In Search of the Unknown - your experiences?

[rogueattorney]

I ran this about a year ago. Ended up a TPK. One of the fighters was bitten by a giant rat and got sick. The cleric died when the party fell into the pit trap and the pool of water on the second level. (No one looked for traps as they approached the false door.) The elf and sick fighter died from a sneak attack by a camoflaged trog. The thief and the m-u limped along, looking for a way out. They found the stairs going up, but didn't want to chance it, because there were three goblins there.

The PC's were carrying a large bag full of silver pieces. Why they didn't try to bribe the gobs is beyond me. I would have had the gobs let them pass and give them directions out. Instead, they ran away before the gobs noticed them.

They stumbled along awhile longer, finding the trap door in the ceiling, which led to the smithy where there were some friendly gnomes. For some reason, they didn't even try to get to the trap door. If they had made any effort at all to open the door, the gnomes would have opened it to see what was going on. Anyway, they finally bought it when they went down the web-covered passage and were killed by the (surprise!!) giant spider.

Not my group's bright shining moment in the sun that time around.

R.A.

Edit: Forgot. The M-U died before using her last Sleep spell. (This is B/X D&D, where Sleep is a real cannon of a spell.) She said she was saving it for something big. If she had used it for the rats or the trog or the goblins or the spiders, the adventure would have gone entirely different. The lesson she learned - don't leave bullets in the chamber!

 

[Drifter Bob]

IN search of the unknown had a second level? Or did you design that yourself?

DB

 

[rogueattorney]

IN search of the unknown had a second level? Or did you design that yourself?

DB

Yes it had a second level right below the first. It had the museum and the bat cave and the

Spoiler

magic rock that would give you bonuses to your attributes if you chipped off a piece and put it in your mouth

and the

Spoiler

secret door that led to the outside

and the arena, among other things. From memory, there were at least three different ways to get down to the second level, one of which is quite unpleasant (see my post above).

R.A.

 

[Altalazar]

I loved this one - I can't even remember now if B1 or B2 was my first module. But what I enjoyed most about this was the magic pools. I can't count how many times I made "magic-pool-like" effects in later adventures (in various guises). Ok, it wasn't that many, but I savored them all.

I think my copy of B1 still has, in pencil, my additions to each room, as per the modules directions for running it.

 

[Zelligars Apprentice]

Given my username, I HAVE to reply to this.

Ahh, yes! B1, In Search of the Unknown. My first adventure, which came with my first D&D set (Holmes "blue book" edition). I still get misty-eyed about it. I ran it several times, in Holmes D&D, AD&D 1st ed. and AD&D 2nd ed.

To me, one of the best things about it was the combination of little details in the descriptions (How Rogahn and Zelligars' bedrooms were decorated, the cat in the lab, the portraits of the pair in the museum) with the near-infinite customization possibilities in that you decided on the monsters and (most of) the treasure yourself. Although it has many non-sensical elements (at least it had a bathroom, although only one), it still serves as an excellent example of adventure design, even today. It also gave you ideas on how the dungeon interacted with the outside world (the backstory of this being the home of two famous adventurers). What possibilities that created in my adolescent mind! What other adventures had the pair experienced before? There are some clues in the trophy room! There are more in Zelligar's workshop! Great, great stuff.

OK, fess up! Who else put the carrion crawler in the intersection with the dead bodies? Or the giant spider in the web room?

 

[Uder]

My first D&D book was the AD&D Monster Manual. My second was the purple box with the blue book and this module. I was eight. I filled in, erased and re-filled those encounter entries so many times I about wore holes through the pages. Ran it for 1-3 friends at a time, finding players was hard in the little mountain town where I grew up. Then I passed it to a friend and he did the same and ran my characters through it. I would get mad, because he "cheated" and put a false door in place of a real door, or swapped room contents around. My older brother got into D&D after me, and something he did blew me away: he wrote all his encounters and treasures down in a spiral notebook.

WOAH. Everything changed. I don't know why, but the lesson of the module (you can make your own adventures) never hit me until then. Suddenly I had stacks of my own pocket and spiral notebooks, some with notes for changing published adventures, some with entirely new adventures ("Valley of the Liches" is still my favorite prepubescent powergaming fantasy, closely followed by the not-at-all-aptly named "Super Advanced D&D Dungeon", which was really just the movie Alien in a dungeon geomorph map.)

Since then, my original copy has fallen mostly apart, so I've picked up a second copy for when I want a nostalgic glance. Maybe I'll run it again, or maybe I'll just skip it and go straight to "Super Advanced D&D Dungeon 3.5."

 

[Quasqueton]

it still serves as an excellent example of adventure design, even today.

As much as I love this adventure (just look at my name), I would never say it is "an excellent example of adventure design". Today or 25 years ago. I mean, the spiral corridor that dead ends; the corridor of doors, doors, doors, that go nowhere but to more doors; the teleporting rooms; the pool chamber; the gate trap that traps PCs in a dead end hall, with no logical reason; etc.

It was a fun dungeon crawl for 13 year olds to run around in game after game. And when I get the chance to run another BD&D game session, I will use this module (already bought an extra copy for this purpose). But "excellent" adventure design? Not at all.

Quasqueton

 

[fusangite]

I bought this module when I was 9 or 10. I remember the excitement of opening the "first" basic D&D module. Even at that tender age, once I'd finished reading it, I felt ripped-off. I thought "What crap! This dungeon doesn't make any sense! Why are they making me do the work of placing everything?" I never ran it. It used to be shelved next to me Fiend Folio as an example of TSR mis-steps.

 

[Lord Ipplepop]

Ah, yes.....
This was the first adventure I ever played in and my first DMing experience.
I still use the battle scene, with the dead characters and monsters from time to time in my adventures.
I also kept the idea of having the magic mouth spell at various points in different adventures.

 

[Matt Harris1]

1st module my brother and I played back around '82 or so. We got it with the boxed set with the huge red dragon on the treasure pile on the cover. Presto and Luven went on to have all kinds of further adventures in AD&D and nearly every game we played on Commodore 64. Awesome module. Also liked the pool room and the mushrooms per Prince of Happiness above.