The Caves of Chaos: Not very good?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Remember, too, that the Caves of Chaos isn't the entire module. B2 included a starting town, the Keep, with all its inhabitants, shops, etc; a wilderness area with encounters surrounding the Keep and the Caves; and a great list of rumors about what was going on, some true and some not. The rumors easily pointed to a range of motivations that can become stories, goals, and lead to an entire campaign. It's far more than just a keyed map and encounter list if you have the creativity to see the potential.

I ran a 4-year FR-based 3E campaign that spent a significant amount of the first five levels in and around the Keep and Caves (with periodic forays to other adventure sites), and the PCs kept visiting some of the key NPCs at the Keep for the entire campaign. Diaglo's still got the story hour for that campaign tucked away around here somewhere ...

 

[Connorsrpg]

I am betting they simply didn't think the language thing through. As stated above PCs would be speaking these languages in previous editions. However, I am happy that not every humanoid encountered speaks Common (though obviously a few here would have helped). I'll be at least the leaders are meant to, but remember, monsters stat blocks are in very early development. This is an easy fix. (I intend to roll a d6: 1 = fluent in Common; 2-3 = can communicate basics; 4-6 Not fluent in Common as written).

I am not sure about all the fuss there being 'no plot'. I have the adventure and there is MORE than enough to make the Caves intriguing to all PCs. In fact there are enough given hooks that you could assign a different one to each PC (which I may yet do).

I do agree with the probs regarding having so many different, hostile humanoids in such a small area. I certainly intend to up the scale a lot (to resemble the picture accompanying the adventure in fact).

I personally would design an adventure these days with such a variety of races, but it could be an interesting place and one of the plot hooks can easily be used to explain this.

Did people actually read all of those options before the details on each numbered/lettered cave?