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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5025965" data-attributes="member: 80487">The first level has an excellent map, a model of many features that make for good levels in an old-style dungeon. The area descriptions in the key are (IME) too verbose for emulation as standard practice in a campaign dungeon -- something I actually tried -- but work in making exploration of the rooms themselves more "the adventure" than usual.That's just not enough, I think, and the way stocking is handled leaves it too much up to the DM -- remembering that this was meant as a first-timer's instructional module -- to provide the something more that's needed to make the place come alive. The monsters should provide opportunities for conversation as well as combat, but of what will they speak? What are their occupations, and what are the relationships among them? Without that, there's just a wandering through an abandoned house with pretty random run-ins with monsters. The very freedom of that movement bodes against much in the way of strategy, unless the placement of monsters and treasures provides significant choices players can first grasp and then make.Module B2 does -- again, considering the intended readers -- a much better job on that count.  However, an appropriately skilled DM can do an even better job with B1.The treasure in sum seems to me too little, and the finds too little varied in value; the placement of "jackpots" is a key to good dungeon stocking. Also, some traps and tricks seem to me too absurd and arbitrarily placed; a little of that goes a long way, in this case I am afraid perhaps to building bad habits. Likewise, it may be not only frustrating but bizarre that locked containers turn out to hold nothing of value. (That they hold nothing at all should, one might think, be easy to ascertain -- but players can surprise with dimness as well as with brilliance.)Bottom line: It's a very interesting place, with a lot of classic dungeon features and weird atmospheric touches (including some that hint at the lives of former inhabitants). It just needs to have something going on, some interesting ecology and society among the current populace.I remember forgetting to describe some corpses in the key on a first expedition. When the players found them on their next trip, the evidence of things happening -- indeed, of other adventurers after the rumored treasures of Quasqueton -- definitely caught their interest.</blockquote>

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