O1 - The Gem And The Staff

System: Dungeons & Dragons

Code: #9050

Type: Adventure

Levels: 4-14

Author: John and Laurie Van De Graaf

Year: 1983

Publisher: TSR

Format: 2 16-page books w/tri-fold cover

O1 - The Gem And The Staff

O1 The Gem & The Staff is a one-on-one module. There is a scoring system for completing tasks and the players are given a 30-minute time limit to get through as much as they can. There are actually 2 separate adventures in this module. Personally - not a fan of this format - not at all. I'm personally playing D&D because I have a character that I want to develop. If I wanted something like this I'd just read a choose your own adventure type of book - where I'd probably die a grisly and gruesome death but there is a chance to actually make it through those things alive - after lots of trial and error. But back to the module at hand. For me - I was just never interested in playing this as presented.

Now - one thing that is included in this module is an entire booklet of little maps. Those are pretty nice - I have to admit I like that. When I saw them for the first time I even decided that I was going to make my maps that way - print them out of regular old 8 1/2 x 11 paper and just build them up that way. I even did it a few times - but it got old. Still though - no reason not to keep doing it that way. I mean these days it is really easy to create your own graph paper - you can use a colored grid - and the players can map their little arms off. One could repurpose the maps given here and also the short adventures given here. These 2 adventures could serve as very nice tangents to an ongoing campaign. But the 1-on-1 aspect? Unless the player was using their own character, just not interested.