I recently snagged this 4e adventure collection "In Search of Adventure" by Goodman Games. The title actually grabbed my attention before the 4e description or the Goodman Games logo. It sure sounds familiar:
So I guess you can put out a D&D product with the same name, as long as it's 20+ years later...dunno. In my middle-aged grognardic heart I kinda wish they would have just come up with a unique title for the new collection. The '80s TSR supermodule, B1-9 In Search of Adventure pulls together a range of B-series Basic D&D modules which includes many of my all time faves (B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, and B4 The Lost City to name a few). At any rate, titles-smitles I guess. I'm no attorney, but I am "in search of adventure," so I picked it up.
Just flipping through it, it looks to be a nice collection of (pretty) short adventures that could be fun to dork around with. They are all level 1 adventures, which is a little disappointing. It would have been nice to have them range a little bit from 1-4 or so, but I'll still take it.
Now, I've heard on some podcasts (notably The Tome Show) and in some forums, that in review of some other Goodman Games 4e material (DCC - Dungeon Crawl Classics modules, etc) have a few issues with nailing the 4e mechanics, stat blocks, DCs, etc. Basically this is due to Goodman Games putting this material out very early in 4e life, so they may need some errata to clean them up, or we can just tweak them as needed/wanted on our own. Regardless, errors or not, I think it's great that there are some more published modules for 4e, especially in a shorter, quicker format. The fact that there are six adventures in one book here seals the deal for me.
Now I won't give any real review of this item yet, because I haven't played through any of it. I'm sure others have and there are probably some fine reviews out there to check out.
On a side note, one which is absolutely covered in many fine blogs already, WotC's new book "Dungeon Delve" is out (came out yesterday). According to release notes: "Dungeon Delve is designed for groups looking for an exciting night of monster-slaying without the prep time. It contains dozens of self-contained easy-to-run mini-dungeons, or “delves,” each one crafted for a few hours of game-play.The book includes delves for 1st- to 30th-level characters, and features dozens of iconic monsters for the heroes to battle. Dungeon Masters can run these delves as one-shot adventures or weave them into their campaign."
Now that item is a gimme for sure for me. In fact I've been waiting for it for a couple months, and thus I'm picking it up today. I really like the fact that they run from levels 1-30 to allow for some real fun either running these guys all along, or just picking one here or there to try out some high level characters' abilities and such. Should be a blast.
All in all, great to see some more published adventures for 4e. I'm still an old fogie who loves his Moldvay/Cook/Marsh Basic and Expert box sets, but I'm getting more and more hip to 4e, and really diggin' it. To me, it's all good...it's all D&D.
6 comments:
I'm still an old fogie who loves his Moldvay/Cook/Marsh Basic and Expert box sets, but I'm getting more and more hip to 4e, and really diggin' it. To me, it's all good...it's all D&D.
That's the spirit! Man, I wish there were more of us around...
I still crack out my well-worn copy of "In Search of Adventure" after all these years. I bought it towards the end of my time playing OD&D, when I shifted towards GURPS, 2nd Edition and then other games like Call of Cthulhu. It was a rather well done quilt of some of the early B series modules, incorporating the idea of a - gasp - campaign, which was kind of missing from some of the B and X modules by the time the 80s were well underway. (Ah for the days of X1, when all you had was a map and some monsters, and recurring themes to keep the same module going for months...)
I'm not generally a fan of modules (being an online, very prose-driven gamer, I feel the need to add loads of fluff and tweak them around so much they're barely recognizable) but I think the Delves are really, really good for a quick night of "Shut up and game." No huge overarching plot, just a bunch of characters, a lot of dark rooms and enemies to smash.
I'm still an old fogie who loves his Moldvay/Cook/Marsh Basic and Expert box sets, but I'm getting more and more hip to 4e, and really diggin' it. To me, it's all good...it's all D&D
Funny thing that...I've come to the conclusion that for me (strictly subjective here) 4E is the game I want to play when I don't care much about an ongoing campaign. It's the game that I reach for when I want to go and just slay things...it's for that once a month shindig where we gather to BS, hang out and "pretend" to play D&D.
And in that role I can see Dungeon Delve being a PERFECT fit.
But when it comes to a game played once a week? I'm ALL about Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC or Swords and Sorcery....the older school type stuff. In my opinion, there's plenty of room for everyone's idea of fun.
@blizack:
I believe I was tagged with a little "uphills, both ways" a little while back (ha!), but I mix it up for sure.
I really do like 4e a lot, and I still like OD&D, AD&D, B/X, BECMI, and RC tons too.
I have yet to play real table-top 3.5, so I can't add that to the list. My only 3.5 XP is from the MMO: D&D Online, and that is of course a not really 3.5....not really.
Anyway, yeah although I appreciate anyone's opinion on version wars, I just like to play, and I am especially liking playing 4e ATM.
@TylerTerrific:
I loved many of those old B-series mods, but sadly I never ran thru the "quilt" which is the supermod B1-9 as a player...just read thru some of it.
And yes, X1 is a freakin dream. One of my all-time faves.
My only real long campaign that I recall from my youth was a homemade one that our DM created. It was for AD&D 1st ed, and we had a blast in it. I had a Pally that one of my high-school buddies remembered well, even at our 15 year class reunion, a few (almost 8, actually) years back....ha! Good times.
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