D&D (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

[ECMO3]

KotB is the quintessential "Slaughter all the evil humanoids, and the women and the children too" module. It will be interesting to see how WotC adapts it to the new humanoid design paradigm.

Yeah and to be honest I thought this is why third party groups were doing most of the 1E reboots, that way WOTC could get a cut through DMSGuild while not being directly connected.

I think either WOTC is going to publish a very controversial adventure or they are going to have to completely rebuild the Caves of Chaos to where they are not really conected to the original in terms of plot - kind of like they did with TOEE and POTA and ATG and STK.

 

[pukunui]

Yeah and to be honest I thought this is why third party groups were doing most of the 1E reboots, that way WOTC could get a cut through DMSGuild while not being directly connected.

I think either WOTC is going to publish a very controversial adventure or they are going to have to completely rebuild the Caves of Chaos to where they are not really conected to the original in terms of plot - kind of like they did with TOEE and POTA and ATG and STK.

They did update and publish Against the Giants in Tales from the Yawning Portal.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Yeah and to be honest I thought this is why third party groups were doing most of the 1E reboots, that way WOTC could get a cut through DMSGuild while not being directly connected.

I think either WOTC is going to publish a very controversial adventure or they are going to have to completely rebuild the Caves of Chaos to where they are not really conected to the original in terms of plot - kind of like they did with TOEE and POTA and ATG and STK.

It still amazes me that people still claim ATG and STK are somehow related. They both have giants. That's the only similarity. STK even has multiple types of giants ATG barely touches upon, and it revolves around a plot dealing with storm giants and dragons, both of which have just minor cameos in ATG and certainly aren't the main plot points. STK is as similar to ATG as any 5e adventure with giants in it.

 

[KYRON45]

You can only do this if it is a milestone game. If it is an XP game you need to kill children too.

That’s pretty bleak.
How much xp do you get from such behavior and how desperate are you for that amount?

 

[Parmandur]

It still amazes me that people still claim ATG and STK are somehow related. They both have giants. That's the only similarity. STK even has multiple types of giants ATG barely touches upon, and it revolves around a plot dealing with storm giants and dragons, both of which have just minor cameos in ATG and certainly aren't the main plot points. STK is as similar to ATG as any 5e adventure with giants in it.

I mean, SKT is clearly in part an homage to AtG, particularly the complete set of similarly level appropriate themed dungeons for all 6 Giant types.

 

[ECMO3]

nm

 

[ECMO3]

That’s pretty bleak.
How much xp do you get from such behavior and how desperate are you for that amount?

In the original where you had like 20 kids in each clan's cave. That is enough to make it worthwhile when you are level 1-3 (which is what the original adventure covered). This is not exactly easy to do though as the COC were very deadly if you played RAW and you would need quite a bit of luck to even be able to eradicate one of the larger tribe's caves.

Back in the day eradicating evil monsters this was considered "good" behavior. Now it is not acceptable as such. That is why it is worthwhile to consider playing an evil PC and party in an adventure where you are going to be incentivized to do that kind of stuff.

That way you can slaughter them without any moral quams, claim it as part of player agency and not worry about it.

 

[Remathilis]

In the original where you had like 20 kids in each clan's cave. That is enough to make it worthwhile (if you can) when you are level 1-3 (which is what the original adventure covered). This is not exactly easy to do though as the COC were very deadly if you played RAW and you would need quite a bit of luck to even be able to eradicate one of the larger tribes caves.

Back in the day eradicating evil monsters this was considered "good" behavior. Now it is not acceptable as such. That is why it is worthwhile to consider playing an evil PC and party in an adventure where you are going to be incentivized to do that kind of stuff.

That way you can slaughter them without any moral quams, claim it as part of player agency and not worry about it.

"If murder hoboing is wrong, I don't want to be right."

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It still amazes me that people still claim ATG and STK are somehow related. They both have giants. That's the only similarity. STK even has multiple types of giants ATG barely touches upon, and it revolves around a plot dealing with storm giants and dragons, both of which have just minor cameos in ATG and certainly aren't the main plot points. STK is as similar to ATG as any 5e adventure with giants in it.

STK was inspired by AtG. That’s not the same as “based on” or “a remake of”. It has common themes, not common events, characters or locations.

And Heroes of the Borderland is inspired by Keep on the Borderland. Do not expect the new starter set to be a remake, or even be recognisably the same keep.

 

[Hriston]

Interesting to see GREYHAWK getting more love!

I don't see a good reason to think this is going to be set in Greyhawk. I'm aware the 2E sequel adventure, Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, contains a suggestion for where in Greyhawk to place the module, but the adventure itself seems to have been written with Mystara in mind, at least partially. The novelization is set in Greyhawk, and Gary Gygax at some time stated the Pomarj would be a good placement if one was going to set the original module in Greyhawk, but neither the original module nor the video announcement make any mention of Greyhawk. In the video, it's stated that this adventure is set in a place called The Borderlands.