIII posted:B1 is just a fucker of a map, full of weird maze bullshit. If you're expecting mapping to be a big part of the challenge of your games it's a good one to drop on your players early to set expectations. I kind of hate it, but it's one of the classics. I mean, what could be more archetypal? A labyrinth of twisty passages! What could be more dungeony! In practice, it's just dull. It's just boring descriptions of distances and cardinal directions.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 20:31
|
|
|
remusclaw posted:I think the normal accepted "adventure path" of AD&D is the Slaver's series, followed by Giants, Drow, and then finished with Queen of the Demon Web Pits The DM will need to be very familiar with "whats really going on" to keep the narrative good though. Theres a lot of scene/direction shifts getting from the slavers to the abyss!
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 20:43
|
|
|
OtspIII posted:In Search of the Unknown (B1) and The Keep on the Borderlands (B2) are both. . .interesting. They're both educational, but are very playstyle dependent. Hackmaster's version of B2 is one of the best modules I've ever seen. It still requires a fair bit of GM prep and understanding of "what's really going on", but it's a non-linear module with a massive non-linear dungeon with many factions as it's centrepiece. It probably requires less imaginative work than the original because the factions and important NPCs have better motives and goals, but you'd still want to figure out what's changed after each visit by the PCs. I mean, if faction X and faction Y are looking for each others' weak spots and the PCs blow the doors off X's lair and slaughter half their troops, poo poo's gonna change. It also has several extra interesting things in/around/below the Keep itself that from memory aren't present in the original, as well as lots of ideas and hooks for other stuff that could be nearby. Hackmaster's B1, on the other hand, is full of weird maze bullshit, only more so. I've run it twice. While the players probably won't notice, it's an absolute motherfucker for the GM to keep track of everything. I'm not a fan of maze dungeons, but in context of oldschool D&D I'm fine with the idea of the players loving up and getting lost. What I'm not fine with is a map so drat complicated that I, the GM, lose track of where the PCs actually are before they hit the teleport puzzle/trap/bullshit.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2016 23:22
|
|
|
Just gonna echo everyone saying that B1 is dog poo poo. I've tried to run it twice, once using Rules Cyclopedia Basic and once using Dungeon World. In both cases it fell flat and everyone hated it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2016 00:10
|
|
|
The og undermountain box set is fair and trivial to convert to b/x or whatever. You can do it pro as nuts if you have the master box set or becmi. The avenger runs the board.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2016 02:44
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Mazes are one of the top things on my list of Things That Should But Really Don't Work At All in D&D. Oh, yes, this is very frustrating. I feel like mazes don't deserve to fall into the category of things that video games just do better than rpgs.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2016 02:48
|
|
|
Thank you all very much for the suggestions!
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2016 02:51
|
|
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:The og undermountain box set is fair and trivial to convert to b/x or whatever. You can do it pro as nuts if you have the master box set or becmi. The avenger runs the board. If you want to get really silly about it, the entirety of B1 is in the first level of Undermountain, in the southern half.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2016 03:34
|
|
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:The og undermountain box set is fair and trivial to convert to b/x or whatever. You can do it pro as nuts if you have the master box set or becmi. The avenger runs the board. I think the completionist in me hates the fact that its "just a part" of the entire thing and I never in my life had time to "create all of undermoutain". (I did do crazy time-sink things like that on a smaller scale. I stole the premise and top layer of that intro 3e module (the ones with the goblins and kobolds fighting?), turned it into a 4 layer "lost elven temple to the old dragons" with a coherent stackable set of maps, played up several layers of monster politics/conflicts/territory, expanded the druid story to something more coherent, and used the "broken" lower level I added as an entrance to the underdark. Turned into a few months of games in 2e starting from character intros. I used to have a lot more free time  )
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2016 05:26
|
|
|
Arivia posted:If you want to get really silly about it, the entirety of B1 is in the first level of Undermountain, in the southern half.
