D&D 5E Necromancer Games--What do you want us to make next?

[Ravenheart87]

By doing what? How do they define old-school and 1st Edition feel?

A few examples from the 3e era:

• They published one of the biggest and best megadungeons evet.
• They published monster books with a bunch of weird classic and new creatures.
• They published the revamped Wilderlands products, including a big box with hex maps and two books.
• Their adventures often included non-linear dungeons where you can get lost and die in stupid ways.
• Their encounters weren't usually balanced and it's not guaranteed that if there's a monster, you can slay it.

 

[SirAntoine]

I just bought Quests of Doom and the 2 adventures I am looking at seem very old scghool. They are kind of dark involving a slime demon in an old vineyard complete with fungal infection for the PCs (non fatal but still) and there is a werewolf themed one. Some of the fonts are 1E fonts.

Another adventures is about vampires, one had Dragon skeletons. I have only had a quick look so far and it is all in black and white. It also evokes BECMI as well IMHO a bit. The adventures are a bit darker in tone than the light and fluffy modern ones it its not over the top cartoon Book of Vile Darkness type stuff a'la 3.0. Some of the names used for deities like Thoth and Thanatos are also from TSR era D&D. Oh one of the adventures also has a pyramid as well so they adventures are a bit more dungeon crawl as well and bad things can happen.

Okay. I am impressed by this dedication. Do you know if there is a resurgence of 1st Edition? Maybe these adventures would be interesting to 1st Edition DM's, too.

 

[Ricochet]

Sandbox-type adventures, similar to Lost Mines of Phandelver (design-wise), for varying levels. A good starting adventure, good maps of the area, and plenty of hooks for DMs to create their own followup adventures, plus additional adventures set in the same area down the road. Sort of a more open-ended AP.

I concur. Phandelver was a great adventure. Hit the sweet spot for length and opportunities for the players, and never felt like a direct railroad. Softcover is fine by me - as others have said, I rarely run the same adventure multiple times either.
Price it around 15-25 dollars and put in a few maps/handouts but no need to bother with battle maps since 5e is much more viable for theater of the mind or quick sketches (handouts and a map is the only thing I thought the Phandelver box lacked).

On a completely different topic, and one I am hopeful is taken care of: Are you even allowed to sell 5e adventures though? Isn't 5e rules and the system itself a WotC copyright material?

 

[Zardnaar]

Okay. I am impressed by this dedication. Do you know if there is a resurgence of 1st Edition? Maybe these adventures would be interesting to 1st Edition DM's, too.

There has been a recent OSR resurgence and WoTC reprinted 1E, 2E, OD&D and 3.5. They did look back at TSR D&D when developing 5E and there are clones as well so yes there has been a 1E resurgence/OSR resurgence in general. It is still outclassed by Pathfinder/5E etc its just in recent years there has been an increase in AD&D/OSR type games coming out or games using similar images. I think with 4E tanking and some people getting burned out on 3.x/Pathfinder you more or less only have 1 place to go for D&D.

It is also a relative increase as well as say 14- 15 years ago everyone was playing 3.0. I found a random 1E game last year and played a few session for the 1st time since 1996/7 and that was with some Pathfinder players so go figure.

I think if you go to far from the D&D foundations (1E/BECMI) you may run into trouble as you expect certain things form a D&D game and hence why there are things like Modrons and 1E type fluff in the 5E MM. They are not trying to copy 1E but they are trying to evoke it. Castles and Crusades for example is a d20 based clone of 1E more or less and it has a large number of modules available, DCC was doing well for a while, ACKs is good, and there are over 20 clones or at least were most do not have much in the way of support.

 

[Paraxis]

Okay. I am impressed by this dedication. Do you know if there is a resurgence of 1st Edition? Maybe these adventures would be interesting to 1st Edition DM's, too.

As a 1e fan if you are not aware of Dragonsfoot you should become so, http://dragonsfoot.org/

Dragonsfoot.org is a bastion for people who enjoy 1e games, retro clones, and talking about the good old days.

It is not my scene, as I prefer the new rules systems mechanically but it is a great place to mine for ideas and inspiration.

 

[SirAntoine]

As a 1e fan if you are not aware of Dragonsfoot you should become so, http://dragonsfoot.org/

Dragonsfoot.org is a bastion for people who enjoy 1e games, retro clones, and talking about the good old days.

It is not my scene, as I prefer the new rules systems mechanically but it is a great place to mine for ideas and inspiration.

It's a great deal bigger than I expected. Thanks for the link.

 

[meomwt]

Do you mean something like our title "Unusual Suspects" but for the Fifth Edition rules?

http://www.froggodgames.org/unusual-suspects

That was exactly the sort of thing I meant.

 

[Nebulous]

That was exactly the sort of thing I meant.

Good idea - The Usual Suspects.

IF you were to go that route, can I throw out a suggestion? Add "Tags" to characters.

Mordin, Dwarf Barkeep
Tags: Surly, Drinks on the Job, Cruel to halflings

Expand on it in the description, but having a line in the block draws your eye to it for a quick summary

 

[Nebulous]

What about their monster book?

Fifth Edition Foes is awesome. It's very fun to read, and it has a lot of really, really weird monsters, most of which have abilities you won't see in the core MM. The art is hit or miss but mostly good. I just printed out 10 pages of monsters for an upcoming underground romp.

 

[Nebulous]

I'd actually like for the MM to have fluff as good as Fifth Edition Foes. Especially terrain/organization information.

MM is great, but they missed up by leaving out Terrain and Organization.