Review: I6 Ravenloft

 For this October, I am going to focus on Dungeons & Dragons' own horror setting, Ravenloft. I am not going to review every Ravenloft product, nor am I planning on a review of every Ravenloft product I own, but I am going to focus on some select items. To that end I am starting with where it all started, the classic Ravenloft module, I6. 

I6 Ravenloft

by Tracy and Laura Hickman. Art by Clyde Caldwell. (1983). Color covers, black-white interior art. Cartography by Dave Sutherland. 32 Pages.

I have talked about this adventure a lot. It is one of my all-time favorite adventures. Maybe less for what it is and more for what it meant to me.

Ravenloft was originally an adventure for First Edition AD&D, released in 1983, and written by Tracy and Laura Hickman's husband-and-wife team. It was part of the "I" or intermediate series of adventures. Most of these were not linked and only shared that they were higher levels than beginning adventures. Ravenloft, given the code I6, was for character levels 5 to 7. 

Ravenloft is not your typical dungeon crawl, and it is very atypical of the time's adventures. There is less of the typical Howard, Moorcock, and Tolkien here, and it is pure Bram Stoker. 

Ravenloft is Gothic Horror—or, more to the point, it is the Hammer Horror flavor of Gothic Horror laid over the top of Dungeons & Dragons. Harker was a milder-mannered English solicitor. The heroes here have fought dragons, goblins, and other real monsters. How can the Lord of Castle Ravenloft measure up to that?

Quite well, really.

I  picked up this adventure when it was first released and essentially threw it at my DM and told him he had to run me through it. It was everything I had hoped it would have been. Remember, my Appendix N is filled with Hammer Horror, Dracula, and Universal monsters. This was perfect for me. 

Ravenloft was a huge change from many of the adventures TSR had published to that date. For starters, the adventure featured an antagonist, Count Strahd von Zarovich, who was no mere monster. Yes, he was an AD&D Vampire, but he was meant to be run as an intelligent Non-player Character.  Before this, the vampires have been the unnamed Vampire Queen of the Palace of the Vampire Queen, Drelnza, the vampire daughter of Iggwilv in The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and Belgos, the Drow Vampire in Vault of the Drow. By 1983, the amount written on all three of these vampires would not even be as long as this post will be. Strahd was different.

Strahd had a backstory, motivation, and intelligence, and he was ruthless. The goal was to destroy him, and that was not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination.

The adventure also introduced some new elements. The dungeon crawl was gone, replaced by a huge gothic castle and a nearby village. The adventure could be replayed and unique given the "Fortunes of Ravenloft" mechanic, which allows key items, people, and motives to change based on a fortune card reading.

Finally, there were the isomorphic, 3D-looking maps from Dave Sutherland, which helped give perspective to many levels of Castle Ravenloft. 

The adventure was an immediate and resounding hit. This adventure, along with the Dragonlance Adventures, also by Tracy Hickman (and Margaret Weis), led to something many old-school gamers call "The Hickman Revolution." They claim it marks the time between the Golden Age and Silver Age of AD&D, with the Silver Age coming after 1983. While yes there was change, a lot of it was for the better.

For me, it was a dream come true. Vampires had always been my favorite creatures to fight in D&D, and I was an avid Dracula fan. I bought this adventure and then threw it at my DM, saying, "Run this!" 

I grew up on a steady stream of Universal Monsters, Hammer Horror, and Dark Shadows. That's my Appendix N. So, an adventure set in pretty much the Hammer Hamlet where I get strange locals and have to fight a vampire? Yeah, that is what D&D was to me. You can almost hear Toccata and Fugue in D minor while running it. 

I find that the people who don't like this adventure don't see what makes it great. This is not Lord of the Rings, Conan, or some other Appendix N pulp fantasy. This is Hammer Horror. Strahd has to be played with a combination of charisma, scene-chewing villainy, and absolute brutality. In other words, it is exactly like Christopher Lee playing Dracula.  Even the nearby village is filled with terrified but pitchforks in the ready villagers. 

That is not to say the adventure doesn't have its problems. At times, the Gothic elements are shoved into the Swords & Sorcery fantasy of D&D. And...let's be honest, some of the puns on the headstones in the lowest level are more than cringe-worthy.  If played properly, a vampire like Strahd could wipe out a party, and that is not counting all the other monsters (gargoyles, really strong zombies, werewolves) in the castle. Though Strahd suffers from the same issues that Christopher Lee's Dracula did, completely obsessive that blind him to some obvious blunders. But that is the nature of vampires, really. 

Original, 25th Anniversary Edition, Print on Demand Edition

I have played through this once, and I have run it four or five times. I would love to try it sometime under the Ghosts of Albion or WitchCraftRPG rules. I took my D&D 5e group through it when they completed Castle Amber to make for a "Mists" series. It was fantastic.

I even got my original module from 1983 signed by Tracy Hickman the year I ran my family through it.

Much like Dracula, Count Strahd and Ravenloft keep coming back for more and more. 

All versions of Castle Ravenloft, so far.

I am sure there will be even another version of this adventure out for D&D 5.5/5r. And I am just as likely to buy it.

Review: Vampyre

 I am celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons this October by reviewing some select Ravenloft products. But before I get into that, I want to review a Pre-Ravenloft product from TSR that fits the same feel. The mini-game Vampyre.

Vampyre (1981)

I covered many of the TSR mini-games a while back. This one is for 2-6 players. Players hunt the minions of Dracula in an attempt to find and destroy his coffins.  There is a "wilderness" map and a map of Castle Dracula. Designed by Philip A. Shreffler. Art by Erol Otus.

I'll avoid calling this a "bite-sized" game, but it is a game you can set up and play in an afternoon. Preferably a dark rainy afternoon in October.

Up to six players can embody most  of the iconic characters from Dracula. This injects some narrative flair right from the start. There are plenty of antagonists like Dracula, his brides, rats, bats and more. There are even demons and werewolves who were not from the books.

Players can even be converted into werewolves or nosferatu.

There is a Basic game, where you go around Castle Dracula trying to destroy all of Dracula's coffins. 

The Enhanced game takes you outside to Transylvania where you hunt down the count in his secret lair. 

So, essentially just like Basic and Expert D&D!

