Thursday, February 2, 2012

"Let's Play 1st Ed. Dad!"

Those are the words I heard after I told my boys that 5e was on the way and there were going to be reprints of the 1st Ed AD&D books.

Part of me is thrilled, another part of me is wondering what the hell am I going to do with all the 4e stuff I bought. ;)  You might recall my Big PlanTM was going to be have the kids fight Orcus.

Here are the adventures I am thinking of running with them at the moment.  You will note that these all have a large amount of undead and "horror" themes to them.  As with the "Dragonslayers" I'd run this to level 20 or so.


    • T1 The Village of Hommlet, levels 1-2. 
    • B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3
    • B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3 (this should be higher really, the caves are a killer)
    • L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
    • X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 
    • I6 Ravenloft, levels 5-7. That is if I don't use it as a convert Ghosts of Albion adventure. Use some of the Ravenloft campaign/world setting stuff here too.
    • I10 Ravenloft II, House on Gryphon Hill, levels 8-10. (maybe)
    • I9 Day of Al'Akbar, level 8-10. Useful for the Cup and Talisman of Al'Akbar.
    • S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14
    • S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12 (this is an odd one.)
    • G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12
    • D12 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, levels 9-14
    • D3 Vault of the Drow, levels 10-14
    • Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, levels 10-14 (maybe)
    • CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. (If I don't use it in my current games. Thematically it fits better here.)
    Then there are these modules:
    • H1 Bloodstone Pass, levels 15+
    • H2 The Mines of Bloodstone, levels 16-18
    • H3 The Bloodstone Wars, levels 17-20
    • H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, levels 18-100
  • Interestingly enough this is almost EXACTLY the same path my characters took when I played back in the day.  Some of these will be my first time running, others (B1, I6) I can run in my sleep.




  • Others I have a bigger issue with.  As muchas I LOVED the D series, we live in a post Drizzt world.  Drow are not the TOS era Romulans anymore.  They are the DS9 era Romulans.  The mystery is gone. Drow are no longer a big secret anymore.  Plus how does Lolth fit into the Orcus plot?  No idea.  She doesn't have too, but I want a big sweeping epic.  Something my kids will talk about when they are older.

  • If I do keep with 4e, I can do my original plan.  In both cases the Big Bad is Orcus.  And I kinda like that idea to be honest.



  • If do 1st Ed I am very likely to include information from JB's B/X Companion Rules and the Rules Cyclopedia to deal with the higher level play.

  • Who knows, maybe 5e will give me the power to use all this stuff under one game system.





  • Of course there is one other option.  Play the 1st ed games as a "Flash back" game or even (gasp!) a time travel one.  The characters (whether 4e or 5e) spend some time in the past.  I would stat up the characters as 1st Ed ones.  I kinda like this idea to be honest.  Play my 4e plan, and then hit some of the past adventures too.  I could then be more selective about which older adventures to use.



  • So many games to play and so little time....
  • 1 comment:

    Alex Osias said...

    Late to the party -- but when I was a wee lad I wanted a list like this. There was no "campaign path" and I wanted to have one with all the old modules.

    Awesome.