DM Needs Help with Temple of Elemental Evil

Greetings,

I am introducing my PF group to AD&D 1E for the first time, and I've decided to run The Temple of Elemental Evil. I've been pouring through the adventure, and I've run into a bit of a problem. Namely, I don't know what to do.

The descriptions talk about the residents of Hommelet, their jobs, and how much treasure they have hidden in their homes, and then there is a description of the moathouse... Am I supposed to make up all the events and encounters and weave this town into a plot?

We ran our first session Saturday, and I introduced the players to Hommelet, let them acquaint themselves, and then it was off to attract bandits that had been raiding and pillaging. They had a few encounters, and managed to rescue a missing town guard of some importance who was being prepared for ransom. They have an inkling of an idea that the ruined moathouse must be of some importance.

The important thing is, they had a blast, and they really enjoyed combat in 1E (which we tried to do by the book. OSRIC was a great help as a reference for this).

I just felt like I had to make up that whole scenario above. I'm afraid I might have done something wrong. Perhaps I missed something. Is it supposed to leave this much to the DM? I have no problem with it if that's the case, but I can't help but feel like I've led the players astray. I want them to have that ToEE experience.

Any advice or acknowledgement would be greatly appreciated, especially if you've played in or run this module yourself.

Thanks!

redboxrazor said:

Greetings,

I am introducing my PF group to AD&D 1E for the first time, and I've decided to run The Temple of Elemental Evil. I've been pouring through the adventure, and I've run into a bit of a problem. Namely, I don't know what to do.

The descriptions talk about the residents of Hommelet, their jobs, and how much treasure they have hidden in their homes, and then there is a description of the moathouse... Am I supposed to make up all the events and encounters and weave this town into a plot?

We ran our first session Saturday, and I introduced the players to Hommelet, let them acquaint themselves, and then it was off to attract bandits that had been raiding and pillaging. They had a few encounters, and managed to rescue a missing town guard of some importance who was being prepared for ransom. They have an inkling of an idea that the ruined moathouse must be of some importance.

The important thing is, they had a blast, and they really enjoyed combat in 1E (which we tried to do by the book. OSRIC was a great help as a reference for this).

I just felt like I had to make up that whole scenario above. I'm afraid I might have done something wrong. Perhaps I missed something. Is it supposed to leave this much to the DM? I have no problem with it if that's the case, but I can't help but feel like I've led the players astray. I want them to have that ToEE experience.

Any advice or acknowledgement would be greatly appreciated, especially if you've played in or run this module yourself.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

You didn't do anything wrong.

There is "plot" embedied in the descriptions of the various NPCs and the moathouse. If the NPC is something other then a level 0 peasent, you might want to take a closer look. You can also just have some one tell them more about the moathouse and history of the temple. There is part of the opening that should be safe to read or paraphrase to the adventurers.

Other then going to the moathouse, its also meant to be pretty open. There are things seeded in the village that can be important, or just ignored. Also note that Hommlet can be a home base for a while as they move beyond the moathouse into the temple, so things have time to develop.

Once they get to the moathouse, it should be real dangerous. Then, they can go back and get help, and get further entangled with the villages NPCs. Some of whom can help (albiet at a price) and some of whom will try, and perhaps succeed, in killing the players.

It should be fun.

Yes, you do pretty much have to make up the plot. These adventures were written in the style of "Here's what exists and a few motivations, you can take it from there!" So, while it gives you a lot of freedom as to how things unfold, it can also become pretty overwhelming.

Sounds like you did it pretty well, though!

If you'd like any suggestions for how things might proceed, let us know!

Cheers!

Awesome. That's enough to keep me confident.

I'm running another session this Saturday!

As long as your players are interestedn in Hommlet and its residents, you're doing fine!

One time I ran the thing I wanted to get the lazy PCs interested in Burne and Rufus. They showed no interest in the tower, so I had Burne coming to the Welcome Wench one evening when there was a birthday party. He drank a bit too much and showed some fireworks made from fireball spells. The players took this to mean that Burne was a big danger to Hommlet and the next several sessions revolved around "uncovering" his plans. To make this happen I let Rufus be somewhere else.

I hadn't planned for this, but took the players' reaction and ran with it. The moathouse could wait...

redboxrazor said:

The descriptions talk about the residents of Hommelet, their jobs, and how much treasure they have hidden in their homes, and then there is a description of the moathouse... Am I supposed to make up all the events and encounters and weave this town into a plot?

