D&D 5E (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

It's wild to me that someone can say with a straight face that there's nothing to do in KotB except go to the caves and murder everyone there. I've run this module many times, converted it to every edition of D&D that exists to do so, and I've never had a single group of players do this. Even the most murderhobo group I've ever run through it got mixed up in the politics and factions in the caves.

Am I saying that no one ever went in and just systematically murdered everything that moves in the entire cave complex? No. I'm very sure plenty of groups have done that. But I don't believe that it's the standard method, and I can't believe that someone actually read the thing and came away with the idea that it's the only possible mode of play.

Faction Play in KotB is very sparely detailed, given only a single paragraph across 36 pages mentioning the idea of turning the various factions against each other. The same section DISCOURAGES the GM from doing any kind of faction play if they have a larger party.

Meanwhile, the module is full of encounters where the GM is explicitly told to have the monsters attack the party on sight, including:

• The Lizardmen
• The Mad Hermit
• The Kobold Lair entrance
• The Kobold Lair guards
• The Kobold Lair common grounds
• The Orc Lair entrance
• The Orc Lair ambush
• The Goblin Lair entrance
• The Goblin Lair guard post
• The imprisoned gnoll
• The Hobgoblin Lair guard post
• The trapped Hero
• The stirge cave
• The fire beetle cave
• The minotaur
• The Gnoll guard post
• The skeleton rooms
• The zombie rooms
• The torture chamber
• The medusa

Most of the other rooms not listed above may lack specific "attack on sight" directions, but they almost all have significant wordcounts describing how the various humanoids in the room wish to fight, and the valuables which can be looted off their corpses.

Very few rooms contain monsters which have explicit direction for negotions (namely, the Ogre, some of the prisoners/slaves, many of whom are written to then immediately betray the party) or contain anything other than humanoids to kill (very few traps, tricks, or puzzles to be found here).

 

[Lord Shark]

And anyway, if we're playing by old school rules, all those humanoids in the Caves are inherently, irredeemably, monstrously evil. Why on earth would you try to negotiate with them and expect anything other than a knife in the back? No one ever tried it any of the times I've played or run B2.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And anyway, if we're playing by old school rules, all those humanoids in the Caves are inherently, irredeemably, monstrously evil. Why on earth would you try to negotiate with them and expect anything other than a knife in the back? No one ever tried it any of the times I've played or run B2.

Heck, some of the hirelings from the keep are on Team Chaos and are explicitly there to knife you in the back. Gygax was not setting this up to be faction play by default.

 

[Cadence]

Heck, some of the hirelings from the keep are on Team Chaos and are explicitly there to knife you in the back. Gygax was not setting this up to be faction play by default.

Which never stopped me from having it crop up in as many of the times I've run it as I can remember...

In any case, given how early it was written and what the alignment rules were at the time, it still seemed ripe for doing lots with - especially with the encouragement to make it our own.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Most of the other rooms not listed above may lack specific "attack on sight" directions

Attack on sight for chaotic monsters is in the core rules for Basic D&D, so the encounters don’t need to state it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In any case, given how early it was written and what the alignment rules were at the time, it seemed ripe for doing lots with - especially with the encouragement to make it our own.

"Make your own fun" adventures can be great, if the table enjoys that kind of thing. In the early 1980s, for us, they were basically an excuse for a group of all thief PCs to roll into town and try and rob the town/keep blind, which was always fun and usually ended with everyone fleeing the guards.

 

[Nikosandros]

Attack on sight for chaotic monsters is in the core rules for Basic D&D, so the encounters don’t need to state it.

Both Moldvay and Mentzer have rules for monsters' reactions. There is no stipulation of monsters always attacking, except in specific cases such as zombies.