Showing posts with label 1e. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1e. Show all posts

Thursday, October 5, 2023

Random Encounters/Making Memories

Tonight, Jen and Catherine are at a Stevie Nicks concert leaving me and Nathan to fend for ourselves for dinner.  Nate and I picked a local favorite and got to talking... about D&D. 

This only sometimes happens. He plays e5 while I am into AD&D e1 or OSE. They seem wildly different, to me anyway. But tonight proved that wrong. 

Halfway through dinner, Nathan realized he planned a D&D session with his friends. He looked rather glum about it. I said I was envious because I have very little time to game. 

The problem was he didn't know what to do for tonight's session. I asked him about the past sessions and he filled me on the problems first. They are 4 sessions into this campaign and they skipped a planned Session 0. Nathan was forced to cob together a very basic idea into a full-fledged campaign due to a lack of planning. 

Here is the gist of that idea: The players have found a cursed town. There are a couple of levels to the curse. A dragon is rampaging around the edge of town, but cannot enter due to a spell cast by a witch. The witch stole the dragon's eggs and placed them around the perimeter of the town to protect the town from a threat, a non-dragon threat. The hag was killed by the dragon mid-cast, so the spell is partially broken.  

Currently, the spell is supposed to protect the town from a threat. Thus far, this averted threat is limited to the rampaging dragon. The spell should be fixed on and powered by the maturing dragon eggs, but unfortunately, it is wavering. When a person touches the edge of the spell, say by entering or leaving the town, their memory becomes corrupted. The corruption is like amnesia, people forget personal facts but don't lose skills or abilities usually. 

Two characters have already been corrupted and lost the knowledge of a spell and resources. The mage forget the spell is in their spell books and are surprised every time they see it. The other character has forgotten he is rich. This is being played for laughs. 

Nathan, dressed to impress.


That's it. Nathan didn't define the threat to the town and threw the characters right in the middle of the mess without a plan to get them out. Worse, the players are fighting a bone construct for one of the eggs. Nathan has no idea why he introduced this combat. The players are hell-bent on destroying the egg for unknown reasons. The last session ended in the middle of that battle. 

Memory... funny thing that is. 

I parsed out the whole situation, problems and all. 


Here is what we came up with as a solution. The hag, a witch, was the town shaman. Unfortunately, she was fated to die young but didn't know when. As the appointed day came close, she bargained with the dragon for its eggs. She would cast a spell on the eggs, to protect the town from bad weather and disease in her absence while also protecting the eggs as they matured. People who found the eggs would be afflicted with memory loss about the eggs and would not harm or steal them.  

Problem one is solved, we know why stuff is happening. That's important. 

Next, time to tackle some other issues. Nathan starts every session with a synopsis of what happened in the last session. He simply reads from a notebook. Tonight, he decided that will change. Instead, he will hand out notes to all of the players. Once they have the notes, he will absentmindedly flip through his notebook as if looking for the notes he just handed out. 

Queue the laughs. He'll ask someone to read the synopsis for him.

Oddly, there will be no mention of the combat with the bone construct. Instead, the players will find themselves in an ancient and desecrated graveyard at the edge of town. It says that right there in the game notes. The graves have been pillaged for something. In the dark, a shambling bone creature will disrupt their investigations. The bone construct was made by a previous shaman with the intent to protect the town in their absence. As long as the party doesn't attack, it will not attack them. It needs them alive to protect the town. 

It seems all of the players are suffering from memory loss. They didn't fight a bone construct, they are about to fight a bone construct. Maybe. When they return to the town proper, fight or not, they will find some of the NPCs have changed. These will be subtle changes, maybe someone needed to step out for a while and a friend took over. 

Now for the real fun. One of the PCs wears a wedding band. The same player inquired about having it turned into a ring of wishes in the prior sessions. This was an off-handed comment, a part of their character background. They would wish their spouse back to life if they could. Obviously, they recently saw the Dungeons and Dragons movie. 

A week from now, Nathan will be armed with a letter from a sage explaining how exceedingly rare rings of wishes are and that it would be virtually impossible for this particular ring to be one of wishes. Of course, no player character asked a sage about this. But here is a letter like they did. 

How did that happen? Who paid for it? It appears to be the guy who can't remember he is rich. 

The path is now clear, the party needs to become the protector of the town and eggs while the spell casters try to correct the malfunctioning spell or end the spell by finding another shaman. It would be helpful not to be eaten by the dragon while doing this, but it's starting to look like one of the PCs or NPCs will become a dragon snack. 

