Tag: 3e

Happy 25th Anniversary, Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd Edition #RPG #TTRPG #DnD #3e #1e #ADnD

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I returned to Dungeons and Dragons in 2005 after 23 years away due to the Satanic Panic, then starting a new career, then law school. When I came back, Living Greyhawk was my way in, and before you knew it, I was running gamedays all across the DC area, and even ran a convention, synDCon, for a couple of years. I went to my first Gen Con during those times, and like most of you went to plenty of smaller cons. As much as 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“3e“) turns me off now (which is a lot), I still enjoy thumbing through the books for nostalgia, and of course I’ve played it in somewhat recent history to connect with friends that remained with it. More importantly, whatever my criticism of the crunch, the flavor was as good as any edition.

Damn right.

Nothing demonstrated the disparity between crunch and flavor better than the Truenamer from Tome of Magic.

Prepare to vanish.

Because it’s primary abilities were based on skills (cool idea in theory, Rob Schwalb), the character’s power slowly diminished for three levels before it suddenly got a boost on the fourth that overcame that diminishment. Other players would be frustrated by the truenamer’s impotence. Eventually, that boost wouldn’t be enough, and the only way to keep pace was a single, specific, magic item, the Amulet of the Silver Tongue, that the DM had no choice but to give you (unless the DM hated you). No one else could make use of it. Unfortunately, there were only two versions of that item (i.e., lesser and greater), so after 12th(?) level, the character never could keep pace with the rest of the party’s power curve. Sure, a DM could just create a “superior” version of the Amulet of the Silver Tongue, but considering two more were were necessary to keep the character relevant through 20th level, they should have been included.

But I’ll be damned if that class didn’t have the greatest built-in flavor of any class I’ve played. The class used spooky words of power known as utterances to rearrange reality to suit its needs. At the highest level, there was an utterance, Unname, that could erase a creature from existence. It did so by warping reality and removing the creature’s truename from existence. Neither resurrection nor reincarnation could bring them back. It cost a ton more than that, which was a cost far more than anyone would ever want to pay. Bringing a class like this into other editions should have been a priority. It’s just too damn cool.

Rob Schwalb is one of the best writers in the industry. He had a really cool idea, but the system was convoluted that breaking away from the standard led to disaster. In this case, the disaster was an underpowered class. But enough with this digression.

In preparation for starting a new 1st Edition (“1e“) campaign a few years ago, I replenished my RPG stash, but not just 1e. There were quite a few books I wanted to get back from my 3e days, and with a little help from my friends, I did. These included the Book of Exalted Deeds, Deities & Demigods, the Fiendish Codex: Tyrant of the Nine Hells; and Drow of the Underdark:

Everything else I wanted I already had, but that was still a lot for a game I don’t play. Why? Flavor. I loved what the Fiendish Codexes did. I loved expanding on the Drow even though it has since been done to death. And I became a Dungeons & Dragons fan because I was a mythology nut, not the other way around. Without leaning in so heavily to mythology, I’d have never been interested in it.

Whatever its strengths and weaknesses, 3e will always hold a special place in my heart.

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An Unexpected Supplement to My Stash of (A)D&D Material #DnD #TTRPG #RPG #WotC #1e #2e #3e #4e

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My return to 1st Edition AD&D (“1e“) is now two years strong, and now I’ve added a 4th Edition D&D (“4e“) game to my schedule. So, it was a nice surprise for my friend, Mike, to let me know that he was offloading his old school D&D material. Before you get too excited, he’s giving these materials only to people he knows well because we’re getting them on the honor system. The only cost is to make a (tax deductible) donation to a cat or dog charity that represents the approximate cost to buy them in the store or on eBay. Considering I’m going to get a cat in early April, that’s an easy ask of me.

So, what did I get? First up, the box sets and hard-covers.

