Hither Came Conan to Role Playing Games Part 1 (OD&D)

Fantasy Background Retrieved from WallpaperPlay and Cartoony Conan Image by Todd Pickens

The fiction of Robert E. Howard (who was born on this day in 1906), and the stories of Conan in particular, were among the stories that inspired the creation of the earliest editions Dungeons & Dragons role playing game. The game has developed along lines that moved it away from its early Sword & Sorcery roots through various phases and back again as the game has become its own genre of Fantasy fiction.

The early Greyhawk campaign was very much a fusion of Howard, Leiber, Vance, and Poul Anderson. Blackmoor added more Vance a more than a dash of Burroughs and Science Fantasy. D&D's "The Known World" spiced things up by adding direct references to Clark Ashton Smith to the mix. While the official worlds reflected the entirety of Fantasy fiction, the game as played was very Tolkienesque. The inclusion of Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits (later called Halflings), inspired a many gaming groups to have campaigns that mirrored the exploration of Moria. With the purchase of The Forgotten Realms and the development and publication of The Dragonlance modules, TSR began producing settings that were more Tolkienesque in execution.

But D&D never left its Sword & Sorcery roots entirely. The publication of the Dark Sun setting, a mashup of Howard, Vance, and Burroughs is one of the best demonstrations of this argument, though the wildly imaginative Planescape, the space hamster infused Spelljammer, and the dark Fairy Tale inspired Birthright settings are also of note. D&D as Fantasy is a genre that is wilder and more patchwork than those who want to argue that D&D is "Tolkien based" fantasy adventure.

Tolkien's influence is undeniable, but his world isn't filled with Dragonborn, Changelings, Living Constructs built for war who are now sentient beings, and races specifically bred to host Entities from the Realm of Dreams. Those are all races common in modern D&D sessions. The game was designed with Sword and Sorcery sensibilities, where Humans were meant to be the most common species played, but it has become something more. It is its own thing, and yet in that gonzo amalgamation of a vast array of Fantasy fiction, the game has in some ways retained a closer connection to its early Sword and Sorcery roots than to being an "Elf Game." The Sword & Sorcery fiction that inspired D&D was freeform. It was in many ways genre-free, in the sense that anything was possible. Before there was an Appendix N (the list of inspirational fiction in the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide), there was this introduction to the "Little Brown Books":

These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those
who don’t care for Burroughs’ Martian adventures where John Carter is groping
through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard’s Conan saga, who do
not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find DUNGEONS &
DRAGONS to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find
that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last bit of advice we invite
you to read on and enjoy a “world” where the fantastic is fact and magic really
works!

A quick look through that list sees fiction that includes airships that fly by the power of the 8th Ray to propel themselves through the sky at high speeds, adventures where people are transported to the fantastic world of Spencer's Faerie Queene by thinking of mathematical equations, dark and polluted urban settings where the smog is as much a character as the protagonists, and tales where men of strong arms and strong wills flee in terror when they encounter frog headed demons. What you won't find in any of these stories are Elves, Dwarves, or Hobbits.

Though Appendix N has been used by many as the main argument for the primacy of Sword & Sorcery fiction, I would argue that one need look no further than the official game material produced by TSR. They included statistics for Conan and Elric in the Original Dungeons & Dragons Supplment IV (Gods, Demigods, & Heroes) and published a game based on Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom.

Of these influences, Robert E Howard's creation has served as the inspiration for or been directly adapted by more game companies than any other. TSR adapted Conan for OD&D and AD&D and created a role playing game devoted to the character. Steve Jackson Games produced GURPS Conan. Mongoose Publishing produced a Conan series of books for 3rd Edition D&D. Modiphius is currently publishing a Conan game using their in house 2d20 game system. Beyond these licensed adaptations (though the OD&D adaptation was likely not licensed), games like Barbarians of Lemuria, Sorcerer (with its Sword & Sorcerer supplement), Carrion Lands, and Shadow of the Demon Lord all owe debts to this man of great mirth and great melancholy. Sword & Sorcery is THE major influence of fantasy role playing games and Conan IS the apotheosis of Sword & Sorcery.

So how well have role playing games inspired by Conan's adventures emulated him, both stylistically and mechanically? That is the central question of this series of blog posts and the answer is "depends." This blog post will focus on the version of Conan presented in Dungeons & Dragons Supplement IV: Gods, Demigods, & Heroes and later entries will examine formal and non-formal adaptations. The Wizards of the Coast reprint of the book lacks his entry, but I've transferred the information from that entry onto a character sheet below.

Mechanics from TSR's Gods, Demigods, & Heroes. Illustration by Gil Kane.

This brief entry tells us a few things about the design of Dungeons & Dragons and how good, or not good, they were at emulating a specific character from fiction. Keep in mind that the statistics were produced after the publication of the Greyhawk supplement and thus reflect the full adoption of the "alternate combat system" as the official D&D combat system and the formal publication of the Thief class. The Thief class was created by Gary Switzer of Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, CA and was incorporated into the D&D game via a rules addition and eventual publication in the Greyhawk supplement.

The first thing that we see is that Conan is classified as a Fighter with Thief abilities, the descriptions in the actual supplement are "Fighter Ability: 15th Level" and "This Fighter of the 15th level also has the abilities of a 9th level Thief." In the "post-Greyhawk" supplement rules, the designers had to break the rules as written to emulate what they thought Conan should look like mechanically. In OD&D only demihumans like Elves and Dwarves are expressly described as being capable of having multiple classes.

In some ways, this is an argument against the development of a Thief class at all and an argument for some way of arbitrating things like hiding or climbing walls other than dialog and DM fiat. The Thief class was designed to emulate characters like The Grey Mouser, but the Fighting Man class from the D&D rulebooks could do equally well with only a few additions to the basic rules set. I'm not opposed to having a Thief class, and thing the class has evolved in interesting ways over the years, but I do think that the game would have been perfectly fine had it stayed with Fighters, Magic Users, and Clerics as the only actual classes. Given that the Mouser and Fafhrd were both fantastic swordsmen, but also "thieves," having a Thief class that doesn't fight particularly well seems an odd way to go. This is especially true given how bad Thieves are at thieving. Don't even get me started on what effect it has on realism that thieves have the ability to climb walls, hide in shadows, and move silently when no one else does. 

Had there been no Thief class in the Greyhawk supplement, Conan would likely have been described only as a Fighter. As it is, the authors demonstrated that the emulation of fictional heroes required modifying the rules as written, even for a character as simple to emulate as Conan.

