Idaho Deathlands

My plan to write more got derailed by ending up flat on my back with the flu the last three-four days. Just a bad week to be sick (and, yes, now it's hit other family members, including the wife and daughter) what with the in-laws in town and mi suegra's birthday to celebrate. Ah, well. Most of us...including me...are on the mend and the boy's iron constitution has once again proven to be immune to the soft depredations of the rest of us frails.

SO. What am I working on today. Sticking the Desert of Desolation into my campaign world. Specifically in Idaho, in the eastern half of the Snake River Valley, a.k.a the "Great Rift of Idaho." This was a tricky one; not only did I need to find an area of similar size in specifications (the I3-I5 series encompasses a mapped wilderness roughly 110 miles long by 60 miles wide), it had to be an area that could be 1) easily converted to desert, and 2) be bordered by mountainous foothills and broken lands of the type described in the modules. A great sandbox of death, in other words.

Building on my Micronauts-inspired, post-apocalyptic wasteland, the easiest way to get to where I wanted was to look at climate change projections and blow-up the human-made irrigation systems that allowed Magic Valley to transform from an uninhabitable wasteland it was as recently as the 20th century. Knock out the dams and infrastructure and Twin Falls dies in (probably) a cannibalistic apocalypse...especially when you factor in standard D&D monsters looking for sustenance. 

Fortunately (for me), there really aren't that many towns I need to raze /de-populate once you remove the "Magic Valley" issue. Gooding is pretty much the "last outpost" of humanity: 2020 census puts the population under 4,000 anyway, and my campaign generally cuts pop by a factor of seven to ten...well, when I'm not using the 1890 figures (my go-to default). As such, the Great Kingdom of Boise is really the only organized civilization west of the Desert...and it may be more "bandit kingdom" than anything else at this point. 

Well...maybe. Thing is, when doing pop. figures I'm generally looking at post-European settler / pre-railroad for determining what kind of populations my "D&D-tech-level" can support. Because despite the existence of magic, it's a tough ol' world for these fantasy colonists and this ain't no magical Renfair society. Magic-users (um...sorcerers? witches?) are generally feared and/or misunderstood and the "awe-inspiring" bit only holds until you've got a big enough mob of peasants with pitch-forks. Magic (and its counterpart, "high technology") is generally blamed for the current shambled state of 'the world that is;' peoples are trying to make their way without magic, rather than with it. 

What's the stress-level of people living near Hanford? Do you really want a wizard capable of summoning demons living inside your town? Even one claiming to be beneficent? Yeah, clean, nuclear power...totally cool with that, right?

So, yeah. No railroads. Lose the infrastructure it makes possible. Up the temperature a few degrees, add some heavy desertification (possibly helped along by a magic/tech catastrophe a couple centuries prior) and voila!...a setting for exploration and uncovering of ancient, treasure-filled ruins. 

Now, I did say that the Desert of Desolation wilderness is about 100-110 miles long that, even starting with Gooding, doesn't quite take us all the way to Idaho Falls, let alone I-15 and the cities along that route. But, that's actually fine as it helps explain one of the things left unexplained by Oasis of the White Palm, namely where the heck are the slavers of the Sandvoyagers Guild selling their kidnapped victims. Yes, yes, the module tells us that Thurnas Netmaster (leader of the slavers) "is working with Drow allies," from which we might infer that captives are being taken into the UnderDark...except that the presence of the Drow in the desert is patently ridiculous (how the hell did they get there? There are no subterranean tunnels or methods of reaching the UnderDark from the oasis. The slavers own excavation efforts have led them nowhere! And there are no ways for a dark elf to get across the burning sands with their special "Drow gear" intact...the two presented by the module are given nothing in the way of personality, background, or motivation and exist solely to fight and die on the blades of adventurers).  So, no...no Drow. Which means we still need a buyer of slaves. And while the savage centauri are likely to use such captives as a foodsource, I'm thinking of placing a slave-owning/slave-trading nation/culture EAST of the desert...should the players decide to continue adventuring that direction.

After all, I've still got the Slaver series to re-work. And if one needed a place to put the volcano-situated city of Sunderham, well, you really need look no farther than the caldera of Big Southern Butte, some 90 miles east of Gooding and 47 miles west of Idaho Falls...a perfect location for the secret City of the Slave-Lords. 

; )

The adventure to follow....

The Dungeon Master Art

Not as easy as it looks.

Randy was our DM tonight (or rather, our "Labyrinth Lord" as we were playing LL tonight). We used the Advanced Edition Companion, so the game had a lot of similarities to the ol' hodge-podge mash-up of B/X and AD&D of my youth.

Wellll...kind of, not really. In my youth, the LAST book we acquired was the Players Handbook, the tome which features rather prominently in the AEC. My friends and I played pretty much straight B/X with the addition of the Monster Manual and DMG for a year or two prior to adding "race-not-as-class" and new-fangled classes and fancy armor and spells above 5th and 6th level.

And, yeah, having done it that way really does give me a slightly different perspective. I know a lot of folks who got into D&D about the same time as myself did the "mash-up" thing and I've read several reviews praising the AEC for the way it reminds them of their past, albeit in a more coherent form. For me, it just feels like "AD&D Lite." That's not a terrible thing, by the way...it's just not "how I used to play as a kid."

