RPG Retro Review:The Lost City 

Back in 'the day' (1980's) most AD&D players and DMs scoffed at Basic D&D; and I was one of them. Our DM sprang this module on us but he kept everything hidden. We thought it was his original ideas and when we finally exited the main pyramid he showed us the module sleeve.

Agreed. I played this module several times back in the day and still remember it fondly. Now at 53 I intend to introduce it to my grand kids who have taken up AD&D and take them through it later this year. These old well written modules are timeless.

Trigger warning! If you played D&D in the 80’s these module videos bring out the awesome nostalgia and wishing I kept these modules. I think I owned almost all Captain reviewed. 😊

This was a fun module. I ran it in the 80s. I made up the entire underground city. One of the characters got hooked up with one of the warrior maidens who became a normal fighter character in the party. After running it all, they left the desert and ended up in Loftwick in the Yeomanry (Greyhawk world) and began Against the Giants...

I don't know why people waste their time with those Jonny Come Lately review channels when there's this fine service here. It's a shame really.

This is my personal favorite module. I've run it multiple times for many groups, most of which were brand new to D&D of any edition and to role playing as a concept. It has always gone over amazingly well. I once ran it for a group in a drug rehab program as a distraction from everything else going on, and it was a major hit. Highly recommend both for newcomers and for experienced players alike

Nicely done! I can't wait to receive the Goodman Games version. And I will definitely be looking into Elder Evils and the Dungeon magazine #142. Great suggestion! Thanks for the video.

You should review Night's Dark Terror. It is considered one of the best modules and if you haven't played it, you should!

I think this is the module where we ran bad guys and my evil Cleric, Hashem the Smoked, just took over a bunch of Zombies to send forward as trap detectors.

I never got to play this one, and likely never will, BUT the fact that it's being re-released by Goodman Games means that I might be able to run it in 5th edition at work someday! (My co-workers wanted me to start running a lunch time D&D game, right before the pandemic hit, so we haven't had a chance to start it yet...)

This is being released next month as the 4th in the series of hardcover books that repurpose these classic modules for 5e.

Thank you for the review. I never played this one (I'm 1st Edition AD&D follower) but recall reading it many years ago, and enjoyed it. If I may suggest, all of the 1st Ed. UK modules were awesome (with story, sometimes time-is-of-the-essence scenarios, multiple locations and great maps), so I hope you get to those at some point. I'll keep watching in the meantime. ;)

LOVE your videos! Please, please never change your into music. When I've got my auto RU-vid subscriptions playlist going, it's my queue to jump in front of the screen and watch.

I day dreamed looking at this art for hours when I was a kid.

Great review as always. Try looking at Dragon Magazine 315 and it adds more depth to the city.

Brother, you dont ever have to explain why you do the things you do. If they dont like, they don't have to watch.

The concept is brilliant, and why this is still one of the greatest modules ever produced. I did not care for its Monster Motel treatment that most adventures were guilty of at the time, so I pulled it apart to add verisimilitude to it. Factions and desert creatures in the upper levels, undead in the center, and a very Lovecraftian rewrite for Zargon's lower levels. The city is a campaign setting, if you want to apply the time and energy. I added a lot of Underdark. I had to; I'd really bumped up Zargon, and the PCs needed levels to deal with the undead if they were going to retrieve Ozymandias' sword and the artifacts needed to deal with the horrors they were about to face. Oh yeah, I stripped the Known World/Mystara from it, as I set it in Greyhawk. Lots of work. Tons of work. Did it pay off? Only to my sense of satisfaction. The players I had would have preferred the Monte Hall/Monster Motel. That said: I love this module. I cannot stress that enough.

I'd give Style at least a 17 or 18, that cover has always been one of my favorites. I've never run the adventure, but I did get to play in it for a few sessions-we didn't get as far as the bottom of the pyramid, alas.

Did you ever play TMNT down under after the bomb RPG? It was quite fun. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutants_Down_Under

Just found this. In '82 my cousins taught me how to play and bought this and Palace of the Silver Princess for my birthday. Currently converting it over to Pathfinder as a side game. Thanks for the review.

2nd module i ever ran as a DM. I remember my cousin having a complete meltdown/cursing the world of D&D after getting Paralyzed by a giant killer bee or something like. Had a blast running this though despite that hiccup. Had a great amount of roleplay and hack n slash. It satisfied my whole party.

Our new DM loved running this. We were an unlikely group for the diplomacy needed to thrive in this module. There always seemed to be one party member who disqualified us from membership in one of the factions. Our DM was delighted with all the bizarre denizens of the ziggurat.

