Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Retrospective: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords

I'll briefly reiterate what I wrote in my retrospective post of Slave Pits of the Undercity: I have conflicting feelings about the entirety of the "Slave Lords" series of modules. On the one hand, the central conceit of these adventures – taking down a cabal of slavers – is a terrific one very much in keeping with the pulp fantasy roots of Dungeons & Dragons. It's not hard to imagine Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser engaged in such an endeavor. On the other hand, the modules, as published, feel very contrived and formulaic, owing no doubt to their origins as GenCon tournament modules. There's good stuff in all four of the A-series modules, but none of them quite achieve their full potential in my opinion, which is a shame.

That's especially so in the case of the final module in the series, In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. Written by Lawrence Schick, the adventure is geared toward characters of levels 4–7, like all of its predecessors, though its introductory "Notes for the Dungeon Master" repeatedly points out that "the player's skill, not the character's level, will determine success." That's because it assumes the characters failed in their assault on the aerie of the slave lords (in the module of this name) and were taken captive. Rather than slay the PCs, the slave lords instead throw them into their dungeons, "totally bereft of equipment and spells." Schick comments on this initial situation as follows:

Many players think of their characters in terms of their powers and possessions, rather than as people. Such players will probably be totally at a loss for the first few minutes of play. It is likely that they will be angry at the DM for putting them in such an "unfair" situation. They will demand or beg concessions. DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY HELP, even if they make you feel sorry for them. Inform the players that they must rely on what they have, not what they used to have, and that this includes their brains and their five senses. Good players will actually welcome the challenge of this scenario. All players will ultimately enjoy the module much more if they out on their own resources, rather than with what hints and clues the DM gives them.

Schick accurately predicted the reactions of my friends with whom I played; they were incensed to have had all their characters' gear taken away. I suspect this reaction was commoner if the module was used as part of regular campaign play, as it was in mine, than in a tournament situation, whose players, in my limited experience, are more accepting of such contrivances. Much more interesting, though, is Schick's insistence that the referee neither give the players any help nor feel sorry for them. "Good players," he intones, "will … welcome the challenge." He was accurate in that prediction as well. Once they got past the initial shock of their characters being tossed, nearly naked and unarmed, into dark, dank, caverns, they started to have fun figuring out how best to survive. 

That's the main reason why I consider In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords perhaps the most interesting of the A-series modules: it does something unique, namely force the players to use their wits to keep their characters alive. Of course, it probably helps that many of the opponents in the eponymous dungeons are fairly weak – kobolds and giant insects of various kinds – but there are still enough genuine threats to keep them on their toes. This is no cakewalk.

And then there are the myconids, for which I have an inordinate fondness. There's just something about mushrooms and fungi generally that I not only find weirdly appealing but that screams "fantasy!" to me. I suppose my boyhood reading of Lewis Carroll played a role in this peculiar fixation of mine. Regardless, I love the myconids, who are not wholly indifferent to the characters' plight. Indeed, if they agree to perform a service to the myconid king, it will reveal to them an easier means of escaping the dungeons. I have always liked the inclusion of neutral factions in dungeons and Schick does a good job, I think, of showing the potential inherent in such encounters.

The conclusion of the module involves a final confrontation with the slave lords amidst a volcanic eruption that is destroying the villains' home base. Like many aspects of the module, it's all rather contrived and, in my opinion, something of an anticlimax not just to this module but to the whole series. Mind you, disappointment is my overall feeling about these adventures. There's unquestionable potential in them, along with a number of genuinely clever sections and elements, but, in the end, the whole winds up being much less than its parts. I can't help but think that, with a bit more work, the A-series could have been truly memorable, on par with the truly great modules of D&D's past. 

12 comments:

  1. I probably like A1 and A2 better.
    By the way:
    Wotc produced an A0 module for the collected reprint, and Dungeon Magazine had sort of "A0.5" and "A5, both of which have been penned by Robert Schwalb, I think.

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    1. Full review of the Against the Slavers book here:

      http://rlyehreviews.blogspot.com/2014/01/against-slave-lords.html

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  2. Agreed. Who doesn't love killing slavers? But these were way to tournament and not enough sandbox.

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    1. Slavers are the perfect enemy. You never feel like you might be doing the wrong thing fighting them.

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  3. I modified these considerably when I ran them, as well as changing myconids to some other creatures. I had the opposite reaction to yours. The name myconid and their appearance seemed too Sci-Fi for me and took me out of the Fantasy.

    I completely reworked the series years later to run it for Star Wars D6, freeing slaves of the Hutt crime lords.

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  4. A fellow named "Silverquick" has made versions of these modules using the dungeon maker tools in the computer game Solasta: Crown of the Magister (which uses the open source version of the 5th edition D&D rules). I haven't played them, but given the limitations of CRPGs in general - and Solasta's toolset specifically - tournament modules might be more workable than other adventures in the CRPG context.

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  5. I love A4, we played the heck out of it. One of the most memorable modules I've played & then run. Blew my mind with all the trippy things down in the caves & how the hell to get yourself out of there.

    The bad guys are formidable & easy to grok- Slippery Ketta, Theg Narlott, you know what each one is about right away.

    The chaos in the docks... the building eruption... that freaky ant bridge... and as noted, you can seek allies and come at the ending a dozen different ways.

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  6. I know you're not much for miniatures, but if you ever get the itch I heartily recommend Mortal Arrows' extensive selection of fungal critters. Excellent quality, and there are few things more fun to paint than fungi owing to the amount of leeway you have in their color scheme.

    https://www.mortalarrow.com/bazaar/mortal-arrow-miniatures/

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    1. Those are cool. Thanks for sharing. Now can you get them to fix the spelling of "Academy" on their site?

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    2. @Dead_Parrot Afraid I'm the wrong person to critique his spelling. He had me paint a number of the figs from that myconid Kickstarter for use in catalog photos, but apparently decided he didn't like the images I sent him, used some other gent's instead, and I've never heard from him since despite sending a few emails about what he wanted me to do with the figs I'd done. Been years now and I still can't quite bring myself to resell them on the off chance he wanted them back. Kind of annoying, but I still keep boosting for his store. Dopey me, I guess.

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  7. I disliked A4 intensely at the time and continue to dislike it to this day.

    Despite the assertion that good players would welcome the challenge of losing all their character's possessions, I didn't enjoy it at all.

    Perhaps I wasn't a good player. Or perhaps I'm just honest.

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