Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Advice for Caves of Chaos/B2
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7287347" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>With respect, no, it isn't. Each of the lairs has watch posts and a system of alarms for calling all of the lair to arms to resist invaders. As written most combats will quickly devolve to 8-12 PC's or henchmen, versus 15-30 monsters. There will not be a fight versus 5 of these and then 4 of these unless the PC's are much better equipped to sneak than they are likely to be unless every player coordinates together as a strategy. And by this game not being 'cinematic', I mean that long before you've resolved that combat the participants on both sides will cease to pay any attention to the details and simply each take their turn by saying, "I attack." and rolling a dice. It has all the charm of the card game 'War', and is suitable for beginners only in that only a 10 year old has the tolerance of repetition to enjoy that.</p><p></p><p>This structure is classic Gygaxian and is the way the module is intended to run - see also the moathouse bandits in T1 Village of Homlet, the escalating fight in G1 versus an army of Hill Giants, or the massive set piece battle that begins WK4: Forgotten Temple of Thardizun. B2 in many ways harkens back to D&D's tactical wargaming roots, but it in no way reflects how D&D is usually played now or really any time since 1979. B2 is in many ways an atavism of a module. </p><p></p><p>The difference between B2, and those other three modules however are important. In T1, G1, and WG4 there is one tactical/attrition skirmish game layer, and after it is ultimately won, the module enters into a different stage and offers a different sort of gameplay - exploration/dungeon centered play or even puzzle centered play in the case of WG4. Further, G1 and WG4 are modules intended for expert and highly experience players and DMs, wielding characters with many more tactical options to choose from during a battle. In B2, one tactical/attrition skirmish game is likely to be followed by 6 or so other ones differing only in the drapes from the ones before it, and the PC's have almost no options but to attack with the weapon at hand. Even the horrid temple of chaos itself, probably the most Gygaxian in its employment of special magic and bizarre events, ultimately ends up being, "You fight 20 zombies and 20 skeletons at the same time."</p><p></p><p>All of this repetition and heavy focus on combat means that fighters shine in the adventure far more often than members of other classes, making this a rather lousy experience for someone playing a character lacking in a combat focus. It repeatedly winnows out anyone not able to wear heavy armor unless the DM metagames to keep M-U's and thieves alive. Both parties that went through it for me ended up losing all M-U's, thieves, and other light armor wearers, simply because stray missile weapons eventually found them. The only M-U I ever saw get through was an Elf (Fighter/M-U in AD&D terms). </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, that makes sense if we are talking about G1 or WG4 but it is not applicable to B2 because unlike those modules, we are dealing with first level characters. First level characters simply do not have the resources to do any of those things, nor does the text of the module facilitate or validate any of those plans. The answer to all of them should be 'No.' No, there is no stream on the map running through the canyon to facilitate flooding the caves, nor even if one was added do 1st level characters have the means to manipulate the terrain quickly nor produce more water than the average rainstorm in the area would. No, there is no way to burn them out, because 1st level characters simply cannot manipulate the environment fast enough to implement that sort of besieging strategy. None of the tribes as written engages in any sort of economic activity other than the goblins (I already mentioned that), and their economic activity is limited to a single wandering encounter that shows up if you linger around too much so strategic operations to strangle the logistics of the tribe are basically impossible unless the DM goes far beyond the text (which, why would you expect a novice DM to do). Moreover, the PC's are poorly equipped to lay siege to an area as vast as the caves, as they simply could not encircle it or effectively lay an ambush. Low level thieves certainly do not have the means to successfully lay a ton of traps even were it to occur to someone, and if it did, suddenly you are asking a DM to house rule as well as invent a scenario. There is no sign that the tribes do raid anything, so waiting for them to do so is asking for cooperation of the DM that he has no reason to give. Ironically, the 'tips given to novice DMs on how to run the module' may in fact work against the flexibility of the module you claim it has, because the DM is told how the monsters behave and given no reason to think they ever behave otherwise.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>All of that is quite viable, but now you are talking about rewriting a module intended to teach a beginning DM. Again, showing a novice DM a poor module and expecting them to realize its a poor module and that it needs to be rewritten and manipulated is a terrible idea, as the most likely thing that will actually happen is the DM will consider the module a template for play as written and will emulate it until eventually some revelation may occur that the game doesn't have to be played this way (likely after buying some completely different module and discovering completely different approaches).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That damns rather than defends the module. And what Gygax may have thought is irrelevant. I'm quite certain he wouldn't have ran the module as written either. But what the module is as written looks like a slapdash job intended to meet a deadline. It has flashes of creativity and there are all sorts of quintessentially Gygaxian flourishes (the way treasure is hidden in plain sight, the inexplicable magical effects, the large set piece battles, the 'gotcha' allies that turn against you, the archaic words describing the contents of the rooms, and so forth). But on the whole I would not recommend running the module, and I note no one is recommending running the module 'as is', but instead arguing how great the module is if you invest in it and invent all sorts of stuff that isn't in it. And that's fine, but it's largely true of any module, and in this case I'd argue that the resulting campaign would probably be better without the caves themselves.