Don't recall you mentioning it in the video, maybe I missed it, but not sure if you were aware and prolly should have some kind of warning to those looking to buy the original physical copy.(not sure if this applies to any of the PDFs for sale, definitely was an issue trying to 'obtain' a pdf before they sold them in the 00s) there is MULTIPLE versions of this module, and latter printings did NOT contain the stuff for the lost city or the additional tiers of the pyramid. So just a warning for anyone wanting an original copy to not get scammed into getting less then you expected, do the research to figure out the differences.

I just got my copy of Goodman Game's OAR#4 The Lost City, which includes the original module along with a new 5e update to the adventure (as all of the OAR adventure series do). I never played this as a kid even though I have played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons as a teen and later on.

Although it's perhaps unfair to compare Lost City directly to modules developed the previous decade, I find it so much cooler than B1 or B2 and wish it could have been the Moldvay Basic pack-in so that millions more gamers could have been exposed to it.

This is one of those modules that I really liked the concept, but never played. By the time I purchased it, my players were always going off script and traveling the world looking more for random encounters and gold. They became monster hunters more than adventures. This went on for years. It all started with The Isle of Dread....after traveling back and forth from the island a couple times, they started sailing every were on the map...and they stayed away from deserts, preferring to sail, they even contemplated becoming pirates. So my copy is pretty much in mint condition....I bagged and boarded all of my modules back in the day. You can seriously tell which ones I used. I ended up with two copies of The Isle of Dread because I wore out the first copy, and I have three copies of Slavers of the Undercity, because I wore out one, bought a second copy, and then bought the third copy about ten years ago for five bucks. You know you are a collector when.....

I find it very difficult to read pdfs - print is much better. Also, some pdfs seem to just be scanned rather OCR and then scalable fonts used. On the other hand, some printed copies of old modules are pretty awful. I didn't care as a lad, but I look now at old editions, and see the smudged printing or the weird wonkiness of some pages, and that was fine back then but it irritates me now. I wish there was a print on demand service locally that did larger fonts for fading vision.

*The Tier 3 map at the **7:24** mark reminds me of the rotating room with multiple doors at the Ministry of Magic, from the book, Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix, the one where Hermione had to magically mark one of the doors in order to retain a sense of orientation... It makes you wonder if J.K. Rowling ever played through B4... Hmmm...*

I know it's an old video, but I have some good news. A POD version is now available on Drivethrurpg in standard color.

My all time favorite module!!! R.I.P. Phillip the Dwarf. "I doubt they would trap the entrance."

Great review! I forgot how well this module was written.

Now we know the true origin of the name of that racist rightwing RU-vidr "Sargon of Akkad".

This is one of the few modules I prepped to play and the rest of my gaming group backed down - not interested because it was "basic" - hopefully now they have an idea of what they were missing. Good review!

By the Gods - You wish people had the creativity to write adventures this awesome now - a - days... Excellent literature and gaming.

Great and informative review. I started playing the year this was released, but I've never played in it. I am anxious to give it a try.

Awesome. I've had this module since the 80s. Don't remember if I ever played it. Now I want to.

I do not remember this one. But it reminds me of a Conan short story. I don't know if this idea is on the list suggestions, but how about the pc's are actually from the city? Maybe, they are selected to explore the outside. Or maybe, they want to leave, and are forbidden. Or maybe use it, as the pc's are in one or more of the factions, and you turn the game into deals, double crosses, betrayals and such. Good review.

My favorite classic B/X module. Great deep-dive, Capt.

My very first D&D purchases was the Red Box and this. It's the very first adventure I ever ran with a couple buddies. Of course I had no idea what I was doing so it was a total murder-hobo crawl, where I'm sure I had half the rules wrong, but a great time was had and many many adventures followed to this day. I'll always have a soft spot for this module and I'll be picking up the Goodman release for sure. Love Jim Holloway's work in here.

KEEP IT COMING

Wow! What a great review. We miss these old modules. Thank you so much for you hard work and pointing us to the 5E conversion of these old classics. Great channel.

It’s okay to review bad campaign 🤷🏾‍♂️

very fun adventure. I still have my print copy, that was the first module that I've dm'd. Nice review, keep up the good work!

Great review. This was the first experience I had in dnd, Played a half orc monk that I played like a bar room bouncer. I forget the exact level. We played this with 3.5e rules. It was nice having a creepy cavern place with a friendly faction and a clear enemy for me to knock around. But he left out one of the 4 factions. I never figured out why.

