Dungeons & Dragons Module B8: "Journey to The Rock"

1984's Journey to The Rock is your averagely terrible hump across a map gird encountering random wilderness hellions and battling with the elements. When D&D modules finally made it out of the dungeons they spent years treating wilderness adventures like dungeon adventures with weather. Basic D&D modules, like this one, were particularly guilty of offering gaming experiences like the part in an old computer RPG when you had to travel on the big map. Remember how occasionally your little dot would stop moving and you would fight four ogres next to an isometric wall before your adventure could continue? In the case of modules like Journey to The Rock, those four ogres are the whole adventure.

Zack: "There's the rock, right there. Let us journey to it."

Steve: Aw, man, Basic?

Zack: You didn't specify, you just demanded I read a wilderness adventure module and run it for you. This one seemed short.

Steve: That's your only qualification? Length?

Zack: The last time I asked for a suggestion you brought up The World's Largest Dungeon.

Steve: The awesomeness is right there in the name. It's the world's largest dungeon. Can you imagine the sort of adventures you could get up to in there?

Zack: I looked it up. It's over 800 pages. I would rather read the dictionary.

Steve: Dude, it's like a mountain daring you to climb it. Are you a tough enough DM to run the world's largest dungeon?

Zack: No, I think the people running it after me would find my frozen body behind the DM's screen.

Steve: He died doing what he loved.

Zack: Looking up encumbrance for a griffin carrying a bag of 2,000 Electrum pieces.

Steve: Can I bring back Darth Conans, Scourge of the Frost Lands?

Zack: It's level 1-3, and they expect you to play a party of pre-made characters with really bad names like Hawk Eaglebuff and Rancho Lingling. I'll let you play a level 4 character.

Steve: Those names are terrible.

Steve: I'll play Dean Snakehands, Aztec Barbarian.

Zack: There aren't any Aztecs or barbarians in Basic D&D. The classes are: cleric, fighter, thief, elf, magic-user, halfling, and dwarf.

Steve: Aaaah! Okay, Dean Snakehands, Elf. At large. Level 4.

Zack: I never thought I would see you play an elf.

Steve: Dean Snakehands was raised by the tundra wolves of the foreboding ice kingdoms of the north. He is muscley, savage, brutarded, axe-wielding elf. Intelligence 6.

Zack: So he's a barbarian?

Steve: With infravision.