What are RPGs Worth?

Been a lot of talk about this on the old internet lately.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3410-Why-We-Need-To-Pay-What-Games-Are-Worth-Not-What-We-Think-They-Should-Cost#.VzH7TnErKVM
http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2016/05/what-are-games-worth-follow-up-to-chris.html
https://plus.google.com/+GregChristopher /posts/4ScbaXYPFnv
http://trollsmyth.blogspot.com/2016/05/whats-it-worth-to-ya.html (edited to add)
http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2016/05/incompetent-game-writers-demanding-we.html

Some advocating more expensive books and/or better pay for the work they do.  Others saying let the market decide what something needs to be charged and/or paid.

I guess to me the issue is really what is an RPG worth to me.

I am very fortunate. I get to write RPGs, the stuff I want and I get to be choosy about it.  I have a day job that I am really good at and pays me well.  I can afford to buy the things I want and even get the occasional luxury item.  So my personal calculus for what I will pay is different than yours or someone doing much better than me.

The questions are "What should RPGs cost?" and "What are RPGs worth?".  The logical extension of these questions are what should a professional game designer be paid?

These are two VERY different questions.

Let's look at the breakdown of price (money), cost (money and time among other things) and value or worth.

I bought the AD&D 1st edition hardcovers back in the 1980s.  Money was tight for me then. Even a $15 or $20 book represented a significant number of hours of me working at the time.  So their value started out as higher than their price might indicate.  The worth of those books to me is incalculable. Not just the time I spent with friends playing, or reading them over and over, but the things I do now with my own kids.

I bought the 3rd Edition hardcovers when they first came out.  I keep the receipts as bookmarks so I know when I got them and how much I paid;  9/11/2000 (interesting date) and I spent $18.00 plus tax (in Cook County Ill that is about 9%).  These books cost far more to produce. The cost was a bout the same to me, but the amount of work this total represented 20 years later to buy them was far less.  Also, their worth to me is still great since this was the system I taught my kids how to play.

So value and worth is not something I can easily quantify.  Does Skip Williams deserve to be paid more or less than Gary Gygax did?

I have had the pleasure to work on some truly wonderful games.  I spent hundreds of hours doing research for Ghosts of Albion. Not just on the primary material, but on the Victorian time, names, economics, how long it took to load a gun, world leaders, countries, disputes. Hell I spent an entire day doing nothing but looking up the most popular names of 1838 and 1839!  Should it have been more expensive to make than say Army of Darkness? A game with the same rule system?

I am going to say no.

Why?  Well lots of reasons really. Army of Darkness, the movie, is more popular than the Ghosts of Albion books. There is a certain gamer-cool vibe to Army of Darkness too.  Plus Victorian games, as popular as they are, are still a small niche inside the RPG community.
I spent that time in research because it was what I chose to do. I wanted to give you a better game.  I wanted to give you the best Victorian game I make and the best Cinematic Unisystem game I could make.  In both cases I feel like I did my best.  Hey it's 8+ years since publication and I still get people telling me how much they love Ghosts.

To someone else the value of Ghosts vs. Army is the same.  The cost certainly is for the consumer.  I am privy to many of the behind the scenes costs for both books, so I am not going to get into the issue of which one was more expensive to make.

I also spent hundreds of hours working on The Witch. The typing, the layout and the research alone goes back decades. I also bought a bunch of art for it and bought advertising on my own dime. I sell it for $5.00.  I bet I could have charged $10, but 5 felt better to me.  If I were to be paid let's say minimum wage on the work I did, well...I'd likely never see that money based on sales alone.

But that is not why I do it.

There is a quote that is often attributed to Kevin Siembieda's ex-wife Maryann, "If you want to make a small fortune in the gaming industry you need to start with a large fortune and work your way down."

There is a sad truth in that.

I am not saying we couldn't or even shouldn't pay game designers more.
But they will be paid what the market allows for.

There is a price that a book will sell at, but my knowledge of micro- and macro-economics is not MBA level so I have no idea what that is.  We have thousands of games, hundreds of professional and amateur designers out there, and unfettered access to all.  This new golden age of access to RPGs has a price.

We just don't know what that price should be.

The Return of Monstrous Mondays: The Cailleach Bheur

For a while now I have been contemplating returning to an old feature here, Monstrous Mondays.
A few other bloggers I met in the A to Z Challenge also do it, tailored to their respective audiences.  The last one I did was just over a year ago (Yog, Monster from Space) but I never kept going.

Natasha Duncan-Drake
Part Time Monster
MindweaverRPG
Dispatches from Kickassistan,

For this blog, I would feature monsters that would likely appear in my games. I would likely focus on OSR stats.  Also, I am likely to release them all as "Open" via the OGl.  Art is excluded from that of course.  Wish to join me?  Let me know each Monday and post with the hashtag #MonsterMonday (Twitter) or #MonsterMonday on Google+.

So let's get going!

I think for my "OSR" stated monsters I am going to start using the format/stat block I used for some of the vampires I did last year.

The following text is considered Open for use under the OGL.

It was her eyes that still haunt me.

She was abnormally tall, at least 8 ft., though that is normal if you consider her species. She was ghastly thin, weighing maybe 12 or 13 stone at the most. Her skin was a dark blue, like that of a bruise. It left the impression of having been dyed in woad for countless nights. She appeared as many of her kind; hideous countenance, with her face and body a little too sharp and too many angles. Her hair was a chaotic nest of wiry and frozen strands. Her clothing, what little remained, was a tattered rag reminiscent of a peasant’s garb of a bygone age. She stood her ground holding her staff. If she were affected by the cold then we could certainly not see it. She spoke with a voice of ice-cracking tree limbs.

“Begone Witch. These are my lands to vanguard.”

She glared at us with those bright blue, all too human, eyes.

