Monday, March 5, 2012

The somewhat overdue post about the Temple of Elemental Evil...

Well, it has been an interesting ride.  For almost two years, the gaming group I am part of on Sundays finally took down the Temple of Elemental Evil last night.  It has been a LONG haul.  Taking down the temple is a trial-by-fire, a badge on honor amongst old school gamers.  The only thing that could gain more fame is if we tackled the Tomb of Horrors and came out intact.

Yet, our DM is stepping down for a time to refocus and find something else.  He has had the temple on his mind for about five years now, tried to run it three times.  Third time is the charm I believe.  (Well, technically four since we did re-boot it-but hey whatever...)

It feels good to have finished something as epic as the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Now, I know that there might be some people out there that will say, "Isn't there a sequel to it?"  In a way, yes there is and in a way, no.

There was something called "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil," a very thick book that I own and have looked through.  It has some amazing ideas, yet I can't say it is a sequel.  It is a module that uses some of the same ideas, similar places and has a little bit of the same feel.  Yet, the way I see it, "Return" is a separate entity  from "Temple," IMO.

The past month or so, I have been ramping up my own DM thoughts on what I want to run for this group.  I have been running a game on Google+, which is fun and I am going to be using the same world I am using in that game as I am for the Sunday group.  Yet, with a different rule set.  The Sunday game is going to be 1st edition AD&D, with some variations and house-rules that I know will come up at some point and time.  I will probably post them here as well.

The game system is somewhat new to me.  I say somewhat because I have played 2nd Ed. for many years.  Is it the same thing?  By no means.  Yet, I feel the core of it is the same.  Plus, something Gygax stated in the foreword to 1st was "These are guidelines, not set in stone."  It is implied that these rules are allowed to be used or discarded however we wish.  Since I have recently jumped on the bandwagon of the DIY gaming, I look at all rules as things I can plunder and use for my own games.  It might be 1st Edition in the beginning, yet I see the game morphing already.

We shall see...

2 comments:

  1. Can't express how much I love that module and how much fun we had failing at it. I did look up the sequel to it, 'Return to...' but apparently it didn't live up to the original or the expectations.

    I guess that's where the old saying of, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it!' comes into it's own?

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  2. The Return module has a few interesting ideas. And, that is about all.

    I know what you mean about loving it. It was a great deal of fun, yet there was a grind for such a long time that I was glad that we finished.

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