Anyway, we played tonight and Randy ran the game; his first time running a game. Wow. It has been a loooong time since I've seen a completely virgin DM run a game. God...you forget how damn tricky it can be (especially with eight players sitting around the table!).

I mean, I've been doing it for 30 years (shit, that's a long time) and even when I have "rust" from a couple year plus hiatus, it's not that hard to get back into it. I mean it really breaks down to:

a) knowing the rules,

b) managing the game/adventure, and

c) managing the players

Now, I'm a pretty hard grader, but my gut reaction is Randy still deserves a B+ for the outing. He gets a ton of props for managing a game with a group that size in that kind of environment. My knowledge of the rules was probably about the same (or less) than his my first time out, and I only had two players. And, no, just because we're adults and mature and friendly doesn't make it a walk in the park. Not at all.

A couple years back I introduced D&D to a couple teenage friends (my "nephews") and they positively loved it. Quit their World of Warcraft accounts even. Their family moved to Virginia (Arlington) and I gave 'em a copy of Labyrinth Lord for the road. A few months or a year later, my wife and I were back east visiting their family and I asked if they were still playing and they said, no. Appears S. (the younger) just could not grasp the rules and Z. (the older) just "didn't do it right" (according to his younger brother)...and Z. admitted it was a lot harder than I made it look.

I guess. But Z was twice as old as I was when I started playing.

Randy called the game a "clusterf***" and, sure, it was if one wanted to play "by the book." He haphazardly made up rules ("roll a D6 for that") or bluffed or just made spot rulings. But that didn't matter because there were really only two players at the table (myself and Luke) who had any DM experience or a clear grasp of the rules. And for the most part we just kept our mouths shut.

And so Randy did what good DMs do: he played with a shit-ton of panache. He kept the players in line. He made rulings on what they could and couldn't do. He didn't dismiss things out of hand, but he didn't let "bossy" players (like *ahem* me) push him around or dictate how the game was to be played. He included everyone. He listened. He narrated and described. He ran combat pretty f'ing fast-and-loose (a guy after my own heart there). And his adventure was nice and succinct being wrapped up in a single evening.

It was also pretty damn creative/interesting from a background perspective. Oh, he ripped off (at least partially) the plot of some fantasy book I've never heard of...and he included zombies of a more cinematic (as in movie) type (Randy digs on the walking dead), so it wasn't crazy original spun from his own brain. But it was pretty different from most anything I'VE ever played in a D&D game...at least for 1st level characters. It takes a lot of balls to tell players that they've been locked in an asylum because they've been infected with a mystic disease that will eventually turn them into psychotic zombies...and, oh yeah, you have no equipment or gear. At least my character had his spells tattooed on his arm, since he had no spell book. F'ing brilliant stuff that!

A couple of us died, but were brought back to life during the course of the adventure...another nice touch (instead of making the 1st level scenario super easy and survivable he just included ways to "get back in the game"). Oh, yeah, and we fought a giant demon and killed it...with "lightning powder" we spread on the small cache of weapons we managed to acquire scrounging through the ruins of the asylum.

I've said I would love to run or play the old TSR module A4: Dungeon of the Slave Lords. Randy's scenario was better (or at least on par).

But, man, it is hard. Having all those eyes on you, wanting you to entertain them and wanting to do a good job...or at least not look terrible doing it. As a fellow Scorpio, I'm well aware how fragile the ego can be in these kind of situations (not that we'd ever show it...or any kind of breakdown!...in public). But he did a great job and everyone had fun and now that we're out of the asylum, we all want to come back and see what he's got for us next week!

Of course, Matt and Josh may well be back, so then the group will be back up to ten. Eleven if Dan's wife shows up.

All right, that's enough of a "puff piece" for ol' Randy. I'll be harder on him next week if he doesn't get the surprise system right. But I still want to play...I like my character quite well: a gnome assassin-illusionist.

; )

G'night folks.

Realizations

I had a couple minor epiphanies yesterday (what do you know…it was Wedesday, which is the day of thought as described by Wotan, Odin, and Mercury). Now in the spirit of Thor’s Day, I’ll be expansive and share ‘em with y’all.

#1 I might be past my prime. All these numerous aches and pains (and injuries) that seem to be taking forever to heal, not to mention my receding hairline, may be indicative of the fact that I’m on the other side of 36 and am not doing nearly enough to stay young…you know: yoga, vegan diet, fasting, abstaining from booze, living in the country and drinking pure, mountain spring water. I’ll need to ramp up my “healthful living” if I’m going to keep up with all those young bloggers around the sphere.

#2 Every single adventure module I dig, appreciate, or find myself inspired by was written BEFORE 1985. With the possible exception of Return to White Plume Mountain (1999) and maybe H2: The Mines of Bloodstone (1986)…but the former is based on my favorite original module and the latter seems mainly a pastiche of D1 and D3. Regardless, it’s fairly sad to realize that the Unearthed Arcana, possibly my favorite RPG book OF ALL TIME up till the age of 15 or 16 (really!) is the great dividing line between the gold and the dross…or rather “The Shit” and the shitty.

I should note that while the information from the UA was immediately incorporated (upon its publication) into my long-running D&D campaign, we (my friends and I) had mainly grown beyond modules (writing our own PC-specific adventures) at the time, so the drop-off in module quality was imperceptible. Oh, our co-DM continued to purchase some, but in general she cannibalized ‘em and made ‘em fit her own purposes. There was nothing I saw or read (or played or ran) after 1985 that really got me cranked the way those early adventures did. With the possible exception of the two modules I list above.