- From the Journal of Larina Nix

The Cailleach Bheur by Andrew Paciorek
used with permission

The Cailleach Bheur
AKA: The Blue Hag, The Crow of Winter
Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1 (believed unique)
Size: Large 8" (L)
Armor Class: 2 [17]₁
Movement
 Basic: 120' (40')
 Advanced: 12"/18"
 3e: 30ft
Hit Dice: 10d8+5 (50 hp)
% in Lair: 50% (roaming countryside in winter, dormant in summer)
Treasure Type: None
Attacks: 3 (claw/claw/bite) + cold, fear
Damage: 1d6+4/1d6+4/1d4
Special Attacks: Cold 6d6 (breath), once per day. Cause Fear once per day.
Special Defenses: Immune to cold based attacks
Save As: Witch 10₂
Magic Resistance: 25%
Morale: 10₃
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Level/XP: 10/5,530 + 15/hp

STR: 19 INT: 10 WIS: 17 DEX: 16 CON: 20₄  CHA: 7₅

1 Descending and [Ascending] Armor classes are given.
2 This is used for Basic games, and S&W. Also for monsters that I think need to save a little differently than others.
3 Morale is "Basic" Morale and based on a 1-12 scale. Multiply by 1.6667 for 1-20 scale.
4 Have not decided yet if I want to use 3.x style undead Constitutions or not. (15) Reflects what their Con would be if I do use it.  I might just put a number in () like I do for Ghosts of Albion.
5 monster witches can use an "absolute value" for Charisma.  So a really bad CHA is just as good as a really good one.

Known as the Crow of Winter, The Cailleach Bheur is a very deadly hag. She appears only after Samhain/All Hallow’s Eve and stays till Beltane eve. While as evil as other hags, Cailleach Bheur is more interested in eating sheep and deer than children. In Ireland and Scotland, she is the personification of Winter. During the summer months, Cailleach Bheur turns to stone and is indistinguishable from the other standing stones of the area.

The Cailleach Bheur was cursed into her existence back in a time before writing came to Scotland. One tale, disturbing as it sounds, describes the Cailleach as the ancient Protector of Alba, maybe even a faerie queen or goddess.

In her previous life, the Cailleach Bheur was a lone protector of animals (a Ranger) and a follower of the Great Goddess. One night he fell asleep by a well. The well overflowed with the thaw and she nearly drown. She invoked powerful magics to move the water away, but in the process created Loch Awe (in Scotland) and drowning several villagers and cattle. As repentance, she is to walk the snowy earth till she can feel the mid-summer sun on her face, something that can’t ever happen since she is cursed to be stone from Beltane to Samhain.

The Cailleach Bheur still protects her lands as she did before, ignoring humans unless they tread on her domain, then she kills them with glee by freezing them solid. She blames humans for her current state.

The Cailleach Bheur is believed to be at least 400 years old.

Staff of Winter: Possibly a remnant of her former life the Cailleach Bheur carries a magical staff. The Staff of Winter is made up of holly and gorse branches intertwined to form a 7’ long staff of solid wood. It acts as a magical focus tool providing the Cailleach Bheur +2 magic to all magic related rolls, attacks, saves and checks.

Anyone in possession of this staff can command Cailleach Bheur to leave the area by holding the staff and saying “Bì falbh buitseach!” (begone (get out) witch!). Both Cailleach Bheur and her staff will disappear after the command is uttered. This would require research into Cailleach Bheur specifically or local lore.

Section 15: "The Cailleach Bheur". Copyright 2016 Timothy S. Brannan.

Kickstart Your Weekend: Gamer Badges

When you are in Scouting (Cub, Brownies, Boy or Girl) you can earn badges for various merits or activities.  Now you can earn them in your hobby too!

Gamer Badges by JBM Press is the latest Kickstarter I'd like to bring to your attentions.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1705440407/gamer-badges

I have to admit I love the idea of these.  Not just in terms getting the badges (which is fun) but also this is exactly the sort of thing Kickstarter is about; helping a small company get the capital they need to get a unique project off the ground.  Plus JBM Press are good people.

It would be great to see these in game stores.

Seriously if you have a good group these would be a lot of fun.
They are offering a shirt, a sash and a bag to display them on.  I like the bag to be honest. I always need a good bag and mine are all covered in pins (a habit from my undergrad days).

So please spread the word on this one and kick in a few bucks if you can.

I'd love to do the Design Your Own level but have not thought of anything I would like to spend that on.  "Game Designer" one or maybe "40+ year veteran" badge?

Anyway, check them out!

Against the Giants - Prep Time!

The boys are about a session or two from completing the A series.
Time to start thinking about getting ready for the G series.

I have already made a list (likely incomplete) of all the monsters in the G series.
Currently, I am gathering up supplies and minis, but I am coming up a little short.

There are these sets of paper minis that could work for me:

• Giants Set from Arion Games
• Giants from Sanity Studios
• Cardstock Miniatures: Giants—Large and In Charge from Rogue Genius Games

While searching for minis (no one makes giantesses that I have seen...well there is this set, but not for my kids use) I did find this adventure:

• Dungeon Crawl Classics #21: Assault on Stormbringer Castle

But I really know nothing about it other than it has a Storm Giant...which I am missing from the G123 series.  Looks promising though.

I Survived the 2016 A to Z Challenge...

but just barely.

I had known for a while what I wanted to do this year and as far as posting goes I got it.  It was fun to share my thoughts and read others thoughts and remembrances of this old (and some new) adventures.  While I focused on the top 30 Best, I also looked at others.  In the end, they are all adventures I will either run or have run in the past.  I had a great time.

There were also a lot of great blogs in this Challenge, and I didn't get anywhere close to visiting them all.  I didn't even get to visit all the blogs I had really wanted to visit.  Lots of reasons for that, but mostly it was work related.

Next Year

Every year I struggle with the questions "Do I do this again?" and "What should I do?".
I have done "Witches", "Vampires" and "Demons" already. I have considered "Undead" and have many of the creatures already picked out.  That could be fun and I have this old red notebook full of undead creatures I created back in the 80s that have never seen the light of day anywhere else.

One of my own goals for this Challenge is to spread the word of our little hobby here.  I don't have to guess, I can look at my analytics and I know my audience shifts in April.  I get a lot of new people coming in from the Challenge.  This is my time to speak to people outside of our little corner of the internet. I want to evangelize our hobby.

