Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
Today’s the day! I’m playing 1st Edition D&D for the first time in almost a decade and running it for the first time since 1982. (I’m old.) I’m starting them out with B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, and it’s Caturday, so I thought I’d give you something on mountain lions today. No particular reason. 🙂
Ssshhhh! My players may be listening!
Here’s a video comparing them to yeti. They’re so mysterious that they almost qualify as cryptids. They don’t because, well, they’re real.
Okay, it’s kind of dumb to compare them to a yeti, but everyone likes to be dramatic. Don’t shoot the messenger. Here’s a completely unrelated cat video from the DoDo that hit my stream today.
I’m interrupting the gaming session to post this.
Follow me on Twitter @gsllc Follow National Geographic @NatGeo Follow the Dodo @dodo
Help!
Who wants to do me a solid? If you have a #3e or #5e#DnD game this weekend, give me a tally of how many times each #spell was cast in a session (ignore spells not cast of course). DMs probably have no time for this, but a player should (if not surfing the net between turns). 🙂
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) March 23, 2022
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
I’ve done a lot of lists on this blog. A lot of people have done lists of the greatest D&D mods*** ever. So, I’m going to do a list of my favorite D&D mods. One comes from 3rdEdition D&D (“3e”), but the rest come from 1st Edition D&D (“1e”). However, unlike most people, I’m not going to attempt to give you an objective analysis as to why these are the best mods. This is a purely subjective topic, and I’m not one to deny my lizard brain nature. I fully admit that the reason a mod is going to appear on this list is emotional in nature. Still, you should consider running them in whatever system you’re using. If for no other reason, you’ll witness the inspiration for your favorite adventures. In terms of the 1st Edition D&D (“1e”) mods on this list, these were the pioneers.
*** I once used the word, “mod,” for what others call adventure or module and received an odd amount of pushback. One person even accused me of lying that it’s what I called them growing up, as if there could possibly be a motivation for something like that. I grew up in Montgomery County, MD, and every single person I gamed with called it mod. We also occasionally used the terms adventure and module, but the point is that “mod” was the standard term. Your regional dialect, or even your specific gaming group, may have a different experience. I don’t care. I shouldn’t have had to write this aside, but if I didn’t, I might receive the same pushback over something that shouldn’t matter at all.
I left RPGs in 1982 due to the Satanic Panic. I returned in 2005 during the days of 3e. The first homebrew campaign I ran started with an adaptation of this mod. For what it’s worth, several of the players told me they enjoyed it quite a bit. It was nothing groundbreaking, so my sentimental attachment can get it only so high on this list, but it was very good, and it was written by one of the best DMs in the business.
Starts with a puzzle, which we got right, and I’ve had to change ever since. Then you’re given three paths to take, each of which leads you to one of three magic weapons you’re tasked to retrieve. These three weapons have maintained their iconic status in every edition of D&D since. There are more puzzles, both direct and logical (easily modified for repeat players), and some iconic monsters. The mod was the first one I played or ran that made great use of hindering terrain. Acknowledging that aspect of the writing, I was particularly proud of my conversion of the kelpie encounter to 4th Edition D&D.
D&D didn’t get me into mythology. Mythology got me into D&D. I wasn’t terribly familiar with Central American mythology, and even less familiar with other aspects of the culture. According to Jeff (who I spoke with through Facebook), Harold was the one that did research on the cultural aspects of the mod. He did a decent job, sprinkling in appropriate imagery and language. I used his work as a springboard to provide even more immersion. As I mentioned previously, I acquired sound files of Nahuatl phrases, both common and specifically used in the mod. I love this mod so much, I own two physical copies, one of each version. I’m always prepared to run it.
I loved Star Trek. I loved D&D. If it weren’t for the next entry on my list, this would be my favorite adventure ever. It was hard for me to run as a kid because there are a lot of rooms to prepare, and it was essentially a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl, but what a “dungeon” it was. Malfunctioning androids and robots, strange natural creatures from other worlds, but also an intellect devourer, a mind flayer (with what effectively amounted to a phaser), and a bulette to keep it grounded in fantasy. Love it.
This is my favorite mod ever, in no small part because of the artwork of Jeff Dee, which always makes mods more memorable to me. However, the mod’s content stands on its own. As a competition mod, it was designed to kill off everyone to assure that there was a clear winner at the end of the adventure. Sure, there were hack-and-slash encounters amounting to nothing more than resource drains, but there were also puzzles, which I love. The tower itself had a clever theme, with each level (before the last) representing a different element: air, earth, fire, and water. The water level has a nice twist to it as well, and the earth level has one of my favorite monsters from mythology.
By the way, this arrived today.
It’s not in the best of shape, but you should expect that from something so old. Note, though that it was reasonably priced, and I haven’t found any coffee stains yet. Will this make it into the top 5? Probably not, but I hear it’s really good, and it’s next on my scheduled mods to run after Keep on the Borderlands.
