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Post by Scott on Aug 21, 2014 11:26:05 GMT -5
I've had these adventures since they were first released, but I can't recall ever running them. Anybody have any experience with them? I have a few gates placed in my dungeon, and I plan on moving them anytime one is discovered. I was hoping Maylin would stumble into one, and he did, so I'll be posting some adventure updates as we go.
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Post by Scott on Sept 15, 2014 10:33:52 GMT -5
The weirdness of this place is definitely throwing my cousin Doug for a loop. He’s usually very good at “Sense Motive”. The changed view of the long hall and the discovery that some magic doesn’t work through him early. Early in the Woods of Trees and Giant Fungi he met the Smilodon Cat. They chatted a bit, the cat said farewell and disappeared. Maylin sent his monk follower Mirzod up the tree to scout the countryside. The cat was lurking there invisibly and mauled him. The monk leaped out of the tree to save himself. The cat taunted them a bit with a “catch you later” and disappeared again. Next they discovered the giant mushroom and caterpillar/behir. More idle chitchat with the behir blowing smoke rings into the air. He then puffed one at Maylin, “Catch”. It was a gem set necklace. “Oh, not one of my better efforts.” More chatting and smoke rings in the air. Then another smoke ring at the party. Another necklace. Finally they said farewell. Some ‘parting gifts’ from the caterpillar: 5 smoke rings. Doug was completely fooled and they all grabbed for them. The main fighter was in a clinging stinking cloud. The next best fighter was in the rope of entanglement ring. Maylin was blinded by a fog cloud. This very easily could have been a TPK, but the behir rolled very low on attack and damage dice. The lesser party members managed to kill the monster without taking any causalities, but it was close and they lost a few items to the lightning breath, and a few potions to the dispel magic spells they were casting.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 17, 2014 10:28:37 GMT -5
I read this the other day and all I was thinking was every time that this comes up I think I go through the same spiel about waiting for the CASTLE GREYHAWK module instead of ruining it and then eventually never playing it. I've poured through it enough to prep for it but I think I was still holding out.
I think that was the reasoning that I had for talking Gary into making a town/introduction for CG because we already had piecemeal versions of Castle Greyhawk MORDENKAINEN'S FANTASTIC ADVENTURE, ISLE OF THE APE, DUNGEONLAND and THE LAND BEYOND THE MAGIC MIRROR. I didn't know know he was not really going to be involved in the design of the Zagyg series like the way it was presented. Someone else designed maps from scratch and then someone else designed light encounters from scratch. Which just was pointless in my view.
I have no regrets I think if you gave me a memory wipe and sent me back in time I'd tell him to do the same thing. But if I remembered I would feel powerless and totally disregard his potential to come up with something new and the same for Kuntz.
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Post by Scott on Sept 17, 2014 11:39:51 GMT -5
Gene, I think you’re underestimating Gary’s involvement in the CZ material. The map was no reproduction, but it’s not from scratch either. The encounters were a mix of Gary’s and ‘fill in the rest’. I still have the ‘start with this’ e-mail, and the back and forth e-mails that were exchanged during development while I was working on CZ dungeon material.
The text isn’t Gary, and that was a big part of the Gygax feel, but the content is genuine. I think Jeff did a good job with the CZ box set.
My CZ beefs: The treasure haul is much too low for 1E experience and training rules.
I think the Upper Works are too extensive. The PCs can spend a lot of time exploring there, and it’s not that exciting.
Gary’s dungeon had a lot more empty rooms. One of Gary’s comments was that there should be more empty rooms. The DMG random dungeon generator that results in more than half the rooms being empty is an accurate reflection of Gary’s dungeons. Gary’s dungeons had more rooms though, almost no empty space on the paper. I think the number of encounters is right, but for a more Gygax-feel dungeon, you would need to add a lot of empty rooms.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 17, 2014 12:46:51 GMT -5
That's hilarious about Doug falling for the smoke rings. Some of those encounters seem a bit Vancian to me, with the absurd situations and oddball magic.
Maybe I've never given those adventures enough of a chance. I never thought of them as part of the Greyhawk dungeons, but rather as places one could get to through gates in the dungeon. Side-jaunts. And I could never understand why EGG opted to detail those, and ISLE OF THE APE, rather than the dungeons proper.
To this day, I've still avoided reading CZ: The Upper Works in great detail. I'd like to finish exploring it as a player. There was an area with a real "Caves of Chaos" vibe to it, which I liked. The only thing about the box set I really dislike is the six booklets. What is the point of having them separate?
Is the first dungeon level -- sans all of the above-ground ruins and caves -- actually based on EGG's map from the 1970's?
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Post by Scott on Sept 17, 2014 13:38:37 GMT -5
Yeah, I couldn't believe he grabbed the first ring so quickly. Maybe the married life and all the wine is making him soft.
It is not based on the original map. It has elements from the original map, but it also has elements from the expanded dungeon and new material, and the layout was designed to mesh with the layout of the CZ material.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 17, 2014 13:42:20 GMT -5
One could argue that its Gygax outlines and Gygax approvals but whats the point? Plus the literally out-of-nowhere designer was on his own bizarre wavelength and Gary was doing some kind of colonial "PLEASE DON'T SUE ME AGAIN" style.
To save it you would have to burn the whole thing and start over.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 18, 2014 9:05:58 GMT -5
Scott do you have scans of EGG's original dungeon map -- or even the expanded dungeon map?
