Looking at I2: Tomb of the Lizard King after having spent quite a bit of time looking at the pre-1982 adventures, I can see a change coming over the AD&D adventure landscape. We’d got a hint of it with U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, but Tomb of the Lizard King is particularly noteworthy. It starts with three event-based encounters where the players meet the … Continue reading Review of I2: Tomb of the Lizard King
Tom Moldvay’s B4: The Lost City is, much like the previous module I’ve reviewed, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, an adventure that works better the more the DM works at it. The basic plan of the adventure is simple: the novice adventurers discover an ancient, buried pyramid when out of food and water, and must survive the inhabitants whilst looking for supplies. What makes the … Continue reading Review of B4: The Lost City
The 1981 release of the second D&D Basic Set was a landmark in the history of D&D; the previous Basic Set, edited by Eric Holmes, had attempted to present the original D&D rules in an easier-to-learn version. The second set, edited by Tom Moldvay, went and rewrote the rules to create its own game which, although its roots in original D&D were apparent, fixed, clarified … Continue reading Review of D&D Basic (Moldvay)
Dwellers of the Forbidden City is the adventure that introduced us to several classic D&D monsters: the yuan-ti, the aboleth, the mongrelmen, the bullywugs and the tasloi first see their adventure debut in this module. Any module that manages to have so many monsters that capture the imagination is going to be worth looking at, surely? However, Dwellers is not without its problems, and seems … Continue reading Review of I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City
I ran three sessions of the first public playtest packet before abandoning it in disgust. There were good ideas in it, but the mathematics of the game was so horrible, badly wrong that there was no point in continuing the experiment. As a result, I was somewhat sceptical of the second packet. Would it be any better? Well, one hopes so – the object of … Continue reading Playtesting #dndnext – You’re in the Army Now!
Len Lakofka first came to my attention through his articles in Dragon magazine, many of which appeared in the ongoing column “Leomund’s Tiny Hut”. One of the traits that runs through his articles is a great attention to detail. There’s a real feeling of striving for “realism” and “simulation” in his articles, and thus it’s not much of a surprise that the adventure modules he … Continue reading Review of L1: The Secret of Bone Hill
Well, Saturday was a confusing day. It was my regular boardgaming day in town, but I was also set up to run a session of D&D Encounters if there were people wanting to play. Yes, it might be an unsanctioned "catch-up" session or something, but I’ve got my hands on the adventure so I might as well run it in the local store to help … Continue reading More D&D Encounters
I’ve been a bit busy recently. The good news is that I seem to be a little ahead of the game at work; I’ve sent a pile of report templates away to be proofread so it looks like I’ll actually be able to make them available in good time to the teachers. Yay! Sunday’s D&D session saw us almost reaching the end of Pyramid of … Continue reading Back and Forth
At last we reach the final 4e pregenerated character from Keep on the Shadowfell. This is the character that, most likely, Adam will be playing. In some ways, I think the Wizard has had the most drastic makeover of all the characters in 4e. Fighters still swing swords, Cleric aid people and hit people with maces, and Rogues sneak attack. However, the new at-will powers … Continue reading Meet the 4e Human Wizard
