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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Twig" data-source="post: 9754241" data-attributes="member: 31754">Keep on the Borderlands was my first adventure, and I was looking forward to seeing what they did with it. Having received by box yesterday I finally had a chance to sit down and take a look at what I got. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, but there are some disappointments too.First, as you would expect, everything is beautiful. Art is great and the quality of the things you get is high.My first negative is that it says ages 12+, but the story seems almost aimed at an even younger audience. In the original the keep was a bastion of civilization holding back the encroaching Chaos that would kill and consume the good peoples of the land. This one is... kinda funny?The kobolds aren't going to kill you and eat you on sight. They have a trap, but it is just a nuisance. The guard just walks up and asks you what you are doing there. They are having a problem you can help them out with.The goblins are having a birthday party for the chief and you don’t have to fight them if you give her a present.The orcs are completely gone of course. I thought they would replace them with some type of humanoids with Evil intent, but nope. Just some random monsters in those caves.Honestly, other than the rumors of an Evil cult (I guess religion can still be Evil?) there is no reason to go to the caves. Everyone there is happy to live and let live. You are honestly the monster if you want to clear out the caves and collect loot.In the original you freed captives before they were eaten. There was no moral ambiguity. You could just go and fight bad guys and collect treasure.Back to the positives. The Keep is more fleshed out and there are interesting NPCs to meet and plenty of things for the characters to do there. I am not bothered by the lack of a storyline. I’m actually glad it isn’t just another adventure on rails. Every group I have ever played with will come up with their own stories, and now I don’t need to tell them, “Actually, that thing you are interested in? Yeah, were not pursuing that. You need to look into this other thing.”There is a far greater diversity of characters than there used to be, and I see that as positive. The only criticism I have is the way they implemented it. They need to stop making EVERY SINGLE NON-PLAYER CHARACTER AGAINST TYPE! What do I mean? I mean, if you think that there is a role that is typically male, it will be female. If it is typically female, it will be male. EVERY SINGLE TIME!To be clear. I LIKE characters that are against type. I like the dwarf woman black smith, but it doesn’t have to be every character. I mean, at least make it random. Not all big stupid fighters have to be women. Men can be big and stupid too!Another positive. The original Keep on the Borderland had a few encounters in the Wilderness, but there was never any reason to go there. The new one has it more integrated and there are more things going on in the Wilderness. Some combat and some non-combat. Thumbs up!Last negative. The new Caves of Chaos seem… a little empty. The original was packed full of monsters (humanoid and otherwise) that you had to fight your way through. It was a real challenge. One of the new caves might have half a dozen rooms and half of them are empty. The others have maybe 5 or 6 monsters in them. Total. For the entire cave.I understand that they need to make it level appropriate, but I think it is going to be too easy, even for beginners. Not too big an issue. And they even have suggestions for each one on how to make it tougher. I would suggest doing that and then adding even more. Especially if they are over-leveled for the current cave.</blockquote>

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