D&D (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

[Paul Farquhar]

I would say LMoP is significantly longer than KotB + CoC.

But it would need some fleshing out to make it good for inexperienced DMs.

 

[Oofta]

Star Trek had its actual monsters.
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And there are also the parasitic aliens of Operation: Annihilate.

Balance of Terror might be a better comparison to KotB though. Are the Romulans evil monsters? Clearly not. Does the hero fight and kill them anyway, without being less than heroic? Sure.

What's your point? That there was a doomsday ship? That they occasionally had monsters (the parasites from Operation: Annihilate weren't intelligent), especially in the original series? Because my point is that other than the extremely rare exception all the aliens were humans with rubber masks. Even the ones that were glowing orbs of energy where the son decided to mess with the crew until mom and dad (literally glowing orbs of light with male and female voices) intervened were still basically human. When there were dangerous enemies they were just a warlike culture from a planet of hats like the Klingons or Romulans. The same way that humans were the warlike culture from a planet of hats in the mirror universe.

If there are intelligent aliens in our galaxy (life is a different story, technologically advanced intelligent life may or may not be incredibly rare), there's no reason to believe they'd think like us or have the same moral compass. On Star Trek the vast majority of them do.

The majority of intelligent enemies my PCs will face in my campaign are human or one of the standard races because that's the majority of the population. Doesn't mean I care what other people do in their campaigns, whether orcs are just Klingons before they decided to join the Federation or if they're LotR orcs who only exist to populate the BBEG's army.

 

[Parmandur]

I would say LMoP is significantly longer than KotB + CoC.

But it would need some fleshing out to make it good for inexperienced DMs.

Lost Mines is 64 pages long. Really depends on how long these three modules are, but given thst it is three booklets I would imagine combined 96 pages seems plausible.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You don't think they won't unless they get to murder children?

Of course not. I just don't see why we need to remove non-combatants from the adventure when the intention was clearly that they were there because it was where they lived. Just don't have them be there if you don't want to deal with them at your table.

Also, I would really appreciate it if folks would stop assuming that, "I like the original adventure" and "I want the PCs to murder children" are equivalent statements.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In the book LotR orcs are characterised as a: too dumb to be threatening, and b: working class northerners (the product of Blake's "dark satanic mills").

It was Peter Jackson (no doubt with his horror background) who managed to make them nightmarish. And that was long after B2 was written. The art from the D&D books of the time was more likely to cause laughter than fear.

But I should probably mention again: orcs are a core PC species in 2024 D&D. This version of the adventure has to be written to take into account that the adventurers who turn up at the keep may be orcs.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if the Caves of Chaos are filled with demons or undead this time. Maybe gnolls.

I still think the best solution, however, is just to accept the complexity of the situation and emphasize the possibility of a diplomatic solution, with a couple bad actors in the mix to stir the pot. I've been rewatching The 100 (great show!), and how the folks from the Ark dealt with the Grounders in the first few seasons, with all the misunderstandings and emotionally-charged reactions, sounds like a great path forward for a KotB-style scenario.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why is that an issue for you? You don’t play 5e anyway.

I play Level Up, which is a version of 5e. WotC's version is not all there is.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I actually wouldn't be surprised if the Caves of Chaos are filled with demons or undead this time. Maybe gnolls

Unlikely. Aside from the feel of the adventure, those are all higher level enemies. It’s possible there will be some humans amongst the humanoids, but really, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need alignment for there to be conflict.

emphasize the possibility of a diplomatic solution

Despite what some people say, this was never ruled out in the original module.

There was no “good” and “evil” in Basic, Sword & Sorcery inspired as it was.

The biggest change is the word “heroes” in the title. The assumption in the original was that the PCs were mercenaries, not heroes (which is why they killed children if the price was right).

 

[UngainlyTitan]

30 or more pages in we are still arguing about goblin children, the module never made sense to me. It was one of the first I ever bought read and never ran.
It simply made no sense, what were the orcs and goblins doing there, why was there no dynamic defence. Why did they simply not leave when the adventures left after a successful foray. Most armies break after taking between 10 and 25% losses, after all.
Where did the keep get its food?
It could be interesting but really needed more plot hooks and DM advice. Which I would hope the new version gets.

 

[Stormonu]

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Thanks for posting this. Ordered it off Walmart - saving me a trip I was going to make this weekend to pick it up from a FLGS on the coast.

 

[Scribe]

Thanks for posting this. Ordered it off Walmart - saving me a trip I was going to make this weekend to pick it up from a FLGS on the coast.

Yeah that screenshot prompted me to go looking, looks like I can get the original's after all.