Switch Theme:

Retro Review-Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (AD&D 1980)  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

I first got into D&D around 1984 (take a shot if you weren’t born then) and after exploring the Caves of Chaos (just downtown from the Keep on the Borderlands, not too far from the Canyons of Carnage and the Caverns of Cataclysms) and other ‘normal’ dungeons I heard rumors about the module where you explore a crashed space ship! After seeing a copy at a friend’s house I knew I had to have it.



In those pre-internet, carless days, it would be a few years until I ventured to Manhattan and found a copy at the Compleat Strategist around 1988 (somehow still there despite the chaos of New York real estate, 33rd and 5th, a block from the Empire State Building, check them out when you’re in town). And it was everything promised and more.



Most modules of the day had a clever design of a booklet with a removable card-stock cover that doubled as your map and DM’s screen. But this one doubled down with TWO card-stock map sets, a booklet describing the adventure AND a book of illustrations to show your players.



Plus, at a time when color printing was almost unheard of in game books, it included a four-page color spread to illustrate the alien ship.





Heady production values for a module from 1980! I’ve had no luck finding out how much it went for back in the day but my memory is somewhere around $7, certainly less than $10, a great value for your money. Even today original copies are selling for $20-$50, not too too bad.

I still have my original copy, and it’s followed me across a few continents now and it’ll probably follow me for a few more.



I’ve run a few times and, with the right players it’s always a good time. When mixing fantasy characters and modern (or sci-fi) tech it’s always a risk that the players will take advantage of their outside knowledge.

“You find a metal tube with a wooden handle and small lever. There is a cylinder in the middle of it where the handle meets the tube and a small piece of metal protruding from the back. A small metal triangle rises from above the end of the tube.”

“OK, Skullcrusher the Barbaric picks up the tube by the wooden handle and pulls back the protruding metal hammer, lines up the top triangle so the tube is facing the minotaur and pulls on the lever. What happens?”


Yeah like that. Sure there were always some players who were there to role play and have fun, but for most the idea of having fun was synonymous with winning, and winning meant beating the DM and his clever tricks and traps.

Expedition nixes some of this with innovative designs that avoid sci-fi cliches and real-world designs.



“You find a metal box with a black glass sheet covering the front. A handle below has button on it.”
“Skullcrusher holds in front of his face and looks inside.”
“You can’t see anything.”
“Skullcrusher pushes the button activate the computer-I mean strange arcane device.”
“The screen crackles to life and an energy blast hits you square in the face. Take 5-30 points of damage, save to see if your armor is destroyed and uh, you’re blind for d6 turns.”


See what I mean.

So let’s pack our iron rations, pick up 50’ of rope and a 10’ pole at the General Store and take off an Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!


 
   
Made in ca
Pustulating Plague Priest






Looks like it would be rather fun to run. How would you describe the length of the adventure? D&D Basic XP milestones were horribly inflated so I can imagine a module that expands over four levels would take considerable time. Not sure how XP applies to AD&D.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/04 14:06:14


Faithful... Enlightened... Ambitious... Brethren... WE NEED A NEW DRIVER! THIS ONE IS DEAD!  
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

Great write up! I've always heard of this one due to the scifi elements but have never seen a copy.
   
Made in us
Troubled By Non-Compliant Worlds





I really love Goodman Games' 'Original Adventures Reincarnated' edition.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/04 22:45:54


 
   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought




San Jose, CA

I love AD&D! The expansions are a great toolbox for the enterprising DM.
   
Made in us
Veteran Inquisitorial Tyranid Xenokiller





Some backwater sump

Always ready for another patented Kid Kyoto Retro Review TM (c) (R)!

New Career Time? 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India



Welcome back to the award-seeking Retro Review series!



Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was originally a Gen Con module meant as a crossover with TSR’s science fiction game - Metamorphosis Alpha. I never played Metamorphosis Alpha but apparently it was set in a generational starship that was breaking down and the party would play descendants of the original crew who have lost the knowledge of how to run the ship. I don’t know how well the game worked but it is a cool idea.



