Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Thread Started on Jan 13, 2008, 10:53pm »
Amazing . . . I can hardly post/type/believe it . . etc.
And I don't mean to brag or boast, but I have to gush a bit.
That's because after gaming briefly 24 years or so ago, I never did it again until three years ago to teach my daughter and nephews.
So I feel like I'm catching up (if at a later age . . . wooohooo, I'm a kid again!!! - especially so when playing with my elders - Uncle Gary, Uncle Frank, Uncle Tom Wham, Uncle Jim Ward [hmm, he might be younger than me . . . Rob Kuntz is]
Anywho, I'm tired but will post more if anyone is interested.
Oh and Dan Proctor sat to the left of me and is a great guy and gamer.
[1972 Castle Greyhawk ruins/dungeons - we made it down to 3rd level and beat 3 ogres!!
Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #2 on Jan 13, 2008, 11:03pm »
Quote:
I, for one, would love to hear as much about this as you have the time and inclination to post.
Congrats!!
Thanks Crim.
I will do so, maybe tomorrow. And I may be able to add a few things to Gary's houserules thread as well. I looked briefly at Fin's thread and it seemed very close to what Gary let us do.
Incidentally, my games are full open flexibility with regard to classes/races and other stuff.
But I really couldn't believe how much fun could be had with the "closed or simple or restricted (maybe too strong a word) guidelines of OD&D 3 book game. But then again, Gary or any of you old schooler's who make it friggin' fun, fast and death defying - how can it not be fabulous??
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Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #4 on Jan 14, 2008, 5:09pm »
Indeed Rhuevin, that's pretty sweet. I'd love to hear how it went as well (especially those house rulings...). I for one find it very interesting! It's not every day you get to sit & play D&D with the man himself.
I'd feel the same as you if I got the opportunity to jam with B.B. King, Bob Dylan or with Slayer (yes, I have a varied musical taste).
"Second," the Grand Oon continues, "there is Kyrel, the Magic-User."
Finarvyn Administrator Dungeon Master member is offline
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Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #5 on Jan 14, 2008, 5:31pm »
Quote:
I, for one, would love to hear as much about this as you have the time and inclination to post.
I agree. Any details of this would be worth sharing!
I know that we have a Gary's House Rules thread hereabouts somewhere. It would be interesting to see if he still plays by some of the same house rules or if he has changed things recently.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #6 on Jan 14, 2008, 6:34pm »
Sorry, I didn't even see this thread!
I had one hell of good luck rolling stats. Gary had us roll 4d6, dropping the lowest and rerolling 1s. I ended up with an 18 and two 17s, so I was very happy my character wasn't the one to get bitten by the spider rigfht at the beginning (it missed me, and killed Scott's character).
Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #7 on Jan 14, 2008, 7:02pm »
Quote:
Sorry, I didn't even see this thread!
I had one hell of good luck rolling stats. Gary had us roll 4d6, dropping the lowest and rerolling 1s. I ended up with an 18 and two 17s, so I was very happy my character wasn't the one to get bitten by the spider rigfht at the beginning (it missed me, and killed Scott's character).
Don't be sorry Dan. Everyone who gets a chance to game with Gary, must have their own thread!!
Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #8 on Jan 14, 2008, 7:03pm »
I've written a brief summary but am checking with Dan and some of the other guys regarding my recollection of the game. Since I'm an old bastard now, my memory is going to hell!
Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #9 on Jan 14, 2008, 7:07pm »
Quote:
Details and map scans please, Rhu
Haha, Allan!!
Map scans!!!
Gary would put his cigar out on my cheek if I touched his notebook!
Actually, he allowed only the slightest look at one map. It filled a 8 X 11 graph page and looked quite busy and detailed. No way of telling if it was an entire floor/level or just a section.
We tended to head in the same direction and it would seem that we were in the same quadrant, but who knows.
Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #10 on Jan 14, 2008, 8:20pm »
Quote:
[quote author=grodog board=general thread=1200282826 post=1200286262] Actually, he allowed only the slightest look at one map. It filled a 8 X 11 graph page and looked quite busy and detailed. No way of telling if it was an entire floor/level or just a section.
yep, it looked to me like every single square was filled with a room or corridor, so all walls were essentially just a few feet thick
Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #12 on Jan 15, 2008, 5:18pm »
Quote:
Actually, I meant a scan of your mapper's work: you were mapping, right?
Haha, I tried just for practice for the first 1/2 hour or so.
Actually, Narl did most of the mapping and at one time briefly handed it to Joe Damiani with some help from another guy.
Even those 3 had some confusion and at one point we had to sort of retrace our steps and act in character to get ourselves oriented.
The map was complex to say the least.
Heh, check out a few pics that Joe was able to take.
