"An acorn tree"

Otherwise known in the industry as: an oak tree

Petition for Matt to say "which you can't, if you failed your mushroom save in Castle Amber" every single time he describes a thing a character could do in D&D, from now until eternity.

"Stephen's tomb travels through time and space" Ah yes, obviously. Why wouldn't it

Just an FYI, Rakasta were a sort of precursor tabaxi, basically cat people, and unrelated to the rakshasa, the tiger fiends with the backward hands. They also show up in The Isle of Dread (X1) adventure. Living statues were Basic D&D golems but geared for lower level characters and were also in Isle of Dread, and  they were featured in Journey to the Rock (B8) and Drums on Fire Mountain (X8) as well .

Matt, your rapid-fire delivery of all the encounters KILLED me



like if I had failed my mushroom save

If there's one thing I want to remember from this it's the phrase "... which you can't if you failed your mushroom save."

"Who are they? What are they doing here? Who does their taxes? Shut up! It's 1981. There's still lead in gasoline." There's never been a more accurate explanation of old school D&D logic (or lack thereof). This gave me strong Futurama vibes.

The whole "amber mist" thing is due to the fact that the player characters are not allowed to leave the castle.  In normal adventures of the time it was generally assumed that the PCs would leave the dungeon and go back to town to rest.  But that wasn't possible here.  If PC's just camped out in the middle of the dungeon in order to rest they'd get attacked by wandering monsters, spoiling their rest.  With a typical 1 in 6 chance for a wandering monster every two turns (20 minutes) that means on average characters would have one encounter every two hours, or four in an eight hour "rest" period".  And in Old School D&D you might get spells back after sleeping the night but you only get 1 hit point per day.  All in all, this was a mechanic designed to ameliorate the "survival horror" aspect of trapping players in the environment.

A friend of mine wanted our AD&D 2nd edition DragonLance campaign to basically run through classic modules. This was the first one we did, and it took us 2 months to complete, and we skipped the north and east wings because we just wanted to get out of the damn castle.

We played the Goodman Games version, and it was pretty fun and pretty close to the original module, but greatly expanded and with more art from the original artist. That was super neat too.

Me sitting in my biology lecture listening to this through an earbud and trying not to laugh out loud when Matt says “it can be a useful tool… like me”

Clark Ashton Smith is one of the 'big three' of Weird Tales fame.  Lovecraft, Howard, and Smith.  Read Smith.  So good.

Yes please do more of these. Old-school nonsensical adventures are just so alien to me that they're honestly fascinating, I can't not think about the story explanations that would bring all these different elements together!

The weirdest thing was gaming with Gygax around 2001 and realizing that this was how he was going to game til he breathed his last.  The whole White Wolf-inspired narrative RPG push never happened as far as EGG was concerned.

This adventure is entirely worthwhile for the map of a manor home alone.

I loved this video. “Shut up! There’s still lead in gasoline!!” Had me cackling

13:36 "I can't tell you how many times I've read box text to players who didn't understand it, asked me questions, and made me realize I didn't understand it, either."

That's why, when I run a pre-made adventure, I re-write everything in my own voice. My experience is that the people writing adventures or modules write for the page instead of for the ear.

The phrase "armpit homonculus" will haunt me until my dying day.

Colville’s alive!

"Who are they? Why are they here?  Who does their taxes?  Shut up!  It's 1981, there's still lead in gasoline."

This was the point where I had to pause the video and walk away for a few minutes because I was laughing too hard to process anything else.

Ah, memories.  This made my whole morning. :)

Castle Amber sounds like a Domain of Dread, but specifically designed to torture Matt

Always supected MC was a honey voiced werewolf - now confirmed 7:25