Gird yourselves, friends, because we’re trash-talking a forty-four-year-old module today: A3 AKA Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords!
Spoilers ahead!
So, as you may know, we’ve been slogging (and I do mean slogging) through A1 and A2 over the last little while, using OSE. Now, I wouldn’t recommend doing this, but we did. So let’s talk about it.
First off, let me say nothing will clear your head of the Lindy-effect bullshit worship of the way DnD used to be than actually playing some of these old modules. They are beyond rough by modern standards, and I’m not just talking about the block-o’-text layout style or the paid-by-the-word style of the prose.
Some of this is excusable; this was originally a ‘tournament’ module, and it’s meant to be run at a pretty breakneck pace.
Some of it is not.
A3’s Greatest Sins
Most of these are complaints about the initial dungeon, but there are other failings here. Let us count the ways.
- If you want to play A4, you must be captured. Railroad to defeat? Awful!
- The opening ‘labyrinth’ is a series of ten sequential rooms. Your players never make a navigational choice with a consequence more meaningful than ‘you wasted time finding this dead end’. Boo!
- Plenty of the traps (Firewall in room A5 and the Spike Door in room A8) will kill a character outright. Damage levels are clearly calibrated to a ‘welp, thanks for playing, get out of here’ convention style of play.
- Other Traps (Salt slide between A1 and A2, Magnetic effect or goo effect in A5) basically make a character useless for 5 Turns. The Slow effect is particularly unforgiving, but with a 1-in-8 Random Encounter frequency, any five-turn delay turns into a rather humdrum Random Encounter.
- Making the final battle of the labyrinth an illusionist is a really disappointing end. You get through a demon-gnoll king only to find he’s a gnome? The ankylosaurus is a rust monster (okay, I know that one is an in-joke)? These are let-downs. They make the players feel less cool, and that’s less fun.
- The city section is a hot mess. The idea that you’re going to crack the coded suggestions and find these secret doors is an eye-roller. For a city of slavers, you’d think there would be more disgruntled slaves around to help you.
- Random Encounters are totally nonsensical. There’s a Leprechaun! Why? Who cares! Honestly, he was the best part of our play-through.
Now, in fairness, this module is eight years older than I am. The game has come a long way; just look at some modern OSE-type modules. But this one is a real stinker. Worse than A1 and A2, by a mile. Only worth buying as a historical curiosity — and even then, I’d rather go with Caverns of Thracia or something to scratch that type of itch!
Final Verdict?
HARD NO!
Am I wrong? Stupid? Arguing in bad faith? Set the record straight and leave a comment below. Or maybe I’m right, you recognize my obvious brilliance, you feel bad that I had to run A3, and you want to make things right. Buy something I wrote! Maybe write a six-point takedown of it for your blog, I don’t know. Or just keep reading the blog; try this Blood Prairie Campaign Recap.