It's inspired by "Red Nails", isn't it? nice :) :) :)

Sounds like a city you will stay in for years...........Join us Captain.

How about city state of the invinsable overlord

It sounds like Red Nails combined with Xuthal of the Dusk.

Fantastic mod! Can't wait for Goodman Games version to hit the streets!

This module is totally my bag baby. I would have scored style a bit higher but overall I agree with your rating. I love lost civilization settings. I give your review a 17, very good. 😊

6:14 Uh? Correction. The Module does state (on page 24): "All of the factions have their own secret entrances to the pyramid (not shown)."

All hail Zargon! T-shirts must be made! Lol!

I played this module with AD&D. I placed the Lost City at the center of The Isle of Dread. It replaces the tribes in the crater of the Isle Of Dread (those tribes are moved out to the rim of the Island). The Monster in charge of the city is the leader of a cabal of Mindflares. Their civilization was destroyed when they accidentally opened a "time portal" to the World Of Greyhawk's "jurassic period" which began to dispense dinosaurs and even dragons around the island. The "time portal" moves like a storm surrounded by swirling mists (think of the movie The Mist) and the PCs can encounter this storm. This explains how the island was overrun by dinosaurs after this master race built their civilization on it. TODAY, I would actually start with the Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh and place the last modules of that series on the outer islands of The Isle Of Dread. From there, the PCs would discover the island itself (and be of high enough level to survive it).

This one was always my favorite as it was the first module I purchased after getting into D&D.

Really liked this video and since discovering your channel i have been almost binge watching your reviews and thoughts. You do a great job and I truly appreciate the depth you go into each topic. Thank you for all your hard work. This may have been asked before, but since I'm very new to the channel i thought i would ask. Do you ever review 3rd party modules? While some of them weren't all that great, i remember (in a good way) several adventures from Judges Guild, including The Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia. Any chance you might review those someday?

Ahhhhhh THIS module brings back overall, quite fond memories!! Thank you for reviewing this!!!!

Hey Capt., always enjoy your videos. Sorry if from time to time I exspress my opinion in a negative manner. I know you work very hard in life and for your channel. Hopefully in the future when i have more money, i can pay you back for all the endless hours of fun and entertainment. I have a question for you Capt. do you think you will ever do some 3e modules in the future. I guess they flooded the market with modules back in that day. But some really good modules came out of all that. Kurishan's Garden was one of my favorites from that edition. Thanks Capt. & have a great day.

Would you mind doing B* "Journey to the Rock"? This was my first written adventure and one of my favourites.

My team built this module in Minecraft which took months to complete. Once built it really made the true size feeling how huge it was.

Thanks for posting this. I had fun watching this and remembering my own run through it.

One of the very best. Although not billed as an instructional module, the stepped pyramid made for an excellent introduction to exploration, with increasingly detailed and complex environments to be navigated with each level of descent. The factions presented interactive possibilities that were largely absent from previous entries in the B series. Great stuff, and an excellent review.

June 15th... Marked it in my diary. 👍

I prefer it when you review them like this without going in depth about how you would change them. Those can be follow up spoiler tagged videos.

Great points on your time put into the vids. Love your work.

Zargon's stats in 3.5 are horrifying!! This could be a long running campaign

I have an original copy I bought when it was first released. It survived the time and my disastrous ex-wife.

First published adventure I ever GMed!

Thumbs up for Balthasar Gelt @5:23, can't wait for the HeroQuest video

The best module ever. GOAT

Hey Cpt, have you ever looked at I7, Baltron's Beacon...I ran this for my sons and their friends and they loved it.

always great.. thanks Cpt.

Any chance you could explain and review the world of grey hawk?

One way to explain the monster condo is that it’s a zoo a god kings menagerie. You could have zombie versions of the creatures that would have starved. The troll could have survived by eating himself same with the hydra. Suspended animation or temporal stasis is also an option. Some of the machinery could indicate higher levels of tech.just a thought. This module has potential if you check our HPL’s The Mound you could draw some inspiration from that

You do a great job Captain

One of my favorite modules as a kid back in the early 80s. Zargon is in my current 5E sandbox campaign that I DM...I also have some areas inspired by B4 in the sandbox.

La cité perdue... I'm so old now...

A lot of my players couldn't stand Basic, anything. The back-story for most basic modules were generally lacking. No (cultural) legends, "history" or genuine stories that mean anything. Quasi-hyperborea crap with Connan-esque wanna-be over tones. Just garbage!

the one module I ever got to play ~.~

Wonderful review!

