Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="M.T. Black" data-source="post: 9756542" data-attributes="member: 6782171">I bought this yesterday and played the first session last night with two people who've never played D&D before. Everyone had a wonderful time. I'm a great fan of the original KotB, but I appreciate the fidelity to the original product while updating it for a new audience. The presentation is lovely and the encounters are very well crafted. We spent a couple of hours in the Keep completing low-stakes mini-quests, and it was great fun. The reviewer and others have raised the "no story" criticism, but I think this is over-exaggerated. It is a sandbox campaign, but there is an over-arching story - the Cult of Chaos has established a shrine in the Caves of Chaos, and this is attracting increasingly fierce monsters into the area. The ultimate goal is to destroy the Shrine of Chaos.There are also plenty of story seeds strewn throughout the adventure. Every NPC has two rumours they can share, which often include clues and secrets about the wilderness and the Caves. A typical rumour might be "A dastardly bandit, Pral, accosts travelers along the road. He is quite handsome." This could lead to a mini-quest to find and destroy the bandit camp.There's also lots of story threads in the Caves themselves. The kobolds have stolen a dragon egg and don't know what to do now that it's hatched. The goblin boss has demanded a big birthday celebration, and the goblins are all distracted by this. And so on. All of this is story and affects the unfolding gameplay. However, because it is a sandbox, the adventure doesn't lead you by the nose. There are dozens of different paths you could take to ultimately get to the Shrine of Chaos. You might not even get there in the end, but still have a satisfying time. I'm looking forward to our continuing adventures on the Borderlands...</blockquote>

Verification