For the first time in a very long time, I’m running an AD&D (1st edition) campaign again. I almost wasn’t. I expected I might be running some players who were playing in D&D Encounters but who were new to D&D in general, so running both AD&D and D&D 4E for them might prove confusing, but on the day I just threw the AD&D books in my bag and went with my original desire: to run an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I’m very glad I did.

I ended up with five players: Adam, Chris, Rich, Jackson and Nash. The initial idea for the campaign was to run a Viking-style campaign – a campaign in the lands of the Frost Barbarians of the World of Greyhawk. Adam had previously mentioned to me the desire to run an eladrin, so in AD&D terms that translated to playing an elf fighter/magic-user. The other characters came from a small village that was in trouble: its longship had been sunk along with all hands in the recent raiding season, and a poor harvest meant that it would likely not have enough food to make it through the winter. Thus, the need for the young men of the village (just reaching adulthood) to go on adventures to save the village. At least, that was the initial plan. With Adam wanting to play this fey character, it changed my initial thinking enough so I had the group begging aid of the Frost Queen – the whimsical leader of the fey in Faerie. It casts the initial adventure in a suitably mythic tone and it’ll be very interesting to see where it goes from here.

Although I had about three Player’s Handbooks with me, character generation was very much a case of me going around the table and letting everyone know what choices they had rather than the players consulting the books. There aren’t that many choices in any case! We began by rolling ability scores – so the best three dice from 4d6, six times, arranged as desired. Most of the characters ended up with a 15 or 16 in an ability score; Jackson was the only one who had the highest roll of a 14! I chose not to let him reroll – either the character will prosper, or it’ll die and he’ll have to create a new character. If played well, it will prosper.

I was strict on the races and classes I allowed the players; in fact, we ended up with only characters of the base four classes (and multiclass combinations of those classes). Adam played an elf fighter/magic-user, as previously agreed upon. Rich has a human thief, Chris has a human cleric, Nash has a half-orc fighter/thief, and Jackson played a human fighter. All characters started with maximum hit points (as AD&D is hard enough to survive normally), and after buying armour and weapons, most characters didn’t have that much left over. Chris didn’t have enough for a backpack, buying a large sack instead. At least he had good armour: a necessity in AD&D! Alignments were fun – most of the characters opted for Chaotic Neutral, with Chris being Neutral Good and Adam being Chaotic Good.

The adventure began with the four villagers coming upon Adam’s character (Arathiel) being attacked by four goblins in the forest. The first combat began with the thief and fighters using their bows and slings against the goblins, Adam using his longsword, and Chris readying his mace against a charge. I rolled the goblins’ hit points – something I haven’t done for a few years, and gained the not-so-great totals of 2, 1, 1 and 6. Three of the goblins died very quickly indeed, but one was able to stab Adam for 5 damage before expiring; as Adam only had 7 hit points, this was a grievous wound. The group now had to decide what to do with this strange elf, so they trussed him up and brought them back to the village, his wound untreated.

In the village longhall, Elder Hagar oversaw the village council and our heroes in deliberation. Adam decided that what his character needed was an Irish accent, and after we all stopped laughing, Adam revealed that the village’s troubles could be solved by the Frost Queen. The Frost Queen would require a service in exchange, but he was sure that some arrangement could be made. Seeing no other option, Hagar agreed and sent the heroes to find the Frost Queen and seek her aid. I’m very appreciative of Adam’s role-playing here, which made all the set-up dialogue so much more entertaining. Eventually, Chris’s cleric (Bjorn) relented and healed Adam. The next day, it would be off to see the Frost Queen!

One fun little thing we threw in there was that Arathiel wasn’t actually welcome in the Frost Queen’s court, as he’d been expelled for uncouth behaviour. He was hoping that aiding the villagers would help get him back in the Frost Queen’s good graces. 

He led the group through the forest to a gateway to the Feywild, and from there they made their way to the Frost Queen’s court. Although I’m using the original AD&D rules, my conception of the world is very much coloured by recent design of the Feywild and Shadowfell, both of which I find superior to the original D&D’s cosmology. Once there, the Frost Queen was amenable to their offer: in exchange for their service (and oaths of fealty), she’d protect the village during the winter ahead. Hooray! We have a starting point for the campaign. And, of course, she wanted them to perform a service immediately: the goblins had stolen a precious jewel from her. The group needed to recover it for her to prove themselves worthy.