As a B/X Adventure

There is a lot to love about these little games.  The Souvenir font really hits that nostalgia button hard for fans of the Moldvay/Cook Basic and Expert sets. Not to mention some of the best-looking Erol Otus art.   Maybe it is the font, maybe it is the art but when I got these games the first thing I wanted to do was play them as part of my D&D games.  Of course, back then that meant Basic and Expert D&D.  Some of it also came from the desire to get the most out of my purchase with my limited paper route money.

Now, I am a HUGE Dracula and vampire fan, so when I got the Cook/Marsh Expert Set and saw that there were vampires in it, my first thoughts went to vampire hunts.  My first character was a cleric for this very reason.  The game Vampyre is set during the events of the novel Dracula with the same (or rather similar) characters.  So set in the 1890s. Since Ravenloft Masque of the Red Death was still a decade and a half away, I converted this to a simple Expert D&D monster hunt.   If I were to redo it I'd up the threat of Dracula.  In Expert, I made him a Greater Vampire. 

Vampire chic, circa 1981

The dual map, a "wilderness" and a "dungeon" again BEG to be used in the Expert game. The parallels between this game and the Ravenloft adventure. No surprise since both draw from the exact same source materials.  The trick the next time I use this is to make it less like Ravenloft.

Review: Forgotten Realms Adventures

While I have been flirting with AD&D 2nd Ed and Realms for the last few months, it is time to dive in head first with the combination that defined Dungeons & Dragons for many in the early 90s. While I was away playing in the gothic-horror land of Ravenloft, most of the AD&D 2nd Edition fanbase was playing on Faerûn and in the Forgotten Realms, and this book was their entry point.

Forgotten Realms Adventures

1990. By Jeff Grubb and E Greenwood, cover art by Clyde Caldwell. Interior art by Stephen Fabian. Interior paintings by Clyde Caldwell, Ned Dameron, Jeff Easley, and Larry Elmore. Cartography by Dave "Diesel" LaForce. 148 pages.

This is a guide book not just to the Forgotten Realms but very specifically to the Forgotten Realms post "Time of Troubles" and to the AD&D 2nd Edition game. I want to delve into the Time of Troubles and discuss it not just in the Universe but how it was a very clever way to bridge the editions and rule changes.  However, I am not really qualified to do it any justice. I have not read the novels involved nor have I played the games, either tabletop or video games. But I can talk about what this book says, post Time of Troubles.

Before I get to the book proper, I want to discuss its position in terms of the "Adventures" hardcovers.

TSR's three main campaign worlds at the end of the 1980s were Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms. All got a special hardcover treatment that very much spanned the gap between 1st and 2nd Editions of AD&D.

Dragonlance featured ideas unique Krynn that would become part of the AD&D 2nd edition rules. The Greyhawk book was a hybrid of 1st and 2nd Ed rules, and finally the Forgotten Realms was solidly AD&D 2nd Edition with plenty of conversion notes for the very recently published Forgotten Realms boxed set.  A lot of what is in this book is both updates to the new rules and updates to the world post Time of Troubles. Elegant no? 

Reading this book now and knowing the directions both the Realms and AD&D/D&D were going to take, it seems that many of the rules for AD&D 2nd Ed were made to suit the Realms and vice versa. 

So what is in this book?

Chapter 1: The Forgotten Realms Post Avatar

This section is not large, but it packs a punch. In its dozen+ pages, we get the changes to the Realms Post-Avatar and adapting your game to the new AD&D 2nd Edition rules. Changes in character classes are covered, like what to do about those Cavaliers, Barbarians, and Assassins that no longer exist in the new rules. Psionics no longer exists (for now) and anyone who tells you they did are obviously mistaken. While AD&D 2nd Ed strongly adheres to a 20-level character maximum, there are plenty of NPCs that do not. So there are spell advancements for wizards and priests to 30th level. 

One of the newest additions are Magic-dead and Wild-magic zones. The Forgotten Realms always had more magic than either Dragonlance or Greyhawk, so these are a fun addition. 

Firearms are covered by the AD&D 2nd Ed rules, too, since they exist in the Forgotten Realms. 

Chapter 2: Gods and their Specialty Priests

Reading this, I can't tell you if specialty priests were created for AD&D 2nd and adapted well to the Realms or if they were created with the Realms in mind. In any case, we get all the (then) current Gods in their then-current forms and their specialty priests.  This is about two dozen pages and you can get a good feel on what the Time of Troubles was all about; at least this part of it.

Also as someone played a lot of clerics over the years this is a great set of examples of how to do the AD&D specialty priests. This also features the first instance I know of depicting the garb of the various priests together. 

Chapter 3: Magic and Mages of the Realms

Not to be under-represented, the various changes to magic are covered here along with what the Realms, or at least Ed Greenwood, is well known for; lots and lots of new spells. Honestly even if you never play in the Realms these two chapters are worth the price of the book alone. 

Chapter 4: Cities of the Heartlands

This covers the major cities of the heartland of the Realms, covering the West to East expanse of the continent. The cities are presented in alphabetical order. The material is similar to what we have seen before, updated for the post Time of Troubles and new rules.  Still I never get tires about reading about these cities and looking at the maps. Yes, I spent a lot of time looking over the map of Baldur's Gate after spending so much time there. 

Chapter 5: Secret Societies of the Heartlands

Covers the "Big Three," The Harpers, The Zhentarim, and The Red Wizards of Thay. I found the section on the Zhentarim to be better than what I have read so far. 

Chapter 6: Treasure

This covers special and unique treasures of the Realms. While it does feel like padding, it is still useful information.

We end with some Appendices; Treasure Tables, Wizard Spells by School and by Level, and Random Spell Lists. 

The most useful section, even if woefully out of date, is the published Forgotten Realms bibliography. At least to March 1990. If I was serious about reading about the Time of Troubles, then I would have my reading list right here. I am a little surprised about how much of this list I have read. I may know more than I am giving myself credit for. 

The book has the feel of all the books from this time. With the Clyde Caldwell cover and Stephen Fabian art, one could be excused into thinking this was a Ravenloft book (next month...) but the Elmore and Easley art quickly dismisses this notion. 

There is not enough in this book to really run or play in the Realms. You should have the boxed campaign set, but there is enough to provide adventure seeds. The book, though, holds more promise than crunch, and that is a good thing for me at this point in my exploration of the Realms. With these books, I could imagine taking a trip along the roads, moving east from the west to visit all these great cities and all the adventures in between. Finding strange sigils from other adventurers, Harpers, or even the Black Network. Sounds like a great adventure trek for Sinéad, Arnell, Rhiannon, and Nida. Especially since I last left them while talking about cities. I'll update their characters to AD&D 2nd Edition rules later on. This also reminds me that I want to have Nida end up in Ravenloft. Why? I have my reasons.

