A First Real Look At The Reincarnated 'Into The Borderlands'!

Goodman Games has posted a whole pile of photos of its 5th Edition conversion of Into The Borderlands. First announced in March 2017, these books were available for pre-order in January of this year. Now, the pre-orders are shipping very soon, and photos abound! This is the first in a series of "Original Adventures Reincarnated" line. (Thanks to Jeremy for the scoop!)

The hardcover includes:

· Restored scans of two complete printings of the original B1: In Search of the Unknown. Specifically, the second and sixth printings, one featuring the original monochrome cover and the other featuring the later color cover by Darlene.
· Three complete monster and treasure assortments for stocking the dungeons of In Search of the Unknown (which are “un-stocked” in the original 1E edition).
· Restored scans of two complete printings of the original B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. Specifically the second and fourth printings. These are distinguished the change in monster stats between the two printings (Dexterity scores were included in early printings). The later printing also features six interior illustrations that were not present in earlier printings.
· A complete, “pure” 5E conversion of In Search of the Unknown, including tables for stocking it with creatures.
· A separate chapter with a few new encounters for the Caverns of Quasqueton, all inspired by references in the original work.
· A complete, “pure” 5E conversion of The Keep on the Borderlands.
· A separate chapter with a few new encounters for The Keep on the Borderlands, all inspired by references in the original work.
· Appendices with 5E stats for newly introduced monsters, hirelings and followers, and magic items.
· A chapter of introductions and testimonials.

You can read the full interview with Chris Doyle on Goodman Games site.

 

[jasper]

So for $50 we get 2 reprints/scans/copies of B1 and B2. One conversion each of B1 and B2. Bonus talks with vip.
Hmm my mad money is only slightly ticked so pass. I wait until it hits $25 before I think about purchasing it.

 

[PyroArrow]

MY copy of B2 of which I got in the boxed set is shoot to hell as it is with the cover basically about to split in two with the center fold having weakened over time and the pages are coming apart in the area of the staples.

So thus I got the Goodman Games pre-order, and also for the new extra content and I will still use the content from "Return to the Keep on the Borderlands" to farther enhance it.

I like how OneBookShelf books are bound rather than saddle stitched, so the pages won't get like above over time, but still would like a wrap around cover as an extra so it doubles as a themed DM screen.

Maybe the extra $15 that Goodman Games is charging is for something extra they are shipping with the current print run. Basically like the extra $15 worth of stuff they tossed into the shipping sleeve for the first issue of "Tales From the Magician's Skull".

 

[ctorus]

I fail to see the point of this beyond sheer nostalgia, and it could have been so much better. What need is there for reprints of multiple original versions of each module? Are there significant differences between them that we need to study them like scholars? Also what is a 'pure' 5e conversion? I would hope they have rebalanced encounters, fleshed out npcs etc, but it doesn't sound like it. I was genuinely in the market for a decent 5e update to play for the first time with my daughter, but this seems like a collectors item with little practical use .

 

[Nilonym]

I'm the bullseye of the target market for this book. Grew up in the '80s playing Moldvay Basic and AD&D, and back to the hobby with a roaring passion with 5e. KotB was my first D&D experience, and I'll never forget losing my first character to the gray oozes as she swam out to try to grab that glittering chalice.

As much as I want to want this, I'd prefer a more practical approach to the these classic module revisits. Give me a high quality scan of the original for the nostalgia kick and then a rich 5e conversion with modern cartography and more fully developed characters and places and I'm all in. Something like CoS did for Ravenloft, although I certainly wouldn't expect something of that scale.

As others have noted here, for me feeding the nostalgia beast is better accomplished by snagging copies of the original modules from eBay. I hope Goodman will skew more toward playability than nostalgia with future modules in this series.

In any case, I'm thrilled we live in a world where products like this exist!

 

[PyroArrow]

In a sense, I was also hoping that instead of just simply scans of the different versions of the B1/B2 modules that they would have went in and fixed things like missing text, restored edited out text & pictures, fixed spelling and grammatical errors, corrected map mistakes etc.

 

[BMaC]

Just received an email that my pre-order copy has shipped!

 

[PyroArrow]

Just received an email that my pre-order copy has shipped!

Wow! I thought the release date was for May 15th, 2018!

I guess those of us that pre-ordered, like me, are getting them a little over a month earlier?

 

[thundershot]

Wow! I thought the release date was for May 15th, 2018!

I guess those of us that pre-ordered, like me, are getting them a little over a month earlier?

I didn't get any email yet.... I hope I get it a month early! I'm gonna run this for my kids!

 

[PyroArrow]

I didn't get any email yet.... I hope I get it a month early! I'm gonna run this for my kids!

Neither did I! I am hoping to set up a table top game, combining "Into the Borderlands" and "Return to the KotB", and just the 1E rule-books!

 

[LapBandit]

I was super excited when they first announced, then less so when I saw it was just PDFs printed and the rules updated to 5E. Production values have changed, this should have changed with it.