For all the talk of violating the rules as written, you might think that I think the authors have done something terrible. Quite the contrary. I think that by demonstrating that even a character as basic in archetype as Conan requires house ruling, the authors of Gods, Demigods, & Heroes are telling DMs to open up their game play and to not be restricted by the rules as written. As Timothy Kask writes in the introduction to the book, "As we've said time and time again, the 'rules' were never meant to be more than guidelines; not even true 'rules.'" OD&D rules were meant to facilitate play and not restrict it. The arguments for "RAW" play don't get heavily promoted by TSR until the publication of AD&D, and even then are for the purpose of tournament play and not house play.  

Gods, Demigods, & Heroes is an odd and wonderful book. One the one hand it seeks to show DMs how they can modify the rules to create the types of games that best fit their gaming group. On the other hand, it was written as a "last attempt to delineate the absurdity of 40+ level characters." It was meant to show players that even the "most powerful" weren't of ridiculously high levels and that campaigns could be fun at lower level play. And yet, it became for many a menagerie of monsters to be slain by player characters; having the opposite effect it intended.

All of that aside, in a book filled with mythologies the authors only included two that were not "real world" pantheons. They chose to give statistics for the worlds of Conan and of Elric, two sides of the same coin. Two of the best characters in Sword & Sorcery fiction. In doing so, the demonstrated how central Conan and Sword & Sorcery are to the creation of D&D.

Conan would appear in TSR products again a decade later with statistics in two different game systems, but that's a discussion for the next blog post.

It's Time for Shadow of the Krampus -- A Holiday Themed Shadow of the Demon Lord Adventure

Two years ago I posted this little adventure for those of you who want to add a little of the Season into your gaming.

I am a big fan of running seasonal adventures for my regular gaming group. Though my group hasn't played as regularly this year as they have in the past, I was inspired by Robert J. Schwalb's dark fantasy roleplaying game Shadow of the Demon Lord to write an adventure for this season. For the past few years, I've written and reshared adventures featuring Cthulhu Claus (based on my wife Jody Lindke's illustrations for an old Kickstarter) or the V'sori (evil aliens in the Necessary Evil setting for Savage Worlds), but this year I decided to feature Krampus -- that most devilish of Santa's helpers. While Krampus might be a bit played out for some, having gained mainstream notoriety, I'm still a big fan of the character and I have the pleasure of knowing an artist who has been participating in Krampuslaufen long before it was trendy to do so and Bill Rude's Krampus costume is amazing as is the fact that he can get even small children to pose with his horrifying costume.

Bill Rude is a talented artist and you can look at a variety of his projects over at his 7 Hells: The Retro Art of Bill Rude website.

Illustration Copyright Jody Lindke 2016

In this mini-adventure, the PCs are passing through the town of Nesbitt-Hill during one of their other adventures. You can use the map below to represent the portion of the foothills of the Iron Peaks immediately south of the Zauberspitz with Nesbitt-Hill being the northern-most community on the map and Tower number 3 representing the once great Beacon Fortress.



Shadow of the Krampus is a Novice (though not a "just now Novice") adventure for Shadow of the Demon Lord with a post-Christmas theme. 

The town of Nesbitt-Hill is a vital stop for wanderers and miners who brave the dangers of the Iron Peaks in search of adventure or riches. For years the town has been a peaceful refuge, seemingly immune from the spread of the Demon Lord's Shadow. For even as the Shadow has spread, the town of Nesbitt-Hill remains a spark of light an happiness in an otherwise dark and desperate world.

But that changed last night. Historically, the Winter Solstice has been a time of celebration when the townsfolk of Nesbitt-Hill memorialize the the Solstice King and his champion Krampus. For it is this duo who has protected the town since the Battle of Zauberspitz where the Solstice King and Krampus defeated a horde of the Demon Lord's servants, or at least that is what the stories say. The stories also say that Krampus steals children who misbehave and returns them at the Spring Equinox after the darkness has been purged from the children's souls. If it is true that Krampus takes children and eventually brings them back, why is it that Krampus has taken no children for twenty years? Why does Mistress Oetzel swear she saw Krampus take adults this Winter Solstice? And why were these adults among the most generous citizens of Nesbitt-Hill? Has Krampus returned, but as a servant of the Demon Lord? Or is something else afoot?

Download SHADOW OF THE KRAMPUS and find out.

With the exception of the map depicting the area of the Iron Peaks I refer to as the Gronwald, an area that lies in the shadow of the Zauberspitz, all of the maps were drawn by Dyson Logos and were taken from his Commercial Maps webpage. According to the page, Dyson has released these images under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. If I have used any images that are not covered by this license, I will be happy to remove them.

The cover image of "Shadow of the Krampus?" was illustrated by Bill Rude, who was kind enough to give me permission to use it. Please visit his website and consider purchasing some of his art.

The other image is the "survival map" from Robert J Schwalb's playing aids page for Shadow of the Demon Lord. I am using it with the intention of it being fair use, but if Mr. Schwalb deems my use inappropriate I will be happy to remove it. This adventure requires the use of the Shadow of the Demon Lord rule book since all monster statistics, with the exception of Krampus, are located within the pages of that "vile" tome. Krampus was designed using rules from the Of Monstrous Mien supplement. It is highly recommended that you also own Hunger in the Void and Terrible Beauty to add details around the edges of this adventure.

The cartoon illustrations in the module are the work of my talented wife Jody Lindke. I included "rpg humor" cartoons because they remind me of the cartoons in the old AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide.

I hope you enjoy the adventure.

Geekerati Monday Geekosphere Snapshot 12/16

It's time for another snapshot of the Geekosphere! Today's post features products and posts of things I thought might be of interest to my fellow geeks.

Cat Themed Dice Trays from Cozy Gamer.

First and foremost are these cute as a kitten Cat Dice Trays from Cozy Gamer. Ever since I backed the first set of Symbaroum products, and received their mouse pad material dice tray, I've been a big fan of having dice trays at the table. They minimize the number of times you are on your knees looking under the table for a die that went wild. These trays are cute and look extremely durable. I know I'll be checking them out!

Mordenkainen's Fiendish Folio vol. 1

The AD&D Fiend Folio was a collection of strange monsters pulled from the pages of White Dwarf magazine's "Fiend Factory" column edited by Don Turnbull. Like many other gaming legends, Turnbull's contributions are sometimes overlooked. His coordination of postal Diplomacy games helped to build gaming communities and presaged modern internet based gaming. The "Fiend Factory" column contained a wild array of monsters. Some were classic monsters by different names, others like the Githyanki would go on to become classic D&D monsters and influence later fantasy fiction. While many of the monsters have been incorporated into the Monster Manual, and other monster books, this new volume of creatures contains many who have been left behind. As an added incentive to buy it, the proceeds for this product go to Extra Life who uses donations to fund Children's Hospitals.