Why am I even looking at this? Well, hard-on-the-heels of yesterday's post I started thinking about the specific AD&D modules that inspired me. Yes that’s right: I wanted to post a NEW LIST! Whereas previously I listed my Top Ten D&D modules for ANY edition (and yet still none are later than 1985), this new list is AD&D only and may include modules that I haven’t actually played OR ran as the DM. This is purely inspirational stuff for me…i.e. it makes me want to play AD&D just flipping through ‘em or thinking about ‘em.

Top Ten Inspirational AD&D Modules

#10 WG4: The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun – I admit it, I have never played or ran this module. In fact, I’ve owned it for less than a year. And it looks DAMN tough to “solve” or “get right.” However, I have run S4 which also looked tough (in fact, no one I’ve run through it has ever survived to get to the deeper caverns) and this one is shorter, more focused and, hell, more scary. I love it.

#9 G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King – The G series did not make my Top Ten list of modules that I want to play, but the 3rd module of the trilogy is about as “D&D” as a module gets. Giants, Drow, scheming dwarves, red dragons, weird elder gods, chests full of treasure (and poison needle traps!), a river of lava…and three descending levels…this is the archetypal dungeon delve as far as I’m concerned, even beating the pants off B2. Plus, as far as ambience goes, darkness back-lit by the glow of magma is pretty rope-a-dope.

#8 & #7 A3: Aerie of the Slave Lords and A4: Dungeon of the Slave Lords – I wasn’t exactly sure how to rank these as (similar to WG4) I have never played/run them. Lawrence Schick’s A4 is truly inspiring…I only wish I had a group of players adventurous enough to try it out! And it does seem to be a fitting climax to the series. A3 on the other hand is one of the few valid arguments for the separation of race and class, as I’m not sure you could really have the same type of show-down with simple B/X archetypes (I’ll have to try re-writing it and see). However, it is the city of the Slave Lords that makes me want to play AD&D, as I can see a good group of players spending many sessions role-playing their explorations of the town…all those random encounter tables of AD&D get a chance to shine!

#6 S2: White Plume Mountain – some may think it’s strange that the module I’ve blogged about so much doesn’t crack the Top 5. The fact of the matter is I DO consider it one of the best written modules of all time (certainly it’s one of my favorites). But as far as INSPIRING me to play…well, maybe I’ve just ran it so many times over the years that it doesn’t give me the same juice as the next five on the list.

#5 N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God – this is the last adventure module on the list that I haven’t actually played or ran. However, for whatever reason, just holding it in my hands wants me to break out the PHB, roll up an elven fighter and equip him with ring mail and a long sword. Reading N1 I just think it is an excellent module for a group of experienced, MATURE role-players that want to start a new campaign with low level characters. There’s just so much more meat to it than the average low level adventure…it makes me want to start a campaign (case in point: I have run T1: The Village of Hommelet and it doesn’t make my list of inspiring modules, despite being excellent).

#4 S1: Tomb of Horrors – As with G3 and S2, I have plenty of experience with this module and a lot of feelings/memories associated with it. For that reason alone, it gets my heart racing to play AD&D. However, if I could find any players crazy enough to try it, I would jump at the chance to run it again. Hell, I’d even let them roll up characters using the Unearthed Arcana!

#3 D2: Shrine of the Kuo-Toa – it was tough figuring out which number D2 comes in at. I love the fish guys, I love the vaguely Lovecraftian nature of their slimy under-city, and the cover art by Roslov is VERY inspiring. As with G3, I find something very archetypally “D&D” about D1 and D2, but especially the latter. And as with A3, the inclusion of different classes for the KT in such an interesting fashion makes it tough to hang onto my “race as class” hardliner stance.

#2 I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City – now that I’ve got the first 8 listed, #2 on the list is really a no-brainer. The artwork alone (exterior and interior) shouts AD&D, and even the tasloi images (I am NOT a fan of tasloi) makes me want to run a game, let alone the yuan-ti (of whom I AM a fan). The module has everything one needs to run a short session, or a multi-session mini-campaign, and I totally dig on that. Even the pre-generated characters (including a bard, a druid, and a half-orc cleric!) are super cool. I will always remember I1 as the first module I read that included an evil wizard’s SPELL BOOK as part of the treasure trove (and probably the best treasure I’d ever seen). I don’t even think Gygax gave spell books to his Drow magic-users, a gross oversight if you ask me.

#1 Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits – I love this module. Every time I see it I want to start an AD&D campaign. If that’s not the definition of “inspiring” I don’t know what is. I know I’ve said elsewhere that White Plume Mountain may be the best module ever written due to its tight focus and great example of D&Disms, but this is probably my favorite module of all time. Truly. I don’t even need to HOLD the damn thing to get inspired…just seeing the ultra-creepy cover on display makes me want to play it. The map is a masterpiece. The interior art is excellent. The dimensional gates can provide years of adventuring. As with the Kuo-Toa, the Driders make a pretty fair argument for separating class and race (by the way, driders as a concept are probably one of my favorite D&D monsters of all time). Lolth is a badass…probably the coolest original monster entry of 1st edition AD&D, not based on a legendary or mythic figure (THAT would probably be Demogorgon). Even the NAME of the module is inspiring. It’s like the name for some 1981 heavy metal album (probably British, like Iron Maiden or Ozzie). And from experience, I can say that playing OR running this module makes me want to play MORE D&D. Honestly, this is hands-down the most inspirational AD&D module I own.

