TSR Example from the worst TSR adventure module(s) ever published

[BWP]

http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=4023

That's our boy Carl's resume.

Ah. That explains why the writing style seemed oddly familiar. He was heavily involved in one of the worst RPGs I own, Pacesetter's Time Master. The sample adventure included in that game was not only heavily railroaded, it involved some of the most ludicrous events I've ever seen. (E.G., if the PCs successfully stop an assassination attempt on a noted WW1 general, he "rewards" them by giving each of them a tank in an upcoming assault! It's good to know that passing strangers were assigned valuable equipment, rather than, oh I don't know, trained personnel?)

TM is also the game where skills are, um, simplified. E.G., if you have "Pilot" skill, you can fly anything. Anything. Hot air balloon? Biplane? Jet interceptor? Space Shuttle? No problem, you're an expert at everything.

Add some fundamentally flawed concepts and you've got a mess of a game. This thread has helped me to understand the reason why these fundamental flaws were never noticed by the designers ....

 

[MrFilthyIke]

A group of men head by. They are not tarrying or running. Nor are they singing. They don't seem to be making apple pies. As far as you can tell, they're not talking about sports. They neither have sombreros nor stilts. These men are not acrobats. They have no expression as they don't dally to the west.

Sounds like a Monthy sketch...

 

[Anson Caralya]

Thomas (AC 3 [full-plate]; MV 6'; HD 5+1; hp 4; #AT 1; Dmg 1-12 [katana]; % Lair 50%) has been trapped in a cave by an evil ogre that wants to marry his girlfriend. The ogre tried to put William to sleep, but it didn't work, so he trapped him so deep in the cave that nobody could ever find him or even hear him ask for help. Now Thomas is still there, and so he asks the PCs for help.

Can't stop laughing/crying... I think I hurt my spleen...

I believe that was the Arduin Grimoire (?) - the author had consistently misread % lair and therefore listed all his monsters with a percentage that the creature might *be a liar*.

"% is liar" can be found in Best of Dragon #1, and if I'm interpreting the sub-head correctly, it's originally from The Strategic Review #3... making it an ancient reference indeed.

 

[Monte At Home]

I can only imagine because it makes accountability very hard.

If the module is a huge success, everybody gets resume padding and can share in the credit, claiming that they did most of the work themselves.

If the module is a huge failure, they can claim that it didn't reflect what they wanted, and the other people in the project changed/ignored/ruined your contributions and it wouldnt have been so bad if they'd been in charge.

Thus, they could crank out bad module after bad module, and blame could easily be transferred around, but if a good one were produced, everybody would suddenly look like they were a great designer. Dogbert would be proud.

Also, total inefficiency in doing things (16 staff people, to write an adventure) is a hallmark of TSR, and one of the things that drove them into the ground.

For what it's worth, in my time at TSR, things never worked this way. If there were 16 staff members, they were all working on individual projects, or in small teams of two or rarely, three. TSR did a lot of boneheaded things (and did indeed get driven into the ground) but the process of how products were designed wasn't one of them. Not understanding how the market actually worked was TSR's problem.

(It was common at various times in D&D's history to list everyone in the creative staff in the credits of a product. We did that, for example, in the 3E core books.)

But to return to topic, yeah, that's a clunker of a product. Not Spawn of Fashan bad, but bad. And I love the parody encounters. The lumberjack one in particluar made me laugh, as it reminded me of an old Planescape joke we used to have about how hard it was to start a PS adventure for publication. "A mysterious old man comes up to you in a tavern and says 'the multiverse needs saving! Here's 100 gp.'"

 

[Monte At Home]

"% is liar" can be found in Best of Dragon #1, and if I'm interpreting the sub-head correctly, it's originally from The Strategic Review #3... making it an ancient reference indeed.

"% in liar" is a typo right out of OD&D, Monsters and Treasures. Ray Winninger has a great story about a campaign he played in in the old days that used % in Liar as the % chance that anything the creature says is a lie. However, that went for NPCs, too. Elves had a 25% chance, so the elf henchman they had with them lied 1/4 of the time, no matter what. So they'd go to town after leaving the dungeon to resupply and a player would ask the elf henchman if he needed any food.

The DM would roll dice, and the helpless elf who hadn't eaten in days would sigh, and say "no." So the PCs would go about their business, and the elf eventually starved to death.

 

[Rystil Arden]

However, that went for NPCs, too. Elves had a 25% chance, so the elf henchman they had with them lied 1/4 of the time, no matter what. So they'd go to town after leaving the dungeon to resupply and a player would ask the elf henchman if he needed any food.

The DM would roll dice, and the helpless elf who hadn't eaten in days would sigh, and say "no." So the PCs would go about their business, and the elf eventually starved to death.

Wow, that's funny--what an unlucky elf to keep rolling to lie when they asked him if he needed to eat. I still prefer the Minionions of Set, though

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Hahahahah! That second one kills me!

A group of men head by. They are not tarrying or running. Nor are they singing. They don't seem to be making apple pies. As far as you can tell, they're not talking about sports. They neither have sombreros nor stilts. These men are not acrobats. They have no expression as they don't dally to the west.

I failed my save vs. laughter.

 

[JeffB]

......If they succeed, Thomas escape from the cave, and he will give them...... their choice of a potion of Teleport, an oil of Transmute Rock to Mud, or a potion of Phase Door

beautiful..... LMAO

 

[SJ]

Not Spawn of Fashan bad, but bad.

