Grimmsgate Supplemental Review

This review of Grimmsgate supplements Bryce Lynch's detailed review of the module, as well as Matt Finch's response to that review (Matt is author of Grimmsgate). In particular, this review focuses on some playability/usability details Bryce didn't mention (overlooked?), and focuses in on Grimmsgate's suitability as an introductory module in the rough style of something like B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, which Matt said was the design model for Grimmsgate. But first…

Overall Assessment

Grimmsgate is a good module — a very solid B grade. Not Matt Finch's best (that bar is really high), but good nonetheless. It has a number of Finch-y qualities — odd situations and objects for players to engage with besides just the strategies & tactics of combat avoidance and treasure seeking. There are a lot of recent modules that I simply wouldn't bother running, but I would run Grimmsgate.

However, as an introductory module for players new to roleplaying (or Swords & Wizardry), its grade is lower — probably a C. It has a number of issues that mar its suitability as an introductory module, and some general fit & finish issues that hamper its overall usability. If somebody asked for a recommendation on a good S&W intro module, I would point them elsewhere.

The Village of Grimmsgate

The village itself seems lacking, or underdeveloped as a springboard for adventure. It's fine as a home base; the module tells you what you can buy, how much you'll pay for lodging, and what NPC help might be available. But it's missing built-in adventuring possibilities / temptations.

It's almost unfair to compare Grimmsgate to B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, but since Matt mentioned it as the model, I'll compare it anyway. In B2, the Keep itself is a potential adventure site; there are agents of evil within the Keep, there is literally a secret door leading to another adventure site below the Keep (though I can't find the reference in B2 for that at the moment — I apologize if I'm misremembering), and there are other, more selfish reasons for covertly exploring the Keep: Plenty of loot! ("Did the guard say a jewel merchant lives here!?")

By contrast, although the village of Grimmsgate is initially described in a way that makes it seem like it could be a potential adventure site (its a defensible location with guards that don't seem to initially trust you), the module doesn't build off those features. All the occupants are essentially friendly/allies, there isn't much reason for snooping around, and hell, the module doesn't say how many guards occupy the gatehouse. In hindsight, given that the town is relatively defensible, it might have been interesting for the module to include some built-in way of triggering a raid against the town. (e.g., an bit of loot that the monsters come looking for if/when the PCs bring it back to town.) At least that way the defensible location could be more interesting despite the friendly occupants.

Oddly, there's an inconsistent presentation of stats for the townsfolk. Some of the non-classed townsfolk are given stats, but others aren't. Especially strange is that the guard (who levels his crossbow at the party as they approach the village) is not given stats! This is nothing that would disrupt the flow for a GM of some experience, but it might be troublesome for a new GM, or one who's new to old-school games. More on that later...

The Wilderness

Some of the wilderness areas seem kind of "phoned-in." The ogre/ford has a reasonable amount of usable design meat, but the dragon and the bandits have much less. As an introductory module, I'd expect some kind of rumor or hook that helps neophyte players understand that plundering a dragon's lair can be very lucrative (and very dangerous too). The bandits lack guidelines on purpose and tactics. Bandits have it tough in a world with magic-users; unlike the ogre description (for whom there is guidance on how he likes to tilt the odds in his favor, yet still remain somewhat ogreishly stupid), the bandit section offers no impartial guidance on how they might cannily threaten the party.

Holistically, the wilderness areas are too detached from one-another, as well as from the village and the main dungeon. The dragon, the bandits, the hill of statues — you'd never have an inkling that those things would be around, and be worth investigating. You can't see any of them from the village, and there are no rumors or clues that point toward investigating in those areas. The wilderness needs more trails, a wandering monster chart, additional relevant rumors, or similar. (By contrast, B2 The Keep on the Borderlands includes explicit rumors about two of the main wilderness areas, with enough of a pointer so that an interested party could easily head the right direction to find them.)

Oddly, the early Referee Notes (page 4) contain an allusion to a wilderness wandering monster chart, but no such chart exists.

