General Discussion

[Beoric]

Not that everything around here isn't a general discussion, but sometimes I have a random thought or question that doesn't deserve it's own thread.

 

[Beoric]

And to start off, I'm wondering what early TSR era low-level modules everyone has played, and what you have not played?

EDIT: And I guess what have you played or run, but so long ago you don't really remember it?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

And to start off, I'm wondering what early TSR era low-level modules everyone has played, and what you have not played?

Played (as the DM):
G series Against the Giants (all of them)
T1 Village of Hommlet
L1 Secret of Bone Hill
L2 Assassin's Knot
U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God
X1 Isle of Dread
X2 Castle Amber
C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness
S1 Tomb of Horrors
S2 White Plume Mountain
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
EX1 Dungeonland

Not played: The other ones?

 

[squeen]

As a DM:
B2 Keep on the Borderlands
T1 Village of Hommlet

As a player:
B2 Keep on the Borderlands
T1 Village of Hommlet
G1 Steady of the Hill Giants
S1 Tomb of Horrors
S2 White Plume Mountain
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

I own(ed) quite a few more (original printings)...but they were never played.
Later, my "good" DM wrote his own content so we "detached" --- I've done likewise as a DM now.

 

[Beoric]

As a kid I couldn't afford modules, so pretty much everything I ran was homebrew. I somehow acquired Tamoachan and Dark Tower, but as a teenager they weren't sufficiently medieval for me to get interested in them.

I don't remember being a player in anything except Hommlet, Castle Amber, Barrier Peaks, White Plume Mountain, the Steading and maybe the first two Slavers' modules. My DM tells me he used a lot of those dungeons and just made them his own. He must have seriously modified them because I have read all of them as an adult and didn't recognize anything. I gather ToEE was one of them, and maybe Tsajcanth. Probably the Ghost Tower, too, I saw that lying around. Maybe the Lost City. Who knows, really, we spent so much time playing, but I remember the feeling more than the details.

I think the only one I ever ran was Hommlet, and that was recently, using 4e.

EDIT: Having gone through some and read most of the rest, I think the only ones I could play now without bringing a lot of meta knowledge to the game would be Aerie of the Slave Lords, Palace of the Silver Princess (but only the green cover, I like the other one and read it from time to time), Ghost Tower of Inverness, Temple of the Frog, Dungeonland and its sequel, the Sentinel and the Gauntlet.

 

[The Heretic]

I did the following as a player:
X1 Isle of Dread
X2 Castle Amber

As a DM, I've ran:
G1 Steading of the Hill Giants
I2 Tomb of the Lizard King
I3 Pharaoh
I6 Ravenloft
L1 The Secret of Bone Hill
L2 Assassin's Knot
S1 Tomb of Horrors
S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil
UK1 The Sentinel
UK2 The Gauntlet
X1 Isle of Dread
X2 Castle Amber
X3 The Curse of Xanathon
X4 Master of the Desert Nomads

Like your DM, I like to heavily modify them when I use them. I especially had to do this with X3 The Curse of Xanathon, because that one is a mess.

And to expand this, here are some Dungeon magazine dungeons I have used:
In the Dread of Night
At the Spottle Parlor
Sleepless
The Siege of Kratys Freehold
Elfwhisper
Totentanz
Secrets of the Towers
Huddle Farm
The Moor-Tomb Map
The Hunt in Great Allindel
Chadranther's Bane
The Pyramid of Jenkel
The Inheritance
Night of Fear
The White Boar of Kilfay
Them Apples
The Vaka's Curse
Welcome to the Krypthome
Iasc

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

I've played a bit of B2, and the campaign I'm currently in is using a map drawn from Dwellers in the Forbidden City. I think when I was 9, I played some Japanese-themed Basic D&D module with a Rakshasa. That's it. I was never a big one for modules. Between that Rakshasa module (in 1990) and 2009, when I played a Call of Cthulhu module at a convention (Grace Under Pressure), I had never tried a module.

