Remodeling B4 The Lost City

In a previous post, I went over the preparations I made for running D&D module B4 The Lost City in Old School Essentials. In this post, I'm detailing the changes I made to the module during those preparations. My motivations behind those changes varied. Some things about The Lost City as written wouldn't land well with our group. Other don't fit with how I like to run things. Still others needed alteration to better suit the Nostalgia Tour campaign concept I was planning. So I had some work to do.

The Layout

Before getting into the meat of this topic, I'll provide some basic information about The Lost City. This is necessary to provide context for the changes I made. This information will spoil the module for anybody who has not played through it yet.

The dungeon in The Lost City is within a step-pyramid (although it could be called a ziggurat) at the center of a ruined city partly buried in the sands of the surrounding desert. The module presents each chunk of the dungeon in tiers. Tiers 1 and 2 are considered dungeon level 1. Tiers 3 and 4 are dungeon level 2. Tier 5 is dungeon level 3. Tiers 6 - 10 are optional areas that take the adventure beyond Basic D&D and serves as sort of an ad for Expert D&D. The optional areas are mapped, but only superficially presented. Work or skilled improvisation is needed to run them at the table. The Lost City's iconic monster - Zargon - is the last encounter of Tier 10, in room #100. Finally, an underground city in a vast cavern below the pyramid is presented with an isometric map and basic information covering critical areas.

The most significant change I made was opting not to run Tiers 6 - 10. As part of the Nostalgia Tour, The Lost City serves to kick things off and get the player characters to third level. Then the campaign could move to another classic D&D module like X1 The Isle of Dread or X2 Castle Amber. Tiers 1 - 5 would accomplish this nicely. The Lost City, as written, suggests collapsing the only set of stairs connecting Tier 5 to Tier 6 as a way of supporting this choice.


"Borrowing" Ideas

I'm not too proud to "borrow" other people's ideas, so I went looking for some. The Lost City is decades old. There are plenty of essays, blog posts, and YouTube videos out there about the module. Many of them describe the experiences of other gamemasters - how they ran it, the issues they had, and the solutions they implemented.

The B4 The Lost City Sourcebook

This is a collection of essays about the module. Much of it is from a real world perspective or expands the adventure's fictional background. The main value for me were the suggestions throughout for refining the adventure.

It was while reading through "Notes on the Underground City" by Jason Cone that I realized what was bothering me about Tier 5 of the dungeon. Tier 5 features a supernatural possession, Wererats, Doppelgangers, and mind controlling Werefoxes. That's three different kinds of shapechangers waiting in ambush and two examples of taking control of characters away from their players on the same dungeon level. I realize that OSR is supposed to be more challenging on players, but I also didn't want to go full Dark Souls on them. The possession stayed since it is linked to another encounter. The Werefoxes and Doppelgangers were changed to Wererats to tie things together more to my taste.

Dungeon Craft Ultimate D&D Adventures: The Lost City (Ep. #346)

Seeing how another gamemaster runs an adventure is always insightful. Even if the only insight is that different styles are different. This video's emphasis on OSR play was a needed reminder for me. The party's focus must be on finding food and water at the beginning of the adventure - they are lost in the desert and have been out of supplies for awhile. The players also have to keep in mind that encounters aren't balanced, most XP is earned from treasure recovered, and player characters start with hit points in the single digits.

I also "borrowed" the idea of setting up Zargon like a boss monster to wrap up the adventure. Zargon packed up his slime pool and relocated from room #100 to his temple in the underground city. The climax was an assault by every faction against Zargon's worshipers and their hobgoblin allies. The party's role was to kill off Zargon while his cult was dealt with off-screen.


Small Changes

A minor tweak I made was increasing the amount of support available in the dungeon. There is no town nearby as a place of rest and resupply. Allying with one of the three human factions in the dungeon provides a source of food, water, and rest. However, there is no equivalent of a shop for equipment. I ruled that any of the factions could provide standard adventuring gear at standard prices once friendly relations were established.

The final change was the result of a random encounter. The wandering encounter table for Tiers 1 - 2 features a group of gnomes exploring the dungeon. I expanded the encounter by providing the gnome leader with a name - Wigglewort. I also explained the presence of the gnomes to the party with a short speech by Wigglewort:

"We were sent out from our town on a simple mission: explore the underworld. To seek out new markets and trade partners. To boldly go where no gnome has gone before!"

