OSR This tells me OSR is alive and well.

Jack Daniel said:

I'll push back on Keep on the Borderlands. B2 is just so very overrated. It's boring.

B1 is terribly underrated, and B3 (at least in the orange cover incarnation), B4, X1, and X2 all deserve every last lumen of their glowing reputations.

Jennell Jaquay's classics (like Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia) are even better.

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I have complicated feelings about B2.

I will start by saying that I do have incredibly fond feelings about it because of nostalgia. And I think that it does a good job of setting up the "canonical" idea behind a lot of OSR- the base, the wilderness, the "dungeon."

But there's two major problems with it.

A. From a structural perspective, the Caves of Chaos will be entirely dependent on the DM's choices. If the DM runs it as "every room is separate, and doesn't react to what happens next door, and things don't change over time," then it is just an example of the most rote and boring dungeon crawl.

On the other hand, if the DM runs it as a dynamic place, the low-level adventurers can easily and quickly be overwhelmed and killed.

B. From a modern perspective, there's ... well, there's an issue involving "women and children," if you know what I mean. It wasn't until I pulled it out to review and run for the aforementioned teen group that I noticed this ... and then I couldn't unsee it. I am not judging others, by the way, but I realized that there was no way I could run that adventure for that group without re-writing those parts, and I chose not to run it.

Snarf Zagyg said:

I have complicated feelings about B2.

I will start by saying that I do have incredibly fond feelings about it because of nostalgia. And I think that it does a good job of setting up the "canonical" idea behind a lot of OSR- the base, the wilderness, the "dungeon."

But there's two major problems with it.

A. From a structural perspective, the Caves of Chaos will be entirely dependent on the DM's choices. If the DM runs it as "every room is separate, and doesn't react to what happens next door, and things don't change over time," then it is just an example of the most rote and boring dungeon crawl.

On the other hand, if the DM runs it as a dynamic place, the low-level adventurers can easily and quickly be overwhelmed and killed.

B. From a modern perspective, there's ... well, there's an issue involving "women and children," if you know what I mean. It wasn't until I pulled it out to review and run for the aforementioned teen group that I noticed this ... and then I couldn't unsee it. I am not judging others, by the way, but I realized that there was no way I could run that adventure for that group without re-writing those parts, and I chose not to run it.

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I don’t have much nostalgia for Keep. I know I ran through it once when I was just starting out. I don’t remember much about it from playing, honestly. The only thing that sticks out is the women and children issue. It was that (those?) moment(s) I remember. It was the first PVP I remember. The PC group was divided on what to do and came to blows. The players were all grumpy but no actual real-world fighting. It was then I had an “a-ha” moment about RPGs and what you could do with them. RPGs went from “just kill and loot” to something more.

The referee ran it as dynamic and interconnected. We had to be extra careful. That part was great fun. Very much in the fantasy Vietnam mode.

Snarf Zagyg said:

Naw. My objection is different. Writing (even module writing) isn't car design. We're not talking about adding cup holder, or GPS, or air bags.

At any given time, there's a lot of crud out there. The majority of new OSR adventure material is crud. But some of it is absolutely amazing!

It's the same with the "Golden Age." The reason we celebrate certain modules isn't nostalgia- it's because they are genuinely good. You are welcome to look at the list of TSR-era modules; you will find a lot that isn't very good. There's more than Forest Oracle.

But that doesn't mean that the ones that are great, aren't great. I am pushing back on this dismissive attitude that people like to claim is just due to nostaliga.

And I know this to be true, because I have run these adventures for teens, and they find them as amazing and magical.

So you are welcome to give your honest advice, but if you wander into a literary forum and say, "Shakespeare ain't all that, nostalgia man," or a film forum and say "Citizen Kane ain't all that, nostalgia man," you're going to find people disagreeing with you.

I liked @Mannahnin and his post recommending the cream of the current OSR modules because they are good! But that doesn't mean the best of the past isn't good.

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If I suggested that there aren't any older modules that are good, I misspoke.

That said, I think most of the ones pushed in these threads all the time are not.

The GDQ series being the "best adventure of all time" according to Dragon magazine is a nonsense result, for instance, as those adventures run from decent to not good. Even among TSR works, the Slavers series is vastly better, and standalone adventures like Against the Cult of the Reptile God or Ravenloft effortlessly run rings around GDQ.

Also, I think some of TSR's obscurities, like The Lost Island of Castanamir, are significantly better than some of the better known ones of the era, even if it's probably a B by today's standards.

IMO, those older adventures loom large because so many of our Gen X user base has played them so often and because, frankly, a lot of them haven't strayed into looking at similar adventures created by the OSR since then.

Tomb of the Serpent Kings is a significantly better foray into OSR for a new group than Keep on the Borderlands or especially In Search of the Unknown. (And it's free!)

That doesn't mean that those other adventures aren't iconic, that the pool room or fungus garden from B1 don't make me smile whenever I see them referenced in later works, or the 4E (?) painting of the Caves of Chaos didn't make my heart sing.

But the state of the art for adventure design is much better than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. And frankly, it'd be embarrassing for all involved if the state of the art never improved in nearly 50 years.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

If I suggested that there aren't any older modules that are good, I misspoke.

That said, I think most of the ones pushed in these threads all the time are not.

The GDQ series being the "best adventure of all time" according to Dragon magazine is a nonsense result, for instance, as those adventures run from decent to not good. Even among TSR works, the Slavers series is vastly better, and standalone adventures like Cult of the Reptile God or Ravenloft effortlessly run rings around GDQ.

Also, I think some of TSR's obscurities, like The Lost Island of Castanamir, are significantly better than some of the better known ones of the era, even if it's probably a B by today's standards.