Menzoberranzan box set, Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn box set, Greyhawk Adventures, Dragon Lance Adventures, the Scarlet Brotherhood, a reprint of the Second Edition Player’s Handbook, Oriental Adventures, and Dragon #56

In general, I never owned any of these in the day, and I bought the PDF of Oriental Adventures from the DMs Guild during my recent rebuy because the hard cover wasn’t on sale. I’m glad I now have a hard cover without paying through the nose for it. I’ve been intrigued by Star Frontiers based on the relatively recent chatter it’s generated — the less I say about that chatter, the better — so I picked it up out of curiosity. As for Dragon #56, I told Mike I wasn’t interested in any of the magazines except perhaps the one that has the 1e bard in it, redone as a character you can play at 1st level. Sure enough, he had that issue. Score!

Next up, some soft covers.

I was planning to buy the Book of Lairs and Book of Lairs II, so that makes this supplement all the sweeter. I never owned any of these materials either. Now for the minis.

Yeah, that’s quite the haul, ain’t it. Of particular interest . . .

I never owned this guy. In fact, I never knew it existed, and I was quite the mini collector during the 3rd Edition D&D and 4e days. Somehow this one escaped me. Right now, the cheapest I see it on sale is $20 + about $6 shipping, so this one will set me back a bit.

These are just a few of the minis that I’ve never owned.

These are a few of the minis that I own but could always use more of. My players may not appreciate multiple Balors on the field of battle, but them’s the breaks.

One of my Living Forgotten Realms characters had a giant owl, so I was a bit disturbed when the stand for that mini broke. No amount of crazy glue could fix it. Now, I’ve replaced it. I think I took the second one out of some sort of cosmic spite.

Importantly, I have every intention of using these goodies in my 1e and 4e games, so this is quite the haul.

Some animal shelter is going to be very happy very soon.

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Yet Another Supplement to My Stash of D&D Material @luddite_vic @serpentineowl #DnD #TTRPG #RPG #WotC #1e #3e #4e

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A while back, I told you I was preparing for a return to 1st Edition AD&D, and to do so, I had to update my stash of 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“1e“) materials. Fast forward a couple of years. I’ve been running a 1e game for the first time in 40 years, and the only addition I had to make to my stash was the Egg of the Phoenix. Now, I’m less than 24 hours away from hosting a 4th Edition (“4e“) game (alternating DM duties with Luddite Vic), finally finishing my unfinished business, but I already have all the 4e stuff I could even need.

On a related note . . . .

Even though I can no longer stand 3rd Edition (“3e“), there were some books that were fantastic that I wish I had never sold. Serpentine Owl, who’ll be playing in the upcoming 4e game, gave me the reprint of Deities & Demigods (in perfect condition with the 3.5e conversion in the back); Erik (who left Twitter/X) gave me Hordes of the Abyss and Tyrants of the Nine Hells (both also in perfect condition); and then Jason (on Twitter/X but doesn’t appear to use it) gave me the Book of Vile Darkness (in pretty good condition). If I had gone through eBay, I would have paid almost as much for those four books as I did for all the 1e reprints I bought combined, but I got them all free.

If you click through the Book of Vile Darkness link, you won’t be able to view it without logging in and removing filters for adult content.

<gears turning>

So, after mulling it over, I realized, “The universe has provided so much in this regard, I think I can justify doing something stupid, especially something that isn’t too stupid.” I went to eBay and purchased the mediocre-at-best Book of Exalted Deeds just to have a match to the Book of Vile Darkness. I don’t know if I’ll ever use the material, but it’s nice to have that matched set, and I didn’t have to pay anywhere near USD$100 to get it. Now, I think my stash is complete, but who knows what I’ll be writing in a year?

Once again, I have zero regrets.

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Dungeons & Dragon’s (and My 1st Edition) Treatment of Medusae #ADnD #1e #3e #4e #DnD #RPG #TTRPG #Medusa #Greek #mythology

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One of my favorite villains is fantasy roleplaying is Medusa. In Dungeons & Dragons (“D&D”), that’s a species of creature. In Greek mythology, that’s the name of one of three of her kind, known as Gorgons. Most of you know this, but for those that don’t, here’s one of many videos on them. While I respect the work game designers do, I’m always going to prefer mythological creatures to those game designers invent. Mythology got me into D&D, not the other way around.

