Escape From Astigar’s Lair is a Judges Guild adventure written specifically for 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. This adventure was written for tournament play and has a detailed scoring key and pre-generated characters for use in the tournament. The authors are Allen V Pruehs and Ree Moorhead Pruehs. It was published in 1980.
Escape From Astigar’s Lair is a very short adventure by Judges Guild standards. It is twenty pages long. This includes the cover and back cover as well as the map, pre-generated characters and scoring sheets. All told the adventure itself is about eight pages long.
Three friends and adventurers have grown up together and have a life long connection. One is a druid, the second is a ranger and the third is a bard. One day some artifacts come into possession of the adventurers. One is a helm and the other is an orb. The bard, named Egad, places the helm upon his head. He is a bit reckless and does not know what he has unleashed. The helm once belonged to an evil wizard named Astigar and his soul is in this helm. The power of the helm overwhelms Egad who then steals the artifacts and some other goodies and flees to the lair of this evil wizard. The two remaining adventurers feel that they must get these things back and embark upon a quest to track down Egad and regain possession of the items.
The tournament adventure is a two player one. One plays a ranger. The other plays a druid. Items and spells are pre-selected for the adventurers and most have specific purposes in the tournament. The adventure is set up in such a way that the best option is always to avoid combat. If the two players attempt to fight everything all the time in this game they will fail quickly.
What I like about Escape From Astigar’s Lair
It is an old school dungeons and dragons adventure from Judges Guild. Often these are interesting adventures with many possible encounters and outcomes. I like the idea of escaping from the dungeon rather than going in to kill everything in front of you and steal all the treasures. That aspect is unusual in published adventures for AD&D.
I like the fact that it is short. I also like the fact that there is not a whole lot of background and story line information to bore you before you begin.
What I do not like about Escape From Astigar’s Lair
I absolutely loath tournament adventures. The scoring of these things is horrible. They force players to play the game in the way that the writer thinks it should be. It forces them to play the game unnaturally. It penalizes adventurers who do things differently than the writer would or thinks that they should.
Combat is part of dungeons and dragons. In every edition of the game. Yet these tournament adventures reward players for avoiding fights. Why? That is not how people play the game in their homes or at their kitchen table. So why penalize players who do? This makes no sense to me. None at all.
But this adventure goes even further. There are penalties for going into the wrong rooms. This is ridiculous. How can one lose points for going into a room that is available for them to? This is totally arbitrary.
Certain spells are selected for the adventurers in advance. The adventure gives points for using those spells at the right time and in the right way. And it takes points away for using the spell elsewhere or in some other manner. This totally takes the independence of the adventurers away and substitutes the style of play of the writer of the adventure. I really hate that kind of crap. I understand that some kind of scoring system is needed in order to run a tournament. But it would be better to award the players points for achieving certain goals rather than arbitrarily taking points away for using spells in an unintended manner or awarding them for using them only the way the writer would.
Would I recommend this adventure to others?
If someone wanted a short two person adventure to run I suppose it would do. For a one shot. But for tournament play I think it is seriously lacking. For actual campaign play it would not fit in any campaign normally in my opinion. So no. I probably would not recommend it to others.
Would I run this adventure with my own players?
If I needed a two person one shot perhaps. Otherwise no I would not use it with my own group. My players crave combat. They would hate an adventure that seemingly wants to avoid it at all costs.
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