Reviews of Classic DnD Modules 1: (B2) The Keep on the Borderlands

B2 Keep on the Borderlands

Experiences and Reminisces: The Keep on the Borderlands was the first D&D module I ever owned, purchased in 1979. It was bundled with the “Blue Box” rules, the ones that took you character to level three and had dragon on the cover that was a pretty cheesy ripoff of Smaug from the Rankin-Bass production of The Hobbit. I spent endless hours playing this scenario, mainly because it was the only one we had. Usually I gamed with just another friend or two, since the heyday of D&D was still a few years off, and only the seriously nerdy were willing to give the game a try. I still have my copy, covered in penciled notes in my shaky seventh-grade hand. The map of the keep and the lands around it, is worn so thoroughly that it looks and feels like rag paper. Curiously, I made no notes on or alteration to the map of the Caves of Chaos.

As much as I played this scenario with my friends, I have few recollections of actual game play. I remember rolling up characters in this period, and I remember moments from other adventures I played in middle school. This one is just a blur…oh, wait. I think I remember an encounter with the gelatinous cube. How sad is that?

What Made it Popular? Well, for a while, it was the only game in town. B1 (In Search of the Unknown) was hard to find, because it had been bundled with an earlier printing. The AD&D modules were just on the horizon, and I believe that S1 had just been published (Imagine if THAT was your first experience with D&D!). That said, I believe that a lot of gamers have a soft spot for B2 which goes beyond “You never forget your first one.” The Caves of Chaos are pretty much a hackfest. When you’re a nerdy twelve-year old kid, that’s pretty much all you want out of gaming (I remember endlessly sketching various types of polearms in my school books in those days). The setup for B2 was pretty simple: a safe base of operations, a fairly small and well-defined wilderness (only four encounters prepared, with the option for the DM to add more), and a rather unusual dungeon built around a box canyon, with a fairly clear hierarchy of difficulty laid out for the players. Many old hands like myself get misty for the days of “old school” gaming. Well this was it. No narrative for the DM to railroad his players through, no boxed text. Just kick in the door and kill the beasties.

Test of Time Some serious adaptation would have to be done to make B2 palatable for modern gamers. I never really understood the Keep when I was a wee one. None of the characters within have any personality of note. Indeed, they don’t even have names. It was years before I learned that “Castellan” was a title, not a man’s name. Unless players actually actively seek to cause trouble, nothing of interest will ever occur in the Keep. It’s just a place to resupply and…well…nothing.

The wilderness are needs to be shaken up to. There was an effort to add depth to the Borderlands in the “Return to the Keep on the Borderlands” update, issued about a decade ago. It’s more than the number of potential encounters that the wilderness section needs. It’s the sense that it is completely unconnected to either the Keep or the Caves of Chaos. I mean, here we have to strongholds at war with each other, and neither one is active in the few miles of frontier that separate them? I find that hard to swallow.

And the Caves of Chaos are what they are. Few published adventures have lined up such a buffet table of humanoids, waiting for the slaughter. Some critics have pointed out that the mix of races and alignments would result in a violent (and probably rather short) clash. Those critics aren’t much fun. One could, of course, rationalize such a strange and strained political situation, as the authors of “Return to the Keep on the Borderlands” did, by assuming that some higher power (such as the priests in the highest caves) is imposing order on the humanoids below to serve some nefarious scheme. But such adjustment is not necessary if B2 is run as what it was meant to be: an introductory module designed to teach new players the ropes. If the Caves have a weakness, it is in the monotony of the encounters. Fighting bands of humanoids is all well and good, but such fights dominate B2 to the near-exclusion of traps, puzzles, and more unusual monsters. Of course, a clever DM could add the opportunity to negotiate with the humanoids and throw in an occasional trap or riddle. A DM with experienced players would almost have to do that.

I always thought B2 would be an ideal setting for a fantasy setting of Feng Shui, the HK-style martial arts RPG. That game has rules for combats against large numbers of nameless mooks that might suit a romp through B2.

Tales of the Arabian Nights: A Review

Tales of the Arabian Nights

Published by ZMan Games (2009)

Back in college, I had a long and spirited argument with a friend about the role of the critic. He maintained that the critic’s main responsibility was to articulate his reaction to a work, making clear his reasons for his like or dislike of his subject. My position was that the critic should distance himself from his own opinions, listing the strengths and weaknesses of a work and identifying those people who would be an audience for it.

The reissue of Tales of the Arabian Nights is sure to draw strong positive and negative reactions from gamers. I feel that if I gave my own reactions, it would come across as narrow, subjective, and parochial. So, I will attempt to channel my college-age self, putting forth the many strengths of the game while describing what I acknowledge to be potential pitfalls. Certain elements of the gaming community will loathe a game like this, while others will put it on their all-time top ten list.

First of all, few could argue that, visually, the art is top notch. The map had been the strength of the 1985 West End edition, and the new one pushes it to a new level. It is more readable and easy to use than the original map, and both the design and color are lush and evocative. The cards and other components represent a vast improvement over the original. What had been crude cardboard chits with silhouette artwork have been replaced by full color, high-quality cards, die-cut pieces, and stand-up player pieces. I’m sure the lavishness of the game design added a few dollars to the price, but I am glad that ZMan did not skimp. For lovers of the game, the physical components of the game feel like a reward for years of dedication.

For those new to the game, players take turns moving their pieces in a nonlinear manner around the board. The goal is to acquire a predetermined number of Destiny and Story Points, obtained through encounters. A player has at least one encounter on each of their turns. A roll of the die sends a reader to the “Book of Tales,” a collection of nearly three thousand paragraphs, which guide the players through short adventures similar to the old “Choose your Own Adventure” books. Players must pick how their hero reacts to an encounter from a predetermined list of responses, like grovel, pray, beat, or avoid. Along the way, players acquire skills which often (but not always) improve the result of an encounter. In addition to the aforementioned Story and Destiny Points, players can gain or lose wealth (which affects movement) and statuses (like Accursed, Enslaved, Greif-Stricken, Sex-Changed, or Imprisoned). Interaction between players is minimal, unless special variants are brought into play.

Results are often counter-intuitive. In one game, a player gained the status “Lost” in his home city. Another wound up getting “Married” to a same sex partner (I suspect that, while enlightened, the medieval Islamic world was not THAT tolerant!). Sometimes seemingly foolish decisions lead to good results (you might beat a powerful wizard only to have him offer you a valuable ransom, while if you attack a vile thief you might end up in prison, as the thief was really a prince in disguise). Even with a good set of skills, players often find themselves at the mercy of seeming capricious turns of fate.

I could not in good conscience recommend this game to a player who feels that their decisions alone should lead to victory or defeat in a game. Our most recent game took place alongside a game of Diplomacy, and the contrast between the two groups of players could not have been more distinct. For the Diplomacy players, games were all about strategy—making plans and making good decisions to realize them. Yet it was the people playing Arabian Nights who more often exploded into hoots of laughter and spontaneous cheers. Relinquishing control to fate can have its appeal, too, as long as the player can occasionally steer things in a desired direction. Anything can happen in Tales of the Arabian Nights, and every turn brings surprises and wonders. Thus, the game captures the spirit of mystery and adventure inherent in the source materials, from the original texts (I prefer the translation of Husein Haddawy) through the cheesy Harryhausen Sinbad films, through Disney’s Aladdin. I can’t think of a board game I’ve had more fun playing, even if my strategic senses were not always fully engaged.

Politifact

In this day and age of shrill pundits and polarized political dialectic, one needs an objective fact-checking system more than ever. So allow me to get my plug in for politifact.

Our last bastion of defense against truthiness (pace, Colbert).

Evony

OK, I've been a fan of sim games ever since the first SimCity. I was hooked on all versions of Civilization, and I've spent more hours on the Sims than I care to mention. My latest obsessive sim game is Evony, which has the advantage of being free and browser-based. It's pretty typical of the genre. In many ways, it hearkens back to early versions of Civilization and Age of Empires. A lot of resource management, tedious maintenance of cities, and large-scale lopsided combat. Good times. Below is a screenshot typical of the game.Now I must confess that it took a long time to disover this game. To be honest, I was more than a little turned off by the advertising, which promised...shall we say, a different sort of gaming experience.I mean, really. The sex appeal of shifting around troops, gold, and resources is limited at best, but the adverts to this game promise tons of jiggle. I'm sure this relentless ad camapign drew in thousands of thirteen year old boys, but it was not until the ads appeared which made it clear that the game was a sim did I join up. I did learn something valuable, though.

Thirteen year old boys suck at sim games. Like shooting fish in a barrel...

When life gives you lemons...

...or big piles of snow, make lemonade. or a snowy pieta. My art history class decided to have a play day this past Friday as the school was shutting down. I challenged them to make like Michelangelo.