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Post Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:42 am 
 

gyg wrote:ack - now I need a copy of Dungeon #6 for Mark's adventure  - unless anyone could send/email  me a copy - if you don't mind of course Mark!


As far as I have been able to tell from Ebay, Dungeon #6 is one of the harder issues to find.

My own copy is packed away somewhere in our storage space.

I was just delighted that someone played it and liked it.

Mark   8)


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Post Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:26 am 
 

MShipley88 wrote:
As far as I have been able to tell from Ebay, Dungeon #6 is one of the harder issues to find.

My own copy is packed away somewhere in our storage space.

I was just delighted that someone played it and liked it.

Mark   8)


Mark I didn't just run it once but TWICE! Once as a part of my second big campaign, the players were settling down and building their strongholds, I made the cave of the brothers one of the areas they had to clear out before they built the castle.  Another time I ran it as part of one of my many re-runs of the G-series, it was an interlude adventure between Frost and Fire giants I believe. Still have my photocopied House of the Brothers with my handwritten notes  on it around here somewhere...
Just out of curiousity, do you still ever run that particular scenario (jumped up to 3.5 edition) or did you have any further submissions not make the cut?  One of my friends back in the day, Mark Bicking, had three adventures accepted but many more returned from the Dungeon editiors...

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Post Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 9:09 am 
 

MShipley88 wrote:I was just delighted that someone played it and liked it.

Mark, you should write some new old-school adventures and submit them to Dragonsfoot.  You'd have to mentally shift gears from 3.5 to older D&D versions, but you would have a new audience.

That goes for the rest of you DMs, too.  Dust off the homebrewed adventures and submit them.  Don't keep them to yourselves and this thread!

  

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Post Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 2:39 am 
 

I have run House of the Brothers twice in my campaigns...once as a play test and once more than a decade later, just as a side adventure.

One member of my gaming group still remembered the adventure...amazingly, almost word for word...I mean, he told me what was in each room with total accuracy...stuff even I could not remember.  

I submitted other ideas, but Dungeon was either not interested or they had just published a similar idea.  I should have tried harder.

The published scenario was dialed down in threat level a bit from my version.  Apparently, the Dungeon editors were worried about parties getting wiped out.  One guy still wrote in to complain about the deadly traps.  I wrote back that my own wary players survived the battle with the main badguys and then cleared the complex with almost no damage taken from other tricks, traps or encounters...at slightly lower level than the levels recommended in the magazine version.  

As I recall, the published version also had much higher values posted for the most exotic pieces of captured equipment than I assigned to them.  I mean, by about 10 times higher, as I recall.

A mental gear shifting between versions wouldn't be hard for me.  They aren't really that different.  The hardest part might be deciding which 1st edition to use.  (Not being flippant, actually.)  Does one use pre or post Unearthed Arcana AD&D?  How about pre or post Dungeoneers and Wilderness Survival Guides?  The basics of game balance change the deeper one gets.

Mark   8)


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 9:12 am 
 

Still a great achievement in seeing print in Dungeon.

I sent several adventures and they actually accepted two of them, but they never got to print. Space issues, level conflicts and whatever. After that, I just gave up. I was having much better luck doing Star Fleet Battles stuff, not too mention the time involved in writing up publishable d&d stuff is daunting versus SFB columns or scenarios.


And I could've bought these damn modules off the 1$ rack!!!

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Post Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 12:09 pm 
 

I always wondered why TSR (later WotC) stopped doing Greyhawk-oriented modules, etc.; same with what seemed to be a successful campaign, Dragonlance.  Are there third-party makers of games that are still doing Greyhawk- or Dragonlance-campaign oriented modules around, regardless of which version of D&D is played (much like Dave Arneson is doing with Blackmoor and . . . nuts, I forget the company's name!)?  Is it just because of the money ("the series are not doing as well as before, therefore let's drop the campaign") or what?

  


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Post Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:35 pm 
 

Dragonlance is still being published.  Probably because the creators retained aleast some of their rights to the setting.

http://www.dragonlance.com/

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Post Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 4:35 pm 
 

sleepyCO wrote:I always wondered why TSR (later WotC) stopped doing Greyhawk-oriented modules, etc.; same with what seemed to be a successful campaign, Dragonlance.  Are there third-party makers of games that are still doing Greyhawk- or Dragonlance-campaign oriented modules around, regardless of which version of D&D is played (much like Dave Arneson is doing with Blackmoor and . . . nuts, I forget the company's name!)?  Is it just because of the money ("the series are not doing as well as before, therefore let's drop the campaign") or what?


