Revisiting Keep on the Borderlands

[MerricB]

G'day!

I pulled out KotB today to look again at one of the modules I'm very fond of and have good memories of.

Hmm... it's amazing how little variety there is in it. The Caves of Chaos (in particular) are kill one humanoid after another. Interesting tricks and situations aren't really common.

The Shrine of Chaos remains awesome, however.

I'm interested in my reaction now to it, because I've been very entertained by reading Keep on the Shadowfell. I think there's a certain level of simplicity and elegance in both modules, actually. To some extent, D&D doesn't need a high level of complexity in its adventures - although I'm not a fan of the strictly linear dungeon crawl (which neither is... just thinking of Barrow of the Forgotten King; great encounters, pity about the map...)

Cheers!

 

[Exquisite Dead Guy]

If anyone's interested there's a project here working on revising it for 4e.

 

[haakon1]

G'day!

I pulled out KotB today to look again at one of the modules I'm very fond of and have good memories of.

Hmm... it's amazing how little variety there is in it. The Caves of Chaos (in particular) are kill one humanoid after another. Interesting tricks and situations aren't really common.

The Shrine of Chaos remains awesome, however.

I'm interested in my reaction now to it, because I've been very entertained by reading Keep on the Shadowfell. I think there's a certain level of simplicity and elegance in both modules, actually. To some extent, D&D doesn't need a high level of complexity in its adventures - although I'm not a fan of the strictly linear dungeon crawl (which neither is... just thinking of Barrow of the Forgotten King; great encounters, pity about the map...)

Cheers!

You should check out "Return to the Keep on the Borderlands", for D&D's 25th anniversary, in 2nd Edition rules. (Say if D&D was on its 2nd Edition 25 years in, why have we had 3 more editions in 9 years -- I digress.) Anyhow, it's weird and a lot of people diss it for not fitting Greyhawk or the old KotB, but I like many of the random new elements.

 

[Agamon]

You should check out "Return to the Keep on the Borderlands", for D&D's 25th anniversary, in 2nd Edition rules. (Say if D&D was on its 2nd Edition 25 years in, why have we had 3 more editions in 9 years -- I digress.) Anyhow, it's weird and a lot of people diss it for not fitting Greyhawk or the old KotB, but I like many of the random new elements.

Because 1E didn't have it's 25th anniversary until 2004...

Anyway, when I redid KotB for 3e, I used a mix of both the original and return and then left some stuff out and added my own. It was fun.

 

[Lanefan]

I pulled out KotB today to look again at one of the modules I'm very fond of and have good memories of.

Hmm... it's amazing how little variety there is in it. The Caves of Chaos (in particular) are kill one humanoid after another. Interesting tricks and situations aren't really common.

Hmmm...but when you first played it it probably seemed amazing, right? If so, then it did its job.
It's only now, years later with a lot of mystery stripped away, we look at it as simplistic.

I'm interested in my reaction now to it, because I've been very entertained by reading Keep on the Shadowfell. I think there's a certain level of simplicity and elegance in both modules, actually. To some extent, D&D doesn't need a high level of complexity in its adventures - although I'm not a fan of the strictly linear dungeon crawl (which neither is... just thinking of Barrow of the Forgotten King; great encounters, pity about the map...)

Cheers!

KotS looks like a pretty decent adventure...or two adventures, really; it wouldn't take much to expand that Kobold lair into its own little adventure. I'm not familiar with "Barrow of the Forgotten King", though...what edition is it from?

Lanefan

 

[MerricB]

Hmmm...but when you first played it it probably seemed amazing, right?

Heck, it's still amazing now - I ran it in 2002 converted to 3e, and we had a ball. My point - partially - was that you don't need so much detail to have a good adventure.

I'm not familiar with "Barrow of the Forgotten King", though...what edition is it from?

Late 3.5e; official Wizards adventure. Part 1 of 3.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/959767400

Here's another observation: there are probably a similar number of encounters in the Caves of Chaos to Keep on the Shadowfell, although Keep is much more lossy in space. KotB describes a bunch of empty rooms and individual rooms that in KotS are folded into single encounters. I'm very fond of having linked encounters all presented together, I must say.

Cheers!

 

[thedungeondelver]

Once again, someone seems to be missing the point of a module, or indeed getting your head in the game of DMing. The rote monotony of "kill one humanoid after the other" is totally broken up by, actually, you know, playing them smart as a DM. The very module says that the monsters should be innovating, there should be reinforcements sent for, etc. The notion that they wouldn't get smarter as more home invasions occur isn't a shortcoming of the module, it's a shortcoming of the DM running the module.

Modules are frameworks, the DM makes them live and breathe and do more than sit there and get shot at by players.

 

[jdrakeh]

I like it well enough that I'm reworking the thinly implied setting* as a for playing the entire B Series, as well as some newer modules (you can probably figure out what at least one of them is by looking at the names of the towns on the map). See the Borderlands link in my .sig for details.

*As I'm certain you're aware, the module has been officially placed in three different settings -- Greyhawk, The Known World, and Mystara.

 

[jdrakeh]

Once again, someone seems to be missing the point of a module, or indeed getting your head in the game of DMing. The rote monotony of "kill one humanoid after the other" is totally broken up by, actually, you know, playing them smart as a DM. The very module says that the monsters should be innovating, there should be reinforcements sent for, etc. The notion that they wouldn't get smarter as more home invasions occur isn't a shortcoming of the module, it's a shortcoming of the DM running the module.

You seem to be replying to a post that nobody made. Where did somebody claim that not playing monsters "smart" as the DM (i.e., not allowing them to react accordingly to adventurer incursions) was a shortcoming of the module? The OP merely commented that there isn't much variation as far as player goals are concerned. Incidentally, this remains true regardless of how "smart" the monsters are played by a DM (i.e., the intelligence of monsters doesn't in any way change the fact that the only real goal of said adventure is to kill said monsters).

 

[MerricB]

I like it well enough that I'm reworking the thinly implied setting* as a for playing the entire B Series, as well as some newer modules (you can probably figure out what at least one of them is by looking at the names of the towns on the map). See the Borderlands link in my .sig for details.

Cool!

I used Keep to launch a 3-year 3.5e campaign - my recently concluded Ulek/Fhoi Myore game. That was lots and lots of fun.

Cheers!