Wigglewort and his gnomes stuck around for the rest of the adventure. They made contact with the three human factions and provided gear to the party at reasonable prices. In the aftermath of the adventure, they are setting up trade agreements with the underground city now that the cult of Zargon and the hobgoblins are no longer around.


Looking Back

I had a variety of reasons for the changes I made to The Lost City. The major one - cutting out Tiers 6 - 10 - was to fit the adventure into the campaign I'm running. Others - such as not having multiple similarly themed encounters on the same dungeon level - were a matter of taste. Still others - making sure that there was the equivalent of a "town" for the party and creating a "boss" fight as the climax - reflect a more modern approach to adventure design.

#RPGaDay 2024, Week Two

Here's the first full week of RPGaDay 2024 posts. All of these were previously posted on Mastodon and the RPG.net forums. Additional commentary exclusive to this blog are in italics.

Day 4: "RPG with great art"

A TTRPG art piece that stands out to me is in Mothership. It's a two page spread. One end illustrates "adjacent" range with a monstrosity grappling with some hapless figures. The other end is "extreme range" and can only be reached with an eagle eye, steady hands, and a smart rifle. All the ranges in between are detailed in similar fashion. It gets the range and distance rules across to players.

The piece I mention is not the greatest in execution, style, or similar terms describing the quality of the art itself. It stands out to me because it plays a part in explaining the range and distance rules in a way that can be immediately grasped by the viewer. Most TTRPG art exists to bring the setting to life. Which is a valid function. But this piece feels like part of the rules.


Day 5: "RPG with great writing"

Ideally, the narrative writing in TTRPGs shows what the player characters do in the game. The technical writing that goes into TTRPG rules explains what the players do with the game. The former generally gets the point across. The latter is where things often fall apart.

A recent game that both conveys the setting and clearly describes the rules is Mothership.

I go into narrative versus technical writing in TTRPG adventure modules here.

I almost went with how the writing in Old School Essentials is so clear and concise for this prompt. However, OSE does assume that the reader already knows what they are getting into.


Day 6: "RPG that is easy to use"

I have a hard time running many TTRPGs due to the number of wheels spinning at any given time. Most flavors of GUMSHOE are manageable. Old School Essentials is a breeze for me to run. Of course, OSE feels like cheating with the decades of D&D under my belt. I'm hoping to find other relatively easy to run games as I get more of my TTRPG collection to the table this year.

The difficulty I have with running complex systems with many things interacting with each other at the same time is exactly that - my issue. However, it does influence my buying decisions and I tend towards the more streamlined end of the TTRPG market.


Day 7: "RPG with good form"

Star Trek Adventures. I own most of the first edition line and there's not been a dud in the bunch. The original core book gets a rebuke for poor organization, but other than that, every book has added to the quality of the game.

I wasn't sure what "good form" was supposed to mean in the context of TTRPGs. From the responses I've seen, I wasn't alone.


Day 8: "An accessory you appreciate"

I'm not gonna name just one. Dice for when success and failure are both interesting outcomes. Fold up dice trays for when the little plastic bastards decide to go for a swan dive off the table. Miniatures for when relative positioning is relevant. Terrain, tiles, and sheets because they look cool on the table with the miniatures, but they aren't strictly necessary.

As much as I enjoy miniature wargames, my use of miniatures and terrain for TTRPGs varies. There are times when they help keep track of things in combat. There are other times when it just takes too much time and space to set up.


Day 9: "An accessory you'd like to see"

More sci-fi terrain NOT covered in skulls and two headed eagles would be great. And more generic sci-fi miniatures, terrain, and maps in general would be nice.

We all know what game setting I'm referencing here, right? Cool.

And - to be fair - I realize that it's hard to make miniatures, terrain, and battle maps that would work for Star Wars, cyberpunk, grimdark, and Star Trek equally well. But a man can dream.


Day 10: "RPG you'd like to see on TV"

RPG to TV adaptation? There's Star Trek, but that's cheating. Maybe Lancer? I'm reading through it and the setting is interesting. Plus there's mecha!

Let's play? Whatever TTRPG I'm trying to get my head around at the moment.

I always have time to watch more Star Trek. And I've long been a giant robot connoisseur.

