The playtest reports really demonstrate ...

[Olgar Shiverstone]

... Gygax's design genius in Keep on the Borderlands.

Think about it ... so many groups, having so many different and varied experiences, but despite that having a common baseline for discussion of their experiences in the Caves of Chaos. I attribute that in part to the design of the module -- it's a sandboxy kind of design, so the story flows from the DM's set up, the players, and their characters' actions rather than any explicit goal outlined in the adventure -- as well as its style, which tends to be spare and allows the DM to fill in details in a way to fit the group.

The adventure's design with multiple types of challenges to interact with as well as a near-infinite number of ways to approach the Caves of Chaos ensures variability and make repeat play enjoyable. I'd like to see this adventure available with whatever the introductory 5E product is.

Well done, Gary. Your adventure is more than 30 years old and still works as well today many iterations of D&D later. We miss you.

 

[Grazzt]

... Gygax's design genius in Keep on the Borderlands.

Think about it ... so many groups, having so many different and varied experiences, but despite that having a common baseline for discussion of their experiences in the Caves of Chaos. I attribute that in part to the design of the module -- it's a sandboxy kind of design, so the story flows from the DM's set up, the players, and their characters' actions rather than any explicit goal outlined in the adventure -- as well as its style, which tends to be spare and allows the DM to fill in details in a way to fit the group.

The adventure's design with multiple types of challenges to interact with as well as a near-infinite number of ways to approach the Caves of Chaos ensures variability and make repeat play enjoyable. I'd like to see this adventure available with whatever the introductory 5E product is.

Well done, Gary. Your adventure is more than 30 years old and still works as well today many iterations of D&D later. We miss you.

Must spread XP first, but I agree with ya. Well said.

 

[Yora]

I don't consider that great design, but rather shoddy and lazy.

It works all the time and turns out differently for every group, because there isn't much to begin with. No arguing about this: 1st Edition Adventures are not made for people like me.
But all I see when reading any of the old adventures is random rooms with random encounters. The way they appear to me is that I could draw rooms on post-its, put them together at random, spend an hour rolling on random encounter tables, and I have an adventure that is just as good. Maybe pour over it for a while to see if some ideas pop up what the monsters are doing in those rooms, switch a few around because I think it would lead to interesting interactions, and I am done.

 

[nnms]

The comedy review on rpg.net by Mike Mearls is all the more ironic given it's inclusion as the first part of the playtest.

The Inside Scoop on Gaming - RPGnet

 

[Gargoyle]

The comedy review on rpg.net by Mike Mearls is all the more ironic given it's inclusion as the first part of the playtest.

The Inside Scoop on Gaming - RPGnet

Yes, ironic. However, I think maybe I'll give Mearls the benefit of the doubt. I've changed my mind about many things in the last 12 years, in particular the quality of game design of early D&D products. There are many things that OD&D and 1E and 2E got right that I never gave them credit for. I believe WotC has changed their mind about a few things too.

 

[Libramarian]

The comedy review on rpg.net by Mike Mearls is all the more ironic given it's inclusion as the first part of the playtest.

The Inside Scoop on Gaming - RPGnet

LOL yes.

But I'm not so surprised by this.

James Masile...sp. of Grognardia also has some embarrassing old reviews on RPGnet where he disses old school D&D and the "bad old days of dungeoncrawling".

People change their minds.

 

[nnms]

[MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] & [MENTION=529]Gargoyle[/MENTION]

Absolutely people can change in their opinions. I know I have just in the last year. What I want from RPGs is nothing like what I used to. If you compared my thoughts in 2008/9 on 4E with my current exhaustion with it, you'd probably conclude it's two different people.

 

[Melkor]

Thanks for the link to that old review.

Interesting how tastes can change with time.

 

[Libramarian]

I wasn't playing tabletop RPGs at the time, but in the 90s it seems to have been a shibboleth among "serious" RPGers to hate on D&D.

There are a bunch of old RPGnet reviews that have nothing to do with D&D but still casually diss it for some reason.

 

[Gardukk]

I wasn't playing tabletop RPGs at the time, but in the 90s it seems to have been a shibboleth among "serious" RPGers to hate on D&D.

There are a bunch of old RPGnet reviews that have nothing to do with D&D but still casually diss it for some reason.

Dude, that's still a thing.

Personally, I can't stand this module. I understand that the premise is to have the DM figure out the story bits for himself, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a pre-written module in the first place. I'd much rather spend my creative energy writing my own adventure from scratch than trying to make sense of this mess of a dungeon.