The Elder Temple (the main dungeon)

This section of the module is pretty good, and the most typically Finch-y. The orbs, the spirit, the repeated visions (with a distinct wandering monster trade-off, as you try to experience more visions), and the different decorations & carvings all give the players interesting stuff to think about, while the odd monsters look pretty tough and could easily cause a number of hasty retreats by the party (a good thing!), and force the players to think both strategically and tactically.

My only peeves about this section have to do with content errors and production glitches that detract from its suitability as an introductory module…

Issues as an Introductory Module

Where Did They Come From? Neither the "Start" text nor the wilderness map makes it clear which way the party is expected to have traveled from. Worse, the only path shown on the village map potentially implies that the party came from the east, but that would lead to a temporal oddity relative to the ogre at the ford along the only road to the east, which the party hasn't encountered yet. There is a rumor implying that the characters didn't come from the ford, but nothing stated explicitly that I could find on a re-skim. This jarring/confusing situation could have been easily avoided. (By contrast, B2 The Keep on the Borderlands does explain where the party is expected to have come from, on page 12 of that module.)

Secret Doors: The secret door workings should have been described, with a brief explanation of how each "door" opens and what the triggering mechanism is. The traps in this section, by contrast, are fully described; what if the traps just said, "the sarcophagus is trapped (1d6 damage)?" That wouldn't be acceptable, so I'm not sure why it's acceptable for secret door designers to just put an "S" symbol on a map wall and call it a day. The S&W rulebook is pretty explicit about the fact that secret door workings ought to be given design consideration; the rulebook says that a successful secret door roll doesn't necessarily reveal how to open such a door. Also, there are two rooms (areas 8 and 10) where the module doesn't explain whether the occupants of the rooms know about the adjacent secret doors; for an introductory module, I'd expect some guidance on that point.

Hard to Map: For a group of beginners interested in trying out old school mapping, the dungeon map is really hard to logistically contend with, both for the DM to describe and the players to interpret. Odd angles, non-standard widths, and a lack of alignment to the grid all make verbal descriptions tricky, which could be a big road block to some groups. There's a reason why B2 The Keep on the Borderlands keeps most areas aligned to the grid.

Inconsistent Presentation of Introductory Info: There's advice for new GMs, but it's scattered around and presented several different ways, and this inconsistency doesn't serve to keep things organized or easily findable. One example is the description for area T-20, where it reminds a new GM too late (!) that he should have already presented some information to the players before they entered the area; the relevant info should have been a separate keyed area on the map, outside area T-20. I'd also expect some mention of monster reactions (initial attitude toward PCs) somewhere in the module, given that reactions are hand-waved in the S&W rulebook. I think the expectation is that they are all aggressive, but it's hard to be sure.

Content Mistakes: There are a handful of these, and these kind of glitches never serve to make a good impression on a new group/GM. The dungeon wandering monster info talks about a "special" entry that purportedly relates to each different section of the dungeon, but there's no "special" actually on the chart, nor is there any mention of it in each section of the dungeon. There a mention of a door in area 23 that isn't on the map. There's a flooded room (area 15) that probably shouldn't be flooded, because it has an obvious drainage path down the adjacent stairs. There's a missing slope connecting the highest part of the dungeon with a lower section, between area 14 and the nexus of areas 40 and 41.

Inconvenient Layout Glitches: There are a number of problems, most of them minor, but one stands out as legitimately troublesome during play. The dragon area description in the wilderness looks all nicely ended on page 8. So when you run the module, you could easily forget to look three pages away for the paragraph that talks about the dragon's treasure. There are a couple other similar, though more minor layout offenses, including a table and a new monster description that each breaks across pages, and orphaned portions of room descriptions that could have been avoided by commissioning art *after* doing the layout. It's hard to say exactly how bad these last few glitches are because I haven't seen the physical printed version yet; having to flip back-and-forth to deal with the table (from area T-13) would get old pretty quickly.

Summary

Overall Grimmsgate is good, but it feels like it was missing a proper/firm producer's hand. The Frog God Games guys needed the guts to push it back to Matt for another revision. They needed to shepherd the layout and illustration a little bit better, to avoid the jarring/inconvenient page breaks. It needed more polish to really be an "A grade" module.

Parody Logo

I had a flash of inspiration that I could not help but follow to its natural creative conclusion. Perhaps I will find a reason to use my creation...

