Nekromanti Best Drakar och Demoner campaigns?

[runequester]

I hope you don't mind me posting in English: I am Danish so grew up with Drakar och Demoner and always stuck with BRP-based systems as my main gaming.
I am wanting to run some of the old DoD (Target/Aventyrspel era) modules for my American friends.

The idea is to start playing through Torshem with them as an intro, and then do at least one of the three-book campaigns that were available but I am curious which ones are fun.

If you have specific thoughts or memories on each, I am open to that too.

From what I can tell there were:

Ärans Väg
Härskarserien
Den Nidländska reningen
Svavelwinter etc.

Any I am forgetting?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Leon]

More of a sandbox scenario than a campaign, but Marsklandet is excellent

 

[Henke]

Marsklandet is good. Svavelvinter (den femte konfluxen) is great. Think Torshem was nice and Ärans väg aswell. Dont forget to visit Kandra!

There is also alot of newer material to Svavelvinter in the stand alone Svavelvinter RPG from 2012.

 

[Nässe]

I would say the best ones are Marsklandet and Svavelvinter (which is the first of a four scenario-campaign that would probably be voted the best and most importent swedish campaign ever- if there were such a competition). Barbia is nice also, very epic, but works best as the ending of long time gaming.

 

[zonk]

I'd toss out a warning; den nidländska reningen is ... well, not that great. I'd give it a miss.

 

[runequester]

Thanks guys.

I was thinking of sticking Kandra somewhere near Torshem as a sort of "gateway to the frontier" and take advantage of both modules

I guess I'll have to look into Marsklandet then.

For something more directed/"quest'y" and less open-world/sandbox would Ärans Väg be a good option? Reading through it, it seems like a sort of middle ground between D&D style dungeon adventuring and something more character-driven.

Whats the issue with nidländska reningen ? I've only glanced through it a bit. It seems pretty linear but with a lot of set pieces.

 

[zonk]

N.R. is terribly railroaded and well... full of parts where the PCs are supposed to "spontaneously" go and do entirely unlikely stuff. Especially at the very start of Helvetesfortet. Just read through that intro bit, where the PCs start out... There's also stuff like neverending labyrinths and entirely linear, non-interactive "action" scenes, etc.

I GM'd it way back in the day and it was a frustrating experience.

 

[Staffan]

I would say the best ones are Marsklandet and Svavelvinter (which is the first of a four scenario-campaign that would probably be voted the best and most importent swedish campaign ever- if there were such a competition). Barbia is nice also, very epic, but works best as the ending of long time gaming.

I'll add to this that Femte Konfluxen (the adventure series that starts with Svavelvinter) should be considered a five-volume series - you pretty much need the Trakorien sourcebook to play part 2, Oraklets Fyra Ögon. So the series consists of:

Svavelvinter: mainly open-world stuff on the island of Marjura, setting in motion the things that happen later.
Trakorien: Sourcebook about the islands where Oraklets Fyra Ögon takes place.
Oraklets Fyra Ögon: directed sand-box. Basically, the PCs have to interpret a prophecy in order to locate and recruit four "oracles" that will have roles to play later in the series.
Kristalltjuren: weird planar stuff. I have it somewhere (unless I've sold it) but I don't remember reading it in great detail.
Den Femte Konfluxen: directed sand-box, returning to Marjura in order to prevent various evil factions from controlling the conflux and thus dominate the next few centuries.

 

[runequester]

Zonk - That makes sense. The whole "tavern" opening is a series of leaps of logic that it's pretty unlikely a real group would take.

 

[erikt]

For something more directed/"quest'y" and less open-world/sandbox would Ärans Väg be a good option? Reading through it, it seems like a sort of middle ground between D&D style dungeon adventuring and something more character-driven.

Ärans väg consists of the three modules Döda Skogen, Maktens Portar, and Mörkrets hjärta.
Döda skogen can be played as a fairly open world setting, or in a more directed way - all depending on how certain NPCs act.
Maktens Portar is in many ways a classic dungeon crawl - but a good one even if deadly.
Both the first two parts are quite good modules, and well worth playing.
The third, Mörkrets Hjärta, is not so good and extremely railroaded.

