D&D 1E [Trying Again] B3, or how to deal with an unstructured module

[jayoungr]

I know nothing about the adventure beyond what you've shared and a quick Wikipedia check: "The module has been described as a low-level scenario, which involves the legends surrounding a ruined palace, a white dragon and a giant ruby. The PCs encounter evil creatures that have taken over the palace. The plot of Palace of the Silver Princess revolves around a country frozen in time by a strange red light. The only seemingly unaffected location and the apparent source of the glow is the royal palace. The adventurers must restore the flow of time and save the country."

Unfortunately, the white dragon, the frozen time, and the red glow all come from the rewritten green-cover version, not the original orange-cover version. (The dragon is red in that version.)

Thanks for your scenarios, though! There's stuff I can probably steal in there, but even more importantly, it's a very useful example of how to approach a module that gives you so little information.

There's a fair bit of the old stuff where you need to fill in the gaps. Or could at least benefit doing so.
A few that come to mind;
B1: In Search of Adventure
B2: Keep on the Borderlands
and my favorite; N2: The Forest Oracle - there's so much underdeveloped stuff in this one that you can wring a mini-campaign out of it.

The whole reason I was looking at original orange B3 was because I could be reasonably sure none of my players had ever gone through it. I'm not so confident they haven't played any of those (even N2). But again, maybe I should do a survey and find out, because if I could borrow from other adventures or even the green-cover version of B3, that makes my task much easier.

I've no qualms about remixing adventures.

It's not that I have qualms, but practically every room and plot point (uh, such as they are) would have to be replaced if the palace was wrecked yesterday instead of a few decades ago, and at that point, I feel like I might as well just start from scratch. I get the feeling it's easier to make that swap with the green-cover version, which I've only skimmed at this point.

 

[jayoungr]

Just bumping this thread to say thanks to all who helped. I've started running the adventure, and after my initial flailing, I'm finding that I enjoy the open-endedness. It's fun to be able to decide the NPCs' motivations for myself, and it's a relief not to have to worry about the players finding ways to circumvent the story that will make the whole thing end with a whimper.

 

[Stormonu]

I doubt much of anyone ever played the orange version - it was never released publicly back in its time and wasn’t brought out until I think WotC took over - at least 20 years after it had been written and publication of the BECMI series had been buried and forgotten by the publisher.

I faintly remember playing in the original green cover version, but I find it fascinating how different it was from the released green cover. Let us know how it turned out.