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    Canonfire :: View topic - I Started a New Greyhawk Campaign Last Night
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    I Started a New Greyhawk Campaign Last Night
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    Adept Greytalker

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    Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:18 pm  
    I Started a New Greyhawk Campaign Last Night

    I want to tell the players that I've started the campaign at the start of CY 576. The S4 text says it's taken 2 sen'nights to get to the start. What day is it?

    The folio says there are 360 days. 360/12=30. Yet there are only 28 days in a month. So I'm off 2 days in the year somewhere.

    The box set says there are 364 days.

    12*28=336

    364-336=-28

    364/12=30.3 which means each month should be 30.3 days unless the moons stop moving during the week-long festivals. That makes no sense to me.

    What makes sense to you? Is the first day of the year Starday?

    Are were-creatures affected by one of the moons if the creatures stay out of the moonlight underground in a dungeon?

    This is my first campaign in 20 years. :) And not counting taking these guys through the DMG sample adventure, this is my first at DMing a AD&D & Greyhawk campaign. I used to be the one guy with the BX-CMI/RC rules and Known World/Mystara setting materials. Thanks in advance.
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: May 12, 2005
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    From: Woonsocket, RI, USA

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    Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:58 pm  

    The boxed set is correct with 364 days per year. The months are solar, not lunar, so Luna isn’t full on the same day each month. A sennight is a poetic week (seven nights), so your PCs arrive at the starting point on Starday, 15 Fireseek, 576 CY. Yes, I think lycanthropes are affected by the moon phase regardless of where they hide.
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    Fri Apr 10, 2020 8:07 pm  
    Re: I Started a New Greyhawk Campaign Last Night

    Raymond wrote:
    The folio says there are 360 days. 360/12=30. Yet there are only 28 days in a month. So I'm off 2 days in the year somewhere.

    The box set says there are 364 days.


    As DMPrata said, the boxed set is correct. You're missing the festivals. There are four of them, seven days each, adding another 28 days to the year in total. 364/28=13, or 12 months of 28 days each + 4 7-day festivals.

    Quote:
    364/12=30.3 which means each month should be 30.3 days unless the moons stop moving during the week-long festivals. That makes no sense to me.


    Each month is 28 days, but Luna's cycles aren't perfectly in sync with the calendar months. So Luna cycles 13 times a year, but there are only 12 calendar months (plus the festivals).

    I think lycanthropes are affected more by the gravitational/magical forces of the moon than the light they reflect. Or else dark clouds would be enough to stem their transformations. Moonlight is really reflected sunlight, anyway, so if a full moon made a werewolf transform, the actual sun would do so as well, if light were the only issue.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 16, 2010
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    From: TregMallin

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    Sat Apr 11, 2020 5:17 am  
    Re: I Started a New Greyhawk Campaign Last Night

    Raymond wrote:
    I want to tell the players that I've started the campaign at the start of CY 576. The S4 text says it's taken 2 sen'nights to get to the start. What day is it?


    Cutting to the chase... 2 sen'nights is 2 weeks.

    So whatever day you started on, you get there on that day 2 weeks later. Call it mid-Fireseek, if you like.

    Or if you started at the beginning of Needfest, that would be 7 days for the festival, taking you to the 7th of Fireseek.

    Is that what you're asking?
    Adept Greytalker

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    Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:51 am  
    Thanks

    OK, I get what is defined now. But I was thrown because to say you have a month of 28 days where the moon's cycles divide into a solar year exactly didn't make sense to me.

    I understand that each festival week shouldn't be counted as part of the month but rather as a 1/4th of a month before each "month" starts. So the 8th day of the year falls on 1st of Fireseek. The 15th day of the year falls on 8th of Fireseek.
    Adept Greytalker

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    Tue Apr 14, 2020 11:10 am  
    Actual Playing Time

    Last night we actually got to get some real playing time in, instead of determining which pre-gens go to who and were the PC are starting.

