About two years ago, I picked up a copy of Return to the Keep on the Borderlands. I wasn't too impressed, but it gave me an idea. I thought it would be fun to convert all of my favorite 1st ed. AD&D and D&D modules for play in the Birthright Campaign. I planned on starting with Keep on the Borderlands. That was an easy module to complete. All I had to do was set up at least one of the players as the regent of the Keep and ta-da. The rest was just locating it in the realm and spicing it up with new encounters. I never ran it (at least not yet) but was pleased with the results.
After that, I started on the old Against the Giants/Drow/Queen of the Demonweb Pits series (G1-2-3, D1-2, D3,Q1). It was daunting, and I never got past the first module. Plus, since it is such a long dungeon crawl, I wasn't sure how it would convert to Birthright, as I try to keep dungeons scarce and short in my BR campaigns.
I lost interest in DnD for a long while. It was announced that WotC now owned all the TSR material and I vowed not to buy any of the products. I refused to sink a dime into WotC. That vow didn't last. I saw the PHB, picked it up and was impressed by the changes. When WotC announced they would be publishing Return to The Temple of Elemental Evil It revitalized my interest. The Temple of Elemental Evil (T1-4) is one of my long time favorites. I do not own a copy of the original, but have played it. I would love to own a copy, but am not willing to shell out the $80 that it normally goes for on ebay (when I was 15, I saw it on sale at K-B Toys for $3.99--I'm still kicking myself for not buying every copy they had. I'd given up gaming at the time, and didn't buy any).
RttToEE, is one hell of a dungeon crawl, and I'm still not sure how well it will convert to BR; however, I'm giving it my best shot. I'll update this page with more as I garner ideas. At this point, we've played two sessions and I'm using the module as background material. It is working. So far. I also plan on adding my notes for adapting other modules.
March 24, 2002:
Much has changed. Six months ago I took a little journey to the middle
east. I'm not at liberty to speak about it, but I've been gone a long time
and am glad to be back.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure where I stand gaming right now. I'm currently involved in two different groups. Last Summer, I was excited and eager to beging the Elemental Evil campaign. With only two sessions, it barely got off the ground. I'm still interested in the Old School Gaming Project, but I'm taking it in a different direction.
Right before leaving my friends and family in September, I obtained a copy of the original Temple of Elemental Evil T1-4. The scope of the project has changed (at least in relation to the Temple of Elemental Evil). I would like to do what I'm calling a trilogy campaign. Starting 25+ years in the past with a prelude to the original Temple of Elemental Evil (working title: Shadows of Elemental Evil), then progress in time to T1-4 and eventually to Return. The whole cycle would be called Legacy of Elemental Evil (tentative).
I would still like to use BR as the setting; however, it presents a challenge. Birthright is not a setting to be used for dungeon crawls. That's just not what BR is about. To solve this, I'm thinking of running the campaign on two levels. On one level, the players would deal with the situation directly as their characters. On the second level, they would act as a nation. In other words, they would collectively run a realm, dealing with Domain Turns and all that goes with it.
This would essentially break down into two games: a standard RPG and
a strategy game much like Risk. I find the idea fascinating, but it's going
to take some work on my part.