Expedition to the Ancient Academy Podcast – Part 4
9 April 2009
6 Comments
Podcast: Download (Duration: 38:39 — 44.4MB)
The conclusion to our first D&D session for Expedition to the Ancient Academy.
The party and their dwarven allies face off against the goblins, and the adventurers encounter their most dangerous foe yet. In true old school dungeons & dragons style this episode sees player’s characters down to 0 hit points, and facing save-or-die peril.
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I LOVED these! I got into RPG podcasts after listening to the Penny Arcade/PVP series at WotC, and then discovering rpgmp3.com, but this old school action is the best. I thought Chris Perkins was a good DM, but the DM here (Stuart?) is awesome. I mean it is entertaining listening to Scott Kurtz and Wil Wheaton et al. crack jokes, but the 4e adventure itself was not that great, although C. Perkins does add some spice. Now this old school style really makes the adventure itself VERY interesting and entertaining. Now I really felt the old nostalgia kick in, and Stuart’s DMing actually had me feeling quite a bit of the creepy spooks. Wow!
It will be interesting to hear you guys do 4e. Maybe 4e is a blast to play (don’t know myself) but it isn’t that entertaining to listen to with the constant and lengthy miniatures focused combat, plus repetitive power activations. So I hope you continue doing the old school stuff, maybe even taking a spin through some of the classic modules from back in the day. Does anyone know of any other classic/original D&D podcasts?
Sorry if you already explained this somewhere, but are you guys using a particular D&D version, like the original, or B/X or BECMI or a mix? I know you are using some house rules. (Way back I just played BECMI, 1e and 2e…)
Can’t wait to listen to the next one. Thanks for putting these up and keep up the good work!
Wow, thanks! I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the podcast – I definitely enjoyed running these game nights. It’s nice to hear the spooky vibe came through.
The Ancient Academy game is Moldvay edition Basic D&D. This is the book I started with back in 1983. If you download the free Labyrinth Lord PDF from Goblinoid Games, it’s essentially the same rules. The BECMI rules are almost the same as well (although I think the Cleric got a 1st level healing spell in that edition).
We’re going to give 4th edition a try, with 2 sessions of that planned. Then we’ll see what we decide to do from there. I haven’t played 4e but Rob C (Grundy) and Ryan (Giles) really enjoyed playing it, and I like making minis, terrain and stuff so I’m interesting in giving it a shot!
I’ve started listening to some other actual play podcasts and while I didn’t appreciate how Stuart was presenting things then, I certainly can now. Stuart did a great job describing both the environment and the rules which makes it a much different listening experience compared to a recording of play. I hope to be able to keep these elements in mind as we move into 4e if there is to be more podcasting. We may need accompanying photos to share the full experience, particularly with the terrain being previewed.
Rob aka Grundy
Thanks for the reply and extra info. Appreciate it.
Reading Rob’s comment and thinking more about it I guess a miniature focused game might just not translate well to the audio-only medium. A completely imagination based game encourages vivid verbal descriptions and Stuart’s DMing style really evoked that old radio show atmosphere which allows listeners to lose themselves in the story.
I’m not bashing 4e, since this could apply to any game using minis (even chess I guess) but the other podcasts often went like this:
player1: Ok I’ll move my guy here and attack him.
player2: What if you go there instead.
player1: Or maybe I’ll charge this guy over here… (etc., you get the idea.)
It’s hard to see the action. Now I’m 100% sure the players were having a great time playing, and that joy did come through but a lot of the action is lost over the podcast. Also the 4e adventures I listened to just happened to be almost entirely combat scenes.
Anyway, sorry just thinking “out loud” here. If you put up recordings of your 4e sessions I’ll check them out, but I do hope you guys do some more old school style D&D someday again. Thanks!
I never used minis when I played D&D. It wasn’t until I got into Warhammer and Battletech that I started painting and building models. I have to admit it’s one of the things I’ve been unsure about with 4e. I agree with you on the recordings of 4e sessions that I’ve heard – they do seem more focused on the board + figures than the “radio theatre” style of gaming I associate with RPGs.
That might be totally cool though. I mean, I already *have* a D&D game that does the radio theatre style very well. I’m hoping D&D 4e is a really fun game in a different way. I’ll make sure to snap some pics to accompany any audio we record.
Oh well there sems to be no way to get to the podcast…GRRRRRR!
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