One of the things I miss about 1st ed. is how wild and wha-hoo it could be. Modern games can be overly concerned with balance and canon, but Gary didn't care about that, he just said, 'I think it would be fun to have an adventure were the paladin is wearing power armor and the wizard is trying to cast charm person on androids."

This module introduced one of my favorite monsters: the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. It looks like an tree stump with a cute bunny on top of it. Its eyestalks look like flowers and it has a mouth full of jagged teeth in its "stump." To this day, it is the most bizarre (yet clever) monster design I've ever come across.

@BW022

11 ай бұрын

Bunny with a horn. I don't know how many players I got with that one when I showed them the handout. One player was playing a ranger and wanted to talk with the 'bunny'. I think that was the point where the players were 100% paranoid through the rest of the module.

@The_Custos

11 ай бұрын

Used it, loved it, will use again.

@solomani5959

11 ай бұрын

Besides the robots, the auromvorax and vegypygmies for me.

Funny fact: E Gary Gygax’s intials are in the layout of map II I ran this about two weeks ago and was so glad that Frogemoth failed its saving throw against our blaster rifle on the first shot!

This module had the biggest impact on me than any other adventure. Lasers AND spells!? *mind blown as a 10 year old kid* My campaign world has been science-fantasy ever since. A bit more subtle than the original module was (more Dying Earth with "laser guns" being magic items). A modified version of this dungeon has been my home setting's megadungeon since 1980.

According to the scrawl on my original copy I got this as a 9th birthday present in 1981 - I instantly loved it as I played AD&D, Traveller and Metamorphosis Alpha at the time. I ran it again recently, making the illithid the boss monster - it was using the ship as a base after stealing an artifact from the Grand Duke’s treasury some decades ago and fleeing into the ship to evade Geoff's forces.- I envisioned the mind flayer to have taken command of the ship, acting like Evil Otto from Stern’s old video game Bezerk. When the player's enter it directs the ship’s resources to prevent the players from recovering the Grand Duke’s lost artifact, thus requiring the players to engage in faction play from the few possible allies (and hi tech equipment) to succeed. It was a good set of gaming sessions.

@solomani5959

11 ай бұрын

The mind flayer is a natural "boss" for the adventure. I used him until my group killed him. When they visited again (same players but different PCs) the AI became the bad guy.

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks doesn't thread to Lum the Mad or Leuk-O because those were more one offs for his kids & friends (Luke wanted a stompy mech which resulted in the Mighty Servant). Where the Barrier Peaks does connect is that it was originally written for Metamorphosis Alpha to be run as a MA adventure (not a D&D one) at an early Origins convention. Barrier Peaks was Ward's introduction of Metamorphosis Alpha to D&D with many of the monsters in the Barrier Peaks also appearing in MA (Sword Bush, Dark Fungus, and some with some name changes Lightning Beast=Shocker Lizard) which was published shortly after Origins II in 1976. Arneson & the Twin Cities gaming community were already mixing scifi & fantasy in the early days (City of the Gods & Blackmoor setting and Temple of the Frog), and Jim Ward was a big influence as well. Gygax lifted a number of ideas from Burrouhgs' Barsoom scifi elements even for straight fantasy D&D (ESP, disintegration, telekinesis, psi). But essentially why Expedition to the Barrier Peaks technology feels so different from Gygax's other technological artifacts is because of the connection to Jim Ward via Metamorphosis Alpha (and latter Gamma World) rather than Greyhawk.

I had Papa Nurgle infect an Imperium ship which fell out of the warp and crashed onto Oerth. The mutated crew was the monsters that came out of it, along with some Tyranid specimens. It allowed a few characters to play imperial guardsmen, space marines, and Psyker/Inquisitors.... While it was a mix of genres....the players enjoyed it as their advanced tech items were used up or broken...lots of laughter when the Zealots tried starting a church of the God Emperor...bunch of fun lol

@solomani5959

11 ай бұрын

My version of the ship was a crashed rogue trader. So the items my PCs looted were all warhammer 40k themed. Works well. Funny to see someone else had a similar idea.

