The Shared Experience: Keep on the Borderlands

[Pygon]

Started playing the Basic game in '82 with the Keep.

Rolled up a halfling.

Died in the second fight to a kobold spear to the chest.

Wee.

 

[TerraDave]

Started in early 80's but didn't actually play in the keep until later. Still, I fit the pattern emerging in the poll.

 

[Kurotowa]

I started in 1991 (when we finished Heroquest and jumped to The New Easy to Master Dungeons & Dragons board game set), and I've never played Keep. As a bunch of kids discovering the game on our own, we didn't have a line on the older stuff. It just wasn't on our radar.

I wonder what a similar poll would say about the Sunless Citadel? It would explain the universal Meepo love.

 

[RFisher]

Holmes sets had B1 up until the two last printings

& those with the earliest basic sets had to get by with just geomorphs & monster and treasure assortments. Someday I'm going to pick up the M&TAs & try running an adventure with them & the geomorphs.

Edit: Changed "buy" to "by". (9_9)

 

[Simm]

Started in '98, found the keep at a garage sale and picked it up not knowing what it was. Finally ran a 3.5 convertion of it last year.

 

[Mistwell]

Played it in the 70s. Still have my beaten up copy of it, with a chunk out of the cover and pencil notes inside showing how I was extending a dungeon...

 

[theredrobedwizard]

Started playing in 1989/1990 (I was 7 or 8 at the time, I believe). We played a bunch of homemade modules. The first time I even heard of Keep on the Borderlands was in the 25th Anniversary remake, Return to the Keep on the Borderlands.

So, in a way, I've played it. I voted no, though, as I've never played the real deal.

-TRRW

 

[Eridanis]

The Keep was my very first D&D experience. Spring of 1983. My fighter got killed by a gelatinous cube.

I then DM'd it last year in a 3.5 conversion.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The Keep was my very first D&D experience. Spring of 1983. My fighter got killed by a gelatinous cube.

I then DM'd it last year in a 3.5 conversion.

Oh, for the love of god. I haven't heard anything at all about the cube so far in the 4E previews. Has the cube survived?! It's my all-time favourite D&D monster. My players over the years have been simultaneously owned and baffled by its illogical glory!

One of the best sessions I ever ran involved an early 3.0 game in which the party encountered a cube with a partially-digested skeleton in it. They spent half their spells, some turning attempts, and an ill-advised charge attempt trying to deal with the "undead" menace. It was beautiful. The perfect cube encounter.

If it's not in, I'll be mad. This is pretty much the only thing from earlier editions that I really care about carrying forward. *keeps fingers crossed*

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Started in 1980. Played the Keep as one of my first adventures and for the first dozen or so adventures it was the starting area.