wulfgar
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 126
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Post by wulfgar on Apr 7, 2008 6:22:58 GMT -6
So the boardgaming group I'm part of has agreed to play a D&D session sometime in the next couple of weeks. Naturally, I volunteered to DM and run OD&D.
While I don't see "world" background as being vitally important for a one shot, here's what I've come up with to tie things together if people have fun and decide to play again.
THE WILD WASTES OF WIZARDOM
For as long as the inhabitants of the Realm of Law could remember the wizards from across the south seas had been a plague upon their land. They would come on ships. They would come on flying carpets. Sometimes they would simply appear out of thin air. While magic was certainly known in the realm of Law, their knowledge was in its infancy compared to the wizards from across the sea. The mysterious southlands were full of different kingdoms each ruled by it's own wizard king, but to the Lawful they were all known and feared as simply "wizardom".
Then they simply stopped coming. No one knew why, but the people simply counted themselves blessed and made sure not to venture too far south on the sea. It was a time of great prosperity in the realm of Law.
Then one day, a ship came into port with a fantastic story to tell. They had been blown of course in a storm. Near starvation they dirfted onto the southern shore. What the saw was amazing- cities, castles, and towers all in ruins and treaure. Lots of treasure. The wizard kings were no where to be found. The sailors repaired their ship, filled it with gold and sailed home. Since then, the brave, greedy, and adventurous have all been making the journey across the sea to make their name and fortune in the wild wastes of Wizardom.
So the basic premise is a wilderness filled with ruins, monsters, and petty warlords. My campaign map will start with a base town and a dungeon on the map, and I'll add more as needed. I'm leaning toward Jeff Rients Xylarthan's Tower as the first dungeon but also thinking about the Tunnels of Enladin or B1.
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wulfgar
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 126
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Post by wulfgar on Apr 13, 2008 12:13:12 GMT -6
Ok, so we had our game yesterday and it was a lot of fun. Here's a recap:
I had 2 players. Neither had played D&D anytime recently. One had played had played with Mentzer Basic long ago and I think dabbled with each edition since. The other had played just a little AD&D2 but most of their experience was with 3.x
They each rolled up 2 characters using the rules for experience and magic items in the back of Jeff Rients Xylarthen's Tower adventure:
Cornelius the Bishop Marnie the Theugerist Freddy the Hero POW! the Swashbucker
Cornelius got a snake staff and POW got a healing potion.
Without further ado they headed off to the tunnels beneath Xylarthen's ruined tower in search of the dead dragon's horde.
The first thing they came across was the single copper piece lying on the ground in the middle of the intersection between room 11 and 12 on level 1. Very suspicous they casted detect magic on it (none detected), poked it with their pole, and then still decided not to pick it up. One of the 2 hirlings pocketed it. The group finds the chained up coffin in room 16 and POW! opens it up over the objections of Marnie, finding the treasure inside.
First fight was with the Zombies in room 14. Cornelius succesfully disintegrated most of them by turning and the party made short work of the rest.
(Ready ref sheets were super handy for generating random junk to have the pc's find when searching otherwise empty rooms- arrowhead, scraps of paper, rotting meat, seeds, empty vial, human jawbone. It was fun watching the party interact with each and puzzle over what they meant)
As the groups preferred method of entrance to each room was kicking the door down, I was making a lot of wandering monster rolls. The group was ambushed by 4 berserkers in room 13. They dispatched 3 of them, put the other to sleep, and then woke him up and charmed him. Down the stairs to level 3 they went, then from room 34 on level 3 down to level 4.
In room 25 on level 4 they came across a big pile of refuse in one corner. While searching the pile a large snake popped out and attacked them. After killing the snake they searched the pile some more and found 4 eggs. An arguement follows with Player 1(POW! and Cornelius) wanting to smash the eggs, and Player 2 (Marnie and Freddy) wanting to keep them for later consumption. Marnie ends up putting the eggs in her pack and the party presses on to room 22 where they immediately begin poking one of the sarcophaguses with their 10 ft pole.
6 mummies burst forth and the party is in trouble. Both retainers and the charmed berserker are killed. All 6 mummies are still standing, and the pc's decide to run away while they still can and go camp out for the night back in room 13 on level 1.
Morning comes and they head back down to level 4 where they go into room 21 and meet Klorbag the Uber-Ape. The party is rather rude to Klorbag, so he decides to dupe them. After agreeing to take them to the Dragon's horde he instead leads them to room 2 where the other apes are. As combat begins, Klorbag turns invisible and disappears. The party succeeds in driving off the apes but not before Marnie is killed. The group heads back up to room 13 level 1 to spend the night.
Morning again and they head back down to level 4 to deal out deadly justice to those d**n dirty apes. (which is exactly what Klorbag would have wanted). Creeping through rooms 2 and 1 without any sight of apes, the party sneaks up to room 3 where they hear lots of chattering. There they are suprised to see 11 more apes grooming each other (they thought there were only 2 or 3 left) and make a run for it- casting hold portal on a door behind them to keep the angry apes at bay.
After exploring a couple more empty rooms, the party listens for noise at the door of room 7. Hearing 2 male voices arguing, they think there might be some more adventurers they can recruit inside. Instead they find two minataurs and decide to attack them. Freddy and POW! are both slain. Cornelius survives barely- killing the last minitaur with just 2 hit points left. Cornelius high tails it back out of the dungeon and decides to retire from adventuring.
Everybody had lots of fun. The player who had mostly played 3.x commented that he wasn't used to spending so much time in an actual dungeon, adventuring outdoors in the overworld instead. The other player commented that he definitely wants to play again but wants to try using the basic rules next time to have greater selection of classes and spells. My only regret as DM, was that I didn't have a chance to make the snake eggs hatch in the magic-users backpack.
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jrients
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 411
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Post by jrients on Apr 13, 2008 12:26:26 GMT -6
I am tickled pink that you ran my adventure and had a good time with it! Great use of Klorbag!
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wulfgar
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 126
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Post by wulfgar on Apr 13, 2008 12:49:45 GMT -6
Hey Jeff, thanks for sharing the adventure. We all had a blast with it. One thing I noticed- there are 2 room 16's on lvl 2.
This was my first time running OD&D and the simplicity of it really made improvising as a DM easy. Another feature that I hadn't noticed before was the wandering monster tables were quite different than any I've seen in other editions. Instead of having one list to roll on for each level, there's a range of possiblities- even on the 1st level of the dungeon you can encounter 4th level monsters. As the DM I liked this a lot, it definitely makes things dangerous and puts pressure on the players to know when to fight and when to run.
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jrients
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 411
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Post by jrients on Apr 13, 2008 13:07:26 GMT -6
One thing I noticed- there are 2 room 16's on lvl 2. Yeah. The one with the circle on the map is the "real" room 16. Yeah, I like that, too. There's a similar chart in the 1st edition DMG that I love to use as well.
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