 

[The1True]

DM'd:
UK5 Eye of the Serpent 4-5 times. Best introductory adventure ever
N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God
U1-3
UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave
UK? All that Glitters
C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness
I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City
I2 Tomb of the Lizard King (ran this one sky-high on shrooms, everything went fine until the giant horde of Wights bummed everybody out and we quit)
I3-5 Desert of Desolation (this series is often touted as the beginning of the end but I love these adventures)
T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil (this is my Stranger Things-era classic)
A1-4 Against the Slavelords
S1-4 all of them. many many times.
EX1 Dungeonland
WG7 Castle Greyhawk (yeah I did, and it was awesome! Oh to be 14 again)
H2 Mines of Bloodstone
B2 Keep on the Borderlands
B3 Palace of the Silver Princess
B5 Horror on the Hill (so many times, that the adventure has literally fallen apart. This is easily my favourite adventure of all time.)
X1 Isle of Dread

Played:
C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness
G1-3 Against the Giants
H4 Throne of Bloodstone (not the last time our group of munchkins would destroy Orcus in his lair)
B4 The Lost City

Solo:
XS2 Thunderdelve Mountain (I was all by myself. There was nobody else...)

 

[The1True]

X2 Castle Amber
X3 The Curse of Xanathon
X4 Master of the Desert Nomads

I've wanted to do these for ages!Everytime I set them up, the group takes an unexpected hard right turn to some other corner of the map and I end up running something else.

 

[The Heretic]

I've wanted to do these for ages!Everytime I set them up, the group takes an unexpected hard right turn to some other corner of the map and I end up running something else.

X2 is the easiest to incorporate, since it has that whole mist thing going on. You could theoretically place it anywhere you want. *poof* They wake up on the steps of a strange castle.

Then again, that is a bit of a railroad, isn't it?

The other two do take a bit of setup however, X3 especially.

 

[The Heretic]

DM'd:
UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave
UK? All that Glitters

Doh! I was off a bit wasn't I? The Sentinel and the Gauntlet were UK2-3. The UK module line had a lot of interesting stuff going on it. I liked UK9 too.

How did UK1 go? That one was super perplexing to me as a kid. I could probably pull it off now, though that bit about getting one of the PCs to use their limited wish to free the young lovers is a bit too much to ask.

 

[The1True]

How did UK1 go? That one was super perplexing to me as a kid.

Yeah, I got this one as a birthday present when I was a kid and hated it for not being 'dungeony' enough but then ran it much later on as part of a Greyhawk campaign and it was fantastic! The guys I was DMing at the time were all in a rock band together, so the players all took a level of bard to start and kept up their performance proficiencies throughout. All to say, they were totally down with the sappy love story and wrote a tavern and public-room hit about it.

 

[The Heretic]

Yeah, I got this one as a birthday present when I was a kid and hated it for not being 'dungeony' enough but then ran it much later on as part of a Greyhawk campaign and it was fantastic! The guys I was DMing at the time were all in a rock band together, so the players all took a level of bard to start and kept up their performance proficiencies throughout. All to say, they were totally down with the sappy love story and wrote a tavern and public-room hit about it.

That's awesome! Hmm. Maybe I should re-look at that one.

DM'd:
B5 Horror on the Hill (so many times, that the adventure has literally fallen apart. This is easily my favourite adventure of all time.)

I just bought that one (it's all Prince's fault, he gave it a great review). That one is kind of cool. All the hobgolbins and goblins in it seem generic to me now, but that's a nice bit at the end with the Hobgoblin King and the drop to the bottom level. On a related note, how deadly have you found the red dragon at the end to be? Does he usually kill a few (or all) of the PCs at the end?

 

[The1True]

Does he usually kill a few (or all) of the PCs at the end?