I don't enjoy watching other people play a TTRPG. I realize this isn't universal. I do find value in let's play videos when learning a new TTRPG. Seeing a game in motion is more informative to me than reading an explanation of how a set of rules is supposed to work.

Preparing a Classic D&D Module for OSE

Running D&D module B4 The Lost City in Old School Essentials was a success. Our group enjoyed a slightly revamped version of a classic adventure. And only a couple of player characters died! I can't say that Zargon and his cult were happy with the outcome, but they got what was coming to them. I credit the experience to a good group, my ability to improvise whenever players do the unexpected (which is all the time), and the efforts I made beforehand.

A gamemaster's homework is never done.

Step 1: Read the Darn Thing

It doesn't matter if it's the first time or the hundredth time. No notes. No highlighting. Just go through the whole thing and get familiar with the contents. What are all the pieces and how do they fit together? What stands out? What works and what won't land with this particular group of players? What doesn't fit with how I like to run things at our table? What is so iconic that any alterations would only lead to bitterness and despair? None of these questions can be answered without knowing what's in the adventure.


Step 2: What Changes?

Outside of the occasional one shot, adventure modules aren't played in isolation. They have to fit into existing campaigns. In this case, the Nostalgia Tour concept. The Lost City couldn't overstay its welcome or it would push out another classic module. I needed to wrap it up by the time the player characters reached third level and were ready for the next module.

I originally wrote a bunch of details on the changes I made, but that turned into a whole thing. The changes and the thinking behind them will be presented in that mythical time we call later.

(EDIT: Later turned out to be a week and half down the road. Here's a post about all the changes I made: Remodeling B4 The Lost City.)


Step 3: Attack the Module with a Highlighter

Classic adventure modules weren't exactly masterworks of organization. The need to present information to the GM by embracing the tools to technical writing - bolded text, bullet points, and otherwise separating out critical statements from a body of text - wasn't fully identified until more recently. Since there's no way to add these features to an existing module with rewriting it, I used a highlighter to make key information stand out.

I'd be squeamish about marking up a vintage module this way. Even a damaged copy is still a decades old document at this point. Fortunately, I was able to avoid the issue with a print on demand copy from DTRPG.

Here are examples of the kind of information I highlighted:

• How the traps are supposed to work. What does a player character do to trigger the trap? What happens when the trap is triggered?
• Reactions for monster encounters. What do they do when they encounter the party? Otherwise, I rolled on the reaction table.
• Motivations for NPC encounters. What does this NPC want from the party? How do they respond based on the reaction roll?
• Treasures and other loot. This information was sometimes buried in the room descriptions.
• Key historical facts. The Lost City has a backstory relevant to the adventure. I wanted to keep the critical details handy.

Step 4: List Making

Although a highlighter makes critical information easier to find, I wanted to have some things at my fingertips. Lists make it possible to reference certain things without having to flip back and forth through the module.

Examples of my lists:

• Static monster encounters. The rooms and the bags of XP dwelling within them organized by room number. It worked as a checklist of what the party ran into as they moved through the dungeon. I included each monster's page number in the OSE Referee's Tome for easy reference. This made it handy during combat and for calculating XP in between sessions. Easily the list I used the most.
• Wandering monster encounters. Includes the page numbers of each wandering monster table from the module. As with the static monster encounter list, I also included each monster's page number in the OSE Referee's Tome. Not as useful as I expected. The dice were not cooperating and I didn't roll as many wandering monsters as I expected.
• Trap encounters. Room numbers and a description of the traps within them. Having the information in one place wasn't as useful as I expected. The work I put in with the highlighter was enough for me to find the information when I needed it.
• NPC encounters. Statistics, descriptions, significant items, and spell lists for encounters that might result in talking, fighting, or some combination of both. The descriptions of some groups are spread throughout the module. Compiling them in one place saved some time during play. It also helped me keep the names straight.
• Cynidicean encounters. The inhabitants of the titular lost city have their own sub-table in this module's wandering monster tables. Since I needed to convert them to OSE anyway, I retyped the (converted) statistics and descriptions on a handy reference document.

Step 5: Old School Essentials Conversion

Although OSE is based on Basic D&D, certain things required adaptation. Most of the monsters have statistics in OSE, but the ones unique to B4 The Lost City needed work. The biggest issue involved our group's decision to go with ascending armor class as an option. All things considered, the conversion process was easy. Converting an AD&D module to OSE might involve more time and effort. I'll be burning that bridge later in the Nostalgia Tour campaign.

