This is the first in a series of posts cataloguing a delve through B1, "In Search of the Unknown," by Mike Carr. I'll wrap up at the end with a review, and in the mean time there will be a campaign journal.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
THE MODULE, SETTING AND TWEAKS
My players really want a Norse theme, so we went with that. There's a druid in the party so I set the dungeon in the midst of a great fey-filled forest. The elves are slowly leaving to sail away, and goblins are taking over, so there's a bit of a fey-humanoid brawl going on that the players are in the midst of. A fortress nearby (probably the Keep on the Borderlands) is on the edge of the wood.
Instead of stocking the dungeon with the suggested monsters and treasures, I used the random tables from my home ruled Donjons & Drakes, which are heavily inspired by the 3LBB. Luckily everything is compatible. The monsters are very similar. The 3LBB are more generous for monetary treasure and stingier for magic items. As an example, the B/X list gives a whopping 10 magic items, two of which are bogus. My tables (based on 3LBB) give an average of 1-2 items, which is exactly what I came up with. On the flip side, 3LBB will give at least 1-2 good caches of gems & jewelry each level of a dungeon, and each cache is hundreds or thousands of GP equivalent -- enough for low level types to gain a level.
THE PLAYERS & THEIR CHRACTERS
Dragon Wing, a Lawful Human Fighter with remarkable strength and constitution, played by a first grader.
Magic Hands, a Neutral Human Wizard with exceptional intelligence, played by a pre-K kiddo.
Flowing River, a Neutral Human Druid with great ability scores all around, played by a third grader.
Astrid, the traditional cleric with mace and Cure Light Wounds, played by your hostess. Astrid is there as a character who can hold the line with heavy armor, heal up the others when they need a curative spell, and provide some helpful guidance... not as one to drive the adventure.
The kids all have experience with hero kids and miniatures wargames as well as other tabletop games, but as you can see this is a young group. You'll see how they do!
THE HOOK
Our party began on the forest track, heading a Keep on the Borderlands for a warm bed and safe place. On the road they encountered centaurs who warned of dangers on the road, some goblin wolf riders chasing a white quadruped (they assumed to be a uniorn), and finally some elves leaving for the ships. The elves shared knowledge of a nearby fortress (that of B1) and provided directions. They asked if the adventurers would help find and recover an elvish Moon Crown which had been wrongly taken and could likely be found in the fortress; the group agreed. The elves provided guidance to a safe campsite clearing nearby where the party can rest between delves, four rumors off the module table, and warned the players not to trust the house spirits which were out of control.
The Moon Crown isn't in the B1 module, but its easy enough to add it in as a piece of jewelery. Bam, done!
THE FIRST DIVES: FEY AND BANDITS
The first delve into the dungeon was a pretty straightforward. The magic mouths at the entrance spawned great curiosity -- the players are convinced that there are two tricksters shouting!
The group spent a fair amount of time poking around the entrance area, delighting in finding a few secret doors to alcoves. They also explored most of Rogahn's apartments, fighting a few minor encounters along the way.
More notably, I had rolled a group of Kobolds living in the kitchens and dining room. I decided that Kobolds in this game would hew closer to their fey/faerie origin as house spirits (not little mini-gnolls or dragon things), so I played them as devious, trick-loving, dark, and chaotic leaning gnome types who would delight in playing dungeon inhabitants against each other. I also decided that Zelligar had bound them to the stronghold by some magical McGuffin which is why they could not just leave. While poking around, we had a random encounter with kobolds which was our first set up. The two kobolds, clearly outmatched, parlayed with the group. They told the players that "bad hoo-mans" had taken over the throne room and conveniently provided directions.
The party busted in to the throne room and on the word of the kobolds attacked a neutral Fighter 1 who was reclining on the throne and willing to parlay. He made a run for a secret door but didn't make it.