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2016 06:35
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Acknowledging that the Tomb of Horrors is a tournament-oriented series of gotchas that isn't really meant for casual play, what is a TSR-era module that's a traditional dungeon crawl that's "normally playable" without having to poke everything with Your first request is a bit difficult because most dungeons of this era reward caution and thoroughness, and Tomb is so lethal that everything else looks positively friendly in comparison. Like, I want to suggest Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga because it's cool, but it has some goofy rear end traps too - but it's no insta-death Tomb style stuff, and I think the theme of exploring Baba Yaga's interdimensional hut is worth it. But does that really meet your needs? It's a request I'll have to think about. As for now, I'll suggest an adventure I have run relatively recently and is somewhat fresh in my mind. The Lost City: Red Nails for D&D. It can be a touch barebones, a few empty rooms but other than that the dungeon itself is great. The factions of decadent city dwellers are a great DM's tool. Plus it has plenty of room for expansion, there's an entire city at the bottom that is detailed in a rudimentary but still usable fashion. I ran a successful but sadly paused campaign here. I'd also suggest bumping the level requirement up one from what the book advises. Oh and from memory, Haunted Halls of Eveningstar is worth a look at, but it's incomplete by design. It's like the first 2 levels of a megadungeon that never got finished, either because it just never happened or because they wanted you to flesh it out for yourself, I can't remember. Early FR was kind of like this, Sembia was intentionally left undeveloped so you could make your own country up for example. It has a lock lurker so watch out! Campaign/adventure paths: Night Below is a complete campaign designed to take level 1 characters to about 14. You might have to fiddle a bit to retain that if you use anything other than 2e. As a bonus it shows off non-drow Underdark stuff, focusing on aboleth, derro, svirfneblin, illithids and so on instead. It's also set in Genericland so it's easy enough to transfer to anywhere. Carl Sargent designed it, he's a cool guy The U modules (Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Danger at Dunwater and the Final Enemy) would make a good campaign but I don't think it would go as far as you want it to. You might be able to add Against the Cult of the Reptile God, they have some similar themes. With a little work you could remove all the Heroes of the Lance railroad materials from the Dragonlance modules and do a new take, without any of the expectation that you're going to follow how the novels went. You could also file all the serial numbers off and put it in another world. Could be an interesting experiment. Personally I want to take all the UK modules and make a campaign out of them. Also not TSR but as for dungeons I like the Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia and some of the OSR dungeons like Stonehell are cool. Some of the campaigns like Bone Hilt Sword are fun too. The problem with OSR adventures are figuring out what's just some guy's crappy version of B2, there are a shitton out there Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Sep 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2016 07:26
|
|
|
Lightning Lord posted:The Lost City
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2016 08:20
|
|
|
Lightning Lord posted:Night Below is a complete campaign designed to take level 1 characters to about 14. You might have to fiddle a bit to retain that if you use anything other than 2e. As a bonus it shows off non-drow Underdark stuff, focusing on aboleth, derro, svirfneblin, illithids and so on instead. It's also set in Genericland so it's easy enough to transfer to anywhere. Carl Sargent designed it, he's a cool guy Aw yeah, seconding this. Night Below is awesome. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 23, 2016 15:18
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:Oh man, I totally forgot that existed. My memories of B3 and B4 are very hazy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2016 14:54
|
|
|
I had B1 through B4 when I was a kid, but never saw B5+. Anyone have any opinions on those? Same with X. I only had X1 and X2, never read the rest. (edit - X11 is a pretty famous cover!) I was looking through the list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_modules ... and saw that the L series was continued for free here by the original author: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/links/ I never read the L series, but that link has a bunch of 1e/2e stuff for free so I figured Id pass it along here. Also looks like this guy sells a lot of used original DnD stuff for people that like in-print: http://www.waynesbooks.com/DDModulesBseries.html http://www.waynesbooks.com/DDModulesXseries.html
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2016 20:17
|
|
|
Huh. He even has the PC series in case you want to bring in flying gnome cities and a gnome air-force with actual planes. http://www.waynesbooks.com/CreatureCrucible.html
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2016 20:29
|
|
|
Comrade Koba posted:Aw yeah, seconding this. Night Below is awesome. I bought Night Below from a guy on Craigslist years back but never ran it. Maybe someday, but we're currently having fun with our Beyond the Wall game and planning a Fallout game of some sort.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2016 20:38
|
|
|
So, anyone have any experience with this big book of B/X style classes? http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/148348/Class-Compendium?src=DotDem It's on daily sale, and I love goofy piles of character options, but I don't want to spend 5$ on "this wizard gets +1 damage to fire spells but -1 damage to all other elemental spells."