Legion M has purchased the rights to The Chronicles of the Unhewn by Brian Staveley.

From Deadline: " Legion M has acquired Brian Staveley’s bestselling fantasy epic The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne and brought Weta Workshop aboard to begin the visual concept work for a one-hour fantasy drama series that will share the title of the bookshelf trilogy’s first entry: The Emperor’s Blades. "

Scott Mendelson Talks about the New Star Wars Film and Fandom

"But one thing I can predict about this ninth Star Wars episode is that it won’t make everyone happy. That’s fine, mind you, but the Star Wars franchise finds itself in an odd position of being a singular pop culture juggernaut where everyone has their own ideas of what Star Wars should be. The Rise of Skywalker can’t possibly be all things to all fans."

 Luke Y. Thompson Reviews the Toys for the Playmobil Movie.

"...the company went all-out on the toys, including an app-controlled Porsche."

New Details Emerge on The Adventure Zone Card Game (ICV2).

We chatted briefly with Keith Baker about the new game during our last Geekerati Radio Episode, but more details are emerging.

D&D Rangers Through the Ages (Part 2): Arduin's Forrester (sic) and the Gaming Scene

In yesterday's post, I the first in a series of posts about the Ranger as a character class in the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game. This discussion was inspired by a tweet by Cam Banks where he shared his concept of what the Ranger is in his mind. His preferred Rangers are "guerrilla fighters, adept at striking targets quickly and with expertise, operating as scouts and archers and guides" and his argument suggests that the 5th edition D&D Ranger has somewhat deviated from this central concept. In the first post in the series, I wrote about how I thought that the Ranger class has become one of the most "meta" classes over time because it now includes among its informative archetypes a character who is in turn based on the earlier editions of the rules.

I know, that's confusing. Let's just say that the class has become self referential. I don't want to retread too much ground from the past article as I move forward, but I do want to provide a little bit of ground work on the origins of the class. As mentioned yesterday, some key examples of the class are Aragorn, Legolas, Tarzan, Jack the Giant Slayer, and Drizzt Do'Urden (the new "iconic" Ranger who has displaced Aragorn in the D&D imagination). There are some others who weren't mentioned, some who were mentioned by T.S. Luikart and Cam in tweets responding to yesterday's post (thanks for reading). In the tweet-versation, Luikart adds Dar the Beastmaster and John Carter to the mix.

Oh, and a brief sidenote. After reading the first bit, I went through a bunch of stuff and wracked my brains to think of heroes with "animal companions". Other than the famed Drow, I came up with Dar the Beastmaster, and John Carter had Woola.

— TS Luikart - 3 Weeks 'Til Indy (@TSLuikart) July 12, 2019

Dar is obviously a Ranger, though he comes after the 1975 creation of the Ranger class, and John Carter is an interesting choice. I wouldn't necessarily have classified him as a Ranger, but after listening to Fiddleback's GM Word of the Week, I think he's a good fit. This isn't because Fiddleback argues that John Carter is a Ranger, rather because he conveys the military and civilian history of the real world Ranger in a way that makes it a perfect fit for Captain Carter of Virginia. I'd like to add a couple more Rangers, who also happen to have Animal Companions, to the mix. The Lone Ranger and Silver are very much in the line of the class as envisioned by Cam, especially in the radio portrayal of the Ranger character. The Phantom, aka The Ghost Who Walks, with his companions Devil and Hero is also a perfect Ranger. Given that Gygax and crew designed Boot Hill, wrote up stats for the Lone Ranger in Strategic Review vol. 2. no. 2, and may have played using the Curtis et al. Western Skirmish rules before that, I think that Gary's local group might have also had The Lone Ranger in mind for a couple of classes, the Ranger and the Paladin, but that's only speculation. Whatever the case, they all fit and you can probably think of several others that fit as well. In fact, go ahead and post your thoughts in the comments. I'd love to hear from you.

Now onto the good stuff.

Around the same time as the publication of the Ranger in The Strategic Review, David Hargrave included information about a "Ranger" class in The Arduin Grimoire. In the first Arduin volume, the class has experience point requirements listed and is included on one of the charts for "special abilities" (more on that shortly). Hargrave's Arduin books are a part of the "California RPG Scene" that included the Greg Stafford group that published All the World's Monsters (which Hargrave contributed to and volume 2 of which contains the "Perrin Conventions" that would influence how D&D is played), the Alarums and Excursions creators, and The Complete Warlock RPG group. The California RPG scene was responsible for the creation of the Thief Class, Runequest, Champions, Supergame, and a host of other exciting rpg innovations.

(If you check out the Supergame link, the scan of the 1st edition of the game is from my own personal collection...and that one's not an affiliate link.)

It is really remarkable how much output this community put out in the 1970s and I'm eternally grateful for the fact that UC Riverside, where I'm earning my Ph.D., has copies of many of the fanzines this community was producing at the time.

I'm pretty sure that Hargrave had read the 1975 Strategic Review article referenced in the last post by the time he published his Grimoire, but I don't think he had read it before he began designing his own version of the Ranger for his home game. I say this for one specific reason. He renames his Ranger, "The Forrester" (sic), when it is published in vol. 3 of the Grimoire. This suggests to me that he had been playing with a Ranger equivalent before reading the rules and then continued using it afterwards because his Ranger was different from the one published in Strategic Review. Interestingly, if you've listened to the GM Word of the Day podcast linked above, one might argue that the Strategic Review Ranger represents the "military" version of the class, while Hargrave's represents the "civilian" version.

So what does Hargrave's Ranger look like? Well, there are two parts of his emulation of the archetype.

First, he includes Rangers in a group of characters with a "more or less secret nature." This grouping was listed in a collection of tables that included special abilities new characters start with, abilities that helped to make individual characters more distinct from one another. If you read through the Original D&D rulebook Men & Magic, you'll quickly see that the only thing that differentiates one Fighting Man from another in OD&D are the character's statistics, hit points, and equipment selected by the player. Most of the individualization of the character comes from how the player describes the character and given that all weapons did the same amount of damage prior to the Greyhawk Supplement, things could be pretty static. Do address this, Hargrave created a series of special ability charts and the Ranger is on the chart with other "Secret"-ive classes like, Thieves, Monks, Ninja, Highwaymen, Corsairs, Assassins, Traders, Slavers, etc. As you can see by that list, Hargrave had a lot of optional classes.

