The final AD&D session of 2013 saw seven people playing, and the regular range of character levels from 1st to 9th. It also saw the group discovering What Lay Beyond the Orcs of the Bloody Eye, as – after rather destroying the first group they met – the group then negotiated their way past the other orcs. Mostly with, "Let us past or we will … Continue reading AD&D: Chairs of Doom
The penultimate AD&D session of this year had six players in attendance, with characters ranging from first level to ninth level, and another trip into the depths of the Caverns of the Oracle. It turned out to be quite dangerous, as a number of hellhounds attacked the party as they got closer to the levels that Hextor’s followers hold in sway. The party consisted of … Continue reading AD&D: Magic Items, Resurrection Survival failure and other things
While Tracy Hickman was ushering in the new style of D&D adventures, Gary Gygax was still producing adventures of the whimsical, fun-house dungeon tradition. EX1: Dungeonland was originally a sub-level of the Castle Greyhawk dungeons in Gygax’s original campaign, but, with the rest of Castle Greyhawk lacking, was released on its own to be inserted into campaigns as the individual DM saw fit. As the … Continue reading Review of EX1: Dungeonland
The Desert of Desolation trilogy ends with the Lost Tomb of Martek. In it, our heroes need to find the tomb of the legendary wizard Martek in order to finally defeat the evil efreeti that has been ravaging the land. It's a suitably epic climax to the series, but it doesn't quite come off. Tracy Hickman had done a good job of incorporating both his … Continue reading Review of I5: Lost Tomb of Martek
We returned to my AD&D campaign last Saturday after a break of four weeks. In some ways, the break was even longer because I’ve run a lot of session for the new players recently; this was the first session where Paul and Jesse were able to play their high-level characters, which are 7th and 9th level respectively. The rest of the group ranged from 3rd … Continue reading A funhouse dungeon session in my AD&D Viking campaign
Every so often, I go through a phase of buying old D&D adventures I don't have yet; I've now got most of the 1st edition releases, along with a lot of the Basic/Expert line, but my 2nd edition AD&D collection is very poor indeed. My last spasm of purchasing found me picking up the three Marco Volo adventures: Departure, Journey and Arrival. (Journey hasn't actually … Continue reading Review of Marco Volo: Departure (1994 AD&D 2E adventure)
Oasis of the White Palm is an AD&D adventure for 6-8 characters of sixth to eight level. It was originally written by Philip Meyers and then rewritten and edited by Tracy Hickman as he combined it with his adventure, Pharaoh, as part of the Desert of Desolation series. There are several problems with how it is written, but my play experiences with it allow me … Continue reading Review of I4: Oasis of the White Palm (1983 AD&D adventure)
My ongoing AD&D campaign, which I’m currently running every second Saturday at my FLGS, just finished playing through C3: The Lost Island of Castanamir. It isn’t part of the main storyline of the campaign, but was played more as a side quest to allow a number of newer characters to gain experience so they can be properly integrated into the larger campaign. Thus, the Lost … Continue reading Vikings, Lost Islands and Encumbrance – my AD&D Greyhawk game
Against the Slavelords (A0-4) is a reprint of the classic series of AD&D adventures, first run at GenCon XIII in 1980, done as part of the series of reprints Wizards have been publishing during the gap between 4th edition and whatever D&D Next eventually gets called. It has the same trade dress as the other AD&D reprints, and is an attractive package. If some of … Continue reading Review of Against the Slavelords
I find that as I get older, I get a lot less tolerant of having large rulebooks with lots of rules. This isn't to say that I'm against all rules, but I much prefer, as a DM, to need to remember as few rules as possible. It's one of the reasons I've enjoyed 4E so much: it's actually a very light system at heart, with … Continue reading Rules and my current roleplaying games
