WalkingDead
03-26-2008, 05:48 AM
With the news a couple of weeks ago of Gary Gygax's passing, I suddenly felt a strong urge to pull my old D&D Red Box books off the shelf (the box is long gone) and run a game just for the fun of it. I wanted the nostalgia of my gaming days as a pre-teen, where we just played for the fun of it and didn't worry about such things as theme, plot or even whether the PCs were conforming to their alignments.
I first played Red Box D&D in 1986, but by 1991 or 1992, we'd abandoned this classic style of D&D for AD&D 2E and eventually D&D 3E. I found that with an ever increasing amount of complexity came a decrease in fun for me, so I finally stopped running D&D 3E about three years ago.
Within a day of hearing of Gygax's death, I announced I'd be running what I dubbed The Gary Gygax Memorial Campaign, which would use the old Red Box rules. I got a good response from the gamers I knew, but trying to make schedules work was a big problem. I regularly run Delta Green every other Sunday night, and that's about the only time that works for everybody.
We had to choose a weekday. Originally that weekday was to be Wednesday night (bi-weekly), but after our character creation session last week, we decided to change it to Tuesday. Unfortunately, we're currently running with only two players, but we may be able to add others in time.
Character Creation
The two players able to make it to the Wednesday night character creation session were Rawl and Rich, both of which play in my Delta Green game. Both also participated in my D&D 3E game when it was running, and they still rib me about their PCs stuck in limbo in the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure.
As I did in the old days, I decided to be very strict about chargen. Players had to roll their stats using the standard 3d6 method in order, although if they didn't like their stats, they could scrap them and re-roll them in their entirety.
The dice were with Rawl that night, and he ended up with a fairly solid elf with no attribute score less than 10. Rich, on the other hand, rolled four sets of stats before finally deciding he could live with them. He chose to be a dwarf, but aside from STR and CON of 14, all of his other stats are about average, with his lowest stat being his WIS 8.
Both rolled well for cash and outfitted themselves quite well. I'd forgotten how cheap plate mail was back then, but considering they were going to be on their own at first, they need good ACs.
A minor modification to AC/THAC0
Although I had considered just using the standard AC/THAC0 rules in the game, I decided to try reverse-engineering the game into the one change I really admired in D&D 3E. AC gets higher with more armour and PCs have a Base Attack Bonus (BAB) that increases over time.
This actually proved to be really easy -- so easy, in fact, that I can't understand why TSR didn't do this twenty years ago. Taking out the tables and replacing them with a D&D 3E-esque armour/to-hit system should make the combat flow smoother and replace any THAC0 calculations at the table (my math skills must be far superior to the twelve-year-old me, as it's not as complicated as I remember it being).
The B Series Modules
I considered DMing the game in the style I had when I was a kid, which would have basically meant pulling encounters and adventurers out of my ass and improvising everything. While I'll probably do a bit of that, I decided I wanted to run the B Series modules. The only one I own is B12: Queen's Harvest, but thanks to RPGNow, they're all available in PDF format for $5.
I chose to start with B11: King's Festival and then move on to Queen's Harvest. A quick purchase and print-out, and I had everything I needed for the first two adventures.
If the players still want to continue after we've finished with B11 and B12, I'd really like to go back and play some of the classic modules I never owned or got a chance to play when I was a kid (Keep on the Borderlands being at the top of my list).
To anyone reading this: If you have suggestions for the best of the B modules, I'd like to hear what you have to say.
King's Festival
Last night, Rawl, Rich and I got together to actually begin our campaign. The characters are Heimgar Knobcrusher (originally to be named Heimgar Groincrusher, but halfway through the session, Rich changed his dwarf's name) and Featherlight.
Both were well equipped, but Featherlight was completely broke and Heimgar only had a few gold pieces left after buying equipment.
The adventure is set in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, and I gave them a bit of background information on it. Rich actually has the Karameikos supplement, so I'm probably going to borrow it at some point to learn more about the land.
Arriving in the town separately the day before the King's Festival, both PCs made their way to a local tavern called The Frog & The Flagon, a fairly standard tavern run by a couple of old guys who play board games all day and argue over balance issues (the PCs don't know it yet, but I've named them Gary and Dave -- I think they already suspect what I've done, as Rich asked if they were playing D&D :D). The adventure as written uses a place called the Hungry Halfling, but I really wanted a place that would become a sort of home base for them.
During the day, there's a beautiful but not too bright waitress named Esmeralda, but during the night when the tavern's tables are pushed aside and it becomes a common room for sleeping travelers, there's a mean, scarred dwarf woman named Bifficus who keeps everyone in line. It's silly, but it's like the two extremes of how pre-adolescent boys see women. I know it's sexist, but I found it funny -- and it also keeps in the spirit of playing like we did in the old days.