Among the possible special abilities a new Ranger could have were the following (not a complete list because good God Hargrave was a lover of random charts for good and ill): Natural Locksmith (pick locks at a Thief of two levels higher than your won), +3 attacks versus all attacks by oozes and slimes, +2 with rapiers and foils (he had rapiers early), 50% better night vision, bump of direction, Master Herbalist, Natural Linguist, etc.

There are some entries, not listed, that make one shake one's head in disbelief that he thought they were appropriate, but there are over 30 options which meant that characters in Hargrave's game had a little something to set them apart from other characters of the same class. Modern characters have feat selections, archetypes, backgrounds, different skill choices, but back in OD&D that wasn't the case, so this was pretty innovative. You can see by the grouping of Rangers with "Secret" characters, Hargrave is strongly in the "their guerilla warriors" camp.

The second way Hargrave emulated Rangers was by creating his own class called The Forrester (sic). He describes the class this way:

This type of character is akin to the Elves and the Outlaws in their abilities. They are solitary and nomadic by nature but do join expeditions as wilderness guides )though they seldom venture into dungeons). Forresters (sic) only have a 05% chance of getting lost in known areas, and a 20% chance in unknown ones.
They are used as border patrols and scouts/spys (sic) by military types and are occassionally (sic) hired to tend the Royal Game Preserves...

Clearly has similar inspirations as the official class, though the additional information regarding game preserves adds a nice detail about the real world Rangers and how they might have inspired the class too.

Hargrave's Forrester (sic) doesn't have all the abilities of the official one, in fact it isn't readily clear what the combat capabilities and hit points of the class are. Those do become clear later, but they are unique to Arduin's system. The main abilities of the Forrester (sic) are progressive bonuses with "non-mechanical" bows, sensing enemies, good hearing, weather sense, the ability to speak with plants and animals, the ability to heal like a first level Druid (at 15th level), and eventually a bonus with "any weapon." The class eventually ends up with a +2 (total) bonus to non-mechanical bows and whether the bonus to "any weapon" means a bonus to any weapon the character is using at a given moment or whether the player can pick a single weapon with which to have the bonus isn't clear. The lack of clarity is something common in Arduin. Where OD&D had a lot of gaps in the rules, Arduin has lots of uncertainty for how things work.

As you can see though, Hargrave's Ranger equivalent is a guerrilla fighter and spy, but one with a focus on bow use. Clearly there's more Robin Hood in Hargrave's Ranger than in the OD&D one. There are no bonuses against "Giant type" creatures. The spell casting is much weaker than the OD&D class, though also more in line with Aragorn's stated capabilities in Fellowship.

It's an interesting take that highlights the creative energies of the California scene, while also demonstrating the amateur nature of the hobby at the time. I don't mean amateur here as a pejorative. Merely that a more professional publication would assume that more clarity is needed in the rules. For the amateur, who is part of an active community constantly in conversation with one another via cons and zines, things can be a little looser. They are also looser because the hobby itself was more amateur at the time. Things weren't rigorously playtested. People were too busy playing FOR THE FIRST TIME and exploring possibilities to playtest. The hobby was growing at a logarithmic pace and you can see that in Hargrave's Arduin books. They may be gonzo and vague, but there is a lot of creative energy here.

D&D Rangers Through the Ages (Part 1): The First D&D Ranger

About a month ago, Cam Banks began a discussion on Twitter regarding his thoughts on the Ranger class and how he didn't think that the Ranger class in 5th Edition D&D captured his concept of what the class should be. Cam and I are acquaintances, and one of my favorite game designers having designed some fantastic material for the Dragonlance setting, a Marvel role playing game, and the highly underappreciated Smallville role playing game (a game I mentioned during Dungeons and Dilemmas segment of this week's episode of Geekerati), so I thought it might be interesting to present his concept and discuss the evolution of the Ranger class over the editions. This isn't going to be a Jon Peterson-esque history filled with insider information. Rather, it's going to be a simple look at each edition's version of the Ranger class with some insights from a long-time player.

I think the discussion will be interesting for new gamers who may not be familiar with some of how the Ranger evolved over time and for older gamers who take certain things about the class for granted.

Cam's basic argument is two fold, an assertion that the Ranger is a part of an archetypical tradition and that the current version has abandoned a lot of this tradition because of the popularity of one character within the tradition.

His initial statement is about what he sees as the quintessential tradition that inspired the class.

In D&D, rangers should be guerrilla fighters, adept at striking targets quickly and with expertise, operating as scouts and archers and guides. Legolas and Aragorn are iconic rangers to me. Neither of them has an animal companion. Tarzan and Jack the Giant Killer and Ulysses too.

— Cam Banks (@boymonster) June 19, 2019

For Cam, the prototypical Ranger is a part of a tradition that includes characters from the Lord of the Rings, the fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Greek/Roman Mythology, and Fairy Tales. It's a nice list and you can see a coherent archetype within it of the lone warrior fighting from the shadows to defend the weak. In the case of Aragorn, this was done during his days as a "Ranger" prior to his appearance in the Lord of the Rings when he and others wandered the lands keeping the roads and distant communities safe from various threats. Legolas accompanied Aragorn on many of these adventures. Fans of the Tarzan books can find numerous examples of him engaging in guerilla fighting against threats that included Soviet Communists in Tarzan the Invincible. And we are all familiar with the various tales of Jack the Giant Slayer who climbs the beanstalk and battles...GIANTS...something that will be seen as a big influence in a moment, but first let's look at the second part of his argument.

I also blame Drizzt entirely for two weapon fighting rangers. There is no other precedent for it in fiction unless you count Nasir from Robin of Sherwood (who may have inspired Drizzt; but only Bob Salvatore could answer that.)

— Cam Banks (@boymonster) June 19, 2019

In the second part, Cam focuses on how the character of Drizzt Do'Urden has influenced the Ranger class in more recent editions of D&D. Cam's earlier mention of Aragorn's lack of animal companion is another example of Do'Urden's influence. Cam is arguing here that he believes an iconic character from D&D fiction, has influenced how designers implemented the class in future editions. I think Cam is on to something here. Robert Salvatore's character of Drizzt has an animal companion and he fights with dual scimitars. Prior to his introduction in the Icewind Dale Trilogy, most Rangers were using weapons that were more effective against "Large" creatures and none had animal companions. So it seems at first glance that Salvatore's iconic Ranger is now "the" iconic Ranger.