 

[Henke]

I'll add to this that Femte Konfluxen (the adventure series that starts with Svavelvinter) should be considered a five-volume series - you pretty much need the Trakorien sourcebook to play part 2, Oraklets Fyra Ögon. So the series consists of:

Svavelvinter: mainly open-world stuff on the island of Marjura, setting in motion the things that happen later.
Trakorien: Sourcebook about the islands where Oraklets Fyra Ögon takes place.
Oraklets Fyra Ögon: directed sand-box. Basically, the PCs have to interpret a prophecy in order to locate and recruit four "oracles" that will have roles to play later in the series.
Kristalltjuren: weird planar stuff. I have it somewhere (unless I've sold it) but I don't remember reading it in great detail.
Den Femte Konfluxen: directed sand-box, returning to Marjura in order to prevent various evil factions from controlling the conflux and thus dominate the next few centuries.

Another thing about Svavelvinter is that the first novel of four was translated to danish not too long ago (2017?). Ill definatly rekommend that (it was the one thing that got me back into playing RPGs after many years of absence.

 

[runequester]

Reading through Helvetesfortet it definitely has a lot of problems.
It's too bad because one of players would be all over a "good vs evil fight the evil overlord" quest game.

I'm not even super opposed to a fairly linear overall quest, provided the players have some freedom doing the specifics, but it gets a bit rough, doesn't it?

The opening setup has potential: Demobilized mercenaries looking for trouble and some extra coin is a good setup, but the hook is pretty weak.
One of the "hooks" is that a guy in the company whom nobody really knows walks outside the inn.
If anyone talks to him, he says he doesn't really know anything and if they leave him alone, he disappears.
That's supposed to be enough cause to go ransack his room for evidence. It's pretty forced.

The opening would work better if the players were flat out hired to go infiltrate Nidland and get the information needed and I'm not sure why they didn't go with that option. It's not like the adventure is afraid of railroading you later.

You go to the dwarf city, which is fully detailed even though you basically just get told to piss off.
Even if the players sneak in (or just massacre every dwarf they meet) the adventure flat out tells you that the players can't open the gate here, even with magic).
So this section could be half a page long.

The players get funneled through the orc mines (which is fine, its Moria basically), they end up in the grave. Here, they HAVE to check out one of the side graves instead of just heading straight through it.
When they do, they HAVE to fight the obviously super dangerous undead guy with obvious magical weapons (instead of running away).
Then they have to pick up the evil screaming face demon-artifact (instead of ditching it immediately, because it's obviously evil, something the adventure even says certain characters can tell at a glance).
Then the group gets captured when they reach the surface.
Then you have to explain why they don't just call on their magical pegasus friend to come save them in an obvious time of need.
Then you have to explain why the soldier minions of the evil sorcerer lord don't confiscate the obviously evil demon artifact they are carrying.

Then they get hauled before the sorcerer overlord for him to twirl his moustache and now they have to use the demon artifact which blows up the castle and they get whisked away on pegasus-express.

(also am I not understanding something right? The "Bestraffer" ends up just heading to Vicotnik to help him anyways after being freed so since we know the demon can communicate with people, why didn't it just try to get handed over to the him to begin with, The One Ring style?)


It's all pretty rough. You can get away with a couple of "isn't that awfully convenient" moments in a campaign and the players will forgive you as long as they are having a good time, but when it starts compounding on itself like that, it starts eroding the players trust.


It's too bad, like i said, one of my players would love this sort of thing if it was a bit more gracefully handled. I'm not sure if it's worth trying to fix it up or just take some of the ideas and use them elsewhere.

 

[Dimfrost]

I think Svavelvinter (the whole Conflux campaign) and Marsklandet (as a smaller sand box environment) are the only adventures that really hold up today. I have somehow fond memories of Krilloan but haven't reread that for ages. Nidland I'd stay the fuck away from.

 

[runequester]

I'll definitely be giving Svavel a closer look. Reading the first adventure it looks quite fun.

 

[Henke]

https://litteratursiden.dk/anmeldelser/svovlvinter

 

[zonk]

Reading through Helvetesfortet it definitely has a lot of problems.
It's too bad because one of players would be all over a "good vs evil fight the evil overlord" quest game.

I'm not even super opposed to a fairly linear overall quest, provided the players have some freedom doing the specifics, but it gets a bit rough, doesn't it?

Yeah, it's kinda rough all around, to say the least. I guess you could salvage some of it for an entirely different dungeon crawl? I'd not bother trying to make the campaign work, tho.