Love the Rollerball shirt. A young James Caan at his best.

The monster name after vegepygmy got garbled. For those not familiar with the module, it was "russet mold".

Try a Gamma World/ D+D crossover to explore a Phased/Shifted ship sounds crazy fun!

I’ve run it twice and I’m thinking to run it a 3rd time, especially with the new release of the Goodman Games version. The first time I ran it, I did it as written. The second time, however, I ran it with some story changes. Luckily the info is vague enough in the original that what I changed doesn’t conflict with it at all. I made it such that the illithid is actually the cause of the crash. He had been captured prior to the separation of the modules, and ended up being the instigator of the plague. Once the module crashed on Oerth, he found himself trapped, unable to get out. But through decades of imprisonment, found that he actually had been handed a great opportunity-and set about learning the technology and genetically engineering many of the “oids” in the ship. He eventually learned how to reprogram the computers (he isn’t a genius level intelligence for nothing, and had plenty of time on his hands), and started releasing his creations into the wild. He bio-engineered the russet mold and veggiepymies, and is slowly building a force under his control. Or so he thinks. Some of the veggiepymies have learned to think for themselves. And they aren’t too happy with their creator…

One of the most engaging modules. My friends and I did play it, the police robots threw us in jail. The garden area was fun as well.

Ahh Yeah...one of my favorites of all time. First appearance of some of the coolest creatures. Vegepygmies anyone?

I finally got to run this recently after all these years. What a great ride!

Never liked to mix my fantasy and sci-fi, nor played the module, but a great read up as always! 😁

@TheAndrian463

11 ай бұрын

Same here; I actually removed the mechanical spider ship in GDQ and replaced it with a palace deep in a jungle in the Demonweb pits. I suppose these things were the seeds for Spelljammer.

@The_Custos

11 ай бұрын

Same

Now I have to find copy of this module.

Magsman is a con artist, a swindler! If you want all kinds of great slang and argot and real thieves' cant from a couple of centuries ago, I recommend "Paul Clifford" or "The Genuine History of the Life of Richard Turpin". Any of the old (18th or early 19th century) highwayman series would probably do just fine, but those two are particularly notable. Dick Turpin because it's based a real person of the same name and especial notoriety, and Paul Clifford because the novel famously starts with "It was a dark and stormy night" :)

@The_Custos

11 ай бұрын

I use cockney rhyming slang, and read up on it during lockdowns.

@sststr

11 ай бұрын

That should offer players some good fun as well :)

out of this world

I believe that the illustration you highlight is Jeff Dee one of my favorite artists of the era. Just wanted him to get credit, Erol Otis is great too

Nice Rollerball shirt!

We had fun with this though we only played it once. The thing that really surprised me is that it's designed for a party of 10-15 high level characters. I can't think of any other D&D adventure designed for a party that large. It inspired me to write similarly crazy sized adventures. I have one campaign designed for a party of 20 PCs of levels 12+. I've run it a few times and it works best with fewer players running multiple characters. The one time I tried with around 20 players, it was too hard to keep them focused.

Going revamp this for my best buddie he never got to finish it so we are going to go through it soon 40 years latish

Reactions: 1. Here in North America we call this situation "Area 51" and it is quite real. 2. Reminds of Krull. 3. The 70s were awesome. Agreed with all previous comments that this was a great time for creative imagination. 4.I'd crawl through the whole ship to find a light saber or a sun sword.

Was wondering how it might fit or not in with the rest of Greyhawk so that was interesting, also wanted to know more about it since I've never played it. Cool shirt by the way

Bought the POD version of S1-S4 Dungeons of Dread, disappointed at the colour plates not being colour in S3.

@elliotvernon7971

11 ай бұрын

IIRC, the Dungeons of Dread version also misses out the ‘tween decks’ encounters.

