I have watched many a talking TSR video and this the 1st that’s prompted a comment. I’m an OSR player (DCC player too), and I love your analysis of these old books. In fact I converted much of new material in OAR 1 back to 1st ed, so I could use it in the new B2 game I ran for new players. I am a bit older than you guys and I originally had run Bone Hill with two different groups sometime in 81-82’ as the sandbox it was and we got a lot of mileage out of it. so when 83 rolled around I got ahold of L2, and I loved the idea but a hard time wrapping my head around running it, I considered myself an experienced DM at that point I was Junior in HS and has been running games since 8th grade. Running a mystery was outside my toolbox, so I sat on it and just kept re-reading it for about year , I finally ran it in Summer 84” and had the gang break out the old characters from the last L1 story and went from there, we had quite a hoot with it, IIRC, I kind of tipped my hat to Tellis too early , and the game became more a cat and mouse chase , they didn’t save the baroness but caught him on the road on his way back to Restenford, obviously the details are blurry being 37 years ago, but I remember it ended rather bloodily but the PC’s won the day. The reason I recall this so well as it was the last game I ran before I went to college. Other things took precedent for years , I didn’t return to the game until 3rd ed came out in 00’..so L2 holds a deep nostalgia in my 1e roots. The only thing that made me spit out my coffee and go WTF! Was Chris saying he hated the Cover Art!, while I get Mr Sullivans art is taste specific , that classic image always sat with me as the perfect representation of module. Anyway kudos for a great retrospective.. RIP Lenard.
OMG! I never realized how more fitting the random temple spell charges fit the Church of the Big Gamble! If anything, that is the big take-away of this video post! Honestly, I thought this module had a lot of parallels to L1: the "crazy" cleric, most specifically. I wonder if all the action was originally intended to be in Restenford, but the brass at TSR wanted another town.... Wild speculation, on my part. I've absolutely no inside knowledge, either way. Great stuff, as always. Love the show. Such fun to listen to.
Found Assassin's Knot inherently unplayable. I feel it would be a challenge as a DM to get it to work. We played Bone Hill at the time it came out and loved it. A couple years later one of our people got and Dmed the Assassin's Knot. It was the first module he Dmed and honestly I don't think he was up to it. We were the least suitable party for this but he created no opportunities for us to actually learn anything. We had the red herrings. And managed to interview a couple of the "suspects". By the time we had done that the first suspect was dead. and then the Baron's wife was dead. And then Peltar ? Finally we left the Island never to return. This was original D&D so there is no investigate, perception , intimidate, insight roll to make. We tried to hang out in the bar and used ESP all day and searched for rumours with zero effect. We attempted to break in and investigate places at night and again were held up short by the DM . We had urgency and a time table that ticked down on us but no way to find anything out. At one point we basically from desperation castled up with the Barons daughter in restenford. That somehow didnt work either. Probably my most frustrating experience as a player . No TPK because we never got close enough to the villain for them to wipe us out. We simply failed and moved on which is a shame because I loved restenford. I think I got the Smith to make me a pry bar without getting killed, so there was that. Yea!! I have a lot of thoughts on how I would work this as a DM but the upshot is that the module as written didnt work. And part of it was us. In classic D&D there were puzzles and clues you followed but if you followed them they would lead you somewhere. The clues we had here were obvious red herrings but we had nothing else to follow, so we followed them with unremarkable consequences. Oh and the actual head assassin's magic item would be a game breaker if the party ever got it. We played and I Dmed on another occasion Cult of the Reptile God with great success. It requires some work to avoid the TPK at the end of this one but the mystery works and progresses. Village of Hommlet I enjoyed less but again a workable playable module. Assassin's Knot I have to rewrite to make work and I don't know if it will work cause I have never gotten another opportunity. .
The numbers of magic users sounds like every typical D&D setting where about 2% of a settlement are normal, working human beings & the rest are some fantastical nonsense.
Too much talking about non related topics. We don’t care about gencon and all you life’s going on’s. Review the module - that’s what the audience came here for!
