History - Tell me about the GDQ series (Giants, Drow, Queen?)

[RangerWickett]

Hiya. I'm interested in these classic adventures -- I don't ever plan to run them, but I'd like to know what they were. I feel that I don't fully understand my hobby's history if I don't know about it's famous adventures. I'd like to get an idea of what was going on in the world of gaming back then. Heck, maybe if I get enough information I could create a site with some of the comments here, so other people will have access to it as a historical resource. I know my quick Google search didn't turn up anything very detailed (most links were to buy copies, not discuss the storyline).

What was the plot? Who were the major characters? What was memorable? What particular experiences did you have while playing them that made them stand out?

This was the first time the drow really made an appearance, right? What was the reaction to them?

Thanks.

 

[painandgreed]

The giant modules are very simple. You have a large giant stronghold and you attack it and kill the giants to find the way to the next giant sronghold. IIRC, the reason for this was that the giants were attacking caravans and raiding. Really, any lead up could be used. There is next to nothing planned between adventures.

In the bottom of the fire giant complex, you find some drow and discover that they are really the ones in control of the giants. Also int he bottom of the fire giant hall is the entrance to the tunnel system that leads back to the Vault of the Drow. The first two D modules are caverns with a large encounter area for each. One is a system of caves filled with misc monsters and the other is a complex of evil water based creatures. In the Vualt of the drow, there is the rough guidelines of a city, the surrounding lands and the noble houses. It is more a resource than an adventure although it ends with the party attacking the main noble estate and finding a portal to the demon web pits where their goddess, Lolth lives.

In the Demon Web Pits, you have a series of floating levels all with various doors on them. Generally, one of the doors on each level leads to the next level while the others lead to encounters. One the penultimate level, the doors actually lead to other worlds that can be fleshed out into complete and separate settings if desired. The last level leads to Lolth's abode which is like a giant space ship in the shape of a spider where the party fights various high level creatures and such till an actual fight with Lolth. If pressed, she'll flee and the party will have to follow to engage in the final battle.

Overall, it's very basic straight forward dungeons that can be fleshed out a great deal. When I used it, I worked it into my own campaign and heavily modified everything. Several almost throw away encounters in the modules such as the lich in D1 ended up becoming main plot lines and characters in my game almost by accident. There are a few named characters but most are like the Giant kings who usually end up dead by the end of the module. The mian villaisn are the main Drow noble family who is causing all of this. They have the ability to be main named characters. Drow were no real surprise and just another elven race by time I ran this adventure. These days, it woudl be a very high level adventure as giants are very deadly as fighting on other planes should be. Roughly, I'd say that 3.x parties would have to be twice the advertised levels of the orginal modules to complete them which seems about right for 1E/2E to 3.xE conversions.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Plot in a nutshell:

Spoiler

Giants have been raiding out of the mountains, and a group of well respected heroes is hired to put a stop to them.

The first lead follows Hill Giants to their stronghold, a large timber building in the foothills. Infiltrating the Steading, the party learns that the giants are cooperating -- the Hill Giants are paid off by Frost Giants. The party heads to the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Karl, discovering that the Frost Giants are in league with Fire Giants, and somehow worshipping a strange cult of the Elder Elemental Eye. Following leads, the party raids the Hall of the Fire Giant King, learning that the raids are a subterfuge -- the legendary dark elves are eal, and have been paying the giants to raid and cause chaos -- for reasons unknown. The drow retreat across a river of fire and disappear into the depths of the earth.

Pursuing, the party heads deep into the earth at the urging of those who hired them. They encounter stange beings, raid a warren of bugbears and troglodytes, and encounter a massive temple run by subterreanean fish-men. Eventually, they pursue the retreating dorw all teh way to the great Vault of the Drow, the city of Erelhei-Cinlu.

Infiltrating the evil city, the party learns that one of the drow houses is behind the chaos, and that the power center is the Fane of the Demoness Lolth, goddess of the dark elves. Raiding the temple, the party successfully puts an end to the drow threat -- only to discover an odd set of magical items.

Conferring with the surface, the party learns that the items are teh keys to the Gate which leads to Lolth's plane. They use them, and traverse the bizarre Demonweb to arrive at the great spider ship with which Lolth travels the multiverse. The party assaults the ship (hopefully) slaying the goddess and putting afinal end to her threat.

The adventure is epic in scope, was designed for high level characters, and introduced a large number of classic monsters for the first time: drow, aboleth, kuo-toa, many demons, and the demoness Lolth herself. There are many firsts -- infiltrating an evil city, fighting a goddess herself, and so on. The air of mystery - -before the drow were standard trapping, as the Monster Manual only revealed "rumors" of the strange dark elves" made the adventures both challenging and intriguing. The modules could be played strictly hack & slash -- though smarter play was much better rewarded.

The drow were early badasses, as they were the first *smart* NPC race with significant special abilities -- and their spell resistance could rapidly reduce even a high level part yto tears (given the way that worked in 1E).

The adventures themselves are fairly low detail -- lots of room for the DM to flesh out. The set is classic Gygax, with the exception of Demonweb, though that has its own charm.

 

[Mark]

History - Tell me about the GDQ series (Giants, Drow, Queen?)

Won a DMG playing the Giant Series at Gencon in the 70's.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

The party heads to the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Karl.

Man, I hated Karl. His buddy Lenny was no picnic either.


Anyway...

I think that technically, the Slaver series (A1-A4) could be used as a lead in to GDQ. Did I make that up myself, or weren't the drow behind the Slavers?

 

[A'koss]

I think that technically, the Slaver series (A1-A4) could be used as a lead in to GDQ. Did I make that up myself, or weren't the drow behind the Slavers?

Slavers was created as a lead-in for GDQ, although it was created after that series.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Slavers was a separate tournament set of adventures, that was played at GENCON a later year than the Giants adventures. It was only made into a prelude to GDQ when it was combined into a single supermodule.

The supermodules were linked T1-4, A1-4, GDQ1-7.

 

[A'koss]

GDQ was one of the very few high level adventures at the time and probably the first "real" high level campaign. It took you through all these cool locales - a hill fort, a glacier, volcanic regions, UnderOerth and finally the Abyss. For many, it's was probably the first time thier PCs could really flex thier HL muscle. One of the series' earliest encounters is entering a hall full of armed hill giants sitting around a huge firepit - carnage galore!

1st ed had really rules-lite combat and you could also go through many more encounters (typically) than you can in 3e before resting. You could just plow through adventures back then, often mowing down half the adventure before being forced to rest. Okay, in GDQ you took more lumps than in other modules but there were certainly sections of it where you could mow down probably a dozen encounters without a break.

 

[A'koss]

Slavers was a separate tournament set of adventures, that was played at GENCON a later year than the Giants adventures. It was only made into a prelude to GDQ when it was combined into a single supermodule.

The supermodules were linked T1-4, A1-4, GDQ1-7.

True, I shouldn't have said Slavers was created as lead-in to GDQ, it wasn't. It was a stand-alone series, linked after-the-fact. Though really, you'd have trouble moving from Temple of Elemental Evil to Slavers as you'd be about 8th level already and more likely to go straight into GDQ.

 

[Ysgarran]

It took a few years for Q1 to be published. It seemed like a really long time between when D3 was published and the time the conclusion was finally published.

This is was also the time of the first edition ranger, which was a lot fun to use in the giant series.

later,
Ysgarran.