What's interesting about this development is that Salvatore has always written the character of Drizzt in a way that conformed to the rules of the edition being used at the time the individual volume was being written. Drizzt has an animal companion because he's was in possession of a Figurine of Wondrous Power and his dual wielding of scimitars was because all Drow had that ability in 1st edition D&D. If you want a great example of how Drizzt was a quintessential 1st Edition Ranger in the Icewind Dale trilogy, I recommend you check out the scene where Drizzt and Wulfgar are fighting giants. Drizzt goes completely berserk. Why? Is there some deep back story where giants killed his family? C'mon, Drizzt would be celebrating if giants killed his family. No. Rangers got bonuses to damage against giants and giant kin in 1st edition. You can also see Drizzt follow the "dual class" rules of 1st/2nd edition when he formally becomes a Ranger and leaves his past as a Fighter behind. He literally becomes worse at fighting until he "gains enough levels" to surpass his former level as a fighter. Never mind that dual class rules were supposedly only usable by humans, Drizzt follows them in the Dark Elf Trilogy. I'm actually grateful that Salvatore hews so close to the rules, even as he takes liberties, because it helps readers who become players transition more easily. They don't encounter any moments of disappointment as they try to adapt the character to the rules. The character was written with the rules in mind.

Sorry for the brief digression there, but I think it was an important side conversation. Cam's point isn't that Salvatore adheres to the rules, rather that the rules have come to reflect Salvatore's vision. Now Rangers are viewed as having animal companions and dual wielding BECAUSE that's what Drizzt does. The class has transitioned from an archetype based on many characters, an archetype that then influenced Salvatore's writing of the character Drizzt, to a class influenced by a particular expression unique to D&D. This has actually happened with a lot of D&D. The rules were originally created to emulate the stories Gygax and Arneson read as kids, many of which are referenced in the famous Appendix N. Now D&D rules are more geared at emulating the stories told in D&D novels, which are their own brand of fantasy fiction. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, so long as D&D novels cover a wide variety of milieu, but it can be constraining if there is too much Forgotten Realms and not enough Eberron, Dragonlance, Mystara, Dark Sun, Birthright, Greyhawk, and Appendix N in the mix. Is D&D a roleplaying game of the fantasy genre, or is it a roleplaying game of the D&D fantasy genre? That's a question for another time, but one worth considering.

Whew!

Okay, so I've argued that Salvatore's initial Ranger was influenced by the older Ranger class and that subsequent Ranger classes are based on Salvatore's Ranger as it developed through stories, but where's the evidence? After all, Nazir was pretty badass in the Robin of Sherwood series. Maybe Drizzt didn't shape things to come. The only way to know is to see the development of the class, which is the entire reason for this series of posts in the first place. So let's take a look at the initial Ranger class.

The Ranger first appeared in The Strategic Review vol. 1 no. 2 newsletter published by TSR in 1975. Wizards of the Coast hasn't reprinted all the early newsletters yet, so unless you own the Dragon Magazine Archive like me, you're stuck with less legal means of finding the information.
<![endif]-->The Ranger was created by Joe Fischer, who was a player in Gary Gygax's D&D game group and was initially designed as a "sub-class" of Fighting Men. Remember in Original D&D, there were Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Clerics. Thieves were created by California gamer Gary Switzer, the late owner of the excellent Aero Games (which is still open).  The formal introduction of Thieves to D&D came in the Greyhawk Supplement, which also introduced the concept of "sub-class" with the / Paladin the first sub class of Fighting Men.
 

Fischer introduces the Ranger in the following way:

Rangers are a sub-class of Fighting Men, similar in many ways to the new sub-class Paladins, for they must always remain Lawful or lose all the benefits they gained (except, of course, experience as a fighter).

Note that Fischer's Ranger is a specifically heroic class, with a required alignment of "Lawful," and that the character loses abilities if it acts out of alignment. While the alignment rules of modern D&D are flexible guidelines, the rules in earlier editions of D&D were very inspired by Michael Moorcock, Poul Anderson, and Henry Kuttner. In this fictional tradition, the forces of law and chaos have physical manifestations and are real things not just ethical constructs. One might argue that Tolkien's Ring Cycle fits with Morgoth and Sauron representing Chaos, but that would be an interpretation. Moorcock, Anderson, and Kuttner expressly state that Chaos is a living and tangible thing. D&D's early rules reflected a similar mythopoetic setting.

So other than being champions of "Law," what kinds of people where Rangers?

Like Fighting Men they had Strength as their "Prime Requisite," but they also required Intelligence and Wisdom scores of at least 12 and a Constitution of at least 15. These are pretty strict requirements as one only has a 9.26% of rolling a 15 or higher on a given statistic (assuming 3d6 in order as was the old school way). Players would want a high Strength, so the requirements mean that only about 1% of rolled up characters would qualify. This was one of the ways that older D&D balanced classes for play. The abilities of a class might be "unbalanced" or OP compared to other classes, but the rarity of rolling them up was designed as a counterpoint. Of course, Rangers are really cool, so the fact that I just "happened" to roll a 15, 16, 16, and 18 is totally believable. What's key here is that in earlier editions, you don't choose to be a Ranger so much as being a Ranger is something that chooses you.


Players of D&D know that each class has a certain number of hit points they gain each level. This was one of the ways that the early ranger was set apart from other Fighting Men. Most Fighting Men started with one hit dice (either 1d6 or 1d8 depending on which version of the combat rules you were using), the Ranger started with two. Right away, they are tougher but that doesn't tell us anything about their origin. The "level names" however do. Early editions of D&D had descriptive names for each level of character, that way a player could say "I'm a Ranger Scout" instead of "I'm a 3rd Level Ranger." I actually like the old system. It lessens the sense of "gaming" and increases the narrative element of play. The first few levels of Ranger are: Runner, STRIDER, Scout, Guide, Pathfinder...

Did you see the STRIDER? So yeah, it's totally Aragorn. Cam's on the money here. Additionally, as the character hits "name level," they are able to cast spells. Is case, starting at 8th level a Ranger gets access to one 1st Level Cleric spell. At 9th Level, they are able to cast 1st Level Magic-User spells. Eventually being able to cast spells of up to the 3rd Level in each class at 13th Level. For the record, at 13th Level a Ranger knows Three 1st Level, Two 2nd Level, and 1 Third Level spell from each of the Cleric and Magic User Spell Lists. That's pretty OP, but they require A LOT of experience to get there.

In order to "pay" for these benefits, as if the restrictions on scores weren't enough (they weren't because "rollling"), Rangers had several restrictions. All of which fit within Cam's description of his prototypical Ranger. Here's an incomplete list:

• They may own only that which they can cary with them, and excess treasure or goods must be donated to a charitable cause.

