D&D 1E U1 Secret of Saltmarsh: Thoughts?

[grimslade]

I absolutely love SSoSM. It was my first AD&D experience in elementary school and I bled out before we entered the house. It is not just a dungeon crawl and the active response of the antagonists is what makes the adventure. I agree with Esbee, the town and its inhabitants are what make the module sing. Play up the factions, run the smugglers as ruthless pirates who reinforce and will run away to fight again later, the house is a character all of its own, use it.

 

[Umbran]

So, for those of you who have played or DMed (or both!) this adventure, I'm really hoping you can tell me it plays better than it reads!

You say it doesn't read well? What about it seems lacking?

So, thoughts? What worked? What didn't? What did you find needed fixing?

U1 was the first D&D I ever played. It was fantastic! The major note to remember is that in 1e, 1st level characters are fragile. So, a giant ant or a blood-sucking weasel, falling through a floor, or a stirge, can pose a significant threat. These things pop out unexpectedly, haunted house style, so play up that aspect.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Even the 5e version can be pretty lethal for 1st level characters! Never underestimate a weasel.

 

[Democratus]

Best starter module ever written for D&D in any edition.

I ran it for a party of 12 back in the 80s (1st edition) and we had an absolute hoot. I've run it several times since then, including in 5e.

Reward the players for ingenuity when investigating. If things slow down too much, have creepy noises echo from somewhere in the house.

Over time, I started to lean more into the Cthulhu-mythos tropes to add more spice to the whole series. A seaside village w/ some people looking suspiciously "fishy". A lonely house overlooking a windy cliff and the sea. Strange goings on with creatures from beneath the waves...

 

[Lanefan]

Thanks, everyone - seeing the generally positive thoughts on U1 in here makes me considerably more optimistic about running it.

You say it doesn't read well? What about it seems lacking?

For one thing, when I read a module I look for any key encounters or situations or set-pieces that makes me think "Aha! That looks cool! Can't wait to see this in play." and I somehow just didn't get any sense of that here* Maybe the ship could be that, but it didn't really come across that way.

I also look at adventure design - are there multiple paths through it, and-or multiple ways to approach it, and so on. This one looks pretty linear all in all, but it shouldn't be hard to make it appear as a natural one-thing-leads-to-the-next progression.

* - contrast this with H1 Keep on the Shadowfell - when I first read it I was pretty optimistic as some of those set-pieces looked excellent in print; but when I converted and ran it I was underwhelmed by how they actually turned out. It read far better than it played.

U1 was the first D&D I ever played. It was fantastic! The major note to remember is that in 1e, 1st level characters are fragile. So, a giant ant or a blood-sucking weasel, falling through a floor, or a stirge, can pose a significant threat. These things pop out unexpectedly, haunted house style, so play up that aspect.

That haunted-house vibe seems to be key, yes. As for their fragility, low-leve character death is a fairly frequent occurrence around here anyway, so nothing new there. The group will probably be a mix of 1sts and 2nds by the time they get to any of this, depending how well they do in the adventure they're in right now, and will likely have a bit of wealth to spend on decent (though not magic) equipment, holy water, etc.

 

[Umbran]

For one thing, when I read a module I look for any key encounters or situations or set-pieces that makes me think "Aha! That looks cool! Can't wait to see this in play." and I somehow just didn't get any sense of that here* Maybe the ship could be that, but it didn't really come across that way.

I am not sure how big a set piece you should be expecting for 1st level 1e characters, where most of them can go down in one or two hits. Anything is a set piece at that point.

That being said, both the caves and the ship wound up being very tense and interesting areas, for us. Note, that you will decrease the impact of these if you give the PCs a hint of what's going on ahead of time. If they are looking for smugglers, then they're hardly surprised when they find them.

I also look at adventure design - are there multiple paths through it, and-or multiple ways to approach it, and so on. This one looks pretty linear all in all, but it shouldn't be hard to make it appear as a natural one-thing-leads-to-the-next progression.

Part of it being that this is rather a smaller space than H1, iirc. There's three areas - house, caves, and ship. How many different ways through are you going to expect? And the original is rather an exercise in discovery. You can't go choosing a way to approach the situation when you don't know what the situation is.

 

[embee]

Following as I'm hoping to run it in a month or so.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Just ran it last month. Rather than retype everything, I suggest you read this, as it does a good job bringing everything together.

Running Ghosts of Saltmarsh Chapter 2: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh

This article is one of a series of articles covering the hardback D&D adventure book, Ghosts of Saltmarsh. You can read all of these articles here: Ghosts of Saltmarsh Session Zero Running Ghosts of ...

slyflourish.com

I've done my own tweaking, introducing plot points into the campaign to basically go:
U1 Saltmarsh
U2 Danger at Dunwater
Salvage Operation
Hidden Shrine of TAMOACHA'N
U3 the Final Enemy
Lost City of Ssrall Mak to wrap it up.

 

[Burnside]

One thing that I saw as a potential issue upon reading - and I was correct upon running - is that the adventure makes no allowances for the party not attacking the lizardfolk on the smuggler's ship on sight. Even though the adventure states that the lizardfolk will mistake the party for smugglers and not attack them, there is no consideration for what happens if the party succeeds at parlaying with them. This is not a big deal if you don't intend to follow up with Danger at Dunwater. However, if the party does come to an understanding with these lizardfolk, Danger at Dunwater's central conflict is eliminated. So just be prepared for this eventuality.

Also, Danger at Dunwater is bad.

 

[Lanefan]

Just ran it last month. Rather than retype everything, I suggest you read this, as it does a good job bringing everything together.

Running Ghosts of Saltmarsh Chapter 2: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh

This article is one of a series of articles covering the hardback D&D adventure book, Ghosts of Saltmarsh. You can read all of these articles here: Ghosts of Saltmarsh Session Zero Running Ghosts of ...

slyflourish.com

I've done my own tweaking, introducing plot points into the campaign to basically go:
U1 Saltmarsh
U2 Danger at Dunwater
Salvage Operation
Hidden Shrine of TAMOACHA'N
U3 the Final Enemy
Lost City of Ssrall Mak to wrap it up.

That article is clearly about running the 5e version, but still has some good ideas. I'll be running the 1e version, thus for example the PCs won't likely be levelling up several times during the adventure as that article seems to recommend.

@Burnside - though I haven't read it over yet, warning about Dunwater duly noted; as if lockdown goes on that long I was planning to run it (and maybe even U3) after U1. (it's also possible that even when lockdown lifts we might continue with this series at some point)

As for the overall storyboard, my still-quite-vague ideas go something like: (spoilered just in case any players wander by...)

Spoiler

Current adventure (largely unrelated to any of this but some things they'll learn will serve to introduce the city intrigue bits that come next)
City intrigue (I'll be setting Saltmarsh not that far from a major city; interests within that city point them to Saltmarsh to start with and it'll very much be in the PCs' interests to go either there or somewhere else away from the city for a while)
U1 Saltmarsh
U2 Dunwater
More city intrigue and machinations (if it works out, this could be the most dangerous part of the whole sequence)
U3 Final Enemy (assuming the PCs are still working for/on behalf of the same interests they were to start with; if not, everything gets pretty open-ended and depending on the PCs' decisions they might never touch U3)