Keep On The Borderline

[pemerton]

As someone who has run X2 roughly a gazillion times, I wouldn't characterize it in that way (a dungeon crawl), at all.

I view it as three different modules.

You have the Castle, which is the weird, Wonderland-y "dungeon crawl."

Then the Dungeon interlude, which is more gothic Lovecraftian (i.e., brain collector).

But most importantly, you have the very open-ended Averoigne, which has entire villages and towns that can be explored and filled in. That's as wild and open as can be, and I've never had two parties go through it in the same way.

I agree that Averoigne is not a dungeon-crawl, but I haven't got that far the two times I've run this module in the past 20 years.

 

[David Howery]

B2 shows mainly how the 'state of the art' has advanced. It was literally one of the first modules published, when rpgs were new and most of the players were new. It's pretty typical of the 'bare bones' style back then; the DM has to fill in a huge amount of detail. Way back when I was a brand new GM (in the days when most people not named Gygax were pretty new at it), it was a lot of fun. I had a blast filling up the map (overfilling the map, actually) with wilderness encounters and having the party trek their way to it. Realism? Nobody cared. Nowadays, GMs and players are generally a lot more experienced with both D&D and RPGs in general, so more is expected...

 

[Aldarc]

Without getting too deep into controversial topics, I just want to say that in general "they left it blank/unfinished so you can fill it in yourself" is very seldom a good defense of any gaming product. When I buy a game, I am buying rules, so if the game say doesn't have rules for social combat and I have the "opportunity" to make up my own, that's not a selling point. Magical tea party is free and everyone already has it. Likewise, I don't think the fact that not one NPC in either the Keep nor the Caves (nor as far as I know anywhere between) has a name or personality is a selling point for KotB. The point of modules is I think largely to save the DM work. The funny thing is, Keep does this for the HARD PART (the mapping, the dungeon stocking, the logistics) and doesn't do it for something easier and more basic (giving characters names and/or personalities, giving the PCs a motivation to be there/go to the caves). But I mean, what I also understand is that it's from a different era and comparing it to the standards of today is pretty absurd. I think Adventurers Will Adventure To Adventure For The Sake Of Adventuring was pretty much all the motivation you needed in 1979. But a lot has changed since then.

I like that it is partially blank. It reminds me of advice for running Dungeon World. Don't draw out everything in a scene, but instead intentionally leave things blank that will be filled and revealed through play. But the game already had rules: i.e., D&D B/X. But what I personally like about KotB is similar to what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] says below:

I personally think the Caves - as mapped and stocked - are not terribly interesting for "story now" play (to use the term [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] has been using in this thread). The idea of the Caves, on the other hand, is part of what underpins the Keep, and I think the Keep can be fun for Story Now play because it does have an internal logic: various NPCs (evil priest, castellan, etc) trying to do their thing within the context of a bastion against the Chaos.

The idea of the Caves and the environment around the KotB spurs my imagination because IME sometimes less is more. I think there is a reason why D&D keeps returning to different iterations of the Keep. There is something about it that drives our imagination for adventure in a way more than what can be explained simply as nostalgia.

 

[Jer]

To provide a point of contrast, X2 Castle Amber is another old module that I've used twice in the past 20 years, but it doesn't lend itself to the same treatment as the Keep. Or at least, if it is I haven't worked out how to do it! Both times I've run it, I haven't seen any way to use it other than as written - a "dungeon crawl" through the Chateau.

Interesting. I've had exactly the opposite experience. I have also used X2 twice in the last 20 years but both times I reworked it similar to how I'm understanding that you reworked B2 - I took the idea of the Chateau, dropped the dungeon crawl aspect (at least on the main floor - the basement dungeon just worked), and use it as a horror-themed adventure with a weird family in a "haunted" house that sits outside of space and time due to their meddling with entities who should not be meddled with. Then the players got dumped out into the parallel world of Averogine which I modified with some inspiration from Ravenloft. To me all of that was already in the module - it just takes some teasing the ideas out of the dungeon crawl framework that Moldvay had to bash it into to make it work with D&D in the early 80s. And unlike B2 for me, doing that kind of work felt like it was worth the effort.