This book isn't why so many people associate the Realms so strongly with 2nd Edition AD&D, but it is the place to start.

Reviews: The Villains and Heroes of the Forgotten Realms

 Getting back to my Realms reviews I am still in that strange liminal times of 1988-1989 when both AD&D 1st Edition and 2nd Edition were still being supported. I have two books today from the "FR" series that ride that line. 

Both books have very similar trade dress, if not identical. I am reviewing the PoD and PDFs from DriveThruRPG. 

FR6 Dreams of the Red Wizards (1e)

By Steve Perrin (1988)
64 pages. Full-color covers and maps, monochrome interior.

Even with my comparative lack of Realms knowledge I knew about the Red Wizards of Thay. I guess I didn't realize how quickly they had been introduced as the big bads. 

This book reminds me a lot of the old D&D BECMI Gazeteer series in that we we get some history and geography of the lands with some NPCs.

The book teases that it is compatible with the BATTLESYSTEM  rules, but you have to build all of those armies on your own. Too bad, I wanted to do a big battle with the armies of the undead from Thay. Though I still might do that.

The Introduction tells us what this book is about and who and what the Red Wizards of Thay are.

History of Thay. This section gives us a brief overview of Thay's foundation. There is a brief timeline, but it works well here. Some of this information is also found in the later Spellbound boxed set, but that is a way off yet. 

We cover the People and Society of Thay next. Perrin does give us a good explanation of how a whole country can, in fact, be evil, from the Zulkirs to the middle class to the masses of slaves. Honestly, the place sounds like a powder keg waiting to explode, and it is the will and fear of the Zulkirs that keeps everything in check.

Geography of Thay is next and it is good read, though I think it could have been combined with the History of Thay chapter since much of Thay's history has been shaped by its neighbors. This is also a good chapter for me, the newbie, to have a map handy.  I think I am going to need a big wall map of the Forgotten Realms like I do for Victorian London. 

We get get two chapters that cover the Current Economy and Politics of Thay, respectively. This includes a helpful glossary and a player's guide to Thay.

Magic in Thay, as expected, is one of the larger sections. It has what seems to be a Realms staple; lots of new spells. 

Religions in Thay, is actually an interesting chapter. The Red Wizards themselves seem to be areligious, but not atheists. They acknowledge the gods and do their best not to piss them off. I imagine there are big "media circuses" for when a Zulkir visits a local temple to Mystra for example. 

This has given me an idea. So, according to this book, the slaves of Thay mostly worship Ilmater, who we know from Ed Greenwood's "Down to Earth Divinity," that Ilmater is derived from Issek of the Jug. What if there were some events like "Lean Times in Lankhmar" where Ilmater, via a new follower, took on a role like that Fafhrd did for Issek, but instead of a religious conversion/resurgence, it became the basis for a full-scale slave revolt. Now that is a BATTLESYSTEM game I'd enjoy running. 

Personalities of Thay cover the expected cast of neer-do-wells. OF note here The Simbul does not have a personal name here, yet.

Adventures in Thay give the reader some ideas of things to do in and around Thay. But let us be honest. It is an evil filled with Nazi-like evil wizards who keep slaves. The ideas abound already. 

FR7 Hall of Heroes (1e/2e)

Many authors (1989)
128 pages. Full-color covers, monochrome interior.

This book looks like a 2nd Ed book on the cover, but 1st Ed inside. 

This is a "robust" rogues gallery of early Realms characters, and frankly, I am happy to have it since so many of these names are new to me. The stats are an odd mix of AD&D 2nd Ed and 1st Ed, but mostly 1st Edition. So yeah, there are Neutral Good Druids and lots of classes from Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures. 

It also has something that is not entirely a Realms-specific problem, but one I associated most often with the Realms. There are lot of characters here that straight up break the AD&D rules. Yes I get that some (many) are here because of the Forgotten Realms novels. So people like Shandril Shessair is a "Spellfire Wielder," and Dragonbait is a Lizardfolk Paladin. This used to bother me. Not anymore. I am more irritated by the fact that most of the women NPCs all have Charisma 16 or 17 (11 out of 15). Where are my hags? 

There are some personal spells and again The Simbul makes an appearance sans proper name. 

Still, this is a good resource for me to have. I like to have it on hand as I am going through other books to double-check who I am reading about. 

The POD versions are nice. The text has a bit of fuzziness, but far less than other PODs I have seen. They are not perfect for, say, collectors but perfect for what I need them for, and that is used at my game table. 

Review: Star Frontiers, Alpha Dawn and Knight Hawks

NOTE: This is repost from 2021. My coverage of TSR's Sci-Fi offerings would not be complete without this. Plus I want to do this before tackling Alternity later on.

--

Gamma World might have been TSR's first big entry into sci-fi gaming (Warriors of Mars and Metamorphosis Alpha non-withstanding), but it was not their biggest.  While I don't have any hard numbers in front of me, I am going to have to say that Star Frontiers edges out the later Alternity in terms of popularity.  It was certainly built at the height of TSR's fame with the first edition, simply Star Frontiers, published in 1982 with the new edition and trade-dress Star Frontiers: Alpha Dawn and Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks.

Certainly, in terms of fans, Star Frontiers has Alternity beat.  But more on that soon.

For this review, I am considering the PDFs and Print on Demand versions of both Star Frontiers: Alpha Dawn and Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks. I am also going to go with my recollections of playing the game when it first came out.

The Alpha Dawn book is designed by "TSR Staff Writers" but we know ow that a huge bulk of the work was done by David "Zeb" Cook and Lawrence Schick.  Knight Hawks was designed primarily by Douglas Niles.  The cover art in both cases was done by Larry Elmore with interior art by Elmore and Jim Holloway with contributions by Jeff Easley, Tim Truman, and even some Dave Trampier.  Keith Parkinson would go on to do some other covers in line as well.  

While originally boxed sets (gotta love the early 1980s for that!) the PDFs break all the components down into separate files. Handy when you go to print the counters or the maps.  The Print on Demand versions put all the files together into an attractive soft-cover book for each game.  The maps are published in the back, but you will want to print them out for use. 

Both books are easy to read and really nice.  They have been some of my favorite Print on Demand purchases ever.

Let's look into both games.