3.5 Edition D&D

I love the way D&D has treated medusae generally. I vaguely remember an article in Dragon Magazine during the 3.5 Edition D&D (“3.5e”) days with a writeup on their ecology, which included their male counterparts, the maedar. I never got to use that article because it came towards the end of 3.5e, and I was so caught up in running Living Forgotten Realms and other canned adventures that I didn’t write much of my own material. I always wanted to write a medusa as a BBEG.

4th Edition D&D

In 4th Edition D&D (“4e”), I loved how 4e’s game mechanic was applied to the medusa’s petrifying gaze attack. In 4e, save or die was jettisoned and replaced by what you could call “save thrice in a row or die.” That is, you got three saves over three turns before you were killed, dominated, or whatever. If you saved successfully once during that run, you shook off the effects (though relatively rarely, you still might be subject to an aftereffect on a successful save). This worked really well with the medusa because each failed save during that three-round process resulted in increasingly bad effects. That is, on the first failed save, you were slowed (i.e., speed cut in half). On the second, you were immobilized (i.e., speed of 0). On the third failed save, you were petrified. This gives the player a means to immerse oneself in the action, as the cascade of worsening effects can give you the feeling of slowly turning to stone. (FYI, medusae weren’t the only creature to use this cascade.)

1st Edition D&D

I’m running 1st Edition D&D (“1e”) for the first time in 40 years, so I had forgotten quite a bit. There are a couple of things about medusae that I relearned. First, their gaze attack targets a single creature, whereas in later editions it attacks multiple targets. Second, the gaze is active, not passive. That is, a character merely gazing upon a medusa doesn’t harm the character; the medusa has to intend to petrify the opponent. (See Monster Manual II, page 55 for more information.) While these represent a break from mythology, as you’ll see, they worked to my advantage. One other thing to note is that I house ruled petrification to use the 4e system of slow progression to being petrified.

B2: The Keep on the Borderlands

Going into last session, my group and I knew that we had reached the end of the adventure. So, I told them that I’d be railroading them a little bit to make sure we wrapped things up and that a particular encounter occurred. That encounter was with spoiler alert! a medusa – I named her Xisper – who was captured by inhabitants of the Caves of Chaos and chained to a wall. She used her gaze attack against one PC, but he saved successfully. Some of the PCs held true to their good alignment and refused to allow anyone to kill her but indicated that they’d leave her to her fate, so Xisper immediately went into negotiation mode. Long story short, that negotiation led to them freeing her to clear out the gnoll infestation (the one area the PCs never addressed) and gave me the perfect recurring NPC to bring back at a later date. She’s undoubtably evil, but alignment in my game world is always more complicated than the books present, so she could still be of use to them, and them to her. This is even better than a BBEG.

Xisper will return.

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Online Petition to Complete and Release Cancelled 4th Edition D&D Books #DnD #4e #RPG #TTRPG @MarkMeredith

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Last week, I signed an online petition. There’s very little I could do that’s dumber than signing and online petition.

There’s no guarantee that each signature comes from a unique individual. I alone have a seemingly infinite number of email addresses through which I could have voted. In the case of political petitions, there’s no guarantee that the signors are from the relevant jurisdiction, but that’s not relevant here. The petition at issue here is requesting that Wizards of the Coast (“WotC”) complete and release four cancelled books from the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“4e“) era: Player’s Handbook Races: Humans, Gazetteer: The Nentir Vale, Player’s Option: Champions of the Heroic Tier, and Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword and Spell.

Don’t Hold Your Breath

We have no idea how many people actually want that, but that number has to be far too small to justify a release of books. Also of note, even if we know Fred Snerd signed the petition once and only once, how many of those books would he buy? These aren’t core sourcebooks; they’re supplements. Supplements never sell as well as sourcebooks because only the core sourcebooks are necessary for the game. Supplements don’t necessarily appeal to everyone that plays. If Fred never plays humans, he’s not going to buy Player’s Handbook Races: Humans.

