D&D has been around for a heck of a long time and over the years there has been a ton of great material published.  Unfortunately the rules keep changing, not just as new editions of the game are released, but also as each edition evolves.

This means that material can quickly become outdated to the rules.  So what do you do if you have a lot of older books laying around with cool stories that you loved but which you can’t play under the current system?

One option is to take the plunge and completely update the adventure to the new system.  This can be great fun and very rewarding but it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.  It is a great way to learn the rules of a new system, but it just isn’t always practical.  If you play regularly you probably won’t have time to make this kind of a huge switch.

Another option that you may want to try is to keep the story the same and make some shortcuts.

1) Only flesh out the key NPC’s.  The boss and key people the players need to talk to will require full-blown stats.

2) Turn all of the other encounters into generic encounters appropriate for the level you are playing.  Orcs don’t play the same in 1st edition as they do in 3rd or 4th edition, so you may just want to pull them out altogether and drop in kobolds or goblins.  The players will not know the difference.  Even building and using a random encounter deck as suggested in the Dungeon Master’s guide can substitute for a lot of manual re-tooling of encounters.

3)You may have to wing it with traps.  There were a lot of strange traps and devices in older editions.  Leave them in but change the damage to something that makes sense in the current edition.  Especially with the old “save or die” challenges you will want to make it a damage appropriate challenge instead.  Generally this can be done at the table during game-time rather than pouring through tons of books.  Just make a note Attk +8 2d6 damage or something to that effect.

4)Curses and special effects.  4th edition is much more player friendly than earlier editions so things like cursed weapons and objects have pretty much disappeared.  This means that if you are updating an old adventure will will probably just have to drop them altogether.  In the old days it was common to pick up a sword and be turned into a troll or have your ears grow long and droop to your knees.  This isn’t expected to happen in the new game so unless your players understand that it might be coming it will be viewed as unfair to keep these surprises in.

These points can turn a month-long overhaul into a few hours of preparation and still keep a great old story.

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“We have been searching online for a D&D dedicated resource and when we found DnD Corner and this is a great D&D blog!” – Claire and the rest of the texas holdem poker team. Besides playing poker, they play a lot of D&D on their spare time.

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Sometimes it is tempting, for a variety of reasons, for a DM to want to roll the dice for the players.

Shocking?

Absurd?

A good idea?

In general players love to roll dice.  It is part of what makes the game fun.  Watching those little bits of plastic roll across the table give the game a tactile sensation that is just plain lacking in a computer RPG.  It really enhances the suspense.  Shaking those dice, hoping, wishing, praying that it isn’t a 1 or that you may get that desperately needed 20.

But then you have people cheating or completely incompetent or who just [...] Continue Reading…

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The party approaches an old keep.  There is a crumbling out wall.  The party has discovered footprints and a wily character among them has determined that kobolds are in the are.  The party is pretty sure the kobolds are guarding the small courtyard leading into the keep but aren’t 100% sure of their location.

Basic D&D
The party consists of 1 Elf, 1 Magic-User, 1 Halfling, and 1 Cleric.  The person playing the halfing is the noob, but you already guessed that.

The party stops and listens.  The elf makes the listen check and hears the kobolds moving.  They know where they [...] Continue Reading…

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So I got an email from the creators of Spellfury to get an opinion of their latest release.  Honored as I am that my opinion would count for something I’m not sure what to say.

My previous review of spellfury hasn’t changed in opinion at all.  It is still the super-low budget get together with a video camera and some editing software and have some fantasy fun that it always was.  In this episode we get a bit of the back story.  Aparently the elf chick’s father was slaughtered at the family home and she is out to get revenge [...] Continue Reading…

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Basic D&D
Please, please, please, please make my save vs. dragon breath.  Yes!  What, I still die.  You suck!  This game sucks!  I hate you all!  Grumbles and rolls new character sheet.

1st/2nd edition AD&D
Please, please, please, please make my save vs. dragon breath.  Yes!  What, I still die.  You suck!  This game sucks!  I hate you all!  Grumbles and rolls new character sheet.

3.x edition
Fortunately I min/maxed against this very possibility.  One hit, in the right place should do the trick.  What, you gave him class levels?  Prestige classes?  You bastard?  Fort save?  What?  Oh this roll had better be a [...] Continue Reading…

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Basic D&D
Magic-User/Elf: Fireball!  All mobs grovel before me or perish!
Fighter:  It thought you said that at level 3 with phantasmal force.
Magic-User: Oh yeah, I guess I did.  What are you complaining for you XP leach?  Maybe you can dodge a fireball, shall we find out?