Let's just say that if you're using encumbrance rules, which players weren't but DMs were, this is a pretty big restriction.

• They may not hire any men-at-arms or other servants or aides of any kind whatsoever.

A strict DM would have this apply to the whole party. Let's just say that a lot of player groups had expendable henchmen and that Rangers couldn't have them.

• Only two of the class may operate together.

Legolas and Aragorn are okay. Ranger Squad Six isn't. Not that you could have honestly rolled those stats in the first place

So much for the restrictions, all of which fit the loner type Cam describes though I'm wondering where Tarzan put all his spells. Clearly Tarzan's spells are things like Comprehend Languages...yep, that's it. Rangers also had additional bonuses, beyond the additional hit points and spell casting ability...so...OP.

They didn't receive Prime Requisite experience bonuses, instead they gained "4 experience points for every 3 earned" at low levels. Holy cow! That's a 33% experience bonus! Unheard of. Why bother listing the high experience requirements, when they get a 33% bonus? Thankfully, they lose this at the same time they gain spells.


They also had the ability to track creatures outdoors and in dungeons and were dificult to surprise.

Here's the big one, one that partially explains why Drizzt goes berserk in the Icewind Dale trilogy.

• All Rangers gain a special advantage when fighting against monster of the Giant Class (Kobolds -- Giants). For each level they have gained they add +1 to their damage die against these creatures, so a 1st Level Ranger adds +1, a 2nd Level +2, and so on.

Good Grief! Sorry Mr. Kobold. You may only be 3 feet tall and have 1 to 3 hit points, but our Runner gets +2 damage against you for being a "Giant" and he REALLY hates Giants.

They can't acquire henchmen, but at 9th level they gain "Followers" that can include Werebears, Stone Giants, and Gold Dragons. How's that for an animal companion? The Werebear I get. Beorn in The Hobbit is a Werebear and Bard is clearly a Ranger, but the Gold Dragon?


What you see here is a class that is influenced by the fiction of Tolkien (Aragorn has some small access to magic) and Tarzan (he has a large group of loyal henchmen and we'll say that a Jad-bal-ja the lion is kind of like a Werebear), and Jack. Did you see how much they hate Giants? That's totally Jack. There's no guarantee of an animal companion, but it's a possibility. It's also one determined at random and not chosen.

The class very much fits within the scope of Cam's description, but you can still see hints of the modern Ranger. It also makes interesting reading for the Drizzt series, though his character is based on the AD&D Ranger and you'll have to wait for the next post to see how the class changes. Notice that there are no armor restrictions, no dual wielding, just hatred of Giants which eventually became "favored enemy."

Planning a Real Play Podcast

Those of you who have been reading/following Advanced Dungeons and Parenting ever since the Cinerati days know that I used to host a podcast called Geekerati with Shawna Benson, Bill Cunningham, Eric Lytle, and Wes Kobernick. We had a great run for a couple of years and were able to book guests like Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (DRAGONLANCE), Tim Minear (FIREFLY, ANGEL, AMERICAN HORROR STORY), Rob Long (CHEERS, KEVIN CAN WAIT), David Goetsch (BIG BANG THEORY), Brandon Sanderson (MISTBORN, ALCATRAZ Vs., STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE), Susan Palwick (FLYING IN PLACE), Matt Forbeck (BRAVE NEW WORLD, ENDLESS QUEST, BLOOD BOWL), Shane Hensley (SAVAGE WORLDS), and many more. It was hard work, and we were never able to catch the fire we hoped, but it was an experience I wouldn't trade for the world.

Recently, I've gotten the podcasting bug again. After chatting with friends with similar interests, we decided that instead of trying to relaunch Geekerati that it would be fun to create a real play podcast of a 5th edition D&D campaign. Our group won't be the first to do this, there are several excellent podcasts and streamers out there, but it's something that we think will be a great experience for a number of reasons. First, it might just catch on and we might be able to connect with people who have similar groups to our own. Second, we think that it will make our own role playing skills better. After all, knowing that someone might be listening might get you to focus on how much role playing your are doing. Finally, we are noticing that it is forcing us to thing about world building since we all agree that it might be more fun to create our own setting and share that with the world.

I've got a great group lined up, but we are still in the planning and logistics phase. We don't even have a name for our podcast yet. We do, however, already have a number of ideas for our setting and I will be sharing those over the summer as it gets flushed out more. I'll also be introducing you to some of our players and their characters. First here, then on a website for the podcast.

Speaking of websites...it's about time I started moving the Geekerati episodes over to my personal website at www.christianlindke.com instead of having them only on the Blog Talk Radio site.

For those of you interested, here is a quick glimpse of a VERY rough draft of the country where our campaign will take place.

The Half-Elf Who Carried Hemp Rope -- #RPGaDAY Day 7

"What was your most impactful RPG session?"

I'm not quite sure what Autocratik means by "impactful" in today's question, but I'm going to answer it as if he asked what my most memorable RPG session was since impactful could be interpreted a number of ways.

I've gamed long enough that I have several memorable gaming sessions, and I've written about one of the negative ones in The Munchkin Book and on this blog in the past, but I'm going to write about one of my favorite memorable gaming sessions. Like many of my favorite gaming memories, this one included my friends Sean McPhail, Ron Peck, and Robert Faust (author of Osprey's Scrappers game). It was the first session of a new D&D campaign (2nd Edition) and Robert and I had decided that my half-elf and his elf were brothers who cared deeply for one another.

Robert's elf was slight of build and the community we were in was heavily bigoted against elves and other races. My half-elf was more human in appearance and was extra-ordinarily strong (somewhere in the 18/60s to 18//70s). Some humans were harassing Rob's character and he eventually told some of them that if they continued to harass them they would have to face the consequences and repeat what they said (or something of that nature, it is many years ago) to his very strong brother.

They asked him with great skepticism just how strong his brother was.

"How strong?" Rob's character responded, "He carries Hemp rope."

Cut to a shot of my character wearing 2 crossed loops of 100ft of Hemp rope each, Banded Mail, and a two-handed sword. Note that in 2nd edition 50ft of Hemp rope weighed 20lbs. My character was walking around with 80lbs of rope. Why? It wasn't for flexibility, it was purely to show off his strength.

The response of the NPCs was a resigned "Oh" sound that will be familiar to anyone who has seen John Wick.

I may have some of the specific details of the encounter wrong, but I'll never forget "He carries Hemp rope."

