(Play) OD&D - Spawning Grounds of the Crab-Men

The Stat Sheet

The Snapshot

• Found some cool looking crab-shell canoes
• Canoes swarmed by albino rats and 2 people die
• Gill put almost everyone and himself to sleep, including the rats
• Made it to shore before capsizing!
• Split the party! Half the group found a pack of troglodytes, the other a pack of crab-men
• Feared the pack of troglodytes, murdered the crab-men
• Confronted Crazy Clonk (and probably would have died)

The System

My first session at Precognition was the opportunity to play Original Dungeons & Dragons, specifically the rules in the 3 little brown booklets. I must admit, I still don't know much about it, haha, other than primarily combat and how to cast a couple of spells. The first system I played was 3.5e, so discovering OD&D was neat. However, I can see some elements that have carried through to this day in places such as B/X and OSR, such as group initiative rolling rather than individual, among other things.

The Party

Attronarch, our GM, had a page on their blog with 100 pregenerated characters which made rolling for a character seamless. Grab a d100 and off you go. I think creating these pregens were part of the character creation challenge, which I'm tempted to do for fun. I rolled 80 and 34, getting Ulfam Rainwell and Gilandila Imraandiril / Firmgiant.

The Brief

Eight adventurers walk into a cave where there is an underground river. There are a handful of upturned crab shells (canoe sized) with paddle pairs that look like crab claws. Some of the party investigates them and finds nothing suspicious. All of us hop in and start paddling. Swarms of rats come on board the first two crab shells and kill Fork-Tongued Dragolen. People are trying to catch up, but during that time, Boris is eaten alive.

The party cruising down an underground river in crabshell canoes, while two party members are casually eaten alive by albino rats.

As the group continued fighting the rats, Gill (an ever-wise magic user), used a scroll of sleep which put the remaining rats to sleep plus Gill, Thorvald, and Skorri. Susan drank a potion of giant strength and jumped into Ulfam and Kettra’s crabshell, while the two of them stabilized the crabshell. They landed without capsizing, but the crabshell cracks under the weight of 4 people. We throw a rope at 2 adventurers we see on a shore near a ruined tower who pulls us over. Gill and Thorvald are still sleeping. Gill briefly explore the ruined tower which smells horrendous. Kettra wanders away, trying to loot the dead corpses that are floating down the river and stumbles upon a pack of troglodytes. A couple party members watch the pack of troglodytes, while the rest cross a bridge and inspect a narrow passage in the cave. Not wanting to wait, Kettra and Clawnut go after the troglodytes and try to shove them into the water. They miss spectacularly and start combat.

As Susan explored the narrow passageway, Ulfam followed, and we were attacked by 5 crab-men from above. Gill and Thorvald ran to help with the Troglodytes, while the rest fought the crab-men. Thorvald ran up to smash their faces in, while Gill used his Wand of Fear. He scared all but 1 of the troglodytes, but unfortunately also feared Kettra and Thorvald.

The battle with the crab-men continues as Susan and Skorrie climb up to attack them. Ulfam shoots one with a crossbow. As we kill one and one runs away, 2 more crab-men appear. We kill all but 1 of the crab-men and then promptly split the party down two different archways to confront CRAZY CLONK.

The party about to die, I'm sure of it.

The Takeaways

Pros

• Magic is so damn broken in OD&D
• Strategy is super important (surprise)
• Very easy to roll player side (our GM was definitely doing a bunch of number crunching/checking matrices I think)

Cons

• If people are unfamiliar with the style, it makes it difficult to coordinate with your party!
• Adjustment to the phases of combat being their own discrete parts (movement, missile fires, spell, and melee); I'm undecided on if I liked it or not. It was more realistic, for sure, and made for interesting combat rather than, "I hit, now you hit" stuff.