Dark Chateau 2nd printing

I couldn't find pictures of the 2nd printing of Dark Chateau on the internet anywhere, so here are some very quick photos of mine, showing the major differences between it and the 1st printing: Totally different covers, re-done title page (now including the OGL), and an advertisement on page 40 (instead of the OGL).

(I'll do a proper cover scan when I have more time, and upload the cover images to rpggeek and similar places.)

Dark Chateau 2nd printing front cover

Dark Chateau 2nd printing back cover

Dark Chateau 2nd printing title page

Dark Chateau 2nd printing last page

Lost City of the Elders: Out-of-the-Box play with Rob Kuntz

At the most recent Gary Con, Robert J. Kuntz refereed three separate groups through part of his Lost City of the Elders environment. I had the pleasure of participating in the second of those three groups, and it gave me new insight to what Rob has described as "out-of-the-box" or "open form" play.

Lost City of the Elders is most certainly not a typical "monsters in a dungeon/wilderness" environment. Rob is a unique referee. This particular union of referee and environment was a bit of a shock to the system … in a good way. It pushed us, as players, in ways we had not been pushed before. At times, it was uncomfortable or jarring. A couple players left the session early, possibly because of how different it was from their typical sessions. The following day, two other players from my session made comments like, "Can you believe that session? Were we just in a train wreck?"

But I did not echo their consternation. I enjoyed the play session; I certainly learned a thing or three, and I think all the players are better for the experience they had at Rob's table. Given a bit of reflection, I think even the early-leavers would agree.

Depiction of the Lost City of the Elders (from WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure)

From here, I will try to highlight some of the out-of-the-box situations and techniques Rob used during play. I'll avoid direct spoilers (mostly), but because so much of the play was about us (as players) adapting to the changing play environment and trying to stay level-headed, some indirect spoilers are inevitable; many of the out-of-the-box techniques were the changing environment we dealt with.

Player Interpretation of a Visual Aid

After briefly framing our reason for adventure (often a necessary evil at convention games), Rob presented us with a visual aid that offered a clue about where we were to begin our adventure. The illustration was somewhat ambiguous, certainly mysterious, and yet tantalizingly semi-concrete. The nearby NPCs had no information that would help, so it was up to us as players to interpret the illustration using our real-world knowledge and form a plan accordingly.

The obvious ramification is that we used player skill to navigate the situation (which is great), but the less-obvious ramification is more interesting: It forced us as players (many of whom had never met one another before) to communicate, offer ideas, and listen to each other. And because Rob presented the illustration in a "safe" spot in the game world, we got to break through the wall of social pressure without the added stresses of trying to save our own skins. (That added pressure would come later, lol!)

Leap of Faith

Upon viewing a portal unlike others we had seen, our party faced the decision of whether, and how, to go through it. (This was conceptually similar to the "green devil face" from S1 Tomb of Horrors, but not nearly as ominous.) The visual characteristics of the portal gave us no confidence that we would be able to get back through it from the opposite direction, and some physical experimentation confirmed our suspicions.

The simple fact that we could physically experiment with the portal also bears consideration. It immediately showed us that careful thought reaps rewards. And since experimentation means interaction with the referee, one player received a firm lesson in How to Ask Questions of the Referee and How to Clearly State What Your Character Does™.

Finally, because we ultimately concluded that proceeding through the portal was indeed something of a leap of faith, we players learned who among us were the brave players, and who were the cowardly. Or from my perspective: Who were the prudent, and who were the foolhardy.

Get Out of the Box

At one point, the entire party became stuck at the bottom of … well, the specific place doesn't matter. What matters is that only some of the characters had ways of moving vertically toward the exit. For our group, this turned into a "come together" moment. It afforded us a chance to help each other out, to learn the basic capabilities of each others' characters, and to form a plan. It was easily within our means to extricate ourselves, but the potential unfriendliness of the environment gave us an opportunity to ensure we had mutual support among the characters that exited early, and those that exited later.

