The Worst AD&D module ever?

[@Reluxthelegend]

4:05 lmao, apparently on a 3 they are both surprised and unsurprised at the same time lol

[@Orthuberra]

On a 3 they are unsurprised at the fact they are surprised 😅

[@HairyTuttle]

I'm 30 seconds into the video and this is some of the most amazing writing I've ever seen.

[@z.adkins862]

That first paragraph is enough to strike fear into the heart of me, someone who likes good writing.

[@kyleolson8977]

I think you didn't go back far enough. The start of this module is amazing. There's no explanation of what the party is doing in the adventure or how they might have got there. You're in "The Downs" and it looks crappy. You're taking the module railroad to the dang tavern. When? Now. Why? Who cares? There's a town meeting tonight. Did you arrive tonight? Well, it's tonight now, deal with it. The town meeting is a old man giving a speech about the curse. A quest must happen. Old Man says "It is a difficult undertaking, but perhaps not for the strangers we have before us." Up until that line, you were just audience members passing through. The module doesn't even give you a chance to convince anyone you're supposed to be heroes, or suggest you were sent for in any way. Now, you're the star of the show. What was going to happen at the town meeting if a party of adventurers didn't happen to be there for no reason? "No adventurers? I guess we have another town meeting tomorrow." The old man runs out of character after the speech. Have Maps. Have some rations on the house. Take this talisman. Take the road. Bye. And there's this: "Eventually, the party will be asked to help The Downs or leave." In other words, eventually the players will be asked to do what the module says or leave the DM's house.

[@The_Custos]

Seems fair. Aren't they heroes?

[@PatriceBoivin]

Leading up to 2e it had become obvious to me that TSR was trying to make as much money as possible: They were cranking out modules, and in 2e they wanted us to buy again all the books we had purchased previously. For us that was a real disappointment, we felt betrayed by the company. My friends and I started playing Star Fleet Battles, Advanced Squad Leader, Top Secret, Rolemaster, Traveller, Car Wars and even a couple of sessions of Gamma World.

[@parkpunk2]

A great example of cover art selling the product.

[@biffstrong1079]

The virtue of the bad Modules was they left me with the feeling I could certainly construct something better and more sand boxy on my own than this one or Astrigar's Lair or Temple of Set Accursed or Under the Storm Giants Castle or Gargoyle don't you have to go find the gargoyles wings and return them? SO he can fly at you while he attacks you? I hated the Dragons of Despair, all the dragon lance modules. I couldn't write anything that good or produce maps that nice but the novel as a gaming experience does not work for me. The Conan Modules with Arnold on the Cover. I realized they had spent all their money getting Arnold on the cover. Im not sure when I first figured that getting a game that was used as a marketing tool ( or just as a cash grab as in those idiots will buy anything with batman on it) for a just released movie or TV show was a bad idea but Whenever it was by the time they came out with those Conan Modules it was way to late for them to fool me.

[@yeoldegeek71]

I bought CB1 back in the 80s - oh it was horrible.

[@biffstrong1079]

