Return to Apple Lane

B

Briquelet

Mongoose
There is a running joke with my old RQ buddies that no Gloranthan campaign we've run ever started anywhere other than Apple Lane. In truth, we really did play the heck out of that scenario pack. :-) Tomorrow night I am beginning my new Sartar campaign, and I feel I must maintain the tradition. Therefore, the first scenario will be a modified version of Return to Apple Lane by Jeff Richard. :-) So far the characters include an Orlmarthing hunter, an Orlmarthing cattle thief, an Individualist Mostali sorcerer, and a durulz initiate of Deathdrake. It's a weird bunch, but it should be fun.
 
Hi,

I have played/run Rainbow Mounds about thirty times, I have played it as written with pre-gens, I have played it as newtlings looking for lost kin, I have even played it as broo which was just horrible, poor old White Eye! However nothing could be the joy of playing Apple Lane with my two daugters and wife in a tent on a rainy camping holiday last year!

Simon
 
Wow, 30 times... :shock:
I have only run it twice.
What are your best memories of those 30 Rainbow Mounds?
Any good advice for making the most out of it?
 
Game went well last night. Ten Taraling thugs rushed the pawnshop and left only two bowmen to pick off missile users. The Silver Mostali sorcerer cast holdfast on the kitchen door and delayed the Lunars' entry to the rear. When they finally broke in, he had enchanted his own weapon to do maximum damage and was protected from up to seven points of damage per blow. The first man through the door lost his leg to a crit! Then Quackjohn unloaded with an arbalest on the man standing behind and skewed him.

A big battle took place in the cramped negotiations room with two PCs opening up with the mounted heavy crossbows on the first unlucky men to enter. Then the durulz worshipper of Deathdrake waded in to slaughter the bunched up barbarians. His first two swings decapitated his foes because he was able to select location and has a gift that causes all penetrating damage to be doubled!

The Odaylan hunter with a bow was already up on the roof and hidden. He came out and skewered the two archers who did return fire, but both hit the rooftop, which was covering his legs (they went for impales!).

By the time all was done, three Taralings were dead and five were badly wounded. No PCs were killed.
 
That's the beauty of Apple Lane, it's so simple it's very easily customised and used again and again and again. I haven't found a satisfactory way of moving it to Prax, though (well, the Rainbow Mounds are easy to relocate, but Apple Lane itself doesn't really work for me in that setting ...).
 
Does anyone know of a conversion of Apple Lane to MRQII yet? Before someone says conversion is easy from old RQ and RQ3 I would say I have very little GMing experience and would like to use work done by someone with more practice while I see if enough people in my gaming group are interested in the idea.

Apple Lane seems like a nice little mini-campaign to have a go with but converting and preparing seems a little intimidating when I have only run 1 scenario from Dragon Warriors previously.

Any help would garner my undying gratitude, and a beer if we ever meet at a Convention or something!
 
I ran this using MRQ as the intro to my campaign some months ago and found the whole thing really still works. (I do admit to using 'Rumble at the Tin Inn' for a session or two as well). These two demonstrating that quality will out.
I simply converted the characters using my character generator (available on the wiki) and a little RQII to MRQ updating of skills etc. and it ran for about 6 seessions as I remember. It allows the players to get into their characters and is not so complex that their lack of familiarity with the rules caused major upsets to the play.

elgrin
 
There was also an interesting extension - 'Rumble at the Tin Inn' in one of the early 'White Dwarf's (Issue number 33) that added a bit of colour too. It was a bar-room brawl, but had pre-gen PCs and all sorts of minor extra info about village goings on.
 
Psychman said:
Does anyone know of a conversion of Apple Lane to MRQII yet?
Click to expand...

I used Rainbow Mounds as a playtest for RQII with mixed results. If you just run it as is, the skill levels of the NPCs are not a match for beginning PCs and the magic is off. On the other hand the rock lizard ghosts would now work totally differently and you run the risk of a TPK if your players aren't expecting to face discorporation. It's worth your while spending time converting the NPCs properly and ensuring that the PCs have at least one member who can deal with spirits. Finally, I revised the Newtlings into spirit magic user / ancestor worshippers which fitted them better and gave them some oomph.

I haven't run the attack on Gringle's Pawnshop in RQII but just eye-balling the stats was enough to tell me that you need to do something similar or else the attackers are easily out-classed.

It's a shame that Mongoose haven't put a simple RQII scenario in S&P. It's not easy to judge appropriate opponents in RQ because combat tends to hinge around the first serious wound and that can be the first blow or the 10th.
 
I think an official adaptation of Apple Lane and Rainbow Mounds in S&P would be fantastic (if they could get permission of course).

Otherwise just as soon as I am done with my own version (not that I have anything else to do!) I will post the stats for it here... and see who rips it to shreds... :roll:
 
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