The Shared Experience: Keep on the Borderlands

[Lonely Tylenol]

So, here's a poll - when did you start playing D&D, and have you played or DMed the Keep on the Borderland.

(Any shared experience that relies on the Mentzer Basic set is lost on me, btw).

I could do more polls with Hommlet, Threshold, and so forth, but - for me - the Keep is the most iconic D&D adventure ever. Your experiences don't count.

Cheers!

When I get my hands on 4E, I'm going to convert Keep on the Borderlands and run a bunch of newbies through it. Pass on the torch.

 

[Greylock]

I voted '80-'83, and we played Borderlands then, but we also ran it recently as C&C earlier this year.

Btw, why is this a 4E thread?

 

[Stormtower]

I first tried Keep on the Borderlands in the Moldvay purple boxed set. I didn't have anyone to play with so I rolled a party myself (3d6 in order) and went at it during the summer of 1983. I was 9 yrs. old.

I ran it as a DM for the first time in 1985 with a group of four other friends in sixth grade. That was great! They TPK'd in the Minotaur's maze... we all collapsed in a fit of hysterical laughter when the last survivor, the thief (with 2 hp remaining), was run down by the Minotaur and hit for maximum damage. Man, that brings back some good old memories.

I haven't tried the updated 3e version yet, but I just played through Goodman's DCC Into the Wilds which seems like an homage to the original KotB. Fun stuff!

 

[MerricB]

I voted '80-'83, and we played Borderlands then, but we also ran it recently as C&C earlier this year.

Btw, why is this a 4E thread?

It's a 4e thread because it's related to a couple of 4e discussions we're having at present.

Cheers!

 

[T. Foster]

Started playing in 1984 with the Mentzer red box. Bought (and played) a stand-alone copy of Keep on the Borderlands.

 

[Rechan]

Started playing in early 2000s. Never even seen the book.

 

[thalmin]

My first purchase was the Basic set which included In Search of the Unknown, but I played in Keep several times. Twice with the same DM. Of course we had to reuse some adventures, there weren't many to choose from back then. Somehow The Keep seemed to have better replay value than the others, though the monsters did sometimes get changed around.

Good poll, Merric

 

[Crazy Jerome]

We started in early 1981 with a boxed set that didn't have the Keep. However, a friend of mine had it, and loaned it to us.

 

[helium3]

It would be awesome if someone stickied this poll or another one that just asked when you started playing D&D. It'd be interesting to see if we can get the number of voters to a high enough percentage of the user base to get a sense of how this web-site skews. I wonder how much it'd change from the current distribution.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Started in '87. Guess I never played any of the classics (except Ravenloft)