Tell me about these older edition products [old list]

[Lancelot]

Cool.
I'm into almost anything Mystara related. Are any of the unique Mystara races detailed in it as PC races? I've created my own versions of the lupin, rakasta, and tortle using the 2e Mystara MC and 2e Savage Coast setting (that was never released), but I'm always looking for more background on those races.

No. Just the basics: Elf, Dwarf, Halfling. Which, as you probably know, are race/class mixes (e.g. you're a 7th level Elf, not a 7th level Elf Fighter / Magic-User as in AD&D).

There's more info on the unique Mystaran races in a series of articles written for Dragon Magazine in the [rough] 150-200 range of issues, under the title of "The Voyage of the Princess Ark". Although, again, no rules for playing them as PCs.

There were 4 supplements for BECMI that *did* give rules for playing the unusual races. They were, in order:

1) Fairy Folk (not the correct title, included rules for playing drakes, pooka, brownies, sidhe, etc)

2) "Top Ballista" (including gnomes, nagpa, etc)

3) Sea Kingdoms (not the correct title, included rules for playing merfolk, shark-kin, kopru !!!, kna, etc)

4) "Night Howlers" (including lycanthropes and, from memory, lupins?)

I'm a big fan of all four of these supplements - a quick web search should given the right titles for #1 and #3.

 

[Knightfall]

No. Just the basics: Elf, Dwarf, Halfling. Which, as you probably know, are race/class mixes (e.g. you're a 7th level Elf, not a 7th level Elf Fighter / Magic-User as in AD&D).

Yeah. I know.

There's more info on the unique Mystaran races in a series of articles written for Dragon Magazine in the [rough] 150-200 range of issues, under the title of "The Voyage of the Princess Ark". Although, again, no rules for playing them as PCs.

I do have the DRAGON Magazine Archive and I think I've read some of those. I'm not sure. It's been a while since I went through it.

There were 4 supplements for BECMI that *did* give rules for playing the unusual races. They were, in order:

1) Fairy Folk (not the correct title, included rules for playing drakes, pooka, brownies, sidhe, etc)

2) "Top Ballista" (including gnomes, nagpa, etc)

3) Sea Kingdoms (not the correct title, included rules for playing merfolk, shark-kin, kopru !!!, kna, etc)

4) "Night Howlers" (including lycanthropes and, from memory, lupins?)

I'm a big fan of all four of these supplements - a quick web search should given the right titles for #1 and #3.

I'm well aware fo those four books. I had Top Ballista at one point. It was good but it was one of the books I was forced to sell.

PC Accessories

I might have had The Sea People too, but I can't remember. It was a while ago.

 

[Treebore]

My wife ran a very enjoyable underwater 2E Faerun campaign using the rules and materials in the Sea Peoples booklet. Maybe I should call it a mini campaign, since she only ran it for a few months. She even mixed in one of those air ships from the Ballista booklet. She created a hilarious Gnome Captain for that ship! Plus it helped she loves Tinker Gnomes and had all kinds of strange breakdowns and mini explosions happening all over that ship practically every 10 minutes! Definitely made the fact that the ship could fly mysterious and magical, there was definitely no logical reason that thing was flying!

 

[Ulrick]

How much detail does the adventure give about Dis? I'd be mainly buying it get an overview of the city. Is it mainly an adventure set in Dis, or an adventure/accessory that details the city?

The majority of the adventure is not set in Dis. In fact, the first three chapters of the adventure deal with getting to Dis. Chapter IV is set in Dis, but the city is not really mapped. There is a generic map to aid the DM in describing streets and so forth. But the PCs' goal is to reach the Tower of Dis--which paradoxically is within sight no matter where one looks.

"No matter which direction a body faces while in town, he's staring right at the tower -- it seems to surround the city and sit in the center, all at once."
--Fires of the Dis, page 37

While you'd get a decent overview of the city and some neat encounters, you wouldn't get a whole lot of details of various places (shops, temples, etc.)

 

[Ulrick]

I had heard the Die Vecna Die! took liberties with those settings, which is why I've avoided it. Plus, I don't like campaign-ender adventures. Still, I'm curious to find out how much it and Vecna Lives! can be used to learn more about Vecna, one of my favorite Greyhawk deities. What do those two adventures have in them about the history and canon of Vecna?

I can't speak for Vecna Lives! but Die Vecna Die! is about how Vecna ascended to godhood (as in 3e). He broke free of being imprisoned in Ravenloft by somehow tricking Iuz (I can't remember how) and using Iuz as a patsy in the grand scheme.

 

[Ulrick]

i know that the 1e DMG gets a lot of praise for being the "best" DMG ever made, but I've asked why before. It sounds like its the charts and tables that make it great. How does the randon dungeon generator work exactly?

