Tell me about these older edition products [old list]

[Silverblade The Ench]

Knightfall,
oh I've never been one for published adventures as I always find them very lacking, perosnally.

The adventures for spelljammer fighting in the 2nd Unhuman War, were not bad,. Gotta love a base made form a dead gammaroid and housing a Withclight Marauder!

I didn't like the ones about the vodyanoi (iirc their names, sort of lycanthropic LE empire)

I much preffered the small add-ons for spelljammer, with more ships n' critters etc.
Forget name of 'em, would need to dig them out, hehe. Can do so if wish?
ALso loved the art on those old SJ items.


TSR Jam, well I liked the idea of it and it's fun to read in a way, but not one I'd play, as said I don't like published adventures much.

The boxed setsfo cards were relaly nice.

Oh another thing I had were the Decks of Encounters, boxes with hundreds of cards with thematic (land, desert, aquatic etc) and level based encounters, jsut basic skethc but neat way to pull out a quick scenario!

 

[Fallen Archon]

Apocalypse Stone
It doesn't have to destroy your campaign world. My best friend and GM ran it back in November of 2000 to bring his world into the 3E ruleset.

Reverse Dungeon
The players are the monsters!

The players take on the role of the dungeon inhabitants and try to repel/slay invading adventurers. I had a very fun time running this module.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

[*]Axe of the Dwarvish Lord

I really like this super-adventure. I think it'd benefit from conversion to a more recent edition in order to give the encounters more variety. As others have noted, the place is swarming with goblins. Thematically, I like it a lot - the traditional arch-enemies of dwarves giving them a run for their money. There are some interesting NPCs, a few surprises, and some really nifty maps of a great dwarven city.

[*]Book of Marvelous Magic, the

Generally fun stuff. A lot of "basic" D&D's sourcebooks like this one were more lighthearted and breezy than their AD&D counterparts.

[*]Creature Catalogue

My feelings on this book are essentially the same as for Book of Marvelous Magic.

[*]D&D Rules Cyclopedia

While I never cottoned much to "basic" D&D, this book is worth seeking out just for its completeness.

[*]Die Vecna Die

I've never had much use for Ravenloft or Planescape "canon," so I don't care if this module flouts it. The module itself is...well, kinda nutty. There's a lot going on, and it has a definite "wahoo" feel to it, akin to Judges Guild stuff from the 70s. Plus, there are tongue-in-cheek references to D&D "urban legends," specifically the infamous Head of Vecna. I'd recommend it, but not for the crazy prices I've seen it go for - I've seen it being sold on Amazon for $90, and more on eBay. I bought my copy new, so I'm good...

[*]Dungeon Master's Guide [1e]

There is a warmth to this book that has never been evoked by its descendants, despite the 3e and 4e DMGs being good books in and of themselves. Before I was able to get Dragon on a regular basis, and long before internet message boards, the 1e DMG was like a companion and advisor for DMs both new and experienced. It was, and is, a treasure trove of odds and ends, and a lot of it is still useful today. Gygax's prose is very accessible and gives the book a definite personality. Some of my affection for it is certainly nostalgic in nature, but I still occasionally open it up and find it a fun, inspirational read. If you can't find it (but you most likely can), the HackMaster Game Master's Guide is a good substitute - it uses much of the original AD&D DMG's text as is, and expands on it some.

[*]Fiend Folio [1e]

A true mixed bag. A lot of odd, some might say useless monsters inhabit this book. It has a definite look and feel to it that places it apart from the Monster Manuals. It also has a lot more "metagame" inspired monsters than its predecessors, with critters like the adherer and disenchanter seemingly in existence to vex adventurers, rather than having sprung from folklore or a magically-imbued ecosystem. Still, there is a good bit of coolness - the githyanki and githzerai debut here, the drow finally get a real write-up, and the lizard king...well, the lizard king is a big lizard man who can skewer you on a big fork. But his illustration is cool. Still, I hesitate to recommend the book, unless you're a completist.

[*]Ravenloft: Domains of Dread [2e hard cover]

This is a good one-stop reference for the setting, but it incorporates changes to the setting that I never particularly cared for.

[*]Vecna Lives![/list]

I like this module in spite of it doing something I normally hate - railroading. Plus, it makes the PCs spectators for some pretty big doings, rather than having them actually making a difference. Still, it's atmospheric, and there are elements here of a much larger campaign. This module could easily have been expanded into a boxed set, or, in today's way of doing things, an adventure path.

 

[Knightfall]

I much preffered the small add-ons for spelljammer, with more ships n' critters etc.
Forget name of 'em, would need to dig them out, hehe. Can do so if wish?

Crystal Spheres? Lost Ships? Practical Planetology?

 

[Knightfall]

Okay, so I've been looking through some of my old TSR catalogs from 1993 to 1996 as well as the WotC catalog from 1998. I'm wondering about some of the modules/sourcebooks from that time period that I never owned. Below is a list of those I'm interested in hearing more about sorted by year and title...

