Goodman Games

What with the recent re-release of many of the old classic modules in pdf, I realized it had been a long time since we discussed which old modules would be best suited to the DCC RPG in terms of content, so that lead to the obvious question of what you would recommend?

I don't own many of the old modules any more, whether in physical or pdf format, but I still have and cherish my physical copies of the following:

DA2: Temple of the Frog
Frog men (love 'em!), alien technology (computers, blasters, et al.), a dismal swamp.

S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
A "dungeon" bash aboard a downed alien ship full of odd critters and strange tech.

C1: Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
Heavily Mayan and Aztec inspired, a constant battle against poisonous gas, crumbling ruins prone to collapse, bizarre rooms, and wonders such as the room of Smoking Mirrors and the various regions in the Land of the Dead room.

They'd all (obviously) require fairly heavy conversion, but they all have enough of a weird vibe that they'd suit DCC, imo.

So, what do you recommend?

Colin

Strip the ideas out of a module and do the conversion on the fly. The setting, plot, and weirdness of these modules is more important than the nuts and bolts of game mechanics.

I liked L1 and L2, UK2-3, UK5, and I hear the U1-3 series is good. B1, B2, B4.

Scott Kellogg wrote:Strip the ideas out of a module and do the conversion on the fly. The setting, plot, and weirdness of these modules is more important than the nuts and bolts of game mechanics.

I prefer to convert prior to play even when I can convert on the fly and have done so before; less to think about mid-flow. So, now that's out of the way, what modules would you recommend?

Colin

beermotor wrote:I liked L1 and L2, UK2-3, UK5, and I hear the U1-3 series is good. B1, B2, B4.

What makes them particularly DCC-worthy in your eyes?

Colin

I don't remember much about L1 & L2, but I played in an AD&D campaign that combined these modules with EX1 & EX2 (Alice in Wonderland modules by Gygax).

My bard lost his hair and reverse-aged to 14 years old.
The paladin in our group turned purple, had a sex change, and was 10 feet tall.

These were permanent effects. All of this without DCC corruption!

Oh, and my pseudo-dragon companion was literally cleaved in half by a statue wielding a sword. That was L1 or L2.

Well, L1 is a sandbox ... so you could do all sorts of stuff. I'm running a PbP conversion of it here, actually. L2 is a fun whodunit kind of thing, not just a straight crawl. UK2-3 are pretty weird, check them out. B1, 2, 4 are obvious. I'm not a fan of EX1-2, in fact I hated playing through them. Gygax was so fond of dumb traps. Here's a hallway that you can't circumvent, can't fly through, and causes fire damage when you walk through. Boring... prefer to have HARD, deadly traps, but you're able to get around them crcreatively.

A1-A4 - GDQ1 Supermodule

I more watched then played these modules as a kid and read over them but they seemed like they would be a great fit. The Temple series never intrigued me though. I own the supermodule and it feels like if you ran that realistically the party would be so overwhelmed and swarmed they would be dead in two seconds. Add in the goofy layout and it turns into a rather boring slog with no reasoning behind it. I know that may be blasphemy but that was my impression.


Now i'm wondering how does level of DCC parties work out in relation to old AD&D Modules? I have found that 3.5/pathfinder modules tend to work out where double the level works for a DCC party. So for example a 6th level module would work out pretty well for a 3rd level DCC party. If anyone has had any experience with this i'd be interested to hear your findings.

Isle of Dread would be awesome. Caves of Chaos, Against the Giants Series are others.

AQuebman wrote:Now i'm wondering how does level of DCC parties work out in relation to old AD&D Modules? I have found that 3.5/pathfinder modules tend to work out where double the level works for a DCC party. So for example a 6th level module would work out pretty well for a 3rd level DCC party. If anyone has had any experience with this i'd be interested to hear your findings.

Are you sure, AQuebman? I'm (slowly) getting a Pathfinder module, 'Conquest of the Bloodsworn Vale', put together for play in a hypothetical future DCC game. I worked up some 5th level DCC characters, and they're much more fragile than the pregenerated 6th level characters at the back of the module. For instance, the level 5 DCC Cleric has 13 Stamina (+1 bonus), but due to some mediocre rolls, 19 hitpoints. The Pathfinder Cleric, on the other hand, has 42 hitpoints. The saving throws are also skewed dramatically-- the DCC Cleric has +1 Reflex, +3 Fortitude, and +4 Will. The Pathfinder guy has +2, +8, +11.

Sure, DCC characters have some super-awesome offensive abilities that Pathfinder/3.X characters can't compete with. No amount of fighter 'bonus feats' will ever compare with the Warrior's MDoA, since MDoA is basically every bonus feat all at once. Spellburn is crazy powerful! However, DCC characters are basically glass cannons, and don't have the pile of generic magic items that a Pathfinder character is entitled to. (This Cleric in the back of the module has a wand of cure moderate wounds, +2 chainmail, a cloak of resistance +1, a +1 heavy steel shield, a ring of protection +1, and a +1 scimitar!)

I've run X2, "Castle Amber;" B3, "Palace of the Silver Princes;" and G1, "Steading of the Hill Giant Chief" converting them almost totally on the fly, and they all worked very well with DCC.

The only prep work I did was to replace the hill giant stats with the hill giant stats in the DCC monster cyclopedia, and I threw out all the magic items and most of the treasure and replaced them with a few magic items that were more in the DCC-style.

I'd like to run U1-U3 (Saltmarsh series) in DCC if I get a chance.

cthulhudarren wrote:Isle of Dread would be awesome.

+1 for X1. Dinosaurs, tribesmen, a map to a mysterious island, a voyage of discovery & exploration! All good Appendix N stuff!