I think doing a month where I focus on different OSR game might be nice, but I had done something like that in 2012.  Are there even enough OSR games/products with all the different letters?  Can't think of "Q" at the moment unless I cheat and do something with "Queen" again. Though I do have X and Z figured out, so that is something.

The point of that sort of posting would be to get someone that is new and put them on the path to a game they could play.  I buy and hand out copies of "Basic Fantasy" all the time, but I can get so many more people here.

I suppose the criteria for me would be these would have to be complete games and OSR ones are preferred.  I guess I could start a list.

What would you all like to see?
You are the reader, what would bring you back each day?

New Releases Tuesday. Witch Edition.

It's Tuesday and that means new releases.

Today I am very excited to report that The Witch is now available on iTunes and Amazon Instant Video.

I am going to be staying up tonight to see this one.

Also out is the third book in Barb Hendee's Mist-torn Witches series, To Kill a Kettle Witch.

While not exactly a new release for today, it was released on Friday.  Rob Zombie's The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser.

On the D&D/OSR side of things The Rogues Gallery is now out.
I remember getting this and being quite excited.  I remember years laters rediscovering it and recognizing some of the names.

Weekend Gaming: Against the Slave Lords!

The Order of the Platinum Dragon made it to the throne room of the slave lords and encountered the first five.

The battle was fierce with many HP lost on both sides.
I did notice that in some cases the Playtest version of Next has slightly different monster stats than the final version of 5e.  I have used both more or less interchangeably.

Sadly the heroes were all knocked unconscious and awoke in a deep, dark dungeon with no weapons, gear or armor.   Adventure A4 begins next!

Of course while they were unconscious they had more dreams.
I am using dream sequences and flashback to give them tidbits of information about what is going on in the world or the past.  I am going with the old adage that it is better to show and not tell.  Each different dream sequence or flashback I use a different version of *D&D.  The next one uses AD&D 1st Ed for a trip back 30+ years ago (natch).

I have used Basic already and even have one planned using 4th ed D&D.

I have my summer gaming mapped out.  This is going to be epic!

A to Z of Adventure! Z is for Zanzer's Dungeon

Z is for Zanzer's Dungeon.

Here we are once again at the end of the A to Z challenge.

Z, like some other letters here, does not signify a module code.  In this case there is an obvious choice.  Back in the early 90s the D&D brand was in transition.  There was the Dungeons & Dragons line, with rule-books named Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters, and Immortal (BECMI) and a single book Rules Cyclopedia that combined the first four.  Then there was the completely separate Advanced Dungeons & Dragons line which had rules-books named Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monstrous Manual.  These books were in their 2nd Edition.
Confusing?  Yeah it was to us too.

In 1991 TSR, the then publisher of D&D released their newest, and what would be one of their last, in the "Basic" sets. The set was called "The New Easy-to-Master Dungeons & Dragons Game" but gamers often called it the "Black Box".  The adventure inside was a bit of preview of things to soon come.  Zanzer's Dungeon was laid out like a board game complete with little plastic minis for the characters and paper fold top minis for monsters.  This was compatible with the BECMI flavor of D&D and worked as a replacement for the Basic Set and an introduction to the Rules Cyclopedia.

While the game was highly praised for it ease of use and intuitiveness. I never bothered getting it at the time.  I picked up my copy (pictured here) many years later as a means to teach my kids how to play.  Turns out they learned like I did...just by playing.

The board-game like play area is welcoming to new players.  Now they can see what they are doing.
Persoanlly that annoyed me because for years my rule books would say that you don't need a board, only your imagination!  Though today I use tiles and maps just like this.

In fact Zanzer's Dungeon here is the same scale as the maps used in 3rd and 4th edition D&D (and 5th if you care to), so the minis we have been using will work here too.

This set would later be expanded with the Dragon's Den boxed set, which was also board game "shaped".

One day I'll use these as an intro game for something.  Better than them collecting dust on my shelves!

Werewolves For Basic Era Games

Tomorrow night is Walpurgis Night.  A night when witches, vampires, and werewolves are known to be out.
I have already given you Witches and Vampires so now I present Werewolves.

Werewolves: The Beast Within is a 10/20 level race-as-a-class class for your favorite Basic Era OSR game.

From the back cover:

Werewolves…
The fear to loose control and become a hungry, blood lusted
beast has haunted our nightmares since we clutched together
in the dark. It has also been the secret desire of others.

Lycanthropes been a staple of role-playing villains, monsters, and
anti-heroes since the dawn of the role-playing hobby.

Now you can play these fearsome monsters of horror tales and
movies in your Basic-Era style games.

Presented here is a full 20 level class with all the classic
werewolf powers.

Fully compatible with the werewolf monsters you have been
using for nearly 40 years.

Also fully compatible with my books for Witches and Vampires.

This one is a buck, but that is really just to pay for the art.

So celebrate "Half-aween" (half way to Halloween) with some classic monsters.

A to Z of Adventure! Y is for YS

Y is for YS1 The Outpost of the Outer Ones.

There are no classic adventures that have a Y or a Y-related code.
Thankfully there is an adventure that does have a Y code, YS1, and it is set up very much like the classic adventures.  Created for OSRIC it can be played using AD&D 1st Edition.

YS1 The Outpost of the Outer Ones was written by Jeremy Reaban. I have featured some of his products here in the past.

Y in this case might stand for Yuggoth, which is the home-world of the Mi-Go, or at least one of their outposts.  This adventure, designed for characters 6th to 10th level for any old-school game, heavily features the Mi-Go.  While he describes it as a "Science fiction" "dungeon crawl" only a tiny bit of work is needed to make this one horror or a mystery.  Afterall, people are going missing, strangers are showing up in town and there is that whole eerie cave system.

