So, what am I up to?

Well, first of all, my group's main two games have been put on hold for a bit. This is because some of the members have been busy/absent a few weeks in a row. So, to counter act this, I've decided to run The Keep on the Boarder Land, by Gary Gygax.

For those who don't know (and I'm sure all of you do), keep on KotB was a module first produced for the Holmes, and later, the Moldvay basic set around the late 70's and early 80's. Since it's induction, this module has become a classic among gamers.

Now, I've never really run too many modules in the past, although I've wanted to run some here and there. It is partly because of this that I decided to run KotB - being that it is the quintessential 'starter' module.

To accommodate the lack of party members (we only ever managed to get three player's at a time) I've allowed the players to make two characters each - as well as buy off as many henchmen as they could afford. I'm sure a skilled party could make it through the module with fewer members, but that would require a certain skill that my players lack. (This is not to say that my players a 'bad' - they're quite good role players - it's just they are accustomed to later editions of D&D where a role of the dice could replace such skill).

Now, before I go on, I'll need to explain that we are using the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons to play. I know that is not the system that is most directly tied to the module (Holmes or Moldvay), but it serves my purpose as I have surplus of player's handbooks - rather than the one booklet. Also, I'm setting my game in Oerth, and placing the keep near the boarder of Iuz - to explain all the evil of the caves.

In any case, the game started off with the six characters making it to the keep, and exploring the area only a little (to my frustration) before going off towards the caves. They made their way to area D, and went to a total of but a few rooms (room 17) and proceeded to put the goblins to sleep via the spell, sleep.

On the way back to the keep, the party encountered a bear on the road, and hid from it. When it came closer, the other mage in the party (there were two) decided to jump out of the bushes and also use his sleep spell. Unfortunately for him, the bear was immune as it's HD was too high. The bear proceeded to attack him, roll an 18, and get the mage into a hug. This killed him almost instantly.

The others in the party flew from the encounter back towards the keep.

More has happened since then, but I think I'll save it for another post.