A History of the Temple of the Frog

[Havard]

I have written an article on the Temple of the Frog here at the Blackmoor Archives:
http://blackmoor.mystara.net/templeofthefrog.html

-Havard

[Thondor]

Perhaps worth including a direct link to the MMRPG PDF?

Which is here. Season 2, Episode 34.

[Havard]

Perhaps worth including a direct link to the MMRPG PDF?

Which is here. Season 2, Episode 34.

Thanks!

Good idea about including a link. I will include that for the next update

-Havard

[aldarron]

Its another good write up Havard. I think it could be expanded a bit and I don't quite agree with this bit

" the adventure was written with Dave's original system in mind. This meant among other things that the adventure assumed bringing several units of soldiers along with the adventurers."

I don't think DA assumed anything. I also don't think Dave's players used hirelings very often on adventures. A great example is Rob and Gary's adventure in the City of the Gods. It's pretty clear that that place is teaming with defenders just like ToTF, and DA's major complaint about how Robilar and Mordenkainen handled themselves was that they weren't sneaky enough.

Thing is, I've run ToTF straight with small groups of mid level adventurers, and each time the party was able to sneak into the temple and get away clean afterward. The notion put out some years ago (and somehow still circulating) that ToTF was a CHAINMAIL scenerio is simply misguided. Arneson's ToTF is a setting, not a "module". If PC's go up to the temple and start knocking on the door it is there own fault if they get slaughtered. I think the dungeon is actually a great one for a typical party to explore - carefully.

[Havard]

Its another good write up Havard. I think it could be expanded a bit and I don't quite agree with this bit

" the adventure was written with Dave's original system in mind. This meant among other things that the adventure assumed bringing several units of soldiers along with the adventurers."

I don't think DA assumed anything. I also don't think Dave's players used hirelings very often on adventures. A great example is Rob and Gary's adventure in the City of the Gods. It's pretty clear that that place is teaming with defenders just like ToTF, and DA's major complaint about how Robilar and Mordenkainen handled themselves was that they weren't sneaky enough.

Thing is, I've run ToTF straight with small groups of mid level adventurers, and each time the party was able to sneak into the temple and get away clean afterward. The notion put out some years ago (and somehow still circulating) that ToTF was a CHAINMAIL scenerio is simply misguided. Arneson's ToTF is a setting, not a "module". If PC's go up to the temple and start knocking on the door it is there own fault if they get slaughtered. I think the dungeon is actually a great one for a typical party to explore - carefully.

Thanks Dan!

I think you make some excellent points here. I have been a bit busy these last few months, but I want to go back and revise this article taking some of your points into account. I like your comparison to the City of the Gods adventure.

Was it not common for the Blackmoor PCs to bring a bunch of hirelings/soldiers with them though?

-Havard

[aldarron]

Was it not common for the Blackmoor PCs to bring a bunch of hirelings/soldiers with them though?

-Havard

Offhand I can't think of a single anecdote of an adventure (as opposed to a wargame scenerio) by any of the original players or by Arneson where NPC hirelings were mentioned. Might have been, but I don't think it was common.

[Malchor]

Was it not common for the Blackmoor PCs to bring a bunch of hirelings/soldiers with them though?

-Havard

Offhand I can't think of a single anecdote of an adventure (as opposed to a wargame scenerio) by any of the original players or by Arneson where NPC hirelings were mentioned.  Might have been, but I don't think it was common.

The group that seemed to have used hirelings and henchmen was the Greyhawk gang. They also seem to have pressed captured dungeon monsters into service taking them back to their own holdings.

Something to point out, the hireling/henchmen rules in Men & Magic, and the men-at-arm/professionals rules confuse a lot of people. 100 GP/level (though never explaining if that is per dungeon delve, for as long as you are delving the dungeon, per month or something else) vs a few gold per month. One explanation is the former if for dungeon delves which is more dangerous and the latter is for staffing your keep with flunkies. Another thought is, what if the latter is from Blackmoor and the former is from Greyhawk. Just a thought.

[Havard]

Was it not common for the Blackmoor PCs to bring a bunch of hirelings/soldiers with them though?

-Havard

Offhand I can't think of a single anecdote of an adventure (as opposed to a wargame scenerio) by any of the original players or by Arneson where NPC hirelings were mentioned.  Might have been, but I don't think it was common.

The group that seemed to have used hirelings and henchmen was the Greyhawk gang. They also seem to have pressed captured dungeon monsters into service taking them back to their own holdings.

Something to point out, the hireling/henchmen rules in Men & Magic, and the men-at-arm/professionals rules confuse a lot of people. 100 GP/level (though never explaining if that is per dungeon delve, for as long as you are delving the dungeon, per month or something else) vs a few gold per month. One explanation is the former if for dungeon delves which is more dangerous and the latter is for staffing your keep with flunkies. Another thought is, what if the latter is from Blackmoor and the former is from Greyhawk. Just a thought.

This is very interesting!
One anecdote that I think influenced my understanding of how these games were run was Greg's story about his first dungeon adventure where he was the sle survivor of the attack. I could be wrong, but I assumed many of the characters killed were NPCs.

I also sort of guessed that this is how they kept their "Explorer characters" alive before Bob Meyer complained about how they didn't have hit points and one hit meant the characters were killed.

Unit style play would also probably be a legacy from wargaming in general and also implied in Braunstein and definitely in Chainmail.

-Havard