I very first played this module (and the whole slaver series) when I was 12 years old. My dad was the Dungeon Master for me on that one, and I clearly remember him saying when we were done that even he thought is was a poorly designed module. My dad was kind man with a good heart and let me win the final battle in A3. It was an awesome roll play as I remember it. (Been a few years. I'm 50+ now...) But we still went on to play A4 with the premise that I had 'lost' just to be able to play. Good memories. Thank you for re-awakening them in me from long ago and putting a smile on my face. :-) Looking forward to your thoughts on A4!
I am currently buying everything for Adventures Dark & Deep, the hardbounds are dead ringers for another game with the initials AD&D, and the content is as good or better. Actually takes me back to when the first hardbound D&D books were coming out. Superb. Thanks for keeping Greyhawk alive!
I played these at Gencon 13 - this was round 2 of the 3 round AD&D Open that year. The module was split into two "sessions" with players doing one OR the other chunk. The next module was the final round. You have to keep in mind as you look at these, they were designed to be played in bits. There were 4 "sessions" of round 1 that each were 1/2 of A1 and A2, Round 2 had two "sessions" and round 3 (A4) had one "session"
I ran this when it came out so I have fond memories of it (and teenage me had a much lower quality bar than grizzled me these days). I dropped it into my homebrew campaign (modified Greyhawk) and have clear memory of my PCs moving quickly from one encounter to another as they were simultaneously being chased by a death knight. My PCs had been sent back in time by a wizard to kill a younger version of himself as in the future the bad guys win because of a magic item the wizard makes. The dark lord sent his “terminator” to stop them. Slave lords were somehow involved with the young wizard. So yes fond memories but I’m not sure it was the adventure itself or the setup.
The city definitely needs fleshed out, and I could see reworking the series, and maybe combining 3 & 4 while keeping some flexibility to adapt to the players going in unexpected directions. I'm also not a big fan of the whole "no matter what you do, you will lose, so we can set up the next section." Great review! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for doing these videos, very cool. I remember our town was fleshed out a lot more but even so this was the weakest of the 3. Lots of potential though, and with some work could really be cool. Thanks for posting!!!
My first AD&D module and the cover is very nostalgic for me The design seems rushed to press but all in all it’s a easy fixer upper and not very complicated The meat and potatoes is of course the final encounter which is really catch 22 So yeah weakest of the four but how about that neat orange cover!
Great review. Probably out of scope of these module reviews but would love your thoughts of the slavers series in the context of Greyhawk campaign world specifically: are the Slave Lords’ activities limited to Wild Coast and Pomarj? What plot hooks work best to incorporate the series into a Greyhawk campaign? What should be the consequences if a party ignores the Slave Lords and lets them operate unchecked for 4-5 game years while they adventure elsewhere?
what do you like better : a game that has simple character creation rules (less time and work) or another that has intrincate character creation rules (more time and work) integrated into a first introductory session of play?
The whole series has great ideas that make for terrible campaign-style gaming. As you said, they were originally designed for tournament play and have a lot non-choices and linearity. Still great modules, but really need to be re-edited by a GM using them for campaign play. Or just steal the ideas in them. Looking forward to your commentary on Dungeons of the Slave Lords. I always liked that one, lots more frustrating design choices made to enable tournament play, but a lot of fun ideas, too.
It is certainly the weakest of the four A modules - I have no problem with it being a railroad to A4, the trope of the no way out trap at the end just as the players think they are going to face off with the slave lords is a cinematic enough trope to make it ejoyable - but the journey that is weak. If the players are involved in a struggle to find the slave lords, by using the resources in Suderham, believing they will be able to kill them, then everyone has fun getting there, its just A3 is too much about walking through white goo, not enough about using their wits to find their final enemy.
Overall I love the Slave Lord Series. A1, A2 and A4 are excellent adventures. However, A3 is total crap on almost every level. First of all, it has a completely different vibe than the other three modules. Take a very close look and you will notice that the text layout is different from the other three adventures. The maps for A1, A2 and A4 are beautifully drawn, while those for A3 look completely amateurish. The dungeons in A1, A2 and A4 are well thought out and despite being for tournaments at least make sense. The dungeons for A3 are atrociously stupid. Even the layout of the city of Suderheim is ridiculously simplistic. And why do the fabulously wealthy Slave Lords have their conference room in the sewers? This adventure made no sense. If I had to make a bet, I would guess that A3 was not part of the original series. It was probably slapped together and shoehorned in at the last minute for the sole purpose of explaining how the characters wind up in the caverns of A4.
