To be honest there are probably a lot more than I care to remember...
1. The
Early Mistakes phase... We, uh... made a teensy-weensy little mistake(and one that lasted far longer than I care to admit) in the reading of the XP awards for 1st ed. Monsters. Instead of seeing 425 + 2/HP, we saw 425 +
2 HP. IOW, every PC
gained 2 HPs for slaying the beast. By the time we were 10th level we kinda had to "spice up" the Tome of Horrors by dropping in Tiamat and a full compliment of consorts. By 15th level or so we were using Deities and Demigods as our Monster Manual...
2. The
Uber-power phase... We all go through one eventually - the Elric and Lancelot wannabes, the Anti-Paladins and the Vampire-Lords... Well, we played a campaign where we all started off as demigods and proceeded to go through every pantheon in the game knocking them off and taking their stuff. Why...? They had the best stuff!! We eventually got ourselves into a, umm... somewhat fatal argument over who would lay claim to "Death's Sword" (when we already had Thor's Hammer and Stormbringer between us). It was also very important as I recall to have that
26 Strength to get that +16 damage... Hmmm....
3.The
Early Dungeon Designer phase... Ecology? Balanced treasure placement? Wandering monsters that could actually, y'know... "wander" a 10' corridor? Water Closets?!? - Bah! Actually, reading a lot of the old
published modules are good for a laugh.
4. The
Betray Your Friends For Fun & Profit phase... The first one that really springs to mind is the tale of the "
Anti-dungeon".
A *long* time ago when I was a player I ran a Paladin named Avathar of the Whiteguard. We were playing through Queen of the Demonweb Pits and battled hard to finally reach Lolth. To make a long story short she offered my character
Anti-Paladinhood! *And* if I acted now I'd also receive a genuine Unholy Reaver sword a 6-piece Demonette set. All this for the low, low price of betraying my friends and spreading mayhem across the Flanaess.
Man I was an easy sell in those days...
Anyway, while the rest of the players were rolling up new characters the DM at the time asked me how
Avathar the Betrayer was going to spend his last moments on this Oerth. Hmmm, I could see that not one of the new PC's alignments in any way resembled "good". Well, I liked my character and wasn't going to give up all that power without a fight! I begged the DM to give me one year's worth of "grace" time (in game time) to come up with a dungeon that *I'd* run, and everyone else would have to play through - including the DM.
I *cough* promised to be fair...
Thus the "
Anti-Dungeon" was born! A trap-filled, riddle-encrusted, monster-moshing maze with a single, overriding theme. If you did everything absolutely wrong, you'd never even have to draw your sword to get to me.
I had a hack-kneed rhyme at the entrance to the dungeon saying something about how "everything wrong was right" or some such nonsense. You'd think at least one player would've paid attention. I guess hatred really does blind you... Well, I made every trap *bluntly* obvious, you could hear monsters behind *every* door, and *every* statue spoke a riddle. However, answer the riddles even remotely correctly and you be blasted with 20HD fireballs. Answer blatantly wrong, and they'd let you pass. Attack the monsters, and you'd be in for a fight. *Hug* the monsters, and they'd be your friends. (it's strange how few adventurers try this...) And if you threw yourself into every trap, you would escape unharmed.
Final Results:
Avathar: 6,
Dim-witted DM and Co.:
0 Then I showed them the module as written...
Avathar "retired" shortly thereafter to a far off, best forgotten corner of the Abyss.