Planescape: Torment Returns on April 11th

When Bioware released Planescape: Torment in December of 1999, they did so just as 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons was gasping its last breath. Planescape was an odd choice to base a large scale computer rpg upon. The setting was unique, creative, exciting, and critically acclaimed, but it wasn't a particularly high volume selling setting for TSR. Add to this that Wizards of the Coast had just purchased TSR in 1997 and the Planescape setting, like many other D&D/AD&D settings, had been partially released to the wilds to be curated by fans. The game and the IP were languishing in limbo, even as the D&D brand would be resurrected shortly by the release of 3rd edition.


It may have been an odd choice, but it ended up creating a brilliant result. Planescape: Torment leveraged Bioware's Infinity Engine to create an rpg experience unlike any that had been produced to date. Most of that experience was rooted in the surreal qualities of the Planescape setting which may not have been a bestseller, but it was a magnificent creation. David "Zeb" Cook and his team of creative talent that included James Ward, Dana Knutson, and Tony DiTerlizzi combined their talents to produce an innovative and interesting sandbox. A sandbox that Chris Avellone and team explored with inspired creativity. Planescape: Torment is the Infinity Engine game I've played through most frequently, and given the strength of those titles that is saying something.

On April 11th, 2017 game developer Beamdog will be releasing a visually updated version of the game for both the PC and Tablet. Do yourself a favor and pick it up when it comes out.

Shadow of the Demon Lord is Frighteningly Good [Part One] -- Could It Be Satan?

Robert J. Schwalb prefaces his new role playing game Shadow of the Demon Lord with a brief discussion of how he entered into the role playing game hobby. As with many of us, his introduction to the hobby was Dungeons & Dragons. Based on the fact that Schwalb asked Frank Mentzer to write a foreward to the game, I'm going to venture a guess and say that Schwalb and I share the fact that our introduction to D&D was Mentzer's excellent re-edit of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic set. I had a lot of fun with that game, and by the sound of it Schwalb did as well.

Schwalb's preface makes something else clear, we both had to "grapple" with the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and how that affected the way people viewed the role playing game hobby. It's in his description of his personal reaction to the Satanic Panic where Schwalb and I differ.

In my own personal experience with Dungeons & Dragons, by which I mean the way my friends and I played it, devils/demons were viewed as imaginary generic villains to be defeated by devoted Paladins. In my young mind's eye, the devils and demons of the game were cartoony and less genuinely malevolent than they were "Maleficent." They were there to be defeated in the same way children defeated witches in fairy tales. When I encountered people who worried for the safety of my soul, I was more confused than angry. I remember when my parents moved to the Bay Area and we lived with a coworker of my father's while we found a more permanent residence. One night, while I was playing a game on the Atari, one of our hosts mentioned this sinister game that was threatening the souls of young children. I didn't hear the panic in the person's voice, I only heard the words Dungeons & Dragons, so I quickly interjected in an almost bored way, "yeah, I play D&D and I love it." This did not go over well with our hosts, but I don't remember the rest of the conversation. Yar's Revenge was more important than any criticism of D&D. It wasn't until a game group I was a part of had to play Star Frontiers instead of D&D due to "satanic" elements that I became annoyed.

Why wasn't I worried? Let me give you a glance at some of the evil horrors that threatened to consume the soul of a D&D player.

Here we have Asmodeus as he was portrayed in the AD&D Monster Manual. Don't get me wrong, those eyes are a bit disturbing. As for the rest of the image, I'd seen more disturbing get ups when I took BART over to Berkeley...and I'm just talking about the other customers at the local comic shop. Asmodeus doesn't look particularly "cool." He looks like typical 70s "sleeze" and that had zero temptation appeal. He certainly doesn't look frightening.

The devils got a little more frightening with Baalzebul, the Lord of the Flies, but a horned beast head with fly eyes is only so frightening. Given that the image ins sharp line art, it lacks any real frightening impact and a guy who is "The Lord of the Flies" doesn't sound like he has a lot to offer a 10 year old. I mean c'mon, he's the Lord of things that eat poop. I'll just stab him in the face, IN THE FACE, with my Holy Avenger for the XP thank you very much.

 

This isn't to say the artwork wasn't good. I really like the illustrations in AD&D, it's just to say that none of these images had any verisimilitude or compelled me to fall into devil worship. I'd rather tell a good story about good conquering evil. In a world where evil exists, and where we often feel helpless to fight it, it's nice to have a place where you know that Good will be victorious.

That's my experience. Schwalb's was a little different. 

According to game designer Robert J. Schwalb's preface to Shadow of the Demon Lord, "D&D had been [his] game -- at least until it was decided there was too much Satan in its pages for me to play and keep my soul intact, and so I was forced to find other games to scratch my roleplaying itch. The Old World of Warhammer provided a far darker and scarier place than anything that D&D had to offer and thus it had me entranced." 

When I first read this, I almost read it as Schwalb thinking that D&D had "too much Satan" in it. Upon many re-readings, I've come to think that like my friend who was forced to play Star Frontiers instead of D&D to avoid "Satan" In my case, this created a journey from D&D to Flash Gordon -- and eventually superheroes. In Schwalb's case, this was a journey from Satan, to what my group jokingly called "Super-Mega-Ultra-Satan."  

Let's just compare those D&D "Satanic" image above to the "non-Satanic" influences of Warhammer. Let's just say that Schwalb hit the nail on the head when he says it is a far darker and scarier place than D&D. When one looks at the Chaos books of Warhammer, you can see why my friends call it "Super-Mega-Ultra-Satan." 

Also, it's amazing. My old Warhammer Realm of Chaos books are favorites of my collection.

When you look at Robert J. Schwalb's new role playing game Shadow of the Demon Lord, you can see the influence of both D&D and Warhammer. The cover of the rulebook has a demon that is clearly influenced by D&D's Orcus, but the style and horror elements are dialed up to 11 and are pure Warhammer.

 

None of these comments should be viewed as a criticism of Schwalb's game, which I think is one of the most exciting games both thematically and mechanically, I've seen in some time. Instead, they are an overview of some brief thoughts of how amazing it is that in attempting to avoid "demonic" imagery, a player ended up playing something that would probably have freaked out the Patricia Pullings of the world far more than D&D if they ever happened upon it.

Given that the theme of this blog is gaming with kids, most of the future entries in this series will be about how to adapt Schwalb's extremely versatile system to "kid friendly" topics like Scooby Doo and Skylanders. Having said that, I had to write a post looking at how the Satanic Panic continues to influence game designers and gamers. 

