An RPG Excusion: Gardmore Abbey and the Deck of Many Things

A book written specifically for our group

In large part, this is a blog about table top miniature gaming and boardgames.  But the history of our gaming group lies as much in Dungeons and Dragons as it does in war gaming.  For me, an interest in war games only developed when I was in my mid thirties (around 2-3 years ago) whereas my teenage years were all about DnD back in its heyday in the late 80s and early 90s.

So with that background, I have happily played the Dungeon Master for a few DnD games and get the occasional hankering for a few sessions.  Last games night I developed a scenario around the discovery of a card from the "Deck of Many Things".  The scenario was designed to pull the party into the Madness at Gardmore Abbey adventure path but also to be able to end that night if no one wanted to keep going.

The cast behind the DM's screen waiting to come on

The setting was the entrance to the crypt at Moonstone Keep in Fallcrest.  The adventurers each summonsed by Berrian, the master of the guard at the keep.  None of them know why they had been summonsed and they each wait to be let inside.  Once Berrian comes he explains that the Lord of the Keep has gone mad following the discovery of a card and he enlists the help of the adventurers to destroy the card accordingly (which he has stolen from his Lordship and is about to give to them).

At this point the Lord makes an appearance - angrily using his powers to throw Berrian against a wall and summons zombies (always good to reuse those EOTD zombies I spent so long painting).

Rather than run headlong into combat I then handed over to each of the party a mission personal to them.  One was to kill Berrian, another to protect him, another to get the card for themselves and run etc.  So the party each had personal goals that conflicted with the corporate goal (and with each other's personal goals).

The Battle in Progress

It was interesting to see how it played out - Matt almost died trying to kill Berrian and there were a series of small skirmashes between the party over who would get the card which cooled down before anyone got seriously hurt.  It also got them into the Deck of Many Things and made them pause to think whether they wanted to collect these cards or destroy them.

After negotiating the first combat they all then proceeded to the wizards tower at Gardmore Abbey on the understanding that he could destroy the card.  There was much debate about that, but they finally decided it was the best thing to do.  I gave them two puzzles to solve to get in.  The first to determine how many times to knock to open the door.  The first had a horsehoe with words written into it: see http://puzzle.cisra.com.au/2009/B-1-Snip.pdf. The riddle that accompanied it was worded as follows:

To know how many times to knock

Look at the horseshoe from the top

Rearrange the words half and half

Three of them will show the path

The second to get out of the antechamber involved arranging eight queens on a chessboard so each was not able to take another.

The Solution

Again it was successfully negotiated, but only just in time as the walls that were closing in around them only had a few minutes to go before they were crushed.

The good thing about DnD is the collaborative nature of it.  Whereas war gaming is naturally competitive, DnD is social and for that reason can be a lot of fun.  There is a lot of talk about different versions of DnD which I simply don't get into - the fourth edition that we play might be a bit simplified but that really is exactly what we need.  A good break for any war-gaming group - expect updates as the adventure continues this year.