Troll Lord Games

Hi, guys. I'll be selling C&C product at 2-4 more cons this year, as well as demo'ing games. For my con in June, I have ran the following over the last two years. Wizard's Tower, Cloud Giant's Tower, Winding Stair(Dwarven Glory), Wyrm Well(DG), Looking Stones(DG), Lure of Delusion(twice), and They Call Him Guff. Some of these were last year. I'm left with the prospect of finding new con-length(4 hours max)adventures. Lure of Delusion, as short as it is, still clocks in a at a few pages long for a four hour session. The others were fine. I pretty much own all of the C&C modules, and most of them are waaaay too long. Suggestions that will fit the aforementioned time period would be appreciated. Three of them actually. I have to submit them soon. Thanks.

I'm really not the best for making my own. Plus, it's easier to look at any module, and assume that 3 or 4 pages is going to be plenty. Might have to break out Towers of Adventure and make my own. Stephen's Cool Waters pdf seems(as I recall)to be an encounter primarily.

Do you have the Brave Halfling modules, "The Secret of Ronan Skerry" and "The Ruins of Ramat"? Ronan Skerry can definitely fit into 4 hours if the group doesn't bog down. Ramat might be a little tight. Both are good for level 1-3 - third level characters would probably plow through Ramat more easily.

I think Sir Seskis ran Verdant Rage at a con a few years ago and seem to recall him saying that it went well.

As you say, you could always build a tower from Towers of Adventure, or perhaps spend an hour or so with Engineering Dungeons and come up with something random for a good old-fashioned crawl.

EDIT: if you're up for something a little more on-the-fly, I could send you notes on the adventure I used to launch my current campaign - a band of raiders from across the Inner Sea raid a town in the Hanse States, and the adventurers are pressed into service by the town guard to help fight them off.

I don't, honestly, see why the module has to be "finished" within 4 hours. Its a demo. I'd find one that had a variety of stuff, some fighting, some whatever, some more fighting, some killing of PCs and say let them do what they will. Trying to force it to "end" in a time frame, to me, seems like a choo-choo. I mean, unless it is a time-deadline module, like a murder mystery or "everyone has 2 hours to live thanks to poison gas in the temple of fish-heads..."

I own verdant rage. I need to check the page count. Seems like Peter Bradley ran Shadows of Halfling Hall when I first met him at Diecon 2005. I'm sure the page count was pretty hefty for a 4 hour session. I understand your points about the railroading, but ive found people like to have that sense of accomplishment. Thanks, Serl. I met our good friend with BHP recently. I'll have to check it out their offerings.

Serl, there is an expectation that a scheduled convention game is a self-contained adventure that can be conceivably completed in the allotted time. As tylermo indicates, players at conventions like that sense of accomplishment. While there's normally nothing wrong with subverting a player's expectations, when one is essentially evangelizing a game, it's arguably poor form to tick them off.

Tyler, another idea - do you have DB 4, The Conquered East? I ran a great demo once by having players conduct a sortie from the Central Bastion of Dro Mandras. There's a lot of good suggestions for possible missions in there that would be suitable for a four-hour slot, or even shorter if you're pressed.

The modules I'm used to seeing for conventions are things where the 'accomplishment' is surviving... or surviving longest.

A1, S1, T1-4...

But, oh well. I'd go with Dark Chateau. It's a small enough exploration that can be easily done in 4 hours.

I own all of the mod's. I'll look at Dark Chateau and DB 4. I'm also curious about The Golden Familiar, and Lion in the Ropes. Just pulled out Towers of Adventure, as well. I've got some 4th level pregens that are in serious need of makeovers. I have to make something that'll fit the time frame, and be the right level.

Here are two I've had the most fun with at cons with C&C:

The Obsidian Sands of Syncrates by Expeditious Retreat Press. The final fight needs to be tweaked a bit for C&C. I've run it 3 times at Cons this year and it has been a big hit.

The Crypt of Istaris Dungeon Magazine #9 and reprinted in Dragon #155. It has an in game timeline of four hours, which works great for cons. I've run it twice and frost ran it at least once.

I've used "Ruins of Ramat" and it worked great. One thing to account for, regardless which adventure you choose, is that a larger group is going to take more time.

Looks like The Rising Knight could possibly work if one gets the players right into the hook with minimal npc interaction. Most of the overland travel and random encounter tables would have to be hand waived, as well. I'd like to keep some of the strange things that happen every hour on one particular stretch of the journey. It looks like the two levels of the temple are spread out over 5 pages. I think Lure of Delusion was 5-9 pages, and clocked in at over 4 hours.

On a secondary note, I've gotten out Ward's Towers of Adventure. I've selected an Orc Tower, and a hook that relates to it. It's a hastily-constructed tower that threatens a nearby town. It's full of arrow slits, and siege engines. I see catapults in the tower floor plans and something else I can't make out. I'll have to determine what other inhabitants fill the tower. The other is a hag's tower. There's a floor plan, but I'll be damned if I can come up with a hook or a smidge of back story. Also, I have 5 or 6 4th level pregens, so I have to scale it appropriately. Each had to fit into a 4 hour session. Any ideas or suggestions?

I went to rpgnow to look at the Brave Halfling adventures. I have yet to purchase them because they clock in at 20 pages. I'm assuming the meat of the modules will be more like 10-15 pages. That'll probably be too long. The really short ones like the three Dwarven Glory mods, Guff, and the tower pdf's are the only ones that fit the time slot. At least I thou ink I'm getting some ideas now.

I wonder if the best thing to do for a time-limited complete game is to write up exactly one detailed encounter: the last one. Start the adventure in media res, and have a number of drop-in challenges that may or may not take place depending on the party's actions (random encounters, ambushes, tricksy locations). Make the detailed encounter able to trigger anytime, anywhere (even in the middle of one of the other challenges.) In this way, if you time things right, you'll be able to get your closure (if anyone survives).

Though, trying to help the party kill themselves with ever increasing challenges (usually the challenge is to not be lazy and assume that monsters will not take advantage of said laziness) does tend to end things too.

Or, somebody with TLG could just write some new con-length adventures. Lol

Not a bad idea either, man. I'll take it all under advisement. Still have to find my copy of dark chateau to look at the page count. Also, I have to scale an original scenarios. Not my forte, but I'll look at any tips in the core books.

Dark Chateau is 40 pages. Way too much gutting required for a 4 hour session.

Are you expecting them to try and live through, and explore, everything in a given module? If so, I would imagine that nothing would be able to be done in 4 hours, except maybe Tomb of Horrors, which will take about 10 minutes.

Guess I just have little practical experience with this, as the only times I ran modules at a con, it was a survival style game. Or, I played, not ran.

Ignore me. Just trying to figure out what the overall expectations are "supposed" to be.

I kind of agree with serleran - I don't necessarily think that adventure has to end in 4 hours. If it's a demo, as been stated, then I would think that as long as the system's showcased then that would be what matters. Something that would have some SIEGE checks, saving throws, and combat (of course) would be, in my opinion, something that would qualify as a good demo of the system.

That being said, if you can get an adventure that could be finished in the alloted time and still do all these things, then that would be the first choice, I'm sure. As for which adventure? There are plenty to choose from, but one option I don't think should be forgotten is taking a piece of an adventure and just play it. I'm not intimately familiar with too many C&C modules but one AD&D module I can think of is the Temple of Elemental Evil's moathouse. The adventure starts in town, the group having heard of a growing evil around some old ruins. After collecting some info, they head off to the moathouse for some adventure. The whole, sweeping epic of ToEE doesn't even have to be addressed, at least until the very end, if at all. Just something to keep in mind.