Dungeons and Dragons Blog

I know I promised you the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook, but I have a personal reason for changing gears.  Instead, we’re going to look at a quality product from Goodman Games called Idylls of the Rat King.  This is the first in a series of adventures called Dungeon Crawl Classics.

When I was a kid, we never really role played well.  We didn’t know what it was called it at the time, but we dungeon crawled.  We went from room to room, clearing things out.  Several of the old Greyhawk modules catered to this and while most had a plot behind the module, we ignored it.  Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics do the same thing.  They’re heavy on combat with less emphasis on NPC interaction and things always end up going down in a dungeon.

Not there isn’t a plot because there’s a good one.  The characters start up in a mining town (Silverton) where the silver caravans have been held up due to goblin raids.  Some aren’t your standard goblins because they’ve been infected by a wererat.  The goblins have taken up residence in an old abandoned silver mine.  Seems the leader has a grudge against the town, which adds an extra dimension to the whole thing. 

The module offers a few different hooks to get things started and you even get a solid history of the town.  The silver mine has four solid levels full of monsters and a handful of some interesting traps.  There’s also a ton of my favorite, secret doors.  And then of course at the end, you square off against the main bad guy.

All in all, this is a great adventure for both seasoned players and new players.  New players will like it because they’ll be able to get their tactics down without having to role play too much and seasoned players will recognize the old schoolness of the module and have pleasant flashbacks of their early days of Dungeons and Dragons.

Great stuff.