That's me on the left, Dan Proctor to my left and part of Narl across from me. The other 2 guys don't go online, but were some great guys from Minneapolis/St. Paul.
Joe Damiani took the pics for me.
It was my daughter's camera and I wasn't up to speed on setting it correctly. Missed opportunity to have a photograph of the dungeon map!!!
Here's another shot and again the flash obscured the map.
Of course, it occurs to me that Gary puts them under plastic to thward any attempt to photograph them!!!
Re: Finally played OD&D . . with Gary « Reply #13 on Jan 15, 2008, 5:20pm »
OK, heres a summary of Garys OD&D game ~ Castle Greyhawk ruins/dungeons.
We started as 2nd level characters. My choice was an Elf Fighter ~ Errol, Warrior of the Gnarley Forest. I believe we also had 3 other fighters, a magic-user and a cleric.
Human Fighter Wigbryte, played by Dan Proctor Elf Mage Stick Human Cleric Tharan, played by Narl Dwarf fighter Duergedin, played by Joe Damiani Fighter
4D6 drop lowest re-roll 1s
Errol:
STR 15 INT 11 WIS 13 CON 15 DEX 14 CHA 8
AC 2
HPs 14
+1 BtH +1 damage
Wigbryte:
S 18 I 14 W 14 D 17 C 17 Ch 13
HP 11
..
Gary briefly described the castle ruins and broken walls and outline, and then we immediately descended down spiral stairs into the dungeon. We get almost at the bottom of the stairs about to walk into a room, when a large spider drops down from the ceiling and bites the lead PC. He fails his check and dies of poison!!! LOL.
Way to start the game, no? Poor bastard. Heh, he immediately began rolling up a new char while we hacked the spider to death and burned his web. I think we found a rotted backpack from some corpse that fell out of the web and picked up our first loot 50sp.
At this point, we begin to explore (and map) our way into a complex and large dungeon. We gather, based on the number of steps that we went down about 1 level.
We had a good mapper in the group and I tried to do some of my own just for more practice but gave up after a while.
Gary set a nice tone/atmosphere and we carefully plodded along checking for secret doors and listening at stuck doors. Heh, there were many doors, almost all stuck so the main tanks were rolling STR checks to bang open the doors with their shoulders.
And then we opened a door after having to shoulder it and were confronted by some large creatures covered in bear skin clothes with long shaggy hair
We got into the room and had a fierce battle with 3 berserkers. We kicked their asses and continued on our merry way, still checking for secret doors. We werent really checking much for floor or other traps (kind of reckless, I know). We only learned later from Gary that we somehow managed to avoid several.
Additionally, we did battle a gnoll and an evil cleric (thanks to Dan for reminding me) and were able to overcome their attacks and pick up a staff of healing.
At one point we heard the whispers of what we thought might have been leathery wings or something. We attempted to locate the source and checking to see if we were being followed, but could find out nothing.
More dungeon exploring with a few discussions about directions and questions of whether or not we had come down a particular corridor. We did then seem to get our bearings and continued.
We generally were heading north and west.
Finally we found a set of downward spiraling stairs. We went down this time checking the ceilings and especially when the stairs ended into a large room. We did go down about 40 stairs or so, and figured we hit the 3rd lower level.
Across the room we opened a door and a large ogre came walking to the door. We backed up and got ready for combat hoping to engage him right at the door so as to block any thing else from coming through.
I believe the mage or cleric tried to cast light at or towards the ogres face/eyes to blind him, but something happened and the spell either didnt get off or failed, but the light showed that 2 more ogres were behind the first.
Major battle and great fun. I think it was here that I sustained some minor damage taking 3 points on a hit.
We eventually defeated the ogres and that was the end of the game.
We found 2 chests. One had 600 GPs and a large gem. The other chest had a potion of plant control, scroll of protection from undead and a ring of protection.
I recorded our treasure and Dan Proctor recorded our XP which follows:
XP
20 xp from 1 gnoll 30 xp from one giant black widow 30 xp for the evil cleric 30 xp total for 3 barbarians 150 xp total for 3 ogres
TOTAL 260
Gary mentioned that in addition to avoiding the traps, we did also got lucky and missed a major encounter that has resulted in the deaths of many adventuring parties.
He also said, had we decided to continue on level 3, its pretty likely that we would have been killed. Ill assume that means that there might have been some great magic or weapons on the 2nd level that would have helped us.
Gary occasionally allowed us a brief glimpse of the dungeon map. From what I could tell it filled a page of graph paper. Dont know if that was an entire floor/level or a section.
The End.
Please forgive my poor journal/recording/summary skills, but I hope I was able to convey some of the fantastic gaming that we had.
Thanks to Gary and all my fellow players for a excellent game.
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