Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Review and Actual Play Of 'The Dungeon From A Distant Star' A Pay What You Want OSR Resource/adventure For Your Old School Sword & Planet Campaigns



Tonight I got roped into a game of  my Post Apocalyptic Mars campaign using the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg system. This has been an on and off game that's gone on for some months with Peter's group. We've set this game in a slightly different time frame then my other group's Stars Without Number game. While it's set on the same planet, its a different time frame and the focus is really on the tribal mutant Martians who are trying to survive in this hostile environment. Enter the adventurers to screw things up.
Because of time and space storms often times there will be groups of Hyperborean adventurers who are swept into the deserts of Mars.
The players tonight were run ragged through a whole host of issues thanks to the one page dungeon, Dungeon From a Distant Star 

Available Right Over HERE

Blurb From Drivethrurpg : 
Buried underground for hundreds of years lies a spaceship from the 3rd planet in the Altair system. While heavily damaged, the ship still has power for many of its systems and doors and lights are still fully operational in most sections. Will you be the first to explore The Dungeon From A Distant Star and uncover it's otherworldly secrets?
An old school one-page dungeon including dungeon map, legend, wandering monsters, random tables and descriptions for 23 separate rooms.

It was incredibly easy to get the PC's involved in this one. A wizard contracts the group of seven PC's including a lone Martian Red Warrior/fighter. To recover artifacts and treasures from a ship that has crashed upon a distant red desert planet. The one page dungeon really got the PC's into the thick of a very nasty dungeon that seemed to take the better part of the night starting at six Pm until almost midnight to explore.
I threw in a group of Red low lander renegade warriors who were running a raid on the PC's and a few mutant Banths. Things ran very well. The actual dungeon is very well written and quite easy to run. For a one page dungeon this one has gotten a lot of play time at my table. 
While this is a complete dungeon there is still a lot of spaces to fill in for your players. Seriously here the material is well balanced but the DM is going to need to fill in some of the blank spaces on the map in this one. That wasn't a problem for my group of seven rag tag adventurers. This group of third level cut throats and scaly wags were mostly thieves as well as sword wielding psychopathic warriors with a sprinkling of two wizards of which is one of AS&SH wizard/fighter combos. 


 The writer did a nice job with this one page dungeon, giving just about enough to give it favor and a sold background but allowing the DM to tailor it enough so that it can be used over and over again. Because of the OSR style of the material in this one its easy to adapt for a wide variety of games. This will be the seventh time I've run it and everytime can be a bit different because of the customization with the material in the D
After playing through the adventure, the group is not sure if their going to stay or go home. More coming up soon. 

2 comments:

  1. I've thought about using AS&SH with other settings myself.

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  2. The secret to using AS&SH for other settings is to make sure you connect the setting that you want to place your PC's into connected with Hyperborea. The setting for AS&SH actually has more then a few hooks that enable you to do just that. Give the amount of character classes that are in AS&SH it's only natural to want to use them in other sword and sorcery or sword and planet adventures. Funny thing is that Marvel comics from the Seventies often placed their heroes such as Conan and others in a wide variety of circumstances often to betterment of the comic.
    Thanks for the comment, I'll be using AS&SH in its natural setting very soon.

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