I haven’t ever played D&D, but the modularity and depth of it seems quote interesting to me. I love the possibilities in deck building presented in Magic - The Gathering (which I’ve played for a few years) but have never gotten into D&D, Warhammer or other TTRPGs. The intriguing part of D&D is the actual story element to it. Magic has lore, but it doesn’t feel connected when you play. Either have I been interested in D&D before because I thought everyone who played would be hyper invested into it, but it sounds like you could play it as just a recurring hang out with your group. Great videos. Keep it up!
I enjoy a game of Magic and adored the novels set in Dominaria as a kid. You can play as a recurring hangout with your mates. This is largely what I do. No pressure and most people don't want that intensity - they want to do cool stuff and explore fantasy land filling their boots with gold and magic items.
Another great review with nice tips. I was thinking of running the slave lords modules but was turned off by the very tournament nature of the others in the series , not that they were all bad but that it would take some work to run it and prep - but this one looked very good in terms of a great location, setup , and development . I’d recommend nights dark terror as a great sanboxy style low level thing with events and variety
Thanks for the heads up on Night's Dark Terror. I hear it mentioned relatively often. The A-Series has some good dungeons but to build a campaign from it, the GM has to know it all and put some work in to situate them in their setting. I don't like the tournament stuff - I believe at least A1 was published with in an updated, non-tourney style at one point, but I may be confusing it with S3.
I ran this as part of a tour of AD&D 2e for some players who grew up with 3.5 and 5e around 6 or 7 years ago. I never played or ran any of the A series modules before this but I grew up reading about them in TSR's mail order hobby shop. Too long ago to remember a lot of the details like how I handled the pitch from the Overlord. I think I just winged it rather than use the specific boxed text. I think I considered that more of a story seed than something to read out loud to my players. The main thing that I remember is the way they handled some interactions between different areas. It makes sense that it should happen but frankly the module really could have used a map of these interactions and a single page listing groups. Something like this random, non-spoilery example: Group 1: 3 kobolds frrom area 3: statblock 1 ogre from area 6: statblock Group 2: 4 orcs from area 12: statblock 1 orc boss from area 13: statblock If a fight starts in area 2, Group 1 arrives in 3 rounds and Group 2 arrives in 5 rounds. If a fight starts in area 15, Groups 1 & 2 both arrive in 2 rounds. Instead of prep (edit: meant "providing" here) a layout like this, they have you flipping back and forth through several pages for stats in the middle of a fight unless you essentially do this yourself. It's doable but it really makes this messy to run.
I completely agree - these interactions should be laid out more clearly. That's sort of what I was getting at with how the background is a bit overcooked and confusing. What you have suggested would have made it much clearer.
@@GazzaMitchell-gz3df I guess to be kind of fair I should mention the timeline a bit. The original A1-A4 modules came out in the early 80's while Darkshelf's A0 came out 30 years later. It had around a decade of popular MMO games featuring setups where foes would happily watch you massacre their neighbors from 30 feet away but set foot within 20 feet of them and they'll rush you. I would have liked them to have learned about the sort of layout ideas I mentioned before but I don't know if that would have been a novel idea in 2013 when A0 came out.
I hadn't considered the impact specifically of MMOs on adventure design in the mid 2010s - it's obvious in 4e core rules but you're right: it almost certainly fed into how adventures were written.
I haven’t ever played D&D, but the modularity and depth of it seems quote interesting to me. I love the possibilities in deck building presented in Magic - The Gathering (which I’ve played for a few years) but have never gotten into D&D, Warhammer or other TTRPGs.
The intriguing part of D&D is the actual story element to it. Magic has lore, but it doesn’t feel connected when you play. Either have I been interested in D&D before because I thought everyone who played would be hyper invested into it, but it sounds like you could play it as just a recurring hang out with your group.
Great videos. Keep it up!
I enjoy a game of Magic and adored the novels set in Dominaria as a kid. You can play as a recurring hangout with your mates. This is largely what I do. No pressure and most people don't want that intensity - they want to do cool stuff and explore fantasy land filling their boots with gold and magic items.
Another great review with nice tips. I was thinking of running the slave lords modules but was turned off by the very tournament nature of the others in the series , not that they were all bad but that it would take some work to run it and prep - but this one looked very good in terms of a great location, setup , and development . I’d recommend nights dark terror as a great sanboxy style low level thing with events and variety
Thanks for the heads up on Night's Dark Terror. I hear it mentioned relatively often. The A-Series has some good dungeons but to build a campaign from it, the GM has to know it all and put some work in to situate them in their setting. I don't like the tournament stuff - I believe at least A1 was published with in an updated, non-tourney style at one point, but I may be confusing it with S3.
I ran this as part of a tour of AD&D 2e for some players who grew up with 3.5 and 5e around 6 or 7 years ago. I never played or ran any of the A series modules before this but I grew up reading about them in TSR's mail order hobby shop. Too long ago to remember a lot of the details like how I handled the pitch from the Overlord. I think I just winged it rather than use the specific boxed text. I think I considered that more of a story seed than something to read out loud to my players.
The main thing that I remember is the way they handled some interactions between different areas. It makes sense that it should happen but frankly the module really could have used a map of these interactions and a single page listing groups. Something like this random, non-spoilery example:
Group 1:
3 kobolds frrom area 3: statblock
1 ogre from area 6: statblock
Group 2:
4 orcs from area 12: statblock
1 orc boss from area 13: statblock
If a fight starts in area 2, Group 1 arrives in 3 rounds and Group 2 arrives in 5 rounds.
If a fight starts in area 15, Groups 1 & 2 both arrive in 2 rounds.
Instead of prep (edit: meant "providing" here) a layout like this, they have you flipping back and forth through several pages for stats in the middle of a fight unless you essentially do this yourself. It's doable but it really makes this messy to run.
I completely agree - these interactions should be laid out more clearly. That's sort of what I was getting at with how the background is a bit overcooked and confusing. What you have suggested would have made it much clearer.
@@GazzaMitchell-gz3df I guess to be kind of fair I should mention the timeline a bit. The original A1-A4 modules came out in the early 80's while Darkshelf's A0 came out 30 years later. It had around a decade of popular MMO games featuring setups where foes would happily watch you massacre their neighbors from 30 feet away but set foot within 20 feet of them and they'll rush you. I would have liked them to have learned about the sort of layout ideas I mentioned before but I don't know if that would have been a novel idea in 2013 when A0 came out.
I hadn't considered the impact specifically of MMOs on adventure design in the mid 2010s - it's obvious in 4e core rules but you're right: it almost certainly fed into how adventures were written.
This sounds really cool! I'm currently running a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign and this might be a perfect thing to weave in
I would emphasise the modularity of this one - it can easily fit in anywhere and it's really good.
@@GazzaMitchell-gz3df that's double sold then