Last night was a pretty goofy time in the World of Cinder, but that post will have to wait. As I was leaving the Armored Gopher I bumped into a fellow named Dane. He was looking for advice on starting a new 2nd edition AD&D campaign. He's never DM'ed before and most of his player pool has never played before. I gave Dane as much general advice as I could cram into the twenty minutes or so we talked, mostly focussing on getting his players to interact with the imaginative environment first and the rules second.
One question I felt underqualified helping Dane with was the selection of a starting module. He'd really like the assistance a good intro module gives a first-time DM, but I don't know much about the range of available 2nd edition adventures. I could lend Dane my Keep on the Borderlands and/or Village of Hommlet, but I thought I'd first ask all you nice Gameblog readers for advice. Is there a good starting adventure made specifically for 2nd edition? Better yet, is there one somewhere on the internet? I don't want to send an enthusiastic newbie off to eBay to scour for old stuff if there are handier options available.
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As a player and supporter of 2E (we started playing in 1979, bought the new rulebooks when they came out, said "hey, this has all our house rules incorporated in!", and never went back to 1E) I will admit that one thing that was never done well was modules (TSR spent all their time on Forgotten Realms supporting material). However, a resource exists that is as useful if not superior to a lot of the classic 1E/D&D intro adventures: Dungeon magazine. The dirty little secret here is that ALL the best 2E adventures were in Dungeon mag, which had an incredible run of both quality and quantity for about a decade from #18-#81 or so; issues before that were 1E, issues afterwards were 3E.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion, instead of willy nilly purchasing older mags in hope of getting a low level gem, is to look for two not-so-hard to find publications: Road to Danger and Dungeons of Despair, both collections of six low-level, introductory 2E adventures previously published in Dungeon mag. There isn't a bum adventure in the bunch, and several are better than average.
They could also try the "Return to Keep on the Borderlands", part of the 25th anniversary "Return to" releases. I recently ran it (heavily modified) but it's the same old goodness just statted up for 2E.
Any of these mentioned can easily be found on Ebay (I was going to say you could download them for a small fee from Drivethru but....sigh...)
There really weren't that many 2E modules produced that weren't very setting specific. For instance, I loved running "Freedom", but outside of Darksun, that adventure is fairly useless.
ReplyDeleteOld Dungeon Magazines are the way to go. In my opinion, Dungeon's heyday was the first 80 or so issues, that is, late 1E through 2E.
Dungeon #53 had a great, great 1st level adventure by Willie Walsh, called "Clarshh's Sepulchre." Aside from the Arcane (the Spelljammer race) that hires the party, that adventure requires very little adaptation to drop it into a campaign.
Of course, it's not available in PDF form any more. And it certainly, certainly isn't available in RTF/GIF format here.Certainly not available there.
Just make sure when he's looking for a follow-up (2nd level and up) adventure, you steer him away from N2 The Forest Oracle.
ReplyDeleteBadmike is absolutely right. All the best 2nd edition modules, for the most part, are in Dungeon Magazine, though there are a few real stinkers in there too.
ReplyDeleteCan't recommend Dungeons of Despair and Road to Danger highly enough. They're pretty much, in my view, a low level campaign right in two magazine sized books. A dozen or so very entertaining modules, though you'll have to fiddle with some of them in some ways.
I will not recommend Return to the Keep on the Borderlands since I feel it really doesn't live up to the real Keep in the Borderlands module. That could easily, with almost no effort, become a 2nd edition module that will last through a dozen or more game sessions, and it's relatively simple in terms of its expectations.
For starting, 1st level characters, I'd also recommend T1 (or T1-4 if you prefer) as well as L1 and L2 (the Lendor Isle series). First edition modules, yes, but nothing in there that actually changed between editions except perhaps spell selections and truly excellent modules.
As far as 2nd edition specific modules, well, for the most part the published modules were all stinko. They were hackneyed flops, or were exercises in storytelling half the time. Some, though, were quite good. For a mid-level mini-campaign, I can't recommend highly enough a pair of Ravenloft Modules crammed together, Feast of Goblyns and Castles Forlorn. I'm going through them as a player, so I don't know a whole lot about the insides, but I can tell you that they're a great deal of fun with some of the hokey elements excised according to our DM.
The 2nd edition Greyhawk Slavers module (don't ask me the title, I've forgotten) isn't bad for what it is if you want Greyhawk. The first third of Temple, Tower, Tomb is very nice as well, but is very high level. Could be adaptable to lower levels, however, without too much trouble, though for a completely raw DM, I might leave that by the wayside.