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7287347, member: 4937"] With respect, no, it isn't. Each of the lairs has watch posts and a system of alarms for calling all of the lair to arms to resist invaders. As written most combats will quickly devolve to 8-12 PC's or henchmen, versus 15-30 monsters. There will not be a fight versus 5 of these and then 4 of these unless the PC's are much better equipped to sneak than they are likely to be unless every player coordinates together as a strategy. And by this game not being 'cinematic', I mean that long before you've resolved that combat the participants on both sides will cease to pay any attention to the details and simply each take their turn by saying, "I attack." and rolling a dice. It has all the charm of the card game 'War', and is suitable for beginners only in that only a 10 year old has the tolerance of repetition to enjoy that. This structure is classic Gygaxian and is the way the module is intended to run - see also the moathouse bandits in T1 Village of Homlet, the escalating fight in G1 versus an army of Hill Giants, or the massive set piece battle that begins WK4: Forgotten Temple of Thardizun. B2 in many ways harkens back to D&D's tactical wargaming roots, but it in no way reflects how D&D is usually played now or really any time since 1979. B2 is in many ways an atavism of a module. The difference between B2, and those other three modules however are important. In T1, G1, and WG4 there is one tactical/attrition skirmish game layer, and after it is ultimately won, the module enters into a different stage and offers a different sort of gameplay - exploration/dungeon centered play or even puzzle centered play in the case of WG4. Further, G1 and WG4 are modules intended for expert and highly experience players and DMs, wielding characters with many more tactical options to choose from during a battle. In B2, one tactical/attrition skirmish game is likely to be followed by 6 or so other ones differing only in the drapes from the ones before it, and the PC's have almost no options but to attack with the weapon at hand. Even the horrid temple of chaos itself, probably the most Gygaxian in its employment of special magic and bizarre events, ultimately ends up being, "You fight 20 zombies and 20 skeletons at the same time." All of this repetition and heavy focus on combat means that fighters shine in the adventure far more often than members of other classes, making this a rather lousy experience for someone playing a character lacking in a combat focus. It repeatedly winnows out anyone not able to wear heavy armor unless the DM metagames to keep M-U's and thieves alive. Both parties that went through it for me ended up losing all M-U's, thieves, and other light armor wearers, simply because stray missile weapons eventually found them. The only M-U I ever saw get through was an Elf (Fighter/M-U in AD&D terms). Again, that makes sense if we are talking about G1 or WG4 but it is not applicable to B2 because unlike those modules, we are dealing with first level characters. First level characters simply do not have the resources to do any of those things, nor does the text of the module facilitate or validate any of those plans. The answer to all of them should be 'No.' No, there is no stream on the map running through the canyon to facilitate flooding the caves, nor even if one was added do 1st level characters have the means to manipulate the terrain quickly nor produce more water than the average rainstorm in the area would. No, there is no way to burn them out, because 1st level characters simply cannot manipulate the environment fast enough to implement that sort of besieging strategy. None of the tribes as written engages in any sort of economic activity other than the goblins (I already mentioned that), and their economic activity is limited to a single wandering encounter that shows up if you linger around too much so strategic operations to strangle the logistics of the tribe are basically impossible unless the DM goes far beyond the text (which, why would you expect a novice DM to do). Moreover, the PC's are poorly equipped to lay siege to an area as vast as the caves, as they simply could not encircle it or effectively lay an ambush. Low level thieves certainly do not have the means to successfully lay a ton of traps even were it to occur to someone, and if it did, suddenly you are asking a DM to house rule as well as invent a scenario. There is no sign that the tribes do raid anything, so waiting for them to do so is asking for cooperation of the DM that he has no reason to give. Ironically, the 'tips given to novice DMs on how to run the module' may in fact work against the flexibility of the module you claim it has, because the DM is told how the monsters behave and given no reason to think they ever behave otherwise. All of that is quite viable, but now you are talking about rewriting a module intended to teach a beginning DM. Again, showing a novice DM a poor module and expecting them to realize its a poor module and that it needs to be rewritten and manipulated is a terrible idea, as the most likely thing that will actually happen is the DM will consider the module a template for play as written and will emulate it until eventually some revelation may occur that the game doesn't have to be played this way (likely after buying some completely different module and discovering completely different approaches). That damns rather than defends the module. And what Gygax may have thought is irrelevant. I'm quite certain he wouldn't have ran the module as written either. But what the module is as written looks like a slapdash job intended to meet a deadline. It has flashes of creativity and there are all sorts of quintessentially Gygaxian flourishes (the way treasure is hidden in plain sight, the inexplicable magical effects, the large set piece battles, the 'gotcha' allies that turn against you, the archaic words describing the contents of the rooms, and so forth). But on the whole I would not recommend running the module, and I note no one is recommending running the module 'as is', but instead arguing how great the module is if you invest in it and invent all sorts of stuff that isn't in it. And that's fine, but it's largely true of any module, and in this case I'd argue that the resulting campaign would probably be better without the caves themselves. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Advice for Caves of Chaos/B2
Top