Is The Keep on the Borderlands a well-designed adventure module?

Is the classic BD&D adventure module The Keep on the Borderlands a well-designed adventure module?



I’m not asking if you like it or had fun with it. I’m not asking if it is a great piece of D&D history. Just, is it well designed as a published adventure for general D&D play?

If it is, what could current module designers/authors learn from it? What should current module designers/authors try to emulate about it?

Quasqueton

By current standards, I don't think so. The main complex is too cramped together and threatens to break verisimiltude, even with the "warring tribes of humanoids" nod.

However, as a primer for beginning DMs looking for guidance on how to run enjoyable site based adventures, this module had some genius moments (the crazed hermit in the swamp is nothing short of magnificent).

I chose "other".

While I like the open-ended nature of it - and it really is an excellent introduction to basic D&D gaming - the success of it really depends on the DM (hmm, that is probably true of all modules - but some more so than others I guess).

What might have made it better (and I am doing this from memory - so someone feel free to correct me if it had this) would have been mini-plot suggestions for the individual cave areas - and/or notes on how the different denizens interact.

Be that as it may, I still ran it many times in many forms over my D&D "career".

Yes. Interesting locations, a (relatively) detailed base of operations, and actual consideration to some sort of reason/ecology (really! I recently converted this to 3e, and was amazed at the reasoning and details included in the module regarding how the different creatures lived, and lived with each other - considering how old this adventure is). Also, as el-remmen notes, it's open-ended.

el-remmen said:

What might have made it better (and I am doing this from memory - so someone feel free to correct me if it had this) ... notes on how the different denizens interact.

Click to expand...

Correction noted - it had this.

I voted "Other."

Keep on the Borderlands is, IMO, one of the most schizophrenic adventure modules in existence. It has moments of surpassing brilliance (the crazed hermit) and moments of utter stupidity (a giant corpse in a cave with a 10' ceiling, COME ON!!). It's one of the most fun adventure complexes ever put together, but has too many sentient races in it.

The Keep is a cool place in concept. Basically, it's a great intro-to-the-game module. It allows one to draw diverse characters together into an adventure in a believable way.

We had some great fun reusing the Keep in a Castles and Crusades game I played last year. I even bought Return to the Keep on the Borderlands and STILL found it to be a good engaging module.

So, a few bits of verisimilitude aside, I thought it was great.

Of course, my favorite D&D adventure is still The Isle of Dread (X1).

I said yes, but only if you ignore the problem of what to do with all those hordes of goblin, orc, and kobold babies.

Yes.

It's a simple, straightforward, easy-to-run adventure that nonetheless opens up the potential for intelligent play (the rumors, the factional monster rivalries, the combined trap-monster encounters, etc.) and generally makes sense of its "dungeon ecology." I find the logical inconsistencies in it to be incredibly niggling (the height of a room in which there's a giant corpse doesn't really bother me much).

What should module designers try to emulate from it? Well, I think most of them know by now. I haven't seen an adventure worth buying that doesn't have clear guidelines for resolving Gather Information and Knowledge checks and doesn't allow the PCs to get through encounters with intelligent opponents by exploiting factional rivalries or just roleplaying.

el-remmen said:

What might have made it better...would have been mini-plot suggestions for the individual cave areas - and/or notes on how the different denizens interact.

Click to expand...

Interact? Bah! Zaron the Magic User scoffs at your notion of humanoid interaction! Scoff I say! All the interaction they need is one of my sleep spells and then the business end of Lyadion the Fighter's sword.

You left off an important voting option of "Bree-Yark!"

There is a short, very interesting, and fairly negative review by none other than Mike Mearls over on RPGNet (http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_1250.html). It's well worth reading -- if only for the funny parts. I am not sure how serious Mike was here, or if he would even agree with his own words completely today (it appears to have been written back in 1999).

I think one thing that he really bangs on about this module is actually a great virtue: the utterly generic nature of the setting. There's no detailed backstory, none of the NPCs have names.

To me, I think this is an incredible virtue. I have run the Keep on the Borderlands about half a dozen times: in Greyhawk (twice), Mystara (twice), the Forgetten Realms, and in a low-magic homebrew setting. Because there were so few details, it was trivial to move the module into any of these settings. For example, the Shrine of Chaos has been variously a temple to Tharizdun, Erythnul, Moander, and Baphomet.

Around 1999, I found most published modules had far, far too much detail -- and were therefore of rather limited value. I have a large gaming group with a diverse mix of role-playing and combat; I found most of the background fluff was utterly useless in play: it was too tangential to the storyline to ever get used. And much of the background that wasn't tangenial needed to be stripped out or heavily modified in order to fit my campaign.

For what it's worth, Dungeon magazine seems to have found a real sweet spot in terms of background information. More often than not, there's enough info to pique my interest and sustain the adventure, but not a lot of excess material that needs to be stripped out, modified, or ignored.

I do recognize many of the serious logic and continuity problems with this module, but all-in-all, I find it to be a pretty good introductory adventure that new players still seem to enjoy.