    So, I thought you all might be interested to know that the players encountered an avalanche where the S4 module says save vs. spells or be crushed to death. When I read that I thought, that might turn out lame since the party just started and this was the second encounter. But since I have four players and told them they ought to get two PCs each, having the ranger biff it right there was a good lesson that this is a deadly game. It wasn't totally demoralizing because the player still had one more PC to control and now that player just sent me a text message that he's fired up to kill some evil creatures because of the loss on this quest.

    They made it to the cavern entrance by the end of last night's session. I think at least one of the players might have seen the DM map and pretended to be innocent but I didn't mind because the outdoor encounters might have gone on for a few more sessions and maybe that would have been frustrating to spend so much time just looking for the entrance. You guys have more experience with S4 than me. This is my first time playing it or DMing it.

    :)

    We're on for next week. I'm really stoked that we're trying for a weekly thing instead of monthly. Thanks for listening. Cheers.
    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 11, 2003
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    From: The Nexus

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    Tue Apr 14, 2020 4:46 pm  

    That's awesome! Glad you had a great game.

    S4 is one of my favorites. I've run it, and played it. Great adventure.
    GreySage

    Joined: Jul 26, 2010
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    From: LG Dyvers

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    Tue Apr 14, 2020 7:04 pm  

    Sounds like you guys had fun! Smile

    Regarding the save or die avalanche: Yes, that irritated me also when I ran S4 for my friends way back in the mid '80s. The Magic User got hit and failed his saving throw. Instead of killing him, I let him live with a single hit point. Of course, I could have let him die since he stood there refusing to move, insisting it was all an illusion.

    Still, that save or die stuff was a problem I always nerfed in AD&D from the beginning. Basing your success or failure in a game on pure chance is never fun - unless you are an obsessive gambler, I suppose. I have never understood the appeal of slot machines...

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    Journeyman Greytalker

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    From: The Nexus

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    Wed Apr 15, 2020 6:10 am  

    Gygax wanted his game to be lethal. That part of the system was intentional. He thought characters should die.

    Problem is, his own game had lots of resurrection in it, so I'm not so sure how internally consistent that was.

    Skech and I take a comic book philosophy to death in gaming: it should be rare, but when it happens should always have meaning, and should be permanent.

    He's had to do some seriously plot devicing when I have a bad day with the dice, but it's made for good stories for the most part.

    He was running S4 for our group years ago, not long after I re-introduced my favorite character, Theala Sildorian (1/2 elven ranger), back into the game after a hiatus. She fell off a cliff ... because of the avalanche I think. She failed a roll to get out of the way, while the other characters made theirs. But she survived the fall because she fell into a lake. It wasn't frozen over, and she somehow managed to crawl into a cave where she heard a voice encouraging her to keep moving to get warm. The voice turned out to be a magic, intelligent sword, which in turn was revealed to be the Sword of Kas.

    I figured that out very quickly; he didn't just come out and say it. But Theala knew nothing of Vecna, so had never heard of Kas. I played her that way; ignorant of the sword's true history, malice, and power even though she quickly concluded this weapon was too dangerous to use, and too dangerous to allow anyone else to possess. She resisted the Sword's attempts and mental manipulation and mental compulsion quite well, but made a fatal error months later. She took the Sword home with her to her elven mother (Queen Yolande), and inadvertently gave it to the Queen's twin sister (who was nuts and in the process of attempting a coup), who then used it to murder Yolonde.

    That event led to a whole other series of adventures and tragedies that took years to play out.

    I think that kind of involved story telling is soooo much better than "save or die ... oops you failed your roll, make a new character."

    I don't understand the appeal of slots either. Chance does have to have its place in the game, because that's what makes it a game, as Gygax himself once said in an interview. But it should add excitement to the game, not dread.

    The OP's solution to have each player control 2 characters is a good one; at least they can continue playing and the DM doesn't have to figure out how to introduce a new character into the game in the middle of a dungeon adventure. That's especially fine if players tend not to get attached to their characters.