Besides, the timing couldn’t be worse. Earlier this month, WotC removed the last remaining 4e content they had from their site. I think the remaining material was their Dragon and Dungeon magazines archive. There’s simply no way they’re going to reverse course so quickly. You can still buy existing content via the DMs Guild, so the material is out there. Hell, I recently bought a ton of 1st Edition material, and I now having everything that was every lost, stolen, or destroyed. It’s a bit much to expect WotC to create new content for that edition. The legacy communities have to rely on each other to create and publish material for those editions. Of course, that’s made difficult by the fact that WotC legal have stifled such creativity with horrible mischaracterizations of intellectual property law, but do you really want me beating that dead horse again?

I love 4e and am currently in discussions to host a new campaign, but WotC has moved on, they have no reason to complete new material for it, and they have no reason to believe it would be worth their while financially speaking.

But it felt damn good signing that petition. I can’t wait to play again.

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Old RPG Materials #DnD #ADnD #gaming #RPG #TTRPG #1e #3e #4e #FASA #StarTrek #GammaWorld #MarvelRPG #DragonAgeRPG #StarWarsSaga @Luddite_Vic

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Here’s a meme that’s been going around.

Henry, Sr. shouldn’t have slapped Indy. He should have used a baseball bat.

As you know (if you’ve ever read my blog), I’m running 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons for the first time in 40 years, and I’m in talks with Luddite Vic about organizing a 4th Edition game. Moreover, in the back of my mind, I’m contemplating a FASA Star Trek RPG game. That one may never happen because I’d absolutely have to run that online to find any players, but it’s certainly something I’d like to do in theory.

The point is that all of that material has been sitting on my shelf for years (if not decades) collecting dust, but it’s still as good as it ever was. The potential is always there, and you never know how your circumstances will change. Hell, I even have 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons material on my shelves, and I can’t stand that edition. I’ve played it a couple of times in the past ten years just so I could hang out with some friends, and I’ve written not one, not two, but three posts on unfinished business I have with the edition, so even that has potential value (assuming the DM gets rid of confirmation of critical hits). Two editions of the Gamma World RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition RPG, Dragon Age RPG, Margaret Weiss’s Marvel Superheroes RPG, several board games (Demons!), and some games still in shrink wrap all litter my “man cave,” but I wouldn’t consider my collection huge. If yours is huge, that in my opinion you’re doing things better than I am. You never know what you might need to pull out for company. Hell, I’m even ready to host a night of blackjack or poker.

Where’s a roided-out Barry Bonds when you need him?

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The Pufferfish Lich #science #biology #gaming #DnD #ADnD #RPG #TTRPG #pufferfish

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Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s (loosely) using science to imagine a D&D creature. I did that with the Ixitxachitl and now do it with the pufferfish. Behold the pufferfish lich!

I don’t care what spells it casts. I’m not afraid.

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My favorite D&D Mods @ChrisPerkinsDnD @LawrenceSchick @JeffLeason1 @monkeyhousejeff #ADnD #DnD #RPG #TTRPG #1e #3e

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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.

Sons of Gruumsh, by Christopher Perkins, 3(.5)e

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.

S2: White Plume Mountain, by Lawrence Schick, 1e

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.

C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan, by Jeff R. Leason and Harold Goodman, 1e

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.

And the gas mask! Don’t forget the gas mask!

S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, by Lord Gary Gygax, 1e

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.

Not the real cover.

C2: The Ghost Tower of Inverness, by Allen Hammack, 1e

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.

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An Answer to a Question: Ideal Playing Partners @AvalancheArtis1 #DnD #ADnD #1e #3e #5e #RPG

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Twitter asks some good questions. Here’s another one (again, from weeks ago).

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 stand 3rd 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.

I do love my friends.

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In case the tweet is ever deleted, here’s a screenshot of it.


Wandering Monsters #ADnD #DnD #RPG #1e #3e #4e #5e

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They have more claim to being here than your PCs do.

