Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
So, 35 years after my dad brought home photocopies of almost the entire original run of D&D (everything but the Blackmoor book), which must have cost him a fortune in 1979, followed by him buying me and my brother all of the books for the next few years, which likewise must have cost a fortune while we were stationed in Europe, we're finally going to play D&D with him in a week and a half, for his 70th birthday.
To make things easy, we'll be using the Beyond the Wall rules, which are streamlined and easy, while still evoking classic D&D and make character generation a game in much the way that Traveller does.
For the actual adventure, I'm going to be using the Monomyth story structure, to give even a short evening's adventure an epic feel, capped off with a Five-Room Dungeon, the Lair of the Shadow Goblin Master.
Originally, I thought my third-grade niece might be playing as well, so I wanted an adventure that was at least somewhat kid-friendly. She's unlikely to play now, but I'm keeping the hook: Goblins emerge from over the wall that a long-ago wizard forbade the villagers from crossing, lest they stir up the (mysteriously pacified) forces of a giant sorcerer-king and his rivals, a fey court. The goblins raid the village, carrying off the school teacher, and it's up to the heroes to get her back and figure out what's going on.
After a 35-year wait, it didn't seem right to scrimp, so we're using miniatures (Reaper Bones), Dungeon Tiles and some gorgeous new Chessex dice.
I've given names to the village ("Little Benby") and NPCs that might be referenced during character generation and during the adventure, but I'm otherwise keeping that fairly loose, trusting that I can use the 7-Sentence NPC system to flesh out the details that emerge from play.
The Five-Room Dungeon the group will eventually reach is a now-ruined fort created by the absent (?) sorcerer-king and features goblin mooks, a room full of mysterious magical pools (a throwback to the room from B1: In Search of the Unknown), giant spiders, a mimic replacement (because Reaper's Mockingbeast miniature is awesome, and I can lull the players into a false sense of security with other dungeon furniture miniatures before they reach that room) and, finally, a chance to either bargain with or fight an ogre boss who ought to be just at the limit of their ability to defeat.
I'm looking forward to this, even if the group just ends up being my brother and dad (which might happen).
To make things easy, we'll be using the Beyond the Wall rules, which are streamlined and easy, while still evoking classic D&D and make character generation a game in much the way that Traveller does.
For the actual adventure, I'm going to be using the Monomyth story structure, to give even a short evening's adventure an epic feel, capped off with a Five-Room Dungeon, the Lair of the Shadow Goblin Master.
Originally, I thought my third-grade niece might be playing as well, so I wanted an adventure that was at least somewhat kid-friendly. She's unlikely to play now, but I'm keeping the hook: Goblins emerge from over the wall that a long-ago wizard forbade the villagers from crossing, lest they stir up the (mysteriously pacified) forces of a giant sorcerer-king and his rivals, a fey court. The goblins raid the village, carrying off the school teacher, and it's up to the heroes to get her back and figure out what's going on.
After a 35-year wait, it didn't seem right to scrimp, so we're using miniatures (Reaper Bones), Dungeon Tiles and some gorgeous new Chessex dice.
I've given names to the village ("Little Benby") and NPCs that might be referenced during character generation and during the adventure, but I'm otherwise keeping that fairly loose, trusting that I can use the 7-Sentence NPC system to flesh out the details that emerge from play.
The Five-Room Dungeon the group will eventually reach is a now-ruined fort created by the absent (?) sorcerer-king and features goblin mooks, a room full of mysterious magical pools (a throwback to the room from B1: In Search of the Unknown), giant spiders, a mimic replacement (because Reaper's Mockingbeast miniature is awesome, and I can lull the players into a false sense of security with other dungeon furniture miniatures before they reach that room) and, finally, a chance to either bargain with or fight an ogre boss who ought to be just at the limit of their ability to defeat.
I'm looking forward to this, even if the group just ends up being my brother and dad (which might happen).