    My experience though, is all players get attached to successful characters. Even Gygax and Kuntz did; hence their unhappiness with what TSR did to Mordenkainen and Robilar.
    Adept Greytalker

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    Thu Apr 16, 2020 8:56 am  
    Expanding S4

    Twice I've noticed that the module recommends expanding. The falling part you described sounds more like encounter D for the "Key to the Lesser Caverns." In that section which describes "The River Exit" and includes "Here the party will exit unless they have some supernormal means to save themselves. In about 100' the water drops over a granite ledge to fall 400' to a lake below. The plunge will kill anyone taking it, or else the tumble of water at the bottom will trap and drown them The magic boat can be commanded to go up the falls (its sailing power is that great), but on the way down the falls occupants will tumble out unless they are lashed to the craft. (Unless you have an extensive map for an underground adventure prepared […]."

    In area 22, it says, "If the DM desires, the marid encounter can be expanded by creating an underground level for the party to explore after the marid has granted them water breathing ability."

    I keep thinking how S4 might have been part of the expanded Castle Greyhawk because of the references to the underground rivers though the placement of the original module and this version of it are not close by. Maybe an explanation is that the Castle as a portal to this place. Or maybe it's not the same river system.

    I'm considering expanding this module with the information in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. But I probably won't need that and will consider it part of Toril anyway. But I mention it because others might want an instant underground river resource if they are running S4 and want to expand the underdarkearth. ;)

    Last night I could tell the one player was using some of his meta knowledge. The look on his face in Gottomeeting was pretty funny when the other players wanted to know why he didn't want to move north to room 11. He'd just convinced everyone how to avoid the bats. They encountered the xorn. I thought the xorn would decimate them, but the pre-gens have magical weapons and my rolls weren't that great so they actually did well against the xorn. So we didn't finish the Lesser Caverns in last night's session.

    On a side note, one player showed me a picture of his box of D&D stuff from the 80s. It's all mint AD&D books, modules and a mint Holmes box set. And now that he's playing, he's thinking about selling the stuff. That makes no sense to me. I'm drooling over it because I started collecting the AD&D stuff a few years ago and most of it is in ratty shape. I bought a Holmes book for $6.00 on ebay. That was a good deal.
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    From: The Nexus

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    Thu Apr 16, 2020 4:52 pm  

    I remember the encounter with the fall, but that's not what I'm talking about. Skech modified the encounter. It was definitely outdoors.

    I've been playing since 1979, so I have a lot of original stuff that I bought when it was initially published; including a copy of Dieties and Demigods with the Melnibone and Cthulhu gods.

    The Holmes boxed set was my first D&D product. My parents gave it to me for Christmas at the suggestion of the owner of the bookstore we routinely went to when I was a kid; she knew I liked fantasy novels and thought I'd like D&D. Mom and Dad hadn't heard the bad press about the game, and so gave it to me. I've been a fan ever since.

    The Holmes set will be pried only out of my dead, cold hands.

    My stuff is much used; not much of it could be considered mint. Fair condition, most of it because I wrote in the margins of a lot of the modules (pencil but still) adding my notes to personalize the adventures.

    When eBay first became a thing, you could get all kinds of D&D stuff there very cheaply. I was flush with a new job, and bought up all kinds of stuff. I even bought stuff in lots; people who were done with gaming and dumping their collections.

    The dealers moved in and prices skyrocketed. I would buy lots, usually fairly cheaply, and resell the stuff I already had in my collection. I was able to make back much of what I was spending that way, which really worked out for me.

    I also trimmed down my collection of gaming material a few years ago because I moved to a smaller house and just didn't have room. My 1st ed AD&D stuff, especially my Greyhawk stuff, I will hang on to until the day I die. I have just about everything.

    The Greyhawk stuff ... when I was doing the eBay thing ... was easy to get and not expensive.

    Forgotten Realms stuff went for top dollar, especially if the buyer was overseas. I had a lot of buyers in Germany because I was one of the few people at the time who would ship internationally. I once sold a map ... one sheet that was part of a set ... for $20. Incredible.
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