News — AD&D Modules
I10 Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill remembered.
AD&D Modules clyde caldwell Jeff Easley TSR
Today I’m going to take a look at the art of I10 Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill by Tracy and Laura Hickman.Produced by TSR in 1986, the second coming of Strahd is another very cool addition to the I series of modules. It features David Cook, Jeff Grubb, Tracy & Laura Hickman, as well as Harold Johnson on the design team and comes in a 41 pages of cool content. I think it is a great precursor to the Ravenloft Boxed Set which would appear only a year later.Artwork for the adventure is standard for the time period,...
B9 Castle Caldwell and the oddity of a TSR comedy
AD&D Modules clyde caldwell TSR
The TSR module B9, released in 1985 proves that during the final days of Gygax’s reign over TSR that there was still a sense of humor around. That is something important to understand, that while Gary himself could be a tough DM, he was always having a joke.So comes this rather forgettable module by Harry W. Nuckols [yeah, I’m not thinking that’s real], and entitled Castle Caldwell and Beyond [which of course is a reference to cover artist Clyde Caldwell]. In all, it is a small series of adventures for character levels 1-3, five to be exact, and all look...
A look back at primarily G1 of the G1-2-3 Against the Giants
AD&D Modules Bill Willingham Dave Trampier David Sutherland III Jeff Dee TS TSR
During the course of my gaming life I’ve run and been run in G-1-2-3 four times, and you know what, I want to do it again. To say I love these modules is an extreme understatement. They are the perfect blend of crawl, epic journey, experience points, and treasure. There is truly a perfect balance of all those things that make everything about them SO worth it. In fact, I’ve dedicated an area of the Nameless Realms to the location of these modules just so my Fleetwood family can continue to go back every few generations when the giants...
My own Secret of the Slavers Stockade
AD&D Modules Bill Willingham Erol Otus Jeff Dee Jim Roslof TSR
If you are an old school gamer, then you probably have a vague memory of the first D&D product you ever saw. For me, those visions of the past cycle around three distinct images, none of which I’m exactly sure were really ‘the first’. One, of course, is Elmore’s cover of the Red Box, viewed in the Sears Christmas Catalogue. Two, would be Jim Holloway’s cover for Dragon Magazine #88 owned by a fellow student in my 7th Grade art class who sat across from me. Third, would have been Jim Roslof’s cover for A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade...
L1: The Secret of Bone Hill and how TSR spent its $ in 1981
AD&D Modules Bill Willingham Erol Otus TSR
Today I’m going to take a look at the TSR module L1 The Secret of Bone Hill. I once had an opportunity to meet writer Lenard Lakofka for breakfast and discussed a bit of his Lendore Isles series [those being all his L modules] which was pretty entertaining over coffee.He confided in me that TSR had paid him and astounding $11,000 for the The Secret of Bone Hill, a module that didn’t go over well with the editors and was a struggle to even put out. Still, whatever the problems in production, I think it just showed how INSANE TSR...