Add Stress, Change the Environment, and Invalidate Planning

Rob's Gary Con V report (linked down at the bottom) mentions "time compression," so I don't feel bad spoiling this one a little bit. Time worked differently in the dimension containing the Lost City of the Elders. It seemed to change speeds, proceeding at a fairly normal speed for a while, and then suddenly shifting from midday to the middle of the night, or vice versa, and then moving back to a normal speed again. Sometimes there were several day-to-night shifts (or vice-versa) in rapid succession. (Some of the variability may have just been my perspective as a player, because resolution of combat rounds takes more real time than most turns of overland travel, for example. Even so, the rapid day-to-night shifts definitely occurred, even in the middle of a round.)

This was both detrimental and useful. On the one hand, our spellcasters recovered their spell capability just as suddenly as the day-to-night shifts occurred. On the other hand, after some of the shifts, we were stricken with extreme hunger and fatigue, as though we hadn't eaten or rested in days at a time. All this combined to shake up the typical adventuring logistics (what spells do you take, how much food do we bring, etc.), and to encourage us pay more attention to what was going on in the heavens above. It also introduced doubt as to how long we'd be able to survive in this dimension, given that time seemed to be increasing in aggregate speed the further we travelled.

Note that the time compression was only one of several manifestations of an environment change. We faced several other physical or supernatural changes that affected how we interacted with and navigated through the environment. Each such change was virtually a game in itself: Figure out what was going on, figure out if it was beneficial or harmful, figure out if we could alter it, and figure out how best to carry on.

A Figurative Tidal Wave

At one point, we encountered a disturbing-looking denizen of the dimension. Rob's initial utterance indicated that the lone individual intended to harry the party, but by the time his sentence finished, there were so many creatures appearing that they began forming something akin to a living tidal wave, ready to crash down upon us, or climb upon their own collective bulk to reach us at great heights.

So, yeah: Escalation. High-level AD&D characters are pretty powerful. But I don't care what level your characters are, you simply don't survive in combat against literally thousands-upon-thousands of enemies doing what these critters were doing. This was not a single (but very tough) dragon that we can "manage" by forcing it to melee our fighters while the magic-users and clerics concentrated their spells upon it. This was so many creatures that we'd be wiped out in a round or two if we tried to combat them physically. Suddenly our "we are so cool because we have limited wish" characters appeared surprisingly fragile, and it us was up to us as players to come up with ideas to save our characters' skins.

We moved into a survival mindset, not unlike our extrication mindset from the Get Out of the Box example, but this time with a deadline. We had to think fast, and we had to get everybody moving out of there now, which allowed the more experienced AD&D players to impart important knowledge of spell and magic item effects to the less experienced players. It also forced a good bit of naturalistic thinking, as we visualized the imaginary game environment to come up with a plausible way out of our predicament. The naturalistic elements of the game world really mattered, and could mean the difference between characters living and dying. A couple of the players were so affected by the situation that they offered to sacrifice their PCs, obviously to help give the rest of the party a chance to escape, but I believe also because they (as players) were getting stressed out by an escalation the likes of which they had not seen before.

Sadly, this taught one player harsh new lessons in how AD&D spell components work, that wands (and the like) are a magic-user's best friend in times of extreme stress, and (maybe) how hubris can be fatal to PCs.

Pull No Punches!

Quite reasonably, Rob held our level of play to a standard commensurate with our PCs' high levels. This manifested in a variety of ways, the most obvious being that PCs could (and did) die during the adventure. But also, he expected us to be ready with relevant information about our spells and magic item effects, to be straightforward when asking questions, and to not coddle fellow players by supplying answers and advice when the referee asked direct questions of the fellow. The stress level was sometimes high, and part of play skill is the ability to perform well under pressure; a couple of us (myself included) received a deserved slap on the wrist for trying to help another flustered or floundering player.

"Monsters" Transcend Stats

During our exploration, we encountered three types of creatures. I suspect Rob had stats for each such creature type behind his screen, but in only one case did the typical combat stats come into play, and only because we were playing somewhat poorly. (q.v. A Figurative Tidal Wave.)

Rob's use of creatures showed that stats can be thought of as just a tool, subservient to the creature concept itself. The existence of combat stats do not imply that the combat stats are "to be engaged" (through typical combat), any more than inclusion of a creature's height & weight implies that the game is about who has the biggest monster.

