Uni's Lost Horn

Quick note before we get into it: just want everyone to know that after a bit more reading/perusal, I returned the new 5.5E Dungeon Master's Guide to my local B&N and got my money back ($55 and change). Just a no-brainer when you consider A) I play 1st edition, and B) the book is a steaming pile of garbage. 

One of the last straws that broke the camel's back? Hey, they had Warduke's helmet as a possible magic item!  Here's the description (the accompanying illustration made it clear who it belongs to):

Dread Helm

Wondrous Item, Common

While you're wearing this fearsome steel helm, your eyes glow red and the rest of your face is hidden in shadow.

Check that out...that's all it is. A magic item that has a cosmetic, non-game related effect. It just makes your eyes glow red.

But don't feel like this is something to pawn off on your henchman...this is a common magic item. Which means it can be purchased in any old town.

Common magic items can often be bought in a city or town. 

Cost for a common magic item in 5th edition? 100 g.p. As compared to mundane, non-magical plate armor which costs 1,500 g.p. WTF? Is that verisimilitude? NO. But, hey don't worry, because the book tells you plain and simple:

The Game is Not an Economy. The rules of the game aren't intended to model a realistic economy, and players who look for loopholes that let them generate infinite wealth using combinations of spells are exploiting the rules. 

Of course, what if your players are those "optimizers" who enjoy finding loopholes, just like these? Aren't we supposed to be "making it fun for everyone?" Well...

Rules Rely on Good Faith Interpretation. The rules assume that everyone reading and interpreting the rules has the interests of the group's fun at heart and is reading the rules in that light.

I think you're making a BIG assumption there...an assumption that anyone is going to READ these rules. Rules that are subject to arbitrary change by the DM, so they really don't matter. Hell, it doesn't even matter if the DM knows the rules. Look what's here on the same page (this is Chapter 1, by the way):

Knowing The Rules

You don't have to be an expert on the rules to be a good DM. Of course, itt's helpful to be familiar with the rules especially the ones in the Player's Handbook. But facilitating fun is more important that implementing the rules perfectly. If you're not sure how to apply the rules in a situation, you can always ask the opinion of the players as a group. It might take a few minutes, but it's usually possible to reach an answer that feels fair to everyone, and that's more important than a "correct" answer.

Just about every sentence in that paragraph is incredibly, seriously wrong. And why do they put the word "correct" in quotation marks? Because what is "correct" is just a matter of opinion? Truth is up for interpretation? Yeah, it feels like I've heard that a lot lately.

ANYway...if I'd read that "knowing the rules" sidebar sooner, I would have dumped the book even faster. But then I couldn't have given you folks my rant-y review. Ah, the things I do for my readers!

Moving on.

As I noted earlier, one of the things that intrigued me about the DMG5.5 (before disgust overwhelmed anything else) was the inclusion of the "D&D kids" from Saturday Morning cartoons. I was a big fan of those cartoons growing up...in fact, if hard-pressed, they might edge out Thundarr the Barbarian as the all-time favorite of my childhood. Certainly, the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon was the ONLY cartoon that made me set an alarm Friday night so that I wouldn't miss it in the morning!

I am of the opinion that THAT particular IP is an un-mined resource for nostalgia (and revenue)...so when I saw that they were throwing those dudes into the artwork and "lore" of 5.5 I was kind of thrilled. And, THEN, I became curious...extremely curious...about one particular image:

See that odd duck over on the left? That's "Niko."

Who the heck is this Niko person?

This illustration led me down a rabbit hole of internet Googlings, till I found the answer: no, Niko was not a character from some un-watched (or un-developed) TV episode. She is a cleric character created for use with an adventure module featuring the D&D kids that WotC produced as part of their 50th anniversary celebration. She even has a "magic weapon" of her own, imaginatively called "Niko's Mace" (though that item is not in the DMG5.5, unless I somehow missed it). 

That adventure (which I'd never heard of before yesterday) is called Uni and the Hunt for the Lost Horn. And after much, much scouring of the inter-webs, I was able to find a PDF copy. Here's my capsule review (in the style of Mr. Bryce Lynch):

This 48 page adventure uses three pages to describe a tiny "demi-plane" dungeon consisting of five encounter areas. It is for 5th edition, which means it's trash anyway, but at least it does not provide any personality, background, or role-playing notes for the seven pre-generated characters included with the module, so your table should be mercifully spared faux-acting and cobbled drama. My childhood has been mined for profits and my life is a living hell.

