SPOILER ALERT: This post is going to describe the five adventures that my D&D group played between 1987 and 1988. Spoilers will be revealed. So, if you have not yet played these modules, and if you think that you might want to play them some day (and I do encourage you to play them), then you should skip this post. You have been warned.
B2 – The Keep on the Borderlands
In spite of the fact that our group switched from Basic D&D to Advanced D&D almost immediately, our first adventure was still the introductory module included with my original boxed set, B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. Technically, the monster stats between the two systems were different, but not by very much. For example, due to differences in armor classes, some D&D monsters were 5% easier to hit than their AD&D counterparts. However, character attack bonus due to Strength was usually 5% worse in AD&D, plus the damage bonus was usually less as well. So it usually balanced out.
However, one thing that made AD&D characters generally more powerful than their D&D counterparts was that AD&D clerics were able to cast spells at first level, which meant we had access to healing spells right away. Plus, when characters were brought to zero hit points (hp) in AD&D, they fell unconscious and bled out to -10 hp before dying, unlike D&D where zero meant dead. This powerful combination of rules from AD&D meant that our party did not fear death as much as our D&D counterparts would have. Therefore, we were able to run around the in the Caves of Chaos like murder hobos with minor impunity, which was definitely a fun experience for our first adventure.
N4 – Treasure Hunt
By the time we completed The Keep on the Borderlands, we were looking forward to playing something more interesting than another basic dungeon crawl, and I had already found N4 Treasure Hunt at a local book store. If I remember correctly, this was the adventure we added a new friend to our group (Gisele), and I think this was my first attempt at DMing. I can’t remember if I was any good or not, but I’m sure I thought I sucked at the time. Someday, I might have to ask the rest of the group if they remember what they thought.
Anyway, I always thought Treasure Hunt was a horrible title for this adventure because it didn’t have anything to do with the characters hunting for treasure. Okay, technically, the only reason the bad guys existed in this adventure was because they were hunting for treasure, so I guess the title made some sense, but still…meh. I think a better title would have been “A Cruel Twist of Fate,” which comes directly from the summary text on the back cover.
Although the title might have been weak, the adventure itself was definitely unique. Instead of starting as Level 1 adventurers, the characters started as Level 0 commoners who were immediately shipwrecked on an island, and they had a limited amount of time to acquire resources and find a way off the island. Actions taken by each character during the course of the adventure would dictate what class the character should choose after reaching Level 1. For example, if a character spent most of the adventure wearing the heaviest armor while using the heaviest weapons to bash bad guys in the face, then that character would be a fighter by the end of the adventure. On the other hand, if a character spent most of the adventure eschewing armor and heavy weapons in favor of a dagger, a wand, or a luckily found spell book, then that character would be a magic-user by the end of the adventure. And so on. Although this module was never as brutal as modern zero-level funnels made infamous by the default Dungeon Crawl Classics character generation process, this was still the first ever adventure module that started characters at Level 0 (as far as I know) and I was excited to explore this mechanic.
One cool thing about Treasure Hunt was that it was really easy for the characters to eventually lose track of how much time they had left to escape the island. This gave the DM a lot of leeway to fudge the exact timing at the very end of the adventure in order to create a cinematic finale. Do the characters pause their escape to deal with the group of enemies that just came around the final corner, thus creating a chance to fail getting off the island in time? Or do the character make a death-defying dive across the finish line while the final enemies fire arrows at them? There were some exciting options here.
UK5 – Eye of the Serpent
I am certain that Bill took over DM duty for our next adventure because 1) I distinctly remember playing a monk, and 2) this adventure marked the first character death for our group.
Transitioning from our previous adventure was very easy. After dropping off a non-player character (NPC) that was rescued during Treasure Hunt, the opening sequence of UK5 Eye of the Serpent had our party scooped up by a pair of rocs and deposited in a nest at the top of Hardway Mountain. The rest of the adventure basically followed our characters getting off the mountain.