In the morning, orcs attacked and kidnapped the town's resident cleric. The townspeople turned to Heimgar and Featherlight, and the dwarf and elf agreed. A local named Janner led them to the orc cave. On the trail, the dwarf and elf exchanged greetings and names.
Rich took up a faux Scottish accent for his curmudgeonly, insulting dwarf, which got a few laughs over the course of the night.
I won't get into a blow-by-blow of the dungeon crawl through the orc caves, but both Rich and Rawl treated the game with a "kick in the door" philosophy. No, really. Doorknobs are for pussies, apparently. Heimgar did nothing but kick in doors wherever he found them.
In a little over two hours, we got through four encounters -- in one encounter, these two 1st level PCs fought their way through seven orcs and survived (the plate mail and shields kept them alive). In an earlier encounter, Heimgar discovered a kobold hiding out in a storage room. After a quick struggle, the dwarf (who speaks kobold) discovered the kobold was a slave to the orcs.
Well, Heimgar had found several lengths of rope, so he turned one into a leash and made the kobold into his own servant (little more than an upright packmule, really). When Featherlight discovered this (he'd been out scouting -- I should also note Heimgar's alignment is Neutral and Featherlight's is Lawful), there was a brief exchange where the elf took issue with the enslaving of the kobold, but he didn't put up much of an argument. Heimgar claimed the kobold as his own and told him it was none of his business, anyway. ;)
In the last encounter of the night, the party had already taken injuries from their skirmishes with the resident orcs, and they suddenly went through a streak of bad rolls. They couldn't hit anything, and the orcs were slowly whittling them away. But finally, injured (Heimgar was near death), the demi-humans vanquished their foes and then searched the room. They were lucky to find a sweet-smelling potion, which Heimgar immediately drank. He was lucky it was a healing potion. :D
We ended just before 9:30 and decided we'd continue this game on a bi-weekly basis.
The one thing we were all amazed at is how smooth the game ran. Although trying to find specific rules scattered throughout the various rulebooks (we had everything from Basic to Master on the table), we didn't really need to look rules up very much. They're really fairly simple and easily remembered. That proves to me that D&D has become far too complicated for its own good. All those extra rules regarding attacks of opportunity, special maneuvers and everything else do nothing to add to my fun and everything to slow the game down. This is my personal opinion, of course. I know I probably have the minority opinion of D&D players. :o
We had a lot of fun. We'd like to get at least another player or two at the table, but we're all looking forward to the next session.
Chris
I first played Red Box D&D in 1986, but by 1991 or 1992, we'd abandoned this classic style of D&D for AD&D 2E and eventually D&D 3E. I found that with an ever increasing amount of complexity came a decrease in fun for me, so I finally stopped running D&D 3E about three years ago.
Within a day of hearing of Gygax's death, I announced I'd be running what I dubbed The Gary Gygax Memorial Campaign, which would use the old Red Box rules. I got a good response from the gamers I knew, but trying to make schedules work was a big problem. I regularly run Delta Green every other Sunday night, and that's about the only time that works for everybody.
We had to choose a weekday. Originally that weekday was to be Wednesday night (bi-weekly), but after our character creation session last week, we decided to change it to Tuesday. Unfortunately, we're currently running with only two players, but we may be able to add others in time.
Character Creation
The two players able to make it to the Wednesday night character creation session were Rawl and Rich, both of which play in my Delta Green game. Both also participated in my D&D 3E game when it was running, and they still rib me about their PCs stuck in limbo in the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure.
As I did in the old days, I decided to be very strict about chargen. Players had to roll their stats using the standard 3d6 method in order, although if they didn't like their stats, they could scrap them and re-roll them in their entirety.
The dice were with Rawl that night, and he ended up with a fairly solid elf with no attribute score less than 10. Rich, on the other hand, rolled four sets of stats before finally deciding he could live with them. He chose to be a dwarf, but aside from STR and CON of 14, all of his other stats are about average, with his lowest stat being his WIS 8.
Both rolled well for cash and outfitted themselves quite well. I'd forgotten how cheap plate mail was back then, but considering they were going to be on their own at first, they need good ACs.
A minor modification to AC/THAC0
Although I had considered just using the standard AC/THAC0 rules in the game, I decided to try reverse-engineering the game into the one change I really admired in D&D 3E. AC gets higher with more armour and PCs have a Base Attack Bonus (BAB) that increases over time.
This actually proved to be really easy -- so easy, in fact, that I can't understand why TSR didn't do this twenty years ago. Taking out the tables and replacing them with a D&D 3E-esque armour/to-hit system should make the combat flow smoother and replace any THAC0 calculations at the table (my math skills must be far superior to the twelve-year-old me, as it's not as complicated as I remember it being).
