D&D 5E TftYP - Against the Giants

[Stormdale]

Not sure I agree Pukunui. Lots was left up to DMs to develop/decide back in the day. G1 probably works best with AD&D and the original hill giants.

We always viewed Chief Nosra and his clan as more developed/civilised than most of their kin but that's the way we ran it.

Sure some of it is silly and doesn't make sense but if you aren't happy with it as written change it- give the frost giant his sword if that makes you happy.

As for treasure in 1E you got xp for loot much more than killing things, so G1 was a prime example of old school gaming, sneak in and steal their stuff not kill every giant in the place. Whenever I've run it with "modern" players who are used to walking in, kicking open to door and killing everything in sight it was a bloodbath and the players soon regretted their foolishness. IIRC it had a disclaimer in the original that is was designed for experienced players (note players, not characters) and back in the day you had to play smart (not necessarily in character) to survive to high enough levels for the likes of G1.

Stormdale

 

[Prakriti]

We always viewed Chief Nosra and his clan as more developed/civilised than most of their kin...

Nosnra is certainly unique among hill giants. Not only does he have an impressive stronghold to call his home, but he also has stone giant architects in his employ. This suggests that he's both unusually worldly and shrewder than the average hill giant. This could be a natural anomaly, but more likely it's the malevolent influence of the ancient shrine beneath the stronghold, and/or the even more malevolent influence of the adventure's true antagonists, the drow.

 

[Stormdale]

I always liked the description of hill giants in G1- they came across as more intelligent than the MM ones. I had ogres for stupid humanoids, I liked hill giants to have a more flavourful/advanced/intelligent culture and so gave them a norse flavour/inspired culture- that all came about as a result of G1.

Stormdale

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I always liked the description of hill giants in G1- they came across as more intelligent than the MM ones. I had ogres for stupid humanoids, I liked hill giants to have a more flavourful/advanced/intelligent culture and so gave them a norse flavour/inspired culture- that all came about as a result of G1.

Stormdale

But the frost gaints are Norse.

 

[pukunui]

G1 probably works best with AD&D and the original hill giants.

You could be on to something there. It's possible that this sort of adventure doesn't translate well to 5e as is. Perhaps they should have put a bit more effort into making sure it all worked within 5e's paradigm, rather than merely updating the numbers and mechanics and whatnot.

Yes, I'm aware that I can change things. It even says as much in the text. It's just that, judging by modern standards, these adventures come across (to me) as poorly written. Amateurish even. But then, they're some of the first D&D adventures ever written as well, so I guess that makes sense.

 

[Stormdale]

Well they did come out in 1978/79 or thereabouts. The whole hobby was amateur back then. IIRC your average 1E hill giant had 40 odd hps- Under 1E G1 was not that hard but G2 and G3- they were a different story.

It is a great location and have had several great campaigns the steading was an important site in. The key is to use the bare bones to make it your own, as in all old school adventures it was up to the DM to breath life into it (eg. what are Nosra's goals apart from raiding the nearby settlements- and we only know of that because of the intro? It is up to the DM to fill in the blanks rather than reading 3-10 pages of boring exposition trying to justify the adventure, most of which the players will probably not learn/ care about).

It is often the players and their interactions that make or break an adventure- that still holds true for modern adventures too. Don't dismiss it out of hand as its got a few 70s era quirks, its got good bones and can make for a great and challenging adventure if you put a bit of time in.

Stormdale

 

[Shiroiken]

I ran AtG (pre-TftYP), and I strongly advise using 1 square = 15'. It's just too small otherwise, and the Giants are often at Disadvantage (for squeezing) or unable to attack in force (in the Hall of the Fire Giant King). None of this makes sense from a lair design perspective, as the giants would build for them in mind.

 

[Luz]

But then, they're some of the first D&D adventures ever written as well, so I guess that makes sense.

Yes, G1 was the very first module published by TSR, in fact.

 

[hastur_nz]

[MENTION=3555]Stormdale[/MENTION] is correct - all the old modules had the barest bones of any "plot", in a very short intro, but also scattered through the module text. Rather than the more modern style which started in 2e, and presents you with a huge "book", that's interesting to read but hard to actually run at the table because "plot" is scattered all over multiple pages, the old-school adventures presented a minimal amount of information, and only "came alive" through much imagination and/or ad-lib at the playing table.

If you read G1 closely, and think about it in the context of the set-up and also G3, you see how the giants have various loose alliances, their lairs are not 100% "their own" (various legacy factions, locations etc), and so on. What might seem fairly random, obviously had some level of planning from Mr Gygax, but he didn't bore us to tears with a novel-length back-story. Whether much of the "back story", whatever that is, comes out in play, will vary wildly from table to table. It's up to the DM and Players, to breathe life into the story and make it their own.

Personally, I ran G1-3 converting myself to 3.0, where from memory giants were 10'x10' although without my old books I'm not 100% sure there; also in AD&D I can't remember how much space the various Giants were expected to take up (I believe they were Large, but exactly what that meant was up to the DM's interpretation of the DMG, houserules etc). When I converted it to 3.0, I didn't change the size of the maps, but I did strip out a lot of monsters especially in G2; so if the 5e version has done that too, which it seems to have, I say "all the better!" especially as the original adventures were generally designed for around 8 player characters (and quite possibly various henchmen etc as well, given we're talking about "name-level" PC's). From memory, with around 5 players, and a few less monsters, my 3.0 conversion was very tough and taught the players respect for big foes, but ultimately it ran quite well and 10'x10' giants in the old maps worked just fine.

As for the 5e conversions, while yes it's stupid that they haven't matched the 5e scale of Giants, to the "AD&D scale" of the old maps, personally I think the problem is how they changed all Giants to be Huge in 5e. For me, I'd much rather have most Giants still be Large. For starters, I have a lot of cool Hill and Fire Giant minis that are Large, and while a few of my Ogre minis are bordering on "too big", I feel my Large-sized giants are big anough. Also, in every adventure I've run using Giants, I use multiple, and having multiple Huge minis on the table, makes for a very unwieldy table top - maps need to be huge, and/or your giants can't maneuver. I'm running Storm Giants Thunder currently, and no giants have appeared yet, but when they do I think I'll leave them size Large (same stats, just smaller sized minis on the table).

 

[MackMcMacky]

The tastes were different in the 70s. The culture was more influenced by tabletop wargames and, I daresay, folks who were used to working harder to make their own fun. I think any word that describes the design of G1 as amateurish or primitive or the like lacks perspective and is attempting to judge how the game should be played very differently than the players of that time.