Great points. I think an understated design brilliancy in D&D are the extra-planar pocket dimensions where game masters can unleash creative and fun adventure ideas for the players with fantastical effects like that amber light. I like to employ such demi-planes for limited quests and run the main game world as a low fantasy setting more grounded in realism.

I remember way back when playing Castle Amber with a bunch of pregens to see how far we could get as a one shot if I recall correctly 2 characters made it out of the indoor forest and a TPK soon followed.

I always saw this in the same way and ran it accordingly. 1:1 time never occurred to me. Loved the module. I must have run it in its entirety more than 20 times.

The fact that Colville is somewhat famous for running a D&D game on social media tells me that this planet is in deep shit.

That's a hard call. It does seem like there is some implied passage of time between sessions. In the case of a full pause between sessions there wouldn't be much need for a protective cloud of amber light; said cloud could have just been made to envelop the party at any time they were injured and/or hungry (in which case, between sessions might just be a decision of convenience). As for 1:1 time, it seems to have, recently, been conflated with tracking calendrical time within sessions. This is another one of those cases where I think a big part of the problem is that the new school of gaming focuses every thing on just the one (primary) character per player, and perhaps a couple of pets or NPCs traveling with them. In a case where the group does use 1:1 time *between* sessions, as the concept was originally intended in AD&D 1e, then this pause effect from the amber light is especially powerful precisely because it suggests that time progresses normally outside the protective extent of the light, which allows for non-present henchmen, hirelings, or even foes to advance their projects according to the normal flow of time.

I just thought it was tailored to the portrayal of this adventure as a step out of space and time, and not some commentary one how all D&D adventures worked. I was just a kid then, so I guess all the pedantic games scholars we have now can argue about it in whataboutisms

@yeoldegeek71

28 күн бұрын

A thematic gift from Stephen Amber - it fitted the weird tone of the adventure, and most importantly, it made the objectives achievable"

I have never understood the amount of debate that modules get on-line. Just play it and move on. Unless you love it in which case play it with every new group of players that you get, like I do with Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

Gee, what are twitter people saying about this? I guess I am missing the context, although you just explained it. What is 1:1 time? I guess people are trying to interpret old modules in the context of the new rules sets? That is kind of like putting a wooden wheel on your car or maybe better said, trying to use your keyboard to churn butter. I don't understand what all the hubbub is about, but it is ok. If it is a bunch of people on twitter just jabbering about, I don't care anyway. Oink! = @ ) Ferkel was here!

@nonya1366

28 күн бұрын

I think 1:1 time means "Every second that passes while we're playing the game, is a second that passes in the game." [Long rests taking 8 hours generally means no long rests.] Further, I believe that it could also refer to 'you cannot stop the game while inside of a dungeon, you have to stop the game in town'. Mind, I don't have a personal experience related to either, and it was just tetiary knowledge gleamed from videos talking about a similar subject But I do think the older editions were more lethal atop of which. I don't know I'm just a youtube commenter, as seen with 'I think, I believe, admittance of lack of personal experience' etc etc.

@manfredconnor3194

28 күн бұрын

@nonya1366 Yeah, that's what 1:1. I remember that now, it was used in tournaments and stipulated in some modules, but YOG says its not about that. I don't think that anyone I played with ever used 1:1 and I certainly didn't GM with it, at least not that I can remember.