Goodman Games

Harley,

Can you give a run down on the three different versions of the adventure?

Thanks.

Jedi,

Sure thing.

Temple of the Frog was first published in the 1975 D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor. Not much more than a few hand drawn maps, and some description of the areas (along with the very cool author commentary: "This is the big one folks," when referring to treasure caches). Arneson's original Temple introduced Stephen the Rock, and the concept of technologically advanced beings manipulating the folks of Blackmoor, and the other themes that would live on through the Blackmoor setting. The entire Supplement II: Blackmoor can be downloaded from Dave's site (click on the image of the booklet): http://www.blackmoorcastle.com/bmc.html

Temple was republished in 1986 as module DA2, Temple of the Frog, penned by Arneson and Ritchie. This brought the adventure into the format we are familiar with today. Read aloud text, stats, professional maps.

Finally, a few years back I was approached by Zeitgeist Games and asked to help out the esteemed Richard Pocklington in writing a 3.5 version of Temple. I wasn't the developer, or even lead author, so I just wrote where they told me to write. In the end I was responsible for the swamp encounters, Frog Town, and the first 3 levels of the Temple. In an attempt to create an adventure that was both true to the previous incarnations, but still exciting and fresh to old school gamers, I used all of Arneson's original themes, but wrote new material under that umbrella. My goal was to come up with a Temple that was both familiar and alien to someone that had already played through the previous versions. (Code Monkey Publishing has the print and pdf versions of Temple for sale here.

It was a bit of a tumultuous time for Temple with multiple editors having their way with the manuscript, and to different ends. (My understanding is that any time you play Temple in the living Blackmoor campaign, you are playing through my levels.) And having me write 3 levels of a dungeon, and the lead writer pen the climactic 4th, is a near-certain recipe for disappointing the lead writer. After all, I was just the “hired gun” called in at the eleventh hour.

(On a DCC Trivia note, Jeremy Simmons of DCC fame was the cartographer for all my sections. So apart from art and editing, Frog Town and the first 3 levels are a "lost DCC." Frogtown was my first attempt a rendering a fantasy town, and heavily influenced what I did with Whiterock's town of Cillamar.)

My sense is that there is still a 4th version out there --- one true to Richard's original vision. I hope we get to see it one day, because I'm sure it would be awesome.

Finally, a true sage would be remiss to not point out that Wizards released a 3.5 version of "Return to the Temple" months before Zeitgeist did. This adventure is also free to download, and can be found here http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20070223a.

//H

Thanks!

Thanks for asking. All told, I'm pretty proud of Temple, regardless of blemishes. The temple/dungeon levels are killers and have some easter eggs that might never be tripped across.

//H

Oh, and if you end up playing through Temple and enjoy it, be sure to check out City of the Gods. It's a sprawling adventure, but anything with fire giants astride flaming mastadons can't be all bad.

//H

Waibitaavoima wrote:I've requested a board but no one's gotten back to me.

I'm afraid I don't understand the question. What do you mean "requested a board?"

Temple of the Frog is a paper-and-pencil RPG module. Are you asking about playing it online as a play-by-post?

finarvyn wrote:

Waibitaavoima wrote:I've requested a board but no one's gotten back to me.

I'm afraid I don't understand the question. What do you mean "requested a board?"

Temple of the Frog is a paper-and-pencil RPG module. Are you asking about playing it online as a play-by-post?

Name, signature, post count, and non-sequitur post all suggest spambot...

I suppose you're right. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt since the post almost made sense in context, but I suspect it's just more SPAM. Sometimes it's easy to spot 'em but sometimes they are just vague enough so it's hard to say. I'd hate to wipe out any legit post...

They's crafty, thems ones.

Ouch. I just noticed the signature on that post. Talk about obvious.

I'm gonna kill it ASAP just in case. If another post or two slides by from the same source then he can post without admin review. That would be a bummer.