I dislike psionics. Should I buy "Of Sound Mind" anyway?

[Joshua Randall]

Okay, y'all have won me over. I'll order Of Sound Mind.

I don't think I am every going to allow psionics into my campaign, but as several have pointed out, you can say they work like magic and make adaptations. So, once I am ready to adapt OSM, I will start a

Spoiler

thread about converting it for a non-psionic game world.

Thanks to everyone who replied.

 

[Pielorinho]

I tried to post this on Saturday, but the boards were not accepting new posts.

I had an interesting experience over Thanksgiving: I ran OSM for five kids, age 9-13, most of whom had never played D&D before, or had played once.

They had a great time. I got a headache the size of Mount Kilimanjaro.

I wouldn't recommend this adventure for that age group, for the same reasons that I would recommend it for a teen or adult gaming group:
* The adventure is full of creepy, gory, slightly campy horror. I had to change a lot of things on the fly so that I wouldn't be giving my cousins nightmares.
* The adventure makes full use of the rules, and allows for all sorts of non-combat solutions to problems. I had to cut out some of that fun, or else explain over and over how to figure out (for example) a Balance check.
* The adventure has several moderately challenging puzzles in it. I was able to provide some pretty blatant clues to some of the puzzles, and for other ones, one of the kids would have a flash of insight and solve the puzzle before I got to my hints.

I'm glad you're picking it up; like I said, this is a great adventure, full of cool little doohickeys.

On a related note, I'm really trying to encourage my 13-year-old cousin to run games for his 9-year-old triplet siblings (I figure it'll lessen my headaches at future family gatherings). Besides The Burning Plague, what are good free low-level adventures that would be suitable for reasonably macabre 9-year-olds?

Daniel

 

[Wolfspirit]

* The adventure is full of creepy, gory, slightly campy horror. I had to change a lot of things on the fly so that I wouldn't be giving my cousins nightmares.
Daniel

OSM gave one of the 40 year old with two kids guys in my group night mares... I don't want to think about what it would do kids :b

 

[Pielorinho]

OSM gave one of the 40 year old with two kids guys in my group night mares... I don't want to think about what it would do kids :b

Spoilers below.
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The players blithely skipped the psychotic horses encounter, so I didn't need to change that. I did change the pile of screaming severed heads to a screaming rag-doll, figuring that it had been taken from one of the kidnapped kids. (That actually doesn't make sense in terms of the adventure's backstory, but I was changing this stuff on the fly).

Later I realized that to a child, a screaming ragdoll might be just as creepy as a screaming severed head. Certainly my girlfriend didn't like the idea.

On the bright side, none of the kids had nightmares. One of them did tell me proudly the next morning that he'd dreamt about D&D. He killed lots of stuff, apparently.

Daniel

 

[Sialia]

Running in Piratecat's best quality stuff always used to give me nightmares . . . actaully, I always thought that was one of the best things about gaming with him.

Glad to hear he's still got it, and long range transmissible to boot.

I figure a campaign hasn't really worked for me until I've had a good screaming myself awake nightmare about it. Then I know, I've really bought in to the immersive experience.

My current DG campaign hasn't really gotten there yet, but only cause I lie awake after we play . . . for hours . . .