IMO, those older adventures loom large because so many of our Gen X user base has played them so often and because, frankly, a lot of them haven't strayed into looking at similar adventures created by the OSR since then.

Tomb of the Serpent Kings is a significantly better foray into OSR for a new group than Keep on the Borderlands or especially In Search of the Unknown. (And it's free!)

That doesn't mean that those other adventures aren't iconic, that the pool room or fungus garden from B1 don't make me smile whenever I see them referenced in later works, or the 4E (?) painting of the Caves of Chaos didn't make my heart sing.

But the state of the art for adventure design is much better than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. And frankly, it'd be embarrassing for all involved if the state of the art never improved in nearly 50 years.

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So I appreciate the clarification. I happen to think that GDQ is overrated, in that it is more important for what it was that it is as an actual adventure to run in a series. In other words, I think that historically it is important, but it's not a great adventure to run today necessarily.

I think where I have to disagree is the last bit. I mean ... eh. It depends on what we're talking about. There are a lot of good OSR-style modules being released. But when people say the "state of the art" is better today, they usually mean that it is better for ... people playing a more modern game today. Which, okay, fair enough.

But that doesn't make them "better" in some absolute sense. From the OSR perspective, the AP is kinda sorta dire. A lot of the "state of the art for adventure design" is not something that they are looking for- in fact, a lot of the best OSR adventures are looking back to cues from the earlier modules, which were designed with a different sensibility.

I think that there are modern OSR adventure designers that are taking some of the best lessons from the past, and making good stuff! But that's the difference between art and tech- the "state of the art" might evolve in art, but that doesn't mean it's better for everyone. I think it would be weird to say that all painting, or writing, is necessarily better than 50 years ago. It's different. It is probably more appealing to most people today. But better?

Agree to disagree.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

Tomb of the Serpent Kings is a significantly better foray into OSR for a new group than Keep on the Borderlands or especially In Search of the Unknown. (And it's free!)

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You couldn't pay me to run TotSK a second time. Boring adventures are bad enough, but boring and pretentious is unforgivable.

Jack Daniel said:

You couldn't pay me to run TotSK a second time.

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Well, there go my plans for the weekend.

I never found ToSK especially pretentious or more boring then many adventures. I think it has two significant flaws that prevent it from meeting its goal as an introduction to OSR/Dungeon Crawl style games.

1) Its description tends to be rather generalized. That isn't to say they are bland exactly, but they offer general description that makes it hard to describe, visualize and ultimately interact with the environment. Doors are "wooden" rather then "oak spongey with damp and time", that sort of thing - generalized environments require more work for referees and offer fewer details that draw players into thinking about and using the environment. They make it hard to run traps, puzzles and such as things that the players find through clues and deduction. It's a common problem.

2) ToSK's advice is rather simple usually and doesn't really get into the details of how to run older style dungeon adventures. It's fine, but it doesn't do much to explain WHY things are done the way they are done, or even how to run them.

I think both of these issues may be a product of ToSK being one of Skerpal's earliest forays into writing an OSR offering. It was one of the first blog posts from him, and shows a lot of enthusiasm for OSR games, but maybe not as much experience as he has now. Yes it's been expanded a bit and tuned up from the first rough dungeon, but the work is still quite old. I think back to my own earliest posted dungeons and while I like bits they would need a total rewrite to meet my modern standards. ToSK is I suspect the same for Skerpals.

I have to agree overall on B2. I have done more with expanding the Keep and developing a dungeon beneath it, or stuff in the swamps, than with the Caves of Chaos. My most recent BX was based at the Keep and they never went anywhere near the Caves. They're an interesting environment but very easy to mishandle out of the box.

GDQ is kinda like the Caves done right to me - disparate environments that come alive in the DM's hands. The Vault of the Drow really does deserve its high praise - although the series as a whole does not deserve the top spot in that Dungeon poll. Saltmarsh, Desert of Desolation, Tomb of the Lizard King, hell, even Castle Amber work better overall for me. Overall, I think there are way more hits than misses in the 1e canon. There's plenty that seems like it should be bad but when it hits the table, the adventure just sings. Egg of the Phoenix is always my go-to example for this - it just seems ridiculous on paper and yet every time I run it, it's amazing.

My impression with both B2 and the G Series (which does have some meh adventures) is that it's specifically the result of Gygax's approach to play and understanding of dungeon design for the campaign (rather then tournament).

The G series, and I'm mostly thinking of G1, is an infiltration and tactic adventure far more then an exploration one. There's an enemy faction that dominates the location and the party is performing a commando raid. It's not about exploring, finding pathways through the location, uncovering secrets and parleying these into solutions for a variety of obstacles and problems. Instead Gygax is writing something far more war game like - a scenario where the players need to confront and defeat a superior, more numerous force. The same with B2, though it has multiple factions within it.

Both are decent adventures for their time and their apparent design goals. I prefer an exploration adventure, but the sort of siege/commando raid can work quite well. Also it's hard to think of them as bland in a negative way given that Gygax is using D&D items and creatures to stock them and sets both in what is effectively the vernacular fantasy world that he's largely responsible for creating ... and which these adventures are a significant part of creating.

Yeah, this is exactly how G1 panned out for us - an infiltration that went horribly wrong ("as long as I don't roll a 1, it will be fine..." ) followed by large amounts of siege weaponry being deployed from the party's spelljammer.

G2 was a bit more of a dungeon exploration but G3 was a wonderful example of biting off more than you can chew and now several dozen angry fire giants and their friendly neighbourhood dragon are trying to kill you. Great stuff.