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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott Christian" data-source="post: 9724567" data-attributes="member: 6901101">To players that only try to do one thing, you are correct. But I think you are missing the point. If a group showed up, they could spend many sessions just exploring the Keep itself; navigating its politics, befriending people at the Traveller's Inn, helping the priest, gathering rumors. The DM can let the players do this. For example, if a player decides they want to befriend the Loan Banker's daughter or son, so they can gain access for a midnight theft - you as DM can let them do that. There is no, "Well, the time is ticking because Tiamat is about to come back and kill everyone." There are dozens of scenarios like this.Then there is the swamp. It has lizard men. It has bandits. And whatever else your players want to discover. You have a cartographer in the group that has a need to map out fresh springs, and what river they are a tributary to? Great, says the DM. Why? Because they can just decide to do that. Have a group of murder hobos that want to befriend the bandits and try to take over the Keep? Sure. Go for it. Have a player that really wants to delve into why there are giant spiders in the swamp? Excellent, that is a path that could lead to a small drow cult.Then there is a forest - with a hermit who has a pet lion? Who knows what you can do with this, but there are soooo many possibilities. It all depends on what your players want to do. Maybe your druid wants to create a pact with him, and help him protect the forest. Cool, some orcs are cutting down the trees. Let's stop them. Or maybe the mountain lion is pregnant, and they want to barter for one of its cubs. There is a quest line in there somewhere.Then there are the caves. You know? The caves with opposing factions, an evil altar, slave pens, a labyrinth with a minotaur, undead, and whatever else was squeezed in. Your players could literally do a social campaign if you wanted, befriending one group and helping them get rid of their rivals. The labyrinth could be anything, you, as a DM, want it to be. The altar too. The point is, there have been a billion-gazillion-quintillion replies to threads on this site about railroading. The evils of it. How it is so wrong. How it destroys player agency. Blah, blah, blah. This adventure, with its barebones information, allows the exact freedom for DMs and players that some people argue for. (And for the record, I only played Keep once. We were young, maybe 13 or 14. We kept wandering around the swamps in hopes to find a siren, and guess what? The DM created an entire siren side story. That's all I remember. So I have no nostalgic glasses. But I have read it as an adult since then, and even though it is not thorough enough for me, it is definitely open enough for many.)</blockquote>

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