Happy Thursday, folks!

: )

Player Versus DM Expectations

Not-so-hot-on-the-heels of some other posts, I figured I better put some of these thoughts down before I forget them...

A couple days ago, I posted about un-finished dungeons...basically, regarding my poor track record of ultimately completing or "cleaning out" pre-packaged adventures. The comments generated a lot of food for thought for Yours Truly.

Later I read this post over at Father Dave's regarding the thief...a post I think is fascinating for its implication in adventure/dungeon design. Today, I was reading about Chgowiz's wife's encounter with a smoke dragon...and how it nearly led to despair and a throw-up-your-hands-and-dice moment at the table.

I kinda' wanna' tie all this stuff together.

In designing an adventure module for publishing (still sharpening that axe, folks!) I've been going over a lot of the do's and don't's I think it's important to consider. Certainly I don't want to repeat bad trends of the past or do something that doesn't result in a fun adventure romp for players. But let's look at expectations for a second.

While I am a big believer in background "creative agendas" I believe few, if any people, actually come to a game table with an initial attitude that can be described as narratavist or gamist. I think it's fairly safe to say that MOST people sit down at the gaming table wanting #1 to have fun and #2 to escape a bit from the humdrum of "everyday life." Once they've had THOSE needs met, similar to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...only THEN do they start looking to meet these secondary creative agendas.

In other words, if they're not getting the fun and the escape, they never bother to worry about the other stuff.

Now I think that these primary goals (of which escape is probably secondary to fun except for folks with slightly skewed psyches...for whatever reason) are fairly explicit in the text of earlier versions of Dungeons and Dragons...especially B/X D&D. But they sure seem to get lost in later versions, which instead extoll slightly different objectives, perhaps based on the perceived need of their target gaming community. Game balance, in whatever form that phrase rears its ugly head, is considered to be paramount IN ORDER TO HAVE FUN, according to the rules...and this is a justification for the extensive and intricate rules of editions like the 3rd and 4th edition.

But game balance is NOT required to have fun...thinking so is an F'ing illusion, folks. Balance is only an important component of fun (and not even a necessary one!) in games focused on the GAMIST aspect of play, where players want to be on an equal and level playing field.

And again, it's not even necessary of gamist play, as some players prefer an even GREATER challenge, with the odds stacked against 'em. For example, I've ALWAYS been drawn to the idea of the doughty halfling warrior, sticking it to the big guys, ever since I saw the illustrations in the DMG in the "random dungeon section." Look at that little guy go! THAT's the character, I want to play!

[sorry, I don't have a copy of my DMG with me at the moment...I'll post an image later if I can find one]

So putting aside the whole discussion of whether later edition characters (or earlier edition for that matter) are balanced against each other, look at the advice given to DMs in adventure design as to how to balance encounters in adventure design: basically, it boils down to "make sure you have a little something of everything for all character types." There should be some undead, for example, for clerics, or some challenges that can only be overcome using a thief's skills. There should be some fighting for fighters and some places where a magic-user comes in handy, and perhaps a few instances where character racial abilities (like elves ability to find secret doors) come in handy.

Gross!

To me, this feels plainly contrived. Not only THAT, it also ends up limiting players' choice as they are suddenly required to take "a little bit of everything" with them into the dungeon. If they don't, they face potential dead ends (as Father Dave found). What's more, you get that "last-person-to-arrive-takes-the-class-no-one-wants" mentality that Frothy Friar talks about, most often seen (by both him and me at least) with the cleric.

[actually, in my old campaigns the "last picked" role was probably split equal between clerics and thieves...and these weren't even D4 hit dice thieves!]

Frankly, to a player this sucks. Like it or not, one of a player's first two needs on the Gamers' Hierarchy of Needs pyramid is having fun. BEFORE "meeting the challenge." And if I get forced into a role because it's necessary based on a game design meant to cater to the possibility or expectation of a mixed group of adventurers, than you just chopped a chunk off my free will, and part of my enjoyment just went with it!

So let's talk about a DM's expectations and "hierarchy of needs." Are they different? Somewhat. I think DMs want to have fun, too, but instead of the fun of escaping into the shoes of a different person, they get the fun of "playing God;" being a creator of worlds, in other words.

And here's where there can be a bit of a disconnect.

While certainly the DM seat attracts an egomaniacal variety of individual [note: Me as Exhibit A, blogging my little blog thoughts] that's not the point of the Role of DM. It really ain't. World creation, or reality creation, or story creation...whatever you want to call it...is a collaborative effort between DM and players.

It's got to be, otherwise you aren't playing an RPG. Instead you're doing a play with improvised lines and some dice rolls.

And while I LOVE the theater (actor, remember?) it's not anything theatrical that attracts me to RPGs. REALLY. Like many, I am drawn to the escapism part (which is also something that draws me to acting) which to me is fun...but there is no urge to talk in funny voices or dress up in costume, at least when I am acting as a player (as a DM I will use different voices to distinguish between different NPCs in conversation). I do like imagining myself as an "adventurer" (whether heroic, roguish, or an outright villain makes no nevermind to me) and exploring a fantasy setting. I don't think I'm alone in this, either.