There are a bunch of other mods I love, but I’m not going to make a top 50 list.
Who wants to do me a solid? If you have a #3e or #5e#DnD game this weekend, give me a tally of how many times each #spell was cast in a session (ignore spells not cast of course). DMs probably have no time for this, but a player should (if not surfing the net between turns). 🙂
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) March 23, 2022
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Even the worst DM is appreciated for giving players an opportunity to play, but c'mon. The chances of you being the *worst* DM are infinitesimally small, especially with me in the mix. #DM#rpg
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) March 1, 2022
This was a timely question to ask me because this Saturday I’m going to run 1st Edition AD&D for the first time since 1982. I’m going to suck, but I don’t think anyone’s going to care. This is not only their chance to play a game, but also their chance to play an edition (relatively) rarely played today.
Who wants to do me a solid? If you have a #3e or #5e#DnD game this weekend, give me a tally of how many times each #spell was cast in a session (ignore spells not cast of course). DMs probably have no time for this, but a player should (if not surfing the net between turns). 🙂
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) March 23, 2022
In case the tweet is ever deleted, here’s a screenshot of it.
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
“#RPG” and “#TTRPG” aren’t appropriate hashtags for this post, but screw it. This is about a board game that had great appeal among the 1st Edition D&D folk. Last weekend, I received a copy of a board game purchased on eBay. The game is called Demons.
As you can see, it’s not in mint condition, but considering this was a board game from the 70s that was probably sitting in an attic for decades, this is in remarkably good shape. Going into the purchase I was told that only a single chip was missing, but there are enough blank chips that I could reproduce it if needed.
I bought this game in tandem with the original Dungeon. If, when I mention Dungeon, you think about a box set twice this size with a hard map, then you’re not thinking old school enough. No, the copy I bought with Demons was the one from 1975 (though I purchased it around 1978 or 1979).
Back to Demons. I remember my older brother and uncle ruining this game for me by defacing the instruction manual with rules about how the characters would have to masturbate in a corner if they lost a fight. Juvenile garbage like that. Remember, just a few years later, the Satanic Panic hit me hard. That didn’t occur in a vacuum.
Now, this is clearly a trip down memory lane for me, but let’s not come away from this post without a lesson. Way back when, I was pontificating on how overpriced online sales have become. The reason is that too many of us are willing to pay unreasonable prices in order to relieve simpler times. With a little patience, you can generate that same reward for 1/3 the price. The first copy of Demons I saw on eBay was being sold for $39.99 plus $23.00 shipping. I explained to the guy that I didn’t think it was worth nearly that much, and the insane shipping cost was obviously a way to charge even more for it. I told him to lower the price to $7.00 so that I could pay a total of $30 for it. I thought that was fair. He rejected the offer, and as you can see, the dipshit is still sitting on it.
“30% off”? Seriously, who falls for that bullshit?
I moved on and found this copy for which I paid $26.99 with an extra $5.00 for shipping. He has money; I have my childhood. Everyone wins except the dipshit, and all we needed was just a little patience.
I think I’m going to mail these guys a check for $103.20. The subscriptions are cheaper if you commit for a longer time. At last I’m becoming a crafty consumer.
Naming this monster is a good exercise, but before you can do that, you have to decide its nature. Is it a gelatinous cube that was fed spaghetti to keep it from eating people, or is it a cube of spaghetti? If the former, we know its name, and this is boring. So, let’s assume the latter. Spaghettinous cube? Pastanous cube? Noondlenous cube? Is that really spaghetti and marinara sauce, or is this creature a small intestines surrounded by blood? In that case, intestinous cube?
Maybe it’s a magic device. The Spaghetteract?
Microsoft Paint is not Photoshop.
The more I think about it, the more interesting an intestinous cube would be (regardless of what we call it).
Going forward, Sundays are lazy for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today is a witty, visual commentary on the tension between DMs and their players.
On its face, I like it, so it’s worth posting, but I’d like to provide a link to the artist. At the top, he prints his name, which I think is Gavin Dea, but it could be Gavin Pea. Either way, for the life of me I can’t find a website or social media presence. This bothers me. If anyone can provide me a link so I can properly attribute it, it would be helpful.
EDIT: Help has been given. The origin of the comic is here.
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Would you rather play #DnD (or the comparable) with a group of perfect strangers that all have the same playstyle and gaming preferences as you, or with a group of friends that all want different things from the game?
This is a tough one, and I don’t want to admit the answer, but I will. Like everyone, I want my cake and to eat it too. I want my friends to share my play style, but I have tangible data suggesting that’s never going to happen (at least not long- or even mid-term). So, my answer is this: I’d rather play with strangers that share my play style.
