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Post by geneweigel on Oct 14, 2012 18:18:59 GMT -5
Once my brother and cousin took over the keep I had the Caves of Chaos and the Unknown caves (a starcraft in my campaign) replenish and switch places several times until they decided to blow up all the caves once and for all.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 14, 2012 20:12:45 GMT -5
PH p. 34: "...your Dungeon Master will introduce your character to the campaign setting. In all likelihood, whether the locale is a village, town, or city, your character will have to acquaint himself or herself with the territory. The first step will often be getting into the place, i.e., a gate guard demanding to know what business you have in the town or city. Thereafter it will be necessary to locate a safe and reasonably priced place in which to lodge -- typically an inn of some sort, but perhas a rented cot, a loft, or even chambers at a hostel. Since the location selected will have to serve as a base and depot, it must be relatively safe from intrusion and burglary. Once the headquarters has been found, your character can set about learning the lay of the land, and attempt to find the trade establishments needed to supply the desired equipment for adventuring. Perhaps it will also be necessary to locate where other player characters reside in order to engage in joint expeditions."
That was the quote I was thinking of that has the assumption that starting PC's aren't from the place where the adventuring begins.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 14, 2012 20:22:17 GMT -5
Most of my B2 experiences have been TPK's or close to it.
My sister did well with a cleric and several NPC fighters, but probably most of that was due to my advice and help. I know she wasn't into slaughtering humanoids, including their females and young, so I don't think she finished clearing out the Caves. I eventually just gave her the things she was interested in, like a pegasus to ride, and a castle on a mountain. She didn't play very long, but occasionally would show up as the "high level cleric riding a pegasus" who would descend from the sky, valkyrie-like, to help my other players out, if she felt like it.
One of my most successful players had a m-u who died the first time exploring the Caves (killed by a goblin spear, I believe) and then rolled up another m-u. That one cleared out the Caves and I believe he even went on to fireball the Castellan's tower at the KEEP, before moving on to other regions... What a mean bastard.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 14, 2012 20:36:47 GMT -5
Thinking of my sister's character just reminded me of something else: B2 was the first adventure where I remember seeing humanoid females and young. Ugh, it never caused anything but trouble. Yes, it was logical to have them in a lair. But their presence never seemed to add any fun to the game... they only added hand-wringing debates about whether killing them was the right thing to do, or not. As DM, I ruled that killing them wasn't an evil deed -- I decided humanoids in the D&D universe were all inherently evil, which I think is the common way to get out of this dilemma. But it was kind of disturbing to me to have players giggling as they slaughtered helpless goblin whelps. Sociopaths.
If I were DMing them now, I'd say, "killing them wasn't evil, but giggling about it was -- you've just shifted a notch in the direction of evil."
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Post by Scott on Oct 14, 2012 20:39:34 GMT -5
B2 is tough. Probably a lot tougher than most remember. It's very easy to get suckered in and then overwhelmed. Hit and run tactics should be the m.o. for the first forays. Two spell casters with sleep makes a big difference, and reaching 2nd level is huge in this adventure.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 14, 2012 21:00:17 GMT -5
Yeah, and being able to afford good armor. Once one or two characters have plate mail and shield, that changes the whole dynamic to what it 'should be' if the players are to have a chance.
What always makes me roll my eyes is that small party, like three or four guys -- one or two of them being magic-users and the others wearing leather or padded armor, and maybe one guy with chainmail. "It's okay, we hired two men-at-arms!" they say, but they're in leather, too.
Goblin spear-cushions.
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Falconer
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Post by Falconer on Oct 15, 2012 13:51:29 GMT -5
B2 teaches the DM how to DM, and it teaches the players how to play. It’s basically perfect in that regard. If it were less bare-bones, the DM wouldn’t learn to add in details from his own imagination. If it were less brutal, the players wouldn’t learn to hire hirelings (and/or recruit more players into the game) and to play tactically. If it weren’t so open-ended, the players wouldn’t learn to set their own expeditions and agendas. I wouldn’t change a damned thing.
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Post by Scott on Oct 15, 2012 14:29:30 GMT -5
B2 teaches the DM how to DM, and it teaches the players how to play. It’s basically perfect in that regard. If it were less bare-bones, the DM wouldn’t learn to add in details from his own imagination. If it were less brutal, the players wouldn’t learn to hire hirelings (and/or recruit more players into the game) and to play tactically. If it weren’t so open-ended, the players wouldn’t learn to set their own expeditions and agendas. I wouldn’t change a damned thing. I agree with that, 30 years after the fact. I wish I would have had a better intro the first time I played it. Most of the stories I hear, which are pretty close to my experience, have the party attacking the Keep when they arrive, or skipping the Keep material almost entirely and heading right to the Caves. All that good learning stuff got tossed, but it was kids with little/no experience DMing for kids with little/no experience. That small party, buddies for life, NPC hating model seemed to become the norm in the games I played in and with the players I talked to. It wasn't until MUCH later that I went back and really read the rules and the early adventures that I started to think that wasn't really the expectation.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 15, 2012 18:25:24 GMT -5
I wouldn’t change a damned thing. All good points, Falconer, and just to be clear, I'm not suggesting a rewrite of B2. This topic is more along the lines of if you were designing a new Campaign Starting Adventure, how would you do it and what would you learn from the 'models' (like B2, T1, the Sample Adventure in the DMG). When running it, I can and do make changes to B2, because I look at it as a launch pad more than a sacrosanct relic. It taught a whole generation of us how to play, and therefore has become something of the latter... I love this module as much as anybody. But I don't think even Gary himself would be opposed to us taking from it what we like, and also learning what didn't quite work as well... "Become familiar with this module, then make whatever additions or changes you feel are necessary for your campaign. Once you are satisfied, gather the players together and have them create their characters... If you wish, feel free to limit the classes your players may choose as suits the setting... It is all up to you as DM to decide the shape of the campaign" (from B2, p. 3). I know the minimum of what works for B2, as written: 4+ fighters with chainmail or better armor, 1+ cleric, and m-u with a sleep spell.