As a convention module, the action starts en media res – strange monsters are pestering villages along the borderlands of the Grand Dutchy of Geoff and the party has already agreed to check it out. No bargaining with the Duke, no haggling with the storekeeper over the price of a silver dagger, no spending 3 sessions debating what to name your mule, you’re already there. The Duke’s men have dropped you off and it’s time to start the adventure.



I have to note the use of the SAT vocabulary words sennight, fulsome, and bowshot (as a measure of distance). Props to Mr. Gygax. Who says D&D is a waste of time? It almost makes me want to forgive him for the “Grand Dutchy of Geoff”.

Almost.

I mean look, we've all been there and I'm not above naming a ship the White Stapler or a villain the Blue Scissor, but those are place holder names until inspiration strikes. You don't let something like the Grand Dutchy of Jeff see print damnit!

Anyway...



The characters find a strange metal door in the hillside which of course leads into the crashed starship.




(Plague, malfunctioning ship, shot through a black hole, crashed, buried for decades, door cleared by recent earthquake. In case you’re wondering.)

The module assumes that the players don’t know this is a crashed space ship (please ignore the laser gun and computer consoles on the cover).

Oh.

41 year old spoiler warning.



So this is where we’ll separate the role players from the competitors. Both approaches are fine as long as everyone is on the same page.

“Meryl the Magnificent gapes in wonder at these strange metal corridors and glowing gems that produce light without a torch! What godlike beings have wrought this land of wonders?”

“Skullcrusher is gonna to search for an armory to loot.”


But once players have had a few minutes to orient themselves and realize they are not in a ‘normal’ dungeon the fun can start.



The ship is a cylinder shape with rooms on the perimeter and a garden in center filled with various alien monsters and creatures. Some parts are inhabited by escaped monsters, others by malfunctioning robots and androids.



Access is controlled by variously colored key cards (the bulkhead doors are too strong for anything short of a disintegrate spell to blow through).



So a large part of the gameplay is figuring out how doors work and then tearing the ship apart looking for Yellow Card or whatever to get to the next level. Today this is a common trope in video games, but I wonder if it had been used before?

And of course since we all now live in THE FUTURE, we also know this is not how anyone would ever design a security system. Yeah, OK physical cards, but you’d want at least one more step like a key code or biometrics to make it secure in case someone steals a card. But in the interest of earning my No Prize I submit that when this section of the ship separated from the main vessel it was cut off from the mainframe with the access codes or facial recognition files so that feature turned off for safety reasons.



In any case once the characters have done the obligatory “By the gods what strange magic has created this!” they can commence exploring. And killing. Mainly killing, cause, I mean it’s D&D.



One thing I really like is there was an effort to use the more bizarre and alien monsters in the game, to reinforce the idea that the ship is carrying lifeforms from distant worlds (which are also in another dimension) and from another genre. So we have Vegepygmies and Lurkers Above and Intellect Devourers in place of the usual orcs and dragons.

It’s hard to say how well that worked.



“Thor’s massive hammer! What is this three-armed hyena thing? Never in all my days have I seen such an alien beast! I mean except for that three headed hemerophyte with the mouth in its stomach that we saw last week, but I mean other than that. Anyway I roll to hit!”


Probably about that well.



Unless the DM was playing in a strictly medieval or Tolkienesque world with none of the odder Monster Manual and Fiend Folio monsters it’s hard to tell if Web Birds (they’re birds, who spin webs!) are any odder than the stuff you run into every Tuesday night in the dungeon of the week.



“Great Poseidon’s engorged trident! A brain! Walking on four legs? How can such a thing be? I mean unless it’s related to that weird floating eyeball thing we fought last month. Remember that? It had like 10 little eyeballs on stalks and each one shot a different magical ray. Weird huh? Anyhow is that thing checking out Red Sonja’s butt? And how is he doing it with no eyes?”



But I still appreciate the effort y’know.



The botanical garden in the center of the ship offers all sorts of jungle and plant monsters and even a lake with some aquatic creatures to encounter. And by encounter I mean kill of course.



"Yon unicorn bunny would make a delicious repast for Skullcrusher methinks."