Star Frontiers: Alpha Dawn

Alpha Dawn is the original Star Frontiers game.  The box game with two books, a Basic and Expanded game rules, some maps, counters, and two 10-sided dice.  The rules indicate that one is "dark" and the other "light" to help when rolling percentages, but mine were red and blue.  Go figure.

The Basic Game is a 16-page book/pdf that gives you the very basics of character creation.  There are four stat pairs, Strength/Stamina, Dexterity/Reaction Speed, Intelligence/Logic, and Personality/Leadership.  These are scored on a 0 to 100 scale, but the PCs will fall between 30 and 70.  Higher is better. These can be adjusted by species and each individual score can also be changed or shifted. 

The four species are humans, the insect-like Vrusk, the morphic Dralasites, and the ape-like Yazirian. Each species of course has its own specialties and quirks.  I rather liked the Dralasites (whom I always pronounced as "Drasalites") because they seemed the oddest and they had a weird sense of humor. 

We are also introduced to the worm-like Sathar. These guys are the enemies of the UPF (United Planetary Federation) and are not player-characters. 

The basics of combat, movement, and some equipment are given.  There is enough here to keep you going for bit honestly, but certainly, you will want to do more.  We move on then to the Expanded rules.

The Expanded Rules cover the same ground but now we get more details on our four species and the Sathar.  Simple ability checks are covered, roll d% against an ability and match it or roll under.

Characters also have a wide variety of skills that can be suited to any species, though some are better than others, Vrusk for example are a logical race and gain a bonus for that.  Skills are attached to abilities so now you roll against an ability/skill to accomplish something.  Skills are broken down into broad categories or careers; Military, Tech, and Bio/Social. 

Movement is covered and I am happy to say that even in 1982 SF had the good sense to go metric here. 

There are two combat sections, personal and vehicle.  These are not starships, not yet anyway, and were a lot of hovercars and gyro-jet guns. 

There is a section on creatures and how to make creatures. I am afraid I took that section a little too close to heart and most of my SF games ended up being "D&D in Space" with the planets being used as large dungeons.

The background material in the Frontier Society though is great stuff. I immediately got a good just of what was going on here and what this part of the galaxy was like.  While Earth was never mentioned, you could almost imagine it was out there somewhere. Either as the center of UPF (Star Trek) or far away, waiting to be found (Battlestar Galactica).  

This book also includes the adventure SF-0: Crash on Volturnus.

When it comes to sci-fi some of the rules have not aged as well. Computers still feel very limited, but the idea that as we approach the speed of light we can enter The Void has its appeal.  

Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks

Ah. Now this game.  Star Frontiers was great, but this game felt like something different. Something "not D&D" to me.

In fact I have often wondered if Knight Hawks had not been a separate game in development by Douglas Niles that they later brought into the Star Frontiers line. I also think that TSR was also suffering a little bit of what I call "Traveller Envy" since this can be used as an expansion, a standalone RPG, and as a board game!

Like Alpha Dawn, this game is split into four sections.  There is a "Basic" game, and "Advanced" or "Expansion" rules (and the bulk of the book), an adventure, "The Warriors of White Light", and all the counters and maps.

As far as maps go, that hex map of empty space is still one of my favorites and fills me with anticipation of worlds to come. 

The PDF version splits all this into four files for ease of printing or reading.  The Print on Demand book is gorgeous really.  Yes...the art is still largely black and white and the maps and counters are pretty much useless save as references, but still. I flip through the book and I want to fire up the engines of my characters' stolen Corvette, the FTL Lightspeed Lucifer. Complete with the onboard computer they named Frodo.

The Basic rules cover things like ship movement, acceleration, and turning, along with ship-to-ship combat.  By itself, you have the rules for a good ship combat board game. It works fine as long as you don't mind keeping your frame of reference limited to two-dimensional space. 

The Expanded rules tie this all a little closer to the Alpha Dawn rules, but I still get the feeling that this may have started out as a different sort of game that was later brought into the fold of Star Frontiers.  

Ships are largely built and there is a character creation feel to this.  Their 80's roots are showing, no not like that, but in that, the best engines you can get for a starship are atomic fission.  Of course, no one just gets a starship, you have to buy it and that often means taking out a loan or doing a bunch of odd jobs to raise the credits. Often both.  I don't think I ever actually bought a ship. The Lucifer was stolen.

There is also quite a bit on the planets of the UPF, Frontier Space, and the worlds of the Sathar.  It really had kind of a "Wild West" meets the "Age of Sail" feel to it. 

The last part of the POD book is the adventure "The Warriors of White Light" with its various scenarios. 

Minus two d10s everything is here for an unlimited number of adventures in Frontier Space.  Rereading it now after so many years I can't help but dream up various new adventures. I also can't help to want to use the Sathar in some of my other Sci-fi games.  They have such untapped potential.

The price for these books is perfect.  Grab the PDF and POD combo.  Get some d10s, load your gyrojet gun and get ready to make the jump to the Void. There are new planets to discover!

Parts of Star Frontiers, in particular the species, would find new life in D20 Future, part of the D20 Modern line.

Both games are fun, but suffer from and/or benefit from the design principles of the time. Newer players might find some of the game elements dated. Older players of the games will find them nostalgic.  Personally reading through them now some 40 years after first reading them I get a lot more enjoyment from the rules.  Back then I was really too D&D focused to really enjoy what I had in front of me. Today, well I can't wait to stat up a character or two and a starship.

Star Frontiers on the Web

There are many places where Star Frontiers is alive and well. There used to be more, but my understanding is a predatory grab for the trademark by another RPG company caused Hasbro/WotC to exercise their legal rights and bring the game back in-house. While that did screw over the amazing work done by the fan sites, there are still many up and providing new material for the game.  

For these fans and sites, Star Frontiers never went away.

• Star Frontiers: Inclusive Star Frontiers (Facebook)
• http://www.starfrontiers.com/
• Star Frontiers Wikia
• Star Frontiersman Magazine
• Frontier Explorer

Don't forget our campaign for Thirteen Parsecs is still going strong!

Review: Star Wars Roleplaying Game (d20)

 I am bouncing around a bit here on my cruise through the science fiction games from TSR/WotC to find one that I actually rather like, even though I know many do not. I am discussing the d20 Star Wars RPG from Wizards of the Coast.

I will freely admit that I have not played a lot of the West End Game's d6 Star Wars, though I do know it is widely held in high regard. I also have never played the Fantasy Flight Games edition of Star Wars (though my son has). So, my review might be a touch myopic, and I am OK with this. 