I know that the Satanic Panic affected the way that I gamed for a time. It forced me to encounter new genres and styles of play. I still resent the stupidity of the critics of RPGs back in the day, but I can use a little motivated reasoning to find the silver lining of the clouds. Thanks to Robert J. Schwalb, some of that silver lining now includes "Super-Mega-Ultra-Satan."

A _SnarfQuest_ Adventure Game is on the Horizon

I've been a fan of SnarfQuest for quite some time. Larry Elmore's comic tale of a young warrior's quest for fame and fortune as he aspires to become king of his tribe is one of the classic comic strips of Dragon Magazine's heyday. The character first appeared in issue #75 of Dragon. That issue also included a breakdown of some of the Nine Hells and a brief Orcish to Common dictionary for use in your D&D game.

Looking back at that issue today, I'm struck by how good this era of Dragon was. Like the first 100 issues of White Dwarf, this era of Dragon magazine was in a period of "pre-professional" creativity. That doesn't mean the magazines weren't professional in presentation, they were, rather than they included content from fans as well as professionals...fans who would become reliable designers in the future. Magazines during this period were melting pots of creativity, and remind me of the Old School Renaissance and Savage Worlds communities. It was also a time when you might find gaming articles written by Fantasy and Science Fiction authors like John M Ford or Katharine Kerr. Many of today's authors discuss how D&D shaped their literary development and allow their creations to be used as game settings, but early gaming was also shaped by authors in a very direct way.

SnarfQuest isn't a perfect comic. It's snarky and plays around with Fantasy tropes and featured a less than noble hero. Sometimes the humor works, sometimes it doesn't, but it was clearly a labor of love and I enjoyed it's high concept story filled with Dragons, Orcs, and Androids.

This week, I noticed an advertisement on Steam promoting an adventure game based on the classic comic. The initial graphics capture the feel of the strip pretty well, as can be seen by the image below, and the adventure game format is one I enjoy.

 

I am mildly concerned about some elements of the game, from a "will it be fun?" perspective. While the character modeling captures the whimsy of the comic, the animations of movement and dialogue seem a little off in the game play trailer for the game. Speaking of dialogue, the voice acting for the characters in the trailer is not at all close to what my mind's ear created. The dialogue is delivered in an almost emotionless fashion. If this game is going to capture my imagination and get repeated play, that will need to be fixed. The game will get my money regardless, as I want to see a good Snarf game, but it may not get my fervent recommendation if it doesn't change the voice acting. I'd rather just read the dialogue than here the current actors.

[Classics Revisited: The Best Old D&D Modules for 5th Edition] A Preliminary Discussion

This is the first in a series of posts. The majority of the subsequent posts will focus on recommended modules, but this one focuses on whether old modules are worth using and how to use them. If you are an experienced DM, you can feel free to skip this entry in the series and wait for the others.

During the build up to the release of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, Mike Mearls and the rest of the D&D team often claimed that one of the guiding principles for the 5th edition team was to make the game backward compatible. Put another way, players who loved prior editions of D&D should be able to still "play that way" with the new edition.

Now that I've been playing 5th edition for about a year, I can say with some confidence that I think this is true with regards to the 1st through 3rd editions of the game. Old school (Moldvay/Cook, BECMI, and 2nd Edition) modules are extremely easy to run under the new system with minimal prep on the part of the Dungeon Master. Modules from 3rd edition are similarly easy to convert as well, though the play will "feel" different. This is because high level 3rd edition characters, of the 3.x and Pathfinder variety, are EPIC in their capabilities where 5th edition characters are more modest. It might seem strange to say that high level 5th edition characters are "modestly" powerful, but in comparison to 3.x it's true. I haven't attempted to convert any 4th edition modules, but I think that should be easy as well especially if one uses the "post-Essentials" adventures.

As similar in style to older editions as 5th edition is, it has a nice mathematical core that echoes 4th edition but is toned down and has greater variation. In fact, it manages to add the variation of 1st and 2nd edition while maintaining some of the rigid predictability of 3rd and 4th edition. That's quite a feat. I'll focus a future post on some of the elegance of the mechanics of 5th edition for a later post, but it should be stated that the new edition makes "stat inflation" and "magic item proliferation" less important than any edition since 2nd. The amazing thing is that it does so while lacking the Dungeon Crawl Classics-esque funnel effect at low levels.

There are a few keys to adapting older edition adventures to the new system.

1) Stick to the more narrative modules.
2) Have your Monster Manual handy.
3) NPC are more work than Monsters, but often make the best opponents.

There are reasons for each of these recommendations.

Narrative modules scale better with 5th edition's experience system. If your players are willing to remain at low levels for extended dungeon crawls, and there is nothing wrong with that, you can run the earlier modules. You will just have to guesstimate when to give advancements. A module like The Keep on the Borderlands scales fine with regard to the encounter difficulty, but players advance in level much faster than old editions and the players might end up with a cake walk if you use the current xp guidelines.

Most old adventures, and the Paizo adventures in Dungeon, use very simple stat blocks for monsters. In fact, the stat block is often [Skeletons HP: 8, 6, 9, 3; see MM pg. XX]. You can either make copies of the information before hand, which is what I typically do instead of opening the book, or you can have the book handy. Either works just as easily and requires no conversion. When there is no 1:1 monster, just substitute one you like or use stats for one you like while keeping the monster description from the module.

NPCs make the best villains. In 1st and 2nd edition, making NPCs was pretty quick. You decided on a level, rolled HP, picked spells and magic items, and DONE! This process got more complicated with 3rd edition because of all the feats, prestige classes, and item proliferation required to keep the NPCs competitive with the PCs. Not to mention spending all those skill points. Pathfinder, while being merciful on the skill point side, has a lot of options for DMs to resolve. Options are fun for players who get to use their characters for months/years, but for a one to three shot NPC the work isn't often worth the reward for DMs.  Making Wizards, Demons, or Dragons for high level PCs could be hours of prep in 3rd edition. There are fewer decisions in 5th, but there are still some meaningful ones, but it's a more enjoyable DM experience for the working Dungeon Master. I put it that way because making characters can be a wonderful time, but when you are time constrained due to work, school, and family a faster process is preferred and 5th edition is faster than 3.x.

Having talked about the relative ease with which the modules can be adapted, and providing 3 guidelines with regard to adaptation, it's time to talk about why you should consider using older modules.

1) There are several available on DriveThruRPG.
2) They are inexpensive and average $5.
3) There are some genuine classics.

The rest of this series will be a series of recommendations of modules to use and include discussions of how these modules play in action. The modern player is often different in style to earlier gamers and no module plays "as written." I'll discuss some curveballs that I've seen during my sessions and how they made for even more enjoyable experiences.