D&D 5E Have you run any "Classic Modules Today" from DMs Guild?

[SpiderMonkey]

Hi, all.

As per the subject line, I'm interested in peoples' experiences running or playing the "Classic Modules Today" conversions available at the DMs Guild. I downloaded a bunch on a lark, and I'm excited at the prospect of running some of the classics.

Best,

SM

 

[JonnyP71]

I downloaded 1 when it was available for nothing to see what it was like - skim read it, ended up spending 6+ hours converting the adventure myself. The adventure I chose was a particularly wacky one, and I hated the fact that the conversion swapped out a lot of the weirder creatures for generic 5E MM ones, and used the standard human stats in the MM for NPCs.

One other part of the adventure in question is that the party get some beneficial effects during it only if they *fail* certain saving throws. The conversion changed this too. I didn't like that either.

I didn't bother looking at any more and did the leg work myself in terms of converting. The 1st priority of any conversion should be to retain the feel of the original. This conversion did not.

 

[Bupp]

I had previously run several older adventures, and had pretty much converted them "on the fly". Maybe checking to see if I had monster stats or something close before hand, but nothing else.

I got the White Plume Mountain one in preparation for play. Read thru and, and thought that it was pretty much what I would have done myself. Never looked at it during play.

 

[SubDude]

I grabbed the ones for the A1-A4 Slave Lords series that I'm running.

I have to agree with JonnyP71 - I didn't like them converting the Aspis into "just use a Thri-Kreen". Yes, that is a solution, albeit the laziest one. I dumped that part and just converted Aspis myself.

Additionally, I don't like the overall formatting of the write-up. First, things are not presented in the same order as the original modules. Instead of going room by room, like we all have forever, the authors broke everything up by category. The "Random Encounters" are up front, which is fine. But then there's a list of all the Magic Items, then encounters / traps, then monsters.

So A1 goes "Random Encounters", with tables for the walls, the ruins, and then the sewers all lumped together. Then the "Magic Items" are listed - temple level shows magic in rooms 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, and 18; and then sewer level shows magic items in rooms 4, 6, 8, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, and 21. Then comes the "Traps & Encounters" section, listing details about encounters in temple level rooms 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, and 18. These are followed by a similar list for the sewer levels. Then comes the list of "Monsters." Temple level again appears first, detailing monsters in rooms 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 19. No matter which room I need to check on, I have to look in three different places.

These three sections take up pages 3-7. "Special Monsters" are on page 8 of this one, and they only added the Sundew. Would have been a decent place to develop the Aspis monsters too, but they went Thri-Kreen.

Now, all of that is not how I would prefer these notes were organized. It would be a lot more useful to simply follow the numbering system / sequence of the original module. For room 1, list the encounter, then say "no monsters, no magic". As it is, you have to jump back and forth among the relevant pages to make sure you're not forgetting something. Perhaps this organizational model works for some DM's; but being basically the opposite of how the original module is organized doesn't work well for me.

Then, for no useful reason that I can determine, all of the information from pages 3-8 are REPEATED on pages 9-12, only in a slightly smaller font and in all black typing.

So on top of not being organized for ease of use, we have a 13-page PDF file that contains exactly 6 pages of useful information.

 

[guachi]

I downloaded 1 when it was available for nothing to see what it was like - skim read it, ended up spending 6+ hours converting the adventure myself. The adventure I chose was a particularly wacky one, and I hated the fact that the conversion swapped out a lot of the weirder creatures for generic 5E MM ones, and used the standard human stats in the MM for NPCs.

One other part of the adventure in question is that the party get some beneficial effects during it only if they *fail* certain saving throws. The conversion changed this too. I didn't like that either.

I didn't bother looking at any more and did the leg work myself in terms of converting. The 1st priority of any conversion should be to retain the feel of the original. This conversion did not.

X2 Castle of Amber? What's the point if you are going to neuter the module like that? I'm converting it now and you definitely need to keep the wackiness. Using generic monsters from the MM is lame. One of the exciting things about early modules was all the New Monsters you'd find in the module. If you can't be bothered to make up those new monsters, don't bother converting the module.

 

[JonnyP71]

Correct, it was Castle Amber.

I also ran the Desert Nomads series using 5E. X4 was easy enough to convert, though I don't think I made the Nagpa tough enough. X5 was more difficult, getting The Master right was a challenge - he ended up as a cleric/lich hybrid.

 

[LordEntrails]

I hope those of you who have used these conversions have rated and commented (even just a link to this thread) the appropriate products on the DMsGuild.

If people were better about rating and commenting on the product page, people (like [MENTION=11385]SpiderMonkey[/MENTION]) wouldn't have to come ask for comments

 

[SpiderMonkey]

I'm most interested in running A1 and Caverns of Tsojcanth. The monster substitutions for A1 (such as Thri-Kreen for Aspis) aren't really a deal breaker for me, though some of the substitutions seem a bit out of wack, but those are easy enough to adjust on the fly. I guess I'll have to see how the layout factors in actual play. It did seem a little counterintuitive to me at a glance, but sometimes that's not really telling.

Thanks to all who've posted!

SM

 

[guachi]

Correct, it was Castle Amber.

I also ran the Desert Nomads series using 5E. X4 was easy enough to convert, though I don't think I made the Nagpa tough enough. X5 was more difficult, getting The Master right was a challenge - he ended up as a cleric/lich hybrid.

I am interested in your conversion and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

I suspect the PCs in my campaign will also do X2, X4, & X5. Do you have your conversions available in a digital format you'd be willing to share? Maybe upload them to EnWorld?

 

[JonnyP71]

Sadly I don't have them in any form of publishable, or even shareable digital format... I ran it using the original module, with numerous sheets of printed monster/NPC stats and notes, it was all very haphazard behind the screen, but given the nature of the module that really did not matter!

I've got a few weeks off work coming up soon, putting it all together in an ordered fashion might have to be a project for then!