Click to expand...

If you're accustomed to Pathfinder, then running early D&D is going to feel completely out of whack. There are no plot lines for players to follow in this version. No acts or scenes. Even encounters don't necessarily result in combat. The game is not designed to create a story or follow a predetermined one. What you have in T1 and maybe T2 (T3-T4 have no balancing forces and get a bit dull in the deeper levels IMHO) is the starting state of a game scenario like you would buy for any wargame.

Before the game begins you need to generate the future timeline of events by progressing the game forward without the PCs taking action. This will tell you what happens to the world and the people and stuff within it before the Players affect it and what they engage with largely throughout each session. As Players explore the world they are playing the game. They are gaming. They set objectives for themselves and must puzzle out situations in order to achieve them. XP is class specific and rewards class-related successes. Even learning about what NPCs know, met or "named" intelligent monsters basically, and how they behave, based on Alignment and personality, is gamed and game content. Learning is a resource gathering activity in D&D, so being curious generally pays off, but then again...

D&D is a game because it provides a field of play where players can apply past experiences with the game to current game situations and plan for projected futures. (i.e. think several moves ahead.) Tracking the game board behind the screen, all those maps you have, is also part of your job as Referee. This includes everything on those maps too, like items and creatures. This sounds harder than it actually is, plus you already have an adventure module to use and plenty of books for creatures and items as support.

Create your future scenario for a week or two for first session. Implement the changes the PCs did after session. Then run the scenario forward maybe three or four weeks starting from the end of game time to prepare for the second session. How much to prepare depends on the mobility of the characters and how far they've explored already (not just spatial exploration). You'll get the hang of how much to prepare after some practice. You're basically running a wargame without making decisions as the rules should cover everything the Players don't do themselves.

If you have prior experience playing big wargames and the like, then you have a significant advantage to running AD&D. Most of the design concepts are the same, only D&D is cooperative in design and hidden behind a screen so the rules are treated as a code for the players to decipher and learn through play.

I know there are plenty of opinions on how to play and run AD&D and it's ultimately you and your players' call on how you do that, but the above is my best explanation on what it was designed for. It has its faults from this perspective, but it also has some ingenious game mechanics too. Ultimately as referee you make it your own. You use your best, most highly tuned code and let your players drive learning as they go.

The expectation back then was, when players *heard* about the Moathouse, they would *obviously* want to check it out. The motivation was; there could be to do there and loot.

They didn't need to be told what to do, in other words. They didn't need a plot hook. The plot hook was "there's a nearby ruin that might contain XP and treasure!"

There's a phenomenal resource online somewhere breaking down all the different factions and NPCs in TOEE, but I don't have it at my fingertips.

Hah! You didn't do anything wrong. You did it right. The whole thing is a big exercise in expository GM'ing. Here's some threads I started detailing my own elaborate derailing:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...lemental-Evil-(my-players-out!)-updated-11-29
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?334623-ToEE-Help-me-flesh-out-the-elemental-caverns!

EDIT: If you're players need henchmen, or if you just need a quick npc, check out my sig!

That's a great Henchman generator you have there! Thank you for giving me permission to use it.

And thanks to everyone else who gave advice. I'll post back and let you guys know how the next session goes. I've got some preparations to make.

I haven't run TOEE but I am familiar with running 1e adventures generally.

redboxrazor said:

Am I supposed to make up all the events and encounters and weave this town into a plot?

Click to expand...

Nope. Just treat the town like a dungeon and an NPC's house or whatever like a dungeon room. As mentioned above the plot seeds are embedded in the town NPCs, so just work that in as you roleplay the interaction encounters. Read the background for the moathouse/temple and drop this to the PCs as seems appropriate. Grind the players' gears sometimes with the NPCs. Make unreasonable demands and incompatible requests. Give them an opportunity to play NPCs against each other. A Gygaxian D&D town is basically a fantasy version of the town from A Fistful of Dollars.

It sounds like you have to do a lot of improvising but keep in mind that the main game here is the dungeoncrawl. That in itself should carry the experience. Town intrigue is just whipped cream on top of that--to make a good game into a great one. The basic motivation for the PCs to go to the dungeon is that it has the most and best loot. The fact that treasure gives XP directly in 1e should make looting more addictive.

I hear TOEE becomes a slog after a while and most groups don't finish it. Give up when it stops being fun, and retire the PCs with their XP as the "high score" to beat next time you play AD&D.