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2016 18:25
|
|
|
LeSquide posted:So, anyone have any experience with this big book of B/X style classes? It's a bit more different than that. It's more like the extra classes that came in the gazettes, way back when. Dwarfen Runesmith, Halfling Burglar, etc. It seems alright, haven't played a game with any of the classes yet.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2016 23:23
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Acknowledging that the Tomb of Horrors is a tournament-oriented series of gotchas that isn't really meant for casual play, what is a TSR-era module that's a traditional dungeon crawl that's "normally playable" without having to poke everything with Most of them, really. I mean, there's always traps, but there are very few that are total screw-fests like S1. Even the other S-series mods are mostly "fair". In addition to the ones mentioned already, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and Lost Caverns of Tsjocanth are pretty popular. The latter one is half hexcrawl/half dungeon. Almost all the B-series for basic are straight dungeon crawls, and although its not TSR, per-se, I've been reading the Judges Guild module Caverns of Thracia, by Paul Jaquays this past week, and it's fantastic. quote:Also, is there a nice, recommended module series/campaign/adventure path that'll start characters at 1 and take them all the way to ... name level at least? As everyone's said, it goes: T-A-G-D-Q. They're all interconnected (Lolth and the Drow are behind everything, the elemental cults, the slavers and the giants). For B/X, its a little less clear, but you could certainly get some mileage out of starting with the Lost City, and then somehow getting to Master of the Desert Nomads and Temple of Death, but I guess you'd have to figure out a way to fill the 3-ish levels between B4 and X4 by expanding the City at the end of B4 or tossing in a side-journey to the Isle of Dread or something (as if an Isle of Dread side-quest could possibly be a bad thing).
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2016 00:31
|
|
|
For B/X I have always had success using the omnibus "In Search of Adventure" which is a streamlined and condensed B-series that interconnects the modules with little segues in between adventures. It has three separate paths you can choose and really pulls together the series nicely. After that, I usually run X1 (Isle of Dread), because I love it and that adventure (and B2, really) is a fond nostalgia trip for me. After X1, any of the rest of the X-series will do, with my favorites being X2 (Castle Amber) and X4 (Master of the Desert Nomads). Does anyone know if they did an X-series omnibus like they did for B, A and G/D/Q?
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2016 00:49
|
|
|
St0rmD posted:Most of them, really. I mean, there's always traps, but there are very few that are total screw-fests like S1.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2016 00:50
|
|
|
Would posting about Pits & Perils be OK here, or is that for the indie thread? P&P is all about emulating old school fantasy, but it does not involve D20s at all...
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 02:34
|
|
|
Pits and Perils is certainly an OSR/old-school game. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 02:46
|
|
|
VacuumJockey posted:Would posting about Pits & Perils be OK here, or is that for the indie thread? P&P is all about emulating old school fantasy, but it does not involve D20s at all... No worries, mate. OSR isn't limited to d20s only.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 05:01
|
|
|
One of my gaming friends is trying to put together a Fallout game, but http://falloutpnp.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page is kind of lovely because any idiot can go in and make changes and they obviously have been. I also found http://www.fallout.ru/projects/pnp/fallout_pnp_2.0.pdf but when I look at the combat section, where your to-hit consists of: Base - Range - Lighting condition - Enemy's Armor Class - Enemy's Cover +/- Extra bonus' (or minus penalties) - Targeted Shot (if applicable) and I just start laughing. Anyone recommend a decent ruleset for Fallout? Free is nice but not required. I'm considering taking that PDF version and starting with a very stripped-down version of the combat, but if there's a good rule set somewhere else that I'm missing I'd like to take a look.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 17:29
|
|
|
I'd just as soon use Mutant Future or Other Dust. I played Fallout PNP a long long time ago, and that version really suffered from trying to adapt the SPECIAL system right back into tabletop but without a computer doing the work for you.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 17:36
|
|
|
There's also Encounter Critical, or the D&D 4th Edition-based Gamma World 7th Edition
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 18:22
|
|
|
I think I finally found that one player dungeon crawl I'd been looking for and what I remembered of it were apparently the hallucinations of a mad man. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/109821/Ruins-of-the-Undercity
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2016 19:33
|
|
|
So I'm looking for an osr elfgame that isn't possessed of percentage based insanity, differing xp for level per class nonsense and such. Does such a thing exist?
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 08:59
|
|
|
Depending on what you mean by "percentage-based insanity", sure. I mean, third edition AD&D went pretty light on the d% for one. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 09:02
|
|
|
NewMars posted:So I'm looking for an osr elfgame that isn't possessed of percentage based insanity, differing xp for level per class nonsense and such. Does such a thing exist? I'm pretty sure there's quite a few, although there is a good reason for different classes having different XP requirements, makes it easier to balance them, of the core four Magic-Users level the slowest, while Thieves level the fastest, although it gets a little weird as sometimes Clerics end up leveling faster than Fighters do
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 09:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 07:03 |
|
|
Hey now, there's no need for such insinuations. It's just that I am rather looking for a game where a single combat doesn't take all day, without making everything else take proportionally longer with such things as attribute based xp adjustment and having an individual table-based mechanic for every single mechanical foible.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2016 09:06
|
|