So, I'm running a 1e version of Keep on the Borderlands. I'm struggling with how to make the caves interesting. It takes sooooooooo long to level up in 1e, that I'm afraid they won't have the juice for the rest of it. Plus . . . honestly, it's kind of boring. I want to spruce it up a bit. Any suggestions?
Advice for Caves of Chaos/B2
ccs
41st lv DM
1) In your game, why are all those monster tribes living {relatively} peacefully right next to each other? Answer that & you've got yourself a plot.
2) There's all kinds of NPCs scattered throughout the caves in the form of prisoners. Add details to them. And there's even more NPCs back in the Keep.
3) On leveling - there's enough monsters/treasure/magic items to lv up a few times.
4) Whatever you decide is your plot should suggest an "ending". Otherwise all you've got is a slog to kill every last monster hiding in the nooks & crannies.
Ex:
The last time I ran this I had the Temple of Evil be a remnant of one of the Elemental Evil cults from ToEE. After the 1e Temple fell some of the priests retreated here, set up shop, & over time started secretly drawing in monster tribes.
The PCs were a guard patrol nearing the end of their compulsory military duty, stationed at a small keep along the northern Kings Road. A nice quiet posting at essentially a tax collection station for the local farming communities harvests. Now & then, especially in the fall, they'd have to be alert against a local tribe of forest goblins. But in general, pretty quiet duty.
Until a band of brigands began operating in the area. Then they had to do some actual work....
They did, tracking down the bandits, killing most of them & taking a few prisoners. Thus learning about the Caves roughly a days ride north. They went in there thinking it was a simple Wipe-out-a-Bandit-lair raid. They discovered "OMG! There's 7 different monster clans, an assortment of misc monsters, and a branch of the Cult of Elemental Evil."
The Keep was alerted.
Word was sent that actual troops were needed.
And thus began a campaign of guerrilla warfare to weaken the monsters as much as possible while awaiting the actual army.
And when we reached a point where it seemed that everyone was tiring of these raids? That's when the Kings forces showed up & there was a battle royal.
Surviving characters got to muster out & chart their own course with the new friends & contacts that they'd made.
2) There's all kinds of NPCs scattered throughout the caves in the form of prisoners. Add details to them. And there's even more NPCs back in the Keep.
3) On leveling - there's enough monsters/treasure/magic items to lv up a few times.
4) Whatever you decide is your plot should suggest an "ending". Otherwise all you've got is a slog to kill every last monster hiding in the nooks & crannies.
Ex:
The last time I ran this I had the Temple of Evil be a remnant of one of the Elemental Evil cults from ToEE. After the 1e Temple fell some of the priests retreated here, set up shop, & over time started secretly drawing in monster tribes.
The PCs were a guard patrol nearing the end of their compulsory military duty, stationed at a small keep along the northern Kings Road. A nice quiet posting at essentially a tax collection station for the local farming communities harvests. Now & then, especially in the fall, they'd have to be alert against a local tribe of forest goblins. But in general, pretty quiet duty.
Until a band of brigands began operating in the area. Then they had to do some actual work....
They did, tracking down the bandits, killing most of them & taking a few prisoners. Thus learning about the Caves roughly a days ride north. They went in there thinking it was a simple Wipe-out-a-Bandit-lair raid. They discovered "OMG! There's 7 different monster clans, an assortment of misc monsters, and a branch of the Cult of Elemental Evil."
The Keep was alerted.
Word was sent that actual troops were needed.
And thus began a campaign of guerrilla warfare to weaken the monsters as much as possible while awaiting the actual army.
And when we reached a point where it seemed that everyone was tiring of these raids? That's when the Kings forces showed up & there was a battle royal.
Surviving characters got to muster out & chart their own course with the new friends & contacts that they'd made.
Celebrim
Legend
Don't?
I've ran B2 twice, once at about age 11 and once at about age 15, and I'd never do it again - or at least not in anything remotely like its written form. Your assessment of the adventure is perfectly correct. It's fairly boring and redundant, and it tends to devolve into a series of mass combats involving entire tribes versus the party. And those combats tend to devolve into the fact that plate armor wearing PC's can be nigh impossible for most foes to hit, resulting in lots of tedious rolling and very little cinematic combat.