Flexi wrote:

cthulhudarren wrote:Isle of Dread would be awesome.

+1 for X1. Dinosaurs, tribesmen, a map to a mysterious island, a voyage of discovery & exploration! All good Appendix N stuff!

Yeah, Isle of Dread has a distinctly DCC feel to it.

Wonder if Goodman Games could get the rights to do an official conversion. Probably cost too much.

finarvyn wrote:

Flexi wrote:

cthulhudarren wrote:Isle of Dread would be awesome.

+1 for X1. Dinosaurs, tribesmen, a map to a mysterious island, a voyage of discovery & exploration! All good Appendix N stuff!

Yeah, Isle of Dread has a distinctly DCC feel to it.

Wonder if Goodman Games could get the rights to do an official conversion. Probably cost too much.

I think it is too easy to do this one all by yourself!

cthulhudarren wrote:
I think it is too easy to do this one all by yourself!

I'm actually interested in converting the Dungeon Magazine version of this -- probably not the adventure path, but definitely the island. They gave it a pretty good personality -- it felt more like "monster island" than the original, for some reason.

Hungerstriker wrote:

AQuebman wrote:Now i'm wondering how does level of DCC parties work out in relation to old AD&D Modules? I have found that 3.5/pathfinder modules tend to work out where double the level works for a DCC party. So for example a 6th level module would work out pretty well for a 3rd level DCC party. If anyone has had any experience with this i'd be interested to hear your findings.

Are you sure, AQuebman? I'm (slowly) getting a Pathfinder module, 'Conquest of the Bloodsworn Vale', put together for play in a hypothetical future DCC game. I worked up some 5th level DCC characters, and they're much more fragile than the pregenerated 6th level characters at the back of the module. For instance, the level 5 DCC Cleric has 13 Stamina (+1 bonus), but due to some mediocre rolls, 19 hitpoints. The Pathfinder Cleric, on the other hand, has 42 hitpoints. The saving throws are also skewed dramatically-- the DCC Cleric has +1 Reflex, +3 Fortitude, and +4 Will. The Pathfinder guy has +2, +8, +11.

Sure, DCC characters have some super-awesome offensive abilities that Pathfinder/3.X characters can't compete with. No amount of fighter 'bonus feats' will ever compare with the Warrior's MDoA, since MDoA is basically every bonus feat all at once. Spellburn is crazy powerful! However, DCC characters are basically glass cannons, and don't have the pile of generic magic items that a Pathfinder character is entitled to. (This Cleric in the back of the module has a wand of cure moderate wounds, +2 chainmail, a cloak of resistance +1, a +1 heavy steel shiel, a ring of protection +1, and a +1 scimitar!)

Well I wipe basic magic items and only u use rare artifacts etc.. between constant healing from.a cleric the power output between wizards and warriors things die pretty quickly against DCC characters. Thats been my experience though your welcome to experiment yourself id be interested to hear it.

Also are you using the average HP in pathfinder stuff? I either do that or roll it on the fly because thats more fitting with dcc to random it up I feel.

finarvyn wrote:

Flexi wrote:

cthulhudarren wrote:Isle of Dread would be awesome.

+1 for X1. Dinosaurs, tribesmen, a map to a mysterious island, a voyage of discovery & exploration! All good Appendix N stuff!

Yeah, Isle of Dread has a distinctly DCC feel to it.

Has anyone done a conversion for Isle of Dread yet?

I would suggest N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

This seems to be a great module that would evoke a DCC feel. Even more so if you set this up in advance. Have all the PCs come from the village when you select a funnel module. After a few adventures, the PCs being second level, have them return to the village they started from. They would know many of the people.

I can see all sorts of spooky with this module!

Actually, a lot of the old AD&D modules are perfect for DCC with a little tweaking. Certainly, the Appendix N inspiration is obvious in some of them. I have run the first part of U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh as a 0-level funnel (the PCs went in brashly and died) and UK5: Eye of the Serpent for a group of lvl 1 PCs with good results. Both were put through a DCC-ification process (mostly cosmetic) before running them.

Interesting guide maps for classic modules:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Archive.aspx ... n+Thompson

I like this topic idea and wish to suggest that it has not received appropriate attention nor a good response.

It would be easy to list any number of greatest adventures and go "Me Too!!" Perhaps a better way to answer is, how. How would you take a classic and DCC it?

Okay, then; I have seen several posts (and agree with them all) that suggest things like DCC offers a cool adventure, tosses in some weird stuff, a cool monster or two, some interesting puzzles and maybe a nifty trap. That, to me, are the basics of it. With that in mind, I was pressed into duty and quickly pulled out A1 Slavers in Highport. To DCC it I have changed the slave pen trap, which actually does not make sense as written, replaced a bridge trap to one that traps the players in a fully exposed (and fully escapable) atop the bridge, changed the Aspis a little and added some like insectoid friends, and, have bought myself some time on where to put a puzzle. I also need to add in a nifty but strange bit of magic as that, too, is something I appreciate from DCC

Also, I changed the temple to being an active one, a live functioning temple in the elsewise run down town of Highport, that is run the Cleric Santios. Or, at least, Santios and two of her simulacrums. We have met the two (think, Mr. Atoz in the library from TOS Star Trek); the real one is busy in the temple room upstairs, as per the module.

And so, I put this back to you. How would you add to any of your favourites - your suggestions are appreciated.

Losloris
now looking to DCC the Tomb of the Lizard King

I used the first part of U1 as a funnel, mostly by using the humanoid tables in the DCC core rulebook on the goblins and gnolls found there. Now the goblins herded geese and the gnolls where whispering jackal-men.

Also, while not a TSR classic, see this: http://ravencrowking.blogspot.ca/2016/0 ... ntain.html