I've seen a few countdown videos about people's favorite RPG adventures, and I decided it was time I did one of my own. I'm going to limit this to TSR products, so no 3rd edition adventures; those would be discussed on my other blog anyway. So, these are old-school adventures, starting with the very first D&D adventure I ever played in.
Old-school gamers are looking at this like, 'that's where you started?!' Yes, it is. When I was twelve, my parents decided I need to get a (social) life. My father heard about a Dungeons & Dragons club at the local library. Despite my lack of interest in a social life, he brought me to the library and got directions to the room where the club was meeting. Turns out it was just one small group of players, a couple of whom I knew from school; the others were much older, being in high school and clearly far more wise and experienced than I was.
So, this was in 1982. The 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide was on the table, and old-school gamers know that there is a section in that book that talks about introducing new players to the game by giving them a separate adventure where they can learn the basics as a low-level character. This was not how I was introduced to the game. Instead, I was handed a small strip of paper that had been cut out of a book that had some arcane writing on it. I reproduce it below:
Any old-schoolers recognize that? Fortunately, they at least took the time to write out what the various numbers meant: Lvl, S, I, W, D, C, Ch, Align, AC, HP, and Move. Perfectly clear to the neophyte gamer, right? I had absolutely no clue what I was doing there. And as you might guess by the picture at the top of this post, we were in the buried spaceship underneath the Barrier Peaks. Yes, my very first experience in fantasy role-playing was in a science-fiction spaceship. I love the 80s so much.
So, what do I remember about this? Not a lot; as I said, I had no clue what we were doing. I had never seen a rulebook. I had never seen any dice that weren't six-sided. And they didn't really give me much to work with. I do remember the vegepygmies and the lasers. The library did have a copy of the old Moldvay Basic rulebook on hand, but the group (who were, as I mentioned, much older and wiser) told me that wasn't the 'real' rules. After all, they were playing Advanced D&D. Well, I was a beginner, so I borrowed the Basic book from the library and read through it in a couple of days. It was absolutely fascinating, although I didn't see any vegepygmies in there, nor did I see any laser pistols. Still, it was amazing, and set me on a life-long journey of fantastic adventure and imagination.
So, why is this module on my list? Because it was the first. And I found a copy of it in a pawn shop in Charlottetown last summer, so of course I had to get it. It's the only 1st edition product I currently own. But it is a wild ride of an adventure regardless of my own nostalgia. There's not a lot of treasure in there, certainly not in comparison with other high-level adventures of that era. In fact, there is not a single magic item within. That's not surprising, since it is a long-buried spaceship, after all. But the monsters...oh, the monsters within. Aside from the vegepygmies, this module also introduced the aurumvorax, bloodthorn, choke creeper, forester's bane, froghemoth, russet mold, brown pudding, squealer, tri-flower frond, twilight bloom, webbird, and the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. All of these would eventually be included in the Monster Manual II. More than half of these are plant monsters, which is pretty cool. After all, when even the local flora are hostile, it's definitely a wild adventure location.
Oh, and that character up above that I had no idea how to play? He's from the G-series of modules, appearing as one of the pre-generated characters for the original tournament. And as silly as the name is, don't blame me; I just played him.
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