Another one that I've used more than a few times in that way is actually B3 - Palace of the Silver Princess. Most recently for 4th edition - I took the basic idea but turned it into a battle between two of the Archfey - with the assault and occupation of the palace and the kidnapping of the Princess and her consort as "political" maneuvers between them. It worked out really well, even if I did basically have to scrap the lower level nonsense map and replace it with something more sane, the basic framework was solid enough to use it as a basis for the adventure.

 

[jasper]

B2 shows mainly how the 'state of the art' has advanced. It was literally one of the first modules published, when rpgs were new and most of the players were new. It's pretty typical of the 'bare bones' style back then; the DM has to fill in a huge amount of detail. Way back when I was a brand new GM (in the days when most people not named Gygax were pretty new at it), it was a lot of fun. I had a blast filling up the map (overfilling the map, actually) with wilderness encounters and having the party trek their way to it. Realism? Nobody cared. Nowadays, GMs and players are generally a lot more experienced with both D&D and RPGs in general, so more is expected...

Bare bones. Bravo SiR. Part of the fun of the early modules was not spending the 8 hours running it. But the 8 hours of stocking, naming, and thinking about what if. Today, I know every room is an encounter and room 3 has meepo the name kobold. Who may have a story. Or Room 4 has a named mage called Selly Braum the unproducable by southerns name.
But not having stuff named or fleshed out was also a major problem for some people.
As to thinking about food, dungeon logic, warring tribes. Few people knew that was a thing to be concerned about.

 

[David Howery]

Bare bones. Bravo SiR. Part of the fun of the early modules was not spending the 8 hours running it. But the 8 hours of stocking, naming, and thinking about what if. Today, I know every room is an encounter and room 3 has meepo the name kobold. Who may have a story. Or Room 4 has a named mage called Selly Braum the unproducable by southerns name.
But not having stuff named or fleshed out was also a major problem for some people.
As to thinking about food, dungeon logic, warring tribes. Few people knew that was a thing to be concerned about.

way back in 1980 when I took my first steps as a player (and later DM), the DM had a lot of work to do... there were a few official TSR modules, some less-official ones from other companies, and a handful in Dragon (and as a college student in a little MT town, some stuff was just not to be found). To run a weekly campaign, the DM had to generate most of the adventures himself. Something like B2 was a godsend... half of the work was already done, just fill in some details and go. Later on, the game became filled with modules, boxed game worlds, etc., vastly reducing the work load on the DM (if he chose). And modules became a lot more advanced; more details, NPCs with character and motivations, etc. Basically, D&D wasn't brand new anymore, and expectations were higher. Not a bad thing, but B2 is definitely 'old school'...

 

[ParanoydStyle]

I mostly made my save versus ranting about how terribad Dungeon World (anything *World) is and how all its "new ideas" like "play to find out what happens" and "say yes or roll the dice" are things that veteran roleplayers have known for years or decades, just reframed in more pretentious terminology and presented like they're actually new ideas...

Anyway, the POINT of my posting was just to say I am fascinated by X2 Castle Amber and B3 Palace of the Silver Princess (which I believe I once ran some of, actually, updated to 3.5), as well as by In Search of the Unknown (which I think is a GREAT introductory module) and want to check them out further. But here's a fun anecdote:

Last night my PCs cleared the goblin cave. Their competence delighted me. They went in with stealth (amazingly, the five person party had no one wearing anything heavier than leather and were virtually all proficient in Stealth with high Dex) and killed every goblin at the east guard post in one surprise round. It would have been totally silent, too, except the twelve year old girl playing a Tiefling Warlock flash fried the last two goblins with a burning hands, and they screamed as they burned to death. They didn't notice the goblins in the west guard post one of whom per Gary's instructions slipped through the secret door to the ogre cave next door to bribe the ogre. The ogre came in and the PCs successfully hid from him. He got frustrated that the "tinies" the goblins had paid him to squash weren't there, and as the goblins tried to get him to either squash the "tinies" he'd been paid to squash or give back the 250gp, he got "confused" and "earned" his "pay" by squashing the "tinies" right in front of him. The goblins. Then he went back to his cave with the gold. PCs tracked the ogre back to his cave (tracking wasn't really necessary but Ranger wanted to use his tracking ability), went in, killed him without taking a hit (blindness helped a lot) and collected his seven giant potato sacks full of treasure.

