Goodman Games

I had a group give up and refuse to go back into the crypt after two tries. Room 2 with the plants kicked their butts twice. They just kept marching right in and getting nauseated. At least 2 out of 5 would fail this roll. The invisible fungus was able to finaly push someone into the planter in the center of the room. It was the party cleric who did not survive. This death and the traps they kept falling into made them quit the first time. The second time they barely defeated this room and decided to push on. They avoided the trap in room 3 by dumb luck. They never had enough people inside at one time to set it off. Next up room 5 they set off the trap and are POed that the door goes nowhere. I mean really POed. They decide to push on anyway but are grumbling about quitting again. Room 6. I thought for sure I would kill them all here. I tried to enslave the barbarian twice and he made his save each time. If this guy had turned he would have devastated the group in two rounds. Anyway after a couple of lucky rolls and a ring of major spell storing (never let a player roll randomly for treasure if you do they will get 00 every time) they manage to retreat to room 2 and escape vowing to not return until several levels later if at all. So I'm counting this as a Technical Total Party Kill or TTPK.

Funniest moment for me when the barbarian says that if they jump every other square they can avoid all the pit traps.

Refuse to go back in?? That's not how we did it back in my day! We just kept rolling up characters until we made it through! (grumble) Kids these days...

At least half of 'em! Quote made me laugh.

I agree with Joseph to a point ... I encourage players to roll up characters again and go back, but this module seems particularly nasty. Reminds me of the old Gygax Tomb of Horrors module, which had dozens of ways that unsuspecting characters could suddenly expire strewn all though the dungeon. Ouch.

The best kind!

I don't think they will ever go back. They are wanting to try 4E after I finish running DCC# 23 The Sunken Ziggurat. So I will be giving 4E a second try as a player. I didn't care for it the first time but I am looking forward to running just my PC. Letting someone else handle the monsters and the story will be a nice break.

I've found that 4E is more fun to play than to GM.

Wow, that was my thought about 3rd edition. I don't even want to see 4th edition.

Oh, it's also true about 3E.

The problem (for me) is that I cut my teeth on OD&D, which is very detail-light and imagination-heavy. I'm not used to skill lists, feat lists, and other stuff that add mathematical "depth" to a character. My style is more in the form of "make a DEX check" or "roll a d20 and roll high" without a clear rule to follow.

Like 3E, 4E has some wonderful ideas. So darned many of them. And it takes pages and pages of rulebook to make a simple rule. Pages and pages of lengthy power descriptions, etc. The rules need to be trimmed down to thin rulebooks that I can actually use rather than thick tomes full of words.

3E and 4E could be played loose except for the details imposed by the system. It's not just a matter of adding all that stuff to players -- that I could handle becasue as a DM I don't have to create PC's -- but the problem is that in order to be fair and consistent I have to add all that stuff to monsters and NPC's as well.

An OD&D monster stat block is really simple: Monster, HD, AC, treasure. Maybe movement if I think somebody is going to run away. Maybe damage if I'm using more advanced rules, or maybe everyone does a d6 like the original rules set allowed. A 3E or 4E monster is a half-page of stuff. I get tired just reading all that stuff, and I only remember about half of it when I read it. My mind wanders and I just get "blah, blah, blah" when I'm reading about monster feats or powers or whatever. It just sucks the fun out of running an adventure for me.

Those old Gygax modules were, what, 16 pages long? Now a 3E or 4E module is like reading a book. I don't have enough time to read all of the books on my stack, so taking hours to read and master a module of significant length is a real challenge.

One thing I like about C&C (and now DCC) is that running the game is simple. Monsters are simple, modules are pretty thin and useable, the rules bloat seems to be mostly gone. I had originally hoped that the DCC RPG rulebook would be about 64 pages long -- like some of the old school RPGs "back in the day" were -- and I suspect that without the spell charts DCC would be pretty close to that target.

Anyway, way too much of a rant and it would probably fit better as its own thread instead of hijacking someone's campign log. I apologize.

No worries Finarvyn. I agree with most of what you are saying. After running 5 and a half of the 3e DCC's my eyes are starting to cross every time I have to look at a stat block. I also tend to forget half of what the monster was able to do.

What I end up doing, honestly, is just cross off all of the 3E monster stuff and running the DCC module with other (simpler) rules, usually OD&D, Labyrinth Lord, or DCC RPG.

I do the same, only using C&C rules (or the DCC-RPG beta).

I can't believe I left C&C off my list. When I was typing I told myself "self, I know I have 4 rules sets I use and why can't I come up four?" I should have just checked my signature on the boards.

Senility: "It's not just for your grandparents any more."