The B Series Modules
I considered DMing the game in the style I had when I was a kid, which would have basically meant pulling encounters and adventurers out of my ass and improvising everything. While I'll probably do a bit of that, I decided I wanted to run the B Series modules. The only one I own is B12: Queen's Harvest, but thanks to RPGNow, they're all available in PDF format for $5.
I chose to start with B11: King's Festival and then move on to Queen's Harvest. A quick purchase and print-out, and I had everything I needed for the first two adventures.
If the players still want to continue after we've finished with B11 and B12, I'd really like to go back and play some of the classic modules I never owned or got a chance to play when I was a kid (Keep on the Borderlands being at the top of my list).
To anyone reading this: If you have suggestions for the best of the B modules, I'd like to hear what you have to say.
King's Festival
Last night, Rawl, Rich and I got together to actually begin our campaign. The characters are Heimgar Knobcrusher (originally to be named Heimgar Groincrusher, but halfway through the session, Rich changed his dwarf's name) and Featherlight.
Both were well equipped, but Featherlight was completely broke and Heimgar only had a few gold pieces left after buying equipment.
The adventure is set in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, and I gave them a bit of background information on it. Rich actually has the Karameikos supplement, so I'm probably going to borrow it at some point to learn more about the land.
Arriving in the town separately the day before the King's Festival, both PCs made their way to a local tavern called The Frog & The Flagon, a fairly standard tavern run by a couple of old guys who play board games all day and argue over balance issues (the PCs don't know it yet, but I've named them Gary and Dave -- I think they already suspect what I've done, as Rich asked if they were playing D&D :D). The adventure as written uses a place called the Hungry Halfling, but I really wanted a place that would become a sort of home base for them.
During the day, there's a beautiful but not too bright waitress named Esmeralda, but during the night when the tavern's tables are pushed aside and it becomes a common room for sleeping travelers, there's a mean, scarred dwarf woman named Bifficus who keeps everyone in line. It's silly, but it's like the two extremes of how pre-adolescent boys see women. I know it's sexist, but I found it funny -- and it also keeps in the spirit of playing like we did in the old days.
In the morning, orcs attacked and kidnapped the town's resident cleric. The townspeople turned to Heimgar and Featherlight, and the dwarf and elf agreed. A local named Janner led them to the orc cave. On the trail, the dwarf and elf exchanged greetings and names.
Rich took up a faux Scottish accent for his curmudgeonly, insulting dwarf, which got a few laughs over the course of the night.
I won't get into a blow-by-blow of the dungeon crawl through the orc caves, but both Rich and Rawl treated the game with a "kick in the door" philosophy. No, really. Doorknobs are for pussies, apparently. Heimgar did nothing but kick in doors wherever he found them.
In a little over two hours, we got through four encounters -- in one encounter, these two 1st level PCs fought their way through seven orcs and survived (the plate mail and shields kept them alive). In an earlier encounter, Heimgar discovered a kobold hiding out in a storage room. After a quick struggle, the dwarf (who speaks kobold) discovered the kobold was a slave to the orcs.
Well, Heimgar had found several lengths of rope, so he turned one into a leash and made the kobold into his own servant (little more than an upright packmule, really). When Featherlight discovered this (he'd been out scouting -- I should also note Heimgar's alignment is Neutral and Featherlight's is Lawful), there was a brief exchange where the elf took issue with the enslaving of the kobold, but he didn't put up much of an argument. Heimgar claimed the kobold as his own and told him it was none of his business, anyway. ;)
In the last encounter of the night, the party had already taken injuries from their skirmishes with the resident orcs, and they suddenly went through a streak of bad rolls. They couldn't hit anything, and the orcs were slowly whittling them away. But finally, injured (Heimgar was near death), the demi-humans vanquished their foes and then searched the room. They were lucky to find a sweet-smelling potion, which Heimgar immediately drank. He was lucky it was a healing potion. :D
We ended just before 9:30 and decided we'd continue this game on a bi-weekly basis.
The one thing we were all amazed at is how smooth the game ran. Although trying to find specific rules scattered throughout the various rulebooks (we had everything from Basic to Master on the table), we didn't really need to look rules up very much. They're really fairly simple and easily remembered. That proves to me that D&D has become far too complicated for its own good. All those extra rules regarding attacks of opportunity, special maneuvers and everything else do nothing to add to my fun and everything to slow the game down. This is my personal opinion, of course. I know I probably have the minority opinion of D&D players. :o
We had a lot of fun. We'd like to get at least another player or two at the table, but we're all looking forward to the next session.
Chris