When I started to get into Basic D&D, I bought a ton of modules. The idea was to string them together in a sort of quasi-campaign, and to use them as a means to learn how to run a game for myself.
Module B1 was explicitly made as a tutorial, bundled with the Holmes Basic set of D&D and intended as a teaching aid to new dungeon masters. In practice, this meant that the module was only a map, a collection of rooms, treasure and monster lists that you had to combine yourself. Thanks for the homework, Mike Carr! I ran it as written once, and actually did enjoy the experience. Quasqueton is an interesting dungeon, but its missing necessary pieces of a D&D campaign.
Module B2 is much larger in scope, providing a starting town, a small overland map, and the Caves of Chaos dungeons. It fills out the necessary material and thankfully doesn't expect you to stock the dungeon yourself, but due to the brevity of space and the assumptions of the author, still leaves a lot of the module for the beginning DM to fill out for himself. The starting town and overland are described in broad strokes, and the details need to be filled in individually. B2 is meant to be expanded on, so there's a lot of open space for players to add in their own material into the world. One of those open spaces is the Cave of the Unknown, a blank cave in the middle of the map with no linked dungeon map.
I saw Jon's D&D Vlog on B2, and he mentions placing the Tomb of Horrors inside the Cave of the Unknown. I thought that idea was genius! Then I read a post talking about placing the dungeon from B1 inside the Cave of the Unknown, and suddenly it all fit together.
Combining the material from B1 into B2 allows the DM to expand the content of both. The rumors about Rohan and Zelligar could be told alongside the rumors of the Caves of Chaos, which would let players choose the campaign they want to be on. And because there are a lot of rumors, it would provide extra content for them on return visits to the tavern. B2 provides context for B1, including a town base and a means of getting to the dungeon, without starting the players at the entrance of it.
Initially, I was disappointed by reading through B1 and B2 seperately, I felt that they didn't really provide the answers I was looking for as a novice DM. But running them both seperately really did allow me to see how D&D looks "in action", and combining them both gives me all the material I need for a long campaign for early level characters. Highly recommended.
Online, a lot of players suggest places to fit B1 or B2 in existing campaign worlds such as Greyhawk, Mystara or Undermountain in the Forgotten Realms. Since they were originally written to be generic in setting, I think its best to keep them separate, and allow them to form their own campaign world. The "supermodule" B 1-9 tries to fit both into Mystara, and ends up basically cutting out half of each module individually. Not recommended.
Friday, February 7, 2020
Things I legitimately don't like about AD&D
The number inflation
Armor Class in Basic and OD&D goes from 9 to 2, and fits in neatly with the math from a d20 roll. The only way to gain armor was to buy and equip your character from a small selection of armors and shields. In AD&D, armor class goes from 10 to -10, and your character's dexterity bonus is added to your it, and certain classes like the Paladin get special boosts to armor class. The THAC0 of monsters and PCs rises quickly as well, while AC itself doesn't change from its initial value. This means that, to keep up the player's protection from damage, by the high levels they need armors +3 and shields +2, and other such nonsense.
This sort of AC number inflation, and the irregular way in which it rises, eventually led to the 3e notion of constantly increasing stat bonuses and 4e's level scaled AC. In AD&D's AC system, I see the beginnings of the trend that eventually led D&D to the numbers game that it now is.
I understand that, at the time, AC and to-hit inflation seemed like a good idea, or maybe it was an unintended consequence of how early D&D was played, once the PCs started getting their hands on magic swords and armor. IMO, Chainmail had the best system for magic weapons - a magicked weapon granted at most a +1 bonus to a roll of 2d6. "Double magic" weapons and "Triple magic" were almost unheard of.
In modern D&D, if players don't have +5 weapons by the time they're out of the early levels, they scream blood. To me, this cheapens the nature of magic weapons, and turns them into simple stat bonuses. Its the same silliness that video games have, when by the time your character hits lvl 100 he's carrying a rare legendary masterwork sword of vampiric fire +10.
Armor Class in Basic and OD&D goes from 9 to 2, and fits in neatly with the math from a d20 roll. The only way to gain armor was to buy and equip your character from a small selection of armors and shields. In AD&D, armor class goes from 10 to -10, and your character's dexterity bonus is added to your it, and certain classes like the Paladin get special boosts to armor class. The THAC0 of monsters and PCs rises quickly as well, while AC itself doesn't change from its initial value. This means that, to keep up the player's protection from damage, by the high levels they need armors +3 and shields +2, and other such nonsense.
This sort of AC number inflation, and the irregular way in which it rises, eventually led to the 3e notion of constantly increasing stat bonuses and 4e's level scaled AC. In AD&D's AC system, I see the beginnings of the trend that eventually led D&D to the numbers game that it now is.
I understand that, at the time, AC and to-hit inflation seemed like a good idea, or maybe it was an unintended consequence of how early D&D was played, once the PCs started getting their hands on magic swords and armor. IMO, Chainmail had the best system for magic weapons - a magicked weapon granted at most a +1 bonus to a roll of 2d6. "Double magic" weapons and "Triple magic" were almost unheard of.
In modern D&D, if players don't have +5 weapons by the time they're out of the early levels, they scream blood. To me, this cheapens the nature of magic weapons, and turns them into simple stat bonuses. Its the same silliness that video games have, when by the time your character hits lvl 100 he's carrying a rare legendary masterwork sword of vampiric fire +10.
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