@@yeoldegeek71 That is always so demoralizing especially when you look at it, say yes I want this it looks cool and then get it, read and think I wouldn't inflict this on anyone. Our group in the 70's was all looking for material to play, We had multiple people Dming and everyone was mining for ideas. . I can remember a friend of mine bought Temple of Ra Accursed by Set. The Judges Guild Modules were cheaper maybe 2$ as opposed to 6$ at the time for TSR. I read it and then had to show it to him to explain why we couldn't play it. The authors I think were keen on building scale models of their dungeons so they had plans for how you could easily take a mat put on a grid and then build some inch high wooden walls to depict the dungeon of this module. Okay not really my focus. The nine rooms they had were fine and there was a bit of a slaver story I could work with but nine rooms? I wouldnt call that a mini dungeon. No big bad, sort of a medium bad. One of the reasons I was so happy with the desert of desolation series was that this read of an Egyptian "adventure" was so poorly done. I was probably in a Temple of the Gold Statue phase at that time so just so disappointed. I think I had the opposite experience with Tegel Manor. Took a quick look, another friend had bought it and wanted me to DM it. And it was a bunch of unrelated rooms with maybe a line of text each. I'm thinking this is Set , this storm giants lair, how did I tell him. Then I dug out the map . Glorious. Then I see oh the Paintings , half them have some weird magical property. Oh the Rump family all 100 of them are the wandering Monsters in the Manor. Teleports. Were Wolves Two 92) Liches. Experimental Tubes like the Vians used in The Empath. A Frog God Temple, an abandoned Monastery, A black Dragon in the Swamp, a Cleric of Thor, a cowardly Paladin, Magical hyperpowered statues. Probably three (3) decks of Many Things. That was the module I was prepped to be disappointed with that we ended up playing for Months. I don't know that any character went up a level. I know no one died. And they came away with a couple magic items and a world of experience. The Map alone sold me. Each location practically has a sound associated with it. Very Fun House and in places very dangerous. Two (2) Liches and a demon or two. And I think perhaps a Gnomish god of Archery. I have had more fun fleshing this out than playing a lot of other modules. Tegel Manor the Opposite experience of CB1.

[@davemills8193]

Agreed. I remember buying this clunker when it was fresh.

[@yeoldegeek71]

I'm not sure 'fresh' is the best description, as it always stank ;)

[@trynnallen]

I was 11 when I bought this module, new, in Portage WI at a small drugstore on Hwy 51 just up from the old 1st National Bank. Tells you what kind of an impression it made on me. It was horrible. On the other hand my 11 year old self said there has to be more to this and then proceeded to use this as a basis to actually create a decent adventure. It used most of the elements, but reordered something and some retweeking of plot. Unfortunately I lost most of my modules and my notes to this one.

[@MichaelS-pr9qn]

Glad that is wasn't just me. I truly thought that i had purchased the only crap copy that managed to escape proof reading, apparently not.

[@The_Custos]

Got to say, a party of thieves that are actually all wererat magic users with sleep spells is pretty worrying. 🐀 🧙🏻‍♂️

[@yeoldegeek71]

If the innkeeper had been a Wererat with a Mage accomplice then it might have been ok?

[@lissythearchitect]

The older modules I really recall having problems with were B3 (they do not trust you with the rules in the first few rooms), and WG5 (A tiny number of good to great encounters, but most of it was just empty space). Many older modules I played with newer rules, so the original rules details mattered less.

[@enoa4]

I have this module but never ran it. What a train wreck!

[@jonothanthrace1530]

This reminds me of the Dark Sun 4e Free RPG Day adventure, which had different enemies in the description and the stat blocks.

[@mykediemart]

Well they all cant be winners... :P My goodness it sounds like a train wreck

[@yeoldegeek71]

Haha, it certainly needs a little 'work'.

[@michaellepp5445]

The Brigand leader has 3 more hps than his six men. Not very impressive for a 3HD monster. And if the PCs see them why are they surprised when they charge? Why would the Brigands be surprised ? I never played it, but with some editing, it could be interesting.

[@TheSnowLeopard]

My DM ran this a few months back (yes we play AD&D, not 5e) as a starting quest and it was fine. I mean it wasn't the greatest, but I've played worse.

[@yeoldegeek71]

Kudos to your DM, I'm guessing he or she will have put a fair bit of effort in behind the scenes to iron out the issues.

[@NemoOhd20]

By playing worse, you mean the Radiant Shitadel?

[@tomcoulnd3686]

I have never even heard about this one.

[@yeoldegeek71]

Sorry, if you ever read it you'll wish I'd never brought it to your attention ;)

[@davidleonard8547]

Share worthy! 😀

[@The_Custos]

Hope to run it this year.

[@yeoldegeek71]

Prepare to have to tear it apart and rebuild! Good luck!