The real irony of B2 is it that it is an adventure that only can come to life in the hands of a very experienced and competent DM who is capable and willing to add a ton to the text that doesn't really appear in it. It's an absolutely lousy module for a beginning DM. I've heard of mini-campaigns around B2 that sounded like they might have worked, that involved inventing massive backstories for the castle, surrounding towns and wilderness lairs, an evil warlord, an insidious cult of chaos, spies, assassins, fleshing out the interior of the keeps and the NPCs there in, and the merchants that visit it, and adding additional dungeons and so on and so forth. But at that point, B2 itself is only a tiny and partially irrelevant launching point for the DM's imagination.
And at that point that the scenario has become logical depends on nothing actually in the text of the adventure. Examining the text alone, you have to ask why in the world any of these tribes are even there. They've got no apparent loyalty to the cult, and the cult has no apparent means of imposing control on the tribes. The tribes hate each other and their are no resources that would tie the tribes to the caves. Nothing in the text suggests what they are vying over in the first place, and only the goblins seem to have any sort of economic activity (and that not very much). There are no workshops, no mines, no really anything, to suggest what this is all about. Moreover, the supposed threat represented by the tribes is ridiculous, since the keep is quite capable of repelling any attack that the tiny poorly equipped tribes could mount even if they did work together. And, the keeps soldiers and officers are vastly better equipped to assault the caves than the PC's are, so if it really came to that, why is it the PC's job to deal with the caves? And if the cult actually had a goal, why do they passively allow the PC's to disrupt it. Like, the second time the PC's show up, why doesn't every tribe and all the undead and the cultists attack the PC's together? If they can't manage to do that, why does the cult imagine it can arrange an assault on the keep?
(The DM who trained me told me that his PC party had concluded that the real goal of the module was to rob the keep, and his group had treated the module like a heist game. That's a good example of making lemonade out of lemons, but not evidence of the module not being boring as written.)
Briefly, I considered rewriting B2 to suit my current standards of play, and to me that involves mostly dealing with its problematic but iconic map and its lack of compelling hooks or obvious purpose of play beyond kicking down the doors and taking their stuff. But it's too much work for too little reward.
I've ran B2 twice, once at about age 11 and once at about age 15, and I'd never do it again - or at least not in anything remotely like its written form. Your assessment of the adventure is perfectly correct. It's fairly boring and redundant, and it tends to devolve into a series of mass combats involving entire tribes versus the party. And those combats tend to devolve into the fact that plate armor wearing PC's can be nigh impossible for most foes to hit, resulting in lots of tedious rolling and very little cinematic combat.
The real irony of B2 is it that it is an adventure that only can come to life in the hands of a very experienced and competent DM who is capable and willing to add a ton to the text that doesn't really appear in it. It's an absolutely lousy module for a beginning DM. I've heard of mini-campaigns around B2 that sounded like they might have worked, that involved inventing massive backstories for the castle, surrounding towns and wilderness lairs, an evil warlord, an insidious cult of chaos, spies, assassins, fleshing out the interior of the keeps and the NPCs there in, and the merchants that visit it, and adding additional dungeons and so on and so forth. But at that point, B2 itself is only a tiny and partially irrelevant launching point for the DM's imagination.
And at that point that the scenario has become logical depends on nothing actually in the text of the adventure. Examining the text alone, you have to ask why in the world any of these tribes are even there. They've got no apparent loyalty to the cult, and the cult has no apparent means of imposing control on the tribes. The tribes hate each other and their are no resources that would tie the tribes to the caves. Nothing in the text suggests what they are vying over in the first place, and only the goblins seem to have any sort of economic activity (and that not very much). There are no workshops, no mines, no really anything, to suggest what this is all about. Moreover, the supposed threat represented by the tribes is ridiculous, since the keep is quite capable of repelling any attack that the tiny poorly equipped tribes could mount even if they did work together. And, the keeps soldiers and officers are vastly better equipped to assault the caves than the PC's are, so if it really came to that, why is it the PC's job to deal with the caves? And if the cult actually had a goal, why do they passively allow the PC's to disrupt it. Like, the second time the PC's show up, why doesn't every tribe and all the undead and the cultists attack the PC's together? If they can't manage to do that, why does the cult imagine it can arrange an assault on the keep?
(The DM who trained me told me that his PC party had concluded that the real goal of the module was to rob the keep, and his group had treated the module like a heist game. That's a good example of making lemonade out of lemons, but not evidence of the module not being boring as written.)
Briefly, I considered rewriting B2 to suit my current standards of play, and to me that involves mostly dealing with its problematic but iconic map and its lack of compelling hooks or obvious purpose of play beyond kicking down the doors and taking their stuff. But it's too much work for too little reward.