1993
GA1 The Murky Deep
GA2 Swamplight (got it!)
GA3 Tales of Enchantment
In the Phantom's Wake (got it!)
RAVENLOFT Castles Forlorn
The Knight of Newts
The Rage of the Rakasta

1994
Temple, Tower & Tomb
Treasure Chest

1995
RAVENLOFT A Light in the Belfry (got it!)
RAVENLOFT Circle of Darkness
RAVENLOFT When the Black Roses Bloom
S5 Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga, the
S6 Labyrinth of Madness

1996
A Hero's Tale
RAVENLOFT Bleak House
Treasure Tales

1998 (WotC)
A Paladin in Hell
GREYHAWK Lost Tombs 1: Star Cairns, the (got it!)
GREYHAWK Lost Tombs 2: Crypt of Lyzandred
GREYHAWK Lost Tombs 3: The Doomgrinder
Jakandor: Island of War!
Jakandor: Isle of Destiny
Jakandor: Land of Legend
Lost Shrine of Bundushatur, the (got it!)
Moonlight Madness

 

[Thanael]

The Evil Eye and Bleak House are together the two best adventures in Ravenloft. --Charles Phipps

Here are the FoS reviews of it

It is quite Ravenloft specific though.

 

[Voadam]

I love Jakandor

Jakandor Island of War!:

Sort of Celtic Amerind Norse tribe called the Knorr big on ranger honor and living in harmony with nature and nature spirits migrates to an island wilderness, they find ancient magical ruins and the remnants of a decadent magical culture that turns all their dead into zombie servitor/soldiers. The warriors must explore the land, deal with dangerous jungle beasts (including magical leftovers from the old culture) raid dungeons, and fight evil necromancers and their undead hordes to make a new home for their people. The big island map shows the Knorr villages, known but unexplored dungeon sites and has about half the wilderness as a big unknown.

Jakandor Isle of Destiny!

A highly advanced magical culture was devastated by a magical plague generations ago. The people lost a lot of powerful lore and many citadels were overtaken by jungles, some of the teleport circles cut off isolating them. Each school of magic has more specialist kits and low level magic is ultra common (permanent floating disks, magical light, cosmetic and toy magics, etc.) The governing philosophy deals with the realms of the soul and justice, art and beauty, truth etc. Bodies after death are ritually used with non evil necromancy to create ongoing services to the living people. This is understood not to interfere with souls and they are not hungry undead. These provided protection against ravening beasts when everything went haywire and have allowed the people to survive and begin the process of rebuilding. The people continue with their magical studies from infancy on, experimenting, investigating lost citadels that hold storehouses of information and trying to drive back the dark to re-establish a time of light. However barbarians have appeared who attack on sight, destroying everything they come across, bowing to alien idols. The map shows the known citadels of civilization, while most of the land is an unknown realm of beasts, barbarians, and possibly ruins holding storehouses of ancient magics that could be the key to civilization's survival.

Jakandor Land of Legend:

Combines the two maps and includes the additional hidden ruins as well as numerous adventures and adventure sites for both the barbarians and wizards.

 

[Voadam]

To be precise, Domains of Dread was post Grand Conjunction and post Grim Harvest, as well. So in DoD, Darkon was "Necropolis", with the weird event of everyone there suddenly referring to their domain by the new name after the events detailed in Requiem.

IMHO opinion, and as was stated by previous posters, DoD was the best version of the campaign setting for AD&D, turning the demiplane into a setting that could be used as a native setting, and unifying all the plots developed up until then.

Ah, its been nine years for me since I ran my 2e campaign and even when I went to 3e I kept mine pre conjunction timeline wise.

I thought Darkon was the most vanilla D&D friendly of the domains (super useful IMO for that reason) and did not like the Grim Harvest modules or the destruction of Darkon.

For me I like the original boxed set best, liked the 3e CS best for players to see and player info on the land, and considered DoD third in line of the three I have. The original could be used as a native setting (my game had numerous native PCs through the years) but that was not the default or the focus to start while it is for DoD and 3e.

 

[Knightfall]

The Evil Eye and Bleak House are together the two best adventures in Ravenloft. --Charles Phipps

Here are the FoS reviews of it

It is quite Ravenloft specific though.

Thanks for the link.

And you're right, it is very Ravenloft specfic. I was considering incorproating it as well as A Light in the Belfry and Castle Forlorn into my homebrewed world. It doesn't sound like Bleak House would work that way. What about the other two?

 

[M.L. Martin]

Thanks for the link.

And you're right, it is very Ravenloft specfic. I was considering incorproating it as well as A Light in the Belfry and Castle Forlorn into my homebrewed world. It doesn't sound like Bleak House would work that way. What about the other two?

A Light in the Belfrey is one of the CD adventures, so you really can't modify it without essentially losing it's raison d'etre, but all reports are that it's a fairly standard "Weekend in Hell" scenario.

Castles Forlorn is nicely self-contained. It's a 'dark and twisted Scotland' domain with a haunted castle that's noteworthy for ping-ponging the PCs back and forth between three different eras, with plenty of ghosts and monstrous NPCs. Not much structure; it's very much a toolkit, but with a lot of nifty stuff to play with if you like the core concepts.