Bree-yark! was a pretty much a running gag all night, because one of the players, the Wizard, had gotten the false rumor that Bree-yark! was Goblin for "we surrender" back at the Keep during session one but at this point two members of the party, the Rogue and the Bard, I believe, spoke Goblin (this speaks to how enormously the assumptions about D&D have changed since Keep was written). Gary had "Bree-yark!" truly translating as something like "Hey, rube!" but considering everyone I was playing with was too young to know what "rube" means and there's sort of been an inflation of offensiveness since the late 70s, I decided that the precise translation of "Bree-yark!" was "'ey, douchebag!" combined with a bad Jersey accent and a rude gesture.

Next part takes some set-up. As I mentioned up-thread I replaced the hobgoblins in the cave complex to the west of the goblins with svirnfeblin because reasons I explained up-thread. This meant that the room that connected the goblin caves with the deep gnome complex was guarded by a clay golem (the leader of the svirnfeblin, Chief Zook, she's a Transmuter 10 with a manual of golem creation) specifically instructed to obliterate all Small, non-gnome creatures moving through the area. Knowing this from their svirnfeblin guide, Movezig, they got really creative. The bard disguise-self'd himself into a goblin. He lured away about six goblins from the common room, leaving six left, with his "brilliant plan" to get past the golem, which more or less amounted to running straight at it. He actually talked them into this, I think I called for three or maybe four Deception rolls and he did not get a result under 20 on any of them. Also, goblins be dumb. So at this point, we're intercutting between the party, in a pitched battle with the goblins that were left behind, and this tragic farce downstairs. The golem pulped four goblins, the disguised bard and two goblins escaped outside. At that point, the goblins started trying to kill him with their scimitars. Not because they saw through his disguise or anything--they still thought he was a fellow goblin--but because he was an idiot that had gotten four of their friends killed. Bard casts suggestion, with a suggestion of "it was his idea" (meaning one of the two goblins fighting him). Goblin failed its save HARD, promptly decapitated the other goblin. Then the bard skewered it with his rapier.

We're a long way from being able to cast light once per day and flinging flasks of burning oil, boys and girls.

Upstairs in the common room, the party had (with some difficulty) triumphed in the closest thing they'd had to a fair fight with the goblins, four PCs on six goblins. They all hear armored footsteps marching towards them from the far exit. It's the goblin boss and his four hobgoblin bodyguards. Party resources are pretty depleted at this point and in general hit points are low. Everyone's wanting a short rest, or a long rest. (The party is a random scattering of characters from Levels 1 through 4 by the way; the Level 1 survivors definitely earned enough XP to be Level 2 now). Goblin boss emerges. "Parley?" he calls out. He wants to cut a deal. The punchline:

Wizard responds with: "BREE-YARK!" (accompanying rude gesture).

Much violence ensued.

All of my players knew that "Bree-yark!" (or so they say) was in the Monster Manual in the goblin entry. Now they know why.

 

[Celebrim]

Bree-yark! was a pretty much a running gag all night, because one of the players, the Wizard, had gotten the false rumor that Bree-yark! was Goblin for "we surrender" back at the Keep during session one but at this point two members of the party, the Rogue and the Bard, I believe, spoke Goblin (this speaks to how enormously the assumptions about D&D have changed since Keep was written). Gary had "Bree-yark!" truly translating as something like "Hey, rube!" but considering everyone I was playing with was too young to know what "rube" means and there's sort of been an inflation of offensiveness since the late 70s, I decided that the precise translation of "Bree-yark!" was "'ey, douchebag!" combined with a bad Jersey accent and a rude gesture.

