C1: An Amusing Roleplaying Diversion
Aug. 23rd, 2008 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aWe had almost all of our regular crew gone today, and thus I decided to run a one-off RPG adventure.
I got some great suggestions from people on what I should run, including a website of award-winning (indie style) scenarios, but I ultimately decided to go the safe route and ran C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, an old-style competition AD&D adventure.
My main reason was that it was a 2-hour adventure for 3 players. I knew had three players (Kevin, Chris, and Dave S.) and so I just doubled the expected time, so that the players wouldn't have to run through the dungeon like crazy men, and I had something that was about perfect to run. I also thought it would fit closer to that particular group's comfort level than some of the more indie stuff.
It was generally a fun run. The adventure is set right in the same area as my Savage Tide campaign, and so there was some nice shared culture. I also thought the adventure was generally better than a lot of stuff from the period (late 1970s). All of those dungeons have some arbitrary design elements, but this was better than most. It tried to present a cohesive vision of the dungeon and to offer solutions other than just hacking through the competition.
The players missed most of the puzzles, bulling or running through more often than not, but I'm not surprised given our normal style of play. As we closed in on the 4-hour mark, I decided to use the earlier of the two exits in the module, to give players a fair chance of getting out. Alas, Dave S.'s character died one room out and Kevin and Chris were killed in view of the exit. So, it was a TPK, but in the last room of a competition module, I don't feel too bad about it (though I'm certain Kevin was unhappy, nonetheless).
I'm amused that they could have finished the adventure if they hadn't lost track of what they were doing. Sitting in one of the last rooms, Dave S. told Chris that he should search for secrets doors, and even mentioned that there might be a secret door inside a giant cat head--which there was was. Instead Chris set off a trap, fooled around, went off in the wrong direction, and then by the time the players got back to that room they forgot about the idea of a secret door, so instead of the (safer) secret room they went into perhaps the most dangerous room in the dungeon, which is where Dave S.'s character died.
I'll also comment that I was surprised by how much free-wheeling decision making I had to make in this supposed tournament module. I can't imagine how a competition using it could be fair, with different GMs running the adventure.
So, an interesting aside, and next week we'll be back to our normal 3.5 campaigns.
(And on the downside, my damned head has been acting up again today, not bad, but getting worse throughout my run, so I guess it's back to the frickin' doctor next week, and I'd guess a referral off to a specialist this time, but we'll see.)
I got some great suggestions from people on what I should run, including a website of award-winning (indie style) scenarios, but I ultimately decided to go the safe route and ran C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, an old-style competition AD&D adventure.
My main reason was that it was a 2-hour adventure for 3 players. I knew had three players (Kevin, Chris, and Dave S.) and so I just doubled the expected time, so that the players wouldn't have to run through the dungeon like crazy men, and I had something that was about perfect to run. I also thought it would fit closer to that particular group's comfort level than some of the more indie stuff.
It was generally a fun run. The adventure is set right in the same area as my Savage Tide campaign, and so there was some nice shared culture. I also thought the adventure was generally better than a lot of stuff from the period (late 1970s). All of those dungeons have some arbitrary design elements, but this was better than most. It tried to present a cohesive vision of the dungeon and to offer solutions other than just hacking through the competition.
The players missed most of the puzzles, bulling or running through more often than not, but I'm not surprised given our normal style of play. As we closed in on the 4-hour mark, I decided to use the earlier of the two exits in the module, to give players a fair chance of getting out. Alas, Dave S.'s character died one room out and Kevin and Chris were killed in view of the exit. So, it was a TPK, but in the last room of a competition module, I don't feel too bad about it (though I'm certain Kevin was unhappy, nonetheless).
I'm amused that they could have finished the adventure if they hadn't lost track of what they were doing. Sitting in one of the last rooms, Dave S. told Chris that he should search for secrets doors, and even mentioned that there might be a secret door inside a giant cat head--which there was was. Instead Chris set off a trap, fooled around, went off in the wrong direction, and then by the time the players got back to that room they forgot about the idea of a secret door, so instead of the (safer) secret room they went into perhaps the most dangerous room in the dungeon, which is where Dave S.'s character died.
I'll also comment that I was surprised by how much free-wheeling decision making I had to make in this supposed tournament module. I can't imagine how a competition using it could be fair, with different GMs running the adventure.
So, an interesting aside, and next week we'll be back to our normal 3.5 campaigns.
(And on the downside, my damned head has been acting up again today, not bad, but getting worse throughout my run, so I guess it's back to the frickin' doctor next week, and I'd guess a referral off to a specialist this time, but we'll see.)