It starts with a selection of dungeon-entry floor plans. Say if you want to find out what's behind a door, there's a table for that. Say if its a room, charts determine what size and shape the room is, as well as number of exits. Another chart details if the room is empty or contains a monster, treasure, a trap, or all three.

If the room contains a monster, then you'd roll on the monster level charts further to see what kind and how many.

Both the Fiend Folio and MMII have updated charts with the new monsters.

I'm interested in this one mainly to learn more about the background of classic monsters. How much fluff is there for each monster entry?

The amount of fluff depends on the monster, most usually get a paragraph or two. New races, however, like the Githyanki, Githzerai, Drow, and the like get a full page or two of description. Advanced monsters with a lot of rules, like the Penhalliggan (sp?) get a page as well.

 

[M.L. Martin]

There's more info on the unique Mystaran races in a series of articles written for Dragon Magazine in the [rough] 150-200 range of issues, under the title of "The Voyage of the Princess Ark". Although, again, no rules for playing them as PCs.

Actually, a lot of the later Princess Ark articles (typically #179-188; the whole series ran from #153-188, with "The Known World Grimoire" replacing it for #189-200) includes rules for PCs of those races--lupins, rakasta, araneas, lizard men, gator men, chameleon men, and phaetons at least.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I don't remember why this book was considered bad by others. If I am vaguely recalling correctly it was over certain changes done to the setting, which I found easy enough to change back or simply ignore.

I do know I found the complaints to be more an issue of laziness, much like how people think 3E is totally incompatible with 3.5 E. They are very easy to use together as long as you know what is different. So "Domains" may have a similar issue for you, but as for basic history and understanding of the setting? It does the job well enough. Just realize there may be new domain lords in this book. In fact I think this book is where Soth becomes a Domain Lord. Hopefully someone who is much more up to date on the Ravenloft history will come along and clear this up. I haven't ran a setting game since 2002, so my Ravenloft memories are extremely hazy.

As for what you seem to want, I think it fits your need very well.

Actually, Soth had been a darklord since the setting's launch. Domains of Dread was actually the last version of the setting to feature him; two years after its release, the Spectre of the Black Rose sent him back to Krynn (where, alas, he went from being scheduled to play a major role in the War of Souls to getting a tossed-in death scene).

The new darklords in DoD are actually Vecna and Kas.

As a die-hard Ravenloft fan since 1991, I still say DoD is a great product. There are elements of the original "Black Box" (bits and pieces, mostly, although I liked its gamemastering advice and mood work more) that I prefer, but honestly, if you only have one Ravenloft product, DoD is the most comprehensive, and probably the best starting point if you run a 2E game that uses most of the options, such as Psionics and Tome of Magic. Follow it up with the Black Box (bits and pieces), the 3E setting (tone and cultural information that's great even if you don't use 3E) and perhaps even the Red Box (Tarokka deck, a few other odds and ends), in that order. If you play 1E or a baseline 2E, you may feel more comfortable with the Black Box; 3E gamers should start with the 3.0 version of the setting and the Secrets of the Dread Realms screen/sourcebook.

 

[Henry]

Vecna Lives, I don' recommend, because it uses that terrible "lead by the nose" style that a lot of late cycle 2E stuff used.

[sblock]You play one group of NPCs just so vecna's proxy can kill you off quickly, THEN you play another group of your own PCs who meets the same proxy just so they can crap their pants duly when they meet him -- then vecna shows up and kills the proxy, and ascends to godhood, and the PCs have to convince two other god-level characters to take Vecna out while they watch. And worse, it really doesn't advance your knowledge of Vecna much. UGH![/sblock]

1E DMG - It's the charts, but as someone else said, it's all about Gary's style, and the fact that you can just pick that book up at any time, flip to a random section, and be entertained by anything from historical anecdotes to a random fact you probably didn't know. It's like a D&D bathroom reader! The 1E PHB, not so much, it doesn't have that quality.

 

[Freakohollik]

D&D Rules Cyclopedia
It's all of classic d&d in one book. Also my favorite edition of d&d. If you're interested in classsic d&d this is the way to go.

Dungeon Master's Guide [1e]
As others have said, it's great for reading and ideas, but you won't get any use out of it the table.

Gates of Firestorm Peak, the
A late 2e adventure that is supposed to show off the player's option garbage TSR was promoting at the time. Just ignore that stuff, it's one of my favorite adventures. The PCs investigate a mountain fortress, and as they advance things gradually get more and more weird, for at the center is a gateway to the far realm. There is some stuff there that I'd change, but overall its a great adventure. Some of your earlier posts were wondering about the setting information in the modules. This doesn't detail the far realm much at all. You only get a couple cool creatures towards the end.