1st/2nd edition AD&D
DM: Fireball!

3.x edition
Wizard:  What?  They so nerfed fireball.  This sucks.  This so sucks.  Dammit I’m going to play a cleric.
Cleric:  What?  They so nerfed hold person.  This so sucks.  Dammit I’m going to play a wizard.
Fighter:  Whoa, iterative attacks at level 6.  This rocks!  Suck it you spell casting sissies, I’m going to [...] Continue Reading…

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Basic D&D
Cleric:  Woot!  I’m level 3 already.  Rolls d6 and copies in new attack and save numbers.
Magic User: Finally level 2.  Now I can cast sleep twice a day!  Rolls d4 and curses the dice.
Fighter/Dwarf: Level 2 , cool.  Better attacks and more HP. Rolls d8.
Halfling:  What, only a stupid d6 for HP?  What kind of a fighter is this?  You guys told me a Halfling was good.  You bastards!
Thief:  Level 3, cool.  You know it does get kind of tedious re-copying these skill charts every level.  Anybody else have to do this?
Elf:  Leveling up?  I think I need [...] Continue Reading…

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The party finds a locked treasure chest.  They are all pretty sure that it is trapped, but they also know it has the treasure they have been looking for.

Basic D&D
The party consists of 1 Elf, 1 Magic-User, 1 Halfling, and 1 Cleric.

The party convinces the Halfling that he should pry open the chest with the 10 foot pole he brought along while they wait in the corridor outside.  When they hear his body they go in and loot the chest and the Halfling.  They get 100pp 636gp and two gems worth 300gp and 550gp.  They rejoice, dividing the loot [...] Continue Reading…

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Okay, so the debate has waxed hot around the internet, so I’m going to add my grease to the fire in the next series of posts.  Try not to take me too seriously because, as with everything else I do this exercise is about finding the fun.

Sample the first:  character creation.

Basic D&D

Roll 3d6 six times.  Put your lowest score into Charisma.  Put your highest score into your class’s prime requisite.  Copy down your saving throws and attack numbers.  Roll starting gold.  Buy equipment.  Ten minutes later you are in the dungeon.

1st/2nd Edition AD&D

Roll 4d6 six times.  Put your lowest [...] Continue Reading…

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Looking for another collection of campaign ideas?  Need a storyline?  Got something you want to share but you don’t want to start yet another D&D site that is just going to die out in 2 weeks?  Maybe you should try legendarygate.com.

Legendary Gate is a new online tool designed to help collect and distribute campaign ideas, adventures, campaigns, and all that good stuff.

Legendary Gate will, of course, not solve all of your problems and it may not be the tool for you, but like so many other things in the DM toolbox, there is a time and a place for [...] Continue Reading…

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There are a lot of roles out there that are very fun to play.  Most of us prefer to play the action oriented damage dealing sorts.  I was not surprised when we put together our first 4th edition party everyone (and I do mean everyone) chose a strike role for their first character.  I was also likewise not surprised when they all decided this was a bad idea and started mixing it up a bit.

One of the main problems was nobody wanted to be the healer.  Being the healer isn’t always very glamorous.  You don’t generally get to dish [...] Continue Reading…

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One of the things that can be frustrating to players is that they simply get stuff that they don’t need or want for their characters.  Either the magic items simply aren’t useful or they don’t have the right potions or they simply prefer using an axe to a magic sword.  By the same token as a DM it can be really frustrating when the players just don’t have what they need to perform well in the dungeon that you have spent forever planning.

Putting some time into the shops in your world can go a long way towards solving these [...] Continue Reading…

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Fundamentally all table top games are about interacting with other people.  It doesn’t matter if you are playing Monopoly, Magic The Gathering or Dungeons and Dragons.  Being able to understand what other people at the table are thinking is an invaluable skill in any game but can be especially useful in Dungeons and Dragons where player interaction has far fewer restrictions than most other games.

If you are running the game, being able to pull of a lie at a table full of savvy players can be really difficult but at the same time very important in order to maintain [...] Continue Reading…

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So this is for all those of you out there not interested in paying the Wizards of the Coast Use tax in order to use their character builder/managment software.

MWMDragon over at www.dungeonsdragons.selfip.com has created a new database specifically for storing your 4th edition character information, which of course can be useful for a variety of different applications.  Personally (if I weren’t paying the WOTC tax) I would use it because I keep all of my data electronically and it would be a convenient way of storing said data w/o worrying if my hard drive is going to crash.

MWMDragon said [...] Continue Reading…

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