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Post by Scott on Oct 15, 2012 22:11:09 GMT -5
I was thinking of using Hommlet + a few years as a blueprint for the town. Have new traders moved in, a few new NPCs. You have hills, forest, mountains, and marsh nearby. Gnomes, dwarves, and elves for sure close by. A nice set of ruins to repopulate. Sprinkle some lairs and smaller dungeons in the wilderness nearby.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 16, 2012 12:33:57 GMT -5
I think that's a great starting point. I'm especially interested to see what you come up with for smaller dungeons nearby.
A few years ago, I was working on developing Narwell as a town that grew up from a Hommlet-like village, still having some of the rustic character and many devotees to the Old Faith that Hommlet does, but with more merchant and guild interests involved. A "filled-in" version of Hommlet, as it were, with castle finished, roads turning into streets, many more buildings and perhaps an outer town wall, too. I thought that would be an ideal starting point for a Greyhawk Campaign, since it is so out of the way and remote. It could also possibly have some links to the ToEE or Slavers series.
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Post by Scott on Oct 17, 2012 8:31:06 GMT -5
Narwell's a great spot. I've started many campaigns there. Cedric and Maylin from the online campaign I'm running both started their careers there. Different kind of set up, but lots of adventure potential. More opportunity for town adventures and hooks. A little more daunting of a project though.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 17, 2012 9:42:19 GMT -5
It's only more daunting if you want to follow the model for Hommlet in which there is a key entry for practically every building.
Do you have a name in mind for your town? Do you want to place it in Greyhawk, or in your own world, or keep it 'modular'?
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Post by Scott on Oct 17, 2012 12:07:39 GMT -5
I think with a setting like Narwell, even if you disregard much of the living space, there's stil a lot more work to do. Multiple Inns. Multiple temples. At least one guild might have a presence there. More and varied NPCs. A greater number of detailed interior maps.
I haven't given a name any thought. It's just Hommlet some time in the future. But That's for my own campaign. If I started putting real work into it for publication, I'd need to do some more work.
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Post by Scott on Oct 23, 2012 12:16:09 GMT -5
The Hommlet idea I was tossing around didn't have a lot of big changes to the town. A few updates. Mostle just dropping the driving ToEE plat and taking more of a sandbox approach to the area around. Including numerous adventure hooks and several detailed dungeon type locations. Some of the ideas I had for my future Hommlet included a new trading post. I was thinking a gnome, with a dwarf guard. The return of Cannoness Y'dey, or maybe she has moved on too, and there's a new head cleric there. The castle is completed. A new tavern.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 26, 2012 15:24:19 GMT -5
There's an idea. Take your colored pencils to that Hommlet map! I like the sandbox approach. Maybe you could do up a few of the encounters and run a playtest on one of the upcoming game nights...
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Falconer
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Post by Falconer on Oct 27, 2012 14:31:51 GMT -5
Have you guys seen this? It’s just one guy’s take, but it’s probably a better starting point for the wilderness around Hommlet than what’s given in the published module.
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Post by geneweigel on Oct 27, 2012 17:41:54 GMT -5
Have you guys seen this? It’s just one guy’s take, but it’s probably a better starting point for the wilderness around Hommlet than what’s given in the published module. Yeah but he's not a good source because if you strip away his "Pro old guard" demeanor this has a feeling of "canonboy" drift (that Tsojcanth area map on the web ten years ago, etc.) which honestly I can't even look at i.e. I'd rather integrate the measures by geographic landform elongation than remap.
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Post by Scott on Oct 27, 2012 18:54:26 GMT -5
Yeah, I remember that thread. I liked what Paul did.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 28, 2012 15:01:25 GMT -5
I think that is a really admirable effort by Paul, and I like the hand-drawn map with the colored pens. This was along the lines of what I was thinking, Scott.
A couple of years ago, I tried to reconcile the geography on some hex paper myself, and the main thing I did differently from Paul was to have the High Road go directly east of Hommlet and not to intersect the Temple or Nulb -- it just goes east into the Gnarley Forest. The way to get from Hommlet to Nulb and the Temple is by using the old track that was used to get to the Moathouse -- by continuing along it, and going about 21 miles further, you eventually come to Nulb. The road that goes north out of Hommlet eventually joins up with the Lowroad along the south banks of the Velverdyva River.
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