Magic items in Keep on the Borderlands

[smootrk]

Secondly, there was a guideline for fledgling DM's back then, and it was called...

Keep on the Borderlands.

You are right that Keep on the Borderlands is somewhat introductory for the game. But also remember that the game has evolved and learned from its past, so to say (and also un-learned some things as well IMO). Comparing the Caves of Chaos is like comparing the clothing styles of then and now.... I wouldn't wear those clothes now-a-days.

 

[werk]

It's a different game, and should not be compared thusly.

It's like comparing the number of dice in risk to the number of dice in yatzee.

If you change ability range, modifiers, the attack system, the armor system, the way spells work, and adjust the overall challenge of the game, it's not the same game. If you were to convert out the module, it should not (could not) be exactly the same or it wouldn't be a fair conversion.

There was more magic gear in old school because (IMO) characters were much weaker and had less options. They needed the gear to not die, it made them more powerful in small incremental changes. Now you can rack n' stack and have uber characters at 5th level with no gear at all. That's why magic is such a focus point in 3.e, it can really make a powerful character unbalancing. 3.e is much more complex and you can't give the players access to large amounts of hardware or they'll cheese out.

 

[Henry]

You are right that Keep on the Borderlands is somewhat introductory for the game. But also remember that the game has evolved and learned from its past, so to say (and also un-learned some things as well IMO). Comparing the Caves of Chaos is like comparing the clothing styles of then and now.... I wouldn't wear those clothes now-a-days.

Agreed, but what does that have to do with your statement that There was no guide back then for magic item placement? My point is that given the guidelines by example in the form of the old modules then, there really is little difference between the amount of magic in the old module versus what's in the new. The only other difference is that people usually trade in their wealth for other items nowadays in default D&D.

 

[Garnfellow]

There was always tremendous confusion over the prevalence of magic items in 1st edition. If you read the DMG, magic items were clearly supposed to be rare and wonderful. So "a single book of spells," if I remember correctly, was in one place described as "a benison beyond belief."

However, if you actually used the NPC tables in the DMG, the random treasure tables in the Monster Manual, or ran the "Official" TSR modules as written, you came away with a drastically different sense of how common magic items were in the game.

David Godwin wrote a very insightful article in Dragon 99 called "History of a Game that Failed" that very clearly describes this very phenomenon. The DMG (and countless anti-Monte Haul Dragon and Polyhedron articles) said one thing, but all official examples of actual play (published modules) showed a new DM something completely different.

Godwin's conclusion was that the TSR modules were vastly overstocked with magic -- probably because the designers assumed that (1) no PC party would ever find ALL the magic items, certainly not that Staff of the Magi hidden in the barrel of pickles in the kobold lair, and (2) DMs would freely alter the treasure lists on the fly.

Clearly the designers were wrong on both counts: one should never underestimate the ingenuity, determination, or rapacity of PCs looking for magic items, and most young DMs naively believed that the modules as written were the gold standard -- and besides, with no hard guidelines as to what level of magic was appropriate, what yardstick would have been used for those DMs willing to depart from the module as written?

Certainly in my own first campaign I ran nothing but Official TSR modules (tm) and yet still ended up with a group of PCs loaded down with magic goodies.

3e just took the reality that was already on the ground and codified it into reasonable guidelines. I think that in the process they actually made magic items more sensibly distributed -- no more spheres of annihilation hidden in the jam closets of 0-level peasants.

 

[Henry]

There was more magic gear in old school because (IMO) characters were much weaker and had less options. They needed the gear to not die, it made them more powerful in small incremental changes. Now you can rack n' stack and have uber characters at 5th level with no gear at all. That's why magic is such a focus point in 3.e, it can really make a powerful character unbalancing. 3.e is much more complex and you can't give the players access to large amounts of hardware or they'll cheese out.

Compare those 5th level characters with little wealth to the opponents they're default facing at that level, and you may see a different story about those Uber-Characters. And while Basic D&D characters had very little min-max'ing they could do, 1st and 2nd edition had all the tools in place to make singularly powerful characters, but there were different pathways to get them than now.

Again, it's all about perception, and without magic, there are a lot of things that don't add up well in either edition; it's just the earlier editions that assumed that the magic level was independent of the game's balance and as a result, the numbers were somewhat lower. (Well, that, and the old hit die cap and armor class cap made a large difference.)

 

[Henry]

David Godwin wrote a very insightful article in Dragon 99 called "History of a Game that Failed" that very clearly describes this very phenomenon... one should never underestimate the ingenuity, determination, or rapacity of PCs looking for magic items, and most young DMs naively believed that the modules as written were the gold standard..

Indeed, "History of a game that failed" was one of the most pivotal articles in my history as a Game Master.

 

[Mr. Patient]

It's interesting, if you look at the old modules, how much EGG disregarded his own advice on magic item distribution in the ol' 1e DMG...

I think I remember Jim Ward saying much the same thing when he defended the treasure distribution in some of the early Fast Forward modules. They were apparently Gygaxian in their amount of loot (never saw them myself).

 

[diaglo]

Does it still exist? I'd like to see it.

i think it got archived/pruned.

Henry's attempt over at Dragonsfoot was the most recent i can recall.

but that one is gone to ... i think

 

[rogueattorney]

A couple things here:

1. B2 was not a one night dungeon or even a one character level dungeon. It was designed to get characters up from beginners to third level or so. It's essentially a mini-campaign setting. Where the notion that it's a "fairly minor dungeon" comes from is beyond me.

2. B2 was not designed for the 4 character 3e party. It was designed for 6-8 pc's plus a good smattering of npc hirelings and retainers. Disbursing the magic items among 4 pc's isn't a good indication of the amount of magic items 3rd or 4th level characters were supposed to have. Disbursing the items among 10 characters would be more accurate.

R.A.

 

[S'mon]

Would you say3rd level in 1e/OD&D was about equal to 6th level in 3e in terms of tme taken to reach it? So really this is a 1-6 module in 3e...