Quote from: drkrash;945576Wow.  I had only associated Dyson's Delves with cool maps; I actually never bothered to see if any had content.  My plan was to use the sample dungeon in the DMG (and I still might if the game takes off), but this "mini-mega-dungeon" looks really cool.

I will probably skip T1 entirely and just come up with some pretense to get them to the dungeon.

Thanks!

Excellent! Have fun with it!

The benefit of having a village nearby, of course, is that between delving sessions, the PCs can go back to town to restock, get healing, etc. In the game I'm running wth my kids, I just put a small, nondescript town about a day's walk away.

Yes, I think of the two volumes of Dyson's Delves as required purchases for anyone who is serious about playing D&D. I wish he'd put out hard copy versions of his city maps!

Quote from: drkrash;945185I'm thinking about using T1-4 for a group of players.  I've never run it before, but have always wanted to.  I was planning on using Labyrinth Lord.

If you've always wanted to, you should go ahead and do it.  With kids, though, I'd avoid long interactions with the villagers.  They'll probably want to go straight to fighting bad guys.

Quote from: RPGPundit;946984With kids, though, I'd avoid long interactions with the villagers.

Because the kids are gonna start stabbing the villagers.

Kids are monsters.

I began T1 in my Earthdawn/Greyhawk mashup with a small encounter with evil fae while traveling towards the village (a kobold trap in a wayward pine/camp site). Then when the players got to the village, I had a bugbear and 4 goblins stealing one of the infants from  the first farm-house. Running fight in the field towards the woods. 8 year old was happy he got to blast goblins, and it started relations with the villagers on the "right foot".

I started with the 1st level of Dyson's Delve.  After chargen, they were already pretty eager, so I gave them just enough background through exposition to get them started, and set them at the top of the stairs heading down.  That worked fine.

I was a tiny bit concerned that the 13-year old (the newbie who specifically had requested that he wanted to try it) was going to think a dungeon delve wasn't "story" enough, but I underestimated one's first experience role-playing: he was totally entranced by even making decisions of taking the right hallway or the left hallway.  About an hour into it (and I forced them through 3 1/2 hours!), he said, "It feels like I'm really in the story!" I knew then that things were going just fine.

There was only one death (the Dad), and I decided to use the DCC RPG death rule: another player attended to him on the following round, and the dead player made a CON test (he actually rolled an 18 CON), so I made him lose a point of CON permanently and let him return to 1 hp.

Next session, they will be prepared to investigate the 2nd level, which, if they succeed, will level them up.

Quote from: Spellslinging Sellsword;945201If you like B2 (you mentioned recently running it) you might be interested in re-running a modified version using the maps in this thread from Dragonsfoot. I think it makes a stronger B2 to have the lairs separated out.

Some great finds in that thread!

Quote from: drkrash;947204I started with the 1st level of Dyson's Delve.  After chargen, they were already pretty eager, so I gave them just enough background through exposition to get them started, and set them at the top of the stairs heading down.  That worked fine.

I was a tiny bit concerned that the 13-year old (the newbie who specifically had requested that he wanted to try it) was going to think a dungeon delve wasn't "story" enough, but I underestimated one's first experience role-playing: he was totally entranced by even making decisions of taking the right hallway or the left hallway.  About an hour into it (and I forced them through 3 1/2 hours!), he said, "It feels like I'm really in the story!" I knew then that things were going just fine.

There was only one death (the Dad), and I decided to use the DCC RPG death rule: another player attended to him on the following round, and the dead player made a CON test (he actually rolled an 18 CON), so I made him lose a point of CON permanently and let him return to 1 hp.

Next session, they will be prepared to investigate the 2nd level, which, if they succeed, will level them up.

Sounds cool. I have long felt one of the big mistakes of the modern gamer community is to look down their noses at very basic gaming experiences. Going down a darkened stairwell is the essence of the D&D experience, and its what most people actually remember about their game! Anyway, the narrative exposition isn't even a game; it mostly amounts to sitting on your ass while some control freak tells you what you are doing.

Quote from: Spinachcat;946989Because the kids are gonna start stabbing the villagers.

Kids are monsters.

In my experience, they'll more often try to steal from the villagers.