Like most of the old-school adventures, this one is light on plot and heavy on the dungeon crawl atmosphere, and that is by design really.  The adventure is simple enough but there is so much more that can be done with it if you want.  Note: I should point out this is NOT a criticism of  the adventure, quite the opposite really.
So basically the Mi-Go are in town and they are doing what the Mi-Go do, removing brains from bodies and putting them into other bodies or their special cylinders.  The brains stay alive and are even immortal after a fashion.  They are also experimenting on the local fauna.  A couple of things in this adventure jumped out as me as hitting that 70's/80's nostalgia sweet spot. There is a Flumph the Mi-go can't figure out. A bionic Sasquatch! (I mean really, was this written just for me?) I biologic towel, a Valley Girl brain, and this whole "Escape to Witch Moutain" vibe about it.  There is a witch and Swanmay in it as well.

Personally I would take Jeremy's advice and expand the module a bit.  Have the party meet the old witch Gwen in her "old" form, but then encounter her again when she is in one of the brain jars and then again when she is in her new body.  Also, I'd make all the Mi-Go's human form all look roughly the same; perfect, blonde, blue eyes, devoid of any real personality.  Like something out of Village of the Damned.  Liked they learned how to be human by reading it in a book.
I'd also make their plans a little more nefarious. This is a scout group looking to colonize this planet.  Makes that bionic Bigfoot look a little more scary if you ask me!

Obviously, a good companion to this adventure would be Jeremy's own OSR Warlock. Make Gwen a warlock AND the one responsible for bringing the Mi-Go here.  I'd also play it under Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.  Give it that "colder and darker" feel that AS&SH can provide.  Plus there are already a number of good Lovecraft Mythos beasties in that game.

My biggest issue with this adventure is where do I use it?  I have so many choices to be honest.  I could easily slot it in as a "Monster of the Week" story, but that would sell it's potential short. I could make it part of a larger campaign, but I would also want the Mi-Go to be more that just a one shot.

In any case I know this will be a fun one.

A to Z of Adventure! X is for Expert.

X is for Expert.

This is not some attempt to grift the Challenge.  The Expert Set adventures were given the code X.
Of course, the most famous of these is X1, The Isle of Dread.

I got this adventure along with my Expert set back in the early 80s.  It is an obvious King Kong homage, but it is a great one.  It is another one of those adventures that people keep coming back to time and time again.
Maybe second only to B2 and B1 in terms of numbers of players, but The Isle of Dread is one of the best Basic-era adventures out there.  In today's frame of mind the adventure is equal parts Pirates of the Caribean, King Kong, and Jurassic Park.  It is a heady cauldron of tropes, ideas and just plain crazy fun.  It was included in the original Expert set and it still had expanded maps and more creatures.  I never understood why the creatures where not just in the main book, but it did make the module special.
What was so nice about X1 over B2 is you had the feel it was more integrated into the Expert rules; it felt like a logical extension.

This is also the first published adventure I ever ran for my son.  Up to this point I had ran ones I had made up for him.  He was young (6 or 7) and adventures like "Cave of the Stinky Goblin" or "Trouble in West Haven" were more appropriate for him.  But X1 had the great big dinosaur on it and he loved dinosaurs.

We had a blast. To me, 20 some odd years later, it felt like a very different adventure.  There is a lot of untapped potential here. Enough for several adventures really.
Later on I bought my son his own copy to run sometime.  It was also the first time that my kids began to recognize Tom Moldvay's name on the covers of adventures.

X2: Castle Amber
Another one of my "holy grail" items. I managed to score a copy when I moved to Chicago.
There is so much to love about this adventure, but I have detailed it all before in these pages.

• Castle Amber by Candle Light
• Castle Amber, Butterbeer and the Order of the Platinum Dragon
• Averoigne via Ravenloft
• and I explore the Castle Amber / Ravenloft connection here. 

Again, this is another Tom Moldvay adventure and we all loved it.

The other X modules came out a bit later and were more tied to the newer Frank Mentzer-edited Expert Set, as opposed to the Cook-Marsh-edited set I had owned. (I guess these modules should have really been called "E" for expert then). Of these I only later owned Quagmire.  I got it cheap at a used book store in Carbondale, IL.  I completely gutted the module and only kept the tower and swamp.

X3 Curse of Xanathon
X4 Master of the Desert Nomads
X5 Temple of Death
X6 Quagmire!
X7 The War Rafts of Kron
X8: Drums on Fire Mountain
X9: The Savage Coast
X10 Red Arrow, Black Shield
X11 Saga of the Shadow Lord
X12 Skarda's Mirror

In particular, I would like to get print copies of X4 and X5 for my Second Campaign game.  Saga of the Shadow Lord also sounds like a lot of fun!

This is my problem...too many great games/adventures and so little time.

A to Z of Adventure! W is for World of Greyhawk

W is for World of Greyhawk.

The WG or World of Greyhawk adventures take place, naturally, in the World of Greyhawk.  This was the default setting of most of the 1st Edition AD&D adventures, and explicitly so for T, A, G, D and Q.
The first named adventure was WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, which I covered briefly on "S" day.  But wait, if it is the first why is it numbered "WG4"?    Well according to the ole' Wikipedia "WG1 was earmarked for The Village of Hommlet (T1), and WG2 was earmarked for The Temple of Elemental Evil (T1-4). WG3 was to be Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (S4), a loosely tied prequel to WG4."  So they do make a series of sorts.

WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure is an interesting one and might just be one of the last adventures Gary wrote for AD&D1 and TSR.  It is a high-level dungeon crawl featuring a unique demon and lots and lots of hack n' slash action.  It does feel like one of the older modules (though it was out in 1984 so it is "old" as well).   I could fit in with the TAGDQ series somewhere I am sure.  It could even be another one of the alternate worlds in Q1.

I don't know much about WG6 Isle of the Ape, save that is was one of the first adventures for characters above 18th level.

I do know about WG7 Castle Greyhawk.  WG7 was supposed to be another Gygax penned adventure, but it didn't happen like that.  Instead, we got a "joke" module.  The idea was sound, the levels get harder and harder with all sorts of strange monsters.  But is was played a huge joke.  At the time (when I was 15) I thought it was funny, but even running it I knew it was bad.  In the history of D&D Castle Greyhawk was a significant part of Gary's original game. For years we were teased with Castle Greyhawk but never got one. Even today we don't have the real thing.  This makes WG7 all that much worse really.  It's too bad really. The authors of WG7 do read like a who's-who of mid 80s game designers.