The DM's role, sometimes forgotten, is one of facilitator. What the DM does is facilitate this world/story/reality creation. Adventures are designed, settings are written, NPCs and obstacles placed...and then there is acting as adjudicator and referee for the players as they explore the game world. This exploration, in collaboration with everyone at the table, is what CREATES the shared environment. NOT the DM alone.

When a DM "puts on airs" and thinks he or she is wholly responsible for world creation they are deluding themselves. Pure and simple. If you want to author a world, write a book, don't play an RPG. If your players abandon your game, all the background and backstory in the world means nothing.

AND (this is the important part) if you DO allow players free reign in your carefully designed game (in other words, if you're a good and competent DM that doesn't force your players down your own linear story arcs, etc.), they are going to muck it all up. They will go "off book." They will want to push the game and exploration into areas you haven't detailed or thought of. They will not "do what you want them to."

It's like the talk of these huge ass adventure modules. The DM may make some giant, ambitious adventure...that frankly bores the hell out of the players. At least if the players intend their characters to do more than explore that single adventure over the life of the campaign.

Now I already said in the earlier post that some modules, like B2 and X1, are excluded from my bile on the subject as they are intended to be something of introductory campaigns. They provide an extensive setting for characters of the requisite levels to explore in order to learn the Basic and Expert rules.

Other module sets, like the Slaver series (A1-4) and the GDQ series ARE, in fact, actual campaign settings. They are designed to take place over many, many game sessions as adventurers plumb the depths of their multi-dungeon scenarios. When running through one of these, your players are pretty much committed to the long haul. The same is true for the Desert of Desolation (I3-I5) series and even I1:Dwellers of the Forbidden City (if played as simply its original, tournament "rescue the prisoners scenario" the adventure is short-and-sweet, otherwise it provides an extensive sandbox for campaign game play).

But other "one-off" modules are simply ridiculous.

Let's look at I6: Ravenloft. Garbage. This is billed as a single adventure...and one from which there is no escape for the players until it's completed (killer fog!). How many encounters are there in this module?

103. Of 45 modules I reviewed for "# of numbered encounters" only one other module had more: X3: Curse of Xanathon with 107 by the somewhat inconsistent Douglas Niles.

As a DM prepping a game or a player slogging through one, that's a nightmare. By contrast, B2 only has 64 encounters (outside the Keep) and X1 has 51...both of these can provide multiple sessions of gameplay and multiple levels of advancement. What if someone is holding to a strict "no more than one level gained per adventure completed" rule? After weeks of exploring Ravenloft you get one level? That's a shit-load of work for little pay-off, in my opinion.

[the idea of a high-level magic-user vampire isn't even very original...Q1 had the moody gothic vampire world with the 15th level magic-user vampire in 1980, folks]

Compare that to adventures like S1 and S2. The Tomb of Horrors has 33 numbered encounter areas, White Plume Mountain has 28. Those are nice little adventures that can be finished in one or two sessions. These are good examples of single adventures, as opposed to a campaign setting.

Just as with "world creation" DMs and designers can go over-board with adventure/module design. Except for campaign settings (like the Stonehell Dungeon mega-dungeon, for example) it's generally unnecessary to have too much wedged into an adventure. Usually, the players are not looking for anything beyond their basic objectives (unless understanding a dungeon's "history" is required for resolving a particular "puzzle" or challenge). The rest of that shit is superfluous. It's design masturbation.

So with a little time and energy, I could probably boil all these thoughts down into some Great Commandment of Adventure Design. However, I'm not going to do that right now. Instead I'd like to let this post stew a bit while I work on an actual writing project (the aforementioned adventure module I'm doing) and give readers a chance to weigh in and comment on the thoughts expressed here. These I will later distill into some Commandments (don't even know how many yet!) so feel free to try your hand at your own...or blow me out of the water if you disagree with anything written! Ha! I'm feeling a little rambunctious this morning, I guess.

Probably the smell of the NFL play-offs in the air.

: )

Scourge of the Slave Lords (Part 4)

[continued from here]

And finally we come to the 4th and last module in the Slaver series, the whole reason I decided I wanted to write about these four modules, A4:In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, written by Lawrence Schick (author of the excellent S2:White Plume Mountain, of which much has been written) and largely illustrated by Erol Otus (again, of whom much has been written). So let me ask straight off the bat:

Were Schick and Otus the "cool kids of school" in the TSR workplace?

'Cause I'm reading through this thing and it feels a lot like the whole was mainly brainstormed from their minds, probably developed while dropping 'shrooms or smoking a fat joint and listening to Grace Slick sing about the White Rabbit.

No really...mushroom people that work with fungal alchemy and sit in bonding circles while sharing a group hallucination? The mechanics of the thing is one issue, but the Otus's psychedelic artwork is positively inspiring...which came first in this vision, Schick's words or Otus's drawings? I can't help but thing they did it together building off each other's craziness.

Not to take anything away from Jim Roslov, whose art I love and which is present throughout the module, but you'll notice the treasure of the Slave Lords includes a drawing by Ool Eurts (an obvious anagram), not Mr. Roslov. Schick and Erol are in cahoots, folks.

Well, maybe more on that in a bit. Let's talk about the adventure itself.