When I played as a kid I fudged on the side of the 10% chance of sleeping and encouraged the players to make subduing strikes so we could get that last picture of the dragon following the party out of the dungeon like a loyal hound lol.
Later on I ran him according to the fairly explicit instructions. He uses illusions and parleys and he only has 22 hp. The PC's always seemed to roleplay a way through it.
Most recently I converted it to 3e and the dragon was much more of a prick as a result. Someone died. The tank I think? Run properly, it definitely gets hard to find a place to rest in the dungeon and the party hits that beast in a pretty depleted state. It should be overpowered, but the writer did try to cushion the blow with special instructions I think.
The goblinoids are pretty conventional, but their organized defense of the upper-hillside and ruins doesn't have to be...
And those witches and the neanderthals. I never used them properly as a kid. They are golden roleplaying opportunities.
I 3D'd the hill as a visual aid a long time ago. It's not pretty, but it does offer a sense of scale. I'll try to dig it up later if there's interest...

 

[The Heretic]

When I played as a kid I fudged on the side of the 10% chance of sleeping and encouraged the players to make subduing strikes so we could get that last picture of the dragon following the party out of the dungeon like a loyal hound lol.
Later on I ran him according to the fairly explicit instructions. He uses illusions and parleys and he only has 22 hp. The PC's always seemed to roleplay a way through it.
Most recently I converted it to 3e and the dragon was much more of a prick as a result. Someone died. The tank I think? Run properly, it definitely gets hard to find a place to rest in the dungeon and the party hits that beast in a pretty depleted state. It should be overpowered, but the writer did try to cushion the blow with special instructions I think.
The goblinoids are pretty conventional, but their organized defense of the upper-hillside and ruins doesn't have to be...
And those witches and the neanderthals. I never used them properly as a kid. They are golden roleplaying opportunities.
I 3D'd the hill as a visual aid a long time ago. It's not pretty, but it does offer a sense of scale. I'll try to dig it up later if there's interest...

I'll have to re-read it. Even with (only) 22 hit points, his first breath weapon should clear out all the magic-users in the party (unless the PCs get smart and spread out). If a magic-user was 3rd level, maxed out his hp (12), AND made his saving throw, he could survive the blast. Doesn't seem likely though. On the other hand, the chamber before does broadcast that the dragon is coming up (barbequed kobold on the floor) and it does say that the dragon can't fit into the room so if they're lucky maybe they could run back the way they came.

Sure, I'd love the see your 3D visual aid for the hill.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

I'm jealous of you all. None of my buddies ran modules when I grew up.

DM'd
B1 In Search of the Unknown (multiple times)
B2 Caves of Chaos
B6 The Veiled Society
B11 King's Festival
B12 Queen's Harvest - Current.

B5 and B10 are very much on my list.

 

[The1True]

Sure, I'd love the see your 3D visual aid for the hill.

Sorry man. I sifted through the dregs of nested-backups past. It must've been on the portable HD that got pinched during the move. Now I'm sad

 

[The1True]

I'm jealous of you all. None of my buddies ran modules when I grew up.

I'm jealous of all the people running or playing in original work here. Every time one of us tried to run our own stuff it descended into fistfights when we were younger and vicious acrimony when we 'grew up'. Turns out writing something balanced is hard yo. If it's an official module you can blame someone who isn't your friend sitting at the table with you. "Says right here, 'save or die' Dave. Sorry, I don't make the rules..."

 

[PrinceofNothing]

I'm jealous of all the people running or playing in original work here. Every time one of us tried to run our own stuff it descended into fistfights when we were younger and vicious acrimony when we 'grew up'. Turns out writing something balanced is hard yo. If it's an official module you can blame someone who isn't your friend sitting at the table with you. "Says right here, 'save or die' Dave. Sorry, I don't make the rules..."

Haha, the grass is always greener A lot of Dutch GM's were unduly influenced by 90s era DnD and tend to run a sort of midly autistic tricked out semi-story game with boring dungeons, heavy backstory (both players and GMs) and threadbare encounter design. After too much I have resolved never to read a backstory that was longer then a paragraph and I have not looked back since. In my perfect world, GMs focus on making a good encounter, then a good session, followed by a good adventure before they dive deep into wurldbuilding and focus on the 'campaign.'

 

[Beoric]

I'm putting this here because I don't want to sully the "Bryce Said" thread. There was a bit of solid advice on DM David's blog today on evocative narration, it is worth checking out.