Of the others, only WG12 Vale of the Mage interests me these days.  I think it is because I was looking for more information of Greyhawk and the Vale of the Mage (home of the Valley Elves. No, I am serious) was one of those places I wanted more detail on.

A to Z of Adventure! V is for Vampire Adventures

V is for Vampire Adventures.

There is no "V" series of adventures.  Which is too bad really since the obvious choice is "Vampire".
While D&D has had some notable vampires show up over the years, Strahd and Drelzna in particular.  The very, very first D&D adventure ever sold was "Palace of the Vampire Queen".

Palace of the Vampire Queen was written by Pete and Judy Kerestan back in 1976.  I should also note that the very first published adventure was also co-written by woman; so yes women have always been a vital part of this hobby.  Interesting note. The adventure is called a "kit" and not a "module"; a name that would be later used.

This adventure was always something of a holy grail for me.  I knew about it, but had only seen bits and pieces of it online.  I didn't know much more than it was the first published adventure and it was really, really rare.  Sites like the Acaeum helped fill in the blanks in what I knew and I learned more from other blogs. Here is Grognardia's take and a bit from Jeff's Game Blog.

Original copies are still very rare, but I managed to score a couple of official reprints from Pacesetter.  As well as the sequels Crypts of the Living and Castle Blood.

I have run the original PotVQ before and it was great fun.   The adventure is so barebones by even the standards of the early 80s that it is easy to use anywhere.  The next two are more "story" driven.  I have run Castle Blood, but it didn't quite live up to the promise of the Vampire Queen.
Personally I would like to take all three and recraft them into something else.  Keep the Vampire Queen elements of course, but introduce some more background.

Hitting that nostalgia feeling hard is another adventure, The Hanging Coffins of the Vampire Queen.

This adventure, written by +Mark Taormino might be an homage to the first Palace of the Vampire Queen adventure, but it is more likely an homage to those meat-grinder, total-party kill, fun-house dungeons of the late 70s early 80s.  There is a basic plot here, enough to get you in the door and moving along, but really this adventure is about killing things and avoiding getting killed.  Example, in one of your first encounters you have to run a gauntlet and get past a bunch of fire giants. Eight of them. And their hell hound pets.  This is "room 1".  It is downhill from there.  It has demons and other vampires in the wander monster table. Liches, demons, succubi, greater devils, nearly 50 vampires in total, tons of other monsters and of course the Queen herself, Lady Neeblack.
This is not an adventure to challenge the resolve of hardy role-players. This is an adventure to survive and leave a trail of bodies behind you.  It is old-school, but old-school through the eyes of 40-somethings looking back on their times as teens.
The adventure itself has a great lead in to get you interested, but that is just the carrot on a stick, most people buying and playing this module are going to want to jump right in.  Another example (this is not a spoiler), you are captured by Lady Neeblack and told you have to run through her crypts for her amusement.  The conceit is the characters will feel coerced into doing this, so they slide down a passage to the previously mentioned Fire Giants.  In truth my players wanted to jump in like they were doing a dive at the pool.

Though to claim people will play this for nostalgia reasons is completely unfair.  Mark did a great job of this. The rooms are detailed and what detail!  There are interesting encounters and Lady Neeblack herself should really move up the ranks as one of the more memorable NPCs ever.  In fact I am hoping that she comes back for a sequel sometime soon.  Just like a good Hammer villain she should find ways to come back from the dead.  +Mark Taormino, this needs to happen.
The text of the book is big, easy to read and despite the "old school" claims still has boxed text to read (screw you Grognards! I still like boxed text even when I don't use it.)  Each room is unique and feels like it belongs.  Plus the "Hanging Coffins" themselves are the coolest idea in vampire graves since the Lost Boys.

The proof of any adventure is not in the reading, but in the playing.  So I played it. It rocked.
Now the game is designed for OSRIC, but can played with 1st or 2nd Ed AD&D.   I played it with 5th Edition D&D.  I just replaced the monsters and made a character sheet for Lady Neeblack.   I ran the same group of people that I had taken through the original Palace of the Vampire Queen and we all treated it as an unofficial sequel.  I worked out well enough.  We all had fun, but if this module reads as a deathtrap on paper it's a killer in the playing. So make of that what you like.
Personally I would love to run it again using AD&D1.

I have two perfect succubi from the recent Pathfinder demon sets that are perfect for  "Sin" and "Diabolica".   The Reaper Bones Female Vampire figure makes for a perfect Lady Neeblack.  The mini is listed as "Naomi" for the metal version. So the Vampire Queen must be Lady Naomi Neeblack!  Sure. Why not.

If I ever re-run this I will do it under AD&D1 as it was meant for.  I fear that D&D5 reduces the power levels of the characters a bit at the highest levels.  Though there is great flexibility in D&D 5.
For example in the adventure there are 8 Fire Giants waiting for you when you enter the pits.  They have 93 hp and do 5d6 damage per attack.  Their D&D 5 counterparts have 160 hp (iirc) and do a lot more damage.  Character can heal faster in D&D5 yes, but their starting hp is still not much better than their AD&D1 counterparts.  Rogues get a d8 vs Thieves d6.  So yeah. Meat Grinder.

I will say this.  If you enjoyed Tomb of Horrors then this will be right up your alley.
In any case this is one of those adventures that will have your players talking for a long time.

One I would like to take all these and combine them in a longer campaign, or part of a campaign.

I have also been seriously considering replacing the "vampire world" in Q1 with Hanging Coffins and make it my own Q2.  Queen of the Demonweb meet the Vampire Queen!

A to Z of Adventure! U is for UK Series (or Underwater)

U is for UK Series (or Underwater).