Funnily enough, Expedition to/Beyond the Barrier Peaks is also canon to the Nentir Vale, the semi-nameless core setting of D&D 4th edition. Whilst it could just be written off as a retcon, knowing that the Warden in Metamorphosis Alpha - the canonical source of the ship module you explore in the adventure - is so huge as to be inhabited by entire nations of technobarbarian tribals, mutants, clones and monsters, well, is it really so hard to swallow that a second ship module may have landed there?

@solomani5959

11 ай бұрын

I did not know this, where in Nentir is it mentioned out of interest?

@GreyhawkGrognard

11 ай бұрын

Gygax actually said in an interview or article that the spaceship in S4 wasn't the Warden. It was either in Dragon or Oerth Journal, but I remember it specifically.

@MrNetWraith

11 ай бұрын

It's only indirectly; Dragon Magazine #410 included a Bazaar of the Bizarre article entitled "Thingamajigs of the Barrier Peaks", which adapted various tech items from the ship as 4e magic items and basically made it clear they came from the ship.

@MrNetWraith

11 ай бұрын

Well, he must have changed his mind at some point; Dragon Magazine #359, page 30, in the article "Unsolved Mysteries of D&D", they specifically ask in the Greyhawk section where the ship came from, and the answer is the Warden from Metamorphosis Alpha. And Gygax is one of the people credited as providing answers for that article, so...

I also always assume d City of the Gods was related to this - another crashed but related ship. Though that's a BX module if I recall right.

@elliotvernon7971

11 ай бұрын

The published DA4 module is B/X (or rather BECMI)- but City of Gods was what Arneson first played with Gygax and Kuntz when he showed them his Blackmoor game before D&D. Barrier Peaks also includes elements drawn from Kuntz’s part of the Castle Greyhawk campaign - the machine level and the garden of the plant master.

@solomani5959

11 ай бұрын

@@elliotvernon7971 nice. Thanks for the insight.

I thought you might find this interesting. For my campaign, I’ve tried to make the Great Wheel as it was under Gygax’s leadership, and worked out monster origins. These are the ones from S3 and Monster Manual 2, but it’s hard to be positive about them. M-EttBP is the original Origins ‘76 module, that I’ve only seen a couple pictures of. MONSTERS: Aurumvorax (M-S3/MM2) Banderlog (Baboonoid:M-S3, MM2) Bloodthorn (Vampire Thorn Vines:M-S3, MM2) Choke Creeper (Strangle Vine:M-S3, MM2) Froghemoth (M-EttBP/M-S3/MM2) Pudding, Brown (M-S3/MM2) Snappersaw (Snapper-Saw:M-S3/MM2) Squealer (M-S3/MM2) Tri-Flower Frond (M-S3/MM2) Thorny {vegepygmy dog} (M-S3/MM2) Vegepygmy (M-S3/MM2) Webbird (M-S3/MM2) Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing (M-EttBP/M-S3/MM2) HAZARDS: Retch Plant (Globe Palm:M-S3, MM2) Russet Mold (M-S3/MM2) Twilight Bloom (Purple Blossom Plant:M-S3, MM2)

@GreyhawkGrognard

10 ай бұрын

That's terrific!

This is an interesting series--if "series" you call it--where you look at the old mods, not from an "is it good or bad?" perspective, but rather from a "what canon lore can we extract from it?" perspective. As for the adventure itself... What can you say about S3? It's a true classic and was a unifying experience back in the days when everyone drew from the same pool of modules. Even the most casual of casual players remembered it. "Oh man, did you play the one with the laser guns? That was cool!" My only problem with it is the players don't really know what to do. They're not there to get the gem, or recover the stolen magic weapons, or kill the lich. So they end up entering one door, walking through a strange place and exiting another door, usually bearing strange treasure. The end. And it can't be used as a local dungeon like Castle Greyhawk since one does not simply walk up into the Barrier Peaks for adventure and get home in time for supper.

Six ads to skip to get here. Feel like I've already completed an expedition!

Why do some people pronounce Geoff as Joff? Noticed it with my irish friend and others on YT.