"Zounds! Yon unicorn bunny tis in fact some sort of Wolf in Sheep's Clothing! What a bizarre, alien creature so unlike that treasure chest that turned out to be a shape-shifting blob last week!"


And so it goes.



Besides the obscure monsters the adventure also has various robots for the players to deal with. Characters without the proper key card may be imprisoned by police robots and held until the long-dead crew comes to question them.



Training bots try to engage the party in fencing, wrestling and karate.



A crazed doctor bot tries to dissect the party while a nurse bot tries to heal them.



(I don't know much, but I do know that sometime, somewhere, someone's character tried to have sex with her. I'll tell you that for free.)

But anyway you get the idea. If the party is able to establish communication hi jinks should ensue.



And finally there’s an Mind Flayer who was trapped on the ship while traveling Astrally (or possibly Ethereally) but has been acclimating nicely. If the party hasn’t figured out the ship’s weapons yet, they will when the Flayer shoots his fully charged blaster at them.




And finally the characters find a cargo hold where some worker robot toss them out the airlock.



And toss a Bulette after them!

And that's it. The end.

Or is it?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/12/05 18:10:03


 
   
Made in ca
Skink Chief with Poisoned Javelins




Michigan

I really enjoy how the bots are posed.

"Get outta here! Scram!"
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Wow. I forgot how nicely illustrated this was. Just look at the airbrushing in the erol otus office pic with the bots. From a graphic design and publishing standpoint of the period, this took a lot of effort. And while tsr was beginning to flourish, this still took a respectable amount of investment. I wonder if anyone still possesses the bromides for these layouts? Does anyone even know what a bromide is anymore?

Anyways, roll for initiiative. I rolled a 2.
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

Someday I want to go the whole hog with the swords and lasers stuff in a d&d campaign. Great to see another retro review!

   
Made in pt
Inquisitorial Keeper of the Xenobanks






your mind

Thread exalted. This module book… I wish I had been able to save all that stuff. Wow… hard to believe I let it all go 33 yrs ago.

   
Made in us
Krazy Grot Kutta Driva





I wish I grabbed that module from my brother and I collection. It was such and great and different adventure. Thanks for bringing back the memories.

 
   
Made in gb
Stubborn Dark Angels Veteran Sergeant





Teesside

Such a gorgeous book, and with some great ideas, though my abiding memory of playing it with other teenagers in the 80s is that it had a LOT of empty rooms. It feels like it was designed prior to that fantastic Dragon Magazine #57-59 series on designing narratively coherent pulp dungeons by alternate reality Quentin Tarantino.

My painting & modelling blog: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/699224.page

Serpent King Games: Dragon Warriors Reborn!
http://serpentking.com/

 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India



As I mentioned before one of the really cool things in this book is the tech. Stephen Corbert listed the backwards-firing guns as his favorite part of the adventure. (At least Wikipedia says so, or at least I think it did, I won’t bother to look it back up.)

Weird designs fill the attached art book and take up a good part of the module itself.

There's a chart for figuring out the items…



But, yeah. And that’s the simple one. But with the detailed art and the work put into hiding what they actually are it seems that role playing is a lot more fun.



I mentioned the TV looking blaster before. It also comes in an unnecessarily complicated version.



Once you figure out how to unfold and wear it, you get a shoulder-mounted cannon with 3 deadly settings.



I question the ergonomics of buttons on the shoulder when you already have a firing handle, but since it has a disintegration setting I can’t object too much.



The needle pistol is another weapon that’s easy to shoot yourself in the face with. If you can figure out that it's a weapon at all.



The paralysis pistol is clearly a gun, no one’s going to mistake it for potion or anything. Nice retro design though.



But the grenades, not hard to see someone picking that up, pushing the button and holding for a minute. Not hard at all.





The laser pistol and rifle are a bit odd, but there's only one obvious way to use them. The have the neat mechanic of doing 2-20 damage PLUS your armor class (negative AC actually does reduce your damage).


