Is The Keep on the Borderlands a well-designed adventure module?

[Ourph]

<comments that had me ROFL snipped>

You are correct sir! May you live to be a thousand years old!

 

[harmyn]

I've just got to say I do love the bare bones approach. To me its the best way to set a module up. don't get me wrong, I do love a good setting, and a setting with adventure hooks built into the history and description of the world is great. But in a module, give me the basics and I will apply the set dressing as needed from the various modules. I converted this module to 3rd edition when 3e first came out, and I loved how it turned out. I did name NPC's in my text, and defined a great deal, but I think it was just an exceptional adventure.

Also, Mearls congrats on your unusual intro into the business end of gaming. People should remember to be true to how they feel. Honesty, even if it isn't popular, will always get you a good ways in a business that deals so much with thought and creativiy.

 

[Rothe]

Wow! That review is a blast from the past!

It was meant partially as a satire, partially as a serious question along the lines of, "Would D&D have been more popular, or even mainstream, if B2 had been better designed?"

...snip...

Interestingly enough, that review prompted Dale Donovan and John Tynes to email me (they had very different reactions), and the RPG.net admin at the time (Sandy Antunes?) asked if I wanted to do a column for the site. It sort of helped me break into the business. Ironic, isn't it?

Well I have to say the review was fun to read and very funny. I like it even if I think KotB was a good one because your observations apply so well to many other TSR modules.

Odddly, the one part about poor design that I would agree with for an introductory module is the lack of names. I'd think this is just the kind of thing an introductory module would need, or at least a list of names in the back from various origins. It's a nitpick to be sure but the lack of names comes across as just odd in a module for beginners.

 

[Hussar]

That's an interesting point. Should a module be a skeleton or a full corpse?

If it's a skeleton, you have to do the work of putting the clothes on yourself. The means that the DM has to spend more time prepping and hopefully it works out well.

If it's a full corpse, then the DM doesn't have to spend a lot of time on the prep, but you are at the mercy of the designers for making it work out well.

To me, I'd rather have a full corpse that I can apply some makeup to and then bury it. ((Ok, enough with this metaphor)) Really, when I buy something, I don't expect to have to spend dozens of hours reworking it and massaging it into my game. I want to read it, maybe tweak this or that, and then pretty much run it as is.

In other words, I buy modules to save me time. To me, the sign of good design means that I don't have to do any work to use it. I open it up, read it and play it would be the best designed adventure, for me.

So, for me, KotB, isn't a particularly fantastically designed module because of my criteria for good design. That doesn't make it a bad module, just not a great module for me. For those who like doing the extra work, it would be a fantastic design.

YMMV and all that.

 

[JohnSnow]

{Snip comment about giant skeleton in room with low ceiling}

Which room are we talking about here?

Damn, I can't find my copy.

Akrasia? Help me out here...This came up when we were playing through Keep last year. Do you remember?

(Aside: I really need to call up the guys and get a game going again...)

 

[Endur]

What kind of armor are they wearing on the cover (BD&D listing?)

I was never very clear on the armor. BD&D armor was pretty much leather armor, chainmail, or platemail. So my interpretation was that the elf was wearing leather armor (or had chainmail underneath his outer covering), the human was wearing plate mail, and the dwarf might have been wearing a leather breastplate we can't see or is wearing no armor at all.

 

[The Shaman]

I'm only one gamer, but...

I sometimes wonder if this barebones level of design is all that gamers really need.

I don't wonder about that at all - I know that's all I really need.

We talk about versimilitude (man, I'm sure I misspelled that), story, detail, and so on, but do we really need a designer to give us that?

No.

In a way, the more detail that a product offers the harder it is for me to fit the story I want to tell into it. The barebones approach, like the one taken by Wilderlands of High Fantasy, makes it really easy to do what you want.

And that's why.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Numion]

I didn't vote since I don't know the product.

It would've been a big minus for me if the people don't have names. Sometimes when I'm on a roll I can come up with fantasy names on the spot, but usually not. Meh.

 

[Hussar]

And yet, aren't you a huge fan of WLD? Sure, they include the names of monsters and their general relationships, but frequently there is nothing in the text to indicate why a condition exists in a given room, the descriptions sometimes miss the most obvious items in the room ("god" statue of the goblin seperatists, I'm looking at you...), and less than a quarter of the place is fully detailed. Or even partially detailed.

I can jot some names in the margin and run KotB otherwise as-is. To run WLD requires a heck of a lot more work.

So, why the difference?

Raven, read more than the first two regions. I've stated numerous times that Region B is poorly written and needed a lot of work. However, the next three regions I ran, C, F, and G were almost exactly by the book. I have done next to no work for 3/4 of what I've run. I would say that's pretty well done.

B, I will grant you. Piss poor editing. The others do not suffer so badly.

As far as "less than a quarter of the place is fully detailed" that's simply wrong. Rgion B has no undescribed rooms, C has one, F had a couple of empty rooms, and G has none. That's pretty close to 500 rooms in just those four regions. I would hardly say that less than a quarter is fully detailed. More like less than a tenth of it isn't detailed.

But, nice try.

Then again, this isn't the place to discuss the WLD. I like the WLD because it's an entire campaign in a box with which I have to do very, very little work to run it as is. Considering I am now completely prepped for gaming until after Christmas, I would say that it is pretty successful for my criteria.

Unlike some people, I get no joy in rewriting the books. I don't enjoy tinkering. As I mentioned in the other thread, prep work does not entice me. If a module is designed that I am assumed to finish the job, then it is poorly designed, IMO. If I buy a module, I don't buy it to give me work. I buy it to do my work for me.