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

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

here is no stipulation of monsters always attacking, except in specific cases such as zombies.

Except that ~20 of the encounters in KotB explicitly tell the GM to attack the party immediately...

Gary's instructions in this adventure do go directly against the best-practice wisdom of using reaction rolls and letting players negotiate and not get immediately betrayed

KotB works best when you ignore all of the bad advice contained inside, which brings me back to my original point: you're only going to get a great adventure out of it if your DM does a ton of extra work and basically rewrites the whole thing.

 

[Mannahnin]

KotB works best when you ignore all of the bad advice contained inside, which brings me back to my original point: you're only going to get a great adventure out of it if your DM does a ton of extra work and basically rewrites the whole thing.

Eh. I agree that there's some work required. "A ton" here feels pretty subjective. Changing up some to most of the "always attack" encounters to regular reaction rolls goes a long way with pretty light effort.

 

[Parmandur]

Wrong thread

 

[DEFCON 1]

How much work KotB needs to be done by the DM to "make it work" depends entirely on the kinds of information a particular DM thinks they need to run the module.

An improvisational DM needs very little additional work, because they are fine just making things up as the party goes along. The name of a random shopkeep in the Keep? Just make one up at the time the party enters it. The reason why X NPC is in some area of the wilderness? Just come up with something at the moment the party talks to them and asks a specific question regarding it. How do all the monsters relate to or interact with each other at the Caves? Only bother to invent something if and when the party questions it. But if the party never bothers with any of it during play? Then the DM never needs to spend any time on it.

Whereas a DM who needs the entire module and locations have a singular consistency that can and will apply each and every time they run it (even if it ends up being only the once)... they will want to spend the time getting every single thing down on paper so that they have the "correct" answer in hand if/when the party ever interacted with any of it.

There is no right answer here, and why two different posters might think there are two different levels of "need" required to make the module work. But that is why every DM should make it a point to lean in to only buying those modules that give them what they want. And if a module doesn't? Don't waste your time with it or argue with other people trying to make your opinion of it seem to be the correct one.

 

[mamba]

How much work KotB needs to be done by the DM to "make it work" depends entirely on the kinds of information a particular DM thinks they need to run the module.

An improvisational DM needs very little additional work, because they are fine just making things up as the party goes along.

this does not change the amount much at all, only the timing and how much time the DM can spend on it

Whereas a DM who needs the entire module and locations have a singular consistency

not sure such a DM would use KotB as a starting point, that might actually be more work than starting fresh… I don’t need singular consistency, just a semblance of a sensible setting, and the monster hotel fails that already

 

[Cadence]

I don’t need singular consistency, just a semblance of a sensible setting, and the monster hotel fails that already

I really like the (I think) obvious and easy fix that the GG 5e adaptation does. There's Chaos stuff here that attracts all the different types of monsters to be in close proximity.

In the OG B2 it could just be the temple itself.

In the GG 5e update

Spoiler: what GG did for it

there is a cavern in the north west of the caves that contains a still lost "ancient temple dedicated to a long forgotten god of chaos. The evil of this unholy place is what attracts the evil humanoids and other evil clergy to the Caves".

Combining this with them being easily entered caves also makes it make more sense to me than some old dungeon building where it isn't clear how the things in rooms 45-46 could have ended up between whatever is in rooms 44 and 47 and still survived in terms of food and water.

When I have run it the last few times I have used that latent Chaos to explain why all of the monsters who have been there a while are particularly bloodthirsty and evil-seeming, and had it cause some of the more religiously attuned characters to have dreams/nightmares pushing them to succumb to their baser instincts.

 

[Cadence]

this does not change the amount much at all, only the timing and how much time the DM can spend on it

The constraint of how much time the DM can spend on it feels like it definitely changes the amount of work for me when I do it. If I am improvising the names or motivations the constraints of the game being played have me just spit them out on the fly and move on. If I am writing them up in advance I need to do it for all of the things (even ones I might not need), spend time debating my first choices, and have to actually put it down in some organized fashion.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

An improvisational DM needs very little additional work, because they are fine just making things up as the party goes along. The name of a random shopkeep in the Keep? Just make one up at the time the party enters it.

I'm a good improviser, but pulling consistently good names out of a hat is hard for me and a lot of other people. The improvisers on The Adventure Zone famously got stuck with the terrible "Barry Bluejeans" when they had to come up with a name on the fly and then were stuck with that NPC -- who just became more prominent as time went on -- for years.

At the very least, I would have included a name generator in the back of B2. (I add those to even adventures I make for myself nowadays, just so I won't ever get stuck.)

 

[mamba]

The constraint of how much time the DM can spend on it feels like it definitely changes the amount of work for me when I do it

it does, my point was more that the amount of topics that need addressing is the same.

If you only have a few seconds for each as they pop up during play, you obviously spend less overall time on doing so compared to addressing them in advance when you could spend hours doing so, if you want to

 

[Scott Christian]

I'm a good improviser, but pulling consistently good names out of a hat is hard for me and a lot of other people. The improvisers on The Adventure Zone famously got stuck with the terrible "Barry Bluejeans" when they had to come up with a name on the fly and then were stuck with that NPC -- who just became more prominent as time went on -- for years.

At the very least, I would have included a name generator in the back of B2. (I add those to even adventures I make for myself nowadays, just so I won't ever get stuck.)

For me, if I am writing something, I try to always add an NPC section. There I list all the NPCs that are integral for the adventure, even if it is a sandbox and there are many adventures. Then, at the end of the NPC section, I list 40 or 50 more less detailed NPCs; a name, a job, and a personality trait. Here is a page of the last one I did:

(PS - Yes, I just use AI images for the NPCs. So there are errors. Sometimes it helps to show the players an image.)