The U series is a fascinating one for me.  First the editor was Don Turnbull, whom I knew from White Dwarf and the Fiend Folio.  I also knew these all came from England, or the United Kingdom rather and to my mind in 80s England was the home of everything awesome. (Point of fact: I am eating English pub style fish and chips as I write this!)

Though originally I thought the U stood for "Underwater".  Then I was told it was for UK.  Turns out I was right the first time!

Regardless of why they were called this these adventures felt different to me. Much like the L series did.  For starters there was more thinking involved.  You could not get by with just hitting things and taking their stuff.  You had to investigate, figure things out.  There is an enemy to be discovered, but it will be mostly through negotiations that the characters will survive.

U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
U2 Danger at Dunwater
U3 The Final Enemy

For me these are perfect modules/adventures to get people into after they have played a campaign of D&D and now want to try something a little different.  For me, I consider these the first adventures of my so-called "Second Campaign".

Like the other adventures I have mentioned in the Second Campaign I want to run this using the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rules rather than D&D.  Just something to give the monsters a more alien threat to them.
I might also swap out  Day of Al'Akbar for the Nameless City.

I have these three modules on my shelf. Unplayed. That's a freaking crime.

This Summer

This is happening!

Oh yeah. This will be great.

A to Z of Adventure! T is for Temple of Elemental Evil

T is for Temple of Elemental Evil.

Confession time.  I have never run or played through The Temple of Elemental Evil.
I think I was in the Village of Hommlet (T1) once, but that was back in the early, early days of the game.

Since then there have been three more updates and expansions to the T series.

• T1 The Village of Hommlet (1e)
• T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil (1e)
• Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (3e)
• The Village of Hommlet (4e)

I have read all of these. Recently I also read the novelization of the Temple of Elemental Evil and played part of the old Atari PC Game.  T1-4 also made the top 30 D&D adventures of all time.

So I have to admit I really want to run it now.  Though I want to tie it into my current D&D5 game.

Trouble is that the characters are now already 8th level and near the very end of the Slave Lords.  I didn't want to start with T1 because for me it was more important to start with B1 and B2.

So I have the T1-4 supermodule on PDF, but there is a lot going on that I am not a fan of.  Not that it isn't good, it is, but not what I need or want.  Plus I am no fan linking Zuggtmoy to the temple.  Her powers are not elemental in nature.  Plus I always liked the idea that some remnant of Tharizdun especially in the guise of the Elder Elemental Eye.  Maybe this is an elemental themed patron for a warlock.  The idea is of course to play into the larger "Come Endless Darkness" plot line.  So yes this evil is related to the larger evil. Which might be Tharizdun. At least that is what I have always considered over the years.  Turns out that +Joseph Bloch agrees with me.  I already did S4 and WG4, so I guess I am going in reverse.

As usual I have an embarrassment of riches. Too much material actually.

I found some 5e Conversion notes that look really nice. And I have a lot of choices when it comes to plots, ideas and adventures.  Of course I will use T1 The Village of Hommlet and likely a good portion of T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil.  Given my particular desire to make an easy job far more difficult I am also going to look at versions for other editions.

• WGR5 Iuz the Evil (2e)
• Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (3e)
• The Village of Hommlet (4e)
• The Elder Elemental Eye (4e)
• Elemental Evil - Princes of the Apocalypse (5e)

I read through most of those last night.  T1 is easy, T2 will be a bit more work.  I think I am going to steal a lot of ideas from Return and Princes of the Apocalypse.

While doing some research, I discovered this blog post that talked about T2 The Temple of Elemental Evil as promised  back before T1-4 came out.  It is a very interesting read to be honest. That is where the image to the right came from.

Here are some other posts I consider "must read" on my goal to build this gigantic conspiracy of evil.

• Grognardia: Retrospective: The Temple of Elemental Evil
• Greyhawk Grognard: More on the Temple of Elemental Evil
• Greyhawk Grognard: DMing into the Depths of the Oerth, Part III 1/2
• Greyhawk Grognard: From Hommlet to Tharizdun, by way of Tsojcanth
• Greyhawk Grognard: Thoughts on the Elder Elemental God

To me "Expert" level (as listed on the T2 cover) is 4 to 14.   When I first had this idea I was going to go with a parallel group, now I think I just want to up the threats and have it after the Queen of the Demon-web pits.   Make it 14th to 20th level.

So it is settled.  Zuggtmoy is out. Tharizdûn is in.  What is his plan?
Simple. He wants out.  He has convinced all these different evil factions to blot out the sun and deliver the essences of gods to him they think they are going to obtain godhood, but in truth they will be freeing him.  Maybe each has a Shard of the Elder Elemental Eye.  Lolth has Air, Orcus has Earth, Dagon/Hydra has Water and someone else has fire.  I kinda want it to be Asmodeus, but that is a whole other issue really.

But I am leaving out the mindflayers.  Why Air for Lolth when she is underground?  Air represents what she has lost. Plus I like tying her to the Queen of Air and Darkness.

I know there are places I can put the Elemental Shard of Air in Q1.  I am sure I can find places in the D series for the Elemental Shard of Water.  That leaves Earth and Fire.

That's what I love about all these old adventures.  So much you can do with them.

A to Z of Adventure! S is for Special Series.

S is for Special Series.

Ah! The "S" modules.  No series of modules have been as divisive, controversial or as fun (to me) as these.  Originally just four adventures, it has one "honorary" member in my mind and two more unnumbered members.  I have played in these and run them; some (like S4) many times over. These are some of my favorite adventures of all time.

Where to begin?

Well here are the modules/adventures I want to discuss.

• S1 Tomb of Horrors  (Ranked #3 greatest adventure of all time)
• S2 White Plume Mountain (Ranked #9 greatest adventure of all time)
• S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
  (Ranked #5 greatest adventure of all time)
• S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (Ranked #22 greatest adventure of all time)
• These first four are published now as part of S1-4: Dungeons of Dread.
• (S5) The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga
• (S6) Labyrinth of Madness
• and special addition WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun.

These adventures have all been featured here many, many times.
Also, the first four have been collected into a single volume not once, but twice.  Many of the adventures have also been updated for other versions of D&D.