As for the one thing that actually looks like a gun…



"With an incoherent roar the Minotaur charges you."
“I pick up the small wand-like object. I point the item at the oncoming minotaur, and push down on the button on the back.”
“A light turns on, a voice from the speaker on the item says ‘I will smash you little human’, roll for surprise as the minotaur hits you with his battleaxe.”


Yeah, it's a translator.



Oh wait! There’s also this one!

“I pick up the metal tube, pull the lever back aim it at the minotaur and pull the crossbow-like lever on the bottom.”
“The tube fires a stream of fire extinguishing foam at the minotaur. The monster looks puzzled for a moment and then hits you with its battleaxe.”




There’s a couple of other cool items, including a suit of power armor if you can find it, if you can make it work, but those are the highlights. Fortunately even if the players do figure these items out and arm themselves with a variety of shoulder mounted, carpal tunnel syndrome-causing, disintegration cannons, they’re only good for 6 shots before needing a new power disk. So basically less useful than a wand of fireballs with a much greater chance of melting your own face.

Like I said a really cool bit of design work and a definite highlight of the adventure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:


NOTE: Whoa this is now the most popular thread on Dakka, eclipsing the sewer collapse thread!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/06 18:05:25


 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
It also comes in an unnecessarily complicated version.



"Unnecessarily complicated"?

Well, clearly you have missed the forest for the trees, so the only thing left to say to you good sir is good day! I said good day, sir!
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

I am a simple man.

I'm here to watch players shoot themselves in the face, not to have to work at it.

 
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

I remember this back at they day, as young teens simply waved it off and said no ray guns, it will break the game.
The assumption was that the player characters would ignore the 'dungeon' simply tool themselves up with blasters and space armour then going back to killing orcs.
So we nobody bought it and nobody played.

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Yea'rly!)




The Great State of Texas

Loved it when it came out. The amount of illustrations and detail was excellent. I remember a weight training robot throwing barbells at me. I became vexed, terribly vexed!

-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
Made in us
Inspiring SDF-1 Bridge Officer





Mississippi

You forgot to remark on the E.G.G. Initials imbedded in one of the maps

It never ends well 
   
Made in ca
Skink Chief with Poisoned Javelins




Michigan

The sewer collapse thread has got nothing on anti-grav pants.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut







I don't want to harp on an otherwise excellent review of a module I've fond memories of, but Geoff is an actual last name.

https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/results?lastName=geoff

Yeah, culturally it ranks down there with being named John David, but it's still a fair name.
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

And we’re back, with some final thoughts on this forty one year old adventure module.



As I said, great art, great production values, cool ideas. The adventure portion of the book isn’t bad, it just lacks a 3rd act.

Once the party is done saying…

“By the long shaft of Odin’s Spear what is this place?!”


There’s not much to do other than wandering around and killing things until they get tossed out the malfunctioning airlock. The party doesn’t really have a goal to accomplish.

Other than y’know, killing and looting.



Which in some cases might be enough.

Of course a clever DM may be able to put something together. Perhaps the heroes can find a still-functioning android, a Star Fleet Ensign a cryogenic pod or a hologram with the uploaded mind of the captain. And once communication is established through magical or technological means, the party will have a guide to tell them what’s what. Though inevitably miscommunications will occur and hilarity will ensue.

"Quick fingered Mercury’s swift sword! You have led us to a place of wonders with glistening white porcelain bowls of pure water and silvery mirrors! It must be a temple! I enter one of the small tabernacles, kneel down, and drink of the holy water!”


And now that you have Dungeon Master proxy, maybe a ticking clock could be added. The ship’s warp engines have restarted and in just hours they will suck the ship and the whole Grand Dutchy of Geoff into the Astral Plane! (Or possibly the Ethereal Plane, I honestly can’t remember which is which). Maybe deep in the holds there is a monster no one wants to see escape like the Tarrasque - D&D’s answer to Godzilla. And the stasis field is starting to fail!



