Castle Caldwell and Beyond - your experiences?

[howandwhy99]

Harry Nuckols?

I thought this was one of the crass adventures released during the 2nd Edition change over that mocked its creator and even those who played the game.
In the same vein as the Castle Greyhawk released at this time.

 

[howandwhy99]

OWAH TAGOO SIAM!

Yep. Here's one of the things that mocked the players themselves.

 

[drscott46]

I had the B9 version of this. Five short adventures in all. I agree that the Castle Caldwell portion itself-as well as the Dungeons of Terror continuation- was pretty flat.

However, things picked up- the princess rescue mission (adventure #3) was okay, with a classic Foozle wizard villain. The Great Escape (#4) was a fun escape-and-find-your-stuff episode, and the Sanctuary of Elwyn the Ardent (#5) was pretty harsh on even 3rd-level characters, as it contains a fairly powerful cleric villain as well as a young black dragon and some other nasties.

I haven't read the B1-9 version of these jaunts, but if they're poorly tied in with the rest of the material in that compilation, it's the fault of the revision team. The bits in the original B9 version have nothing to do with each other beyond the entrance to the DoT (#2) being found in a wizard-locked room of the main Castle Caldwell.

As a low-level comp that predated Dungeon magazine, I'm sure it got worse than this. Good introductory/Red Box adventures are hard to write well in that there are far fewer conflict options available to the writer.

 

[Crothian]

Another one I don't know.

 

[Rhun]

Wow, I had totally forgot this adventure existed until you posted this thread. I think I've got it sitting on a shelf in my office. I'll have to look. Never played it or DM'd it.

 

[mearls]

I played through all 5 adventures as the start to a BD&D campaign back in 6th grade. At the time, the adventures seemed OK. The only memorable things were:

* I think the first adventure had a +1 hand axe. My thief won it dicing off against everyone else, so for many levels I used a hand axe as my primary weapon.

* The really lame doppelganger in the second adventure. IIRC, it walks around the corner and brings with it box text that goes something like, "A guy who looks exactly like (fill in PC's name here) comes around the corner!"

We hacked the thing to death before it got a single word in. Maybe the DM messed it up, but I think that's how the encounter was written.

* The goofy puzzle quoted above.

* In the prison escape adventure, the DM gave us a couple NPC halflings to help us along. One of them died when we made him open a trapped treasure chest. The other one died when we used him to "scout" one time too many. Our definition of scouting was opening a door, throwing the halfling in the room, spiking the door shut, and listening for screams.

* The final adventure was OK. The big reveal was that the evil cleric was a woman. Her sanctuary/temple was apparently built precisely for adventures to wander in, fight their way through a bunch of monsters, then have a big battle in the inner sanctum. IIRC, it consisted of a long corridor that spiralled into the center area where the boss fight awaited.

I think it says alot that, aside from those details, I can't remember much about the adventures.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Our definition of scouting was opening a door, throwing the halfling in the room, spiking the door shut, and listening for screams.

I'm pretty sure this was the definition of scouting used by all the parties I played in, too.

 

[Mycanid]

Erm ... well, I have to agree with the others. I was not terribly impressed by this module. :\

The Owah tagoo siam thing made me laugh in disbelief when I first read it, though.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I never took this module to be anything other than a hack-and-slash adventure. It can be fun, but only if the characters are looking to go room to room killing stuff without thinking too much about the plot. What can I say about that cover art, though...?

 

[SkidAce]

While not the "best" module, every time I move and start a new campaign, Castle Caldwell is the first adventure I run. I've used it, modified it, changed the flavor of it so many times...it works for me as starting point.

We had fun...many times...

...of course last year my wife said "No, no, no, I never want to see Castle Caldwell again" so it was razed by the indigenous gnoll population. There was much lamenting in the Free State of Landfall that day I tell yah.