S1: Tomb of Horrors
Depending on who you ask, this is either one of the best adventures for D&D or the worst.  I enjoy this module, but it is not one I plan on running again. I ran it for my kids and they survived, but I think there are better adventures out there.  It is one of those adventures that everyone talks about; often about how horribly they or someone else died in it.   In the picture above, the book on the right with devil with his mouth open?  Yeah. More than one idiotcharacter put their hand in there only to loose said hand.  The big bad is that jeweled skull on the cover of the middle book.
Tomb of Horrors is often described as a meat grinder.  This is true, but it is also a fun challenge and if I can be so bold, a rite of passage of the D&D gamer.  You can't really call yourself a D&D gamer until you go through this.
Love it or hate it, it's place in history is solid and unmoving.

S2: White Plume Mountain
In many ways White Plume Mountain is one of my favorite adventures.  It's a crazy dungeon filled with traps, monsters a few legendary weapons of vast power, all dropped into a semi-active volcano.   I ran it for my kids a while back.  Back then I ran it under 3rd Edition, using a 1st Edition rule base, Basic Edition characters, and some 4th edition add-ons.  It was such a classic though that it all worked.  My kids loved it.

S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
This was one of the first adventures I ever bought for myself.  The characters (in a quasi-medieval Europe) find an ancient crashed star-ship and all the crazy alien life forms still trapped inside.  Based a bit on the game Metamorphosis Alpha.   I ran this for my kids a while back.  My youngest LOVED it, but my oldest didn't. Which is a bit odd I thought, because he began playing with the Star Wars d20 RPG.
Still though, I personally think this is a great module.

S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth 
The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and it's near sequel WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun are two of my favorite modules ever.  I bought S4 my freshman year in high school and read it cover to cover.  One of my favorite bits was the "sneak peak" at some of the monsters that would later appear in the Monster Manual II hardcover.  It was also a rather deadly adventure. The nearby Forgotten Temple of Tharizidun then opens up a new threat of the ancient imprisoned god Tharizdun.  This ties it in to the T1-4 Supermodule The Temple of Elemental Evil.  But I think what I liked about it was the information on Greyhawk.  We are introduced to the witch Iggwilv here. She would later become an important figure in the history of Greyhawk and D&D.
The boys loved this adventure.  Combining it with WG4 and some additional material from the web it took us about 6 months to complete.  Still, it was a great time.

Two other modules were later added to the "Special" Series but never had, to my knowledge, an "S" designation.

S5: The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga is one of those characters that we keep coming back to in D&D.  There are at least 3 or 4 versions of The Dancing Hut adventure out there now and even for the Pathfinder game (a game very much like D&D) has her as the main bad guy for a whole series of adventures.
I am going to feature her and this adventure in my own "War of the Witch Queens" campaign that I run next.

S6: Labyrinth of Madness
Of all the "S" modules, this is the only one I know nothing about.
From what I can tell it is sort of a tribute to the kinds of dungeons we saw in the S-series.  It looks like a lot of fun though.

A to Z of Adventure! R is for RPGA Adventures.

R is for RPGA Adventures.

Growing up in the 80s I read about the RPGA, Role-Players Game Association, with great interest.  As a kid it was important to me then to be "Best at D&D" (whatever that meant) and the RPGA seemed like external validation of that.  I had heard there were some people in my small-ish town (22k at the time iifc) that were members, but I don't think I even knew for sure.  For me though being in the RPGA was like a badge of honor, like running a Call of Cthulhu game was.  Something only Real Roleplayers^TM did.

Well today I am not going to get into the details of the RPGA, past or present, instead, I want to talk about the adventures.  Now normally with this challenge I want to present some material that my normal readers will like and that new readers will also find approachable.   The adventures from the RPGA are, as you might expect from reading the above, not very common or easily accessed.

Back in the early days of eBay I hit the internet hard looking for copies of these adventures.   One of the first ones I grabbed were the first four I knew of.

R1 To the Aid of Falx 
R2 The Investigation of Hydell  
R3 The Egg of the Phoenix  
R4 Doc's Island

These were written in 1982-83 by Frank Mentzer.  I focused on these since they were the ones I knew about and I had a chance to go through them in the late 80s myself, but never finished them.
Unknown to me at the time they were all collected into a larger adventure and sold as I12 Egg of the Phoenix which I talked about on I Day.

Re-reading these now I am very curious about Frank Mentzer's own campaign setting of Aquaria.   I found these links that gave me a bit of a better idea what it is all about:

• http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/08/frank-mentzers-aquaria.html
• http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=4140

I am going to need to find out more about it to be honest.

The next set of RPGA adventures that got me interested were the RPGA series.

RPGA1 Rahasia
RPGA2 Black Opal Eye
These were written by Tracy and Laura Hickman and then later combined into the module B7 Rahasia.  Reading these earlier treatments is actually very interesting. I pulled them out when I was thinking about this challenge and after I got the new Tracy and Laura Hickman inspired Ravenloft.   I talked quite a bit about Rahasia and The Black Opal Eye.
http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2016/03/rahasia-ravenloft-and-witches.html

RPGA3 The Forgotten King 
RPGA4 The Elixir of Life
Both of these were written by Bob Blake in 1983.  I have them, but I have not really gotten into them.

There are others, mostly featured in Polyhedron Magazine.

As publications, they are an interesting piece of D&D history especially from the so-called "Silver age" of D&D; that early/mid-80s time when D&D was at its cultural peak, but the best adventures were for the most part already published and behind it.

As adventures, many are forgettable save for the ones I mention here.  This, in particular, came as something of a blow to me.  I had expected the RPGA modules to be the cream of the crop, but that was not the case.  Rahasia and the Egg of the Phoenix caught my attentions, but that is about it.
Many of the best would be later reprinted under other module codes (like Rahasia and Egg of Phoenix).

Still. There is something uniquely nostalgic about picking up these duotone books and flipping through thinking of an age when Walkmen, pastels, Trapper Keepers, and Rubic's Cubes ruled the land.