So I had to go look for myself. Read the review..http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_6157.html

I'd never heard of this product. Now I have.

 

[Rystil Arden]

beautiful..... LMAO

Thanks

 

[Dr. Harry]

http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=4023

That's our boy Carl's resume.

--Erik

Hey! This guy ruined one of my favorite games!

(I refer to the way in which Chill went from fast moving and quick to resolve with clear visual layout to that abysmal Mayfair Second Edition.)

 

[Simplicity]

But to return to topic, yeah, that's a clunker of a product. Not Spawn of Fashan bad, but bad. And I love the parody encounters. The lumberjack one in particluar made me laugh, as it reminded me of an old Planescape joke we used to have about how hard it was to start a PS adventure for publication. "A mysterious old man comes up to you in a tavern and says 'the multiverse needs saving! Here's 100 gp.'"

Oooooh. A positive review from Monte! I'm a big-league bad RPG writer now!

I think that's actually why I never got into playing Planescape. The berk-isms aside, I just couldn't for the life of me figure out how the players would get involved with the machinations of the planes at first level (and I just can never bring myself to start at a higher level). It's like they'd have to get restricted to the weakings-only section of Sigil for a while. Or start off in some normal world and wind up in Sigil later.

Torment (the CRPG) did this well by keeping you in the Dustmen Mortuary for the first couple of levels. So, your only real opponents are mindless zombies. Captivity of any sort works well, I guess... Dark Sun had the same problem, but there were ample opportunities to start off as a slave, so it didn't matter.

Hey! This guy ruined one of my favorite games!

(I refer to the way in which Chill went from fast moving and quick to resolve with clear visual layout to that abysmal Mayfair Second Edition.)

I'm not sure why I look back fondly upon Chill. I only ever had one adventure for the dang thing. I think I just liked the little counters. I never ever saw the second edition though...

 

[Dragonbait]

All right, I rolled 12%. The modorn is a liar.

Didn't someone write up some material with % "liar" instead of lair. Maybe it was just a minor fluff...

I *think* I read about this somewhere. It was a type-o in an old D&D book, but another gaming company took that (I guess the copied a great deal of D&D's rules and claimed it was their own creation) and put it in their books too. So in that system, all monsters had "% in liar" as a stat.

 

[Dragonbait]

What is sad, is that some of these "encounters" remind me of the old encounters I would design in my younger days..
The nymph encounter stands out in my mind. I always had those huge plot holes and erroneous logic, like that encounter had. It really came from a lack of understanding some of the basic rules and how D&D's magic worked.

Thankfully, I have improved some over the years...

it reminded me of an old Planescape joke we used to have about how hard it was to start a PS adventure for publication. "A mysterious old man comes up to you in a tavern and says 'the multiverse needs saving! Here's 100 gp.'"

I thought I was the only one who's brains would melt trying to get things started in PS. I LOVED that setting, but almost never ran any home-brewed adventures since I could not figure out how to get one going.

 

[StupidSmurf]

What is sad, is that some of these "encounters" remind me of the old encounters I would design in my younger days..
The nymph encounter stands out in my mind. I always had those huge plot holes and erroneous logic, like that encounter had. It really came from a lack of understanding some of the basic rules and how D&D's magic worked.

Thankfully, I have improved some over the years...



I thought I was the only one who's brains would melt trying to get things started in PS. I LOVED that setting, but almost never ran any home-brewed adventures since I could not figure out how to get one going.

Hah. You're not alone. I bought the boxed set and a few of the books, read them all, and thought to myself: "Wow, check out all of the nifty, outstanding stuff....that my players will never run through!"

 

[Cam Banks]

For what it's worth, in my time at TSR, things never worked this way. If there were 16 staff members, they were all working on individual projects, or in small teams of two or rarely, three. TSR did a lot of boneheaded things (and did indeed get driven into the ground) but the process of how products were designed wasn't one of them. Not understanding how the market actually worked was TSR's problem.

This is at least true of the DL design team, who split up to write one or two modules each, focus on art, or writing the novels, or editing... it's just how you explain it, really.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Ozmar]

I love that bandit encounter.

"You see a bunch of people blah blah blah"
I bet by this time the players are already starting to roll initiative, but nooooo, first you have to listen to stuff like "they are not discussing the weather, nor are they chewing gum....and they have weapons..."
Now by this time I would have already fireballed them. Do I get a chance? Nope, gotta roll a D6 for surprise, even though you've been watching them for at least thirty seconds.

I love how the bandits charge them, and then if you roll a 6, the party surprises THEM!

 

[Ozmar]

For me, the worst one ever was Labyrinth of Madness. Even great writers like Monte have an off-product.

Blasphemy!

That was my favorite module! Well, ok, so it was technically IMPOSSIBLE to complete the adventure, and we all forgot why we were there in the first place, and everyone got really confused and lost long before the end, but still... what module doesn't need a few creative edits?

Ozmar the Forgiving

 

[jsewell]

And why doesn't the fireplace have any secret compartments?

more importantly, if it doesn't, why even mention it?

 

[jsewell]

Hahahahah! That second one kills me!

A group of men head by. They are not tarrying or running. Nor are they singing. They don't seem to be making apple pies. As far as you can tell, they're not talking about sports. They neither have sombreros nor stilts. These men are not acrobats. They have no expression as they don't dally to the west.

roflmao