One of the ongoing problems with D&D play is the presence of higher-level characters: why aren’t they doing the job themselves? In the case of the Frost Queen, that problem disappears: she’s arrogant and considers a lot of things beneath her and her court (in other words, she’s of Faerie). She’s very happy to send mortals to do the dirty work. And so, off the heroes went to the goblins’ cave to find the Frost Queen’s Jewel (a diamond).

I was improvising a lot of this session: I knew coming in what I wanted the shape of it to be, but I hadn’t sat down beforehand and planned it out in detail. During a short break, I drew up the map of the goblin cave: not that spectacular, but enough for the players to get familiar with the system. Here’s what I came up with:

The first fight was against the six goblins (hp 4, 7, 2, 1, 2, 3) in the guard chamber. Those goblins had been playing knucklebones, and the group surprised them – poor guards indeed! I decided against using the straight AD&D surprise system (as it has its oddities) and used that of Moldvay instead, giving the characters a full round of free actions rather than 2 segments of action. In that time, missile fire cut down most of the guards, and the rest were accounted for in a round or two of melee.

Chris began to get frustrated at this time with his lack of a missile weapon; I can only sympathize, though I know his plight will get better as he gains levels and thus gets better spells and also when the group meet the undead. (Next session!) I was using a modified version of the AD&D initiative system, and the group was rolling really well for initiative, so the missile fire was being very effective in this session: it won’t always be so.

I was very gratified when the group explored the passageway to the left and triggered the pit trap. I explained to them that thieves can’t actually detect large traps (that’s what dwarves are for), and that explains the use of a 10 foot pole on the equipment list. Amusingly, with a 2 in 6 chance of each character triggering the trap, only the last to cross it – Nash – fell into the pit. Nash wasn’t so amused, but used the first thief skill of the day: his 90% chance to climb out of the pit succeeded.

Rich got his moment in the sun with the next encounter, as the group investigated the room of fungi in which a skeleton grasped a leather bag from which silver spilled, but giant centipede lurked around. Using his Move Silently skill, he was able to retrieve the bag unnoticed by the centipedes! This was particularly impressive, as he had about a 30% chance (or less) of succeeding. Ah, the ineptitude of the 1st level thief in AD&D…

The group happily squashed the spiders, and then moved on to the next room of 8 goblins and their pet wolf. With initiative won by the group, Adam got off his one spell of the day: sleep. And rolled really well to affect them – all the monsters were put to sleep! (He rolled a 13 on 4d4, needing a 12 to send the goblins and wolf to sleep). The group were by now getting used to how deadly AD&D combat could be – and they were very pleased to not have to fight that encounter.

The final encounter of the dungeon was the fight against the goblin chief and his two bodyguards: all three with 8 hit points, AC 5 and attacking as HD 1+1. This one was tough, with the goblins getting three good hits against the party, but eventually they were slain. Chris used his remaining healing spells to patch up the party, and the group recovered the Queen’s diamond – as well as finding some other treasure. The chief had been wielding a battleaxe +1 (which Jackson took), and had two other gems. Random rolling revealed they were worth a total of 1,500 gold pieces… a very nice windfall which provided the group with a lot of experience points!

The group looked along the smelly passageway sloping downwards, and decided that they didn’t need to risk it. They returned to the Frost Queen, were assured their village would be provided for, and returned home as heroes… and still in the service of the Frost Queen. More adventures await, but that was enough for the first session.

I gave out some individual awards based on ability use and monsters defeated, but I think I’ll dispense with those in the future as the system isn’t as clear (or fair) as I’d like it to be. The characters gained between 500 and 800 experience points each, and so were well on the way to the second level. In all, the session took about 2-½ hours including character generation, and I’m really happy with how it played. Pacing-wise, it ran really well.

The next session will be set in the spring, the winter now behind them, and the group being sent on a new mission by the Frost Queen. It’ll also have undead in it, which should make Chris’s cleric far more potent. As the campaign continues, I’ll also delve into the Frost Barbarian lore. For now, the players can be happy with what they achieved, and the loot they gained (much of which will probably be spent on better armour…)