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I started the adventure earlier this year, and I posted a thread about the updates I've made to the module. You might find that interesting to look over. I've since added more updates that I haven't posted, but it's a good start.
I agree that it is really a bare-bones module and even for beer-and-pretzels dungeon-crawling it needs some tweaks. That being said, there are a lot of things you can work with there. Fleshing out three things in particular can, I think, really make a difference:
1.) What are the goals of the Temple of Evil?
2.) How do the monster tribes co-exist, and why are they here?
3.) What role does the corrupt priest in the Keep have?
I agree that it is really a bare-bones module and even for beer-and-pretzels dungeon-crawling it needs some tweaks. That being said, there are a lot of things you can work with there. Fleshing out three things in particular can, I think, really make a difference:
1.) What are the goals of the Temple of Evil?
2.) How do the monster tribes co-exist, and why are they here?
3.) What role does the corrupt priest in the Keep have?
David Howery
Hero
B2, of course, was one of the earliest printed modules from TSR, and back in those days, everything related to D&D was pretty skimpy on details and relied heavily on the DM doing his own work on it. Back in the day when RPG was in it's infancy and just about everyone was new to it, B2 was pretty neat. But it hasn't aged well. Still, you could probably make it all more interesting.
First thing, expand the area it's in and add some more stuff to the sparse area map. Second, feel free to revamp the caverns, add some more connecting corridors between the various clans, and ramp up the animosities between the assorted critters... have the PCs walk into a couple of pitched battles, and show some war in the tunnels kind of thing. Change out some of the critters... there are two tribes of orcs, replace one of them with... something else. Third, add some more NPCs in the Keep itself. It's a lot of work, but if you really want to use B2, it would make it more interesting...
First thing, expand the area it's in and add some more stuff to the sparse area map. Second, feel free to revamp the caverns, add some more connecting corridors between the various clans, and ramp up the animosities between the assorted critters... have the PCs walk into a couple of pitched battles, and show some war in the tunnels kind of thing. Change out some of the critters... there are two tribes of orcs, replace one of them with... something else. Third, add some more NPCs in the Keep itself. It's a lot of work, but if you really want to use B2, it would make it more interesting...
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Ironically if you look at the 2E version Return to the Keep on the Borderlands you find some added story and hooks that make running it much easier.
pming
Legend
Hiya!
OK, Celebrim, don't take this the wrong way. What I'm noticing is that with older style modules, like this one, it fits with the older style DM'ing...and it flies in the face of most/many of the newer style DM'ing ways. Basically, it's a comment on just how different your ideas of what is a "good DM'ing adventure" and what my ideas of what is a "good DM'ing adventure".
I think others reading this thread may want a different take on it...so here I am!
Do! Definitely DO! The fact that plate armour wearing PC's can be nigh impossible for most foes to hit is not a flaw. When you buy/get plate mail (as it is called in the game), you are trading off movement/weight for protection. From my experience with B/X or BECMI D&D (and even 1e), one or two 'front line' fighters should try and get some plate mail. Everyone else should stick to medium or light. I can't tell you how many times I've had one fighter in Plate go down next to his buddy, also in Plate, and then have the buddy have to leave his friend to die because he can't just pick up 350 lb's and run away. Moral of the story: If you are in plate mail and go down...don't expect to be surviving if the bad guy/s are still up.
As for cinematic...BECMI and 1e aren't really based around "cinematic" combat. They are more based on "very rough approximation of realism...with a heroic sprinkling". In 1e, a Fighter could attack a number of less-than-1HD creatures per round equal to his level. So a 7th level fighter against a bunch of goblins would get 7 attacks PER ROUND against them. Add another fighter, stick them both in plate mail and, well, there's your "heroic sprinkling".
But this doesn't really pertain directly to B2, and more to the systems in question. Lets continue.
Ahhh! Here is the crux of diversion between your style and mine. Y'see, IMHO and IME, a "very experienced and competent DM" is one who learned how to add tones to a module. He/She is one who DID add massive backstories, evil bad guys, insidious cults, spies, assassins, and spent ample hours fleshing out all that "boring stuff the PC's may never encounter". Again, IMHO, B2 is the perfect module for beginning DM's as it encourages them to do just that. And, in doing that over the course of weeks, months and years...they become those very same "experienced and competent" DM's.