*ahem*

The adventure seems loosely based on the Episode 4 of the cartoon series, "Valley of the Unicorns" (yes, yes, I am a tremendous nerd). Which I remember as being quite good. It has a demon idol, a great villain, a sinister plan, a Daern's Instant Fortress, miserable de-protagonization of cutesy fairy tale creatures, an appearance of the Imprisonment spell (one of the more awesome moments of the series, IMO), and a pack of worgs. I mean, it's very "D&Dish," even if the characters aren't looting the hell out of everything.

ANYway, the Lost Horn adventure isn't nearly as cool. A couple of lame fights, maybe some double-crossing with a bullywug chieftain (?), and a deus ex machina at the end where Venger comes in and finishes the fight. I mean, it's really pretty dumb.

But what it DOES have is, again, nice artwork illustrating the artist's idea of what the grown up D&D kids look like. And that's pretty nifty (though, honestly, I don't think they needed to turn Bobby into a gym bro; I see a lot of crushed Coors light cans in his dorm room...). That's neat...un-tapped potential finally being tapped (as they probably should have done for the D&D movie).

"Battle Medic," natch

I don't even mind Niko terribly. I can already tell that the inclusion of a new cast member will raise the hackles of some fans (doesn't it always?) especially as her obvious "diversity" will be interpreted as, well, obvious diversity (which some people dislike). But let's be honest here: if the kids were an actual D&D party, they would want a cleric, no? None of them have much in the way of first aid training and any scrape from a bullywug spear is likely to get infected (and so many of these kids insist on roaming the wilderness in shorts and bare arms...) and lead to an untimely death. Well, maybe...I suppose the cartoon's not called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Perhaps tetanus isn't a thing in "the Realm."

[whether it is or isn't, I have to admit she's pretty superfluous. This IS 5E, after all, so it's not like people die easily. Also, no undead in the adventure]

So...grown up kids? Cool. Everything else? Not so much. 

And reading through this reminded me this isn't the first time WotC has tried to stat out the D&D kids for the game; sometime circa 2007, they sold a special DVD box set of all the cartoon episodes...which I own. In addition to the disks and a bunch of ink drawings and collectable cards, the box contained an actual honest-to-goodness adventure (written for DND3) with write-ups of all the characters, plus Venger (an 18th level, half-infernal for the curious)!

Unlike, Uni's Lost Horn, the PCs in this adventure are STILL KIDS.  And they're 7th level adventurers (in Lost Horn, they're only 4th level). The adventure (credited to Matthew Sernett) is called Beneath the Blade of Sword Mountain, which kind of kicks the ass of "Uni's Lost Horn." Oh, you want the capsule review again? Here it is:

This twenty-six page adventure uses nine pages to describe four encounter areas, including each area's individual battle map. Most of the remaining pages are taken up with full page artwork of the D&D characters. The writing is extremely tiny, the page size is the same as a DVD case, and I am so old I needed a magnifying glass to read Mr. Sernett's name in the designer credits.

No cleric in this one (and no undead either or the D&D kids would be So Screwed!). Interesting that in addition to a full 3E stat block (skills! feats!), each character gets a paragraph of text describing their personality and relationship with the other PCs...role-playing notes, in other words. Which are completely absent from the Uni's Lost Horn adventure.

Why am I bothering to write about all of this? Well for one thing, it's Friday and that seems to be the day I have more free time for blogging (though I made time for yesterday's bile. Man, did it get my dander up!). But also, because it's put an idea into my head: maybe I want to do my own version of the D&D kids...for AD&D, of course...along with some sort of adventure.  In fact, there's no "maybe" about it; I definitely want to do this!

Yes, indeedy. The only question is, which tack do I take? Old kids or young kids? And do I write my own adventure or rewrite one of these two?  And if I do decide to make my own, should I use one of the old cartoon episodes as inspiration? There are a few good ones to draw from. More than a few. I kind of want to (re-)do Valley of the Unicorns, because Kelek is so dastardly as an evil wizard. I dig it. You tell me.

Okay, that's enough for a Friday afternoon. And here's your "moment of zen:"

A LOT of crushed beer cans...