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I have watched many a talking TSR video and this the 1st that’s prompted a comment. I’m an OSR player (DCC player too), and I love your analysis of these old books. In fact I converted much of new material in OAR 1 back to 1st ed, so I could use it in the new B2 game I ran for new players. I am a bit older than you guys and I originally had run Bone Hill with two different groups sometime in 81-82’ as the sandbox it was and we got a lot of mileage out of it. so when 83 rolled around I got ahold of L2, and I loved the idea but a hard time wrapping my head around running it, I considered myself an experienced DM at that point I was Junior in HS and has been running games since 8th grade. Running a mystery was outside my toolbox, so I sat on it and just kept re-reading it for about year , I finally ran it in Summer 84” and had the gang break out the old characters from the last L1 story and went from there, we had quite a hoot with it, IIRC, I kind of tipped my hat to Tellis too early , and the game became more a cat and mouse chase , they didn’t save the baroness but caught him on the road on his way back to Restenford, obviously the details are blurry being 37 years ago, but I remember it ended rather bloodily but the PC’s won the day. The reason I recall this so well as it was the last game I ran before I went to college. Other things took precedent for years , I didn’t return to the game until 3rd ed came out in 00’..so L2 holds a deep nostalgia in my 1e roots. The only thing that made me spit out my coffee and go WTF! Was Chris saying he hated the Cover Art!, while I get Mr Sullivans art is taste specific , that classic image always sat with me as the perfect representation of module. Anyway kudos for a great retrospective.. RIP Lenard.
OMG! I never realized how more fitting the random temple spell charges fit the Church of the Big Gamble! If anything, that is the big take-away of this video post!
Honestly, I thought this module had a lot of parallels to L1: the "crazy" cleric, most specifically. I wonder if all the action was originally intended to be in Restenford, but the brass at TSR wanted another town.... Wild speculation, on my part. I've absolutely no inside knowledge, either way.
Great stuff, as always. Love the show. Such fun to listen to.
Found Assassin's Knot inherently unplayable. I feel it would be a challenge as a DM to get it to work. We played Bone Hill at the time it came out and loved it. A couple years later one of our people got and Dmed the Assassin's Knot. It was the first module he Dmed and honestly I don't think he was up to it. We were the least suitable party for this but he created no opportunities for us to actually learn anything.
We had the red herrings. And managed to interview a couple of the "suspects". By the time we had done that the first suspect was dead. and then the Baron's wife was dead. And then Peltar ?
Finally we left the Island never to return.
This was original D&D so there is no investigate, perception , intimidate, insight roll to make. We tried to hang out in the bar and used ESP all day and searched for rumours with zero effect. We attempted to break in and investigate places at night and again were held up short by the DM . We had urgency and a time table that ticked down on us but no way to find anything out.
At one point we basically from desperation castled up with the Barons daughter in restenford. That somehow didnt work either. Probably my most frustrating experience as a player . No TPK because we never got close enough to the villain for them to wipe us out. We simply failed and moved on which is a shame because I loved restenford.
I think I got the Smith to make me a pry bar without getting killed, so there was that. Yea!!
I have a lot of thoughts on how I would work this as a DM but the upshot is that the module as written didnt work. And part of it was us. In classic D&D there were puzzles and clues you followed but if you followed them they would lead you somewhere. The clues we had here were obvious red herrings but we had nothing else to follow, so we followed them with unremarkable consequences.
Oh and the actual head assassin's magic item would be a game breaker if the party ever got it. We played and I Dmed on another occasion Cult of the Reptile God with great success. It requires some work to avoid the TPK at the end of this one but the mystery works and progresses. Village of Hommlet I enjoyed less but again a workable playable module. Assassin's Knot I have to rewrite to make work and I don't know if it will work cause I have never gotten another opportunity. .
L2 should be remade by you guys. It's a classic module , that first introduced me to a murder mystery. I had a blast as kid playing it.
Some great advice here regarding detailed NPCs.
You guys are growing on me 😊.
The numbers of magic users sounds like every typical D&D setting where about 2% of a settlement are normal, working human beings & the rest are some fantastical nonsense.
Too much talking about non related topics. We don’t care about gencon and all you life’s going on’s.
Review the module - that’s what the audience came here for!
You do know you can skip ahead, right? You aren't legally obliged to watch every single second.