Dungeons & Dragons Provides Guidance on How to Run Heroes of the Borderlands As More Traditional Campaign

A new D&D Beyond article by the designer of the Heroes of the Borderlands set provides guidance on how to tie together various parts of the starter set into an overarching plot, which seems to be a direct response to some of the main criticism leveled at the new D&D starter set. Today, Justice Arman posted a new article providing guidance on how to run the Heroes of the Borderlands starter set into a more traditional adventure. The article contains some new narrative read-aloud text, some additional guidance on how to start playing through the adventure, and some guidance on how to emphasize the Cult of Chaos as the overarching antagonists of the adventure.

Heroes of the Borderlands is based on the 1979 adventure Keep on the Borderlands and utilizes a sandbox-style campaign, where various encounters and plots are provided to DMs, but an overarching plot is left for the players to draw out on their own. There are narrative threads that tease various encounters present in the booklets, but there's not a traditional storyline compared to the other Starter Sets. Several reviews, including our own, criticized the design of the adventure, saying that it wasn't advantageous to new DMs. Part of the reason for the narrative freedom, according to the D&D Beyond article, was to allow every player a chance to DM without spoiling the story.

 

[EthanSental]

I really feel like it wouldn't have killed them to include a little more connections between encounters. I've only run the wilderness part so far, and only two branches of it, but the lack of any cohesion between scenes just felt like it was missing something. I had a lot of "so what" moments in the two games I ran. In many cases, a sentence would have done it.

For the caves, it doesn't look like the characters have any real information to steer them from one cave or another, including caves that might kill them outright if they wander in. Isn't that the definition of false choices? Choose caves A through J but there's no real difference you can see?

I could have missed something though.

I’m saying this totally as a joke but this coming from the Lazy DM…who expects it to be as easy as possible, including that sentence used to string them together….for the Lazy DM. I’m seriously kidding, sorry Mike!

 

[Bucaramanga]

There’s something very amusing to me about the idea of trying to make an adaptation of Keep on the Borderlands - one of the earliest D&D modules, and famous for mostly just being a sandbox full of monsters with no real plot “more traditional” by giving it an overarching narrative.

This is akin to adding a few rock'n'roll guitar riffs to Beethoven or Tchaikovsky and market the as making them more 'classical', because 'classical' equals the 1960s, apparently.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That’s the thing, pumpkins started being used in the US because they were more accessible here

They are also a lot easier to carve!

These days there are plenty of pumpkins grown in the UK specifically for Halloween. There are pumpkin fields round here. I don't like the taste, but I do eat the seeds.

I suspect fewer turnips are grown or consumed in the UK these days.

 

[Stormonu]

They are also a lot easier to carve!

These days there are plenty of pumpkins grown in the UK specifically for Halloween. There are pumpkin fields round here. I don't like the taste, but I do eat the seeds.

I suspect fewer turnips are grown or consumed in the UK these days.

As an aside, I can't carve up pumpkins myself. Pulling the "guts" out makes me want to hurl every time. So I have to settle for a little plastic one to put in the window every year.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I’m saying this totally as a joke but this coming from the Lazy DM…who expects it to be as easy as possible, including that sentence used to string them together….for the Lazy DM. I’m seriously kidding, sorry Mike!

I mean, am I right? We're paying them our money! (Technically, I received a review copy..)