Old, bald British nerd - talking about RPGs and stuff like that.
Weekly videos and 2 regular live streams
Wednesdays: Mid Week Geek - starts 9pm UK time - a panel discussion on RPG topics Fridays: FF Friday - starts 9:45pm UK time - interactive gamebooks, a not so serious chat, and maybe a few other things
I have reskinned this one as a former abandoned border land spy center that a recent landslide revealed to the world. I've combined it with Trial by Fire from Judge's Guild. I just picked up Fungi of the Far Realms from the Melsonian Arts Council that I'm using to flesh out an expanded version of the Giant Fungus caverns. 50 different species, some beneficial, some dangerous , shriekers and about half of them relatively neutral. I'm hoping it will be fun. The Original i'd give a 7. We enjoyed it. I' have troglodytes coming up into this dungeon from underneath. I'm having a lot of fun with this one.
Yeah We didn't like this one as much. It's a six for me, but totally useable The DM just needs to build in foreshadowing and adventure hooks to get you to the Moathouse. We thoroughly enjoyed the dungeon. We played it without the Temple of Elemental Evil having been published which made it feel a little like playing part of an adventure. The DM had to invent the story for the Moathouse and for what winning looked like because the actual end of the adventure didn't exist yet. i think we spent most of our time hanging with the workers in the tent city building the tower. .
The old modules had character. Like an uncut precious stone. Sharp edged with lots of potential. Modern modules are like lab created stones that have spent the last couple of months in a rock rumbler. They are smooth "safe" and unispiring.
My #1 favorite adventure, have run it 9 times now, adding an extra 40% or so of content to the published version. Only 3 parties have successfully completed the adventure; the rest perishing in the attempt.
It was the last basic set module I ever ran (as a clueless 13 year old) before my players insisted on switching to ADnD. I had bought red arrow, black shield but never got to play it. Maybe this year. 😂
Really Enjoyed this one. Lots of Fun and Puzzles in this one and scratched my puzzling itch that I'd first got from reading the Hobbit. I feel like the first time we played it we played with our original characters and survived. Don't remember ever adventuring with Black Razor , but we did have someone with Wave the trident of fish command. I don't think we ever went to sea. And he didn't include the cube of force ability. Our Dwarf did walk off with the Hammer Whelm. The Erol Otus map also left me wanting to go off to See Dragotha the Undead Dragon or Thingizzard the witch.
The other thing is using the risk factors. For even mid-level spells, there's a fairly high chance some Shadow force notices when you cast such a spell and they'll come after you. Our players were very wary of this and didn't just throw spells all over the place. They even favored herbs for healing over spells. Just getting back into a MERP campaign now after about two decades away from it.
I was 11 when I bought this module, new, in Portage WI at a small drugstore on Hwy 51 just up from the old 1st National Bank. Tells you what kind of an impression it made on me. It was horrible. On the other hand my 11 year old self said there has to be more to this and then proceeded to use this as a basis to actually create a decent adventure. It used most of the elements, but reordered something and some retweeking of plot. Unfortunately I lost most of my modules and my notes to this one.
I'd love more of these bite sized reviews! Any chance of doing more of the UK adventures? I remember you talking fondly of them in the adventure ranking video
I really enjoyed this one at the time. Playing it and later DMing it. Interesting, quirky. The DM at the time pushed us into stealing the treasure in the sunken ship? Underlake Gazebo? My Paladin was adamant that we shouldn't do that, but finally cast an augury spell that indicated that taking the treasure was the thing to do. I can't remember if we finished it. I don't think it was a TPK but my Paladin was killed by the Unicorns. He let them charge him twice before he defended himself. You have reached the bottom of the barrel when your Paladin is killed by Unicorns. The module itself though I really liked with some very powerful, though not necessarily deadly challenges.
@@yeoldegeek71 Probably should have been but had argued against stealing the treasure. Consulted his deity via augury before he participated and got the green light. Luckily it never came up. Got slaughtered by dimension dooring, charging unicorns doing double damage. The DM had a character, a druid , in the party and I think the player wanted the magic treasure. It was an epic death and forty years later still ticks me off. But the module I enjoyed.
Creepy. Part of it make me think of Hellraiser where the guy was in search of more and more disturbing things to satisfy him before coming to the lament configuration. the cenobites and his undoing. Also some parts reminded me of The Keep (movie only as I haven't read the book). Would this have been the first mention of the Necronomicon or would another have come before it because I know its mentioned in a few of his stories?
I have been preparing to run Tomb of Horrors. If players get ro Acererak's skull and manage to defeat it, would you have them walk out? Because wouldn't walking out of the Tomb of Horrors be in keeping with the theme of relentlessness of the dungeon module?
Great art. I never played it. My brother and his friends played it but they took a different view of DND trying find the limits of what you could do in the game. They were the first group I ever played with who attacked the Keep on the Borderlands. I was looking to play a game with a heroes journey in it. I'd never take a character I cared about that had no purpose beyond trying to kill my character. I give it a 6. Great booklet and I got some amusement from reading it. I don't know if I would enjoy Dming it.
Hi Ye Olde Geek! I really enjoy your MERP videos. MERP is very special in my country (Spain). For a lot of players, myself included, MERP was the first roleplaying game we played back in the 90s (it was first published in Spain in '89). MERP dominated rpg sales in the country, surpassing CoC and AD&D 2e, until games like Vampire were published in Spain in the second half of the 90s. A very loved game for my generation. May I humbly request more MERP content in the channel? Thanks! Kind regards
Such a good module. One of my parties has almost finished it. Flesh out the area around it and spice up the watchtower. Use fiend folio monsters, add some oozes and more of Zelligar's monster research to make it even better.
Is it fair to say that is was not as bad as you thought it would be? It is also hard now, to capture the "first time" feel of surprise and wonder some might have experienced back in the day where nothing like this existed. The many "fill it in yourself" rooms you see in a lot of old modules, even long after this one. I am not a fan either, but it was very common.
I did enjoy playing it more than I had expected to, it was the prep that got to me... I'm no stranger to filling in gaps where necessary, but the gaps in S3 were beyond excessive. You are right too about how the 'sense of wonder' will have been diluted by time, the same goes for other famous modules - Ravenloft, Tomb of Horrors for example.
Reading it, have a question, does the huge subterranean lizard really do "2d64 damage (due to great size)... double damage on an unmodified roll of 20"?
Ran it recently. I would probally rate it a 7. Its one of those modules that is great for the first 3 levels but then becomes a drag. The first level has about a gazzilion vegeypigmies. That level alone took many sessions. The tech is extreamly poweful and my group found like 40 of those batteries. Which was lucky for them. I ran the Against the Giants module straight after and the Paralyzation pistol saved them time and again. We finnished that module and they still have 10 batteries left. All on all its a fun romp for a few levels. I just had the ship start to take off once the party started killing all the plants on the garden level. I figured the sentient ship wouldnt put up with all the collected stuff being destroyed.
Back listening again. To add a spark, what about the rocs coming back and the party having to hide and be stealthy (or move at night) or back to the top they go, like a reverse snakes and ladders.
The idea of reversing the adventure so the party are climbing to the Rocs' nest is a great one, maybe to recover some evidence of the past Dwarven society on the mountain?