The first half of the mountain felt tougher than we had experienced up to that point. We encountered a snow lion with three attacks per round that could be particularly deadly to whichever character it chose to attack. Ghoul paralysis is always nasty, even if there is only one of them. Different mephits along the way meant this was our first time dealing with saving throws versus breath weapons with any regularity. And a newly hatched remorhaz had an armor class of 0 which was fairly hard to hit. Still, we were surviving pretty well until the last encounter on the mountain.
We were probably still licking our wounds from a previous encounter with some bullywugs and their pet. That is when we rounded a corner to find a bunch of kobolds rushing out of a cave. Someone inside the cave barked some orders and the kobolds attacked. After defeating the kobolds, we probably should have backed off a bit in order to recover some hit points, but I don’t think we did. Instead, we pressed our way into the cave to find a gnoll armed with a bow and a battle axe. As long as we kept our distance, he was just going to keep shooting at us. Therefore, I decided to get up in his grill so he would switch to melee. Was this a good idea? Well, my monk had a high dexterity which made him fairly hard to hit, and I think I had the most hp remaining at the time. So, I figured that if I could buy the rest of the party a little time, they could heal up, tag me out, and finish off the gnoll. Unfortunately, per the module, the gnoll had two attacks per round with its 1d8 battle axe, and he got really lucky on both hits. I remember Bill looking up from his dice saying, “Dude, I’m sorry.” And I was like, “Dude, it’s fine.” I knew what I was getting into. And yes, we said “dude” a lot back then. Deal with it.
By the time the party finished off the gnoll, I had bled out and died, but I was fine with that. It still felt like such a heroic, cinematic moment, y’know? But I think Bill felt really bad, so he quickly flipped through Deities & Demigods and had my deity materialize in the cave to resurrect me. It was cool and all, and I truly appreciated the gesture. I think I received a +1 to AC amulet out of the deal, too. But by the time we finished the adventure, I found it hard to love this character as much as I did before because it kind of felt like I cheated. *shrug*
DL1 Dragons of Despair
Up to this point, I had been voraciously reading the Dragonlance trilogy and loving it, so I thought it might have been fun to play through the DL1 Dragons of Despair adventure module. It would give me a chance to try DMing again with a story that I knew very well, and it would give the group a chance to see what playing slightly higher level characters felt like. Plus, by this time, my little sister (Danielle) had joined our group, so we had enough players to fill all of the main characters from the book. Although I don’t remember who played every character, I do remember that Tony was keen to play Raistlin, the magic-user with a bit of evil tendency, and Bill played Tasslehoff Burrfoot, the lovable kender, which was basically like playing a halfling with insatiable curiosity and attention deficit disorder.
Midway through the adventure, the black dragon made its first appearance, and it was a scary encounter for everyone including me. I had never played anything as powerful as a dragon before, and I didn’t want to accidentally kill anyone. Darkness and fear, followed by magic missile, sleep, and two passes with its acid breath…thankfully the dragon was then scripted to dive back into its lair. But it had definitely made an impact.
During the second half of the adventure, I don’t remember if Raistlin ever needed to charm any of the gully dwarves, but if I remember correctly, I think I named one of them Bupu and had her fall in love with Tony’s character anyway because it was funny. During the finale, I think the final dragon fight was a bit easier than expected, but it was still cinematic. Unfortunately, since we were playing with the pre-generated characters from the book, I don’t think the players felt as much attachment to them as I did from reading the books. Plus, I was still not quite comfortable in the DM chair. So by the end, although I think it was mostly a fun adventure, everyone was ready to move on to something else, and I was ready to pass the reigns back to Bill.
