Back to Basics

So we’ve had some changes to our player lineup, a short break due to my travels, ended our last Hellfrost session on a bit of a sour note, and had a visiting player from out-of-town joining us. I didn’t, given this situation, want to run the normal Hellfrost campaign but we certainly wanted to do some gaming since Pat, our visitor, doesn’t really get to game much (if at all) in those lovely North Carolina mountains that he now calls home. So…what to do?

I could go into the whole thought process that led to my ultimate decision but that would turn out to be both too long and too convoluted for even my closest friends and players to stomach reading through. So, I’ll keep it short…I elected to run some Basic D&D. The one edited by Tom Moldvay with the Erol Otus cover with a green dragon fighting two adventurers and a white circle with a black number one in the upper left corner.

Out came the 3d6 and away we went. We ended up with a Thief (Loki played by Pat), a Dwarf (Charity played by Rachel), a Halfling (Bambi Hairybottom played by Jamie), a Fighter (Pedro played by Thomas), and a Cleric (Preston played by Todd)…a Cleric with an 18 STR and 17 CHA I might add. There were a few 7 and 8s scattered amongst the player characters’ ability scores and one 4 in WIS but no one had an exceptionally bad set of scores.

The player characters just happened to be walking up a certain rocky path to a certain gate of a certain Keep on some Borderlands that was manned by some blue-clad men-at-arms shouting down for the PCs names and business (i.e., I was running Keep on the Borderlands). We spent many hours of the session roleplaying through the Keep and the PCs getting to know each other a bit before the newly formed party headed off for certain caves.

The characters found the caves and entered one. Shortly thereafter, they heard a voice shouting in a language, Goblin, that only Charity understood, “Intruders!” No goblins were visible at first but soon made themselves seen. The goblins won initiative, moved forward into better spear range (and within the party’s torchlight), and four tossed their spears at the two closest characters, Charity and Loki. Three of the four hit. Loki, despite having rolled max hit points, only had three Hit Points due to a poor CON. The first spear did two points of damage and the second did…doesn’t matter, Loki only had one Hit Point left and so dropped.

Charity and Preston rushed forward to engage the Goblins while Bambi took cover behind the fallen Loki and Pedro went to get one of the spears in Loki to toss back at the goblins. One (or was it two?) goblins were killed in the players’ first attacks.

The goblins won initiative again in the next round. Bolstered by their already having killed one of the intruders, they stood their ground and kept fighting (i.e., they made their morale check). Preston ended up on the wrong end of a rather successful spear attack and was killed. The characters killed more goblins and the goblins’ morale broke and the sole survivor ran off deeper into the caves.

With two companions already dead, the survivors quickly searched the goblins for valuables, stripped their fallen of valuables and equipment, and quickly departed the caves. Hoping to find some more fellow adventurers to bolster their numbers, lick their wounds and heal up, and get some new equipment with their initial treasures recovered, the party headed back to the Keep.

As it was already late, we ended after that encounter. Todd rolled up an Elf and Pat rolled up a Magic-User. It was quite fun…at least I thought so…and I’ve kind of made a unilateral GM decision that we’re going to do this for a few more sessions. We’re definitely NOT giving up on the Hellfrost campaign or Savage Worlds. I do, however, like the idea of playing more than one system and, for players who have primarily played 3rd Edition D&D, I think that getting back to basics is a good choice and will actually help them improve their skills as players.

Although we used the Moldvay edition for this session, I might switch to Labyrinth Lord primarily because it is something that is readily available (and freely available…for the no art version). That way, if any of the players want to read through the rules, they can easily get a copy. I have to read through the rules first though…only just started last night after the session.

Hellfrost will resume in a few weeks.