That's fine by Nathan. Not only is he counting on it, he has a friend scheduled to show up with a brand-new character, and prepped and practiced to act as if he has been there since the beginning. 

It's amazing how a chance dinner-time meal can turn into a campaign session. 

Thursday, June 13, 2019

Rediscovering the Past - Part 1 - The Mac is not a Paperweight

Back in the day, my friends and I had dozens of character sheets but no copier. What a headache. I had a computer and thought to myself, "Gee, what if I could make this machine spit out sheets on demand?"



It could. This was the standard character sheet for my campaign. It was designed on a Mac plus e using Mac Draw. This evening, I found a copy of one jammed in the back of my Unearthed Arcana book. My friends and I were so proud of it, we put our names on every copy we printed.

Judging by the context of the sheet, I suspect this was done in 1987. I received my Mac in 1986 and probably purchased Unearthed Arcana in '87. I can assure you that I cribbed off of many different versions of the official sheets to create this document, but I have to say, this is the very best sheet I have ever used.

Isn't it amazing how much technology has changed?

But wait, my Mac plus e isn't a paperweight. It has not been lost nor replaced. It's still with me.


I still use it. But not in the expected fashion. For school, I had to do a series of podcasts and videos and I wrote all of the scripts on the good ol' mac. Why? Because I could hide the mouse off to one side and use it like a teleprompter.

This file is now available at DriveThruRPG as an unwatermarked PDF.

This product is a scan of a character sheet from 1987, created on a Mac Plus E. It has been uploaded for nostalgia. It is specifically meant for Unearthed Arcana and includes the six basic abilities, plus comeliness. I have used this sheet for decades. While not entirely error free, nor perfect for every campaign, it is a great design.

This item is offered as PWYW. It is strongly suggested that you download the sheet for $0.00 and if it works for your group, come on back and reorder it at the price point you feel it is worth. Remember, this is a scan of 32 year old sheet from 1987. The value is in the history of the game, not the production quality, so your mileage may vary.

This product is unwatermarked so as not to disrupt the old school feel. Please print as many copies as you need, but do not digitally redistribute.

For more great romps in nostalgia, visit me at These Old Games. I would love to hear how this sheet fared in your AD&D 1e setting.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Module Review - B2 The Keep on the Borderlands

Title: The Keep on the Borderlands
Code: B2
Author: Gary Gygax
Rule Set: D&D
Year: 1979 and 1999
Pages:
Number of characters:
Levels: 1-3
Rating: ★★★★★


This is one of my favorites, the star rating says it all. The Keep hovers on the edge of sandbox wilderness, one that is your to explore. The Keep is the perfect place to kick off an adventure, the players can obtain all they need to fully explore the environs.


As a carryover from B1, the advice sections are present and highly valuable. There are also handy details such as gossip and the willingness of the lord of the Keep to provide the player characters with man-at-arms and magical items.


Where this module shines is in the tactics provided for each group the characters encounter. Some of them are embryonic or silly, but in keeping with the intelligence level (or madness) of the inhabitants of the Caves of the Unknown.


One of the better things about this adventure is the player mapping is logically constrained, allowing them to make mistakes, but not so bad as to create a mapping nightmare like In Search of the Unknown.  


Where to buy: DriveThru RPG

Monday, May 30, 2016

Module Review - B1 In Search of the Unknown

Title: In Search of the Unknown
Code: B1
Author: Mike Carr
Rule Set: D&D
Year: 1978
Pages: 32
Number of characters: 3 to 6
Levels: 1-3
Rating: ★★★☆☆

In Search of the Unknown is a classic dungeon crawl, the true value of this module is in the open ended nature and guided tour aspect of the adventure. The DM is provided with rooms and descriptions but no monsters. The opening Notes for the Dungeon Master are masterful, great advice for every DM every when and where. The notes cover everything from background to hirelings. The last 7 pagers are for players, including henchmen, hirelings, sample characters and tips.

This is a rough module, no monsters are provided, nor are there any thematic clues as to what sort of beings should be found. This is great for someone who has a preset world, the module is ready to be plugged in. However, as a stand alone product the lack makes running the adventure cumbersome for the DM. Additionally, the upper level map is weird. It reminds me of Zork’s “you are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike”. Player mapping is often a disaster, thanks to the twists, turns and goofy angles scattered around the upper level.

All and all, this module ranks a solid 3 stars of 5.

Where to buy:
Click for DriveThru RPG