Consider the following: I can’t stand3rd Edition D&D (“3e“). When I returned to the game after 23 years away from it, I was so happy to be back that I ignored how frustrating the system was. Besides, ignorance is bliss, and for all practical purposes I had nothing to which to compare it. I hadn’t played any RPGs for decades. Nevertheless, within the past couple of years, I’ve played a little bit of 3e. I played a few sessions of Greyhawk Reborn, which is the revival of the Living Greyhawk living campaign. Why? Because some of my friends never moved on from it, and that meant I never saw them. It was a chance to reconnect, which is important to me, but it didn’t take long for 3e to drive me away again.
On the other hand, I like 5th Edition D&D, and even more of my friends play it. Nevertheless, differing play styles grated on me. My style appears to be very firmly in the minority, so I find the game more tedious than it should be, but certainly more tedious than anything designed to entertain should be.
Would you rather this or Game of Thrones?
While I’m planning to return to D&D after deciding not to play anymore, I’m doing so on my own terms, or at least I’m trying to. I’m going to run some 1st Edition D&D sessions because I suspect that system will nudge players towards the way I want to play. Even if that’s true, it may not be to their liking, so this could be a short-lived experiment. In any event, the only hope for me playing regularly would be if the style shifted to my liking. You can’t force that on people, but if some strangers came along and had a similar approach, I wouldn’t have to.
Of course, if there were personality clashes with the strangers, then I’d leave the game again, but I fear that my best chance for a long-term return to D&D is through strangers, not my existing friends. This isn’t the end of the world. I’m at least in contact with my friends via social media, we’ll probably resume seeing movies and doing trivia night when the pandemic passes, and there’s always Winter Fantasy. Also, there’s no reason to assume there’d be personality clashes with strangers. Meeting strangers should be seen as an opportunity to make even more friends. We should all try that out from time to time anyway. That may be difficult without giving in to the online gaming fad.
So, I’d have to say that I’d rather play the game I want to play with strangers than to play the one I don’t with existing friends, but only because my friends aren’t going away.
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
In case the tweet is ever deleted, here’s a screenshot of it.
Yesterday, I spoke out against dawdling, and how 1st Edition D&D dealt with it. Here’s an adventure idea that takes that to the ultimate level.
Someone posted an encounter idea on Facebook. The gist of it is an adventure where the PCs are asked to retrieve an item at an adventure site. They arrive at their destination, and it’s littered with dead bodies. The wander through the entire site towards the room where they know the object is kept. When they get there, they run into another party. They have the item and are drinking some brandy in celebration of their accomplishment. In other words, another party got there first. How do you handle it?
Honestly, I don’t care because I think the opposite scenario is better.
My Scenario
The PCs’ benefactor hires them to retrieve the item. When they agree, the benefactor hands them the bottle of brandy and says, “This is for when you succeed in finding the staff. It’ll make it easier for you to get back to me.”
That makes it sound like the brandy has magical properties, but all the benefactor means it that it gets you drunk. This is a flimsy way to try to get the PCs to get drunk once they’ve accomplished their task, but it’s not critical. Moving on, allow the party to do what they expect. They arrive at the site, fight off the creatures, and retrieve the item. Ideally, they’re the ones drinking the brandy, and that’s when the other party arrives. The party face asks, “Did you really think your benefactor was the only one that hired parties to retrieve such an important item? There are several of us.”
Coming out to Play
Obviously, absent miraculous role-play, the other party attacks a (hopefully drunk) party. When the PCs have dispensed with the other party, the adventure pivots to something like the movie, The Warriors. The job now is to avoid as many fights as possible against rival adventurers (as well as the occasional wandering monsters) while returning the item to the benefactor.
There’s a reason I prefer my scenario. First, the PCs get what they signed up for. They were told they were going to infiltrate, for example, a mind flayer necromancer’s stronghold, and that’s what they got. It doesn’t mean they can’t be surprised by what they find there, but it’s what the players were anticipating.
…
Second, I’m going to assume that the scenario I rejected doesn’t consist of just one fight, but instead, several planned challenges on the way home. However, if the spirit of the twist is respected, those challenges on the way home are one adventuring party after the other. Repeatedly facing five to six classed humanoids will quickly get boring. Keeping the bulk of the adventures in the stronghold has a potential for far more variety of challenges. Lastly, the rejected scenario’s “dead time” consists of just walking through a dungeon following a map, noting the already looted corpses along the way. That’s also boring. In my scenario, the “dead time” is still very much alive; it’s just a different kind of action. The PCs must use skills and logic to avoid those fights. Maybe that’s boring for some players, but it’s not as boring as the rejected scenario, and it’s a great change of pace for those who enjoy it. It also doesn’t handwave a part of the adventure that’s generally handwaved (returning home), which means the players are given more to do. This is a general idea that can be tailored to your adventure’s mission and, if necessary, to your RPG’s genre and setting.
While I’m sure this has been done before, I don’t recall having seen it.
Play What You Want 