More concretely, Rob's use of creatures during the expedition illustrated a concept-first design approach. Presumably, he thought of a situation with sentient beings to be included in the environment, figured out what the sentient beings ought to be like, and then put appropriate stats to them (as a necessary evil, because after all, PCs might take the fight to them). Note the difference between that and the common rpg sub-hobby of "coming up with a new monster."

Conclusion

Hopefully the above techniques and situations aren't entirely new to you. A fair number of referees do these kinds of things already, and that's great. While the specific examples above are from an other-dimensional high-level AD&D environment (12th-14th level, with any three magic items we desired; potency was not restricted), any of the ideas can be applied various ways in lower-level play.

But the important thing is not simply (re)using the above examples or their subcomponents. Certainly there are infinite possibilities; Rob used a number of other techniques in the session beyond those I listed above. The point is feeling the freedom to inject much more than monster-room-treasure in your adventuring environments, and feeling the freedom to flip the play experience on its ear.

Notes and Bibliography

Robert J. Kuntz's designer entry and author credits:
(rpg stuff) http://index.rpg.net/display-search.phtml?key=contributor&value=Robert+J.+Kuntz
(rpg stuff) http://rpggeek.com/rpgdesigner/1188
(board games) http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/1188

Grognard Games' video interview with Rob, including some discussion of "open form" play:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGQ_IICAWkI

Some of Rob's comments on "out-of-the-box" play:
http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=rjkuntz&thread=8455&page=1#112650

Rob's Gary Con V report, which includes some of his comments on the Lost City of the Elders sessions:
http://lakegenevaoriginalrpg.blogspot.com/2013/03/garycon-v-report-from-hinterland.html

Rob's character building guidelines for his Lost City of the Elders sessions:
http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=rjkuntz&action=display&thread=8563

Gary Con convention site:
http://www.garycon.com/index.php

Finally, the small print: I had two very nice drinks over the course of the last half of the session, delivered by the fine wait staff at the Geneva Ridge Resort, so my memory may not be 100% perfect on all the details above. I may have mixed up a detail or two, but that's not really pertinent to the point of this article. So there.

Interesting Room Trappings?

How do you make dungeon rooms more interesting through various trappings & details?

First (inferior) answer: If the room is likely to be a combat location, or you want it to be exploited as a possible combat location, then add anything which might affect combat: Barriers, arrow-slits, trenches, a ballista, murder holes, crenellated ledges, substances that might hinder escape / pursuit, distractions to allow ambushes, etc.

Second (better) answer: Consider thinking concept-first instead of trappings-first.

Trappings don't automatically make rooms interesting. Interest is built by the presence of meaningful choices in the environment. Come up with the concept of those choices first, and then the trappings naturally suggest themselves.

For example, let's say you want one of the underlying concepts for your dungeon to be "a place where creatures (including PCs) can be chopped apart (sometimes voluntarily) and reassembled into amalgamations, with capabilities appropriate for the parts removed & added."

From there it's easy to come up with a variety of trappings that help communicate and enable meaningful choices:

• detached (and still animate) heads in jars of "life fluid"
• cold storage areas with all manner of limbs
• carts with straps for transporting "patients" around
• various saws mounted in the walls
• special guillotines of various sizes
• journals, books, or charts with relevant research / clues as to the purpose of the dungeon, and or its operation (heh)
• containers of flesh adhesives
• suturing gear
• recovery beds
• cages with captives destined for disassembly
• summoning areas & gear, to bring in "special" candidates for disassembly
• makeshift graveyard for unwanted remains of candidates

Early D&D Play Reports

Using grodog's list of Greyhawk Sources, and then doing some google searches, one can find the text of play reports for early D&D...

Swords and Sorcery (pub 1974 May)
PDF: http://www.mediafire.com/?bor4es71bnhbej1
Source: "Swords and Sorcery - In Wargaming" from Wargamer's Digest (Volume 1, Number 7)
Note: PDF found via the internet archive cache of the Axe & Hammer blog. (See the Free Downloads section on the right-hand side of the page.)

