I just discovered this forum thanks to the Vaults of Pandius. I hope no one objects to the ramblings of an old gamer who is just delighted to be gaming again.
After sharing some fond memories of a campaign that I ran about ten years ago, some of my friends persuaded me shake the dust off of my collection of Gazetteers and start up a whole new game. Instead of trying to learn something new, I decided to just run the game with the same rules that I used ten years ago.
Guess what? The Rules Cyclopedia still works fine.
It looks like I am going to be a great deal of fun. None of my three players have ever played a role-playing game before. I am getting a huge kick out of helping them learn to use the 1d6 for initiative and the 1d20 for the attack roll.
Since none of them have ever played before, I am going to make use of the classic B2 The Keep on the Borderland. I decided to place this adventure at Duke's Road Keep instead of Castellan Keep. This will allow for a far smoother transition into either B10 Night's Dark Terror or B11 King's Festival.
If I had placed the Caves of Chaos just North of Castellan Keep as suggested in GAZ 1, the player characters would travel through the wilderness area described in B10 before they got a chance to meet Stephan in Kelven. But I digress.
After B2 and B10, I think the party may be ready for a trip to the Isle of Dread. Once I have the players at Sea, I could slip in the first adventure from the Wrath of the Immortals.
Does anyone else still play OD&D? Did anyone else weep when Mystra products went to AD&D?
Regards and Best Wishes,
Donald Eric Kesler
...........................Omote
For the most part I usually vary the rules very little as they are good enough the way they are.:fight!:
I'm pleased to hear that I am not alone. If anyone would be interested, I'll continue to share my group's adventures with this group. Basically, I am hoping that everyone here will be kind enough to share their wisdom and experience in running the various modules. As I mentioned in my previous posts, the campaign will start at B2 The Keep on the Borderland.
One of the things that I learned about running this module is that it takes far too long to draft up the starting map of the Caves of Chaos for the players. I have gone ahead and drawn out the contour map of the box canyon including the visible cave entrances on a piece of graph paper. The player characters are going to find this on a corpse that is in relatively close proximity to the caves. This way the game won't come to a grinding halt when they enter the box canyon.
For the purposes of roleplaying, I included some notes on the map. For example, "Yuri died here, but we the beast ran off with his body." This note appears in the wooded section that conceals the cave of the Owl Bear.
Currently, I'm working up the details of the evil temple. Any thoughts on this area and its evil occupants would be more than welcomed.
Regards and Best Wishes,
Donald Eric Kesler
My Mystara campaign begins this Sunday... Old D&D and all (or is that "O" in OD&D for "Original...:D )
The players are a little upset to lose feats, but they're pretty easy going and mainly focused on roleplaying. It's going to be some fun.
I'm pleased to hear that I am not alone. If anyone would be interested, I'll continue to share my group's adventures with this group. Basically, I am hoping that everyone here will be kind enough to share their wisdom and experience in running the various modules. As I mentioned in my previous posts, the campaign will start at B2 The Keep on the Borderland.
I'm interested! I love reading about other people's campaigns. It helps me brainstorm for ideas. I like to hear diferent people's experience with published modules too; gives a good "this worked well - this didn't" reference.
Does anyone else still play OD&D? Did anyone else weep when Mystra products went to AD&D?
Yes the AD&D invasion of Mystara was a tragedy. I never liked AD&D and kept using OD&D with Mystara for years untill I finally decided I'd had enough of level based rulesystems althogether and switched to using GURPS with Mystara. Now, I have used alot of different systems for our beloved world, but finally found myself returning to D&D with the new 3rd edition. IMO, it has alot of the OD&D flavor that I missed, yet updated to modern RPG standards. I flicked through the Rules Cyclopedia last night though. There is something about that book, bringing back found memories.
Keep your stories coming. Even if I use 3e now, reading about other peoples experiences are always interesting
Havard
Originally posted by Lucus_Boneburner
Hello,
I'm pleased to hear that I am not alone. If anyone would be interested, I'll continue to share my group's adventures with this group. Basically, I am hoping that everyone here will be kind enough to share their wisdom and experience in running the various modules. As I mentioned in my previous posts, the campaign will start at B2 The Keep on the Borderland.
Aaaah, the Keeep on the Borderland... I've played this module each time I had a new group of players... That makes over 6 times, all with OD&D except the last played with Rolemaster rules. That last time I change all the creatures in the caves, for one of the PC was the son of a great hero (the first PC of the same player!), returning to the Keep to erase chaos.... That was before the publication of the TSR Silver series "Return to the Keep on the Borderland" (not sure about the exact title).
In my version, the evil temple was occuped by demons... Too tough for 3-4 th level PC. The demons captured the PC (fighter wanting to become a paladin) and challenged the great hero (36th level paladin in quest for immortality) to come if he wants his son alive. Finally, they managed to kill the demons with the help of the other PCs. My campaign has a lot of past stories that come back from time to time...
Very good idea to make a sketch of the bowl and the caves entrance. Keep on your story, that bring back old playing memories (20 years ago...)
IIRC someone placed it in Darokin near the Brokenlands. Although I guess official sources had it placed in Karameikos, I think the Darokin suggestion fits just aswell. Where did you guys place it?
Has anyone checked out Return of the KotB? Is it worth buying?
Havard
Originally posted by havard
Was there ever suggested a location for the Keep?
Hello,
Yes. GAZ1 suggests placing this adventure at Castellan Keep. This is located on the North Eastern border. I decided not to use this suggestion because the player characters would pass through the area described in B10 Night's Dark Terror once completing their adventures at the Caves of Chaos. That would spoil a good deal of the surprise. Also, the adventures described in B11 & B12 transpire just down the road from Castellan Keep. That way, if the player characters need to get in a bit more adventuring under their belts before taking on B10, they could go through these adventures.
Regards and Best Wishes,
Donald Eric Kesler