Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-Hello from the far east

Fri Aug 22, 2008 4:37 am Hello from the far east

Long time D&D player looking around for ideas for my first Greyhawk campaign. Thinking of running the 'super-modules' in order. Anyways, just using the internet to help me bring it together.

A little about me. I'm a middle-aged infantry guy stationed in Korea. I'm married with two kids who are back in the states.

Great site here lots of articles (a little too much!) the Top 20 feature helps highlight the 'best'.

Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:20 pm

Welcome dpy! Running the super modules in order sounds like a really cool idea. What kind of ideas are you looking for?

Sat Aug 23, 2008 6:03 pm

Welcome dpy, and don't forget that there are a few other supermodules beyond the T1-4, A1-4, GDQ1-7 ones: S1-4 as well as some B-series ones too (although that's not complete fully).

If you run S4, you may want to consider running WG4 in tandem (and WG6 is always a nice follow-up, too, much later).
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Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/

Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:16 pm

Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:43 pm

We played the first part of the module (T1) last weekend and it went well. My players are all fellow soldiers from my unit. N played a 1/2 orc fighter (barbarian kit), a human cleric of Pelor. P played a Drow (albino) F/T, a human druid and Z played a Elf thief. After a long session of roleplaying in the village they set out for the Moathouse. The PCs hired the mage and a fighter in the inn. The fighter of course was a spy (should have casted detect evil). I made the master of the place a Drow. At the last battle the hireling fighter took down the 1/2 orc and was slain by the elf thief. The master then laid the albino drow low with his staff (I showed mercy and didn't kill him off), the PCs retreated after killing most of the soldiers and humanoids in the moathouse. Next weekend we'll go to Nulb and the Temple itself.

Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:56 pm

Sounds cool. Glad you got them interested and that the roleplaying in town worked out so well. I was thinking of running this sometime in the future and was going to start it out with an attack on a caravan the pc's were guarding on the way to Hommlet as a way of leading them to the moathouse, but sounds like you got it started pretty well. You're playing 2nd edition?

Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:44 am

Yes I'm playing 2nd edition, it's usually that or 1st. It took some convincing as the players are 3.5 guys but they agreed to play 2nd. I got lucky with getting them interested didn't have to create much of a backstory. Each character has their own reasons for being in Hommlet.

We played the next part up to the front door of the temple. Mostly roleplaying and it kinda degenerated into a BSing session. Kept getting interrupted by friends and neighbors all night. Oh well, that's soldiers for ya.

Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:09 pm

Awesome! Up to the temple already. That's great that you have some good roleplayers. Good luck with your continuing DMing.

Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:09 am

hi dpy, nice story you had!

my players are still wondering hommlet, but i made the evil fighter from taver to be ally with a old enemy wizard of the group.

as they beat the wizard in the woods, the gnome smelled the same wine they had in the tavern.

the halfling thief was "Spyyyying" ( have you played Rome-Total War for PC?) and saw the evil fighter talking to they enemy.

now, they still trying to figure it out about what kind of evil lurks Hommlet, but they have a clue where to start - the evil fighter!

(oh, im playing 2ed too..an after all t1-t4, im thinking of DMing the Giants series

Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:52 pm

The PCs are now on the 2nd level and have defeated the Earth, Fire and Water temple. Every time they go into the dungeon they blunder into a temple. Two characters where killed at the water temple but where brought back by divine intervention. (St Cuthbert) As a DM I only permanently kill characters that act foolishly, I dislike making new characters. The party now has the mage from Hommlet and the Gnome they rescued on the first level. They are all 3rd with a few 4th level in the group. The only thing I dislike about the module is it's size. I'm not sure the interest will be help through all those levels.

Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:20 am

Glad it's still going well.

Yeah, I dislike long dungeon crawls with numerous return trips. I know it's a D&D standard but I like having a more interesting story line than that. I'm thinking of making ToEE the campaign arc after the next one so tell me if you've thought of some way to spice it up.

Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:27 pm

One way to spice it up is to account for Temple activity when the characters are not there. I've talked to nearly a dozen people about theadventure and how theyran it, and almost all othme treted it very simply, such taht the **** areas remained mostly static, even if the characters were gone for sometime. I did not do that.

To represent the Temple being in a period of growth/rebirth, I had a small but steady influx of creatures showing up at the Temple weekly. I think I based it off of a wandering monster chart made up of creatures that made up the Temple forces. Each week a few more things would show up and take up residence/guard duty in the upper levels, and sometimes bolster the places not yet seen by the characters.

This influx of evil men and critters also freed up some of the more specialized temple inhabitants to go on spy missions themselves, and also new eveil men, acting as agents of the Temple, started to show up in Nulb at first, and eventually in Hommlet too. The players were wily though and caught on to a few of the agents who had been shadowing them from the Temple to Nulb and all the way back to Hommlet even, and before they could arrange to ambush the characters, the characters set their own trap and took them out.

The adventure alludes to doing most of what I just described, but leaves it completely in the hands of the DM to take care of. Putting in just that little bit of extra effort make the ToEE much more interesting.