Showing posts with label classics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classics. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Collecting D&D Modules in PDF



It's kind of addicting, really. I sort of hope WotC has a lot of people doing the same thing, as it would send a good message to them (that message being: more of this stuff, please) that we're buying up lots and lots of these $5 classic adventures.

Aside from my recent obsession with the simple elegance of Basic and Expert D&D I've been trying to snag more modules. I started with Night's Dark Terror (B10) because it seemed to come highly recommended and was one of the many Basic set modules I had never owned. Quick bit of advice: it's worth looking at, the module is surprisingly good and has the makings of a full-on wilderness campaign within. A lot of depth in it.

When dndclassics.com popped up they gave away B1: In Search of the Unknown as a freebie, so I already had that. It's more of an interesting look at how the early days of the game handled introductory modules. A lot of the "DM advice" of the era was basically end-loaded into the modules themselves rather than the rulebooks. I can't recall if I ever owned this module or not, honestly. I know I started with B2: Keep on the Borderlands, but I think B1 escaped me. B3 (Palace of the Silver Princess) was memorable to me as the module I did not run, but actually played in. My sister had it as part of her early collection, back then.

Anyway, I owned few of these Basic edition modules, so they are mostly new to me. I also snagged B5: Horror on the Hill. It sounds fun, and the scan is good. I'll have to read it this week. I then got derailed by the AD&D modules, most of which are much more familiar to me and/or were scenarios I actually ran.

Specifically for my first round I snagged N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God and another old favorite of mine, the Conan "Red Nails" influenced I1: Dwellers in the Forbidden City. Both modules I ran in the early eighties. My hope right now is that I will find some fascinating stuff within each that, much like the Basic and Expert books did, trigger a new level of interest in me as an adult over my childhood memories. I do recall using both modules to put some characters through the ropes, and to this day they both have a "home" somewhere in my old Lingusia campaign. I never ran anything in Greyhawk or FR...I always ported the scenarios to "home turf."

If I snag two or three every pay period I suspect my wife will be lenient on punishment and sooner or later I'll have them all in PDF. Good thing, too! WotC is cranking out a lot of them now.

As an aside, has anyone bought "The Secret of Bone Hill" in PDF yet? One review suggests that this one has a botched scan job, and I don't want to find out the hard way if the reviewer is just obsessively pedantic about these things or there really is an issue with the PDF. All the other purchases I have made at dndclassics have been great so far.



I don't know if I'll get to run these modules again or just enjoy reading them, but I have some ideas. My ideal situation would be to find some willing players keen to explore Basic/Expert D&D with a bit of the LL Advanced Edition Companion mixed in for flavor. A second (likelier) prospect would be to do an official adaptation of these modules to 3rd edition or Pathfinder....this would require a teensy bit of work (by my standards) but is doable. If I decide to tackle these modules in such a fashion, I'll try to stick up the conversion notes/stats on the blog for those interested.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

D&D Classics is up



Assuming you can punch through the server overload, D&D Classics is now an official thing. The PDF storefront is being managed by OneBookShelf (Drivethrurpg and rpgnow) and is dedicated to all things officially Dungeons & Dragons, for all editions. I haven't checked out any PDFs yet, but I hear that the quality is better than it used to me, which may justify the increase in prices for many books. Probably going to cave soon and get some of the HR-series historical books for 2nd edition, those always were among my favorites.