Of course as we enter our second year of COVID maybe the threat would be more subtle like virus canisters or murder hornets or something like that. That might be a bit too esoteric for D&D though. And dull. Either a Cure Disease spell works on it or doesn’t. The Fiend Folio added Yellow Musk Creepers, plants that turn people in to Yellow Musk Zombies (Q.V.), that would be a suitably choppable threat. Or maybe the unicorn bunnies are about to break loose, eat everything green, reproduce wildly (since they are free of their natural predators the three armed jackal things) and turn the Grand Dutchy of Phred into a barren wasteland?



The Mind Flayer in a Star Fleet Uniform is a great visual and makes for a natural villain. Perhaps the Mind Flayer has learned more than how to use a blaster and is about to use the warp drives to open a porthole to the bring in an army of Flayers from the Astral (or possibly Ethereal) Plane!



Or maybe add a more altruistic goal. One of the random encounters is a group of Will-o-wisps, minor ghosts. Maybe add tons of more wisps and have the party discover they are souls of the crew, trapped here and denied their final rest until the ship can return to their dimension!



Or something else entirely. Maybe the Men at Arms who kindly escorted the heroes are really there to eliminate the heroes once they have taken care of the monsters.



And of course we can mix and match. After Act One (“I peer into the glass box and press the button”) and Act Two (“we kill it”) cryptic clues start appearing on the computer monitors – sorry I mean mysterious glass plates mounted on the wall. In time they guide the party to the captain’s corpse which still wears a helmet wired to a box. Once they activate the box, they shoot themselves in the face! No. A hologram – sorry I mean bluish ghost – of the captain appears and starts telling them the story. They learn about the Tarrasque trapped in the basement, the Mind Flayers working to power up the engines and the Tribble-like threat of Space Bunny Unicorns. If the party does it right they use the jerry-rigged engines to send the whole ship into the Ethereal (or perhaps Astral) Plane and jump out the airlock door just as it disappears. If they do it wrong… well time to read up on those Astral Plane rules (or possibly Ethereal Plane rules) cause they’re gonna be there a while.



You get the idea. While the adventure is just kind of episodic there is a ton of potential here for a goal-driven adventure and several subplots.



And sequels. If one module of the generational ship ended up in the Barrier Peaks near the Grand Dutchy of Oedi then maybe more did too. Maybe there’s an intact colonization pod filled with sleeping colonists and robot legions ready to overrun the primitives of Grand Dutchy of Knancey and terraform it into something civilized? Will the players oppose them or try to find them a new home?

“Look Conan-“
“Skullcrusher”
“Whatever. I’ve got a million colonists in cyrosleep and the damn computer is waking dozens of them up every minute. Unless we work together to figure out some food and shelter you’re going to have a lot of hungry and angry people who happen to have an army of robots with blaster cannons.”


Obviously this would basically mean you’re giving up on playing a fantasy game and now playing a Rifts or Shadowrun style medley game but hey… Is that so bad?



Hmm…. Shadowrun and Rifts, I wonder if there’d be any interest in a Retro Review of either of them.



And Kyoto Secuda had a thought, that – when your baseline is floating eyeballs with ten more eyeballs that each shoot a different kind of death ray - it's hard for any new monster to be shocking and alien. If you really wanted this Dungeon to be weird it should be only humans and animals.

Which got me thinking about flipping the script. Have your players make up characters for a straight Sci Fi game, get in their sleep pods, and wake up in a D&D world. And the first foes they encounter are a mismatched band of Chaotic Greedy Murder Hobos who can shoot fireballs out of their hands and chop through steel plating! Now your player can do all that "What is this place" stuff but without having to play act like they never saw a spork before. But there again now you’re playing a different game.



Which is fine. I mean as well done as this was 40 years ago (and hey, there’s the E. Gary Gygax initials right there in the map! Cool!) it has rough edges and playing it today would require editing and rewriting. I see them more as sources of inspiration from the wild frontier days of gaming rather than prefect artifacts that must be played as written. And of course any DM will tell you they were NEVER played as written.