Lol.

Minor note of clarification, but the province of "hey rube" is much older than that, and probably no one younger than Gygax knows this without looking it up, but "Hey, rube!" is Carnival person slang for a Carney in danger and in need of immediate violent aid. The cry of "Hey, rube!" means to the goblins, "I'm in danger, come help!", or at least that's how Gygax intended it.

Next part takes some set-up. As I mentioned up-thread I replaced the hobgoblins in the cave complex to the west of the goblins with svirnfeblin because reasons I explained up-thread. This meant that the room that connected the goblin caves with the deep gnome complex was guarded by a clay golem (the leader of the svirnfeblin, Chief Zook, she's a Transmuter 10 with a manual of golem creation) specifically instructed to obliterate all Small, non-gnome creatures moving through the area. Knowing this from their svirnfeblin guide, Movezig, they got really creative. The bard disguise-self'd himself into a goblin. He lured away about six goblins from the common room, leaving six left, with his "brilliant plan" to get past the golem, which more or less amounted to running straight at it. He actually talked them into this, I think I called for three or maybe four Deception rolls and he did not get a result under 20 on any of them. Also, goblins be dumb. So at this point, we're intercutting between the party, in a pitched battle with the goblins that were left behind, and this tragic farce downstairs. The golem pulped four goblins, the disguised bard and two goblins escaped outside. At that point, the goblins started trying to kill him with their scimitars. Not because they saw through his disguise or anything--they still thought he was a fellow goblin--but because he was an idiot that had gotten four of their friends killed. Bard casts suggestion, with a suggestion of "it was his idea" (meaning one of the two goblins fighting him). Goblin failed its save HARD, promptly decapitated the other goblin. Then the bard skewered it with his rapier.

We're a long way from being able to cast light once per day and flinging flasks of burning oil, boys and girls.

Upstairs in the common room, the party had (with some difficulty) triumphed in the closest thing they'd had to a fair fight with the goblins, four PCs on six goblins. They all hear armored footsteps marching towards them from the far exit. It's the goblin boss and his four hobgoblin bodyguards. Party resources are pretty depleted at this point and in general hit points are low. Everyone's wanting a short rest, or a long rest. (The party is a random scattering of characters from Levels 1 through 4 by the way; the Level 1 survivors definitely earned enough XP to be Level 2 now). Goblin boss emerges. "Parley?" he calls out. He wants to cut a deal. The punchline:

Wizard responds with: "BREE-YARK!" (accompanying rude gesture).

Much violence ensued.

All of my players knew that "Bree-yark!" (or so they say) was in the Monster Manual in the goblin entry. Now they know why.[/QUOTE]

 

[pemerton]

Interesting. I've had exactly the opposite experience. I have also used X2 twice in the last 20 years but both times I reworked it similar to how I'm understanding that you reworked B2 - I took the idea of the Chateau, dropped the dungeon crawl aspect (at least on the main floor - the basement dungeon just worked), and use it as a horror-themed adventure with a weird family in a "haunted" house that sits outside of space and time due to their meddling with entities who should not be meddled with. Then the players got dumped out into the parallel world of Averogine which I modified with some inspiration from Ravenloft. To me all of that was already in the module - it just takes some teasing the ideas out of the dungeon crawl framework that Moldvay had to bash it into to make it work with D&D in the early 80s.

That's the sort of thing that (as per my post upthread) I've not worked out how to do!

Another possible difference, but may be not - with B2 I've always been able to (re)work it during the actual course of play. Did your treatment of X2 require preparation? It sounds like it did, but maybe not.

 

[S'mon]

explicitly stocking these caves with non-combatant females and children, and then encouraging you to go in and make widows and orphans of them which is perfectly okay because they look different than you do.

No, you're supposed to kill the women & children too.