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Post by Scott on Sept 18, 2014 10:17:44 GMT -5
I have pictures of the original 2nd and 3rd levels. I have drawn a map of the expanded 3rd and one of the 4th levels based on stories I've read over the years.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 18, 2014 10:52:05 GMT -5
Do you know what levels these are from in the expanded dungeons?
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Post by Scott on Sept 18, 2014 11:01:30 GMT -5
Not sure. 9th maybe. It might not have been set. The module background implies that the gates might move. I know the Isle of the Ape gate was on the 9th level.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 18, 2014 11:31:16 GMT -5
No, I meant the scans of the two dungeon maps in the link of the word "these" in my previous post.
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Post by Scott on Sept 18, 2014 11:47:53 GMT -5
Those are 2 and 3.
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Post by Scott on Sept 18, 2014 11:51:03 GMT -5
The one on the left is 3.
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Post by Scott on Sept 18, 2014 11:55:57 GMT -5
I don't think 1-3 changed much when the dungeon was expanded. it was three levels stacked, spiral staircase down the middle. The original dungeon had 10 levels stacked below that. In the expanded dungeon, after the 3rd level there were four dungeons for each level from 4 doen to 9 ( I thnk), and then they merged into single dungeon levels again. The elves in the Black Reservour story were on the 3rd level guarding one of these sections. You also had dwarves, an ogre, and one section could only be found by a secret door.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 18, 2014 14:18:40 GMT -5
Hope for some kind of future Castle Greyhawk project is zero as well.
You would have to have some kind of Invoked Devastation of D&D Weenies where a publisher could look at the serious side of D&D and handle it without the nerdy angles. Then you might see a close enough version of Castle Greyhawk when everything is done with citation.
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Post by Scott on Sept 19, 2014 8:21:56 GMT -5
I think that as long as Gail owns the originals, it won't happen. And even if somebody else acquired them, chance are nothing close to what I’d like to see would happen. She listened to some very bad advice right after EGG passed away, and all of the momentum and projects Gary had have since faded into nothing.
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Post by Scott on Sept 19, 2014 14:06:28 GMT -5
The vorpal sword is one of the highlights of this series, but they totally nerf it. Originally one of the Tweetle boys traded Erac’s Cousin some goofy looking item for a wand, and when he left the demi-plane it turned into a holy, vorpal long sword. In the published adventure it’s a short sword that a good party should probably end up giving back to the character that lost it. And if they don’t, the sword will be a thorn whenever possible.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 19, 2014 19:35:20 GMT -5
I think that as long as Gail owns the originals, it won't happen. And even if somebody else acquired them, chance are nothing close to what I’d like to see would happen. She listened to some very bad advice right after EGG passed away, and all of the momentum and projects Gary had have since faded into nothing. <<<Trying to post on the phone is insane but its really the only time I'm getting these days. Last night, I totally had a longer version of the answer, that I gave at that time, erased by the kids. Then while trying to answer this postin the car on the phone I "butt-erased" the reply. Ooops! I'll try to put more thought into it.>>> Anyway, I was going to say that the principles behind D&D might have been forever lost with Gary but I think that is loser thinking. I think we as a group have to get out of the rut that most D&D players are in. I once said to Gary that the reasoning behind wanting to see Castle Greyhawk published was to just to know what it was like. But I think we have to see beyond this scope as "21st level" type of fans and think principles as what Castle Greyhawk is and not some formal thing like CASTLE ZAGYG was. That is, if you're going to enjoy Castle Greyhawk fandom down the road then start paying less attention to the Whos, Whats, Wheres and Whens and start considering that CG is just a vehicle for concepts for D&D just as D&D should be a vehicle for pre-D&D sword and sorcery and science fiction. Castle Greyhawk is not Castle Blackmoor, its not El Raja Keye, its not Castle Zagyg. Castle Greyhawk in its ultimate form is a latent potential that would have told us that everything congealed from 3 book D&D & Supp.s into AD&D. All the other castles are not as seminal and powerful as this because they're mostly afterthoughts. The interplay of each area would have given us so much to play with. So what can we do? Algebra! I don't think any writer/designer working with Gary (lets not mention any names and just say EVERYONE) was worried about figuring out that certain areas might reveal something that one could use to expand interest in new content. Now, however, this is the only thing to do now that we're outin the dark for good. Everything done by Gygax in the time that he was employed by TSR is now literally an area of Castle Greyhawk. If we can't wrap our brains around the giant series being inside the castle but just look at the Harold Shea stories. I think this is the Greyhawk that serves the purpose of seeing it as an equation: 1)Map of the US. 2)Four quadrille sheets worth of the city geomorphs. 3) The Keep on the Borderlands's Caves of Chaos being a format for the Castle proper. 4) Greyhawk dungeons having a filled out ala geomorphs on quadrille sheet per level with intermediary levels and dimensional doors leading elsewhere to Gygax penned AD&D adventures. 5) Zagyg has abandoned the place and "Tzunk" hasn't had the chance to take it over so no triple iron golem area, etc. as this is exactly the kind of user-end development to avoid thinking of (i.e a slightly altered thing.). 6) All artifacts exist in the dungeon or dimensions with the exception of the relics of Vecna and Kas. 7) Levels can shift and repopulate but recycling the WOG map principle for hexes that what is represented on a hex is the majority apply to GH levels and say that level will always be that level flavor. That is, the ISLE OF THE APE may be gone if its played through but a major aspect either a movie-based area, an ape-based area and/or a pocket dimension based area. This perhaps is the constant to set the formula, I believe.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 19, 2014 19:38:34 GMT -5
I know what you're thinking... "SURE, GENE, QUADRILLE SHEETS... BUT WHAT SIZE!?!?!?"
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