Star Wars and D&D

Before I begin this review I have to talk a bit about my background and why I think d20 and Star Wars was a good fit.

I have talked about Star Wars a few times here, but I am obviously a much bigger Star Trek fan. I had (and still have) a good sized collection of Star Wars toys from the Kenner era in the 1980s and I religiously have seen all the movies. I enjoy the Disney+ shows and find many of the fans to be exhausting. Ok, to be fair many Trek fans are the same way. But I am a causal fan. I had read some of the Extended (or is it Expanded) Universe books and I liked many of them. I thought Grand Admiral Thrawn was a great character and getting Lars Mikkelsen to play him in live-action has to be the most brilliant, or most obvious, casting choice ever.  When the EU went away...well I honestly felt not that much. Sure lots of great stories were gone, but Star Wars had a relationship with their canon that Star Trek novels could only dream of. 

But for me, my Star Wars obsession was in the 1980s. When I had action figures and playing out new scenarios in my head. When I took a Colonial Viper model, some extra action figure guns, and an AMC (or Revel, can't remember now) 1978 Corvette and built one of my first Kitbashes. I could not afford a real Slave 1 back then (so now of course I have three) but I did build "Slave II" and it was quite literally "Fett's Vette." And I was obsessed with D&D.

I have said it before, and I will say it here again, Star Wars, aka A New Hope, is a D&D movie. We have a hero, a villain, a princess (who is also a hero), an old wizard, a rogue, an impenetrable fortress (the Death Star), war, magic (tell me to my face the Force is not magic) and a quest.  There are sword fights, monsters, and interesting locales. It is D&D in all but name. They even meet the rogue in a bar! 

I can't even begin to count the number of times we tried to do "D&D Star Wars" and our attempts were lame compared to others. Do an internet search on "D&D Jedi" prior to 1999 and see all the stuff that was out there, though admittedly not as much now as it was at the time. 

Even later on I often likened the Star Wars EU to another line of novels and quasi-canon material; that of the Forgotten Realms. 

So for me D&D and by extension d20 and Star Wars seemed like an obvious fit.

Star Wars RPG - Revised Core Rulebook

2002, Wizards of the Coast. 384 pages. Full-color covers and interior art. d20 System.

This is the revised version of the Star Wars d20 RPG, first published in 2000. 

This game is very closely related to the D&D 3.0 edition that had been released in 2000. I don't own a copy of the Star Wars RPG from 2000, so I can't comment on what was changed, but there is a "feel" to me that this might be an early draft of D&D 3.5. Much in the same way that Star Wars Saga Edition was an early draft of D&D 4.0.

The game is built on the d20 mechanics, so there are alien species, classes, skills, and feats. The book is divided into a players section and a game master section, so I guess the better comparison here is d20 Modern. Especially once we get in to it in detail.

Characters have a species and class, and the same six abilities as D&D. There are same 3.x era saves of Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. There are also Vitality and Wound Points.  If you can play D&D d20 era or d20 Modern then you know how to play this game. 

Chapters 2 and 3 cover Species and Classes. There are 17 species to choose from, including standard humans and Ewoks (!). Classes cover the expected varieties, including Fringer, Scout, Scoundrel, Force Adepts, and Jedis. There are Prestige classes covered later. 

Chapters 4 and 5: Skills and Feats look and act like their D&D/d20 counterparts. Skills are mostly the same, but the feats take on some new aspects. While there are many that are the same, there are new ones like Force Feats (which does a lot to help explain Jedi Powers).

Chapter 6 covers the final pieces of building heroic characters, including some more "Star Wars" flavor.

Chapter 7 is our Equipment guide and it is a rather fun one. Lots of gear in the Star Wars universe. 

Chapter 8 covers combat, a needed chapter since "War" is practically the last name here. 

Chapter 9 though takes us into new territory with "The Force." This is more complicated than magic, but there are some great ideas here to take back to a D&D game for Game Masters that want to use the corrupting power of magic.

Chapters 10 and 11 deal with Vehicles and Starships, respectively.  Honestly, I could spend all my time on the Starships chapter.

Chapter 12 is Gamemastering. It covers a lot of ground from how to teach the game to new players, to setting challenges, to Prestige classes (Bounty Hunters, Jedi Masters, and more). The GM Characters from d20 Modern also get ported over here as the Diplomat, Expert, and Thug.

Chapter 13 deals with the Eras of Play. Or at least how they looked in 2002 before the Clone Wars series and Revenge of the Sith hit our screens. There are hints of the Expanded Universe here, but not a lot. Now I know that Wizards, with their own Star Wars books, helped expand the Expanded Universe. We even get stats for the poster girl of the Expanded Universe, Mara Jade Skywalker. I am actually really happy about that. I have a soft spot in my heart for Temporal Orphans. 

Chapter 14 covers Allies and Opponents, which, of course, can vary depending on what era you are playing in. This also contains Wizards of the Coast biggest contribution to the Expanded Universe, the Yuuzhan Vong, which I always found kind of cool and wanted to port them back to D&D in some way.

Chapter 15 covers the one area where Star Wars is superior to Star Trek. Droids. 

The game really relies a lot on the players' and game masters' own knowledge of Star Wars. Yes, you can play it without that, but it certainly helps. 

Is this the best Star Wars game? I can't say. It is the best one for me. It has enough to allow me to build a game universe and play. I can add in d20 Future material as I like, including some d20 Gamma World or even d20 Traveller. 

The Wizards of the Coast d20 Star Wars lines are out of print. The new owners of the Star Wars RPG, Fantasy Flight Games (bought by Asmodee in 2014) have their own system. My oldest likes it and has run a few games with it. I'll try it out. I suppose I should also review the d6 West End Games Star Wars at some point as well.

Review: Gary Gygax's Lejend Master's Lore and Beasts of Lejend (2000)

Today, I will cover the last two books of the Lejendary Adventure core, Gary Gygax's Lejend Master's Lore and Beasts of Lejend, both out in 2000, the same year as D&D 3rd Edition.

These reviews will go rather fast.

Gary Gygax's Lejend Master's Lore (2000)

Gary Gygax. 204 pages. Color covers. Black & white interior art.

Published by Hekaforge Productions.

