The Other Side blog

Thursday, March 24, 2011

White Plume Mountain, I challenge you to do this!

So. Been a really busy week for me. Work. School. Family.

I took a mental health break from it all last night around 8:00pm and was looking through all my material for the White Plume Mountain and I realized something.

Edition wars are fundamentally bullshit.

The concept of an "edition war" is based on the idea that one edition of a game is better/worse than another.
My running of White Plume Mountain flies in the face of this.

Here are the materials I am using:

Rule base: D&D 3.0 (not 3.5, just 3.0).
Module: White Plume Mountain, 1st Ed AD&D, with 3rd Ed D&D updates and an extension, Dragotha's Lair, written for 2nd Ed. AD&D.
Characters: A Pathfinder Ranger, a 3.5 ed Paladin that is a 4e race (Dragonborn), a 3.0 witch, a couple of converted elemental sorcerers (were M&M 2ed, now Pathfinder), and a Star Wars revised ed bounty hunter.
Dragotha (Big Bad 1): D&D 4e stats from the Draconomicon.
Keraptis (Big Bad 2): BASIC D&D Witch that I am playtesting.
Plus I am using D&D 4e fortune cards.
Also maps released under GSL and minis from at least 5 or 6 different sources (which are all of course edition-free).

Everything so far has run nice and smooth and everyone is having a blast.

So. Either I am some Mad Scientist, Super-Genius-level DM that can make all these conversions on the fly OR there is just not as many differences between these systems as some people think.

You may not like a particular edition, but that doesn't actually devalue it nor change it's worth to others.

Anyone else out there do this kind of D&D freestyle mixing of editions? What were your experiences? Did it work? Did it fail miserably? If none of the above would you be interested in trying it out?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Dragonslayers vs White Plume Mountain, Part 1b

So I picked up my 4e Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons and read up on Dragotha.

Cool stuff really. What they have there is largely compatible with what I want to do in my adventure. Dragotha was Tiamat's consort, he was betrayed and left for dead. In the Draconomicon he was "aided" by Kyuss. I think I might not use that part or just not bring it up.

Course now is the big question. Will Dragotha help the PCs or try to fight them? I am going to have him under Kerapis' thrall, so as long as Keraptis is alive, then Dragotha will attack. Would Dragotha know of the PC's quest? They have not been secret about it to be sure.

So till next session, I'll hit the research. Certainly I could "just make stuff" up, but I like the feeling of my little game being part of a larger world. Plus one day, maybe one day soon, my boys will be searching for this stuff online too and I want them to be able to say "yes! I Was there, I did that."

What have I learned?

Keraptis was a contemporary of Acererak.
He delved into Necromancy, pretty deeply in fact. He may have been one of Greyhawk's premier necromancers.
He is most certainly a lich now; if not dead.
The magical items are each connected to the elements, Whelm-Earth, Blackrazor-Fire, Wave-Water and a fourth, Seeker, an elven arrow for Air.
White Plume Mountain is a place of ancient magics.

To be sure, this is a lot of background for a guy that is essentially the Level 20 Boss. But a well developed villain is a good villain.

I might change Seeker to a bow and my other son has been looking for a sword called "The Dragon Blade" that he is certain has to exist. I'd give it pluses for killing evil dragons and allow the wielder to be looked apon favorably by good dragons. He is not interested in Blackrazor at all. It might end up in Omar's shop!

I even found a place for the final battle, the Cave of Bones.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20010817a

Refs
http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Keraptis
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=465
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=464
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=447

Monday, March 21, 2011

There goes the last shred of my OSR-ness

I am beholden to the man now.

Just got paid for writing some D&D 4e stuff. Not a lot as you can see, but I didn't write a lot either.

Now if I can just get paid some of the other things I did for companies I'd be very happy.

The Dragonslayers vs White Plume Mountain, Part 1

Sunday was cold and rainy, so the perfect day to recover some stolen magical artifacts in a volcano!

The Dragonslayers (my kids' 3.x game) ventured into the classic module White Plume Mountain. I changed the set up a bit, they have been hired by one of my more infamous NPCs, Crazy Omar, to recover Whelm, which he claims is owned by his family. He tells them of Wave and Blackrazor and that representatives of their owners (which of course are already dead now).

I spent a couple days cutting out and taping the the White Plume Mountain Dungeon tiles I reviewed a while back, and the boys loved them! They liked being able to see the doors and being able to write on the maps themselves. BTW i figured if I printed the map out and connected all the tiles they would be about 7 feet by 5 feet.

Astute readers will recognize Fire and Ice back there as well (they are quasi NPCs in this game). Our minis are an eclectic lot of D&D minis, Heroclix, Darksword, and Heroscape. More astute OSR players will recognize this as room 10.

My sons' ranger/arcane archer found the deeper pool and they made short work of Sea Hag and her pet, even with me boosting the Hag using some of my new rules on the witch (all hags in my game can take levels in Witch).

We had to cut short the adventure, diner was ready, but we will be getting back to it very soon. I think my youngest wants Blackrazor, my oldest, who plays the Dragonborn Paladin, wants nothing to do with it.

I am dropping some of the Cthulhu-ish ideas I had earlier in favor of running it "straight", but there is something I just can't pass up. A totally throw-away by Erol Otis I am sure, but the picture has always intrigued me.

My boys after all are the "Dargonslayers" and Dragotha has to be one of the most powerful dracolich around. I figure he is a ancient (1,000+ years) red dragon lich. I'll have him breath "black fire". Give the boys something to really remember. Maybe even put Kerapis on top of him, a lich of course. Make them both pretty difficult to beat.

Spoke too soon! I found this online, http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4pr/20081105a. Sweet. And given that he is in 4th Edition, I might let him escape to plague the characters when we move over to 4e. Plus, his stats are pretty much custom made for my son Liam! Red dragon, dracolich, breaths cold blue necrotic fire, I am a bit surprised he never pointed this dragon out to me before in fact. He does own all the Draconomicons.

To fit it into themythology of the game, Dragotha was once the red dragon consort of Tiamat. Like all her consorts though he did something to offend the great Queen of Dragons and she killed him. Of course Dragotha and Kerapis had already struck up a deal. Kerapis, already a lich himself, turned the great dragon into a demi-lich and has been in Kerapis' service ever since. If the players kill Kerapis first then Dragotha is free and he will use that freedom to lay waste to Kerapis' lair; ignoring the characters (till another time!). The Dragonslayers only need his tooth to complete their own ritual to create a portal to Tiamat's lair.

This will be fun!