I left D&D in 1982 due to the Satanic Panic and didn’t return until 2005, so my recollection of 1st Edition D&D (“1e”) isn’t precise. When I returned during the days of 3rd Edition D&D (“3e”), rolling for wandering monsters wasn’t a common mechanic (though I occasionally saw it in published mods). Without appreciating why it was used in 1e, I simply thought that the use of wandering monsters was stupid. If you have a cool monster on hand, use it. Otherwise, it’s a waste of a perfectly good encounter. On the other hand, if your wandering monster is the same creature that the PCs are facing from time to time in the planned encounters, then they add nothing to the game, so don’t waste time on them. That could make the game tedious. Now that I’ve reacquainted myself with 1e, I realize their point: They’re designed to discourage dawdling.

Hurry Up!

Searching for secret doors, examining magic items, counting your loot, and sleeping are time-consuming activities. DMs are expected to keep track of time so that, when a given interval of time has passed, they know to roll for wandering monsters. These random encounters often didn’t result in any treasure and drained valuable resources from the party, so they weren’t something that the PCs wanted. However, they didn’t make the game tedious because 1e combats were quick. So, the concern I mentioned above that they may not add anything to the game isn’t a serious one. Their primary effect was to drain resources, which, as I’ll discuss in the next section, serves a couple of connected purposes.

This isn’t something that goes over well with modern gamers. Modern gamers (and legacy gamers that have moved on) tend to explore every single room and grab every single piece of treasure they can. Anything less than complete is seen as a failure. I’ll give you a specific example. When discussing playing experiences with Lost Mines of Phandelver, the adventure from the Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set for 5th Edition D&D (“5e”), players that failed to obtain the Staff of Defense would always be frustrated when others discussed it. Several of them that I knew would play the mod again with a character specifically designed to make use of that staff. Players would also take note in that adventure (and others) of forks in the road (so to speak), always promising to double back so that they covered the entire complex. Because of this mentality (I’ve been guilty of it myself), the D&D Adventurers League living campaign changed its rules such that every player could take a magic item found in the game even if there was only one. Everyone wants everything, so that’s what’s given despite how little sense it makes.

But Why Shouldn’t You Dawdle?

If this is what makes you happy, that’s fine, but my problem with this approach to the game is that it discourages immersion in the game world and can’t possibly work unless the risk of character death drops so low as to be negligible. As to the first point (which is a tangent from my main thesis), the logic of the game world becomes inconsistent. I can suspend my disbelief and accept a dragon that breathes a cone of cold, but I can’t accept the notion of a Rod of Cancellation spontaneously generating multiple copies of itself because multiple characters want it. The latter just doesn’t make sense, and no attempt is made to make sense of it. There’s no drain of resources to make it happen. There’s no need to visit the local archmage to make copies of it. It just happens.

As to the second point (now we’re back on track), a game where I know the DM will never kill me bores me. A game where I’ll get killed if I don’t think things through logically is far more fun. Sure enough, I’ve rarely seen character death in 5e. In fact, I saw far more character death in 4th Edition D&D (“4e“), and 1st-level 4e characters are intentionally durable. The more gamers become unwilling to suffer even the smallest of setbacks, the less we see them, which is why I stopped playing. There’s none of that in 1e. Can your characters survive? Sure, especially if you send the henchmen and hirelings in first. As I’ve been told, PCs can survive an entire campaign even despite the save or die mechanic (which I still don’t like). However, if you truly immerse yourself in the game, you’ll see that some actions are downright stupid and should get your characters killed. Game mechanics like wandering monsters discourage such stupidity, and as a consequence reward true immersion in the game world.

Your mission is to save the noble, not to grab an extra 5 copper pieces. Once you’ve got the noble, get the hell out of there. If this were a scenario in the real world, and you went for the coppers, your friends at your funeral would be discussing whether to submit your story to the Darwin Awards committee.

Be smart. Get in; get out.

Follow me on Twitter at @gsllc

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