Tell me about these older edition products [old list]

[meomwt]

The Greyhawk Lost Tombs Series is a bit of a mixed bag.

The Star Cairns is pretty good. Five linked adventure sites, each a themed dungeon (they have a similar layout) but with different threats in them: a bandit gang; an insane beholder; a sanguine necromancer; and others. There's a bunch of odd items you can fit together if you visit all the Cairns and they become a super-weapon. The last Cairn goes ethereal and the players can get lost out there. Can be good to strip for ideas, but they play well as intended.

Lyzandred is a mess. 60 rooms you have to go to, 100 puzzles to place (so you can ditch some) - never DM'ed this one and no desire to either. One of the worst modules in Greyhawk history.

Doomgrinder reveals what's beneath the stone windmill, and it's not a traditional dungeon! The layout is variable (geomorphs get used a lot IIRC) and if things go badly, the face of Oerth can be devestated. My campaign ended before I could run this, so I don't know how it playsm it can hardly be worse than Lyzandred.

 

[Knightfall]

Another question about the 1e DMG: Is there any difference in content from the version with the old cover versus the one with this cover?

I don't mean printing errors. I mean is there any errata added to the later version?

 

[Obryn]

Another question about the 1e DMG: Is there any difference in content from the version with the old cover versus the one with this cover?

Not that I can tell.

For all intents and purposes, they're identical books.

-O

 

[Gentlegamer]

I like Die Vecna Die (it's German for The Vecna The).

No one German could possibly be evil . . .

 

[Knightfall]

Not that I can tell.

For all intents and purposes, they're identical books.

-O

Good to know. Thanks.

 

[Freakohollik]

Lyzandred:
This module is crap. The idea is that it's a "puzzle dungeon". There are 100 rooms, that you arrange in any order you want. Half are combats, half are puzzles. But the puzzles are things taken out of a children's puzzle book. For example: "A confused looking man with a raft is standing next to a river, with a fox, a cat, and a mouse. He says that he needs to get all of them across the river, only he can operate the raft, and the raft only holds 2 creatures. If he is not with the animals, the fox will eat the cat, and the cat will eat the mouse. How does he get all the creatures across?" All the puzzle rooms are stuff like that. Total joke of a dungeon. Oh and if you get it wrong, the creatures in the room turn into monsters and attack you. Possibly the worst d&d adventure I know of.

Doomgrinder:
It has a pretty cool idea, an old walking fortress (think The Technodrome) comes to life and is moving towards the city of Greyhawk. But somehow the adventure is not very good. It spends its pages detailing how the PCs can warn everyone in the path of the fortress and get them to safety. When its time to attack the fortress the module just gives some rules for randomly generating the inside with tons of low level common enemies. Very boring.

I'm not familiar with the other products you listed, but stay far away from those two. Especially Lyzandred.

 

[Thanael]

Another question about the 1e DMG: Is there any difference in content from the version with the old cover versus the one with this cover?

I don't mean printing errors. I mean is there any errata added to the later version?

For these kind of questions check the The Acaeum Either the lists or ask in the forums.

Dungeon Masters Guide

 

[Knightfall]

For these kind of questions check the The Acaeum Either the lists or ask in the forums.

Dungeon Masters Guide

Oh, I'm very aware of that web site and I looked through the section for the 1e DMG but it didn't mention anything about whether errata was added to the later printings.

I hadn't thought about asking over there in the forums, however. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[amethal]

I love Jakandor
(Lots of other good stuff snipped)

I am also a Jakandor fan. If nothing else, its a good read, particularly as neither of the first two booklets gives you any idea of the plot twist you are going to get hit with when you read the other one and find everything has been turned 180 degrees.

Like a lot of 2nd edition adventures, I find it quite daunting from a DMs point of view. It's about prejudice, culture shock and "walking a mile in the other person's shoes".

Trying to run it using the blunt instrument that is 2nd edition D&D is frankly beyond me, and whilst 3rd edition has a workable skill system Jakandor is likely to seriously fall behind the "wealth by level" guidelines and frustrate my players (who like a regular influx of shiny new magic items).

The other downside is that it is pretty much a one trick pony, so you can't set an entire campaign there. A Jakandor "buddy" novel, where a barbarian and a necromancer team up and overcome challenges using their completely different skill sets might be an interesting read though.

I'd be interested to hear the experiences of anyone who has actually run it.

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.

Its a standard "haunted house" scenario, with the usual tragic gothic backstory that the PCs are supposed to figure out.

I've never run this either (not even listened to the CD) but I get the impression the PCs are treated more or less fairly. (I hate adventures where the PCs are forced to poke around for clues to defeat the big bad, only to find that 90% of the things they disturb are very dangerous monsters.)

 

[amethal]

I also have Moonlight Madness (picked it up cheap on eBay), but I have not read it in detail.

My initial reaction was "meh" with a touch of "yawn", but I can't remember what I didn't like about it.

I have a large collection of RPG stuff, but only 3 items on your latest list. Just goes to show how many books TSR brought out.