The party then busted into the bedroom and found a second F1, unconscious on the bed. The treasure in this room was a Lawful Sword +1, and I decided that the neutral fighter had knocked himself out taking damage from it (in old school D&D, swords are often aligned, and if you don't match, you take damage) and was resting. The party tied up and revived the hurt fighter and questioned him. After a very high reaction roll, the NPC shared three rumors off the module rumor table, shared what he knew about the sword (not much), cautioned the players not to trust the small house spirits, and gave directions to the pool room in exchange for his freedom. Dragon Wing, lawful fighter, happily scooped up the sword.
Point this round: Chaotic Fey. The kobolds got some of the tougher monsters of the first level cleared out, got to observe the capabilities of this new group in a fight, and got a great show to boot.
TO THE BASEMENT
After this the party continued poking around. After a few unremarkable encounters with marginal treasure that cost a few HP and spells, they ended up taking a hidden slide trap to the basement where the armored characters narrowly avoided drowning in a pool. Once in the basement, Astrid guided the rest of the group to start looking for a way out immediately. The party was already at a point where it would be prudent to start thinking about leaving, and being dumped on the totally unmapped second level with no way out was no bueno.
After some exploring, characters found themselves in a large cavern full of bats. Normally this is a baneful encounter for the party, but the druid thought to use his Speak with Animals spell, which lets the bats be conversed with and makes them somewhat friendly, and offered them food from his rations. He got a great reaction roll so they were quite helpful. From the bats the druid got directions to a series of secret doors that led to a way out. Excellent use of a spell resource, equipment resource and roleplay from a kiddo!
After finding the way out, the party poked around a bit more and found a trapped chest near a statute. Luckily for them, this was one of the few huge hoards in the dungeon -- two pieces of jewelry worth enough XP for everyone to make it to level 2!
With jewelry in hand and spells and hit points running low, the party wisely made their escape.
MORAL REFLECTIONS & EMERGENT GAMEPLAY
I just let the dice fall for they may for the slain neutral Fighter 1 on the throne room. Guy failed a system shock roll, he dead. In retrospect, for kids, I should have softened the blow and moral ambiguity by letting him survive. But here we are.
That said its all working out. The oldest kids are feeling major regret over doing a Very Bad Thing, even though the house spirits said it was ok. They now want to seek a Raise Dead or Reincarnation spell from the elves, and have themselves on the clock to find the Moon Crown before its too late. Its actually worked out ok with a bunch of age appropriate conversations about make-believe and reality, appropriate vs. unjustified use of force (i.e. "is it ok to hurt someone if a third party says to do it?"), and good and bad.
Its also a great example of emergent old school play. There's no way I would have come up with a plot where the players would be on a desperate race against time to find an elvish artifact that they could parlay into a reincarnation spell for some rando bandit found in the dungeon. Yet that's a plot we're on, and the players are really invested in it, and we'll see where it goes.
DM'S THOUGHTS ON B1 THUS FAR
The old school tables result in a dungeon that is mostly empty. That actually works reasonably well. It lets groups, for example, get lost on the second level of the dungeon without it being an auto-TPK because there's a good chance they won't run across too many monsters. It puts a focus on exploration. This matches the guidance in B1 -- the module tells you to use only 15-20 monsters to fill the 60-something rooms.
I do not care for the very compact map layout of B1 as a judge. I'm a softy but I am mapping for the players. Even if they were adults I have no desire to play the game of verbally translating a map to words so the players can then draw a map. I know that some OSR folks view mapping as an integral part of the game, I just can't derive much love from it the technical process of it. So while the tight layout of B1 (which if accurately mapped is useful for providing clues to secret rooms and the like) makes sense, it is a pain to map.
The room descriptions are wordy, and info for the players and judge is mixed in each paragraph. I'd prefer to have an initial paragraph with the things the players see, with amplifying info for the DM in follow on paragraphs. As it is, I need to read the entire room entry (sometimes half a page) and then break out what to tell the players.
Some of the tropes while tiresome to experienced players are
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