With my style, B2 is what I put up as the best, most 'perfect' adventure module for D&D ever written (although Kenzer & Co's "Little Keep on the Borderlands" gives it a VERY good run for it's money!). Back in ye olden days, a DM was required to do all that adding, tweaking, and adjusting. That was the core "job" of being a DM. So, where you see B2's, shall we say, "sparce" detailings as a failure, I see them as a rousing success!
Back to style preference...and, seeing the small paragraph below, maybe how we both learned to DM. Again, the DM is the one who gets to decide whatever he/she wants to be the "logical goal" of the caves inhabitants. I've run no less than 3 entire campaigns using B2. Each campaign lasted between one and almost three years. Yes, YEARS of actual time. Basically, I've spent roughly 5 years of my DM'ing career running campaigns using B2 (I've been DM'ing for about...hmmm...38'ish years I guess). In fact, B2 was my "learning module" back in '81.
Ahhh...I didn't learn from anyone. I was self-taught....like pretty much every single DM at that time (1981). There was no internet in those days, and most people didn't have a PC. It was read, trial, error, read, fix/adjust, rinse and repeat. So with that in mind, B2 was perfect for beginning DM's as it gave us SOMETHING to start with. It gave us a small safe area, some NPC's for more RP'ing sessions, a small but varied wilderness area to wander around in and hide "long lost temples" or "ruined towers" or whatever. It gave us a multitude of dungeons, roughly linked together in that dreadful box canyon. It gave us hints at what some of the caves inhabitants might be up to or wanting (or what they didn't want). It gave us nudges towards developing more in-depth plots, story lines and all that 'behind the scenes' stuff that a DM could either happily ignore, or run with and embellish.
Basically, B2 taught you how to DM by making you DM...not by telling you exactly what to do and having everything planned out for you. Perfect module, imnsho.
I'd argue that what you get out of B2 is exactly what you put into it. Kind of like virtually everything else in life. I put LOTS of work into it...three different times. Each of those 1 to 3 year campaigns was different from the other. Each one could be transcribed into a novel (or novels), and other than names and the general layout of the area, each would be a unique and interesting story.
Taking B2, delving up to your elbows in it and making it your own is exactly the kind of modules we need nowadays. Too many young'ish DM's, imho, get rattled when the players do something completely unusual simply because most adventures (and almost all Adventure Paths) expect a logical progression of the prescribed 'story'. If more modules were "skeletons" and less "fully formed personas", I think we'd have a lot more DM's who don't get the cold sweats when they are DM'ing "The Savage Tide" and hear the PC's say "Hey! Why doesn't Brad the Beautiful Bard run for Mayor of Farshore? He's a shoe in! With a Charisma of 20 and all his skill focuses and what not...it'd be OUR town then! Lets do that!". ( <--- actually happened when we played Savage Tide; DM had to totally and unabashedly cheat us...because the adventure assumes that someone else becomes Mayor).
At any rate...style and preference here I think. I LOVE B2 and, as we just started a new B/X D&D campaign a couple weeks ago, I'm pretty sure yet ANOTHER B2 campaign is in the very near future! Who knows what I'll come up with this time? And...isn't that part of the whole "imagination" thing that RPG's are built for?
^_^
Paul L. Ming
OK, Celebrim, don't take this the wrong way. What I'm noticing is that with older style modules, like this one, it fits with the older style DM'ing...and it flies in the face of most/many of the newer style DM'ing ways. Basically, it's a comment on just how different your ideas of what is a "good DM'ing adventure" and what my ideas of what is a "good DM'ing adventure".
I think others reading this thread may want a different take on it...so here I am! Do! Definitely DO!
The fact that plate armour wearing PC's can be nigh impossible for most foes to hit is not a flaw. When you buy/get plate mail (as it is called in the game), you are trading off movement/weight for protection. From my experience with B/X or BECMI D&D (and even 1e), one or two 'front line' fighters should try and get some plate mail. Everyone else should stick to medium or light. I can't tell you how many times I've had one fighter in Plate go down next to his buddy, also in Plate, and then have the buddy have to leave his friend to die because he can't just pick up 350 lb's and run away. Moral of the story: If you are in plate mail and go down...don't expect to be surviving if the bad guy/s are still up. As for cinematic...BECMI and 1e aren't really based around "cinematic" combat. They are more based on "very rough approximation of realism...with a heroic sprinkling". In 1e, a Fighter could attack a number of less-than-1HD creatures per round equal to his level. So a 7th level fighter against a bunch of goblins would get 7 attacks PER ROUND against them. Add another fighter, stick them both in plate mail and, well, there's your "heroic sprinkling".
