I am finally running a consistent game again, and it is fabulously fun. Now that I am running again, there are a lot of things I want to write about. So here I am, after more than a year, starting to post on RPGMusings again.
The game I am running is Old School Essentials (OSE), a restatement of the BX D&D rules. BX D&D is the ruleset published by TSR in 1981 and is commonly referred to as Moldvay Basic or as Moldvay, Cook, Marsh D&D – or if you go by color, Moldvay Basic is known as the magenta box and the Moldvay, Cook, Marsh Expert set is blue. Here’s a pic of the covers, to keep us all on the same page:
Old School Essentials classic is a cleaned up and well formatted version of those two boxed sets that faithfully reproduces the rules while clarifying some of the more ambiguous, but important parts of the game. Gavin Norman did an excellent job, and I am very glad I decided to go with OSE classic for my Arden Vul game.
WHAT IS ARDEN VUL?
Today’s post is all about The Halls of Arden Vul, a fantastic behemoth of a product written by Richard Barton with maps by Andreas Claren. From now on I will refer to it as Arden Vul or simply AV… AV is published by Joseph Browning (Expeditious Retreat Press), who also did the layout and editing. The pdf is 1122 pages, not counting the 37 huge maps, and the print version is split into 5 volumes. This thing is massive.
But what is it? It is a true Megadungeon – a multi-level complex beneath an ancient, ruined city which sits atop a 1500-foot cliff. The main power in the setting is the Archontean Empire, which mimics Ancient Rome and Byzantium, mixed with Egyptian and Greek features. The setting and dungeon both contain fantasy magic, both typical and extra-powerful, weird fantasy elements, traps, puzzles, thematic areas, factions with goals and motivations, and a deep history that permeates everything. To get to the dungeon the party must traverse a narrow, dangerous, zig-zag path up the 1500 foot cliff between two colossal statues (representing the famous adventurers Arden and Vul, namesakes of the city) and find an entrance in the ancient ruins atop the cliff.
Because it is such an enormous undertaking, I know several people who have looked at AV or read reviews, thought it would be great, but ultimately shelved the idea of ever running it – it’s just too overwhelming. Several people have asked me how I tackled that feeling and how I got beyond that initial idea that it is just too much to even begin. This post is my answer. Future posts will discuss things that have come up in game sessions and I will talk about the decisions made and resulting consequences.
PRE-CAMPAIGN PREP
The initial information in the book feels very dense and overwhelming, but most of it is presented up front so that the GM has been exposed to all the info they need to feel comfortable with the different areas and themes in AV. Arden Vul is expansive and, unlike my usual advice for running something published – I usually tell people always read the whole adventure before running it – in this case that is nearly impossible and probably wouldn’t be helpful unless you have an eidetic memory.
Specific Numbers: My up-front prep consisted of reading the first 42 pages (vol 1 p7-49), which include all history, background, factions, and rumors. This is information that doesn’t need to be committed to memory as it is specifically meant to give you the feel of the history and power struggles in the setting. Several of those 42 pages are tables of rumors that can basically be skimmed for info and then ignored until you roll starting rumors for your PCs. Also, much of the faction information is not wholly necessary to know at the beginning, so reading those pages extensively wasn’t strictly required.
I then read 14 pages about the setting, deities, and peoples that are found on Magae (the planet in the setting) which are located in the appendix detailing world information (vol 4 p171-185).
And finally, I read another 13 pages that outline the main town closest to the dungeon entrance – this is more detailed information and is meant to prepare you for when your players want to hire retainers, go to a local shop, rent a room at an inn, or find a sage (vol 1 p61-73).
So that is a total of 69 pages to get the background and main themes into my brain and understand the starting town. That sounds like a lot of reading just to get familiar, but I spread this over a two or three week period, so it was just a few pages a day, taking notes and writing down anything I didn’t fully understand or wanted to be sure I reviewed before the first game session. Also, I figured if I read almost 70 pages of this huge product and didn’t like what I was reading, it’s better to find out before I start the campaign. Reading only 5 pages wouldn’t have gotten me there.
