D&D (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

[MonsterEnvy]

What? Why do a "re-master" at all?

Cause it gives new people a chance to experience classic stuff, and veterans a chance to run an updated version.

 

[Oofta]

Cause it gives new people a chance to experience classic stuff, and veteran’s a chance to run an updated version.

Wait ... you mean there are people who didn't play it when it was new? Shocking.

 

[Remathilis]

Cause it gives new people a chance to experience classic stuff, and veteran’s a chance to run an updated version.

I just saw a post Twitter not too long ago arguing that video games should not be remastered for modern consoles and that they should be experienced purely on original hardware. It's a bizarre argument to me, but I guess you gotta gate keep somehow. I guess the RPG equivalent is never to run a module except for the rule set it was designed for?

 

[Parmandur]

Wait ... you mean there are people who didn't play it when it was new? Shocking.

I wasn't even born when B2 was new.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I just saw a post Twitter not too long ago arguing that video games should not be remastered for modern consoles and that they should be experienced purely on original hardware. It's a bizarre argument to me, but I guess you gotta gate keep somehow. I guess the RPG equivalent is never to run a module except for the rule set it was designed for?

Haha funny

I would pay good money for updated graphics or rules…

I bought up Goodman games conversions and really like my amped up gears of war 3 for my HD TV…

Update away!

 

[Staffan]

Also, the original Keep is still up on dndclassics, I believe. A straight conversion to 5e could likely be done on the fly – oh look, a room with five goblins in it, whatever shall I convert that to in 5e? So just translating it over to 5e would be a waste of effort. If I can do it on the fly while playing, there's no reason for me to pay Wizards to do it, is there?

And reimagining it allows the adventure to adapt to our evolving sensibilities. Because face it, once you've established that these are a valid image of orcs, you can't really argue that orcs are "nightmare creatures" that are inherently evil and only out to destroy all that is good in the world. And that's a choice that's locked in with the PHB already (and one I fully support).

The basic structure of the adventure has some good points, particularly for an introduction to the game. There's a town/keep, which acts as a home base. There's a Dungeon, which is a hostile adventure location that's some distance away from the home base. And then there's the Wilderness which lies in between, and which offers opportunities to explore. That's not inherently bad. But you need some more reason to go and kill the inhabitants of the Caves rather than just "orcs bad".

 

[Scribe]

Because face it, once you've established that these are a valid image of orcs, you can't really argue that orcs are "nightmare creatures" that are inherently evil and only out to destroy all that is good in the world. And that's a choice that's locked in with the PHB already (and one I fully support).

I think this is largely going to be the divide, the art direction of 5.5 and the inherent world building it portrays. I mean squint at that picture. Its just humans in need of a tan.

 

[Azzy]

Where the hell is this "orcs are nightmare creatures" idea come from? I've played from BECMI and 1e, and this is a perception that is utterly alien to me and doesn't match anything that I've read in the rulebooks.

 

[occam]

I haven't watched Doctor Who in ages, but Star Trek? Star Trek aliens are all humans in rubber masks and depicted as such. Occasionally funny ears.

The Horta, Medusans, Tholians, Excalbians, and many others would quibble with this characterization. Star Trek presented lots of examples of treating other sentient creatures, even decidedly non-humanoid ones, with compassion and understanding.

It's also worth pointing out that both Star Trek and Doctor Who almost always presented violence as a last resort. It wasn't as if no other ways to conceptualize fantastic adventures existed when KotB was published.

Now, you could argue that D&D, at least early D&D and particularly Gygaxian D&D, was the product of alternative traditions, leaning more strongly on the blood-soaked adventures of swords-and-sorcery rather than intellectual sci-fi. But even Conan didn't go around slaughtering women and children.

And as for Orcs presented as the always-evil creatures they seem to be in Tolkien's published works, it's unclear whether Orc women or children even exist. They're never shown AFAIK, and no groups of helpless Orcs waiting to be killed by stalwart adventurers are ever encountered.

In fact, upon reflection, the whole "nits make lice" go-ahead to murder helpless non-humanoids in fantasy adventures seems to be novel to D&D. Are there literary precedents for the situations presented in KotB, implicitly encouraging the slaughter of entire communities of sentient creatures?

 

[Parmandur]

Where the hell is this "orcs are nightmare creatures" idea come from? I've played from BECMI and 1e, and this is a perception that is utterly alien to me and doesn't match anything that I've read in the rulebooks.

That's basically what's up in Tolkien: the Orcs are implied to be immortal evil Elves possessed of pure malice.

But D&D Orcs have always been much more down to Earth.