The cover art wasn't great. Athletic zombies??
When choosing adventures for my current 'classics' campaign I was in two minds about picking this one. I didn't rate it in the 80s, as my first exposure to it came when I already had access to other low level modules, ones which had ready-made intrigue, and here was a somewhat awkwardly presented affair, which on the surface consisted of a village, a short 2-level adventuring locale, and no plot to speak of. So I cast it aside then, and gave it no further thought. Fast forward more than 30 years and, with one of my group having already experienced my other low level adventure options, I reluctantly dusted this one off and gave it a chance.
In 1979, all the modules released thus far for AD&D had been aimed at high level parties, the only low level products were B1 and B2, which were designed for the Basic game. The AD&D releases were also mostly adventures that had been used at conventions, designed for tournament play. T1 broke the mould. Not only was it the 1st low level adventure to be published specifically for AD&D, it was also the first to spend time detailing a game setting - that being the eponymous Village itself. Notable members of the populace were named and statted, and given a few lines detailing their relationships and motives. B2 provided Basic DMs with a Keep to use as a base of operations, but the occupants were left unnamed, and very few had any details beyond raw stats, thus it felt somewhat utilitarian. The simple addition of these extra nuggets gives Hommlet life.
The main adventuring locale is provided in the form of a Moathouse. It is left in the hands of the DM as to how to get the party to it, and to give them a reason for going there. Those minor details stymied my teenage DM brain, I just wanted a ready made plot so my equally impatient teenage players could just dive straight in without faffing about around town. 30 years later, playing the game with adults, this is really a non-issue - the aforementioned NPC details help provide the story hooks, and with just a small amount of interaction between party and populace, thus the seeds of adventure can be grown! The upper level of the Moathouse is a ruin, and is well realised. The dungeon level is somewhat more haphazard, and feels more like a relic of the adventures of the time - but once again the key to its success lies in the small details. Rather than just fill it with nasties and say 'go adventuring', Gygax did with the dungeon denizens just as he did with the townsfolk, he gave them a few lines detailing why they are there and what their motives are. More nuggets for the DM.
Be warned. Though it is short, the dungeon is very hard for the party of 1st level characters that Gygax takes pains to stress it is designed for, on the surface it appears to be too hard. Again this criticism is short-sighted, as once again the party (and the DM) should spend time in the town, where they can find an array of NPCs willing to accompany the group, some trustworthy, others very much not so!
The beauty of The Village of Hommlet is that, due to all the little details, it becomes a mini-campaign. It provides so much in just a few short pages. My 1E party have now played more than half a dozen of the old classics, which are now back on my shelf. My pdf of T1 still sees use at the table however. They have taken ownership of the Moathouse and are rebuilding it, they have made allies in the Village, they are making the surrounding area safe, they care about it.
And that is why this short, seemingly simple module is a classic. It is such a shame that it never got a sequel of the quality it deserved.
Presentation: 3/10 – weak cover art, poor town map, horrible typeface. It has aged badly in this respect.
Brawn: 9/10 – but not here - even though the adventuring section is short the adventure provides long term inspiration in spades.
Brains: 8/10 – masses of roleplaying opportunities and a challenging little dungeon.
Overall: 8/10 – proof that less is more.
What you don't like the athletic zombies!? LOL
ReplyDeleteI agree with the need to pay close attention to what's in the module and give it a think. I suggest then get out a sheet of paper and kinda diagram it out. To connect the dots. What are the forces in play? How are they likely to react? Under what circumstances?
I made it so that the characters were cousins to each other (humans, half elves, and elves, even a half orc--an interesting family tree to be sure) and agents of the Waldgraf of Ostverk. He'd failed when evil rose the first time and he wasn't going to do nothing this time. This unified the characters in place and purpose. Not that the Waldgraf would be helping them, but they were more than murderhobos and less than heroes. Plus, one of the characters was a Ranger, which suggested the possibility of some intriguing connections.
I assessed the threat level. I took the character sheets, and then ran them through the upper level of the moathouse, seeing how they might fare against the encounters. The upper level was dicey but manageable. Then I took them down to the final encounter. Finding that the situation was grim, I concluded that the characters--especially given their numbers--ought to be second level to adequately face the challenges posed by the subsurface areas of the moathouse. I realized that I needed to do something, and that something was to flesh out the module.
I made it so that there was more of a story about the waylaying of carters and outlying farmsteads meeting with trouble. I made for several groups of brigands under the direction of the main baddie, and added some hooks--for example Black Jay's flock missing a few sheep, a Dwarven waggon train complaining of having been attacked, following up on the carter's missing wagon team, and so on, leading to the discovery of bands of men and humanoids marauding, and then from correspondences found on the bodies of the leaders and their locations the players were able to suss out that there must be a controlling headquarters. Then they were able to put together clues to triangulate likely places for that headquarters. In this way the problem of how to get the players to the moathouse was solved.
As for why the villagers in Hommlet don't just say "Well, there's this MOATHOUSE," I had to give that one a think, too. I came up with a tragic backstory. A deep read of the module shows that there's a fair number of widowers in Hommlet, enough that it's unusual in my mind. I decided that what had happened, was that the womenfolk had been seized by the servants of the Black Lord and taken to the moathouse. When the moathouse was laid under seige after the Battle of Emridy Meadows, the Black Lord slew them and animated them as zombies and sent them out to fight against their own loved ones. The psychic stain of that experience bonded the villagers together in a vow of silence about that place, and that day. Nobody wishes to talk about it. The players still don't know this detail.
All this lengthy wordage to agree with your statement that T1 benefits GREATLY from some preparation--and the more, the better.
And yes, the sequel...well, I do not speak of it, except to say that there's nothing worse than waiting years for something except waiting years for something you didn't want. I'm currently writing a better T2 so that my players may continue in that campaign.