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At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft deals with the exploration of a partly subterranean city in Antarctica. Other than that, I can't think of a whole novel devoted to dungeon exploration, but there are parts of a couple of novels which are: The passage through Moria in The Lord of...

I agree that myths are often inconsistent, but in this case I don'tthink that the two versions are necessarily at odds. Medusa was a woman changed into the only mortal gorgon. Stheno and Euryale were always gorgons (not transformed mortals) and were immortal.

That ghoul was named Pickman. The short story Pickman's Model talks a bit about the transformation from human to ghoul.

Most of the transformed humans in myth would be classed as undead in D&D terms, but there are exception. In Greek myth, people are sometimes transformed into monster by the gods for some offense or slight. Medusa was a human transformed into a gorgon, scylla was a woman transformed into a...

Hussar, the OSR community would be much smaller without the internet, but some people would still be playing "old school" type games.. None of the players in my tabletop 1E AD&D game were recruited online. I've tried using the internet to recruit players, but the only recruiting successes that...

Wingandsword, I agree with your thesis that online gaming communities are not neccesarily representative of real world gamers. OTOH, my real world game experience is very different than yours. I run an AD&D 1E game, and I have since the eighties. Of the circle of gamers that I know (around 20...

For several years, the Halloween game I ran was one in which the PCs played monsters (a vampire magic user, a greater werewolf cleric, and a man beast). The theme was "evil versus even worse evil". These days I run Call of Cthulhu for Halloween.

Both as GM and player, I have no interest in evil campaigns. The occaisional evil game (as a one-off, or a once-or-twice-a-year thing) can be a fun change.

In 1E you coulf hit (almost) anything with non-magical items if they were made of the right stuff. E.g. a cold iron weapon could hit any demon and a silver one could hit any devil. Many undead could be hit by silver also (but not all). Even the toughest demons and devils (excluding lords...

Actually, they have had a new edition (of Palladium Fantasy at least). The problem with using that unconverted troll is that as soon as he takes, say, 2 MD he explodes in a fine red mist since that's 200 damage to him. That's the general problem with MD in my opinion. A hit that scratches the...

Put in "red herring" NPCs. If too many NPCs that you introduce ahead of time turn out to be villains, the PCs will supect your NPCs. If you introduce a lot of NPCs, most of whom are not villains, it may be harder for the PCs to be suspicous of the right one. D'oh! RedTonic beat me to it! I...

I have it! I picked it up at the post office today. Apparently there's some new policy of refusing to leave a parcel if no one's there to receive it, or I would've gotten it yesterday. Haven't really had a chance to look at it yet. Hopefully this evening.

You decide what your PC does, even in combat. If you use smart tactics, its likely to work out better for the character than if you use dumb ones. Player intellect is always important. Its just a question of where to draw the line. Personally, if I'm playing a Big, Dumb Guy I will generally not...

Not yet. I'm awaiting the Swords and Wizardry version rather than the Pathfinder version, but I don't know if that makes a differnce as to when I should expect it.

I always name my adventures, and have from the very beginning. I don't usually tell the PCs the name at first (it'd give too much away in some cases), but will during or after the adventure.

I'd vote for Champions. Very versatile.

Raise dead is usually available if you have the coin and know a friendly high priest. Since I run 1E you need to get a (more or less) complete body to the cleric within the time limit, there's a chance that the spell doesn't work and the person is dead for good, and a point of CON is lost if the...

I have only a little experience with the d20 system, but based on that experience we gained 2 levels every 3 sessions. If you played every other week, and kept that speed of progression, you'd reach 20th in about 57 weeks - not much more than a year. Our sessions were 5-6 hours long, so about...

Wouldn't many fantasy novels qualify? Not The Lord of the Rings (since Middle Earth is supposed to be the past of this world) but such things as, e.g., The Belgariad, The Well of the Unicorn, The Riddle Master of Hed, or the novels of the Black Company?

Any idea when these items will be available for purchase?