I can't for the life of me remember where I was (recently) reading about NOT allowing your players to be captured. How this was a VERY BAD THING. It was in some recent RPG I picked up, or perhaps an adventure supplement, but I can't seem to find the reference anywhere...perhaps it was in a book I was thumbing through (like the Serenity RPG) that I didn't actually purchase.

ANYWAY, the gist of this game's advice was to never have players captured, that capturing players was WORSE than killing them...that at least if they died, they could always make new characters. Capturing player characters is a method of de-protagonizing them after all...cutting their balls off, so to speak.

I wonder if that game designer ever had a chance to play A4:In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords.

For those that haven't read, played, or heard about A4 here's how it starts: the player characters are captured, knocked out, stripped of all possessions (including clothing) and left in a lightless, underground cavern complex. Even the spellcasters are left without spells.

Let me quote Schick's take on the whole "capture" thing:

Many players think of their characters in terms of their powers and possessions, rather than as people. Such players will be totally at a loss for the first few minutes of play. It is likely they will be angry at the DM for putting them in such an "unfair" situation. They will demand or beg concessions. DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY HELP, even if they make you feel sorry for them, Inform the players that they must rely on what they have, not what they used to have, and that this includes their brains and their five senses. Good players will actually welcome the challenge of this scenario....

...To escape, the player characters will have to make the best of the opportunities offered by the contents of the various encounter areas. These opportunities may seem meager to the players at first, but this dungeon contains more than enough material for the players to escape from any of the exits if they have the wits and resourcefulness to recognize and utilize it. However, this module is also a test of the ability of the Dungeon Master! It is a virtual certainty that good players, forced to rely on their own initiative, will attempt to use what they find to do things not covered by the rules. In these situations, it is entirely up to the DM to handle these requests with fairness, objectivity, and imagination.

Hot damn! I wish I'd had this module as a kid. THIS is a perfect example of "challenging the players" rather than the character or stat block. It's also a great example of what is possible with the older editions of D&D.

Schick has created a challenging and exciting adventure that really does force players (including the DM!) to use their wits. There ARE plenty of "found objects" throughout the dungeon that can be used to equip and outfit the characters, as long as the referee uses "fairness, objectivity, and imagination."

But can you imagine how this module would work with D20/Pathfinder? It wouldn't. Unless characters had some sort of "craft spear" skill they're going to be using their fancy feats with bare fists.

And what would they be using those bare fists against? A 3HD badger is plenty tough for 7th level character in AD&D that's fighting naked, but would barely register on the Challenge Rating meter in D20. After all, the whole CR system takes into account PC's "expected equipment for level." They're not supposed to lose their gear. Cries of an "unfair" situation? You bet...'cause D20 ain't designed to challenge the player.

Ah, well...I don't play D3 or 3.5 anymore so it's a non-issue.

Schick has done such an excellent job with this capstone module that I want to play the whole series just to get to A4...psychedelic mushroom folk or not (and by the way, I remember the myconid from the Monster Manual II, but I never used 'em...here I would). I was slightly disappointed that Schick decided to blow up the whole Aerie of the Slave Lords....areas like Dragon Meadow and Drachen Keep were left un-detailed in A3 with the admonishment to keep players from exploring these parts of the map as they'd be "descried in the follow-up module." Instead Schick just covers 'em with lava and magmen and worries about his own little adventure. Which is cool 'cause his adventure is great, but it is a little annoying.

I'm reminded of the Phillip Jose Farmer-edited series The Dungeon, each novel penned by a different author. Author #1 introduced a green-haired love interest for the main protagonist and author #2 killed her off in the 1st chapter or so of the 2nd novel. Which would have been just fine (a series of novels with different authors will naturally evolve different from how the original author intended)...EXCEPT that Author #1 also pens the final novel of the series and has the protagonist once again waxing sadly for his green-haired lady friend...even though no other author has mentioned her in four books.

Fortunately, the Slaver series finishes with a bang and doesn't retread the ground Cook laid down, though I suppose one might consider an exploding volcano to be fairly reminiscent of Schick's own White Plume Mountain ending. Oh, well. Personally, I think that A4 offers something entirely new from other TSR modules of the time, and a real challenge to players, comparable even to the S modules...hell, moreso as players need to think outside the normal boundaries and parameters of the game, not just figure out colored key cards or riddles.

It's too bad there're no monks or assassins in B/X play...I'm afraid conversion of the slaver series would be exceptionally difficult much as I'd like to do it. Maybe I'll need to dust off my old AD&D books.

; )

Scourge of the Slave Lords (Part 3)

[continued from here and here]

All right, this series is running a bit longer than I'd originally anticipated (a problem with stream-o-consciousness blogging I suppose), and I've got plans for this evening (movie, then drinkies with friends)...hopefully I'll be able to bang this out and do it justice.

Continuing right where we left off:

A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, despite having what I consider to be the worst cover art of the whole series, is actually the first module in the series that piqued my interest in the series as a whole...and that's saying something. One should not underestimate the value of cover art in helping someone decide to make a purchase and I'm sorry that Dee's color painting isn't nearly as good as his black-and-white stuff (oh, and just for the record, I found Roslov's art...especially the Elf!...on the cover of A2 to be the best of the series).

A3 has a LOT to recommend it. I said in my prior post that I think that the best published adventures each offer something new that helps inform play and gets players (and especially DMs) to take their level of play "up a notch." Aerie of the Slave Lords does that in several ways.