This was the next book in the Lejendary Adventure line. Often considered to be one of the greatest books ever produced for any RPG in any edition is Gary Gygax's Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) for AD&D 1st Edition, published in 1979. It is a massive tome with all sorts of details for handling an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game.  This book only shares two things in common with that other tome. 1. Gary's name is on the cover. and 2. there is an organization to the material that can best be described eclectic. 

Like the DMG, the Lejend Master's Lore book seems to be an information dump. 

We start with Avatar Knacks and Quirks, which should have been in the Player's book. While there are some neat ideas here, simple things the characters can do and personality quirks both on d100 tables, not all will work well for all players. I mean, what if I don't want my character to have Wylfphobia and hate "elves"? 

There is a section on setting the various prices for goods for items and an attempt to get it to work with modern ideas of how much gold is worth. Nice idea, but I think that in practice, it is a bad idea. Not to say you should not work out your economy, but trying to tie it to the real world is difficult.  

A lot, 70 pages, is given over to Extraordinary (Magic) Items. There are some neat ideas here for this game. In terms of adapting to other games? Well, I think there are analogues in many games for these, so not a lot to mine here. 

Halfway through the book, we actually get to the sections of Lejend Master's Reference. This covers a lot of situations that the Game Master will likely run into and how to deal with them. And there are a LOT of tables. Lots.

Ok. Comparing this book, or any Game Master book, to the DMG is not fair. The 1979 DMG set the watermark for all other GM books to follow and many do not meet that mark. The DMG is also a good guide for a lot of different sorts of games. It is dense, information-packed, and assumes a level of intellectual competency that you typically do not see in many books.  But it is fair to compare the Lejend Master's Lore to the DMG. Same author, 20+ years apart. This book doesn't even come close. There is no evidence of 20 years of evolution of thought here and anything that is good, we have read before.

If anything, this book is just very disappointing.

Gary Gygax's Beasts of Lejend (2000)

Gary Gygax. 204 pages. Color covers. Black & white interior art.

Published by Hekaforge Productions.

A quick note. I am confused by the differences in layout between all three of these books. LML and BoL both look similar until you dive into them and both are different enough from the Player's book to make me think different teams or different people did the layout. Again, it is not fair of me to do this, but compare to the D&D 3e books out at the same time. The three cores are obviously related and have a similar look and feel.

This is our book of monsters. The back cover says over 500 creatures, and yeah, that seems right. The stat blocks are small, with descriptions and some art of varying quality.

Now in general, I like monster books. This one is not bad. It might even be a good monster book for this game.

The creatures are divided into sections, which is not a bad way to do things. We have Animals, Creatures of Lore, Dragonkin, Living Dead, and Unquiet Spirits (including demons and devils), and Human-like creatures. No. I am not using Gary's weird ass spellings anymore.

Pretty much any monster you think should be here is here. There are a few interesting variations on monsters, but nothing worth hunting down a copy for. 

--

So in the end of all of this, what do we have? In truth, a rather lack-luster Fantasy Heartbreaker that doesn't bring anything new to the table may be made even sadder due to the author's pedigree. 

Is it a fun game? Maybe, I am sure others could find joy here and I won't rain on their parade. But I have scores, if not hundreds of other games that far, far better and at least dozens that do exactly what this one is trying to do.

Review: Gary Gygax's Lejendary Adventure (1999)

Let's go forward a few years and see what lessons, if any, we have learned from Dangerous Journeys and Mythus.

So 1999 was an interesting year. I had been away from D&D for a while (nearly four years) and had been playing other games. I picked Chill back up but had not played it much, played a lot of WitchCraft RPG and dabbled a bit in Mage. Meanwhile, AD&D 2nd Ed was winding down, and 3rd Edition, the first from Wizards of the Coast, was on the way.

This was the environment in which Gary Gygax chose to release his Lejendary Adventure.

Lejendary Adventure - Core Rules (1999)

Gary Gygax. 208 pages. Color covers. Black & white interior art.
Published by Hekaforge Productions (originally). Troll Lord Games would later pick up this game and publish new material for it.

This game is hard to quantify. I can't tell if it feels old because this is 2024, 25 years after it was released, or if it would have felt old in 1999. It is wonderfully complicated (though less so than D&D) in the over-wrought way of many games of the late 80s, though I will say there seems to be less "High Gygaxian" here. Though there are plenty of odd spellings. I'm unsure if they are here to be different or to keep the lawyers from snooping around too much. "No, your honor, these are Ilfs and Wylfs, not Elfs." There are a lot of terms to digest for characters, and it makes for an unnecessary uphill climb. This is a game for gamers. 

This is a fantasy RPG and just a few steps removed from a Fantasy Heartbreaker, to be honest. If it had been designed by anyone other than Gary Gygax, it would be an interesting curiosity. Though there is a robust character creation system here. Gary wanted to go beyond classes and allow players to play what they wanted. Many games have already done this, so this feels a little like trying to catch up. I still applaud the efforts and the results.

We get the basics. What is a Role-playing game? What are the players' roles, and what is the role of the Lejend Master? Yes, that is what the GM is called and how it is spelled. It is interesting to see Gary's lament of winning interest in RPGs by younger players. People who had not even been born yet when he wrote this are now playing the fifth edition of his first game in numbers that would have been staggering to him in 1974. It's too bad he did not get to see this. 

We do get a Glossary in the beginning. It is full of terms like AB Activity Block, ABC Activity Block Count, AEP: Activation Energy Potential...and I am already forgetting what I just read five entries ago. 

The Avatar

The Avatar is your character in the game. It was a term that felt odd then, but now I think most people can grasp it quickly enough. This leads some weight to the rumor that this was developed as the basis for a video game RPG, not a tabletop one. But I am not sure.

Anyway, your Avatar can be one of the following Species (yes, Gary does say Species, but he also says Races): Dwarves, Ilves, Wylves (Elves both), Oaf, Orc, Trollkin, Gnomes, Kobolds, and Veshoge.

The core mechanic is a d100-based one. Character abilities are represented by Base Ratings in Health, Precision, and Speed, with an optional rule for Intellect. The Base Ratings have 100 points to distribute among them, keeping in mind the minimum and maximum for each race. Then you can roll to get a bit of randomness. This can result in base ratings ending in .5 in some cases (most often Speed) and later on some other awkward numbers. I am already getting Mythus flashbacks.

