The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh - your experiences?

[Grimstaff]

MerricB says:"Unfortunately, U1 took my group 2 sessions and U2 only 1. I was using 3E, and even with its fast advancement rates, the party was only at 2nd level.

Not good."

Don't forget, Merric, 1st edition rules gave more exp's for treasure than for monsters. Back in the day, the goal was more important than whether you killed the monster or not (though killing the monster was just as fun!)
As for the Sahuagin Caves being tough, the magic word is "Strategy". Draw the masses into a bottleneck where you can easily decimate them and force them to surrender, hand over the gold, and set out for kinder waters. Works every time.

And yes, Goodman Games' Secret of the Smugglers Cove is a great "homage" to the U series and an absolute blast to play!

 

[Crothian]

One of these days, when I track down U3, I want to run all three in a row. IMC the players unknowingly had a chance to go through this, but choose a differnet road.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

MerricB says:"Unfortunately, U1 took my group 2 sessions and U2 only 1. I was using 3E, and even with its fast advancement rates, the party was only at 2nd level.

Not good."

Don't forget, Merric, 1st edition rules gave more exp's for treasure than for monsters. Back in the day, the goal was more important than whether you killed the monster or not (though killing the monster was just as fun!)
As for the Sahuagin Caves being tough, the magic word is "Strategy". Draw the masses into a bottleneck where you can easily decimate them and force them to surrender, hand over the gold, and set out for kinder waters. Works every time.

And yes, Goodman Games' Secret of the Smugglers Cove is a great "homage" to the U series and an absolute blast to play!

Well, U3 is supposed to be a reconnaissance mission. Get the information and get out. If the entire complex is alterted, the PCs should die.

 

[jcfiala]

So, what are the differences between The Sinister Secret and the Saltmarsh as presented in DMG II?

 

[Christoph the Magus]

I remember sticking it to the pirates but good! SOB's never stood a chance, lol. I also remember killing a whole LOTTA lizardmen before figuring out that they weren't the bad guys. The group fell apart after that, but I remember owing the lizzie's chief a bunch of gold. Good stuff, and I'm sorry that I never got a chance to finish it.

Christoph

 

[Quasqueton]

I find it interesting (in a good way) that almost all (or maybe "all") of the UK/British adventures were very good. Contrast these adventure modules with the TSR-main (especially the EGG) modules of the time. Few, if any, of them were simple (and illogical) dungeon crawl hack and slashers (though they had "dungeons", and there was plenty of opportunity for combat).

Quasqueton

 

[Quasqueton]

So, what are the differences between The Sinister Secret and the Saltmarsh as presented in DMG II?

Takes less time to tell the similarities: The name of the town. Other than that, nothing.

Saltmarsh in the modules was left open for the DM. Only the population (5,000) was told.

Quasqueton

 

[Shadowslayer]

Definitely a fun module to go through as a player. Was my first experience with D&D and I remember nearly getting killed by falling through the floor, and getting my hand dyed blue by some tattoo-needle trap.

Funny thing though. When I assumed the mantle of DM a couple years later, that was the first adventure I put my group through. One pc was killed by the giant weasel. Then there was a big inter party fight over what to do with the assassin and half of them killed the other half. By the time it ended we were still on the upper levels and the players were so mad at each other that the game stopped right there, never to resume.

I went looking for more mature gamers after that.

 

[EdL]

I've only played in U1 once, and never in the others. As this was 20+ years ago I can't recall many details. It was one of the first, and best, D&D modules I've ever played in. Ned was a total shock to us all! Green slime, weasles and pirates, oh my! Not sure if we actually lost any characters, but I do remember it was no cake walk. And the fight on the ship was a dozy. (Someone Commanded the captain or 1st officer, who was near the railing, to "Jump!" The GM had him go over the side in armor. Glub, glub. Decided later that he would have played it differently if he'd thought about it, but that was the turning point of the fight, so a good time was had by all.) So yeah, a great module!

 

[Barak]

I played that a couple yers ago as a PBP. It was a lot of fun.. Ned never did get a chance to really screw us over, as we were just about to go back to town for a variety of reasons, and we didn't really trust him as his story made little sense to my dwarf. So we brought him to town, gave him 5 SPs, and sent him on his way. We did end up killing him later when he was part of a "rescue mission" some of the pirates mounted to free people we had captured and had up for trial.