1) It's a challenging adventure, especially considering the level of characters involved. The storoper is not a total "F-You" type monster (it's auto-non-save attack only works twice), but it's pretty vicious. The shambling mound (a personal favorite) is pretty f'ing tough for the pre-generated characters or PCs of a similar power level. And the traps (especially in the entry level are pretty tough). A LOT of the monsters are of the "lone, tough" variety...the golem, the minotaur, the mimic...as opposed to the lesser "horde monsters" (orcs and hobgoblins) seen in the first two modules...and how sick of those are we by the time we get to A3?

2) In addition to two dungeon areas, the module offers a complete "Slaver City" in the form of Sunderham. Granted earlier modules (T1, N1, D3) offered cities as part of their adventures but Sunderham combines the completeness of the Village of Hommlet (or N1) with the wickedness of Vault of the Drow. If you're playing A3 in a non-tournament style (i.e. sans time limits), Sunderham is a great town to explore and hang out...hell, evil PCs might even be tempted to switch sides and join a slaver guild!

3) The use of NPCs. I'm scratching my head, but I can't think of another earlier module that makes better use of NPC adventurer-types as villainous "monsters." The illusionist is excellent (and probably a necessary warm-up to A4!) and a great encounter for an under-utilyzed PC class. But the final battle with the Slave Lords is the piece de resistance. A showdown against five high level NPCs? With coordinated tactics mapped out? That's not something you see every day in an adventure module and is the truly "new" thing A3 has to offer. Other adventures offer one or sometimes a pair of adventuring class NPCs (a pair of monks in C1, a couple of high level Drow with lesser fighter "minions"). But the combination Fighter-Assassin-Cleric-Magic-User-Monk is pretty badass, and gives PCs a taste of "their own medicine" as they get to feel what your typical monster experiences when faced by heavily armed adventurers of different stripes working in concert.

I REALLY like A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. At under 30 pages, it packs quite a whallop of adventuring goodness.

Scourge of the Slave Lords (Part 2)

[continued from here]

Okay, so what do I think of the Slavers modules individually? After all, I salute the effort in getting 'em all out and trying to make 'em a cohesive whole and I think they do a good job of that. But as individual modules? Seeing as how I like to rank my adventure modules separated into their component parts, rather than as supermodules....

Welp, I kind of have to rate them in order...in other words, I feel A1 and A2 are the weakest individually, A3 I like a bit better, and A4 is definitely the crown jewel of the bunch...in fact, the latter really deserves its own blog post (we'll see if that happens).

Now having said THAT, I would like to point out that I have only ever ran A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity. As mentioned earlier, I owned the supermodule at one time, but never had a chance to run it (or even finish reading it!) prior to somehow losing the damn thing. What this means is that my impressions are entirely academic, i.e. theoretical...the true measure of an adventure module is how it plays, not 'how it reads.' So until I have a chance to run A2-A4 (and I should probably run A1 again as well), how they compare to each other is a matter of (academic) debate.

But I can at least give impressions/observations based on a read of the modules with the eyes of an experienced DM.

A1: Slave Pits of the Undecity is the first module of the series, and is written by that master of B/Expert game design, David Cook. It certainly shows a couple of what one might consider Cook's "hallmarks." For one thing, it is set at what (in B/X terms) would be considered "Expert level;" that is, levels 4-7. This is right on par with his Desert Nomad series, the Isle of Dread, or Dwellers of the Forbidden City...in other words, the levels where he has displayed a bit of mastery (in my less than humble opinion). The other thing is the inclusion of the insectile Aspis monster which definitely has a Sword & Sorcery (i.e. "pulp") feel to it that is also present in his better modules.

However, I can't help but feel disappointed in A1, especially in comparison to the other modules of the series. Perhaps it was specifically meant to be a "warm-up" to the other modules; perhaps Cook was not at his best when designing "tournament" modules (I note that he did not write/design any of the "C" - "Competition" modules for TSR). But much of the adventure simply feels like the monsters have been chosen only with an eye to providing the correct "level of challenge" for the characters (the proper number of humanoids, the occasional spellcaster or undead, a not-too-clever trap here or there). Perhaps because of the venue (i.e. tournament) there is little of the leeway or latitude allowed for creativity as present in Cook's other modules. Simply compare the thing to the open-endedness of I1:Dwellers of the Forbidden City or X4 and X5...the whole adventure feels constrained and, I'm afraid, a bit dull.

A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade, described by one review (per wikipedia) as a "good, workman-like adventure" is the longest of the series, being 40 pages in length and almost totally devoid of interior art. Personally, I find it incredibly interesting that Tom Moldvay was a co-designer in this module...this is the only AD&D module that bears his name as a designer. His other modules are all for B/X or the B/X-derived BECMI (his one module of the latter being a Master level adventure). Seeing his name on it is a bit like seeing Holmes' name on an AD&D module.

I LIKE A2 as a module, but I find it to be derivative...that is, it bears a lot of resemblance to the G1-3 series. Here is a fortress the players must enter. By stealth or by combat they must wipe out the inhabitants. Oh, then they find a scroll that tells them there's a DIFFERENT place to go to. Not much here that hasn't been seen elsewhere.

