Friday, September 23, 2011

D&D Modules: Read, Never Played

I've never really played in actual classic D&D modules. Much of what I played in during my time in Beresford were homebrew settings and dungeons; my familiarity with the D&D and AD&D modules is primarily due to me collecting them and reading them!

Which modules did I want to play in?

Interestingly enough, the first module I wanted to play in -- not for the dungeon but for the home base -- was T1: The Village of Hommlet. There's something about the mix of potential allies, outright villains, and a dash of interesting characters here and there. It makes returning to your base of operations and hanging out there just as interesting as the outright adventure. Well, in this case, more so than the actual adventure.

X1: The Isle of Dread was another one. The idea of an unexplored island, mixed with the need to explore, mixed with some genuinely interesting creatures to encounter and maybe overcome -- magic. It really triggers that thrill of exploration and sense of wonder.

X2: Chateau d'Amberville was yet another one. It was able to evoke a sense of weirdness and horror in a large, yet enclosed space filled with unusual dangers that allow the player to slowly piece together what happened to the strange inhabitants of the chateau -- hopefully dropping them enough clues to figure out what to do to escape.

I wanted to try out classics like the Against the Giants series which segues in the Vault of the Drow. But I was never able to get all of the modules together in my gaming youth.

There were some that I wanted to try more out of curiosity -- the killer dungeons like White Plume Mountain and Tomb of Horrors.

I'm sure that there are others I've forgotten, but I'll post more as I remember them.




2 comments:

  1. I haven't played a lot of the classic modules either. If my memory serves the list is: the entire Slave Lords series, Descent into the Depths, and maybe Temple of Elemental Evil.

    I've also played Land Beyond the Magic Mirror but I don't know that that would be considered a classic.

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  2. Wow, A1 through A4? I wanted to try those out as well. I'll admit being more attracted to the covers than anything else, but growning up I couldn't find A1 I think and because I didn't have a full grasp of how D&D worked I didn't want to start "mid-series".

    Furthermore, I tended to go for low-level / B/X modules because no character (mine or others) was high enough yet.

    How did A1 through A4 play?

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That's my side of things. Let me know what you think, my friend.