In Search of the Unknown Review

Рет қаралды 3,159

Жыл бұрын

I realise that I was perhaps over-zealous in describing the bad parts of this module and should have spent more time highlighting the good aspects. When I ran this module, my group and I had a good time, but I did make some changes that I felt were required. My review is based on the module as written.
There are great resources for B1 at Zenopus Archive (brilliant site): sites.google.com/site/zenopus...
This includes the B1 Campaign Sourcebook which I used to modify the adventure.
Alternative map here: www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/vi...
If you want to support the channel, pick up one of my books here: tinyurl.com/59rfzrv7
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Пікірлер: 25

@mklj0 Жыл бұрын

It was very nice to have a little look into the past of such dungeon design. Very interesting modern day review of such things

@SpaghettiWst 8 ай бұрын

There is a hinted story in this adventure that, in my opinion, is the most interesting aspect. Also, the caves hide a reward beyond experience and gold. Thank you for recommending xenopus archive - you can find more in his notes.

@The_Custos 6 ай бұрын

Yes, I'm going to put part of that story in, and tie the two (evil) heroes to factions in the region. The "barbarians" for instance, who are they? The skeletons of the barbarian, who is that?

@The_Custos 6 ай бұрын

Prepped and ready to run this tomorrow. Can't wait.

@rangerlemure 6 ай бұрын

Good luck!

@Malvenu418 11 ай бұрын

Thanks for turning me onto that improved map of Quasqueton. I agree with your opinions regarding illogical layout, time-wasting mazes, and the tendency of a lot of old modules to be needlessly cruel to the DM and the players. I do like the way running and playing BX or a similar retroclone keeps things relatively simple and puts the focus on fun and adventure.

@PungiFungi 8 ай бұрын

Crazy dungeons that made no sense had no plot did not mattered to first time players like myself. We were on the edge of our seats wondering what’s going to happen next. When the DM said giant ants and rats we were thinking Empire of the Ants sized ants and Food of the Gods sized rodents.

@Malvenu418 8 ай бұрын

You're right about that for sure! I'd give a lot to be able to feel that sense of trepidation and wonder we all felt as kids playing for the first time. @@PungiFungi

@kyleharder3654 Жыл бұрын

Fantastic review! Keep up the good work

@arcadiaberger9204 Жыл бұрын

I remember looking through this module, though I never played it.

@retrodmray Жыл бұрын

Thanks for this look back! 🤓 I thought the maps were great, but I, too, used Dragonsfoot to fill out the encounters. Perhaps just lazy on my part, but we've had fun, and we're playing it using a 1E/2E mash-up as part of Into The Borderlands. Gygaxian style is exactly what this is...dead-ends, rooms with no reward in them but serve to challenge players, scare them, and run them into wandering monsters... which you do have to add in though.

@Giles29 3 ай бұрын

Sort of liked the Goodman Games version, sort of felt it was just tacked on to their version of B2 for reasons I never could figure out. Did get some mileage out of that version of the dungeon though when someone released a BBEG that is not in the original upon the land.

@RPGrandPaTV 4 ай бұрын

Does this adventure have a BBEG?

@jasonjacobson1157 Жыл бұрын

Thank you for shining a light on this great module. I completely disagree with your assessment.

@rangerlemure Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the feedback!

@coldwarrior78 Жыл бұрын

Thanks for this review. I recently found my original copy of this module and dove into it, thinking I could stitch it into an on-going adventure. Wow, was I shocked. Random generation of a dungeon would have made more sense. So I harvested the couple of good ideas I found and replaced it on the shelf. I left wondering why I had any fond recollections of this and it's family of modules.

@ddgant Жыл бұрын

*Please* keep reviewing OSR RPG books, specifically adventures. You have a great voice and format. Stick with it. And, great take on B1. Those pointless areas in the map are crazy. I wonder if a better solution would be to just ad-lib getting lost and skip over the detailed navigation at that part. One critique, you could probably automate something to edit out your breaths, your sharp inhales before every sentence became a little distracting for me. 😂 Keep it up.

@rangerlemure Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the feedback, I will look into improving the audio quality.

@EisenKreutzer Жыл бұрын

Nice review! I hope to see more reviews and thoughts on these first D&D modules, they really are a goldmine of interesting (and some times poor) ideas.

@mokeimusic 7 ай бұрын

I think changing the map was a mistake. If they mapped it they would have seen larger voids in the original map and might have searched for the secret doors. As far as xp being low, your not supposed to level up in one adventure. Your were just lucky to be alive at the end.

@rangerlemure 7 ай бұрын

Changing the map makes no difference to whether the party finds the secret doors . Mapping with the newer map would still show a 'blank space'. But I have never seen a party use this technique to find secret rooms. If the area were a finite space such as a castle or a house then secret rooms could be discovered with this method (in the manner of Sherlock Holmes). In an underground complex this method is illogical as the lair could spread in any direction and there is no reason why the builder would excavate rooms in all available areas. In regards to not leveling up in an adventure, I don't know where this idea is from but it is not correct. Characters should attain level 2 by the end so the amount of treasure in this module is too low.

@tacky4237 Жыл бұрын

caves of what? its Quaz-quen-tin

@LogHewer 4 ай бұрын

No, it isn't. ;p

@aarondavidson4093 6 ай бұрын

I had one look at the dungeon map and thought “what is this abomination?” It also spends a lot of time saying “this is a great dungeon for a DM to learn from” I feel like it could be clipped in half by cutting out the verbose and often repetitive points in the text and the “how to play section”

@perplexedmoth Ай бұрын

Consider 1978 and having only 3 little booklets and maybe holmes.