A to Z of Adventure! Q is for Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Q is for Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

What else could it be?  Well...funny you should say that. There is also a few Vampire Queen adventures out there and there is the adventure path I am playing around with, War of the Witch Queens.  But I guess really there is only one queen and only one Q module.

Queen of the Demonweb Pits is the ultimate finale that began with the characters looking into some giant raids. Behind it all was the Drow and Lolth!...er wait. Wasn't supposed to be the Elder Elemental Eye? Tharizdun? I mean that is what is going on in T1 Village of Hommlet.

Well as it turns out Q1 was supposed to be different. It wasn't the vision that Gary wanted. Now the official story is that Gary was too busy to work on Q1 because he was working on T2 The Temple of Elemental Evil.  We can see bits of his thinking in T1, S4 and WG5.  So David Sutherland came in to finish it off.  At least that is story we have been told.  According to Shannon Appelcline this was the start of Gary's eventual ouster at TSR.

Regardless of how, what and why, Q1 is fondly remembered to this day 36 years later.  As part of the GDQ series it is considered to be one of the greatest adventures of all time.

I remember playing this back in the day and that confusing as hell map.  I remember talking to friends in the days WAY before the Internet and how we would speculate on Q2 and Q3.

Like T1 and the mythical stand-alone T2, a DIY Q2 would be great.

SO TO MY REGULAR READERS:  What would be in YOUR Q2?

Would you have the characters look into the Elder Elemental Eye connection?  Maybe there would be a civil war among the drow; those that support the EEE and those that support Lolth.

I suppose I could take a few pages from Expedition to the Demonweb Pits for 3.5 edition of D&D to.  I do know I need to work out this Lolth-Tharizdûn issue before my players get there!

3 Different Editions, 1 Basic idea

Strange Brew: Warlocks

I am interrupting this A to Z Challenge to talk about my newest book. The first part of "Strange Brew" is now out.  This book features Warlocks for the Pathfinder game.

Strange Brew: Warlock

Power.

Sorcerers are born into it. Wizards spend their lives in rigorous study for it. Witches gain it through devotion to their patron. But some who seek power are unlucky enough to have been born mortal, with no access to or desire for arcane education; ordinary people who know little of witchcraft’s ancient traditions. Unlike witches, who are called by their patrons, warlocks seek out powerful beings to grant them the power they crave or desperately need.

That power can now be in your hands.

Included in these 30 pages is the new Warlock class for the Pathfinder RPG.

• Also inside are new rules on Grimoires, the ancient and living texts of warlocks.
• Details on new warlock pacts, including unique powers and spells.
• Examples of several new warlock Patrons.
• New feats
• New hexes
• New spells
• And a new warlock NPC

All for your Pathfinder Role-Playing Game!

A to Z of Adventure! P is for Paragon

P is for Paragon.

I already talked about the Epic Level adventures for D&D4.  The Paragon adventures were the middle of the road ones, for characters level 11-20.  (The Heroic Tier was for adventurers of level 1 to 10).
The Paragon level represented heroes as the movers and shakers of the world. The heroes that the common folk knew by name or at least by reputation.  The threats are greater for these guys, but the rewards are also higher.
These adventures continued the fight to learn of Orcus' plans against the Raven Queen.

• P1 King of the Trollhaunt Warrens
• P2 Demon Queen's Enclave
• P3 Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress

It also is the level that the stress of D&D4 became really apparent.  In other versions of D&D these are levels where the threats begin to change and then become cosmic. We see that here too, but really the combat system of D&D4 was just more of the same slog.

I liked these adventures in concept. I still do in fact.  Maybe someone out there has converted them all to 1st or 5th Edition.  I could see a nice conversion using the current 5th edition adventure series format.  1st to 20th level.  It also would not be too difficult; you could easily cut out a third of the material above to create something that would work better for 5th edition.  The monsters would have to be cut down in number as well.  I would also cut some encounters out all together.  Work in the errata and tighten up the Orcus plot a bit more. It could work.

I guess I just really want to get some use out of my 4e materials.

A to Z of Adventure! O is for Outer Planes

O is for Outer Planes.

There are other "O" series out there, but the only one I owned was OP1, Tales of the Outer Planes.  It was designed to support the Manual of the Planes, one of my favorite D&D books.  The Outer Planes are home to gods, demons, devils and weirder things like modrons, gith and slaad.  All the myths of the world can be found in the planes...somewhere.  The outer planes are very much part of many of the adventures I have, or will, talk about here. H4, Q1, these all take place in the outer planes.

OP1 Tales of the Outer Planes has 11 adventures on various outer planes and 17 lairs.  The adventures are all small and the lairs are just that, a lair.  I got this book because I was so enamored with the Manual of Planes.  Sadly, or fortunately depending on your point of view,  2nd edition came along and got rid of the demons and devils (at least for a while) and made most of this book obsolete.
I also remember hearing back in the day that a lot of people also just didn't like it.  I felt it did not live up to the hype to be sure, but I never thought it was bad.  I rather enjoyed the "Castle at the End of Time" and "An Element of Chaos".

When I run H4 Throne of Bloodstone, this would be a good book to have next to me.  Just in case!

Zatannurday: Doctor Strange

The new Doctor Strange trailer came out this week.

Doctor Strange is easily my favorite Marvel character.
I liked the idea of this brilliant man of science and medicine thrown into a world he couldn't understand at first.

Plus all that 60's and 70's occult vibes to the early comics and art by Steven Dirko? Yeah that is right up my alley.

Now we have our first trailer out and I am excited as hell.

Looks like we are sticking pretty close to the classic Dr. Strange origin story here too.
Benedict Cumberbatch is opting for an American accent here, which tracks with Strange's character as being a New Yorker.   Tilda Swinton makes an interesting choice as The Ancient One, but a good choice in my mind. Plus we get Mads Mikkelsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor (as Mordo no less!), and Rachel McAddams...that is some top-shelf acting talent.

This is going to rock.

I hope though they keep the horror and occult themes I loved about this comic.
Say what you like about the failed Peter Hooten movie, it was some scary shit for 1978 TV.