Knights & Knaves Alehouse

T. Foster wrote: The first 3 Slave Lords adventures are super-linear and literally formulaic ......

If I ever run the A series again, it will only be after a complete tear down and rebuild into a mini-campaign, not a series of adventures. Will probably stir in parts of the U series while at it.

francisca wrote:

T. Foster wrote: The first 3 Slave Lords adventures are super-linear and literally formulaic ......

If I ever run the A series again, it will only be after a complete tear down and rebuild into a mini-campaign, not a series of adventures. Will probably stir in parts of the U series while at it.

The A series can be cool, but you've really got to do a good deal of trimming and adjusting to make them "work". A2 particularly. A3's ending is another one...I mean, the Slave Lords shouldn't be a bunch of palookas but at the same time, I think it's very heavily slanted to "this MUST happen, because you WILL play A4 next".

thedungeondelver wrote:

francisca wrote:

T. Foster wrote: The first 3 Slave Lords adventures are super-linear and literally formulaic ......

If I ever run the A series again, it will only be after a complete tear down and rebuild into a mini-campaign, not a series of adventures. Will probably stir in parts of the U series while at it.

The A series can be cool, but you've really got to do a good deal of trimming and adjusting to make them "work". A2 particularly. A3's ending is another one...I mean, the Slave Lords shouldn't be a bunch of palookas but at the same time, I think it's very heavily slanted to "this MUST happen, because you WILL play A4 next".

Yeah, we did not play them consecutively. We were still mixing in other stuff. I've run A1 numerous times, A2 & A3 once, and never ran A4. When we did play A1 - A3 with one group, I modified them on the fly as we went. In hindsight, I did some of the above without really thinking about it. I like A1 a lot and we had a ton of fun playing A2. I remember less of A3 -- I don't think they ever battled the Slave Lords at the end. I was in college at the time and most of my group was back home so our D&D was very disjointed at the time. But, those sessions were fun.

Wheggi wrote:No, the artist knew what he was doing

The description you posted says "his helm has no eyeholes", not "he has no eyeballs and and his visor has indentations shaped like eyeless eye-sockets driving into his fleshy ones. Not only do I think the artist didn't know what he was doing, I am now beginning to feel he might not even understand human facial anatomy.

T. Foster wrote:

vargr1105 wrote:

T. Foster wrote:Eww, looks like the new "A0" adventure is written by Skip Williams.

The name is familiar but I am not familiar with his module work. Care to enlighten?

He went to school with one of the Gygax kids in Lake Geneva, joined the Greyhawk Campaign as a player in the mid-70s (where, per Mike "OldGeezer" Mornard he was "one of the 13 year old kids who kept getting his character killed by Gary and Rob because he had his head up his ass") and was part of the player-group that playtested the G-series modules and AD&D system, was involved in running GenCon and the RPGA in the 80s, wrote the "Sage Advice" rules Q&A column for Dragon magazine from 1987, and achieved his lasting "fame" as one of the three lead designers (along with Jonathan Tweet and Monte Cook) of D&D version 3.0. His module-credits from the 1E-ish era consist of WG9: Gargoyle and WG10: Child's Play, both adapted from RPGA scenarios and generally considered among the worst modules ever published by TSR.

Sweet Lord! That individual should have been barred from doing anything remotely D&D for all time. It seems in the real world only the good die young and evil prevails, he? And people wonder why we play AD&D...Escapism!...b*itch.

AxeMental wrote:That encounter sounds pretty fucking cool. Now I'll have to pull this module out and take another look...damnit.

I am playing a PbP of the first Slavers module using a pregen PC which I took control over after the adventure had started and a player left. It's been quite fun. Most modules, except the truly execrable ones can be, if you have the right GM and players. I haven't felt it is a railroad, monster zoo, linear or formulaic, quite the contrary. The atmosphere of running around in a quasi-ruined city is quite cool, lots of nifty details, and we damn near got lost several times. We've finally found some slave storage facility (after my PC Charmed an orc soldier that led us to it, hehehe) and are about to unleash a can of whoop-ass on some evil-doers.

AFAIK it's been classical AD&D at it's finest. Too bad it can't move along a little bit faster, but that' the way of PbP.

thedungeondelver wrote:

francisca wrote:

T. Foster wrote: The first 3 Slave Lords adventures are super-linear and literally formulaic ......

If I ever run the A series again, it will only be after a complete tear down and rebuild into a mini-campaign, not a series of adventures. Will probably stir in parts of the U series while at it.

The A series can be cool, but you've really got to do a good deal of trimming and adjusting to make them "work". A2 particularly. A3's ending is another one...I mean, the Slave Lords shouldn't be a bunch of palookas but at the same time, I think it's very heavily slanted to "this MUST happen, because you WILL play A4 next".

Foster, if you ever get around to that, do share it.