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Mearls on Balance in D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 3389859" data-attributes="member: 16574"><p>It seems strange to me that someone coming into the game for the first time would expect it to have a "storyline" -- IME that's always been a concern that comes along later, after people have been playing for awhile and for whatever (IMO misguided) reason decide they want the game to be "more than a game." In B2 it's clear that the PCs want to find the Caves of Chaos and then raid/explore them, in order to (stave off the bad-guy threat to civilization/take their stuff), and any motivation of "plot" behind that is, at least IMO, entirely superfluous. As for the lack of detail in the NPCs, the module specifically instructs the DM to add his own touches here -- perhaps some more specific advice or examples might have been in order (instead of the page of blank graph-paper, perhaps), but I'd hardly consider this a fatal weakness.</p><p></p><p>I agree that B1 is also a very good instructional aid for novice DMs (and IMO a better and more interesting actual dungeon than the Caves of Chaos, which gets to feeling a little same-y with its endless caves of humanoids) but B2 still gets the edge for me because of its larger scale, incorporating the home-base, a bit of wilderness, room for expansion, and the "living dungeon" element with its sections on monster organization and rivalries and how they'll react to repeated PC incursions. B1 shows you how to design a dungeon with tricks and traps and mazes and colorful/fun incidental detail; B2 shows you how to do everything else (except for large-scale wilderness adventuring, which is covered in X1).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="T. Foster, post: 3389859, member: 16574"] It seems strange to me that someone coming into the game for the first time would expect it to have a "storyline" -- IME that's always been a concern that comes along later, after people have been playing for awhile and for whatever (IMO misguided) reason decide they want the game to be "more than a game." In B2 it's clear that the PCs want to find the Caves of Chaos and then raid/explore them, in order to (stave off the bad-guy threat to civilization/take their stuff), and any motivation of "plot" behind that is, at least IMO, entirely superfluous. As for the lack of detail in the NPCs, the module specifically instructs the DM to add his own touches here -- perhaps some more specific advice or examples might have been in order (instead of the page of blank graph-paper, perhaps), but I'd hardly consider this a fatal weakness. I agree that B1 is also a very good instructional aid for novice DMs (and IMO a better and more interesting actual dungeon than the Caves of Chaos, which gets to feeling a little same-y with its endless caves of humanoids) but B2 still gets the edge for me because of its larger scale, incorporating the home-base, a bit of wilderness, room for expansion, and the "living dungeon" element with its sections on monster organization and rivalries and how they'll react to repeated PC incursions. B1 shows you how to design a dungeon with tricks and traps and mazes and colorful/fun incidental detail; B2 shows you how to do everything else (except for large-scale wilderness adventuring, which is covered in X1). [/QUOTE]
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