If I had to recommend very specifically a Dungeon Magazine to use, it'd be #10, the adventure with the towers in it. Very good frame adventure for an entire campaign of gigantic proportions and very little futzing required.
Ashtar´s Temple is awesome.
ReplyDeleteShoot me an eMail, I can give you directions on where to get hold of it.
Ashtar´s Temple is in issue 81 of Dragon Mag, and there are three other low level modules inside, so it´s a very good place to start.
ReplyDeleteI´d harshly advise AGAINST 1e modules for several reasons.
Hamlet said...
ReplyDelete"Can't recommend Dungeons of Despair and Road to Danger highly enough. They're pretty much, in my view, a low level campaign right in two magazine sized books. A dozen or so very entertaining modules, though you'll have to fiddle with some of them in some ways."
Also forgot that perhaps "Haunted Halls of Eveningstar" is a somewhat under-rated selection. The adventure itself is somewhat uneven (there is a mummy there, but surely low level characters need to learn how to RUN, right?)and there is far too many magical items floating around, but it includes a village base and several other helpful suggestions by one Ed Greenwood. The dungeon itself is a fun mish-mash of stuff that can easily be expanded on with random tables.
"I will not recommend Return to the Keep on the Borderlands since I feel it really doesn't live up to the real Keep in the Borderlands module. That could easily, with almost no effort, become a 2nd edition module that will last through a dozen or more game sessions, and it's relatively simple in terms of its expectations."
The "Return" version is a good counterpart to the "real" version, as it has everyone statted for 2E. Use the original, and just 'port over the 2E versions from the "Return" module to save time.
"If I had to recommend very specifically a Dungeon Magazine to use, it'd be #10, the adventure with the towers in it. Very good frame adventure for an entire campaign of gigantic proportions and very little futzing required."
"Secret of the Towers" has one of my all-time favorite adventure hooks. This kind of goodness was why Dungeon mag was and is such a great resource!
How about S&W's "Tomb of the Iron God"?
ReplyDeleteBadmike speaks truth about Dungeon Magazine; pretty much every sparkle of great adventure-writing for AD&D2 is to be found there.
ReplyDeleteMy very favorite AD&D2 campaign (as a player, anyway) was one my buddy Dan cooked up entirely from Dungeon Magazine modules, hopping us from adventure to adventure as our levels crawled upward. The sheer variety of it (every adventure had its own memorable tone and character) was a real tonic at the time; we'd done a couple of "epic" campaigns which were insufficiently episodic and marred a bit by exhausting self-similarity. Dan wanted to avoid that and get us back to a fresher campaign energy and, boy howdy.
Badmike said "They could also try the "Return to Keep on the Borderlands", part of the 25th anniversary "Return to" releases. I recently ran it (heavily modified) but it's the same old goodness just statted up for 2E." Has two of my favorite low level monsters the "Skeltor" and "Zombrie" low level undead spell casters!
ReplyDeleteSettembrini, why would 1st edition AD&D modules be a bad choice for Dane?
ReplyDeleteI rather liked N5, Under Illefarn, even though I suspect it may be 1E.
ReplyDeleteAlso, even though it says it's Forgotten Realms, I recall it being rather setting independent. You could stick the village of Daggerford anywhere in a campaign world.
Wow! Thank you all for helping Jeff help me. It gives me somewhere to start with. I think I'll use Goodman Games' Points of Light and stuff some of these dungeons / adventures in. Hopefully that will give me enough to get started on without getting overwhelmed.
ReplyDeleteBy the by - if you have anything more to add please chime in!
Points of Light is a great choice. No bias involved since Rob wrote and had the pleasure of editing it. You have great maps and tons of information to develop adventure ideas. And the lands are large enough to keep a campaign going for a while. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteSounds like everybody else has covered it well. Technically, second edition is designed so that first edition adventures are almost perfectly compatible, but any one of the above options will be a fine introduction.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the business Dane, and I hope you have a lot of fun with Points of Light.
ReplyDeleteWith everyone else here on the glorious times had with 2e modules. First game I played 2e-wise (not DMing) was a friend's game mostly using modules... and to date still my favorite game :).
ReplyDeleteSlainte,
-Loonook
The Keep on the Borderlands, original version with “Wizard” logo. No matter the edition of (A)D&D, it’s the perfect intro to the game for DM and players alike.
ReplyDeleteIf you go to www.dragonsfoot.org you can find some free AD&D adventures to download. My playing tends towards Basic, so I've never used any of them, but they are free so check 'em out if you have time.
ReplyDelete