N3 – Destiny of Kings
We had recently added Unearthed Arcana to our set of rule books, and I was interested in playing a paladin as a sub-class of cavalier instead of a sub-class of fighter, complete with all the pros and inconvenient cons associated with chivalry and lawful goodness (often affectionately referred to as lawful stupid). I don’t remember all of the other characters that my friends played, but I do remember the character Danielle played…Dagmar, a human female barbarian. I also remember that we had added a new stat that was introduced in Unearthed Arcana, comeliness. Where charisma was about force of personality and leadership, comeliness was purely about physical attractiveness (which, looking back, was a stupid stat, but it was the 80s, and I was young and stupid and thought it was cool). Dagmar ended up with a very high strength, a fairly low intelligence, and a very high comeliness, so…built like a tank, dumb like a rock, but gorgeous as hell. I remember Bill and I thought this combo was very funny.
The adventure module we played was N3 Destiny of Kings which, by today’s standard, had a kind of Game of Thrones feel to it (minus the dragons, sex, and white walkers). The good king had just been killed in a hunting accident. The royal prince was away on a holy pilgrimage, his whereabouts unknown. The prince’s uncle was making a play for the throne. The characters needed to find the prince and return him safely to the kingdom in time for his coronation. All very exciting stuff for a paladin knight, but there were many quandaries too. For instance, if the party had decided to sneak into an area, I would be like, “Paladins don’t sneak! We boldly charge into the fray because might is right, and honor, and so forth!” So it was challenge to figure out how to square that circle.
When we finally found the prince, I remember telling him that the king was dead, his uncle was trying to seize the throne, and that we had to get him back to the kingdom as soon as possible. But the prince, stunned to find out that his father had died, just slumped onto his cot in sadness. I was like, “Your Highness, we have to go!” It was then that Suzanne’s character ripped my character a new asshole. She actually yelled at me, “You just told him his father died. You need to back the hell off and give him some time!” I actually felt my face flush, and I suddenly felt uncomfortably hot. I was not quite sure if she was yelling at me, or if it was her character yelling at mine. So, I had the paladin storm out of the room to cool off outside. As Suzanne’s character lead the rest of the party through a rather tender role play encounter with the prince, it dawned on me that I had been playing the paladin so hardcore regarding honor and duty that he had become extremely prideful. But was that him, or was that me? Once I became aware of this, I knew I needed to make amends. And as a paladin, my character would be bound to do the same. So, after the scene played out, I had the paladin re-enter the room and apologize for his insensitive pride, first to the prince and then to the rest of the party, and ask forgiveness. For me, it was a really powerful scene that blurred the lines between player and character.
The final remarkable event, as I remember it, was the encounter at Barbarian Bridge. While escorting the prince back to the kingdom, our progress was blocked by a dark rider and his four henchmen. To cross the river, one of our party had to agree to a joust across the bridge. The winning side would be allowed to proceed, and losing side would withdraw. Naturally my paladin agreed to the terms, but none of us expected the other side to actually honor the agreement. On the first pass, my paladin’s lance shattered! Having no spare lance, he drew his sword and made for a second pass. But since a mounted combatant with a sword could not hit a mounted combatant with a lance, he soon found himself unhorsed by his opponent. Injured but undeterred, he stood his ground in the center of the bridge. Apparently, an unmounted combatant with a sword can, in fact, hit a mounted combatant with a lance, so after a lucky roll or two, the dark rider found himself unhorsed as well. Our contest continued on foot. A couple rounds later, the paladin vanquished the dark rider, though he was grievously wounded in the exchange. As expected, the four henchmen charged onto the bridge, and with a thunderous yell so did the rest of my party. Knowing that 1) he would not survive further combat, 2) these henchmen had no honor, 3) his party was going to destroy their cheating asses, and 4) he had a responsibility to survive in order to uphold his oath to protect the prince, the paladin fell to his knees exhausted, then removed himself from the rest of the fight by rolling off the bridge into the water below. Miraculously he survived. The party destroyed the bad guys, and the rest of the adventure was fairly uneventful. The prince was crowned king, and we all lived happily ever after.