What are the greatest Core mods of Year 5?

[diaglo]

And a somewhat undeserved "bad rap" at that.

not from my personal experience with it.

 

[WizarDru]

And a somewhat undeserved "bad rap" at that.

I suppose that's in the eye of the beholder. I don't think it has that bad of a rap...but my personal experiences with the RPGA have not been stellar. I think one of the most amusing things was I somehow got a player's character in enough trouble that he was going to have to appeal to the local Council of Three (or whatever the exact term is) to get released from Greyhawk's jails in my very first RPGA game.

In all fairness, I think the RPGA is OK. But it fell short of what I'd hoped for, and the experience is very variable, depending on your group.

 

[SgtHulka]

In my opinion, Year 5 was much better than Year 4. Here are some reasons I feel that way:

1. More "classic" enemies. Norkers, Hobgoblins, Orcs, oh my. The only other time *any* of my characters met any of those three creatures was in the Year 3 Core "When Orcs Attack". I'm so sick of fighting evil human cultists.

2. Mass battles. I'd been getting sick of "APL 2 -- 3 Warriors and a Cleric, APL 4 -- 3 Fighters and a 2nd Level Cleric, APL 6 -- 3 2nd Level Fighters and a 3rd Level Cleric" etc. Previously it seemed like every encounter capped out at 4 enemies. In Year 5 there was one module at APL 2 that involved 12 Hobgoblins. Finally cleave became a worthwhile feat!

3. The Pomarj.

4. Environmental effects (Sandstorm)

5. The bringing of several "classic" Greyhawk enemies to major plots (Rary, Robilar, Turrosh Mak (sp?))

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play Rauxes or Times Tide, so I couldn't able to vote for them. I did vote for Marked Man because I felt it was better paced than ninety percent of LG mods. It started with a battle, had a battle in the middle, and a battle at the end. I wish more modules were paced that way -- instead of 3 hours of investigation leading to a series of back to back battles at the end. Also, Marked Man introduced the "unofficial" Pomarj story arc, which has continued into Year 6 and I really like.

 

[Anthraxus]

I enjoyed playing and judging Rauxes probably the most of them all. The Bright sands mods were pretty good, too.

RPGA experience is pretty variable. It depends on the local area, mainly. But, you can always sanction your home group to play, if you can get 4-6 people together.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

However, sanctioning home games is... simple. Really, really simple. You need a Herald+ level DM and 4-6 players, and the ability to tell the database where and when and what you'll be playing 5 or more days in advance.

The one *tricky* bit is getting membership cards for those who aren't members, and that generally just requires you to get someone nearby to send you some cards/applications.

--------

A home game is a private affair for only you and your friends.

The statements above the line tend to illustrate that the statement below the line is both absurd and utterly delusional.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Only 12 actual voters (since 14 put the non-commital vote down) out of over 200. Yeah, it's a little surprising. I thought RPGA would be far more widespread than that.

Perhaps because the RPGA is quite superfluous to actually playing. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be BENEFITS, just that the RPGA does nothing for me that I can't do for myself.

 

[Siriak]

Perhaps because the RPGA is quite superfluous to actually playing. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be BENEFITS, just that the RPGA does nothing for me that I can't do for myself.

I respect that many people on this list have a well-established local gaming community or group that they play with. In fact, I am envious. I must say, however, that the RPGA is certainly not superfluous to my playing. My job sends me to places that don't always have a solid gaming base. With RPGA, I can keep my characters over an extended period of time and play in LG when the oppurtunity presents itself. Also, I love convemtions.

I know the RPGA is certainly not for everyone, but, I think is deserves some credit as well. Meeting some guys at an RPGA convention is what got me back into 3rd edition after a long hiatus from D&D.

Vince

 

[pogre]

Firebeetle,

I am/was certified to RPGA modules - did the test and all that.

Could you give me some advice on how to run a RPGA open game? I enjoyed running some RPGA modules at GenCon, but I'm not sure how to get something like that going locally.

I have a great home group, but I would not mind running an occassional RPGA event to share.

Feel free to PM me or answer in this thread.

Regards,

pogre

 

[Lucias]

It's too bad you only picked core mods. The triad here in Dyvers, especially Joe Selby, really went all out to make Year 5 the climax that it was meant to be. Pulling together plots from every year and tying them together in a great struggle which I know my group loved. Year 5 was just a great year in Dyvers. Year 6 started well, but we've lost some of our best triad...we'll see how it ends up.

 

[arscott]

Here are the ones I've played/run, and my feelings on them:

COR5-20 Phantoms on the Bright Sands by Tom Kee
Tom Kee is the head of my local triad and writes many of our mods. This one is classic Tom Kee: Fun, Straightforward, and Tough as hell.

COR5-17 Time's Tide on Bright Sands by James Dempsey and Bruce Paris
Nonsensical, railroady, and needlessly lewd. The only fun part of this mod is commiserating about how horrible it is with your friends.

COR5-16 Here Comes the Sun! by Pierre van Rooden
I personally didn't enjoy this one, mostly because it caused my character to suck in exactly the sort of situation where he should have shined--and part of that ineffectiveness was inserted to set up a railroaded conclusion. And while I can enjoy mysteries, the breadcrumbs in this were too big and obvious.

COR5-11 Dark Deceit on Bright Sands by Chris Chesher
If you play only one bright sands modules, let it be this. Not only because it's a good mod (some fun puzzles and combats), but also because it explains a whole lot about what's going on with the bright sands storyline.


COR5-06 Blood on Bright Sands by Creighton Broadhurst
Bleh. For something that's supposed to be a grand introduction to an important adventure path, this adventure was pretty boring. Spends way too much time saying "hey, check out what I can do with sandstorm" and not enough delivering a good adventure.

COR5-03 Atonement by Theron Martin
Mixed feelings about this one. It's a much better mystery than I've seen before in an RPGA adventure. When I ran this, my friends were in "push through the boxed text to get to the important combat" mode, so they didn't quite solve the entire mystery. But if they really push, they shouldn't have that much trouble solving the mystery (though I recommend taking more than four hours when you play the mod). My only real complaint is that the boxed text in unnecessarily wordy (and since it can contain clues, tough to summarize or paraphrase)