#RPGaDay 2024, Week One

The first week of RPGaDay 2024 was short. Only three days. In retrospect, combining the introductory post with this one would have been a really good idea.

All of these were previously posted on Mastodon and the RPG.net forums. Additional commentary exclusive to this blog are in italics.

Day 1: "First RPG bought this year?"

This is awkward. I haven't bought any new TTRPGs this year.

Lancer? Pre-ordered in October 2023.

The Mothership Boxed Set? A Kickstarter reward for a pledge I made in December 2021.

The issue is that 2024 is the year I'm putting the games I have on my shelves in front of our group instead of adding to them. Lancer and Mothership were grandfathered in. I'm not buying new TTRPGs for a reason.

Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy didn't make the cut. It was a Black Friday Sale purchase from 2023 and arrived before Christmas.

I've also bought a few things from DTRPG this year. However, those were all adventures and supplements for games I already own. This is also part of my get more stuff from my collection onto the tabletop plan I had for this year.


Day 2: "Most recently played?"

As a #ForeverGM, I'm going with "most recently run" here.

Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy. I slightly revamped D&D module B4 The Lost City and ran our group through it using OSE. We had a fun time with this classic adventure. We also faced challenges with the comparatively streamlined rules. Zargon went down swinging, but the party is now in need of an active volcano to finish him off.

I previously posted about the Nostalgia Tour campaign for OSE here on this blog. More posts on B4 The Lost City are on the way.


Day 3: "Most often played RPG?"

As a #ForeverGM, I'm combining "ran" and "played" here.

I've clocked in more hours with some flavor of D&D or another than anything else. Especially if I include other fantasy dungeon delving TTRPGs like 13th Age or OSE.

Honorable mention goes to Star Trek Adventures for dominating our table for years. We're taking a break this year for variety's sake, but it'll be back.

As a middle aged dude, it should come as no surprise that I started with D&D. All that time with all those editions piles up.

I am planning on bringing Star Trek Adventures back to the table at some point, but I'm not sure how the second edition will factor into that.

More next week!

#RPGaDay 2024, Introduction

I participated in #RPGaDay last year and - clearly not having learned my lesson - I'm doing it again this year. #RPGaDay poses a TTRPG related question for each day of August. It was launched by David F. Chapman on his AutoCratik blog. I'll be answering the questions daily on Mastodon and the RPG.net forums. Those responses will be compiled weekly on this blog and include additional commentary.

Each daily prompt can be answered as is. Alternately, the word in bold can be used as the prompt instead if the full question. It just depends on if the full question applies or if I just don't like it.

There's a new option available this year. Chapman admits that the prompts this year were rushed. As an additional alternative, he offered up a completely different set of prompts by Skala Wyzwania. I'll be resorting to this set if I don't care for either the full question or bolded word in Chapman's set of prompts.

Last year's weekly compilation posts are listed below:

#RPGaDay 2023, Week One
#RPGaDay 2023, Week Two
#RPGaDay 2023, Week Three
#RPGaDay 2023, Week Four
#RPGaDay 2023, Final Week

The Summer Trip - Don't Leave Gaming Behind!

Got back from visiting family. Took photos of rocket butts. Here's how I didn't leave gaming behind. At least, not entirely.

Dat @$$. Saturn V display at the Apollo center of Kennedy Space Center.

Reading

We all have stuff we've been meaning to read, but just haven't had the time.

Guess what?

Bring something to read. It doesn't matter if you're taking a plane, car, or train - you're going to end up spending hours sitting with reading or looking out the window as your options.

Game books are the obvious choice. I brought a couple and - while I didn't finish either book - I did make progress in them both. Be careful in your selection. Digest sized is easier to pack than a big hardcover. And don't take anything you'd miss or can't replace. No first runs of long out of print classics from defunct companies. Luggage gets lost. Things disappear.

The two game systems I brought were FATE Core System and the Mothership boxed set. Reading the FATE rules is a first step towards running a future campaign using Tachyon Squadron. Bringing the Mothership boxed set was a mistake. It's a little too big to comfortably fit in my messenger bag and it split my reading time between them. Bringing FATE Core System and leaving Mothership at home would have allowed me to concentrate on and finish the one book.

