Hey folks, consider this a small experiment. I'm going to pick just a few modules from the hobby's past, and I'd be grateful if you could drop a quick comment here, or on G+, with a quick war story from any one of these legendary modules.
B4 The Lost City
X2 Castle Amber
Okay, I'll start:
B2 Keep on the Borderlands
Our group of salacious 13 year olds all got turned to stone by the Medusa after she flashed some leg from around the corner. There's a life lesson for you!
B4 The Lost City
The party dwarfs hummed the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark while trying to outrun the boulder, while wearing plate armor. They were flattened.
X2 Castle Amber
Our party got mauled by Killer Trees in the indoor forest, and the party magic user was torn into pieces. The thief was carrying the spellbooks, potions, and scrolls, and got turned to stone by an animated statue. We were able to get a raise dead for the magic user shortly, but he was very sad not to have his stuff.
You've played them, you loved the adventures, now share a tale or two!
B2
ReplyDeletePlayers cleared out one of the lairs, but were so close to dead themselves they went back and healed up before looking for treasure. When they finally went back they strolled in casually because they had exterminated the previous inhabitants. A family of giant weasels had moved in and nearly slaughtered them.
B2 (Hackmaster version), Spoilers:
ReplyDeleteRecruited the cleric from the keep, who got the first player death when he Caused light wounds for 27 damage to the wounded mage. The mage had retreated back around the corner for healing, so no one knew that it happened.
Good times.
B2: in the old days, I had a group of players who tried to burglarize everyone in the Keep itself. They were quickly caught and all hanged after a few failed escape attempts.
ReplyDeleteIn recent times, JB from B/X Blackrazor killed a steady stream of something like 15+ of our characters in the caves. Granted, he's THAT kind of DM, but it still reinforced my belief that it's NOT a good place for 1st level characters. Somehow, my character actually survived it all.
Ah X2, the proto-Ravenloft. The module turned me on to Clark Ashton Smith, and it is notable for being the only module that my DM would never run.
ReplyDeleteI loved it and one day I'll re-run it as a Ravenloft Domain of Dread.
B2- The halfling trying to sneak past the Ogre, got spotted, then ran like mad back to the group who were just outside. They killed the ogre, but lost a few party members and badly needed to rest back at the keep.
ReplyDeleteThis was the first cave entrance the group chose to enter. So they were back to the Keep well before lunch. A chain of similar events kept happening, leading the NPCs at the keep to say 'see you in a couple hours for lunch' every time the group left the keep in the morning.
B2 - my first time playing, my elf and the DM's brother's PC entered the gnoll cave, shot up some gnolls, killed the chief, and eventually fought the wight before we realized we couldn't kill it and ran away.
ReplyDeleteI immortalized this by having my elf show up as an NPC in my current game, using B2, and having him tell the story and then say "I'm retiring" and leave. Which he did - I never got to play a game with Goldleaf again, I was (with rare breaks) the perpetual GM from then on.
Ha! I've never had the opportunity to run as a PLAYER in any of these modules, only as a DM (and then only for B2 and X2; the latter only once or twice).
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is I've killed more characters using B2 than there are undead in the upper levels (as the Iron Goat bears witness). Mostly using goblins and kobolds. Enter at your own risk, motherf***rs!
; )
B2: The players made good use of a fortuitous collection of large wine casks at the top of an incline, to the detriment of some hobgoblins. They never went anywhere close to the owlbear.
ReplyDeleteX2: Drew out my creative side: I made up actual tarot cards for the players to choose from when they met Madame d'Amberville, as well as a matte-board cutout drawing of the Colossus of Ylourgne that was to scale with the PCs minis. I had it sweeping soldiers aside like ants, and it was awesome. The halfling with Boots of Levitation managed to get the potion into the thing's mouth. Also, the party's encounter with the Brain Collector was memorably unnerving; when I had it float up and stand on the ceiling with a simple Levitation spell, the party broke and ran, even though they had it on the ropes.
@ -C: That cleric from the Keep is a mean piece of work. If B2 is the party's first experience with NPCs, they're in for a rude awakening when the betrayal happens.
ReplyDeleteB2
ReplyDeleteWe slogged out into the marshes looking for some Elfin moon-sword. Instead we found a mutant 6-legged crocodile. We slew it with much slayage, and hauled its corpse back to the tavern so it could be stuffed and displayed. The publican wouldn't even give us a free beer.
B2, same session
Fuckin' Cleric. I knew he would betray us--I'd read the module--but my guy didn't know. He ended up screwing us in a fight with a bunch of Lizard Men. My guy clambered on top of a giant boulder to duel with the traitorous Cleric, and I nearly killed him but the Lizard Men dragged me down... whereupon our pyromaniac Dwarf blew himself (and us) to bits with massive amounts of flaming oil.
Our PC Cleric then scavenged up all the magic items and retreated with our mule. That magic-item bump more or less kept him alive for the next four levels...