Module Review - S2 White Plume Mountain

Title: White Plume Mountain
Code: S2
Author: Lawrence Schick
Rule Set: D&D
Year: 1979
Pages: 16
Number of characters: 4-10
Levels: 5-10
Rating: ★★★★☆

White Plume Mountain is part of the Special series. It is meant for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and expects a large number of characters at relatively high level. Interestingly enough, the scenario spells out that many adventures into the dungeon will be required and may cause a rotation of adventurers through many sessions. That is a nice touch. I like the long term play and replay-ability.

This style of play is engrossing as early failures and setbacks to the player characters are muted by the ability to retreat to complete safety of the nearby town. This is very different than most dungeon crawls, where characters must horde limited resources. Instead, players find themselves on a quest to obtain 3 magical items: Wave, Blackrazor and Whelm, protected by powerful masters and inventive puzzles and challenges. Backtracking enables inspired progress, resupply and fairly realistic game play. This adventure takes the learning curve for games and makes it a positive. White Plume Mountain is more like The Moonshot than D-Day.

This module also features wonderful artwork. My personal favorite is the fighter on page 6. It isn’t the best, but captures the character's reaction so perfectly. The fighter’s “WTF” look is classic: “Who jumps platform to platform over hellishly hot mud? Everything in fighter school trained me not to do this.” The images for Blackrazor, the Mountain itself and Keraptis are iconic of classic Dungeons and Dragons.

Where to Buy:
DriveThru RPG
As a part of a set, S1-4. or as a stand alone product. I really must by this. I really need to stop impulse buying. I'm am so gonna buy this.
DriveThru RPG also has Dungeon Tiles and a new version for 3.5 Adventures.

Module Review - B2 The Keep on the Borderlands

Title: The Keep on the Borderlands

Code: B2

Author: Gary Gygax

Rule Set: D&D

Year: 1979 and 1999

Pages:

Number of characters:

Levels: 1-3

Rating: ★★★★★

This is one of my favorites, the star rating says it all. The Keep hovers on the edge of sandbox wilderness, one that is your to explore. The Keep is the perfect place to kick off an adventure, the players can obtain all they need to fully explore the environs.

As a carryover from B1, the advice sections are present and highly valuable. There are also handy details such as gossip and the willingness of the lord of the Keep to provide the player characters with man-at-arms and magical items.

Where this module shines is in the tactics provided for each group the characters encounter. Some of them are embryonic or silly, but in keeping with the intelligence level (or madness) of the inhabitants of the Caves of the Unknown.

One of the better things about this adventure is the player mapping is logically constrained, allowing them to make mistakes, but not so bad as to create a mapping nightmare like In Search of the Unknown.  

Where to buy: DriveThru RPG

Fun Pictures at the Buffalo Zoo

Panama Rocks!

Located in Panama NY, this private park is a wonder of New York. The rock formations are millions of years old.

416 million years old to be precise. At that time, America was a part of the Euramerica supercontinent and was rotated 90 degrees so that the north of Canada was facing east and Mexico was in the west. Euramerica was located on the equator and a vast sea covered the continent from Utah in the west to deep into what would become Southern Canada in the east. The formation called Panama Rocks was a shoreline of a rocky island in the southern reaches of this inland sea.

Euramerica

Plants (and fish) dominated the Earth in this era, to the point where plants completely changed the CO2 and O2 levels, resulting in an Ice Age. Euramerica drifted north and westward and the sea dried up. Drifting east over millions of years, great upheavals and earthquakes lifted the shoreline to its current height of 1500+ feet over current sea levels. By the time of dinosaurs, Euramerica was no more. It had broken in two and formed the continents of Europe and North America, with Greenland in the middle.

Within the last 20,000 years, the last ice age ended leaving New York and Panama Rocks in their current state. What a wonder!

In modern times, the park has been in the ownership of several private groups. Approximately 100 years ago, the park was a Honeymoon getaway spot. After a period of inactivity in WWII, the park buildings and environs were renovated and improved by a series of owners. The most recent improvements occurred in 2011.

Rotary Rink - Downtown Buffalo

Rotary Rink in Downtown Buffalo is a wonderful day trip for the kids.

The rink offers skating for free and skate rentals at just $3.00 for adults and $2.00 for children. Skating is causal, but attendants make sure everyone follows the very simple rules - Skate one way, not to fast, don't bump or charge people.

Periodically, the rink closes for the Zamboni. This is a natural break point to go inside and warm up or pop over to Tim Horton's. These pictures were taken in 2013, and we decided on Coffee Culture as a resting spot. Unfortunately, Coffee Culture is no longer located there. It was a beautiful place.