Anyone familiar with the old “Lord of the Scarlet Tide” D&D adventure from Dungeon 85?
Better yet, anyone have a few thoughts at converting it (loosely) to a DW adventure/set of fronts?
I’m a DW newbie, and terrified of running my own game, much less “converting” something, but this adventure has long been a favourite of mine and I think the underlying premise would work better when viewed through a DW lens.
I’m not familiar with it, but I’d like to hear about it. Maybe I can off some insights?
Running a published DnD adventure using DW, is IMHO easier than running it as written using D&D.
The trick is to borrow the outline and let the detail write itself. Borrow the people and monsters, borrow some of the places and leave some blanks for cool stuff you think of during play.
Ask lots of questions about the characters during character gen and you might just find that the story seeds you find at that time are better than the ones published by someone who doesn’t know you, your players and your preferred modes of play.
Stuart McDermid Great start
Matthew Everhart Building on that, Defy Danger is not a saving throw. Remember that. Lot of DnD start DW using it that way. Also, Discern Realities is the character going CSI. Tell them everything they ask. Work it with the fiction. If you foreshadow right then it builds
Also, soft and hard moves. Understand the difference and how even a soft move can be great for a character.
Paul Weber
While it begins as the players arrive in a mid-sized town on the edges of civilization, the bulk of this adventure is primarily set in the underdark.
The premise is that an ancient fungus-god, long bound, has taken advantage of an ill-timed series of unrelated events to attempt a prison-break, which is only barely thwarted by his Kuo-Toa jailers. As a side effect of his near-escape, he unleashes the “Scarlet Tide” a creeping fungal pestilence which turns victims into fungal zombies. The Tide manages to get a foothold in the town the players have just returned to, and quickly overwhelms the meagre defenses.
Governmental muckety-mucks hastily recruit the party to investigate, which turns into a huge, sandboxy foray into the underdark, concluding in a visit to a ransacked kuo-toa city. There, our heroes must first find, then recover a set of ensorcelled chains from the High Temple of Blibdoolploop (?) and re-forge the arcane bindings that keep the Scarlet Lord chained.
Did I mention that the finale is mostly underwater? Oh. Well, it is. Also, there are Drow, Deep Gnomes and a lovely Mind Flayer… how can you not love that?
To my mind, the large amounts of “unmapped” space (both map-space and plot-space) lend themselves to a DW game. I’ve been tempted to run this adventure (as written, for D&D) for my group several times, but always got sidetracked… which may have been a good thing, ultimately, as I think it will fit DW’s narrative conventions better than the original system.
To my mind, the large amounts of “unmapped” space (both map-space and plot-space) lend themselves to a DW game. I’ve been tempted to run this adventure (as written, for D&D) for my group several times, but always got sidetracked… which may have been a good thing, ultimately, as I think it will fit DW’s narrative conventions better than the original system.
Matthew Everhart sounds easy to convert. And really fun. Since DW is all based on the fiction not the mechanics, you could probably do it without much real effort. Make monsters, design traps, plot major areas that your characters are aware of and know, and let them help build the world when you start.
Spout Lore and Discern Realities will make a lot of it. I sometimes reward my players when they have a 10+ “Well what do you know?” And let them fill and flesh something out. You have to pick when though. Don’t want them painting you into a corner.