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<blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7587502" data-attributes="member: 15700"><p>Even setting aside nostalgia, I think it's a great module. Because it does the most important thing: inspire the DM to be creative. No names listed? So what. That means when I look at the picture of the guy being turned upside down and robbed, I came up with some NPCs that fit that group in the tavern that the PCs saw. <strong><em>I</em></strong> give them names, and personalities. It gave character to the scene. What KotB did to a new gamer like myself, was teach me that having the right amount of hints to spark my imagination without spelling out everything for me was the right way to go and the best way to learn a game that was about imagination. It gave you the tools for creation (a blank NPC sheet and graph paper, etc) Of course YMMV, but for a young me, it was the perfect way to learn the game as a DM that has served me extremely well over the past 35+ years. As mentioned upthread, I find it harder to customize modern adventures because it's a ton more work to overwrite all the backstory, NPCs, motivations, etc in modern adventures. Spare the page count by not putting in all that detail (allowing me to quickly get to the important bits) and give me just enough to be an outline--a jumping off point. Let me mold the world and creatures inside it the way I envision and my players like best. Let me adapt the game world and NPCs based on PC actions and interaction because the PCs can be one of the most inspiring parts of the game for me as a DM. I find that flow to be much more natural than predetermined names, personalities, backstories, etc.</p><p></p><p>If I want to read a book, I'll read a book. I don't like how modern adventures feel like a book with everything already mapped out, and all the DM does is narrate the predetermined story and interactions with a few random/not so random dice rolls.</p><p></p><p>I've ran B2 hundreds of times. Sometimes it's a typical dungeon crawl. Sometimes the PCs ally with the monsters and attack the keep. Sometimes the PCs defeat the Caves and then use political intrigue to take the keep for themselves. One time the PCs fell into a rift that the cult leader summoned and ended up in a weird Hunger Games scenario (back in 1984, long before HG was a thing). Point is, is that you never know what could happen.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sacrosanct, post: 7587502, member: 15700"] Even setting aside nostalgia, I think it's a great module. Because it does the most important thing: inspire the DM to be creative. No names listed? So what. That means when I look at the picture of the guy being turned upside down and robbed, I came up with some NPCs that fit that group in the tavern that the PCs saw. [B][I]I[/I][/B] give them names, and personalities. It gave character to the scene. What KotB did to a new gamer like myself, was teach me that having the right amount of hints to spark my imagination without spelling out everything for me was the right way to go and the best way to learn a game that was about imagination. It gave you the tools for creation (a blank NPC sheet and graph paper, etc) Of course YMMV, but for a young me, it was the perfect way to learn the game as a DM that has served me extremely well over the past 35+ years. As mentioned upthread, I find it harder to customize modern adventures because it's a ton more work to overwrite all the backstory, NPCs, motivations, etc in modern adventures. Spare the page count by not putting in all that detail (allowing me to quickly get to the important bits) and give me just enough to be an outline--a jumping off point. Let me mold the world and creatures inside it the way I envision and my players like best. Let me adapt the game world and NPCs based on PC actions and interaction because the PCs can be one of the most inspiring parts of the game for me as a DM. I find that flow to be much more natural than predetermined names, personalities, backstories, etc. If I want to read a book, I'll read a book. I don't like how modern adventures feel like a book with everything already mapped out, and all the DM does is narrate the predetermined story and interactions with a few random/not so random dice rolls. I've ran B2 hundreds of times. Sometimes it's a typical dungeon crawl. Sometimes the PCs ally with the monsters and attack the keep. Sometimes the PCs defeat the Caves and then use political intrigue to take the keep for themselves. One time the PCs fell into a rift that the cult leader summoned and ended up in a weird Hunger Games scenario (back in 1984, long before HG was a thing). Point is, is that you never know what could happen. [/QUOTE]
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