The Giant's Bag (pub 1975 April)

Text: http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2011/06/giants-bag.html

Source: Great Plains Game Players Newsletter #7

The Magician's Ring (pub 1975 June)

Text: http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2010/08/magicians-ring.html

Source: "Dungeons & Dragons - The Magician's Ring" from Wargamer's Digest (Volume 2, Number 8)

The Expedition Into the Black Reservoir (pub 1975 September)
Text Part 1: http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_black_reservoir1.html
Text Part 2: http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_black_reservoir2.html
Source: "The Expedition Into the Black Reservoir; a Dungeon Adventure at Greyhawk Castle" (El Conquistador, September 1975)

Mini Review: CAS2 Tower of Blood and CAS1 Cairn of the Skeleton King

What follows is my very brief review, originally written in 2008, of CAS2 Tower of Blood (by Robert J. Kuntz and Lance Hawvermale), after only having read the module. (This is not a play review.) It also contains bits and pieces of review-like info regarding CAS1 Cairn of the Skeleton King (by Robert J. Kuntz). Click on the module names above for physical details, page count, etc.

Warning: There are SPOILERS here! I'll try to keep them subtle or cryptic. But don't blame me if they reveal too much! 

Better late than never, I suppose. I only recently acquired a copy of Tower of Blood, and finished reading it the other night. 

I agree that it has a different overall feel from Cairn, but - personally - I like the variety. Whereas Cairn can be dropped into a campaign virtually as-is (especially if you prune out Warrens) and still provide hours of fun, it doesn't implicitly get the DM's creative juices flowing to the extent that you have to think about how the actions of the PCs therein affect the overall direction of the campaign. Or rather, the PCs can complete their goals within the Cairn and move on without worrying about any loose ends that may have unraveled. (I'm ignoring the Warrens on that point.) 

By contrast, Tower of Blood forces the DM to think about a variety of subjects before or during play: What are the details of the area behind the barrier (because the PCs could easily end up going past the barrier)? What are the details for the area (two areas?) behind the portal? What are the details for the "guy behind the guy?" What events will happen if the PCs don't stop the latent machinations of the occupants of the area? Should the ramifications matter? What if the players don't want to care for that sort of world plot? Should I wait to run this module until after any related PPP modules are published? 

As a result, I think Tower of Blood implicitly offers higher potential for richness in the game. Certainly Cairn can be expanded to have that richness, but you have to go out of your way to remind yourself to add it, when Tower of Blood forces you to consider the richness. And the deeper motivations of the NPCs in Tower provide a fantastic foundation for understanding how the environment may change between PC forays into its depths: What do monster survivors really care about, and how will they organize themselves to best ensure their priorities are carried out? (And yes, even the overt villain has two potentially conflicting priorities! Women, sheesh!) Tower gives plenty of foundation from which to answer such questions. 

That's not to say that Tower of Blood forces itself to have a lasting impact on the campaign. Which is to say that Cairn's standalone feel (especially minus the Warrens part) is beneficial for some campaigns or parts thereof, such as when you need a standalone adventure that injects XP into the PCs prior to a plot-arc-driven, higher-level adventure. Tower can certainly be used as a similar device if you sever a few plot connections or change the superficial details of NPC motivations. 

It's relatively trivial to dissociate the overt villain from the shadow world, and put a more mundane (though possibly less imaginative) goal behind the barrier. Perhaps even something associated with the villain's imprisoned love. And in doing so, you still have the makings of several evenings of exciting adventure! 

Personally, I prefer to DM games grounded on the prime material plane, so I'd be likely to disconnect the situation at the Tower of Blood from the plane of shadow and substitute something else dependent on the needs of the campaign at the time the players began it. I'd probably also remove the entrance to the Spider Queen's area, and instead use her and her residence at some other point in the campaign for some other purpose. As with the flexible motives of the denizens of the Tower, the Spider Queen's goals and environment are similarly flexible. 

I applaud Rob & Lance for all of their hard work on Tower (and Cairn!) for their work will allow me to be lazy and still have great fun! Very well worth the money!

Originally posted on the Pied Piper Publishing forums in 2008:
http://piedpiperpublishing.yuku.com/reply/30418/First-review-from-Melan-DF#reply-30418