I sometimes feel guilty about reviewing long out of print games and books that the readers can’t get. Fortunately we live in an age where NOTHING is ever out of print. So you can get a PDF of the original here for just $5. $2 less than I paid for mine!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17065/S3-Expedition-to-the-Barrier-Peaks-1e

Speaking of which, as someone mentioned earlier, Goodman Games had been making updates of classic adventures in their Original Adventures Reincarnated series and one of them is Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

https://goodman-games.com/store/product/original-adventures-reincarnated-3-expedition-to-the-barrier-peaks/

I’ve not picked it up (yet) but if you liked this is might be worth checking out.

So there we are.

Play us out Peter Dinklage!



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/08 07:29:14


 
   
Made in pt
Inquisitorial Keeper of the Xenobanks






your mind

Kyoto, this thread should have a paywall it is so money!

Willowisp crew ghosts, Shadow run group goes to a fantasy universe, both awesome ideas.

Maybe a mix? Some Shadow run characters are trapped in cold sleep, released when DandD group enters the ship, they meet up, and agree to get the souls of the crew back to their natural plane, offering time for fantasy adventures, then travel to a sci fi universe for some further adventures…

   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought




San Jose, CA

The old expansions, modules, folios, etc are some of the most fun/ridiculous things ever.

   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

Orlanth wrote:I remember this back at they day, as young teens simply waved it off and said no ray guns, it will break the game.
The assumption was that the player characters would ignore the 'dungeon' simply tool themselves up with blasters and space armour then going back to killing orcs.
So we nobody bought it and nobody played.


I get that, but I think the game did a good job of limiting that. There's a limited supply of weapons and most have no more than d6 charges. So basically they've got fewer shots than a wand of magic missiles, plus an increased chance of shooting yourself in the face.

A smart DM might also throw in something like "once removed the sterile environment of the ship technical items have a 10% chance per week of breaking down due to enviornmental contamination or the world's ambient magical field."

Stormonu wrote:You forgot to remark on the E.G.G. Initials imbedded in one of the maps


That one I didn't know till you pointed it out

solkan wrote:I don't want to harp on an otherwise excellent review of a module I've fond memories of, but Geoff is an actual last name.

https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/results?lastName=geoff

Yeah, culturally it ranks down there with being named John David, but it's still a fair name.


I know Geoff is a real name (not sure if it's related to Jeff or not) but y'know Joseph and Steven are also names of antiquity but I would not recommend naming your fantasy kingdom the Grand Dutchy of Joe and Steve.

jeff white wrote:
Maybe a mix? Some Shadow run characters are trapped in cold sleep, released when DandD group enters the ship, they meet up, and agree to get the souls of the crew back to their natural plane, offering time for fantasy adventures, then travel to a sci fi universe for some further adventures…


Not sure if Shadowrun would be the best game to use since they already have magic, I was thinking more standard Star Trek style space explorers.

"Are you sure you saw him shoot fireballs out of this thing?"
"Yeah, check the vid logs. Must be some kind of micro-grenade launcher or zero-point energy generator."
"I've scanned the thing six different ways, it's a stick. A mundane, ordinary stick."
"This place sucks."
"Yeah"


But obviously whatever suits someone's particular group.

A particularly cruel DM would have the Space Explorers attacked by their old D&D characters

"I point my universal translator at the muscular guy with no shirt. - Who are you?"
"Men call me... Skullcrusher."
"Skull... oh $%^&, you did not go there!"

 
   
Made in gb
Joined the Military for Authentic Experience





On an Express Elevator to Hell!!

Excellent stuff! Thoroughly entertaining

Epic 30K&40K! A new players guide, contributors welcome https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/751316.page
Small but perfectly formed! A Great Crusade Epic 6mm project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/694411.page

 
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Looking at the map reminds me of the days when "Mapping" was the PCs job based on the DMs description. Hilarity (and anger) often ensued.

Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in us
[DCM]
-






-

Loved this 'back in the day', still love it now!

Always good to see a lot of old school Jeff Dee art too - but for me, he's one of those weird cases where his art was not as good the more time goes on.

He had a creative outburst when he started when he was 18 (!) though - his stuff was great and all over the place in early 1E AD&D...

