Tegel Manor

[dustle]

I just picked up the Goodman reprint of Tegel Manor with the Temple of Tsathoggus supplement by Michael Curtis. My PCs just "finished" (abandoned after a big fight) a megadungeon of my own devising, so I'm not going to dive into this right away (I was thinking of trying the Croaking Fane, first, which I haven't read yet, but which I was thinking might be a good lead in to the Tsathoggus frog connection, or maybe Dave Arneson's Temple of the Frog; I'll probably read all three and mix and match something). But I'm curious if anyone has tried statting Tegel for DCC. Right away I see that the mayor of the town is a level 7 fighter. That seems high to me for DCC. The highest level character in my campaign is level 5, and we've been playing for a while. Is the general rule just cut levels in half and round up?

[AMLopez]

I would definitely be interested in this as I am also going to work it into my current DCC Lankhmar Campaign

[GnomeBoy]

Yes, for older material of that sort, cut the level by half.

[dustle]

I still haven't started running Tegel Manor, but fleshing it out has been a lot of fun. I've run sparsely-written one-page dungeons before, and I ran Stonehell, but Tegel as written is a new level of minimalism for me. I'm a novelist myself, and I'm finding that prepping this dungeon is a lot like writing a novel. I mean, I doubt my PCs will ever need to know half the background I've put into it so far, but it's fun knowing this stuff for myself. Who are these Rumps and what are the relationships between them? Who is the "Keeper" that the yellow skull in the long scarlet robe is looking for? What's a purple worm (!) doing under a bed and how does it fit there? I started off by marking up my copy with notes, but eventually I realized I need a dedicated notebook just so I can update all of the room descriptions with details from the map not included in the text. Even if I never run this, it's a fun project trying to piece together MY Tegel Manor.

[dustle]

Actually, I've never run a Judges' Guild module before. Are they all as sparse as this?

[GnomeBoy]

They aren't all of them that sparse, but certainly some products from that time have a very minimal approach.

Needless to say, RPG products still go back and forth on how much info is enough, not enough, and how much is too much. We've probably all read modern things that were over-written, and other things that leave so much unsaid we're not sure what the point is...

[qstor]

There's a Swords and Wizardry version too that shouldn't be too hard to convert to DCC.

[dustle]

There's a Swords and Wizardry version too that shouldn't be too hard to convert to DCC.

Hey man, thanks for the info. I didn't realize there was a Swords & Wizardry version. I'm mostly running the Judge's Guild original (well, the republished version by Goodman Games), though I'm also consulting the Gamescience version and ripping off a little of the Xyntillan campaign that Ravencrowking is running on Discord (plus adding a bunch of my own stuff). Nice having you in the Xyntillan group, though, and I'll check out the Swords & Wizardry edition. I'm running Tegel with my own system that's kind of a mix between DCC and OD&D, so I'm really converting on the fly. Like, my players are used to DCC, so when they came across a group of wights, I had to say, "Normally I wouldn't tell you this directly, but if you get hit by one, it could drain a level from your character." This convinced a cleric to try to Turn Undead rather than moving in for melee.

[dustle]

If anyone wants to jump in on this game on Discord, I have three players currently active out of five who started. Two players had to drop out for unforeseen real world complications. We're not too deep yet, and I'd be happy to catch anyone up. You could take over one of the abandoned characters or create your own and I'll write you in. Three players is a fine number, but the party is a little unbalanced at this point, as we had a Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, and Elf. And the Fighter and Cleric had to bail. DM me for details, if interested.