I did finish the couple of non-fiction books I brought along. I count both of these towards gaming because much of my non-fiction reading ends up being research for upcoming campaigns. Books with a smaller footprint are better and bring nothing you can't easily replace.

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande is a niche title about using checklists as an organizational tool. Checklists aren't the best choice in all scenarios, but they do serve to make sure that no steps are overlooked while executing a process. Recommended, but not for everybody.

The Middle Ages: A Graphic History by Eleanor Janega and Neil Max Emmanuel covers a period that too many folks assume they know everything about. It's an excellent overview for somebody new to the topic. In my case, it helped me see how everything fits together as well as giving me new insights into the period. Some folks might find parts of it too "woke" for their tastes, but those folks are wrong. Strongly recommended.

Something else to consider is a cheap paperback novel. A quick, light read might be welcome between more challenging material. I ended up not doing this, but it's an option I'm keeping in mind for next time.


What NOT To Pack

Accept that you'll be away from your gaming collection. Don't try to stuff your entire collection into your luggage. It's just a bad idea. Process that and move on. And plan accordingly.

My wife packed our copy of Bohnanza in case the family got restless, but we ended up not playing it. Carefully consider these kinds of options. Only bring a board or card game if you know you'll end up playing it. Otherwise, it will just be dead weight in your luggage.

I was tempted to bring a miniature, a small wet palette, a couple of brushes, and a few paints. It all didn't make the cut due to space limitations. It's just as well, there wasn't enough light in the place we were staying. My advice is to only consider this if you're really into miniature painting and know that you'll have the time and a suitable location to paint.

The forbidden boop. Nose of the orbiter Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center.

What To Do?

Visit a gaming related location in the area. This normally means a game store. However, a little research may yield a big surprise. I found out that the Warsenal shop is located a short distance from where we were staying. It was short visit, but buying some MDF terrain straight from the source was a novel experience.

Watch a movie. There were a couple of times when I found myself with time to kill and access to a TV. I used the time to for a couple of old favorites: I suspected that my testosterone levels were low and hoped to absorb some through osmosis by watching Predator (1987) again. I also sought inspiration for eventually running Mothership in Alien (1979).

The rest of the time? We had obligations, but enough free time to take the kids to see some of the sights. Otherwise, touch grass. Or sand. Or try to boop the nose of a space shuttle orbiter (it was out of reach). Or lick a rock from the Moon (also out of reach).

They call these things get aways for a reason. Relax for a bit.

A Brief Visit to Warsenal

I hadn't planned on going to the Warsenal shop while seeing family in Florida. The place appeared while I was searching for tabletop gaming locations in the general area, because my addiction to my hobbies couldn't be put off for long. I've placed many online orders from Warsenal over the years. The chance to visit the place where all that laser cut MDF came from was too good to pass up.

The signage does make the place easier to find.

Warsenal is located in an unassuming industrial park. Getting there involved waiting for a big rig truck to finish backing in to another business and unblocking the road. They are open from 10am - 4pm on weekdays only. I would advise calling or emailing ahead to make sure that they are ready to receive visitors. It's a step I neglected, but I got lucky.

The place is a working shop ringed with laser cutters and assembly stations rather than a store location. They are set up for onsite sales and even have a modest play area with already assembled terrain. I was allowed to wander freely and pick out what I wanted from the available inventory of already packed kits. The compact space is arranged for maximum efficiency. Meaning that getting around involves squeezing through a few narrow spots.

Once I finished exploring, I inquired about an item I wasn't able to find. I was offered the chance to return in a couple of days if it needed to be cut. However, it turned out to be available, just not on display. I made my purchases and concluded my brief visit. As stated, this is a working shop, so I didn't want to hold up production any long than necessary.

I enjoyed the visit and would recommend it to any Warsenal fans who find themselves in the area. It's a fun - if brief - experience that I would've regretting passing up. Plus, it's nice to make an order without paying shipping costs.

2024 Tabletop Gaming Plan - Midyear Update

We're halfway through the year. Which is as good a time as any for me to take stock of how I'm doing with my 2024 Tabletop Gaming Plan.

Kick things off with a blast of nostalgia by revisiting some classic D&D and AD&D modules using Old School Essentials.

Our group just finished B4 The Lost City after a late start. The delay was to give me time to read through both OSE books and the module. Running it was a taste of how things were back when we got started with role playing games - both good and bad. The next module will be X1 The Isle of Dread, but we'll be playing through something else first to avoid campaign fatigue. I'll go into more details in upcoming posts.