Issues out of the gate? There are two things I needed to account for and make decisions about at the very beginning of my prep. The first is that Arden Vul is written for OSRIC (1e AD&D), not OSE, and so some differences need to be considered (e.g. there are magic spells that exist in OSRIC but not OSE). The second thing I needed to do right away was address a playable race in AV that is not covered in OSE – the Imperial Goblin. I took some time to create an Imperial Goblin race-as-class entry suitable for OSE, made decisions about certain aspects of magic use and progression, and then went to my next step.
Next, I prepared a campaign guide for the players. The campaign guide contains setting information (a bit of history, the calendar, deities, and peoples of the world), character generation guidelines, and my brief set of house rules to be used in the game. The entire document is 16 pages and I gave it to my players a week before our first meeting. I wrote down a list of things I wanted to discuss with the players during session 0 and then I was ready!
WEEKLY SESSION PREP
Since I did the heavy lifting before the campaign started, my session-to-session prep is very reasonable. Every week when I prep for the game I read a few selected parts, depending on where the party is and what they want to explore. I also often skim the details of pages relevant to items, factions, or history that might come up or be discovered during the session. If they are in the dungeon proper, or plan to use a particular entrance, I read the areas of the dungeon they are near and could likely go. Anything that is a new magic item or spell they could find also gets a review. The prep is not any more than what I would do for any other adventure. Perhaps 10 or 20 pages of skimming and highlighting. Maybe 5 pages of that must be read closely for important things. Of course, I do all of this while looking at the map as well, so that I can notate if needed.
I highlight a lot when I am prepping for the game. If it is a dungeon area being prepped, for example, I use two of three different highlight colors as I am reading the entry. I highlight in yellow the facts that I can let the players know as soon as they open the door to the room. I highlight in orange anything that they can discover but not immediately see. I highlight in blue any magical or special item they can find. This makes the specific parts stand out without me having to read it closely again during the game to decide what to tell the players – I know that anything yellow can be given to them, anything orange can be discovered, and anything blue I know is magical and can have that info at my fingertips if needed.
3 REASONS IT’S NOT HARD TO PREP
Cross-linking: The awesome thing about Arden Vul is that it is incredibly cross-linked. The textual linking is very extensive – anywhere there is a bit of info related to something else it states it right there in the book – it is an amazing piece of work. For example, any new magic item mentioned has an entry in the appendix which describes the item, lists the value of the item (in both GP and XP), and states every single location where that item can be found. This is true of magic items, mundane new-in-AV items, books, spells, and new monsters. The entire last 235 pages is all new magic items, new mundane (but important or useful) items, new creatures, deity info, language info, setting info, and NPC info.
Interesting to read: It’s chock full of interesting items, both mundane and magical… there is a ~40 page section that describes books the party can find. It gives you a paragraph or two about what is in the book, specifically the info that can help the PCs connect the dots about certain events and people, and each entry also tells you who wrote the book, when it was written, who is likely to want the book, how much the book is worth, and what the general thought about the book is in the current period.
No Need to Memorize: The reason the prep from week to week is NOT overwhelming is because I don’t have to memorize the items in the book. Arden Vul is written so that the players are learning about the dungeon as they go. Lots of iconography regarding specific deities and sayings that can lead the party to search for clues and information needed to find items, solve puzzles, and figure out which way is more or less dangerous. When they return to a safe haven and spend some down time healing up, they can put clues and rumors together and figure stuff out on their own, ask an NPC, or find a sage to help them. The DM doesn’t have to know every single thing about the entire place – they are learning about it too, but they start with more a lot more background knowledge and a bigger picture view of the factions and power brokers in AV.
CAVEATS?
Okay – I’ll quit gushing now – I love the thing, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. This isn’t really meant as a review so much as a treatise on how it can be run and not be overwhelming. To run something SO HUGE you have to really like it and you need to enjoy what you are reading and I am just soaking up all of the pseudo Roman Empire / Greek / Egyptian stuff that is in this thing – it is fun to read (for me) which goes a long way toward making the prep not feel like a crap ton of work… but that is true of any adventure module, so… you will have to decide for yourself whether you should take it on.
You can find The Halls of Arden Vul on DriveThruRPG: Arden Vul PDFs + Hardcovers or PDFs Only – it is expensive, but it is worth it. (full disclosure: both of the above are affiliate links)
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Until Next Time I wish you good gaming,
~DMSamuel
