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.
No comments:
Post a Comment