Getting more of my RPG collection off the shelves and onto the tabletop.

OSE technically counts, but I'm planning on breaking out the likes of FATE Core or Night's Black Agents later this year.


Do something with the games I've Kickstarted or preordered as they come in this year.

The first of these - the Mothership boxed set - arrived last month. I'm reading through it now. Which is a large improvement considering all the times I left Kickstarter rewards collect a layer of dust before getting to them.


Make a dent in my pile of unread books (and not just RPGs).

I've made a dent. It's a smaller dent than I was hoping for, but it's more than I read in all of 2023.


Make a dent in my pile of shame (terrain and miniatures).

Yeah, not everything can be a win. Or even a qualified win. I need to put some paint on something soon.

Overall, I'm making progress in almost all areas. The OSE campaign is off to a great start. I'll likely run Mothership before marooning our group on The Isle of Dread. I'm reading more than I have in years. I just need to break out the brushes and get back into the habit of painting again.

Mecha Western Setting Riff

A Game Idea I'm Not Using (Right Now)

So, this is about mixing the tropes of the Western genre with mecha. I make no claims to this particular mashup. The idea's been floating around for awhile.

Ever get an idea for something completely different from the project that's sitting right in front of you? I should be finishing my notes on B4 The Lost City for my Old School Essentials "Nostalgia Tour" campaign. On the other hand, this is one of those ideas that will bother me until I jot something down. Feel free to borrow what you like and let me know how it goes.

Mecha keeping an eye out for bug rustlers.

Related Concepts

The mecha western draws from Westerns, space operas, and space westerns plus the whole giant robot thing.

"Space opera" is derived from "soap opera" and "horse opera" - the latter being a term for Western films and television series. Replace the horse with a spaceship, revolvers with rayguns, and the Wild West with the Final Frontier. Star Trek's "wagon train to the stars" is a well known example.

The space western is a space opera that invokes the themes and trappings of the Western. In many ways, it simply draws the existing relationship between the two genres closer together. For example, the Mandalorian places greater emphasis on the Western elements that have always been a part of Star Wars.

The mecha western is a different kind of space western. Spaceships are still around, but their role is more akin to a train or stagecoach than a horse. They are ways of crossing the frontier that the protagonists don't own or control. The Western's horse is instead swapped out with piloted robotic vehicles. This idea isn't exactly unprecedented - anime like Outlaw Star are inspirations.


Drilling Deeper

Placing mecha in space opera isn't enough - that's a significant portion of anime and video games. Mixing mecha and Westerns involves recycling classic Western plots and tropes with a sci-fi spin that includes giant robots. There is plenty of commentary on the Western genre - TV Tropes has a whole page - and I'm not going to be doing a deep dive here. I want to discuss how everything reacts after being combined.

A frontier is mandatory. The action has to take place far enough from settled areas for things to get out of hand. The conflict between those who employ the violence necessary to destroy threats to order and those who wish to build and live in that order is alive here. There is also the fact that explosive weapons and anti-authoritarian attitudes don't mix with artificial environments maintained by fragile life support systems. The tension between hired mecha jocks and those that pay them could be a valuable source of role playing drama.

Space westerns - such as Firefly - often feature a mix of technologies. This could be the result of a recent interstellar war. The effects of the conflict still disrupt trade, but left plenty of salvage around. Or it could be the simple fact that high tech gets less common and more crude the further out a place is from the centers of industry. In any event, there is a mix of technological aesthetics - steampunk, dieselpunk, cyberpunk, cassette future, rocketpunk, and glossy high tech. What is available depends on the sources that can be accessed, the means at hand, and what can be jury-rigged to fit to a purpose.

What to Call These Yahoos?

Space Cowboys? Taken.
Mecha Jockeys? Mech Jocks? Kinda also taken.
Hired Guns? Buckaroos? Gunslingers? Straight outta Westerns, not enough mecha.
Mecha Busters? Mecha Wranglers? Hmmm...

I'll workshop it later.


Adventure Ideas

"High Noon Mecha Showdown"
Chronometers count down to local noon, when the regular interplanetary transport arrives with a band of mecha equipped enforcers assigned to kill those getting too close in their investigation of the corrupt corporate government. The player characters need to make sure that all their mecha systems are nominal when the time comes.