Abilities are numerous and cover things Alchemia, Arcana, and so on. Think of these as skills in other games. Each of these 38 Abilities are tied to the Base Rating. So Sorcery for example is part of Speed. I get the distinct feeling that Gary wanted something akin to the "Mental," "Physical," and "Spiritual" he had used in Dangerous Journeys, but those were being used now in BESM and Tri-Stat (the Tri stats, Mind-Body-Spirit).  Again, abilities are largely determined by race. Which is an unfortunate hold-over of an age now gone. So yeah, not a fan really. 

There is a good section on page 13 that helps define your character I mean Avatar. It would be useful in other games too. There are three examples of helpful character creation. 

The Race descriptions are next. While there are some similar names here, don't go in respecting them to be the same. For example, the Kobold are more like thin halflings. Oafs are ogres, and trollkins...well if you can picture the Trolls from the various Trolls animated movies, the ones where they sing not eat Christians, then you have a better idea.

Orders and Benefits

These are like classes, but not 100% really. I mean they used to tell one magic using type from another, but I guess a better description is an occupation.

Avatar Abilities (details)

This details the various skills, aka "Abilities," the Avatar has and the effects they have. These abilities can change what Orders you could belong to. Also, while the Base Ratings affect the Abilities, the Abilities also raise the Base Ratings. I guess the logic here is like exercise; you can get more skillful at something AND build the muscles you used to do it at that same time. The logic is not unsound but has some interesting (and annoying) side effects. Namely, as you advance your abilities, your base ratings change. I have created one character, and I am already seeing Base Ratings change a lot (and I am also getting numbers like 14.6 and 58.4), so I am prepared to use that eraser.

Equipment Lists

Gary always loved his Equipment lists.  So here they are.

Enchantments, Geourgy, Necrourgy, Psychogenic, Sorcery, & Theurgy

The magic and "spells" of the various Orders. Each one gets its own chapter-sized section. This covers about 110 pages. 

The Journey

These are the rules for play. Interestingly enough, this is a small section that covers the basics and most of the situations the Avatars will run into. I think the bulk must be in the Lejend Master's book.

Making a Character

Ok, I made a character. To be honest, I am not 100% sure I did everything right, so I am waiting until I read through Lejend Master's book.

The Lejendary Earth / Mythus Ærth Connections

Like Dangerous Journeys, Lejendary Adventure was thought to exist on a parallel Earth, sometimes called Learth. Compare that to Dangerous Journeys Mythus' "Ærth" and D&D's "Oerth" and "Urt" or "Uerth" from the Frank Mentzer-penned D&D Immortals. I guess we are just missing an "Ierth."

It feels like there are some solid similarities in the campaign worlds of these two games. No surprise since Dangerous Journeys was cut down long before it could become big enough to support a detailed campaign world. In some ways, I like to think of all these worlds, Ærth, Oerth, Learth, and Urt, as having connections to each other. 

There is not enough here to make me think that Lejendary Adventure is in any way a redo of Dangeous Journeys. In truth after going over this, and then Mythus, and then back to this I am struck by how some of the material in LA that I considered to be "High Gygaxian" doesn't measure up to the text in DJ:M. 

One of the companies that gave us Lejendary Adventure is named Hekaforge (cover has Hekaforge, the interiors have Trigee), so I think Gary was really invested in the ideas of Dangerous Journeys, but maybe not all the applications. 

So LA reads better than DJ:M, but it also lacks some of the charm. Neither game is going to replace AD&D on my table.

I am 100% certain there is a group out there that has, in the past, tried to reconcile Dangerous Journeys, Lejendary Adventure, and AD&D. The desire is there for me to try, but it is not strong enough to actually do it. Maybe I'll make avatars for all these Gygazian Earths (Oerth, Uerth, Ærth, and Learth) and how they come together somehow. In truth, I should make a unique Witch Queen for each.  Given there are four worlds, maybe each is also attached to an element? I think I'll search online and see if others have done much with these games and see what I can glean from that. After all, if YOU put in the work into these games to actually run a campaign or two, then that deserves to be memorialized. 

Up next, the Lejend Master's book and then some monsters.

Review: Return to the World of Maximum Mayhem

 I have a slight sidestep today. I have been playing around with something for a bit. You all know I am a fan of Mark Taormino's Maximum Mayhem adventures from Dark Wizard Games. I have been getting his latest in both the 1st Ed and 5th Ed versions, one for me and one for my kids. I have also mentioned that while they are designed overtly for "First Edition Rules" or what I call "The Advanced Era" the adventures top off at the 14th level, making them compatible "in spirit" with my beloved B/X rules.

The obvious solution to this was to run some sort of mutant B/X-Advanced hybrid. The ruleset that won out was Old School Essentials-Advanced Fantasy Edition. While there are some bumps, it is a surprisingly good fit. To be honest, I would love to test out OSE-Advanced vs. 1st Edition vs. OSRIC and see how they all fare with the same sort of character. I have not done this, nor do I think I will. I think that the differences would be so minor as to be unnoticeable in actual play. 

But I do have the characters. 

A while back, I introduced a lovely druid couple, Maryah and Asabalom. They were OSE characters from the very start. They have connections to previous characters of mine, but nothing major. I see Asabalom as the grandson (or maybe great-grandson) of my "Beastmaster" character, Absom Sark. Because of this, I am fudging things a little and giving him the ability to wild shape into a wolf at the 4th level. He just doesn't have the control a 7th-level druid does. Right now, he can only shift into a wolf. 

For a variety of reasons that are too minor on their own but added up, these two characters are my natives of Mark's Maximum Mayhem world. One that uses OSE-AE. They are the ones I am taking through these adventures, and their son, Áedán Aamadu, will go through the 5e versions. 

The biggest issue has been finding the time to do these. With his new Kickstarter now live, I figured I needed to get caught up. 

So. I will review these, knowing I really can't go through them anymore. Sorry, Mad Master! I am reviewing these in "campaign order" and not in release order.

Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #0: Village on the Borderlands

by Mark Taormino, 64 pages. For levels 1-3. Art by Justin Davis, Jacob Blackmon, Carlos Castilho, Daniel Commerci, Jeff Dee, Felipe Faria, Mark Lyons, William McAusland, Brian McCranie, Matt Morrow and JE Shields. (How's that for a who's-who among OSR artists?)

First Edition PDF (DriveThruRPG). First Edition PDF and Print Dark Wizard Games Store.

Fifth Edition PDF (DriveThruRPG). Fifth Edition PDF and Print Dark Wizard Games Store. 

The first edition has "blue" maps, and the fifth edition has full-color maps.