   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

 SkavenLord wrote:
Looks like it would be rather fun to run. How would you describe the length of the adventure? D&D Basic XP milestones were horribly inflated so I can imagine a module that expands over four levels would take considerable time. Not sure how XP applies to AD&D.


You are misreading this. In early D&D parties were much larger then currently, you were expected to take several adventurers with you, outside of tourney you would play more than one character each. Nearly all the adventure modules recommended parties of about a dozen adventurers sometimes more. This adventure called for 15. D&D was far more lethal than today and you could expect a casualty rate.

As for the level gap, that was the recommended level range. 7th was too low and 13th too high, though this itself was only a generalisation. However the party itself would likely range from 8th to 12th. Most scenario packs with premade adventurers covered a large level range, Slave Lords being a noted exception.
Balance was not considered relevant in AD&D, whether between classes or in terms of levels. This also fared in terms of level progression, a Thief would reach level 3 before a Magic-User would reach level 2, and said Magic-User would have one spell and no skills of note. They were feeble. Playing an 'MU' was an investment, especially for the fighters who started fairly powerful but found level progression hard at higher levels, while said 'MU' not only got extremely powerful, but found levelling up easier as time went on.

And the rumour is true, you could complete an adventure like this do everything right and still not level up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

I know Geoff is a real name (not sure if it's related to Jeff or not) but y'know Joseph and Steven are also names of antiquity but I would not recommend naming your fantasy kingdom the Grand Dutchy of Joe and Steve.


It certainly is a real name, short for Geoffrey, the traditional English spelling. I have known a Geoff or two, mostly of earlier generations, as it is no longer common of popular.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/09 19:21:57


n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in pt
Inquisitorial Keeper of the Xenobanks






your mind

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Spoiler:
Orlanth wrote:I remember this back at they day, as young teens simply waved it off and said no ray guns, it will break the game.
The assumption was that the player characters would ignore the 'dungeon' simply tool themselves up with blasters and space armour then going back to killing orcs.
So we nobody bought it and nobody played.


I get that, but I think the game did a good job of limiting that. There's a limited supply of weapons and most have no more than d6 charges. So basically they've got fewer shots than a wand of magic missiles, plus an increased chance of shooting yourself in the face.

A smart DM might also throw in something like "once removed the sterile environment of the ship technical items have a 10% chance per week of breaking down due to enviornmental contamination or the world's ambient magical field."

Stormonu wrote:You forgot to remark on the E.G.G. Initials imbedded in one of the maps


That one I didn't know till you pointed it out

solkan wrote:I don't want to harp on an otherwise excellent review of a module I've fond memories of, but Geoff is an actual last name.

https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/results?lastName=geoff

Yeah, culturally it ranks down there with being named John David, but it's still a fair name.


I know Geoff is a real name (not sure if it's related to Jeff or not) but y'know Joseph and Steven are also names of antiquity but I would not recommend naming your fantasy kingdom the Grand Dutchy of Joe and Steve.

jeff white wrote:
Maybe a mix? Some Shadow run characters are trapped in cold sleep, released when DandD group enters the ship, they meet up, and agree to get the souls of the crew back to their natural plane, offering time for fantasy adventures, then travel to a sci fi universe for some further adventures…


Not sure if Shadowrun would be the best game to use since they already have magic, I was thinking more standard Star Trek style space explorers.
Spoiler:

"Are you sure you saw him shoot fireballs out of this thing?"
"Yeah, check the vid logs. Must be some kind of micro-grenade launcher or zero-point energy generator."
"I've scanned the thing six different ways, it's a stick. A mundane, ordinary stick."
"This place sucks."
"Yeah"


But obviously whatever suits someone's particular group.

A particularly cruel DM would have the Space Explorers attacked by their old D&D characters

"I point my universal translator at the muscular guy with no shirt. - Who are you?"
"Men call me... Skullcrusher."
"Skull... oh $%^&, you did not go there!"

But, that is one reason that I thought it would work, as a DM would run DandD translations of Shadowrun characters in fantasy universe, and Shadowrun translations of DandD characters in sci-fantasy land. So it would be a good thing that SRun had magic…

   
 
Forum Index » Dakka Discussions
Go to: