Download free software Dungeons And Dragons Module B2 Pdf. Copy PDF Original D&D. 1001B Dungeons & Dragons (with module B1, 1978) 1001C Dungeons & Dragons (with module B2, 1979) 1011A Set 1: Basic Rules. B2 The Keep on the Borderlands (Basic) - This module includes a cover folder with maps and a complete description booklet to form a ready-made scenario for. Login; My Library; Wishlists; Cart. Wizards of the Coast offered several unique adventures for Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 and 3.5 as free PDF downloads. The adventures ranged from 1st-level all the way to 20th-level. In addition a pair of classic adventures were revisited and updated as free downloads, Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain.
Awesome and terrible! The Keep on the Borderlands was often the starting point of adventure into the world of Dungeons & Dragons for most. As basic as the D & D Basic Set it came with, The Keep. Was never intended to be great literature, even so it wasn't even a particularly good game. It was, however, a useful tool for the beginner. And boy, was I a beginner. Confusing to a young, undeveloped mind, who didn't understand that this was meant to be a framework for adventure and not a fu Awesome and terrible!
The Keep on the Borderlands was often the starting point of adventure into the world of Dungeons & Dragons for most. As basic as the D & D Basic Set it came with, The Keep. Was never intended to be great literature, even so it wasn't even a particularly good game. It was, however, a useful tool for the beginner. And boy, was I a beginner. Confusing to a young, undeveloped mind, who didn't understand that this was meant to be a framework for adventure and not a fully realized story with a navigable plot, The Keep. Was meant for gamers to use their imaginations to make up the story out of the elements Gygax provided: the officials at the borderland outpost, the bandits of the surrounding lands, the tribal monsters, the evil cult in the nearby cave complex.
Even so, I felt taking up one third of the module (the name D&D gave to these slim booklets) was too much time spent on detailing the outpost. Sure, the players would have interactions with the tavern-keepers, traders and moneylenders, but aside from an evil priest who might join the group and trouble them out in the wilds, there was no adventure to be had here. This was meant to be a base for operations elsewhere. But dang, the place was a veritable king's castle with its own army! The Caves of Chaos (gotta love that name) was the place where all the action was!
Boy howdy there was a lot going on in those caves! Minotaurs, medusas, ogres, orcs, goblins and more all crowded into a dozen or so caves clustered together in a relatively small ravine just waiting to slay or be slain. That was the unrealistic part. Sure, it's fantasy and so reality shouldn't matter, but it does. Ask any fan of fantasy lit. There have to be certain rules and boundaries. If anything at all can happen, what's the point?
So, when Gygax took his monstrous humanoid tribes, who were warring against one another, and stacked them close-packed in a cave complex that resembled a high-rise apartment complex, it was hard to stomach. When brutal violence is the order of the day on both sides and you live one hundred feet away from your enemy, one or other side is going to be wiped out pretty quick. If you cared to, this game could be modified to be more realistic or to fit your specific campaign. However, at the early age I started playing D&D, connecting cult to outpost, rearranging the map or organizing the tribes of monsters into a community that would naturally defend itself against sword swinging jerks hacking through their front doors was more imagination than my ignorant 9 year old mind could muster. The most roleplaying I remember being capable of pulling off at the time was with the isolated mad hermit hiding in the woods with his pet mountain lion.
But here too I was flummoxed. I didn't understand how the multiple maps that came with this module related to one another. I mixed up the entries and accidentally stuck the hermit in the kobolds' cavern. I also didn't know what a contour line was (ahem, there's a glossary of terms in the back of the booklet.why didn't I look it up?) and thought the blue lines were meant to be streams. Yup, four lovely little streams flowing unimpeded in unison through solid rock between caverns, doing a nice loop about the ravine before heading on out.
I was DMing this once for a friend and he was confused to say the least, but we both enjoyed playing so much that we just let the nonsensical details slide. Hey, it was Dungeons & Dragons, with all its books and books of rules, you still did what the hell you wanted to do. That was the point. For all its faults, The Keep. Was a great resource for those just starting out. It was more than a module, it helped guide the players through their first gaming experience giving them pointers, not only on how to interact with this new world, but also how to get along with your fellow players.
Subsequent rules books made this obsolete, but it was helpful at the time, at least to those who were old enough to understand the concepts.or even the terms for that matter. I'm talking about me.
Rating: Could give it the 5 stars my heart desires, should give it the 1 or 2 star rating it deserves, but I'll go with 3.5. Where Rolling and Playing Begins: The Keep on the Borderlands Odds are, your first tabletop roleplay encounter was Dungeon's and Dragon's, 'Keep on the Borderlands' so is it the best module ever? Dungeon magazine ranked it 7th (in 2004), but its a contender for most nostalgic. In childlike fashion, let's consider the art first.
Jim Roslof's impressionistic cover-by impressionistic I mean, compositional nightmare-wouldn't strike most as the work of the TSR Art Director. The tree has a t Where Rolling and Playing Begins: The Keep on the Borderlands Odds are, your first tabletop roleplay encounter was Dungeon's and Dragon's, 'Keep on the Borderlands' so is it the best module ever? Dungeon magazine ranked it 7th (in 2004), but its a contender for most nostalgic. In childlike fashion, let's consider the art first. Jim Roslof's impressionistic cover-by impressionistic I mean, compositional nightmare-wouldn't strike most as the work of the TSR Art Director.
The tree has a twinge of Monet's-eyes-are-going charm, and this work (or lack of it) qualifies because it gives the perception regardless of the, 'I put the background on last to match the module,' look. This pink-fuschia-whatever border was a bold move for macho game and time. The first full-color (non-monochrome) module cover does stand out on a shelf. A trio of blue-nosing hobgoblins won't keep these fashion challenged elves from the Caves of Chaos!
Not with this Bow of Recoiling singing its death dirge! If you glance, the orc shields make cave doors. Beware of Senior Assistant Frozen-legs of the Falldown Clan. If you're unfamiliar with RPG's, this owlbear offering his joy buzzer was the Big Boss to beat. Picture drawn shortly before banning halflings from polearms. After consulting Unearthed Arcana, my best guess is: the dreaded super hobbit poleaxe. Watch out for that tail sweep, Merry!
'I just want hugs! B+ on the Roslof Scale. Gary's Monster Condo: Rooms for Rent A frequent criticism of B2 is bad monster ecology. How do monsters live so close and not fight?
A) Kobold Kamp B) Orc Love Lounge C) Second Orc Tribe G) Don't Buzz the Owlbear H) Bugbear Lair, “Safety,security and repose for all humanoids who enter.' I) Minotaur's Maze J) Rollin' Gnolls K) Shrine of Evil Chaos: 'Hellooo, medusa nurse!' You may also recall the Mad Hermit who lives in the tree with his wildcat. Gygax later admitted that the result wasn't 'ecologically correct,' but that wasn't really the point. He intended the module as a primer for DM's and players. By the time a noob finishes he can identify all the beat-on humanoids without having read, The Hobbit. 'Hopefully, they will quickly learn that the monsters here will work together and attack intelligently, if able.'
'There are signs beside the entrance cave in kobold, orcish, goblin, etc. Each says: Safety, security and repose for all humanoids who enter - WELCOME! (Come in and report to the first guard on the left for a hot meal and bed assignment.)' Do people interpret this as: bugbears eat everything? My take: the forces of Chaos won't cooperate, until pressured, as opposed to some race war mentality where no humanoids can get along. Humanoids get sanctioned as player characters in second edition anyhow. The unbreakable rule is: there are no rules.
It could go either way. Like when a writer says: 'My characters have their own minds. I didn't want him to turn into a left-handed, lesbian, midget, albino, but she's such a free spirit now.'
That sounds like lack of craft or it's just using a more intuitive approach. The first print even had a blurb saying it was for Basic D&D but could be used with Advanced with some modifications. The Keep allows you to raid, regenerate, and recruit retainers.
D&D can be world focused or you can go dungeon diving in the caves. You could try to sack the Keep or focus on the Chaos Caves Still feel you could build a better dungeon? Many have rebooted Keep, as shown in the history that follows. I imagine Gary would've liked that. If reading for pleasure, skip the Keep.
This following history draws upon Shannon Appelcline's Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.
'B2: The Keep on the Borderlands' (1979), by Gary Gygax, was printed by TSR in December 1979. It was probably TSR's twelfth adventure, and the first one to use a full-color cover. Like its predecessor, B1: In Search of the Unknown, this adventure was created for use with the first edition of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1977), created by J. Once it was printed, 'Keep on the Borderlands' immediately replaced In Search of the Unknown in the Basic boxed set.However, 'Keep' is much better known as the adventure packaged with the second edition Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1981), which was revised and updated by Tom Moldvay.
It remained a part of that package throughout its life (1981-1983).From 1980-1983, Dungeons & Dragons was seeing its most explosive growth, and the Basic Set was the prime entry point to that game. As a result, B2 ended up the most printed D&D module of all time. Much later estimates suggest there might have been 1.5 million copies printed in all, between the two boxed sets and standalone sales.' The Keep on the Borderlands' has been revisited many times, most notably in Wizards of the Coast's Return to the Keep on the Borderlands (1999) for AD&D. In more recent years, the setting made a thematic return as the Chaos Scar, which was spotlighted in D&D Encounters Season 3: Keep on the Borderlands - Season of Serpents (2010-2011) and in Dungeon #171 (October 2009) through Dungeon #197 (December 2011), all for 4e.
The adventure may still have a future in D&D too, as it was released as Caves of Chaos at D&D Expo 2012 as a playtest for D&D Next.About the Creators. Gary Gygax wrote The Keep on the Borderlands at the end of his period of greatest adventure productivity, from 1977-1979, shortly after creating T1: The Village of Hommlet. By this time, actually managing TSR was taking up increasing amounts of his time, which kept Gygax from doing more creative work. He hired Jean Wells and Lawrence Schick to form a Design department in 1979. Going forward, this department would be the main source of TSR's adventures, not Gygax.' Succeeds as a basic D&D primer and launch mechanism.
In conclusion: 'You know that you have certainly discovered the Caves Of Chaos.' Click here for another B2 article on, 'How I got started.' For a toasty roast of B2, from Apple to Jellyfish, try Denada's, Let's Read: Keep on the Borderlands. Free PDF: Beneath the Little Keep 2, Expansion for The Little Keep Stuff that didn't fit in the module. Creator's Blog and article on sacking the Keep: Secret of the Keep on the Borderlands Careful you don't lose your soul to Blackrazor. Read my review of B1: In Search of the Unknown. The classic Dungeons & Dragons module 3 December 2011 So, I have reviewed the original box set and now I come to the first Dungeons and Dragons module that I ever owned.
This is a classic module, and pretty much all of the roleplayers of my generation will fondly remember it. It is not a great module, it has no real quest in it, and if it is to be run properly, the dungeon master does have a lot of work to do. It was not until the third module in the series that there was an actual quest. How The classic Dungeons & Dragons module 3 December 2011 So, I have reviewed the original box set and now I come to the first Dungeons and Dragons module that I ever owned. This is a classic module, and pretty much all of the roleplayers of my generation will fondly remember it. It is not a great module, it has no real quest in it, and if it is to be run properly, the dungeon master does have a lot of work to do. It was not until the third module in the series that there was an actual quest.
However, this one module almost seems to be the defining element of the early game. Basically the players arrive at a keep on the borderlands, and then using the keep as a base, go out into the wilderness fighting bandits and such, and then travel into the Caves of Chaos for more adventure.
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However, there isn't a strict plot in this module. Some have described it as an open adventure, and while that is true, the actual module has very little outlining the interaction between the keep and the caves.
This is a good module to introduce new players to the game, but once again it has become quite outdated. The Dungeons and Dragons game has evolved a lot since then, and if dungeon masters want to run this adventure, then a lot of work needs to be put into it. Yes, the caves do have a nasty cult operating out of it, but as mentioned, there is little in the module indicating any plans that the cult has, or how the residents of the keep are affected by this cult.
It is also interesting to note that when the Dungeons and Dragons computer games appeared, especially the ones that allowed you to create your own adventures, many of the authors returned to this module to bring it into the game. As said, this is a classic module, not because of any skill or outstanding aspect, but rather because it seems to always bring back the good old days. This was the first D&D adventure I was introduced to, and it remains for me a kind of model of the “best” possible dungeon-crawl for that game. It is also deliberately written as an introductory dungeon for new Dungeon Masters and includes some good advice for first-time DMs on running a campaign.
It’s not especially sophisticated or clever, but it establishes a good baseline of what to expect from D&D. The title is interesting, in that it describes the “home base” from which the adventur This was the first D&D adventure I was introduced to, and it remains for me a kind of model of the “best” possible dungeon-crawl for that game.
It is also deliberately written as an introductory dungeon for new Dungeon Masters and includes some good advice for first-time DMs on running a campaign. It’s not especially sophisticated or clever, but it establishes a good baseline of what to expect from D&D.
The title is interesting, in that it describes the “home base” from which the adventurers will set out, rather than the dungeons they will explore – which are called “The Caves of Chaos,” a perfectly good adventure title if ever I heard one. The Keep is an outpost of lawful humanoid civilization on the edge of an untamed wilderness, and it includes all of the things a party needs to prepare for their journeys outward, including an inn, a tavern, and a shop, as well as a chapel (with higher-level clerics), a smithy, a bank, and various military and defensive structures to maintain order in case of attack or internal criminal action. Several NPCs with varying motivations, personalities, and interests are prepared, and there is also a list of rumors for the PCs to hear and possibly act upon. The Keep is not the primary location for the adventure, but it does have enough detail and potential to give some interesting side-adventures. The first task the players have is to venture out into the wilderness in search of the Caves of Chaos. This can take a while, depending on their choices, how good the advice and rumors they picked up at the Keep, and simple luck. The wilderness includes some areas stocked with monsters as well as a chance of wandering monsters, and if the characters are on foot (as first level parties often are), they may have to make several journeys out to search the nearby region, using up food and supplies and possibly suffering damage from monster fights along the way, without much chance to earn treasure to replace losses.
A kind DM may want to hasten this part of the adventure before PCs start starving. The “real” dungeon, however, is the Caves.
Which are accessed through various openings in a ravine-mouth, with the easiest to find/enter being the lower level challenges, and various hidden, trapped, or more difficult ones holding more powerful monsters and greater treasures. There are eleven entrances, listed as “A” through “K” in the module. Some of them lead to caves which inter-connect with other entrances, while some are discreet caves. Monsters within include goblins, orcs, kobolds, giant rats, bugbears, stirges, fire beetles a minotaur, an ogre, a gelatinous cube, a medusa, and an evil priest with undead minions (mostly skeletons and zombies).
Since the party is presumed to begin at first level, some of these creatures are a bit weaker when encountered than you might expect, but some are powerful enough to slay a party foolish enough to directly attack something more powerful than they are. The players have to learn what is and is not reasonable behavior as they proceed, sometimes by losing characters to unfortunate mistakes. In all, there’s nothing that exceptional about this adventure, but its value comes from the fact that it is such a generic dungeon that it can easily be used as the basis for beginning a new campaign, allowing DMs and players to learn the ropes in a “normal” D&D environment before trying to get creative and riff on the common themes. Funny enough, I find it all the more appealing because of its very banality. This was a dungeon with nothing to prove, just hours of fun for everyone involved.
The one thing that confused me about this module: the map on the inside of the cover is not labeled. The first time I read through it I assumed the map was for The Keep as the Keep is outlined first. It wasn't until I came to the page with a map of the Keep - confusingly placed in the Caves of Chaos section - that I realized I had been using the wrong map as reference. I could have missed it but asterisks are always left unresolved.
I would come across one and look for the note it referred to but The one thing that confused me about this module: the map on the inside of the cover is not labeled. The first time I read through it I assumed the map was for The Keep as the Keep is outlined first. It wasn't until I came to the page with a map of the Keep - confusingly placed in the Caves of Chaos section - that I realized I had been using the wrong map as reference. I could have missed it but asterisks are always left unresolved. I would come across one and look for the note it referred to but there never was one. Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer, best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson in 1974, and co-founding the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with Don Kaye in 1973. After leaving TSR, Gygax continued to author role-playing game titles independently, including another gaming system called Lejendary Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer, best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson in 1974, and co-founding the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with Don Kaye in 1973.
After leaving TSR, Gygax continued to author role-playing game titles independently, including another gaming system called Lejendary Adventure. Gygax is generally acknowledged as one of the fathers of the tabletop role-playing game.
Adapting Classic Adventures like Keep on the Borderlands to DnD Next (or 5E) Adapting Classics to D&D Next (or 5E) and the History Behind the (Caves of) Chaos Today I want to start a series on how classic adventures can be used with D&D Next. With recent announcements suggesting that we won’t get some additional playtest content for a while, this is hopefully useful. How deeply I delve into the subject will in part depend on your feedback. If this is useful, I’ll keep the series going longer. D&D Next: Gateway to the Past One of the joys of D&D Next is that it translates really easily to previous editions.
I have a vast collection of old adventures (and classics can be often had for $10 or less through your local gaming store or on E-Bay. Update: pdf versions of D&D material can now be found on, including!). Starting with 3E it became really hard to use old content, because the style of play had really changed from many small encounters to several meatier choreographed adventures. The narrative also evolved from an improvisational arrangement between DM and players to more like actors in a movie with specific touch points where players made choices. Monsters in later edition were very specific, intended to create a certain type and level of challenge.
Modifications required a lot of time investment to ‘upgrade’ the classics (for example, you can’t take a room with 20 orcs and just easily create the same experience in 3E). Those changes make it harder to take a sprawling complex (such as in ) and translate that to modern editions. With D&D Next this changes.
Suddenly you can take any number of classic adventures, grab the playtest’s Bestiary (or 5E’s or ) and play! It is almost that easy! The Sins of the Past Almost. As I wrote previously in, trips back to classic adventures can suddenly remind us that adventure design has come a long way.
Classic adventures look great through the lens of nostalgia, but room after featureless room of the same creature can get pretty old today. Old adventures often lack realistic motivations for the party, have weak story and lack a developing narrative, have little understanding of balance, feature dungeons that are far too static (especially when it probably takes months of in-game time to clear the dungeon), and lack a lot of the cinematic excitement of newer adventures. We’ve simply come to demand more and modern adventure design has advanced in step with those expectations.
What I want to do is share some of my group’s experiences with using D&D Next to easily create fantastic experiences with classic adventures. Aiding us in our goal, the playtest adventure actually does some of the hard work for us. To give this all perspective, let’s first look at the history of the playtest packet’s adventure. Caves of Chaos, the heart of B2 Caves of Chaos: Origins The Caves of Chaos adventure included in the first D&D Next playtest packet is based upon the classic B2 – adventure.
On the one hand, there is a behind the adventure that works well with Next’s vision of speaking to previous editions. B2 first appeared in the 1979 sixth printing of the first and continued to be the default adventure (replacing ) for three years (through the next set which I started with) and then ending when the ‘Red Box’ edition of Basic was released. It was also sold separately during and after that time. Inclusion in the boxed set made this a very popular adventure. Many gamers of that era count Keep as one of the first adventures they ever played (if not their very first).
It was ranked #7 all-time in the 2004 Dungeon magazine ranking the top 30 adventures. In part, that ranking was based on it having been an influential experience for so many gamers trying out D&D for the first time a near-perfect fit for the playtest of D&D Next. And the fit doesn’t stop there. There were several reprints including the 1984, the 1999 set, and the 1985 super-module (a pdf ).
It was revised for AD&D 2E as Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, progressing the story of the Caves by 20 years and presenting new threats (and sloppily moving the adventure to the Greyhawk setting). However, the revision was not particularly well received.
The adventure was even turned into a novel in 1999! The RPGA Adventure Guild program (an early/primitive version of Encounters) released an in-store adventure linked to the product, named Displaced.
Fourth Edition saw The Keep on the Borderlands released first as a 2010 article by Mike Mearls in (Dungeon 176), where he revises the Keep as Restwell Keep, greatly fleshes out its inhabitants, and sets it in Nentir Vale. 4E then released The Keep on the Borderlands in late 2010 as a five-part Encounters season adventure by Chris Sims. Well regarded, it spun a variation on the tale of the Caves and the inhabitants of the keep, including some really cool battles against foes not in the original. That the Caves hold a special part in the hearts of gamers is without question. We can find tons of posts across the Internet by gamers sharing nostalgia over their introduction to D&D through the Caves.
Many go back to that well to rediscover what they loved about the game in days long past. (I’ve gathered some links at the end of this article). To quote, “the most archetypal description of Dungeons & Dragons ever written. It sums up the game very succinctly and yet in such a way as to leave lots for the individual referee and player to imagine for himself.” On the Other Hand Way back when I started to talk about the adventure’s history and fit, I said “On the one hand”.
On the other hand, there are those that have said the following:. “not a single inhabitant of this keep has a name.”.
“Rife with crimes against logic, coherence and good roleplaying, a reviewer can only look at this product the same way that a traffic cop looks at a ten car pile-up”. “The Keep on the Borderlands (KotB) literally serves as exhibit A in the great case against Dungeons and Dragons.” And, I must admit, I’ve thought of it that way in the past. The Keep arguably isn’t that bad by the standards of 1979, but by today’s it really lacks a narrative, interesting NPCs, and ideas for how the DM can launch adventures and both develop and interact with the players’ goals. The Caves contain a jumble of creatures that shouldn’t get along, all packed right alongside one another. That could actually be interesting, but almost no thought is given to the relationships which must exist. In the hands of a capable DM, this can be overcome easily. For me, this adventure was one long dungeon crawl with little to differentiate the various clans.
We killed because they were evil. New PC, next cave, etc.
Recognize the Problem, then Fix It! Those quotes by someone not liking the original Keep? That was Mike Mearls on RPG.net in 1999. Mike’s an awesome person and an awesome gamer. From my limited exposure, he analyzes, learns, and improves constantly. Like us, he likes talking about stuff on the Internet and not every post is going to be perfect. And yet, look what he did about his original criticisms.
He complained about how the Keep lacked NPCs with names and then 11 years later wrote the DDI article that fixed that. And then he approved Encounters fleshing out the adventure and the use of the Caves for D&D Next. At the D&DXP convention he asked a few of the DMs for feedback based on our runs. We discussed with him how Caves of Chaos could be seen negatively if it was “just a delve” and PCs died to rooms with 20 orcs because a DM didn’t know what to do.
While I have no idea if that discussion helped, the open playtest version adds a whole new section speaking directly to those issues. Talk about constructing something out of your criticism! We can do that too.
(And, it won’t hurt if we keep in mind that an outsider making a heated online argument could many years later become an insider! People change, evolve, and improve.) Looking Forward In the next blog post we will look at what the playtest packet adds to the classic adventure, using that as a template for future efforts to update classic adventures for D&D Next.
I’ll also share elements I’ve added from my run and ideas for additional changes. Inspired by the Inspired Masses As mentioned earlier, the evidence of how many people have been impacted by the Keep on the Borderlands is extensive. I leave you with some examples:. – As I was first drafting this, wrote about this subject, including some links to Sly Flourish’s idea on using Fiasco-styled relationships. – of the entire caves!.
– 0one Games created maps of the caves (really cheap) as part of their Blueprint Series. – Dungeons & Digressions made a of the caves. – The Weem made an for use with the playtest. – Telecanter’s Receding Rules talked about the prevalence of different species and shows a. (Obviously, contains spoilers). – EN World is one of many places where fans shared their own to different editions.
– If a while back you watched a funny video of Daffy Duck as a D&D style sorcerer, it may surprise you to see how Carjacked Seraphim noted is styled after the Keep on the Borderlands!. – Isomage made a really nice of the outdoor map in the adventure.