Lost City - your experiences?

[David Howery]

I converted this to AD&D and ran it waaaaaay back in my college days. I think we all had the most fun with those goofy random encounters with the city folk who were hallucinating or mistaken. I set up one of the PCs with the one encounter where a group of people think that one of the PCs is a god or king or something and worship him. I had the citizens really turn on the worship and awe, and the player was loving it. The citizens carried his stuff and eventually carried him around as well. Of course, the first time they ran into a monster (I think it was something small and pitiful), the citizens suddenly ran away with the PC and his stuff (they didn't want him to get hurt).....

 

[johnsemlak]

Or, as some of us would say, it's not finished.

Well, it is always possible to make that complaint.

I for one remember spending a lot of time takign modules like B2, B4, and X1 and expanding them, using the areas specifically left 'for the DM to expand'. I really enjoyed that part.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

Or, as some of us would say, it's not finished.

Well you would say that. Not every DM (or even many of them) has to be spoon fed every detail of a mammoth adventure like this. Most of us realize that having the bare bones of a campaign gives one the flexibility to customize the adventure to our needs.

 

[Staffan]

Well you would say that. Not every DM (or even many of them) has to be spoon fed every detail of a mammoth adventure like this. Most of us realize that having the bare bones of a campaign gives one the flexibility to customize the adventure to our needs.

Personally, if I spend my money on a RPG adventure, I do that in order to reduce/eliminate the work I have to do myself in order to run a session. If the adventure in question is full of places where it says "insert whatever you want here", it fails in that regard.

That said, there is a place for half-finished adventures. It's just not on my shelf.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

Personally, if I spend my money on a RPG adventure, I do that in order to reduce/eliminate the work I have to do myself in order to run a session. If the adventure in question is full of places where it says "insert whatever you want here", it fails in that regard.

That said, there is a place for half-finished adventures. It's just not on my shelf.

SO I take it you haven't actually read B4 - The Lost City then? There is a full adventure in it. A dungeon adventure with some added elements of RP in that you can get involved with the various cults/clans that populate it (it's set up as a pyramid, buried in the sand of a desert). The added elements of acutally having a second pyramid dungeon (the 'mirror image' of the first buried even deeper in the desert) and an underground city beneath that. All for (back in the day) about $5. Also, iirc, the second dungeon was populated with creatures but didn't have the room descriptions (which were some of best 'boxed text' of the old alphabet series). Some monsters were out of place to be sure, but the final creature, Zargon, was a baaaad dude - and fit in with the upper levels backstory very well.

The underground city got a topographical map and about a dozen places on it detailed with a paragraph or two. No monsters but it is supposed to be inhabited by the 'sane' decendants of the upper dungeon inhabitants.

Consider that this was a 32 page adventure and, with a little work, had enough place settings to run a full fledged campaign in and I think you may be selling this supposed 'half-finished' adventure short.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

One of the first modules I ever played.

Great fun was had by all, and the DM did a good job of playing up the abject weirdness of the various culture groups within - this is especially noteworthy since we were all so young at the time.

I lost a character VERY early in the module, a dwarf fighter who succumbed to stirge attack in what... the second room of the module?

 

[Staffan]

SO I take it you haven't actually read B4 - The Lost City then?

I've read the Swedish translation, though that was a long time ago, and I don't recall all that much of it. I'm not so much ranting against that adventure specifically as against the "lots of room open for DM expansion" thing. I guess Undermountain is a worse example.

 

[diaglo]

I've read the Swedish translation, though that was a long time ago, and I don't recall all that much of it. I'm not so much ranting against that adventure specifically as against the "lots of room open for DM expansion" thing. I guess Undermountain is a worse example.

Undermountain doesn't hold a candle to Lost City.

Lost City makes Undermountain look like 6 days old vomit.

 

[Zog]

Fantastic quality module. I desperately tried to lure my current players into it, but they kept finding other things to do, alas.

I was all set, Zargon was from The Far Realms, the cultists were trying to summon more of him, the underground city could become part of the underground resistance movement to the Empire, and now it's all happening offstage while the party is on another continent.
*sigh*

It has always been a great read, stirring the creative juices and causing evil plots to bubble up into my consciousness. Someday. Someday.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

I've read the Swedish translation, though that was a long time ago, and I don't recall all that much of it. I'm not so much ranting against that adventure specifically as against the "lots of room open for DM expansion" thing. I guess Undermountain is a worse example.

Oh dear. No, Lost City is nothing like Undermountain. I think Diaglo said it best.