A lot of us freely mixed Basic D&D and Advanced D&D back in the early 80s. It was not uncommon then to find groups that had gone through B2 Keep on the Borderlands and T1 The Village of Hommlet. Mark knows this, and this adventure is a nod and homage to that experience.  This is also Mark's biggest adventure to date.

While this could have come off as pastiche or, even worse, a bunch of hamfisted clichés, instead it is a nod and even an homage to not just how much fun those old adventures were, but also to the experiences we all had. Don't get me wrong, there is a great a adventure here; but if you were playing the Keep or the Village or Giants series back in the early 1980s then this will hit differently. 

The is best described as "what if the Village of Hommlet was set outside the Cave of Chaos and not the Keep?"  You have a local village in need of help. There are roving bands of ogres and weird fungi and skeletons. Whats a local farmer to do? Easy, call upon some brave, and expendable, adventurers for help. 

There are some hooks for the adventure but for me they are unneeded. THOUGH I will add that the whole Valley of the Moon was a great hook for me. Not just because the name is similar enough to where my characters Maryah and Asabalom were from, but it is nothing if not a nod to one of my earliest crushes, Moon Unit Zappa. 

We have all sorts of classic monsters, rumor tables, nods to (in)famous NPCs, tarot readings, standing stones, name puns, an inn to meet in, places to buy equipment and weapons. 

The Inn of the Whistling Pig is wonderfully detailed and loaded with all sorts of characters. In fact, while reading, I half expected to see stand-ins for Duchess and Candella. 

I said, "Caves of Chaos," but there are only a few caves where a lot of the "out of town" action takes place, and that is plenty. The Hill Giant cave is the first. There is also the Forest of Fallen Oaks, the Ruins of Sternholm Keep, and the Caverns of the Wicked Peaks.

A great non-linear adventure where the party can start at the Inn and head out in any direction to find adventure. They can come back, heal up, spend their loot and go back out, OR keep going. That last one is not advisable as everything here has a good reason to see the PCs dead. 

There are hooks here to other Maximum Mayhem adventures, too.

The plot and organization of the first and fifth editions are the same. The Fifth edition version features color maps.  

Maximum Mayhem Dungeons Mini Adventure #1: Shadow of the Necromancer

by Mark Taormino, 16 pages. For levels 1-3. Art by Phred Rawles, Chet Minton, Adam Black, Brian Brinlee, Carlos Castilho, Bradley McDevitt, and Phred Rawles.

First Edition PDF (DriveThruRPG). First Edition PDF and Print Dark Wizard Games Store.

Fifth Edition PDF (DriveThruRPG). Fifth Edition PDF and Print Dark Wizard Games Store. 

The first edition has "blue" maps, and the fifth edition has full-color maps.

This is a mini adventure, and the first one Mark has done. Much like his Vampire Queen adventure I have used a figure called "The Necromancer" in my own games. Get out of my head Mark!!

These are designed to be played in one or two sessions. We managed to get through it in three short sessions. It has a great "Hammer Horror" vibe to it, and honestly, I rather love it.

The adventure comes with a map, in beautiful old-school blue for the 1st ed version and full color for the 5th edition version. The module is 16 pages (one page for title and credits, one page for OGL , and one-page blank).  The adventure is a simple "strange things are going on! The PCs must investigate!" situation. It turns into "stop the minion of the Necromancer from finishing his evil plans." It's tried and true, and it works fine here.  As with many of the Darl Wizard/Maximum Mayhem Dungeons, the adventure is a deadly affair. Not as deadly as the Hanging Coffins of the Vampire Queen, but it is not a walk in the graveyard either. It is a fun romp and really captures the feel of old-school playing. Both versions are great, and I can keep the 1st-ed version for myself and give the 5th-ed version to my kids to run.

Exactly what you want in an adventure. Despite the size and scope Mark gives this one the same love and attention he does to all his larger adventures.

The plot and organization of the first and fifth editions are the same. The Fifth edition version features color maps.  

Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #7: Dread Swamp of the Banshee

by Mark Taormino and Alan Chamberlain, 48 pages. For levels 4-8. Art by Jacob Blackmon, Brian Brinlee, Ed Lacabanne, Mark Lyons, Brian McCranie, Matthew Ray, and Phil Stone.

First Edition PDF (DriveThruRPG). First Edition PDF and Print Dark Wizard Games Store.

A noblewoman has returned to her family estate and finds it has been taken over by a swamp. Worse, there is an evil banshee stalking the lands. But what is the noblewoman hiding?

This adventure is for characters of 4th to 8th level. But I will say this. 4th and 5th level characters are going to die. This is not a meat-grinder like Hanging Coffins, but it is deadly. There is a mystery here too so, so it is not all fireballs and swordplay. But there is a lot of that too.

Like the adventures of old, there are also new monsters here. Mark always adds a little something like that. I also get the vibe that Mark and Alan were reading a lot of B3 Palace of the Silver Princess. Not for the plot but just the feeling. It works here to be honest. 

In the series, I would run this one after Vault of the Dwarven King and have the characters between the 5th and 8th levels. Not that Vault is easier, just not as deadly as this one. 

Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #6: Moving Maze of the Mad Master

by Alan Chamberlain, 40 pages. For levels 6-10. Art by Jacob Blackmon, Alan Chamberlain, Ed Lacabanne, Mark Lyons, Brian McCranie, and Phil Stone.

First Edition PDF (DriveThruRPG). First Edition PDF and Print Dark Wizard Games Store.

This one is by Alan Chamberlain, who was also on The Dread Swamp of the Banshee and Vault of the Dwarven King. So the feel is right. In fact, until Mark kickstarted his Maximum Mayhem #8: Funhouse Dungeon of the Puppet Jester, THIS was the funhouse dungeon. 

The premise is simple but very effective. A bunch of metal monsters are attacking small towns and villages, and the PCs decide to help. What we get is an honest-to-Gary, Mad Scientist building all sorts of clockwork and autonomous horrors. To get to him, you need to get through his maze of deadly traps and clockwork terrors. 

If the other adventure is a meat grinder, then this one is a food processor. It's brutal, but of course, the fun is just as great.

You could get this one for the circular maze map and all the stats of the clockwork creatures alone (6) for a total of 11 new monsters. 

It's insane, really.

I am not sure any character can survive this campaign.

Don't forget Mark has two more of these adventures on Kickstarter now: Legend of Seven Golden Demons & Slime Pits of Sewer Witch both for 1st Edition and 5th Edition rules.