Inspirations: "High Noon" (1952) and "Outland" (1981).

"The Great Brain Robbery"
A valuable corporate shipment is on the move, but that's just the cover story. Something even more valuable is hidden in one of the regular cargo modules - an AI core that corporate wants to stay off the books. Catching up to the shipment, boarding, and defeating corporate security is just the start. Recovering the core and keeping it long enough to reach a buyer will be an even greater challenge.
Inspirations: "The Great Train Robbery" (1903) and "The Train Job" (Firefly 1x2).

"Cattle Drive"
Hired on to protect dinosaur-like megafauna and the specialized mecha that herd them to market from rustlers. They have to get the herd from their ranch to the markets near the planetary space port while under constant harassment from mecha buckaroos in the pay of competing ranches.

"Lost Treasure"
Three parties race each other for a treasure. A crashed luxury space liner that went down before the war. Salvagers picked it clean long ago, but there are rumors that something was missed. The race ends in a Mexican standoff after a long journey and many dangers. Who will make the first move and provoke a fight in the wreck of the space liner?
Inspiration: "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" (1966).


Conclusion

Now that I've got some notes down, I'm putting this idea away for later. Maybe I'll dust it off after my preorder of the Lancer book arrives.

Nostalgia Tour - Planning an OSE Campaign

The good news is that my idea of using Old School Essentials to revisit classic D&D and AD&D adventure modules is lurching forward. The bad news is I actually have to execute the idea. That all starts with a plan. I'm an experienced enough gamemaster to know that any plan I come up with is unlikely to survive contact with my players. Still, whatever bits of it I can salvage from the burning wreckage may provide a handy guideline.

Lost the originals in a move, but POD from DTRPG will do the job.

Narrowing Down the Options

Using classic modules greatly simplifies planning. I just have to pick out the ones I want to run. The criteria I'm using are: my group's interest in a particular module, compatibility with OSE, and the level of effort involved with running it.

My group includes veteran players who made it clear that they have no interest in another go at B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. I completely understand not wanting to return to it after playing or running it half a dozen times. The goal of the campaign is to indulge in nostalgia, not endure tedium. Tt is the only module vetoed outright by the group.

Old School Essentials is designed to be compatible with the Basic/Expert D&D rules. This makes B- and X-series modules ideal. AD&D modules require some conversion depending on content. The stats of certain monsters are similar, but not identical. Other monsters - like demons and devils - are not presented in OSE Advanced Fantasy at the time of this posting.

Running a module rarely means just giving it a skim and winging it from there. I've posted about this before - I found that studying a module and running it from my notes is best practice. It's even worse if I feel the need to rewrite aspects of a module to better fit my style or the tone of a campaign. This suggests that Jaquays-style dungeons and open world hexcrawls would work better than something relying on a baked in plot.


The List

B4 The Lost City
A classic Moldvay dungeon crawl that I never actually got to play or run back in the day. There's a strong swords and sorcery vibe that my group should appreciate. Also, it avoids an issue with early B-series modules - large areas being left blank. A key point of this campaign is me avoiding work.

X1 The Isle of Dread
Another Moldvay classic. This one is a hexcrawl inspired by the kind of "lost world" stories featuring dinosaurs and steamy jungles. It may or may not turn into fantasy 'Nam for our group due to those dinosaurs and jungles. The only issue that I have with it is the paradox of the black pearl that supposed to kick off the adventure.

G1-3 Against the Giants
D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth
D3 Vault of the Drow
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits
This is the ironic series of adventures that starts with dungeon crawling through the centers of evil giant power, drops into what would later be called the Underdark, passes through the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is a Drow city, and ends up in the extraplanar lair of a demon goddess. Nevermind all the set up about the Elder Elemental God, the real bad guy is Lolth and the real treasures are the literal treasures that the party loots along the way.


Alternates

X2 Castle Amber
The Moldvay classic dungeon crawl that I'll be running if the Moldvay classic hexcrawl that is The Isle of Dread doesn't appeal for whatever reason. Otherwise, I'll save this personal favorite for a later OSE campaign I have in mind.

C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
The recommended levels between The Isle of Dread and Against the Giants leaves a gap. I have a few modules that I could slot in to cover it. This one is the front runner due to fond memories I have of running it in grade school. I am hopeful that my older and mature current group makes it through encounter #13 much better than my group back then.