@elliotvernon7971

11 ай бұрын

It seems clear to me that ‘Geoff’ is Gygax using the different spelling of ‘Jeff’ after Jeff Perren, the co-author of Chainmail (whose name also appears in the nation of Perrenland). But ‘Joff’ sounds less obvious, I guess.

@geofftottenperthcoys9944

11 ай бұрын

@@elliotvernon7971 Fair enough!

@Gialmere

11 ай бұрын

Somewhere, I think Gygax said any pronunciation is valid and gave variation to the different campaigns. I've heard if pronounced as 'Jeff' and as 'Gee-off' and as 'Joff'. 'Nyr Dyv' is usually pronounced as 'Near Dive' but I've heard 'Ny-er Dive', Nee-er Deev', and 'Nee-Deev'. The Celadon Forest takes us into Celtic land. Is it 'Kell-tick' or 'Sell-tick'? As a Tolkien fan, elves pronounce 'C' as a 'K' so I use 'Kell-a-don'. But, I'm not consistent since, for 'Celene', I prefer 'Suh-lene' to Kuh-lene. Then there's names. Is it 'Toll-kin' or 'Toll-keen'? Is it 'Guy-gax', 'Gee-gax' or 'Gih-gax'? (I'm sure 'gax' is correct.)

I want to know where/how the mind flayer shows up in the space suit

@elliotvernon7971

11 ай бұрын

I always inferred that like the PCs, the mind flayer can use its intelligence to figure out how to use the alien tech - and it has been trapped on the ship for a long time.

@MrCSeiberlin

11 ай бұрын

Level 6 iirc with theater & rec (and more androids). I adapted this as a to pathfinder 1e for a GH campaign but rewrote that the Mind Flayer was half insane. It had infected the captain and actually believed it was the captain to an extent. It was experimenting on various genetic stock from this section of the spaceship and then testing and releasing the results in a mad plan to carry out its mission. The captain had been infected before the outbreak and was in stasis. In the chaos he was forgotten until the earthquake which triggered to pod to wake up him up. I breadcrumbed several markings on the wall and some automated recordings (in case a RR team ever came looking) as he fought with the mind flayer infection that transformed him. At that level PCs have lots of translation options so they had some clue but mine never put the full story together until after they came face to face with the flayer...a bit hilarious (using magic on other dead crew and other clues for the original outbreak they thought the captain was somehow mentally deranged from exposure to the virus and also long dead). Great complicated bbeg;-)

@solomani5959

11 ай бұрын

@@MrCSeiberlin Iron Gods adventure path is a homage to this adventure as well.

@MrRussell2020

11 ай бұрын

My understanding is that a mind flayer indeed got the ship back up and running and rocketed to an alter universe called Earth, where it took on the semblance of a pirate ship called the Flying Dutchman at the End of the World.

I’ve used the idea of a spaceship in my 3.5 game on Mystara.

Could be an excellent placement of an Aliens crossover. .🤔

@The_Custos

11 ай бұрын

I say we use fly, and fireball the ship from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Bring back whacky laser beams into D&D damn it! Also what are your thoughts on Psionics?

@GreyhawkGrognard

7 ай бұрын

I'm not a fan of psionics; there's no real unique space where they're needed, when you have magic. I think they more properly belong in a game like Gamma World or Metamorphosis Alpha. Now, I can see having a small psionic presence in the same way you can have a couple of laser rifles, but they just seem superfluous in D&D.

@PsionicCavalier

7 ай бұрын

@@GreyhawkGrognard That's fair. I'm a rather huge fan of Psionics and make em more accessible in my games, though that also meant rehauling the Psionic Combat system, as AD&D did had a rather unsavory approach to Psionic Combat, especially if luck was not on your side and you just become a vegetable to a Brain Mole.

I think it's interesting that some creatures are well "aliens". I have found this to be a divisive module, either people think its cool or they hate it. Ok so how do you play this module?

@satturnine7320

11 ай бұрын

With the different systems of play this is a challenge for players and DM’s but not something I’d want to get used to

I don't like the modern science fiction twist, hated that module.