But this doesn't really pertain directly to B2, and more to the systems in question. Lets continue.
Celebrim said:
Ahhh! Here is the crux of diversion between your style and mine.
Y'see, IMHO and IME, a "very experienced and competent DM" is one who learned how to add tones to a module. He/She is one who DID add massive backstories, evil bad guys, insidious cults, spies, assassins, and spent ample hours fleshing out all that "boring stuff the PC's may never encounter". Again, IMHO, B2 is the perfect module for beginning DM's as it encourages them to do just that. And, in doing that over the course of weeks, months and years...they become those very same "experienced and competent" DM's. With my style, B2 is what I put up as the best, most 'perfect' adventure module for D&D ever written (although Kenzer & Co's "Little Keep on the Borderlands" gives it a VERY good run for it's money!). Back in ye olden days, a DM was required to do all that adding, tweaking, and adjusting. That was the core "job" of being a DM. So, where you see B2's, shall we say, "sparce" detailings as a failure, I see them as a rousing success!
Celebrim said:
Back to style preference...and, seeing the small paragraph below, maybe how we both learned to DM. Again, the DM is the one who gets to decide whatever he/she wants to be the "logical goal" of the caves inhabitants. I've run no less than 3 entire campaigns using B2. Each campaign lasted between one and almost three years. Yes, YEARS of actual time. Basically, I've spent roughly 5 years of my DM'ing career running campaigns using B2 (I've been DM'ing for about...hmmm...38'ish years I guess). In fact, B2 was my "learning module" back in '81.
Celebrim said:
Ahhh...I didn't learn from anyone. I was self-taught....like pretty much every single DM at that time (1981). There was no internet in those days, and most people didn't have a PC. It was read, trial, error, read, fix/adjust, rinse and repeat. So with that in mind, B2 was perfect for beginning DM's as it gave us SOMETHING to start with. It gave us a small safe area, some NPC's for more RP'ing sessions, a small but varied wilderness area to wander around in and hide "long lost temples" or "ruined towers" or whatever. It gave us a multitude of dungeons, roughly linked together in that dreadful box canyon. It gave us hints at what some of the caves inhabitants might be up to or wanting (or what they didn't want). It gave us nudges towards developing more in-depth plots, story lines and all that 'behind the scenes' stuff that a DM could either happily ignore, or run with and embellish.
Basically, B2 taught you how to DM by making you DM...not by telling you exactly what to do and having everything planned out for you.
Perfect module, imnsho.Celebrim said:
I'd argue that what you get out of B2 is exactly what you put into it. Kind of like virtually everything else in life.
I put LOTS of work into it...three different times. Each of those 1 to 3 year campaigns was different from the other. Each one could be transcribed into a novel (or novels), and other than names and the general layout of the area, each would be a unique and interesting story.Taking B2, delving up to your elbows in it and making it your own is exactly the kind of modules we need nowadays. Too many young'ish DM's, imho, get rattled when the players do something completely unusual simply because most adventures (and almost all Adventure Paths) expect a logical progression of the prescribed 'story'. If more modules were "skeletons" and less "fully formed personas", I think we'd have a lot more DM's who don't get the cold sweats when they are DM'ing "The Savage Tide" and hear the PC's say "Hey! Why doesn't Brad the Beautiful Bard run for Mayor of Farshore? He's a shoe in! With a Charisma of 20 and all his skill focuses and what not...it'd be OUR town then! Lets do that!". ( <--- actually happened when we played Savage Tide; DM had to totally and unabashedly cheat us...because the adventure assumes that someone else becomes Mayor).
At any rate...style and preference here I think.
I LOVE B2 and, as we just started a new B/X D&D campaign a couple weeks ago, I'm pretty sure yet ANOTHER B2 campaign is in the very near future! Who knows what I'll come up with this time? And...isn't that part of the whole "imagination" thing that RPG's are built for? ^_^
Paul L. Ming
Celebrim
Legend
Why when people disagree with me, must they disagree with me on the basis of who they think I am and not what I said? I mean seriously, please stop telling me how to DM unless I actually ask for advice. (Ironically, when I actually ask for advice, no one ever wants to give it.) If you developed B2 into a more worthwhile campaign than what is presented or what the text would naturally result in after you did a period of trial and error, then good for you, but don't imagine my distaste for doing that is based on my inability to do so. Seriously, no one here is going to be particular impressed by 1-3 year long campaigns. B2 gave you nothing to work with and as template for how to develop dungeons or campaigns it largely sucked and probably led to innumerable terrible designs (see G1, G2, G3 or anything I produced prior to 1986 or so). The idea beginner scenario is not one that has to be completely redone, but one that shows on a small scale the sort of thing he ought to aspire to create on a larger scale.
