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This one? Is it any good? Are the witches in that adventure as batshit as the one's in Dragon?
Nevermind, I found a copy of this in a vast treasure horde. The only batshit thing about the witch class in this adventure is that it wastes 17 pages describing it. It's also got 28 pages of detailed hexmaps. Also, I don't recognize the scale of any of the stats. I know JG sometimes plugged house rules into their adventures but I'm guessing something a little different in happening here. Anyway, it looks like work.
 
This one? Is it any good? Are the witches in that adventure as batshit as the one's in Dragon?
That one. The main thing I noticed was that the NPCs were derived directly from the Dragon article. So, yeah.
Not...really very good. I bought it back when it first came out, and took a second look back in the 90's. Lots of area maps (I think their plan was to map out the entire continent one supplement at a time). I could never figure out what was going on (something about a Witches Sabbat), what the intent of the witches was, or what adventurers could do about it.
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EDIT: That was my take: A lot of stats, a lot of maps, a random dungeon, and maybe an adventure buried in there somewhere. JG was trying out their shop game "Universal" at the time. Most of us just ignored it and used the D&D rules.
 
I’ve found Swords & Wizardry Complete to be my favourite D&D, hands down. It hits that sweet spot between the original little brown books and AD&D. I think it will perform perfectly for what you want. I’m not familiar with G1, and only passingly familiar with Tegel, but there are so many good things to run from that era you’re spoiled with choice.

If I were to go more in an AD&D direction I’d use Wayfarers, which is a gritty point buy AD&D style game. It’s absolutely bloody brilliant. If you have a group of tinkerers it might work better. Beware the hit points stay quite low. I think it predates the OSR, but it’s not far off it in spirit.
 
Nevermind, I found a copy of this in a vast treasure horde. The only batshit thing about the witch class in this adventure is that it wastes 17 pages describing it. It's also got 28 pages of detailed hexmaps. Also, I don't recognize the scale of any of the stats. I know JG sometimes plugged house rules into their adventures but I'm guessing something a little different in happening here. Anyway, it looks like work.
Drop the last number on the stats.
 
By the time Witches Court Marsh was released, Judges Guild lost their AD&D/D&D license. So they switched to using what they call a Universal Fantasy Stats

Universal Fantasy_Page_1.jpgUniversal Fantasy_Page_2.jpg

In general nearly every number is three digits. The first two digits are the stat and the last is a secondary characteristic. For example level is LLS where LL is the level and S is the number of occupations in which the character has gained skill. For example FTR 042 means a 4th level Fighter who knows two occupations.

Observations
The Armor system was a little interesting as you could devire a specific armor class out of the armor pieces the character was wearing.

It would work better with D&D 3.0 onwards because all you have to do is add 10 after dropping the last number.

Among fans of Judges Guild, the Universal Fantasy stat blocks are not well liked. This includes myself.

The last number of the attributes are the number of times per day it can be checked without checking for stress damage. No clue as to what Judges Guild was thinking in terms of stress damage mechanics.
 
. I could never figure out what was going on (something about a Witches Sabbat), what the intent of the witches was, or what adventurers could do about it.

Like the other the other Wilderness series module it describes a region as it existed in 4433 BCCC. As with much of the Wilderlands material the adventure possibilities depend on the circumstance of the campaign. Aside from describing places like the village of Grita Heath, the main impact of the supplement is the description of Mordridda a Lawful Evil 19th level Magic User and her lair. Which make her a potential main villain in a Wilderlands campaign.
 
It occurs to me that I don't think I've ever done a traditional sandbox hexcrawl game in D&D. I've done sandbox trading games in Traveller, which has some minor similarities.
 
Will I have thus the ultimate grognard experience ? Or must I tackle some Judges Guild module too ?
Hey there. I don't presume to know what the ultimate grognard experience is but you might want to check out Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. It is both a setting and AD&D retroclone created by Gary Gygax's protege, Jeffrey Talanian. It digs deep into the pulp and weird fiction of Appendix N (Howard, Lovecraft, C.A.S. among others) whilst omitting any Tolkien influence.

Judge's Guild is solid but, like most early material, requires a ton of DM elbow grease and/or improvisation to be playable. Tegel Manor is 250+ rooms of lolrandom creatures and spooky fluff that needs a creative and experienced DM to turn it into something fun.

That said, a lot of the older material is a good source of inspiration; when I'm stumped for locations in my setting's main city I often refer to The City State of the Invincible Overlord for ideas.

Edit: Needless to say I am excited about this.
 
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I've noticed ASSH for some time, and it looks interesting. I had not checked the remake of Tegel manor you point to, but damned !... now I want it :hehe::pizza:!
 
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