And as I said in my earlier post I consider published adventure modules to be a key method of informing D&D play. At least, they were in MY youth. You can read the rules set for a game, but without specific examples of dungeon design (Tom Moldvay's Basic set, for example) it can be tricky, putting it all together without a mentor to guide you. TSR's adventure modules worked as mini-mentors for those of us that were "self-teaching" ourselves to play. And while A2 is a nice little (or medium) adventure, it ain't teaching anything new.

Really. For example, it does have nice character: unlike the first module of the A series, A2 bothers to name its slave lords, give them some personality, and tweak them slightly with special abilities (the "blind" fighter that is immune to visual spells, the ogre with his ability to disarm foes in combat). But this isn't much different from King Snurre and Queen with the special auto-kill attacks, or Obmi and his slyness.

What I'm saying is that the best adventure modules of TSR's early years each provided something special to the developing DM: Tomb of Horrors gave us the "monster-less" dungeon, White Plume Mountain gave us riddles and special magic items, Barrier Peaks mixed sci-fi with fantasy, the D series provided the epic and wide-open Underdark, Shrine of Tamoachan mixed in Aztec mythology, Isle of Dread gave us a dinosaur "lost world," etc.. I don't see anything new in A2 that would help inform play, or help a DM "take things up a notch." And so, over-all it feels weaker than the later modules of the series.

Which it appears will have to be a separate post, based on the length of this one....

Scourge of the Slave Lords (Part 1)

I am not a fan of "supermodules." Hell, I even passed on a copy of GDQ1-7: Queen of the Spiders just yesterday, even though it was rated "the greatest adventure of all time" by Dungeon Magazine. Of all the supermodules TSR ever published, I've only ever owned two, and only one of those did I purchase. The only one I still retain in my possession is on "permanent loan" from an old buddy and it is T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil. As it is the only known version of the Temple, I will probably continue to retain it, although I find it fairly unwieldy to use (and have actually only ever used it to run the Village of Hommlet...whadya' know).

The one supermodule I actually purchased I did so at a time when I thought the idea of supermodules had merit, and that was A1-4: Scourge of the Slave Lords. At the time, I got it, TSR was no longer putting out the A series of modules, and as I only owned A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity, I figured the only way I would ever be able to run the entire series was to grab the supermodule when I had a chance. Sadly, I somehow managed to lose it (it's probably in bowels of my mother's cellar somewhere) before ever actually finishing a read through. Those supermodules were the equivalent of...well, of most slickly produced commercial RPGs on the market...too thick and weighty to actually get through. Give me a normal, under-30 page adventure module any day of the week.

So now I find myself typing at the computer with a small stack of modules next to me...the entire A series. In order they are:

A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity by David Cook

A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade by Harold Johnson with Tom Moldvay

A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords by Allen Hammack

A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords by Lawrence Schick

And I've had a week or so to read each of 'em in turn. So where to start?

Well, the first thing that jumps out at me is the fact that they were each authored by a different individual authors. And yet they're all fairly coherent. They were all written for a single Gen Con convention (Gen Con XIII in 1980, per the introductory notes of each). How exactly does that get done?

I mean who called the shots for Gen Con in 1980? Was Gygax acting as overlord (or "Dungeon Master") at TSR, setting outlines for "the minions" to write up an immense four-part saga to pit players from all over the country against each other in a timed, scored event?

I certainly don't know...I ain't a historian. And yet, I don't see much chatter on the blogs regarding this particular series. It certainly must have been a wild Con to have such a huge series of modules that people were playing in...I can only imagine gamers from different tables (players and DMs alike) comparing notes between rounds...how did you deal with such-and-such? Wow, did that cloaker wipe out YOUR party, too? Man, my DM was a bastard...etc.

For me, a four-module series like this is pretty much a mini-campaign...and I mean "campaign" in every sense of the term, seeing as how the series is pretty much a military exercise against a vicious and well-organized opposing force. It is much more like G1-3 than any other series of modules...players know who their opponent is and have been tasked with wiping them out. There is no "hidden enemy" (Drow). There is no supernatural force behind everything (Lolth). The forces that have set the campaign in motion are hoping for some very mundane, real-world results...stop raiding our towns and kidnapping our people for use as slaves!

Heck, it walks a line that is almost "heroic" in that regard...though certainly, the powers-that-be may have hired scurrilous rogues of the worst kind for the mission. At least they are not being told to finish the job or their heads will roll (like the Desert of Desolation or the Giant series). Hopefully, they're getting paid well for their efforts.

Anyway, tying four modules by four different authors together for a single tournament in a single year is a pretty amazing accomplishment. Even the GDQ series took took several years to complete (Queen of the Demonweb Pits not being published till 1980, two years after the G and D series), and in some ways with less detail than any of the Slaver series. Oh sure, the G modules had encapsulated dungeons, but the D modules have huge swaths of "go ahead and make this up for yourself" areas. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. But as a training series (and my own personal experience with adventure modules is that they provide training for "how to craft an adventure") the A's are a better introductory type adventure than the GDQ series.

And in many ways a better introduction of how D&D can be played as well...as in, a teaching aid to new players.

I'll explain what I mean by that in a little bit...

Oh, by the way...any readers who want to comment on their own experience with the A series...either at the 1980 Gen Con or more recently, please feel free. I've only ever run A1 myself and would be interested in folks' recollections...unlike, say, Tomb of Horrors or Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, the Slaver series doesn't get a lot of blog time elsewhere...at least not that I've read. Thanks!