[@thatpatrickguy3446]

Admittedly, two of the grammatical errors in the table of contents are not necessarily so. Dryad and Gypsy are not being used as possessive nouns, but as descriptives, as happens in 'Bugbear Camp' between them. And that's the only defense of the editing I will offer because the rest of it is crap. The presentation of information and the information within was bollocks, to use a British term. I'd give it a 1 of 10 for some good art here and there. The only thing to do is mine it for ideas and go on with life, because running this adventure as written will have your players doubting your sanity. I've created several decent adventures out of the seeds in this module, and there are some decent ones among the chaff. The excessively excessive chaff. I personally like N5: Under Illefarn, though I have only mined it for ideas so far. I don't care what world it is set in since I always end up putting adventures in my own campaign world anyway. 😛 Well done, old grump. 😀

[@yeoldegeek71]

Check out the spelling though... dyrad and gyspy ;)

[@thatpatrickguy3446]

@@yeoldegeek71 BAHAHAHAHA! My occasional dyslexia got the better of me there. Well, I'll eat my hat now. 😀

[@bjornh4664]

@@thatpatrickguy3446 I hope your dyslexia didn't make you eat your cat.

[@BunnyNiyori]

Fun fact, the images shown are from the same readily discoverable pdf file on the internet which is also rather shitty. So even the inappropriate download sucks for quality.

[@yeoldegeek71]

It is indeed somewhat apt that the person who scanned it put so little effort into it. I'm thankful to them though. I bought the module back in the 1980s, and it went when I purged my gaming stuff around 2000 ("I'll never need all this again" - whooooops!)... it would be painful to re-buy it just to relive its awfulness!

[@maecenus778]

Hi! I’m genuinely curious what you dislike about the Forgotten Realms? You mentioned being an old grump as your reasoning, does that mean you only enjoy the Greyhawk setting? I’m also wondering about Under Illefarn and would be curious about your overall take on that adventure, besides it being set in the FR.

[@cunningwarrior1827]

N5 has been my campaign starter since it came out. Forget where it is and set it any place you want. That's what I did and it's not that hard to do so. I also add in all kinds of side quests from Dungeon Magazine to fit and give the players something to do all the time. The 7 Deadly Jeks almost killed them all when they were an average for 5h Level returning to Daggerford.

[@yeoldegeek71]

I used Greyhawk almost exclusively in the 80s, but now prefer to work with my own settings. For me, Forgotten realms was too magical, too many 'helpless' heroes, and nowadays too much of a racial melting pot. I particularly dislike how normalised the Drow have become. For a setting I prefer something darker, less fantastical. I liked Greyhawk's more medieval feel, the titles and the heraldry - plus that gorgeous Darlene map. As for N5 - good town section, uninspiring adventures - they felt a little too scripted. There were simply better low level modules around in T1, U1 and N1.

[@legbreaker2762]

@@yeoldegeek71 FR to me gives the impression that the PCs/Players are secondary actors to the big names. No matter what they do they're getting overshadowed by the NPCs.

[@The_Custos]

@@yeoldegeek71early realms was good fun, when it wasn't gake and fay, when we had unknown areas and new factions, and when we played the bad guys once in a while.

[@jonathankilby6636]

Let's play it! Lol

[@yeoldegeek71]

Oooo, did my sweary reply get nuked by KZbin?

[@pISSUMTREE]

The last time a ran this adventure was for the release of 3rd ed D&D. I happily converted and updated it to the most current set of rules. My players and I had a great time and that is what matters :) . Oh and yes I did run it in the Forgotten Realms(my setting of choice). Still laugh about the hafling rogue in the party, he was the party clown and successfully picked up a strumpet in the INN lol . Here is to you Whelby...game on mate :)

[@hallacar]

Yes! Greyhawk forever! I have always felt Forgotten Realms was the product of a spoiled little brat tying to prove anything Gygax can do, I can do better. You have Mordenkainen? I have Elminster and he's more powerful! You have Vault of the Drow? I have Menzoborazzen (or however you spell it) and mine can be player characters if you want. Gary Gygax should have slapped Ed Greenwood across the face with a heavy gauntlet and then soundly trounced him in a DM duel.

[@Joshuazx]

Dissatisfied in British English.

[@eclatshwartzbaumcybertune2063]

Yeah i get bad vibes from green

[@midnightgreen8319]

Hahahahahahahaha that's terrible. Awful editing.