Blackmoor is being done by Zeitgeist Games.

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Post Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 5:07 pm 
 

I do not think TSR ever truly knew what they had in Greyhawk. The adventures are not cohesive and just "placed" where convenient.

It always seemed odd to me that there was never an honest attempt make a real "campaign" out of the thing.


And I could've bought these damn modules off the 1$ rack!!!

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Post Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:23 am 
 

bbarsh wrote:I do not think TSR ever truly knew what they had in Greyhawk. The adventures are not cohesive and just "placed" where convenient.

It always seemed odd to me that there was never an honest attempt make a real "campaign" out of the thing.


Exactly as I have always felt.  For all the brickbats it's received over the years, at least Carl Sargent's From the Ashes attempted to create a cohesive background to draw from and put certain places, events and cretures at the forefront of adventuring in Greyhawk.  Most of the reverence seen for Greyhawk material is nostalgia, and nothing more.   But you also have to remember it's a product of it's time, which was when no one was doing the sort of adventuring world we would later see with Forgotten Realms (where sourcebooks were released about various regions in the world, along with a very detailed box set defining the campaign world).
  It's really too bad what happened to the Forgotten Realms, because the first few (1st edition) supplements were quite well done and very useful.  I would have loved to see something for the Forgotten Realms in that format, or at the least something along the lines of Sargent's Marklands, Iuz and Bright Desert (from Rary the Traitor) encompassing other lands of the WOG.

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Post Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 3:27 am 
 

As far as I know, TSR wanted to substitute the Forgotten Realms as the flagship campaign for 2nd Edition AD&D.  

As I understand it, they dropped Greyhawk because of its associations with Gary Gygax and AD&D.

From a publishing standpoint it would make sense to build an entirely unencumbered product for future sales.

From a game loyalist standpoint, it makes less sense.

Greyhawk was never all that well-visualized to start with.  It is entirely true that the modules were just sprinkled all over the world map without any real storyline.

Of course, it could also be argued that Greyhawk was a more realistic continent because it was not dominated by a single storyline/conflict...just like a real world is a multitude of storylines.

I never really bought the idea of a "campaign" world in the sense that a world might be dominated by a single conflict.  I prefer the concept of a "setting," which is a place where lots of different adventures take place.

Mark   8)


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Post Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 4:36 am 
 

I should've remembered Zeitgeist Games :oops: ; I was there a few days back--thanks, ShaneG.!

The reason I asked is that I remember on WotC's website in late 2004 a note that said that WotC (words to the effect) would be ending produciton of all Dragonlance-related items in 2005.  In fact, here is that item . . . (from the Dragonlance website's news archive):

"Dragonlance Adventure Game Cancelled
11/19/2004
The following is a joint statement issued by Wizards of the Coast and Sovereign Press, Inc.: Wizards of the Coast and Sovereign Press, in a joint decision, determined that development of the Dragonlance Adventure Game would cease. At this time, there are no plans to develop the product further, and there are no plans to release the product in the future. (my bold) Both Wizards of the Coast and Sovereign Press are excited about the Sovereign Press Dragonlance 2005 product line-up, and a revised product schedule will be released soon."

As has been pointed out in this thread, there are new DragonLance books, etc. out there for sale . . .
Then I read (same site) that WotC seems to have sold almost all or all of the old TSR worlds (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc.) to another company(s)!!  Makes one wonder if Hasbro/WotC bit off more than they could chew; on the other hand, this could lead to some interesting ideas for the original DL, FR, --- even Greyhawk :?:  :?:

  

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Post Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 4:59 am 
 

Well I know they got the rights back for Ravenloft, though I doubt anything will come out for the setting - as they seem to only wanted it for the remake of the module Ravenloft into Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (which I plan on picking up).

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Post Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 9:00 pm 
 

Part Two of my WBITD rant:

Ridiculous Character Levels, Monty Haul DM's and why we pubished G, DG & H


Narratio resumeter...