It's not that you can't have fun with that sort of 'it's the 1970's and we just invented the RPG' stuff - certainly my middle school friends and I did have a lot of fun with kicking the doors down and taking their stuff - it's just that at this point I've been doing this more than 30 years and I've no more interest in that sort of thing. Besides which, by the time B2 was printed people - including Gygax - were already experimenting with much grander ideas. The sole idea in B2 seems to be, "These are the monsters in the basic handbook. Let's use them all." Which is probably the first idea that occurred to any budding DM.
Look, before you go talking about how you have to delve into your elbows in a module, you might want to look up my threads on how to turn the ideas in otherwise terrible modules like 'Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits' or 'Temple of Elemental Evil' into something actually worthy of play. Or you might want to consider that I have large portion of Isle of Dread mapped at a 1 mile to the hex scale with something like 500 pages of notes. I don't think anyone has ever accused me of not being able to build a sandbox. I got problems as a DM, but setting design isn't one of them. And I'm just saying, B2 is just not worth giving that sort of treatment because the fundamental ideas therein are so barren and unimaginative and well lacking. There is nothing in B2 that I couldn't expect an imaginative 13 year old with a thesaurus to write themselves. It's a module that was equaled and excelled probably tens of thousands of times. It would have never been accepted for publication in Dungeon magazine. It's just not very good. What you made out of it might be great, but that's like saying 'Iron Chef' is a great way to teach novice cooks.
It's not that you can't have fun with that sort of 'it's the 1970's and we just invented the RPG' stuff - certainly my middle school friends and I did have a lot of fun with kicking the doors down and taking their stuff - it's just that at this point I've been doing this more than 30 years and I've no more interest in that sort of thing. Besides which, by the time B2 was printed people - including Gygax - were already experimenting with much grander ideas. The sole idea in B2 seems to be, "These are the monsters in the basic handbook. Let's use them all." Which is probably the first idea that occurred to any budding DM.
Look, before you go talking about how you have to delve into your elbows in a module, you might want to look up my threads on how to turn the ideas in otherwise terrible modules like 'Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits' or 'Temple of Elemental Evil' into something actually worthy of play. Or you might want to consider that I have large portion of Isle of Dread mapped at a 1 mile to the hex scale with something like 500 pages of notes. I don't think anyone has ever accused me of not being able to build a sandbox. I got problems as a DM, but setting design isn't one of them. And I'm just saying, B2 is just not worth giving that sort of treatment because the fundamental ideas therein are so barren and unimaginative and well lacking. There is nothing in B2 that I couldn't expect an imaginative 13 year old with a thesaurus to write themselves. It's a module that was equaled and excelled probably tens of thousands of times. It would have never been accepted for publication in Dungeon magazine. It's just not very good. What you made out of it might be great, but that's like saying 'Iron Chef' is a great way to teach novice cooks.
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Libramarian
Adventurer
The old modules often play better than they read. Try running it. In fact try running it off the page with almost no prep (maybe an hour to read the introduction and skim the rest). Identify yourself as the game's referee, not the author of tonight's play experience (or even the emcee). Your job is to adjudicate the game fairly and consistently, not to make sure everyone has fun. It's the players' responsibility to have their characters survive and thrive. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
David Howery
Hero
B2 always seemed fine for a group that is brand new to RPGs/D&D, but not for anyone experienced at it... it's not the best campaign starter for an experienced group. Unless you rework the hell out of it, as lots of us have noted above.
One of the problems I always noticed in it is that there is this horde of monsters who all hate each other in that rather tiny area. Since the area map is pretty sparse as it is, I was always tempted to add some more hills/rugged terrain to the Caverns area and spread them all out some more...
One of the problems I always noticed in it is that there is this horde of monsters who all hate each other in that rather tiny area. Since the area map is pretty sparse as it is, I was always tempted to add some more hills/rugged terrain to the Caverns area and spread them all out some more...
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