Unfortunately, their outlook probably changed when they realized a goodly number of the items were actually cursed items.īut Gary Gygax was also fair.

Inside the Caves of Chaos, there was an abundance of magical items for players to find, which undoubtedly delighted the players. Sure, dungeons have changed dramatically in the history of D&D, but Keep was one of the modules upon which decades of D&D history stands. Remember, the main feature of Keep on the Borderlands (KotB) was the Caves of Chaos, a sprawling dungeon crawl that came to typify so much of what we all love about D&D. When there wasn’t something deadly marked on the map, Gygax reminded us that “ most features are unnamed, so you can name them as suits your campaign.” It was a vast wilderness with a mad hermit, spider lairs, and vicious lizardmen. There were more creatures than you could shake a 10 foot pole at. Gygax instructed DMs with the words “ betrayal will always occur during a crucial encounter with monsters,” because making players paranoid was a beloved Gygax hobby. There was a traitorous priest within the keep.

The Caves of Chaos, the final resting place of many adventurers. But it is really cool to look back at those old school modules and see how groundbreaking they were at the time, while also seeing how major aspects of the game have changed with the times. Gygax may have been a level 13 oracle, yet was nowhere near the sole arbiter of the game for the past 40 years. Obviously, D&D play is much more individualized in today’s age.

The caller was instructed to discuss the party’s actions with the players, then inform the DM of the decisions of the group. What’s more, a single player in the group was to be selected as the “caller” for the party, and this person would speak to the DM on behalf of the entire group. ( Trivia: Old school D&D maps were printed in blue because that made it difficult for them to be easily copied with Xerox machines. In fact, players had to hand draw their own maps as the DM described the scene. Whereas nowadays we have an abundance of maps online or several companies willing to sell us preprinted or dry-erase maps, it was much more theatre of the mind back in the day. Keep on the Borderlands intentionally kept a lot unknown.įor example, players were assigned mapping duties.

The keep on the borderlands map