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Post Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 7:12 pm 
 

How do you kill a 23rd level thief/ranger/cleric half hobbit?
Or
The genesis of Gods, Demigods and Heroes


By mid 1976 we took notice of an increasingly ludicrous phenomenon: ridiculous PC levels and absurd Character combinations coupled with grotesquely improbable racial/species combinations.

Prurient aspects aside, how could you possibly explain a half hobbit -- half orc PC? Just how invulnerable did a fighter have to be to make 25th level? 30th? 35th?
Was he armed with a nuclear powered energy weapon? A light saber? A +12 Dancing Vorpal Blade?

In the original Greyhawk, in Rob Kuntz's campaign (if it had a proper name at the time I've forgotten it), in any of the "original" and "true" campaigns, a 12th level fighter was like Conan and  12 level MU was like Thulsa Doom ; awesome and bigger than life even in a fantasy setting.

In all the campaigning of my own (where I was DM), the highest level ever reached was a 10th level hobbit thief that was the most incredibly lucky hobbit in the universe; I swear that if he needed a 3% saving throw to get through whatever incredibly rash and foolish stupidity he'd just blundered into, he'd make it. My dice or his, him rolling them or me, somehow he'd make it; a textbook example of a charmed life. The highest level any of my personal PCs ever made was a 12th level MU; I felt like I was incredibly powerful and nearly invincible.

When we started getting letters about how boring adventuring had become for the writer's 34th level cleric, or how hard it was to craft adventures for a group of PCs that had a group average of 28th level, we were mystified. How in the hell were people reaching these preposterous levels?

We discovered a phenomenon responsible for part of it. I think it was Jim Ward that coined the name in a short story/article he wrote for me that become the archetype of this phenomenon: Monty Haul. (For those of you too young to remember a game show called Let's Make A Deal, Monty Hall was the host and gave stuff away, sometimes really neat stuff, other times dumb stuff like three goats or some such; getting the dumb stuff was known as getting a Zonk. You had to pick a box or a door; some good, some Zonks.) Monty Haul DMs had a room every 20 feet down the corridor and had one or more monsters in every one, and copious CPs or SPs or GPs, and magic artifacts lying around like a Goodwill store. In other words, 1000s of EPs every adventure; Experience point inflation of the worst sort. A typical 8.5 X 11 sheet of graph paper map might hold 25K of EPs, or even more!


Well, DUHH! No wonder it was boring; all it was was slicing and dicing stuff up with very little rationale or story line. PCs ended up with hoards of loot the size of Bill Gates' fortune. EP inflation was clearly getting out of hand. PCs were killing off whole pantheons.

When I started as a DM in late'74-early '75, my economy was similar to latter 19th Cent. costs: good meals for 25-50 coppers (Cents), a shirt for one SP ($1.00), a good, serviceable sword for 5 or 10 GP ($50 to $100) and so on. Finding a gem worth 100GP was really great. I mean, a PC could live well for a long time on the equivalent of $1000. The PCs in my campaign actually survived by selling odd stuff they acquired like extra arms, gems, etc. A hoard of 800 SP divided amongst 8 or 9 PCs was a windfall. If an NPC wizard wanted 125 GP for a Healing potion, you went out and earned it in the course of several adventures. Finding such a potion was marvelous; agonizing over when you were beat up enough to warrant actually drinking it was tough.

On those rare occasions when the group would amass or find a lot of loot, like managing to knock off a dragon for instance, then prices when up just like in a real inflation, or "wandering" merchants came by with a few goodies that effectively sucked the money out of the campaign.

Gary and Rob and I sat down one time and addressed the problem of level inflation. We chewed on the topic for some time and came up with some generalities. (I freely admit that I do not remember exact figures here; I am giving the flavor of the discussion with numbers that seem to be correct after all these years.) In D&D terms, how tough was Thor, Norse god of thunder? Mars? Zeus? Conan? Elric? Fafhrd? The Grey Mouser?

I seem to recall that we came up with a level rating somewhere around 25 or 28 for Thor, maybe 30 or 32 for Odin, etc. These were DIETIES! Conan was like 16th or 18th level, 18/00 Strength, 17 or 18 Constitution, etc. This being the case, we reasoned, how could any PC ever achieve 35th level in any kind of "realistic" (admittedly a funny term to apply to a FRPG) campaign?

