I posted this in another thread last week but I don't think that one gets much traffic so I'll post again here. Sorry if this is viewed as a double post!
Here's my situation...
My friends and I have a yearly gathering we call JohnCon. I get rid of my wife and kids for a 3.5 day weekend (Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon) of nothing but gaming. The guys come over and (generally) no one leaves until Sunday afternoon. Last year I ran one massive marathon game that I DM'd for the entire weekend, that was a bookend session wrapping up a multi-year campaign. However, as can be imagined, that was a massive undertaking that sucked the utter life out of me.
This year we are breaking it up and having multiple games with multiple GM's.
Thursday (evening): a High level 4E 1-shot just to see what people think about high level 4E
Friday (all day): Playtesting a 3.5 setting a friend and I are developing
Saturday (morning): Robotech
Saturday (evening): I am running Castles and Crusades
Sunday (morning-afternoon): continue playtesting the 3.5 setting
Anyway, the question...
Since I am using Castles and Crusades you can guess I am going for an "old-school" feel. I looked at a few really, really old school modules, one is "R2 - The Investigation of Hydell" which was the second in the RPGA modules and looks like it was printed in 1982. However, I am thinking now that the levels (5-7) may be a bit too low so I was looking for other modules, in the 9-12 level range. Ideally I need them to either be doable in one 8-12 hour session, or have a piece of the adventure that could be completed in one 8-12 hour session.
I am also tending towards running a classic adventure since most of the players did not start until late in second edition and I know they did not play in them. The only restriction, as I said, is that it has to be doable in 8-12 hours.
Does anyone have any suggestions? It can be from Dungeon magazine also.
Thanks for any tips!
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Here is one from my personal collection of adventure ideas:
Wendel the Sworder looked down into the valley. There scattered across the side of a Mountain was the shattered iron hull of the Twilight Sky. The Alphatian Flying Carrier that had laid siege to the city of Glantri at the height of the War.
It had gone down in the Wendarian Ranges with all hands.
"By the Immortals!" The carnage was terrible and awe inspiring. The contents of a once glorious empire were scattered across the mountains of Northern Glantri.
Wendel didn't see the Predator lurking in shadow. It came at him with furious speed.
DM Briefing: The PC's stumble across the wreckage of the Alphatian Flying Carrier ship scattered across a mountain in the Wendarian Ranges. There amongst the wealth of lost wizard magic are numerous powerful predators that were summoned to attack Glantri.
Now all you need is a map of a real aircraft carrier and a list of monsters hiding in the wreckage.
White Plume Mountain? Always liked that one.
How about "In Defense of the Law" from Dungeon #8? It has the (lawful) PCs teaming up with a lawful-evil-ish party to stop a group of chaotic NPCs from destabilizing the countryside. It's for level 7-10.
White Plume Mountain? Always liked that one.
Can it be completed in 8-12 hours? That's the biggest requirement.
How about "In Defense of the Law" from Dungeon #8? It has the (lawful) PCs teaming up with a lawful-evil-ish party to stop a group of chaotic NPCs from destabilizing the countryside. It's for level 7-10.
Same question as above, can it be completed in 8-12 hours? That's the biggest requirement.
How about "In Defense of the Law" from Dungeon #8? It has the (lawful) PCs teaming up with a lawful-evil-ish party to stop a group of chaotic NPCs from destabilizing the countryside. It's for level 7-10.Same question as above, can it be completed in 8-12 hours? That's the biggest requirement.
Isn't that like asking "How long is a piece of string?" :-)
Not knowing your group, I'd say that it could easily be finished in 8-12 hours of dedicated play, but it couldn't be finished in 8-12 hours of mostly-dicking-around. It's mostly a straightforward dungeon crawl (and not a huge dungeon at that), with the added twist of interacting with the NPC party.
Isn't that like asking "How long is a piece of string?" :-)
Not knowing your group, I'd say that it could easily be finished in 8-12 hours of dedicated play, but it couldn't be finished in 8-12 hours of mostly-dicking-around. It's mostly a straightforward dungeon crawl (and not a huge dungeon at that), with the added twist of interacting with the NPC party.
Well what I generally mean is, we generally take 1-2 hours per encounter. Which means that in an 8-12 hour session we could reasonably expect to complete 4-8 (maybe more if they reallllly focus) encounters. Could the adventure be completed in say, 6 encounters? Or are there many important encounters that have to be played in order to get the gist of the adventure? The hardest bit is that realistically, they'll probably be able to get through, say, 5-8 encounters.
Maybe not, then. I guess I was thinking in terms of AD&D, where it's generally much faster to resolve a combat. I don't know much about Castles & Crusades, but I'm surprised it still takes that long.
Maybe not, then. I guess I was thinking in terms of AD&D, where it's generally much faster to resolve a combat. I don't know much about Castles & Crusades, but I'm surprised it still takes that long.
Oh well, to be honest, this would be our first Castles & Crusades game. I am trying it out in our yearly con session to see how we like it. I have been getting that old-school itch something fierce lately and the C&C system looks pretty nice so I wanted to test it out.
I can only say that in 3.5/PF our combats are always minimum one hour, average two hours. I do expect combats to go much faster in C&C but I have no way of saying for sure.
Does anyone else have any experience with Castles & Crusades combats?
WPM? Yeah. That would work. (As long as your party isn't paranoid about testing every single square inch of the corridors.) The adventure is very old school, so it features not one, not two, but three interesting artifacts: Wave, Whelm and Blackrazor. It is heavy on the puzzles, and it was designed for levels 5-10. You'll just have to beef up one or two of the encounters to make a challenge. Some, like the encounter in the lava lake, or the spikes in the frictionless room, work just fine as is!
Interesting. There's a free update at Wizards to 7th level for 3.5:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20051207a
Interesting. There's a free update at Wizards to 7th level for 3.5
I had downloaded that a lonnnng time ago thinking I might run it under 3.5 or PF someday but had forgotten about it. Thanks for the reminder. That one might fit the bill nicely. I re-read the first part of it last night and since there are three main branches it could work well. The players will go in after one of the items as their primary goal and then the other two items will be secondary goals.
While I am reviewing that one, does anyone else have any other suggestions for short modules that can be completed in 8-12 hours?