I like the recent look at the B-series modules. BECMI is my current obsession. Your comment about how much was put in a 28 page module back then is amusing. Recently I ran the sandbox module Hot Springs Island as a B/X game with Old School Essentials for a group on line in a PbP game. After 1 week I found myself going through and chopping out content until I had just a frame work like "Isle of Dread". I think that Hot Springs Isle is a great game, well written, excellently laid out. But running it was like wearing someone else's shoes. I had a much better time when I just slashed it and took most of it as suggested campaign seeds. I guess what I am getting at is that I don't feel I need more that what you would find in this module to make a great game. I like a framework. I don't want a plot. I don't even want a dozen well written mini plots like HSI had. I take nothing away from a good writer but I want to run my game not theirs. Do you have a list of all of Tom Moldvey's D&D products? A last word , and this about your reviewing philosophy. Bravo. Ok a few more words. I respect that you are reviewing what you think is good to pass along. I hate to read or listen to a purely negative review. If a product isn't worth offering some positive offerings then don't waste my time with it. Also don't bash the efforts of others for malice or glee. You are above both of those things and I respect that. That is why I support you on Patreon and why I use your affiliate links. These are stressful times and seeing positive and a focus on good things is my preferences. I don't wish to ignore the ugliness of the world, but it is good to have a space for pleasures of the mind and some positive focus. Keep up the good work.

A good friend of mine was a TSR designer back in the late 70-early 80's. Mr. Garry Spiegle. He has sadly since passed through the veil and left us all poorer for his passing, but richer for his presence. He worked with other designers on the Companion rules, and he also designed a module to go along with high level play. It is called 'Death's Ride. The PDF is here. gobbi.free.fr/scenarii/CM2%20-%20Death%20Ride.pdf I would really love to see a review done of this great adventure. Thank you.

One of my favorite old school modules ! Thanks, so much, Cap' !!

This was the first adventure I ever played. It launched a near- 40 year hobby of RPGs.

One of my favs.

Gamed with Tom while I was in collage. Very creative guy. Able to build a large dungeon. Wish I was more aware of his background at the time. I would have asked more behind the scene details.

I still have a copy in very good shape. Currently, I am running a game based on the Isle of Dread with a version of Dwellers of the Forbidden City dropped into the central mountain. (I gently moved the original temple and village off to a nice(?) little volcanic islet in the surrounding ocean.) Who knows? The Lost City may well turn out to be under one of the cracked ziggurats in those streets.

This was my favorite module back in the day! B4 - The Lost City had great traps and forced great creativity with the small underground city. So great!!!

OMG!! this was the very first module I bought when it came out using my yardwork money. thanks for the review and memories captcorajus

Isometric and side-view maps are awesome, they really help the DM set the scene. Once I discovered them - in a Dragonlance adventure I think - I always favored adventure books that had them, and also created a lot of my own. They are particularly good for irregular or very vertical locations, like natural caves and towers.

I loved the original so much, I felt like I had to write this (7:56) as both a sort of homage, and to introduce folks to this absolute classic module.

Totally cleared it up! I got most of it from your comment last time and I appreciate the explanation! :D I love the way these old B and X series dungeons show examples for adventure design. "Keep on the Borderlands" introduces a home base/sandbox layout with on of my fav elements -- the rumor table. In this game we learn about dungeon delves layouts and factions. I think the B and X series adventures taught me a lot when I was first starting out -- stuff that sticks with me to this day when I make one myself.

I love that you're always able to find one or more aspects of a module I may have overlooked at some point over the years, and your videos are a fresh set of eyes. Thanks so much for sharing all of these with us! :)

First View, First Like, First Comment, woot! I am going to watch the video now :-)

Praise and a quibble: I played AD&D and I missed this back in the day, but it sounds fun! Thanks for this. I want to buy it! Also, much appreciated that you've put a lot stuff up the last few weeks! I love chilling late at night and listening to one of your reviews! Really helps in lockdown. Forgive me, and it's a minor quibble, but despite your explanation in this vid, I still think your ratings are way too high so it's difficult to appreciate which ones you like better than others!

I played this one nearly 40 years ago. It was FUN!

B4 is one of my all-time favorite modules.

*FIRST!!! Another cool video! Hell yes!!!*

Excellent channel, by the way!

This or Caverns of Thracia for the lost city trope.

Hey Sir can you review Journey to the rock?