Thus was born GODS, DEMIGODS & HEROS; a printed source to show how preposterous these inflated levels we were hearing about actually were.

I printed more than one article (I seem to remember writing one) about how to suck excessive money out of campaigns.

It was as effective as spitting into the wind, and ultimately as satisfying. DMs everywhere still kept imitating Monty Haul, and PCs that could wipe out entire battalions and obliterate whole pantheons continued to proliferate.

--Next Installment—Bizarre racial mixtures and preposterous skill combinations.


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Post Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 8:46 pm 
 

In our case, we often had parties of 9-12 players (usually add 2-4 to that  for the # of PC's in the games), with levels widely separated from 1st up to 12th or thereabouts, so treasures were somewhat larger than normal.
 
The only time I can remember a "monty haul" dungeon was one time where the party defeated a 15th-level magic-user in his dungeon at the end, and we ended up with about 300,000 GP worth of coins (everything from platinum pieces to coppers, including adamantine pieces (8 GP = 1AP) and items.)  If I remember, we split it up where the higher-level PC's got a larger share of the coins and items, and the lower-level PC's got a smaller share.

However, one other time I ended up (1st-level barbarian fighter) with a deck of many things and got TWO draws at the deck;  one draw had 25,000 XP and receive a second draw, the second draw had 50,000 XP. (More like "Press Your Luck" than "Let's Make a Deal"! :lol: ).  This would qualify as a "monty haul" of XP's!! 8O

That sent me from mid-1st level up to seventh level at one fell swoop.  {I would imagine normally, that a higher-level character with the deck of many things getting 75,000 XP would've maybe gone up one level, but . . .  :oops: ).  
Looking back now, I would think that maybe I should've gotten only 10% of the XP, one draw at the deck (with a second draw being an object of some sort), or something else.

  

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Post Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 9:34 pm 
 

In our case, we often had parties of 9-12 players (usually add 2-4 to that for the # of PC's in the games), with levels widely separated from 1st up to 12th or thereabouts, so treasures were somewhat larger than normal.


Gee, I must have missed something. Since when did the size of the party of adventurers have anything at all to do with the loot found?

Loot was an element of the setting or scene. If half a dozen PCs are slumming around some dinky little pissant/local bandit's hideout, and all he had managed to amass was a couple of rusty daggers, a rent hauberk and dented shield, and a handful of low quality stones worth a paltry 67 SP, that would be an object lesson to them that they should seek fame and fortune elsewhere.

It should be inherent logic that large hoards or payoffs present dire chances of disease, injury, death or dismemberment. It should not be the equivalent of six punks getting into the vault of Tiffany's through dumb luck and stumbling onto a stash of riches that would fix them up for life... As a DM, where's the fun in that?

As to the phenomenal luck with the Deck of Many Things, that was an aberration that the DM should have handled differently. No matter how your group visualized promotions, that was way too fast and sudden.

For the longest time, it seemed that some players saw going up in levels as some sort of process that saw Peewee Herman morph into Arnold Schwarzenegger, thereby having more blood to shed and gobbets of flesh to be carved off before succumbing to the cumulative effects of all those wounds. In reality, HP were supposed to represent the amount of time/fighting a PC could engage in/endure before falling victim to that fatal blow, acquired through experience.


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Post Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 10:12 pm 
 

My personal highest level character was an 11th level magic user. Took years to get him there. Never had a chance to make 12th because, while I was on vacaction, they guys started D1 and the entire party got wiped out. So came retirement.

We played a great deal of D&D back in the day, and it took a long time for us to attain even fifth level. We were always broke - and it even became a long running joke on how our PCs were generally poorer than the almost everyone we met.

But we were never bored. Whether it was the stress of staying alive at first level or the uncertainty of what lay ahead at fifth level, the game was good.

I like to think we were fairly well balanced. But I sure got a sense of the Monty Haulism that existed from visiting various conventions each year. It was absolutely great to see people with characters that had magic item lists that ran two pages. 8O


And I could've bought these damn modules off the 1$ rack!!!

New modules for your Old School game http://pacesettergames.com/

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