Corsair Publishing's
Pulp Dungeons are a very interesting find...particularly at the price quoted higher up in this strand.
These modules pre-date the
D20 system. Corsair has made up for this lack by inventing an informal, generic system based upon the concept of a "hit."
A "hit" is one roll of whatever dice your
RPG happens to use as the damage for a standard sword. Thus, a "3 hit" monster would have 3d8 hit dice in AD&D. Damage, levels and hit dice are all given in this "hit" format.
This may sound sketchy, and it probably is for
DM's who are used to robotically following a module's notes. Still, it is not much different than typical 1st Edition AD&D module notations that often said things like:
"Inside are four orcs with hit points of 8, 6, 5 and 3. They attack as soon as the party enters the room."For game masters like myself, it is an easily adaptable generic system: So, if "Hugo the Bear Trainer" is a "2-hit human," it does not take a lot of mental gymnastics to make him a second level fighter with 2d10 hit points. Nor does it take a genius to supply the stats for Hugo's bear, which is a "4-hit monster." This puzzle should not prove hard to solve for anyone with a 1st Edition AD&D
Dungeon Master's Screen in front of them. I have seen
far worse generic systems.
A
D20 game master could generate all of the NPC's in Gary Gygax's
Jolly Jongleurs by spending 15 minutes on this website:
Aarg.net Jolly Jongleurs is one of three adventures included in the Corsair product,
Uninvited Guests. This publication sold for $7.95 new and is practically free on Ebay at the moment.
Uninvited Guests is 37 pages long, counting the map to
Jolly Jongleurs on the front inside cover.
Jolly Jongleurs is 16 pages long. In it, Gygax details a band of nefarious gypsies and their enchanted encampment. Gygax details the members of the gypsy band and then tells what is down the various paths leading away from the camp.
The adventure uses the device of magically entrapping the the characters at the camp, making it impossible for them to leave until dawn. There is no reason why a game master has to use the module this way.
Jolly Jongleurs would work just as well as a semi-permanent encampment, where the characters visit, relax, do business and occasionally get swindled.
All of the
Pulp Dungeons are written in an informal voice, and most of them utilize the device of a story "as told to" the author...then with the usual format for describing encounter areas. (TSR's James Ward wrote several of the
Pulp Dungeons, but most of them are by Timothy Brown.) Gygax takes this informal approach a bit further with his chatty writing style. Some examples of Gygax's writing:
(The character might like to jump into a magic pool)
"And why not? There's nothing in it but a naiad, and she won't mind." "Brother! If they go in there without testing the ground they deserve what's coming! This is a patch of quicksand.""UH-OH! This blasted path leads only to a fallen log, and there is a strong odor near it. It seems that this is the latrine. Time to turn back...indeed!" Despite the writing style,
Jolly Jongleurs is not a joke. It is an encounter for low-level characters, and they might find it quite challenging. There are enough gypsies and camp guards to wipe out any characters who want to solve the situation by fighting. There are alternatives to fighting that could prove quite interesting.
The artwork is amateur, but entirely adequate. There are maps of the gypsy camp (including paths into the surrounding woods) and a nice layout of a gypsy wagon.
To summarize,
Jolly Jongleurs is an interesting scenario and potentially quite useful to a game master who does not normally require all the statistics written out. The other
Pulp Dungeons are of roughly the same quality. They look useful and they are a good bargain at the current price. The chance to collect an entire line of modules in one purchase seems like a can't-miss opportunity.
Mark